The next morning she woke in high spirits. Her plan energized her, as if she were starting a new job. No, it was better than that. She felt like an actress who, with beating heart, prepares to step on to the stage. That her co-stars were ignorant of the roles prepared for them made her already feel tenderly towards them. She had felt this in the past, when she had stepped into a club and pinpointed the man she was going to fuck that night. While he was still unaware of her intentions there would be a vulnerable look to him that she always found arousing.
She had wedged the bathroom window with newspaper but still a draught whistled through. She didn’t care; soon she would be moving out. Down in the street, in front of the barricaded shop, two boys were draped over their bike handlebars. They looked like fellow conspirators.
She applied her war paint, gazing at her parted lips in the mirror. Like many attractive people, she took her beauty for granted. If she put her mind to it, she could get almost any man. This face, this body was her means of escape; this and her quick wits. This and her desire to screw everything she could out of NuLine. All her life she had lived in Leeds but she was destined for better things. This cramped, heavy, Victorian city was too small for her grand ambitions. Its recent attempts at sophistication in the city centre – pavement cafés, atria – were simply like an old lady dressing herself up in youthful clothes. Life throbbed more powerfully somewhere else – anywhere but here. All she needed was nerve.
Roz Lacock, a hefty girl with a good heart, was going on a sponsored bike ride across Cuba.
‘Want to pledge some money?’ she asked, on the way to lunch.
‘I’m broke,’ said Natalie.
‘Everybody says that.’
‘Yeah, but I’m really broke. I’m overdrawn two thousand quid, I owe Farida seventy pounds, I’m behind with the payments on my car—’
‘OK, OK . . .’
Roz moved away. Natalie stopped her. ‘Wait a sec.’
After lunch Natalie took the lift up to the eighth floor. Her heart beat faster. This building was no longer a dull and anonymous office block; with sharpened senses she noticed every detail – the fire exits, the sudden glimpse, through a window, of mist-dimmed moorland. She hadn’t been up this high before. Overnight the building had become transformed, as a house does during a game of hide and seek. A woman with a plaster over her nose opened a door, looked out, and closed it again. Natalie walked along the corridor to room 812.
‘Come in,’ said P. Tring (Product Development).
The strip light shone on his bald head. His desk was bare, his fingers poised over a calculating machine. Natalie had the strangest feeling that he had been sitting there all day waiting for her tap on the door.
‘Would you be interested in sponsoring a girl in our department?’ She told him about the bike ride. ‘It’s for Mencap. That’s mental health.’
‘I know it’s mental health,’ he snapped. He got up and fetched his jacket. She thought he was going to bring out his wallet but he rubbed his arms and said, ‘It’s freezing in here. What’s happened to the bloody heating?’
By no stretch of the imagination could he be called an attractive man. Still, she perservered. ‘Any amount would do.’
It was then that she noticed the AIDS ribbon – a red AIDS ribbon pinned to his jacket. No Yorkshireman would wear an AIDS ribbon unless he were gay. In fact, it took some courage to wear one at all.
‘It never ends, does it?’ he sighed. ‘Once one’s home was one’s castle. There they come, knocking at the door with their tea-towels and their dishcloths, Excuse me, I’m just out of prison, excuse me, I’ve got a disability. It’s take take take . . .’
‘But this is give give give.’
He put on his jacket. ‘Donald does the washing-up anyway. He says I leave the glasses smeary.’
He gave her two pounds fifty. She felt strangely invigorated by this encounter. She had plucked up courage and done it; nobody had sensed anything wrong. Besides, she was helping Mencap because she gave Roz the money, of course. Natalie wasn’t wholly dishonest. People didn’t understand that, later. She had never shoplifted, for instance, though some years earlier, on one of her dad’s brief visits, she had pinched forty quid from his wallet. After all, he deserved it.
Back at her desk she crossed P. Tring off her list. One down, five to go.
‘I’m sorry about our little altercation, Natalie,’ said Mrs Roe.
‘That’s OK.’
‘We like to consider NT a friendly environment.’
