In Office Hours

by Lucy Kellaway

  The doctor said if Stella didn’t want couples therapy she recommended that she go for some cognitive behavioural therapy and gave her the name of a psychiatrist in Harley Street. She said the pills would start to work in a fortnight, and that the therapy would take longer.

  Stella made the driver wait outside a chemist while she got the drugs and a bottle of water. She took a beta-blocker and the first antidepressant and felt stronger as she swallowed them. She was sorting herself out, she said to herself. She was not going to go under.

  By mid-morning the pills were making Stella feel dizzy. She could not concentrate on the latest set of management accounts, which showed that the company was going to miss its December forecast by a wide margin.

  Instead she decided to go out and have a walk. Once outside, she drifted past the shops and, seeing Reiss, decided on a whim to buy a Christmas present for Rhys. Nothing big, just a token to show him that she did not feel bitter or angry. She would make a joke of the name: for Rhys from Reiss.

  In the front of the shop were piles of cashmere sweaters. She liked the idea of him wearing something she had given him, and started to finger the colours. Bright colours did not look good on him, she thought. Grey might be better.

  – Can I help you with sizing? said a shop assistant.

  – It’s for my –

  Stella paused, knowing it was ridiculous to feel so embarrassed in front of an assistant whom she would never see again and who could not have cared less.

  – It’s for a friend, she said. He’s about the same size as you.

  She took the medium sweater to the till.

  When she got back to the office there was an envelope on her desk with ‘Stella’ written on it in his writing.

  She snatched at it, tore it open and then stared at the picture of St Paul’s Cathedral under snow. Inside it said: ‘To Stella and family. Happy Christmas, Best, Rhys’.

  Stella looked at this in dismay. Which was worse, she wondered, the ‘Stella and family’ or the ‘best’?

  She thought of the jumper, chosen with such care. She could not give it to him now.

  Instead she sent a message saying:

  Thank you for the thoughtful card.

  It was cold, but that was how she meant it to be.

  Bella

  On the morning of her last day at work before Christmas, Stella called Bella into her office.

  – I hope you won’t mind if I set you an unusual task. I’ve been asked by the CEO to draw up a ‘love contract policy’ – a code of conduct for relationships between colleagues. Would it seem like some sort of terrible aversion therapy if I asked you to do some legwork and find out what other companies do?

  Bella found she did not mind. It was a relief to have her situation alluded to. There could not be a single person in the company who did not know, but still no one had said anything. It was even more of a relief to be given something to do. She had spent the past week at her desk pretending to be busy, and walking up to the vending machines far more often than her desire for a Diet Coke merited, in the hope of catching a glimpse of James.

  – Well, at least it’s something that I know about, she said, which makes a difference from writing reports on relative share price performance.

  Stella looked at her, and laughed with what struck Bella as real sympathy.

  And then she said, quite out of the blue: How are you getting on with your Christmas shopping?

  Bella said that it was nearly all done, though she kept on buying more things for Millie. She wanted Christmas to be really good for her this year.

  Stella got a Reiss bag from behind her desk and held it out to her.

  – Perhaps you have someone you could give this to? It’s a jumper I bought for Charles, but it isn’t the right size and I can’t find the receipt, so it’d be a relief if you took it.

  Bella looked inside at the pale grey cashmere jumper. She didn’t have anyone to give it to, but thought she might wear it herself. The softness of the wool looked comforting.

  – I can’t accept this, she said. There must be someone who’d like it in your family.

  – Just take it, said Stella, almost sharply. You’d be doing me a favour.

  Bella took the bag back to her desk and into Google she typed ‘love contract’ and read:

  Love contracts relieve the company of any liability during the time period of the office romance prior to the signing of the contract. If a manager chooses to date the reporting employee, they are advised to notify Human Resources. In these instances, the manager will be the employee who needs to change jobs in the company, assuming a position is available.

  She scrolled down through the policies disbelievingly. The love contracts were silent on love itself, silent on the emotional price that there was to pay. And the price, in this particular case, was being paid entirely by her. She had lost him, and missed him. She would never get him back and this thought was too hard to bear.

  Bella picked up the Christmas card she had bought for him a week earlier but hadn’t resolved whether to send it or not. After much deliberation she had written inside: ‘Dear James, I hope you have a lovely Christmas, and that everything is OK for you at home, Love Bella x.’

  But she didn’t hope that he had a lovely Christmas and she didn’t hope that things were OK for him. She ripped the card in two and put it in the bin.

  As she did so, her phone buzzed. James, it said. With her heart in her mouth, Bella opened the message.

  Hello.

  It wasn’t a passionate declaration of love. But it was a cracking of his will. She hugged herself. This one humdrum word had transported her from despair to optimism. She regretted having torn up the card.

  Hello, she texted back.

  After the briefest of pauses, came another message.

  What are you doing this afternoon?

  She replied:

  Working.

  Then there was nothing for a while, during which time Bella started to regret the brusqueness of her reply. After about ten minutes another text came:

  Great Eastern – right now?

  This was what she wanted more than anything, but not like this. She wanted him to say that his relationship with her was precious, too precious to give up. She needed him to say sorry and to make amends. She could not accept such a graceless invitation.

