Chapter 9 #2
its profits because I told you to do the exact opposite. The project you and your so-called managers took the credit for when
not one of you could come up with a single idea that would stop them from going under.”
“Nutb—”
Nope, she still wouldn’t give him room to talk.
“And now you’re revving up to do it all again with him out there, the nephew of the man whose colon you inhabit. You’re going
to train him up to tell me to stick a kettle on every time he feels like washing down his custard creams and prod him to plunder
every idea I have to turn Auntie Marian’s Bread around and repackage it as his own. I can’t believe I’ve let you get away
with this for so long. You’d have sunk and drowned if it wasn’t for me. Nutbush, Fish Fillies, the Gin Lot, Planet, Knock
Doors all down to me , need I go on?”
Give it to him, Pol. It was a voice that knew she’d been pushed too much, too far, someone who could see what she’d been through in her life, the past heartache, the wrongs she’d endured, and ahead of her only the uncertain path she had been forced to take.
And now this in sult to add to all the injury: that she was not only being labeled a certified psychopath but one who had to let the office junior handle her account because he was male and not female.
“Well,” Jeremy said, when he took advantage of the tiny gap she’d finally left him while she took a breath. “Well, well.”
“Then you have the cheek to tell me I’m a psychopath ,” Polly went on. “The fact that you are still sitting there in a chair with a head on your shoulders, Jeremy, should quite
clearly prove to you that I’m not. As for putting that on my record, I don’t think so.”
Jeremy’s eyeballs were now in danger of pinging out of his skull and rolling across the desk.
Polly grabbed the papers from his hand.
“That is what I think about your test, Jeremy,” she said. There was no point in restraining herself now. She was done here;
there was no coming back from this, so she might as well let rip—literally. She tore at the test savagely, letting all the
pieces tumble to the floor like giant confetti even though she quickly realized she was playing into his hands. He’d tell
everyone she registered as a psychopath on his test and then protested about the results by going psycho in his office, and
so he had to get rid of her. How they’d all laugh.
“You aren’t fit to sit in Alan’s chair,” she spat at him as she made to go. But he fired a bullet into her back.
“Oh yes, we all knew what you felt about Alan. It was common knowledge what was going on between you.”
Polly stalled, turned around, slowly, beyond angered by that. Alan’s name had no place in Jeremy’s mouth and she would not
let him get away with besmirching him.
“Alan Eagleton was a gentleman and a genius and he’d forgotten more about this business than you’ll ever learn.”
“I think you’d better go home, Polly, and come back when your PMS or hormonal imbalance or whatever female problem you’re going through has subsided.
You can come in on Monday with an apology and a fresh outlook.
Your job is to train Brock to be your superior.
If you can’t accept that, then maybe you should resign.
My coffee’s too cool to drink now.” Jeremy flicked his hand toward the full cup.
The words “make me another” were unspoken, but she could hear them nonetheless.
“Let me get rid of this for you,” she said with her sweetest smile. She picked up the cup and flung the contents in his face.
Polly strolled out into the main office where Brock was still swiveling on the chair and reading the file on Auntie Marian’s
Bread.
“That was loud,” he said. “The whole department heard you.”
“Shame the whole building didn’t,” said Polly. She picked up her bag, slung the strap over her shoulder, and grabbed her jacket
from the back of her seat.
“I’m going. Good luck. Not that you’ll need it with your connections.”
Brock looked rightly puzzled. “What do you mean, you’re going?”
“I mean I’m going,” Polly said again. “Leaving. For good.” She couldn’t put it any plainer, but Brock’s expression said he
still didn’t get it. He was a two-watt bulb sitting in a hundred-fifty-watt box. He’d be a disaster let loose on the Auntie
Marian’s Bread account. He had about as much chance of turning Arthur Peach into the new Jonathan Warburton as he would of
turning Jeremy into the new Kate Bush. She knew instinctively how it would all play out. Arthur would shout down every suggestion
Northern Eagles made, thinking he knew better. So they’d kowtow to his demands, tailor something to what he wanted rather
than what he needed, and it wouldn’t work. Then he’d bad-mouth them for taking his money and changing nothing. Let them get
on with it. Good riddance to the lot of them.
Once Polly had walked out into the fresh Leeds air and the adrenaline had drained out of her system, she realized the enormity of where her rare outburst had led her.
At a time when she’d need every penny she could lay her hands on, she’d just thrown in the type of job she’d probably never get again.
Still, said her brain, trying to be helpful by scraping the barrel for positives, it meant she could live wherever she wanted
now rather than be restricted by a daily commute to Leeds. Maybe that was what she needed: a total change, not a partial.
Maybe she needed to build herself from the ground up. Just like Sabrina in her book.