When She Was Bad (4 page)

Was it you?

6
Anne

There’s a steady stream of students who make the trip to the fourth floor, along the corridor past the framed photographs of the faculty, to knock on my door. When this happens, I try to look nurturing, and call, ‘Come in,’ in as welcoming a voice as I can muster. I have a reputation, you see, as someone who is as much concerned with the emotional well-being of the students who pass through here as with their intellectual stimulation. They come to me with questions about assignment deadlines or reading lists or resource materials, but what they really want to talk about is whether psychiatry is the right thing for them, or how to combat the homesickness that has taken over their minds until they can’t think about anything except how their mother looked when she said goodbye, or the bar where their old friends will be gathering without them on Friday night, or how they’ve fallen behind because a careless boyfriend or girlfriend has shattered their heart into little pieces that they cannot for the life of them put back together again.

And I listen, and commiserate, and tell them they’re not alone – and bring up examples of past students who’ve stood in the same spot and wept similar tears and gone on to achieve great things – and they leave here feeling a little bit more robust. Some of them even email me later, to tell me I made a difference, that seeing me was a personal turning point in their university experience. I reply that I was just in the right place at the right time – that it was nothing. But I know that not everyone could do what I do. And no one seems to notice that it doesn’t come naturally. No one seems to see that I wear my concern like a lab coat that I have shrugged on over my real clothes.

I like my students, and I feel for them, just realizing for the first time that they’re not at the centre of the world, their solipsism dissolving in the face of their own anonymity here. It’s just that empathy wasn’t one of the life skills my mother passed on to me. A bottle of vodka a day tends to make a person self-absorbed.

I’m popular here, but I know many of the younger faculty must wish I’d retire. They’re hungry for my job because they see it as a stepping stone to something else, a necessary middle stage in their career development. And here I sit like a boulder blocking the stream of their lives. But I give them no reason to push me out. I’m old, but we live in an era where age is legally protected even while secretly derided and resented. I still publish the odd paper, still give lectures, even if sometimes the back row complain they can’t hear me. I won’t go because I have nothing to go to. Now that Shannon has left home and Johnny and I are long since divorced, this is all I have.

But the young woman who was introduced by Professor Ed Kowalsky to Child L in that airless room all those years ago was a different person altogether. Not so cynical, and quietly trying my best.

‘I’m so glad to meet you, Laurie.’ Bending down so I was on her eye level. Trying not to think about what those eyes had seen.

So what was it like, that first session? What you really want to know is, how damaged was she?

The truth is, she presented as a normal four-year-old girl. By turns talkative, then clamming up, shy, then suddenly bursting with life.

We agreed we wouldn’t ask her any leading questions that first session, just observe and be guided by her, but in the end she brought it up herself. Ed had asked her what games she most liked to play and she smiled and brought her hands up next to her mouth, her little fists clenched with excitement.

‘Oooh, hide and seek.’ She did a little skip.

‘And where’s your favourite place to hide?’

‘In the kitchen, under the table, or in the bedroom closet. Mustn’t hide in the basement. Mustn’t hide there.’ Laurie shook her head forcefully from side to side.

Ed didn’t look at me, but I could feel it, the tension that entered the room like a cold draught. Debra the social worker wrapped her plump arms around herself.

‘Why not the basement, Laurie? What’s in there?’

I could sense the effort it was costing Ed to keep his voice steady and measured.

Laurie, who’d been standing facing him, suddenly turned away – and it was a shock to find her eyes fixed on mine.

‘It,’ she said. ‘It is in there.’

After that she didn’t want to talk much.

‘She’s tired,’ Debra said, hoisting her canvas bag back on to her broad shoulder.

I’m embarrassed to admit that after the child left the room, I was light-headed with relief.

