He wished he knew exactly what she was thinking; Tamzin, so fey next to Natalia and Alice. How could Valerie dismiss Tamzin’s problems?
‘Sure?’
‘Sure.’
Still, he hovered in the hall, as she trod silently up the dogleg stairs and across the gallery landing, until he heard the sound of the television coming from her room. ‘Ring me if you need me,’ he shouted. He gathered up his briefcase and his keys. Either he had to spend some of his time in the office or give up his job. He couldn’t stay at home with Tamzin for the whole period that Valerie languished in hospital. It would be months.
But he’d talk to his CEO, Charlie Hobbs, about working from home a couple of half days a week. Till now, he’d relied on Valerie being at home with Tamzin at least part of the time. When she wasn’t flying, lunching or shopping.
His desk, when he reached it, was half-buried in paper. He frowned. Furness Durwent was meant to be a high–tech, paperless environment, but you just couldn’t cure some staff of the stickies habit. Several coloured envelopes scattered across the wooden veneer proved to be Get Well Soon cards for Valerie. ‘Pretty bloody quick,’ he muttered, flipping them into a pile and sliding them efficiently into his briefcase to take to the hospital, later. He raised his voice. ‘Lawrence!’
Lawrence, who looked about fifteen but had a first in politics and business studies and was up for the next manager’s job that became available, was already halfway through the door. ‘Here,’ he said, with an air of mild reproach that James should think he’d need to be called.
James grinned. ‘What do I need to know?’
‘Nothing urgent. You’ve got a shitload of email but everyone knows about the accident so I’ve been able to fend some people off. The Health and Safety meeting’s been put back until Tuesday.’
James halted. ‘I told you I’d be here.’
‘But Charlie went to some working lunch and has stayed behind, schmoozing a potential new big client with a toy factory. They’re looking for a new supplier of printed circuit boards.’
James grunted and sat down in his big leather chair. Damn. He could have worked from home. He dropped his BlackBerry on the desk – now that he looked, he could see a text from Lawrence in his inbox, probably telling him the meeting had been postponed – and joggled his mouse to bring his computer screen to life. ‘For their production systems or their toys?’
‘Automated toys. They do educational stuff.’
‘OK, thanks.’ He watched Lawrence return to his desk and become instantly immersed. His type of man. Saw what needed to be done and did it.
James could divert his calls to Lawrence, now that the meeting was off. Should he go home? He checked out of his window. His corner office looked straight up the Frank Perkins Parkway and he could see that the traffic was sloooooow … Might as well be here working as sitting in a queue fulminating.
The ‘street view’, as the offices at the front were designated, was meant not to carry the prestige of the rear ‘field view’, where fields could definitely be seen, over the roofs of some smaller units and a yard full of containers. Charlie had a field-view office but James preferred to see the traffic. It gave him a feeling of being connected to the real world. If he were due in a meeting with visitors, he could keep an eye out for their arrival. His life was made up of meetings. Production was the core of the company and if there was a meeting in the building, it seemed as if James, as production director, needed to be in it. Health and Safety. Training. Equipment maintenance, equipment purchase, budget, IT, HR, sales, planning and control of production, quality, timescale, costs…
Did he ever do any real work, these days? He’d become a communication hub, meeting after meeting, email after email, assigning the managers to write his reports for him to edit into his own words.
He knew he was good in meetings. He enjoyed keeping everything in his head, listening silently, absorbing the reports of others, computing their decisions. Rectifying them. Nobody minded James’s input because it was never political – there were no blades between shoulders. And he rarely offended, because he took care to make his methods non-interfering. A note on someone’s pad, a text or email to their BlackBerry … the colleague would glance at it and move smoothly on to cover the point.
If Charlie was chairing the meeting he’d say, ‘Let’s just wait until James has made sure our web’s neatly constructed. James? Can we move on?’ Charlie referred to James as Spiderman. If the meeting was going well he might even joke, ‘Did I get everything, Spidey?’
At his last appraisal, Charlie had said, ‘For whatever reason, James, you were born with the ability to make things work. If I can get you to sign off on a project without frowning, I know we’re OK.’
James loved his job. Loved the feeling of being in control. In charge. And, if he were honest with himself, important.
Processes. Systems. Overviews. Anticipation and foresight–
His BlackBerry buzzed. He glanced at the screen, then took the call. ‘Tamzin? OK?’
‘Should I ring the hospital to find out how Mum is, do you think?’
He checked his watch. ‘We’ll be seeing her in a couple of hours.’
‘I just want to know if she’s OK. Didn’t they say we could ring the nurses’ station to ask? I know they don’t want us ringing her room until she’s begun to improve.’
He considered. ‘If you really can’t wait a couple of hours, I suppose you can ring.’
A pause. ‘Can you ring?’ Her voice was small. Then she brightened. ‘No, I’ll ask Ally to do it. She’s off work on study leave this afternoon because of her exam this evening. I’ll ring her.’ Before he could express an opinion, she’d ended the call.
He sighed as he dropped the BlackBerry back on the desk, turning to his desktop pc and frowning at his crowded inbox. There were a lot of messages withValeriein the subject line.Opening the first, from Amaguchi San, his opposite number in the Japanese office, he tapped out a rapid reply,Thanks for your kind concern. It’s early days but Valerie will recover from her broken bones etc. It’ll mean quite a time in hospital, though. James.Before sending the message he copied the text and zipped through the rest of the enquiries about Val by clickingreplyand then pasting in the same message and clickingsend.
He paused to text Tamzin.If yr ringing about Mum, u better ask about Uncle Gareth, 2.
