Shitty Monday. It rained and I got stuck in traffic. Pulled into the car park. Took a second to breathe and force the smile on. Three months since Marina and I last spoke. Bought coffee and finished it before reaching the office. Walked under the fluorescent light. Sat in the black, plastic, alien chair allocated to me and let it lean under my weight. Maybe four people in there, and the head of the team. She drove two hours to get there and does that three times a week. Probably took calls in the car, sat in motorway traffic. I needed more caffeine so I walked to the kitchen to drink some of the paint-stripper machine coffee and waste time. Head of the team walked out after me and asked ‘can I borrow you please.’ Borrow me. Yes, you can borrow me. I even joked and asked her what was wrong as we walked to the elevator. She was coy, a little awkward, yet sort of friendly. Professional, I suppose. Head pointed slightly toward the floor. Wry, regretful smile.
We headed down on the elevator and into a room on the tenth floor where my line manager sat on the other side of a desk. ‘The Christmas Party,’ they started. Then paused. As if I was going to elaborate. The quiet sucked the air out of the room. Small, dark, sterile. A bookable room in a co-working office used as a regional hub. Three in the room. Fifteen that drop into this office. However many hundred in London. And across the world there’s a pension fund that owns it, and pays my wages, and I sit at a laptop with a screensaver I can’t change that says ‘I create shareholder value’ and if I don’t do it they can zap me like cattle. I was too drunk at the party, they said. I lost control. Said I was ‘unsafe’, but wouldn’t tell me what had happened, or who made the accusation. Asked more questions. I couldn’t remember. Offered me a glass of water. I declined. Told me there’d be an investigation.
‘You can go home,’ they said. ‘Reflect on the night and talk to HR.’
*
So I reflected. At the time of the Christmas party, I was ill and still upset about Marina, who by that point I hadn’t spoken to in over a month, but still looked at her Instagram stories and thought of ways I could message her to restart things. I lived at my parents’ again after moving back to save. Trying to buy a cheap place so I could live like any adult did in the 90s. Responsible for my own dinner. But the vendors were trying to fuck me over on the price. Wouldn’t tell me basic things about the house. They weren’t put-together people. Had a tumble dryer in the bathroom. A Jack Russell terrier that ran around the place and scratched the wall. That sort of thing. I wanted it done so I could move on. Thought about how, at the time, I thought Marina could have moved into it eventually.
Our first date was on a Monday evening and we went from bar to bar talking so openly about our lives in a way I’d never experienced before. Without pretence. She told me about moving to England, her struggles with depression and how her VISA situation was fragile. That there weren’t many jobs with VISA sponsorships and the place she worked now barely paid her enough to survive. In the same city, we were separate. She came to study and stayed, but barely knew an English person. At 1AM I took her home. We kissed outside her apartment, and I walked home under the train bridge suffused with possibility.
About six months later, at Halloween, we went to a pumpkin patch, and walked around looking at the toddlers, talking about how many we wanted. She was an only child and wanted one. I had a sibling but wanted more, a big family like a team, at least three. We compromised there and then on two. I drove her home and we made a risotto out of the pumpkin. She said ‘when we first started dating I didn’t want a relationship. I was going to see you a couple of times and…’ she said, and gestured away with her wrist. Onions crackled in the frying pan. I didn’t really say anything.
‘So what does dating mean to you?’ She said
‘Dating is dating, we’re having a good time,’ I said.
‘But what does it mean? Like what are we doing?’ She said.
I stirred the pan of rice. I told her ‘we’re dating. Like dating just each other. I enjoy where we were at.’
‘You look stressed. You’re playing with your hair,’ she said.
‘Sorry I’m not good at this,’ I said. ‘I’m not great with the emotional intimacy. I’m working on it.’
‘You’re fine with enough intimacy to come here and fuck me.’
I said that wasn’t the point. Asked her where all this had come from.
‘You’ve never even said you like me,’ she said.
‘Of course I like you. I see you all the time. I show you I like you, surely that’s more important. Why would I take you out and plan all of these dates if I didn’t like you?’
I carried on. Said more consecutive words in that exchange than I had in the last five years, talking faster, nervous.
‘What’s your love language?’
‘What?’
We sat at the table until late evening. She didn’t want me staying over on a work night and disrupt her sleep. Her flatmate opened the door for me and said ‘oh you’re leaving your second home now.’ I took the lift downstairs and checked my phone to see when the Uber was going to arrive. Marina came with me. We hugged and said goodbye. She looked paler.
