Fallen for Rock

by Wells, Nicky

  ‘Emily. I need to talk to you.’ Mark ignored the phone and my uncomfortable expression. He stepped into my office and closed the door behind him.

  Bad sign. For the first time in my entire professional career, I found myself stalling for time.

  ‘Um, Mark. Now is really not a very good time. I…I have that deadline, and…’

  I let myself sink feebly into my chair while I was talking, subconsciously admitting defeat. Resistance was futile. Mark wanted to talk, so talk he would.

  ‘Now, please, Emily.’ He pulled up my visitor’s chair and sat down. For a moment, we regarded each other silently. I wondered if he could hear my heart beating high in my throat. Then again, the phone kept ringing and ringing, and I doubted he would pick up my palpitations over the racket.

  ‘Can you not turn that off?’ Mark spoke gruffly, with a barely controlled anger in his voice that made me quiver in my low-heeled office boots. I was in deeper-than-deep shit.

  I lifted the receiver, slammed it down and lifted it again to punch in the code for auto-voicemail. Immediately, the office filled with silence. At last.

  ‘What is the meaning of this?’ Mark delicately placed a printout of a grainy photo on my desk, and I didn’t even need to look at it to know what it was. I swallowed and worked hard to keep my voice level and calm.

  ‘Not what you think.’

  Ugh. Classic denial phrase. I tried again. ‘I had a fall. I was concussed.’ Might as well claim the benefit of the doubt. ‘There was a paramedic there, he’ll confirm this.’ Or not. ‘I couldn’t walk. I was dizzy. Mike was helping me get on the tour bus so I could sleep.’

  Mark’s face was a picture. Despite the seriousness of the situation, I relished the surprise in his eyes. I could practically see the little cogs in his brain computing the information. Emily? With a rock band? On a tour bus?

  ‘Concussed, huh?’ A timbre of irony betrayed Mark’s disbelief.

  ‘Yes. Or suspected of being concussed, at least.’ It was probably best to stick with the absolute truth. ‘I fell and cracked my head on an equipment case. The paramedic thought I was probably all right, but Mike and Adam were under strict orders to keep an eye on me and to take me to hospital if I took a turn for the worse.’ My justification emerged in a breathless rush.

  ‘“Suspected” of being concussed. I see.’ I could hear the sarcasm in Mark’s voice while he picked up the photo again and looked at it closely. ‘If you don’t mind me saying, it’s hard to believe. You look way out of it here.’

  I exhaled slowly to stop myself from snapping. ‘I was “way out of it” there. I was dizzy and nauseous. The band was about to go on stage. I needed sleep. So it was thought that it would be best to put me in the bus where I could remain until the band was finished and we would all drive to Bristol.’

  ‘So. Concussed, but not in need of a hospital. And able to tag along for a ride to the next city?’

  It sounded hollow when Mark recapped it so starkly, but I nodded. ‘That’s about the size of it.’

  ‘That’s not what the papers say.’

  He might as well have slapped me. I recoiled from the imagined impact.

  ‘You believe the tabloids over the word of a valued employee?’

  ‘I don’t know what to believe. You’ve come back from your holiday looking all different, you’ve obviously acted well out of character, and now this.’

  ‘Now this what? It’s a storm in a teacup. I had a holiday. I took a road trip. So what? I’m not a drug abuser. I was ill.’ Indignation made my voice rise with every word, but I couldn’t help it.

  Mark shrugged. ‘That will have to be determined. For now, I have no choice but…’

  ‘No, no, no,’ I interrupted his little speech. All poise and composure went right out of the window when it became clear what he was going to say. ‘You can’t be serious.’

  My boss continued as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘I have no choice but to suspend you pending further investigation.’

  ‘You are joking.’

  ‘This is no joking matter. In fact, it seems that you don’t understand the seriousness of the situation.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘This company turns on the reputation of its employees. We have policies in place to prevent this kind of thing.’ There was a look of distaste on Mark’s face, as if I was somehow dirty. He stood up and towered above me while he built up to the crescendo, the final blow. I sat up straighter in my chair, clinging to my last shreds of dignity and refusing to cower.

