Dignity

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

“When’s Rae free?”

“She’s not in,” Andrea replied wearily for the sixth time that day, not looking up from Outlook as she juggled Miss Mackenzie’s most urgent meetings onto Mr Fletcher’s overcrowded calendar.

“She’s not? But I saw Mr Fletcher downstairs this morning.”

“Yeah. He’s in, she isn’t. She’ll be back in next week.”

“Really?” There was ghoulish delight in David’s voice. Andrea looked up as he approached and settled himself on the corner of her desk. “Have they had a bust-up, do you think?”

“I don’t think it’s any of your business,” she told him, her tone not quite as frosty as her words suggested.

“Oh, come on, Andie,” he said, smiling charmingly down at her. “They both vanish on the same day without any warning, turn the entire office upside down, and then Mr Fletcher turns up on his own three weeks later with a face like a wet Monday; what’s the deal?”

“Mr Fletcher said he had a family emergency,” Andrea responded neutrally. “Miss Mackenzie is apparently getting first-hand information on conditions on the street.”

“And what’s that meant to mean?” David asked in astonishment.

“David, I have work to do. Will you take your speculations elsewhere?”

“OK, if that’s going to be your attitude.” Stiffly offended, the department’s most popular employee stalked off to sweet-talk the girls in HR into giving him the gossip that the CEO’s secretary wasn’t going to.

”Don’t you go coppin’ an attitude now. You wasn’t here, was you? Finder’s keepers, and if you ain’t got anywhere to sleep, that’s not my fuckin’ problem, now is it?”

Years of experience told Rehema it wasn’t worth arguing. Not even over a winter-weight sleeping bag in mid-November.

“OK,” she said calmly to the stranger standing in the broken doorway of the squat that had been her home, and that still contained her few possessions. “Is Danny-boy still staying here? Or Sheepshagger?”

“Never heard o’ them.” The door slammed shut in her face. She stared at it for a moment, then vented her frustration in a solid kick to the wall beside it before limping off into the rain.

“I mean, what could I say?” Andrea tucked one high heel behind the strut of the high stool, and leaned her elbow against the marble counter top. “With Mr Fletcher right there in his office, and everything!”

Fran took a sip of her Long Island Iced Tea. “Yeah, David’s not too good at taking a hint,” she sympathised, rolling her eyes a little. “Too used to getting his own way, if you ask me. Thinks he’s God’s gift to women. It’s just sad that Jackie and Alison seem to agree with him.” She leaned forward confidingly. “If you ask me, it’s him Miss Mackenzie’s sweet on, not Mr Fletcher.”

“You think so?” Andrea sounded dubious. “I don’t know. She and Mr Fletcher have always seemed pretty close, to me.”

Fran waved away that objection with one manicured hand. “Well she’d have to pretend, wouldn’t she? Mr Fletcher’s her meal ticket, after all.” She lowered her voice. “But Mr Fletcher is not happy with her.”

“Oh?” This time Andrea leaned closer, curious.

“He came in this afternoon to check I’d got Miss Mackenzie’s message, so I got her file out. He noticed I didn’t have an address in there, and went all quiet, you know how he does… I got the feeling she’d told him she’d given me her home address.” Fran leaned back and took a long sip from her glass, nodding meaningfully.

“So what is she doing, then?”

“I don’t know, but oh, to be a fly on the wall when Mr Fletcher finally tracks her down.”

There was no sign of Sheepshagger, but she’d finally tracked Danny-boy down to this boarded-up warehouse. A flickering oil drum fire, its heat almost entirely sucked away by the dark and draughty space, backlit a set of anonymously ragged figures. She recognised his voice, though, talking loudly enough to compete with the drumming of the rain on the corrugated iron roof.

“Hey, Danny-boy,” she called, shaking the rain out of her hair as she approached.

“Hey, Rehema,” one of the figures said, turning slightly and waving a familiar brown-wrapped shape in her general direction. “Thought you’d abandoned us. Come and have a drink.”

“Thanks,” she said, waving away the bottle as she sank crosslegged onto the icy concrete, barely feeling the cold through thighs numbed by the wind and rain. “What the fuck happened at the old place?”

“And why the fuck would you care?” His voice wasn’t yet slurred, but Rehema could tell he was drunk. Danny-boy could get funny when he was drunk. “Fucked off without a word. Thought you’d got bored of playing with us and gone to stay with your posh friends.”

“I’m not playing, Dan. Where’s Sheepshagger?”

“Fuck knows. He was talking about going back to Wales, so I guess he did when the Kings decided they wanted the squat. I sold ‘em your gear, by the way,” he added unapologetically.

“Yeah, I noticed. Thanks a fucking lot.”

Danny-boy shrugged. “That or have ‘em do me over for it. They broke Sheepshagger’s nose for his.”

“Shit.” Rehema dazedly took the bottle as he thumped her gently in the ribs with it, then stopped suddenly, the bottle halfway to her lips, and passed it quickly on. “I should have been there.”

“Yeah. But you weren’t, were you?”

“She’s paid in cash?”

“Yeah.” Jackie looked up at him sideways through her lashes as she played with her straw. “Some sort of fiddle, you see? We pay tax on it, but if it’s over the higher rate for her, well, she doesn’t have to declare it if there’s no evidence she’s got it.”

“And she just turned up out of nowhere after Max died?”

“Yup. Mr Fletcher couldn’t wait to get her installed. And she didn’t know the first thing about anything!” Jackie’s voice was filled with cheerful malice. “She didn’t even know what a spreadsheet was, never mind how to use one in Excel.” She lowered her voice. “And I swear she used to smell… you know, like she’d been drinking… when she came in in the mornings.”

“Oh, I don’t believe this!” David said disbelievingly, an idea suddenly springing fully-fledged into his mind and sending him bolt upright.

“True as I live and breathe,” Jackie swore, failing to follow his train of thought.

“No. I mean… Going native? Yeah, I just bet she is.” David drained his beer and stood up, pacing restlessly back and forth. “And I bet Max didn’t know about his boyfriend’s bit on the side when he gave him all that money to set up a homeless charity.”

“Well, obviously,” Jackie remarked peevishly, confused by David’s reaction. “David, can we not talk about Miss Mackenzie?”

David laughed, a little ruefully. “Sorry, love. Guess I can’t resist a puzzle.” He sat down again and put his arm proprietorially around Jackie’s waist. “How about we go back to my place?” he murmured into her ear.

She smiled satisfiedly, and picked up her coat. “Good plan.”

Rehema stared muzzily at Danny-boy as he slumped sideways and started to snore. After a moment she pulled herself together and leaned over, the slight movement making her head spin, to drag the stained coat he’d been sitting on over them both.

She ought to go and find something warmer, she knew, but she felt too pleasantly dizzy to move. And she was so very, very tired, and keeping it together was so very, very hard. Better just to lie down here next to Dan – lovely Dan – and rest for a bit. Just for a little bit. Just until she felt a little better again.

Good plan.