When the last two bagels pop up from the toaster, I butter and fill them with lashings of cream cheese and smoked salmon, plus a generous squeeze of lemon juice and plenty of pepper. I carry the tray of food into our office, Radio 4 playing in the background. Our office is light, and overlooks Harriet’s garden. We share a decent-sized desk, covered in paperwork, pots of pens, tubes of hand cream, two of our old coffee mugs from this morning, bottles of water, and endless leads emerging from printers, laptops and mobile chargers. It’s surprising we get any work done surrounded by all the cables and mess. Yet somehow, the mess is part of our team. The room is lined with shelves, filled with glossy lifestyle, travel and fashion magazines that our clients have featured in, along with chunky coloured box files filled with our work and various contacts. Nestled among all the files are a couple of framed photographs of Harriet’s parents, and a picture of Billy. By Harriet’s computer is a small silver-framed black-and-white photograph of a man in his late forties, Rodney. A man Harriet loved. He died a year before I met her. He was the reason she set up her own business. She rarely talks about him. I rarely talk to her about Jamie. It’s funny how we talk so little about the things that mean the most to us. People who have touched our lives in such a profound way. Instead, we chose to talk about what we’re watching on Netflix, or our favourite ice cream flavour. Yet I know, without words, our loss bonds us.
‘Do you give anyone money, Harriet?’ I ask, towards the end of the afternoon, my mind still distracted by the woman slumped outside the Underground station, especially since it’s now pouring with rain. I wish I’d bought her a drink or said ‘hello’. Why didn’t I? As I send another email, I reason that I don’t stop and talk to the homeless mainly out of fear. What if they lash out? I know Nina would have something to say about that. She appears fearless. I wonder what could have gone so wrong with that woman’s life that she ended up on the streets. Addiction? Trauma? Abuse? A bad relationship? A terrible childhood? Why didn’t I have the courage to find out more? I might have learnt something instead of having so many unanswered questions inside my head. But then again, I was in a hurry. I’m paid to work for Harriet, not talk to strangers.
I tell myself to concentrate on my work, but I can’t help wondering if maybe this woman simply made one bad decision, causing everything in her life to unravel. Sometimes that’s all it takes. After all, we’re only one pay cheque away from homelessness.
‘Harriet?’ I say again.
She’s chewing nicotine gum as she taps furiously at her keyboard. ‘Sorry, what?’ She peers at me from behind her purple-rimmed glasses.
‘Do you ever give people money?’
‘I pay you.’
‘No, I mean the homeless?’
She shakes her head. ‘I hardly ever have cash on me. It would probably only go on alcohol and drugs.’
‘Or a pair of shoes?’
‘If I happened to be anywhere near a café I might get them a coffee or…’ She stops. ‘To be honest I’m always in such a hurry.’
‘I know,’ I concede.
‘One time I bought this guy a sausage roll.’ Harriet frowns, recalling the encounter. “I’m a vegetarian,” he said. The cheek!’
‘Maybe he was.’
‘Maybe.’ She’s about to return to writing her email, but then swivels her chair round to face mine. She must be sensing I didn’t like what she said. I tell her about the woman outside the Underground station and how I’d walked on by. That in fact, I’ve spent most of my life treating the homeless as if they’re invisible.
‘I know. I feel guilty too,’ she admits. ‘But remember, there are a lot of frauds out there too,’ she says, echoing Craig. ‘I remember a beggar coming on to our train, on crutches, saying he needed money for a life-saving operation. I gladly emptied my purse before seeing him leap out of the carriage and sprint over to the other train on the opposite platform, the crafty bugger. He could have given Usain Bolt a run for his money. He was a good actor. I’ll give him that.’ She turns to me. ‘I’m being harsh, aren’t I? I swear I get grumpier and more cynical in my old age.’
I smile. ‘I don’t want to get all sanctimonious.’
‘Please don’t.’
‘They’re notallfrauds, Harriet.’
‘I know. Maybe it’s easier to tell myself they are. Anyway, while you were out, I forgot to mention we had a message from someone interesting, who’s set up a travel company, safaris in Africa.’ Harriet goes on to tell me the classic triumph over adversity story that the press love: nasty divorce and now wants to do something with her life. ‘I’ve booked her in for a breakfast meeting next week.’
‘Do you think it takes a crisis to change your life?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve done nothing since Jamie died.’
‘You’ve kept going, that’s something in itself. And now you’re volunteering at this Saturday place.’
‘Look at you though. When you lost Rodney, you left your job and set up your business.’
‘Well, I hadto. I couldn’t go on working full-time and travelling twenty-four-seven. I was burnt out.’ She takes off her glasses and rubs her eyes.
I think of Jamie. How his divorce pushed him into moving back to London and setting up his own company.
The phone rings but Harriet tells me to ignore it, the answer machine is on. ‘Are you OK?’ she asks, and for once I don’t say, ‘I’m fine’.
‘Mum thinks I should be fineby now. She says it takes a year or so to grieve.’ Mum was referring to a friend of hers, Marjorie, who had recently lost her husband. She was trying to be optimistic, to tell me I won’t feel like this forever. ‘Marjorie is feelingsomuch better,’ she’d said. ‘She’s joined an art class and she’s learning how to make honey. I’ve never seen her looking so well, she has herjoie de vivreback.’
‘Codswallop. I mean, good for Marjorie, but you can’t label grief like you label jam jars. It might take people less time. Others might grieve for years. I had a friend who celebrated when her mother died. Equally one of my friends was far more upset about her dog dying than her husband. It is true to say she did have the most beautiful Siberian Husky.’
