How, Rosie asked herself, had she ended up here? Spending the majority of her time in this dreary building, mostly surrounded by dreary people. She was brighter than this,betterthan this, as Niamh so frequently tried to tell her – but she’d believed none of that mattered as long as her home life was happy.
Unnecessarily pleasant. She considered the words again and wondered whether it was possible that hell had frozen over, because – possibly for the first time ever – Martin had said something that resonated with her.
As he ranted on, Rosie thought again about James, and the woman she now suspected he was sleeping with. Perhaps had been sleeping with for a while. He’d talked about her at home – had even seemed a little starry-eyed about her – and his ever-supportive girlfriend hadn’t suspected a thing.
The betrayal had hidden in plain sight. Rosie’s sheernicenesshad made it easy for James to do whatever he wanted, from taking motorcycle lessons to setting up a home-brew kit in their garden; from spending all hours exercising to eating his own body weight in chickpeas. Apparently he hadn’t drawn the line at consuming colossal amounts of soluble fibre just lately; the aphrodisiac effect of so much roughage had led to him boffing another woman.
‘Altogether, Miss Butler,’ Martin now said, his tone so swollen with self-importance that it made Rosie feel ill, ‘I think you need to be morefocusedin your dealings with customers, as it were.’
The sour coffee smell found Rosie’s nostrils again, and she fought to stop her nose wrinkling in distaste. Surely, she thought, nobody so proud of themselves had ever had so little to boast about. Martin was a narrow-minded, patronising arsehole who clearly – and inaccurately – considered himself a cut above his ‘less intelligent’ team. She felt anger coursing through her blood like venom as he stared across his desk at her, expecting contrition.
‘What does “more focused” actually mean? In plain English, if you don’t mind?’ Rosie demanded.
Martin’s brow furrowed. ‘Quicker to press on with the relevant claims processing questionnaires,’ he said. ‘Rather less optimistic that we can help.Muchmore willing to shut down irrelevant waffle.’
‘Irrelevant waffle like this, you mean?’ Rosie said, the words erupting like lava before she could stop them.
Martin’s eyes grew cartoonishly round. He spluttered, evidently struggling for something to say.
Eventually he managed, ‘There isnothingirrelevant about my new ACE metric: Average Call Efficiency will now be checked weekly and considered at all claims handlers’ quarterly appraisals. I don’t know what has come over you in the past few minutes, Miss Butler, but I’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head.’
‘A few minutes ago you were telling me I’m too nice,’ Rosie said hotly, her temper suddenly at snapping point. ‘You were very firm about the need for me to shut people down when they’redroning onortalking at me. Am I to assume you’re exempt from the rule?’
Colour was rising in Martin’s face. His ears were turning pink, as if to signal their outrage at what they’d just heard.
‘I expect you to know your place – to remain polite when speaking in the workplace withanysuperior,’ Martin spluttered indignantly.
It was the word ‘superior’ that did it. Or maybe the phrase ‘know your place’.
Rosie had spent most of her life pandering to other people’s needs and expectations – and where had it got her? She was single, stuck in a dull, uninspiring job and probably about to lose her home. It was years since she’d fully lost her rag, but now seemed the perfect time.
‘How dare you?’ she demanded, seeing red. Standing up.
She loomed over Martin, emanating the sort of righteous anger usually associated with rousing wartime speeches – ones that started with words like, ‘My fellow Americans’, or ended with ‘we shall never surrender’.
‘You arenotmy superior in any way,’ she informed him. ‘And for the record, I’m very good at my job – certainly better at it than you’d be. It must be nice, sitting up here in your little office and finding fault with the way other people handle difficult real-life conversations. You wouldn’t last five minutes if you were let loose with a headset and had angry customers in your ear all day.’
Martin pushed his chair back from his desk. His whole head was now a luminous shade of magenta. There were sweat patches beneath his armpits, their moisture now rendering his white shirt almost totally transparent. Rosie refused to look at the abundance of body hair this revealed.
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He looked as if he was quite literally boiling with rage. He had the appearance of a lobster, turning pinker and pinker in a pan of steadily simmering water. It seemed he was so close to spontaneous combustion he could no longer form sentences.
‘As for knowing myplace,’ Rosie went on, ‘I don’t think this is it. I’ve spent six years here, and I’ve just realised that’s probably long enough.’
‘Now see here,’ Martin puffed out, ‘this sort of insubordination is a disciplinary matter. Consider this a formal warning. I’ll have no choice but to terminate your employment here if you cannot show me the respect I’m due.’
‘Respect?’ Rosie scoffed. ‘That works both ways, and you’ve got no respect for me or anyone else below your pay grade. And you can stick your warning where the sun doesn’t shine. You can’t terminate me – I’m leaving.’
With that, she turned and marched out of the office. Martin was vainly bellowing something about notice periods and contract clauses as she stormed down the stairs. She paid him no attention.
When she arrived back at her workstation, Ellie was already staring at her.
‘Did I just hear shouting?’ she asked.
‘You did,’ Rosie confirmed, picking up the few personal possessions that littered her desk and dropping them into her handbag.
‘What’s happened?’ Ellie said. ‘It’s like you’re channelling Boudicca – are you about to lead an uprising and lop the heads off some Romans?’
‘Martin and I had ourchat’ – Rosie put air quotes around this word – ‘which culminated in me quitting.’