7
Paula

The figures were moving across the page like tiny black ants. Paula rubbed her eyes. This always happened when she was tired. Last night was the third in a row where she’d hardly slept. Her sleep had been erratic for months thanks to hideous hot flushes which woke her up in the early hours soaked with sweat – but since Rachel Masters had arrived, her insomnia had got worse. She’d go to bed early then spend hours lying awake fretting about work. The flushes, when they came, were savage – a rush of intense heat that sent her heart rate soaring. She’d fling back the duvet and lie on the sheet feeling like something melting in the sun. Through the paper-thin wall, she could hear the motorcycle-engine sound of Ian’s snoring and she’d wonder again how it was possible to have separated from a man yet still have her sleep destroyed by him night after night.

At her desk, she tried once again to focus on the printout. It was an invoice that a catering client was disputing. The company had supplied seventeen agency staff to work at a series of functions the catering client was laying on. However, the client said that three of those temporary workers had been sent home early as they hadn’t been up to the job. It happened sometimes. The staff they recruited were generally kids trying to earn money for gap years and university courses. Their hearts weren’t in it.

On her desk, her mobile vibrated and a text message flashed up.

Out of bread and OJ. Had to go shop. U owe me £3.50.

She glanced at the time on her computer screen. 12.50. At least Cam would see daylight today. That was an improvement on yesterday. She remembered how naïve she’d once been, assuming her days of having to worry about her son would be over once he went off to uni. No one had ever warned her that he’d come back after he graduated. Still, at least he’d had some experience of being independent, unlike Amy, who’d messed up her A levels and anyway baulked at the £9,000 a year tuition fees. ‘I’d much rather go straight into a career,’ she’d said. Paula could tell her daughter had been envisaging something glamorous – advertising or PR maybe. Instead, she now worked six nights a week in the local pub.

‘Paula, have you got a second?’

Her stomach contracted sharply. This happened every time Rachel spoke to her: it was her body’s reflex reaction. She followed her new boss into her office, aware all of a sudden of the dowdiness of her long, oatmeal-coloured tunic. It felt like a mail sack in comparison to Rachel’s body-hugging navy and orange dress that zipped all the way up the back from hem to neck, emphasizing her neat bottom and tiny waist.

‘Sit.’

As if she was a dog. But of course she sat in the chair opposite as indicated by Rachel’s faint inclination of the head.
Woof, woof.

‘I’ve been going through the records and frankly I can’t imagine how Gill stayed in her job this long. The place is a total shambles. New client mailings that have never been followed up on, workers kept on the books despite repeated abuses of the rules. How on earth did you let things get into this state, Paula?’

Her? The unfairness of the charge took her breath away. All she’d done was sit at her desk and do what Gill asked her, and act as a first port of call so Gill wouldn’t be bothered with all the hundreds of questions and niggling complaints that came up every single day . . . and now she was to be held responsible?

‘I wasn’t in charge.’ As soon as she’d said it, she felt guilty. Gill was her friend. She ought to be defending her, rather than letting Rachel Masters slag her off behind her back. The woman had been here two and a bit days, and she already thought she could judge someone who’d done the job for eight years?

‘Did you at least try to get changes introduced? Or are you the kind of deputy who just goes along with what the boss says, regardless?’

A lump was forming in Paula’s throat. Yet she was fifty-five years old. She had been working in recruitment when Rachel Masters was still at school. How many times had Gill told her over the years how lucky she was to have such a capable right-hand woman? She ought to be able to just calmly explain that they’d all done their best in some very trying circumstances, particularly these last months. But at the same time, if Gill was going to be made a scapegoat, the last thing Paula wanted was to be lumped in with her.

‘I didn’t always agree with Gill. In fact, a few times I did try to get her to institute some changes, but . . . well . . . ultimately she had the final word.’

It was kind of true. Over the years Paula had come up with some suggestions for how to improve the running of the department, and Gill hadn’t always taken them on board.

‘I’ll look forward to hearing some of those ideas in due course,’ said Rachel. ‘I’d also like you to be thinking about a list – in confidence, of course – of which members of staff you consider to be working efficiently and which are dead wood.’

