need to be so smug about it.’
‘But I am smug!’ said Owen. ‘Do you know how long it had been before I met Laura? Four years.’ He grabbed my arm and gave it a little shake. ‘Over four years. I hadn’t had a shag since I was twenty-four!’
I felt slightly better after that. ‘I haven’t had sex in three years.’
I could see Owen trying to arrange his face into an expression of sympathy. ‘Poor you,’ he said.
‘So. Who’s Laura?’
He shrugged. ‘We’ve been seeing each other for a few weeks.’
‘Great.’ I nodded and smiled, as convincingly as I could.
‘She does roller derby. She has tattoos all over her thighs.’
‘I don’t think I need to hear about her thighs,’ I said, lowering my voice as a group of Fast Streamers walked past the kitchen, speaking to each other in low voices as if they knew something we didn’t, which they undoubtedly did.
‘Sex is great,’ he said, smiling to himself in a way that let me know he was thinking about Laura’s thighs. Or what was between them. Grim. ‘I’d forgotten how good it is.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Don’t rub it in.’
The sex chat made us late to our team meeting. Owen and I huffed into the glass-walled meeting room, breathless, saying, ‘Sorry, sorry,’ as we sat down.
Tom didn’t look up. He had a very passive aggressive management style – that’s what I’d have liked to say in the annual Staff Engagement Survey, but our team was so small I thought he’d trace the feedback to me and passive-aggressively punish me for it. Probably by making me answer all the correspondence about Brexit.
There were three of us on our immediate team besides Tom: me, Owen and Uzo, who was smiling up at me kindly now. Uzo was always smiling at me kindly. She’d been working on the correspondence team for twenty years and had the least ambition of anyone I’d ever met. Whenever I messed up, she’d say things like, ‘Don’t worry, girl. You won’t care when you’ve worked here as long as me,’ and I’d go and quietly hyperventilate in the toilets. She did have a lovely collection of statement necklaces, though.
‘As I was about to say,’ said Tom, still not looking up, ‘they’re bringing in a new Grade Six.’
Owen and I looked at each other.
‘What, another senior manager?’ said Owen.
‘Yes, Owen,’ said Tom, smiling his tight smile.
‘Above you?’ said Owen.
‘Yes,’ said Tom, his smile tighter still. ‘Above me.’
‘But we thought you were going to be promoted,’ said Owen.
‘Yes, well. So did I,’ said Tom. He fiddled with his tie.
‘Fuck,’ said Uzo, which, to be fair, was what the rest of us were thinking.
‘And I have it on good authority that the new Grade Six is hardline on swearing in the workplace.’
‘Shit,’ said Uzo.
‘That was a joke,’ said Tom.
‘What’s his name?’ asked Uzo.
‘Her name,’ said Tom, ‘is Smriti Laghari. I’m pleased to see you were paying attention during unconscious bias training.’ Sarcasm was another of Tom’s management techniques.
Owen took out his phone and started Googling Smriti. ‘She’s with Private Office at the moment. Used to be a banker.’
Groans from around the table. Former bankers were the worst for trying to make the Civil Service more efficient, which often meant getting rid of people and cutting ‘luxuries’ such as having enough desks for people to sit at.
‘According to LinkedIn, her interests include Cardiff University, Pineapple Dance Studios and the London Amateur Violinists’ Network,’ continued Owen.
‘I can play the cello,’ said Uzo. ‘Maybe we could form a quartet. Ha!’
Tom closed his eyes a moment, as though trying to gather his strength. ‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘We just need to cut down on the backlog before she gets here. Let’s show her what a brilliant, efficient team we are. Shall we?’
We stared at him. He had never used the words ‘brilliant’ or ‘efficient’ to describe us before. Nor, it’s safe to say, had anyone else.
It was dark by the time I left work. I called my mother as I walked down Victoria Street to the Tube, trying not to slip on the lethal rotten leaves that covered the pavement.
‘It’s me,’ she said, as she picked up.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I called you.’
‘Oh, sorry. I’m a bit distracted. I’m on the computer, doing the Sainsbury’s shop. They have a very good offer on olive oil, if you need any.’
‘Thanks, Mum,’ I said, imagining her in the lovely warm kitchen in leafy North Oxford, my dad at the table next to her, reading his undergraduates’ essays and grumbling about how badly academics are paid these days. I suddenly wanted to be there with them. ‘How are you?’
‘Awful, if you must know,’ she said. ‘The neighbours are digging out the basement and doing a loft conversion.’
‘Is that a bad thing?’
‘A nightmare. Nothing but dust and banging. And the mess in the street. They’ve thrown away the Victorian doors!’
‘Not the original features!’ I said.
‘Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Julia,’ she said. ‘The house is going to look ridiculous. And it’s not as if they need more space. There are only four of them! They’re knocking down all the walls downstairs to build an entertainment centre.’
I was approaching a new tower block on the corner of Vauxhall Bridge Road. It looked like a middle finger, mocking me.
‘Sorry, darling,’ said Mum. ‘You caught me at a bad time. They just came round for a chat about the party wall and called our kitchen “quaint”. What can I do for you, anyway?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I’m about to get on the Tube.’
‘Wait, darling. What were you calling to tell me?’
‘Nothing much. Just a new Grade Six joining our unit.’
‘Oh,’ said Mum. ‘What does that mean?’
‘She’s going to be in charge of our department. It sounds like she might want to make things more efficient.’
‘I’m sure you’re very efficient, darling.’
