Chapter 31
What a time to be alive.
It’s amazing how exhilarating finally getting something off your chest can feel. After my less than friendly exchange with Jocasta, I spent the rest of the day in my office with the door firmly shut. I had back-to-back meetings with clients, and plenty of other admin tasks that needed my attention and would keep me out of any more trouble.
I felt cleansed. Almost as if I had been back to the spa again for a detox, but this time it had done me the world of good. I was refreshed, invigorated and even better, nothing was going to be shared on Facebook.
The only downside to it was that I still needed to tell Seb. But that could wait for a while. I would see what Jocasta’s next move would be first. No doubt she was currently weighing up her options and, like a chess Grand Master, deciding what piece to move.
She would be wondering if I would tell Seb everything. She knew that we were good friends, and obviously my loyalties would lie with him. Let’s face it, I couldn’t give two flying shits about her, absolutely no love lost between us. There was no girl code. Well, not unless it was Morse code and lengthy sighs, rude hand gestures and tutting were our way of communicating.
Let’s face it, we pretty much despised each other. And that had been fine, until now when it wasn’t. The time had come when people were actually going to get hurt.
Would she try to get to Seb first? Brazen it out. Try rolling shit in glitter. Make him believe that there was no truth in it at all and she was completely innocent. Turn the waterworks on again to gain his sympathy.
Try to paint me as a jealous menopausal woman who was prone to exaggeration, if not full-blown fibbing and definitely not to be trusted. She might even consider that I would keep the juicy nugget of gossip to myself, not wanting to give rise to out-and-out war in the workplace.
And if she did speak to Seb and convince him that nothing had happened, somehow spun the tale that she had taken an innocent stumble off her kitten heels and had fallen open-mouthed onto Fluck’s open fly, well, if that was the case, then I was just going to have to live with it.
I had come face to face with the crusty Casanova myself that morning. Fluck had popped his head into my office to collect some documents regarding a new client, and I had found it difficult to make even civil conversation with the man. I just had the image of him slumped in his swivel chair while Jocasta gave him her undivided attention. It kept playing over and over in my head like the worst horror movie trailer ever. Night of the Living Dead with Fluck as the rotting corpse.
He was completely oblivious to the fact that just looking at him was making me want to gag, and not for the same reason Jocasta might.
Normally such a miserable old duffer, he was in a surprisingly good mood. Had a spring in his geriatric step. But then again, after what I had witnessed, maybe that wasn’t so surprising after all. He looked refreshed, as if he had had the cobwebs blown away. On second thoughts, maybe he had. I could only imagine what had been lurking in his saggy Y-fronts.
“Just the file for Smithson, please, Lila.”
He furnished me with what I assume he considered a pleasant smile.
I returned his smile with a rictus grimace of my own and handed him a pile of paperwork and the file he had requested.
He took them from me with a brief nod and thankfully started to make his way out of the office. He stopped briefly as if thinking better of it. He laughed. It was not a pleasant sound, in fact it could have scared children worse than the Bogey Man while trick or treating on Halloween.
“It really was quite amusing what happened at the fashion show, when you think about it.”
He smiled again, showing off a row of neat white teeth like a creepy china doll.
“Now I’ve had time to calm down, I can see the funny side of it. All those fine young women tumbling over themselves in their fancy frocks, it was like a comedy farce. Obviously, the sign ripping like that was unfortunate, but no harm done in the long run.”
Well, that was certainly a turn-up for the books. Where had Fluck gone, and who was currently residing in his flaccid grey skin? There must have been an invasion of the body snatchers, because he was being far too nice. And Fluck simply didn’t do nice. Jocasta must have been blowing fairy dust up his dick to make him this delightful.
He was heading out of the door again before he threw a final comment over his shoulder.
“By the way, Jocasta has had to go home. Apparently she’s dealing with a personal emergency, so bear that in mind if you had given her any work to do.”
Interesting. So, Jocasta was avoiding me and avoiding work. Fluck didn’t seem to be nonplussed by her absence, so clearly he didn’t know that their little secret was out.
Alice cornered me on my way to the loo. She was heading out of the building for yet another ciggie break, but dashed over to me keen for any tidbit of juicy gossip I might be able to provide. But I was resolute and kept my trap firmly shut. I had been tempted to say “when in doubt keep snout out” but I had managed to stop myself.
Instead I had told her I had no idea what Jocasta’s “personal emergency” was. Why would I? Alice slunk out of the door in disappointment, bracing herself against the gust of cold winter air that met her in her quest to get her nicotine hit.
