Inconsolable (38 page)

“You should make them stop. You should all stop.” He stood up. He needed to get out of the seat, away from these people.

“You seem to have some experience with this,” said George.

“I—” How did he explain it? He'd made himself the focus of attention. “I used to work for the company.” He sat again. Both women in the seat in front were kneeling up to look at him.

“If it's that bad, why are they still in business?” said Helen.

He squeezed the broken plastic tight in his fist. “It's legal, it's all legal, but it's not acceptable. Not one death is acceptable because someone tried to get a good night's sleep.”

“It's not acceptable that I have a face full of wrinkles but that's apparently legal too,” said Helen.

“My father drank himself to death and that wasn't much good but it was legal,” said the other woman. She turned to Helen. “You know Alberto from the deli. He drove his car into a pole because he had insomnia. Did it deliberately, said he'd do anything to sleep. He wore a neck brace for years after that.”

“Sleep is critical to health,” said George. “Our systems are severely compromised without it. That's the reason sleep deprivation has been used as torture.”

“People who used it died,” Drum said. Why couldn't they see it like he did? Foley hadn't seen it either.

“That's terribly sad,” said Helen's friend.

“All drugs have risks. I'd be dead without my blood pressure pills but they've made me fat,” said Helen.

“That's right. All drugs have side effects and risks,” said George. He laughed. “With my arthritis, getting out of bed is a risk. The drugs that stay on the market are the ones that do the best job for the majority of people.”

“It's not enough.”

“When you look at it like that, it's not, but it's the best we've been able to come up with as human beings, and really, it's a lot better than the alternative.”

“I'd be dead, half of us in this carriage would be dead,” said Helen.

“Riding backwards is making me sick,” said her friend. She sat around in her seat, facing the way the train was going, and all Drum could see of her was her sparse hair.

“I can see this affects you badly, son. Absolutes are always the hardest to deal with.”

“Absolutes?” He turned back to George. Death was an absolute. So was failing to prevent it.

“The black or white of things. It's rarely that simple, even though we'd like to think it is. The older I've gotten the more I realise it's really all about the shades in between and how we navigate them.”

Helen said. “I think we all deserve a cup of tea. Because the older I get the more I believe it's about doing the best you can and being kind to each other. That's all anyone can do.”

They gave him tea and sandwiches. He talked more to George about the things he'd seen in his practice, the trust he had that on the whole, modern drugs did good work, made people's lives better.

When he got off the train it was with a piece of fruitcake in his hand. He had a quiet notion, small and uncertain, about accepting more grey, about being kind to people instead of shutting himself off from them.

He'd once collected strays. Maybe he could collect them again. It would mean a new edge, a new set of rules. It scared the piss out of him. He didn't know if it was possible to fight his way to somewhere different, somewhere he might be worthy of Foley, all he knew was he was on the wrong train, going in the wrong direction from the chance to.

33: High Road

Foley's email pinged. Adro:
Coffee.

She looked over at his workstation; he made his eyebrows dance. She typed back:
Half an hour.

Can't wait that long.

Uh-oh. She went for her wallet and her phone chimed. Text from Nat:
Want 2 talk abt Walter. Call me.

Walter had a new issue to champion. Off leash dog parks. He wanted more of them. Adro stood in front of her desk, a bored expression on his face. He'd been enthusiastically unenthusiastic about work since losing out on the Opera House job. She texted back:
Dog Parks. Not happening. Talk 2 Gab.

Adro said, “Coffee, coffee, coffee. Need it nooow.”

She picked up her wallet and slipped her phone in her pocket. Gabriella was on a call but she'd see them leaving the office together. The polite thing would be to ask if she wanted a coffee brought back.
Yeah
.

The office front door had barely shushed closed and Adro said, “I quit.” He kept walking and let out a big sigh. “Oh, I'm so happy I said it.” He had to turn back. Foley hadn't followed him. “Hey.”

She caught up and they fell into step together. “Where are you going?”

