How Was It For You?

by Carmen Reid

  ‘And don’t worry, I have spare toothbrushes, pyjamas and things. You’ve got to get used to that in the country, people staying the night instead of driving home.’

  Pamela walked beside Dave all the way up to the top of the farm’s hill again before dinner. They watched the sky grow golden and the sun lower, but it was still too early for sunset and darkness.

  There was so much to say, but it felt too soon, too momentous, so they stuck to small talk, little questions and replies sparsely spread out over the walk.

  ‘They seem really nice, the Taylors.’

  ‘Yeah, Harry’s hilarious. I think he knew even less than me about farming when he started and look at the place now.’

  ‘Hmmm.’

  ‘It’s a great corner of the world, isn’t it?’ Dave asked, trying to sound casual when they were at the top of the hill looking into the distance. He took her hand and held it. Pamela couldn’t think when that had last happened in a non-hospital context and with surprise felt a surge of teariness.

  They’d been through so much . . . so much. And there was still no baby. Just a relationship so fractured, they both wondered how much longer it could go on. Maybe they needed some time out. Time to heal . . . in a healing place . . . maybe that’s what this whole farm thing was about. Making time to be together in a healing place.

  She looked at the man standing next to her. Was he not worth this? Shouldn’t she risk a year or two of her time on holding them together, on giving it a go?

  ‘Would you like to live here?’ she asked in a voice which was suddenly whispery.

  He looked out over the land glimmering gold all around them. Looked up and caught the dance and swoop of the swallows way, way up above them in the pale sky. He wanted this so much . . . it hurt. He would have to find a way of doing this alone, without her, if she said no.

  Chapter Eleven

  BLEEP, BLEEP, BLEEP . . . 6.45 a.m . . . . Pamela smacked off the alarm clock and grudgingly threw back the duvet, the little blast of having-to-get-to-work-on-time adrenalin beginning to course through her veins and wake her up. It was Thursday. Only two more days to go, she reminded herself, then she’d be able to have a rest. Thank God.

  Shower, dress, shake Dave out of bed, make up, tea, bowl of muesli and yoghurt eaten standing up, eyes on the kitchen clock. 7.28 a.m. She had to go. Shoe crisis at the door. She still hadn’t had a chance to pick up two pairs from the repair shop. She would have to wear the high-heeled boots again, third day in a row, even though they were killing her feet.

  At the tube station there had been a delay, the platform was packed and the next train was still six minutes away. 7.56 a.m. When it finally arrived, like everyone else waiting, she had to get on. Couldn’t wait for the next one promised in four minutes’ time. She scrunched in, face tucked in under someone’s armpit, someone’s elbow pressed into the small of her back, her bag squashed against another passenger’s side, then when the doors shut, everyone was crammed even closer together. Armpit man began to blow his nose, practically into her face, with a very shredded and fragile-looking tissue. She couldn’t turn her head to look away, so shut her eyes and tried not to breathe in.

  8.22 a.m. At Moorgate she fought her way out of the carriage so she could change trains, a long and, in these boots, pained walk up and down stairs, escalators, corridors. She was carrying her raincoat now, sweating her make-up off before the day had even begun.

  More delay. 8.31 a.m. Hell. If the next train wasn’t here within five minutes, she wouldn’t get to the office before nine, and Sheila liked everyone to be in before nine, even if, like Pamela today, they had nothing to do until 10 a.m. and had worked till 8 p.m. the night before. The train didn’t come . . .

  Coming out of the underground station, she took the decision at 9.05 a.m. that since she was late anyway, she’d stop and get a coffee. Might as well try and brighten the start to the day.

  ‘Oh oh,’ were Alison’s first words as Pamela passed through the all-glass entrance hall and into the office.‘You didn’t get the message, did you?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘It’s been brought forward. Nine-fifteen. They’re already in the conference room.’

  ‘Crap.’ Pamela rushed to her desk and pulled open her bag, knocking the last of her coffee over the pile of papers there.

  ‘Crap! Crap!’ She used her hand to scoop the worst of the mess off the surface and into a bin. Her mobile was bleeping at her, but she ignored it, sure it was the message about the new meeting time.

