Parcel for you...Part 19

 

He heard some sort of meaningless laughter. Vanessa was sputtering like a very underpowered engine, emitting nervous breathy giggles in sporadic bursts as the other two, who were her superiors, chattered away with patronising garble.

 

Spencer had learned where all the creaky floorboards were located and avoided them as he crept across the landing. The door to the little office was ajar. He hovered there, listening.

 

‘So Vanessa, we don’t really see you reaching out beyond the perimeter of your safety net. We think the execution of what you do is sound, bomb-proof but we don’t see dynamism, we see stagnation.’

 

Vanessa opened her mouth to speak, a puff of air came out and the beginning of a word but she was interrupted by the other ‘superior’.

 

‘Yes, if you were a pond, Vanessa, ha ha, and I want you to imagine yourself as a pond, just for the purposes of this exercise. Well in a word, you’d be a bit cloudy.’

 

Vanessa felt a plummeting sensation in her heart and stomach. She felt angry but also weakened by the passive execution of what were in fact personal insults coming from friendly looking faces. It was confusing, like a trick and difficult to know how to respond although she knew for sure that she must respond and defend herself.

 

‘I don’t agree,’ she said very quickly, her voice shallow, ‘I always try to ensure my communication with our clients is clear and concise and I keep them updated. I don’t think I’ve ever had an escalation in all the years I’ve worked for you.’ Vanessa knew for sure she’d never had an escalation. She used the phrase, I don’t think, because she’d been hard-wired to be polite and not assert herself too much.

 

Her superiors, two guys, looked at each other. One of them laughed and raised his voice. ‘We don’t mean you’re cloudy in relation to communication, Vanessa. No, I think you’ve misunderstood, we mean that you’re not bringing any fresh meat to the table.’

 

Spencer was desperate to release some charge now, to move or speak or something. He was unsure of what this conversation really meant, Vanessa’s managers appeared to be speaking in riddles to throw her off her game. From what he could interpret, there were two entities with all the power and none of the stress and then his wife at their mercy. There was only one thing for it, he must go in and show his support despite being told to never interrupt her while working, in this case, it felt neglectful to stand by and do nothing.

 

Vanessa meanwhile had felt an inkling of a presence outside the room but she shook it off. No he wouldn’t, she’d told herself and tried to stay in the present so that she could formulate an argument, find the words but it was so hard, faced with two sharks.

 

Spencer let out an affected cough and took a single, pink panther grade stride into the room then froze. 

 

‘Oh, ey up..’ said Vanessa’s manager and the other guy chuckled.

 

Vanessa’s face was one of a drowning woman, drowning in a cloudy pond of her own making. ‘Sorry,’ she said, closing her eyes because the sight of her husband standing there was just too much, ‘it’s my plumber,’ she blurted out, ‘I…I haven’t paid him.’

 

Spencer continued to stand in silence, staring at the two men on the computer screen. ‘Toilet's flushing again,’ he said eventually, ‘that’s seven hundred and thirty five pounds, plus VAT.’

 

‘Okay, okay. Can you wait downstairs for me please. I’ll sort out your money in a few minutes!’

 

The two men continued to chuckle. ‘Well that’s a first,’ said one of them, ‘we’ve had kids, dogs and a few Tesco deliveries but we’ve never had a plumber!’

 

‘All the more reason to clamp down on working from home,’ said the other.

 

Vanessa felt different now. It was as if the shock of seeing Spencer in the room had released, in a single puff, all the stress which she had been propagating. Her strength returned as she was propelled fully into the moment. She glanced at Spencer who had backed away a bit so that he was out of sight of the camera but still present and staring at Vanessa as if prompting her to take action.

 

‘Actually on that subject,’ said Vanessa, speaking with renewed strength now, ‘I couldn’t possibly afford to pay my plumber in one instalment. He gets paid a considerable amount more than I do. Perhaps I should have trained as a plumber instead…’

 

‘Oh my father was a plumber, Vanessa, you don’t want to be a plumber, crawling under floorboards with cold water spurting in your face at two in the morning, believe you me!’

 

Vanessa hated the phrase, ‘believe you me’, she didn’t really understand it. ‘Well at least I would be able to pay my bills!’ she said. ‘I’ve been on the same money for six years now, give or take a few hundred pounds,’ her manager was about to respond but she quickly cut him off, ‘If I was new to the company, I think I’d actually be paid more but because I’ve been loyal you’re just treating me like part of the furniture. These young graduates are clueless, they can barely formulate a sentence and you’ve got me training them for less than they’re on!’

 

The two guys looked at each other. One of them drew a pen up to his face and tapped the end of it on his chin. ‘I might be able to speak to HR, see if there’s anything they can do,’ he said.

 

‘Also there’s a company hardship loan, Vanessa, if you’re really struggling with your bills, it’s interest free but has to be paid back within a year.’

 

Vanessa shook her head. ‘I don’t want a loan,’ she said, ‘that’s not what I’m asking.’

 

‘Okay let’s wrap this up then. I’ll email you a breakdown of what’s been covered.’

 

‘And pass my pay rise request to HR,’ said Vanessa.

 

The other guy coughed, ‘We’ll see what we can do,’ he said.

 

Vanessa stood up and let out a big sigh. ‘I don’t think that went well,’ she said.

 

‘I’m sorry for coming up like that. I just wanted to support you.’

 

‘You did,’ she said, standing up, ‘I think it would have gone worse if you hadn’t appeared, you fired me up. I don’t think I would have mentioned pay if you hadn’t done your plumber act.’

 

‘I just pulled a figure out of thin air.’

 

‘Well, I think it’s about right for a toilet flush and do you know what I really really liked?’

 

‘What?’

 

‘Plus VAT. That was a stroke of genius.’

 

‘I listened to a radio programme all about value added tax, it was very interesting actually. You definitely need to earn more money, Vanessa, there’s all this tax to be paid after all.’

 

Vanessa grunted. ‘Management were just going through the motions, trying to keep everything the same so that the company doesn't have to spend any more money. Bastards.’

 

‘Can we still go for an ice cream?’

 

‘Yes, yes let’s go!’

 

It was just a short walk to the park. Vanessa felt for the first time, as she walked along with him, that Spencer was no longer a freak, he looked different from real humans especially when you got close up but she didn’t care any more. She had grown used to having him around and was no longer worried about what other people thought.

 

Spencer couldn’t have ice cream but he could have a cone and as they strolled along together, Vanessa listened to the sound of him chomping through that dry cone and thought about him standing in her room staring as she had her appraisal and she laughed.

 

‘What are you laughing at?’

 

‘You.’

 

‘Why, am I doing something funny?’

 

‘No, you just lighten the load and I really like having you around.’

 

He stared at her. ‘What does that taste like?’ 

 

‘It’s cold and sweet, milky, sort of bland really.’

 

‘Statistically, it's the most popular dessert in the world.’