floating in an oily puddle, and as I’m bending to fish it out, something else catches my eye.
A crumpled ten pound note is skating along the pavement beside me.
Fascinated, I give the pen a shake, pop it in my bag and follow the progress of the queen’s head as it zigzags towards the hedge and snags on a lamppost. I glance around, expecting someone to rush up behind me and breathlessly claim it, but there is no one in sight. If it was a purse with money in it, I could take it to the police station. But what do I do with a ten pound note?
Ten pounds.
There’s no question how I’d use it.
Already I am imagining slipping my pass book under the glass and watching the cashier’s efficient, manicured hands processing the note. And afterwards, the pleasure of checking the growing balance in the Tim Fund and knowing I am inching slowly towards our goal.
A gust of wind frees the note from the lamppost and shuttles it on its merry way. And right at that moment, I am diverted by a flash of colour. A well-rounded woman in a bright orange tracksuit and lime green trainers puffs past on a bike, corkscrews of blonde hair escaping from her hood. Her mode of transport looks creaky, to say the least, and something about her red cheeks and slightly awkward posture tells me she’s brand new to this cycling lark. With a quick glance behind her to check for traffic (none), she suddenly starts pedalling furiously then freewheels with her legs out to the sides, shouting, ‘Whee-ee!’
A drop of rain plops onto my forehead and I glance skywards. I got wet walking into work this morning, resulting in a day of mad hair (think Kate Bush and ‘Wuthering Heights’) and the clouds are heavy with the threat of more rain.
Now I’ve lost the note. Oh, there it is, loitering at the car park entrance, as if it’s waiting for me to catch up.
Suddenly a vehicle roars out of the car park right in front of me and the driver brakes hard into a puddle. A bucket of cold rain-water rises up and slaps onto my thighs.
Out jumps The Boss.
Trousers clinging wetly, I bend down to rescue the money. But The Boss gets there first, trapping it neatly beneath a vintage Karl Lagerfeld heel.
‘Mine, I think.’ Snatching it up, she flashes me a dazzling – but entirely fake – smile.
I shrug as if I don’t care – and actually, I don’t think I do any more. It’s taken a great deal of practise but I’ve become fairly good at allowing her unpleasantness to roll over me. Does anyone like her, apart from her bank manager?
At the same time, I can’t help feeling a sneaky admiration for the woman’s stingy single-mindedness; her never-ending drive to acquire something for nothing. I mean, hello! Only The Boss could spot a freebie at ten paces from behind a car windscreen and get there in time to nab it.
It’s rumoured she goes to weddings with confetti on elastic.
But as I need to hold on to this job, naturally I couldn’t possibly comment …
‘You haven’t a ghost of a chance.’ Shona returns from the kitchen with our first caffeine hit of the day. ‘Here, get down, Bobbie, and let me do it.’
The desk beneath my feet sways scarily as I clamber off. It’s the flimsiest bit of flat-pack rubbish ever designed. We cobbled it together one lunch hour. (There were some screws left over, but we chucked them in the bin.)
Shona hands me the tray of mugs, pushes her oversized specs up her nose, hoicks up her long cord skirt and shoves it between her knees. Then she clambers up and, with a skill born of regular practise, surfs until she is steady, as the desk sways on an illusory ocean.
I watch, arms up ready to catch her, marvelling at what ‘Health & Safety’ would make of our ‘quirky’ work environment. It’s just as well a dodgy paint job from the last century has cemented the windows of our offices tight shut. One whisper of a breeze and I swear that desk would lift off on its spindly legs and float around the office like a dandelion clock.
The Boss never tires of pointing out that the desk actually cost her less than a box of the cheap print cartridges she buys (the kind that, if more than fifty per cent of them actually work, you feel chuffed out of all proportion).
The Boss thinks my desk is hilarious.
She doesn’t have to stand on it.
Looking back, she’s always found other people’s misfortune mildly amusing.
‘That’s it.’ Shona climbs down, having temporarily ‘fixed’ the terminally knackered blind.
The headquarters of Spit and Polish cleaners are two cramped, interconnecting offices and a shared kitchen in a converted Victorian villa that looks fairly impressive until you get inside. I once heard The Boss describe it as ‘shabby chic’. She is only half correct.
‘She’s coming.’ Shona rushes to switch on her computer.
We hear heels on the stairs and The Boss makes her entrance, elegant in a new honey-coloured cashmere coat that is almost the exact same shade as her chic, cropped hairstyle.
She holds the coat out to one side and barks, ‘Twenty-five quid at a car boot sale!’ Then she marches into her office and kicks the door shut with a beautifully-clad foot.
‘And good morning to you, too,’ mutters Shona.
She shoots me an anxious glance. ‘Do you think she’s noticed?’
I shake my head. ‘The radiators are clay cold now. She won’t suspect a thing.’
‘Really? Because I’d already started job hunting.’
Shona had phoned me late last night in an uncharacteristic panic and, being an office key-holder, I’d dived out into the frosty night to put things right. I reasoned The Boss never had to know that Shona, working late to catch up on some filing and finding herself alone in a chilly office, had not only committed the punishable-by-death crime of turning on the heating but also, in an unusual lapse of concentration, had forgotten to switch it off before she left.
The Boss’s rules on temperature control are non-negotiable. The heating cannot creep above ‘minimum’ between the months of October and April except in extreme conditions, such as when our fingers turn black and drop off. The rest of the year, we rely on chunky cardigans draped over the backs of our chairs to combat the shivers.
People laugh when I tell them of her meanness, but Shona and I haven’t found The Boss amusing for quite some time. Not since the day she announced she was dispensing with pay rises because in such an uncertain financial climate, we should consider ourselves bloody lucky to be in work in the first place.
Behind The Boss’s door, there’s the sound of something crashing to the floor followed by a loud expletive.
Ella, our new junior, purses her perfectly glossed lips. ‘Stress.’ She shakes her head regretfully. ‘I’ll bring her some chamomile teabags. I’ve got a mountain of them at home.’
Shona
