Captured (4 page)

The remainder of the month passed rapidly. Time always seemed to speed up in London when the weather was reasonably good, and a wet and cold February had turned into an unseasonably warm and dry March. For Kirsty, it passed by especially fast, as she wrapped up her life in London and prepared for her trip. She did as much of this as she could at work, when she wasn’t sitting with Daniel, ostensibly to hand over her workload. Daniel was taking her other client on too, the much less prestigious Thompson Fund.

Outside of work, she spent most of her free time with Daniel. She hadn’t heard from Simon; she presumed he was out of the country on business, but had no way of knowing since he didn’t return her calls or respond to her messages. She wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to say to him, but felt strange about the way things had ended. Grace’s best efforts still hadn’t uncovered any more details about what had happened all those years ago.

Lost in her reverie, Kirsty didn’t notice the small crowd that had begun to gather, slowly shuffling forward to encircle her desk, until Richard cleared his throat officiously. She looked up, startled, cramming the last of her personal effects into a bulging plastic folder with the rest of the clutter she had accumulated over the past three years. She turned around and smiled at the assembled mob, realising that she knew hardly anything about the majority of them, despite have worked with most of them for three years. Simon hadn’t shown up.

Richard cleared his throat again, drawing a chorus of obsequious titters. Kirsty’s heart sank, as the corners of her mouth locked upwards in a forced grin.

“Kirsty first came to work for me almost three years ago now, when she first joined the graduate program. She provided invaluable assistance, and at the end of the year, I invited her to join my team full-time. She has proven herself to be an excellent multi-tasker, although her time-management skills have become debatable. Which is why...” (Kirsty noticed the small square parcel in his hand for the first time) “... we thought you should have this.” He handed her the package, sparking another round of giggles. Tearing off the paper, she forced a laugh when she unveiled a small analogue alarm clock, obviously taken from the marketing cupboard, judging by the company logo plastered on its face.

“Joking aside,” Jones continued, “I would like to thank Kirsty for her contribution to my team and to wish her every success in her travels and in her future endeavours.”

Everyone clapped enthusiastically, before looking to Kirsty expectantly.

“Thanks Richard,” she responded. “And thanks everyone for coming to see me off. It’s been a pleasure working with you all. As my email said, my leaving party will be at the Grey Cat this evening, I hope you can all make it.”

The crowd dispersed quickly. Turning back to her desk, Kirsty knelt down to grab her handbag from the floor  where she had kicked it earlier. Jamming the folder into the already bulging bag, she put on her coat.
Exit, stage left,
she thought.
Almost.
She sat back down on her chair and hurriedly rifled through the pile of documents that remained on her desk. Having separated them into two piles, she hurried to Richard’s office and placed one on his desk, deliberately knocking over one of the neat piles. After feeding the other bundle into the confidential document bin, she returned to her desk and typed a quick list to Richard before shutting down her machine. The only things left on her desk were her handbag and the old photo. It had become almost talismanic to her: it reminded her of the moment when her life had started taking its new direction. She picked it up and placed it carefully in the side pocket of her bag.

She surveyed the office emotionlessly on her way to the exit: the endless warren of glass walls had begun to feel like a prison during her final months there. The kitchenette was where she had been collared into corporate small talk on a daily basis, and the row of glass-walled rooms along the wall held only memories of appallingly frustrating conference calls where nothing was ever really said.

In the corridor, she pressed the lift call button repeatedly -- eager to escape now that she was so close -- drawing an irritated glance from the besuited man waiting beside her in the lift lobby. She looked away from him smiling. She fought to contain the growing euphoria within her; the ‘Friday feeling’ magnified a thousand-fold. Skipping into the lift, she punched the
G
button with glee; the only obstacle still standing on the path to freedom was her leaving party.

“There she is, the intrepid adventurer herself!” boomed a ruddy-faced Richard, as Kirsty walked into the bar.

It was standard fare for Canary Wharf: groups of men in shiny Italian wool suits, colourful shirts and loud ties; and women in smart tailoring, stood in loose circles around their reserved tables, alternatively braying with sycophantic laughter and speaking seriously in their jargon-heavy dialect.

Kirsty’s own group was no exception. Forcing a smile, she promised herself that she could leave after two hours, and approached the bar to start a tab. Company tradition dictated that the departing employee paid for drinks for the night. The bank had indirectly contributed a significant portion in the past via expense accounts, but this input had become minimal in recent years, with the increased scrutiny of expenses.

Richard was deep in conversation with Stuart MacKinsey at the group’s periphery when Kirsty returned with a glass of wine. As she arrived, several colleagues eyed her expectantly, waiting for the polite moment when they could make a dash for the bar tab without giving the appearance that that was their main reason for showing up.

She listened attentively as MacKinsey and Jones discussed an upcoming offering for British Foods. She nodded and tried her best to look enthralled as she listened to her colleague Susan’s seemingly endless story about the seventeenth floor receptionist and some old guy from the compliance team. She had several perfunctory conversations with various other colleagues, all roughly following the same script.

When she had spoken to everyone, Kirsty pushed her way to the bar for the second time.  People had been ordering drinks for her all evening – they were all very generous when she was footing the bill. There she found Daniel, sitting on a stool and sipping what looked like a whisky.

“Didn’t feel like joining the party?” she asked with a slight slur. She scanned the room before discreetly reaching out and stroking his lower back.

He smiled. “Long day,” he murmured, slipping his arm around her waist and pulling her towards him.

“I’m ready to leave when you are,” she whispered in his ear, as she signed her bar tab.

“You’ve moved on pretty quickly.”

Kirsty spun around, shocked.

