Crazy Paving (4 page)

‘What for?’ said Helly, ‘I don’t like éclairs.’

‘Roger’s birthday,’ said Annette.

‘Who?’

Annette shrugged.

Helly picked up one of the mugs of dessert wine and took a contemplative swig. She pulled a face. ‘Bleeding hell Annette, even I can’t drink this shit!’

‘I’ll deal with it.’

Annette took the three mugs and poured the wine down the sink. She rinsed them and placed them back in the cupboard, upside-down. When she returned, Helly had gone back to her desk but the
éclairs were still sitting on the paper plate next to Annette’s computer. She stopped and gazed at them. Calmly, despairingly, she felt the sweep of destiny. She checked her watch.
Richard would be in his meeting for a while yet. There was time.

She opened the bottom drawer on the right hand side of her desk and withdrew a small key. With that, she opened the top drawer on the left, which contained her personal belongings: hand cream, a
box of tampons and a diskette containing her CV. At the back, there were a number of carefully folded paper bags. You never knew when you might need a paper bag. She drew one out and unfolded it.
Then she slid the plate with the éclairs inside and re-locked the drawer.

She took the back staircase. The ladies’ toilet was on the landing. Inside, she nudged the door of each cubicle gently with her foot to make sure she was alone. She, Joan and Helly were
the only women on their floor so it was unlikely she would be interrupted. She went into a cubicle and locked the door. She lowered the toilet seat and sat down. She pulled the éclairs out
of the paper bag and set the plate down in front of her.

Then, leaning forward, she picked up an éclair and stuffed it almost whole into her mouth. Cream spurted over her chin. She leant further forward so that it would not plop down onto her
skirt, which was all wool and needed dry cleaning. A crust of chocolate fell onto the floor and she picked it up, adding it to the thick sweet mush already in her mouth. She chewed as little as
possible before she swallowed.

She sat up, breathing deeply.

Then she repeated the process with the next éclair. Then she did it again.

Eating the three éclairs took her less than five minutes. She picked up the paper plate and placed it back in the bag. Then she folded it stiffly and placed it on the tray of the sanitary
towel bin to her right. She pulled some toilet paper from the dispenser and wiped her face. As she did, she began to sweat. It always started with sweating. Then she began to feel dizzy. She
slipped from the toilet and lifted the lid. She held her hair back from her face with one hand and grasped the side of the seat with the other. Then she waited for the huge, heaving, glorious rush
– the push towards cleanliness, her punishment, her just deserts.

While his visitors rose and put on their coats, Richard shuffled the papers on his desk. William was fidgeting at his elbow. He looked up at him.

‘It’s just that . . .’ William began.

Richard held his hand up, half closed his eyes, pursed his lips and nodded. As far as he was concerned, the meeting was over. They hadn’t quite got around to the points William had wanted
to cover but there were a few things Richard had to check out first. Young William was proving to be a bit slow on the uptake.

The men from Arnold & Sons were chatting with the architect and making their way to the door. Richard said goodbye, rising from his chair and checking his watch. The others were leaving
too.

As he ushered them out, he caught a glimpse of Helly hovering nearby, waiting to clear the cups. He had some phone calls to make, so he shut the door and returned to his desk. It was ten to
five. He didn’t want to be late tonight.

He had only just sat down when there was a light tap and Helly entered. He looked up with a frown, ready to suggest that she left the crockery until after he had gone, but instead of going to
gather it up she closed the door behind her, sat down in a chair freshly unoccupied by Mr J F Liver of Arnold & Sons Limited and crossed her legs. She looked at him with an expression he had
never seen on her face before; it was a mixture of calmness, arrogance and purpose. He realised that he had never really thought of her as having a range of facial expressions at her disposal,
until now.

‘Can I have a word,’ she said, after a pause. It was not phrased as a question.

He raised his eyebrows and blinked. ‘Monday would be more convenient.’

‘Not for me.’

He looked at her. He reminded himself that she was still a probationer and wondered if he ought to remind her too. This girl had an unfortunate manner. There were plenty of jobless youngsters
out there who did not have unfortunate manners. He waited for her to continue.

