Diary of a Grumpy Old Git (25 page)

But I’m not going to, because I’m still in positive mode. Must stay positive to avoid mental collapse. Seventies nights are just a harmless bit of fun. I hope they all have a great
night dancing to ABBA.

Jen was waiting in the meeting room when I got in. She was standing in front of a flipchart and clutching a green marker.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘What exactly is this about?’

‘It’s about what happened on Saturday,’ she said.

I sank into the nearest chair. Time for the sexual harassment lawsuit, no doubt.

‘Yeah, about that,’ I said. ‘If you could give me a quick recap of exactly what…’

Jen blushed. ‘As you’ll be aware, there are a number of options open to us at this point, and I thought we could brainstorm around them.’

She scribbled the words ‘Enemies’, ‘Friends’ and ‘More’ on the flipchart and drew circles around them.

‘The first option, which I’m keen to avoid, would be animosity. The second would be to return to the previous S.O.P. and pretend nothing happened. The third option, which I’m
keen to explore, would be to consider other… things.’

We were silent for a couple of minutes.

‘So,’ she said. ‘Throwing it over to you…’

‘I’m slightly confused,’ I said. ‘Are you asking me out? With a flipchart?’

Jen bit her bottom lip and nodded.

‘Thanks and everything,’ I said. ‘But the very fact that you’ve made the effort to do it this way proves we’re too different. You’re efficient and you work
hard and you like everyone whereas I’m a complete fuck-up. But we can still be option two, can’t we?’

It’s now one in the morning and I’m really stalling in my efforts to be positive. I feel worse about today than anything I did on Saturday. So what if I made an
idiot of myself over a younger girl? Every middle-aged man is allowed to do that once. So what if I threw up on Sarah? I wish I’d done it at the altar. So what if I insulted Trevor?
It’s not like he didn’t deserve it. But I think I really upset Jen today. And she’s not a bad person. She’s an annoying person, of course. But I’m starting to think
she might be rather a nice annoying person.

Jen’s typing and muttering got louder and louder all day until eventually she hit her keyboard with both hands, shouted ‘Fucking thing!’ and ran out of the
office. Jez and Jo both folded their arms and looked at me. They seemed to be expecting me to do something about it.

I found Jen standing in the pile of cigarette stubs outside the main entrance. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I just need a minute.’

‘I’m sorry about yesterday,’ I said. ‘It just freaked me out a bit. With the Venn diagram and everything.’

‘It wasn’t a Venn diagram,’ she said. ‘The circles didn’t overlap.’

I tried to work out what was different about her voice and I realized she’d stopped talking in questions.

‘And I’m not efficient,’ she said. ‘I’m just as much of a fuck-up as you.’

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Don’t do yourself down.’

‘It’s true. My flat’s even messier than your desk.’

‘You’re just saying that to impress me.’

‘Come round if you don’t believe me.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘Are you free on Saturday?’

Josh called me into his office this afternoon.

‘I need a word about the TC Waste Solutions account,’ said Josh. ‘You’d better close the door.’

I might have known Trevor would grass me up.

‘Sorry about that,’ I said. ‘Someone hacked into my email account. I suspect this guy called Brad.’

‘Of what?’ asked Josh.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘So what did you want to talk about?’

‘We’ve been offered the DDS Waste Solutions account,’ said Josh. ‘They’re the biggest suppliers of industrial bins in the south-east, so it’s a great win for
us. The trade press are coming round later on to photograph me on the fire escape. The only problem is, they won’t give us the business unless we resign the TC Waste Solutions account. Now, I
know you’ve really taken ownership of it…’

‘I’m happy to sacrifice it,’ I said. ‘For the sake of our business.’

‘Good man,’ said Josh. ‘I’ll call Trevor.’

I pretended to consider this. ‘I’ve got a meeting with him first thing Monday. I could give him the news face to face, if you like. To soften the blow.’

‘Excellent call,’ said Josh. He held his hand up and this time I high-fived without any hesitation.

I’m a bit nervous about going round to Jen’s flat tonight. I’m not sure I want to try anything with her in case she gets her flipchart out afterwards and gives
me a formal appraisal.

Having said that, I’m nowhere near as terrified as I usually am before a date. I’m just trying to get round to laying the decking and watching my
Sopranos
box set like usual.
It makes a change from my usual self-fulfilling prophecies of disaster and humiliation.

Jen’s flat was exactly the kind of tip she’d promised. She lives on the top floor of a house conversion, with Paul Klee prints Blu-Tacked over damp patches and fairy
lights twirled around metal shelves. Everywhere I went I seemed to knock over a pile of handbag-sized magazines with cumbersome free gifts or novels with champagne flutes on the cover. I made her
promise she hadn’t deliberately messed it up for me, and cleared myself a space to sit down.

When I first met Jen, I’d imagined that she lived in a penthouse apartment with a river view, a chrome kitchen island, and a focus group employed to give 24-hour feedback. But now this
mess seemed to make sense.

Even I wasn’t prepared for the lasagne, though.

‘This is brilliant,’ I said.

Jen looked puzzled. ‘Really? People don’t often compliment me on my cooking.’

‘I wasn’t complimenting you on your cooking,’ I said. ‘It’s horrible. But the fact it’s horrible proves that you weren’t lying about being as shambolic
as me. No one truly efficient or professional could ever have made this. That’s what’s brilliant.’