The Three Rs (26 page)

My stomach feels heavy, that chili con carne now sitting awkwardly.

“Imperial? Who the fuck uses imperial measurements these days?”

I have a really, really bad feeling now. I’ve messed up. Messed up royally. And worse still, I’ve dragged Phyllis into my screw-up as well. Cain gestures at me, pointing to my bag.

“Do you have the notebook with you?”

I fumble in my bag and pass it to him. He flicks through to the page where my scrawled numbers and drawings record the all-important data from yesterday. He glances through again, still speaking into the phone.

“Yes, here it is. Five-point-five, by six-point-two…” Another silence at his end, then, “She said what? But, didn’t you think to check? You must have known the figures didn’t make sense.”

He continues to listen to whatever Phyllis is saying, his eyes closed as he leans his head back against the seat.

“She came into the office this afternoon, apparently, and Abbie gave her the printout. She left a happy woman, and now we know why.” His tone is calmer, more resigned. Another brief silence, then, “Okay. You weren’t to know the client would show up. And Abbie wasn’t to know the figures weren’t the final ones. Shit!”

Our coffees arrive, but Cain ignores his, still intent on making sense of this unfolding disaster. At last he tells Phyllis he’ll see her in the morning, and ends the call.

“Phyllis says she asked you if the measurements were metric or imperial, and that you were very definite that they were imperial. Feet and inches, Abbie. Why the hell did you say that?”

I stare at him, totally confused. I have no idea, none at all, what he means by ‘metric’ and ‘imperial’. I have heard of feet and inches, so naturally that’s what I thought the measurements meant. I don’t say any of that, though—I don’t know where to start trying to explain. Instead, I settle for a whispered, “Sorry.”

“Sorry! Is that the best you can do? Christ, Abbie, five-point-two means five-point-two
meters
. Five meters and twenty centimeters. Not five feet and two inches. Five-point-two meters is about seventeen feet. We’ve under costed for the materials we’ll need, and the labor time. We’ve only priced for a five-foot-five, by six-foot-two extension, nine-foot-nine inches high. What the client wants is nearly ten times that size. Five-point-two meters wide, by nine-point-nine meters high converts to seventeen feet wide by thirty-two feet high, more or less. That’s a hell of a difference. We’ll lose thousands on this job. What were you thinking, Abbie?”

What indeed? I have no answer. I’m not even completely sure I understand how the problem arose. He’s babbling about random numbers that seem to make some sense to him, but he lost me at the first mention of meters and centimeters. I can only repeat my apology.

His expression now is one of disbelief. “Sorry! For fuck’s sake, Abbie, how could you be so…”

I don’t let him finish. I can’t let him say it. I might say it to myself, but from him it would be just too painful, quite, quite unbearable.

“Don’t you dare call me stupid! It was a mistake, I’ve apologized. Don’t you ever make a mistake?” I’m already grabbing my notepad and ramming it back into my bag, my half-finished coffee abandoned.

Cain seems to agree the meal’s over. He stands, shoves his phone back into his pocket and pulls out the van keys. He stalks over to the bar to settle our bill while I make my way outside. He joins me a few minutes later, his face still a mask of furious incredulity. He unlocks the van, opening my door for me.

“This conversation is
not
over, Abbie. You’ve a lot of explaining still to do.”

Like hell.
No way am I explaining anything to him, at least not while he’s in this mood. I sit mutinously in my seat, and a couple of minutes later I fling the door open as he pulls up in front of the house. I leap down and head for the front door, Cain hard on my heels.

“I wasn’t about to call you stupid back there. I know you’re not stupid. That’s what makes this all the more ridiculous.”

I round on him again, my temper spiking and every defensive instinct leaping straight to red alert. “Don’t call me ridiculous either. Who do you think you are? I didn’t do it on purpose, I’ve said that. It was a genuine mistake.”

“A fucking expensive mistake. That quote should have been nearer to fifty grand than five.”

“Well you’ll just have to talk to Mrs Henderson then. She must have realized. She’ll know it was a mistake.”

“Why the fuck should she? You didn’t. Or so you say.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Are you saying I’m lying?”