*
The morning after I thought for hours non-stop about texting her. Though childish, I felt not texting would be better. Less available, not overbearing. Even though I knew that I needed to address last night’s conversation. Ask if everything was okay, and that we’re all good. I sat in the office and busied myself with work instead. One of the only ways for me to care about work was when I could use it to stuff my emotions. She texted me first at around 3pm. Asked how I was. I responded as normal as I could. Too normal, like nothing was awkward. How was your day. What have you been up to. It went on like that for a couple of days but the messages got further and further apart. By Friday, we had arranged to meet but the gaps between the texts were so long that they were almost solely logistics, and she got ill so we left it. Over the next three weeks she barely text me, practically ignored me. She went to visit her parents in Lithuania and didn’t reply for a week. I waited until she was back and then asked to see her.
‘I’ll let you know,’ she said.
‘You can shout at me in person if you’re annoyed,’ I said.
‘I’ve never shouted at you. And I don’t have a reason to.’
The next day I broke up with her. She admitted it was awkward so she withdrew. She apologised. During the conversation we cleared the air. After, I palmed my head like a cartoon character, wanted to respond straight away and say ‘wait, wait! We know now, so let’s try again.’
*
I travelled to the head office in London for the Christmas party on a First Class train they paid for. I was ill. Congested and with a head cold brought on by the freezing weather, boredom, and stress. The house purchase proved continually difficult and time consuming. The estate agent was blunt and asking for documents they didn’t need. In the office I commissioned the survey for the house for £550. The office floor five times the size and a complete maze. Needed a pass to go to the toilet. It was three weeks since I ended things with Marina. Six weeks since I saw her. I did the maths frequently. Estimated the time required until I got over it. Until it was too long to message her. Pro-rata, based off of previous relationships’ duration. Tried to figure out if it was really me that ended it, if I wanted it back so badly.
So whilst I commissioned the house survey, I sat on Microsoft Teams and replied to the shit jokes and the polls. I made jokes of my own. I got the laughing face emoji to my message from five colleagues. There were so many faces I knew only from a screen in the office. I had to talk to every single one and pretend I cared. My face animated and interested like a children’s TV presenter. I’m so interested in your life and work! They had stacks and stacks of takeaway pizzas in the kitchen, so many that some boxes were untouched, bottles of Prosecco and 330ml bottles of Peroni. I had a couple. Took another two out and walked back to the hotel and got ready. Then I had a couple more with the two lads around my age in my team at a pub. A little straightener, and a chance to pre-brief. We walked to the venue where the servers were handing out tequila cocktails.
It was a black tie dinner. Large round tables too big to talk to anyone other than those adjacent. Sat next to a couple of people I don’t know so I had a couple of wines too. Asked them polite questions about themselves. Acted fun but not too fun. Listened to the presentation from the CEO, who couldn’t even read a joke off a card properly. Everybody still laughed. Servers brought drinks or you could go to a free bar. There was a dancefloor and I got on it and moved around. People looked good. They made an effort to dress up in a suit and formal clothes. Just like in work where they wear a suit or formal clothes. There were standing tables around the dancefloor where small groups congregated. I sauntered to a few different tables to speak to the people I half-knew. Made jokes. A couple didn’t land. I talked some shit about my old job, which I liked even less.
‘I love it here, I really do,’ I said to the serious, financial guy who runs the countries’ operations. Put my arm round his shoulder. Networking, right.
I tried to reflect further but who can truly reflect on something they don’t remember? It’s hazy. We spilled outside. I smoked cigarettes. I don’t usually smoke and don’t remember who I got them from. I walked home with one of the lads and pried over his salary. The next morning, I woke up in the hotel room that had no windows, threw my clothes into the suitcase and went to the station. My mouth was dry, crisp, and my tongue and lips stuck together with viscous saliva. My stomach churned. Chemically and fizzy, sending signals to my brain that something was wrong. I messaged the two lads. Pre-emptively said I had hangxiety and fished for info. Slow reply. Received a non-committal, ‘nothing bad, you were fun,’ hours later. I’d made particular effort not to get so drunk I fucked up my train journey. I missed it. I was pissed off with the ticket checkers and argued with them. A minute early but they closed the gate.
*
Christmas passed uneventfully. I’d previously hidden Marina’s stories on Instagram but still occasionally searched her name to view them. It appeared she didn’t get a Visa to go home, so was in the apartment building gym on Christmas Day. ‘Working when others aren’t,’ she captioned it. I was with my family and pictured her there with us instead. Drinking wine, talking to my grandad for the first time. Laughing with us. Having a real English Christmas. Instead, I lazed on the sofa. Drank cans of beer. Played board games with my immediate family and cousins, and won. Half-watched films in a stuffy, warm room filled with wrapping paper and food. I went to my room and napped. I came out and saw my Dad drinking cans and thought Jesus he needs to slow down and stop doing that. He does that all the time.
