Page 2 of Escape to the Country

I looked across at the other desk in the room where Melissa had sat before she’d left on Friday and imagined placing my new gorgeous planner there. I could put my pen pot on the right-hand side of the desk, and my rack of trays on the left.

Celine came back to the couch, sighed deeply and breathed in. ‘I’m so sorry Madison, but I’m going to have to let you go.’

I smiled. ‘Oh OK, no problem. Shall I come back in a little while when you are less busy? How long do you think you’ll need?’ I was disappointed of course, but it could wait until later. This was way too important to not make the most of.

‘Madison.’ She sighed loudly. ‘I’m not sure you understand me. There are lots of changes taking place, and with the boom in the online marketplace, the company isn’t doing anywhere near as well as it used to. There’s no easy way to say this. I’m going to have to let you go. I have to make you and some of the other staff redundant. I’m so very sorry and it breaks my heart to do this to you but I have no other option. Either I make a few people redundant or we close completely. We’re so sorry but we have to do this to give the business one last chance.’

Time stood still as I looked at her in disbelief.

‘Let me go? Make me redundant?’ I questioned. Was I hearing her correctly? Numbness set into my body. I couldn’t move.

‘Yes, dear, that’s right. I really am sorry. It’s not what I wanted but we’ve explored every option. The HR department will be in touch with you and I think you’ll find that we’ve been most generous with your redundancy payout to show our thanks for your support over the years. I’m so sorry, Madison, but I have no alternative. As you know, we’ve had accountants and solicitors in over the last few weeks and we really have explored every option, but there is nothing else we can do.’

A tear plopped into the cup of tea I was holding and my hands began to shake.

‘Now now, dahling, please don’t cry. Let’s not make this any worse than it already is.’ She came across, took the cup from me and placed it on the table. Putting her arm around my shoulders, she tried to comfort me.

‘Sometimes these things work out for the best. You’ll have enough money to see you through for a good few months, while you look around. And you will find something else, something wonderful – just like you – and I shall give you a personal glowing reference. And if ever I need a right-hand woman in the future, you’re the first person I’ll call. I promise you that.’

She stood to indicate that our chat had come to an end and steered me towards the door. ‘I think that under the circumstances, you should just pack up your things and leave now, before the others come into work and you have to face them. Less upsetting for everyone. I’ll leave you to gather your things together. There should be a letter in the next day or so from the HR department, detailing your settlement. Your company car will need to be returned at the end of the month and if you could leave your company mobile phone on your desk, that would be good. I really am so sorry, Madison. I wish things could have been different.’ Her voice broke and the strain on her face told me that this was hard for her too. ‘Goodbye and thank you for everything. Good luck for the future.’ She leaned into me and pecked my cheek nervously, blinking away tears before walking back to her desk.

And just like that, after twelve years of working at Ronington’s PR and Marketing, I was dismissed.

* * *

In a daze, I stumbled to the kitchen and found an empty box and took it over to my desk. I packed away the mug that I had used every day for the last two years; the mug I was presented with, along with an engraved paperweight and an Amazon voucher, on my ten-year anniversary of working here. I packed away my pens and my note pads, my calculator and my ruler. I opened my desk and removed the emergency pair of natural-coloured tights and the headache tablets that I always had close at hand in case anyone needed them. The packet soups and the bars of chocolate that I kept handy for the late-night shifts got thrown into the box. There was nothing left. That was it. My drawers and my desk were empty.

Twelve years of hard work, dedication and a working life were packed away in a small box within a minute or two at the most. I did a small calculation in my head and worked out that I’d spent more time here in this office than I had at home awake. How very sad was that! I was officially redundant. I didn’t have a job. My job was my life. What was I going to do? And more than that, what would people think? I’d told so many people that I had the best job and the best life, and that I was going to get promoted. They’d all be laughing at me now. My heart started to pound. I couldn’t let it happen again. I couldn’t go back to the point I’d been at before. My breathing started to become erratic and my head was banging. I thought I was going to have a panic attack.

Trying to remember all the mechanisms that I’d been taught to cope with this feeling, I tried to stay focused and leave the office by the stairs, to avoid bumping into anyone when I was coming out of the lift. I went through reception and out of the revolving doors, looking back only once. I walked around the corner from the entrance and took a seat on a nearby wall and started to inhale slowly and deeply through my nose, imagining my lungs filling with good air. Then I breathed out through my mouth, pushing all the bad thoughts away. I closed my eyes and concentrated on nothing else but my breathing until eventually it started to steady and I felt better, calmer, more grounded. Stumbling a little but taking it really slowly, I made my way over to the car park, where my black Mercedes C Class, my pride and joy, awaited me. As I sank into the driver’s seat, I leant back into the headrest and did those breathing exercises. And I made my way home.

