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‘Let me get you some water,’ Jonathan offers, getting to his feet and crossing to the small table in the corner where a jug of water and some glasses have been laid out. He pours a glass and sets it in front of me before returning to his seat. I take a sip and savour the coolness of it. I hadn’t realised how dry my mouth was.
‘Are you ready to carry on?’ Sharon asks, gently. I assume this is the part where they will give my laptop and pass back, and I’ll be free to pick up my projects and start trying to repair my friendship with Ruth, so I nod happily.
Sharon puts the top sheet of paper to one side, and moves on to the next.
‘As you know,’ she says, looking down at the sheet in front of her rather than at me, ‘we were hoping to expand the company and carry out some internal promotions.’
My heart, which has only just returned to some semblance of normality, starts pounding again. It really would be the icing on the cake if they not only acquitted me, but also promoted me.
‘Unfortunately, the loss of the NHS contract is going to have a bigger impact on us than we thought at first, and we’re having to undertake some restructuring.’
OK, so no promotion then. It was a foolish hope, come to think of it.
‘It’s been a really difficult decision,’ Sharon continues, ‘but we need to ensure that the company is in the best place to recover from this and move forward with the strongest team in place to ensure our future success. The only way that we could see to do this was by making some posts redundant.’
I say nothing, so she continues.
‘I’m sorry to tell you that yours is one of the posts that is affected.’
My eyes snap across to Jonathan. Surely I’ve misheard, or this is a mistake. Any minute now he’ll say something, won’t he? It takes me a moment to understand the look on his face and realise that he’s not coming to my rescue. My stomach knots horribly as the words sink in. How the hell has this happened?
9
‘I don’t understand,’ I tell them.
‘There just aren’t enough projects in the pipeline to support the staffing levels that we currently have,’ Jonathan explains. ‘The trust project would have put us back on an even keel and even allowed us to expand, especially if we started to get other NHS trusts on board but, without that, we aren’t sustainable as we are. I’m really sorry, Ella.’
‘Hang on a minute,’ I interrupt. ‘Something doesn’t add up here.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You must have known before today that you would have to make cuts if we didn’t get the contract. You can’t tell me that you hadn’t made a plan for either eventuality.’
‘We hoped for a different outcome, but we were aware of the consequences of the deal not going through, yes. What’s your point?’ Jonathan is wary, as well he should be.
‘My point is that, when you called me in last Monday and started accusing me of being in cahoots with Lee, you’d already decided to get rid of me.’
‘I wouldn’t put it like that, exactly.’ He’s definitely on the defensive, which means he’s trying to hide something, and I’m not going to let him off the hook. I’m angry.
‘How would you put it then?’ I fix my eyes on him. ‘I have just had one of the worst weeks of my life, and it’s all been for nothing. Why put me through all of that when you had no intention of letting me keep my job anyway? What kind of mad power game is this?’
‘It’s not like that at all, Ella,’ Sharon intervenes, using the kind of soothing tone that is normally reserved for trying to calm lunatics.
‘Then how the hell is it? Explain it to me.’ I transfer my glare to her, and I’m aware of Jonathan fidgeting.
‘I’ll be honest with you. We did know that we were going to have to make redundancies last week, but we hadn’t finalised the list.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘That’s your choice,’ she says smoothly, ‘but I’m telling you the truth. Even if we had finalised the list, we still needed to conduct the investigation.’
‘Why? What difference does it make if you’re firing me anyway?’
‘It makes all the difference. If we’d have found that you had acted improperly, you would have been summarily dismissed with no reference, and we may even have begun legal proceedings against you. I agree that this is not the outcome that any of us want, but at least you will have a redundancy payout to soften the blow, and you will also be assured of a glowing reference for any future employers.’
‘It doesn’t feel like much of a consolation prize.’
‘I know, and I know you won’t believe this, but this is hard for us too. You’re the third person we’ve had to break this news to so far today, and it doesn’t get any easier.’
