Five Go Glamping (21 page)

I asked at the desk where I could find her and I made my way across the concourse with my legs wobbly from nerves and the long journey.

On the ward, the sisters told me where she was and I rushed along the corridor to her room. I entered as quietly as I could and found her in the bed looking weak and frail.

Her eyes opened as I entered the room.

‘Oh Doris.’ I said, barely able to contain the emotion in my voice. ‘What have you been doing?’ She was hooked up to beeping machines and wearing an oxygen mask which she struggled to lift up.

‘Fiona. I’m so sorry love, I didn’t have anyone to put down on the form. I didn’t have anybody.’

I went over to the bedside and she took my hand. ‘Thanks for coming. Hope I didn’t spoil your holiday.’

I shook my head. ‘No, Doris, you didn’t,’ I said.

Connor did a perfectly good job of ruining that for me – and anything he didn’t ruin, I did a pretty good job of ruining myself. But none of it seemed to matter now that I was sat here with Doris who’d had a heart attack and hadn’t had anyone else in the world to call and had put me on her form as next of kin. Poor Doris. Nothing else seemed to matter really, not work, not a silly holiday fling, certainly not Connor.

‘Tell me all about it, love.’

I mostly told Doris about the scenery and the views of the sea and she told me how she used to love it on the south coast but she hadn’t been on holiday in years and I felt so sad for her. All those years of listening to customers and their silly complaints and I hadn’t really listened to Doris. I didn’t realise how lonely she was.

‘I’m terribly worried about the cats Fiona. Do you think you’d be able to pop round and keep an eye on them?’

‘Of course, Doris, I’ll look after them.’

‘My keys are in this side cabinet.’

‘Sure. Don’t worry.’

I stayed for a while and we chatted some more about the weekend. I told her about Sam and about Connor.

‘All seems so silly now.’

‘Love’s never silly, sweetheart,’ she said.

It surprised me to hear Doris talk about things like this. She sounded so authoritative on the matter. I’d been there for less than an hour or so when I went and saw the ward sister who informed me Doris was making good progress but needed a bit of rest.

Steph, Sinead, Kirk and Brian Harvey met me outside. I wanted to go home and get changed before I went over to check on Doris’s cats. Steph dropped me home last and asked if I wanted her to come with her, but I told her it was fine.

Back at my flat, I found the scrawny moggy mewing on the doorstep, waiting for me. My taxi arrived and I scooped him up and put him in my holdall.

‘Come on you,’ I said to him. ‘One more won’t make any difference.’

At Doris’s house, two of the three cats were waiting for me at the door. Doris had given me instructions about which cat liked which food. They all had little individual bowls, but I couldn’t really tell the difference between them, so I spooned out piles of the stuff onto a huge plate and they all came running. The size of one of them surprised me. My cat didn’t like the look of him and was a bit timid, but the lure of food soon meant he came running. They soon polished off the lot and then dispersed and I made myself a cup of tea and went into Doris’s living room.

Her flat wasn’t how I expected it to be, it was bright with lots of modern furniture. The only things that were old-fashioned were a few of the framed pictures on the wall. There were a couple of wedding photos, from the sixties I guessed. I thought it must have been a relative of Doris, but I wondered if Doris had been married.

I found myself thinking about what Doris may have planned for in her life, what her dreams must have been. I wondered if she had planned and plotted so she could own this big house and rattle around in it all by herself. I wondered if she was happy.

I slumped on Doris’s sofa and kicked off my shoes, getting ready to curl up and go to sleep when I was joined one by one by the cats on my lap. I took my phone out to take a snap of them and I thought about what Sam said about uploading my life. It had only been hours since I saw him and I was missing him terribly. I scrolled through my phone pictures, and found the one of the view from the cliffs and his words echoed in my head. I smiled when I thought about the days spent working in the kitchen and Sam mocking me for planning everything and then I thought about Doris and what had happened to her and it hit me with full force – with all of the planning I did in the world, you could never really be sure of anything.

Another cat came and joined me on the settee. There were four cats. I had gone full mad cat lady.

