Don't Tell Eve (10 page)

‘Your guess, mate, is as good as mine. But I should be getting back. Scoot out the back way if you like.’

As they approached the kitchen door, a loud, familiar noise cut through the general muttering and clattering in the restaurant.

‘Todd?’ screamed Eve, who’d been making her way back from the bathroom via an unnecessarily circuitous route. Oblivious to the startled faces that immediately twisted in her direction, she continued at the same volume. ‘Is that you?’

As it was a question, Todd continued walking towards the kitchen.

Behind him, Eve pushed past a waiter and, in doing so, destabilised him. Instinctively he grabbed at what was closest as he felt himself fall: Eve’s Coat of Many Colours. Together he and Eve crashed to the floor.

The coat was ruined, the waiter dazed and distressed.

‘What kind of place is this? I want to speak to whoever is in charge,’ grumbled Eve, taking a proffered hand and gracelessly yanking herself up.

‘That’ll be me,’ said Jack, introducing himself as the owner of the hand. ‘We met some time ago, I was with Jess Johnson and my business partner, Alex. You’re not hurt, are you?’

‘No,’ said Eve, adding with a loud hiss, ‘lucky for you.’

‘We’ll pay for your coat, of course.’

‘And my meal,’ said Eve. She’d been planning to put it on Hilary’s corporate card, but this was better. And since it was now a free meal, she decided on the spot that it would be wrong not to order another course, and dessert wine.

‘And your meal,’ sighed Jack.

In the kitchen later that afternoon he briefed the team once again: Eve was not allowed on the premises without his approval – or Alex’s. If Alex ever returns, he didn’t add.

There was an unusual aspect to Jess’s newly decorated office.

It wasn’t that it revolved, like the boardroom above. Although currently that wasn’t moving. An editor’s child, who had been stuffing envelopes for pocket money and was therefore eligible to enter Eve’s competition, had pointed out that it didn’t make sense to have an empty boardroom spinning around when even lift use was being rationed.

It wasn’t the amazing view, discovered by the workmen when they moved out the old cupboards.

It wasn’t the acres of space, reclaimed when the workmen moved out said old cupboards, and it definitely wasn’t the dazzling new colour scheme.

It was a feature that on first sight seemed more mundane than all those things: it was a vent. Situated to the left of the bookshelves hugging the wall that adjoined Eve’s office, it was barely noticeable. Jess assumed it had always been there.

As she couldn’t open the windows, and the combination of new paint and old dust was proving detrimental to the
health of her sinuses, she was thrilled to find this little vent and opened it immediately.

She then forgot about it.

A few days later she was at her desk, studying an astrology chart on the net and wondering if she should do yet another book on the subject or if the market was saturated; perhaps she should be considering a new area, angels possibly, or maybe ghosts: ghosts did seem to be making a comeback.

It was just as she thought the word ghost that she heard the voices. Initially, she didn’t pay them any real attention but instead absently stood up, intending to close the door – only to find that it was closed already and the voices appeared to be coming from inside the room. Jess looked around, thinking that maybe her phone was playing up, that maybe she’d accidentally switched it to speaker. She checked but this wasn’t the case. Next she found her handbag and retrieved her mobile. The battery was dead.

The whispering continued.

Determined to solve the mystery, she stood very still and attempted to decipher what was being said. The first thing she realised was that the voices were coming from the far corner of the room. From the vent. While it might not have been the world’s most efficient carrier of fresh or even recycled air, it was, apparently, an excellent conductor of sound.

As she crouched next to it, unconsciously holding her breath, the identity of those speaking became clear. Admittedly, Eve’s voice often carried, but Hilary’s didn’t, not normally. She was notoriously softly spoken, and even when standing next to her it wasn’t always easy to hear what she said. But the acoustics of the vent gave even Hilary volume and clarity.

Very carefully, Jess did an experiment and flicked the switch to close the panels. Silence. She flicked it open again. The voices returned. While Jess could foresee hours of intriguing listening ahead, she also saw that if it worked one way, it would work the other. However, if she turned her phone down and shut the door when the vent was open, she figured she would be safe enough, since, except for Eve, all the people she worked with respected a closed door. They’d slip a note under it, or knock, but they wouldn’t just barrel in.

