Alphabet Weekends - Elizabeth Noble [26]
Patrick wasn’t even sure it wasn’t fair. She was good, Miranda Clarke, very good. People talked a lot of crap about redundancy, didn’t they? They thought they were being comforting and philosophical and, let’s face it, in that situation it’s a hell of a lot easier to say the wrong thing than get it right, but what it all boiled down to in the end was that the people in charge don’t get rid of the best people. They get rid of the expendable ones. The quite-good but not-as-good ones.
He’d taken a cardboard box down to his car on the way to her office. She was two floors higher, but he’d taken one down in the lift to the car park first. It had given him time. The box was a bit tragic. A photograph of Lucy and the kids. A miniature Zen garden with a tiny rake that Bella had given him for Christmas last year. She’d be glad to have it back – she was the only one who had ever tended it. Black tie from the back of his door, kept there in case. As though anyone you were giving bad news to would notice. A half-bottle of Famous Grouse and two shot glasses.
Miranda Clarke came out to get him. He was glad she hadn’t sent someone else to usher him in. She fidgeted uncomfortably. He’d never seen her discomfited before.
She must be about ten years younger than him. When did that happen? When had he suddenly become so old that much younger people could be better at his job than he was? She was a pretty girl. Too neat and proper to be sexy, but still good-looking. She had big, wide-set eyes, and she always wore her long blonde hair in a pony-tail, tied at the nape of her neck.
This was the woman who had emasculated him. It wasn’t melodramatic, to him, calling it that. He’d never say it aloud, of course, but that was how it felt. Like she’d taken away his manhood, much more than his job. He couldn’t even make love to his wife – hadn’t since it had happened. As that thought flew in and out of his brain, he hated her, just for that moment. He thought about bending Miranda Clarke over the desk, and fucking her roughly. He thought about the power. Just the idea made him feel like a rapist. He wondered if his cheeks had reddened.
She’d come with a reputation, and people like that almost always disappoint, but he had liked her, when they’d first met, and, even though he had known she and he were at war, a war that she had won, he still liked her now. He would not like to have been doing this.
He supposed that another man might make it difficult for her, but he wouldn’t. What was the point? Even in his own head he sounded defeated. He sat down in the black leather chair.
‘This is horrible, Patrick. I’m sorry. Would you rather not do it?’
‘I’m fine.’ Ed always said that, when you asked him how he was. Fine. A child’s answer. Inaccurate and uncomprehending.
Miranda’s hands were shaking slightly. She was fiddling with things on her desk. He’d thought she would be more professional than this. More guarded. But her youth was suddenly showing. For one last time, he took charge. ‘I’ve been over the papers, had a lawyer take a look at them, of course. It all makes sense. And it’s pretty fair.’
‘Good. I would have hated it to be any other way.’
‘I’ll finish at the end of the week, as agreed.’
‘Fine. Is there anything you’d like to share with me?’
He smiled directly at her. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Of course.’ This was awkward. Strangely, he felt a little sorry for her.
‘Have you made any plans?’
‘No. I think I need a little time.’
‘Of course.’ She stared at her hands, clasped on the desk in front of her. She had one of those manicures – the kind where the tips of the nails are square and impossibly white. ‘Patrick. I’m… I just wanted to say that I’m sorry about all of this… I…’
Patrick put up his hand to stop her, and smiled. All these smiles, suddenly. How very civilised. ‘Never apologise, never explain. Isn’t that what they say? I think it’s particularly