The Whiskerly Sisters (19 page)

Damn Celia! The one day he needed her to pull her flaming finger out and she’d let him down. She’d phoned in first thing full of apology. Her car was refusing to even start. It was still on the drive and she was waiting for the man with the van to turn up and sort it out. No, she had no idea what was wrong with it. Yes, she knew Karl and Fredericke were arriving today. Yes, she knew it was bloody awful timing, but it was just one of those things. She promised to be there as soon as she could. In the meantime, the Dusseldorf folders were on her desk, partially stuffed, only needing the papers Patrick had still been working on when she left promptly at four. Yes, it was unfortunate that she had been unable to stay back to finish them off. Yes, that would’ve saved all this unnecessary, last minute pandemonium, but she had a doctor’s appointment. She’d given Patrick plenty of notice. She’d had to leave.

By mid-morning, Patrick was pacing his office, his mobile stuck to his ear, trying desperately to reach Celia. She would know how to fix the blasted machine. He’d decided to send someone to collect her; either that or she could take a taxi to the office and he would reimburse her, but the landline kept going to voice mail and she wasn’t answering her mobile. A glimmer of hope settled over his shoulders. Perhaps she was on her way at last! He hoped she would hurry up. Just at that moment, his colleague, Dan walked into the room, smiling broadly. “Forget the photocopier,” he announced. “We can just print the stuff off and then bind it. It shouldn’t take long.”

Finally, someone with the sense they were born with. Patrick relaxed for the first time that morning and, without realising he was talking to his Sales Director, ordered him to make him some coffee. He just managed to prevent himself from calling a member of his top team a good girl. “God, man, pull yourself together,” he thought to himself as he watched Dan march angrily in the direction of the kitchen.

From the cosy warmth of her bed, Celia idly wondered if anyone would work out what was wrong with the Xerox. She knew it would play up; it always did when asked to do double siding. The trick was to remove the paper in the upper tray thus forcing it to use the lower one. It had taken Celia ages to work that out so she very much doubted if anyone at Dumbleton’s would know what to do. Still, there were other options. They could copy the presentation single sided; they could send the document straight to print. If they thought hard enough, they could probably sort themselves out a Plan B and, if they did, there would just be the binding to do. It was possible that one or two of the girls in the customer services team might know how to use the binder and, given time, any member of staff should be able to work it out. Hell, it wasn’t rocket science, but then they would face obstacle number two because, although the binder was sitting in its normal perch just outside her office, Celia doubted if anyone would be able to find any binding rings and that would be because she’d hidden them in her shopping bag just before she’d left for her spurious doctor’s appointment. Right now, they were sitting on her hall table. With no binding rings, the presentation would have to be stapled, which would not go down at all well with the German perfectionists who, according to the clock on the bedside table, should be driving through the gates of Dumbleton’s just about now.

Oops!

Celia’s landline rung again and she ignored it. No doubt, her mobile would sing too any second now. She would ignore that too. She stretched lazily in the bed, made herself more comfortable and settled down to watch a little morning TV, secure in the knowledge that the car on her driveway had recently been serviced and would therefore start first time. There was no need for a mechanic at all. She would leave for work in about an hour or so, she decided, thereby giving Patrick’s boss plenty of time to enjoy the fun.

Celia grinned to herself. She wondered if anyone knew where the data projector was kept. If they did, they would have difficulty locating the spare bulb since that too was sitting on her hall table.

Celia had rehearsed her story thoroughly. As luck would have it, she explained to the frustrated Patrick when she finally got to the office, all her car needed was a little love and attention. Wasn’t if fortunate that the guy who turned up knew just what to do? So, in no time at all, her car was purring gently and ready to take her to work. It could have been so much worse, she explained to her seething boss, who hoped to god that things could never get any worse than the humiliation of this morning’s meeting with Fredericke. Celia explained that she had considered taking a taxi, but hadn’t wanted to cause the company unnecessary expense and, besides, the man with the van told her he was on his way. It wasn’t her fault she hadn’t been properly prioritised. She was sorry she had missed his calls, but she had spent most of the morning outside trying vainly to start the car and, somehow, her mobile had been switched to silent. She agreed that it was also a pity that she had not been able to get into the office until after lunch, but then she had been forced to wait for the recovery man and, since she was on her own driveway, she was apparently not considered important and so no one had rushed to her rescue. Still, she had got there as soon as she could and she was sorry she had missed meeting Fredericke, who had apparently left in something of a hurry.