She was about to flick the vent switch again when she heard Eve mention a familiar name, followed by, ‘So, have you got the paperwork ready?’

The tone, and accompanying cackling and hissing, didn’t augur well for Daisy.

‘I think you’ll like this – I’ve been quite creative. What I’ve done is edit her expense forms. There are now some very big, unexplained gaps. Not only will we be able to fire her, and so not have to worry about a redundancy payment, but she’s going to owe us money. You’ll see on the final page that I’ve suggested what I consider a very fair payment schedule.’ This was unmistakably Hilary.

‘Beautiful. Anyone would think you’d done this before. You know your work in this area is prize-winnin’.’ Only one person in the building pronounced beautiful like that.

When the employees had been told that prizes for the competition would be awarded by the new global CEO, there had been a flurry of entries. The CEO wasn’t new to the company, just the job, having joined MaxMedia when it had acquired her start-up, Infotainment Ltd. She’d quickly worked her way up through the MaxMedia hierarchy, and the chance to impress her was apparently a bigger incentive than impressing Eve.

‘Thank you, I have worked very hard – but isn’t there a slight problem? Even if we don’t announce to the staff exactly
why I’ve won, the CEO will still want to know. After all, you’ve been talking up this competition to her.’ It sounded like Hilary might be nervous.

‘Oh, don’t worry about that. We’ll just choose the next best entry and attribute it to you as well. There’s no reason that two people shouldn’t think of the same thing. Happens all the time.’

‘Of course, yes, that would work.’

‘Well, you deserve some public recognition for all you do for the company, for me – for all your ideas. I do so love creative people.’ Eve chuckled to herself.

As she did so, Jess heard footsteps. Quickly she closed the vent, got up on her knees and pretended to be searching for a book. She’d remembered there was another person who had no respect for a closed door: Phil. Even before she turned she was certain it was him.

‘Things so bad you feel it necessary to ask for divine intervention?’ he said from his vantage point, slouched against the door frame.

‘I take it from your sceptical tone that you don’t think prayer would help me.’

‘Not convinced.’

‘You know what? I think you underestimate things you don’t understand.’

‘I don’t underestimate you – and I certainly don’t understand you. Yet. But I’ll find out what you’re up to soon enough, so why not save me the trouble and tell me yourself? Besides, you’re going to need a little help from your friends sooner rather than later.’ Phil thought fondly of Jess’s curvy, talkative friend and the conversation he’d overheard. He wanted to know what it was all about – beyond Eve groping some poor bugger, which didn’t surprise him – but he didn’t want to have to do any actual investigation himself. That would be too much like hard work.

Phil’s definition of friendship was extremely broad, it seemed to Jess, unless he was only doing a good impression of a sleazy, selfish, shady, lazy bastard, although why a person would do that was beyond perplexing. Jack said she was too hard on him, but then Phil and Jack were football buddies, so he wasn’t exactly unbiased. Jack certainly hadn’t blamed Alex for running off, despite his irresponsible attitude to his contractual and personal obligations, and in Jess’s opinion he wasn’t doing nearly enough to get him back. It was becoming more likely by the hour that she was going to have to find a replacement book, but she didn’t consider Phil the man to help her.

‘You’re not listening to me, are you? Which means something is definitely going on. Perhaps it’s not work-related? Perhaps it’s something more pleasurable?’

Jess couldn’t understand why a sudden unexplained preoccupation in a successful thirty-something single woman automatically meant she was shagging someone new. ‘So I was looking at you and thinking about sex, was I?’

‘Most women find it difficult to look at me and think about anything else. But did I mention sex? I don’t remember doing so.’

‘Phil?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Fuck off, I’ve got work to do.’ Jess stood up, intending to return to her desk. ‘And please shut —’

Jess’s ‘work’ had nothing to do with her work. Immersed in her latest project, the conversation she’d just overheard only cemented her conviction that what she had embarked upon wasn’t unfair, uncalled for or unjustified.