  No. Fraid I’m busy.

  She sat back and waited for another attempt to persuade her, but none came. Bella started to panic – she had longed for this and it had come, but she had spoilt it. She started drafting another, kinder message, when her phone bleeped again.

  Please.

  And without thinking at all, she just messaged:

  Yes.

  She got her bag, and said to Nathalie: Millie is ill. I’ve got to get her from school.

  A few months ago she would not have considered using her daughter like this, but in her present mood Bella didn’t care. Neither did she care whether Nathalie believed her. None of it mattered. She ran through the streets and pushed through the revolving doors without waiting for the man to spin them for her.

  James was waiting by the lift, obscured by an extravagant display of gold and silver branches.

  – Thank you, he said, holding her fiercely to him. Thank you.

  And then he whispered:

  – Happy Christmas, darling.

  Bella closed her eyes and smiled into the tweed of his jacket. She had gone from perfect misery to perfect happiness in just one hour. He had never called her darling before. Which must mean he was not going to give her up.

  That afternoon in the hotel room, surrounded by matching oak furniture and trouser press, kettle and mini bar, Bella had the most intense sex of her life. For those minutes she felt that this man was hers, and hers alone. He was hers in a way that was deeper than discovery and shame, deeper than the pain of his wife’s discovery and the uncomprehending fury of his children.

  – Do you think, she said, that this room has ever seen
such happiness?

  James said nothing. He had moved away from her, but this time it wasn’t to lie in his own silo of guilt, he was getting something out of his briefcase.

  – This is your Christmas present.

  Out of his bag he brought another box from Mappin & Webb. Bella opened it. Inside were the earrings to go with the necklace.

  – They are lovely, said Bella.

  She wondered if a larger pair were in his briefcase waiting to be given to Hillary, but pushed the thought away.

  – I’ve got something for you, too, she said. I’m sorry I didn’t have time to wrap it. Bella produced the Reiss bag and gave it to him.

  – Happy Christmas, she said. I love you.

  Stella

  Stella’s Christmas had been bleak. The sleeping pills were helping her sleep but the antidepressants had made her feel so giddy and fuzzy in the head that she had stopped taking them.

  On Christmas Eve she had taken the children ice skating at Somerset House and put on skates herself and made her way stiffly and slowly around the rink. For one brief moment she’d thought she’d seen Rhys gliding around on the ice. But it turned out to be an impostor – someone who did not have his clear blue eyes and his crooked smile, someone else altogether.

  She had had no contact with him at all for six days, except for one text on Christmas Day. At midnight, when everyone else had gone to bed and Stella, exhausted and broken after the effort of trying to look happy for so many hours at a stretch, sent him a text saying:

  Happy Christmas x

  He replied within minutes, with the same message only without the x. Apart from this one lapse – which had made her feel considerably worse – she had tried to immerse herself in her family. She showered them with Christmas presents and treats, but the harder she tried the worse she felt, because there was no escaping the size of her failure. There was a crater of unhappiness separating her from her family, one that she could not imagine ever being filled in.

  New Year’s Day was the bleakest and the coldest. The children were bored and fighting and Stella took refuge in her study to do some work. But she could not concentrate on any of the emails that had arrived over Christmas and instead typed a message to him just telling him what she had been doing, knowing that she would never send it.

  She even typed ‘broken heart’ into Google and clicked on the first site that came up offering advice.

  Get plenty of rest. Have lovely, scented baths. Tempt yourself with healthy, delicious foods. Maybe buy some luxury, fleecy pyjamas and a furry hot water bottle cover. This is a time when you need to indulge and comfort yourself.

  Stella shut the computer down in disgust. She had gone somewhere so cold that even the most sweetly scented hot bath or the warmest pyjamas would make no difference.

  Bella

  The Christmas break had been interminable. James had been at his house in Wiltshire, and had told her that it would be difficult to email but that he hoped she would understand.

  She didn’t understand. He wasn’t umbilically attached to his family; she knew he endlessly checked his BlackBerry for work messages when he was at home and so to send her the odd message could not have been that hard.

  At the end of Christmas Day, when Bella had climbed into her old childhood bed at her mother’s house with a heavy stomach and a heavier heart, his name had appeared on her phone.

  Happy Christmas. Things a bit calmer here. Usual orgy of consumption. Hope you’ve had a lovely day.

  James

  Bella read this with rage and then disbelief. Was that the best he could do? It was worse than no message at all.

  She typed back.

  No, I didn’t have a lovely day. I had a shit Christmas. Huge row with Mum. Xan turned up at her place on Christmas eve off his head, and Mum let him in, as she has never really understood the drugs thing. But the killer is this. Your chilly, distant messages from your happy family Christmas. I don’t exist to you as a person. You are only interested in your work. And I am checking out of this whole thing.

  She waited an hour and a half for his reply. It said:

  That’s not fair. This is a tricky situation. If I didn’t care for you I would have been out of this long, long ago. I think we both need to think about it. Let’s have lunch Tuesday. J

  Stella

  Stella got into the office first and walked past Rhys’s empty desk. He had tidied it before the holidays, but even looking at the piles of paper that he must have touched made Stella feel agitated.