Patrick’s tirade was awesome. The meeting had been a total balls up from start to finish, the photocopier had jammed and no one had been able to locate the manual. Why the fuck did no one but Celia know the number of the repair man for Christ’s sake? Why hadn’t she written it down somewhere? And why hadn’t she had the foresight to train someone, anyone how to use the binder? On and on he stormed. In the end, he informed her icily, Patrick’s bulky presentation had had to be separated into sections and stapled together. If that hadn’t been bad enough, when they had finally managed to locate the flaming data projector, no one knew how to make it work. With Fredericke watching in stony silence, they had managed to set it up with some assistance from a member of the visiting team, but the bulb had failed and no one knew if there was a spare. In the end, they had been forced to go through the slides using the hastily stapled documents in the presentation folder. And Jesus, Mary and Joseph, would you effing well believe it; the retards upstairs had managed to staple some of it upside down. What a fucking cock up! The Germans had not been impressed. Karl had said nothing; he didn’t need to since his face said everything. Why oh why for god’s sake had her car had to go and break down today of all days; the one day in the year when he needed her most.

Celia shrugged. She couldn’t for the life of her imagine.

The next few weeks proved even more of a trial for Patrick. So many things seemed to suddenly be going wrong. When he urgently needed to email across to Head Office the contracts relating to the new build, it turned out that the scanner had broken down and that the contractor was unavailable to repair it until the following week. In the end, the paperwork had to be couriered across to Germany and, sadly, did not arrive in time for Fredericke’s meeting with Karl, the top man. Celia might have suggested they get the solicitors to email their copy direct, but she felt it prudent to keep quiet.

The huge A1 printer in the main office went on the blink, meaning that the posters for a forthcoming showcase had to be outsourced at exorbitant cost given the short notice. The final proofs for the Christmas catalogue went walkabout from the Marketing Department, meaning several days’ worth of work had to be re-done. German deadlines were missed and production time cut.

Patrick left some vital documents on the desk in his office and so lost an important sale. He could’ve sworn he’d put them in his briefcase alongside the client file that Celia had meticulously prepared for him.

In the old days, Celia would have been by his side, nurturing him through his working day and ensuring he never forgot anything, but these weren’t the old days and Celia was no longer available to work the unpaid overtime she’d once undertaken without a murmur. It was regretful, she agreed, but her mother had become ill and needed her support. Celia was now only able to work the agreed hours stated in her contract. No, she couldn’t work through her lunch hour; that was when she had to pop to the shops or the chemist or the post office for her mother. It was a slow business, she demurred, but she felt sure her mother was making progress and that it wouldn’t be long before she was back on her feet and managing her own affairs.

Patrick fervently wished that the damn woman would bloody well hurry up. Things were going from bad to worse and, over the past few weeks, he had come to realise how much he depended on his secretary. He was even thinking of giving her a small pay rise, but it was not to be.

Out of the blue, Celia handed in her notice.

Patrick was devastated. He’d had no idea she was unhappy at Dumbleton’s. He’d had no clue she’d even been thinking of leaving. What was the problem? Was it the hours? He could be more flexible while her mother was sick. Was it the money? He would give her a rise. How much did she want? What about a bonus? A bigger office? A promotion? And so it went on, but Celia would not be swayed. It was none of those things, she assured him. It was simply that an opportunity had arisen that she could not afford to miss. Regrettably, she was unable to work her full four weeks’ notice because she was owed two week’s leave. She would be leaving at the end of the following week.

