When She Was Bad(25)

But though Paula was braced for Rachel to come through her doorway and call for Amira, the summons never happened. Instead the afternoon ticked on in tense silence. A couple of times Paula tried to smile at Sarah, but the younger woman stared at her computer screen as if her eyes were magnetized to it. Finally, Paula snapped and emailed her.

Everything ok?

Twenty minutes later, the reply pinged back.

No. She has given me a formal disciplinary letter.

Paula stared at the words on her screen. In all the time she’d been working for the company there had only ever been a couple of disciplinary warnings and both for serious abuses. One a woman who’d taken so much stress leave half the office had never even met her, and the other a young man who’d started as a junior but clearly thought it beneath him and openly took time off to go for interviews and assessment days with other firms. Sarah had only been late a couple of times. And anyway, why hadn’t Amira been called in too?

The tense, bad-tempered afternoon seemed never-ending.

Finally, at 5.30, Chloe discreetly gathered her things together and stood up to leave.

‘You off, Chloe? Is that spreadsheet done?’

Paula hadn’t even noticed Rachel getting up, so her high-pitched voice came as a shock.

‘Not quite.’ Chloe’s cheeks were flushed. ‘I’ll come in early tomorrow and finish it off.’

‘Only I need it tonight. I did tell you.’

Chloe stood by her desk, uncertain. Finally she sat back down and turned her computer on again without speaking.



By the time Paula arrived at the pub where Gill’s leaving drinks were being held, she was twenty minutes late and her white shirt was sticking uncomfortably to the small of her back. The guest of honour was sitting alone at a table in the corner nursing a glass of white wine. To her surprise Paula found her eyes pricking with tears at the sight of her former boss. Suddenly those years with Gill seemed like a halcyon era.

‘Sorry. We couldn’t get away.’

Though it was only a week since Gill’s sacking, already she seemed like a stranger, or someone visiting from abroad after a long absence.

‘I was beginning to think you’d all forgotten about me already.’

Despite all the time they’d spent together over the last eight years, some of it in this very pub, Gill seemed ill at ease. Gone was the effortless camaraderie of the office, replaced by an awkwardness that increased as Paula put the bottle of house white she’d bought on the table and struggled to find something to talk about. The trouble was, she felt that bringing up anything to do with the office would be insensitive, given that Gill had so recently been sacked from there. And yet, what else did they have in common? Paula had met Gill’s husband, Martin, a few times at various functions. He was short and bespectacled and worked in a conveyancing firm based in St Albans. They’d had a few conversations, mostly about the nightmarishness of the North Circular and how much more house you got for your money outside the M25. But she’d never seen Gill in her home setting, never really socialized with her outside the official work dos. She knew she sang in a local swing choir and that she and Martin made an annual trip to Spain to walk the Camino de Santiago. But about Gill’s personal life – the things she loved, the things that made her cry, her disappointments, her regrets, her secret hopes – she knew very little.

‘I thoroughly recommend being a lady of leisure,’ Gill said now as they sat self-consciously at a table in the centre of their empty section. ‘Getting up late, going out for brunch, watching Homes Under the Hammer. I absolutely love it.’ Gill’s smile never moved as she spoke, as if it had been glued into place, and Paula felt a shiver of unease.

‘So you haven’t been applying for jobs?’

‘I’ve put out a few feelers – you know, just letting people know I’m available, but I’m not in a rush.’

‘Of course not!’ Paula’s own voice was unnaturally bright. She was relieved when the door burst open and Chloe came in accompanied by Amira.

‘Really sorry,’ said Chloe, hugging Gill tightly. ‘She wouldn’t let me leave.’

Paula remembered then that Gill had given Chloe her first ever job. There was a particular kind of bond formed when that happened, although Paula had occasionally wondered if it was entirely healthy.

Gill visibly perked up, her smile losing the fixed quality it had earlier.

‘What’s she like then? Come on, I want to hear all the gossip.’

‘Oh my God, she’s a total bitch.’ Paula had never seen Chloe so impassioned. She and Amira had poured themselves large glasses of wine from the bottle Paula had bought, and Chloe had already downed half of hers.