‘It’s like this Richard,’ she spoke lightly but without flippancy. ‘I know you’re bent.’

He paused. Then he said, ‘What?’

‘Bent. Bent double. As crooked as they come. You’ve been taking backhanders from Arnold & Sons; from Summerton Limited as well. A few others probably but those are the two I know
about. I suppose they could turn up a few other worms if they looked into it. If someone told them to look into it that is.’

Their gazes met.

Helly looked down at her lap and then back up. ‘I suppose you’re wondering what I want. Now you might be thinking I want money and you’d be wrong. Also, I’m not going to
start acting up and all that. I only want one thing and I’m not going to explain why either. It’s very simple and should be easy; mind you, I don’t know what you decided this
afternoon.’

Richard kept his face impassive.

‘If you gave Arnold & Sons the go ahead then you’re in a bit of trouble. However, you won’t have had time to do a Letter of Intent so I’m sure you can come up with
something. Say there’s been a budget problem or something like that.’

She paused, looking down again at her hands which, for once, were folded demurely in her lap. She was giving him the opportunity to ask her what the hell she was talking about but he remained
silent. Eventually, she looked up again and continued.

‘The compulsory purchase order on Rosewood Cottage in Deptford, to make way for the South-East Line Extension Plan. I want it stopped.’

Richard stared. The phone rang. They both jumped.

Richard grabbed it. There was a pause. Then he said, ‘Tell him I’m tied up. Tell him I’m still in the meeting. It’ll have to wait until Monday . . . yes.’ He put
down the phone.

Helly continued. ‘How you do it is up to you. I don’t much care. Tell them that it isn’t necessary after all, or tell them that you’ve heard there might be a local
campaign. You’re worried about bad publicity. You can swing it. You’re a lot cleverer than people round here think.’ She gave a small smile. ‘You can work around Rosewood
Cottage, no problem. It’s a clear three hundred yards from the main site and there’s no statutory minimum. You can put the workman’s portakabin on the wasteground to the east. You
could use Melford Road for daytime access; you don’t even need to go down Sutton Street.’

Richard took a deep breath. Helly checked her watch. ‘Look Richard. I understand you’re a bit taken aback so I’ll give you the weekend to think about it. I really don’t
give a damn how much money you’re making on the side. In your position I would probably want to screw the shit out of this bunch of bastards too. Good luck to you. All you have to do is think
of an excuse to drop the compulsory purchase and I’ll never mention this again. I’ll just forget everything I know, unless you try and give me the boot of course in which case I go
straight to the top. And by the way, I do have proof. Mind you, if you’ve got any sense you won’t want to get rid of me. It’s much better to have me who knows and doesn’t
care than someone who might find out.’ She rose from her chair. ‘I’m not going to milk this Richard. You’ll be able to forget this conversation happened. Except just this
once. Sorry, but clear away your own coffee cups.’

Annette explained to Mr Javed that Richard was still in his meeting, although she knew full well that he was not. Mr Javed had been trying to get through all afternoon and was
not pleased. He left a number for Richard to try first thing on Monday. She wrote it down and then took the note to Richard.

She rounded the corner in time to see him storming away down the office, briefcase in one hand, pulling his mac on over his suit with the other. The belt from his mac was hanging from one loop,
down to the floor, and the buckle clattered after him as he hurried off, as if a tiny dog was snapping at his heels.

Annette caught the eight eighteen from Hither Green. It was a twelve minute walk to the station so she left the house between eight o’clock and five past; never later or
earlier. She was always on Platform 1 in time, but the train rarely rewarded her punctuality. Sometimes it rained; sometimes the sun shone; sometimes a rainbow flew across the sky and took a
suicidal dive into the backstreets of Catford; but at eight eighteen the eight eighteen to Charing Cross was always stuck in the wilds of Kent, trawling its way towards her through swathes of ever
solid, unoptimistic south-east London travellers.

Her alarm went off at six thirty. First, there was the stagger to the bathroom to run the bath, then the groggy clamber downstairs to make tea. Breakfast was a single slice of fine brown bread,
toasted to a crisp and smeared with Marmite. She would climb the stairs again and sit on the toilet in her bathrobe while she ate, watching her bath froth and fill.

