In Office Hours

by Lucy Kellaway

  At Theakstone Lodge, a tall young man in a zip-up cardigan was waiting to meet the coach.

  – Hiya! Hiya! he said to each person as they got out. I’m Jay, and I’m your facilitator for the next twenty-four hours. I suggest you check in, go up to your rooms to freshen up, then come down for a meet and greet. See you in fifteen.

  Bella had never been in a hotel on her own before. She put her overnight bag on the suitcase stand, and admired her bed with its crisp white cover. She went into the bathroom, ran her hand over the smooth sweep of the basin, shaped like a large white fruit bowl, and then pinched the deep white towels. She looked at her reflection in the mirror and thought she looked too young and too grubby to be staying here. She brushed her hair, put on more mascara and rang Millie, who was grumpy because her grandmother had said she was too young to watch Desperate Housewives.

  Downstairs the full team of twenty-three External Relations managers sat in a large circle on gold chairs of the sort that people hire for weddings.

  – Sorry, said Bella, sitting herself down on the last chair and putting a bag of objects underneath it.

  – Now that we are all present and correct, I’d like to welcome you on behalf of Ideation! We’re at the beginning of a journey that will unleash our creativity, re-energize us and be a load of fun.

  Bella looked at James, who was stony-faced.

  – So, Jay went on, let’s dive straight into our first warm-up exercise. I asked each of you to bring something that says something about yourself. Something that is surprising, and that will give us a key to your unique spirit, your authenticity.

  Slowly they started to go round the circle. One man had brought his child’s first tooth. Men can get away with slushy displays of parental love, Bella thought, but women cannot. Ben had brought the key to his motorbike, which was cheating, as everyone knew he rode it. Most of the other men brought something to do with sport. Four of them produced golf balls, leading to a lively discussion of handicaps, which Jay had to silence. There were only two other women in the group; one produced a book of travel writing about the places she hoped to visit when she had more time – a gratuitous reference to how hard she worked. The other brought a swimming hat, and told the team the not especially interesting detail that she went swimming twice a week. Bella waited for her turn with growing dread. She realized that she had misunderstood the exercise: the aim wasn’t to bring along something surprising but to bring along something safe that didn’t say anything about you at all. Bella looked at the three things in her lap.

  – You seem to have a lot there, said Jay.

  – Yes, she said, blushing scarlet. I couldn’t decide, so I brought three.

  She could feel James’s eyes on her.

  – If it takes three things to unlock the authenticity of you, Jay said, then go right ahead!

  – Here is a saw, said Bella rapidly, holding up the item. I brought it because I like doing DIY. And here is a book of Russian love poems, because they are beautiful. And here is a microphone, which belongs to my daughter. We like doing karaoke together.

  There was a brief silence.

  James was looking straight at her and raised an eyebrow.

  – That’s great! Sensational! Thank you, Bella, said Jay. And finally, what about our leader?

  James fished around in his pocket and produced a small wooden chest of drawers no more than two inches high.

  – I made this. I like to make miniatures.

  Bella looked at him in amazement. This really was unexpected. The chest was perfect, but was also perfectly useless. Bella watched him pull the drawers out, his fingers looking delicate and gentle as they pulled the tiny knobs.

  Stella

  Stella was standing in the checkin queue at Heathrow. She had had no sleep, but she didn’t feel tired so much as displaced. It was as if she had undergone a change so drastic that she could not understand how the rest of the world could seem so much the same.

  When she had got home from her drink with Rhys the previous evening, Charles and Finn had been on the sofa watching the closing minutes of Juventus versus Arsenal. She had kissed Charles briefly on the back of his head; she didn’t want him to see her face. But he turned and looked at her briefly in what seemed to her like an outlandishly, preposterously normal way.

  – Sorry I’m so late, Stella had said. There was something I had to finish.

  Charles had grunted, leaning forward on the sofa watching Juventus score in the ninety-first minute.

  – No! groaned Finn, bending his arms backwards over his head in the new body language of disappointment.

  Stella looked at them on the sofa. That is my husband, and that is my son, she thought. While they were watching the match I was holding hands with a colleague.

  She stood in the doorway. She should have been feeling guilt, but this feeling was different: more a sense of distance. Guilt meant feeling wretched, and she hadn’t felt that. She had felt euphoric, as if she were floating. She was looking down on her life below, and it appeared to be carrying on precisely as normal.

  Everyone was saying the sorts of things they always said. The only person who was not normal was Stella, but no one seemed interested in what might have happened to her, or to notice any difference. Only Charles’s mother, who had come over for dinner, seemed moved by Stella’s late arrival.

  – My dear, you spend far too much time at work. What are you getting up to?

  Stella said that there was a lot going on at work at the moment but that things would calm down soon.

  The old lady considered this for a moment and looked at Stella anxiously again and said:

  – My dear, you spend far too much time at work. What are you getting up to?

  Once again Stella said there was a lot going on.

  The question and answer had been given another three or four times and the meal had gone on in its normal way. Clemmie had been a little nicer than usual, cheered up by having got 99 per cent in her physics exam. Finn talked sweetly to his grandmother about the level he had reached on his violent computer game, which she listened to with the greatest tolerance and with a minimum of understanding.

