14
Grace slept fitfullyand was wide awake at five-thirty in the morning, her mind racing with thoughts about the conversation she would soon have with Clive Peters. With news about her promotion prospects imminent, she was surprised she got any sleep at all.
Stanley had crept into bed beside her again at some point during the night, and made himself comfortable with his head on the pillow, from where he now looked at her while she got up and pulled on her dressing gown. Stanley’s tail thumped on the duvet cover as he watched her moving around.
“You were supposed to sleep in your own bed last night, Stanley,” Grace told the dog. “Ryan bought that cosy bed especially for you, and he carried it all the way round here last night so you’d have a comfortable place to sleep, and yet there you are onmybed. What’s that all about?”
Stanley only stretched and yawned before hopping off the bed with a grunt and scurrying downstairs. While the dog roamed in the back garden, Grace drank a cup of coffee at the door, keeping an eye on Stanley and enjoying the midsummer light that was seeping into the sky as dawn broke.
It was a beautiful morning, the air fresh and sweet after yesterday’s rain. The birds were singing their morning chorus in the back gardens that ran the length of the street, and Grace enjoyed the moment as she sipped her coffee, grateful for the peace and calm of the morning after the restless night she’d spent.
Once she was showered and dressed and ready to leave for work, she gathered her things and clipped Stanley’s lead to his collar and set off for Ryan’s house. She’d stuffed the dog’s new bed inside a black bin bag to make it easier to carry, but between the dog lead in her hand, the bed in the bin bag bouncing against her legs, and her own work bag slung over her shoulder, she felt like a packhorse. It was a relief to reach Ryan’s house before she started sweating in the warming air of the summer morning.
As she handed Stanley over, Ryan invited her in for coffee before she set off for work, but she declined, citing the multiple cups of coffee she’d already drunk on account of waking so early.
After waving goodbye to Ryan and Stanley, she walked to her car parked further along Riverside Road and set off for the short drive to work. The closer she got, the more her heart hammered inside her chest as she thought about the conversation she was about to have with Clive.
When the Hamblehurst Manor Hotel swung into view as she steered along the elegant driveway, its glorious features in full relief against the deep blue early morning sky, Grace’s stomach started performing somersaults of pure excitement at the prospect of one day—hopefully very soon—becoming a full manager at a place such as this.
She parked the car and grabbed her bag, and by the time she was turning into the staff office suite, she was almost sprinting in anticipation. The conversation she was about to have with Clive might only involve sharing guidance and advice about thenext steps in the promotion process, but Grace was still excited and eager to absorb every morsel of information available.
Grace was storing her belongings in her locker when Clive walked through the door to the staff office suite.
“Ah, good, you’re here, Grace,” Clive said, and then checked his watch. “But it’s only eight-thirty. You’re very early.”
“I didn’t want to keep you waiting,” she replied. “And I wanted to make sure we both had time to chat.”
Clive nodded, and Grace noticed for the first time his subdued expression.
“Come through to my office,” he told her.
His tone was flat, a far cry from his usual ebullience, and Grace felt a tendril of unease ripple inside her.
She followed Clive to the offices at the back, which were reserved for the senior managers. He closed the door behind them before sinking into his chair on the other side of the desk.
“Oh, before we discuss promotion matters, there’s something I need to tell you,” Clive said, moving the computer mouse on the desk and clicking on something on the screen. His expression, Grace saw, remained subdued. “It’s about your annual leave.”
Grace blinked at the segue. Her mind was so focused on the question of her promotion that she hadn’t anticipated any other topic of conversation with Clive this morning.
“Is there a problem?” she asked.
“Actually, there is,” Clive replied. “When I was working on the quarterly reports yesterday, the annual leave audit identified you as a red flag.”
Grace gasped. “A red flag? There must be some mistake! I’m sure I haven’t taken too much holiday time.”
“No, you haven’t. That’s the problem, and that’s why the audit red-flagged you. You haven’t taken nearlyenoughannual leave, Grace.”
She processed this, trying to get her head around what Clive was saying. Being told there was a ‘red flag’ against her name had caused panic to set in, fearing that something was wrong and which might interfere with her promotion prospects. But that didn’t seem to be what Clive was saying.
“I don’t understand,” Grace said. “Why is it an issue if I haven’t taken enough holiday time? I love my work and don’t need time off.”
Clive waved a hand at this. “I know you love your work, but youmusttake your allocated annual leave, and you can’t let it pile up. The business has strict rules about managing holiday entitlements and HR will come after me if I don’t make sure that staff take off the time they are due. There are employment law compliance issues for one thing, and for another, the business doesn’t want staff allowing their annual leave to accumulate and then expecting to take weeks and weeks off all at once.”
“I’m not expecting that! I don’t mind not taking my holidays at all, Clive!”
“Well, I’m sorry, but that isn’t acceptable. Youmusttake holiday time, end of story. When the audit identified the issue with your annual leave record for the past year, I had no choice but to take action. In order to manage the outstanding days off that you have available, I’ve booked you in for five days of holiday to start the day after your next regular two days off. In other words, you are off as part of your usual rota tomorrow and the day after, and then you are taking an additional five days of annual leave. That will begin to make a dent in your leave entitlement.”
“Oh, okay,” Grace said, absorbing this information. Alarm at what it might mean to be ‘red flagged’ in Clive’s audit reports swiftly changed to an odd sense of relief. If Clive was forcing her to use up some holiday time, that might solve the problem oflooking after Stanley, should he still be in her care in a few days’ time.
