“But it’s Friday,” I say hoping he’ll realise the tight timescale.
“Then you’d better get on with it. This is an important new client, don’t let me down,” he says and then turns to his computer, clearly dismissing me. Julia works with corporate clients, fully arranging their events, like awards and dinners, while I work mostly in venue hire, which is slightly different. I just hope she’s an organised person and I can find all the information.
I hurry to my desk and pull out my laptop and switch it on. I take a swig of my coffee as I wait for it to boot up, pulling a face as it’s half cold and I prefer it super hot. Luckily I’d finished the information marketing needed on the new venue yesterday and have some time today. I log into the network and go to the Reynolds folder in the corporate area. I can see that she’s started, but there’s not much information. Just a brief outline of the event, the date, and the number of attendees. I knowthat Miles will be wanting to present a range of venues with full costings for the client. It’s going to take me all day to do this. I inwardly curse both Miles and Julia. That seems mean to her, but I wonder if she’s off sick as she knows this is due Monday. I quickly grab a substandard coffee from the machine—at least it’s hot—and get to work.
No one disturbs me. Miles’s treatment of me has made trying to make friends at work almost impossible. People either pity me or don’t want to get too close, as if I’m tainted by his control over me.
By five o’clock I’m still not finished, but I know I don’t have much more to go so I continue on, trying to ignore those around me shutting down their computers for the weekend and telling each other their weekend plans. No one ever asks me that. Mostly I’ll be spending time in my expensive flat alone. Sometimes I might go out to a club on Friday night. Manchester has a vibrant gay scene, and I occasionally like to hang out in the gay village, but if I’m honest, it’s not for me. I’m more of a stay at home with a book or a good series on TV kind of guy. I’m a small town guy at heart.
I finally complete the report at six and email it over to Miles ready for Monday. Only the cleaners are in the office when I leave. It’s the second time this week I’ve worked late, and the small smile one of them gives me as I pack up hits home at just how crap my life has become. I’m too tired to cook, and very hungry as I missed lunch, so I grab a burger from the place under the block where my flat is and take it home with me. I plonk my bag down on the counter in the kitchen, then I reach for a plate. I might buy fast food, but if I’m at home, I can at least pretend it didn’t come in a carton. I sit down ready to eat and notice the edge of the envelope peeking out of my bag. I’dcompletely forgotten about it with the work Miles gave me. I draw it out and regard it. It doesn’t look like the usual mail I receive at work. The postmark is smudged so I can’t see where it came from, and I turn it over but there’s no return address. I prop it up against my bag while I finish my dinner, pondering who could’ve sent it. It came to work so it’s probably nothing important, and as I’ve done enough overtime I could stuff it back into my bag until Monday. I’m halfway to doing that when my curiosity gets the better of me and I open it. Inside is a folded piece of writing paper. My mouth goes dry. Is this some sick game of Miles’s? Is that why he sent it to work, so he’d know it had arrived. Was he waiting in the lift for me this morning, ready to comment on it? I wouldn’t put it past him to do something like that. I glance around, as if he’s close and can see inside my flat. He has mob connections, could he have it bugged? I shake my head. This is ridiculous, I’m just overtired from the stress at work. But still, my hands shake a little as I reach for the paper and unfold it.
Charley,
Silver Heather had a foal, Silver Arrow.
He’s ready to play this season.
He’s yours.
Please reconsider my offer to come and be the centre manager.
Gabriel
That’s all there is on the note except for a phone number. I stare at it for a long moment, then the memories flood in. Silver Heather was my favourite of Gabriel’s horses. An Argentinianpolo pony with wise brown eyes. She was roan, which to me looked like she was dark pinkish grey with a frosty covering. She was the first horse I rode when I started to learn, never minding when I was clumsy and uncoordinated. She put up with my bumbling attempts at polo, and I played my first match on her when I was fifteen. I obviously didn’t have any of my own horses, Uncle Pete couldn’t afford anything like that. But Gabriel was always generous with his own. He even joked that Silver Heather was more my horse than his. And now he was giving me her son, or at least the chance to ride him in polo matches. It’s too much but it’s completely Gabriel, and I can’t help the smile that breaks out across my face.
CHAPTER FIVE
CHARLEY
The first person I see on Monday morning is Julia, looking bright, cheerful, and very well. She appears at my desk as I’m taking off my coat.
“Thank you for doing my report, Charley. You really helped me out,” she gushes, as if it had been my idea.
“Always happy to help a colleague when they’re sick.” I see her eyes narrow slightly, and I get the feeling she wasn’t actually ill so I press on. “What was it? A twenty-four hour bug?” She hesitates for a brief second as if working out how she can make use of the lie I’ve just given her.
“Yes, it was awful. I spent the day with my head down the toilet.” She rubs her stomach for good measure. The performance certainly isn’t Oscar worthy. I glance over the large open-plan office to where the commercial department sits and see her colleagues are all watching us, their faces telling their own story.Any one of them could’ve picked up her work, but all they had to do was tell Miles they were too busy and he’d listen to them.
“You’re pathetic,” I say, sitting at my desk and turning my back on her.
“Worked, though, didn’t it?” Her voice is smug and I clench my jaw. I have no doubt she’ll try that tactic again when she’s behind on her work. I can almost see the rest of them deciding which jobs they don’t want to do that they know Miles will give to me. As she walks off back to her department I put my head in my hands. My work, and my life, has just gotten worse. I reach into my pocket and pull out Gabriel’s letter. I’ve thought about it a lot over the weekend, mostly reliving some of the memories of my childhood. His offer of Silver Arrow is very tempting, and I can’t say I don’t miss the horses and playing polo. But I can’t take a job just because of a horse. It’s not rational, and my sensible side kicks in. The same part of me that reminds me we’re not kids any longer, and if I go back, nothing will be as it was then. The thought of seeing Gabriel every day is bittersweet. I don’t think he married Celeste like he said he was going to the night of his eighteenth birthday. I can’t find any evidence of him being married or in a relationship, even though I searched over the weekend. But he’s straight, so being so close to him and also so far away would be like a thousand knife cuts every day. But would it be better than this existence? That’s the question that’s been eating me all weekend.
I work on my own projects all morning and then take my allotted time for lunch in the cafe where I met Gabriel. A sense of dread fills me as I walk slowly back to the office, more than the usual heavy feeling I have every day when I enter the building. I find Miles waiting for me at my desk.
“Where were you?” he demands.
“At lunch, which I am still at for another minute,” I say, looking at my watch.
“Don’t get smart with me, Marshall,” he growls. “My office, now.”
I groan inwardly and trail after him, feeling every eye in the room on me as I walk into his glass office. I wouldn’t be surprised if they gathered round to watch whatever new hell Miles has thought up for me.
“I need you to work late tonight,” he says, sitting at his desk and gesturing for me to take a seat.
“What for?” The dread I felt before chills me. It’s not a big company, so there’s no HR department. We’re supposed to report any problems to Miles directly. What a joke.
“I need you to do forecast sales for the rest of the year, with growth profiles for the next five years.” I stare at him. This is way above my pay grade and not something I’ve done before. The work he’s put on me has been escalating for the last week or so. I don’t know why, but I can’t see a way it’s ever going to stop. Something inside me snaps.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I ask. “Why are you giving me extra work, other people’s work, and making me work late for no overtime? What have I done?” His face twists. He wasn’t expecting that from me. I’ve always capitulated previously.