The reason the project took up so much of her time was because it wasn’t simply about assembling or painting: serious construction and planning went into it. Of central importance was the dossier. Along with the details of the growing list of recipients – their names, their addresses, the reason given for their always abrupt departures – it depicted the most outlandish of Eve’s outfits; this folder contained the blue prints for each selection. Jess had done all the sketches and taken some of the photographs, others had been supplied by Todd, who might have taken to wearing only black but had retained a keen interest in clothes. The newspaper social pages and weekly magazines’ worst-dressed lists had also been proving useful.

After a phone call to confirm the day’s choice, Jess left the office and returned home, where the floor of her study was a tangle of fabric, wool, notes, paper – and dolls.

A growing group of these dolls sat amicably together on a side table, next to a window with an expansive view. Across the
water the sun bounced off the Papyrus Press building. If Phil had turned his exceptionally strong binoculars away from the modelling agency directly opposite and looked to the other side of the harbour, perhaps he could have spotted this posse through his office window, but it wouldn’t have answered any of his questions about Jess, merely raised more.

After a few hours, two more were ready. One was destined for the side table and the other was to go in a box. The only difference between them was that the latter carried a note, folded carefully and placed into a dainty little bag, which was left open.

When the buzzer rang, Daisy was out.

Devastated by her encounter with Eve and Hilary, she had slunk out of the office the previous afternoon, clutching to her chest the sum of her short working life. This sum consisted of assorted desk ornaments – a Felix the Cat, who collapsed at the knees when his bottom was pressed; a stress cow, its head stuck back on with Elastoplast by Noel, who’d once borrowed it; and a miniature puzzle that she’d never been able to solve. There were no pens, pencils, calculators, or anything that might have been considered Papyrus’s property. After placing her belongings carefully into the boot of her car, she’d driven straight to the only place she knew would calm her down.

The following day Daisy rolled out of bed early, made herself a small but nutritious breakfast, chewed each mouthful far too many times, and then returned once again to her place of sanctuary and contemplation.

At the gym she pounded, she punched, she jumped, but mostly she didn’t think. Exercise was how Daisy planned to get through this difficult period. Unlike most of her friends – all perhaps – she didn’t see anything wrong with denial.
What you didn’t acknowledge couldn’t worry you, and it was worry that did the damage. Ignorance wasn’t just bliss, it was a healthy lifestyle choice. After nearly four hours Daisy could barely walk, so she felt it was safe to go home.

In the damp foyer of her block of flats, sitting underneath the broken fire hydrant, she found a box with her name on it. Without questioning its contents – she had no energy left with which to do so – she carried it upstairs.

Once inside, Daisy placed the box on the rag-rug in the centre of the sitting room floor, paused to cuddle her small pug, who was, as always, thrilled to see her, and poured herself a glass of bottled water. By the time she’d finished her second glass she’d remembered that such water was now a luxury. It would be tap once this bottle was finished, tap with all its associated health risks.

If only the box were a case of bottled water, she thought. Rather than – whatever it was. After she’d showered and removed all traces of sweat, she sat down with her pug to find out.

The doll wasn’t merely a surprise but a delight, and she took it straight to her bedroom, a comforting confection of frills, flounces and flowers. She placed it on the special shelf. Here it snuggled in beside a collection of stiff figurines in distinctive national costumes, perfectly preserved in their original boxes, a Cindy in bellbottoms, a Holly Hobby, a large naked Kewpie with creepily large eyes, and a much loved but undeniably ugly Cabbage Patch Kid.

Mission accomplished, Daisy sunk onto her sateen coverlet and closed her eyes. Her pug, whose attractiveness was on a par with the Cabbage Patch Kid, if only he knew it, lay quietly beside her.

A little later Daisy lurched up, startling the dog. Pulling down the doll, she began to examine it carefully. It wasn’t long before she found the note, and, on reading it, she smiled, much to the pug’s relief.