CHAPTER 5
She arrived at her next destination at twelve noon precisely, exactly on time. She stopped to look at the sign outside the main entrance before pushing through the revolving doors of Debita Debt Management and approaching reception. The blonde girl at the reception desk was deep in conversation with someone on the phone.
“Yes, Mrs Wilson. Yes, I will give Mr Pemberton your message. Yes, I will. No, I won’t. Yes, I will. Goodbye, Mrs Wilson,” she said before putting the phone back on its rest.
“She never gives up, does she?” said Jess.
“Let that be a lesson to us all,” declared Tracey as Jess removed her coat and hung it on the coat stand.
“Anyway, how is he?”
Jess suspected Tracey asked more out of politeness than genuine curiosity.
“Oh, you know,” she said, “the same.” She pulled her chair out from under the desk to take up her position next to Tracey, but before she could sit down, Tracey intervened.
“Oh, er … Derek wants to see you,” she said, raising a mug of tea to her mouth with both hands in an awkward manner. Jess shot her a look and her eyes narrowed. Derek never wanted to see her. Derek barely passed the time of day whenever they crossed paths in the corridor. Derek was a charmless idiot and had very little good to say of anyone other than himself. But he was the boss, so he must have something to tell her, and it was not as if she had any choice in the matter. But she couldn’t help feeling the stirrings of alarm and continued to stare sideways at Tracey, who was studiously avoiding her gaze.
“What about?” said Jess, perplexed.
“Dunno,” replied Tracey, her voice muffled by the mug hiding most of her face.
Tracey knew exactly what it was about, but it was not her place to say so. Above her pay grade, as the saying went. She liked Jess; she liked Jess a lot. Jess was always on time. Jess always did her work without complaint. Jess covered for Tracey when Tracey needed cover, and Jess never got cross at anyone. In fact, Jess rarely showed any emotion beyond a pleasant smile for visitors, that disappeared the moment they had gone.
But Tracey and Jess weren’t friends. Jess didn’t have any friends that she was aware of, and Tracey knew nothing of Jess’s family circumstances because Jess never talked about herself to anyone. Tracey only knew about Jess’s dad being poorly because of their staggered work pattern on a Tuesday. But Tracey liked Jess, even though she thought she was a bit weird.
She watched from the corner of her eye as Jess smoothed down her blouse and headed for the double doors into the corridor, and when she got there, called after her. “He’s in Meeting Room 1.” Jess paused to take in the information and then proceeded through the doors. Tracey put her cup down and bit her bottom lip.
***
Jess had been sitting alone in Meeting Room 1 for ten minutes. Derek’s secretary had said he was on a call and would be with her in due course, so best she wait for him in there. Jess doubted the veracity of this statement. Derek always wanted to control any situation, so it would have been unseemly for him to have responded to Jess’s arrival immediately. It was pure Derek to make her wait for him.
Her eyes scanned the room, but little caught her attention or provoked any interest. She had only been in there once before when one of the other secretaries was away; drafted in to serve coffee and pastries to a director’s board meeting, and being largely ignored by the assembly of self-important, boorish middle-aged males. She remembered the sweaty and corpulent finance director, Nigel, grinning at her lasciviously and telling her she had a nice figure, which had made her feel uncomfortable.
The room was empty and quiet, apart from the background hum of the air conditioner, the drinks fridge in the corner and the sporadic rush of traffic noise which penetrated the double-glazing.
She had spent the last ten minutes wondering what this could be about. Was she about to get a pay rise? Unlikely. Had she done something wrong? Had there been some sort of complaint from a client? She racked her brains to think of anything unusual that had happened recently. He knew she worked a late shift on Tuesday so it couldn’t be that, not unless he was about to change the arrangement. That would be less convenient, meaning she would have to visit Joe in the evening or at weekends, but not insurmountable.
She had to wait no longer. The sound of the door opening abruptly startled her, and Derek strode in clutching a file of papers. Tall, skinny, bearded, Derek was an unprepossessing character with no sense of humour and an over-inflated view of his own importance.
