‘It sounds insane. Who on earth could possibly be in favour of hot-desking?’ Eleanor asked her estranged husband as she knelt over the bath to wash the soap off two-year-old Jacob Maserov, the younger of their two children.
‘People who will never themselves have to leave the comfort of their own desks, people who have to prove they deserve their salaries, have to come up with new ideas to foist upon the already terrified,’ said Maserov as he knelt beside her, bathing their older son, Beanie.
‘How can hot-desking possibly improve efficiency?’
‘It can’t. But you’re missing the crux of what I’ve told you.’
‘What’s the crux?’ Eleanor asked.
‘That they asked me to be the Second Year representative,’ Maserov explained while wrapping Beanie in his favourite blue towel with the head of a bear at one end.
‘So what does that mean?’
‘No idea.’
‘Is it because you stuck your neck out with Malcolm Torrent?’
‘It’s got to be, no one knew I existed before that.’
‘Is it good?’
‘Well,’ said Maserov, thinking. ‘It’s too soon to tell but it’s definitely annoying, ’cause it means I have to go into the Freely Savage office to ask people stupid questions that will make them angry at the person conducting the survey, me, when I could be working back at Torrent Industries.’
‘Trying to give aid and comfort to their band of sexual predators,’ Eleanor interrupted.
‘Yes, and working to pay off the mortgage on the house you live in with our sons. I really don’t think you should look at my work as saving sexual predators.’
‘I wouldn’t think you’d want anybody looking at your work that way. But what other way is there to look at it?’
Maserov started gently towel-drying his older son’s hair with the bear head part of the towel. ‘Eleanor, we don’t know exactly what these guys did and, anyway, even people accused of murder deserve to be defended.’
‘You wish it was murder. Murder you can defend. Everyone understands murder,’ she said, pat-drying her youngest son, Jacob, using the closed toilet as a seat.
‘Are you saying sexual harassment is worse than murder?’ Maserov asked.
‘I’m saying murder is more understandable.’
‘Well, actually the sex urge is more frequent in people than the urge to kill.’
‘Not when we lived together.’
‘Anyway, these are so far just allegations,’ Maserov said, dragging the plastic stool over to the basin where he would encourage Beanie to brush his teeth.
‘You mean they’re unfounded?’
‘Well, I don’t know yet.’
‘Why don’t you know yet?’
‘I’ve only just moved offices. I’m trying to survive. It’s complicated.’
‘So you have your work cut out for you, is that what you’re saying?’
‘Yes,’ said Maserov. ‘I do. I have my work cut out for me. Not too much toothpaste, Beanie. You don’t need that much.’
‘I do,’ said the five-year-old Beanie.
‘No, not that much.’
‘I need only this much,’ said Beanie, ‘but I want the rest.’
‘That’s a fine distinction,’ said Maserov.
‘Thank you, Daddy,’ said Beanie, applying the bristles of his toothbrush to his small pink tongue.
Eleanor bounced Jacob wrapped in a towel on her knee. ‘So you’ll still have to go back to work at night there too . . . probably,’ she said.
‘Well, no, actually. I don’t have to rush off tonight. I can read the kids a story, maybe two.’
‘You probably shouldn’t,’ said Eleanor, fumbling in a small wicker basket for Jacob’s nappy rash cream.
‘No, it’s alright.’
‘But don’t you need as much time as you can get to solve Malcolm Torrent’s problems?’
‘Well, one of the advantages of my new situation is that it’s task oriented. There’s no one watching me, noting when I come and go, so as long as I feel I’m making progress I can be satisfied with the day’s work. It’s almost like I’m working for myself.’
‘But you wouldn’t want to be complacent.’
‘I’m not complacent. It’s just that I’m now in a position not to have to race back to work every night, away from my sons . . . and away from you.’ Maserov reached his hand out to stroke his wife’s arm but she slowly pulled away.
‘Eleanor, I’m more my own boss than ever. For the first time in years I don’t have to rush off anywhere, don’t have to study. You’d said you wanted more time together and —’
‘Yeah, I did, but now we’re separated.’
‘I know and I don’t like it. I don’t like being separated.’
‘It’s a transition,’ said Eleanor. ‘It’s still new. All transitions are hard. It’s only been four months. You need to give it time.’
‘I need to give it time?’
‘Yes. We were together many years, you know.’
‘I know. I was there.’
‘Not for all of it,’ Eleanor said.
‘Even when I wasn’t there I was still . . . there.’
‘You need to give the separation another chance,’ Eleanor explained.
‘That’s what people urge with respect to a marriage, not a separation.’
‘Well, I’m saying it with respect to the separation.’
‘Don’t you find it difficult?’
‘Perhaps I’m coping better than you.’
‘Perhaps you are. But can I read the kids a story tonight?’
‘No, not tonight. Tonight’s not good.’
‘Tonight’s not good?’
‘No.’
‘Why isn’t tonight a good night for me to read a story to my children?’
‘I’ve . . . um . . . I’ve got . . . Someone’s coming round.’
‘Who?’
‘A friend.’
‘Are they my friend too?’ asked Maserov.
‘I don’t think you would think so.’
‘Would they think so?’
‘I don’t think they would think so.’
‘So we have that in common, me and your friend?’
‘Yes,’ said Eleanor.
‘This friend, the one who’s coming over who would agree with me that we’re not friends, are they animal, vegetable or mineral?’
‘You don’t need to worry.’
‘It sure sounds like I do.’
‘It’s Marta. Marta’s coming over.’
‘Marta?’
‘Yes.’
‘You could’ve just said “vegetable”. I would have got there eventually.’
‘I know you don’t like Marta. That’s why I thought it might be better if I read the kids a story and then you won’t run into her.’
‘She doesn’t like me.’
‘It’s not you.’
‘It feels like me when I say hello and she doesn’t answer.’
‘It’s men. She doesn’t like men.’
‘She married one, sort of.’
‘No, they were legally married.’
‘No, I meant he was sort of a man.’
‘He was a man before she married him,’ Eleanor said.
‘Yeah but three years after she left him he still hasn’t thawed out.’
‘Well, that’s a man for you,’ Eleanor replied.
Maserov kissed his children goodnight and went outside to wait in his car to see if Eleanor’s visitor was indeed her friend Marta, the divorced geography teacher who hated him because he reminded her of men. When he saw that it was, he was relieved and exhaled quietly though his nostrils.