‘Yes,’ Joe said hollowly.
Instantly it was mass-exodus time, as all the other men gave him the widest possible berth. Sometimes a man’s just got to be alone, they reasoned.
If it was a woman who’d been blown out, she’d have been besieged by other women, laden down with chocolate and comforting platitudes. ‘That pig!’ ‘Plenty more where he came from.’ ‘Bet he had a tiny willy, anyway.’
But because he was a man, Joe’s desk immediately became a tiny raft marooned in a very big sea. All morning, any men on the right-hand side of the office who wanted to talk to anyone working on the left-hand side went to the back of the office, down five flights of fire escape, out the back by the bins, around the block, back in the front door, up in the lift, into the office and over to the desk of the person they wanted to speak to, rather than pass in front of Joe.
Fred Franklin was the sole source of human contact and then only because he couldn’t be arsed walking down five flights of stairs. As he lumbered past, he placed his hand awkwardly on Joe’s shoulder and suggested in wise-and-kindly-elder-giving-advice-to-raw-youth fashion, ‘Shag someone else, son.’
Katherine ignored it all, she had work to do. Besides, she thought, he might be back. And if he is, I’ll know he’s a pathologically arrogant wanker. And if he doesn’t come back, he couldn’t have handled me anyway. Either way, I can’t lose.
Then she had an unexpected, unwelcome throb of loss. Maybe he wasn’t that bad. But, no, there was no scope for thinking that. Because they all were. Sooner or later.
Usually just after they’d slept with her.
Joe got through the morning, not quite a broken man but definitely badly bent out of shape. He went over and over his behaviour during the past three weeks and had to admit he’d been very persistent with Katherine. He’d always been can-do and practical. If you want something – or someone – you do your best to get them. But he’d never meant to be pushy.
Or to sexually harass her.
The thing was he was fairly sure he wasn’t guilty of sexual harassment. Which almost made it worse. She’d flung an extreme accusation at him, not because it was true but because she loathed him so much she had to find a good way of getting rid of him. The pain of rejection was acute. Especially when he’d thought he’d noticed a tiny thaw.
At lunchtime Myles looked deep inside himself for some words of comfort to offer Joe. Something profound and healing. Finally he hit on it.
He walked over to Joe, placed his hand on his shoulder, looked at him with immense compassion and said, ‘Fancy a pint?’
A tiny light appeared in Joe’s dazed, dead eyes. ‘Sure.’
They took a long lunch, even by advertising standards. In other words, they didn’t come back until three o’clock. The following day.
By the fifth pint, they’d exhausted their usual topics of conversation – Arsenal, cars, Arsenal, breasts, what pricks all their clients were, Arsenal, England’s chances of hosting the World Cup in 2006 – and were buffered enough to skirt around their feelings. In the middle of a discussion on Manchester’s public transport system, Joe blurted out the sexual-harassment charge.
‘I shouldn’t have forced her to come for lunch with me yesterday,’ he admitted, with shame and regret.
‘Worth a try, mate,’ consoled Myles, ever the wide-boy.
‘I pushed her too far, she’s obviously very fragile.’
Myles muttered something to the effect that Katherine was about as fragile as a Sherman tank
‘You don’t see what I see. She’s so…’ Joe stared dreamily into the middle distance ‘… sweet sometimes.’
‘She’s accused you of sexual harassment and you say she’s sweet. You’re pissed, mate.’
‘Now that you mention it, I am.’
‘When you’re sober again, you’ll have gone right off her.’
‘I won’t.’
‘You’ll ’afta. ’Cos she don’t want you, mate.’
Joe winced. ‘I’m going to apologize to her.’
Myles was appalled. ‘You’re bleeding radio.’
Joe looked puzzled.
‘Radio rental – mental!’ Myles expounded. ‘Cockney rhyming slang.’
‘I know,’ Joe said. ‘But you’re not a Cockney.’
‘Nah. From Surrey. The poor bit, though. Now, listen, mate, you can’t apologize to her. That’s as good as admitting you’re guilty. Do you want the sack? You work hard, you’re ambitious. Leave it, mate!’
