The Bright Side (2 page)

Good
afternoon
, I thought.

“Good
afternoon,”
said
Jenny.
This
was
her
standard
greeting
for
latecomers.
It
was
so
obvious
and
childish
and unfunny
that
it
always
made
me
want
to
cry,
even
when
it wasn’t
being
directed
at
me
.

“Hello, Jenny,” I said, trying my best to smile. “I’m a bit late.
”

She gazed back at me with the cold, unblinking eyes of a doll. “I hope everything’s all right at home,” she cooed then, doing a sympathetic head-tilt
.

I resumed walking. Jenny followed half a pace behind, like one of those small, annoying dogs that goes
Yip
instead of
Woof
.

“Everything’s fine at home,” I said. “Alarm clock let me down, that’s all. Dead battery or something.
”

“Hmmm,” Jenny said
.

There was something about the way she said it, some vague hint of menace, that made me stop and turn to face her
.

“It won’t happen again,” I lied
.

Jenny frowned. “The thing is, Jackie, you’ve said that before.
”

She had a point there. I’d said it many, many times before, some of them, if memory served, in the past couple of days. There didn’t seem to be any point in adding that being late annoyed me as much as it did her and that I dearly wished it wouldn’t happen so often. I decided instead to try the light- hearted approach. Nothing in my experience of Jenny told me she would appreciate the effort, but I gave it a whirl anyway
.

“I
know
I’ve
said
that
before,”
I
told
her
with
what
I hoped
was
a
loveable
grin,
“but
this
time,
I
really,
really mean
it.”
I
held
up
my
right
hand
with
fingers
crossed
and
when
Jenny
failed
to
respond,
I
held
the
left
up
too
.

Her brow creased and uncreased. “You’re aware, no doubt, of the new tardiness policy we’ve implemented here at First Premier?
”

I half-remembered seeing an e-mail with some of those words in it. It had caused a bit of a fuss about a week or two previously. I hadn’t read the thing properly and hadn’t participated in the fuss. “Of course.
”

“Well then, you’ll know all about the points system.” I drew a blank at that one. “Points system. Sure.
”

“Well, Jackie, I’m afraid that today’s nine-fifty-seven coupled with Wednesday’s nine-oh-eight, Tuesday’s nine- twelve and last Thursday’s nine-twenty-one puts you over the top for this month
already
. And it’s only –
”

“The 13th,” I sighed. “It’s Friday the 13th.
”

“Unlucky for some,” Jenny said with what looked, for a change, like a genuine smile. “So you’ll do it?
”

I hadn’t a clue what “it” was, but I knew I’d find the answer in the e-mail. “Looks like I’ll have to, doesn’t it?” I said
.

Jenny nodded. “It’s policy.
”

I turned and left her, hoping to God that I was merely imagining the bright bolts of pain that had started to flash along the right side of my head
.

I
started
getting
“my
headaches”
–
I
always
called
them that
as
they
seemed
very
personal
–
when
the
kids
were entering
their
teens.
We
used
to
joke,
on
the
days
when
I
felt like
joking
about
it,
that
it
must
have
had
something
to
do with
all
the
stereos
in
the
house
suddenly
getting
cranked up.
But
really,
I
had
no
idea
what
the
cause
might
be.
I
didn’t
get
them
very
often
–
four,
maybe
five
times
a
year.
That
was plenty.
Nothing
seemed
to
provoke
them
–
nothing
that
I could
identify
anyway.
They
always
started
the
same
way, with
brief,
shooting
pains
that
were
gone
before
I
could
even wince.
Some
time
after
that
–
it
could
be
minutes,
it
could
be hours
–
the
party
really
got
going;
the
pains
returned,
and this
time
they
stayed.
There
were
lots
of
suitable
analogies; I
usually
plumped
for
something
with
white-hot
six-inch nails
.

As soon as I got settled in at my desk, Veronica, who sat directly opposite me, peeped over the partition and gave me an update on her battle with the kids who gathered on her front wall every night to smoke cigarettes. There had been an escalation, by all accounts. One of the kids, a girl of no more than twelve, had called Veronica a “frigid old bitch” (it was the “old” part that really hurt, apparently). Veronica had responded with something about children who dressed like little prostitutes and feared she had gone too far
.