‘Yeah, but it’s so big,’ said Natalie. They were queueing in the canteen. ‘I’ve been here two years and I hardly know anybody. Like, I’ve got a message for Mr Talbot.’ She gestured around, at the people eating lunch. ‘Who on earth is he?’
‘Len Talbot?’ Mrs Roe looked around. ‘Can’t see him. He’s usually to be found in Dispatch.’
It was the following afternoon. Dressed for the kill in a leather microskirt, Natalie tottered down to Dispatch. Two men were heaving boxes on to a trolley. They straightened up; one of them whistled.
‘Hi, guys,’ she said. ‘Will you sponsor some money for a bike ride?’
‘I’m a bit short,’ said one of them.
‘Yeah, he’s only five foot five,’ laughed the other.
‘What about you?’ She turned to him. ‘Just a few pence a mile.’
He was the better-looking of the two – lean and wolfish. As he wrote down his name she imagined caressing his hair. She looked at the piece of paper: John Cousins.
Just her luck. The other one was shorter, with a rash of pimples over his forehead. She suddenly realized who he was; Stacey said he had problem skin. ‘You must be Derek Windsor,’ she said.
‘How do you know?’ he asked.
‘Oh, I just read your name somewhere,’ she said casually. ‘Is Mr Talbot around?’
Derek shook his head. ‘You want him?’
Natalie nodded.
‘He’s along there, in the stock room.’
The other one turned to Derek. ‘Maybe I should go with her.’
‘Why?’ asked Natalie.
‘He’s a dangerous bloke.’
‘That true?’
‘He gives off this animal magnetism.’
‘Really?’ Natalie’s spirits rose.
‘Animal.’
‘You just be careful, OK?’
Natalie walked along the corridor. She passed the toilets, her high heels clacking on the concrete floor. She passed the room set aside for the Muslims to pray in; it had a notice saying DANGER: 240 VOLTS on the door. Finally she arrived at the stock room.
She opened the door on to a cupboard filled with shelves of stationery. An elderly man sat there, eating a doughnut.
‘You’ll be wanting the rubber bands,’ he said, heaving himself to his feet.
He looked bloated, somehow pumped up from within. She recognized him; he delivered supplies to their department. They called him the Walrus, on account of his moustache.
‘You’re Mr Talbot?’ she asked.
He nodded, and gave her a cardboard box. ‘For Mrs Roe, with my compliments.’ Beads of jam hung from his moustache.
Natalie stifled a giggle and made her escape. Unable to face the boys in Dispatch, she hurried out through a yard filled with dustbins. A cook, muttering into a mobile phone, shot her a glance.
Back in the office she gave the box of rubber bands to Mrs Roe, her supervisor. If only she could confide in somebody; maybe, then, they could laugh about it. Except they would think she was insane. Sitting at her desk she told herself: Natalie, keep your head. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. You’re only sizing up these blokes, after all, to see if one of them takes your fancy. And if, by any chance, one of them does, then you can take it from there.
‘Got a hot date?’ asked Sioban.
Natalie smiled enigmatically, but already she felt distanced from her colleagues. This would get worse, much worse, but even the beginnings of a secret sets us apart. It?
??s not what we’re doing – for she had done nothing yet – it’s what lies in our heads. Natalie’s surprise at her own audacity made her a stranger even to herself, and there is nothing lonelier than that.
The phone rang. ‘Miss Natalie Bingham? I have Mr Blasham on the line—’
Natalie slammed down the receiver. Mr Blasham was her bank manager. She pressed the Engaged button and reached for the pile of envelopes.
Storms blew across the hills, dusting the peaks with snow. Outside Natalie’s office the wind, whistling past the window, carried not just snow but also messages, voices blown through the ether on phones and e-mails, eddying around the twelve-storey NT building, conversations caught and alchemized into money, into profit – tears and jokes and mobile-phone conversations (I’m on the train, I’m on the train), talks that changed lives (I’m pregnant, I’m leaving you), talks that sold flats and bought holidays, that told lies or the terrible truth; conversations between strangers became, under the staffs quick fingers, pounds and pence, transferred, with the press of a key, into NT’s account and swallowed up for ever.
