Life Shift (2 page)

“How did the class go?” she shouted out to him in the kitchen as he got the wine.

“Fine. Boring. Hard. The usual,” he said as he came back into the room with two glasses of wine.

“Did you have the exam back?”

“No, she hadn’t marked it yet.”

He sat on the sofa beside her and pulled her legs onto his lap.

“Missed you tonight.”

“Missed you too,” she said, “And work was a pain today.”

“You work too hard. They take advantage.”

She didn't reply. She didn’t feel like the usual work discussion tonight. Her fault though for bringing it up. Suddenly a thought struck her.

“Damien, have you ever thought of putting carpet out there and maybe a different staircase?”

“No,” he said, “Why would I? I thought you liked the wood.

“Yes,” she said, “I do.”
 

Despite what had happened earlier she slept well that evening and the next day was ready to put the whole experience behind her. It already had the feel of a dream - unreal, all the details blurry. She avoided looking at the mark on her arm.

Throughout the day she was too busy to think about non-work matters anyway. And this was just what she liked. She cleared emails, met with staff, sent through a proposal to her manager. Christine had worked in the council finance department for a number of years. She loved her job – although had learned the hard way not to admit that to many people. They tended to look at her strangely when she did. But Christine had always loved everything about work, about feeling productive and useful. It was when work
 
stopped that she was at a loss. It had always been that way.

Late afternoon everyone started getting ready to go home. Everyone but Christine. Slowly the office became quieter and darker. She realised she was getting chilly and pulled on a cardigan. For some reason the cold and the silence was making her uncomfortable.
 

Suddenly it felt as if the air around her had shifted. She knew someone was standing behind her. She turned around and saw one of her colleagues, Matt, standing and staring at her.

“Hello,” she said, “Are you ok?”

It was a genuine question. He had the strangest, most intense look on his face, making her feel uncomfortable. In the back of her mind she wondered how quickly she could call security if she needed to.

But that was ridiculous. She had worked with Matt for around five years, not closely admittedly, but they knew each other well enough. They had been in meetings together, had some conversations. They weren’t friends but there was nothing to be scared of. Still, the look he was giving her was quite unlike anything she had ever seen from him before.
 

“Matt. Are you ok?” she repeated, this time standing up and taking a step towards him.

He carried on staring at her without a word. But then, without warning, he grabbed her hand. She jumped and tried to pull it back but he held on firm.

“Have you started seeing her yet?” he whispered.
 

“What do you mean?” she replied.

Her words changed something in him. A look of disappointment crossed his face. He dropped her hand quickly and without another word turned and walked away.

She stood frozen in space, shocked, hot, flushed. What had happened? He had never done anything like that before. No one had.
 

She looked down at her hand. Her fingers were tingling. It was the cold. She drew her cardigan closer around her and went back to her seat. What should she do? Should she report him? No. She dismissed the thought. Matt was a good person. She liked and respected him. She didn’t want to make too big a thing of this.

But what had happened? And what had he meant by “Have you started seeing her yet?” The thought of the incident the night before came fleetingly into her mind but she quickly dismissed it. No - he could not have meant that. He said her. And yet… and yet… that was something she had seen – something new?
 

No, it could not be that. She looked behind her again. There was no sign of him. What had he meant? Why had he done that?

She couldn't carry on working now. Her mind was all over the place. She started packing her things away and switching her computer off. She wondered what she would do if she saw him tomorrow. It was possible - he was sometimes in the same meetings as her. Would she say something? What could she say?

And should she tell Damien she wondered as she left the building and made her way to the car park where he was waiting for her. Again she dismissed the thought. There was no way she could tell Damien. He'd probably insist she report it and she'd already decided she was not doing that. No, she wouldn't say a word. And after all there was nothing to say. Not really.
 

“How was your day?” he asked as she got into the car.

“Fine. It was fine.”

She stared out the window all the way home. She could feel him stealing quick glances at her as he drove but he knew better than to push her for conversation after a long day in work. She needed time to come round.

So they drove home in silence. When they pulled up outside the house she realised she didn’t want to go in. She didn’t want to see some strange burgundy carpet and white staircase staring back at her and right now, for some reason she couldn't explain, she felt certain she would.

“Let’s go to the pub for food,” she said to him, “I could do with a treat.”

“I’ve already made a curry,” he said.

“We can reheat that tomorrow. Come on, let’s go out.”

He smiled. “Ok, do you want to change first or go as you are?”

“As I am. If you think I look ok?”

“You always look beautiful,” he said smiling.

She smiled back at him. “Come on then – let’s go.”

When they entered the pub she had a horrible thought for a second that Matt was there. A tall dark-haired man of similar build was standing at the bar, but when he turned to see who had come in she saw that he was different with a beard and a fuller face.

“Are you ok?” asked Damien. He had caught her staring in the direction of the man at the bar.

“Yes I’m fine. Just thought it was someone I knew,” she said. “Shall we sit here?”

She sat down at the table nearest to them and took off her coat. Damien went to the bar and after a few minutes came back with a bottle of red wine and the menu.

She looked at it quickly. The usual. She realised she wasn’t hungry.

“I don’t want anything,” she said “I’ll
 
just have a packet of peanuts or something.”

“No way. You can’t live on that stuff,” he said, jabbing at the wine bottle.

“Don’t knock it over,” she said, grabbing it. “Peanuts will be fine.”

“Chris, you promised me you’d start looking after yourself and eating properly.

“I am, I had salad and jacket potato in work. I’m just too tired to eat.”

“But not too tired to drink,” he muttered, while nevertheless still pouring the wine.

“Don’t start,” she said, going into her bag to find her mobile phone to check texts.

