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‘I can’t believe they’re actually all here,’ said Gwyneth that Friday. ‘And they’re all pretty much legible. Sven’s has something on it …’
‘I think that’s dog slobber,’ said Arthur.
‘Oh, God,’ said Gwyneth, dropping it as if it were acid. Arthur watched her, remembering the fragile creature he had held in his dream three nights before, not this smartly dressed efficiency machine standing before him.
‘Why do you do this?’ he asked suddenly.
‘What? Pick up pieces of paper typed by dogs with dirty paws? I have absolutely no idea, I assure you.’
‘No, I mean, your job. How did you get into it?’
Gwyneth looked at him. ‘Well, at university, I spent my summers working for …’
‘I don’t mean your job interview answer. Just … why?’
She shrugged. ‘Well, why does anyone become a management consultant?’
Arthur sat back.
Gwyneth was looking at him like the answer was obvious.
‘I genuinely don’t know.’
‘I think it was … the travel, the glamour … meeting new people …’ Gwyneth looked around the office.
‘Oh, yeah.’
Gwyneth flopped into a chair. ‘You know, I used to believe that, and now – look. Trapped in sunny Coventry.’
Suddenly, something in her face shifted. She looked like she was having an internal battle within herself. She glanced around as if she’d forgotten where she was, she looked at Arthur, she looked at the floor. Then, in almost a whisper, she leaned over and said, ‘Oh, God, sometimes I hate it.’ Then, she kind of shook herself. ‘Gosh, I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I didn’t mean that. It’s just, you know, sometimes I think maybe I should have become a vet after all.’
‘A vet. You wanted to be a vet?’
‘What’s so funny about that?’
Arthur looked at her immaculate suit. ‘Gwyneth, all you do is complain about dog slobber.’
‘That is not all I do.’
‘Have you any idea what the slobber ratio is like in being a vet? And not just dog slobber, either. Ohhh, no. Elephant slobber. Yuk. And have you ever seen a lizard slobber?’
She shrugged. ‘No. Have you?’
Arthur considered. ‘Well, no, but I’d bet it’s revolting, wouldn’t you?’
There it was again … almost a smile. ‘What kind of a lizard?’
‘Oh, geckos. They’re filthy.’
She nodded. ‘Or limpodos.’
‘You’re right. Even a gecko wouldn’t give house-room to a limpodo – bleargh!’
Arthur could have sworn she nearly giggled. Then she pulled herself together and stood up, nervously tugging on her immaculately ironed blouse.
‘Give me those papers,’ she said. ‘Not Sven’s, thank you.’
Arthur picked up Sven’s and started to read. On the page was a picture of a large neutron bomb with an arrow pointing downwards towards Coventry. Oh, very funny, Arthur thought to himself. He looked over to the outside area. Gwyneth was standing next to the coffee machine, leafing through the unexpected submission from the temp, which seemed mostly to concern the amount of temporary staff required for the new-look town (lots, apparently). It was the first indication that this project might be of some interest to people outside their own small circle.
‘Is that about the temps?’ yelled Arthur. ‘How many?’
‘Everybody,’ said Gwyneth, without looking up. ‘Everyone should do their job on a temporary basis so that anyone can just move on when they feel like it. Makes everyone a lot happier when they feel footloose and fancy free, and apparently happy people don’t litter.’
‘Is that true?’
‘There’s no evidence provided.’
‘I’d have thought you’d have been more likely to litter when you were happy – you know, tra la la, dum de dum; I’m so comfortable with myself today I don’t even care what I throw around, la la … Wouldn’t you think?’
‘I don’t litter.’
‘Well, there you are. You’re an unhappy non-vet, and you don’t litter, so maybe the theorem is true.’
‘I’m not unhappy.’
Silence fell as they skimmed through the other proposals.
‘Sven wants an internet connection on every park bench.’ Arthur examined it closely as Gwyneth wandered over to take a look.
‘Oh yes,’ said Gwyneth, ‘some other council tried that.’
‘What on earth for? So the flashers could get quicker access to their internet porn?’
‘No, to show their interconnectivity in the world. To let people get out, smell the roses, enjoy the trees. Work in different environments; experience nature.’
‘What happened?’
‘Oh, you know. There was a whole flasher internet porn incident and they discontinued it.’
‘Uh huh.’
They continued leafing.
‘Marcus has laid out how much money we can spend,’ said Arthur, holding up a densely typed wad of Excel spreadsheets.
‘How much?’
‘Well, judging by these calculations here … and this table over here …’
‘Yeah?’
‘God, hang on …’ He paused for a minute, his brow furrowing with concern. ‘Well, it seems to say here – no, it can’t be. It looks like absolutely nothing at all. In fact, he seems to have gone into the realm of imaginary negative numbers.’
Gwyneth squinted over at him. ‘Like how?’
‘Well, apparently if we did anything – anything at all, including moving from these seats, right now, we’d have to cull every lollipop lady within an eleven-mile radius.’
‘That can’t be right.’
