Part 4 (1/2)
Laura felt as if she were in an episode of some teen drama on TV. ”Eh? You mean-with my mum and dad? Yes, of course it is.”
”No, I mean with you,” Rachel said, her smile remaining fixed. ”In your life. Is everything okay? No...problems?”
”No, of course not,” said Laura automatically. ”What do you mean?”
”Your behavior...” Rachel trailed off, then gathered herself for the full attack. ”I'm afraid we are all rather concerned about your behavior and the deterioration of your performance in the last few months. Laura, I have to ask you. Are you using drugs, or alcohol, in any way that might affect your work life or home life?”
Laura's jaw dropped. The first thing that flitted through her mind, unbidden, was, How can you say that to me! I'm George and Angela Foster's daughter! I'm from Harrow!
She looked at Rachel, whom up until this point she had always thought of as a reasonably sane person, and blinked. ”No, of course I'm not,” she said. ”Of course I'm not.”
She a.s.sumed Rachel meant using alcohol in a seriously bad way, not the four white wine spritzers she'd had the previous night with Hilary.
”This...this isn't about the pay reviews, is it?” she said weakly.
Rachel looked bewildered. ”No, of course not. This is what I mean about you, Laura. It's absolutely not about the pay review. Laura,” Rachel said quietly, putting her hand out toward her over the desk. ”We're suspending you.”
There was a silence, broken only by the sound of the printer whirring outside the door. Someone coughed, far away.
”Laura?” Rachel said.
”What?” said Laura. ”Are you serious? I mean-are you-What?”
”Laura, I'm so sorry. I don't know what else to do. I think you're a great person to have on the team, and I've loved working with you-at least, I used to. But I'm afraid you-your-well, over the past six months or so, your performance has deteriorated so much that I'd-I'd-” Rachel looked down at her notes.
”Just say it,” said Laura, sitting bolt upright in her chair.
”I'd call you a liability.” Rachel looked up at her again, and that was when Laura knew this was for real. Rachel was composed. Cold, even.
”You're late. And I don't mean ten minutes late now and then. You're consistently late, and you never explain why, even though I warned you formally about it three months ago.”
”But-” Laura said. It was true, she'd been getting in a bit later, but that was because Dan was working on a project at the moment that was nearer than before so he was getting a later train, so she'd wait on the platform to go with him....
”It's not acceptable, Laura. You take long lunches every day. You leave at five on the dot. Your absence report is staggering-do you realize you've been off sick for twenty-five days over the past year?”
”I was sick!” Laura gasped.
”No, you weren't, Laura,” Rachel said. ”You just couldn't be bothered to come in. They were all on Fridays or Mondays. What were you doing?”
Laura remembered the Friday morning in January when she and Dan had been on the train platform, and Amy had rung him to say her father wasn't well and she was taking the day off and going down to Dorset for the weekend. They'd looked at each other, there on the bench in the winter gloom, and Dan had grabbed Laura's hand, walked briskly out of the train station with her, taken her back to her flat, and basically ravished her all day, all night, and for the rest of the weekend. She smiled at the memory.
”Things...” she said carefully, trying not to smile again. Then she rushed on, ”I know, I know. I know I've been a bit c.r.a.p. But-it's all going to be fine. When I get back from holiday-you know-oh, I wish I could say more than that, but I can't. I'm sorry, Rachel. I know I've been useless.”
”That's exactly it,” Rachel said, looking grave. ”Laura, look, the problem is you don't know you've been useless. You've had three formal warnings-this is your third.” She leaned forward, her dark brown eyes huge, full of concern. ”That's why I have to suspend you. You're lucky you're getting that, you know. I should just be firing you, but, oh, Laura, I think you're so good. I just-I just don't understand it!”
A tear rolled down her cheek. Laura watched it as it splashed onto her personnel file.
Rachel went on, ”You're rude to the volunteers, you're hopelessly disorganized, nothing ever seems to get done. Four schools didn't have any reading programs in place for the new year just because you hadn't got the forms and police checks sorted out. And you know how desperate those schools were for help.”
