Talk to Me

by Jules Wake

  ‘He was training very hard most of the time,’ snapped Kate, sitting up again and slipping off the bench. ‘That’s why.’ She reached for the door. ‘I’m going for a shower.’

  There was a brief blast of cooler air before the door was slammed. Did Kate have an attack of sour grapes? Surely not, she said she didn’t want Bill but that didn’t mean she didn’t want anyone else to have him, did it?

  Poor Kate. I loved her to bits but despite all her front I wasn’t sure she really knew what she wanted. The whole Australia thing still seemed out of character. She wasn’t exactly raving about living there.

  ‘That feels so much better,’ I said, rolling my head and stretching my neck as we stepped out onto the street. ‘I can’t believe I’ve never taken Isabelle up on the offer before.’

  ‘Great idea. Thanks for taking me.’ Kate paused on the pavement. ‘Sorry I’ve been so grouchy. I … just feel …’ Her voice trailed off. ‘Must be change of climate or … something.’

  Did I imagine the momentary look of alarm that skittered in her eyes? ‘Don’t worry. Sure you don’t want a quick drink before you meet Caro?’

  ‘No, there are a few bits I need … want to get in … Boots.’ She screwed up her face thoughtfully.

  Didn’t she have enough lotions and potions? Her toilet bags in the bathroom at the wedding had looked close to bursting.

  ‘Are you going to get everything in your suitcase?’ I asked sceptically.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Hello, earth to Kate.’

  She gave me a tight smile. ‘’Course I will. Mum can sit on the case for me.’

  ‘I’d better make a move,’ I said, not wanting to but she clearly wasn’t going to tell me what was on her mind. ‘I have to face Emily some time.’

  ‘Olivia, stand your ground.’ Kate took hold of both of my shoulders and shook them gently. ‘Don’t you dare go apologising to that little madam. She’s the one in the wrong.’

  ‘You’re right but you know me. Anything for a quiet life.’

  Kate tutted loudly. ‘What am I going to do with you?’

  I grinned at her and giving her a last hug, set off down the street.

  When she went back to Australia I’d miss her desperately.

  It was a relief to find that Emily wasn’t in when I got home. Taking full advantage of her absence, I ran a deep bath, draining the hot water tank and helped myself to a generous measure of her Chanel No 5 bath gel.

  There’s nothing quite like the guilty pleasure of ill-gotten bubbles. Served her right. It wasn’t as bad as pinching other peoples’ ideas and taking all the credit, though. I shook my head, the ends of my ponytail dipping into the water.

  Well, good luck to her. Thank God I wasn’t the one that had to make it all happen. Imagine having to deal with Miranda, a dress designer, the film people and everything else involved.

  If only I’d known.

  It wasn’t until the next day at work that I discovered what Emily had done. I was on my way to make a well-deserved cup of tea when she waylaid me in the kitchen.

  Now what? I was still being cool with her. Glancing up, I could see her freckles standing out in stark relief against her pale skin. Her lips devoid of lipstick looked bloodless as she gnawed them anxiously.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Tears welled up in her eyes. She shook her head but still didn’t say a word.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Come see this.’ She inclined her head. Clutching my tea mug, I followed her back to her desk.

  ‘There,’ she said.

  Running across her computer screen in large red capital letters was the word BITCH. It was on a continuous loop and as soon as the B disappeared on the right hand side of the screen, the word began to reappear on the left hand side.

  I looked at her sharply. ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘Just now. I went out for lunch. When I got back it was here.’

  Tentatively I leaned over to move the mouse and as I did the words disappeared immediately, leaving an innocent word document.

  ‘It’s just the screen saver,’ I said, slightly relieved. As far as I knew – not much admittedly – an easy fix.

  ‘I think it might be Peter,’ said Emily in a low voice.

  ‘Why?’

  She paused avoiding my eye, fiddling with the seam of her pale blue miniskirt. ‘He sent me another email yesterday.’ Her fingers plucked at the linen fabric.

