As Mirren grabbed her bag from under her desk and carefully shoved her papers inside it, she knew he wasn’t done yet. His footsteps were behind her.
‘Walk you out.’ He wasn’t asking. He already had his coat and stalked behind her at a too-close fixed distance like a car being towed. Mirren increased her pace as she headed for the stairs.
‘Not using the lift?’ Jamesey had stopped in front of its doors and was calling her back. How did she say,no thanks, I’d rather be carried across the Sahara in a metal coffin than ride in a lift with you? That would be crazy, wouldn’t it? And rude.
Like many women, she’d been trained from her earliest childhood not to be rude to men, to appease them always, to bear the burden of any social discomfort herself, especially when it was the bloke causing the discomfort in the first place.
She’d look irrational if she kept walking towards the six flights of lethally slippery stairs that led down in a spiral to the far side of the building – out of her way if she wanted to head for the Edinburgh bars. Of course she had to relent and get in the lift. He knew it, and she knew it.
A thin-lipped smile spread on his face as he saw her give up and turn back to stand by the lift door.
Please let there be someone in there when it comes,she prayed, but of course there wasn’t.
‘Going down?’ Jamesey said in an oil-slick faux-American accent as he pressed the button, making the doors close upon them.
Mirren felt the air in her lungs constrict as they were sealed in the box together. Why was her heart thumping so erratically? Her cheeks were suddenly hot. Were they red? Could he see the effect he had on her?Of course he can,she thought.He loves it.
Jamesey took a step closer towards her so he occupied the very centre of their descending cage, and she retreated an inch further into the back corner, hitting her elbow on the hand rail.
‘If I were Preston I’d be gutted, letting go of a stunner like you. He must be kicking himself. What was it? Roving eye, eh? You fancied a bit on the side over the summer? Can’t blame you.’ This fired out his mouth along with a too-loud laugh.
Mercifully, the door pinged open and Mirren inhaled the cool autumn air tainted with petrol fumes. The lift opened directly onto the little carpark behind the newspaper offices. She could just glimpse the trams gliding by on Princes Street through the gaps between buildings. There was no one else there but them. She stepped out briskly, tightening her grip on the bag over her shoulder. How could he talk to her like that? How could hestillbe talking?
Jamesey fixed her with a steady stare as he delivered his parting words, quick and sneaky. ‘You know, you women are all the same. You pretend like you want the nice guy who cooks for you and picks you up when it’s raining and all that, but deep down…’ he leaned in closer, making her draw her neck back avoiding his breath on her face ‘… all you really want is a good fucking.’ With that, he turned sharply and walked away.
Angry white heat seared within her as she heard him laughing, amused with himself. Her voice had activated before her brain had time to catch up and her feet carried her in his wake. ‘That isit!’ she yelled. ‘Youcannotspeak to me like that. What is wrong with you? I’m your colleague.’
Jamesey turned his head back briefly, still smiling wolfishly. Mirren had thought she’d be able to go on, that she’d give him a piece of her mind fed by the outrage burning in her chest, but instead, she was horrified to realise, she was going to cry, and that, she knew, would be fatal. He’d have made a silly woman cry at work. He’d have won. And he wasn’t done yet.
He shouted over his shoulder, ‘Oh, don’t be like that, you daft prude. It’s only banter, isn’t it?’ He was almost at his car now. ‘I’ll see you Monday. Hope you get lucky tonight, might cheer you up a bit. Maybe give your Preston a booty call?’ He punctuated this with a double press of the key fob in his trouser pocket and she heard the cheeping sound of a door unlocking.
‘Why don’t you fuck off, Jamesey.’
He laughed once more as he lowered himself into his car seat. He’d made her swear. He’d seen her angry tears welling. He’d won.
She watched him go, still frozen to the spot in the shadow of the building, her eyes burning into the side of his face as he started the ignition and pulled away.
When the carpark barrier lowered again and she had lost sight of him she clutched her hands to her eyes and let angry tears fall, still aware of the fading sounds of Jamesey over-revving his souped-up engine as he sped home to terrorise his poor wife.