‘But I don’t think she meant it. I think she just wants me to shove off…’
‘Then do!’ Myles said, simply. ‘Now listen to Uncle Myles. What you need is to get up-close and personal with a totally pukka bird. That’ll sort you.’
‘No. It’s too soon.’
‘By the weekend?’
‘No.’
‘Sorry, mate. Forgot you’re going to the footie.’
‘No, I mean it would still be too soon.’
‘All you have to do is pretend it’s her.’
‘I can’t. I’d know. She wouldn’t be Katherine.’
‘Who looks at the mantelpiece when they’re poking the fire?’ Myles smirked triumphantly. He had an answer for everything.
‘Myles, you’re depressing me,’ Joe said wearily.
‘Cheer up, mate. You’ve been kicked into touch before, right?’
‘Well, I went out with Lindsay for three years, then she moved to New York –’
‘And you’re still up for it with other girls, right?’ Myles interrupted.
‘I suppose. I mean, it took a while, we’d kind of run out of steam anyway, but it wasn’t easy and though it was amicable it was still –’
‘Blinding,’ Myles cut in. ‘Very interesting. Not. What I’m trying to say here is that you win some, you lose some. You’ll get over it.’
Drunken hope filled Joe. Through the fuzz of alcohol, it seemed eminently possible to stop caring about Katherine. Even to meet another girl. He felt better already. ‘You’re right!’ he agreed. ‘Life’s too short.’
‘That’s it,’ Myles urged. ‘And who wants to go where you’re not wanted?’
‘Not me. I’d make a bad obsessive,’ Joe admitted.
‘Why’s that, mate?’
‘Dunno. I’m just not obsessive enough, I suppose.’
‘Yeh, ‘sa problem, innit? Right, so this Kathy –’
‘Her name’s Katherine,’ Joe interrupted. ‘She doesn’t answer to abbreviations of it.’
‘Ooooooooh, excuse me,’ Myles hooted, grabbing the handbag of the woman at the next table and thrusting it at Joe. ‘The award of the handbag!’
He looked angrily at Joe. ‘Don’t take it so serious, wouldja?’
‘Sorry,’ Joe said, slumping back into his pit of gloom. ‘It’s just that I just thought I was finally getting somewhere with her.’
‘Snog ya?’
Joe snorted. ‘No.’
‘Take my advice, mate, you weren’t getting nowhere if you haven’t even snogged her.’
Joe sighed. In his crude way, Myles was right.
‘Give the woman back her handbag,’ he said, wearily.
25
Tara staggered into the office, laden with carrier-bags, which she dumped on her desk. ‘I don’t know why they call it forbidden fruit,’ she complained. ‘Fruit is about the only thing that isn’t forbidden.’
Ravi, tearing open a Marks and Spencer’s ploughman’s roll, which boasted thirty-six grams of fat, watched with interest as she unloaded apples, satsumas, pears, nectarines, plums and grapes and arranged them like amulets around her desk. ‘Care for half my roll?’ he offered, in his public-school voice.
Tara made her two index fingers into a cross.
‘It’s got extra mayonnaise,’ he tempted.
‘Bad magic. Keep it away from me.’
‘You’re absolutely barking.’ Ravi jumped up, thrust his hands on Tara’s head and bellowed, ‘Out, out, demons, leave this poor child.’
/>
‘That feels spectacular.’ Tara sighed, as Ravi massaged her skull. ‘I love it when you exorcize me.
‘Oh, don’t stop,’ she begged, as Ravi abandoned her, to cram eight hundred calories of sandwich into his mouth.
‘No choice,’ he mumbled through mouthfuls. ‘Nothing like a good exorcism for working up an appetite.’
A highly harassed Vinnie rushed in. A sleepless night with his three-month-old had had him pulling his hair out, and as soon as he saw Tara’s desk, he felt his hairline recede another inch or so. What kind of office was he running? ‘What’s going on here? It’s like Albert Square!’
‘Are you subcontracting?’ Teddy and Evelyn, the his ’n’ hers couple, had arrived.
‘Opening a fruit stall?’ Teddy inquired.
‘What a great idea,’ said Evelyn. ‘Can I buy a banana?’
‘Bananas aren’t welcome round here,’ Tara said curtly.
‘Too fattening?’
‘Too fattening.’