”They-”
”And the fund-raising,” Rachel said. ”You know we're looking for a big cash injection. You know how c.r.a.p funding is this year. You were in charge of it, and you've done nothing about it, have you?”
”Well...” said Laura. ”Linley Munroe-Marcus Sussman-I was going to contact them for the...but then he...”
”Oh, Laura,” said Rachel softly. She swallowed. ”It's just-I just don't understand why you, of all people...why you've lost interest, why you don't even seem to care.”
”I do care!” Laura said. ”I do. It's just...I've been c.r.a.p.”
As she said it, she realized how inadequate the words were. How she was someone who'd always prided herself on getting the job done, not letting people down; how she'd scorned others for their blinkered approach, their inability to get off their a.r.s.es and do something to make a difference in their lives, other people's lives. More than a hundred children, the ones who most needed some individual attention, had been let down by her. Money that could really make a positive difference in someone's life, perhaps permanently-not there, just because she never got round to it. Because she was thinking about herself. About her and Dan. And Amy. She was the blinkered one. She heard Jo's voice clearly in her head: ”Don't you ever learn?”
”And the holiday,” Rachel was saying. ”You've never cleared it with me, never asked for time off. You know we have to clear it with each other. Everyone else in the office will be away, I couldn't have let you go then in any case.”
”Well, I'm going,” Laura said stubbornly.
”I know you are, love,” Rachel said. She smiled sadly. ”It doesn't matter what you do anymore. I'm suspending you, effective immediately. You'll be on thirty percent of your pay, and we're getting someone in from Lambeth to cover your job. Our school programs finish next week. I want you to take at least two weeks to think about things. A fortnight, okay? And then we'll call you back in after the school term is over and see where we are.”
”See where we are?”
Rachel shuffled the papers on her desk. ”Well. Where we are with a view to reinstating you. Or whether we have to...make this permanent.”
Surely this wasn't really happening. Surely they were just threatening her. It was a bad dream and she'd wake up in a minute. She was a responsible person, a working girl, like all her friends. How would she explain it to them? To her parents? To her grandmother? She didn't get...suspended, it was ridiculous!
”But what will I tell everyone?” Laura said angrily. ”You can't do this to me. You really can't, seriously. This is f.u.c.king ridiculous.”
”No, it's not,” Rachel said. Her voice was distant, unfamiliar, suddenly. ”I just don't get it, honestly I don't, Laura. I'd always thought you were one of the best, the brightest of all of us. I hoped one day you'd run the program, or become an adviser, a consultant, perhaps even working with the government. I honestly thought you could do whatever you wanted. Be someone who made a real difference...”
Laura stood up and held the handle of the door, in tears. She shook her head at Rachel, wordlessly. Rachel sighed.
”There's a boy somewhere at the bottom of all this, isn't there?” Laura heard her say as she ran out. ”There always is....”
chapter seven.
L aura didn't go to Yorky's birthday dinner. She didn't tell him the truth. She lied and said she'd been sick and come home from work early. She looked so forlorn and pale in the heat that Yorky obviously believed her, as he stood there fiddling with his keys, looking down at Laura as she lay on the sofa.
”Are you sure you're going to be all right on your own?” he said anxiously.
Bile flooded Laura's stomach at her deception, at how she was deceiving and lying to those who loved her the most. How could she do it? She clutched her stomach and winced with real pain, and Yorky looked at her with compa.s.sion.
”Oh, babe,” he said. ”Poor thing. Look, call me any time and I'll come home early if you want.”
”It's your birthday,” Laura said grimly, clenching her teeth. ”Go away. Have a great evening. Give the others my love. I'll see you later.”
”Okay,” said Yorky. ”Really sorry, babe.” He tightened the thin, patterned tie he was wearing and shook his head. ”Well, I'm off. Ladies, watch out. The birthday boy's a-comin'!”
He yelped and tried to moonwalk out of the sitting room. Laura heard him yelp again as he crashed into the hall table, and then the door shut behind him and the flat was silent again. She lay staring up at the ceiling, quite still, for a long time. At last she reached down to the floor and picked up the phone and dialed.