The Better Woman (28 page)

‘The company has a history of mergers and takeovers,' Gretel explained. ‘Nobody had time to integrate the systems when the new companies came on board, and now we're left with all these higgledy-piggledy processes.'

Gretel didn't have enough hours in the day to worry about
standardisation. She had senior management meetings to attend, over thirty staff to manage, and dozens of daily operational fires that needed putting out.

‘I'd like to have a try at making things more consistent,' said Jodi. ‘I have a good head for process and getting it down on paper.'

Gretel looked up from the thick report she was reading and emitted one of her weary sighs. ‘Look, Jodi, the last thing I need right now is to have to train someone else in your job.'

‘I'll still do my job,' Jodi assured her boss. ‘I promise you won't have to worry about that.'

Gretel smiled cynically. ‘I don't think you have any idea how big and complex a mess it is.'

Jodi knew her well enough by now to be able to negotiate. ‘How about you give me a week? Just to see if I can at least work out an approach to the problem. Then, if I can't convince you to proceed, I'll drop it.'

Gretel shrugged. ‘Don't say I didn't warn you.'

She went back to her report having given an assent of sorts.

Jodi started with her own job and mapped the top-level steps of each valuation process onto a flowchart. Then she talked to the team leaders who worked for Gretel and mapped their valuation processes in a similar manner. She used sheets of A3 paper and drew the flowcharts in pencil so that it was easy to make changes. Once the mapping was complete, she collated and summarised her initial findings.

‘We have fourteen different valuation processes,' she informed her boss.

Gretel grimaced. ‘I guessed it would be something of that order.'

‘I think we could get down to eight processes with minimal
effort,' Jodi continued. ‘Then, with a little more planning, we could half that again.'

Gretel ran a hand through her short frazzled hair. ‘You mean four processes in total?'

‘Yes.'

Gretel asked to see the flowcharts. She laid the large sheets of paper across her desk and read each one, absently biting on her thumbnail as she did so.

‘You're right!' She looked up. ‘You do have a head for this, Jodi. I'm quite amazed that you got all of this down on paper in just one week.'

Jodi smiled proudly, knowing that Gretel wasn't one for doling out praise willy-nilly.

‘So you're suggesting a two-phase approach,' Gretel went on. ‘First, the quick wins. Then, a few months down the line, the integration of the remaining systems and processes, perhaps combining the best of each to come up with a new best-practice method of valuation. Integration and process improvement all at once – cutting cost, saving headcount . . .'

Jodi lost her smile. ‘You mean people may lose their jobs?'

‘Welcome to the real world,' Gretel replied, her tone harsh. ‘You'll need to toughen up if you're to project-manage all of this. By the way, ring that stupid agency and tell them to send in someone to do your job – someone with experience this time, please.'

Andrew was also getting ahead in his job. He was promoted when his boss left for a better paying position. His work hours extended dramatically but Jodi still commuted with him whenever possible. Sometimes it was as late as 9 pm when they caught the tube home together.

‘You should go home earlier,' he chided. ‘You shouldn't wait for me.'

‘I hate going home without you.' She snuggled up against him on the grimy plastic seat. ‘Anyway, I have lots of work to do on my project so I don't mind staying back.'

The carriage had only a few people at this time of night: a man in a dark overcoat reading a paper, a woman – maybe a nurse – who was wearing a blue uniform under her jacket, and a lanky teenager with a vicious stare. Jodi was careful not to look his way.

Once they got off the train, they had a ten-minute walk. Too often it was raining and cold, spring bringing little improvement to London's weather. Whatever the conditions outside, the maisonette was warm and welcoming. The living room was starting to take shape with a round mahogany dining table and chairs, an antique coffee table and beige lounge. They had found a large patterned rug to brighten up the carpet. Various artefacts, picked up on weekends of meandering around bric-a-brac shops, created the room's character: a blend of Jodi's and Andrew's personalities: a home.

Too late and too tired for dinner, Andrew made toasted cheese and ham bagels and they ate them on the sofa, plates on their knees, while they watched TV.

‘Must try to get to see Mum at the weekend,' he said, putting his plate down with a yawn.

Jodi didn't enjoy the visits to Andrew's family and her lack of enthusiasm must have showed on her face.

