Take A Look At Me Now Read online

  ‘Nell? Say something, for heaven’s sake.’

  I scrabbled my way back to the here and now. ‘I just … I thought … Sorry, what did you say?’

  Aidan’s shoulders dropped and guilt stained his face. ‘I didn’t want you finding out at the same time as everybody else. Like I said, I only knew for definite yesterday and I almost told you after the briefing meeting. But we’ve been through so much together, you and I, that I just couldn’t bear the thought of you hearing it from anyone other than me. I care about you, you know that …’

  His mouth was moving, but none of the words made any coherent sense. And then, slowly, like a pinprick of light piercing the darkness of a tunnel, the truth began to dawn.

  ‘You’re sacking me?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have put it like that, but …’

  ‘How else would you have put it, Aidan? You’re taking my job away!’

  ‘It’s not me personally, Nell …’

  ‘Well it feels like it.’

  ‘Of course you’ll feel that way. But at least it isn’t just you, honey …’

  Rage pulsed through my body. ‘Oh that’s OK then! As long as I get to share the ignominy of redundancy with my colleagues! What kind of stupid, cruel logic is that?’

  ‘Try to keep your voice down, OK? I’m not meant to be telling you this.’

  I snorted. ‘Well, lucky old me.’

  He leapt from his chair and was suddenly beside me, his hands on my shoulders. ‘I know this is difficult. Believe me, I didn’t sleep last night agonising over how to tell you. But don’t you see, Nell? It’s out of my hands! I tried to speak up for you, but they’re rearranging the entire department. It’s come from top level – budget cuts and the recession have forced their hand. There’s nothing I can do.’

  I bit back tears as I looked into his beautiful blue eyes and hated myself for even caring what he thought of me. ‘What am I going to do?’ I begged him, my voice disgustingly weak and needy. ‘What about my rent? My car? How am I going to find another job that pays like this one? Nobody’s hiring at the moment.’

  He stroked my cheek with his hand. ‘At least you’ll have your redundancy pay. They have to acknowledge the service you’ve given for six years. At least it’ll pay the bills for a couple of months … Believe me, there are people in a far worse situation than you in this department.’

  This news did anything but comfort me. I glared at him. ‘Who else?’

  ‘Beg your pardon?’

  ‘Who else is being sacked, Aidan?’

  He swallowed hard and I hated the shame I saw in his face. ‘Almost everyone. Nick will stay on as Chief Planning Officer, I’ll remain as Head of Department and Connie will be asked to become office manager for Parks and Recreation as well as Planning.’

  I let out a hollow laugh. So all of Connie’s sucking up to management over the years hadn’t gone unnoticed … ‘Right. I’m going now.’

  He wobbled backwards as I stood, and I suddenly realised how pathetic he looked, stripped of his work-related bravado.

  ‘Please don’t say anything to anyone. We’re calling them all into the meeting room in half an hour.’

  Part of me wanted to grab the ailing yucca and ram it down his traitorous throat, but despite my fury I walked steadily out of Aidan’s office and back to my desk, where for the next thirty minutes I hid behind my computer screen, feeling like the biggest traitor in the world as the regular banter of my colleagues tore my heart to shreds.

  I am losing my job …

  The words felt alien, cold, jagged. No matter how many times I repeated them in my head I couldn’t reconcile them to my life. I had never been made redundant, not in all the years I’d been working. In the three positions I’d held since graduating from university, I’d always been promoted, or resigned when a better job came along. The carefully mapped-out schedule for my life hadn’t accounted space for a ‘redundant’ block. My home, my car, my career – and even my secret future dream of running my own business – were all nothing without money, without stability.

  I stared at my reflection in the dark screen of my computer monitor and saw pure, hollow-eyed fear glaring back at me.

  I’m losing my job. What am I going to do?

