‘What happened?’ I ask again, because I’m struggling to sort facts from fiction.
‘According to Felix, you came inside because you had a headache. He brought you up some painkillers and you fainted. He made sure you were safe and came straight down to tell me.’
According to Felix.
I close my eyes and try to piece together my fragmented memories. I do remember Felix knocking on the door with co-codamol and a glass of water. I remember him sitting on the bed, talking. Something about how similar we were. I know I wanted him to leave. I can still feel echoes of the visceral fear his proximity stirred in me. But was I overreacting? Because the more I think about it, the more innocuous it sounds. I had a headache. Felix brought me painkillers. I fainted. He went to get help. End of.
Dom’s hair is tousled and worry lines fan out across his forehead. I give him a bleary smile.
‘Nessa always said you were a keeper.’
Dominic charmed Nessa’s socks off the first time they met, bowing to her Stasi-style grilling good-naturedly before insisting on paying for our meal. Afterwards, she dragged me into the restaurant toilets, her eyes sparkling.
‘OMG, Amber. You’ve hit the bloody jackpot! Not only is he posh, loaded and drop-dead gorgeous, he’s also nice. You’re a jammy sod, you really are.’
‘I know, right? So what on earth is he doing with me?’
Nessa’s expression turned serious. ‘Are you kidding me? Take a look in the mirror, girl. You’re hot as fuck. He’d be mad not to be crazy about you.’ She linked her arm in mine. ‘You’re beautiful, remember that.’
And that was the problem. When I looked in the mirror, I saw my thirteen-year-old self: a skinny, socially awkward, spotty kid with train-track braces and NHS glasses who lived with her sick gran on the fourteenth floor of a tower block in the middle of a notorious south London estate.
‘Nessa has excellent taste,’ Dom says, straightening my sheet. ‘Why don’t you have a nap? I’ll only be by the pool if you need me.’
‘OK. But, Dom? I’m so sorry.’
He frowns, genuinely confused. ‘Sorry for what?’
‘Being a nuisance.’
His face breaks into a smile. ‘You couldn’t be a nuisance if you tried.’ He drops a kiss on my forehead, smooths my hair one last time and leaves the room, shutting the door quietly behind him.
Even though I’m exhausted, sleep won’t come. My thoughts loop and spiral, memories tangling with misrememberings until I can’t tell one from the other.
I tell myself Felix is harmless. But I don’t believe it, not really. He makes me want to fold myself up so small I disappear, a feeling I’ve learnt not to ignore.
Different creep. Same old story.
23
AMBER
Two Months Before
Rob Harvey, my line manager at the unimaginatively named Cavity Wall Solutions, is the kind of man you probably wouldn’t notice if you walked past him in the street. Single and in his early forties, he is wholly unremarkable. Everything about him is grey. His cheap suit, his tie, his thinning hair. There is even a greyish tinge to his pallor. He told me during my interview that he’d worked at CWS since he left school, like it was something to be proud of. After barely glancing at my CV and asking a couple of perfunctory questions about my last job in telesales, he offered me a position on the spot. I couldn’t believe my luck. And if, when we shook hands, he held mine a little too long for comfort, I brushed any misgivings I had aside. It was steady work, close to home, and Nessa had started working there the year before. Besides, I needed the money.
It was in my second week at CWS that I noticed Rob’s tendency to stand a little too closely to people by the water cooler or brush up against them as he sauntered through the office. When I say people, I mean women. It was a standing joke among us that you only ventured into the small photocopying room onthe ground floor when you knew he was either on the phone or in a meeting. A joke that, when you think about it, wasn’t very funny at all.
Perhaps we should’ve complained to HR, or at least called him out for his creepy behaviour, but no one ever did, because in the cramped offices of CWS he was leader of his own little kingdom and no one dared to question him.
During my first appraisal, I sat with my hands clasped in my lap and tried to focus as Rob listed my shortcomings. Sloppy timekeeping. Terrible call times. A low conversion rate.
‘But my customer satisfaction rates are the highest in the team,’ I countered, and it was true. Apart from Nessa, talking to customers was the only good bit about the job and they enjoyed chatting as much as I did.
‘Your call times are twice as long as everyone else’s and your satisfaction rates are meaningless if you’re not selling anything. You’re not meeting your targets, Amber. Something needs to change or I’m going to have to let you go.’
I sat up straighter in the chair and assured him I would pull my socks up.
‘Socks? Surely you can do better than that.’ I felt the heat of his gaze as his eyes roved over me. ‘Maybe if you wore stockings we wouldn’t need to be having this conversation.’ He shuffled the papers on his desk, suddenly businesslike. ‘Now, run along. Some of us have work to do. We’ll have a catch-up in a month. Make sure you’re hitting your targets by then, please, or there’ll be consequences.’
