When She Was Bad (3 page)

‘Glad you all decided to show up finally.’

Rachel’s high, girlish voice, so at odds with her fearsome reputation, came as a shock. She gazed steadily around at each of them in turn, until they were all shuffling their feet or staring down at the carpet.

‘I’m aware a lot of you will be feeling upset about Gill’s leaving and concerned about your own futures here. I’m not going to sugar-coat things. The department is in a precarious state. It’s not entirely Gill’s fault. She did a commendable job here for several years, but the industry has changed beyond recognition and the department failed to change with it. My job is to turn us around so we become more effective and super-attractive to new clients. But I’m not going to lie, it’s going to be painful, and there may well need to be some further staff restructuring. I’ve been brought in to make the hard decisions and that’s what I intend to do. I hope you’ll all give me your utmost cooperation. After all, we ultimately want the same thing – a successful, profitable department we can be proud of.’

Rachel flashed a smile that was gone almost as soon as it began, but still she remained in place, her eyes sweeping around. Amira attempted to hold the new manager’s gaze when it alighted on her, digging her nails into her palm, but in the end she looked away feeling as if she’d conceded something.

‘Right. I’ll be calling each of you into my office individually over the next couple of days so I can find out a bit more about you and how you see your role in the organization. And then we’ll take it from there.’

She half turned, but Chloe stepped forward, practically blocking her way. Amira groaned when she saw that the willowy office assistant actually had her hand in the air like a small child in the classroom.

‘Rachel, hi. Just wanted first to say “welcome” and secondly to ask—’

‘I’m not taking questions at this point.’ Rachel’s high-pitched voice was clipped as if someone had slammed a door on it. ‘If there’s anything you need to know, you can ask when you come in to see me.’

Chloe’s English-rose cheeks flushed red as Rachel clickety-clacked briskly back to her office on her vertiginous heels, and Amira felt sorry for the girl. She could be a pain in the bum sometimes and was an arse-licker extraordinaire, but she was only twenty-four, and was being paid peanuts to come into work every day. And she’d be mortified to be snubbed like that in front of Ewan, whom she was constantly trying to impress. As far as Amira could tell, no one in Chloe’s life had ever said no to her, and she thought for a horrible moment that the younger woman was about to cry.

‘I was only going to ask her if we should be doing anything to prepare for our interview.’

‘Ah bless, you were asking for homework.’

Charlie didn’t mean to be unkind, it was just his manner, but Amira knew Chloe wouldn’t get it. She’d once overheard her telling Paula she felt Charlie’s attitude to women bordered on sexual harassment because of his liberal use of ‘sweetie’ and ‘love’ when addressing colleagues. Paula had had to point out that he used the same endearments to the male members of staff and she shouldn’t read too much into it.

‘I’m sure you don’t need to prepare anything, Chloe,’ Paula snapped.

Amira glanced over curiously. That wasn’t like Paula. Normally her responses to everything were so infuriatingly measured it made you want to say something outrageous, just to provoke her into a reaction. On closer inspection, Paula was not looking her usual placid, contained self. Her faded brown bob was neat as ever, but her face looked washed out, the features smudged and undefined.

Idly, Amira’s gaze slid across from Paula to the glass box which she must now force herself to think of as Rachel’s office. With a start, her eyes locked with those of her new boss. The woman was leaning back in her desk chair staring straight out. Her face, clear of the practised smile she’d been wearing earlier, was set hard – and even from a few yards away, Amira could see how tightly she was clutching the pen whose end she was clicking in and out, in and out with an unnerving rhythmic intensity.

Amira found herself glancing away, feeling unaccountably guilty – why? Yet really, mightn’t it all turn out for the best? It was a shame Gill had to go, but they’d all known it was on the cards. The department’s poor performance had been highlighted in the company’s annual review and it was only a matter of time before someone was called to account – and Gill was the obvious candidate. So the change around wasn’t entirely unexpected. There and then, Amira decided to keep her head down and wait for things to settle.

But as she opened up a PDF file that pinged into her inbox from the still-sulking Chloe, Amira couldn’t quite shake off the memory of those metallic blue eyes burning like acid into her own.