  Stella had eaten, though she wasn’t hungry. She must have talked, too, though she couldn’t remember what she had said. The children had gone to bed, and Stella, feeling the need to make amends, had driven Charles’s mother home, gone into her flat, sorted out her rubbish, hung out some washing and talked to her for a bit. When she got back, Charles had been in bed asleep. Stella looked at his body, once long and lean but now slack around the middle. She pushed away the image of Rhys, the smell of his coat.

  Stella got into bed beside her husband and closed her eyes. There was no chance of sleep – indeed, she did not even want to sleep. She lay there playing the events of the evening over and over in her mind. At about 3 a.m., with the certainty that comes at that early hour, Stella decided that Rhys would be regretting the drink. That he had not meant to say those things, not meant to hug her. She was certain that there would be a text from him on her phone saying as much. She’d got out of bed, taken the phone from her jacket pocket, gone into the bathroom and locked the door – something she had never done in the house before.

  She’d turned it on, the second it took to come to life feeling an eternity. There’d been a new text message. It was from Rhys and had been sent at 2.38 a.m. It said:

  Xxxxx

  The woman at the British Airways desk was asking Stella if she wanted an aisle seat or a window seat.

  What makes you think I care which sort of seat I have? Stella wanted to say. I have had no sleep. I am hysterically happy and also deeply miserable. For what it’s worth, I’m going to a meeting in Arizona for which I am quite unprepared. Where I sit on this aeroplane does not interest me.

  – Window seat, she said.

  She put her bag on to the conveyor belt and the woman said: Did you pack this bag yourself?

  – Yes, Stella said.

  – Are there any
sharp objects, liquids, inside?

  – No, said Stella.

  While she gave the routine answers to the familiar questions, she was thinking: he is obsessed with me. I know this is laughable. But he says he is. Rhys, for godssake. I can’t stop thinking about a man called Rhys. Not even a man. A boy. A boy called Rhys. What a stupid name. What a stupid woman.

  Stella settled back into her window seat, closed her eyes, and stopped trying to chase the thoughts away. She let herself relive the moment. The taxi was idling, its door open, and she was standing on the kerb and his arms were clamped around her. And then earlier, he had looked at her over the little pub table, and said she was fascinating, funny, beautiful and sexy.

  Each of these words gave her a jolt of pleasure. Stella was used to being admired and loved. But she was not used to being admired by someone like him. Nor was she used to being told she was either beautiful or – even less – sexy. She hugged these words to herself, but as she said them over she started to doubt them.

  He had said these things; certainly. But did he mean them? He might have thought he did at the time, but surely he didn’t, not really. Could he desire her?

  – Excuse me.

  An immensely fat man was easing himself into the seat next to her. Even in the wide seats of club class his flesh was pressing against the armrest that separated them. Stella moved away, shifting her papers.

  His breathing was heavy, and he jabbed his fat fingers at his iPod for a bit, while Stella tried to concentrate on her briefing paper.

  CROSS PRICE ELASTICITY OF DEMAND ON RENEWABLES OF OIL PRICE FLUCTUATIONS

  – That looks like fun! the man said.

  Stella gave a thin smile.

  She read the first paragraph, and then read it again.

  The plane was starting to taxi down towards the runway.

  – All mobile phones and electronic devices must be turned off now, and kept off for the duration of the flight, the stewardess was saying.

  Stella still had a signal. She typed a text saying:

  Will be airborne in seconds. Think would be better if we are not in touch for next three days.

  She sent it, turned the gadget off and returned her seat to the upright position.

  Bella

  Bella had had one vodka and tonic before dinner, at least four glasses of wine at dinner and then afterwards in the bar had reverted to vodkas and tonics. She was now on her third.

  All evening she had been aware of him. Aware of where he was standing and who he was talking to. A couple of times he had smiled at her and she had willed him to come and talk to her, but he hadn’t. He had once looked at her pointedly, as if there were some shared joke between them, but had stayed put. Then, at about midnight, Bella had gone over and sat on the bar stool next to him.

  – I’m wasted, she said. And I’m still cringing about the poems. I mean everyone else had normal things – did it look like I was trying to be too intellectual?

  – No, not at all, he said. Why did you think that?

  – Dunno. I just…

  She smiled at him stupidly.

  – I think you’d find that many of us like poems and only regret that we don’t have more time to study them.

  He glanced at his watch and then, in an attempt to prolong the conversation, Bella said: So what kind of poems do you like then?

  – Ah, well, he said. I like lots of poems.

  – Go on, then. Recite me something.

  This seemed to throw him. And then he said:

  – Is there anybody there, said the traveller, knocking on the moonlit door.

  – I don’t know, Bella said. Is there?

  He laughed.

  – I can’t remember how it goes after that. But it’s been a long day, and I’d better turn in.

  Without having any clear idea of what she was doing, Bella got up unsteadily, announced that she too needed to get to bed, and followed him to the tiny lift. Once inside she leant against him.

