Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [132]
She thought she might cry. She was fast running out of any resolve to do what Fintan wanted. All that unused adrenaline was turning on her, making her feel hopeless and depressed.
But at twenty to four, as she came back from the ladies’ she saw him standing in the little glass room that housed the binding machine. And he was alone. Now! Now! Breathlessly, she hurried down the corridor, which seemed as vast as the Serengeti plain, willing no one to join him. She forced all her energy on keeping him isolated. So far, so good. No one – only him. But no! She could hear a person behind her. A woman, from the sounds of her shoes. Also in a hurry. Just as Katherine reached the door to the room, she looked to see who it was. Bloody Angie, of all people, a sheaf of papers in her arms.
Joe looked at Katherine without interest. ‘Just finished.’ He indicated the machine. ‘It’s all yours.’
At the exact moment that Katherine realized that she had no sheets of paper in her hands that justified her needing to use the binder, so did Joe and Angie. And there was nothing else to do in the binding room, only bind.
They both looked at her empty hands. Their eyes seemed to loom in and she could feel her hands grow and expand, becoming bigger and bigger, the size of plates.
‘Forgot…’ Katherine said, her voice thin, ‘… forgot my report.’
Angie nodded, looking with hard suspicion at Katherine. ‘Sure.’
‘You go ahead,’ Katherine said to Angie, making for the door.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said, with heavy emphasis. ‘I will. Joe, can you show me how to use this?’
When Joe returned to his desk he was miraculously undisturbed by visitors or phone calls. But Katherine didn’t bother. What’s the point? she asked herself. I’ll go to that awful effort of plucking up my courage, then someone will come along and it’ll all be wasted.
But she sneaked another look at him a few minutes later, and he was still alone, moodily flicking through papers.
And before she could stop herself, she was on her feet and, feeling like she was having a bad dream, moving across the floor in her weeny skirt. Then she was beside his desk. Quaking and shaking, she opened her mouth and heard herself say, ‘May I speak to you?’
With a graceful wave of his hand, Joe indicated a chair. His face was curious. Suspicious, almost. Dazed, she sat down, leant her elbows on his desk, then realized the moment of reckoning had arrived. Oh, Christ!
‘You may remember,’ she began haltingly, ‘some time ago, I, um…’
His face was unfriendly. No helpful, white-toothed smile, no encouraging nods, no warmth in his eyes.
She changed tack. ‘A few weeks ago,’ she started, ‘you came over to my desk and I, er, said something. Something that may have given you to think that I –’ She stopped abruptly. She was getting on her own nerves. ‘I accused you of sexual harassment,’ she said baldly.
‘Less of an accusation and more of an implication.’ Joe inclined his head. ‘But, yes, I remember.’
He didn’t laugh or make a joke and she realized she’d been hoping he would. He looked grim and serious and suddenly she saw it from his point of view. People lost their jobs for less.
‘I’d like to apologize,’ she said, feeling for the first time genuinely ashamed of it. ‘I’m sorry. It wasn’t true, and I should never have said it.’
His face was expressionless. ‘Apology accepted.
‘And,’ he continued, his brown eyes cool, ‘I owe you an apology. I came on too strong. I should just have taken no for an answer.’
That was the last thing she wanted to hear! ‘No, no!’ she protested. At his question-mark face, she almost lost her nerve and bottled out. Her voice emerged as a squeak, and she rushed into saying, ‘If that offer to go for a drink is still on the cards, I’d be delighted to accept.’
She squirmed in mortification. I hate you, Fintan O’Grady.
Joe looked at her, assessing her ruddy little face. She stared back, trying to read what was going on