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Tiff shrugs. “We’ll tell him the company double-delivered for the store displays.”
Briefly, I wonder whether I should be concerned at how quickly Tiff can come up with a plausible lie, but it’s not the issue right now. “And when he sees the exact same decorations at the Christmas party?”
“You’ll point out Christmas decorations are mass-produced in factories?” suggests Amjad, who’s just finishing up his tea in the corner.
I shake my head. “Jonathan’s a details guy. He’ll notice, and then he’ll get suspicious, and then he’ll realise that I’ve been swindling him for the best part of a month and he’ll be extremely pissed off and I won’t entirely blame him.”
The door opens and for a heart-stopping second I think it’s Jonathan, but it’s Brian. Which is almost as bad, but only almost.
“Oh hello,” he says. “Sam, this is Tiff, Claire, and Amjad who you’ll not remember.”
“I know,” I tell him. “I’ve not actually got amnesia.”
“Have you not?” He looks bemused.
Claire sighs. “We’ve already explained this, Brian. Sam didn’t lose his memory, he just had to pretend to so as to buy us some time before His Royal Dickishness shuts us all down.”
“Oh, right.” Brian looks grave. “And why’s he doing that?”
Having finished his tea, Amjad rinses his mug out and leaves it on the sink to drain. “From what I’ve heard, Sam refused to fire any of us, so Jonathan threatened to fire all of us. It’s classic brinksmanship. Like the Cuban Missile crisis but with bidets.”
Slowly catching up, Brian’s expression of gravity only deepens. “That doesn’t seem very fair. Who did Mr Forest want to sack?”
“Me,” says Tiff, “because I’m too young to have any employment rights.” Technically that’s not quite his reasoning; his reasoning was that she was never at bloody work, which in retrospect was at least a bit my fault. “And you.” She flicks her hair vaguely in Brian’s direction. “Because you’re incredibly shit at your job.”
He thinks about that for a moment, then nods cheerily. “Makes sense. Amjad, can I just nip past you and grab some kitchen roll and disinfectant. Poo situation.”
Obligingly—or perhaps just not-wanting-to-get-into-a-poo-situation-ly—Amjad steps aside and lets Brian retrieve an armful of cleaning supplies from under the sink.
“Brian,” I add when he’s emerged, “we’re serious about this, yeah? I know it’s a big ask but Jonathan seems to have chilled out on the whole firing people front and so it’s really, really important that we keep a lid on things.”
I’m not particularly reassured by the way he smiles. He smiled like that when I told him the code for the alarm and explained why carrying coffee across the showroom floor was a bad idea.
“I mean it,” I say. “Ixnay on the oesntday eallyray avehay amnesiaay.”
Thisdefinitelymakes it worse. He shakes his head like a confused Labrador. “Sorry, Sam, I’ve very much lost you.”
I sigh. “Don’t let Jonathan know I remember stuff. Just clean up the poo and keep your mouth shut.”
“Probably good advice for cleaning up poo in general, to be honest,” Amjad points out, nudging the cleaning cabinet closed with his knee.
And Brian smiles again, and I get that sinking feeling that he’s going to Brian all over things somehow. If not today, then tomorrow, and if not tomorrow, then just as I’m standing at the airport with Ilsa Lund.
At last, he goes, and I turn to the others in the hope we canhave at least a couple of things go right today. “Okay, that’s the literal pile of shit dealt with—”
Tiff smirks. “Don’t talk about Brian that way.”
It feels very unfair that teenagers get to make dad jokes without looking uncool. “You know what I mean,” I tell her. “But can we please focus onthis.” I wave my hands at the pile of fairy lights and tinsel. “What are we going to do with it?”
Claire looks contemplative. “Whack a blanket over the top?”
“Have you got a very large blanket just lying around?” I ask her.
This doesn’t impress Claire one little bit. “Are you sure you don’t really have amnesia? This is a bed and bath superstore. We’ve got walls full of blankets.”
“So the plan is to pinch a Brentfords Super Ultra Soft Flannel Fleece from out of bedding, then hope that when Jonathan comes in he doesn’t sayhey, what’re you hiding underneath that Brentfords Super Ultra Soft Flannel Fleece?”
“Don’t be silly.” Claire is giving me a scornful look. “The Brentfords Super Ultra Soft Flannel Fleece would be much too small.”