She shifted slightly in her seat and glanced up nervously as he took his position at the table opposite her, flashing her a quick look of disdain before sitting down and spreading open the file on the boardroom table. No greeting, no pleasantries, no grace. This was pure Derek. Derek was always too busy with his extremely important and highly pressurised job to waste time in idle chat.
Jess was not alone in regarding Derek as a pompous, vain, fool. A middle manager with board aspirations that everyone but him knew would never be met. Charmless, graceless, arrogant. A prize arsehole, she had been shocked to hear someone say, but she thought that was harsh.
He flicked papers backwards and forwards in the file, affecting an earnest consideration as to their contents, a crucial precursor to his next big executive decision.
“How’s your father?” he muttered without looking up. Jess was suddenly confused. Derek never enquired after her own health, or anyone else’s for that matter, so it was unprecedented for him to enquire over the health of a relative. She didn’t imagine Derek could know anything of Joe’s condition, but then surmised office gossip had spread the word.
Derek was still rifling through sheets of paper seemingly at random in an attempt to look busy and diligent, though Jess knew neither of these descriptions applied. He was playing for time, she thought, ramping up the tension, and the casual, dismissive tone of his question merely proved to her that he was not remotely interested in the answer. Still, she decided, let’s give Derek the benefit of the doubt for once. It’s common courtesy, after all.
“He’s fine, thanks,” she said after a moment, without embellishment, gratitude or any desire to pursue the matter further. There was a pause so long she thought Derek hadn’t heard her.
“Goooooood,” he said, without looking up, and clearly without cognisance as the word stretched out to the length of a sentence. She could have said Joe had suffered a massive stroke, been savaged by a rabid fox, or even that his head had spontaneously combusted, blood and brain matter splattering the walls of his room, and Derek’s response would have been the same. She stared at him as he stroked his beard and his eyes scanned one particular document that had caught his attention. She allowed herself an almost imperceptible shake of the head in contempt.
The door opened again and both Derek and Jess turned their heads towards the sound.
“Ah, Anne, come in. I’ve asked Anne to join us, if you don’t mind,” he said to Jess as Anne tiptoed over to the end of the table and sat down nervously. It wasn’t so much a question as a statement and Jess didn’t think a response was necessary, but she suddenly sensed something was wrong. Anne was personnel, and personnel didn’t appear unless the matter at hand was personal and serious.
She looked nonplussed at Anne who caught her gaze briefly before turning her head away to open her notepad and ready her pencil, which signalled to Derek that it was time to start proceedings.
Jess’s eyes widened and she felt a shiver of fear as Derek looked at her directly for the first time, his face affecting a patronising smile. He looked down at the sheet of paper he had been examining, puffed himself up and announced with gravitas:
“There’s something I need to show you. A letter came in today. From the Council Tax Department. Another of its citizens hopelessly in arrears. Want us to collect.” He sniffed, and slid the sheet of paper across the desk towards Jess. Anne looked down and squirmed.
Jess didn’t react, her gaze fixed on Derek who had put both elbows on the table and lifted his hands so he could rest his hairy chin on two thumbs while looking at her intently. She knew instinctively what was in the letter and what it would say, and the irony of it struck her. Her job on reception, amongst other things, was to open the mail. She had been waiting for this one to arrive, but she wasn’t there this morning so Tracey had opened the mail instead. If she hadn’t gone to visit her beloved father, she would have opened the mail, seen this letter and then destroyed it. It would have only been a temporary solution to a long-term problem, and in due course the council would have chased up the lack of response, but it would have bought her a bit of precious time. Joe had done it again, albeit unwittingly, helping her slide further down the slippery slope to ruin.
She picked up the letter and gave it a cursory glance, speed-reading the salient words – “Mr & Mrs M Y Khalid … Arrears of Council Tax … £625.54” – before swiftly putting it back on the desk as if it were contaminated or about to explode, where it was gathered up by Derek’s outstretched hand and laid back on top of the pile of papers in the folder. Derek sat back and launched into a speech he had no doubt prepared and rehearsed carefully.