  CHAPTER TWO

  So long, farewell …

  Processing the news was a surreal experience. I felt as if I was floating just above a room filled with rotating knives, knowing my descent was inevitable. How dare Aidan drop this on me? How could he think this was a better option than learning about it with the rest of the team? At least if I’d heard it at the same time as them we could have reacted as a team, united by a common experience. Now I was in limbo – not in with Aidan and the lucky few who would walk out of the office today knowing they had a job to come back to, and not with my workmates who were about to learn their fate. I hated it; and I hated Aidan more for once again demonstrating how little he really knew me. I wanted to tell Vicky but she had disappeared to the canteen to grab a bacon sandwich. Feeling completely helpless, I wished the seconds away until the inevitable meeting.

  Thirty minutes later, we filed into the meeting room like sheep into an abattoir, my colleagues completely unprepared for the lightning bolt about to fire at them. Aidan and two of his superiors calmly handed out letters to all of us, detailing the consequences of the Council’s ‘programme of restructuring’. Vicky and two of my other female colleagues began to sob quietly, while my male friends stared in gut-wrenched silence, eyes not blinking as the awful reality set in. Some idiot from HR who nobody knew then stood up and explained how committed the Council was to ensuring our personal development – a ridiculous stance to take considering it was happily sacking fifteen people. When he asked for any questions he was met by uniform, wordless hatred.

  I could feel Aidan’s eyes on me, but I refused to look back, focusing instead on the impersonal general letter in my hand:

  We regret to inform you … This is not a personal reflection on your considerable contribution to the Department, rather a necessary measure to protect the financial integrity of the Council …

  No longer required.

  Out of a job.

  Unemployed …

  However I looked at the words I couldn’t help but take them personally. This couldn’t be happening to me! Only that morning I’d wished for something to change …

  And then, it hit me.

  Something had changed. Admittedly not in a good way, but my secret wish had been granted. From this moment on, my life would never be the same again. Nell Sullivan, Assistant Planning Officer, was no more. That chapter of my life had been brought to a sudden end and now …

  Well, now what?

  The prat from HR was handing out tissues and wittering on about a hastily arranged consultation with a local recruitment agency to follow the end of the meeting. But it was as if I had become cocooned in a bubble, separated from the devastated expressions of my colleagues by a million new thoughts that sparkled and spun around my eyes. I hadn’t planned for this, hadn’t even considered its possibility in my carefully ordered life. And yet, here it was, together with the promise of three months’ wages in one go …

  At the end of the meeting, I followed my colleagues out, my heart inexplicably light despite the devastation that surrounded me. Vicky grabbed my arm and pulled me from the line of zombie-like shufflers heading down the corridor to the room set aside for ‘career repositioning advice’.

  ‘Can you believe they’ve just done that?’ she demanded, trails of blue-black mascara running down her cheeks. ‘Bastards! I’ve just taken out a new mortgage on the house – how on earth am I going to pay for it now?’

  ‘I don’t know, hun.’

  ‘And Greg’s had his hours cut at the factory, too … This is such a mess.’

  ‘You’re telling me,’ the bulky, middle-aged hulk of our colleague Terry appeared beside us. ‘Can’t believe I chose this bloody week to give up smoking. Either of you have any fags?’
r />   We shook our heads and watched him lumber away.

  ‘I think I might take up smoking,’ Vicky said, staring blankly after Terry. ‘Look at me: I’m shaking, Nell.’ She held out her hand and I could see the light from the strip-lights overhead undulating gently over her newly manicured nails. ‘I’m going to have to phone Greg and tell him. So much for our wedding plans next year.’