Patrick protested. He couldn’t possibly allow her to do that. There would be no time in which to recruit a half decent replacement. It would be impossible to organise an effective handover. Given all the knowledge that Celia had about the administrative side of the business, all that she undertook single-handedly, all the gaps she bridged, there was no one who could possibly cover all that she did at such short notice. Please don’t force them into getting a temp, he begged. Celia sat patiently through it all. He cajoled and pleaded, blustered and stuttered, tried every strategy he could think of and offered all manner of incentive, but Celia was adamant. There was nothing he could do to encourage her to stay. There would be no last minute reprieve. She was leaving and the sooner he accepted that, the better.

As a conciliatory gesture, she did however, offer to put together a little ‘How to’ manual for any would be successor, but only on condition she was given enough time and space to develop it because, given all that Celia covered off and with most of it on automatic pilot, it would take a great deal of thought. She smiled into Patrick’s eyes as she told him that sometimes even she didn’t quite know how she did what she did. Patrick gratefully agreed to her one compromise.

She had reached her final week at Dumbleton’s and was supposed to be working on the promised handover manual while the girls from customer services held the phones, but Celia couldn’t concentrate. She kept glancing up at the clock on the wall. Was it her or was it actually going backwards today? She thrummed her nails on the side of the desk impatiently. “Come on five o’clock,” she begged it, but the dials stubbornly remained where they were. Sighing, she went to make herself another cup of coffee in an effort to pass another long fifteen minutes. She comforted herself with the thought that she knew she would get away on time. She needed to. She had a very unusual evening ahead.

Despite being in her notice period and therefore supposedly able to ease up a little, the previous few days had been fraught. Timing was crucial and she was terrified of the consequences of getting caught if she got it wrong. Thank god for the Whiskerlies; they had buoyed her up and had helped her to believe in herself. They were behind her every step of the way and convinced her she could pull this off.

To pass the time, she recalled how the first part of her plan, implemented the previous week, had gone. She had had to wait until Patrick had left for his meeting with the architects at the building site. Most of the marketing staff had gone up to the big show in London or else they were working from home. The Sales Managers only ever came in for meetings so their desks were empty. At the chosen hour, and with Patrick and Lydia out of the office, she knew the customer services crew would be in mid-afternoon slump mode or else gossiping.

Swallowing hard and trying not to think of the enormity of the job in front of her and worse the outcome if any single part of it went wrong, Celia had risen, picked up a batch of post and had forced herself to walk normally towards Patrick’s office. Entering the room, she had approached the desk and had then casually let herself drop the letters to the floor with a little flick of her wrist. As intended, they had scattered around the floor, thus enabling her to kneel down in order to pick up the little trail of envelopes now littering the carpet. She had remembered not to look round and had tried not to look furtive. Raising herself up slightly, she had lifted one arm and grabbed hold of the small badminton cup that Patrick kept on the bureau to the left of his desk. She had tipped it towards her and had been rewarded by receiving, from its depths, a tiny key. She had quickly pocketed it and then replaced the cup. Rising, she had placed the hastily gathered letters into the in-tray and had left the room, trying not to hurry. In the relative safety of her office, she had put on her jacket, grabbed a bunch of keys from her own top drawer and had rushed downstairs, letting old Vince in Finance know that she was just popping to the store room for some samples.

Once in the storeroom, Celia had delved into her jacket pocket and had pulled out a pair of leather gloves. Drawing them on, she had made her way towards the back wall of the room where stood an ancient, rickety three drawer chest; the sort of thing no one would like at twice except to wonder why it hadn’t been dumped ages ago. The chest was locked and so she had pulled the tiny key from her trouser pocket and unlocked it. So far, so good. Stooping down, she had opened the bottom drawer and had extracted an unsealed, white envelope. Turning it over in her hand, she had looked down at it with reverence. This little thing was going to change her life. Swiftly closing the drawer and re-locking the chest, she had grabbed a few of the nearest toys stacked neatly on the shelves behind her and had made her way towards the exit, remembering to lock the door behind her.