Chapter 7
Ore
Ore hadn’t been expecting the company. Chuck had not mentioned that his personal assistant and his teenage daughter would be joining them for dinner. They made for an unlikely gathering. Agatha sat bolt upright, her startlingly blonde hair tucked neatly behind her ears, and Chuck was opposite her, at the other end of the table. Ore was facing Melanie, whose exceptionally straight and slightly too long fringe covered her eyes.
The adults were all politely chatting about how delicious the scallops were, and Ore was frustrated that she wouldn’t have the opportunity to talk to Chuck alone tonight. It was always much more complicated to catch an interviewee off guard when there was an audience. She guessed that that was the plan. Melanie hadn’t yet said a word, apart from a giggly thank you to the stewardess who had brought the food.
‘So, Chuck, what’s it like running a company like Pagonis?’ She thought it was a simple enough starter question, but almost before she had finished her sentence, Agatha jumped in.
‘He’s always busy, aren’t you, Chuck? And that means I’m always busy too! It takes a lot of manpower to keep a placelike Pagonis ticking over, and keeping all that manpower in check isn’t an easy job either.’ Agatha was a journalist’s worst nightmare; she had that canny ability to say something without really revealing anything at all.
Ore smiled at Agatha, hiding her irritation, and then looked back over at Chuck, who was chewing on a sprig of samphire as though he had no intention of answering the question directed at him.So this is how it’s going to go,thought Ore. She decided to change her tack.
‘And what’s it like being the daughter of Chuck Regas then, Melanie?’
The girl looked surprised at being acknowledged, and then a little flustered. ‘Umm, it’s all right, you know. I guess Pagonis isn’t like the worst vibe out there, but it’s hardly like a non-profit or anything.’
Agatha forced a dry laugh. A tiny vein throbbed just south of her immaculate hairline. ‘Oh, that’s just Melanie, our budding little socialist!’ Her tone was verging on shrill. ‘Teenagers, what are they like?’ The phrase might have sat better had Agatha herself not looked so young. Maybe it was genetics, or maybe it was expensive face cream, but Ore would have assumed that they were about the same age, at least half a decade away from thirty.
Melanie looked back down at her food sullenly. Ore felt a pang of pity for the girl. Despite the unimaginable luxury, how deathly boring it must be to spend your summer holidays with only your dad and his employees for company.
Ore tried again, turning her whole upper body to resolutely address Chuck. ‘And how long has the move into hardware been on the cards?’ A sharp intake of breath from over herright shoulder and Ore knew that she was once again about to be bested by Agatha.
‘Well it’s been in the works for quite a while, but Chuck wanted to make sure that the company was in a solid place, financially, but also brand-wise before expanding into new markets.’ Ore turned her head emphatically and met Agatha’s gaze, hoping to shame her into an apology, or at least silence, but Agatha was not deterred. ‘We’re hoping that by developing our own batteries we can transform how efficiently and sustainably our servers are run, but in the long term we might look into making that product available to our competitors.’
Agatha was a walking, talking press release, thought Ore. In fact, she was pretty sure that most of the phrasing matched word for word.
‘Interesting,’ said Ore flatly, as she speared her last scallop. ‘Maybe we could have a chat one on one at some point, Agatha?’ It was clear that she had a lot to say; maybe Ore could exhaust her, and then try and get to Chuck.
‘Oh, well maybe not, I’m pretty busy.’
Ore was not easily vexed. She considered herself fairly tolerant, happy-go-lucky even, but Agatha’s smug smile riled her.
‘Oh, well, no problem, I wouldn’t want to impede you doing your job.’ Ore knew it was petty, the tone, the mimicking of language, and the way Agatha’s eyes sparkled, Ore also knew she had lost this particular joust.
Mel looked from one woman to the other and smirked. Even the teenager in the room was picking up on the childish atmosphere. Ore needed to get a grip. From then on, she stuck to small talk, commenting on the food and ‘lovely weather’.
Chuck only piped up to ask Mel an absent-dad-coded question about how school was going. The rest of the time he got on with eating his meal, checking his phone occasionally but mainly staring placidly into the middle distance. Ore wondered how somebody who appeared to have so few thoughts had built himself a multibillion-dollar empire.
After the dessert was cleared by the stewardesses, Ore declined coffee. She felt suddenly exhausted, the stretch of the past thirty hours weighing down her eyelids. She strained to stop herself from yawning as she willed Agatha and Chuck to hurry up with their unfathomably tiny sips of espresso. Eventually everyone stood up, almost in unison, and Ore scrambled to her feet.
Agatha addressed the table as if she were holding court. ‘Thank you all for a lovely dinner. I’ll be taking myself off to bed now. Goodnight, everyone.’ Ore was sure she even bowed her head ever so slightly before turning to leave.
Mel scuttled off in the opposite direction, and finally Ore was alone with Chuck. She summoned her last ounce of energy. ‘Do you always let Agatha do all your talking for you?’ It was an impertinent question – she knew that – but the mix of tiredness and frustration had lowered her inhibitions.
Chuck looked up from his phone, an eyebrow raised. ‘Straight to the point I see, Miss …’ He obviously couldn’t remember her surname.
‘Please, call me Ore,’ she replied, and thought she saw the shadow of a smile tug at his lips.
‘Of course, Ore – forgive me, I am a busy man and having someone like Agatha who can keep across everything is indispensable to me.’ He looked down again and then backup. ‘But I will say that for your profile you would probably be best speaking to my staff, rather than me. There is no worse judge of one’s character than oneself.’
‘Perhaps, but it’s always revealing to know what peoplethinkthey are like.’ She was enjoying herself. The repartee felt good-humoured but a little daring.
Chuck laughed softly and put his phone in his pocket, offering her the rare gift of his full attention. ‘I tell you what, spend the next couple of days talking to the crew and then I promise I will give you …’ he looked at his watch, as if calculating there and then ‘… forty-five minutes alone, with me, on Sunday, how does that sound?’
Ore beamed. ‘Deal.’
Chuck laughed again, shaking his head slightly, and left her alone in the dining room.
When she got back to her room, Ore collapsed onto the pristine, white sheets. As she groaned with exhaustion, she felt something digging into her shoulder. On closer inspection she saw it was a small packet of Kwells. Vicky must have left it for her to combat the seasickness. Luckily the strange vibes at dinner had distracted her from the nausea, but now she was lying down, the slight rocking was once more noticeable to her, and her stomach.
She got undressed and tried to go to sleep, but ended up crouched over the toilet bowl. It was going to be a long night.