  Taking the files she needed from her bag, she smoothed over her hair – with coffee, yuck – and, limping slightly with the boot pain, headed to the room. 9.17 a.m.

  ‘Really, Pamela, didn’t you get the message?’ was Sheila’s greeting. Her boss was already at the head of the table, spiky gunmetal grey hair, sharpest trouser suit, trademark stiff white shirt and glittering cuff bracelets. A client on either side of her, papers, drawings, plans spread out before them.

  ‘Sharpen up,’ Sheila snapped.‘And try checking your messages for once.’

  Which was just outrageous! Pamela checked her messages religiously, every fifteen minutes on a workday. Just to be sure she was in touch.

  She sat down in a rogue chair which was six inches lower than everyone else’s, but she pretended not to notice. The Smith and Wilkinson guys were here to adjust plans for the makeover of their vast South Bank headquarters.

  ‘The upstairs atrium isn’t working for us, at the moment,’ Paul Crowe, the project manager was explaining.

  They all turned to the atrium drawings: enormous glass walls, a hexagonal glass roof and as a centrepiece, indoor trees in huge marble planters. This was Pamela’s touch, along with rough limestone flooring, pebbles, a wooden seating area: her idea of bringing the outdoors inside.

  ‘There just isn’t going to be the space for all this,’ Paul was saying, justifying it with all the other corporate-speak words: ‘no cost benefit’, ‘need to prioritize work space’, ‘maximize the office floor’ . . . and so on.

  Pamela tried, from her head barely above the table position, to fight her case for a few minutes: ‘hugely impressive visual feature’, even, ‘This species of tree has been proven to counteract the emissions from the audio-visual equipment on that floor.’

  But it wasn’t any use. They had made up their minds. The trees were out, to be replaced by a big conference area.

  ‘Fine, fine.’ Sheila wrote notes across the margin of the plans.‘I don’t give a damn about trees.’

  ‘Oh well.’ Pamela tried to hide her disappointment at the loss of such a lovely space. All of a sudden the great cluster of mature trees round the Linden Lee farmhouse came into her head.‘Maybe there will be room for a tree or two in the crèche area,’ she said.‘That’s going to be great. I’m very excited about that.’

  Sheila’s eyebrows raised at this and Paul chipped in: ‘Well, no, as I was telling Sheila, the crèche’s out. New company policy.’

  And that was that. No further explanation. Forty children they’d originally wanted to accommodate. Forty! And where did they go now? she wondered. New company policy. Bollocks!

  For the rest of the meeting, she tried to muster some enthusiasm for the new colour-coded office space replacing the crèche, but her heart was far from in it. In fact, her heart was racing in some horrible over-reaction to the coffee she’d had on the way in. It couldn’t have been decaf.

  11.05 a.m. When the session was finally over, Pamela got back to her coffee-stained desk where her phone was bleeping at her again. Three missed calls . . . Two messages. Both explaining why neither supplier was going to take responsibility for the tile colour mix-up on the Tatchell’s project – grand opening, Monday. Another round of phone calls to try and get to the bottom of this.

  Then Sheila was at Pamela’s desk, demanding attention.

  ‘Where are the upholstery sample books I ordered from France?’

  ‘Erm . . . I haven’t seen them. I made the request
last week. Nothing’s arrived on your desk yet?’ No, obviously not, dangerous question.

  ‘No. I need them today, Pamela –’ frightening look with that – ‘I’m meeting Boyd tonight to go over the details. We need those samples. It’s the fabric: waterproof, hard-wearing, suede effect in all the shades we need. Track them down. Have them couriered over if necessary. I need them today.’

  Pointy heels clip-clipping all the way back to her office, every other head cast down, keeping clear of trouble.

  12.05 p.m. Disgusting, soggy tortilla-wrap-in-a-bag lunch with Alison.

  ‘And do you know what else I heard her say?’ Alison’s contribution to the Sheila-bitchfest coming right up.

  ‘What?’ They both leaned in, although they were a full ten-minute walk away (Pamela had the shooting toe pains to prove it) from the office and her.

  ‘That if EC maternity leave laws come into force she’s only going to employ men or “women like Pamela”. You know, she meant . . .’ Alison was losing heart: it had been such an awful thing to say, she was suddenly sorry to be repeating it.

