Oh-So-Sensible Secretary (13 page)

I was taking some anyway.

I don’t suppose Jonathan was bothered about the make-up issue, but he was clearly anxious about the whole experience. Phin had presented the trip as a staff development exercise, and I suspected Jonathan didn’t want to be developed any more than I did.

‘I’m really glad you’re going to be in same group when we go to Africa,’ he had said to me, only that afternoon.

Phin was eyeing me moodily over the rim of his champagne glass. ‘Nobody could be
that
worried about going to Africa. He just wants to hang around and talk to you.’ He
scowled at me. ‘I hope you’re not going to give in too easily. Make him work to get you back!’

‘Look, what’s the problem?’ I demanded. ‘Isn’t the whole idea that Jonathan starts to find me interesting again? Or did you want to spend the rest of your life stuck in this pretence?’

‘It just irritates me that he’s being so cautious.’ Phin hunched a shoulder. ‘If you’d been mine, and I’d realised what an idiot I’d been, I wouldn’t be dithering around talking about malaria pills, or whether to pack an extra towel, and how many pairs of socks to take. I’d be sweeping you off your feet.’

It wasn’t like Phin to be grouchy. That was
my
role. The worst thing was that there was a bit of me that agreed with him. But I had no intention of admitting
that
.

‘Yes, well, the whole point is that you’re
not
Jonathan,’ I said. ‘Yes, he’s being careful—but that’s only sensible. As far as he knows I’m in love with his boss. It would be madness to charge in and try and sweep me off unless he was sure how I felt.’

I lifted my chin. ‘And I wouldn’t
want
to be with someone that reckless,’ I went on. ‘I’d rather have someone who thought things through, who saw how the land lay, and then acted when he was sure of success. Someone like Jonathan, in fact.’

And right then I even believed it.

Or told myself I did, anyway.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, but you have to remember how clear Phin always made it that he would never consider a permanent relationship. He liked teasing me, he liked kissing me, and we got on surprisingly well, but there was never any question that there might be more than that.

I’m not a fool. I knew just how easy it would be to fall in love with him. But I knew, too, how pointless it would be. I might grumble about him endlessly, but it was fun being with Phin. Much to my own surprise, I was enjoying our pretend affair.

But I wouldn’t let myself lose sight of the fact that the security I craved lay elsewhere. I was earning better money now, and could start to think about buying a flat. Lori, I’d heard, was back with her old boyfriend and, whatever I might say to Phin, I knew Jonathan was definitely showing signs of renewed interest in me. Somewhere along the line I’d lost my desperate adoration of him, but he was still attractive, still nice, still steady. I could feel safe with Jonathan, I knew.

I had never had a better chance to have everything I wanted, and I wasn’t going to throw it away—no matter how good it felt being with Phin.

I had run out of excuses. Hunched and sullen, I sat in the departure lounge at Heathrow, nursing a beaker of tea. It was five-thirty in the morning, and I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to be at home, in bed, soon to begin my nice, safe routine.

I did the same thing every day. I woke up at half past six and made myself a cup of tea. Then I showered, dried my hair and put on my make-up. I took the same bus, the same tube, and stopped at Otto’s at the same time to buy a cappuccino from Lucia.

You could set your watch by the time I got to the office and sat down behind my immaculately tidy desk. Then I’d sit there and savour the feeling of everything being in its place and under control, which lasted only until Phin appeared and stirred up the air and made the whole notion of control a distant memory.

‘It’s a rut,’ Phin had said when I told him about my routine.

‘You’re missing the point. I
like
my rut.’

‘Trust me, you’re going to like Africa, too.’

‘I’m not,’ I said sulkily. ‘I’m going to hate every minute of it.’

And at first I did.

We had to change planes, and after what seemed like hours hanging around in airports it was dark by the time we arrived at Douala. The airport there was everything I had feared. It was hot, crowded, shambolic. There seemed to be a lot of shouting.

I shrank into Phin as we pushed our way through the press of people and outside, to where a minibus was supposed to be waiting but wasn’t. The tropical heat was suffocating, and the smell of airport fuel mingled with sweat and unfinished concrete lodged somewhere at the back of my throat.