5
Sarah

She was going to be late again. She’d had to wait for two tubes to go from the platform at Finsbury Park before she was finally able to squeeze into a carriage, where she ended up pressed into the armpit of a sweating young man in a shiny suit wearing too much aftershave and not enough deodorant. And then once she’d changed to a different line at King’s Cross, the train had sat in a tunnel just outside Liverpool Street for ages, with Sarah’s stress levels rising by the second. They were so close to her destination she could have practically jumped out and on to the platform, but instead she’d had to stand gripping the rail and trying to remember what that stress management leaflet they’d all been sent had said about finding your happy place in your mind. Bed – that would be her happy place.

Now she was running awkwardly up the stairs of the tube station and wishing she hadn’t worn the black skirt that had never really fitted her properly again after the second baby was born. The skirt hadn’t been her first choice. In honour of the new boss, she’d put on her best trousers, but then Sam had decided that his little brother Joe needed a nappy change, only Joe had got bored halfway through and gone toddling off to find his mum who’d just sat down to gulp her tea. Without thinking, she’d picked him up and plonked him on her knee, realizing too late why Sam had thought, in his three-year-old wisdom, that his brother needed his nappy changed. Off had come the trousers. She’d had to pull the skirt out from the wash-basket. ‘These trousers say Dry Clean Only,’ Oliver had called, squatting on his haunches by the washing machine, and if Sarah hadn’t been in such a rush she’d have laughed out loud. Two babies in three years and he still thought she owned anything,
anything
, that had to be taken to the dry cleaner.

On the streets of the City, she bowed her head against the persistent drizzle that seemed to have arrived out of the blue while she was underground. The shower at home had done the very same thing that morning, spurting arcs of water horizontally across the bathroom with no forewarning at all. The rain, she knew, would make her red hair frizz. Despite the arsenal of anti-frizz products that crowded their cramped bathroom shelves to Oliver’s endless frustration, Sarah’s hair only had to get a snifter of atmospheric moisture and up it sprang around her head like something you’d use to scour a pan.

She had an unwelcome flashback to Rachel Masters’s cool silk shirt and uncreased skirt. Pulling her phone out of her bag she glanced at the time. 9.10. Gill had always been very understanding about the occasional late start. She knew Sarah would more than make up for it by taking work home or staying late on Wednesdays when Oliver’s mum took the boys. Though she didn’t have children herself, she’d never made Sarah feel bad about it. Sarah remembered how nervous she’d been when she’d had to break it to Gill that she was pregnant again just months after returning to work from a year’s maternity leave with Sam, and how relieved when, after a deep sigh, her boss had simply said: ‘Congratulations.’

Sarah tried to remember whether Rachel had children or not, raking back through the bits and pieces of gossip that had floated across to them over the last twenty-four hours from acquaintances at other companies their new boss had worked for during her rapid rise through the ranks. She thought not. But that needn’t necessarily make any difference. Her sister worked in sales and had once had a boss with four children who was so desperate to prove that being a mother hadn’t softened her up that she was far harder on the parents among her staff than anyone else, refusing to make even the slightest of concessions. So you could never tell.

Sarah pushed through the glass doors into the reception area with its plastic pot plants on top of a narrow laminated desk, behind which sat the receptionist with the hair extensions; Sarah could never remember her name. The woman’s electric-blue-painted nails were so long that it took her for ever to tap numbers in on her phone pad using just the tips of her fingers.

‘Morning,’ said Sarah, hurrying past while looping the cord of her plastic ID card around her neck. She had that unpleasant out-of-breath feeling, as if her lungs were being gently raked with an ice-scraper.

The receptionist glanced up but didn’t respond.

On the fifth floor, Sarah scurried out of the lift and in through the double doors that led to her open-plan office. As her desk was on the far side, she’d have to cross in front of Rachel Masters’s glass cubicle. She glanced over and saw the black head bent over the desk. If she just took off her jacket at the door and carried it in her left hand, out of Rachel’s line of sight, she might look like she was just sauntering back from the loo instead of arriving fifteen minutes late.