“Now look, Jess, it’s like this—”
“Am I being dismissed?” she burst in before he could get into his stride.
She hadn’t meant to sound rude, it wasn’t her way, but she knew what was coming and the last thing she wanted was a lecture from Derek. She felt a mild satisfaction that her interjection had appeared to throw him off balance, Anne too, who looked up in alarm, because Jess knew they all thought she was quiet and unassuming. Derek looked aghast at the impertinence and cut to the chase.
“We are going to have to let you go,” he said, and as if to seek her understanding, added, “we can’t have this, not here.”
“Why?” she countered. “Am I not doing the job to your satisfaction?” It sounded overly formal but it was a good point. She knew she did a good job, was no trouble to anyone, and although she didn’t make friends easily she was perfectly polite and efficient on the phone or when dealing with visitors face-to-face. She couldn’t see how owing money to the council was incompatible with the way in which she performed her duties. She sat tight as a drum, rigid in her chair, defiant but also afraid. Derek looked at her, his patronising grin tinged with irritation. He sighed deeply.
“Unless it has escaped your attention,” he proffered in a tone heavy with sarcasm, “this is a debt collection agency. It’s highly embarrassing to be asked to collect a debt from one of our own employees. It’s just not possible for you to work here in the circumstances.” And with a satisfied finality he returned to flicking pages in the document folder. “I have no choice.”
Jess processed his final remark for only a second before batting it back in his face.
“You mean it’s not your decision?”
Derek looked up in bewilderment. He seemed confused by her assertion and she wondered if he might be a little miffed that his authority was being called into question, especially in front of Anne. Wrong-footed, he blundered on.
“Yes, yes – it’s my decision.”
“Then you have a choice,” she stated simply.
“No, what I mean is—”
“What you mean is,” she hit back, taking control of the conversation, “because I’m struggling to pay my council tax, the obvious solution is to take away my income and any chance I have of paying it off.”
Derek sat back in his chair tapping his pen on the table, sulking from the reprimand, while Anne tried to keep her head down. Jess looked at one, then the other, and thought she may have come across as too stroppy. Yeah, well. I have a good right to be stroppy. The pompous idiot was more interested in saving face than trying to help her out of a hole. She knew it was probably futile, but she softened her tone in an attempt to appeal to his human side. If only he had one.
“I need to work, Derek, I need to pay my bills.” This was no throwaway line from Jess. She had inherited the work ethic from her mother. She had never borrowed anything and never asked for help. Would never ask for help. She didn’t blame anyone else for her circumstances although she had every right to do so. She was in grave financial difficulty but was determined to dig herself out of it any way she could. Maybe, just maybe, Derek could see his way to steer her in the right direction rather than just throw the book at her.
He studied her closely and she could feel herself deflating. Any normal human being would have admired her pluck, but she knew Derek was not the type. She had to fight her corner, but she had turned it into a power struggle and now Derek appeared to be smarting from a couple of sound blows to his pride and his credibility. She knew he needed to win or else it would be all round the office. He couldn’t even fire a low-paid receptionist without looking like an amateur, is what they would all say.
“What else do you owe?” he asked with seemingly innocent curiosity, although she was certain he already knew the answer. “Mortgage? Utilities? Credit cards? Payday loan?”
Jess’s confidence evaporated as the words fell on her, one by one, like blows from a boxing glove. Derek raised his eyebrows knowingly and sat back with a look of satisfaction.
“Thought so. I’m afraid your contract does not allow for this. You are in breach of your terms of employment,” he announced with ridiculous grandiloquence.
Jess was down but not out, and tried again. She needed to get him on side, appeal to whatever shred of decency he may have left and afford him as much respect as she could, because without this job, it was game over. She tried without much success to keep any hint of pleading out of her voice.
“Tell me what I need to do.”