‘Look, I know it's painful,' Andrew squeezed her shoulders, ‘but I owe it to Mum. I'm afraid that she'll totally lose her sense of humour if I leave her alone with Simon and Tracey for too long.'

‘You left her alone for a full year when you went to Australia,' Jodi pointed out.

‘I know. And I see a huge change in her. Simon's miserableness is dragging her down. She used to be quite fun.'

‘Do you think that will ever happen to us?' Jodi turned to face him. ‘Do you think that one day we'll be miserable and get on each other's nerves?'

‘No.' He caressed her cheek with his hand. ‘Never.'

‘How can you be so sure?'

‘Because I am.'

He kissed her. Jodi felt her tiredness fall away. A familiar heat rose in her body as her mouth opened under his. The phone rang. They pulled away with resigned grins.

‘Your grandma,' he said, ‘with impeccable timing, as usual.'

Grandma phoned regularly, always late at night, and it wasn't the first time she'd interrupted their love-making.

‘I could ignore it,' Jodi suggested feebly.

‘It's okay.' He stood up and stretched his arms over his head. ‘I'm tired anyway.'

Jodi picked up the phone.

‘Hi, Grandma . . . Yes, Andrew's fine . . . We were just watching TV.'

The next day began unremarkably. Jodi and Andrew left the apartment at 6.30 am, both carrying umbrellas to shield the heavy rain. Due to the bad weather, the tube was even more packed than usual. They squeezed into a carriage and wrinkled their noses at the damp smell inside.

Jodi kissed Andrew goodbye when they reached Liverpool Street Station and hurried to work. She was preoccupied with an important project meeting that was scheduled for tomorrow.
She had a lot of preparation to do for the meeting; the entire management team would be present.

The day flew by. She had lunch at her desk whilst trying to finalise her presentation. In the afternoon she ran the content by Gretel, who seemed pleased enough with it.

‘Just make the introduction more succinct,' she advised. ‘And do try to speak slowly tomorrow – some of the older members of the management team find it hard to keep up.'

Jodi took her advice on board and, when Gretel had gone home, she practised the presentation out loud.

At five minutes to nine, knowing the presentation off by heart, she slipped on her jacket and picked up her umbrella. Outside the footpath was waterlogged after a day of steady rain. She angled her umbrella against the wind and walked quickly, thinking that soon she'd be curled up on the cosy sofa in the maisonette.

Andrew wasn't waiting at their usual spot. It was sheltered and Jodi was able to put down her umbrella. Twenty minutes passed.

Where are you, Andrew?

The only phone box in sight was out of order.

A man and woman started arguing nearby. They looked rough.

‘Don't you walk away from me,' the woman screamed and tugged on the man's hood.

‘Let go, you bitch,' he shouted and tried to shake her off.

‘Fuck you,' she spat at him.

He continued to try to shake her off but she had hold of him at an awkward angle and he was flailing at thin air. She was making him look like a fool. Frustration glinted in his eyes. Then he had a knife. He swiped at her. Missed.

‘Let go, you stupid cow.'

Jodi got out of there. She ran towards the escalator and it carried her down into the earth, away from the frightening scene above. A train was waiting and, her heart beating hard, she jumped on.

At home she tried Andrew's work number but it rang out. She got out of her wet clothes and put on her pyjamas. She tried Andrew's number again: no answer. She ate some tinned soup in front of the TV. Then tried him again.

The doorbell rang at half-past ten. She skipped down the stairs, thinking it was him, that he'd forgotten his keys.

It wasn't him. As soon as she set eyes on the police officers with their black raincoats and grave expressions, she knew that Andrew would never be coming home again.

Of course, Jodi missed the all-important project meeting the next morning. She phoned Gretel to let her know she wouldn't be there, a faraway part of her brain recalling that her boss didn't like to be let down. Jodi couldn't remember the conversation she'd had with Gretel, or with Andrew's boss, or Shirley. Shock, hers and theirs, was all she could remember.

The phone call to Janice was the only one she could recall, maybe because it was the first. The kindly sister at the hospital had offered the use of the phone in her office.

‘Andrew's been hit by a car.' Jodi's hand trembled as she held the receiver to her ear.

