Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
1 Anne
2 Paula
3 Anne
4 Amira
5 Sarah
6 Anne
7 Paula
8 Ewan
9 Anne
10 Amira
11 Charlie
12 Anne
13 Chloe
14 Paula
15 Ewan
16 Anne
17 Amira
18 Sarah
19 Anne
20 Chloe
21 Charlie
22 Anne
23 Sarah
24 Anne
25 Paula
26 Amira
27 Anne
28 Ewan
29 Sarah
30 Anne
31 Charlie
32 Paula
33 Anne
34 Chloe
35 Sarah
36 Anne
37 Rachel
38 Charlie
39 Rachel
40 Anne
41 Ewan
42 Charlie
43 Anne
44 Ewan
45 Anne
46 Anne
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Read on for an extract from They All Fall Down
Copyright
TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA
www.penguin.co.uk
Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Black Swan
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright © Tammy Cohen 2016
Cover photograph © Alamy; Cover: www.headdesign.co.uk
Extract from They All Fall Down copyright © Tammy Cohen 2017
Tammy Cohen has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781473509597
ISBN 9781784160197
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
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For Michael
Imagine we could see the damage inside ourselves. Imagine it showed through us like contraband on an airport scanner. What would it be like, to walk around the city with it all on view – all the hurts and the betrayals and the things that diminished us; all the crushed dreams and the broken hearts? What would it be like to see the people our lives have made us? The people we are, under our skin.
I thought about that when I saw you on the news just now. I recognized you right away. ‘Such an ordinary person,’ those people said. ‘I can’t believe someone like that could do something so terrible.’
When I got the text this afternoon from Barbara Campbell telling me to turn on the news, I couldn’t work out what she meant at first. The news was full of the usual stuff – the Republican leadership contest, the price of fuel, Syria, Russia. Nothing that meant anything special to me. I wondered whether Barbara was going a little senile. She retired a while back, so it’s possible. Then I remembered that, of course, living over in England she meant the British news. Well, that flummoxed me. In the end I had to call Shannon and she popped in on her way home from work. She fixed it up in five minutes flat, running a cable from my laptop to the main TV screen so I could watch the BBC live.
I waited for Shannon to leave before I put it on. Before heading out, she hugged me for a long time, as is her custom, and I was grateful all over again. So many daughters grow out of that kind of close contact as they get older, as I did when I learned to recognize my mom’s distinctive scent as last night’s sweated-out booze. Parents are always a disappointment to their children, that’s part of our role. But Shannon has never held it against me.
From Barbara’s text, I’d guessed the news wouldn’t be good. But when I saw the photographs, when I heard what you’d done . . . I had to stop myself from pouring out a large glass of white and drinking it down in one as if it was a shot of something short and strong and slammed on a bar. Instead, I took a deep breath in and tried to count to seven before releasing it as, on-screen, a woman in a blue raincoat stood outside a courtroom and recited the stark facts of your case.
‘First court appearance,’ said the woman’s thin-lipped mouth. ‘Confirmed name and address.’ And, ‘Judge set a date for trial.’ Then the scene changed to a wide, tree-lined London street where a different woman was adding a bouquet of flowers to an impressive pile outside a glossy black gate, in front of a smart-looking Georgian townhouse. ‘Crime that shocked a city . . .’ the voiceover said. ‘The accused worked with the victim . . . particularly brutal nature of the killing.’ Then the focus skipped again to a modern office building in the financial heart of London. A young man interviewed on the sidewalk outside the main entrance shook his head in disbelief. ‘Such an ordinary person,’ he repeated.
But I know. I know the truth. And ordinary doesn’t come into it.
‘I still can’t believe it.’
Paula knew it wasn’t helping Gill to keep saying the same thing over and over, but the phrase seemed to be stuck in her throat. Every time she opened her mouth, up it came again.
‘I wouldn’t take it, if I were you, Gill. Find a shit-hot lawyer. Sue the arse off them.’
Typical Ewan. Always thinking there was something that could be done about everything. But he was still young. Hadn’t yet learned that sometimes things happen to you, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.
‘I already talked to an employment lawyer, and the head of HR was in the meeting,’ said Gill, smiling bravely, although her large brown eyes seemed to swim beneath a glaze of unshed tears. ‘Yes, I could try legal action but apparently the money they’re offering me on top of my statutory notice period is more than I’d get if I won an unfair dismissal claim, so it’s not worth it.’
‘But it’s so unfair,’ said Chloe, who’d already gone through three tissues which were scrunched up on the table in front of her, next to a near-empty glass of wine. ‘We’re such a good team, all of us. Why would they want to go and break us up?’
It wasn’t surprising Chloe was taking her boss’s dismissal so hard. Ever since Gill had taken her on as a junior she’d had an almost Svengali-type influence over her.
‘They say we’ve been underperforming, Chloe,’ said Gill, a telltale wobble in her voice. ‘And they need a scapegoat. Which is me.’