Through it all I was very aware of Phin, steady and good-humoured, bantering in French with the customs officials who wanted to open every single one of our bags. He was wearing jungle trousers and an olive-green shirt, and amazingly managed to look cool and unfazed—while my hair was sticking to my head and I could feel the perspiration trickling down my back.

There were twelve of us in our group. Hand-picked by Phin, together we represented a cross-section of the headquarters staff, from secretaries like me to security staff, executives to cleaners. I knew most of the others by sight, and Phin had assured us we would be a close-knit team by the time we returned ten days later. I could tell we were bonding already in mutual unease at the airport.

‘Everything’s fine,’ Phin said soothingly as we all fretted about the non-appearance of the mini-bus. ‘It’ll be here in a minute.’

The minute stretched to twenty, but eventually a rickety mini-bus did indeed turn up. It took us to a strange hotel where we slept four to a room under darned mosquito nets. There were tiny translucent geckos on the walls, and a rattling air-conditioning unit kept me awake all night. Oh, yes, and I found a cockroach in the shower.

‘Tell me again why I’m supposed to love all this,’ I grumbled to Phin the next morning. I was squeezed between him and the driver in the front of a Jeep that bounced over potholes and swerved around the dogs and goats that wandered along the road with a reckless disregard for my stomach, not to mention any oncoming traffic.

‘Look at the light,’ Phin answered. To my relief we had slowed to crawl through a crowded market. ‘Look at how vibrant the colours are. Look at that girl’s smile.’ He gestured at the stalls lining the road. ‘Look at those bananas, those tomatoes, those pineapples! Nothing’s wrapped in plastic, or flown thousands of miles so that it loses its taste.’

His arm lay behind my head along the back of the seat, and he turned to look down into my face. ‘Listen to the music coming out of the shops. Doesn’t it make you want to get out and dance? How can you
not
love it?’

‘It just comes naturally to me,’ I muttered.

‘And you’re with me,’ he pointed out, careless of our colleagues in the back seat.

I was very aware of them—although I couldn’t imagine they would be able to hear much over the sound of the engine, the music spilling out of the shacks on either side of the road and the children running after us shouting, ‘Happy! Happy! Happy!’

‘We’re together on an adventure,’ said Phin. ‘What more could you want?’

I sighed. ‘I don’t know where to begin answering that!’

‘Oh, come on, Summer. This is fun.’

‘You sound just like my mother,’ I said sourly. ‘This reminds me of the way Mum would drag me around the country, telling me how much I should be loving it, when all I wanted was to stay at home.’

‘Maybe she knew that you had the capacity to love it all if
only you’d let yourself,’ said Phin. ‘Maybe she was like me and thought you were afraid of how much love and passion was locked up inside you.’

It certainly sounded like the kind of thing my mother
would
think.

‘Why do you care?’ Cross, I lowered my voice and looked straight ahead, just in case anyone behind was listening or had omitted to put lip-reading skills on their CV. ‘We don’t have a real relationship, and even if we did it would only be temporary. You can’t tell me you’d be hanging around long enough to care about my
capacity
for anything.’

There was a pause. ‘I hate waste,’ said Phin at last.

I had thought the road from Douala was bad, but I had no idea then of what lay ahead.

After that little town, the road deteriorated until there wasn’t even an attempt at tarmac, and a downpour didn’t exactly improve matters. Our little convoy of Jeeps lurched for hours over tracks through slippery red mud. We had to stop several times to push one or other of the vehicles out of deep ruts gouged out by trucks.

‘This is what it’s like trying to get
you
out of your rut,’ Phin said to me with a grin, as we put our shoulders to the back of our Jeep once more. His face was splattered with mud from the spinning tyres, and I didn’t want to think about what I looked like. I could feel the sprayed mud drying on my skin like a measles rash.

‘Of course it’s harder in your case,’ he went on. ‘Not so muddy, though.’

We were all filthy by the time we reached Aduaba—a village wedged between a broad brown river and the dark green press of the rainforest. There was a cluster of huts, with mud daub walls and roofs thatched with palm leaves, or oc
casionally a piece of corrugated iron, and what seemed like hundreds of children splashing in the water.

