worry. Life had been in the kitchen too long with Graham the Cock, I hoped he hadn’t fallen prey to one of his offers of a dalliance, a thought which I knew couldn’t be true but made me queasy. I stood at the filing cabinet which Louise had strategically placed by the kitchen door, opened a drawer and pretended to look for a file while eavesdropping.
‘So she lied about the Spanish,’ Graham said.
‘Yep,’ Life said, sounding like he was eating, and he was scraping something. A yoghurt pot, I deducted. That was Louise’s, she was on WeightWatchers and snacked all day on yoghurts which had more sugar in them than a doughnut.
‘Well, well, well. And she lied about smoking.’
‘Yep,’ he said again. Scrape, scrape, scrape.
‘You know that I smoke,’ Graham said.
‘No, I didn’t know that.’ And it sounded like he didn’t care much either.
‘We sometimes go out there together, me and Lucy, to the private place,’ Graham said, keeping his voice low, not because he was talking about the private smoking place but in that way that men did when they were talking about sexual things they had done, or more usually wished they’d done.
‘The fire escape,’ Life said, keeping his voice at normal level, which told anyone who wasn’t Graham that he didn’t want to lower his tone of voice or subject of conversation.
‘I was thinking that she might have a thing for me. That pretending to be a smoker was just a way to get close to me.’ Graham gave a naughty little chuckle, forgetting about the fact that it was always he who followed me.
‘You think?’ Scrape, scrape.
‘Well, it’s hard to get close in here, with this lot. What do you think? Has she ever mentioned anything to you about me? Or she wouldn’t have to say it, you’d just know, wouldn’t you? Go on, you can tell me.’
‘Yeah, I pretty much know everything,’ Life said and I was annoyed that Cock knew he was my life. It was enough that he tried to come on to me, never mind trying to sweet-talk my life as well.
‘So what do you think? Does she want some?’
‘Want some?’ The scraping stopped. The yoghurt had been demolished, the integrity insulted.
‘She’s turned me down a few times, I won’t lie to you, but the thing is I’m married and for a girl like Lucy, that’s not her thing. But I still feel there’s something … Has she told you anything about me?’
I heard a squeak – the bin lid rising; heard the plastic bag rustle as something was dumped – the yoghurt pot; heard a clink in the sink – the spoon. Then heard a long sigh – my life.
‘Graham, I can safely say that Lucy wants to like you and occasionally sees glimpses of a nice guy but deep down, deep, deep down she thinks you’re an absolute asshole.’
I smiled, closed the file drawer and swiftly returned to my desk. I knew then that though he’d stabbed me in the back just that morning, by the afternoon, he had my back. The office, namely Graham, was even quieter that afternoon and I wasn’t fired that day. Lying in bed that night I knew Life was awake because he wasn’t snoring. I was running through everything that had happened that day and all that had been said; between me, Life and everybody else stuck in between. I eventually came to one conclusion.
‘You planned all that, didn’t you?’ I asked to the dark empty room.
‘Planned what?’
‘You deliberately went in and told Edna the truth in a way that would make me come up with the idea to tell the truth myself.’
‘Sounds like you’re analysing everything too much, Lucy.’
‘Am I right?’
Silence.
‘Yes.’
‘What else are you planning?’
He never answered me. It was just as well.
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