Our Kind of Cruelty(41)

When I got to work George put his head round my door. ‘Didn’t see you leave last night. Bloody good time though.’

‘Yes,’ I lied, knowing it was the only possible response.

‘Got a rollicking off the missus,’ he said. ‘How did you fare?’

‘My girlfriend’s away. Does your wife know where you went then?’ The rules of the upper classes are so foreign to me I am always lost in their world.

But he laughed. ‘God no. Just that I got in late stinking of booze and fags. She always makes way too much of a fuss about stuff like that. You know what women are like.’

‘How old are your children?’ I asked.

‘Six and four.’

‘Girls or boys?’

‘One of each.’ He shifted his weight and I noticed how pale and clammy his skin looked. I let what we were both thinking hang in the air and looked back at my computer screen and started tapping away until he left. Kaitlyn waved at me on the way past my window at lunchtime and I felt myself blushing, ashamed at what she would think of my behaviour the night before.

At two o’clock a note flashed up on my screen: Your appointment with Dr Lucas Ellin is in one hour at 3 p.m. I groaned loudly, sure that there was a good excuse for me to cancel the appointment. But if there was an excuse it eluded me as I found myself waiting outside Dr Ellin’s office an hour later, my suit feeling a little tight and sweat breaking out across my palms.

It was I suppose a credit to Dr Ellin that I hadn’t known of his existence at Bartleby’s until the moment the chairman had mentioned him but somehow I found this disconcerting. His room was very different from all the other offices in the building: it was a pale blue and his desk was glass, so I could see his whole body stretched out on his chair. He only had one computer and it was pushed into a corner, as if it was a minor irrelevance. And the chair I was supposed to sit on was a plush wingback, with a cushion in its centre. There was a large fern in one corner and a bookcase stuffed with books and papers.

He stood as I entered and extended his hand to me across the desk, which I shook as firmly as I could.

‘Sit down, Mike,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you came.’

‘I didn’t realise it was optional,’ I said, sitting on the edge of the large chair.

Dr Ellin laughed as he too sat. I didn’t think he could be much older than me. ‘So, do you want to tell me what brought you here?’

‘The chairman.’

He laughed again, but I wasn’t sure why what I’d said was funny. ‘Yes, but I mean the incident.’

‘I shouted at one of our clients.’

Dr Ellin pulled his glasses down from the top of his head and consulted some notes in front of him. ‘I believe you called Daniel Palmer a fucking useless waste of space of a man who needed to get some balls.’

I felt my colour rising. ‘Yes, it was very rude of me. I don’t know what happened.’

‘Do you often find it hard to control your anger?’ Dr Ellin leant forward over his desk. His feet I noticed were crossed at the ankles. I had a sudden urge to punch him in the face, an answer if ever there was one. ‘What do you find amusing about my question?’

I drew down the smile I hadn’t realised was there. ‘Sorry, nothing. And of course I don’t.’

‘Our chairman, Lord Falls, has noticed that you have seemed distracted recently. Your performance at Schwarz was exceptional, but you haven’t got off to such a good start here, would you say?’

I thought it was probably a trick question. ‘Well, I closed the Hector deal and we’re close with Spectre.’

Dr Ellin nodded. ‘Perhaps you’re finding the adjustment of moving countries hard?’

‘No,’ I said, hearing my tone had risen. ‘London’s my home. I wanted to come back. If anything I found New York hard.’

‘How do you find making friends, Mike?’

I wanted to ask if I had to go on sitting here, but I knew I couldn’t. ‘Fine. In fact I was out with a few of the guys from here last night.’ I wondered what Dr Ellin would think if I told him about where we’d been. Probably he would laugh again and think nothing of it. I knew in this world I was the one who was considered strange for shouting, but George’s behaviour at the club would be considered rational. I thought of Kaitlyn suddenly and how she’d told me that we were both outsiders. I longed for V to explain it to me and help me understand.

‘It says in your notes that you were brought up in care,’ Dr Ellin said, placing the tips of his fingers together in front of his face.

‘How do you know that?’ A familiar streak of shame ran through me like a piece of glass.

‘We like to know who we employ at Bartleby’s. I’m not saying it as a judgement. Just trying to get a clearer picture of where you’re at, Mike. We just want our employees to be as happy as possible.’

I felt like I was looking at Dr Ellin from underwater. ‘I was with my mother until the age of ten, then in a home for a couple of years, then I went into permanent foster care until I went to university.’

‘That must have been hard.’

I was sure Dr Ellin had no idea what hard was. He had probably been to the same school as George and the chairman and half the bloody office. ‘Not really. I was lucky. My foster parents, Elaine and Barry, were great.’