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‘So I can be sent to Timbuktu to sort out files and spend whole days making lists. No thank you, those days are over! I’ll see how it goes. The first day is always the worst. I’ll keep an eye out for something else. By the way, I’ve no idea what you’re doing now!’
‘I’m working in a small solicitor’s office,’ says Jeanine. ‘The work is the same, but the atmosphere is great. I’ll keep an eye out for a job for you. I talk to so many people there.’ I look at her gratefully. ‘If you’d do that…’
‘Of course!’ She smiles. ‘Does Olaf still work at The Bank?’
‘Olaf ? Olaf who?’
‘He came to work in IT. He’s completely hot. The computers were working fine, it was the department that crashed.’ Jeanine laughs.
‘I haven’t met him yet,’ I say.
‘Then you’ll have to drop into IT,’ Jeanine advises. ‘Pull the plug out of your computer and call Olaf.’
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘RenÉe is crazy about him. Keep an eye on her when he comes in. You won’t be able to stop laughing!’ She jumps up and does an impression of RenÉe flirting, and it’s true, it’s very funny. ‘Have you finished your coffee? Let’s move on to the wine. You pour, I’m going to rinse my hair. Otherwise it will be orange tomorrow.’
While Jeanine is splashing around in the bathroom, I fill the wine glasses. I haven’t felt this happy for a long time. It was good to take the initiative. I should do that more often, not stand back and wait. Maybe RenÉe feels like going on a little cinema outing with me. The thought makes me smile.
Jeanine returns with wet, dark red hair. She’s changed into jeans and a white T-shirt and looks cheerful and lively. She’s back to her old self, apart from the hair colour.
‘Nice colour,’ I say. ‘Quite striking, after brown. I can’t believe you dare!’
‘It looks a bit darker because it’s wet. When my hair’s dry it should have a kind of a coppery shine. My own colour is so boring.’
Every day I spend ages blow-drying my hair, but I’m never happy with it. I once thought about getting it cut off, not too short, just a shoulder-length cut. A bit of colour and the metamorphosis would have been complete. But I’ve never got round to it.
Jeanine gives me the lowdown on all the new people. Her conclusion is that they’re alright, but that no one has realised just how manipulative RenÉe is.
‘She complained about you to the others,’ warns Jeanine. ‘Don’t wait until they come to you because they won’t. Go to them yourself and prove that you’re the opposite of what RenÉe has said.’
‘Has she really painted me so black?’ I say, dubious.
‘As far as she’s concerned, you’re only sick if you’re lying in Intensive Care or you’re in plaster,’ Jeanine says. ‘One time she said that you’re only as sick as you want to be, and that she always gets on with her work, however miserable she feels. And that’s true. She uses up a box of tissues in half an hour and the next day the whole department is sniffing and coughing. She thinks depression is something you just have to get over.’ Jeanine gets up.
I’ve slipped off my shoes. I sit with my legs curled to one side and pull my cold feet under my thighs.
While she is rummaging around in the kitchen cupboards, she carries on talking, a bit more loudly so that I can hear her. ‘I know so many people who’ve had a burn-out. My uncle had one, my father too and I’ve seen enough at work. That’s what it was, a burn-out, wasn’t it?’ She returns with a bowl of chips.
I nod. Burn-outs, depression and break-downs are pretty much the same kind of thing.
Jeanine fills her glass again and tucks her feet under her folded legs. ‘Once when I had flu and called in sick she sent a doctor round to check up on me. Usually they don’t come to visit you until the next day, or two days later, but a couple of hours after my phone call there was the knock at the door. A special request from my boss, that’s what the bloke said. I’ll give you one guess who lit a fire under Walter’s arse.’
‘What bastards,’ I say wholeheartedly and take a handful of chips. Somehow a chip catches in my windpipe and lodges there. I burst into a rally of coughs that bring tears to my eyes, but the chip stays wedged.
‘Have a sip of wine,’ Jeanine hands me my glass. I push her hand away—I’m still coughing so hard that I think I’m going to throw up.
‘Just have a sip!’ shouts Jeanine.
I gesture that I can’t.
