When She Was Bad(48)
A slight figure stepped out from behind an outbuilding, where presumably he’d been lurking all this time. Sarah couldn’t remember ever seeing the company boss outside of the office, and had never spoken to him directly. He had thinning sandy hair the same colour as his eyelashes, and today he was wearing expensive-looking Italian shoes and grey trousers that certainly didn’t look like ‘active wear’ – though as a concession to informality he’d teamed them with a navy-blue polo shirt that still bore the creases from the shop shelf. Beneath his golf-course tan he wore an expression that could either have been a painful smile or a look of grim resignation. Sarah thought about the disciplinary warning and the thing she hadn’t yet told anyone. This was the man who’d be making the ultimate decision about what happened to her. And now she was expected to crawl on her stomach in front of him, wearing a nylon Afro wig.
Will whispered to the red-faced woman in charge of the sales and marketing team and then put his hand up, signalling for attention.
‘Right, guys. First off we have the obstacle race, but we don’t want you to just run through the course as you are, because that would be boring, right? So we’re going to sex things up a little bit. What we want first is for you to get into pairs within your teams.’
Sarah felt a stab of remembered trauma, a legacy from schooldays when it was social suicide to be the one singleton who had to pair up with the teacher. She grabbed Charlie.
‘Quick, for God’s sake be my partner before I have to cosy up to Mark Hamilton.’
They looked around. Amira had paired up with Chloe, Rachel with Ewan, leaving poor Paula standing alone attempting a ‘good sport’ smile.
‘Looks like it’s you and me,’ Mark Hamilton told her, trying his best to sound as if this was a delightful outcome.
‘Right,’ yelled the red-faced woman in an unmistakable Antipodean accent. ‘I haven’t introduced myself to everyone yet. My name is Yvette and I’m in charge of this bunch of reprobates.’ Cue a dutiful cheer from sales and marketing. ‘The aim of this exercise we’re about to do is to engender a sense of cooperation. Working together.’
‘Thanks so much for explaining what cooperation means,’ whispered Charlie.
‘So, one member of each team is going to complete the course while the other one shouts instructions from the side, but the complication is that the person doing the course is blindfolded.’
‘Bloindfolded,’ parroted Charlie in her ear.
‘Well, baggsy you’re the one being bloindfolded. There’s no way I’m doing that.’
‘Oh come on, Sarah. You know how crap I am at any kind of physical activity. Remember when we tried to do Ooops Upside Your Head at the Christmas party?’
‘Yes, but that was after ten pints of wine. You’re doing it, Charlie. I’m not even going to discuss it.’
Something in her voice, some edge of desperation perhaps, stopped him, mouth open ready to protest.
The race seemed never-ending. They had to take it in turns to compete, a pair from each team racing against each other. By the time Sarah and Charlie were up, second from last, their team was trailing by one to two. Amira and Chloe had won their race – just – while Paula’s reluctance to raise her voice to the company boss meant Mark Hamilton had spent a lot of time gazing blindly around, shouting, ‘Where now?’ into the ether.
‘If that wig feels slippery to the touch, it’s not going anywhere near my head,’ Charlie warned Sarah. ‘Just think of all those sweaty skulls that have already been in it.’
They were pitted against a duo of twenty-somethings from Sales and Marketing who delighted in playing to the crowd, making exaggerated limbering-up moves at the starting line and then the blindfolded one staggering about like Frankenstein’s monster while his partner cracked an imaginary whip behind his back.
‘Please God let this be over quickly,’ said Charlie as Will tied the blindfold tightly over his eyes.
‘You OK?’ Will asked, catching sight of the plaster on Charlie’s arm. ‘That looks nasty.’
‘I’m fine,’ said Charlie. ‘Extreme tin-opening injury.’
Ewan was jumping up and down on the balls of his feet.
‘There’s still time to catch up,’ he said urgently. ‘Just hold them off for this one and then Rachel and I will smash it in the next round.’
As soon as the whistle went, their opponents dropped the comedy act and revealed their competitive side.
‘Forward, forward. Hit the floor! Wriggle, wriggle, faster. Come on!’
By the time they were at the second stage – the hoops – Charlie was still attempting to find the entrance to the net tunnel.