‘Bananas aren’t fattening.’ Vinnie knew he should maintain managerial distance, but couldn’t help himself.
‘That’s right. Nothing is fattening,’ Teddy insisted. ‘Look at me. I eat whatever I want, as much as I want of it, and I’m like a stick insect.’
‘Women talking about how many calories things have – that’s what makes them fattening,’ Vinnie decreed. ‘Women ruin food for themselves.’
‘Did you see the documentary last night about the blokes up Everest?’ Ravi brayed. ‘Bloody freezing. One of them, his thumb completely froze and fell off. Nothing to eat but snow…’
‘Maybe I should try that,’ Tara said, thoughtfully. ‘The Everest diet. Right, Ravi, Evelyn, everyone gather around, we’re going to have a credit-card-cutting-up ceremony.’
‘Another one?’ Vinnie exclaimed. ‘It’s only six months since the last time.’
‘I know, but I got my Visa bill this morning. Stop me before I spend again,’ she intoned darkly. ‘Ravi, scissors!’
Ravi dutifully passed the office scissors.
‘Bin!’
Ravi already had the wastepaper basket in his hand: he knew the drill of old. Tara took out her purse and held her Visa card aloft, swivelling from the right to the left. ‘Everyone looking?’ Then, fighting a pang of loss, she pushed the scissors through the unwieldy plastic. As everyone except Vinnie burst into applause, Tara murmured, ‘I am cleansed, I am pure. Now for my Access card.’
Everyone stood in respectful silence as the Access card was neatly snipped in two, then clapped again.
‘Your Amex?’ Ravi suggested, and after a slight hesitation, Tara took it out and reluctantly bisected it.
‘Sears card?’ Ravi then said, and Tara said irritably, ‘Look, I’ll need something. What if it’s an emergency?’
‘You’ll still have your cashpoint card and your Switch card.’
‘O… K.’ Sadly, Tara cut her Sears card in two and let it fall into the bin.
‘I’ll give it a week before you’re on the phone saying your purse has been stolen and that you need replacement cards.’ Vinnie sighed. Maybe it was time he went on another course to learn how to manage staff. ‘Can you all please do some work now?’ he urged, belatedly trying to act like the boss he was.
News of Tara’s fruit stall spread, so much so that people from other departments came to look and snigger. She was embarrassed, but unbowed. Something had to be done, especially after the frenzy in the supermarket the previous night. If she was surrounded by fruit, there was no excuse for eating anything else.
But fruit just never seemed to hit the spot, no matter how much she ingested. She ate an apple, a plum, a couple of satsumas, three nectarines, another satsuma, four more plums, a handful of grapes, one more satsuma and was still starving. So she started into a pear and nearly broke a tooth. She sighed. She knew about pears. There was a one-and-a-half-minute period during which pears could be eaten. Until then they were as hard as concrete. Thereafter they were rotten mush. If you caught them during the short window, they were delicious, but the chances of that happening were slim.
They had a brainstorming session that morning as they formulated a game plan for the MenChel project they’d just been allocated.
Vinnie marched up and down in front of the office whiteboard, drawing grids and time scales and anxiously rubbing his thinning scalp.
‘I’ve put my cock on the block with this one, lads,’ Ravi muttered to Tara, as Vinnie did his spiel.
‘We’re talking a two-thousand-person-day project and we’ve got to do it right because we’ve got the ruddy quality auditors breathing down our necks,’ Vinnie urged.
‘What do you think that white stain on Vinnie’s sleeve is?’ Ravi whispered to Tara.
‘Baby puke.’
‘We’ve a very tight deadline,’ Vinnie galvanized, ‘no room for slippage, so we’ve got to really pull together as a team on this one and… and what on earth’s that funny, squelching noise?’
Ten people turned to look at Tara.
‘It’s Tara,’ Teddy said triumphantly.
‘That was hardly team-spirited.’ Tara was wounded. ‘Fingering me like that. Sorry, Vinnie, it’s my stomach. The different fruit acids mingling. I think they’re having a party in there.’
She longed for some carbohydrate to calm it all down. Something to fill up that liquid hollowness. She felt like her stomach was a great banqueting hall, with forty-foot-high ceilings. Or an enormous conference centre that could hold three thousand delegates. Huge and echoey, cavernous and empty, empty, empty. But she was fired with willpower and wouldn’t give in. Not even when Sleepy Steve did a doughnut run to oil the wheels of the think-tank.