Chapter Twenty

It was Thursday when I went back into work. I’d stayed at Doris’s most of the time and she’d come home the day before. She was positive about things and took a liking to her new cat. I picked a few cat hairs off my coat as I entered the office and the beneficial bacteria ladies whispered as I walked past. I paused briefly at my desk, it was strange to see no one there, then I went to Juliet’s office so she could sack me.

I didn’t bother knocking the door. I shook my umbrella outside her room and used her hat stand to put it in.

But I wasn’t met by Juliet and was surprised to see Mr. Floyd, the owner of the company, at her desk. He stood up and shook my hand.

‘Fiona. Hi. Have a seat,’ I calmly and without any struggle took my coat off and put it on the back of the seat.

‘I hear you’ve, how shall I put it? Encountered a few issues lately?’

‘You could say that, but it’s fine. Look I know I’m getting the sack here, to be honest I was expecting Juliet to be here, but it’s fine – honestly. If you could sack me and I’ll get out of here. I’ve got stuff to do.’ I wasn’t exactly sure what my ‘stuff to do’ was going to be any more.

‘I believe you’ve been a great help to Doris these last few days. How is she?’

I nodded. I didn’t want to talk about it because I knew if I did, I’d choke up – so I offered a ‘Yes, Doris is doing well.’ And then my thoughts turned to Juliet and how she’d called me in that day. ‘Is Juliet coming?’

‘Juliet is, how shall I put it? No longer with the company.’

‘Oh?’ I said.

‘Doris called me. As a long-serving, very much appreciated member of staff, I was shocked to learn what happened, about how Juliet has treated various members of staff, yourself included. So she’s been let go. Which is actually why I wanted to talk to you.’

‘Oh?’ I said again, shuffling in my seat now.

‘As you know, we’re streamlining the company and hoping only the best staff will stay with us. Redundancies will of course be full and voluntary if necessary. So if it’s okay with you, I’d like to offer you her job.’

‘Oh.’ I said for the third time, berating myself as I hadn’t realised this was going to be a job interview.

‘I have a contract here and if you’d like to stay with us in a role as West Midlands regional manager, then we’d be delighted to have you.’ He pushed a piece of paper towards me and I was reading the words regional manager and my name on it. Then I watched him take the pen from his shirt pocket and make a cross on the part that said ‘Signature of employee’ with my name printed on it. My eyes widened and I took the pen he offered, ready to sign.

‘But this is Juliet’s job,’ I said.

‘That’s right.’ he said.

‘And now it says my name on it.’

‘Yes,’ said Mr Floyd.

Juliet’s salary was astronomical, more than enough to start getting my five year plan back on track. It wasn’t working in food development like I had wished for, but it meant I could have pretty much anything else I wanted. Most things anyway.

I signed it, I picked my coat up, put it on without any bother and left, shaking Mr Floyd’s hand.

‘So, let’s say you can start tomorrow. We’ll get things set up for you then.’ As I left the office Phil in IT started a slow hand clap. But no one carried it on, in fact everyone went back to work as though nothing had happened and then Phil pretended he hadn’t been clapping in the first place.

On the way home, I passed the Millennium Apartments and stopped to take a look. I saw the sales office was open and I went in. The sales assistant worked out some new details for me and handed me a glossy brochure with a photograph of the swimming pool on top. With my new salary, I’d be able to afford this apartment on my own, without Connor. Even though I didn’t want to live in the city centre, I wanted to know that I could if I wanted to.

I flagged a taxi down on Broad Street and asked him to take me round to Mum and Dad’s where I could tell them the news.

Mum answered the door, looking slightly anxious.

‘We have a visitor,’ she said.

Sitting in the living room, drinking tea and looking like nothing had happened… was Connor.

‘I’ve been to your flat, a few times. You weren’t there. I came to see if you were here. You’re not answering my calls.’ I wasn’t answering his calls because I had blocked his number. I couldn’t believe the nerve of him.

‘Fiona, look I’m sorry about what happened at the festival…’

Mum interrupted, ‘Why what happened at the festival, why was I not told about this?’

‘And that girl,’ Connor continued. ‘Well, that’s all she was, just a girl. I hadn’t heard from you and…anyway that doesn’t matter now. It was when you said you’d lost your job, I panicked and I was angry because of all the saving we’ve done.’