“Well it makes no sense to me…”

I see red. I’ve heard enough. Defensiveness, humiliation and bone-deep fear of being found out is a powerful cocktail, I find. I lose my temper completely. I just want out of there, and to be rid of him. “Go fuck yourself. Because you’re sure as hell not fucking me again.”

I dart past him, making for the stairs.

“Abbie, don’t you dare walk out on me when I’m talking to you.”

Arrogant bastard.
I yell my answer from the top of the stairs, “You can talk to yourself from now on. I’m leaving.” I slam the bedroom door behind me.

Moments later he bursts into the room, to find me turning all my clothes out of the drawers. I reach under the bed for my holdall.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Like I said, I’m leaving.”

The door slams again. “Oh, right. And where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m moving into my flat. Will you give me a lift or do I have to walk there?”

“What? Abbie, for fuck’s sake. I don’t want you to leave.”

“No? Well you give a pretty good impression of it. But it’s not up to you. I’ve had enough of your accusations. I screwed up, I know that. And I said I’m sorry, but that’s not good enough for you, is it? You think I’m stupid, or ridiculous. Or both. You’re even suggesting now that I did it on purpose. Well, like I said, fuck you.”

All the time that I’ve been yelling at him I’ve been throwing my stuff into my bag and now I pull the zip around roughly. It doesn’t fasten, but I’m well past caring. My signature hot—and as often as not self-destructive—temper, is in full flow now, and he’s getting both barrels of it.

Not that this seems to bother him unduly. He leans casually against the door, watching my antics. I grab my bag and round on him furiously.

“Please get out of my way.”

He doesn’t shift. “I don’t want you to leave, Abbie. Not like this. I didn’t mean to insult you. I just want to understand how this happened.”

“No? Well I’m past caring what you did and didn’t mean and what you want. Excuse me please.”

I make to push past him, and at last he stands politely aside. I take my chance and shove past him into the hallway, only to have him turn and stroll along after me.

“Right, I’ll drive you then if you’re so bloody determined to go. But I’m telling you now, Abbie, this is temporary. I want you back here where you belong. When you cool down you’ll see that.”

My temper flares again. I dump my bag on the floor and turn to square up to him. Nose to nose now, I hurl my anger in his face. “Oh will I? How come you’re such an expert then? Maybe when I cool down I’ll see you for the over-bearing arrogant bully that you are. Have you considered that?”

The cool bastard seems quite unimpressed by my aggressive stance, but my choice of words does appear to get to him. He frowns and has the grace to look genuinely concerned. “Bully? When did I ever bully you?”

I’m not backing down. “Think back. What about the first time I ever clapped eyes on you, when you waylaid me in the street as I was leaving work? You insulted me then as well, come to think of it. And threatened me. I should have known better than to get involved with you.”

I reach down to grab the handles of my holdall and start to lug my bag along the upstairs hallway, only to have him take it from me and lead the way downstairs. He reaches the front door and turns to me again.

“Abbie, please stay. Let’s talk.”

I have a momentary pang of conscience. He
is
being reasonable. More or less. But rational, reasonable debate does not come easily to me at the best of times, and certainly not when I’m caught like this, on the back foot, feeling defensive, vulnerable and threatened—my dark secret on the point of being exposed. And just as I’d finally reached out and grabbed the solution. The solution that had seemed out of reach, had appeared to be quite unattainable. Until now. How frustrating to come so close, and to be found out, to fall at the final hurdle. I glare at him, just wanting to be out of there. “I’m done talking to you.”

He shrugs, clearly baffled but resigned now to the inevitable. He reaches for the door handle, opens the front door and gestures me through. “Okay, get in the van.”

Ten minutes later I’m alone, in the middle of my new living room, my bag bursting its contents all over my carpet. The sound of Cain’s van pulling away reaches my ears, then fades as he drives back along the road. As the silence surrounds me I sink to my knees, sobbing.

Chapter Sixteen

Somehow I manage to lie awake most of the night then oversleep the next morning. By the time I open my eyes, it’s bright daylight. I reach out of bed and grope around on the floor for my phone. I manage to locate it and turn it on to display the time. Nine-fifteen. I roll onto my back, staring at the ceiling and contemplating the wreckage which is my new life. Cain hates me, doesn’t trust me—thinks I’m an idiot. Or worse. And I loathe him. I do. Really.

