The Cupid Effect (28 page)

Gwen was staring at me too with maternal concern. Nice though it was that they all cared, their concern was misplaced. I'd got double the amount of affection and care and attention from Jake. Again, trying to coax out of me what really happened.

‘Do you really want to know what happened?' I asked Craig, tiredly.

Craig nodded.

‘And do you promise you'll believe me, no matter how obscure the story?'

Craig nodded again. His whole face was frowning with concern.

‘I walked into a door. Or, rather, a door swung into me. I was coming out of a sweet shop down in Headingley and someone coming in at high speed smacked me in the face with the door. It was all rather embarrassing cos I stumbled backwards, reached out to steady myself and pulled down a free-standing rack of greetings cards with me. I don't know if you can imagine it, me, lying on the floor, under a rack of cards, writhing in agony on a Saturday lunch time, but it is truly my idea of hell. And then, to add insult to injury, literally, I woke up Sunday with a mind-splitting headache and this huge bruise on my face.'

‘Really?' Craig said.

‘Yes, Craig.'

‘Sure?'

‘Positive, Craig.'

Craig still eyed me suspiciously.

I sighed. ‘Thank you for your concern though, it's really touching.'

‘OK, but if you need to talk . . .'

‘I'll come find you. Thanks.'

With one last suspicious look, Craig got to his feet and went back to his life. I'd be telling this story for ages. I wondered who'd be the first to bring up the fact that where there's blame, there's a claim. I knew exactly who I'd be suing.

I was going to get stuff photocopied. In reprographics.

Since that encounter with Deirdre Barlow Glasses woman I'd done what other people did and camped out in the photocopying room and did it myself. Anything to avoid a row. Today, I didn't have the energy or time. I needed far more doing than normal and to be honest, why should I stand there breathing in fumes and getting Repetitive Strain Injury from pushing buttons when she and the rest of her ‘gang' were paid to do it?

This time, I'd got Sally to get me the forms in advance and I'd filled them all in. All I had to do was take down my load, explain what needed to be done and to put them on ‘Urgent', which meant I could get them done in forty-eight hours. ‘Emergency', which would cost the department more, would be done in twenty-four hours. Deirdre Barlow Glasses hadn't explained that to me, had she?

Standing outside, I read REPROGRAPHICS (they'd changed the colour of the sign from orange to yellow because that was the kind of krazy with a ‘k' type of people they were), took a deep breath and pushed open the swing doors. I even managed to put a smile on my face. Try not to annoy the people who can screw you over, was one of my many mottos.
Great
. The woman on duty behind the counter was, of course, Deirdre Barlow Glasses.

‘Hi,' I said. ‘Could I get these done on urgent?' I had my sweetest voice at work as I showed her my bundles, each with clearly marked instructions on Post-Its.

Her face remained like stone. Without moving any other part of her body, her arm reached out and retrieved a stack of forms from their envelopes on the wall beside her and slid them across at me.

‘I've already filled in the forms,' I said, still smiling. I dumped the books on the counter, plucked off the forms and handed them to her.

She looked at them as though I was offering her a turd.

‘They're the wrong forms for an urgent request. You'll have to fill these in. And make sure you've got the right budget code.'

Deep breath. Stay calm. She can screw you over
. ‘OK,' I said, took the forms. ‘Can I borrow your pen?'

‘We don't lend out pens. We have this problem with getting them back. Or not, as is usually the case.'

‘Good thing I always carry one, then, isn't it?' I replied and pulled one from my pocket. ‘Wouldn't want me walking off with your million-dollar pen.' That bit I said in my head.

I heard the swing doors open behind me and moved to one side to let the person coming in take their chances with the photocopying bitch from hell.

‘Hi,' the male voice said. ‘I've come for my stuff.'

My knees weakened at the voice.

‘Ticket?' the woman demanded.

‘Here we go,' he replied. ‘I brought it in three days ago.' My knees did that melting thing again. I glanced up to see who it belonged to.

