Her Name Was Rose: The gripping psychological thriller you need to read this year. Claire Allan
and shock?
The man on the phone barked something into my ear which pulled me from my thoughts. I apologised and asked him to repeat himself.
‘Oh you are still there then?’ he said, scorn dripping from every word. ‘I thought you’d gone for a nap, or maybe a holiday.’
‘I’m terribly sorry, sir,’ I repeated, trying to diffuse the situation. These calls were monitored and the last thing I needed was for this to end up in a training session at the end of the month. ‘You have my full attention now – let’s get this problem solved.’
Ten minutes later he was appeased and I was able to hang up the call and take a moment to rub my temples; to try and regain focus on what I was being paid to do.
Thirty seconds, that was all it would take to check online for pictures. Then I could settle myself and get back to work. Properly.
I picked up my phone, refreshed the internet app and happened upon a picture of the weeping relatives, their bright colours looking garish, standing at a graveside. Jack, thumb in mouth, being carried by an older woman wearing a bright pink coat who looked as though she was resisting the urge to hurl herself into the grave. Cian – ashen faced – was captured tossing a cream rose into the hole in the ground that now contained his wife. She was gone. It was done. But looking at the faces of the mourners, I realised it was just beginning for them.
*
I had put my phone away and answered another call when I saw Andrew walk over towards my soulless desk. He was trying his very best to look intense and managerial, but the unmistakable glint in his eyes implied he was about to impart news that made him feel important. He stood a little too close while he waited for me to finish the call I was on, and just as I was about to answer the next call waiting in the queue, he lifted the headphones from my ears and forced himself into my direct eyeline.
‘A word?’ he said, head tilted to the side.
‘Any word or had you something particular in mind?’ I said, a weak attempt at a joke.
As feared, it went right over his head and he looked at me as if I was a puzzle he couldn’t figure out. A human Rubik’s Cube. ‘My office?’ he said, an eyebrow raised. He led the way. A bad feeling washed over me. Nothing good ever, ever happened in Andrew’s office. Still a part of me lived in hope he was going to break the company-wide tradition of demoralising and humiliating staff and offer me a pay rise or a promotion or both.
‘Close the door,’ he said as he took his seat behind his desk. He probably imagined he looked foreboding – but he didn’t. He was too small, too fine a creature, too weedy to intimidate me. I wondered whether his mother still took his trousers up for him.
‘Sit down,’ he said, and I did, straightening my skirt and taking a deep breath. I looked at him.
‘So the dentist?’ he said.
I shrugged, unsure what he wanted me to say.
‘You were there this morning?’
I nodded. ‘I told you that, and I took unpaid leave.’
‘Is your dentist a very Godly person?’ he asked, and I was sure I could see the hint of a sneer.
‘I can’t say we’ve discussed theology,’ I replied. Tone light. Not rattled.
‘Well, it’s just you seem to have been in church this morning, so I wondered was your dentist moonlighting as a priest? Confession and tooth removal a speciality?’ A wave of dread shot right to the pit of my stomach.
I willed myself to think fast.
‘Who? What? I don’t know … what?’ I stumbled, feeling the heat rise in my face as my cheeks blushed red.
He turned his computer screen towards me, and I saw my image frozen in pixels, creeping from the church ahead of the mourners. Looking shifty. Ducking out of view – but clearly not enough.
‘I had to go to the funeral,’ I stuttered, ‘and I knew the company policy about compassionate leave being only for immediate family. I took unpaid leave. It doesn’t really matter, does it?’
That was clearly the wrong thing to say.
‘Of course it matters. We have targets to hit and you took time off on the premise of a medical issue and instead you were getting a nosy at the big funeral of the year. Did you even know her?’
‘It’s not like that,’ I said. The blush in my cheeks was now so hot, I could almost hear the roar of the blood rushing to my face. ‘I saw it. I saw the accident. I was a witness. I had to go. I had to get closure.’
The words were spilling out. My hands were shaking – maybe not enough for Andrew to see but I could feel them jittering as I tried to get enough air into my lungs between my short, sharp sentences. I willed the panic not to take hold.
I saw Andrew shake his head. Heard him sigh. I wanted to scream at him.
‘You know we can’t carry dead weight here, Emily. We’ve talked before about this. About your attendance. About your attitude to being here and being part of the team. You’ve had enough warnings. We can’t keep giving you chances. And lying to management? That constitutes gross misconduct.’
I stared at him. ‘But I had to go. Don’t you understand?’
He shook his head again. I wanted to grab him and shake the rest of his weak, puny body along with his stupid head.
‘And you never mentioned it before now? Really? You want me to believe that?’ He snorted. A short, derisory laugh that made the room spin a little more. All sense of balance, of calm, was leaving me. ‘Regardless, Emily, you know that it’s not good enough. I have no choice but to dismiss you with immediate effect. You’ve had more chances than most. More chances than you deserve, if I’m being honest. I am very sorry it’s come to this but really, you have no one to blame but yourself.’
He sat back in his seat, either oblivious to or unmoved by my growing distress. I tried to find the words to reply, but my tongue felt heavy in my mouth. ‘No one to blame but yourself’ reverberated wildly around my head.
Blame.
It was all down to me. It was always all down to me. Isn’t that what Ben had always said? That I brought things on myself? Then and now – it was a fault I couldn’t escape.
I could hear a faint humming; he was talking again. Muttering about clearing out my desk and leaving immediately. HR would be in touch. He hoped I wouldn’t make a scene.
‘Don’t make it worse for yourself,’ he said, head tilted to the side. False compassion that made me want to cry more than any true compassion would have.
I felt my nails dig into my palms – the sharp, scratchy sensation at least making me feel grounded in the room that was becoming increasingly stifling. I willed myself to get up, to remember the breathing techniques I had learned in hospital. I willed my tongue to loosen – to tell him to go straight to hell. I willed myself to turn sharply on my mid-heeled court shoe and slam his office door behind me. But my legs were like jelly.
No one to blame but yourself.
I stood up, using the back of the chair for leverage. I was vaguely aware that Andrew was still talking but I couldn’t hear. All I could hear was the humiliation pounding through my veins.
Sacked. At thirty-four. With rent to pay on a flat I didn’t even like that much and credit card bills that were already a struggle.
No one to blame but myself.
And Rose, I suppose. For taking my place. For walking in front of me and getting hit by the fucking Toyota Avensis.
But I had let her, hadn’t I? I had smiled at her beautiful curly-haired baby and, touched by her cooing and singing and the baby’s toothy grin, I had said: ‘Mothers and children first’ and let her walk through the door before me.
No