  Pamela just nodded, took it on the chin, stored it up in the great big book of insults Sheila had paid her over the years. One day that book would be full and she wouldn’t take any more of this. One day soon.

  ‘I have to go,’ she said, glancing at her watch, 12.35 p.m., astonished at the time.‘Sadie Kingston-Jones next. The paint in her nursery is bleeding or something odd. I promised to go and look. I’ve got to get across town for one-ish.’

  ‘Did you sort the sample books? The ones she needs today,’ Alison asked.

  ‘They insist they’re arriving special delivery this afternoon. I’ve told Grace. That’s all I can do.’

  ‘Yeah, short of going to France yourself,’ Alison snorted.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I don’t want to cause you a big nightmare, darling.’ Sadie was as pregnant, surely, as it was possible to be before exploding, protruding belly button pushing out against the stretchy shift she had on: ‘But something’s definitely gone wrong.’

  Pamela looked around the nursery walls. The all-organic, 100 per cent solvent- and additive-free paint was streaked and patchy all over, bubbling in places.

  ‘And you don’t have any damp at all?’ She wanted to clarify.

  ‘Damp? Bloody hell, somebody’s going to get sued if I do,’ was Sadie’s reply.

  How could she wear three-inch mules in her condition? How did she do that? And in her own home, where she could slob about in Birkenstocks and no-one would know. The walk from the tube station had just about crippled Pamela. No matter what, after this meeting, she was going to buy slippers on the King’s Road to wear for the rest of the day.

  ‘It looks like it hasn’t been mixed properly,’ Pamela said, running her finger over the patches.‘The oil’s separated or something. Good grief,’ she let out a deep sigh. This was about the final straw. Sheila only just tolerated the nursery projects as it was. Saw them as merely a testing ground for the eco-friendly products before she flogged the ideas on to the big payers. Problems with the paint might be the death knell of Pamela’s whole little niche.

  ‘Oh darling, I’m sorry. You look really fed up. Come upstairs and have a coffee.’

  ‘No, no . . . I should head. You won’t believe this but I’ve got to try and find an aluminium cradle for another client.’ She threw her hands up.‘I know, I tried to tell her how stupid it was. Not to mention dangerous. But that’s what she wants: a smooth, wipe-clean, aluminium cradle. To go with her black and white colour scheme! Boosts IQ or something insane.’

  ‘What, aluminium?’

  ‘No, black and white. Improves letter recognition – something like that. I try not to listen to her too much.’ Pamela was trying to bury the raging question: why is that mad woman allowed to have a baby and not me?!

  ‘Who is this we’re talking about?’ Sadie, sly smile, crossed arms resting on her bump.

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘You can, go on. I won’t tell Sheila about the paint.’

  ‘No, no, don’t tell Sheila about the paint –’ little flash of panic – ‘I’ll get it sorted as soon as I can.’

  ‘You better—’ with a glance down at her bump.‘They’re due in three weeks and I’m always early,’ Sadie warned, then shot her a, ‘Oh, don’t worry, even I let them sleep in our room for a month or two.’

  Pamela’s phone began to ring. 1.41 p.m. She apologized but took the call. It was Sheila’s secretary, Grace, and information which took several moments to sink in. No sign of the sample books, the factory was in Lille . . . it was on the Eurostar route . . . someone would meet her at the station this evening.

  Lille?

  ‘Lille? In France?’ Pamela was asking in disbelief.‘Sheila wants me to go to France?’

  Grace reeled off Eurostar times, had already made the reservation. If Pamela could just get herself to Waterloo as quickly as possible.

  ‘What?! I’ve got other swatches and books we can show Boyd tonight,’ she insisted.‘The French stuff is just one of the options. It’ll probably arrive tomorrow and we can bike it round.’

  ‘No,’ Grace was telling her, ‘Sheila is . . .’ she paused to choose the word carefully, ‘adamant.’

  ‘Sheila’s a mad, raving, certifiable psychotic,’ was Pamela’s response to this. Her heart was racing again.‘I haven’t got my passport on me. I haven’t got time to go and get it, if I’m supposed to make the 3.30 train.’

