He pointed at his coffee-stained groin. ‘You did this on purpose.’
‘No, you did that all by yourself, pal.’ She shook her head. She understood he was cross, but she wasn’t taking the flack for something that wasn’t her fault.
‘You loosened the bloody lid!’
‘No, I di …’ Regan thought back to the new sugar process. ‘Ah, no. You see the sugar isn’t in the little packets any more—’
But Alex wasn’t listening. ‘Just because I kicked your pen in that meeting. You do this?’
She wished he’d stop pointing at his groin. Regan did feel a sense of responsibility, but she didn’t like his assumption that she was this vindictive.
‘It was an accident, Alex. You need to calm down.’
He opened his mouth to speak, but an office door opened at the other side of the room. Managers and the visiting director spilled out. ‘You’ll need to take my place. But then I’m sure that’s exactly what you planned.’
‘Shit. No. I’m not taking your place. Man up and say you spilled your coffee. I don’t want to go to some dull meeting,’ said Regan, throwing the soggy tissues in the bin.
Alex quickly sat down and wheeled himself under the desk to hide the large coffee stain. It was a smart move. He then leaned on his mouse mat and froze. Regan glanced in his direction. ‘What?’
Alex slowly lifted his arm to show that his once-pristine crisp white shirtsleeve now had a soggy brown coffee patch. ‘Whoops,’ said Regan, cringing. ‘Think I missed a bit.’
‘You are unbelievable,’ said Alex.
The herd of management made their way over. Thankfully, someone more ambitious than Regan led the discussion. Alex was quiet; he kept his lower half under his desk and intermittently scowled at Regan. She shrugged. It was unfortunate, but she couldn’t feel too guilty about it. It was only a meeting – it wasn’t like he’d missed the last lifeboat.
‘And Alex will be joining us to give an overview of the challenges he and his colleagues are facing with invoicing,’ said Nigel, with a confident nod in Alex’s direction. He seemed puzzled as to why Alex was facing the wrong way.
Alex twisted in his seat. ‘I, um …’ He frowned hard. ‘I think Regan should attend instead of me. She knows the department and its challenges as well as I do.’
‘Oh, well. Regan. Um. That’s …’ Nigel appeared to have developed a facial tic. Regan’s mouth lifted at the side. He was clearly dreading the thought of her being let loose in a meeting with the grown-ups.
The director tipped his head. ‘Regan is an unusual name. From Shakespeare, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Regan, surprised that he recognised it. Most people assumed it was her surname. ‘It’s from King Lear.’ Her mother had had ideas well above her station so had saddled her with a name she felt was interesting and unusual. For Regan it was pretentious and annoying, but something she was lumbered with because she was too lazy to change it.
‘Excellent,’ he said. Nigel gave an uncertain smile of agreement. ‘We’ll see you later then, Regan.’
‘Can’t wait,’ she said, holding her smile in place as they filtered away. Once they were safely in the lift, she turned to Alex. ‘Ugh, thanks for that. I don’t …’ she began, but Alex got up and stormed off.
She decided she’d buy him a doughnut at lunchtime. That usually cheered him up. She’d get Kevin one too.
Her phone – which she’d remembered today – buzzed into life. It was Cleo on FaceTime. Without thinking, Regan answered it. ‘Hi.’
Despite hours on a flight, Cleo still looked perfectly coiffured. After a few minutes on the Isle of Wight ferry, Regan usually looked like she’d been mauled by hyenas.
‘This is the hotel,’ said Cleo, scanning the phone around a room about the same size as Jarvis’s entire flat.
‘What country?’
‘Dubai.’
‘Is that a bath in the bedroom?’ asked Regan, catching a glimpse as the camera moved past.
‘Jacuzzi bath. So I can lie here and admire the view.’ Cleo turned the camera and Regan took in the vibrant blue sea. ‘I’m on what they call the Palm.’
‘It’s amazing,’ said Regan, trying to stop her mouth from falling open. ‘What was business class like? Did you get—’ But her questioning was interrupted by a cough behind her. Regan turned to see Nigel scowling at her and running his fingers down his tie. It was the same tie he wore every day; that, or he had a whole rack of the same one at home, but Regan doubted from the iffy stains on it that that was the case. Nigel poked a finger at her phone. That was the trouble with FaceTime; it was on loudspeaker, so it had obviously alerted everyone around her and now they all looked like meerkats on parade. If only she’d remembered her ear buds.
‘Sorry, got to go.’ Regan hurriedly ended the call.
‘Regan, we’ve spoken before about personal calls. Haven’t we?’
Regan wondered if Nigel went to the same school of condescending arses that Jarvis had studied at. ‘Sorry. Won’t happen again,’ she said, but they both knew it would.
‘If you’re not busy, perhaps you’d replenish the printer paper stocks and get me a coffee?’ He gave her a reptilian smile and she begrudgingly went to do as he’d asked. He wasn’t the worst manager she’d ever had, but he was quite picky, self-important and always seemed to be on Regan’s case, which – some of the time – wasn’t justified.
The meeting with the great and the terminally dull was a lot less taxing than she’d feared. Alex had handed over his notes and figures, so she simply reeled them off when asked, while everyone nodded and her boss gave a deep sigh of relief. Really, these people had no faith.
She nipped out at lunchtime and bought three exorbitantly priced doughnuts, but it was on the magic contactless joint account card so it was fine. She wanted to drop one off with Kevin, though he was trickier to find at lunchtime because he often got shooed away from the market during the day by the manager. Eventually, she managed to track him and Elvis down to the supermarket car park, where occasionally a benevolent shopper would give him something from their trolley.
There was a fancy concrete bench affair outside and they sat there to eat their doughnuts together. Regan liked Kevin. He was probably a similar age to her dad, but it was hard to tell with the beard. Unlike her dad, he had a calm way about him. Like he’d seen it all and done it all. She never liked to ask him too many questions, although it didn’t stop her being curious about his situation.
‘I haven’t had a doughnut for years. That was tasty, thanks,’ said Kevin, letting Elvis lick the sugar from his fingers. ‘It’s funny the things you miss.’
‘Like what?’ asked Regan, trying hard to avoid jam dripping down her top.
‘Eye contact,’ he said with a wan smile. He and Regan exchanged knowing looks. The