I tried to seem interested, but my mind kept wandering back to Jenny. It occurred to me that she’d had my tardiness details on the tip of her tongue. That meant that she’d looked them up in some sort of file, no doubt hoping that I’d be late, as opposed to absent, so she’d able to throw them at me. She’d even
memorised
them. I grabbed the edges of my desk and tried to think pleasant thoughts. Cute little puppies, gently babbling brooks, the last five minutes of
An Officer
and
a
Gentleman
… I was still gripping hard and muttering darkly to myself when Eddie Hand appeared by my side
.

Eddie sat at the end of our little section, facing Veronica and me. He was a forty-something bachelor who wore the same navy-blue woollen tie quite literally every day, even though he could have showed up in an Iron Maiden T-shirt for all First Premier cared. In summer he wore his tie over a short-sleeved shirt. In winter he wore it under a V-necked jumper. Every couple of days or so, I vowed to ask him why he was devoted to that one item of clothing. I never followed through, partly because I was afraid he would tell me that it had been a present from his childhood sweetheart who had died in a tragic boating accident (or something), and partly because I didn’t want him to think that I was interested in being his friend. Eddie wasn’t exactly the type who set the room on fire when he walked in – not unless he accidentally knocked over a candle while creeping round the edge of the group, looking for a place to hide. I wasn’t proud of the attitude I had towards him. Certainly not. But I rationalised it by telling myself that most people probably had someone like that in their lives, a colleague, a neighbour, a familiar face on the bus. Someone they suspected to be a little bit sad, a little bit lonely. Someone they could possibly cheer up quite a bit, if only they’d take the time. But they didn’t, and I didn’t, for fear that the lonely person might start appearing on the doorstep, suggesting nights out or, worse, weekends away. Best to just smile politely and shimmy past them, that’s what we all told ourselves. I smiled politely at Eddie when he showed up that morning and if I hadn’t been sitting down, I would have shimmied past as well
.

“Hello,” he said. “Are you okay?
”

I gave him a smile every bit as fake as the one Jenny had worn earlier. “I’m fine, why?
”

He shrugged and cast his eyes to the right. “I dunno. You seem a bit … you know …” He pointed with his head. “Your knuckles are all white.
”

I loosened my grip on the desk and went into my drawer for headache tablets. “I’m okay, Eddie, really. Just a bit tense, that’s all.
”

He nodded. “Is it because of your hair?
”

On the Monday of that week I’d shown up in wicked humour on account of a weekend haircut that had gone seriously awry. My usual girl had called in sick at the last minute, but rather than make a new appointment, I’d gone ahead with another stylist. I should have known better. The replacement stank of last night’s booze and seemed to be having trouble forming proper sentences (“Have you been to holiday this year, have you?” she asked me at one point). She was still drunk, I was absolutely sure of it. Long story short, I wound up with a hairstyle like Stephen Fry’s. It had annoyed me for a few days, naturally, but I had more or less forgotten about it until that moment
.

“No, Eddie,” I said, “it’s nothing to do with my hair.” I wasn’t at all disturbed by his contribution. He wasn’t trying to be malicious or even amusing. He could see that I was upset and he knew that I’d been unhappy about my hair. He’d put the two together, that was all. He was really
asking
. “Okay,” Eddie said and smiled for a fraction of a second
.

He tore off then, as if frightened by a loud noise
.

I
watched
his
back
as
he
made
his
way
to
the
photocopier,
wondering
if
that
was
the
longest
conversation
he’d
had
all morning.
Then
I
told
myself
that
I
was
inventing
a
sob
story where
one
didn’t
necessarily
exist.
For
all
I
knew,
Eddie spent
his
evenings
sipping
champagne
in
fancy
restaurants with
a
succession
of
sex-addicted
lingerie
models.
When
I turned
back
to
face
my
computer,
Veronica
was
half-standing again
and
making
kissy
faces.
It
was
her
firm
conviction
that Eddie
fancied
me.
She
seemed
to
have
based
this
theory
on nothing
but
the
fact
that
once
in
a
blue
moon,
the
previous incident
being
a
prime
example,
he
spoke
to
me
without
my speaking
to
him
first.
He
didn’t
do
that
with
anyone
else,
not according
to
Veronica
at
any
rate
.