Chapter 11
When Susi leaves the room I follow her before I lose my nerve. I find her putting out pamphlets in the waiting room.
‘Um, Susi, could I have a quick word?’ I begin.
She glares at me from behind her glasses, clutching the pamphlets to her chest. It takes a lot to get a smile out of Susi. ‘Be quick.’
‘I … er … Well, I was wondering if–’
‘Spit it out, Lena,’ she says curtly. ‘I haven’t got all day.’ She fans herself with one of the pamphlets.
‘I was wondering if it’s possible to increase my hours so I’m working more days …’
She blinks at me.
‘… so I’m more full-time.’
She sighs. ‘I’m not sure, Lena.’
She always uses our names when she’s addressing us, something I suspect she was told to do during training to put us all at ease. And maybe it would if it wasn’t coming from her. There is nothing about Susi that would put anyone at ease. She’s all sharp angles and clipped words.
‘Well –’ I shuffle my feet – ‘please would you consider me if more hours come up?’
She stares at me, and I can see all the doubts she has about me on her face. She once said, ‘You’re talented at this job, Lena, but too involved sometimes,’ and it wasn’t a compliment. She seems to be weighing me up, then her shoulders relax. ‘I’ll see what I can do, but we have strict budgets.’
‘I understand. Thank you.’
I return to the office I share with Kath, feeling dejected and wondering if I could supplement my income by applying for shifts somewhere else, maybe another café.
Kath looks up from her desk when I enter.
‘Your boyfriend’s here again.’ She grins.
She has a pile of cupcakes with pink icing in a plastic tub in front of her.
She makes them every week and brings them in.
Usually I’d be the first to scoff one, but I’ve no appetite today.
I notice Kath’s bought one of those chains for her glasses, which are hanging around her neck.
There is a damp patch on the back of her floral blouse, and a fan whirs on the filing cabinet but isn’t doing much to move air around this stifling room.
‘Who?’ I ask absently, as I shift through the paperwork for the woman I spoke to on Wednesday. I take out my notes, ready to input them into the computer.
‘Drew Mayhew.’
Heat inches up my neck. Drew is around my age, attractive in a crumpled, dusty way, like a well-thumbed book.
‘Rugged’ is the best word I can think of to describe him.
‘He’s here again?’ I didn’t see him in the waiting room when I was talking to Susi.
Drew comes in at least once a month, seeking advice on a variety of issues.
Last month it was to ask about benefits due to his mum, who is a carer for his dad.
She chuckles. ‘He popped to the loo, but he was asking for you.’
He always asks for me, which I’m quite flattered by while at the same time trying not to be.
I get up – my dress is already damp around my legs even though I’ve hardly sat down – and almost bump into Drew as he comes out of the Gents.
His face lights up when he sees me. The sun has brought out the freckles across his nose, and the T-shirt he’s wearing shows off his toned arms from the manual work he does on his parents’ farm.
I’m surprised to see a tattoo poking out of his sleeve.
I can just make out the bottom of it, but it looks like some kind of bird.
‘Lena! How are you?’
‘I’m good, Drew. And you?’
He grins. ‘All the better for seeing you.’
I flash him what I hope is a professional smile and he follows me down the corridor to one of the private rooms. Despite the heat he’s in jeans and heavy boots.
The room is airless. It smells of drains and too-warm computers.
I throw open the window and turn back to Drew.
I’m in for a long session. I know all about his life: his divorce from his childhood sweetheart, moving back in with his parents, helping them out on the farm.
He doesn’t have children, his parents are elderly, and his father is ill.
I sense Drew’s lonely, set adrift after his divorce.
Sometimes, usually in the middle of the night, I wake up seized by a panic that I’ll end up the same way when Rufus leaves home.
Will I find myself ‘popping in’ to places just to see a friendly face?
Just so I can talk to another human being?
I make my smile even wider and more welcoming.
‘So, what can I do for you today?’ I sit down opposite him, a table between us, and start the computer.
It whirrs loudly as though angry to have been woken up.
I’m supposed to read my advice from the screen, so I click on the benefits link.
But no. He doesn’t want to talk about which benefits he or his parents are eligible for.
Not today. Today he has something to ask which is completely new.
‘I need help trying to find someone,’ he says.