“Nowhere. But I can't stand it anymore. I have to get out.”

“You want to quit without a job to go to, don't be daft.”

“I'll get a job. I'm going to travel first. I can move in with my sister for a while, no rent. It'll be fine. Anyway, I thought you were going to quit, you've been so strange lately.”

“I'm not going anywhere.” Because she hadn't mustered the energy to look for something new yet and that was all tied up with abandoning Hugh somehow and the dent her confidence had taken after Drum. “I thought I was doing better?” She asked that without any illusion Adro was going to agree, but she'd been making a huge effort not to cause any ripples. That wasn't the same as making a huge effort to get along with Gabriella, but it was better than the subtle guerilla warfare they'd had going on.

He made a hmm sound, and that was the best she was going to get.

“Are you leaving because of me?” She had to know.

He stopped walking. “Of course not. I don't like the way Gab runs the team. She micromanages and she plays favourites. And I'm not one of them. I'm not happy anymore. You can't change that.”

Hugh could. “What about a transfer to another department?”

“We talked about this. About going to Hugh and honestly, if I thought there was something else I wanted to do, I'd go to him.”

So this was really it. “Oh my God,” she bopped her forehead on his bicep. “I'm going to miss you.”

She made Adro shout the coffee and got another text from Nat:
Walter Lam is a creation of council. Y/N?
She put her phone back in her pocket and pretended she hadn't seen that. It would be so easy to text Y and watch what happened. Gabriella uncovered, cautioned, asked to leave and paid out, which was another version of sacking her. Foley would put her hand up for the job and offer Adro hers and her professional planetary realignment would be complete.

Y would be bliss.

It was giving her smile muscles a workout. She took the phone out of her pocket and opened the text message. It was one letter. It would never come back at her. Nat already knew the question, it was a good bet she knew the answer as well and only needed confirmation. That's all it would be, not so much informing as confirming.

“Here.” Adro held her coffee out. She needed a third hand. She closed the text and slipped the phone back into her pocket. Adro had a two week notice period. She could think about this at, least overnight.

“I know I have to resign to Gab officially. But I wanted to tell you first. I'll tell her tomorrow,” he said.

They talked travel destinations the rest of the journey back to the office and found Hugh standing in the department. “Here they are.” He clapped his hands for attention. “Just wanted to let you know Roger had a call from the premier's office.”

The hush got deeper and no one moved.

“There'll be no amalgamation.”

Foley whooped and there was embarrassed laughter.

Hugh grinned at her and went on. “Premier and cabinet have taken the strategy off the table, for the life of this government at least.”

There was a smatter of clapping and Foley looked at Gabriella, whose arms were resolutely crossed. Her texting finger twitched. Pressing Y felt like the right thing to do now. With the amalgamation off the agenda, any supposedly special experience Gabriella had was redundant.

As if the walls of her brain had their own ears and those ears were connected to Nat's fingers, there was another text; it simply said:
Answer?

Should she bring this to Hugh? By rights she should bring it to Gabriella, but insubordination felt like so much more fun.

She waited for Hugh to leave the department, head up the corridor to his office and she followed. Gabriella watched. Foley's texting finger positively glowed with power. Y. Y. Y. Y.

She took one look at Hugh, slumped at his desk, honourable and steadfast and looking worried and knew it was N. N. N. N. Didn't matter how much she wanted Gabriella out, somehow texting Y was descending to the level of dickhead and she couldn't do it.

Hugh put both hands on his head. Not a good sign. “What's wrong?”

“Close the door.”

He was spooking her out. She took a seat opposite him and waited.

“I have to make a big decision.” He brought his hands down and rubbed his face. “I thought I'd made it, but now we're off the hook for the amalgamation it changes things.” He frowned at her. “You're not saying anything?”

“I thought it was a good idea to shut up.”

“Are you okay?”

“You're stalling.”

“You've been so quiet.”

“I've been busy.”