Paula didn’t think that was entirely fair. Of course she was sorry Gill was going. They’d worked together for eight years. They were friends. But the truth was, as Executive Manager, Gill had been coasting during the last couple of years. And productivity and profitability had definitely suffered as a result. So for her to claim to be some kind of sacrificial lamb was a bit much.
Directly across the table from her, Amira, who’d already downed two gin and tonics in the time Paula had taken to sip a third of her bitter lemon, leaned forwards conspiratorially so that the ends of her thick black hair trailed in a little puddle of lager.
‘I bet Mark Hamilton patted you on the shoulder straight after he sacked you and said “no hard feelings”,’ she said to Gill. ‘Am I right?’
Gill visibly winced at the word ‘sacked’ and Paula’s heart went out to her. Amira could be so insensitive sometimes.
‘Yeah. I think he did say something like that,’ mumbled Gill. ‘But I was in shock, so half of the things he said went straight over my head.’
‘How about if we all refused to go back to work,’ said Chloe, her cheeks flushed with earnestness and Pinot Grigio. ‘They couldn’t sack us all, could they?’
‘They’ve probably sacked us all already. Just for being here and not heads down at our desks like good little workers,’ said Amira.
Paula tensed. She supported Gill, of course, and she hadn’t needed persuading to accompany her to the pub after she got the devastating news of her dismissal that morning. But she couldn’t put her own job at risk. Not when she was the only one in the house earning any money. Sweat prickled on her spine and she surreptitiously reached her arm behind her to peel the material of her top away from her back. It was so hot in here. Or was it? Paula’s hormones were so haywire she’d lost the knack of regulating her own temperature and could lurch from cold to scorching and down to freezing again in a matter of seconds. Sometimes she got so hot it was as if her own blood was boiling inside her veins.
‘Sorry about the wait. The Small Child is on bar duty again. Must be an Inset day at school.’ Charlie put down the drinks he’d been carrying and slid back into his seat. Then he reached across the table and wrapped his surprisingly delicate fingers around the top of Gill’s hand.
‘Don’t let the bastards grind you down,’ he said softly. ‘There are plenty more companies out there who’ll snap you up. We’ll all give you a glowing reference.’
Gill nodded with that fixed half-smile people use when they’re trying not to cry.
Sarah broke the silence following Charlie’s comment, arriving at the table breathless, mobile phone in hand.
‘Sorry. Sorry. Childcare emergency. All sorted now.’
Charlie cleared his jacket off Sarah’s chair so she could sit down. Paula used to envy those two their closeness, always slipping away after work to go drinking, arriving at their desks the next morning with raging hangovers and vague memories of pubs visited, random strangers met, cocktails downed. But since Sarah had had the boys, such outings had become a thing of the past. Nothing was ever the same after having children, was it?
The ends of Sarah’s red hair had formed damp ringlets. Must be raining outside. That figured. Paula looked around the table – Sarah, Charlie, Chloe, Ewan, Amira, Gill, her. Already she was mourning the solid unit they’d been. Gill might not have been the most dynamic boss, but they’d all rolled along quite happily together on the whole. No fallings out. Minimal office politics. A dream team, as Chloe said.
Amira’s phone beeped loudly, a kind of squawking noise that made them all jump. She glanced at her screen.
‘Holy shit,’ she said. ‘Just got a message from Juliana who works in HR. You’ll never guess who’s going to be our new boss.’
‘Who?’ came a chorus of voices. Paula glanced at Gill, whose smile had got tighter, as if someone was stretching it out.
‘Rachel Masters.’
Oh. Well. Paula tried to avoid industry gossip, but she’d heard the name through the grapevine. Difficult. Demanding. Divisive. Those were the sorts of words that preceded Rachel Masters. Still, she got results, apparently – and that’s what counted in the end.
‘Hang on,’ said Sarah. ‘I’m sure I heard some rumour about her. Some kind of trouble in the office.’
Gill nodded. ‘I heard that too.’ Her voice sounded almost gleeful.
Paula fought off a fierce wave of heat that surged up from somewhere beneath her ribcage and burst into flames around her lungs, blazing up into her shoulders and throat. Anxiety was like a spiteful child pinching her insides. They’d been here in the pub for over two hours, ever since Gill had come back from a meeting with Mark Hamilton, white-faced and shaking and accompanied by a security guard who stood watch while she gathered up her things from her glass office, partitioned off from the main office floor. It had been nearly lunchtime, so they’d all gone with Gill to the pub to find out what was going on. But now Paula couldn’t stop worrying about what Mark Hamilton, the company MD, would say when he came down to talk to them all, as he surely would, and found no one there. What if he brought her with him, Rachel Masters? Unease spread through her like the prick, prick, prick of a tattooist’s needle. She was the deputy. She ought to be setting an example.
‘Sorry, Gill,’ she said, feeling around under her chair for her handbag. ‘We ought to be getting back.’
