with a woman called Sarah, who worked for another director. It was two days after Christmas and the office was full of Christmas lights and half-empty tins of chocolates.
We sat in his room drinking coffee while he talked about the business and how it had started up.
“I was working in an office on a big industrial estate, similar to this,” he said, “miles from any shops. There was a staff cafeteria, but it didn’t sell anything healthy, and the vending machines just sold sugar and salt, in one form or another. And all the people in the office would complain about it, that they were putting on weight. They’d forget to bring in something from home and there were no shops nearby, so they’d end up eating junk food. And I just thought, what if you could get healthy snacks delivered to you at work? It’s worked out really well. Some people have something delivered every day, others once a week, usually on a Monday morning or a Friday afternoon. We’re doing pretty well.” He laughed. “It’s amazing what people will buy if it’s in small enough quantities and cute enough packaging.”
“Interesting,” I said. “But to judge whether it’s a really good idea, I’d have to sample them, of course.”
He laughed again. “I’ll arrange that.”
I’d given him my résumé when I met him and now he pulled it out of the envelope.
“So you were made redundant from Jackson and Greene?”
“Yes, they closed their offices here and moved up to Edinburgh,” I said. “I was PA to the MD, Leo Jackson.”
“And you didn’t want to move up there? It’s a beautiful city.”
“My husband’s doing well in his job here,” I said. “He didn’t want to move.” I didn’t tell him that as Tom earned more, he had the final say. “His son’s here, too, so he wants to stay close. And Edinburgh’s much more expensive.” We were just about to make the final payments on our mortgage; as Tom had said, it didn’t make sense to start borrowing again.
Harry was quiet, reading through my résumé. “Oh, you went to Liverpool University?” he asked. “I did, too, a few years before you, though.” For the next couple of hours I don’t think we said another word about work. We found we had so much in common; we’d both lived in the Penny Lane area, had gone to the same bars, spent the summer evenings in Sefton Park.
For those two days we were alone and by the time I left the office on Friday evening, I felt as though I’d known him for months. That night, we went down in the elevator together and there was a moment where we both reached out to press the button for the ground floor and our hands touched.
We both felt that spark. For a split second I thought I’d got a shock off the panel on the elevator wall, but then it registered that I’d touched his hand, not the panel. I jumped back and pushed my hands into my coat pockets. I didn’t dare look at him. We both stood in silence, then realized the elevator hadn’t moved. Neither of us had pressed the button.
He gave a nervous laugh and when I looked furtively at him his face was scarlet.
“The office is shut for New Year’s, so I’ll see you on Wednesday,” he said formally as we exited the building.
“Okay. Happy New Year.”
“Happy New Year,” he said, and there was another moment, then, when we stood looking at each other. “Let’s hope it’s a good one.”
* * *
? ? ?
I felt so tender toward Harry as I remembered our first meeting. I picked up my phone to send him a message to tell him I understood if he couldn’t get away that night, but managed to stop myself. We’d agreed right from the start that we would never do that. We used only the office messenger system to communicate, never our own phones, though Harry would call the office landline if he was driving and wanted to chat at the end of the day. It would have been too easy to be discovered if we contacted each other at home. And