Chapter 7 The Lift #2
He was single, according to the gossip machine, and she wondered why. Obviously a picky sort. Tam, out of curiosity, had looked up a photo of his ex-wife, the violinist. She was stunning, in a kind of haughty, confident way. They’d have had great-looking kids if they’d stayed together.
‘Do you still have your parents around?’ asked Jack, which seemed a bit of a left-field question.
‘My parents?’
‘Having dependent parents can impact considerably on someone’s life, both in and out of work.’
She hadn’t thought someone in such a lofty position as him would be in tune with such a theory, even though when she had been in his position, she was.
She knew that Sheila in HR had a mum with dementia and had used up most, if not all, of her holiday days on hospital visits.
She’d taken Sheila’s manager to task about that, given him a little lesson in pliancy after seeing Sheila in a state in the staff canteen.
Tam had learned from the best in this job, her first-ever managers, that giving some leeway to people reaped harvests.
‘Yes, I know that,’ Tam said, bristling.
‘I know you know,’ Jack said. ‘I heard what you did for the lady in HR.’
Was there any area of YorkMart that he hadn’t stuck his nose into?
‘Thank you, mine are fit and well. Your dad’s Italian, isn’t he?
According to Wiki, anyway.’ Did that sound a bit creepy, that she’d been looking him up?
She tried to wriggle out of looking weird.
‘I think someone told me you had a . . . a . . . I haven’t seen it myself.
Must be nice to have your own . . . Wiki . . . page . . .’
‘Have I? Not anything I’ve set up.’ Jack seemed amused, his dark Italian eyes twinkling in a good-humoured way.
‘Martin Middlewood had one. You could tell he’d written it himself. It was full of his own self-important twattery. He made Bill Gates sound like a tea boy by comparison.’
Jack chuckled. ‘And what does it say on my . . . Wiki page?’
He really hadn’t looked himself up? Wow.
‘Erm . . . I heard . . . it just listed all your successes . . . and that you were married to a concert violinist. No children. From what I recall, I think.’
‘That’s correct. I can only hope your experience of marriage will be better than mine, is all I shall say on that.’ His tone was of someone stating a fact, not of someone bitter about a relationship gone wrong.
‘Doesn’t sound a positive experience,’ Tam said, trying not to sound as nosy as she was.
‘I had parents who were very happily married. I envied them. I wanted that for myself. They married within five months of meeting each other, totally smashing the myth that if one marries in haste, one repents at leisure, except it worked for them because they were right for each other. It didn’t quite work out that way for Rosella and myself.
The sad thing is the cracks were already showing before the wedding and I thought that all I had to do was ignore them and they’d heal themselves. ’
Tam wanted to know about the cracks. Her brain told her not to pry but her mouth disobeyed and she did ask.
‘Simply put, I married her because I loved her. She married me because of who I might be one day, and therein lies the difference. My mum saw it, and she warned me not to rush into a marriage where someone wanted to change me to fit them. She was right, of course, but I didn’t see it at the time.’
‘Are they still around – your parents?’ she asked.
‘Sadly, no,’ said Jack, his voice soft, sad. ‘They had me quite late, so they weren’t young, but it’s always too soon. I have a brother and a sister, though they’re roughly a decade older than me.’
‘Snap,’ said Tam. ‘Although it feels like there are fifty years between us. We don’t really get on. If they were in this lift, they’d step over us both to get to the last remaining air pocket. I hope yours are nicer.’
She was talking too much, she realised. She didn’t want silence because the quiet gave her space to worry about dropping all those floors to the ground – thirteen and a half floors, to be exact. Actually, there was the mezzanine and the basement as well. Oh hell.
‘My sister is married to a farmer and has six children and a load of rescued donkeys. I can’t remember the last time I saw her without wellies on. And my brother, he’s a vet. An absolute soft touch. Probably the poorest vet in the country because of his big heart.’
‘They sound a nice bunch.’
Jack smiled fondly and his smile reached all the way up to his eyes and made them crinkle at the corners. Good-looking psychopath – like Dexter Morgan.
They sat for a few moments in silence, although Tam didn’t know how he couldn’t hear her heart thudding in her chest loud as the drums at a Def Leppard concert.
There was a whole cocktail of emotions racing around inside her: anger, fear and frustration, all mixed in with adrenaline, which made for a lethal combo.
But mainly sadness. She might have been a drip with no confidence outside of work, being buffeted by the winds of others, but here in YorkMart she was on top of her game, her backbone iron, her expertise on point, and it was all about to be taken away from her.
‘Will you do me a favour, when I’m gone?
Will you make sure that people are looked after in this firm, Jack?
’ Tam asked him, trying hard to hide the emotion in her words.
‘I don’t know why Martin Middlewood tried to alter something that was perfect as it was and ended up nearly destroying it, but please restore it.
Make it great again. And don’t overlook women for the top positions.
There would have been more of them if I’d had my way. ’
‘I will, that’s the plan,’ said Jack.
‘Thank you, I—’
‘You all right in there?’ A voice from somewhere above interrupted her, accompanied by a clanging sound as if something were being hit with a hammer.
‘Just about,’ returned Jack.
‘We’ll have you out of there in no time now. Hang fire.’
Tam’s breath of relief was long and drawn out.
‘Now that the cavalry has arrived . . .’ Jack turned to her. ‘And before we go into the boardroom . . .’ He paused. ‘Do you mind if I tell you what I think about you?’
Well, judging by the way this conversation was going, he might well say she was a blabbermouth, a wuss, a—
‘I think you’re exceptional,’ he said, slicing off her internal dialogue.
The word hung in the air with a long echoey tail.
‘Any company worth their salt would be glad to have you. I have no idea why they didn’t keep you in the top seat.
Maybe you should have been more vocal about what you’ve done for YorkMart rather than operate under the cover of darkness.
I’m pretty sure anyone else who did all you did would have claimed their glory. ’
Tam’s jaw dropped so far open, she was in danger of looking like one of those big mouth things in fairs that people aim footballs at. Jack Cesaroni laughed – at her but not at her. Enough people had laughed at Tam over the years for her to differentiate. Most of them blood relatives.
She pulled herself together. ‘I presume you’ll write that on my reference then,’ she said tightly.
‘For Freshfield? Absolutely,’ said Jack Cesaroni, keeping that annoying smile fixed on his MD sadistic face.