In the new year I went to Tenerife for a week with two friends to escape a UK that was pitch black by 4:30pm and rained incessantly. The house purchase was about to go through and an exchange date set when the survey came back. It had a huge list of things wrong. Ten grand worth. The estate agent asked to see it and I obliged. They sent it to the sellers. The sellers said they could do the work themselves. I’d rather have the money off, I said. They took five off. Then decided not to sell at all. I barely slept. I spoke about it every evening in the hotel restaurant. By day three I was crushing Canary potatoes under a fork and talking about how I’d slash the sellers tires. They eventually agreed to sell full price.
Whilst on holiday I messaged Marina. About Tenerife. She’d been in the summer. That was my ‘reason’ to message. And to apologise for being a coward. And to accept her apology. The conversation was good. I felt healed. I asked to see her again. She said she’s focussing on herself. She’s not well. That’s fine. But internally, I questioned how much she could have ever liked me if she didn’t want to see me now. Interpreted the preceding silence and distance in as many ways as I could think of. In the days I walked the Mars-like trails and in the evenings frequented the bars. Trashy even by British standards. Neon, with strip clubs round the corner. I went to the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror and saw how glazed and red my eyes were. On the final day I had a few JD and cokes at the hotel bar. Called the solicitors and told them to just do it. I felt sick. The next day I flew home, rough, and went into work, where they pulled me into a room to talk about the Christmas Party.
On Tuesday, I pretended everything was fine in the office. I felt it unlikely anything would happen. I’d spent the previous evening on the ACAS website. HR departments have to issue a written notification that they’re undertaking a formal investigation. I hadn’t received one, so assumed things were informal. Give me a slap on the wrists and I’ll say sorry for whatever it was I did. I messaged HR. Their response was ‘first I’ve heard of anything.’ If HR don’t even know, this isn’t a real issue. I then had a meeting dropped into my diary called ‘Catch up’ at 10:00AM the next day. It was just me and my line manager. Another fortuitous sign. A one-to-one. No scary HR or head of the team. A chance for me to apologise and move on.
I arrived before working hours, like a good boy. My line manager wasn’t there. She always arrived early. Set a few pointless tasks but otherwise so wrapped up in her work I could operate alone. Would ask ‘how you doing?’ with the same cadence every time. I wanted to hear that more than anything. The walk to the tenth floor felt like the walk to an abattoir. I wore a grey merino jumper and held my head up and chest out. Mentally rehearsed my sage, apologetic nod. My zen reaction and maturity. I entered the room to find her, the head of the team, and a HR lady projected from a big screen TV, a remote and otherworldly figure. I pulled the chair out and sat down surrounded.
‘I’ll take a note as it goes on,’ I said and opened my laptop. Sat bolt upright, focussed and professional. Like I can handle the talk.
My manager started. Read straight from a piece of A4 which rattled in her hand as she read it. Her voice was quiet, strained and trembled ever so slightly. I could have leant over and patted her on the shoulder. I looked at the paper. They’d taken the time to print it with the company logo on. My manager didn’t ad-lib a single word. My behaviour was unacceptable and not appropriate for a work setting. Said words like misconduct. The Christmas Party is an extension of the workplace. They said I head-locked someone. Called them a dickhead. Said I threatened to fight them. I doubted that. Racked my brain as to who they were talking about.
‘Your employment is terminated as of today. You’ll receive three months’ pay and half your bonus because of work done.’
‘Uh.’
‘You have no right of appeal, and can hand your laptop and work mobile. Do you have any questions?’
‘No, I think I get it.’
It lasted all of four minutes. I closed the laptop and almost laughed at what I’d written. ‘Called someone dickhead.’ Looked side to side between the three of them. Nothing back. Meek stares and formality. After they were done, I tossed the company card onto the desk. My manager handed me the piece of A4 paper. Thanks. I stood with them by the elevator and debriefed but had mentally moved onto the months to come. Applications. Interviews. Calls. New people. Spending my savings. Mortgage to pay. Unemployed. Fuck it, leave the country. Go and find something you enjoy. How long since I spoke to Marina? Walked to the car park. Sat in my car. Breathed and smiled. The easiest smile I’ve ever put on.