‘No. We ought to stay here. Show Hamilton that he can’t just do exactly what he wants,’ said Ewan, passion making him look younger than his twenty-eight years.
‘Er, I think you’ll find he can do exactly what he wants,’ said Amira. ‘Mark Hamilton Recruitment is his company. The clue’s in the name.’
In the end it was Gill who decided things.
‘I need to get going anyway. I’m going to give myself the afternoon off and then I’ll get on the phone, start ringing some contacts about a new job. I’m not worried. I’ve had so many approaches over the years.’
Paula had worked with Gill long enough to recognize her brand of quiet bravado. Poor Gill. Though she had a steely side that she kept carefully hidden, this must be a terrible blow to her self-esteem. Still, thank God she was going home so they could get back to the office. Paula sneaked a quick look at her watch, and her stomach gave a savage lurch.
‘Come on,’ she chivvied the others while trying to free her arm which had become trapped in the sleeve of her raincoat.
‘Yes, you lot go back,’ said Gill brightly. ‘I’ll call a taxi to come and pick me up, with all my stuff.’ She gestured to the cardboard box containing notebooks, a spare pair of shoes, the framed photograph of Gill with her two young nephews. ‘Just make sure you keep me updated on what’s going on. I shall expect a blow-by-blow account from each of you. And pictorial evidence of the infamous Rachel Masters.’
By the time they arrived at reception, five floors down from their office, Paula was out of breath. She really ought to start going to the gym or something, she thought, try to get rid of the extra two stone that seemed to have attached itself to her in the last couple of years without her even noticing it, so that now, at fifty-five, she hardly recognized herself. In the lift, she kept her head down, for fear of seeing her own mother looking back at her from the mirrored walls.
Why had she worn that awful old top today? The shapeless blue T-shirt was made of the kind of thin cotton that clings damply to clammy skin. If she’d known she was going to meet a new boss, she’d have made more of an effort. And she certainly wouldn’t have worn these black trousers. At least the waistband was covered by her top, so you couldn’t tell it was elasticated.
Bustling through the door of the office, her coat already half shrugged off, Paula’s nerves were on edge. Please don’t let Rachel Masters have arrived already. But a quick glance towards what used to be Gill’s office confirmed her worst fears. The door was shut. Someone was in there.
For five minutes, Paula sat at her desk not knowing what to do. Though the blinds were down there was a narrow gap between the slats, through which she caught a glimpse of a woman bent over the desk that until that morning had been strewn with Gill’s personal effects. Her face was partially hidden by a curtain of glossy dark hair. She couldn’t get a good look, but she could tell immediately that Rachel Masters was ten, maybe fifteen years younger than her. That meant Paula had all the advantages of experience. Rachel would be glad of a safe pair of hands.
Emboldened, Paula took another peek and felt herself relax. Rachel Masters looked so alone there in that office. She was probably feeling much more nervous than they were and desperate for someone to come and introduce themselves. And as her new deputy, it really ought to be Paula herself.
Taking a deep breath, she crossed the few feet of blue carpet to her new boss’s office.
‘Yes,’ came the reply to her knock.
Paula stepped through the door.
‘I just wanted to welcome you—’
‘Is it normal for the entire staff to take a two-hour lunch break?’
Rachel didn’t look up and Paula was conscious of her smile shrivelling on her lips.
‘No. We were just—’
‘Can you call everyone together, please? I’d like to have a few words.’
‘Of course. Out on the main floor?’
Finally Rachel glanced up at Paula from eyes of palest blue offset by spiky black lashes. Paula felt her cheeks burning.
‘Well, unless we sit on each other’s laps, we’re hardly about to squeeze seven people in here, are we?’
Rachel’s mouth, a red lipsticked slash, flattened into a tight smile.
Paula was aware of the sweat prickling under her arms and made a note to herself to keep her hands clamped to her sides. She felt her cheeks burning.
‘Will do. You’ll find we’re a pretty friendly bunch.’
Again the smile that failed to reach the eyes.
‘I’m not here to make friends.’
I was shocked, the first time I saw her. That’s how naïve I was. I thought that somehow, what had happened to her would be written on her skin. Despite all my training, all those lectures and clinic hours and nights spent poring over textbooks, I didn’t think you could be unmarked by something like that.
When I think about the young woman I was then, the one who slipped in through the run-down back entrance of the teaching hospital that first morning to avoid the scrum of reporters outside the front, feeling shyly self-important as she flashed her credentials to the police guarding the lift access, she doesn’t seem like me at all but someone else entirely. A woman of principle, ambitious enough to worry that her blonde hair would stop her being taken seriously and vain enough to keep it long anyway. A woman who didn’t smile often but when she did, you knew she meant it.
Nowadays my smile is like a facial tic. I hardly even know I’m doing it.
