‘Oh, you should totally go. I’ll be fine. I’m sure I’ll find a plan B easily enough.’
I didn’t tell her that my plan B would probably involve a day weeping in the bath while eating a three-day-old festive sandwich from Pret.
‘Are you sure? I can always ask Sandra if there’s room for one more?’
I grimaced. The thought of spending a week with Mum and her well-meaning but overbearingly wealthy sister – their relationship revolving around the unspoken agreement that they’d never acknowledge, let alone discuss, their political differences – filled me with immediate existential dread.
‘No, no, no, no, no.’Did I say ‘no’ too many times? Oh well.‘It’s fine. I’ll be fine. It’ll be… character-building.’
‘Hmm, if you say so. Well, to make up for the change of plan we’d love you and Josh to come round for a Sunday roast this weekend. I’ll send you both the details on WhatsApp.’
Unlike other families, we’d ice-skated around the convenience of forming a collective WhatsApp group. I think we all knew that the banality of GIFs and emojis would be completely at odds with everything else that would undoubtedly go unsaid.
‘I’ll invite Saskia, too, but you know what she’s like,’ Mum said.
Huh, well, that would be a wasted invitation. Josh’s wife had made it perfectly clear that she couldn’t find us less interesting if she tried. I couldn’t help but think that the news of my parents’ last-minute December trip would probably be the highlight of her year.
‘She won’t come, Mum.’
‘Hmmm. Well, I’ve got to keep trying, haven’t I? Right, I’ve got to go, your dad’s got his finger hovering over the mouse to buy flights and he’s paranoid the prices are going to shoot up if we leave it too long. You know how jumpy he gets after that time he held off from booking Portugal until payday only for the prices to have doubled by then.’ Ah, ‘Algarve-gate’. We’d ended up going to Weymouth that year instead.
‘Well, tell Dad to complete that transaction. Honestly, I’ll be fine. I’ve got to head into that meeting now so…’
‘DO IT, BOB. Huh? Oh yes. Look, let’s speak about this properly later, okay?’
‘Sure. Bye, Mum.’
‘Bye, love.’
I slid my phone into my skirt pocket and started climbing the staircase towards the executive offices. Mum’s phone call had caught me totally off guard. On the one hand, I was thrilled they were finally going on this long-overdue trip. But, on the other, I had absolutely no clue what I was going to do with myself in their absence. The routine of going to Mum and Dad’s for the festive period was hardwired into me, and the thought ofnotgoing there felt massively discombobulating, especially after last night.
I reached the corridor ofThe Helix’s transparent ‘collaboration cabins’ (the trade press had had a field day with that one) and double-checked the room number that I’d scribbled at the top of my notepad before sliding the heavy, glass door open. The meeting had been put into my calendar last-minute by the director of operations – a damp and permanently harangued-looking man in his early fifties called Ian – after he realised my boss, Maggie, was on leave.
‘Ah – Mally, is it?’
Charming, I’d only worked there for almost ten years. Though I did have a carefully cultivated air of forgettability about me, so I couldn’t really blame him.
I activated smiley-Mally mode. ‘That’s me!’
‘Right. Sorry to put this on you, but in Maggie’s absence Izzy thought you’d be the best person for this.’
Izzy, Ian’s executive assistant, who was expected to attend every meeting with him, confirmed his summation with a flicker of a smile and a nod. Was it me or were they both looking even more grim than usual?
‘Mally,’ Ian said, placing his hands either side of his laptop and looking at me intently as if he was about to tell me that Santa wasn’t real. ‘We need to send an all-staff email about an… unexpected office closure before Christmas.’
Well, this was a surprise. I lowered my eyebrows as quickly as I could and shifted my expression into one that I hoped emanated professional intrigue.
‘Sure, no problem. What are the key messages we want to get across to employees?’
I turned to a fresh page in my notebook, my pen poised. Everyone else took their laptops into meetings but I preferred the traditional note-taking method. Izzy shot Ian a look before he replied.
‘Ah, well, we were hoping we could use your comms expertise to help us with that.’
Ian was now wearing a hopeful expression that reminded me of the way Elle’s three-year-old daughter, Frannie, looked at me when I was eating something sugary in her presence. I eventually deduced that he was waiting for me to talk.
‘Oh, right, so let’s start with the basic info,’ I said. ‘What date is the office closing and for how long?’
‘Of course, of course. So – where are we now, Izz?’