My relief at getting out of the Jeep soon turned to horror when I discovered that the huts represented luxury accommodation compared to what we were getting: a few pieces of tarpaulin thrown over a makeshift frame to provide shelter.

‘I’m so far out of my comfort zone I don’t know what to say,’ I told Phin.

‘Oh, come now—it’s not that bad,’ he said, but I could tell that he was enjoying my dismay. ‘It’s not as if it’s cold, and the tarpaulin will keep you dry.’

‘But where are we going to sleep?’

‘Why do you think I made you buy a sleeping mat?’

‘We’re sleeping on the
ground
?’

His smile was answer enough.

I looked at him suspiciously. ‘What about you?’

‘I’ll be right here with you—and everyone else, before you get in a panic.’

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. ‘Does Lex know the conditions here?’ I demanded. I couldn’t believe he would have put his staff through this if he’d had any idea of what it would be like.

‘I shouldn’t think so,’ said Phin cheerfully. ‘The conditions aren’t bad, Summer,’ he went on more seriously. ‘This isn’t meant to be a five star jolly. It’s
meant
to be challenging. It’s all about pushing you all out of your comfort zones and seeing what you’re made of. It’s about giving you a brief glimpse of another community and thinking about the ways staff and customers at Gibson & Grieve can make a connection with them.’

I set my jaw stubbornly, and he shook his head with a grin. ‘I bet,’ he said, ‘that you’ll end up enjoying this much more
than going to some polo match, or having a corporate box at the races, or whatever Lex usually does to keep staff happy.’

‘A bet?’ I folded my arms. ‘How much?’

‘You want to take me on?’

‘I do,’ I said. ‘If I win, you have to…’

I tried to think about what would push Phin out of
his
comfort zone. I could hardly suggest he settled down and got married, but there was no reason he shouldn’t commit to something.

‘…you have to agree to get to work by nine every day for as long as we’re working together,’ I decided.

Phin whistled. ‘High stakes. And if I win?’

‘Well, I think that’s academic, but you choose.’

‘That’s very rash of you, cream puff! Now, let’s see…’He tapped his teeth, pretending to ponder a suitable stake. ‘Since I know I’m going to win, I’d be a fool not to indulge a little fantasy, wouldn’t I?’

‘What sort of fantasy?’ I asked a little warily.

‘Do you care?’ he countered. ‘I thought you were sure you weren’t going to enjoy yourself?’

I looked at the tarpaulin and remembered how thin my sleeping mat had looked. There was no way Phin would win this bet.

‘I am sure,’ I said. ‘Go on—tell me this fantasy of yours.’

‘We’re at work,’ he told me, his eyes glinting with amusement and something else. ‘You come into my office with your notebook, and you’re wearing one of those prim little suits of yours, and your hair is tied up neatly, and you’re wearing your stern glasses.’

‘It doesn’t sound much of a fantasy to me,’ I said. ‘That’s just normal.’

‘Ah, yes, but when you’ve finished taking notes you don’t do what you normally do. You take off your glasses, the way
you do, but instead of going back to your desk in my fantasy you come round until you’re standing really close to me.’

His voice dropped. ‘Then you shake out your hair and you unbutton your jacket
ve-r-ry
slowly and you don’t take your eyes off mine the whole time.’

My heart was beating uncomfortably at the picture, but I managed a very creditable roll of my eyes.

‘It’s a bit hackneyed, isn’t it? I was expecting you to come up with something a little more exciting than that.’

The corner of Phin’s mouth twitched. ‘Well, I
could
make it more exciting, of course, but it wouldn’t be fair, given that you’re going to have to actually do this.’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said, a combative glint in my own eyes. Still, there was no point in pushing it. ‘So that’s it? Take my hair down and unbutton my jacket if—and that’s a very big
if
—I enjoy the next ten days?’

‘Oh, you would have to kiss me as well,’ said Phin. ‘As to what happens after the kiss…well, that would be up to you. But it might depend on how many other people were around.’

