Hot Desk Read online

  Hot Desk

  Zara Stoneley

  One More Chapter

  a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

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  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2021

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  Copyright © Zara Stoneley 2021

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  Cover design by Lucy Bennett © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021

  Cover illustration © Sam Kalda / Folio Art

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  Zara Stoneley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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  A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

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  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

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  Source ISBN: 9780008436278

  Ebook Edition © August 2021 ISBN: 9780008436261

  Version: 2021-08-25

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you for reading…

  You will also love…

  About the Author

  Also by Zara Stoneley

  One More Chapter...

  About the Publisher

  For Alice, my wonderful niece

  Chapter One

  From: Last, Steven

  To:

  Date: 1 April 2021, 07:00

  Subject: ALL STAFF MEETING

  * * *

  Dear all,

  * * *

  Please attend an all staff meeting in Meeting Room 1, today, 9am

  * * *

  Inform Diane ASAP if you are unable to attend.

  * * *

  Rgds,

  Steven

  This could be the worst day of my life ever. And I mean ever. Worse than the day I gave up my seat to a ‘pregnant lady’ who was on her way to slimming club, worse than the day I battered a guy with my oversize tote bag for shouting ‘love your puppies’ in my ear, when he was actually talking to a woman with two cute dogs walking behind me, even worse than the school prom when I walked the entire length of the hall dressed in my posh frock, with a very long trail of toilet paper stuck to my heel. Or the time I went up what has to be the steepest escalator on the London Underground with my skirt stuck in my knickers and laughed when some bright spark shouted out ‘mind the thigh gap’ because I still didn’t realize. Oh my God that one was bad.

  But I didn’t feel sick then, I just felt embarrassed and a bit (okay, a lot) stupid. Right now, I feel slightly sick, and very sweaty.

  Never read emails on your way to work, especially if you are running late. My mobile beeps, and I fumble, nearly dropping it from my clammy hands.

  Where the F are you, Al??? Haven’t you seen the email?!! Lou x

  On the bus, running late. Yep, seen it. What do you think? Alice x

  Disaster. Must be serious. Room is too small for everybody, we don’t all f*g fit! We need to talk – hurry up!

  How can I be late to the meeting that could ruin my life? Lou is not a doom and gloom kind of person. She normally looks on the bright side, finds positives. Before I get a chance to type a reply, there’s another message. This effing downturn in the economy has lost me 3 of my clients in the last month, any of yours gone tits up? Some of Lou’s messages are abbreviated and take some working out – this one doesn’t.

  My heart starts to hammer harder as I type. A few are on hold.

  Perma-hold? Get your arse in here, quick!

  Trying!!! Shit they can’t shut the company down, can they?

  Gah. This is so unfair; this can’t be happening. Not now. Living in lockdown hell is finally supposed to be over.

  I need my job; I need to be back in the office. I need normal. They promised us normal!

  It was fun to be able to work at home for a few weeks. I didn’t even mind balancing my laptop on my knee and wearing noise-cancelling headphones to block out my housemates and joking about the commute to the kitchen. Hilarious. Because we’d all be back to normal after a few weeks, wouldn’t we?

  Then coronavirus didn’t go away and the weeks stretched to months, and even more months, and it started to wear a bit thin. Okay, it got bloody depressing, impossible to concentrate, and, well, frustrating. There was nobody to bounce ideas off. Just interruptions. Constant interruptions. People wandering in and out, borrowing stuff, asking questions. Arghhh.

  I wanted my desk back soooo desperately. My own little space. My lovely work area, being surrounded by all the bits and bobs that make me feel good and inspire me. Instead of a cramped room in a noisy house, where the most exciting feature was a damp patch in the corner, which I swear has grown.

  It was really doing my head in. The nothingness, not the damp patch.

  I would have gone into the office and collected some of my stuff, except people would have messed with it at home and wound me up even more.

  What’s that about? Why can’t people leave things alone?

  Oh my God, the day I got the email confirming we’d be back in the office two weeks later was a-ma-zing! I couldn’t stop grinning.

  It wasn’t just my tiny room that was the problem. I missed the buzz of the office; I missed my colleagues. Even the annoying ones.

  I even missed sitting on this bus. Weird, eh? I glance around self-consciously. Very weird.