As Natalie sat at her desk, gossip drifted past her, unheard. She was in a strange state during those weeks; later she could admit it. She felt like a racehorse, pawing the ground as she waited for the starting pistol. She felt restless, she couldn’t sleep – she, who usually slept soundly. She felt she was embarking on a long voyage; one night she suddenly missed her friend Gloria, with whom she had worked at a health club in Halifax; she needed to connect up with a comprehensible past. But when she phoned the number the line was dead. She was alone in the world, nursing her secret like a growth, a lump that gained weight each day but whose existence she didn’t dare reveal to a doctor in case he took action. Don’t panic, she told herself. Keep your head. Remember, nothing’s happened yet; remember, you’ve nothing to lose.
She had drawn a blank with the homosexual and the Walrus. The next on her list was I. Toole, in Sales and Marketing. The following week she plucked up courage and took the elevator up to the third floor.
The door was ajar. In the room, a young bloke was hitting a ball of paper into a bin. He jumped.
‘Don’t stop,’ she said.
‘Thought you were Mr Slaughter.’
‘I won’t tell.’
He grinned at her. He looked carefree and boyish, as if he had just dropped into the office on a whim. ‘Like the boots,’ he said. ‘Have I seen you before?’
‘In the canteen?’
‘I think I would’ve remembered. How long have you been here?’
‘Two years.’
‘Two whole years! What a waste!’
She smiled. ‘Can you cope?’
He shook his head. ‘I’ll need some help.’
‘I know a good therapist.’
‘Great,’ he said. ‘Is she free tonight?’
This was going better than she had expected. She had no need of Roz’s Cuba trip. ‘Well, there was this Pilates class . . .’
‘Who needs Pilates?’
‘Then I was going for a drink with my friend Rhona, who does it with me . . .’
‘Who needs Rhona?’
‘I could always video them both and watch them later.’
He laughed, and gave her a coin. ‘Here’s twenty pee. Phone your mum and tell her you won’t be home tonight.’
Just then a side door opened. A woman put her head into the room.
‘Ian,’ she said. ‘Your wife’s on the phone. Do you want to take it?’
There was a silence.
‘Ah,’ said Ian Toole. He smiled ruefully at Natalie. ‘Sorry, my little boy’s teething.’
In the toilets, Roz asked: ‘Got any pledges?’
‘One or two,’ said Natalie. ‘But people are funny, aren’t they? Just when you think they’re going to deliver, something happens . . .’ She shrugged. ‘Still – win some, lose some.’
Roz brushed her hair. ‘It’s really kind of you, Natalie. Sometimes I think everybody’s just out for themselves, know what I mean?’
The last three were swiftly eliminated; she realized this the moment she saw them. Terriaki, K. (Credit Control) was Japanese, and Japanese men had small dicks. The filing cabinet behind Tichmarsh, C. (Trainee Management) was covered with Congratulations! It’s a Girl! cards so that counted him out. Tanner, J. (Security) was simply repulsive.
It was early December by now. Natalie gave up. In fact she had lost heart some days earlier, after the visit to Ian Toole. The last three Ts were simply idle curiosity.
The whole idea was ludicrous. It was lucky that she had come to her senses before she made a complete idiot of herself. How on earth could she have hit on a man for his surname? And, even if she had seduced him, why should that lead to marriage? Even then, suppose that all happened – that she was actually attracted to somebody, fell in love with them, got married – would she really have had the nerve to carry out her plan?
The possibility, however, had put a certain fizz into her life. It was Tuesday afternoon, and time had come to a standstill. For those in mindless jobs, Tuesdays are the slowest day. By Wednesday one is halfway to the weekend; it’s downhill from then onwards; by Thursday there is a quickening in the air and the countdown can begin.
‘You noticed how the clock doesn’t move?’ she said to Farida. ‘It stops at three and just stays there?’
‘Never mind. This time next year I’ll be in Winnipeg.’
‘Huh. All right for some.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Farida. ‘Somebody’ll come along. Somebody better than Kieran.’
