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“I think you need to adjust your settings,” he says. “Put on Voice Isolation.”
“I’m whispering.”
He’s not letting up. “What you need to do is go to the Control Centre, then hit Mic Mode—”
“I said I’m whispering,” I the-opposite-of-whisper.
“Are you sure?” ask Tiff. “You sound quite loud.”
“That’s because I’m not whispering anymore because you couldn’t hear me.”
“Why were you whispering in the first place?” asks Claire.
“Because Jonathan’s downstairs and I don’t want him to know I remember who you are.”
“Oh.” Claire takes a moment to think. “You should probably keep your voice down then.”
“I was trying to but—”
“Hang on”—this is Amjad again—“we’ll turn you up at our end.”
For a couple of minutes there’s a daft little dance of no-not-that-button-that-other-button-yes-I-know-then-why-don’t-you-do-it-right and finally we get to a place where I can speak quietly and still be heard in Sheffield which, when you think about it, is a miracle of modern technology.
When they’re done, Claire gets us back to the point. “So why are we screwed?”
“Because I’ve overspent on the party by ten quid a head,” I explain, perching on the edge of the Heritage Devon Double Ended Slipper Cast Iron Bath with feet. “And it turns out, Jonathan wasn’t just being a tight git. We had to keep it under one fifty or else all the guests get stung for tax.”
There’s a brief pause. “Why didn’t you tell us that?” asks Tiff.
“Because he didn’t tell me that.”
“Why didn’t he tell you that?” asks Claire.
I make a “fuck knows” gesture up at the Silverdale Victorian high level toilet, which is one of those designs I’ve always found a little twee. “Because he’s a dick. And now I have to fix this because otherwise, instead of treating the whole company to a lovely party, I’ve treated them to a thirty-two quid bill from the taxman.”
“It’s fine.” Claire’s gone all brisk, which she does when there’s a problem. “We just have to cut some costs.”
It’d be really useful to have the spreadsheet in front of me, but the laptop’s downstairs and getting it’d be a headache. Besides, I might run into Jonathan and, right now, I’m very much feeling we’d both be better off if we never saw each other again. “I’m not sure there’s anywhere to cut. If I get a cheaper DJ they won’t have their own gear and then it’ll just be a bloke with a Spotify playlist. If I don’t reimburse people’s travel expenses, then I’m costing themmoney again. And, worse, I’m only costing the people who don’t live in London.”
“Cheaper food?” suggests Amjad.
“I went with a buffet because a good buffet is both better and cheaper than a bad sit-down dinner. But if I skimp on the buffet they’ll just feed us crap.”
Claire makes a thoughtful noise. “Can you just get…like…everyone to give you a small discount?”
“I need to save fifteen hundred quid. That’s nearly ten percent from everyone.”
“Actually”—Amjad just can’t stop himself—“it’s six percent, which is really closer to five than ten, even if you’re rounding.”
“Did you just do that in your head?” I’m torn between being annoyed and impressed.
“Yeah, I’ve got good mental arithmetic.”
“Okay,”—this one’s my fault for derailing, but I do my best to re-rail it anyway—“but since we can’t negotiate down other people’s travel expenses, that means we’ve got to make it up somewhere else, so let’s call it ten. And that’s not happening. Not in London. At Christmas. With the weather we’ve been having. And talk of a tube strike.” I’ll admit the last two might just be me spiralling.
Tiff sighs. “Well, if you can’t get lots of little savings, you need one big saving. What’s the biggest expense?”
“It’s the fucking room, isn’t it?” This is feeling increasingly impossible. “It’s six thousand four hundred pounds.”