  ‘Another one?’ I asked. ‘He’s a glutton for punishment.’ I looked closely at her.

  She was still picking at her skirt, her eyes down.

  ‘What did you do?’ I asked. I had a really bad feeling about this.

  She flushed slightly before blurting it out. ‘Well … he wasn’t nice this time. Had a go at me about leading him on. Said I was just like all the rest.’

  ‘And …’

  ‘I was having a terrible day,’ she said defensively. ‘His bloody email was the last thing I needed and you weren’t speaking to me.’

  So it was all my fault now.

  ‘I sent him one back, except …’

  ‘What did you say?’

  She went very quiet, opening her mouth once before thinking better of it. ‘I told him to piss off and leave me alone.’

  ‘Subtle,’ I said sarcastically.

  ‘What was I supposed to do, Miss Goody Two Shoes? He wasn’t very nice and I was having a very stressful day. Miranda is being quite difficult. You have no idea how hard it is working with celebrities.’

  ‘Spare me, please.’ I leant down to study the screen. ‘So you think this is from him?’

  Her eyes scanned the room and she lowered her voice. ‘Well, who else is it going to be?’

  ‘I don’t know. Who else have you upset recently?’ I tried to be funny but it didn’t go down terribly well. She glared at me.

  ‘Sorry, Emily.’

  ‘What am I going to do? How did it get here? Do you think it’s some kind of virus?’

  I only had one answer to all her questions. ‘I haven’t a clue. Check your emails,’ I said, seizing on something practical to do.

  Sure enough, there in her inbox was Peter’s name. His response to Emily’s ‘get-a-life-you-sad-loser’ email was a rambling, nonsensical rant about the faithlessness of double-dealing women and their evil wiles. His personal philosophy seemed to be based on a mix of misogyny, Greek mythology and homespun chauvinism. Unfortunately no handy confession, ‘By the way, I’ve messed with your computer.’

  ‘He’s not a happy bunny boiler, is he?’ I observed.

  ‘That’s not even mildly funny.’

  ‘Oh! I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you think he hacked into the system to do this?’

  My approach to modern technology was strictly need-to-know. I had no idea but I did remember at the speed-date Peter had said something about working with computers.

  ‘I think you’d better give Dom in IT a call. He’ll know.’

  ‘You do it. Dom likes you.’

  Only because I always asked for his help nicely, instead of screaming at him down the phone as most people did when their computer threw a wobbly.

  I made the call. Dom, our office IT boffin, spoke in another language most of the time about mainframes, motherboards and Ethernets. Once I spilt a whole glass of Ribena over my keyboard and he gave me a new one without reproach, after he’d stopped laughing.

  ‘Dom, it’s Olivia.’

  ‘Don’t tell me. Let me guess? If it’s Coca-Cola you don’t stand a chance—’

  ‘Dom, it’s urgent. Please could you pop up to Emily’s desk? No … it can’t … can you come and look now?’

  He agreed to come straight up from his little cramped cubb
yhole down in the gloomy basement. His choice – apparently he liked it down there. There were days when I was tempted to join him.

  When he arrived, the first thing he did was that irritating ‘I don’t like the look of this’ head shaking, flicking his long wispy hair over his stooped shoulders.

  ‘Nasty.’ He was a man of few words. We looked expectantly at him. He looked back at us. It was one of those moments when you want to crank someone up. Insert a clockwork key in his back and give it a couple of sharp twists.

  ‘So,’ I asked eventually, ‘has someone hacked into Emily’s computer to do this?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘So …’ I prompted.

  ‘Inside job.’

  God it was like pulling teeth. ‘What does that mean, Dom?’

  ‘It weren’t a hacker. Someone did this here.’

  ‘What here at my desk?’ asked Emily horrified, taking a hasty step back from the computer as if it might bite her at any second.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Dom.

  ‘What, they just used my computer?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what I said.’

  ‘How?’ I asked.

