‘… and as it turned out, he had a cock like a baby’s arm,’ finishes Jackie.
Blessed starts back from the table as though Jackie has thrown a bucket of ice in her face.
‘Jacqueline! Please!’ she protests. ‘I don’t want to hear things like that.’
Jackie feigns innocence, grins at her. ‘What?’ she asks. Blessed’s eyes flash white, then she looks down, pursing her lips.
Jackie ploughs on contemptuously. ‘So I took him back to mine, and I’ll tell you what, he went like the Duracell bunny. All bloody night, it was, and then I couldn’t get rid of him in the morning. I’ve got bruises on my bruises…’
Amber doesn’t want to hear any more. She clears her throat.
Jackie looks up. Plasters a false welcome on to her face. Now that Amber knows, the dissimulation is obvious; the tiny gloat that hovers round the edge of the lips, the almost imperceptible up-and-down flick of the eyes. Jackie’s the sort of woman whose sex life is as much about scoring points as simple pleasure. Amber should have guessed that she herself would not be immune.
‘Hi,’ says Jackie.
‘Would you like some cheesecake?’ offers Blessed.
‘No, thank you, Blessed,’ she says. ‘Actually, I wanted a word with Jackie, if that’s OK.’
Again the little flicker. Jackie knows she knows. ‘Sure,’ she says.
‘In private, maybe?’
‘No, that’s fine,’ says Jackie: a challenge. You know you’re never going to expose yourself to ridicule, Amber Gordon. Go on. I dare you. ‘I’m sure you’ve got nothing to say that can’t be said here.’
Amber doesn’t hesitate; sits straight down and puts her clipboard on the table, face-down. Jackie’s P45 is clipped to the underside, but she doesn’t want her to see it yet.
‘OK, well,’ she says. ‘I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.’
Jackie tenses. ‘What?’
Blessed sits forward.
‘Well…’ She’s been rehearsing for hours, locked in her office, studying her face for inappropriate expressions. ‘I had a meeting with Suzanne Oddie a couple of days ago.’
Jackie looks at her suspiciously.
‘And I’m going to give it to you straight. The management are worried about costs.’
‘Oh, right,’ says Jackie. A flush creeps up her neck. She knows where this is going.
‘There’s a recession on, you know,’ says Amber. She raises her voice, so she can be heard beyond their little huddle. ‘Anyway, there’s no point beating about the bush. I’m afraid that she wants me to make cuts, and they’re big ones. I’ve been going over and over the books, but there’s no alternative.’
Jackie is silent. Blessed shifts in her seat. Amber notices with pleasure that the tables around them have fallen silent; that everyone is listening. Some of the listeners will be feeling sick with concern for their own positions, she knows. Well, fuck ’em. It’s not like they’re friends. I know that now.
She continues, sticking to the communication plan she’s scraped together from the internet. ‘So I’m afraid that I have no alternative other than to cut back on staff,’ she says. Waits a couple of beats for the words to sink in. Waits for the gulp and the tightening of the lips. Turns over the clipboard and looks down at it.
‘Jacqueline,’ she says, enjoying the feel of the name rolling over her tongue, ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to let you go.’
‘What?’ says Jackie.
Amber looks up and smiles – an expression that only Jackie can read for what it is. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve tried every other avenue, and I can’t find another solution.’
‘Why me?’ asks Jackie. The flush has gone all the way into her face.
Amber keeps the smile steady. Reaches out and pats the hand that fiddles with the old black Nokia on the table. Jackie snatches it away as though Amber’s got the plague.
‘I’m sorry,’ says Amber. The fact that a drama is unfolding has spread through the room. It’s fallen silent, breath held all around. ‘It’s nothing personal. I’ve got your P45 here, and we’ll pay you to the end of the week.’
‘You can’t do this,’ says Jackie.
Amber pretends to get the wrong end of the stick. ‘Well, of course, we don’t have to pay you, if you’d prefer. After all, you’re casual staff. You don’t actually qualify for anything at all. But I wouldn’t want you to go short.’
Even the thick layer of fake tan on her face can’t disguise the fact that Jackie has gone deathly pale. She is beginning to shake. ‘Why me?’ she asks again.
‘Do you really want to do this here?’ asks Amber. ‘In front of all these people?’
‘Yes,’ says Jackie. ‘Yes, I do.’
Amber shrugs. ‘OK, then. As you like. I’ve chosen you because you’re the person who pulls her weight the least. I’ve looked at what everybody does, and you do the smallest amount of work in the hours you’re paid for. And you’re the first, Jackie, but I’m afraid you won’t be the only one.’
A frisson runs round the room. Right, thinks Amber. Bet you won’t be lingering quite so long over your buttered scones for the next few weeks.
‘I thought we were friends,’ says Jackie.
She almost cracks. Almost says what she wants to say: Some bloody friend, Jackie Jacobs. Instead she blinks, channels Suzanne Oddie and says, ‘I’m sorry. You can’t let your personal feelings get in the way of business.’
She unclips the P45 and the cash-filled envelope and pushes them across the table. ‘Of course, I’ll understand if you don’t want to finish your shift.’
My God, she thinks. This being-a-bitch is easy. And it’s taken me all these years to find out.
As if she can hear her thoughts, Jackie pushes her chair back from the table and says, quietly: ‘You bitch.’
Amber shrugs. ‘I understand,’ she says, in the HR style she’s been rehearsing all evening in her office, ‘that you’re upset.’ She’s had plenty of experience of job loss from the other side in her life, but had never noticed how calculated to cause offence a lot of human-resources-speak actually is. ‘It’s a stressful event for anyone.’
‘You fucking bitch,’ says Jackie, raising her voice. The faint buzz of talk that had begun in the further reaches of the room stops dead. All eyes are on them. ‘We both know why you’re doing this.’
She wouldn’t. Not in front of all these people, surely?
‘You’re getting rid of me because I fucked your boyfriend,’ says Jackie.
A hiss of indrawn breath behind her. Tadeusz and Blessed sit rigid in their chairs. Amber blinks. Holds her ground, says nothing.
‘Don’t try and pretend you didn’t know,’ says Jackie.
Amber allows herself a spiteful imitation of Jackie’s own words. ‘But Jackie. I thought we were friends.’
There’s not a movement in the room.
‘You found out, and now you’re getting your own back,’ says Jackie.
Well what did you expect? A bunch of flowers?
‘Trust me, Jackie,’ she says with a lilt of humour in her voice that would infuriate a saint, ‘if, as you put it, you… fucked… my boyfriend, all it means is that you’re not just lazy. It means you’re a lazy slag.’
Jackie looks like she’s been slapped. Amber is tempted to reach out and push her jaw closed with a finger. Instead, she picks up the form and the envelope and tosses them across the table.
‘Either way, you’re unemployed,’ she says.
12.30 p.m.
‘Oh my God,’ says Jade, ‘you’re, like, so posh.’
Bel hasn’t thought all that much about the drive, or the house, or the effect they’ll have on her companion. They’re not hers, after alclass="underline" they’re Michael’s, and her life’s been hostage to Michael and Lucinda’s choices since before she remembers.