  Grace had already thought of that, had already spoken to Dave and arranged a courier!

  This was insane. But unarguable.

  ‘I’m off to France,’ she told a bemused Sadie, when the phone call was over.‘To collect a sample book for a drinks meeting tonight.’

  ‘And I thought I was the bitch boss from hell,’ Sadie said as she walked her to the door.‘But Sheila wins hands down every time. Maybe you should come and work for me . . . Let me think about this.’

  ‘Ha,’ was Pamela’s reply.

  ‘Well, don’t be silly darling, you haven’t been sold into slavery or anything.’ Sadie kissed her on the cheek and added, ‘Love your boots.’

  The boots. Double ha! No way was she walking one step further. Pamela hailed the first taxi she saw, only to regret it bitterly as they crawled through traffic, the minutes stacking up against her. Only half an hour to meet the courier and catch the train she was booked onto. And why wouldn’t he shut up? The driver was ranting on and on about the roadworks, the new junction ahead . . . the way the lights should be synchronized, as she was held hostage. A paying hostage.

  Don’t be a bloody taxi driver then! she wanted to scream at him.

  Pamela got to the station, found her courier, the platform, rushed through the check-in just as it was closing, hurtled across the platform, feet shrieking, almost knocking another woman over in her scramble for the door.

  Settling down in her seat, she considered that. She had actually started barging people out of the way in an effort to do Sheila’s bidding. What sort of lackey was she turning into? What sort of crazed stress monster was she set to become? She was 34. As Sadie had pointed out, she wasn’t a slave, she didn’t have to live like this. Hadn’t she promised herself a change?

  But she was frightened, she had to admit to herself. Didn’t know which thing to change first. Didn’t know which direction to take. A headless chicken . . . That made her think of Ingrid. Had they really decapitated the chickens?

  As the train pulled out of the station, it occurred to her that she had three hours of train travel ahead of her and not a shred to read. She looked out of the window and watched London and its trailing outskirts pass by. The countryside beyond didn’t move her at all the way Norfolk had.

  5.45 p.m. She got off the train and met the fabric company’s rep, who insisted on buying her a croque monsieur and a glass of wine as she waited for the return train.

  ‘Very important client?’ he asked.

 
‘Very impatient boss,’ Pamela informed him.

  ‘Very!’ he agreed.

  It was 9.46 p.m. when she pulled up outside the wine bar Sheila had chosen for this meeting. Pamela registered her exhaustion. She’d been up since 6.45 a.m., and just two sandwiches, a glass of wine, unaccustomed caffeine and a packet of crisps had kept her going all day long. But the fat samples books were tucked under her mac as she paid the taxi driver as quickly as she could, because it was pouring with rain.

  Sheila spotted her first and waved her over. Boyd was there with two members of his staff. There were other books and swatches out on the table. But here she was bringing the pièce de résistance all the way from Lille. She almost felt proud for a moment there.

  ‘Goodness, Pamela, you are wet. Don’t you carry an umbrella?’ was Sheila’s greeting and then Pamela was introduced. No mention of the journey she’d just done, no word of thanks: Sheila just took the books from her and set them down with a flourish.

  ‘This is well worth a look.’ Sheila was playing it down, obviously, never ever wanted to commit to anything in front of a client, all options always open.‘Waterproof, very hard-wearing, apparently, and some great colours. I haven’t seen the whole range yet.’

  Boyd, a commercial property developer and one of Sheila’s biggest and most regular clients, opened the first book and began to look through it. He flicked over the leaves carefully, stroking the material. When every one of the fifty or so swatches had been examined, he closed it up and said: ‘No. Don’t think that’s quite right. I liked the first book you showed me better.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sheila immediately agreed.‘I’m not quite sure why Pamela was raving about the French stuff so much.’

  ‘Why I was raving about it?’ Pamela was still standing up. She hadn’t been invited to sit down, no-one had offered her a seat, or a drink, or any sort of civility at all. And here it was, Pamela realized, with a great gulp of terror, the moment when the book of insults was full up. It wasn’t physically possible to take one single insult more. She would have to give it back. Return to sender.