It might not be a bad idea for her to hit me on the back, and to convey that to her, I hit myself on the back. It’s much too low but I can’t reach between my shoulderblades.
Jeanine gets up and whacks me on the spine, much too hard and much too low.
I raise my hand to tell her to stop but she thinks I’m encouraging her and hits me even harder. ‘Should I do the Heimlich manoeuvre? Get up!’ But then the chip dislodges and I begin to breathe again. I lie back against the sofa cushions panting, wipe the tears from my eyes and drink some wine.
‘Idiot,’ I say. ‘You nearly put me in a wheelchair.’
‘I saved you!’
‘You have to hit between the shoulderblades! God knows what would have happened if you’d tried the Heimlich manoeuvre!’ I shout back.
Jeanine stares at me speechless, I return the look and we both burst out laughing.
‘Where did I hit you?’ asks Jeanine, gasping with laughter. ‘There? And where should it have been? Oh, then it wasn’t far off?’ And we fall about laughing again.
‘What do you think? Have we drunk too much?’ I lisp.
‘No-oh,’ says Jeanine. ‘I can only see two of you, usually I see four.’
She giggles and I giggle back.
‘You’d better stay over,’ Jeanine says. ‘I can’t let you go out into the street like that. What time is it in fact? Oh my God, 2 a.m.’
‘You’ve got to be joking!’ I jump up. ‘I’ve got to work tomorrow!’
‘Call in sick,’ Jeanine laughs again. ‘RenÉe will totally understand.’
We pull bedding from the loft space and make a bed up for me on the sofa.
‘Good night,’ she says sleepily.
‘Good night,’ I mumble back, crawling under the covers. I lay my head on one of the sofa cushions and sink into an overwhelming softness.
4 (#ulink_255b1b6c-bfec-540f-a2e5-90d2928a937c)
People are talking about me. I can tell from the silence that descends when I enter the department with the letters book, from the quick glances people give me, and the guilty faces. I pull a requisitions form towards me and fill in scissors, hole punches and paperclips. I keep an eye on the clock. Do the hands sometimes stop?
A deep voice breaks the silence of the office. ‘Has somebody here got a problem?’
I swivel my chair and see a body that’s six feet four, a handsome face crowned with thick, blond hair, a broad smile.
‘If it isn’t Sabine!’ He perches on the edge of my desk. ‘I thought it was you yesterday. You don’t recognise me do you?’
‘Oh, yes, aren’t you…I mean…’
My colleagues are looking at me with a mixture of amazement and envy.
‘Olaf,’ he says. ‘Olaf van Oirschot, you know, Robin’s friend.’
The haze in my brain begins to clear. I take a deep breath of relief. Lanky Olaf, a friend of my brother’s. When we were both at secondary school, Robin hung out with a group of idiots who were more interested in practical jokes than their exam results.
‘Now you remember,’ he says, pleased.
I lean towards him to get a better look.
‘Weren’t you the one who pretended to be blind in that cafÉ?’
Olaf laughs, looks embarrassed. ‘What can I say? We were young. We’ve made up for it now.’
Close by, RenÉe has discovered something urgent in the overflowing in-tray, which she usually ignores. She turns to Olaf as if she’s only just noticed that he’s here, and says, ‘Oh, Olaf, I’ve got a bit of a problem with my computer. When I save something, I get all these strange messages. Would you mind taking a look?’ As she speaks she guides Olaf towards her desk.
Olaf turns back towards me, ‘See you later, Sabine.’
I try to concentrate on the order forms. It doesn’t work. The unexpected confrontation with a period of my past I’d long since put behind me has left me reeling. And apart from that, I can’t get over the fact that Olaf has become so good-looking.
When I finally leave at half-past twelve, we bump into each other in the lift.
‘Are you off to lunch too?’ Olaf asks.
‘No, I’m going home.’
‘Even better!’
‘I only work half days.’ I find myself compelled to explain.
‘So do I mainly, even though I’m here for the whole day,’ Olaf says.
Arms folded, he leans against the side with the mirrors and checks me out without any sign of embarrassment. The lift feels smaller by the second.