Except I don’t. I easily could, not least as he’s turning out to be right about things looking different in the cool light of morning. But I don’t hate him—I couldn’t. Can’t even really dislike him. He had every right to be disgusted with me last night. My blunder has cost us thousands, and even I know that a small firm like ours can’t stand those sorts of losses. I might well have cost someone their job.

Oh, Christ, not Phyllis! Let it not be dear, loyal, long-serving Phyllis who gets sacked. Because I know he can’t fire me—I own more of the company than he does. I suppose that means I do the sacking.

I groan and roll onto my side, shoving my face back under the duvet as I contemplate the possibility that Phyllis might be held responsible for my screw-up. My instinctive reaction now is to dive right back under the duvet and stay here, but I know I owe Phyllis an apology. I daresay I owe the same to Cain, plus the little matter of forty odd thousand pounds if I’ve understood correctly the full implications of whatever I did wrong yesterday. I poke my head out again, timid but with a growing determination to make at least some of this right. I listen carefully for any sounds from downstairs. In particular, for voices. I want to know if Cain is here. I can’t recall what he said he was doing today, where he was going. Maybe he never did say…

I ease my legs out of bed and get to my feet, tip-toeing over to the window. My bedroom doesn’t look out directly onto the yard, but if I open the window and strain my neck a bit I should be able to see the back end of his van if it’s parked outside. With some contortion I come to the conclusion that he doesn’t seem to be here. I’ve also concluded by now that I really have no alternative but to make an appearance downstairs. Even without the pressing matter of making my peace with Phyllis, I have no coffee up here. No supplies of any sort at all. I need to go out and buy some groceries to make my new home liveable.

I head for the loo, relieved to find half a roll of toilet paper dangling helpfully from the dispenser, and a modest sliver of soap. I manage to make myself as presentable as I can without a toothbrush or toothpaste—mine are still in Cain’s bathroom. I dig in my bag for a hairbrush. At least I had the presence of mind to bring that. Or maybe I just never bothered to unpack it from when I came up here from Bradford. Was that only last week? Whatever, I’m thankful for small mercies, and twenty minutes after I woke up, I’m making my way down the narrow staircase into the rear of the office, ready to grovel to Phyllis at least. Groveling to Cain will be a lot harder, but I’m beginning to accept the reality that this may also be necessary.

“Morning, love. Kettle’s on.” Phyllis is cheerful and as welcoming as ever, giving me the distinct impression she’s not just been fired and neither has she had a dressing down from Cain.

No doubt he’s saving that for me then. I stand in the doorway, hesitant, still unsure of my reception. Phyllis gets up from her desk and bustles past me with a smile, heading for the kitchenette. “I bet you’ve had no breakfast, have you? I nipped out and got some crumpets. And some cornflakes. Wasn’t sure what you’d like…”

I gape at her, astonished. Not only does she seem unmoved by my transgressions, she’s actually being nice to me. Caring about me. Looking after me. I follow her into the tiny kitchen space to see her pouring water into two cups. She hands me one, and I reach automatically for the milk bottle and sugar bowl on top of the tiny fridge. I see that they have been joined by a small pack of cornflakes and half a dozen crumpets. Phyllis picks up her own mug and squeezes past me in the doorway as she heads back to her desk.

“You just help yourself, love. There’s plenty of milk, and butter in the fridge if you want the crumpets. No hurry.”

My stomach growls, and I settle on the cornflakes. I poke around in the cupboard and find a small bowl. I dump a generous helping of cornflakes in then take the bowl, the milk bottle and a teaspoon back to my desk. I sit down, noting that the computer is not turned on today—thank God for that—and splash milk all over the cereal. Phyllis just glances across at me as I start to munch, then diverts her attention back to her screen. We spend the next five minutes or so in silence, well near enough silence. I defy anyone to devour a bowl of crunchy cornflakes without making a sound. Eventually I stand and take my bowl back to the kitchen. I return with my now cooling coffee and take my seat again. I gulp down several fortifying sips before I look again in Phyllis’ direction.