The Map of Us. Jules Preston

      My trips to her office had been tapering off nicely. I was hoping this was only a blip in a long-term downward trend.

      Trish looked like she had a wasp in her ear. That was fairly normal. She always looked like she had a wasp in her ear. When you got summoned to her office it was sometimes hard to tell if you were in trouble or not.

      ‘Am I in trouble?’ I asked.

      ‘Yes,’ she said.

      That cleared that up then.

       wasps

      The cause of Trish’s constant expression of irritated malevolence was the subject of much discussion and conjecture in the office.

      Most speculated that it was the result of botched plastic surgery around the eyes in an attempt to make her look younger. The high heels and vertical stripes seemed to support the hypothesis. She already went to a great deal of effort to look taller and thinner.

      Another, smaller contingent suggested that the blow-up cushion on her chair was not just to enable her to reach her phone but hinted at some chronic problem with her unmentionables. It was hard not to laugh at this one. For lots of reasons. None of them kind. I am a bad person. I admit it.

      A third group thought that she did actually have a wasp jammed in her ear. Poor thing. The wasp, that is.

      I’m not sure what I believed. It didn’t matter now. I was fairly certain that the current look of squinty-eyed hostility had something to do with the Bearing Foods presentation earlier.

      Blaming Helen would be futile. I knew that. Helen was the only bridesmaid at Trish’s lavish destination wedding last year. The venue was a remote island in the Indian Ocean that took 5 hours to get to by small boat. I wasn’t invited. I’m glad I wasn’t. It rained for nine days straight. I’ve seen the rainfall figures. They were the highest ever recorded. A little over 320% of the normal monthly average. It was impossible to get outside. In the end Trish was married in the main guest hut surrounded by overflowing buckets and the sound of palm trees being blown over.

      Trish and Helen went to the same prestigious university too. I didn’t. I went somewhere less prestigious that had an infamous nightlife.

      On Fridays they sometimes shared a car to work. Neither had ever accepted a lift in mine. I could see their point. It used to belong to my father. It was full of sand. I tried to get it professionally cleaned once. They took one look at it and said no. Then they asked me to leave their forecourt, but the car wouldn’t start because it was damp and it was French, and they had to push me down the road while I tried to bump start it and I only remembered to take the handbrake off when they had to ask more people to come out and help push.

      Yup. There was no point blaming Helen. That much was clear. If this was about the Bearing Foods presentation, I was done for.

       something about squirrels

      ‘It’s about the Bearing Foods presentation,’ Trish said.

      Nuts.

      I tried not to shrug. I do a lot of shrugging. Especially when I’m about to get told off. I shrug at other times, too. Maybe it has something to do with hanging out in old French cars for so long.

      Trish was wearing a cap sleeve shift dress with wide pink and white vertical stripes. She looked like a deckchair. A small deckchair. I could hear her blow-up cushion protesting as she squirmed in her chair and straightened to her full height. I could still barely see her over her laptop.

      ‘I’ve just had Daniel Bearing on the phone,’ she said.

      Daniel Bearing was the CEO of Bearing Foods. We’d met, briefly.

      ‘Yes?’ I said.

      No shrugging.

      ‘He’s not happy.’ She said.

      ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ I said.

      Must not shrug.

      ‘He said that there was some problem with the new Seedy-Pea-Nut-Slices?’

      ‘Really?’ I said.

      I could feel my shoulders tighten and lift slightly.

      ‘Something about squirrels,’ she said.

      ‘How odd,’ I said.

      Shrug averted. That was close. Now I just had to stop myself from smiling. Trish had drafted a policy document about smiling in the workplace. It was stuck on the wall in the kitchenette. In her view, smiling was the sign of an idle mind. She thought it looked unprofessional and insincere. She wanted her team to remain impassive and focused. She did her very best to lead by example. Apart from the whole wasp in the ear thing.

      ‘I thought that Helen was helping you?’ Trish said.

      ‘Helen was great,’ I said, suddenly aware that I shrug when I lie as well. Too late.

      ‘Sort it out,’ she said.

      ‘I will,’ I said.

      And then I was dismissed.

      I was glad. Trying not to shrug had really taken it out of me. I was exhausted.

       G.I.T.S.

      The Group Imaginative Thinking Session at Bearing Foods was not going well. Daniel Bearing’s father didn’t like the term ‘brainstorming.’ He thought it sounded outdated and silly. Group Imaginative Thinking Sessions were his idea. They happened once a week. It was part of his legacy. They also had an unfortunate acronym.

      Daniel’s father had recently retired and was now living in the Outer Hebrides in a former shooting lodge that had its own stone harbour and a beach of pure white sand and nine bedrooms and views to the Isle of Skye. He had worked hard for over thirty years so that he could live peacefully among puffins and grey seals and bottle-nosed dolphins in the middle of the North Atlantic. The constant buffeting of the wind was playing havoc with his hair implants.

      Daniel was in charge now. He could call the weekly sessions anything he wanted to. He didn’t really care one way or the other. Everyone just argued about the same things they always did. Mostly about cashews being too expensive and the laxative effect of eating too much coconut and whether chocolate chips really had any place in a low-fat snack bar.

      Daniel Bearing wasn’t really listening. He had a lot on his mind.

       Dear Matilda

       Just a quick note to let you know that washing machine No.76 arrived safely earlier today. How exciting. I doubt it will last any longer than the others, but it looks very fine in its cardboard overcoat. I haven’t unpacked it yet. It’s sitting in the middle of the living room at the moment. It seems happy enough. It has no idea what we have in store for it.

       Mr Southerton (Jnr) has promised to come around tomorrow to plumb it in for me. Mr Southerton (Snr) is retiring. He says that he is too old to play around with hoses and stopcocks. He says his son is very good at fixing things. Much better than he is. Was. His son is called Bailey. He went to school with Jack. Do you know him? He has a very nice voice on the phone. He has also agreed to take the remains of washing machines No.74 and No.75 to the dump so that your father can park the car in the garage for a change. He won’t. But he could.

       Mr Southerton (Snr) says he will still call by and see Sidney when he is passing. I know that Sidney is very fond of his company.

       Your brother is in South America somewhere. Don’t