Page 43 of The Fallback

Her phone beeped again.

‘You know you can turn off those multiple alerts?’ Mitch said.

‘What?’ she asked as she looked at her phone seeing messages from both Jasmine and Nadia, ‘Yes, I do know that, thank you very much. It was actually two messages.’

‘Anyone interesting?’ He craned his neck to look over at her screen having lost interest in his own phone.

‘No,’ she said, marking the message from Jasmine as read and reminding herself once again that shereallyneeded to call her back. ‘Unless you count either Jasmine or Nadia as interesting.’

‘I count both of them as interesting,’ Mitch said earnestly. ‘How is Nadia, by the way? I haven’t seen her for ages.’

Rosie put her phone back in her bag and realised that telling Mitch about Nadia might be a good way of distracting him from her love life.

‘Actually, she’s stressed.’ Mitch looked at her quizzically. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s unlike her. She’s worried about the funding cuts she thinks are coming our way.’

Mitch leaned back against the bench, ‘The Staverton report?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ Rosie confirmed. ‘Actually, you must know all the details. Maybe you can give her some reassurance?’ she asked, suddenly eager.

Mitch sighed and stared up at the sky. ‘I wish I could,’ he said, ‘but the report makes for pretty grim reading.’ He looked back at Rosie, ‘They’re making cuts across the board, I bet it will have an impact on Nadia.’ He gave a low whistle. ‘I should have realised it might.’

‘You knew?’ Rosie spluttered. ‘How long have you known for?’

‘A few weeks – one of my contacts at the department gave me the outline of it.’ He noticed the look on Rosie’s face. ‘But I didn’t know the details until this week,’ he said defensively.

‘You could have warned me,’ Rosie said a little crossly.

‘I didn't think it would impact you,’ Mitch protested, ‘and it doesn't, right?’

‘No, not really’ she begrudgingly conceded. ‘But it does impact one of my best friends.’

‘Rosie,’ Mitch said levelly, ‘I get a lot of confidential information all the time, I can’t tell you everything.’

Rosie knew she was being unreasonable. Of course her mood had nothing to do with the funding cuts and everything to do with Mitch and their plan and the Jenny-shaped spanner he had thrown into it.

‘Rosie, I am sorry,’ Mitch said reaching across to grab her arm. ‘Let me talk to Nadia. I bet I can put in a word with some people and make sure her grant applications get seen by the right committees.’

‘But it’s not just her,’ insisted Rosie, not quite ready to let this one go. ‘Nico has already lost out on one of his applications, he’s worried he’s going to lose his job.’ Mitch looked stricken.

‘That’s really terrible. I like Nico. Let me see if I can help. I’ll talk to both of them, see if I can get any useful information for them.’ He straightened up as if readying to stand up. ‘But Rosie, it’s really not my fault about the cuts.’

‘Thank you,’ she said in what she hoped came across as a conciliatory tone.

‘Hey, before I forget, I’m going out with some work people a week Friday, want to come?’ Mitch asked.

Rosie hadn’t been out with Mitch’s work crowd for ages. It was always good fun, journalists knew how to drink and if you were savvy with your own alcohol intake then you could get them to spill all sorts of gossip. Rosie was constantly amazed at the sort of tittle tattle that a supposedly respectable broadsheet journalist hunted down, only for it never to appear in their paper and to make a splash in a tabloid instead.

‘It’s all about understanding the market,’ one of Mitch’s colleagues had told her sagely when Rosie had asked her about it.

Maybe a night out with them would be just what she needed.

‘Got any new single colleagues?’ she asked.

Mitch gaped at her, ‘Rosie! What’s got into you? Looks like this online dating thing is starting to have an effect.’ He put his hand on her arm. Rosie really wished he would stop touching her, it only made her realise the difference in sensation between his touch and Graham’s. ‘I am sorry about last night, though. I know online dating isn’t your favourite thing to do and I’m really proud of you for putting yourself out there.’

Rosie grimaced at his patronising choice of words.

‘And you can’t fancy everyone,’ he said wisely. ‘Just because someone is perfect on paper it doesn’t mean that sparks will fly. Look at me,’ he said pointing at himself. ‘I should know. The amount of dates I have been on with people I should fancy and yet…’ He shrugged. ‘Nothing happens.’ He looked at her with puppy-dog sorrowful eyes.

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