I lean against my side of the lift, my arms also folded but I can’t keep my eyes still. I laugh at Olaf’s joke, but my laugh sounds nervous to me. Don’t act like a teenager Sabine, I tell myself. This is Olaf, you know him.
But it doesn’t feel like that. Not now that he’s looking at me in that way. I try to think of something natural to say. ‘You haven’t worked here for that long have you? I mean, I haven’t seen you here before.’
‘A few months.’ His eyes wander shamelessly from my legs to my breasts. The appreciation in his expression flusters me.
‘I’ve been off sick for quite a while. A burn-out.’ I explain. Depression suddenly sounds so neurotic.
Olaf makes a clicking sound with his tongue. ‘Were you out of circulation for long?’
‘Quite a while.’
‘And now you’re easing back into it.’
I nod. Then there’s a silence while we look at each other. Why do I find him so attractive? His features are too angular and irregular to really be called handsome. His blue eyes are too pale to contrast with his blonde eyelashes and eyebrows. His hair is thick but messy, the sort that never looks neat. He’s changed. And he seems just as surprised by my appearance, even though I don’t think I’ve changed much. I’ve still got my straight, light brown hair, I barely use any make-up, just a bit of kohl and mascara, and my taste in clothes isn’t really any different. But Olaf’s looking at me like I’m gorgeous, which is nonsense, of course. He’s probably winding me up.
‘What a coincidence, meeting again like this,’ Olaf says. ‘On the other hand, everyone seems to have moved to Amsterdam. Sooner or later you bump into everyone. Tell you what, do you really want to go home or shall we have lunch together?’
I look at him alarmed. Have lunch together? His eyes glued to my face while I lift my fork to my lips with trembling hands?
‘Sorry, I have to head off. Another time perhaps.’
The lift stops and the doors open. RenÉe and some other colleagues are getting out of the other lift.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Olaf says. ‘You have to eat, don’t you? We can do that just as easily together.’
RenÉe looks from me to Olaf with a glimmer of disbelief.
‘Why not then. I’d like to catch up,’ I say.
We walk into the canteen together as if we’d remained in touch all those years.
‘I’m going to go for the bread roll with a meat croquette,’ Olaf says. ‘You too?’
‘Alright.’ Over the past year I’ve put on five kilos from the Prozac and from comfort-eating chocolate. One croquette isn’t going to make a difference.
We pick a table near to where RenÉe and her cronies have set up. They arrange themselves so that they can keep an eye on me.
I try to relax and smile at Olaf.
‘Did you read about the school reunion?’ He spreads a layer of mustard onto his croquette.
I nod and cut my roll into smaller pieces. There’s no way I’m going to try to eat this whole thing with my hands.
‘Are you going to go?’ Olaf asks.
I think about the school grounds during the breaks, the little groups dotted around it, the wall I used to lean against, on my own.
‘No way.’ I take a bite.
Olaf laughs. ‘I don’t really feel like it either.’ He mashes his croquette onto his bread. ‘If I’d wanted to stay in touch with somebody I would have. But still, we haven’t seen each other for years and it is good to see you again.’
I still don’t quite feel comfortable with him. Each time he looks at me, I become even more conscious of my limp hair, my tired, pale face and the sweat patches on my jumper.
Just then Olaf attacks his sandwich like a buzzard after prey. He eats with perceptible and audible pleasure. I don’t usually like men who let you see exactly how they chew their food. But in this case I’m filled with relief and renewed confidence. Sweat patches might be nasty but lumps of croquette falling out of your mouth are worse.
Olaf doesn’t seem in the least bit bothered by it. He picks up the pieces again with his fork and puts them back into his mouth. He hasn’t yet swallowed them when he begins to talk again. ‘If you change your mind, tell me. We could drive together. By the way, how is Robin these days?’
‘Good. He’s living in England.’ I’m relieved that we’ve dropped the subject of school.
‘What’s he doing there?’
‘He also works in IT,’ I say.
‘In what sort of company?’ Olaf asks.
‘Clothing,’ I say. ‘Men’s fashion.’