  Mark’s words came from a long, long way away as he continued mercilessly. ‘If there is even the shadow of a doubt over you, we are obliged to investigate whether you are in breach of your contract with the firm. While we investigate, we cannot allow you to interact with clients or handle their financial assets. Ergo, you are suspended.’

  I swallowed hard. A dozen responses raced around my brain, and I tried to grasp the most appropriate one. How dare he speak to me like that? Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? I had rarely ever touched a drop of alcohol at any company event, I didn’t smoke, I was known as Little Miss Squeaky Clean, and he threw all of that overboard because of a spurious allegation?

  ‘I’ll sue. For slander. The tabloids. And the firm, for unjust suspension.’

  At last my response erupted, piecemeal, broken, and backwards, but the stake was in the ground. I wanted to say a thousand more things, but I cut myself short. ‘You’ll hear from my lawyer.’

  What lawyer? I don’t have a lawyer! a panicked voice piped up at the back of my brain. Then bloody well get one, a hitherto unknown, spunky side shot back. I fought to keep an impassive face while I began to shut down my computer. I had been meticulous about following company guidelines to the letter, and I had no personal files on the system whatsoever. A colleague was welcome to run with the nightmare that was my current deal and make it happen. I was out of there.

  While the screen went dark, I stacked papers neatly into piles but thought better of it and clumped everything together. If they wanted me gone at the drop of a hat, they might as well sort the paperwork out themselves. I grabbed my handbag and stood before Mark had uttered a single word.

  ‘You’ll regret this.’ I spoke with a lot more confidence than I felt. ‘I’ve always been unfailingly loyal to this firm. What a great pity that you’re not affording me the same courtesy. I have nothing more to say to you right now.’

  Wow. Go me!

  Head held high, I swept out of my office without a backward glance. There was a tiny wobble in my step as I walked along the corridor among the curious stares of my co-workers, and I trod more heavily to steady myself. No one was to know I was quaking inside. Would I get paid while I was suspended? Did I have a copy of my employment contract at home? How the heck did one go about finding a lawyer for these circumstances? And, as anger and shock wrestled with self-righteousness, the most important question of all: would I even want to come back once my name was cleared?

  Chapter Thirty-One

  My composure cracked on the Tube. The old man sitting opposite me was reading one of the tabloids, and that awful grainy photo of Mike and me was on the front page. I put my head down and hid my flaming cheeks in my handbag. Hot tears escaped from my eyes, and I began to sniffle as my nose clogged up.

  Barely a few months ago, I had been a high-flying career professional with everything going for her. Now, I was a lonely nearly-thirty woman with no boyfriend, a large question mark over her career, and her face in all the papers together with horrible allegations and no way of rectifying them. On top of that, I was missing both Nate and Mike dreadfully. Nate, for his love and tender companionship. And Mike, for the animal sex and the release he brought. What a mess I had made of my life.

  Desolately, I walked home from the Tube station. It was barely lunchtime. What should I do with the rest of the day? The rest of my life, for that matter?

  I found myself shaking all over, probably a delayed reaction to the shock
of being suspended, and I seized on the idea of a hot bath. Things would look better after a bit of aromatherapy. Buoyed by that thought, I unlocked the front door and began climbing the stairs. But no sooner had I reached the second landing than I heard an all too familiar squeak and a little sniffle. Mrs Bowden was on the lookout. No doubt she had seen the papers, too.

  Hell and damnation, but I wasn’t in the mood for a confrontation with my nosey neighbour right now. I stopped in my tracks and stepped away from the bannisters. Sure enough, my neighbour’s tremulous voice rang through the staircase after only a few seconds’ hesitation.

  ‘Emily? Is that you?’

  Don’t breathe, I told myself. Don’t cough, don’t laugh, don’t make a sound. You’re not here.

  ‘Emily?’ Mrs Bowden wasn’t easily deflected. I played dead.

  ‘Strange. I could have sworn she was coming up the stairs.’

