Chapter 7
Three days to the renewal of the vows ceremony
The next day Polly didn’t get into work until eleven as she had a filling replaced at the dentist. As usual, for anyone who
arrived after eight in the morning, there were no spaces available in the works car park, so she had to drive to the large
overspill and circle around until she found one, which did nothing for her already elevated stress levels.
“How did it go?” asked Sheridan.
“Ath well ath to be ethpecthed, then it took me ageth to find thomewhere to park,” Polly muttered, unlooping her bag from
her shoulder. She was numb up to her temple and her tongue was flopping like a dead fish in her mouth. She wished she could
lay her hands on something to numb the rest of her for the next few days, until she was sitting in a hotel room unpacking
a suitcase.
Sheridan grinned. “I’m figuring you can’t have a coffee for a bit.”
“Nope,” said Polly, giving her a lopsided smile. “I withhh.” She did a double take of Sheridan’s face. She was pale and her
eyes were puffy.
“Don’t say it,” said Sheridan, because that look hadn’t gotten past her. “I’ve had a very bad night’s sleep. I was in bed
for nine, but this one would not let me rest.” She patted her stomach, which seemed more rotund than it had even yesterday.
“I’ve had enough now, Pol. I just want him out.”
She took a bottle of Gaviscon from her filing drawer, screwed off the top, and swigged it. Polly remembered doing the same, totally ignoring the dosage instructions.
“And just to ruin your day even more,” said Sheridan, leaning over the partition between them, “you’re going to be doing a
test. Everyone was delighted— not —to find an email this morning telling us we had that to look forward to.”
“What?”
“You heard. Remember when Germany went on that psychology day course a couple of months ago and we wondered what it was all
about?” Sheridan leaned closer over the partition. “Well... it seems he’s used his newfound expertise to devise a test
for the whole company. And everyone has to do it. Without exception. If you get a wiggle on, you’ll catch the eleven o’clock
session. They’re on the hour. I heard him talking to Marjorie Wright about it earlier. She went flying into his office wanting
to know why she knew eff all about it, and he told her that it was nothing too intrusive, just a social experiment to discover
personality traits, strengths, weaknesses, and crap like that. He said it would be very useful to know what kind of people
work in the ranks and where they need support. Marjorie said that he should have done it in conjunction with HR, if at all.
He reminded her that he was the MD and she told him that she didn’t give a shit and he was taking liberties. It was comedy
gold, Pol; you’d have loved it. She didn’t half slam the door on the way out.” Sheridan chuckled. “B5, take a pen. No phones
allowed.”
“Okay then. I’ll thee you in an hour,” said Polly, picking up a pen from the pot on her table.
“Thee ya,” Sheridan batted back.
Outside room B5 a queue of people were waiting.
Polly saw Marjorie just coming away from the coffee machine and gave her a wave.
Marjorie smiled and walked over. She had a real presence, Polly had always thought.
She was never seen without a slick of bright red lipstick that Polly wished she’d be brave enough to wear.
Marjorie always looked powerful and feminine, assured and glamorous.
She wouldn’t have looked out of place on the panel of Dragon’s Den .
“Haven’t seen you for a bit,” Marjorie said warmly. “How are you doing, Polly?”
“Okay.” Polly nodded and pointed to her mouth. “Juth come from the dentitht.”
“Ah, so this is merely continuing the joy,” she said, the corner of her lip kinking slightly. “Nothing to do with us. This
is all Jeremy.” She gave his name a sour weight.
People started to move forward.
“Anyway, nice to see you,” said Marjorie. “We should have a coffee sometime soon.” She sounded as if she meant it and hadn’t
just issued an empty invitation.
“I’d like that,” Polly said with a smile, and Marjorie peeled away and back to her office.
Inside B5, Polly sat down at one of the long tables. Someone’s phone made a noise and the adjudicator of the day—Ruth from
Finance—had a mini conniption.
“Phones are not allowed. Turn them off and put them out of sight,” she said as if she were talking to a bunch of kids about
to do a GCSE exam. “Everyone got a pen?”
“I haven’t,” said the unmistakable voice of Len Champion, head of maintenance, from the back corner.
“You were told to bring one,” said Ruth, stomping over with a cheap pen from a box on the front desk, supplied for all the
Lens who really didn’t want to be here, hoping that the lack of a writing utensil would be their get-out-of-jail-free card.
Ruth then distributed stapled sheets of paper, and at exactly five past she said, “You have forty-five minutes to complete
the test. A failure to take this seriously will result in a formal warning. Now begin.”
Polly wasn’t sure if it was legal to threaten someone with a formal warning if they didn’t complete a test, but it wasn’t for her to argue. She turned over and skim-read what she’d be answering.
Section 1. True or false:
I sleep well whatever is troubling me.
I have lots of friends.
I believe in the universal power of God.
People look up to me.
She could either answer these honestly or put down the answers they wanted to hear. She chose the former, played the game,
and wondered how many others would do the same.
Sheridan was tucking into an egg sandwich when Polly got back to the office. The smell filled the air around her and Polly
joke-wafted it away. She couldn’t get enough of eggs when she was pregnant. Egg sandwiches with the thinnest white bread she
could lay her hands on. She wouldn’t eat them soft-boiled and risk causing harm to her unborn child, though. Even at sixteen
she’d been conscious of all that health stuff.
“Where’s Jeremy?” asked Polly, her speech back to normal now.
“Posh lunch out, which is why I’m eating this here and not in the canteen.” Sheridan chewed, swallowed, and continued. “He’s
with my replacement, that cock Brock Harrison. Good luck working with him. He walked in, addressed my stomach, and said, ‘Now
then, what have you been up to?’”
Polly’s eyebrows lifted in horror. “Did he really? And did you reply?”
Sheridan gave her head a lofty shake. “I decided not to lower myself to his level in case the rapid descent caused a nosebleed.”
“Good girl,” said Polly. There was a pit of dread in her stomach at the thought of Brock Harrison joining the department, and she knew it was imminent.
“I hope they both choke on their pheasant. Have you noticed how much lighter the office floor feels when Jeremy isn’t in,
Pol? I feel as if we could all float like astronauts in space.”
Everyone noticed it. The air was warmer by degrees too. “I wish you were pregnant as well and we were both leaving at the
same time and could meet up for coffees and playdates.” Sheridan gave her best beaming smile. “You’ve still got oodles of
time left. So hurry up and find someone nice who’ll get you up the duff.” And love you like you should be loved , she didn’t add aloud but wished silently.
“You have such a way with words,” Polly replied with a chuckle, though she didn’t want to think about having a child because
it hurt. When she and Chris first got together, they’d talked about having a baby in time. He’d seemed all for it, for a short
while at least. Then he kept putting it off, and then he totally backtracked, said he was happy with what he had and was too
old to go through all that “nappy-changing shit” again, though she doubted he’d ever changed one in his life. But being around
a pregnant Sheridan had made Polly remember too much: that glorious anticipation, the wonder that a fully grown baby was moving
around inside her whom she couldn’t wait to meet.
She remembered going for her scan and seeing her cute profile, the little curve of spine. She was perfect when she was born,
beautiful, with tiny feet and fingernails, unruly tufts of dark hair. And a little rosebud mouth that would never root for
her mother’s milk. She remembered all the things she’d bought for her daughter that someone from a charity came and collected
from the house in one sad consignment: soft white clothes and teddy bears, blankets, a cot. Her arms had felt very empty for
a long time. They still did.