‘I’m sure that wouldn’t be a problem,’ I said with a confident toss of my head. ‘So: hair, jacket, kiss for me if you win, and turning up on time for you if I do? I hope you’ve got a good alarm clock! This is one bet I’m deadly sure I’m going to win.’

B
UT
I lost.

The first night was really uncomfortable, yes, but in the days that followed I was so tired that my sleeping mat might as well have been a feather bed, I slept so soundly.

We spent the next ten days helping the villagers to finish the medical centre they had started a couple of years earlier but had had to abandon when they ran out of money to buy the materials. Somehow Phin had organised delivery of everything that was needed, and I didn’t need to be there long to realise what an achievement that was.

It was an eye-opening time for me in more ways than one. For most of the time it was hard, physical labour. It was hot and incredibly humid, and the closest I got to a shower was a dip in the river, but I liked seeing the building take shape. Every day we could stand back and see the results of our labours, and we forgot that our hands were dirty, our nails broken, our hair tangled.

When I think back to that time what I remember most is the laughter. Children laughing, women laughing, everyone laughing together. I’d never met a community that found so much humour in their everyday lives. The people of Aduaba humbled me with their openness, their friendliness and their
hospitality, and I cringed when I remembered how dismissive I had been of their huts when I first arrived. When I was invited inside, I found that the mud floors were swept and everything was scrupulously clean and neat.

‘Why can’t you keep your house like this?’ I asked Phin.

The women particularly were hard-working and funny. A few of them had some words of English or French, and I learnt some words of their language. We managed to communicate well enough. I kept my hair tied back, as that was only practical, but I forgot about mascara and lipstick, and it wasn’t long before I started to feel the tension that was so familiar to me I barely noticed it most of the time slowly unravelling.

I learnt to appreciate the smell of the rainforest, the way the darkness dropped like a blanket, the beauty of the early-morning mist on the river. I began to listen for the sounds which had seemed so alien at first: the screech of a monkey, the rasp of insects in the dark, the creak and rustle of vegetation, the crash of tropical rain on the tarpaulin and the slow, steady drip of the leaves afterwards.

But most of all my eyes were opened to Phin. It was a long time since I had been able to think of him as no more than a bland celebrity, but I hadn’t realised how much more there was to him. He was in his element in Aduaba. He belonged there in a way he never would in the confines of the office.

Wherever there was laughter, I would find him. He spoke much more of the language, and had an extraordinary ability to defuse tension and get everyone working together, sorting out administrative muddles with endless patience. I suppose I hadn’t realised how
competent
he was.

I remember watching him out of the corner of my eye as he hammered in a roof joist. His expression was focused, but when one of the other men on the roof shouted what sounded like a
curse he glanced up and shouted something back that made them all laugh. I saw the familiar smile light up his face and felt something that wasn’t familiar at all twist and unlock inside me.

At night I was desperately aware of him breathing nearby, and knew that he was the reason I wasn’t afraid. He was the reason I was here at all.

He was the reason I was changing.

And I
was
changing. I could feel it. I felt like a butterfly struggling out of its chrysalis, hardly able to believe what was happening to me.

That I was enjoying it.

It wasn’t all work. I played on the beach with the children, and helped the women cook. One of the men took us into the forest and showed us a bird spider on its web. I kid you not, that spider was as big as my hand. None of us thought of wandering off on our own after that.

Once Jonathan and I took a little boat with an outboard motor and puttered down the river. I felt quite comfortable with him by then. My mind was full of Aduaba and our life there, and I’d almost forgotten the desperate yearning I had once felt for him.

We drifted in companionable silence for a while. ‘It’s funny to think we’ll be going home soon,’ said Jonathan at last. ‘I’ll admit I was dreading this trip, but it’s been one of the best things I’ve ever done.’

‘I feel that, too.’

‘It’s made me realise that I never really knew you before, when we…you know…’ He petered off awkwardly.

‘I know,’ I said, trailing my fingers in the water. ‘But I think I’ve changed since I’ve been here. I wasn’t like this before, or if I was I didn’t know it. I thought I was going to hate it but I don’t.’ I remembered my bet with Phin and shivered a little.

‘I know you and Phin are good together,’ Jonathan blurted suddenly, ‘but I just want you to know that I think you’re wonderful, Summer, and if you ever change your mind about Phin I’d like another chance.’