Derek was back in driving seat, so the patronising tone returned.
“Look, I know it’s a shock …”
“It’s not a shock,” she sighed, fearing this was going nowhere.
“If I might offer you some advice?” Jess looked up, a glimmer of hope in her eyes, but one that would be quickly extinguished. “The best thing you can do is go through the bankruptcy process. Then, when you come out the other end, you might be able to apply for your job back.” His disdainful tone betrayed a belief in the utter futility of her pursuing this strategy. Jess could not believe what she was hearing. Was this supposed to be Derek’s idea of help?
“Might?” Jess made no attempt to hide her scepticism at his dubious suggestion.
“Well, I can’t make any promises, but I would have no objections. Would you, Anne?” They both turned to look at Anne, but she was staring into space and Jess realised she had not been paying attention. Suddenly startled, her gaze then darted back and forth between Derek and Jess, both of whom were now staring at her intently, waiting for an answer,
“No! No!” she blurted, shaking her head and wiggling her bottom on her chair. Jess tried not to snort in contempt.
“Oh. Well that’s all right, then,” she said, her tone heavy with sarcasm. Suitably put down, Anne dropped her head in shame. Derek sniffed and tried again.
“Look, I know it’s hard. But you have to appreciate my position. This is very hard for me too.” Derek was a master at condescension, but this was too much to take.
“Hard for you?” Jess could not believe what she was hearing and fought to conceal her contempt for a man who was trying to elicit sympathy for his predicament. She remained calm and said steadily, by way of admonishment, “You’ll have forgotten about it tomorrow. Tomorrow it’ll still be hard for me. And the day after, and the day after that.” Derek‘s mouth twisted in rage and he thrust his head forward aggressively.
“I did not get you into this position!”
Jess was momentarily startled by Derek’s petulance, and she saw he was too, as he glanced nervously at Anne, whose head was down, trying not to notice he had lost his cool. There was no sound for a moment while they all contemplated his outburst. He swallowed uncomfortably and slumped back in his chair, and folded his arms like a truculent child. Jess broke the silence. She could read his mind.
“I’ve only myself to blame.” It was neither confession nor admission. Just a statement.
Derek looked pleased with himself. He spread his arms and gave her a knowing expression before sliding a brown envelope across the table towards her. He stood up and put out a hand.
“Anne will help you clear your desk.” Jess picked up the envelope and stood, ignoring the outstretched hand. She turned abruptly without saying another word and headed for the door. But before she could get there, she heard a parting shot.
“Quietly, please.” She halted, her back towards him. “We don’t want to upset the others.” She closed her eyes, and the knife in her back stung as she exited Meeting Room 1.
***
Tracey was away from reception, which Jess was pleased about as she hated emotional farewells. She didn’t want to explain what was going on, even though she realised Tracey probably knew already.
She retrieved her coat from the stand, threw it over her shoulders and picked up her carrier bag, putting in the brown envelope Derek had given her. She headed for the revolving doors, but before she got there, she heard the clack of heels on tile and the plaintive voice behind her.
“Jess!” Jess stopped and turned as Tracey tottered across the reception area on her five-inch heels at as rapid a pace as they would allow. “Jess …” Tracey put her arms round her in an awkward embrace, more so because Jess remained inert and didn’t respond.
“I just wanted to say goodbye, Jess, and good luck.” Tracey stood back, arms outstretched on Jess’s shoulders. “You’re a good girl, Jess.” Jess closed her eyes in dismay at Tracey’s choice of words. “Too good for here,” continued Tracey, oblivious to the irony in her own statement. Jess said nothing, and simply turned and walked out of the building into the greying afternoon.
She stood on the steps outside her erstwhile employer’s office and looked around at the people going about their business, the cars and lorries and buses meandering along the road. Everyone had places to go, things to do, people to see. Apart from her, or so it seemed. She had no idea what would happen next, but she knew it was not going to be good. It felt like the end was fast approaching. But what she could not know was that this was not the end; it was the beginning.