‘A bloke’s not the answer. I’ve realized that.’ She gazed at Damon’s photo. To Natlie. One corner had come unstuck; the photo leaned towards her as if Damon were trying to tell her something. Soon, when the rest of the Blu Tack lost its grip, he would fall behind her desk. ‘If you want to change your life, you’ve got to do it yourself. Forget blokes . . .’
Her voice died away. The far door opened and a man came in. He was accompanied by a group of Japanese businessmen. He gestured around; he looked as if he was giving them a tour of the building. His gaze stopped at Natalie.
She felt a jolt. She had felt it in the past, of course – the throb of it, the melting sensation in her guts – but not for some years. He was tall and rangy; dark hair. As a rule, she wasn’t attracted to men in suits.
‘Who’s that?’ she asked.
‘Search me.’
Stacey leaned out from behind her partition. ‘It’s Phillip Tomlinson, the new Personnel Director.’
Natalie paused. ‘Tomlinson?’
‘Come in,’ said a woman’s voice.
Natalie opened the door. It was a large room – beige sofa, pictures – up on the twelfth floor. There were two desks, one of them empty. A middle-aged woman sat at the other one. She looked up irritably from her computer screen.
‘Yes, can I help you?’
‘Is Mr Tomlinson around?’
‘He’s in a meeting. Can I ask what it’s about?’
‘I’m collecting some sponsorship pledges.’
Her phone rang. The woman picked it up. ‘He’s still under sedation,’ she said. ‘They’ve given him a new knee.’
As she spoke, Natalie looked at the other desk. On it was a pack of Marlboros and a lighter.
The woman looked up. ‘You’ll have to make an appointment,’ she said.
Stacey, putting on her coat, gazed at Natalie in the mirror.
‘It’s not fair,’ she sighed. ‘I’ve seen you in the canteen, tucking into all those chips.’
‘Yeah, but you should see my tits. Two E’s on an ironing board.’ Natalie wound her scarf around her neck. ‘How’s it going with Derek? Got into his trousers yet?’
Stacey nodded. ‘Last night.’
‘He took long enough, didn’t he?’
‘I tried everything, but then we had this row.’
‘What about?’
‘Leeds’ chances in the Cup.’ Stacey picked up
her bag. ‘I mean, I don’t give a toss but I read this article in Marie-Claire which said that anger’s a turn-on.’
The NT building was L-shaped. Smokers in Phillip Tomlinson’s wing used another doorway. Natalie found him there at tea-time, the next day.
‘Was it your decision, to clobber the smokers?’ she demanded.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘It was way out of order.’ She pointed to his cigarette. ‘Bet they don’t deduct that from your wages.’
‘It was nothing to do with me – er—’
‘Natalie.’
‘Natalie. I only arrived last month.’
‘You’ve even got your own doorway. I suppose I need a place on the board to smoke here.’
‘It’s not specially for directors,’ he said. ‘It just happens to be near my office.’
‘The whole thing’s pathetic.’
Phillip held out the packet. ‘Would you like one?’
Close-up, he had smooth, regular features; he looked like a golfing pro. Not her type. He even wore a polo-neck jumper under his sports jacket. Natalie felt another surprising jolt of desire.
‘I don’t want your poxy cigarettes,’ she said. ‘See, it’s the little things people notice, the people in my position, it’s the little petty things.’ Her voice rose. ‘We’re the ones who keep this place going and if you treat us like shit we leave. It’s so stupid, so bloody uncost-effective, because then you’ve got to get somebody else, haven’t you? Advertise for them and interview them and train them up – and all for a fucking seven minutes!’ She paused for breath. ‘See, we notice seven minutes. So go and tell them to stuff themselves.’
He stared down at her. ‘Wow.’
Natalie turned on her heel and left.
Back in the office she sat at her desk, shaking with silent laughter.
The afternoon raced by. Stacey pressed her fingers into her stomach. ‘I think I’m getting fibroids,’ she said.
Sioban put down the phone, her eyes brimming with tears. The deal on the Scarborough flat had fallen through. ‘It had asbestos in its extension,’ she said. ‘It’s a sign I shouldn’t go. I wasn’t cut out to be the other woman.’