Going up in the lift, I was apprehensive but excited. I had that fluttering thing going on where you’re both proud – I must be good at my job – but at the same time terrified – what if they find out I’m no good at my job? Like most women who reach a certain level of success, I worried about being unmasked as a fraud.
I didn’t know why I’d been picked. My PhD on the long-term effects of acute trauma in minors had won me some small amount of localized acclaim, and the university press had turned it into a book that sold well for an academic tome. I was up and coming, but I was by no means an authority. All these years later, I feel even less so, despite all the letters after my name and the corner office with the nameplate on the door, and the shelves with the foreign editions of my books lined up like trophies. If you stripped them away one by one, these trappings and badges of knowledge, I wonder if there’d be anything left underneath.
The rumours going around the department at the time said that Professor Kowalsky and I were lovers and that’s why he’d picked me as his assistant in one of the two assessments he’d been charged with carrying out. No such rumours attached themselves to his choice of Dan Oppenheimer to assist him in the other one. Though the same level as me, Dan was far more ambitious and contributed well-regarded papers to several international journals. That the rumours about me and Kowalsky probably originated from Dan himself did little to lessen their sting.
Professor Kowalsky was waiting in the lobby. I say ‘lobby’ as if it was some kind of grand affair, but nothing was grand back then. A few squares of carpet tile of some dingy hue, a central ceiling light. And Ed Kowalsky standing there with a clipboard in his hands and all his teeth on show. He was trying to look like it was all in a day’s work, but his hands gave him away, fluttering up to run his fingers through his hair again and again. He was proud of that hair.
‘Dr Cater,’ he said. And then: ‘Anne.’ He held my hand between both of his like he was pressing a flower.
‘Professor Kowalsky . . .’
‘Ed. Please.’
‘Ed. I just want to tell you how incredibly grateful I am for this opportunity. A case this high profile, you must have had so many people asking for a chance to work with you.’
‘Oh my gosh, yes.’
That’s how he spoke.
‘But you know, Anne, you have the right research background and, more to the point, you have sound practical experience of dealing with post-traumatized young children. Of course there were people more highly qualified than you who would have bitten my hand off to get near this case, but I have to be sure this is about the child and what’s best for the child, not about professional ego. I don’t want to walk into a bookstore next year and see an exposé of this case written by someone whose agenda was based on something other than helping the patient.’
In other words, he’d chosen me because I wouldn’t try to capitalize on his case. I was too junior to be a threat. In view of this it seemed to me that Kowalsky might have underestimated the scale of Dan Oppenheimer’s ambition, but in truth I didn’t mind. I was flattered by the recognition. And yes, excited at the chance of working with a child that damaged and of helping repair some of that damage.
The corridor of the Psychiatry Department of La Luz City University Medical Facility was a sterile affair. Since then it’s been painted in a mellow magnolia and there’s some framed artwork on the walls. We had a memo before the prints went up, checking whether we considered them suitably ‘non-stimulating’. We all joked about that for a long time afterwards. ‘Nice jacket,’ we’d say, ‘but are you sure it’s non-stimulating enough?’
Sometimes when I think about how I’m still here all these years later, I can’t breathe. I keep a paper bag in the top drawer of the desk to blow into when the panic rises.
Room 238 was the most child-friendly of all the consulting rooms. There were padded grey chairs and a low coffee table in lieu of a desk, and a filing cabinet in the corner stuffed with specially chosen toys. On the coffee table was a stack of children’s books. The Sesame Street annual was on the top, looking slightly frayed around the edges of its cardboard cover. Along the back wall was a shelving unit with more books and, discreetly positioned at the far end, a tape recorder.
‘As you know, our role here is to assess rather than to treat,’ Ed Kowalsky said. He was standing by the window with its slatted blinds which divided the view of the concrete and glass courthouse across the street into neat grey horizontal lines. I could tell he was too nervous to sit down. His hands were again busy with his hair. Flutter, pat, comb. Flutter, pat, comb.
‘With that in mind, I propose we don’t take notes during the sessions themselves. Obviously we’ll record them, and then after Laurie has left we’ll discuss and make proper records.’
Laurie. The news reports had referred to her as ‘The Minor’ or ‘Child L’. Her brother, David, whose own psychiatric assessment was being carried out in tandem by Ed and Dan Oppenheimer, was Child D. Hearing Laurie’s name gave me a jolt. That was probably the first time I’d really thought about her as a child, rather than a case study. The understanding that someone real had gone through what she went through and seen what she’d seen, caused a painful tightening in my chest. What would that do to a person?
Suddenly, I was terribly aware that I was way out of my depth.
There was a knock.
‘Come in,’ said Ed Kowalsky and I watched him unzip his smile.
First through the door was a stocky middle-aged woman with a wide moon-face and neat brown hair tucked behind her ears. She was wearing a loose-fitting cream top in the kind of linen fabric that creases easily, and a calf-length brown skirt that rubbed against her sheer flesh-coloured pantyhose, creating a static field around her legs. A large canvas bag was slung over one shoulder, while on the other arm a thin leather watch-strap cut into her wrist so that the pale flesh bulged over it on either side. On the end of that arm, her plump fingers were closed around the hand of a child.