  It was so good to be back that I kind of dismissed the emails that started on practically day one of the office reopening. The ones highlighting the reduction in business. The ones asking for voluntary redundancies, mentioning streamlining, slimming, working more effectively and efficiently; all of those things that you try and ignore. We all did it. Pah, they can’t mean me. Delete, delete, delete.

  We’re back! Everything is going to be normal again.

  I glance at the time on my mobile. OMG I am SO going to be late. Being late to the meeting could also be a sackable offence. Unless we’re all going to be sacked anyway.

  I gaze out of the window, trying to enjoy the scenery. Not happening. The bus is going so slowly that the people scurrying along the pavement are moving faster than I am, dodging puddles and han
ging on to umbrellas and their coat hoods. It’s drizzling with rain. A steady, depressing, soaking drizzle.

  I might still be on the dry bus, but I’ve come out in a cold sweat, the back of my neck clammy. The palms of my hands, now pressed together, sticky.

  This not knowing, this sense of dread is worse than working for months on end at home. Well maybe not. That really was the pits.

  It’s not normal, is it? Having to work on your own and only see colleagues over a dodgy internet connection, with their faces green or blue-tinged, depending on the type of lighting they’ve got.

  The thing I missed most of all was my desk though, all the little knick-knacks I’ve collected somehow spark off ideas in my head. I didn’t realize how important they were, until I had to spend months away from the office, and I know it sounds crazy, but when I’m sitting at my desk, I feel like I can breathe. It’s mine. A space I can escape to.

  At work, nobody moves or borrows my stuff. The stuff crammed full of memories that make me happy. And when I’m happy I’m creative. I can touch the smooth cool surface of the special pebble I picked up on a beach and remember that moment, that feeling of freedom, I can remember the perfect blue of the sky and know that it will work magically on the website I’m designing. Be confident that it will lift people’s spirits and make them want to buy the candles that are being advertised.

  Yeah, I’d found the perfect colour scheme for that one, and then it was one of the accounts that was put on hold.

  I try and relax my face, chase away the frown that I know is forming. But the candle company went, are we next?

  I can’t go back to homeworking. I just can’t face it. Not again. Even worse, I can’t lose my job.

  Somebody plonks themselves down on the seat next to me. Their arm jammed against mine. Dampness seeps through my sleeve.

  Just how bad is this day going to get?

  I always used to love my journey in on the bus. But when we returned to the office it seemed slightly strange to sit on public transport every day, squashed up against a load of strangers. The first day I’d felt nervous, twitchy, but the anticipation and excitement had faded the moment I’d taken my seat. It soon started to feel normal again. By the end of that first week I’d started to chill, I’d gone back to enjoying the journey.

  That first day has nothing on today though. Today the fluttering in my stomach is worse than when I’ve been going for an interview.

  This meeting could change everything. Everything. I could be jobless and homeless. Well, back to living with Mum and Dad, and sharing a room with my sister Sophie. OMG I can’t do that, I just can’t. But people are firing, not hiring, aren’t they?

  ‘Sorry, love.’

  I blink at the woman sitting next to me and force myself to stop thinking the worse. ‘No probs.’ I smile, then wish I hadn’t when she takes off her hat and gives it a good shake.

  Why do things like this happen to me? If I hadn’t checked Insta just as I was leaving home, I wouldn’t have seen the photo my sister Soph put up last night, and I wouldn’t have seen my favourite dress looking better on her than it does me. I had to message her. Like you do.

  Have you got something you need to tell me, Soph? A x

  I’ve been looking for that bloody dress for ages. I’d started to think I must have accidentally sent it to the charity shop. When you’ve got as little cupboard space as me you can’t afford to keep excess clothes. This dress isn’t excess though. It is essential. Every girl needs at least one dress that disguises their stomach and manages not to make their calves look fat. It is exactly the right length. Hiding my knees but sitting just above the bulge of my calves.

  No, why? What? Sxxx

  Dress? Last night? Insta?

  My phone rang just as I was grabbing my coat and keys. ‘Shit, Alice. I asked, didn’t I? I meant to, but, oh yeah, I know, you were late back from work.’ It was bound to be my fault. ‘So I reckoned it would be okay to have a quick look through your stuff while I was waiting, cos I knew you wouldn’t mind. Zoe said she thought it looked fantastic on me, she even curled my hair for me so I could get a proper idea. She’s ace, you’re so lucky sharing a place with a hairdresser; she’s awesome, much better than the girls at the place where I normally go.’ Sophie is always like this, lots and lots of words, and energy, and fun. It’s totally impossible to stay cross with her. Which is why she gets away with so much. It’s always been the same – the baby of the family, the one who had new not hand-me-downs because by the time they’d been worn by number three (me) they were too shabby.