She washed her hair every morning, leaving her towel wrapped round her head while she dried her long pale body. Then came the ritual inspection of her face, the peering and prodding, the
squeezing here and there. She used a magnifying mirror for each square inch, avoiding the overall picture. Thirty-one, she sometimes thought; I am thirty-one and have the oily, bumpy skin of an
adolescent. Soon I will have wrinkles. I will be the only woman in the history of cosmetics to go straight from Clearasil to Oil of Ulay.

Then she would apply moisturiser, and make herself another cup of black tea. Sometimes she would pause in the kitchen, sipping and glancing round at the bare, gleaming surfaces. She kept all her
crockery and utensils in a cupboard, out of sight. She hated clutter. A stranger coming into her home might assume she had only just moved in.

Upstairs, it was time for foundation, powder and blush. She paid particular attention to her eyes, knowing them to be the most prominent feature in an otherwise small, rather flat face. They
were wide-spaced, dark, clear. She applied base tint on the lids, then powder, liner, translucent mascara followed by the eyelash curler and then, coloured mascara – not too much, otherwise
it smeared. The eyes alone took ten minutes.

After her hair was gelled and blow-dried, she plugged in her curling tongs while she dressed. Recently, she had taken to wearing men’s shirts: crisp billowing cotton which crunched when
she put on her coat. She loved white, brilliant white, white so white it made her teeth look slightly yellow. When she was dressed, she would sit on the edge of her bed and curl the ends of her
hair, watching herself in the full length mirror on the wardrobe. Her hair was brown, straight, layered and very fine. No matter how often she had it trimmed it always looked to her as though she
was growing it out. Each morning she would flick and twist and spray, in hope. Each day at work she would go to the Ladies as soon as she got the chance, with a handbag-sized canister of hairspray,
to flick and twist again.

By seven fifty-five, the process was complete and she had five minutes to check the contents of her handbag, find her gloves and button her coat. Mostly, she looked in the mirror again and felt
pleased. It was impossible not to feel pleased after all that effort. She would turn this way and that, slightly, and shake her head. She would imagine herself being glimpsed.

Occasionally, she would despair. Once in a while, as she observed her slim, competent figure, she would be overcome with misery, an existential longing for short hair and good skin, for a look
that looked the same in the middle of the day as in the middle of the night. She would settle for being less attractive if only she could always look the same, regardless of primping or preening or
lotions or devices. Those she met saw careful make-up and gently hanging waves of hair. When she looked at her reflection she saw bad skin and flat, droopy locks – a look guaranteed to give a
fresh surprise each morning.

Any man who takes me on, she sometimes thought, is in for a bit of a shock when he gets up close.

Richard was almost on time. She heard him unlocking his office door and went to pour his coffee.

He looked up as she entered and extended a hand for the cup. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

Then, as she was turning, he added, ‘Take a seat. I need a word.’ She was half-way to the seat when he said, ‘Shut the door.’

Richard called her in for a word two or three times a month. He always asked her to shut the door. The word was usually about a suggested name change for the department or an adjustment to memo
format. It would last ten to fifteen minutes and would involve Annette nodding and frowning slightly while Richard talked. He called it, bouncing ideas off her.

He seemed more relaxed than usual. He did not look as though he wanted to bounce an idea. He took his time, leaning back in his seat sipping from his coffee while she waited. Eventually, he put
down his cup, leant over the desk towards her, and stared.

Annette felt uncomfortable when people met her gaze. It made her wonder if she had plucked her eyebrows recently.

‘How’s Helen getting on?’ Richard said, at last.

Annette frowned slightly. ‘Alright. Timekeeping isn’t brilliant but she does the work okay.’

Richard said, ‘Hmm . . .’

‘Is there a problem?’

Richard sighed. ‘To be honest, Annette, I’m not sure. Something a little tricky has come up and I need your help. I need to take you into my confidence. I know I don’t have to
tell you that confidentiality is very important.’