I didn’t speak to Seb at all. I was avoiding that conversation, the way I avoided horizontal stripes. Anyway, I think I’d had enough confrontation for one day, thank you very much. Any more would seriously compromise my composure.
I spied him though on several occasions through the open sliver of his office door, and he appeared fine, no cause for concern. He certainly didn’t look as if his life had been well and truly ripped apart by a flame-haired harlot.
All in all, it was a strange workday. Not as bad as it could have been, but unsettling all the same.
The initial adrenaline rush I had felt after the showdown with Jocasta slowly ebbed away to the inevitable come-down, and now I was left feeling empty and low.
She had clearly run away, no doubt ashamed of her actions. But I couldn’t run away so easily. No, I was going to have to deal with the fall-out before she returned. I would speak to Seb. I would also find a way to be in the vicinity of Fluck, without wanting to throw up all over the Axminster. We would all get back to some sort of normality. We just had to.
I wasn’t going to stay late in the office tonight. No, tonight I was going to be off quicker than Fluck’s checked golfing slacks.
Talking of which, he had already left for the evening. Something about an awards ceremony at his golf club that he simply had to attend. He would no doubt already be sipping his first single malt of the evening. I hoped he was telling the truth, and he wasn’t using his wood with Jocasta tonight, deep in her bunker and putting his little heart out.
On the drive home, I decided to make a little detour and pick up something for dinner. I had a hankering for some fish and chips: not my usual go-to for my evening meal but I knew it was one of Seb’s favourites, and just having them would make me feel slightly connected to him, even if it was in such a small way.
If I’d been a schoolgirl, I would have been writing his name in ink on my pencil case with a big red heart around it. I had called Jocasta the cliché, but I was turning into quite the cliché myself.
When I entered The Cod’s Pollocks, the smell of fried fish and chips assailed my nostrils immediately. That familiar aroma of frying batter and vinegar was so evocative. I had to admit it smelt bloody lovely, reminding of when I was a little girl and my dad would bring me out to our local takeaway to get fish and chips when my mother was working late.
We would eat them in the car straight out of the newspaper, and they tasted divine. After we had munched the final chip and disposed of the evidence, Dad would give the car upholstery a quick spritz with his Brut aftershave so my mother wouldn’t have a clue what we had been up to. It was our little secret.
I had loved my dad so much. He had died five years earlier from cancer, leaving just me and my mother Veronica behind. I loved my mum too, but she was quite a formidable woman, a little prickly and hard to get close to. My husband Duncan had called her “The Cactus”, and as our marriage progressed, he told me I was becoming the same, a chip off the old block.
I always laughed that off and told him he was being ridiculous. I was nothing like my mother. There was a much softer side to me, I believed. I wasn’t so structured and single-minded as my mother could be. But maybe he had been right all along, and I was just a bit of a “cold fish” too.
And talking of cold fish, I eventually made it to the front of the queue. I stood facing the frazzled-looking young woman, in her white uniform and hairnet, looking as if she would rather be anywhere than in The Cod’s Pollocks on a chilly January evening.
My mind went blank. What was it I wanted? Traditional fish and chips, or maybe throw caution to the wind and have me a stodgy mince and onion pie and a potato scallop? But no, I decided I was having what I would have done when I came with dad: battered cod, small chips and a large tub of mushy peas. The caviar of the North, as Lottie always called them.
I took my bundle of wrapped food and held it close to my chest, protecting it like a newborn baby.
I passed a group of fierce-looking women on my way to the car. They eyed me with suspicion, and I feared they might make a grab for my goodies. I was starving, and really looking forward to my fishy feast; I would fight to the death to protect it. But they passed by me, one of them making a comment I couldn’t quite catch, and they all laughed. Then they were gone, a group of cackling hags into the night.
My food parcel was warming me nicely in the cold winter air, the heat radiating right through to my La Perla bra. Cosy and comforting like a fried food hug. Maybe this is what was meant by comfort food.
As I placed the wrapped food gently onto the passenger seat, my mobile phone buzzed in the pocket of my coat. I nearly ignored it. I had had enough of people today and was just keen to get home to the safety and solitude of my home and stuff my face. What if it was more drama? I just didn’t think I could deal with any more of that.
But my curiosity got the better of me and I fished it out of my pocket and checked the screen. It was from Seb.
“We need to talk.”