All sorts of strange things happen when you start to write things down. Things like maintaining a narrative flow and stuff. Like how you have to pretend when you're actually writing things down so you don't disturb that.
That last bit wasn't really written yesterday morning after the party at all — in fact I only did it this evening after work — but I felt I had to phrase it that way to maintain some sort of flow. And if I can mess around with something so apparently inconsequential as when I wrote it, how can you really trust anything say?
By the time I got up yesterday Stu had gone off to golf.
'Golf? More like bloody work again, eh,' said Betti as we loaded and unloaded mountains of glasses into the dishwasher. Apparently Stu took up golf because Sunday morning is a good time to chat informally about the coming week with one's colleagues.
We spent the rest of the time restoring the house to a state fit enough for the cleaning lady to approach. Mrs C. — no one seems to know her full name — comes Monday and Thursday mornings and is such a fearsome old tyrant that your life isn't worth living if the house isn't spotless to start with.
Betti was still a bit under the weather and hardly ate anything over lunch. Stu was apparently looking rather grey, too, when he left. I was fine.
Betti declined my offer of a cup of coffee when she dropped me off, saying she just wanted to get home and have a lie down. As I walked up the path I could hear the next door neighbour mowing his lawn and the couple in the front flat yelling and screaming at each other. Ah, I thought, Sunday. Nothing changes.
Back at work today I had to put up with all the crap. Actually, I hoped they wouldn't remember, but I guess Betti is anything but forgettable. They started asking each other about their weekends and then of course someone remembered.
'Hey, wasn't this Spud's dirty weekend with that blondie?'
'Yeah, I thought he'd lost a bit of weight. Sweated it off, eh Steven?'
I ignored as much of it as I could and gave monosyllabic answers to the rest, but just as the full inquisition was about to start Marie went past and they all fell silent. Once she'd disappeared I was no longer the focus of attention and I was quietly grateful to her.
She was in the same place as last week when I went down to afternoon tea, just sitting there staring out the window and blowing on her coffee. Typically, I didn't notice till I was halfway to my usual spot — which was diagonally opposite — but it was too late by then. To turn back halfway along negotiating a row of chairs would have been a bit obvious and I didn't want her to think she was being ostracised by everyone in our section. As I got to my spot I remembered what had happened to Dave the smoothy and decided she'd probably let me know if she thought I was being presumptuous. In fact, she caught my eye and smiled as I sat down.
'Do you always sit there?' she asked. 'I've seen you there before.'
'Oh, yes it's ... um ... it's good for reading,' I said. She nodded but I felt it needed more of an explanation. 'The light's better this side, it's not so glary, and people tend to congregate up the other end so it's quieter. Plus I can see who's coming and going. If it's someone I don't want to talk to — like my boss — I can pretend to be really absorbed and not notice them.'
'That sounds useful. You'd better look after that seat, you might have some competition for it.' She had a nice smile.
I was about to mention the smoothy from last week when she said, 'So what's your boss like? It's Coutts, isn't it?'
There was something about the way she said 'Coutts' that left me in no doubt about what she thought of him. I wasn't about to disagree. We discussed work and I wanted to mention last week but somehow couldn't bring myself to do it. I still felt guilty for not saying anything and wanted to distance myself from Fletcher's mob. We agreed on what a schemer and ambitious creep Tom is and how he'd wangle his way out of any situation, but we didn't touch on the other incident. It was nice in the end, each knowing what was foremost in the other's mind and both agreeing to skirt the subject for now. It was something unspoken between us.
'What's the book?' she said, changing the subject and casually leaning across the table to look at the front cover. 'I've read some of his earlier stuff but not that one. Is it any good?'
I sighed with relief it wasn't the trashy little pot-boiler I gave to Fletcher. We'd just started talking about books when she glanced at her watch and muttered, 'Shit, I'm late!' She got up quickly, apologising and looking round for the nearest trolley to dump her cup on. I said I'd take it back for her and she smiled again.
'Thanks. Normally it wouldn't bother me about being late back, but I have to watch my p's and q's at the moment.' We exchanged a look. We both knew what she meant.
I watched her go, thinking what a nice person she was and how much of a disservice she'd been done last week. I decided that I'd make that up to her at some stage, that I wouldn't let her down again.
And that was all there was to it. Just a pleasant meeting and a chat in the staff canteen. Of course it was a good job none of my lot saw us. That would have been a different story.