Who’s The Boss?

Office romance

Cheryl, aka the ice queen, emerges from her office and she looks furious, but some might say when doesn’t she? I’ve never known anyone to be so cross all the time and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her smile.

She casts her eye round, then her gaze falls on me and stays there as she heads towards me. I don’t know what I’ve done, but somehow I must have confirmed her view of me as a hapless loser.

“The woman from the coffee shop is downstairs,” she says sharply with a disapproving scowl. “She’s been asking for you.” “Me? Why?” “Perhaps you forgot to pay for your latte this morning, Zac,” Dermot pipes up and Cheryl turns her withering look full force on him and he dutifully withers.

“She flatly refuses to leave until she’s spoken to you,” Cheryl says. “Get rid of her, Zachary.”

I don’t blame Cheryl for being angry. She’s our supervisor and if we don’t meet the targets, she’s the one that gets it in the neck.

I run for the stairs, heart hammering. I know I didn’t forget to pay for my breakfast this morning. In fact I paid for two, same as I always do. One for me and one for old Gordon, the homeless man who sleeps under the railway bridge with his dog, Niven, a black Labrador cross.

“But not a cross Labrador,” Gordon always adds when someone asks what sort of dog Niven is.

Magda has a system where her customers can buy something extra which is then donated to someone living rough. We have an agreement that the tea and breakfast I pay for always goes to Gordon.

Whenever I see Gordon I always stop for a chat and to make a fuss of Niven who knows I always have a treat in my backpack for him, some leftover fish from my fish and chips the night before or a bone from the butcher.

By the time I reach the ground floor, I think I know this is going to be about Gordon. One look at Magda’s tear streaked face tells me I’m right. She’s wearing her crisp red and white apron

I know from the PAIN in her eyes that she’s SEEING it happen AGAIN

and wringing a tissue in her hands.

“It’s Gordon,” we both say at the same time, but mine is a question.

I take her hands in mine, or perhaps she takes mine in hers and we end up sitting on the bench seat in the window.

There’s an odd thumping noise which is strangely distracting – thump, thump, thump – but I put it from my mind.

“As always, he ties Niven up outside and comes in for breakfast,” she explains. “He barely starts to eat when he clutches his chest…”

She lets go of one of my hands and rams her fist into the centre of her chest to demonstrate.

“He gasps and slumps down. Two nurses from the hospital are there and they tell me to call an ambulance, so I do. They have him flat on the floor…”

She looks past me and I know from the pain in her eyes that she’s seeing it all happening again, one of those things that will probably haunt her always. I squeeze the hand I’m still holding. “Is he…?” I can’t ask and she frowns. “They take him in the ambulance, see, but Niven is waiting. They say to call the dog warden, but what if Gordon gets better and Niven has been given to someone else? Or worse.”

She adds the last two words darkly. The thumping noise is still going on. Thump, thump, thump. I wish it would stop. I can’t think straight. “He didn’t look good, Zac,” she says. We both reflect on this for a moment, then she perks up again.

“Niven likes you,” she says. “I’m not allowed to have him in the café or I would. I can’t leave him tied to the lamppost. He might be stolen. There are unscrupulous people in this world.” “But I’m working.” Even as I say it I can see Niven’s soft brown eyes in my mind and I can feel the way his nose nuzzles my fingers when I stop to say hello, as if looking for a hint of what treat I might have for him.

“Remember your manners, Niven,” Gordon says and Niven always holds up his paw, which I have to shake. “He says thank you very much.”

Ruby behind the reception desk calls out, “When Magda says she can’t leave him tied up, what she means is she didn’t.” “Then where is he?” Ruby emerges with Niven on a length of blue rope. His tail thuds against the

side of the reception desk… thump, thump, thump…

“Hurry up and think of something,” she says. “I could lose my job if anyone finds out I let Magda bring a dog in here, even if it is Niven.”

I grab the rope and hand it to Magda, then usher her towards the door. “You have to wait outside.” “You’re going to abandon him?” “Zac, you can’t…” Ruby gasps. “No. I’m going to get my bag, then we’ll sort something out.”