  ‘The agency might have something for you, Vix,’ I suggested, immediately hating myself for sounding like Aidan’s henchwoman. As I considered it, the thought that had begun in the meeting room grew. I didn’t want to be a victim of this. I wanted to do something else …

  ‘… Of course the Disney World trip Greg wanted to take me and Ruby on is out of the window. I might have to ask Mum to look after Ruby for an extra day because there’ll be no way I can justify paying nursery fees five days a week now. And then I’ll have to endure her endless diatribes on how reckless Greg and I were to have Ruby before we were fully settled. I swear if we have to move back to his parents’ house in Brentwood I will go insane …’

  Vicky was listing all the things she now couldn’t afford and I had to force myself away from the burgeoning idea to give her my full attention. ‘Vix, hun, try not to think the worst. I know you’re still in shock – we all are – but we don’t know what the situation is yet. You and Greg have been through worse and look at how happy you guys are. Ruby’s gorgeous and loves you both to bits and you know Greg is a great dad and partner. You’ll work through this.’

  She sniffed. ‘You think so?’

  ‘If anyone can get through this, you guys can.’

  ‘Thanks, babe. And you will, too. At least you and Aidan patched things up and worst-case scenario you could always move into that big house of his …’

  I averted my eyes and she stopped.

  ‘You did get back together, didn’t you?’

  I let out a long sigh. She wasn’t going to like it, but I couldn’t lie to her. ‘No, we didn’t.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Why call you into his office if he wasn’t going to …?’ Her eyes widened as the truth dawned. ‘Oh my life. You knew …’

  ‘He asked me not to say anything …’

  Her expression darkened. ‘You knew, Nell! You came out of his office and you sat at your desk like nothing had changed, and all the time you knew?’

  ‘What was I supposed to do? I wasn’t going to be the one who broke everyone’s hearts!’

  Vicky shook her head and instantly the room temperature seemed to drop. Deliberately, she turned her back on me and followed the others down the corridor.

  What on earth was I supposed to say to her? I knew she was just angry and hitting out at the nearest person, but I felt frustration gnawing at me that she hadn’t afforded me the chance to reply.

  ‘Probably best to let her go.’ A hand appeared on my shoulder and I turned to see the pinched, triumphant expression of the office secretary. ‘She’s upset: it’s understandable …’

  Angrily, I shrugged my shoulder free. ‘Get lost, Connie.’

  I didn’t accompany my colleagues to the recruitment agency meeting, instead returning to the office to fetch my bag and coat. I needed to get out for a while, the atmosphere in the office sucking the life from my body and the whirling thoughts in my head making me dizzy.

  ‘Shall we grab some fresh air?’ It was Aidan, standing a few feet away, his eyes full of concern as he wrung his hands. ‘I don’t know about you, but I need a coffee after that.’

  ‘No thank you.’ I struggled into my coat and swung my bag over my shoulder.

  ‘Nell – I know this is hard. But I can look after you. Having to give you that news today made me realise how I feel about you. We’ve been tiptoeing round the subject for months now. Maybe this could be the making of us? I have that big house all to myself, after all. Let’s stop pretending: we’re meant to be together …’

  Incredulously, I turned to look at him. ‘Seriously? You’re declaring your love for me now?’

  He mistook my tone for surprise, his confident grin widening as he stepped towards me. ‘Yes, baby. Let me look after you. You have to admit this is what we both want …’

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Was Aidan Matthews so deluded that he thought news of my imminent unemployment was a suitable precursor to renewing our relationship?

  ‘Go away, Aidan. I don’t think we have anything more to discuss.’

  He was staring after me like a dumb animal as I swept out of the office.

  I didn’t go far: just for a walk around the periphery of the Council office complex, its landscaped grounds curving around the multi-million-pound building that had been the cause of much controversy when it had been built eight years ago. The flat grey sky cast a subdued light over everything and a lack of breeze made the space seem ominously quiet.

  This had not been the way I expected today to pan out. In the space of four hours I had assumed I was getting back with Aidan, discovered I was losing my job, unintentionally offended my best friend and then been propositioned by the man who had just sacked me. Not bad going for a Thursday morning. And now, everything hung precariously like question marks suspended in my mind. How did I really feel about this? What was going to happen with my room in the rented house-share? Without a steady income, things didn’t look promising. How long could I exist on my redundancy pay?