  I bit my lip. Once again I wondered if she had anything else to do but to watch other people’s comings and goings. In the past, I had made a determined effort to be charitable and to give her the benefit of the doubt. She was a lonely old lady after all. But right at that moment, I could have cheerfully strangled her. I was sublimely angry at her for standing between me and my own front door, literally.

  Still, I remained quiet and bade my time. Eventually, a shuffling of feet suggested that she was returning to her flat, and at last her door closed with a satisfying thud. I counted silently to ten and carefully removed my shoes so that I could creep up the last few steps in my bare feet. I didn’t make as much as a squeak, and I slid past my neighbour’s front door, inserted the key in my own lock, and rushed inside before she cottoned on what was happening.

  ‘I’m going to have to move,’ I declared once I was safely in my kitchen. ‘I can’t keep running the gauntlet day in and day out. It’s ridiculous.’

  I poured myself a large glass of wine—never mind the early hour—and sank onto a kitchen chair. Then I remembered my aromatherapy plans and padded into the bathroom, glass in hand. Adding a generous helping of deluxe bath foam to the running water, I sat on the side of the tub for a moment and watched the bubbles form. Overcome by the need for cleansing, I slipped off my clothes and sat in the water while it was running, reclining regally and sipping at my glass of wine all the while. And why not indeed? What else would I do?

  An hour later, the water was cold, my glass was empty, and my fingers and toes had turned pruney. However, my spirits had lifted no end after I had let my mind freewheel for a while amongst the luscious bubbles. Out of the literal and metaphorical fog had risen an action plan.

  First of all, I needed to find out what really happened to MonX. Therefore…

  Action Item #1—do the research (Google? Facebook?).

  Action Item #2—track down and talk to Mike.

  Next up, I needed to get advice on my situation. Therefore...

  Action Item #3—find a lawyer (Google?).

  Action Item #4—Talk to lawyer.

  There. Those were actionable things. I could achieve all of those in a matter of hours. Then I would feel better, and I would know where I stood, in every sense of the word. I flung on a shirt and one of my new pairs of jeans and got busy, feeling excited and optimistic.

  Alas, my optimism proved misplaced. Action Item #1 yielded no results beyond the mass of sensational information I already had. I decided that I wasn’t going to get any wiser through public media and proceeded to Action Item #2, which would hopefully take me to the core of insight.

  Only there was no way of getting hold of Mike. I tried the record company (switchboard jammed, no can-do), I Googled and found their agent (switchboard jammed, no can-do) and their publicist (ditto). I unearthed, through a random social media lead, contact details for Adam, but his mobile was switched off. I hated to admit defeat, but I wasn’t going to talk to Mike any time soon. Damn.

  I was poised to move onto Action Item #3 when my phone rang. I snatched it up quickly, hoping that by some miracle, Mike would be on the other end. But no.

  ‘Emily, sweetheart?’ Mum sounded agitated. ‘Emily, are you there?’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’ I gripped the handset hard and breathed deeply. How stupid of me not to realise that my family would be exposed to the scandal. ‘I’m here.’

  ‘Are you all right, sweetie? Only…’

  ‘You’ve seen the photo.’

  ‘I have. Emily, darling, what was going on? Why do the papers say you slept with that man? And why is he carrying you as though you can’t walk?’

  I sighed wearily. If only I had confided in my mum after my unscheduled road trip, then at least she would have known what to make of this mess.

  ‘Yes, I slept with that man,’ I confirmed flatly. ‘And no, I couldn’t walk. But before you go off assuming the worst, hear me out.’

  So I filled her in as best I could, omitting explicit details of my relationship with Mike—she was my mum after all—but explaining clearly how I came to be in his arms. Mum listened in silence. She was good like that. But when I was done, it was neither Mike nor the drugs story that occupied her mind.

  ‘But Emily,’ she admonished me. ‘How could you do this to Nate?’

  Ah. Silly me for assuming that my secrecy about the sad matter of Nate’s exit from my life wouldn’t come back to bite me.

  ‘Nate and I split up weeks ago, Mum. I didn’t know how to tell you.’

  ‘But why?’

