Okaay .?.?. pretty straightforward stuff,butthe golden takeaway was that there wasno mentionof a girlfriend or wife. They ordered another drink and then another, as the conversation meandered from movies on to football. Normally, Ally wouldn’t have known one end of a soccer ball from the other, but on her third mini bottle of Sauvignon Blanc she found herself tapping into an undiscovered passion for Manchester City.
‘Ohmygod, it’s so skilful, the way they can do those backflips when they score a goal,’ she gushed, ‘but how come they were all called David?’
William looked baffled. ‘What? They weren’t all. There was David Silva. Then there was David Faupala as well, I suppose, though he only played for one season .?.?.’
She found herself gazing at his lips as they moved. ‘Nooo. You’re minimising them .?.?. There were .?.?. multiple Davids. My dad used to keep shouting David this, David that.’
She saw his lips curve into a smile.
‘Sure, David Silva was probably the greatest player they ever had, he got himself everywhere.’
‘Probabably. That was it.’
‘I think we should go .?.?.’
William seemed to be just slightly less pie-eyed than herself.
They blundered through the crowd of revellers who were shouting and swaying along to a spirited rendition of ‘The Rocky Road to Dublin’, whose bassline appeared to be carried by a heavily bearded man blowing sideways into a massive glass jar.
‘Gowan! Fair play to ye, lads!’ roared William as the musicians raised their hands in cheery acknowledgement. Clearly, Tipsy William was somewhat different to Office William.
Once outside the door of the pub, Ally realised she was pretty pissed and someone had definitely loosened the stabilisers on the pavement. She could feel William’s arm steadying her, not that he seemed particularly steady himself. Next, she found her back against the wall, with the weight of William’s body leaning against her, although it was possibly for support, and the vague sense of his mouth aiming for and more-or-less landing on hers .?.?.
At that moment she began to feel that suspicious feeling .?.?. Her stomach warned her: get out of there, and fast.
‘Sorry, I think I’m going to have to go— hommmm,’ she heard herself mumble, drawing back from the kiss.
‘OK,’ he said, looking a bit crestfallen. ‘Are you sure? I had anice time.’
‘Me too. But .?.?. got to go .?.?. night night,’ she mumbled and clambered into a waiting taxi. As it pulled away, she could see William fumbling with his bicycle chained to a road sign. Oh my God. She’d just snogged William and then legged it without an arrangement to meet again. She’d blown it. Her head spun as the taxi took a sharp turn left and buildings blurred as they passed. Focus. Just hold it together till you get home – after that you can puke if you have to, and dream of William, though definitely not at the same time.
At last, she turned the key in the door, stumbled in and dropped her coat and bag on the floor in the hall with a groan of relief. In the fresh air, the queasy feeling had abated and her head was starting to clear just a little. Thankfully, she reminded herself to drink a pint of water to dilute the wine, before falling into bed.
The following morning, she was woken by a piercing beep that sounded like the herald of the apocalypse but turned out to be her alarm clock. It took a good thirty seconds for her scattered thoughts to work out what day it was, let alone to stop the bloody beeping.
She sat up gradually and put her feet gingerly on the floor, waiting for her head to catch up. Oh God. She padded the short distance across the laminated floor and into the kitchen-diner, without making any sudden movements, and put on the kettle. So far so good. Sipping a quiet mug of tea and munching an unchallenging triangle of toast, she wondered what had possessed her to go on the lash on a weekday night.
William.
The memory of his mouth on hers overtook her for a moment. Oh no, she was going to have to face William with everyone in the coffee room. How mortifying. Or maybe she wouldn’t see him at all – would that be worse? They had each other’snumbers, but would he call? Somebody should call somebody, but when? She’d have done anything to crawl back into bed for the morning but that definitely wasn’t an option.
Get to work somehow, she urged herself, keep your head down and have a chicken-fillet roll for lunch. That’d get her through to the evening.
And now this
It had all started out with a perfectly innocent email.
A popular employee, Sid from sales, was retiring after a lifetime in the company, and it was falling to someone from HR to organise the present and the leaving do.
‘Ally, would you mind doing it, just ’cause I’ve to leave early to get home for the kids?’ wheedled Crystal, who had been using the same excuse since Ally joined the company. By her reckoning, Crystal’s kids must be due to move out of home any day now. But it bugged her – just because Ally didn’t happen to have kids didn’t mean she was any fonder of crap jobs, and today really wasn’t the day for it.
Anyhow, that wasn’t poor Sid’s fault, so, hey-ho, she’d make herself a mug of tea in her Little Mermaid mug – teabag in for exactly three minutes, splash of milk – and grab two Toffeepops for a boost of energy, as it was 3 p.m. She’d write as much of a buzzy upbeat email as her hangover would allow and include a photo of him to encourage people to donate, or at least make them feel a bit more guilty. Apart from that, it occurred to her with a surge of longing that the do might be a perfect occasion to reconnect with William, even though they’d both be coolly circulating and socialising with other people. Still, each would know that the other was there. She’d be dressed in a very sexymidnight-blue backless satin dress and their gazes would meet across the ready-poured glasses of wine. He’d be chatting to his team, of course, and she’d be helping to organise, handing out drinks and greeting guests, but at the same time they’d know their desperate desire for each other .?.?. Ah now, stop it, she scolded herself. Just stick to the job in hand.
Soon her phone began pinging away busily with incoming Revolut contributions. So far, so good. She took a sneaky peek and couldn’t help noticing what people were donating: mostly tenners, and the odd twenty. But then, to her disbelief, in the middle of the page, in black and white, appeared the name Conal O’Callaghan, the CEO. A fiver.
A sudden wave of indignation surged through her, or maybe it had been brewing all day – a hypersensitivity towards small, overlooked people. People without much power. People who had to take what they were given. Impulsively, she took a screenshot of the page and stuck it on an email to Rosemarie with the message:
Poor Sid has been a friendly face in this company for forty years, met every request with a smile and guess who (Conal) donates a FIVER .?.?. wow .?.?. maybe he needs a raise??? ??