  ‘Any chance you can wash it before you put it back this time, Soph?’ I tried not to sigh. Soph takes the attitude ‘what’s yours is mine, and what’s mine is my own’. She went absolutely ballistic when one of our other sisters, Darcie, borrowed her hair straighteners without asking and didn’t put them back. Apparently, they were ‘special’. Hmmm. Maybe I need to go ballistic as well from time to time, although that would upset her, and I hate upset and arguments, and is it really worth it?

  ‘Sure, no probs. Shouldn’t you be at work, big sis?’

  ‘I’m on my way.’ That was when I’d glanced at my phone and nearly panicked. ‘I’m late, oh shit, I’m really late.’

  ‘You? Late? Never.’ She had laughed.

  Which meant I missed the train, and there wasn’t one another for ages, so I jumped on the bus instead.

  Mistake. Even on a good day I’d be cutting it fine catching this bus. On a rainy day, when the traffic is slow and everybody who normally walks has decided to drive, or catch the bus, there’s no chance.

  I actually don’t like being late. Even when there isn’t a very important meeting. I love going into work. I loved it even before our home-working stint, but I love it even more now.

  I mean, it isn’t the perfect job, and I know I’m not doing anything world-shatteringly important or will ever become a billionaire, and there are days when I’m jealous as hell that somebody has got a promotion and I haven’t, and some of my co-workers do get on my tits if I’m honest, and some days the work is dull and nothing goes right and it’s pretty shite. But Monday to Friday at work can still be better than Saturday and Sunday at home when I’m stuck in the tiniest room in our shared house, trying to ignore calls from my ex (who I’m trying really hard to resist, because it would be too easy to just fall back into our old bad-for-me relationship) and trying to find out who borrowed (and spilt something sticky down) my fav black top and who has scoffed the last slice of leftover pizza that I’d put in the fridge and was really looking forward to.

  Those bits were a hundred times worse when I was there 24/7. Oh my God, resisting the urge to phone Dave when I was feeling down was a nightmare – but I’ve managed. So far. My fingers are twitching to call him now and ask him what he thinks about the email. I’m sure he’ll reassure me. But I can’t. I must not.

  And don’t get me started on the subject of the last Hobnob in the packet, or the half a bar of chocolate I’d struggled to resist as it was going to be my reward for sticking to one glass of wine.

  See? It’s not just a dress, or Hobnob, that’s the issue here. People are always borrowing my stuff, nothing is my own. Nothing has changed from when I was a kid.

  I grew up in a crowded, noisy house. I mean it was nice, but with four kids and two adults, plus various pets and friends constantly dropping round, it was hard to make yourself heard – let alone actually listened to. And I didn’t even have a bedroom of my own to escape to. I shared it with Sophie, my sister. You see, I was born having to share.

  When we were kids, Soph never quite got the hang of hers and mine. It was brilliant when I moved into my own place. Until she started dropping by and I realized nothing had changed. In fact, it had got worse, because my boyfriend and all my housemates decided that I didn’t mind sharing. Everything.

  But my desk at work is different. My desk is my own personal space. My only private space. The only thing in the world that is really mine and n
obody messes with. What am I going to do if I lose that?

  At work I am a different person to the Alice I am at home. Not in a schizophrenic way, just in a personal space and boundaries way. I say home, but, I have to admit, my place doesn’t feel like home. It’s just a place to be when I’m not at work.

  Even this commute, when I can daydream in peace, or people-watch feels even more precious now.

  Well, obviously I’m not enjoying the commute today, because two minutes after running to catch the bus and collapsing onto my seat I’d opened my emails and found out that my lovely resurrected Monday to Friday life is about to be shattered. Again.

  I just know it is.

  I open up Insta again, to try and distract myself from that email (I mean, all staff, are we all going to be sacked?), and the snail pace of the bus and the fact that I really, really want to rub at my damp coat sleeve and check whether the water has seeped through, but it would be rude and the woman sitting next to me seems quite nice. Just very soggy.