Promoted: to Wife and Mother

It was harder work than Perdita had imagined, and she thought vengefully about Ed as she struggled to make a dent in the mess. The more rubbish she scraped away, the more appeared in its place. Clearing this place was like one of those mythological labours the Greek gods were so good at thinking up, and maybe that made her a heroine-albeit one badly in need of a magic trick to help her out-but frankly she would rather be at the office, catching up on her paperwork.

How was this supposed to knock off her sharp edges? Perdita wondered bitterly. She could feel herself getting sharper by the minute. Ed Merrick was no doubt comfortably ensconced in his warm office thinking up other forms of torture for his staff. She should start a rebellion, she thought, forking darkly through the rubbish. Let him see what he thought about staff development then!

She had hardly seen Ed since their meeting, which was probably just as well as there was no way she was going to take Millie’s advice and start sucking up to him. There were already more than enough people doing that, judging by the gossip she heard in the office. They had all dreaded his arrival in case it would mean swingeing cuts and changes but so far Ed had proved remarkably popular.

Perdita’s secretary, Valerie, source of most information, raved about him until Perdita was sick of hearing about Ed this, Ed that. She wished he would stop being so inclusive and insisted that they all call him Mr Merrick instead. It would be a lot easier to dislike him if he turned out to be arrogant and ruthless or even pompous, but no! Ed appeared unable to put a foot wrong…except when dealing with his Operations Manager, clearly. As far as she could tell, Perdita herself was the only person with any reservations about him at all, and she couldn’t help feeling a little aggrieved. Why wasn’t he trying to win her over like everyone else?

They rarely coincided at work. Ed seemed happy to let her get on with her job, which she was pleased about- obviously-but he might have the decency to show a little interest in they were what doing in Operations, Perdita couldn’t help thinking. The previous Chief Executive had always been summoning her to pointless meetings, but Ed seemed to have taken things to the other extreme.

Perdita sniffed disapprovingly as she forked up a motley collection of rusty cans. Ed might like to consider a slightly more hands-on approach some time. He was supposed to be running the company after all.

She had, in fact, been asked to attend a meeting in the Board Room on Tuesday, and the expectation of seeing Ed there had produced a nauseating combination of squirming and fluttering in her stomach as she’d made her way upstairs, only to find that he had asked his deputy to chair the meeting and wasn’t even there. At which point an absurd sense of disappointment had sent her poor stomach into a nosedive, as if it didn’t have enough to contend with.

Of course, when Perdita had visited her mother she had seen the lights on next door, but she could hardly go and knock again without a very good excuse. Ed would start to think she was some kind of stalker.

And anyway she didn’t want to see him, Perdita reminded herself as she disentangled a torn and rancid carrier bag from her fork with a grimace of distaste, very glad that she was wearing gloves. Hadn’t she told Millie that she didn’t even like him?

All right, that probably wasn’t strictly true, she acknowledged, dragging her fork furiously over the ground once more. She might as well be honest with herself. The truth was that she didn’t want to like Ed because she didn’t want to find him attractive, and she didn’t want to find him attractive because she was afraid of getting involved with a father again.

Loving Nick, being hurt by him, had taught her a hard lesson. Sometimes the pain of his rejection still crept up and grabbed her by the throat, shaking her until she could hardly breathe because it hurt so much, even after all this time. Then she would feel again the cruel twist of her heart, the dull ache that had been part of her for so many months. She had spent two years trying to fit in with Nick’s priorities as a father, and in the end it had almost destroyed her. She wouldn’t-couldn’t-go through that again.

Ed was a father, so she wasn’t interested.

And he wasn’t interested in her, it seemed.

Right. Funny how that didn’t make her feel better.

When they had gathered two large piles of rubbish, Perdita stopped and straightened, holding a hand to her back. She would be lucky if she could walk tomorrow.

‘Right, time for a reward,’ she said to Tom. Digging in her pocket, she found a Mars bar that she had grabbed from the vending machine on the way out in lieu of lunch.

It had been Perdita’s idea to work in strips. When they had done one each and gathered all the mess into piles they could have a treat, she had suggested. Half a Mars bar wasn’t much of a treat compared to, say, a hot bath with a glass of champagne, which was all she really wanted right then, but it was better than nothing.

And it was chocolate, after all.

‘Here,’ she said, breaking the bar in two and handing half to Tom. ‘Your reward.’

‘Thanks,’ he said as he took it. ‘I’m starving.’

‘What are you doing here?’ asked Perdita curiously. In spite of his hunched shoulders, messy hair and the ubiquitous drab teenage uniform, he was quite well-spoken when he forgot to grunt, and someone had obviously taught him some manners along the way. Nor did he seem a likely candidate for an antisocial behaviour order that had brought most of the others to the garden project.

‘I was sent,’ he said.

‘Why?’ OK, maybe she was nosy, but she was allowed to be interested in people, wasn’t she?

Tom shrugged. ‘Bad attitude.’ He glanced at Perdita from beneath his hair. ‘What about you?’

‘Same, I suppose,’ said Perdita, chewing on her Mars bar, and he was betrayed into a laugh.

‘You? Bad attitude?’

‘Apparently I’m too sharp. They sent me from work.’ She licked chocolate from her thumb. ‘My boss is an arrogant, pretentious tyrant who thinks the experience will be good for me!’

‘My dad thinks the same thing,’ confessed Tom.

Perdita snorted. ‘I notice that neither of them are actually here benefiting from the experience of clearing rubbish in the rain though, are they?’

‘No,’ he agreed, evidently warming to her. ‘We should suggest they have a go next week.’

‘I don’t know about your dad, but I can’t see me getting very far if I tried that on my boss.’ She sighed as the faint drizzle grew heavier until it was unmistakably rain. ‘When does this purgatory end?’

‘Dad’s picking me up at five o’clock.’

‘That probably means that I have to stay here until then too. Oh, well.’ She rubbed her aching back. ‘We might as well start another strip…’

CHAPTER FIVE

BY THE time they got to the end of their third strip it was raining steadily and they were both sweaty with exertion, soaking wet and liberally splattered with mud. Perdita’s hair was hanging in rats’ tails and she paused to push her fringe back from her forehead with the back of her arm, pleased to notice that they had achieved far more than anyone else. Still, the challenge of being the best was beginning to wear thin.

‘I wish your dad would turn up,’ she told Tom. ‘That would mean it’s time to go.’

‘There he is now,’ said Tom, and Perdita wiped the drips from her eyes and peered in the direction of his pointing finger.

A man was heading towards them across the wasteland, hunched slightly against the rain. There was something familiar about his walk, Perdita thought. Something about the set of his shoulders and the way his presence drew the eye.

Something that set Perdita’s heart bumping in a downward spiral.

‘That’s your father?’ she asked in a hollow voice, and Tom looked at her in surprise. Her expression made him look towards his father and then back to Perdita with sudden understanding.

‘That’s your boss?’ he said and, when he grinned, Perdita could suddenly see his father in him. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, lowering his voice conspiratorially, ‘I won’t tell! Hi, Dad!’ he called.

Ed squinted through the rain at his son, who seemed unnaturally cheery, and he lifted a hand in greeting. His