Cheryl’s waiting for me, the cuff of her shirt pulled back so she can look at her watch. It’s just for show. There’s a massive clock on the wall right in front of my desk.

“I’ve got to go,” I say, picking up my backpack and jacket. “Sorry, but something urgent has come up. It’s a matter of life and death.” It’s not really a lie. “You can’t go,” she says. “You’ll be on a warning if you walk out of that door. Possibly more than a warning. This could mean dismissal.”

“Sorry, Cheryl. I really am,” I say. “But some things are more important than a job that pays the rent and puts food on the table. Oh, lord, what am I doing? “So you’ll chuck your job away for a woman? More fool you!”

Magda is standing outside with Niven sitting at her feet. He gets up when I come out and I make a fuss of him, scrunching up his ears.

“I knew you were the right person,” Magda says. “You proper love him.”

“I do,” I say. I don’t tell her I’ve probably proper lost my job, but I look up at the building as we walk away and Cheryl is standing at the window watching me, arms folded. I can’t see her expression, but I can guess.

I never liked working there anyway. I only ended up there because the transport company I used to work for went bust and suddenly I went from being on a manager’s salary to minimum wage.

It turned out that my partner preferred being with a manager to someone working in a glorified call centre, and I lost her too. “What will you do?” Magda asks. “I’ll take Niven home.” “I would have done that, but my husband is allergic,” Magda says, biting her lip. “You’re a good man.” Magda holds my face in her hands, stands up on her toes and kisses me on the mouth. “Thank you.”

Niven makes himself at home on my sofa, puts his head on a cushion and falls asleep. While he does, I try ringing the hospital, but they won’t tell me anything because I’m not a relative.

When someone comes to my door a little later, the last person I expect it to be is Cheryl.

“Don’t just stand there,” she says. “Give me a hand with these bags.”

I take them from her and notice her fingers are marked red from carrying the heavy bags.

“We had a whip round at work. It’s mainly dog food with some chew bones and treats and a couple of bowls thrown in. He’s probably a bit old for toys, but I got him one anyway. It doesn’t look as if you need a bed for him…”

He looks up from the sofa and his tail starts to thud as if he knows her, then she sits down beside him and gently strokes his head as he rests it on her lap.

I feel like pinching myself.

“You poor old thing. You must wonder where Gordon is.” She turns to me and demands, “Have you phoned the hospital, yet?”

“They won’t tell me anything because I’m not related.”

“But you need to know what’s happening, don’t you, Niven?” she says. I’ve never heard her speak so softly to anyone. Her sharp edges are soft when she engages with the dog. “And you can’t speak for yourself, can you? Have you got the number?”

She turns back to me, all business-like again. I give her the number and she makes the call.

“I’m phoning on behalf of Niven,” she says. “He’s Gordon’s closest relative and he can’t call himself.” She looks at me and smiles thinly. “No, he can’t come to the phone, but he’s right here next to me.”

When she hangs up, her blue eyes are floating in tears.

“Gordon is in surgery. He was conscious for a while and when they asked if he had any family, he just kept asking for Niven.”

She looks away from me and goes back to stroking the dog, and I watch the fur on his head getting wetter and wetter. I push the tissue box towards her and go to the kitchen to make coffee. What I’d really like to do is hug her, but she’d probably kill me with a frozen blast from her ice blue eyes.

“I didn’t know that you knew Gordon

He’s in SURGERY now, but he was CONSCIOUS and asking for NIVEN

and Niven,” I say when I get back. You can barely tell she’s been crying.

“Everyone knows them. I sit in the park with them at weekends and share my sandwiches. You know how you always make a couple extra.” She almost laughs, embarrassed. “And then there’s the left-over meat for Niven. I’m a vegetarian, I never have left-over meat, but I can’t turn up empty handed.”

“I didn’t know that about you,” I say. Why would I? She eats lunch alone.