Safely seated at her desk, Sarah finally risked looking across. Rachel was still engrossed in whatever she was working on and didn’t appear to have noticed. Sarah inhaled deeply, feeling the knot of anxiety that had been lodged inside her gradually unravel. Only then did she become aware of the strange atmosphere in the office.

‘What’s going on?’ she hissed at Charlie.

He gave her a funny little sideways look, swivelling his head towards her while the rest of him remained firmly in work pose.

‘We’ve been regulated,’ he whispered. ‘By the new Führer. Apparently we’re wasting too much time on coffee and chitty-chatty. Once we’re in the office we’re expected to be in work mode straight away. Like that.’

He snapped his fingers in front of his face.

‘What did she actually . . .’

Sarah’s voice tailed off as the door to Rachel’s office was flung open and her new boss strode out, pausing by Paula’s desk to confer. Sarah’s heart stopped as suddenly both women swung around to look her way.

‘Sarah, could you come into my office, please.’

‘You’re in trou-ble, you’re in trou-ble,’ sang Charlie softly.

Sarah tried to smile but her mouth was dry as she made her way across the office, aware that everyone else was tracking her movements. Rachel had said she would be calling them each in individually – she was probably the first. If only she’d had a chance to think about it, and put her thoughts in order. She’d meant to sit down last night and write out a bullet-point list of her achievements in her role, and how she thought productivity could improve – the sort of thing new bosses want to hear. But then Sam had had a tantrum about having his hair washed, and it had taken ages to calm him down, and after that he’d insisted on reading two story books instead of the usual one, and by the time she’d got downstairs she hadn’t had the energy to do anything except pour herself a glass of wine and watch the telly.

Outside Rachel’s door, she hesitated, unsure whether to knock. Unnecessary, she decided, seeing as Rachel had only that minute called her in.

‘Hello,’ she said, in a jolly voice she instantly regretted. She pulled back the spare chair facing Rachel, ready to sit down.

‘Don’t worry about a chair, you won’t be here long enough to need it,’ said Rachel Masters. Her face was hidden behind her hair, her eyes trained on the folder on her desk. The moment stretched out in agonizing silence until, finally, she looked up.

‘Are you often late, Sarah?’

The jolt of those blue eyes. Like falling on ice.
Slam
.

‘No. It was just the trains today were—’

‘Only I’ve been informed that punctuality has been an issue with you in the past.’

Sarah felt her eyes instantly burn with hot tears. Someone had gone behind her back and complained about her. Someone out there in the office. One of the people she called friends.

‘Who told you?’ she asked.

‘It’s not important. The important thing is that you are aware that no matter what arrangement you had with Gill, that’s not how I run things. I expect all members of staff, regardless of circumstances, to be in work at 9 a.m. and to remain at work until 5.30 p.m. at the very earliest. And if for any reason you arrive later than 9 a.m., I expect you to come straight to see me to explain. Are we clear?’

Sarah nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

Back at her desk, she turned on her computer and logged in without looking at anyone else. She could feel them all sneaking glances over at her, but she kept her gaze fixed to her screen.

Already there was the hot, gut-churning burn of injustice, the sharp needle of clever words she didn’t say, winning arguments she didn’t use. Who did Rachel Masters think she was anyway? Sarah was thirty-seven years old, yet Rachel had talked to her like a naughty child. After half an hour or so of account checking on-screen, she finally got up the nerve to take her phone out of her bag. Holding it on her lap, she texted her husband.

Was late and got telling off from new bitch boss. Feel like crying.

As soon as she pressed send she felt substantially better. She imagined laughing with Oliver about it this evening over a large glass of wine. Rachel Masters might have a more high-powered job than her but she didn’t have what Sarah had – a family, a husband, people who depended on her and upon whom she depended in turn.

Even so, when she made her way to the toilet an hour later – fear of being judged a time-waster finally losing out to post-natal bladder – she couldn’t help but cast a suspicious gaze around at her colleagues. They’d always got on so well in the past. There had been the occasional niggle – someone’s M&S smoothie going missing from the fridge, that time Amira hadn’t handed on a message and Sarah had lost a key client – but on the whole it had been an easy-going team. But now as she threaded her way through her workmates’ desks, still studiedly avoiding their eyes, a question ran through Sarah’s mind on a continuous loop.