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‘But—’ Lin watches me for a second, her forehead crinkling a little, beneath her perfect, dewy foundation. ‘I mean, I do get needing to instil a bit of a break. My screen-time report said I spentnineteenhours on my phone last Monday. I was sort of equally impressed, to be honest. On a working day, too, which, I guess, says it all.’ Lin chuckles. ‘But .?.?. like, all you did was drop some truths,’ Lin carries on. ‘That’s how I see it, Millie. Why should you suffer with your grandad’s phone. You know?’
Lin is in sales, and is the sort of person who can sell anything to anyone. She has a podcast with her best friend, which she records on weekends, called, ‘But I Love Me More’ that’s about loving yourself first. It’s where her unsent letter idea came from. She suggested it and then linked me to the podcast episode. If I’d have only known it would have ended up like this .?.?.
‘I know,’ I say. ‘I know.’
‘Do you, though?’
‘But I’ve not missed my phone,’ I tell Lin. ‘Not really.’ A .?.?. half-lie, at a push. I’m enjoying the extra time I have, the extra, oh-so-much clearer headspace, without scrolling on my phone for eight hours a day, constantly checking, falling down social media rabbit holes. But I am missing it too. Fuck, I miss WhatsApp. I miss Instagram and laughing darkly at Love of Huns in bed. I miss ASMR TikTok chefs and hacks I’ll never use. I miss theMarried at First Sighttakes on Reddit. I miss memes and feeling .?.?.informed.(Although, yes, most of the time it’s misinformed.)
‘And that email you sent to Steve, about all his bloody fundraising,’ continues Lin. ‘Look, I promised myself I wouldn’t mention the emails to you, but you are agenius, Millie Chandler.’
‘Ah,’ I say, wincing. ‘I really wouldn’t say genius.’
Vince makes a sound that could be agreement or disgust (or both).
‘And the one toMark.’ Lin slaps her hands together into a clap, then gives a big, single, bark of a laugh. ‘Nobody deserved it more.’
‘Lin?’ Petra’s face appears in the crack of Vince’s doorway. ‘Hey, all.’ She grins, looking at me, then back to Lin. ‘Need you, in a sec. Sorry.’
Lin nods, then looks at me and says, ‘So, like, don’t feel guilty or anything, you know? Hechoseto steal your lunch, and that’s just the world of fuck about and find out. The email was thefinding out.’ Lin smiles, victorious. Her earrings, two clay pink iced-doughnuts, jiggle. ‘It holds up a mirror. That’s all. We all have stuff we want to say every day, and don’t. It’s why what happened to you cuts too close to the bone for everyone.’ She shrugs. ‘And look, I didn’t get one, and Prue did, and she deserves it. She’s a bigot and a bully and I hate her. Like, actually hate.’
‘Mm,’ grunts Vince.
‘I imagine her in a hospital bed or something sometimes. To test if it’s true hatred. Like, recently, I imagined her buried alive in a desert and managing to find her phone in the coffin or whatever, and calling me and—’
‘Did you pick up?’ asks Petra, her face dropping, mouth open, as if this is a real-life situation.
‘What do you think?’ Lin cackles again, and Petra laughs, nervously, jerks her head, a wordless ‘come on’ and they both leave. And I admit, I’m sort of relieved to get back to my boring, under-the-radar job.
It’s been nearly a week since I saw Mum, and five days since the rugby and what has followed has been a – frankly, needed – standard, busy week at work, which I have welcomed like an old (slightly boring) friend. A lot of the bosses – Petra and Jack included – have been on location, and I’ve been in a big, grumpy, foggy fug. I’ve tried not to be. As Cate and Ralph agreed over dinner last night, Jack’s nerdy friend’s theoryisjust a theory, with absolutely no physical evidence, but it keeps flitting in and out of my brain, making me wince. That nagging ‘what if?’ What if it was .?.?. Leona in IT? What if it was Michael Waterstreet himself? What if this is like a Miss Marple episode and it was Petra, all along, or something absolutely ludicrous? That’s what would happen in a Netflix series, at least. It happens all the time, onSelling Sunset.OnLove Island.Trust gets severed. Contestants you love, turn out to be massive arseholes and chuck a big plot twist into the mix and you’re left questioning your judge of character. And of course, I know itisn’tPetra, but the whole thing has left me feeling uneasy. A bit jumpy.
‘I think they all deserved it,’ says Vince. ‘My two cents.’
I glance up. Vince carries on screwing a panel onto the side of a camera, one of those Pixar-style desk lamps, the white paint scratched up like claw marks, bent over it.
‘Sorry?’ I think this is the only time Vince has ever initiated a conversation with me.
‘All of them. Can’t stand any of them.’
‘The people who work here?’
Vince grunts. ‘Those affected,’ he says grumpily, as if I’m annoying him by not keeping up.
I say nothing; nod.
‘Worked with Owen for years,’ he says, and shakes his big, meaty head. ‘Thinks his shit don’t stink. You know? Chloe’s all right. Mark, bell-end. Michael, prick .?.?.’
I stare at him.
‘Wouldn’t trust a soul. Even the ones you think you trust. You – you’re decent,’ he says. ‘Lin, decent. Jack, decent. Gail Fryer .?.?. well, more than decent is Gail.’
And then I just say it. Vince is smart. Vince would never not tell the truth. ‘Do you think someone might’ve done it? Like – hacked me or something? On purpose?’
Vince looks up, the lamp casting shadows across his grumpy, bearded face, like someone telling spooky stories by a campfire. ‘Yes,’ he says simply.
‘Really?’
He sighs, his small, hooded eyes, watching me. ‘I always say, if you think of dark things, there’s always someone else actuallydoingthose things.’