At this point Mum was wringing her hands together. ‘You’ve lost your job?’ she said horrified.

‘And when I came back…I realised, it was you I wanted to be with and it doesn’t matter if you’ve lost your job. We can still try and get the apartment.’

‘Well, guess what. I haven’t lost my job. In fact, I’ve had a promotion. So all I’ll be needing from you is half the money we’ve saved for the last six years and hopefully I’ll never have to see you again.’

Mum was muttering to herself ‘A promotion, well I never.’

‘About the money,’ he said.

As soon as he said that I had a pretty good idea what he was going to say. It made perfect sense. He hadn’t wanted to be with me at all. All his desperation for us to stay together was because he’d probably already spent the lot. He’d have made some terrible investment or booked some venue and not made enough to cover it. He probably wanted to keep us together so he could see if he could claw the money back or worse, keep me adding to our savings so he could use it on another useless investment.

‘Let me guess,’ I said. ‘There is no money.’

He put his head in his hands.

‘I’m sorry, I’ll get it back for us, I promise. I’m going to get a break any time now. I know how much it means to you,’ he said. ‘The apartment, living in town. It was our dream.’

After a moment of looking at his stupid pleading knobhead face, I answered him.

‘No, Connor, it was your dream. You didn’t ask me what mine was.’ I said.

‘What?’ he said annoyance in his voice.

‘You didn’t ask me what my dream was.’

‘What are you talking about?’ he said.

At that point Mum came back into the living wielding the lid of the Massive Saucepan.

‘You get out of here, you thieving, womanising shithead’ she was shouting. She took a swoop at his head. Then she rolled her sleeves up and said ‘You get out of here, you snivelling little shit.’ Connor was up and leaving for the door when Mum gave him an enormous kick up the arse that sent him flying through the living room and out the door into the garden where he landed on the grass.

‘I’ll pay you back, I’ve got some gigs lined up, I’ll get you the money…I love you, Fiona.’ he said, scrambling to get up.

‘You don’t love anyone but yourself,’ I said, slamming the door.

‘I’ve never liked him from the start,’ said Mum.

I left a little while after that. Dad had arrived and he and Mum were both concerned about the money Connor had spent. I assured them it didn’t matter. And it actually didn’t. Money wasn’t everything, I told them, and I believed it. Sam had shown me that. They were desperate to know all about the new job and I was vague, said it involved a bit of travelling and I might not be about this week, or the next depending on what happened. Once they were convinced I was okay, I hugged them and made my way back into town and back to work.

*

A few days later, Steph, Sinead and Kirk came to see me off at the station. ‘But when will you be back?’ said Kirk sulking as he passed Brian Harvey to me for a cuddle. Brian licked my face and whimpered and I squeezed him.

‘I don’t know,’ I said.

‘Do you promise you’ll ring us when you get there?’ sniffed Sinead.

‘I promise.’

‘She’ll be too busy,’ Steph said. ‘I’ll bet the first thing she’ll be doing when she gets there is having a shh–’

‘Chardonnay,’ we all shouted.

Steph hugged me and was squashing Brian Harvey when she uncharacteristically started snivelling.

‘Look, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I might be back tomorrow,’ I said.

My train pulled in, so I gave Brian Harvey a kiss on the head, handed him back and got on my train.

*

I had to change trains at Bristol and wait for an hour.

Suddenly in the huge station, it felt as if I were the only person there and I panicked and thought about getting the train back home. But an encouraging call to Steph meant I was back on the platform in no time.

A train journey to Weymouth and bus ride and a taxi later, I was there.

I wondered briefly if I had done the right thing, going back into work a few days before.

By the time I had arrived the beneficial bacteria bitches were having their lunch and I walked into the kitchen and helped myself to a yoghurt that wasn’t mine. Then I went in to see Mr. Floyd.

‘It’s looking like a no.’ I said. ‘To the job, it’s a no thanks,’

‘Fiona,’ he said ‘you do realise what we are offering you here?’

‘I do.’ I said. ‘But no, thank you.’

‘If you think the responsibility is too much then we’re happy for you to continue with Doris’s role perhaps and provide all the training you’ll need.’

‘No, I’ll take the redundancy instead please.’