  As I walked around the car park, the idea that had occurred to me before my run-in with Vicky returned – and with it, a sense of injustice that grew the more I considered it. Why should I have to obediently sit and wait until I found another job? It might take months to find something else. I only had to watch the news to see how hopeless the jobs situation was right now …

  I deserve more than this.

  I thought about the figure that had been typed on my redundancy letter. As an indication of how much my soon-to-be former employer thought of my contribution to them, it was an insult. But, as an unexpected lump sum, it could be seen as a bit of a windfall. Perhaps it was a sign that my carefully planned life wasn’t the best way to live. Perhaps it was an opportunity to do something different …

  What do you want, Nell Sullivan?

  The question presented itself suddenly, stopping me in my tracks. I was hurt and angry and dreading the prospect of being unemployed. I didn’t want this to be my life for the next however many months it would take to find another job. I wanted something positive, something that would build me up, not drag me down.

  I want to do something just for me …

  And then, it hit me. I could go somewhere – far away from my former job and uncertain future. My trip to New York with Vicky two years ago had been the last time I’d had a proper holiday – the sort that involved plane tickets and duty free, anyway. This could be something just for me. I didn’t just want a break from everyday life: I needed an adventure. And while my measly redundancy settlement wouldn’t go far to pay my bills, it would make a nice little nest-egg to invest in a trip …

  It was brilliant. I didn’t know where I wanted to go, only that I needed to do it – and soon.

  The devastated visages of my colleagues brought me heavily back to earth when I returned to the office. Terry’s face was grey – although this might have had more to do with the half packet of cigarettes he had just coughed his way through. Dave and Sid, Planning Officers for twenty years each, were sitting like deflated balloon bookends on the edges of Terry’s desk. Nick was trying his best to look sympathetic for everyone while clearly relieved he was still employed. Vicky was slumped in her office chair, systematically peeling the layers of French polish from her nails. She didn’t look up when I arrived.

  ‘She’s back, then,’ Terry said. ‘We thought you’d legged it.’

  ‘I just needed to get out for a while.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘Couldn’t face seeing the people she sold out,’ Vicky muttered, still not looking at me.

  ‘Now hang on a minu
te …’ I began, but Dave held up his hand.

  ‘It’s OK, Sully. She’s just upset. We all are.’ His smile bore the weight of the world. ‘We know Matthews put you in a position.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You probably shouldn’t be standing around chatting.’ Connie’s expression was one of pure, spiteful delight. ‘Management want you out in ten minutes.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ Vicky demanded.

  ‘Mr Matthews. While you were in the recruitment agency meeting.’ Her grin was about as sincere as a politician’s promise. ‘There are cardboard boxes in the meeting room. You might want to use them.’

  I could feel the resigned despair of my colleagues as we collected the empty copier paper boxes and began to clear the contents of our desks. Packing my box alongside them, I felt a bit of a fraud: yes, it was horrible and scary, but since my revelation I couldn’t escape a tiny thrill of excitement dancing around within me. The sensible part of me, which had been in charge for most of my life, was uncharacteristically quiet and for the first time in many years I felt as if the constraints of my life had been removed by this curveball of sudden redundancy.

  Out on the street we gathered, a box-toting band of newly unemployed people, not ready to walk away from each other yet secretly not wanting to prolong the agony. After a few mumbled words of solidarity and promises to meet soon for a drink, we dispersed. Vicky sniffed and walked over to me.

  ‘I’m sorry, Nell. I shouldn’t have said what I did.’

  Relief flooded through me as I hugged her. ‘It’s OK. You were upset and angry.’

  ‘And also a bitch. But thanks for understanding.’ She sighed and looked at the sickly cactus that was poking out from her box of belongings. ‘I think I’m going to go straight home. Are you coming to the tube station?’

  ‘No, not yet.’ I wanted to pursue the thought in my mind while it still burned, before cold reality had a chance to dawn and spoil the party. ‘I just need to – you know …’ I tilted my head in the direction of the shops in the distance.