“Simon! I didn’t think you were coming,” she stammered. She had included him on her farewell email, but hadn’t received a response. She hadn’t seen him since that day in the canteen weeks before, and had not expected to hear from him before she left.

She smiled at him awkwardly. So much had surfaced since they last saw each other that she didn’t know what to say. “I’m glad you made it,” she said inanely, playing with the receipt in her hand.

He turned his lips upwards and flashed his teeth; it should have looked like a smile, but his eyes were blank. “I thought it’d look weird if I didn’t see you off.” He swayed on the spot, looking at Daniel with undisguised loathing. “Don’t let me delay you.”

“Simon, it’s not...”

Daniel looked awkward. “I’ll wait for you outside Kirsty, shall I?”

She looked at him and shrugged.

“Look it’s not what it looks like, it’s nothing...” she continued once Daniel had pushed through the crowd away from them.

“Shut up Kirsty,” Simon hissed.

She squeezed her palms against her temples. “God Simon, you broke up with me, remember?”

“I know,” he slurred. “But you don’t understand.”

“Well help me understand then?” she looked around the bar, glad that no one was paying them any attention. “Come on, let’s get you a cab.”

He shook his head, scowling.  “You’re sleeping with him, yeah?”

“No, I...I’m not. Look, let’s just go.”

“You’re lying, just go. He wins again. The one time I’m anyways happy and that bastard ruins it, he’s... I’m going to kill him, I’ll...”

“Simon,” Kirsty interrupted, inching backwards. “I have to go. You should go home.” She turned and walked away.

“Oh darling, I don’t know why you had to leave that good job, and for what? To gallivant around the world? What are you going to do when you come back? The economy’s not in very good shape you know.” Kirsty’s mother didn’t share her friends’ enthusiasm for her resignation.

“Mum I need to do this. Anyway, it’s not like I was doing brilliantly there, maybe I’ll find a better job when I come back with my head cleared, I might be more excited about the job.”

“Can’t you take a career break or something?”

Kirsty hung up the phone in frustration, not in the mood for the conversation that had become a ritual since she’d announced to her parents that she was leaving. Her parents had left the poverty of 1980s Glasgow for London. Although they were reasonably well off now and had retired to a house beside the sea near Brighton, their earlier struggle still resonated, and they couldn’t understand Kirsty’s willingness to leave a well-paying job.

She tip-toed back into her bedroom, and searched the bedside table for aspirin. Picking up her handbag, she noticed a light flashing on the clunky older model phone she’d borrowed from her brother. She unlocked the keypad and noticed that she’d missed several calls since putting in her SIM card the evening before.

Daniel stirred beside her as she sat on the edge of the bed and dialled her voicemail.  She listened to four messages from Simon, which became increasingly incoherent. He had obviously ignored her advice to go home.

“What is it?” Daniel sat up and sleepily nuzzled the back of her neck, pulling her back into bed.

“Stop,” she laughed, standing up. “I need to finish packing.”

“What’s the matter?” he asked, noticing her expression.

“Nothing, just some weird voicemail messages from Simon.”

He frowned. “He’s still bothering you?”

“He was just drunk, I think,” she smiled and leaned across the bed to kiss him. “Look at you, all big and angry! I don’t need you to fight my battles; I can take care of myself. And now, I need to go pack.”

Daniel smiled. “I can take a hint. I should probably get out of your way,” he said, reaching to the ground for his shirt.

“Here. Drink this,” Grace said, handing Kirsty a glass of spitting purple liquid as she walked back into Grace’s tiny kitchen.

“Ugh, what is it?”

“Alka Seltzer, with Ribena to mask the taste,” Grace chimed back.

“Nice. Thanks. I can’t believe we stayed up so late,” Kirsty squeezed her eyes shut and downed the fizzing concoction.

Grace laughed. “Who knows when we’ll see each other next; we had months’ worth of talking to do.” She opened the fridge. “Who was that on the phone?”

“Just Daniel calling to say goodbye,” she replied, placing the glass down on Grace’s kitchen table. “I was supposed to meet him for coffee before I left but something’s cropped up.”

“You alright?”

Kirsty nodded. “Yeah, fine. I knew I was leaving. I just wish my head didn’t feel like someone was hitting it with a hammer. I need to be at the airport in three hours.”

“You’ll be fine,” Grace returned to the table with two steaming mugs of coffee and a plate of butter-soaked croissants. “Listen, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I said. About flying over to visit you?”

“And?”

“I’m going to try and get some time off.”

Kirsty clapped her hands together. “Brilliant!”

“I don’t know dates yet, it’ll depend on our workload, but if I can get the time then I’ll try and take it. I’ll keep you posted.”

“I won’t hold my breath but it’d be so much fun if you did!”

“Final call for flight 437 to Singapore.” Kirsty raced through Departures, wondering if she had time to stop at one of the newsagents. She and Grace had dawdled and left Grace’s flat far too late, with Grace insisting on accompanying her all the way to Heathrow.

Deciding she had a few minutes to spare, she stopped and began to flick through some of the magazines on display, wondering what she was going to do to amuse herself on the fourteen hour flight. It took her a few moments to realise that the unfamiliar ring tone she could her was coming from one of her numerous bags. She hurried out of the shop and dropped them on the ground, lifting each one to her ear in turn.

The tiny screen read ‘private number’. It was Simon, she realised with a jolt. She didn’t know anyone else who repressed their number, and it was Sunday afternoon. She had tried calling him twice in the two days since her leaving drinks. Despite her revulsion at his actions, she desperately missed his friendship, and wanted to share her excitement about her new adventure with him.

“Hello, Simon?” she yelled, trying to hear over the cacophony of the departures terminal.  She was still breathless from running the length of the terminal from the security area. There was silence on the other end. She frowned as the non-stop PA system suddenly registered with her.