  He looked at me. ‘Durr, like this.’ He took the mouse and with a few quick clicks the screen saver was changed back to the default one. ‘Came prepared though. Must’ve had a disk wiv ’em.’ He leaned back in Emily’s chair. ‘You ’ad a bit of a row wiv someone?’

  Emily and I exchanged glances. I called over to Cara who sat at the desk next to Emily’s. ‘Has anyone been near here while Emily was out at lunch?’

  Cara’s sleepy brown eyes looked puzzled. ‘No,’ she said, hesitating for a second. ‘Only the plant man.’

  ‘Plant man?’

  ‘You know, the people that come in and water the plants, polish the leaves. One of them came in – didn’t say much. The other girl’s much friendlier.’

  ‘What did he look like?’ I asked sharply.

  Cara looked more bewildered than usual. ‘Um, he had a hat on and a watering can.’

  ‘What sort of hat?’ I asked, trying not to let my impatience show. Cara was the sort that needed careful handling otherwise she’d get nervous.

  ‘Baseball, I think it was green … or it might have been red.’ Cara pulled an apologetic face. ‘Sorry, should I have said something to him? I thought he was quite helpful. When he knocked Emily’s bag on the floor he put everything back.’

  She turned to Emily and shrugged. ‘I knew you had your purse with you so I wasn’t worried he was going to nick anything.’

  Emily looked anxiously at her bag.

  ‘Do you think he’s … you know?’ she asked me, reaching out and touching the conker-brown leather.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know, tampered with it or something?’

  ‘What booby-trapped your bag?’ I asked, although given the computer stunt it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility. He could have left something in there.

  We looked at her pride-and-joy bag. It appeared innocuous. Was there anything nasty lurking inside, like a dead mouse or a mouldy sandwich? Had he emptied his watering can in there or tossed in a couple of handfuls of compost?

  Emily poked nervously at it. ‘If he’s put something in my Fendi bag, I’ll kill him. This bag cost me a fortune.’

  Didn’t we know it? It was a limited edition – one of only fifty in the country.

  Gingerly she started removing everything, which took some time – she had half of Selfridges’ make-up hall in there. Finally she reached the bottom.

  ‘That’s all right then. I was worried he might have ruined it.’

  That was so like her, whereas I would have been worried about him taking something. Had she checked everything was there?

  ‘Emily, is anything mi—’

  She patted her bag as if it were her favourite pet. ‘As long as my bag’s OK. You know it’s a limited edition. There are only—’

  ‘Emily, we have to tell someone,’ I interrupted urgently.

  ‘Tell them what? We went on a speed-date and picked up a lunatic who’s emailed me twice and sabotaged my computer. It’s hardly Jack the Ripper.’

  ‘Yes, but what if he’s done something else?’

  ‘Like what?’ Emily was renewing her acquaintance with her lipstick collection. Opening each one and putting a smear of colour on her hand.

  I wanted to shake her.

  ‘I don’t know, bugged your phone, set up something that sends copies of all your emails to him. I’ve no idea about all that.’

  ‘Lets ’ave a look.’

  I swung round guiltily. I’d completely forgotten Dom was still there.

  He grinned cheerfully at us. ‘Speed-date eh, girls? You shoulda said. I could fix you up with a coupla mates o’ mine.’

  I smiled weakly at him, while Emily looked down her nose with complete disdain. Quickly to stop her saying anything – we needed Dom’s help – I said, ‘That’s very kind of you.’

  ‘Jus’ lemme know next time,’ he said, swinging back to the keyboard.

  We stood in silence behind his hunched back, watching as his fingers tapped away, a blur of motion, while he muttered under his breath. He was a lot chattier to the computer.

  After a while he leaned back, put his hands behind his head and swivelled the chair to face us, smiling grimly. ‘It’s clean. Only changed the screen saver. No time to do nuffink else. Wot ’ave you bin doin’ to upset ’im?’

  Emily rolled her eyes. ‘You might say I was doing a friend a favour.’

