‘Can I speak to you for a moment?’ I asked.
He barely looked up. ‘Can it wait?’
‘Not really.’
He sat back in his chair. ‘OK. Go ahead.’
I couldn’t tell him how I was feeling, not with Gail there. She’d love that.
‘It’s private. Can I see you … er, alone?’
‘Alone? Why? There’s nothing we have to say that Gail can’t hear.’
Ah. I felt my heart sink. I saw Gail’s smug expression. I got the message. He knew what I wanted to say. He just didn’t want to hear it. ‘Er … it was just, if I have to go and get a job, do I need to explain my filing system to anyone?’ I’d made the question up on the spot – anything to get me out of there.
He half smiled. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll manage.’ His expression became cold as he went back to whatever he was doing.
I got out, closed the door, and cursed myself for going in there. Stupid. Stupid. I’d been like a lovesick schoolgirl with a crush. I’d known men like Alec back at school, boys who liked the dance. They’d show an interest, be charming, seductive, and the minute you responded and moved forward, they’d take a step back. Conquest made. Alec was one of those. I used to be wise to his type. Used to spot them a mile off. I should’ve known better. How embarrassing, how humiliating.
I felt a fierce resolve grow in me. I’d forget about Alec. I didn’t want him or the confusion he caused inside me. I’d been agitated, restless, unhappy since he arrived. I wanted my peace of mind back.
I made another decision, though. I was out, out of the commune lifestyle. Definitely this time. The attraction to Alec had one positive. It had shown me that the part of me that wanted to love and be loved hadn’t died when Jack had. It had been buried for a while – months, years. Not all men were like Alec. Maybe there was someone out there for me. I would leave the commune, stay with Tom for a while and, for starters, see if I could get a job back at The Seventh Star. I’d support the movement from the outside. I was done with rules and denial.
I felt brilliant. I felt liberated.
*
The next day I went to clear my desk. It was a Sunday so there was no one around. The phone rang as I put my belongings into a box. It was Adam Sorkin.
‘I’m sorry Alec’s not here,’ I said. ‘I can leave a message on his desk. This is Michelle Blake.’
‘Just who I was looking to speak to,’ he said. ‘I need to get hold of three people in the UK. I know you know where everyone is. They’re to start on the indigo training programme on Monday with others from Europe. Can you let them know? Michael Harris. Nick Jenson and the third one is … Michelle Blake.’
‘Michelle Blake?’
‘Yes. You. You ready for the challenge?’
‘I …’
He didn’t wait for an answer, instead he gave me details of the programme and told me to get packing.
I put the phone down. Me? Become an indigo? Me? I felt flattered, it was quite an opportunity but … I was about to leave the movement, wasn’t I?
Chapter Forty-Three
Sara
Present day, April
The third programme in the series about animals as friends was well under way. Lauren, Gary and Jo had spent hours trawling footage on the Internet and YouTube to find clips from all over the world, and we gathered at the Little Dog offices along with Ally to review what they had. The first thing that was apparent was the easy relationship between Gary and Jo. Although still based at my house, Jo was spending more and more time over at Gary’s, and it was lovely to see how she had blossomed and was growing in confidence. It also meant that life at my house with just Ally and me there was quieter, and we’d begun to muddle along quite well. She’d stopped trying to organize me. I’d learnt to give her space.
‘We’ve a surplus of material,’ said Gary, ‘and there’s no doubt about the fact that people’s pets provide companionship and comfort for many.’
‘We’ve divided what we’ve got into sections and this first one is about people with unusual pets,’ Jo explained as she showed Ally and me some of the clips they’d chosen. There was footage of people who kept spiders (wargh! not for me), sheep, llamas, alpacas, ducks, and one man who kept a crocodile. He’d be an interesting man to have as a boyfriend, I thought, like – come and meet my pet. Mind your leg if you want to keep it.
There was a moving story about a man who had rescued a baby hippo and, even after he had let it go into the wild, it would return and lie at its rescuer’s feet. Whatever floats your boat, I thought as we watched the screen.
‘The second section is about individual animals who have their own unusual friends,’ said Gary as we went on to the next section. There was the alpaca who had a rabbit as his pal, a polar bear and a piglet curled up asleep together, a rhino and sheep cavorting in a field like gay young things in love, an orang-utan grooming a very patient dog, a goat and an elephant, cats and dogs cuddled up together, a cat and a crow playing chase, a gorilla gently stroking a kitten, a horse running in a field with pygmy goats on its back, and on and on the clips went. ‘I can see why it’s been a task choosing which to include,’ I said as I watched further clips of a monkey and kitten play, a squirrel and cat charging around a garden, a bear and a tiger, deer and monkey, all so gentle with each other.
‘We could