The man glanced sideways at me. Again, we both started at who we were looking at. Staring Man. I should've known by the effect he had on my knees.

I ripped my eyes away, my face and body suddenly aflame. I put the pen back to the sheet, but my hand was shaking. I couldn't even write properly because I knew, KNEW he was staring at me now. I could feel his eyes on the side of my face. I lowered my head even more, twisted my neck slightly so all he could see was the back of my head. I could still feel it though: I could feel his gaze, steady and unwavering, burning holes into the back of my black hair.

‘We haven't finished your photocopying,' Deirdre Barlow Glasses said. ‘You'll have to come back.'

‘What?' Staring Man said.

‘You'll have to come back later.'

‘Don't talk to me in that tone of voice,' he said. ‘I'm not the one in the wrong here. I asked for urgent repro and I've not got it. Would you like to accompany me to my lecture and explain to my students why I haven't got the material ready?'

Go Staring Man, go Staring Man.

She said nothing. Maybe she'd shaken her head.

‘No, thought not. So don't give me attitude, lady. Just so you know, I'm not paying full price for this job and I'm going to be reporting you to my head of department.'

‘While you're at it why don't you report me to God too?'

My head shot up. Cheeky cow. Not only was she rude to me, she actually had the audacity to nick my sarky retorts. Deirdre Barlow Glasses had gone, disappeared into the depth of the repro world and Staring Man was glaring at me. Actually, he was glaring at the part of my face which currently housed a massive bruise. I thought we'd sorted out all that stuff between us the week before last, but no. I hadn't got around to telling him that I wasn't interested in Mel. And, as it turned out, ten days was a long time between Staring Man and me.

‘Er, look, I was, erm, hoping to run into you,' Staring Man began, then winced, looked down and started blushing furiously. ‘I mean, I was hoping to see you.'

‘Oh,' I replied. My heart was going ten to the dozen. Things had gone distinctly downhill between us since those halcyon days of the supermarket car park – because that person who'd been coming into the newsagent's at high speed and who'd helped the door connect with my face had, in fact, been Staring Man.

When I'd opened my eyes, dazed and confused as I was, I'd looked up and through the hail of greeting cards, there he was, doing what he did best, staring at me. Although, to be fair, shock and horror were carved into his features.

I'd let him and a couple of other people help me up but I'd legged it before anyone could say anything, including ‘sorry'. Like I'd said to Craig, moments like that were my idea of hell. It'd been so busy in there, I couldn't bear to stay. I'd just pushed my way through the crowd of voyeurs and walked away as quickly as possible, clutching my face. I'd had to lie down for most of the afternoon when I got home because I felt so dizzy and sick every time I moved.

‘I'm really sorry about, erm, your face,' Staring Man said. ‘Is it painful?'

I shook my head. ‘Not really. I mean, not any more.'

‘I'm really sorry,' he repeated. ‘You left far too quickly on Saturday for me to apologise properly.'

‘It wasn't your fault, I wasn't looking where I was going.'

‘Aww, you can't be blaming the victim. I was worried that you might have had concussion or something. Is there anything I can do?'

‘Breathe?' I said, then cringed.
How the hell did that get out of my mouth? How did it get into my head in the first place? I can understand ‘battered to death with a teaspoon', I can understand ‘carpet that doesn't show up blood stains', but, ‘breathe'?

‘Sorry?' he asked.

‘Umm, you asked if there was anything you could do and, well, it's obvious that you can breathe.'
So, just as obviously I had to say it.

Surprisingly, SM laughed. He had a laugh that matched his voice. Rich, deep. More tingles of pleasure flickered through my body. ‘Another Lieutenant Barclay moment,' he said as though he understood. ‘But, I must say, you're right there, I can breathe. What I meant was is there anything I can do—'

Deirdre Barlow Glasses chose that moment to reappear. ‘If you come back in half an hour, we'll have your stuff for you,' she told SM. It didn't seem to bother her that she'd just interrupted our conversation.