  As Dom heaved himself out of the chair and slouched off shaking his head, she turned to me again. ‘All’s well that ends well, then.’

  ‘You think?’ I asked, looking at the restored screen.

  ‘He’s made his point, although we can’t prove it was him.’

  ‘Suppose not.’

  ‘I shall just ignore it,’ said Emily disdainfully. ‘I’m not rising to his pathetic little tricks. If he thinks I’m a bitch – that’s his problem, not mine. He’s burnt his boat now. Hardly going to bother me again, is he?’

  I was still worried. Very worried. Coming in here to make his point was pretty risky. Would that be the end of it?

  In the meantime there was no harm in letting Barney know. I was quite looking forward to that. It might wipe the smirk off his face for at least ten seconds.

  Chapter Seven

  Barney thought I was making a fuss about nothing.

  ‘Seriously, Olivia. What do you want me to do? Peter’s totally harmless.’

  ‘What? You know him?’

  There was a brief pause and I tapped my mobile phone impatiently.

  ‘Not know him, know him.’

  I might have guessed. Bloody Barney and his bullshit marketing crap.

  ‘He’s not exactly my type, darling.’ Barney’s voice was filled with scorn. ‘He came recommended though.’

  ‘I thought you said you vetted everyone.’ I enjoyed a moment of smugness, I’ve never managed to get one over on Barney.

  ‘Olivia,’ his exasperation showed. ‘We’re not sodding MI5. Besides define vetting. We check up on people.’

  ‘And what does that entail?’ I said, determined not to let Barney have the last word.

  ‘They have to bring their driving licence and proof of current address with them.’

  ‘And that’s it?’

  ‘What more do you want?’ he spat down the phone.

  He had a point. A driving licence was pretty official.

  ‘Well, is there anything you can do? He’s freaking Emily out and I’ve got to live with her.’

  ‘I’ll make a few enquiries.’

  And that would be the end of that, I thought with a sneer.

 
‘I’m sure … if it was him, it was an isolated incident but don’t hesitate to call me if anything else happens.’

  What! Had hell just frozen over? Before I could summon up the capacity to speak again, Barney had gone.

  In contrast Kate thought it was all highly amusing.

  ‘Serves her right,’ she sniggered down the phone later that afternoon.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ I said, the handset tucked in the crook of my ear as I carried on typing an email. ‘I think it’s a bit scary. Emily’s just pissed off.’

  ‘Probably because the wrong guy emailed. Let’s face it, Olivia, she ticked three different boxes – there are still two other guys out there she’s not moaning about at the moment.’

  True, Emily hadn’t said a word about any other contact she’d had. I glanced up at her on the other side of the office. She was chatting away to Cara, perched on her desk as they both poured over a page of Hello!.

  ‘So how’s the packing?’ I asked, changing the subject. ‘Did you get everything you wanted in Boots?’

  There was a pause and a sigh as if she was about to say something and changed her mind. ‘A nightmare.’ Her voice wobbled. ‘Mum has gone out and bought grocery supplies – half of Asda. I’m never going to get it all in. You’d think I was emigrating for good. I’m only going back to Oz for another six months.’

  ‘Can’t you extend your visa?’

  ‘What the hell for?’ she snapped.

  ‘Sorry, I thought you loved it there.’

  ‘It’s all fine. Greg is great. Australia’s great. Everything’s just great.’

  ‘Sure?’

  There was a pause and a deep breath. I thought she was going to launch into some confessional but her voice was back to its usually perky tone. ‘It’s all fine. My biggest worry is getting through customs. I can see it now, surrounded by hysterical sniffer dogs driven wild by Mum’s Marmite stockpile.’

  I giggled. ‘I’m sure they’re used to it. All Poms travel with the stuff.’

  ‘Not ten jars of it.’

  ‘You’ll get it all in. If not, you could leave me a couple of pairs of shoes.’

  ‘Not bloody likely. I’d rather ditch the Marmite.’