‘Hi, y’all. I’m Debra Albright from the Child Welfare Agency. And this here is Laurie.’
You’ll think I’m just saying this with the benefit of hindsight, but I swear as the small figure followed the social worker into the room, the temperature dropped around ten degrees. Cold prickled at the back of my neck despite the balmy, early-fall day outside.
‘Hi, Laurie.’ Ed dropped into a squat, his knees creaking as he did so, and held out a hand.
The little girl gave a shy smile that was like a light going on under her skin. Without letting go of her social worker, she reached out and shook Professor Kowalsky’s hand. He shot me a brief sideways glance, so fleeting I would have missed it if I’d blinked, but I knew exactly what it meant. Despite everything that had happened to her, all the horror she had witnessed, Laurie hadn’t shied away from human contact.
It was a hopeful sign.
Given everything that came afterwards, I now realize just how alert we were for such signs, and how vulnerable that made us.
And how dangerous.
Paula seemed flustered when she came out. Amira instantly dropped her head and frowned intently at her computer screen, trying to look deep in concentration and not as if she’d just been staring through the glass walls of the executive manager’s office, attempting to lipread the conversation.
‘Hello, everyone, can I have your attention?’
Paula was standing awkwardly on the periphery of the open-plan office, trying to project her voice. She half raised her hand and then dropped it instantly, her cheeks flaring pink, but not before Amira had caught a glimpse of dark circles under the arms of her colleague’s pale-blue T-shirt. Poor Paula had been having a hard time of it recently. Not that she’d ever admit it.
‘Could you all gather round, please? Rachel would like to say a few words.’
‘Yeah, like “here’s your P45”,’ muttered Charlie under his breath.
Amira’s heart jolted. Though they’d all been making gallows-humour jokes about losing their jobs on the way back from the pub, the truth was, Amira was scared stiff at the possibility of being made redundant. Two hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds’ worth of scared. That’s how big the mortgage was that she’d basically forced Tom to take on so that they could finally move into their own flat. Without her salary, they could not afford to carry on living there. And the way things were going in the recruitment world, she was unlikely to waltz straight into another job. She and Tom had been getting on so badly recently, partly due to the financial strain under which the move had put them, plus the added pressure of dealing with her perennially unhappy mother who still couldn’t understand why they hadn’t wanted to carry on living with her. Losing her job, Amira felt, could tip them over the edge.
The door to what Amira still thought of as Gill’s office swung open and Rachel Masters stepped out. You couldn’t deny she was attractive, with sleek black hair that fell past her shoulders, cheekbones sharp as Toblerones, oyster-coloured silk shirt tucked into a slim skirt and gym-toned legs ending in nude heels so high you suddenly realized how tiny she must be without them. Her face had that healthy outdoors glow that good quality make-up gives you and she was wearing a very particular scent that Amira couldn’t identify. Musky, smoky – almost overpowering. She must have given herself a spray before she came out, Amira decided. Bit of Dutch courage. Seemed to be working wonders on Ewan though. He was a tall guy anyway, but he visibly pulled himself up straighter as the new boss passed, his handsome boy/man face turning to follow her as if drawn by an invisible string. Plonker. But you couldn’t hold it against him any more than you could resent a puppy for jumping up at you. Amira knew she had a reputation for being too plain-spoken, so she had a soft spot for Ewan and his total lack of guile.
‘Glad you all decided to show up finally.’
Rachel’s high, girlish voice, so at odds with her fearsome reputation, came as a shock. She gazed steadily around at each of them in turn, until they were all shuffling their feet or staring down at the carpet.
‘I’m aware a lot of you will be feeling upset about Gill’s leaving and concerned about your own futures here. I’m not going to sugar-coat things. The department is in a precarious state. It’s not entirely Gill’s fault. She did a commendable job here for several years, but the industry has changed beyond recognition and the department failed to change with it. My job is to turn us around so we become more effective and super-attractive to new clients. But I’m not going to lie, it’s going to be painful, and there may well need to be some further staff restructuring. I’ve been brought in to make the hard decisions and that’s what I intend to do. I hope you’ll all give me your utmost cooperation. After all, we ultimately want the same thing – a successful, profitable department we can be proud of.’
Rachel flashed a smile that was gone almost as soon as it began, but still she remained in place, her eyes sweeping around. Amira attempted to hold the new manager’s gaze when it alighted on her, digging her nails into her palm, but in the end she looked away feeling as if she’d conceded something.
‘Right. I’ll be calling each of you into my office individually over the next couple of days so I can find out a bit more about you and how you see your role in the organization. And then we’ll take it from there.’
She half turned, but Chloe stepped forward, practically blocking her way. Amira groaned when she saw that the willowy office assistant actually had her hand in the air like a small child in the classroom.