  – I’m trashed, she said.

  – Bella, no, I don’t think so, he said, but then undermined his protest by seizing her and kissing her with such urgency that even through her drunkenness Bella wondered if his desperation was even greater than her own.

  She was not sure precisely what had been the order of events after that. Had he led her to his room? Or had she simply followed him? She couldn’t remember, and perhaps it didn’t matter much.

  Either way, she did go to his room, and stood in the middle of the floor wondering where to sit down. The chair had his suit carrier on it, so Bella lowered herself on to the edge of the bed and then, when he did not sit next to her, got up again unsteadily.

  – Would you like a nightcap? he asked, opening the mini bar.

  He took out two small bottles of red wine and handed her one of them.

  – So sorry about just now.

  Bella started to laugh.

  – What’s so funny? he asked.

  – Nothing. Everything. Whatever.

  In fact she was laughing because he had apologized as if he had just trodden on her foot, rather than just kissed her with more passion than anyone had kissed her for a very long time.

  Then he said: This is all a little – confusing.

  Bella stopped laughing. She took a large swallow of wine and refused the packet of dry roasted peanuts he was offering her. He moved his suitcase off the chair and gestured for her to sit down.

  – Is it OK if I use your loo?

  In the bathroom his things were arranged in a neat line on the glass shelf. Silver razor, Gillette Fusion Hydra Gel, Pantene shampoo, and Sure Aerosol for Men – Sensitive. Bella gripped the side of the basin and looked at her flushed reflection. She picked up his toothbrush, ran some water on it and put it in her mouth.

  When she returned to the room she found he had taken off his jacket and was turning the lights in the ceiling and the standard light on and off in order to try to get the bedside lights on.

  – Bella, he said. I know this is irregular. But would you mind coming and lying with me? Just for a minute.

  Bella moved on to the bed and closed her eyes. The room was shifting, and James was pressing himself against her. He released her bra with surprising dexterity.

  Stella

  Stella landed at JFK and turned on her BlackBerry. There were three texts from Rhys.

  The first, sent at 7.56, just seconds after she was airborne, said:

  Dear S, just got your message. ok, I will try to be silent for three days.

  Rx

  The second, sent at 9.34, said:

  Scrub that. I don’t like silent, I’m thinking about you in mid air. Nothing happening except I’m staring at your empty chair. I had a Danish for breakfast which I could not finish.

  Xxx

  The third had been sent at 12.43.

  I miss you. How long is this bloody flight? It seems to have been going on for DAYS. Will you call me when you land?

  xxxxx

  Stella scrolled down through the messages, her cheek muscles contracting involuntarily into a smile, which she hid by putting her hand over her mouth.

  – Good news?

  Her neighbour was eyeing her. Was it that obvious? Could he see right into her heart and see that it was leaping and twirling?

  In the terminal building Stella stood by baggage reclaim and typed in his number.

  He answered after one ring.

  – Hello, she said.

  – Hi, he said. Where are you?

  His voice, far away in the Moorgate offices, sounded absurdly Welsh.

  – I am waiting for my connecting flight to Arizona.

  – Oh.

  They were both silent.

  – Where are you? she asked.

  – I’m just walking away from my desk. Now I’m in the corridor by the recycling bins. If I suddenly start talking about Opec production figures for March you’ll know why.

  – I got all your messages. You weren’t meant to be sending me any.
We were meant to be silent for a bit.

  – But you’ve just called me, he pointed out.

  – So I did, she admitted, laughing.

  – When are you getting back?

  – Thursday.

  – I know, but what time is your flight?

  – It’s the red eye, so early. About 6.30, I think.

  – I’ll meet you.

  – No, you can’t do that. This is mad. Rhys, I do mean it. I must think.

  – OK, he said reluctantly. So long as you reach the right conclusion.

  – I have to go now, my baggage is here.

  She hung up.

  Immediately the phone went again, and even though Stella hadn’t spoken to him for about fifteen seconds she was glad to do so again. Without looking at the phone, she took the call.

  – Hello again, she said, her voice soft, and laughing.

  – Mum?

  It was Finn.

  – Hello darling, she said in a slightly different tone of voice. How are you? I’ve just landed in New York.

  He ignored this.

  – Mum, where are my shin guards?

  Hearing his gruff voice she felt a simple love for her son; he was so guileless and so lazy; yet he expected love, and in his short life so far had not been disappointed.

  – I’ve got no idea. Probably where you left them.

  – Cheers, Mum, he said, and hung up.

  Bella

  Bella had woken to find the bed was empty next to her. Through the thin partition wall she could hear the shower. On the floor, beside two empty wine bottles, her clothes were strewn about – one shoe leading into the bathroom, the other poking out from under the curtain. His were neatly folded on the chair, and the little chest of drawers had been placed on his bedside table.

  Bella lay as still as she could. Her body felt poisoned by alcohol but renewed by what she queasily decided was the best sex she had ever had. Her mind was all at sea. She wasn’t sure if the predominant feeling was dread at the stupidity of what she had just done, or simple happiness. She wished he would come back to bed.