She rushed to the smoking room the minute the meeting was adjourned. ‘God bless these babies.’ Tara waved her pack of cigarettes at the small cluster of diehards in the tiny smoke-filled chamber. ‘Think of how huge I’d be if Nick O’Teen hadn’t kept a lid on the great hunger over the years. The fire brigade would have to cut me out of my house with a chainsaw.’
In the hour before lunch, whenever someone passed Tara’s desk, they broke off a couple of her grapes and popped them in their mouths.
‘What’s wrong?’ Ravi saw her distressed face.
‘My grapes,’ she complained. ‘Everyone thinks they’re fair game. But they’re not. They’re my lunch. I mean, I don’t go up to you and just help myself to one of your sandwiches.’
‘You do,’ he gently reminded her.
‘Well, maybe I do,’ she admitted. ‘But I’m different. Normal people don’t go around eating other people’s lunches uninvited.’
At one o’clock Ravi approached Tara. ‘How’s about you and me strolling up to Hammersmith? Doing some aimless wandering around the shops, maybe partaking of a scratch-card or two?’ he suggested suavely.
They often did this when Ravi didn’t go to the gym.
‘No, thanks.’ Tara whipped out her wool and needles. ‘I’m going to knit my hunger away!’
He stared in amazement. ‘What’s that?’
‘A jumper for Thomas.’
‘I hope he knows how lucky he is.’
‘Don’t worry. He will.’
Ravi lingered, reluctant to leave without her. ‘How about I fetch you some more fruit from the shops?’
‘Don’t bother, Ravi,’ she said. ‘The fruit is just making me hungrier. I suspect utter starvation is the only way, because if I eat a little bit the floodgates open and I want more and more.’
‘I don’t know why you do this to yourself,’ Ravi said.
Tara looked scornfully at him. ‘Blind, are you?’
‘I think you’re a top girl,’ Ravi said.
‘No you don’t. Now go away, I’ve to knit myself a happy relationship.’
‘Aw, please, Tara,’ he wheedled. ‘It’s no good going around the shops without you.’
She indicated her knitting.
‘We can stand in the newsagent’s and read the magazin
es,’ he tempted.
She shook her head.
‘They might have a new lipstick in Boots that really doesn’t come off,’ he said, wickedly. ‘It could be just in.’
‘Do your Elvis impersonation,’ she conceded, ‘and I’ll think about it.’
‘I’m taking requests.’
‘ “Hound Dog”.’
Ravi shook a lock of hair over his forehead, curled his lip, held up his arms and did some serious hip action. ‘ “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog,” ’ he began.
‘You see!’ Tara yelled. ‘I knew you didn’t fancy me.’
Tara survived the trip to Hammersmith, with all its temptations, without breaking out. First they went into Marks and Spencer’s and half-heartedly looked around, Ravi checking to see if any new lines in cakes or buns had been introduced since that morning. Tara bought three pairs of stomach-flattening tights because she wanted to leave with something. Then they went to Boots where Ravi checked out their sandwiches and Tara looked at all the lipsticks that claimed to be virtually irremovable, but which she knew through bitter experience were very much the reverse. Unable to muster much enthusiasm she purchased some face capsules.
‘Thalidomide?’ Ravi said in alarm.
‘Biomide,’ she corrected him.
Next they went into the newsagent’s where Ravi flicked through Top Gear and Tara read Slimming. For a grand finale they bought a scratch-card each. Ravi passed her a twopence piece and they flaked away aluminium ink in companionable silence. Neither of them won anything.
‘How long have we been gone?’ Tara asked.
‘Forty-five minutes.’
‘S’pose we’d better go back,’ Tara said.
‘S’pose.’
After lunch, back in the office, as conversations drifted over to her, everyone seemed to be talking about food.
Vinnie described the new project to Evelyn as ‘a Marathon task’, and Tara instantly thought of peanuts, caramel and thick milk chocolate.
‘Don’t be chicken,’ Evelyn gently teased, and Tara almost fainted at the idea of a big bucket of KFC.