window have popped open to leaves. The tree shakes them every now and then, as if to say, Are you happy up there?
So I was wrong. Something has happened, after all.
Do you see leaves too?
Hang on, would you like my handkerchief?
W HEN YOU FOUND me in the stationery cupboard, Harold, I’d been at the brewery a full month. It was early February. I’d eaten your sandwiches and sniffed around your desk, but we hadn’t spoken since the canteen. I waited for you at my window, though. Nearly every day you were there with your empties, and sometimes I willed you to dance but you never obliged me. Maybe snow was your thing. We never had that weather again, not in all the time we worked together.
So picture this. I’m crying in a cupboard. I hear someone approach and pull at the door, and I try to hide. Or, more specifically, I behave like my father and I try to not be there. But it is difficult to not be somewhere when you are a small woman in a brown wool suit and you have nothing around you but typing paper and manila envelopes.
‘I do beg your pardon,’ you said. You clearly had no idea where to look. You chose my feet.
I didn’t know how to explain. I straightened my skirt and lowered my head. I blamed my anguish on the way Napier and the other reps laughed at me. I said I couldn’t take any more, I was going to hand in my notice. I was saying anything that came into my head. What I didn’t mention was that I’d been pregnant when I came to Kingsbridge. What I didn’t mention was that I’d lost my baby only the previous weekend. What with the stomach cramps and my grief, I could barely stand.
You clearly wished two things: that you hadn’t opened the door to the stationery cupboard and that you hadn’t found me inside it. I alsowished two things: that you would close the door to the stationery cupboard and that I’d never see you again. It seemed best all round. You kept glancing up and down the corridor. Left. Right. Left.
Help didn’t come from either direction.
And so you made another small decision. I read it in your face and body. You carefully placed your feet a little apart, just as you had done with Sheila. You caught your hands behind your back and your brow crumpled with concentration while you shifted your weight from side to side, finding your correct balance. It was like watching a tree take root. You were not going to move until you had helped me. And then you spoke.
‘Don’t resign.’ Your voice was soft. I looked up at you and found you were shining your eyes straight into mine. ‘I found it hard at the beginning too. I felt out of place. But it will get better.’
It was like another spell of yours. I couldn’t reply. For a moment I believed everything would turn out all right for me because you clearly desired that too. It was simple. And I had lost a lot at this point, Harold. More than anything, I’d wanted to keep my baby.
You said, ‘Hang on a mo, would you like my handkerchief?’ I said no, no, I couldn’t possibly, but you didn’t hear. You tugged it from your pocket like a magician’s scarf and you folded it several times over, very carefully, until it was the size of a small pincushion. ‘Please,’ you said gently. ‘Take it.’ I lifted it to my face, and the smell of you tipped me sideways.
Perhaps it was the hormones. I don’t know. I still get that smell sometimes. Imperial Leather soap, milky coffee and lemon-scented aftershave. The mix has to be just right. A stranger could pass my seagarden and I’d want to drop my tools and run after him along the coastal path. I wouldn’t even wish to speak or touch. I’d need the scent, the feeling of stomach-fluttering warmth that accompanied it. I have tried to find the smell in a plant, but I have never been able to get it. I grew lemon thyme once. When the sun shone, that came close. I’d sit beside it with my mug of coffee, although I had to shut my eyes to imagine the Imperial Leather part.
We were in the
So I was wrong. Something has happened, after all.
Do you see leaves too?
Hang on, would you like my handkerchief?
W HEN YOU FOUND me in the stationery cupboard, Harold, I’d been at the brewery a full month. It was early February. I’d eaten your sandwiches and sniffed around your desk, but we hadn’t spoken since the canteen. I waited for you at my window, though. Nearly every day you were there with your empties, and sometimes I willed you to dance but you never obliged me. Maybe snow was your thing. We never had that weather again, not in all the time we worked together.
So picture this. I’m crying in a cupboard. I hear someone approach and pull at the door, and I try to hide. Or, more specifically, I behave like my father and I try to not be there. But it is difficult to not be somewhere when you are a small woman in a brown wool suit and you have nothing around you but typing paper and manila envelopes.
‘I do beg your pardon,’ you said. You clearly had no idea where to look. You chose my feet.
I didn’t know how to explain. I straightened my skirt and lowered my head. I blamed my anguish on the way Napier and the other reps laughed at me. I said I couldn’t take any more, I was going to hand in my notice. I was saying anything that came into my head. What I didn’t mention was that I’d been pregnant when I came to Kingsbridge. What I didn’t mention was that I’d lost my baby only the previous weekend. What with the stomach cramps and my grief, I could barely stand.
You clearly wished two things: that you hadn’t opened the door to the stationery cupboard and that you hadn’t found me inside it. I alsowished two things: that you would close the door to the stationery cupboard and that I’d never see you again. It seemed best all round. You kept glancing up and down the corridor. Left. Right. Left.
Help didn’t come from either direction.
And so you made another small decision. I read it in your face and body. You carefully placed your feet a little apart, just as you had done with Sheila. You caught your hands behind your back and your brow crumpled with concentration while you shifted your weight from side to side, finding your correct balance. It was like watching a tree take root. You were not going to move until you had helped me. And then you spoke.
‘Don’t resign.’ Your voice was soft. I looked up at you and found you were shining your eyes straight into mine. ‘I found it hard at the beginning too. I felt out of place. But it will get better.’
It was like another spell of yours. I couldn’t reply. For a moment I believed everything would turn out all right for me because you clearly desired that too. It was simple. And I had lost a lot at this point, Harold. More than anything, I’d wanted to keep my baby.
You said, ‘Hang on a mo, would you like my handkerchief?’ I said no, no, I couldn’t possibly, but you didn’t hear. You tugged it from your pocket like a magician’s scarf and you folded it several times over, very carefully, until it was the size of a small pincushion. ‘Please,’ you said gently. ‘Take it.’ I lifted it to my face, and the smell of you tipped me sideways.
Perhaps it was the hormones. I don’t know. I still get that smell sometimes. Imperial Leather soap, milky coffee and lemon-scented aftershave. The mix has to be just right. A stranger could pass my seagarden and I’d want to drop my tools and run after him along the coastal path. I wouldn’t even wish to speak or touch. I’d need the scent, the feeling of stomach-fluttering warmth that accompanied it. I have tried to find the smell in a plant, but I have never been able to get it. I grew lemon thyme once. When the sun shone, that came close. I’d sit beside it with my mug of coffee, although I had to shut my eyes to imagine the Imperial Leather part.
We were in the
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