I stilled for a moment. How many times had I dreamt of Jonathan saying those words? Now that he had, I didn’t know what to say.

I pulled my hand out of the water. ‘What about Lori?’ I asked. It wasn’t that long since he’d been mad about her.

‘Lori’s back with her ex. It was quite intense for a while, but I think I always knew she was on the rebound, and now that she’s back with him I realise how close I came to making a big mistake.’

So I couldn’t use Lori as an excuse to say no, I thought, and then caught myself up. Excuse? What do you need an excuse for, Summer?

‘I know I didn’t appreciate you when I had you, but I can see now that you were so much better for me than Lori,’ Jonathan was saying. ‘We’ve got so much more in common.’

‘Yes, I suppose we have,’ I said slowly.

He leant forward eagerly. ‘We’ve got the same outlook, the same values.’

It was true. That was exactly what I had loved about him, but why did he have to wait until now to realise it? Frankly, his timing sucked.

‘Jonathan, I—’

‘It’s OK,’ he interrupted me. ‘You don’t need to say anything. I know how things are with you and Phin right now. I just wanted to tell you how I felt—to let you know that I’m always here for you.’

Why did he have to be so nice? I thought crossly as we made our way back. It would have been so much easier for
me if he had turned out to be lazy, or a whinger, or even if he just hadn’t liked Cameroon very much. Then I could have decided that I didn’t love him after all. But in lots of ways I had never liked Jonathan as much as I did then.

Jonathan knew Phin’s reputation as well as I did. He wouldn’t have said anything if he hadn’t thought there was a good chance that my supposed relationship with Phin would end sooner or later.

As it would.

Everything was working out just as Phin had said. It was just a pity I didn’t know what I really wanted any more.

There was a party on our last night in Aduaba. We drank palm wine in the hot, tropical night and listened to the sounds of the forest for the last time. Then the music started. There’s an irresistible rhythm to African music. I could feel it beating in my blood, and when the women pulled me to my feet I danced with them.

I must have looked ridiculous, stamping my feet and waggling my puny bottom, but I didn’t care. The only time I faltered was when I caught Phin watching me, with such a blaze of expression in his eyes that I stumbled momentarily. But when I looked again he was laughing and allowing himself to be drawn into the dance and I decided I must have imagined it.

I ran my fingers over my keyboard as if I had never seen one before. It felt very strange to be back in the office. My head was still full of Africa, and I had found the tube stifling and oppressive on my way into work that morning.

Unsettled, I switched on my computer, and sat down to scroll through the hundreds of e-mails that had accumulated while we’d been away. It was hard to focus, though, and my mind kept drifting back to Aduaba and Phin.

Phin stripped to the waist like the other men, his muscles bulging with effort as they lifted the heavy timbers into place.

Phin laughing with the children in the river.

Phin looking utterly at ease in the heat and the humidity and the wildness.

He strolled in some time after ten, and all the air evaporated from my lungs at the sight of him. I was annoyed to see that he seemed just the same as always, while I felt completely different.

I looked at him over the top of my glasses. ‘I see you didn’t invest in that alarm clock,’ I said crisply, to cover the fact that my heart was cantering around my chest in an alarmingly uncontrolled way.

‘No, but then I don’t need to turn up on time every day, do I?’ said Phin, not at all put out by the sharpness of my greeting. ‘
I’m
not the one who lost the bet.’

The mention of the bet silenced me, and I bit my lip. Nothing more had been said about it, and I’d convinced myself that Phin hadn’t really been serious. It had just been joke…hadn’t it?

Much to my relief, Phin didn’t say any more, but went into his office and threw himself into his chair. ‘So, what’s been happening?’ he asked. ‘Is there anything that needs to be dealt with right away?’

Grateful to him for behaving normally, I took in my notebook and ran through the most urgent issues. ‘Shall I make some coffee?’ I said, when I had finished scribbling notes.

‘Not just yet,’ said Phin. ‘There’s the small matter of the bet we made.’ He smiled at me as I stared at him in consternation. ‘I think you owe me.’

