Just My Luck(44)

‘Are you sacking me?’

‘No, no, of course not.’ She pauses. ‘But I do think it will be best if you take a period of absence. No one can get on with their work with this sort of disruption and they have to work, Lexi. What we do is vital.’

‘I don’t know how people found out where I am.’

‘Word gets around, I suppose. You have been in all the local press. Many of our clients no doubt simply recognised your face.’ I’m not certain but I think I hear disapproval in Ellie’s tone. She probably thinks we shouldn’t have taken the publicity. She’s most likely right. It was never my intention. I wasn’t left with a choice. ‘Yesterday afternoon was quite tricky. There were fewer people here than there are today but it was still disruptive. There was this one young guy, he can’t have been more than twenty, has Tourette’s syndrome. Apparently you are helping him find work.’ She looks at me, waiting for me to identify him. She trusts me enough to know I know the names of all my clients.

‘Dave MacDunn.’

‘Yes, that’s it. Well, he didn’t believe it was your half day. He just thought we were stopping him seeing you. He got agitated, lashed out, knocked some elderly chap clean over. The elderly chap hadn’t even come to see you. He just wanted to talk to someone about his heating bill. It was very tricky.’

‘Oh no. Was he OK?’

‘Banged his elbow and thigh as he went down. It really was quite a violent shove. His daughter has already made a complaint. We’re going to need to write it up.’

I shake my head. This is the last thing Ellie needs. We’re always thinly stretched; a complaint investigation will add significantly to the workload. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Well, it isn’t your fault exactly.’ She sounds grudging.

‘Was Dave OK? I know him. He won’t have meant any harm.’

‘Maybe not, but he caused some. And of course, the Tourette’s didn’t help. Once he started swearing, old Mr Ryan just thought he was a terrifying thug.’

‘It’s a very much misunderstood condition,’ I interject.

Ellie looks impatient. ‘I know, Lexi.’ We sit for a moment in silence. I feel chastised, she feels patronised. I don’t like the gap that’s widening between us. I fear I might fall through it. Ellie eventually lets out a long sigh. ‘After a few months, things will calm down and we can talk about you coming back.’

‘A few months?’ I gasp.

Ellie shrugs. She’s not committing. ‘It might be less. I don’t know how long these things take to blow over. You are going on holiday soon anyway, aren’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘To New York, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve always wanted to go to New York.’ She says this with what I think is a note of envy in her voice. ‘Staying somewhere lovely, I expect?’ I nod. She studies me as though I’m an insect behind one of those glass domes the Victorians were so fond of. A curiosity. ‘You should just try and enjoy your good luck, Lexi.’

I leave her office. There’s nothing more to be said.

I walk to the local greasy spoon that’s just ten minutes from my office. I expected some people from the queue at the Citizen’s Advice Bureau to follow me but they don’t because I lie, reassuring them I’ll be back in a minute and urging them to stay put. ‘You don’t want to lose your place in the queue.’ They trust me so don’t follow. I feel squalid and selfish ignoring their requests, being one more person who is prepared to lie to them and let them down but what can I do?

At the café I order a mug of tea. It’s served stronger than I usually drink it but I swallow it quickly anyway, scalding my mouth in my impatience. I check around, but no one is paying me any attention. The place is full of builders on their morning break reading tabloid newspapers, their bottoms spread over the small wooden chairs, their stomachs rolling over their belts. Not for the first time I think the real win in life is being born a man. I pull out my phone and hit the number that is now saved in my favourites. It rings two, three, four times before he picks up.

‘Toma Albu,’ he declares. I have always liked the way he owns his name. Not afraid to state it, even when he was on the streets Toma claimed his name, held onto himself, despite the odds.

‘What would you do with three million pounds?’

‘Lexi?’

‘Yes.’ I repeat the question.

‘I read about the win. Congratulations!’ I hear amusement in his voice, which warms me. ‘You are ringing me to ask how to spend it?’

‘No, I won nearly eighteen million, not three. I’m ringing you to ask how you would spend three. If I gave three to you.’

‘Why would you do that?’ I can hear talking in the background. I guess he’s on his tea break too, like the builders he also starts early. I imagine the bustle in the factory staff room as people jostle for mugs, teabags, milk. I feel his stillness. His seriousness and calm as he waits for me to explain myself. Which I can’t. Not really.

‘I want to. Is it enough to allow you to return home?’

‘Well, I suppose I could exhume my wife and son and have their bodies flown home if I had that sort of money. Is that what you meant?’

‘No, not exactly.’ I feel mortified because I’ve been clumsy. He told me he couldn’t leave the UK because he couldn’t bear to be so far away from them. To leave them behind. He has never said the problem was money. I suppose I hadn’t really believed it. I suppose I still thought money could help him start again. Have I started to think like Jake? Do I believe money can fix everything? I’d be an idiot to believe that when the evidence is stacking up to say the exact opposite.