I wanted you to see your father before his accident. He was fiercely ambitious and professional, yes, but I also remember times where he slid off his chair laughing, or danced with the dog, or came home covered with bruises because of some ridiculous dare. He once shoved his sister’s face into a bowl of sherry trifle (picture on right) because she had said he wouldn’t, and I wanted to be cross with him as it had taken me simply ages to make, but you really could never be cross with Will for very long.
No, you never could. Lily flicked through the other pictures, all with little notes beside them. This Will, rising from the pages, was not a two-line piece in a newspaper, a careful obituary, a solemn photograph illustrating a sad tale in a long-running legal debate; this was a man – alive, three-dimensional. I gazed at each picture, distantly aware of each lump in my throat as it rose and was overcome.
A card had slid out onto the floor. I picked it up and scanned the two-line message. ‘She wants to come and see you.’
Lily could barely tear her eyes from the album.
‘What do you think, Lily? Are you up for it?’
It took her a moment to hear me. ‘I don’t think so. I mean, it’s nice, but …’
The mood changed. She closed the leather cover, put it neatly to the side of the sofa and turned back to the television. A few minutes later, without saying a word, she moved up the sofa beside me and let her head fall onto my shoulder.
That night, after Lily had gone to bed, I emailed Nathan.
I’m sorry. I can’t take it. It’s a long story, but I have Will’s daughter living with me and a lot has been going on and I can’t up and leave her. I have to do what’s right. I’ll try to explain in brief …
I ended,
Thank you for thinking of me.
I emailed Mr Gopnik, thanking him for his offer and stating that due to a change in circumstances I was very sorry but I wouldn’t be able to take the job. I wanted to write more, but the huge knot in my stomach seemed to have drained all the energy from my fingertips.
I waited an hour but neither of them responded. When I walked back into the empty living room to turn off the lights the photograph album was gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
‘Well, well … If it isn’t the employee of the year.’
I put the bag containing my uniform and wig down on the counter. The tables of the Shamrock and Clover were already full by breakfast time; a plump forty-something businessman, whose drooping head suggested an early start on the hard stuff, gazed blearily up at me, cradling his glass between fat hands. Vera was at the far end, angrily shifting tables and people’s feet to sweep under them as if she were chasing mice.
I was wearing a man’s style blue shirt – it was easier to feel confident if you were wearing men’s clothes, I had decided – and observed, distantly, that it was almost the same shade as Richard’s. ‘Richard – I wanted to talk to you about what happened last week.’
Around us the airport was half full of bank-holiday passengers; there were fewer suits than usual, and an undertow of small, crying children. Behind the till, a new banner offered the chance to ‘Get Your Trip Off to a Good Start! Coffee, Croissant and a Chaser!’ Richard moved briskly around the bar, placing newly filled cups of coffee and plastic-wrapped cereal bars on a tray, his brow furrowed in concentration. ‘Don’t bother. Is the uniform clean?’
He reached past me for the plastic bag and pulled out my green dress. He scanned it carefully under the strip-lights, his face set in a half-grimace, as if he were primed to spot unsavoury marks. I half expected him to sniff it.
‘Of course it’s clean.’
‘It needs to be in a suitable condition for a new employee to wear.’
‘It was washed yesterday,’ I snapped.
I noticed suddenly that a new version of Celtic Pan Pipes was playing. Fewer harp strings. Heavy on the flute.
‘Right. We have some paperwork in the back that you need to sign. I’ll go and get it and you can do that here. And then that’s it.’
‘Maybe we could just do this somewhere a bit more … private?’
Richard Percival didn’t look at me. ‘Too busy, I’m afraid. I have a hundred things to do and I’m one staff member down today.’ He bustled past me officiously, counting aloud the remaining bags of Scampi Fries hanging by the optics. ‘Six … seven … Vera, can you serve that gentleman over there, please?’
‘Yes, well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I was wondering if there was any way you –’
‘Eight … nine … The wig.’
‘What?’
‘Where’s the wig?’
‘Oh. Here.’ I reached into my bag and pulled it out. I had brushed it before putting it in its own bag. It sat, like a piece of blonde roadkill, waiting to make some other person’s head itch.
‘Did you wash it?’
‘Wash the wig?’
‘Yes. It’s unhygienic for somebody else to put it on without you washing it first.’
‘It’s made of cheaper synthetic fibres than a cut-price Barbie’s. I assumed it would basically melt in a washing-machine.’
‘If it’s not in suitable condition for a future staff member to wear, I’m going to have to charge you for a replacement.’
I stared at him. ‘You’re charging me for the wig?’
He held it up, then stuffed it back into the bag. ‘Twenty-eight pounds forty. I will, of course, provide you with a receipt.’
‘Oh, my God. You really are going to charge me for the wig.’
I laughed. I stood in the middle of the crowded airport, as the planes took off, and I thought about what my life had become working for this man. I pulled my purse from my pocket. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Twenty-eight pounds forty, you say? Tell you what, I’ll round it up to thirty, you know, to include administrative expenses.’
‘You don’t need to –’
I counted out the notes, and slammed them onto the bar in front of him. ‘You know something, Richard? I like working. If you’d looked beyond your bloody targets for five minutes you would have seen that I was somebody who actually wanted to do well. I worked hard. I wore your horrific uniform, even though it turned my hair static and made small children jig in the street behind me. I did everything you asked, including cleaning men’s loos, which I’m pretty sure was not in my contract, and which, in actual employment law, I’m sure should have meant the provision of a Hazchem suit at least. I stood in for extra shifts while you searched for new bartenders because you’ve alienated every single member of staff who ever came through this door, and I have upsold your wretched dry-roasted peanuts even though they smell like someone breaking wind.