She called George that evening instead, and they talked about Kumiko – who Amanda still hadn’t met; it had got to the point where it seemed George was purposely keeping her secret – and about the astonishing amount of money he and Kumiko were suddenly being offered for the art they made together, a development Amanda instinctively mistrusted, like telling everyone you’d won the lottery before doing the final verification of your numbers.
‘You remember that bird you said you saved?’ she asked. ‘What was it? A stork?’
‘A crane,’ he said. ‘At least I’m pretty sure it was a crane.’
‘Did that really happen? Or did you just dream it?’
He sighed, and to her surprise, there was a real annoyance in it. She pressed on quickly. ‘Only I think I may have seen it today. At the park with JP. Tall white thing, hunting for fish.’
‘Really? That park near your flat?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Gosh, wouldn’t that be something? Gosh. It wasn’t a dream, no, but it sure felt that way. Gosh.’
She talked to her mother next, mostly about her father. ‘Well, almost none of that makes sense, dear,’ her mother said about Kumiko and the art and the money and the crane. ‘Are you sure?’
‘He seems happy.’
‘He always seems happy. Doesn’t mean he is.’
‘Don’t tell me you still worry about him, Mum.’
‘To meet George once is to worry about him forever.’
Just before she lay down in bed to pretend to read, Amanda picked up her mobile again and clicked ‘Recents’. Henri was third down, after her father and her mother. She hadn’t spoken to anyone else the entire weekend. She thought of calling Henri to see if he’d made it home safely, but that, of course, was impossible, for so many reasons. And what would she say? What would he say?
She put the phone back down and turned off the light.
She slept. And dreamt of volcanoes.
Work on Monday morning involved an analysis of the data she’d collected at the weekends – numbers of cars, how long each had waited on average, possible alternate traffic signalling or routing or directional changes that might help. She never tried to explain this part of her job to others, not after seeing how their faces stretched back in terror that she might keep talking about it.
But, well, people were dumb, and she found the job interesting. The sorting out of traffic may not have been all that dynamic, but the solving of a problem could be. And these were problems she could solve, was even developing a certain flair for solving, even possibly so well she may have been shifting Felicity Hartford from anonymous loathing of her into reluctantly approving awareness.
Though Rachel – who was, after all, her immediate superior – was starting to prove a real obstacle.
‘Have you finished the analysis yet?’ Rachel asked, standing at the end of Amanda’s desk reading a report, as if Amanda’s work was too boring for eye contact.
‘It’s 9.42,’ Amanda said. ‘I’ve only been here forty-five minutes.’
‘Thirty-one minutes?’ Rachel said. ‘Don’t think your tardiness hasn’t been noticed?’
‘I worked all day Saturday.’
‘Queue counts should only take the morning? I hardly think that’s all day?’
It had been like this since the picnic. Nothing obvious had changed, no big gestures or declaration of eternal enmity, just the slow withdrawal of lunch invites, an increased brusqueness to work requests, a general chilling of atmosphere. Refusing to look at her was new, though. They must have entered a new phase, Amanda thought. All righty then.
‘How’s it going with Jake Gyllenhaal’s brother?’ she asked, turning back to her screen. Out of the corner of her eye, she at least saw Rachel look up.
‘Who?’
‘The boy from the park,’ Amanda said, faux-innocently. ‘The one who threw olive oil all over you.’
‘Wally is fine?’ Rachel said, a little frown (plus, Amanda was thrilled to see, a little frown line) briefly scarring her immaculate face.
‘He’s called Wally?’ Amanda said, for what was the third or maybe fourth time. ‘Who’s called Wally these days?’
‘It’s a perfectly normal name?’ Rachel said. ‘Unlike certain other names I could mention? I mean, Kumiko for someone not even Japanese?’
Amanda blinked. ‘What a weird thing to remember. And how do you know she’s not Japanese?’
‘Not really weird?’ Rachel said. ‘You talk about it, like, incessantly? Like you have no life of your own so you’ve got to live through your father’s? It’s sad? Is what it is?’
‘Sometimes, Rachel, I don’t know how you think–’
‘The report, Amanda?’ Rachel said, green eyes flashing.
Amanda gave up. ‘By lunchtime,’ she said, then put on a huge fake smile. ‘And hey, maybe we can have a bite and go over it together. What do you say?’
Rachel made a fake disappointed sound. ‘That would have been super? But I’ve already got plans? Just on my desk by one?’
She walked away without waiting for Amanda’s response. We could have been friends, Amanda thought.
‘And yet somehow, no,’ she said to herself.
‘Out of the way, fat ass!’
The cyclist’s elbow sent Amanda’s coffee flying towards a pavement heaving with City workers on their lunch breaks, including a businesswoman who’d picked the wrong day to wear cream. The cup hit the pavement at the woman’s feet, splattering her with a wave that reached all the way to mid-thigh.
The woman stared at Amanda, mouth agape. Amanda, torn between the embarrassment of having so many people hearing her called ‘fat ass’ and the embarrassment of having practically thrown coffee at an innocent bystander, tried to seize the initiative.
‘Fucking cyclists,’ she said, feeling the sentiment truly but also hoping the woman would follow her on the shift of blame.
‘You’re standing in the bike lane,’ the woman said. ‘What did you expect him to do?’
‘I expected him to give way to a pedestrian!’
‘Maybe your ass was too fat for him to avoid.’
‘Oh, f**k you,’ Amanda said, giving up and walking away. ‘Who wears cream in January anyway?’