‘God, but look at the figures. It adds up.’
‘We’ll get an extra budget. It’s been approved.’
‘It’s been spent.’ Arthur held up a second sheet. ‘It says here … “extraneous disbursements”. There you go. That’s our entire budget.’
‘Sixteen million pounds?’
‘Sixteen million pounds. I wonder what extraneous disbursements are?’
Gwyneth stared at the paper in disbelief. ‘So you bloody should.’
She picked up the phone. ‘Marcus?’
The voice on the other end was timid.
‘What the hell are these figures?’ She switched on the speaker phone.
‘Um … yes, I had a funny feeling those might come up,’ said Marcus.
‘Did you, now? Then what the hell are they?’
Marcus mumbled something incomprehensible.
‘What? Speak up, for God’s sake.’
Then he spoke up, and Arthur turned white.
‘I don’t understand,’ Arthur was saying for the sixth time, standing over Marcus’s desk. Marcus was cowering and concentrating on the paper in front of him.
‘How the hell can it cost sixteen million pounds to fix a photocopier?’
‘It was a weekend. Call-out charges.’
Oh, God. This place was disastrous. Gwyneth came round into the grey car park and fished in her handbag for her car keys, with a half-hearted plan to go back to her main office and think this through. Across the motorway, the sun was setting over a field. If you could ignore the town, this really was a most beautiful part of the world. She looked back at the office.
Suddenly she remembered the look on Arthur’s face that morning when he’d got the photocopying bill and almost laughed. The way his soft brown hair had flipped over his face …
Oh no, she thought, fumbling with her key in the lock. No, no no no. She couldn’t possibly fancy the guy she was working with. She couldn’t. For a start, it was forbidden in company policy (until you reached director level, at which stage you could shag the pope and it would be discreetly ignored).
Not only that, it was obscenely unprofessional and Gwyneth was nothing if not a paradigm of professionalism.
‘I am a paradigm of professionalism,’ she said to herself, looking in her car mirror and trying to make it sound like a positive reinforcement statement.
Oh, but his hair’s so cute, she thought to herself.
No, no no no no no no, she also thought to herself.
But she wondered what would happen if the project got cancelled and there was nothing in the way.
Chapter Four (#ulink_519cb84b-6ae4-5ad5-b9b3-bd5c48a6bf5d)
Fay shivered and pulled her coat further around her. The November air was chilly, even if it wasn’t raining this morning. She’d driven all the way from Birmingham, where she was staying with her mother. They spent most of their time together slagging off men – Fay had never known her father – and even the very concept of maleness. It wasn’t as much fun as it sounded. Fay could hear the vinegar creeping into her voice as they spoke.
Arthur hadn’t phoned since she’d left. Not even once. It wasn’t as though she expected vast bouquets watered with tears, although they wouldn’t have gone amiss. She didn’t require marching bands although how come, when Bono fell out with his wife, he’d recorded a single about how she was the sweetest thing he’d ever known and got all her favourite stars like Boyzone to be in the video and it worked and they had a baby – why couldn’t she have been going out with an international rock star instead of a bloody useless bloody town planner?
With Arthur there’d been nothing, absolutely nothing at all. It was as if he’d just popped out to take the video back. It was as if she was the video. How could he? How could he just waltz on so very bloody quickly? This wasn’t Men are from Mars, Woman are from Venus. This was ‘Men are From Mars, Arthur is an evil demon from the pits of HELL’.
There aren’t many places to go in Coventry if you’re single and not fourteen years old. That’s how Fay found herself in Cork’s wine bar, nursing a solitary glass of wine and trying to look as if she was engrossed in her copy of Red magazine. Why, she was wondering, does the time from Jackie to Red go so fast? Next stop Woman’s Own. She was reflecting on the fact that the age ranges of magazines appeared to be in alphabetical order when someone, who’d obviously been nursing slightly more than a simple glass of wine, heaved himself onto the next stool along.
‘In’t you,’ – he screwed up one of his eyes – ‘don’tcha know Arthur Pendleton?’
Fay regarded the rumpled chunky mess in front of her with some alarm. ‘Um, yes, but …’
‘’E’s a bastard.’
Fay looked closer.
‘Is me!’ he expostulated.
‘Rosh, you know! Arthur’s bloody boss. Well, Arthur’s bloody ex bloody boss, bloody bastard, bloody …’
Oh, yes. Fantastic.
‘Bloody ex-bastard,’ said Fay, allowing herself a tight little grin.
‘I recognize you … from the Christmas party … always fancied you …’
What were you doing in the stationery cupboard with that poor Cathy woman then, thought Fay, but decided not to mention it.
‘Yes, of course I remember,’ she said, using the brisk tone one reserves for children and drunks.
‘Do you know … he bloody sacked me … bastard.’
‘Me too,’ said Fay with a half-smile. ‘I know how you feel.’
‘Really?’ He moved forward across the stool.
‘Not that much.’ She promptly removed his hand from the top of her thigh, where he’d landed to steady himself.
