Читать книгу The Reunion - Литагент HarperCollins USD - Страница 12

‘Have you all thought about it?’ RenÉe asks the next day once we have all arrived.

I say nothing and carry on calmly typing.

‘About what?’ Zinzy asks.

‘That we pay fines for unnecessarily wasted paper.’

‘I’m for it,’ Margot says. ‘It is a brilliant idea, RenÉe.’

RenÉe’s eyes wander over to Zinzy and me. ‘Sabine?’ she asks.

I picture the list of assertive sentences. An ‘I’ message would be particularly good here. It sounds powerful and commands respect.

‘I’m against it,’ I say.

There is a moment’s silence.

‘Given the amount of mistakes in your letters this doesn’t surprise me, Sabine,’ RenÉe says.

‘I’m against it,’ I repeat. ‘It’s a terrible idea.’

Margot and Zinzy remain silent.

‘Zinzy?’ asks RenÉe. ‘Do you think that too?’

‘Well, I’m not sure…’ Zinzy falters. ‘If you think it’s necessary…’

‘We have to all want to do it,’ RenÉe says.

I recognise Walter in her words.

‘Listen, RenÉe,’ I say. ‘I come here to earn money, not to finance the weekly drinks. I don’t think that we deliberately make typos, so if we just agree to check our work more thoroughly before we print it that should be enough.’

They all look at me, gobsmacked. I’m rather good at this.

‘Some people make more mistakes than others,’ RenÉe says coolly.

‘If it’s taken up by the union, we’ll implement it, otherwise not,’ I say, equally coolly, and turn my back on her.

RenÉe doesn’t speak to me for the rest of the morning and Margot and Zinzy avoid me. The tension in the office is so tangible that anyone who comes in immediately lowers their voice. My in-tray is filled up with drafts covered in yellow post-it notes. If RenÉe needs to speak to me, it comes through Zinzy and Margot.

‘Do you know what the problem is?’ Zinzy says. We are hanging around by the vending machine, where I used to stand with Jeanine. ‘You don’t give the impression that you want to get back to work. You sit at your desk with a stony face and that puts people off. Everyone thinks that you’re a grumpy cow who’d rather be at home on sick leave.’

‘However would they have come up with that?’ I say.

Zinzy seems to be nice. Slim, petite, shiny black hair, big brown eyes. I’d like to look like her. There’s something uncertain in her manner that makes her come across as insecure—which she absolutely isn’t. She’s just told me exactly what people think of me, after all.

The ultimate proof of her independence is this particular risky venture: eating Mars bars with me by the vending machine.

Her words are illuminating. So that’s how they see me. Well, they are not really wrong. I don’t really want to be back at work, but it wasn’t always like this.

‘Do you find me grumpy?’ I ask.

‘Not right now, but when RenÉe comes over, I see you go all stiff. Why do you have such a problem with her?’

I screw up the Mars bar wrapper and throw it into the bin.

‘You’ll find out for yourself one day,’ I say.

At twelve-thirty I go to the lift. I could take the stairs but just the thought of all those stairs makes me feel dizzy. Lifts are there to provide people with a service. You’d have to be stupid not to take advantage of them.

There’s a ping and a moment later the lift arrives and opens. I rebound off a wall of bodies.

‘Oh,’ I say, ‘full.’

‘Not quite, Sabine! You can fit in. Breathe in, everyone.’ It’s Olaf from somewhere at the back.

On the second floor, I almost fall out when the doors open.

I wait until everyone is out to get back into the lift. Olaf hovers outside the lift.

‘From now on I’ll resort to the stairs,’ I hold the door open with my foot so I can talk to him. At the canteen, there is a long queue by the buffet. ‘It smells of pancakes.’ I enjoy the greasy, sweet waft.

‘Do you like them?’

‘They’re delicious. Especially with a slab of butter and a thick layer of icing sugar…’

His gaze glides over my body. ‘I can’t tell.’

‘Because I never eat them. I’ve banned them from my diet,’ I say.

Olaf shakes his head. ‘If there’s one thing I hate,’ he says, ‘it’s that women are always denying themselves things.’

‘What?’

‘I once had a girlfriend who was always dieting. She couldn’t talk about anything else. Montignac, juice diets, Slimfast, you name it. I became an expert in the field. Pounds flew off and kilos went back on. If I ever cooked anything, she would have just started a carrot diet. I got sick of it.’

I laugh despite the unexpected pang I felt when Olaf started talking about an ex.

‘You’re not on a diet are you?’ he asks.

‘What difference would it make? I’m not your girlfriend am I?’

‘That’s true.’ He looks at me with a mysterious smile. ‘What do you like, apart from pancakes?’

‘Greek food,’ I say, ‘I love Greek food.’

He nods. ‘Then we’ll go out and eat Greek sometime, okay?’

‘Okay.’