“I’d better go,” she says. “I’ve used up all my lunch hour. I hope you’ll be at work tomorrow, Zac. Bring Niven with you. Ruby says he can stay behind her desk all day. No one will know he’s there. I’ll call the hospital again this evening and let you know what’s happening. You can pass it on to your… your… to Magda.”

When I’ve seen her out, I glance in the mirror and see a smear of red lipstick round my mouth. How on earth did that get there?

In the morning I stop at Magda’s for breakfast and update her about Gordon. I’d never noticed her pillar box red lipstick before. “Niven is all right is he?” she asks. “He’s a bit sad, but he’s eating OK.” Niven settles down happily behind Ruby’s desk. It’s not such a secret him being there, though. She tells me his thumping tail gives him away every time he hears a voice he recognises.

“Especially when Cheryl comes down to check on him,” she adds, lowering her voice. “Who’d have thought?” Not me, that’s for sure. At the end of the day, Cheryl stops by my desk and gives it a tap.

“I’ll give you a lift home tonight, Zachary,” she says and across the office I see Dermot’s eyebrows fly up so high, they almost hover above his head. “Unless you have other plans.” “Plans? Me?” I laugh. We drive to my flat with Niven sitting on the back seat leaning forward, his head between us. His breath smells terrible.

“I’ll clean his teeth,” Cheryl says. “And we can give him a bath. We can’t take him to the hospital smelling like a compost heap. Unless of course you planned to go with Magda.” “No, should I have done?” She shrugs. She’s got everything we need, from a doggy toothbrush to sweet smelling lavender dog shampoo.

He’s not keen on going in the shower and we both get very wet, but at the end of it all he smells a lot better.

Gordon is back on a ward after a spell in cardiac surgery intensive care. When we arrive at the hospital, Cheryl leads me across the grass around the back of the hospital.

“My father was in that ward,” she says. “It’s on the ground floor. You wait here and I’ll go in through the main entrance and visit Gordon. When I wave to you, hold Niven up to the window so Gordon can see him.”

I look down at Niven. Gordon never said what he was crossed with, but it was something bigger than a Labrador – possibly a donkey – and for a dog that lives on the streets, he’s well covered.

It seems an age before Cheryl appears at the window and waves to us. I hadn’t realised how dishevelled she looked. It must have happened when we were showering Niven, or perhaps it was when she was rolling round on the floor trying to brush his teeth.

Her cheeks are aglow. I don’t think she’s ever looked more human. She’s still not smiling though.

I struggle to get Niven off the ground and sort of prop his behind on my bent knee. It’s an awkward position to be in, but we can both see Gordon in his bed, still attached to monitors, but looking remarkably well.

He lifts his hand and beams when he sees us.

Niven’s tail starts to thump and his whole body wiggles. We end up in a heap on the grass.

“He’s going to be all right,” I say, laughing and ruffling his ears. Back on my feet, I look in again and see Cheryl giving Gordon a hug.

“I expect you’ll want to spend the rest of the evening with Magda,” she says when she comes out.

“I don’t think so. She’ll be spending it with her husband.”

She looks shocked. “You… You’re… with a married woman?” “Magda is a friend,” I say. “That’s all.” “Oh.” And there it is, for the first time ever, a proper smile. It lifts her whole face and she looks utterly beautiful.

“We could get a takeaway and make plans,” I say. “After all, we have to find Gordon and Niven accommodation for when he comes out of hospital.”

“Yes, that’s a brilliant idea. We can work on that together. And if anyone can sort it out, you can, Zac.”

Maybe she doesn’t think I’m a hapless loser after all. I’ve certainly revised my opinion of her as some sort of ice queen. She’s just a woman with targets to meet and deadlines to keep and a bunch of unhappy, resentful people working under her. Maybe that’s about to change. Niven walks between us looking first at me, then at Cheryl. You’d almost think he was smiling and he’s got a definite bounce in his step.

A bit like me really.

Her cheeks are AGLOW – I don’t think she’s ever LOOKED more HUMAN