‘Thanks. Adam’s at his dad’s this weekend so I might go for a drink after work.’ I might need a drink after work. I make a note to text Sophie and see if she wants to meet. Of course she will. She’ll be itching to see how this comedy of errors turns out. I try and make it sound casual, but my voice sounds funny to me. I need to pull myself together. I’m being ridiculous. It’s going to be way worse for him than it is for me. I’m not the married one. The pep talk sentences may be true, but they don’t change the fact that I don’t do these things. This is not normal for me like maybe it is for Sophie, and I feel totally sick. I’m a mess of jittering emotions that can’t settle on one thing. This situation may not be my fault, but I feel cheap and stupid and guilty and angry. The first moment of potential romance I’ve had in what feels like for ever and it was fool’s gold. And yet, despite all that, and the memory of his beautiful wife, I also have a nugget of excitement at the prospect of seeing him again. I’m like a ditzy, dithering teenager.
‘They’re all in a meeting until 10.30, or so Elaine upstairs tells me,’ she says. ‘We can relax.’ She opens her bag. ‘And I didn’t forget it was my turn.’ She pulls out two greasy paper bags. ‘Friday bacon butties.’
I’m so relieved that I’ve got a couple of hours’ reprieve, that I take it happily, even though it’s an indication of how mind-numbing my life routine is that this Friday breakfast is a highlight of my week. But still, it is bacon. Some parts of a routine are less demoralising than others. I take a large bite, enjoying the buttery warm bread and salty meat. I’m a nervous eater. Actually, I’m an eater whatever my mood. Nervous eating, comfort eating, happy eating. It’s all the same. Other people get divorced and lose a stone. It worked the other way for me.
We don’t officially start work for another twenty minutes, so we sit at the small table with mugs of tea, and Sue tells me about her husband’s arthritis and the gay couple next door to their house who seem to be constantly having sex, and I smile and let it wash over me and try not to jump every time I see someone’s shadow fall across the doorway from the corridor.
I don’t see the ketchup drop until it’s too late and there’s a bright red dollop on my cream blouse right on my chest. Sue is there immediately, fussing and dabbing at it with tissues and then a damp cloth, but all she achieves is to make a great chunk of the material see-through and there’s still a pale outline of washed-out red. My face is over-heating, and the silk clings to my back. This is the precursor for the rest of the day. I can feel it.
I laugh away her well-meaning attempts to clean me up and go to the toilet and try and get as much of my shirt under the hand dryer as possible. It doesn’t dry it totally, but at least the lace trim of my bra – slightly grey from the wash – is no longer visible. Small mercies.
I have to laugh at myself. Who am I kidding? I can’t do this. I’m more at home discussing the latest storyline of Rescue Bots or Horrid Henry with Adam than trying to look like a modern, sophisticated woman. My feet are already aching in my two-inch heels. I always thought it was something you grew into, that ability to walk perfectly in high heels and always dress well. As it turns out – for me anyway – there was a small phase of that in the nightclubbing years of my twenties, and now it’s mainly jeans and jumpers and Converse with a ponytail, accessorised with life-envy of those who can still be bothered to make the effort. Life-envy of those with a reason to make the effort.
I bet she wears high heels, I think as I adjust my clothes. More fool me for not sticking with trousers and flats.
The phones are quiet this morning, and I distract myself from the clock ticking steadily around to ten thirty by highlighting the case files on the system for Monday’s appointments, and making a list of those coming up in the rest of the week. For some – the more complex cases – he already has copies of their notes, but I want to be seen as efficient, so I make sure the full list is found. Then I print out the various emails that I think might be valuable or important or forgotten by the management, and then also print out and laminate a list of contact numbers for the hospital and police and various other organisations that he might need. It’s actually quite calming. The-man-from-the-bar is fading in my head and being replaced with my-boss, even if his face is mashing up rather alarmingly with old Dr Cadigan, who he’s replaced.
At ten, I go and put the print-outs on his desk and turn the coffee machine on in the corner so there will be a fresh pot waiting. I check that the cleaners have put fresh milk in the small fridge hidden in a cabinet like a hotel mini-bar, and that there’s sugar in the bowl. After that, I can’t help but look at the silver-framed photos on his desk. There are three. Two of his wife standing alone, and an old one of them together. This one draws me in and I pick up it. He looks so different. So young. He can only be maybe early twenties at most. They’re sitting on a large kitchen table and have their arms wrapped around each other and are laughing at something. They look so happy, both so young and carefree. His eyes are locked on her as if she’s the most important thing on the whole planet. Her hair is long, but not pulled back in a bun as it is in the other pictures, and even in jeans and a T-shirt she’s effortlessly beautiful. My stomach knots. I bet she never drops ketchup on her top.
‘Hello?’
I’m so startled when I hear the slight Scottish brogue that I almost drop the photo, and I struggle to straighten it on the desk, nearly unbalancing the neat pile of papers and sending them tumbling to the floor. He’s standing in the doorway, and I immediately want to throw up my bacon roll. Oh God, I’d forgotten how good-looking he is. Almost-blond hair with a shine I’d kill for on my own. Long enough at the front to be able to run your fingers through it, but still smart. Blue eyes that go right through you. Skin you just want to touch. I swallow hard. He’s one of those men. A breathtaking man. My face is burning.
‘You’re supposed to be in a meeting until ten thirty,’ I say, wishing a hole would open in the carpet and suck me down to shame hell. I’m in his office looking at pictures of his wife like some kind of stalker. Oh God.
‘Oh God,’ he says, stealing the words right out from my head. The colour drains from his face and his eyes widen. He looks shocked and stunned and terrified all rolled into one. ‘It’s you.’
‘Look,’ I say, ‘it was really nothing and we were drunk and got carried away and it was only a kiss, and, trust me, I have no intention of telling anyone about it, and I think if we both do our best to forget it ever happened then there’s no reason we can’t just get along and no one will ever know …’ The words are coming out in a gibbering rush and I can’t stop them. I can feel sweat trapped under my foundation as I fluster and overheat.
‘But’ – he’s looking somewhere between confused and alarmed as he quickly closes the door behind him and I can’t blame him – ‘what are you doing here?’
‘Oh.’ In all my rambling, I’ve forgotten to say the obvious. ‘I’m your secretary and receptionist. Three days a week, anyway. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. I was putting some things on your desk and I saw …’ I nod to the pictures. ‘I, well …’ The sentence drains away. I can hardly say I was having a really close look at you and your beautiful wife like a crazy lady would.
‘You’re my secretary?’ He looks as if he’s been punched hard in the guts. ‘You are?’ Maybe not his guts. Maybe somewhere lower. I actually feel a bit sorry for him.
‘I know.’ I shrug, and pull some no doubt godawful comedy face. ‘What are the odds?’
‘There was another woman here when I came in last month to talk to Dr Cadigan. Not you.’
‘Older, slightly uptight-looking? That would be Maria. She does the other two days. She’s semi-retired now, but she’s been here for ever, and Dr Sykes loves her.’
He hasn’t