2

I drove home in a bit of a daze to my rented lakeside apartment. As I walked through the door and looked at its sparseness, something hit me. Because I was always at work or working away, I never spent much time there, but I saw it this morning through new eyes and as I looked around me trying to gain some comfort from the one place that you are supposed to feel safe and content, I realised that my home actually had no soul.

This was the place that Jamie and I had picked eight years ago, to spend what I thought would be the next chapter of our lives together. We chose the gorgeous Staffordshire lakeside setting as it was quite a trendy location, not too far from Stafford town centre where we both worked, and there were a few bars close by too. It was also the place that held so many memories; some great and some that I couldn’t bear to think about.

Out of habit, I picked up my phone to see whether I had any missed calls and realised that actually no one was going to call me. This was my personal phone and all my work calls would be going to the phone I’d left at the office. I felt like I’d lost my purpose. It was a really strange feeling. Normally I would walk through the door and set up my Mac on the dining room table, and it was always there in the background. But now, I had no computer to turn on. There was no pinging of emails, or dinging of our automated work communication system. Just silence. Even when I took time off, which was very rare for me, I always checked in every day, just in case anything important came through. But now there was nothing to check. I supposed at the agency I liked to feel like I was indispensable but now I thought about it, was anyone, ever? Was anyone at work even thinking about me now and how I felt? I’d thought some of them may have phoned me, to be honest, after they’d been told the news, but I had heard not a sausage from a soul that I had spent every day of my life with. It was weird and deathly quiet. And I hated it.

I had some serious thinking to do. What did I do now? What would the time ahead hold for me? Ronington’s PR and Marketing was everything to me; I’d thrown my heart and soul into that company for the last twelve years.

I really didn’t know what I was going to do with myself going forward and it was hugely worrying. What was I going to do with the rest of my life? How was I going to cope? What was I going to do for money? Would I have to go back to live with Mum and give up this flat? How did I actually feel about that? So many questions were running through my mind and it was overwhelming.

When I heard of other people losing their jobs in this way, I always wondered what sort of person it happened to. But now I’d been made redundant myself, I realised that anyone could be affected like this. How life could change in a heartbeat. And right now the overriding feeling I had was that I clearly must be totally useless and they didn’t want or need me.

I always thought I’d be settled in life by now, with a family of my own, juggling work and home life effectively, but at the grand old age of thirty-seven, I was single and childless. I’d always been the successful one, the one who left Giddywell to make a fantastic life for herself elsewhere. But now? I felt like such a loser. What would people think?

My heart began to beat faster once more as I focused again on what had happened to me. It had come as such a shock. This morning I was going to work thinking I was going to be promoted, andbang! Not only did I not get the promotion that I’d been expecting, but I also now didn’t have a job at all.

As I started to feel nauseous again, I grabbed the back of the sofa for support. A wooziness took over my body and I had so much stuff going through my head, I felt like it was going to explode. So many questions to answer. I hadn’t felt this discombobulated since everything happened with Jamie.

This wasn’t me. My life was sorted. I was busy from early on a Monday morning to late on a Friday night and I worked most weekends too from home. Living alone and rushing around all the time meant that most days I didn’t bother with breakfast, grabbing a sandwich from a petrol station which I ate while driving and dining on ready meals each night, which probably weren’t all that good for my health or my weight. Which was probably why my backside wasn’t getting any smaller these days.

I wasn’t one for wasting time, even if it was just a few seconds. When I got up in the morning, I had my little routine where I filled the kettle and flicked it on while I went to the loo, so that the kettle was boiled when I got back, saving me valuable minutes of standing around doing nothing. While filling the sink with water to do the washing up, I’d be wiping the already sterile sides down. It was almost like I had to fill every second of my life with doing something.

I’m not sure when I started to do that. Probably when my thoughts began to overtake everything and I filled every second of my time with activity of some sort to stop me thinking. It struck me now though that I didn’t know how to relax. And right now, I felt like I didn’t even know what my purpose in life was. My breath started to speed up once more and I recognised the feeling that I hated. I was going to have to revert to my failsafe coping strategy which always calmed me down. I was going to have to make a list.

What did I need to do next? What steps did I need to take to move my life forward?

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