“Bullshit.”

She tapped the top of his desk. “We're talking about you.”

Hugh stood and paced. “I'm worried about you.”

“There's no need to worry about me. I'm absolutely fine.”

“It's just, we've been here together so long.”

Recognition was like a splash of cold water down her shirt. He wasn't worried about her secret leaking all over the place broken heart; this was something new. “Oh fuck, you're quitting.”

Hugh collapsed into his chair. “I wasn't going to. I couldn't do that to Roger until we knew whether there was going to be an amalgamation or not, but now … It's a great offer, more money, work I can be passionate about. God, when you think I use to lay roads and drive a grader.”

“What's the job?”

“Chief of Staff for the Minister of Planning and Environment.”

“Oh Hugh!” Foley leapt up, rounded his desk, caught Hugh in an awkward sitting down hug and the door opened.

“Well, that's cosy.” Gotcha, in the form of everyone's favourite astroturf instigator, stood there, with a smug expression on her perfectly made-up face.

Foley tried to pull away but Hugh held on, stopping her from straightening up by gripping her arms.

“Oh fuck off, Gabriella,” he said. “You should've knocked. I was just about to throw Foley over the desk and bang her till her ears popped.”

Gabriella's mouth flapped and her eyes bulged. “Wh … wh.”

Foley's laugh came out choked and too loud at the same time, and Hugh barked, “Close the door on your way out.”

It shut with a firm thud and they were alone in their odd clinch. Foley extracted herself from Hugh's arms. She really shouldn't be laughing. “I think you'll have to take the job now.”

Hugh laughed too. He jumped up and hugged her again. He looked like a man who'd shrugged off a nightmare and was moving on with a dream. “I don't know why she's so annoying. It's not like she's done anything truly appalling, except run your team into a sinkhole; even the Walter thing was motivated by wanting to do the right thing.”

This would be the time to mention the potential catastrophe of the Walter thing. Kind of. Because there was now the actual catastrophe of what Hugh had just said.

“You know she's going to tell everyone in the team what she saw, what you just said.” It was a horrifying thought; but for the opportunity of Y, Foley didn't much care.

“Oh shit.” Hugh bounced into his chair.

She went back to hers. “Ah, don't worry about it. Adro quit too, or he will tomorrow. No job to go to, he just wants out, and half the team are Gabriella's creations now anyway, and they all hate me already.”

Hugh did the hand head thing. “Lord, I ballsed that up. I'll talk to her. After I've talked to Roger. I want you to have my job.”

Foley frowned. “What do you mean?”

Hugh gestured to the room. “This job.”

She looked at him blankly. No wonder he was holding his head. It was a did you deliberately hit yourself with a hammer moment.

“You can do it. And I'll help. Roger will support it.”

She sat forward. “Hang on, you're not kidding? Roger didn't support me enough to have Gabriella's job and you think I can do your job?”

“Yep.”

She stood up. “Shiiit, really?” She sat down. “General Manager.” This was insane. “Me.”

“Why not.”

“What about Abraham in finance or Brenda in—”

“Nope.”

“I used to wear a hard hat and hold a stop sign.”

“And you did a degree part-time and you've worked in every major department. People respect you, except for maybe one or two, in your own damn area, and that's not your fault. You can do it and I'm going to convince Roger you can.”

“I haven't sorted out the Beeton house. It's going to rot and we're going to lose it.”

“That's going to take a miracle.”

“I messed up with Drum.”

“I didn't say you were perfect, Foley. You did your best with him.”

She groaned, hands screwed into defensive fists. “I can't manage Gabriella. How am I supposed to …? Hugh, this is mad.”

“That would be an issue, but look, you'd be her boss, that would help.” He rocked into his chair back. “I've freaked you out.” He smirked. “Good. You'd better tell me if you want this.”

Did she want it?
Jesus
. It was a far bigger job than she'd ever be bolshie enough to apply for. “You'll help when I get stuck?”