instinctively stepped back into a rubbish bin?And then, instead of quickly lifting the miscreant foot out of the offending bin, pretended that nothing out of the ordinary had happened and kept chatting about, of all things, her geraniums? It was only later that she discovered Eve had no interest in flowers. Kate was also pretty good at her day job and even turned up most of the time. When she didn’t, the reason was sure to be related to her nine-year-old twin boys, who were what could only be called incident-prone. The type of children that frightened Phil into condom use, they were far scarier than any STD. Their current school, their fourth already, had banned them from all excursions following their interference with the reptile enclosures at the zoo and their ‘restructuring’ – their term – of some bones at the natural history museum. He knew the local police were more than familiar with them.
‘I’m so stupid, I just didn’t see it coming,’ Kate blew her nose disconcertingly loudly. ‘They’d just let me go on that finance course, and before that the one on managing poor performance. I thought maybe the worst was over; that we were, you know – what’s the word? – consolidating; that we were all going to be able to settle back down again.’ She sniffed. ‘Idiotically, I even thought that their stupid competition meant they were trying a different approach – involving us. And I didn’t think this would happen to me, I really didn’t. And especially not so soon after, after —’ She didn’t finish the sentence, seemingly no longer willing to mention the name of her newly departed husband.
‘I didn’t think it would be you either, if that’s any consolation,’ said Phil, trying to be tactful. It was true. There were a number of people he thought would have been more likely candidates. However, Papyrus, the new Papyrus, wasn’t a predictable place. Still, he believed there must be some kind of logic to it all, and he’d work it out before long.
Behind him, watching them both, Jess had the same thought.
Chapter 7
It was five in the afternoon and Kate was sitting at her kitchen table. She’d been there for several hours, pulling at a button that was about to come loose from her pyjama top and studying a patch of peeling paint above the stove. It occurred to her that the patch resembled the Virgin Mary and her heart pounded as she pictured charging people to visit and pray. There’d be merchandising, she could sell mugs, tea-towels, t-shirts, postcards. By the time she’d reached postcards though, Mary had vanished and Tasmania had taken her place. She didn’t think she could charge people to see Tasmania, pleasant as it was. Shutting her eyes, she reflected that such thoughts were what Eve and Hilary had driven her to.
For the first time since it happened, she allowed herself to remember that final meeting with the two of them, the meeting she had lied to everyone about, having been too intimidated, and too ashamed, to tell them the truth. She couldn’t believe those figures were right, but they’d insisted. She had no defence against their paperwork.
It was the meeting that had led directly to her sitting there unable to leave the house, shower, or even answer the phone.Thankfully, the boys were now staying with her mother. For the first few days, when all she’d done was mope in bed, they’d decided to stay home from school and look after her. She hadn’t argued, even when the ‘looking after’ consisted of standing several metres from her and saying, in unison, ‘Are you alright?’ and, as soon as she said the obligatory ‘Yes, fine’, retreating to their room and their PlayStation until they got hungry. They’d then stampede to the kitchen, forage for cereal, burn Kate some toast and stew her a cup of tea. This had gone on until the boys ran out of milk. Only then did they ring their grandmother.
Kate’s mother had burst into the house post-tennis that afternoon,
‘I’m so stupid, I just didn’t see it coming,’ Kate blew her nose disconcertingly loudly. ‘They’d just let me go on that finance course, and before that the one on managing poor performance. I thought maybe the worst was over; that we were, you know – what’s the word? – consolidating; that we were all going to be able to settle back down again.’ She sniffed. ‘Idiotically, I even thought that their stupid competition meant they were trying a different approach – involving us. And I didn’t think this would happen to me, I really didn’t. And especially not so soon after, after —’ She didn’t finish the sentence, seemingly no longer willing to mention the name of her newly departed husband.
‘I didn’t think it would be you either, if that’s any consolation,’ said Phil, trying to be tactful. It was true. There were a number of people he thought would have been more likely candidates. However, Papyrus, the new Papyrus, wasn’t a predictable place. Still, he believed there must be some kind of logic to it all, and he’d work it out before long.
Behind him, watching them both, Jess had the same thought.
Chapter 7
It was five in the afternoon and Kate was sitting at her kitchen table. She’d been there for several hours, pulling at a button that was about to come loose from her pyjama top and studying a patch of peeling paint above the stove. It occurred to her that the patch resembled the Virgin Mary and her heart pounded as she pictured charging people to visit and pray. There’d be merchandising, she could sell mugs, tea-towels, t-shirts, postcards. By the time she’d reached postcards though, Mary had vanished and Tasmania had taken her place. She didn’t think she could charge people to see Tasmania, pleasant as it was. Shutting her eyes, she reflected that such thoughts were what Eve and Hilary had driven her to.
For the first time since it happened, she allowed herself to remember that final meeting with the two of them, the meeting she had lied to everyone about, having been too intimidated, and too ashamed, to tell them the truth. She couldn’t believe those figures were right, but they’d insisted. She had no defence against their paperwork.
It was the meeting that had led directly to her sitting there unable to leave the house, shower, or even answer the phone.Thankfully, the boys were now staying with her mother. For the first few days, when all she’d done was mope in bed, they’d decided to stay home from school and look after her. She hadn’t argued, even when the ‘looking after’ consisted of standing several metres from her and saying, in unison, ‘Are you alright?’ and, as soon as she said the obligatory ‘Yes, fine’, retreating to their room and their PlayStation until they got hungry. They’d then stampede to the kitchen, forage for cereal, burn Kate some toast and stew her a cup of tea. This had gone on until the boys ran out of milk. Only then did they ring their grandmother.
Kate’s mother had burst into the house post-tennis that afternoon,
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