‘Rachel, hi. Just wanted first to say “welcome” and secondly to ask—’
‘I’m not taking questions at this point.’ Rachel’s high-pitched voice was clipped as if someone had slammed a door on it. ‘If there’s anything you need to know, you can ask when you come in to see me.’
Chloe’s English-rose cheeks flushed red as Rachel clickety-clacked briskly back to her office on her vertiginous heels, and Amira felt sorry for the girl. She could be a pain in the bum sometimes and was an arse-licker extraordinaire, but she was only twenty-four, and was being paid peanuts to come into work every day. And she’d be mortified to be snubbed like that in front of Ewan, whom she was constantly trying to impress. As far as Amira could tell, no one in Chloe’s life had ever said no to her, and she thought for a horrible moment that the younger woman was about to cry.
‘I was only going to ask her if we should be doing anything to prepare for our interview.’
‘Ah bless, you were asking for homework.’
Charlie didn’t mean to be unkind, it was just his manner, but Amira knew Chloe wouldn’t get it. She’d once overheard her telling Paula she felt Charlie’s attitude to women bordered on sexual harassment because of his liberal use of ‘sweetie’ and ‘love’ when addressing colleagues. Paula had had to point out that he used the same endearments to the male members of staff and she shouldn’t read too much into it.
‘I’m sure you don’t need to prepare anything, Chloe,’ Paula snapped.
Amira glanced over curiously. That wasn’t like Paula. Normally her responses to everything were so infuriatingly measured it made you want to say something outrageous, just to provoke her into a reaction. On closer inspection, Paula was not looking her usual placid, contained self. Her faded brown bob was neat as ever, but her face looked washed out, the features smudged and undefined.
Idly, Amira’s gaze slid across from Paula to the glass box which she must now force herself to think of as Rachel’s office. With a start, her eyes locked with those of her new boss. The woman was leaning back in her desk chair staring straight out. Her face, clear of the practised smile she’d been wearing earlier, was set hard – and even from a few yards away, Amira could see how tightly she was clutching the pen whose end she was clicking in and out, in and out with an unnerving rhythmic intensity.
Amira found herself glancing away, feeling unaccountably guilty – why? Yet really, mightn’t it all turn out for the best? It was a shame Gill had to go, but they’d all known it was on the cards. The department’s poor performance had been highlighted in the company’s annual review and it was only a matter of time before someone was called to account – and Gill was the obvious candidate. So the change around wasn’t entirely unexpected. There and then, Amira decided to keep her head down and wait for things to settle.
But as she opened up a PDF file that pinged into her inbox from the still-sulking Chloe, Amira couldn’t quite shake off the memory of those metallic blue eyes burning like acid into her own.
She was going to be late again. She’d had to wait for two tubes to go from the platform at Finsbury Park before she was finally able to squeeze into a carriage, where she ended up pressed into the armpit of a sweating young man in a shiny suit wearing too much aftershave and not enough deodorant. And then once she’d changed to a different line at King’s Cross, the train had sat in a tunnel just outside Liverpool Street for ages, with Sarah’s stress levels rising by the second. They were so close to her destination she could have practically jumped out and on to the platform, but instead she’d had to stand gripping the rail and trying to remember what that stress management leaflet they’d all been sent had said about finding your happy place in your mind. Bed – that would be her happy place.
Now she was running awkwardly up the stairs of the tube station and wishing she hadn’t worn the black skirt that had never really fitted her properly again after the second baby was born. The skirt hadn’t been her first choice. In honour of the new boss, she’d put on her best trousers, but then Sam had decided that his little brother Joe needed a nappy change, only Joe had got bored halfway through and gone toddling off to find his mum who’d just sat down to gulp her tea. Without thinking, she’d picked him up and plonked him on her knee, realizing too late why Sam had thought, in his three-year-old wisdom, that his brother needed his nappy changed. Off had come the trousers. She’d had to pull the skirt out from the wash-basket. ‘These trousers say Dry Clean Only,’ Oliver had called, squatting on his haunches by the washing machine, and if Sarah hadn’t been in such a rush she’d have laughed out loud. Two babies in three years and he still thought she owned anything, anything, that had to be taken to the dry cleaner.
On the streets of the City, she bowed her head against the persistent drizzle that seemed to have arrived out of the blue while she was underground. The shower at home had done the very same thing that morning, spurting arcs of water horizontally across the bathroom with no forewarning at all. The rain, she knew, would make her red hair frizz. Despite the arsenal of anti-frizz products that crowded their cramped bathroom shelves to Oliver’s endless frustration, Sarah’s hair only had to get a snifter of atmospheric moisture and up it sprang around her head like something you’d use to scour a pan.