‘Is he okay?' The dread in Janice's voice was palpable.

‘No.'

Jodi's body heaved with pain and the receiver fell hopelessly from her hand. The sister picked it up and spoke consoling words to Janice before putting the phone back in its place. Then
she held Jodi in her strong ample arms for a long, long time.

Andrew was buried after four blurry days. The pastor peppered the service with his name. Jodi's stomach clenched with each mention, unable to digest that it was her Andrew lying in the varnished casket in front of the altar. Yet the people gathered to mourn his passing were evidence that he was indeed gone: men with slick hair and dark suits from his work; Simon and Tracey, looking more dour and miserable than ever; Gretel, meek and nothing like the dynamo she was in the office; members of the extended Ferguson family, cousins, aunts and uncles whom she hadn't met until today.

Sitting next to Jodi, holding her hand, was Janice, her face ghostly, her eyes red-rimmed. The magnitude of their grief drew them together and they held hands for much of the service.

The day after the funeral was the worst. Andrew was not only dead, he was buried. Deep beneath the earth. Gone. Yet shadows followed Jodi around the maisonette, tricking her into believing he was just a few steps away. She'd jerk her head around each time it happened. ‘Andrew . . .' she'd begin out loud, genuinely forgetting. Silence would answer. Then she would remember.

She wandered aimlessly around the apartment, touching this and that, but doing nothing. Seconds ticked by at a snail's pace, five minutes an infinity. How could she get through the day? All those seconds, minutes and hours to be filled. With what? After her eyes glanced dangerously off the container of sleeping pills the doctor had prescribed, she knew she had to get out. There was only one place she could go to escape the nothingness: work.

She went upstairs and changed into the pinstriped suit that Andrew had thought so sexy. She wavered at the memory and felt a fresh wave of grief.

Keep busy. Keep busy. Keep busy.

She blanked her mind and continued to ready herself to face the world.

If people thought it strange that she returned to work so soon, they didn't say so. They showed their concern in other ways, mainly sustenance. Gretel would buy her lunch, knowing that she didn't have the interest or appetite to do so herself. And Joanna, one of the team leaders, brought in a plated dinner a few times a week. Jodi thanked them for their kindness, reassured them she was coping, and got back to work.

Keep busy. Keep busy. Keep busy.

With her undivided attention, the project steamed ahead and soon they were implementing phase two. The surplus processes were made redundant and Jodi personally trained each staff member on the new procedures. As the evenings stretched with the onset of summer, she stayed back in the office to type up the training manuals.

Keep busy. Keep busy. Keep busy.

But at home, alone in bed, it was much harder to hold it together. Andrew was dead. She'd never see his lopsided smile again. Or hold a gaze with his soft brown eyes. Or debate all the big issues of life with him. Yes, she realised that the memories weren't all rosy. Yes, they'd had their petty arguments: sometimes he'd annoyed her when he'd left damp towels on the bathroom floor and teabags in the sink. But that was the extent of their disagreements. Everything else was perfect,
had been
perfect.

Can you see me?
she'd ask the dark, tears streaming down her face as she lay unsleeping.
Can you see what a mess I am? I can't hold it together without you. I need you to come back from wherever you are.

At some point, when she'd accepted yet again that he wouldn't be coming back, she'd lean across the bed and take two of the sleeping pills. She'd wait for the drugs to heavy her eyes and bring about a falsely deep sleep before starting another day.

London embraced summer enthusiastically. Girls wore short skirts to work; builders bared their pale torsos to the sun, and the city moved to a whole new beat. Everybody, from the commuters to the shopkeepers, seemed to be more jovial. Jodi felt like an impostor in their midst.

She trekked to and from work, Gretel's chilly office preferable to the stinking hot maisonette where the stand-alone fan did nothing at all to relieve the humidity. As the temperatures soared, Jodi longed for the beach, for Sydney. But she was too afraid to leave London. If she didn't come home to the maisonette every day, see the furniture they had bought together, and sleep in the bed in which they'd loved each other, then her memories would lose their edge and Andrew would surely fade away. She couldn't bear to lose him completely so she kept everything as it was: the furniture, his clothes and their conversations.