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“That has been a concern.” I’m starting to feel like this is going to be a very long journey.
“What you want to do,” explains the driver, as we hit the roundabout and start heading south on the A630, “is sit down wi’t HR department.”
“Actually, I was hoping he’d just fire me.”
The cabbie shakes his head. “Oh no, that’s no good. Then you’d be able to get him for that constructive dismissal.”
“I’m not going to, though, am I? Because I’ll be dating him.”
“Aye, but he can’t rely on that.”
I squint at the back of the guy’s head. “How do you know so much about employment law?”
“I was union rep at t’steelworks.”
“You never were.”
He looks confused. “That’s a funny thing to be surprised about. They were a major local employer.”
“It’s not that, it’s that my boss’s dad used to work there too. Did you know a Les Forest?”
“Fucking hell.” The cabby nods. “What’s he doing these days?”
“This and that, he’s in London now. But his son runs that chain of bed and bath stores, Splashes & Snuggles?”
“Not a good name,” the cabby says.
“Decent shop, though. And I think Jonathan comes from theshould say what it doesschool of corporate nomenclature.”
“True enough. And I did go in for a loo brush t’other day.”
So for the next twenty minutes we chat in a people-who-have-a-very-tenuous-connection-to-each-other sort of way. And at the end he gives me his number and asks me to pass it on to Les. Which, when I think about it, is a particularly awkward thingto happen when I’m on the way to tell Les’s son that I want to, like, be with him and that. I bet this wouldn’t happen to Sandra Bullock.
Nobody gives me a second glance as I head through reception and upstairs. It’s easy enough to find Jonathan’s room because it’s the one next to mine. I bang on the door and belatedly wonder if I should have phoned first. Both to be polite and because he might not even be in.
He is, though. He opens the door, looking—and I might be using this word wrong—raddled. He’s in his shirtsleeves, with a full two buttons undone, and he’s hit the complimentary tea bar hard, standing there with a mug clutched in his hand. His hair’s all floppy, the white streak tumbled partly over one eye.
“I quit,” I tell him.
He gives a calculated non-reaction. “What?”
“With conditions,” I clarify. “I quit.”
“What conditions?” He sounds about ninety-eight percent suspicious and two percent hopeful.
“I had a word with Claire back at the store.” It’s only half a lie. And though I wish my life hadn’t got to the point where I was measuring lies in fractions, it’s where I am and I have to deal with it. “And she was saying you were looking for cuts. Big cuts. Only from what I’ve seen they get on okay without me, and so that’s a saving right there.” And, if I’m honest, Claire’s got them in line the way I never could. The way I’d never really wanted to. “If you put Claire in charge and don’t hire anybody else then you’ve saved a full salary and you don’t have to fire anybody.”
“That’s very noble of you.” Jonathan’s suspicion level has gone to maybe a ninety-three, but that’s still more than I’d like it to be.
“It’s not,” I tell him. “It’s just—it’s just the right call. For everybody. I can find another job, the store’s clearly in goodhands”—better hands really—“and if I don’t work for you any more then…”
Thethenjust sort of hangs there between us like a guinea pig in a Santa hat.
“Then?” Eighty-four percent.
“Then we can try and make it work?” I try not to let it sound like a question, but it does anyway. “If you want to like. But even if you don’t, I think letting me go is the right thing to do. It gets you what you wanted and it doesn’t hurt anybody who’s not already been off work for nearly a month.”
“Sam”—Jonathan’s frown is very frowny indeed—“trying to sacrifice yourself for your team isn’t noble and isn’t cute. It’s just—”