  Oh God, did I really have to go through all of this now? I swallowed hard.

  ‘Because I didn’t know how much I loved him, and he annoyed me. I made a big mistake and chucked him out. And no, it’s not fixable, so please don’t push me on this. I’ve tried.’

  Tears spilled out of my eyes, and I wiped them away with the back of my hand. I had to breathe through my mouth so Mum wouldn’t hear me sniffle.

  ‘Oh sweetheart, what a mess you’ve made.’

  Gee thanks, Mum. I know.

  But Mum was the eternal optimist, and she rallied quickly on my behalf. ‘It’ll all work out somehow, you’ll see.’

  I remained doubtful. ‘I don’t know, Mum. I just don’t know.’

  ‘You’ll work it out. I know you will. But do look after yourself. And please don’t do them drugs, you know how much they frighten me.’

  ‘I know. I won’t.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘I promise, Mum.’

  ‘So what’s next?’

  ‘Well…’ I hesitated slightly but decided to be blunt. If I didn’t get round to following through on my Action Items, I would surely lose my mind.

  ‘I’m going to seek legal advice about this work thing. I think they’re being unfair and prejudiced.’

  ‘Too right,’ Mum concurred heartily. ‘You tell them.’

  ‘Well, I’d rather know my legal situation before I get back in touch so if you don’t mind, I’ll hang up now and try and find myself a lawyer. Or something.’

  ‘Of course. You do that, darling.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Yes, sweetie?’

  ‘I’ve got to ring off before I can call a lawyer.’

  ‘Oh. Of course. How silly of me. Speak to you soon, my love.’

  ‘Speak to you soon.’

  At last, I was free to pursue Action Items #3 and #4. Strangely, speaking to Mum had made me feel a little better. Perhaps it was being comforted and accepted, or perhaps it was spelling everything out, albeit backwards. Either way, I was raring to proceed with my plan.

  Happily, Action Items #3 and #4 proved easier than #1 and #2 had. Google pulled up an astounding number of employment law specialists, and I grew dizzy trying to pick one. I deliberated using a random number generator to make my selection but spotted a link for a free helpline. I dialled the number and spoke with a very nice and sympathetic lady who took my details to conduct an initial assessment. I tried not to panic. Initial assessment. This sounded very serio
us indeed.

  After a few minutes of being on hold, the lady returned with some basic information. Sad and sickening though it was, it appeared that the company was within their rights to suspend me, owing to the sensitive nature of the business and the drugs policy written into the contract. However, evidently I hadn’t been given a chance to defend myself during a fair hearing, and considering that the premise for suspension was ultimately unjust, me not having actually breached the contract by using drugs—my eyes boggled at the long run-on sentences—there appeared to be scope for legal recourse, and I was given the details of five law firms that would be able to advise and take my matter further.

  I thanked the lady profusely and hung up. My mind was awash with conflicting reactions. Part of me simply wanted to stick my head in the sand and hope the whole sorry mess would go away. Part of me wanted to hit back, guns blazing, so to speak. And another part of me wanted my name to be cleared. I nibbled my thumb and sat, frozen in indecision, whilst pondering options. With a big sigh, I picked up the phone once more and dialled the first lawyer’s number. I might as well see how far I could push this, now that I had taken the first step.

  Thus by four o’clock, I was able to tick off Action Items #3 and #4 from my list. I had found a lawyer and made an appointment to visit his office, complete with all the paperwork, on Wednesday morning. Until that time, I was to sit tight and not engage in any further communication with the company. If they contacted me, I was to give his name and number, nothing more. Wow, but that felt good!

  My initial elation wore off quickly, and I ended up feeling deflated. Now what? This question flung itself at me from every direction, and I paced the flat restlessly. I supposed I could tidy and clean, but in actual fact, the place was spotless. I didn’t feel in the mood for shopping, although I had no food in the house. I did, however, feel like cooking. A memory stirred at the back of my mind. There was a leaflet that had come through the door not too long ago...

  I directed my feet into the kitchen and towards my junk mail pile. I knew exactly what I was looking for.