She wished her lie had been true and that she really was meeting friends, but Preston was gone and Kelsey was in England, and instead she had a date. After fixing her mascara she wandered out onto Princes Street and joined the after-work crowds.
The first glass of wine was very welcome, the second harder to swallow, it was so bitter and Mirren’s stomach was empty. She’d allotted her date half an hour to make an impression, telling him in advance that she had to catch a train home at six, but it was ten past now, and she was still at the bar.
Andrew seemed nice enough at first. He was some business type or other, she couldn’t quite recall what he’d said he did, even though he’d only just told her, something to do with security in South Africa. He looked reasonably OK, predictably greyer of face and thinner of hair than in the grinning, suntanned profile picture she’d swiped right on. He hadn’t yet smiled on this date, and she was having a hard time remembering why she’d picked him out.
He was talking about his team of workers and their reverence for him – in fact he’d been talking solidly about himself for the past fifteen minutes, only stopping to throw back his wine, a quarter of a glass with each glug. He was on his second too. Mirren didn’t mind. She wasn’t listening. She was thinking about Jamesey and how he’d spoken to her in the carpark.
Why had he singled her out from their very first meeting to treat her like that and not any of the other women in the office? She wasn’t the youngest woman in the newsroom, or the greenest, so she wasn’t obviously an easy target. She was competent and capable, so it wasn’t that she was weaker or less skilled. Maybe he didn’t like her smart mouth and the fact she was popular with the team in ways he just wasn’t. But he had the bosses for that. He had his weekends at the golf club with Mr Angus to feel included and valued. Mirren wouldn’t swap her water cooler whispered gossip and her catch-ups over coffee and homemade cakes with the interns for that. Could that be why he bristled whenever she spoke, or pitched an idea at meetings, or got praise of any kind? She supposed he could be nursing some residual jealousy over the New Journalist of the Year nomination which she’d got after the interns, her junior colleagues and all the guys in the print shop and tech department put her name forward for a freelance piece on Brexit she’d submitted to theScottish Student Magazine, but that was almost a year and a half ago now and she hadn’t won.
Even so, the article was still doing well online, and it had been shared tens of thousands of times before the nomination. After she was shortlisted, her words had briefly gone viral too. It had gotten her a round of applause at the Friday meeting from everyone except Jamesey, who’d sat smirking, arms folded, beady pig-eyes glancing round the room, incredulous. Mr Angus had clapped along but had seemed confused about the significance of a piece of writing only shared online – he was a man utterly convinced of the pre-eminence of print journalism over all other forms of writing. TheBroadsheetdidn’t have to worry about innovating since it still had a huge, loyal readership who would pick it up from newsagents’ every morning or have it delivered to their doorsteps all across Scotland. So Mirren’s greatest writing success had failed to make much of an impact on her standing in the newsroom.
Jamesey, meanwhile, had his promotions, two so far, and now he was a press agency liaison and often got cushy investigative trips and freebies where Mirren got none, so he obviously didn’t envy her position, but perhaps his deep-seated, stewing anger came from a resentment of her way of simply being herself and the popularity it won her among the junior staff.For all the good it’s done me with Mr Angus, she thought bitterly.God, how can this Andrew bloke still be talking?
‘We cleared six mil net last quarter, got a sweet ride with the bonus. Do you like the new three series? I got the sport in sapphire black,’ he was braying.
She nodded, eyebrows raised in patently faked interest. These blokes could never tell when a woman was just not listening. His voice droned on, and in between self-aggrandising tales of his corporate successes he swigged another glass of red wine. His nose and cheeks were turning an unhealthy red.Maybe if he stopped for breath once in a while he’d be less beetrooty.
Mirren was gathering her things, ready to excuse herself. If she was quick she could get home before the chippy on the high street closed, maybe pick something up for her mum too and they could attempt a civil supper together in front of the telly. Andrew watched her getting ready to leave, at first affronted, but then, after a moment’s boozy deliberation, a delighted smile revealed his wine-stained teeth.