‘Dead wood?’

‘That’s right. I’m sure you have a few candidates in mind. Now, can you please send in Ewan Johnson to see me.’

Paula stood up, her unsaid words sitting like small stones on her tongue. She should stand up for Gill, she should refuse to inform on members of her team. Rachel needed to know that her divide and rule style of management would not work here.

‘I’ll go and get him.’

8
Ewan

Ewan swallowed hard. It wasn’t like him to be nervous, but then again he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a reaction to a woman like the one he’d had to Rachel Masters. For the last three days his eyes had followed her around the office like an unwanted dog. It wasn’t that she was particularly beautiful. She was attractive, but no more so than loads of other women he knew. But it was as though she’d entered his head by a secret door and now he couldn’t work out how to get her out again.

‘You all right?’ he asked, sitting down with his legs slightly spread and forcing himself to hold her gaze.

‘I’m fine, thank you, Ewan.’

Was she smiling? It was hard to say with her.

‘So, tell me a bit about yourself.’

He normally loved talking about himself. If he was ever on
Mastermind
he would be his own specialist subject, that’s what his flatmates said. Yet now he couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

‘Well, I . . . I’m from Coventry originally – or as we locals like to say, “fookin’ Cov”.’ He glanced at her to see how his joke had gone down, but her face was a polite mask, giving nothing away. ‘I was accepted by Manchester Uni but ended up staying in Cov. I’d had enough of classrooms by then, wanted to see a bit of life.’ It seemed important for her to know that he’d had choices. He’d chosen to stay at home rather than go to uni.

‘Got my first job in sales – a call centre, actually. Within six months I was top of the leader board for closing cold-call sales. My boss said I could have gone all the way, but I’m more of a people person. I wanted a job with more one-to-one contact.’

The phrase had come out perfectly innocently. He hadn’t meant anything by it, but now he could feel himself blushing. Underneath the table he stretched out his left leg in a movement that had become so automatic he no longer knew if it was caused by stiffness or habit.

Rachel was leaning back in her chair, making notes in a black moleskin notebook that he knew for a fact hadn’t come from the stationery cupboard. She’d put on a pair of stern, black-framed glasses which made her pale-blue eyes look huge. He wondered how old she was. He’d always preferred older women. They didn’t play so many games. He’d never been much good at reading between the lines.

‘You’ve been IT Consultant for just under a year. Are you satisfied with that role?’

Ewan kept his smile glued on and his eyes on hers, even though under the desk he was digging the pointy end of his pen lid deep into his thigh.

‘Er, obviously I’ve already got my sights set on the Senior Consultant title, but I know I shouldn’t try to run before I can walk.’

A look passed over Rachel’s face that might have been disappointment. Instantly he regretted his ambiguous, clichéd answer.

‘Where do you see yourself in five years?’

That was more like it.

‘Basically where you’re sitting now.’

She raised her eyebrow.

‘In that case, you’ll probably have some idea how the department runs?’

He nodded, unsure where this was going.

‘So you’ll be able to tell me exactly where the weak links are?’

She meant people. Well, everyone knew who those were. Paula was a nice old thing, but she was stuck in the last century when it came to work practices, refusing to try anything new, basically sitting there waiting to retire. And much as he’d always got on with Sarah, she was a waste of space as far as work went – always late and spending half her time on the phone to childminders and babysitting in-laws. But these two women were his friends. Workmates, anyway. He couldn’t dob them in like that. Could he?

‘I’m sure there are things we could all do better.’ He knew it was a cop-out. And Rachel Masters knew it too. She took off her glasses and sat back in her chair.

‘That’s doubtless true, but it’s not what I asked you. Very well, Ewan, that’s all for now. If anything does come to mind, my door is always open.’

He got up to go, feeling deflated, as if someone had taken a pin and let all the air out of him.

‘Oh, and Ewan, if you’re serious about sitting where I am, you might want to bear in mind that work is not a popularity contest.’