“No texts please,” he said, still angry, “I haven’t seen you all day.”

“Sorry,” she said dropping the phone back into her bag. “So what have you been doing today?”

“Not much,” he said sitting back. He still looked angry but was trying to make an effort.
 
“Only had two clients so it was pretty quiet. Did the shopping.”

“Oh yes,” she said absently.

He looked at her as if he wanted to say something but after a second he looked away and instead opened the menu.

“Well I’m having the lasagne,” he said. “Are you sure you’re not interested.”

She looked at him and for a moment, a split second, she realised it wasn’t him she was seeing but Matt. Matt staring at her with the same intense, hungry expression she had seen earlier that evening. She closed her eyes and opened them again. Damien was looking at her, a strange expression on his face.

“Where were you then?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” she replied.

“You just seemed to drift off, as if you weren’t really here.”

“Just thinking about work,” she said.

“You work too hard,” he replied and then went up to the bar to order his meal.

 
CHAPTER THREE

The rest of the week passed uneventfully. Of course she deliberately avoided any chance of running into Matt by sending a deputy to a meeting she thought he might attend and using the stairs rather than the lift. She knew the mature thing would be to ring him, ask to meet and find out what he had meant - but she couldn’t. The thought of having that conversation with him made her feel queasy. She'd rather just forget about it.
 
And so she avoided him. And by the end of the week the encounter began to feel somewhat unreal, a dim and distant memory.

By the time the weekend came she was feeling more like herself, looking forward to a morning working out at the gym and an afternoon catching up on her reading. Damien would be at the football.

She had been working out at the gym for over a year now – gradually getting fitter and stronger. Mostly she ran – pounding away at the treadmill, lost in the world of her iPod.
 
Starting to run had been hard at the beginning. She had nearly given up several times but had somehow stuck with it, the memory of an unfortunate tagged photograph on Facebook a good motivator. At the same time she had started watching her calories and each week had seen a steady decrease in her weight. Over six months she had lost four stone.

People were still reacting to her weight loss. In work it was common not to run into some people for months on end (indeed she was hoping for this very thing with Matt). When she saw someone she had not seen in a while she always saw a look of uncertainty cross their faces – was it her? Then came recognition followed by surprise and finally they would usually (but not always) say something.

“You look fantastic!”

“How much weight have you lost?”

“How did you do it?”

And more recently –

“Stop now.”

“Don’t lose anymore.”

“You’ve lost enough.”

“You don’t want to look ill.”

She usually just smiled and said thank you, told them that she had watched her calories, taken up running at the gym, was just maintaining now. But she always felt awkward. To look pleased suggested arrogance, big-headedness, vanity. But deep inside she was pleased. She felt losing four stones had been an achievement. At night she would sometimes run her hands over her hip bones and delight in their sharpness. If she ran her hands under her breasts she could feel her rib-cage. And the muscles in her thighs were now hard and defined.

But was she living a healthy lifestyle? No not really. In fact not at all. She skipped meals, felt guilty if she ate anything high in calories and cut back further on food for alcohol. Always ongoing in her head a mental bargaining – if I skip this I can have that extra glass of wine tonight.

She knew this was wrong. In fact not only was it wrong it was self-sabotage. Because she and Damien had been trying - sort of - for a baby for some years now. But nothing had happened. In the beginning they put it down to the fact that both of them were overweight. But then they lost the weight and still nothing happened. She knew stress could be a factor and yes she was stressed. But she also knew alcohol could prevent conception. Yet still she found herself unable (unwilling) to make that change in her lifestyle. Work is hard, she’d rationalise. I need a little something to wind down. But it annoyed Damien. She knew that. He didn’t exactly have a problem with her drinking alcohol
 
- he’d sometimes
 
suggest a bottle of wine
 
himself. But his frown of disapproval when she suggested a second glass (bottle) of wine, which she always did, was appearing more and more often.
 

And she knew she had to be careful. Alcoholism ran in her family and various studies she had read suggested it was genetic. Her grandmother on her father’s side had been an alcoholic, her uncle on her mother's side too.
 
And her father had had his difficulties. Indeed both her parents still drank more than they should, her mother weepy when drunk, her father moody. Christine knew it was something on which she had to get a grip. But she had yet to do so - at least not in the evenings and weekends when the need to wind down and chill out was overpowering.

But at least she was fitter now, she said to herself as she left the gym after her workout. She had run for forty minutes and rowed for twenty and the endorphins were starting to flow.

Damien hadn’t come with her to the gym today although he usually did. He was taking his father to the football and had left early to drive over to his house. So Christine had walked to the gym, enjoying the unexpected warmth of the bright winter sun.

Later on she would blame tiredness from the gym for what happened on her way back to the house. She had waved goodbye to the receptionist and stepped outside. Rummaging in her bag she had found her sunglasses and put them on. She crossed the road and started walking down the main road back to the house.

“How much longer Mum?” said a voice beside her.

She looked around, expecting to see a mother and a child behind her. But what she saw was a small dark-haired girl, no more than five years old, walking beside her. She looked behind her. There was no one there.

The little girl smiled up at Christine and reached out to hold her hand.
 

 
Teresa

The word flashed in Christine’s mind the second their hands touched. She snatched her hand away. Who was this girl? The girl looked up at her, confused, a flash of hurt across her face.

“What’s wrong Mum?”

Christine stopped walking and the girl stopped too. They stood looking at each other.

“Who are you?” asked Christine.

The girl didn't reply but started to laugh, the confused hurt look had vanished from her face and she now seemed to find it all funny.
 

“Oh Mum, you’re doing it again!”