It was typical of him to let me relax and then catch me off guard. I should have known he’d do something like that.

I swallowed. ‘Now?’

‘I always think it’s best to pay debts straight away, don’t you? Do you remember the terms?’

Drawing a breath, I took off my glasses. ‘I think so,’ I said.

Now that it had come to it, I felt a flicker of excitement. I met Phin’s eyes and wondered if he was waiting for me to renegotiate, and I knew suddenly that I didn’t want to do that.

‘You were right,’ I said clearly. ‘I loved it.’

Calmly, I got to my feet and went round the desk to where Phin sat in a high-backed executive chair. He was silent, watching me as I leant back against the desk and very deliberately pulled the clip from my hair, so that I could shake it loose and let it tumble around my face.

How embarrassing, my sensible side was saying. How unbelievably inappropriate. How
tacky
.

It was bad enough making a bet like that with your boss, without playing up to his patriarchal male fantasies. How had I got myself into a situation where I was feeling a bit naughty, a bit dirty, a bit sexy
in the office
?

How could I possibly be turned on by it?

But I was. I can hardly bear to remember it without cringing, but at the time…oh, yes, I certainly was.

I smiled slowly at Phin. ‘How am I doing so far?’

‘Perfect,’ he said, but his voice was strained and I felt a spurt of triumph, even power that I could have that effect on him just by letting down my hair.

Levering myself away from the desk, I moved closer to him. One by one I undid the buttons of my jacket, even though I was having one of those out-of-body experiences again and screaming at myself,
What are you doing? Stop it right now!

Phin said nothing, but his eyes were very dark as he watched me, and I could see him struggling to keep his
breathing even. When my jacket was open to reveal the cream silk camisole I wore underneath, I leant down and pressed my mouth to the pulse that was beating frantically in his throat.

I heard Phin suck in his breath, and I smiled against his skin, slipping my arms around his neck and easing myself onto his lap so that I could kiss my way slowly, slowly, along his jaw to the edge of his mouth.

‘Am I doing it right?’ I whispered.

‘God, yes,’ he said raggedly, and his arms came up to fasten around me as I kissed him at last.

His lips parted beneath mine, drawing me in, and the chair spun round as his hand slid possessively under my skirt. It might have been tacky, it might have been deeply, deeply inappropriate, but it felt so good I didn’t care.

I have a hazy memory that I thought I should be in control, but if I ever was I soon lost it. It wasn’t as if Phin was in control either. That kiss was stronger than both of us. It ripped through our meagre defences, rampaging like wildfire in the blood, sucking us up like a twister to a place far from the office where there were only lips and tongues, only hands moving greedily, insistently, only the pounding of our hearts and the throb of our bodies and the sweet, dangerous intoxication of a kiss that went on and on and on.

Sadly, the office hadn’t forgotten us. The sound of a throat being loudly cleared gradually penetrated. We paused, our mouths still pressed together, our tongues still entwined, and then our eyes opened at exactly the same time.

The throat was cleared again. As if at a trigger, we jerked apart, and I would have leapt off Phin’s knee if he hadn’t held me tightly in place as he swung his chair back to face the door.

Lex Gibson was standing there, looking bored.

‘I did knock,’ he said. ‘Three times.’

I struggled to get up, but Phin held me tight. ‘We’re a bit busy here, Lex.’

‘So I saw. Good to see that work ethic kicking in at last,’ said Lex, who had his own line in sardonic humour when it suited him.

‘Did you want something?’ Phin countered. ‘Or are you just here to ruin a perfect morning?’

‘I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important,’ said Lex dryly.

That hardly needed saying. Lex rarely left his office. Staff were summoned to see
him
, and could often be seen quailing in Monique’s office while they waited their turn. It was unheard of for him to seek someone out himself.

Phin sighed as he released me. ‘It had better be,’ he said.

My cheeks were burning as I scrambled to my feet, desperately trying to smooth back my hair and rebutton my jacket as I went.

‘Um…can I get you some coffee?’ I asked Lex. I was mortified at having been caught in such a compromising position but, with that kiss still thrumming through me, probably not nearly as mortified as I should have been. ‘Then I can leave you two together.’