style="font-size:15px;"> ‘Yes.’
He looked down and read, ‘You translate instruction manuals for your company?’
‘Yes.’
‘And this company makes fridges, cookers, ovens, that kind of thing.’
‘Yes, they are the largest appliance-manufacturing firm in Europe.’
‘Okay, carry on.’
‘Thank you. Where was I? Of course, the enormous plus side to my work is the people I work with. They are the kind of people who inspire and motivate me to reach further and higher not just in my field of employment but in my life.’
‘Okay.’ He rubbed his forehead. It was flaky. ‘These people that you work with are the people you refer to, in private, as Graham the Cock, Quentin aka Twitch, Louise the Nosy Bitch, Mary the Mouse, Steve the Sausage and Edna Fish Face.’
I kept a straight face. I was quite impressed by my imaginative nicknames. ‘Yes.’
He sighed. ‘Lucy, you’re lying again, aren’t you.’
‘Not really. They do make me want to be a better person – better than them. They do make me want to reach further and higher in my office so that I can get away from them. See? Not a lie. Same outcome.’
He sat back and studied me, ran his hand across his stubble and I could hear the scratching sound.
‘Okay you want to hear the absolute truth about that job or about any job?’ I offered. ‘Fine. Here it is. I’m not one of those people who lives and breathes their job, I don’t take it so seriously that I want to stay longer than I’m paid for or want to socialise with the people I spend most of my waking hours with and would never choose to say more than two words to in the real world. I’ve stayed in that job for two and a half years because I like that gym membership is included, even if the gym equipment is crap and the room stinks to high heaven of smelly jockstraps, it saves me money on going elsewhere. I like that I get to use the languages I spent years finessing. I don’t have many friends who speak German, Italian, French, Dutch and Spanish with me.’ I tried to impress him with that.
‘You don’t speak Spanish.’
‘Yes, I know that, killjoy, but my employers don’t,’ I snapped.
‘What happens when they find out? Will you get fired – again – in a similar spectacular style?’
I ignored him and continued my spiel. ‘I don’t use the vomit word “passion” that I hear so many people use these days when they talk about their work, as if that alone will get you through the day. I do the job I’m paid to do. I’m not a workaholic.’
‘You don’t have the dedication.’
‘Are you advocating workaholicism?’
‘I’m just saying it takes a certain amount of consistency, you know, the ability to throw yourself wholly into something.’
‘What about alcoholics? Do you admire them too? How about I become one of them and you can be proud of my consistency?’
‘We’ve moved away from that analogy now,’ he said, irritated. ‘How about we just say straight out that you lack focus, consistency and dedication?’
That hurt. ‘Give me an example.’ I folded my arms.
He tapped a few keys on the keyboard, read for a while.
‘Someone at work suffered a heart attack so you pretended to the paramedics that you were his next of kin so that you could go in the ambulance and leave work early.’
‘It was a suspected heart attack and I was worried about him.’
‘You told the ambulance driver to let you off at the end of your block.’
‘The man had an anxiety attack, he was fine five minutes later.’
‘You’re half-assed, you waste time, you never finish anything that’s not a bottle of wine or a bar of chocolate. You change your mind all of the time. You can’t commit.’
Okay so that finally got to me. Partly because it was just rude but mostly because he was completely correct. ‘I was in a relationship for five years, how is that a problem with commitment?’
‘He left you three years ago.’
‘So I’m taking time to be with myself. Get to know myself and all that crap.’
‘Do you know yourself yet?’
‘Of course. I like myself so much I’m planning to spend the rest of my life with me.’
He smiled. ‘Or at least fifteen minutes more.’
I looked at the clock. ‘We have forty-five minutes left.’
‘You’ll leave early. You always do.’
I swallowed. ‘So?’
‘So nothing. I was just pointing it out. Would you like some examples?’ He tapped the keyboard before I had time to answer. ‘Christmas dinner in your parents’ house. You left before dessert. Didn’t even make main course the year before, a new record.’
‘I’d a party to go to.’
‘Which you left early.’
My mouth fell open. ‘Nobody even noticed.’
‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong. Again. It was noted.’
‘Noted by who?’
‘By whom,’ he corrected and pressed the down button over and over. I wanted to move to the edge of my seat but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. I sat quietly looking around the office, pretending I didn’t care. And because I was pretending I didn’t care, I realised that meant I did.
Finally he stopped tapping.
My head whipped around to face him.
He smiled. Then he pressed the down button again.
‘This is ridiculous.’
‘I’m sorry, am I boring you?’
‘Actually, yes.’
‘Well, now you know how I feel.’ He stopped tapping. ‘Melanie.’
My best friend. ‘What about her?’
‘She was the girl who was peeved about your leaving early.’
‘Nobody says “peeved”.’
‘Quote, “I wish for once she could just stay until the end.” Unquote.’
I was
