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‘I’ll deal with that if it happens. I’m sure we’ll figure something out.’ I’m not telling her about my current problems with Lee. If she thought I was hedging my bets and keeping him on side while I still need him, which I probably am a bit, she would firmly disapprove and accuse me of being manipulative. Maybe she’d be right. I think I’ve earned the right to be a little manipulative, though, haven’t I?
After lunch, I wander across to Ava’s house, where I’m greeted by an ecstatic Teddy. Once he’s finished jumping up and I’ve admired his latest toy, Ava and I retire to her garden with cups of tea. The garden is another thing in which Ava takes absolutely no interest. Where my parents’ garden is lovingly tended with abundant flowerbeds, hers is a scrappy piece of lawn and a patch of wilderness that could probably be turned into something pretty if someone took pity on it. Maybe it could be a project for me while I’m here; it would give me something to do and get me out of the house.
‘Tell me everything,’ she demands as soon as we’re settled. This is typical of her, no beating about the bush. As soon as I’ve sworn her to secrecy, I fill her in on the redundancy but I don’t sugar coat it like I have for Mum and Dad. Ava gets the warts and all version, including Lee’s confession.
‘What an absolute bastard,’ she fumes. ‘You’d better have sent the recording in.’
‘No. I thought about it, but I want to be the better person here,’ I tell her.
‘Nonsense! Why bother recording him if you had no plan to use it?’
‘I’m not saying I’ll never send it in; I’m just not sure now is the right time.’
‘You’re overthinking this. You should have sent it straight away before you had a chance to second guess yourself. I know you. You’ll never send it now, and that means he’s got away with it.’
‘It’s complicated, OK?’
‘It really isn’t. He shat on you, you have the evidence, but you’re too much of a wimp to do anything with it.’
‘Just let it go, will you, Ava? I know you don’t like him—’
‘With good reason!’
‘I get it. I’ll think about it some more. I’ve got bigger fish to fry right now.’
‘I guess so. How is the job hunting coming?’
‘Not great. I think I’ve applied for pretty much every job vacancy in the north of England with the words “project manager” in the title apart from one, which was on a building site.’
‘Why didn’t you apply for that one?’
‘Because it’s on a building site, obviously! I don’t know the first thing about building sites, and I’d like a job where I’m taken seriously, not seen as some sort of sex object to be wolf-whistled at all day.’
‘Interesting,’ Ava remarks, after a moment’s silence.
‘What?’
‘There’s so much wrong with what you’ve just said, I don’t know where to begin.’
‘Eh?’
‘OK, let’s start with “I don’t know the first thing about building sites”.’
‘I don’t.’
‘I know that, but you’ve always said a good project manager doesn’t need to know the product; they just have to be able to manage the resources. So yeah, it’s a building site, but it’s still people. You’re just swapping software for bricks and mortar. You don’t have to know how to build a house to project manage it, Ella. That’s what the trades are there for.’
I consider what she’s said. ‘Yes, but I still need to understand what the stages of building a house are, and I don’t have a clue. Some bits are obvious, like the walls probably have to go up before you can put the roof on, but I suspect it’s a lot more complicated than that. If I don’t know the stages, then how am I supposed to know what order they go in?’
She grins at me. ‘Ben can help you,’ is all she says.
I raise my eyebrows.
‘OK, so his work is mainly alterations and extensions,’ she continues, warming to her theme, ‘but he knows everything there is to know. If you apply, he can coach you so you go in there and sound like an expert.’
‘Do you think he would?’
‘Of course! He’d love nothing more than to drone on at you about building regulations and stuff for a couple of hours. I always tune him out, so he’ll be delighted to have a captive audience.’