She had an unwelcome flashback to Rachel Masters’s cool silk shirt and uncreased skirt. Pulling her phone out of her bag she glanced at the time. 9.10. Gill had always been very understanding about the occasional late start. She knew Sarah would more than make up for it by taking work home or staying late on Wednesdays when Oliver’s mum took the boys. Though she didn’t have children herself, she’d never made Sarah feel bad about it. Sarah remembered how nervous she’d been when she’d had to break it to Gill that she was pregnant again just months after returning to work from a year’s maternity leave with Sam, and how relieved when, after a deep sigh, her boss had simply said: ‘Congratulations.’
Sarah tried to remember whether Rachel had children or not, raking back through the bits and pieces of gossip that had floated across to them over the last twenty-four hours from acquaintances at other companies their new boss had worked for during her rapid rise through the ranks. She thought not. But that needn’t necessarily make any difference. Her sister worked in sales and had once had a boss with four children who was so desperate to prove that being a mother hadn’t softened her up that she was far harder on the parents among her staff than anyone else, refusing to make even the slightest of concessions. So you could never tell.
Sarah pushed through the glass doors into the reception area with its plastic pot plants on top of a narrow laminated desk, behind which sat the receptionist with the hair extensions; Sarah could never remember her name. The woman’s electric-blue-painted nails were so long that it took her for ever to tap numbers in on her phone pad using just the tips of her fingers.
‘Morning,’ said Sarah, hurrying past while looping the cord of her plastic ID card around her neck. She had that unpleasant out-of-breath feeling, as if her lungs were being gently raked with an ice-scraper.
The receptionist glanced up but didn’t respond.
On the fifth floor, Sarah scurried out of the lift and in through the double doors that led to her open-plan office. As her desk was on the far side, she’d have to cross in front of Rachel Masters’s glass cubicle. She glanced over and saw the black head bent over the desk. If she just took off her jacket at the door and carried it in her left hand, out of Rachel’s line of sight, she might look like she was just sauntering back from the loo instead of arriving fifteen minutes late.
Safely seated at her desk, Sarah finally risked looking across. Rachel was still engrossed in whatever she was working on and didn’t appear to have noticed. Sarah inhaled deeply, feeling the knot of anxiety that had been lodged inside her gradually unravel. Only then did she become aware of the strange atmosphere in the office.
‘What’s going on?’ she hissed at Charlie.
He gave her a funny little sideways look, swivelling his head towards her while the rest of him remained firmly in work pose.
‘We’ve been regulated,’ he whispered. ‘By the new Führer. Apparently we’re wasting too much time on coffee and chitty-chatty. Once we’re in the office we’re expected to be in work mode straight away. Like that.’
He snapped his fingers in front of his face.
‘What did she actually . . .’
Sarah’s voice tailed off as the door to Rachel’s office was flung open and her new boss strode out, pausing by Paula’s desk to confer. Sarah’s heart stopped as suddenly both women swung around to look her way.
‘Sarah, could you come into my office, please.’
‘You’re in trou-ble, you’re in trou-ble,’ sang Charlie softly.
Sarah tried to smile but her mouth was dry as she made her way across the office, aware that everyone else was tracking her movements. Rachel had said she would be calling them each in individually – she was probably the first. If only she’d had a chance to think about it, and put her thoughts in order. She’d meant to sit down last night and write out a bullet-point list of her achievements in her role, and how she thought productivity could improve – the sort of thing new bosses want to hear. But then Sam had had a tantrum about having his hair washed, and it had taken ages to calm him down, and after that he’d insisted on reading two story books instead of the usual one, and by the time she’d got downstairs she hadn’t had the energy to do anything except pour herself a glass of wine and watch the telly.
Outside Rachel’s door, she hesitated, unsure whether to knock. Unnecessary, she decided, seeing as Rachel had only that minute called her in.
‘Hello,’ she said, in a jolly voice she instantly regretted. She pulled back the spare chair facing Rachel, ready to sit down.
‘Don’t worry about a chair, you won’t be here long enough to need it,’ said Rachel Masters. Her face was hidden behind her hair, her eyes trained on the folder on her desk. The moment stretched out in agonizing silence until, finally, she looked up.
‘Are you often late, Sarah?’
The jolt of those blue eyes. Like falling on ice. Slam.
‘No. It was just the trains today were—’
‘Only I’ve been informed that punctuality has been an issue with you in the past.’
Sarah felt her eyes instantly burn with hot tears. Someone had gone behind her back and complained about her. Someone out there in the office. One of the people she called friends.
‘Who told you?’ she asked.
‘It’s not important. The important thing is that you are aware that no matter what arrangement you had with Gill, that’s not how I run things. I expect all members of staff, regardless of circumstances, to be in work at 9 a.m. and to remain at work until 5.30 p.m. at the very earliest. And if for any reason you arrive later than 9 a.m., I expect you to come straight to see me to explain. Are we clear?’
Sarah nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
Back at her desk, she turned on her computer and logged in without looking at anyone else. She could feel them all sneaking glances over at her, but she kept her gaze fixed to her screen.