  All through the holiday she had longed to see him again, but now that he was about to walk in any minute she felt unequal to it.

  Nathalie had gone through most of the messages that had arrived during the holiday and had moved into a folder marked ‘URGENT’ the forty or fifty messages that required Stella’s urgent attention. Stella looked at them and felt no urgency at all. She opened the first one.

  Dear Stella

  I just wanted to touch base with you to check that you are coming to the Businesswoman of the Year dinner on Thursday at the Dorchester. Obviously there is a lot of media interest in this, and so I’m sure that you will understand that we never announce the winner beforehand. But can I put it like this? It’s rather important that you come. Can you let me know asap? You won’t be disappointed.

  All best,

  Chloe Woodstock

  Stella looked at this with a feeling of dread. She did not want to be Businesswoman of the Year. She did not deserve it, she did not value it. She didn’t want any more attention. She wanted to crawl under a stone and wait until she started to feel better.

  At exactly 9 a.m. Rhys appeared wearing a new coat that he must have bought in the sales. Even the idea that he had been out shopping without telling her and had bought this coat was painful, a sign of his ordinary life going on while hers had stopped dead. She waited for him to come and say hello, which he didn’t. An hour and a half later, when he came into her office to discuss the day’s work, she asked: Did you have a pleasant Christmas?

  – Yes, very nice. You? Was yours good?

  – Oh yes, she said. It was very nice.

  They were standing in her office, some distance apart. This was even worse than Stella had feared it would be.

  – Rhys, she said briskly, I think I’ve won this businesswoman award. Can you please write me a five-minute acceptance speech?

  – Yes, he said. Of course.

  And then, as she had turned her back and was headed for her desk, he called out as an afterthought.

  – Congratulations.

  Bella

  On Tuesday he was already at his desk when Bella got in. He had had his hair cut, and she could see the pink of his neck. He smiled at her as she walked past his office. It was all going to be OK. He had sent her an email overnight with a picture of him taken over Christmas, slumped on a sofa with his belly looking particularly round, his cheeks red and hair unkempt. His message said:

  Thought this might amuse you. I can’t understand how you can like someone who looks like this? I am looking forward to our lunch. I have booked a table for 1pm at St John

  Jx

  She had studied the picture, and thought it looked sweet.

  It’s a mystery why I like you, but I do. b xxx

  Bella got to the restaurant first and was shown to a table beside two florid-faced men. James arrived a couple of minutes later, hurried up to her table and bent to kiss her.

  She looked down the menu, which had all sorts of horrible things on it that she would not dream of eating, like brains and pig’s trotters. She ordered mackerel and red cabbage, not because she liked it, but because she had read something in a magazine over Christmas about mackerel being good for the brain.

  – Bella, he said. You have lovely eyes. I suppose people have often told you that?

  – Yes, she said, they have.

  – Bella, he said. There is something I want to tell you. Something I think we need to discuss.

  – Yes, ag
reed Bella.

  She was thinking: he is going to tell me that he is leaving his wife.

  The waiter brought a basket of bread and made a great thing of changing Bella’s knife for a fish knife. While he was doing this, James said nothing.

  When the waiter was gone, he took a breath and said:

  – I have thought about this over Christmas, and I have come to a final decision.

  She waited expectantly. He seemed to be having difficulty saying the words, which wasn’t surprising, given everything. He opened his mouth a couple of times, said nothing and closed it again.

  Then, gathering up courage, he said:

  – We cannot go on.

  Bella felt as if there was a stone in her chest. It was making breathing hard and uncomfortable. She didn’t say anything, but nodded and kept nodding, and the stone was feeling larger and heavier.

  – You see, he said, I thought about it. I got away with it last time. Hillary is terribly upset and wary and a lot of damage has been done. She hasn’t forgiven me – not yet – but she has given me another chance. But if I went on, I would get chucked out. I keep thinking about living in a bedsit and never being able to see my children. If that happened to me I couldn’t forgive myself. You aren’t risking Millie, she’s yours.

  Bella went on nodding, quite silent. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, she was thinking. She looked at what was on her plate. The bronze skin of the mackerel looked sinister, and its flesh a pale grey. She put a bit on her fork and lifted it to her mouth. But her mouth was so dry she could not swallow.

  – It’s not a decision I’ve reached easily, he was saying.

  She stared at him.

  – I’ve been turning it over and over all through Christmas. And do you know what really made the difference for me?

  No, she thought, she didn’t know what made the difference and she didn’t want to know, either.

  – It was thinking about who I turn to in a crisis. And that person, whatever her shortcomings, is Hillary. You know, Bella, you said a really perceptive thing once –

  More than once, thought Bella. She had stopped nodding and was staring at him in horror. The stone had grown and now occupied her whole chest and the top of her stomach. She stared at the red cabbage. It didn’t look like food to her. Strips of pinky red, crinkly stuff. It would make a nice pattern for a cushion. Cushion, cushion, she thought, trying to block out his words. She tore the bread in half but did not put it in her mouth. Please, she thought, let me be anywhere else. Anywhere else than sitting here listening to this man talk.