Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [69]
*
Joe went back to his desk and Myles, who’d been watching the exchange – him and most of the Breen Helmsford payroll – murmured sympathetically, ‘Kicked you to the kerb?’
‘Yes,’ Joe said hollowly.
Instantly it was mass-exodus time, as all the other men gave him the widest possible berth. Sometimes a man’s just got to be alone, they reasoned.
If it was a woman who’d been blown out, she’d have been besieged by other women, laden down with chocolate and comforting platitudes. ‘That pig!’ ‘Plenty more where he came from.’ ‘Bet he had a tiny willy, anyway.’
But because he was a man, Joe’s desk immediately became a tiny raft marooned in a very big sea. All morning, any men on the right-hand side of the office who wanted to talk to anyone working on the left-hand side went to the back of the office, down five flights of fire escape, out the back by the bins, around the block, back in the front door, up in the lift, into the office and over to the desk of the person they wanted to speak to, rather than pass in front of Joe.
Fred Franklin was the sole source of human contact and then only because he couldn’t be arsed walking down five flights of stairs. As he lumbered past, he placed his hand awkwardly on Joe’s shoulder and suggested in wise-and-kindly-elder-giving-advice-to-raw-youth fashion, ‘Shag someone else, son.’
Katherine ignored it all, she had work to do. Besides, she thought, he might be back. And if he is, I’ll know he’s a pathologically arrogant wanker. And if he doesn’t come back, he couldn’t have handled me anyway. Either way, I can’t lose.
Then she had an unexpected, unwelcome throb of loss. Maybe he wasn’t that bad. But, no, there was no scope for thinking that. Because they all were. Sooner or later.
Usually just after they’d slept with her.
Joe got through the morning, not quite a broken man but definitely badly bent out of shape. He went over and over his behaviour during the past three weeks and had to admit he’d been very persistent with Katherine. He’d always been can-do and practical. If you want something – or someone – you do your best to get them. But he’d never meant to be pushy.
Or to sexually harass her.
The thing was he was fairly sure he wasn’t guilty of sexual harassment. Which almost made it worse. She’d flung an extreme accusation at him, not because it was true but because she loathed him so much she had to find a good way of getting rid of him. The pain of rejection was acute. Especially when he’d thought he’d noticed a tiny thaw.
At lunchtime Myles looked deep inside himself for some words of comfort to offer Joe. Something profound and healing. Finally he hit on it.
He walked over to Joe, placed his hand on his shoulder, looked at him with immense compassion and said, ‘Fancy a pint?’
A tiny light appeared in Joe’s dazed, dead eyes. ‘Sure.’
They took a long lunch, even by advertising standards. In other words, they didn’t come back until three o’clock. The following day.
By the fifth pint, they’d exhausted their usual topics of conversation – Arsenal, cars, Arsenal, breasts, what pricks all their clients were, Arsenal, England’s chances of hosting the World Cup in 2006 – and were buffered enough to skirt around their feelings. In the middle of a discussion on Manchester’s public transport system, Joe blurted out the sexual-harassment charge.
‘I shouldn’t have forced her to come for lunch with me yesterday,’ he admitted, with shame and regret.
‘Worth a try, mate,’ consoled Myles, ever the wide-boy.
‘I pushed her too far, she’s obviously very fragile.’
Myles muttered something to the effect that Katherine was about as fragile as a Sherman tank
‘You don’t see what I see. She’s so…’ Joe stared dreamily into the middle distance ‘… sweet sometimes.’
‘She’s accused you of sexual harassment and you say she’s sweet. You’re pissed, mate.’
‘Now that you mention it, I am.’
‘When you’re sober again, you’ll have gone right off her.’
‘I won’t.’
‘You’ll ’afta. ’Cos she don’t want you, mate.’
Joe winced. ‘I’m going to apologize to her.’
Myles was appalled. ‘You’re bleeding radio.