Not, of course, that I’d ever tell them that. It wouldn’t do for them to get too complacent.
I have a sneaking suspicion that they know anyway, though.
“But we ought not to detain you, dear,” Eve is saying now. She leans towards me with a meaningful look. “You might want to get straight up to your office, if you catch my meaning. You know who has been looking for you.”
Over her shoulder, Ruby is nodding conspiratorially, her flamingo-shaped earrings dancing against her neck.
I don’t need telling twice. I head for the stairs, mouthing a thank you as I go.
It’s not often that I view my poky little office as a haven. The walls are a depressing sort of magnolia colour which has greyed with age, and the tiny window looks out onto the car park. My desk is wedged into the corner at such an angle that I have to climb into my chair from the side because I can’t pull it back properly. On the whole, I endeavour to spend as little time holed up in here as possible, but today, as I close the door behind me, it presents a welcoming refuge.
In here, I’m safe. No one can get to me.
Even so, it’s with a lurch that my gaze falls upon the ominous-looking pile of grant applications still looming large on the edge of my desk. I really can’t put those off any longer. The odd offhand query as to their state of completion began to be flavoured faintly with vexation a couple of weeks ago. Last Wednesday, it morphed into something more closely resembling a demand. I simply can’t admit to Jeremy that they’re still not finished.
And I can’t carry on avoiding him for much longer either, I concede reluctantly. I’m running out of pillars to jump behind and garbled excuses as to why I can’t stop for a discussion. Sooner or later, the game’s going to be up.
It’s simple enough. I’ll just stay in here all morning, finish these forms, and then I’ll have nothing to worry about. He never needs to know that I hadn’t even started them until yesterday.
Technically, Jeremy and I are supposed to share the paperwork, but somehow that never quite seems to happen. He always finds a reason to foist it all off onto me.
I spend a few enjoyable moments imagining what would happen if I pointed that out to him. He’d probably spontaneously combust.
I shake my head, feeling myself deflate. Alas, whilst that would be undoubtedly a spectacle, I don’t think it’s something I want to instigate just now. There’d be a lot of explaining to do.
Not to mention even more paperwork to fill out.
Pulling the stack of papers towards me, I select the uppermost one and stare at it earnestly. And then I carry on staring at it. To my credit, I stare at it for a full three minutes before slamming it back down on the pile with a sigh.
This is so boring. What kind of malevolent entity invented spreadsheets, anyway?
Sometimes, I wonder about the poor people on the other side of the process. Do they find visitor number projections and diagrams on marketing outreach as tedious as I do? Or are they the kind who love nothing better than a good graph and get a thrill at the prospect of five pages of statistics?
The next thing I know, I’m scrolling through Instagram and when I next look up it’s half an hour later.
Oops. That … wasn’t the plan.
I’m aware that I might not be showing myself in the best light here. I feel I ought to interject and point out in my defence that I’m normally excellent at my job.
Okay, so maybe that’s a bit of a stretch. Pretty good is probably a better description. But, either way, I’m not a slacker. I work hard. I don’t habitually lounge around my office looking at how to do a plum-coloured smoky eye, or watching videos of high-fiving cats.
On the whole, I love what I do. It’s hugely rewarding to walk in here every day and be surrounded by incomparable pieces of art. I know I’m insanely lucky to be able to say that there’s very little about my job which I don’t enjoy.
Paperwork, however, is about the one exception. When I first took this position, I had no idea just how much of it there would be; I was filled with romantic notions about educating people on art history. Of conserving important artefacts. Of promoting culture.
And it’s not that I don’t do all of those things. To an extent. But the sad fact is that by far the biggest preoccupation of a small museum such as this is securing funding. Grant applications are a major part of that; we wouldn’t last a year without them. They’re basically our lifeline.
They are also an assault course of graphs, data, and all the things I most hate in life.
It is soul-destroying. Scratch that, it’s soul-obliterating.
What more do I need to say? I’m just really not a paperwork person. I’m a creative. I do big ideas, not tiny printed figures.
Plus, you know. High-fiving cats. I mean, come on. How can anyone say that’s not important?
Struggling out from behind my desk, I poke my head cautiously round the door, scanning the corridor for signs of life.
All quiet. Excellent. I’m absolutely desperate for a cup of tea. I think this qualifies as a two sugars kind of situation.
I should introduce you to my sugar scale. I developed it whilst at university, and it’s served me well ever since. It goes like this: two sugars for a real emergency, one for mild shock (or particularly malignant period cramps), and none for days when all’s reasonably well and I can’t find any excuse to justify it.
Technically, that should mean that I have no sugar in my tea most of the time. But somehow it doesn’t quite seem to work out like that.
Collecting my cup from the top drawer of my desk where it habitually lives, safe from the clutches of office mug thieves, I slip quietly out. I’m not about to take any chances, although the absurdity of creeping around my own place of work is not lost on me.
I can see the doorway to the cramped staff kitchen area, light gleaming around the edges. I’m only about four paces away when a deep voice rings out behind me, making me stop dead.
“Ah, there you are. I’ve been looking for you all morning.”
I whirl on my glitter-covered heel to discover Jeremy standing there, hands on hips. He doesn’t look pleased, I note. But then, he rarely does.
Surreptitiously, I scan the corridor behind him, trying to work out where he emerged from. Not that it matters much now, in any event. He’s here. And glaring at me as though somehow it’s entirely my fault that he hasn’t been able to track me down sooner.
Which it kind of is. I mean, I have spent the morning hiding from him. But he doesn’t know that, does he?
“Are you on your way downstairs?” he asks briskly. Then, without waiting for an answer, “Good. Me too. We can walk together.”
Mutely, I look at the mug in my hand. Blatantly, I wasn’t on my way downstairs. But either he doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, because he inclines his head towards the staircase impatiently.
“Come along, then. We haven’t got all day.”
Resigned to my fate, I scuttle after him, amazed to find myself struggling to keep up with his pace. For someone who gives every impression of being about ninety years old, he can certainly move fast when he wants to.
As you might have gathered by now, Jeremy is the head curator of the museum, which, regrettably for us both, means that he’s my immediate boss. We’re not exactly what you’d call compatible; he’s run the place since … Well, since