Already there was the hot, gut-churning burn of injustice, the sharp needle of clever words she didn’t say, winning arguments she didn’t use. Who did Rachel Masters think she was anyway? Sarah was thirty-seven years old, yet Rachel had talked to her like a naughty child. After half an hour or so of account checking on-screen, she finally got up the nerve to take her phone out of her bag. Holding it on her lap, she texted her husband.
Was late and got telling off from new bitch boss. Feel like crying.
As soon as she pressed send she felt substantially better. She imagined laughing with Oliver about it this evening over a large glass of wine. Rachel Masters might have a more high-powered job than her but she didn’t have what Sarah had – a family, a husband, people who depended on her and upon whom she depended in turn.
Even so, when she made her way to the toilet an hour later – fear of being judged a time-waster finally losing out to post-natal bladder – she couldn’t help but cast a suspicious gaze around at her colleagues. They’d always got on so well in the past. There had been the occasional niggle – someone’s M&S smoothie going missing from the fridge, that time Amira hadn’t handed on a message and Sarah had lost a key client – but on the whole it had been an easy-going team. But now as she threaded her way through her workmates’ desks, still studiedly avoiding their eyes, a question ran through Sarah’s mind on a continuous loop.
Was it you?
There’s a steady stream of students who make the trip to the fourth floor, along the corridor past the framed photographs of the faculty, to knock on my door. When this happens, I try to look nurturing, and call, ‘Come in,’ in as welcoming a voice as I can muster. I have a reputation, you see, as someone who is as much concerned with the emotional well-being of the students who pass through here as with their intellectual stimulation. They come to me with questions about assignment deadlines or reading lists or resource materials, but what they really want to talk about is whether psychiatry is the right thing for them, or how to combat the homesickness that has taken over their minds until they can’t think about anything except how their mother looked when she said goodbye, or the bar where their old friends will be gathering without them on Friday night, or how they’ve fallen behind because a careless boyfriend or girlfriend has shattered their heart into little pieces that they cannot for the life of them put back together again.
And I listen, and commiserate, and tell them they’re not alone – and bring up examples of past students who’ve stood in the same spot and wept similar tears and gone on to achieve great things – and they leave here feeling a little bit more robust. Some of them even email me later, to tell me I made a difference, that seeing me was a personal turning point in their university experience. I reply that I was just in the right place at the right time – that it was nothing. But I know that not everyone could do what I do. And no one seems to notice that it doesn’t come naturally. No one seems to see that I wear my concern like a lab coat that I have shrugged on over my real clothes.
I like my students, and I feel for them, just realizing for the first time that they’re not at the centre of the world, their solipsism dissolving in the face of their own anonymity here. It’s just that empathy wasn’t one of the life skills my mother passed on to me. A bottle of vodka a day tends to make a person self-absorbed.
I’m popular here, but I know many of the younger faculty must wish I’d retire. They’re hungry for my job because they see it as a stepping stone to something else, a necessary middle stage in their career development. And here I sit like a boulder blocking the stream of their lives. But I give them no reason to push me out. I’m old, but we live in an era where age is legally protected even while secretly derided and resented. I still publish the odd paper, still give lectures, even if sometimes the back row complain they can’t hear me. I won’t go because I have nothing to go to. Now that Shannon has left home and Johnny and I are long since divorced, this is all I have.
But the young woman who was introduced by Professor Ed Kowalsky to Child L in that airless room all those years ago was a different person altogether. Not so cynical, and quietly trying my best.
‘I’m so glad to meet you, Laurie.’ Bending down so I was on her eye level. Trying not to think about what those eyes had seen.
So what was it like, that first session? What you really want to know is, how damaged was she?
The truth is, she presented as a normal four-year-old girl. By turns talkative, then clamming up, shy, then suddenly bursting with life.
We agreed we wouldn’t ask her any leading questions that first session, just observe and be guided by her, but in the end she brought it up herself. Ed had asked her what games she most liked to play and she smiled and brought her hands up next to her mouth, her little fists clenched with excitement.
‘Oooh, hide and seek.’ She did a little skip.
‘And where’s your favourite place to hide?’
‘In the kitchen, under the table, or in the bedroom closet. Mustn’t hide in the basement. Mustn’t hide there.’ Laurie shook her head forcefully from side to side.
Ed didn’t look at me, but I could feel it, the tension that entered the room like a cold draught. Debra the social worker wrapped her plump arms around herself.
‘Why not the basement, Laurie? What’s in there?’
I could sense the effort it was costing Ed to keep his voice steady and measured.
Laurie, who’d been standing facing him, suddenly turned away – and it was a shock to find her eyes fixed on mine.
‘It,’ she said. ‘It is in there.’
After that she didn’t want to talk much.
‘She’s tired,’ Debra said, hoisting her canvas bag back on to her broad shoulder.
I’m embarrassed to admit that after the child left the room, I was light-headed with relief.