‘What does Tom say?’
Amira hung her head as the original tear was joined by another. And then another.
‘I haven’t told him,’ she admitted eventually. ‘He’d be so pissed off if he knew I was buying more stuff when we’ve just got this huge mortgage. But I thought I could pay it back without him knowing.’
Charlie felt suddenly exasperated. ‘How on earth did you imagine you were going to pay it all back if you’re so overdrawn?’
Amira looked up at him and an expression passed over her face that looked suspiciously like guilt.
‘If I tell you something, will you promise not to say anything to anyone else?’
Charlie nodded, although part of him wanted to say no. There were already so many secrets in the office. He didn’t know if he could face being burdened with another. But Amira clearly needed to talk to someone.
‘Rachel called me into her office a while ago. It was completely out of the blue – I didn’t do anything to encourage it.’
Amira was looking at him as if he’d accused her of something and he found himself nodding again, to reassure her, although he had no idea what he was reassuring her about.
‘She asked if I’d be interested in a promotion,’ Amira continued. ‘I said there was nowhere to be promoted to, no vacancy.’
Unease prickled on Charlie’s skin, causing the hair on his arms to stand up.
‘So then she said it was Paula’s job and did I want it. Don’t look at me like that, for fuck’s sake! I said no, OK? I was really straight with her. I said it was underhand. But she kept bringing it up. Again and again. And, you know what? I’d be fucking good at it. And it would be a lot more money, and you know Paula really has been doing it too long. She’s so slow, she’s practically Jurassic.’
‘So you changed your mind about taking it?’
‘Yeah.’ She nodded, looking utterly miserable. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I feel totally crap about it. But I need the money, and the department needs shaking up. Everyone knows Paula’s just treading water until she can retire. So anyway I just figured that soon I’d be earning more money and the bills would all get paid. Why are you smiling? What’s so funny?’
Charlie felt the laughter tearing painfully from him. Rachel was playing them both. What a bitch. What a total bitch.
‘Guess what?’ he asked Amira, still smiling although he actually felt like he might throw up. ‘She offered me that job too.’
Amira stared at him, tears brimming unshed in her eyes, so that her irises looked like brown marbles bobbing under water.
‘And you said yes?’
‘Course not. I did exactly the same as you. I said no a couple of times. But then I started to think about it and how I might as well take advantage of it because she’s going to get rid of Paula no matter what. Let’s face it, she’s just dead wood, isn’t she?’
There was a noise behind him, like a sucking in of breath. Facing him, Amira’s face changed, her mouth opening in horror. Dread rooted him to the spot, not wanting to see what she was seeing. But slowly his head turned, as if pulled by an external force outside his control.
Paula stood in the doorway, her round moon face frozen. Then abruptly it collapsed, the features folding in on themselves.
‘I thought you were my friends,’ she said in a voice so laced with hurt it seemed to be drawn out from somewhere deep inside her ribcage.
‘We are,’ Charlie began. ‘It’s just—’
But it was too late. Paula was gone.
‘Oh fuck!’ Amira said. But Charlie was too ashamed to look at her.
32
Paula
The anxiety, which before had been like an army of tiny ants swarming through her veins, had now turned into an endless oozing panic that pulsed and surged and tsunami’d inside her, sweeping in its wake all that had once been calm and ordered and stable.
Paula left work straight after the scene with Amira and Charlie, and for the first time in her entire working life she didn’t give a reason, nor did she tell anyone she was going. It should have been liberating, but instead her head was churning with the words she’d overheard in the kitchen: ‘dead wood’, ‘slow’, ‘Jurassic’.
All through her worst times with Ian, when she’d come home to a wall of resentment and all those little digs and put-downs that only someone who’s been close enough to know your secret weaknesses and soft points can come up with, the image of herself at work, reliable and responsible, had kept her self-confidence from shattering like the fragile stem of a wine glass. When Cam was playing up and Amy dropped out of sixth form, and she and Ian couldn’t talk about any of it without each blaming the other, work was her refuge – the still point of her turning world. The rest of her life might be crumbling, but there in the office, she was a professional, someone others counted on to hold things together, someone they looked up to.