SM turned his glare on her. ‘I'd say thank you, but I've nowt to thank you for, have I?' he said. ‘See you around,' he said to me, then left. He'd obviously been put back into a bad mood by Deirdre Barlow Glasses. I watched the swing doors flump together behind him.

I would have offered her a sympathetic smile – I knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of a Staring Man glare.

‘Forty-eight hours,' she said. ‘And don't forget your slip, you won't be able to get your photocopying without it. We will charge your department, though.'

‘Thanks,' I replied. ‘You have a nice day now.'
If you know how.

‘Ceri, hi,' a voice called from down the corridor as I was heading towards my office later that afternoon.

I stopped, looked around. I should have known by the squeak. Gwen. She came bounding towards me.

‘I wanted to talk to you about the other day,' she said.

‘Why? What did I do?' I asked, trying not to act shifty. Deirdre Barlow Glasses had reported me. The cow. She was probably in church now, reporting me to God, too.

‘Nothing, nothing,' Gwen squeaked.

‘So why do you want to talk to me?' I asked, eyeing her suspiciously.

‘Maybe it's best we have a word in private,' Gwen said.

The cow. The miserable old cow
had
reported me
. I was so going to be chucking a lighted flame in there at some point. All that paper and chemicals would go up in an instant. ‘Are you sure I haven't done something wrong?'

Gwen rested a reassuring hand on my forearm. ‘Of course not.'

Now she was plain scaring me.

‘How about we go to my office. I think it's empty,' I said to Gwen.

‘Perfect,' Gwen replied.

Gwen sat on the green tweed, armchair-type thing beside my office door, then patted the seat beside her. She'd piled her hair up into a bun today, she had on her usual flowery uniform, but her face was all maternal concern and sympathy again.

Something bad has happened
, I realised as I sank into the seat beside her.
She hasn't even got a cigarette out.

‘Ceri, I know I am your line manager but I think we've made a connection. We've become friends, haven't we?'

Have we?
I thought. She wasn't like my other boss who thought we were friends because she told me too much about herself. But we still weren't friends. Not by a long stretch of the imagination. But, I nodded.

‘Good,' she smiled, ‘I'm glad you feel we're close. Which is why I wanted to talk to you about your face.'

‘My what?' I said.

‘The bruise on your face.'

I raised my hand to my cheek. It'd gone down quite a lot in the past three days, and it'd stopped hurting so I'd forgotten about it, I didn't go in for looking in mirrors that much.

‘What about it?'

Gwen looked down at her hands. ‘I know it's very hard to admit what has really happened, especially to people you don't know very well, but I want you to feel you can come and talk to me. About anything.'

I don't get you
, I thought.

‘I mean, when one of my friends was being physically abused by her husband, it was virtually impossible for her to talk about. She had bruises all over and an excuse to match each one. I don't want you to feel you have to suffer in silence like that. I understand. I mean, last year, I was attacked.'

My eyes widened in horror.

‘In the street. It was hideous and very, very frightening. They only took my mobile phone, but I had bruises and scratch marks all over my face. I found it very, very difficult to talk about it. So, you see, I understand what you're going through. You can talk to me. Any time.'

‘Gwen, thank you. But I really was smacked in the face by a door.'

She bunched up her lips in an ‘are you sure?' fashion. Jake was still on that kick as well (Ed would've been too had he not spent ninety-nine per cent of his time Missing In Action with Robyn). The only person who believed me was Jess, who knew I was prone to daydreaming and that accidents generally followed. My daydreaming was the reason why I'd never learnt to drive.

‘Thank you, though, for your concern. It's good to know I can turn to you if I need to. But in this instance I don't need to. I should've been paying attention to where I was going. But thank you. I'm touched you care.'

Gwen left, having made me promise to talk to her if I needed to. I had considered for a fleeting moment telling her what was on my mind. It was a moment so fleeting it was gone before it entered my head. After she was gone, I moved to my side of the desk, collapsed onto it, rested my forehead on the cool work surface.