Jak stares out the window of the bus. She checks her phone – nothing, 7.32 am.
She checks her phone – nothing, 7.36 am.
The bus crawls down Cowley Road. Jak checks her phone – ‘Jacqueline Churchwell to report to allocated workstation by 08:00 on Saturday 16 July. This agreed extra shift will be paid at your regular rate and failure to attend will result in immediate dismissal from your employment with OxGrowth Special Enterprises. All other worktime regulations as per your contract, dated 06/13/33.’
—
“Got a new job!”
“What?”
Lakshmi pirouettes in the centre of the office, her dress swooshing round as she spins, “I’ve got a new job.”
“What here? Or somewhere else?” Sylvie knows the answers and feels flat. Why isn’t she doing this. How come her friends always seem to know how and when to move on, but she doesn’t.
Lakshmi laughs, “not here! Silly! I can see which way the wind is blowing. No, it’s with a consultancy firm based in Reading. They do a lot of work with international trade bodies and governments. Involves a lot of time in London. ‘That London’, I think you call it, don’t you?”
“Oh. When’re you leaving?”
“There’s no time like the present,” grins Lakshmi, “and there’s no business like a consultancy business!”
Sylvie frowns, “today? How’d you wangle that?”
“Oh, your favourite plays-away-from-home CEO is trying to cut costs. So me not working my notice period suits both parties,” she smiles to herself, “I can start my new job on Monday, move out my apartment tomorrow. And Malling House saves itself my paycheck. Anyway, you coming for cocktails?”
Sylvie glares at Lakshmi for a second and then forces herself to smile, “yes, I’ll come out when I’m done here. Congratulations, Lakshmi my dear.”
—
Jak opens her locker and checks her phone. Nothing, 12.07 pm. She gets her sandwiches out and stores her hard hat away. And checks her phone again. Nothing, 12.08 pm.
‘Fuck’s sake Jak, get a grip.’
She stands alone in the crowded lunch zone, avoiding eye contact, and quickly eats her sandwiches. And checks her phone. Nothing, 12.21 pm.
She swipes her phones to get a cold drink from the vending machine by the door. Her phone beeps. She checks it. ‘Payment authorised’, 12.24 pm. She takes a gulp of Coke. It’s fridge cold and makes her insides shiver. She sips her way through the rest of it. And then checks her phone. Nothing, 12.29 pm.
—
Sylvie Churchwell: Going out after work tonite babe. Don’t wait up!
—
Jak checks her phone – ‘‘You, Jacqueline Churchwell, are required to attend the Magdalen Arch Opening Ceremony on Sunday 17 July. You will be required to report to Main Entrance by 14:00.’
‘Oh fucking bollocks to their stupid ceremony.’
Instead of going up Cowley Road to her usual bus stop, she heads along St Clements and up through Headington Hill Park, long grass swaying in the breeze to reveal piles of slowly rotting logs. A bee buzzes past her on its way to a deep blue delphinium standing tall over buttercups and daisies.
Jak barely registers the ‘Welcome to London Road Business School – own your future here’ sign. She walks through a lounge-cum-cafe, just as a metal shutter is brought down on the cafe counter, up a set of stairs to mezzanine level, through a set of double doors, up some more stairs and down a corridor.
‘Dr Maddy Birch, Senior Lecturer Business Culture, Practice and Social Impact.’
Jak knocks on the door.
“Come in… Jak! How are you?” Maddy rises from her desk and gives Jak a brief hug.
“Oh fine. Sort of,” Jak looks at the floor and then at Maddy, “can I ask you something Dr Birch?”
“Maddy, call me Maddy for goodness sake. Yes of course.”
“Do you know how I can get in touch with Jonty?”
“Jonty Carruthers?” Maddy is surprised, “He’s been expelled you know. Are you friends?”
“Ain’t you? We were a bit. But,” admits Jak, “we haven’t kept in touch after all that’s happened.”
“Well, what do you want to contact him about now?”
“Just, well you know my girlfriend, Carly, is still in police custody, yeah? And I wanted to see what advice Jonty could give about visiting. I’ve put in a request…”
“Oh, I see,” Maddy blows her cheeks out and looks at the ceiling, thinking, “to be honest, I haven’t got details for him. He was friendly, nice seeming boy, but not a friend as such.
Pretty sure I only ever contacted him by his student email. They’ll have closed that now. You could try the records team in the morning but I doubt they’ll help. Data protection. They won’t give out details like that.”
Jak sighs, “thought you might say that. Thanks anyway.”
“Do you want to go for a coffee, or…” Maddy touches Jak’s arm as she starts to head out, “it must be difficult having a loved one locked up.”
“Yeah, it is. Thanks,” Jak doesn’t want a coffee. Or a beer. Or just a chat. She wants to find Jonty to put her mind at rest about visiting Carly in the police station.
She walks round to the house where they had been for the May Day party. But the students who live there only vaguely remember him and have no idea where he might be.
She could try the Moonshine, maybe… maybe not. It would be too weird asking Donny for help. Does he still hate her? Probably not, he doesn’t seem the type. But even so he can’t think much of her.
From the party house, it’s not far to the main entrance to the golf course. She skulks through the gate, hoping no one will see her, at least no golfers at any rate, and weaves her way through the trees and past the bramble bushes in between the fairways. At one point she has to cross, next to a green, and scuttles across – not looking to the sides – like a cat crossing a road.
‘Oh Tabs, when am I going to see you? Soon, it must be soon. I hope you’ll remember what I look like. Do they let you keep your phone so you can look at pictures… no they won’t, will they. I hope you remember me. How long’s it been,’ she looks at the date on her phone, ‘a month, a whole fucking month Tabs and they’ve just kept you in there. And me out here. I’ll see you soon. I’ll have to.’
Jak hops over the boundary stream and out of the golf course. She’s not in a hurry to be home, her mum will still be moaning about how rubbish her date was for the third day in a row, so instead cuts through a maze of residential streets in Cowley to Barns Road, where it passes over the ring road.
She stands, hands pressing down on the fence, and watches the cars and lorries below. They race along, going wherever they’re going, quite oblivious to her anxieties about ever seeing Tabs again.
—
The Cheese Moon is a cocktail bar that, for historical reasons, is also frequented by old men who sit at the bar and grumble about the Guinness being served too cold. They don’t tend to buy cocktails, so Guinness and premium lager are their only options, which they grumble about as well. And, inevitably, the price of pints generally these days.
Lakshmi buys her colleagues a round. She has a Mai Tai. Some of the others choose them on the basis of risque names, including Sex on the Beach and Porn Star Martini.
“Oh, don’t go Laks,” pleads Sylvie after several Piña Coladas, “you’re so good here.”
“I know I am, Sylvs darling,” Lakshmi affects a posh English accent, “but I’m in demand elsewhere. And, as you know, all good things must come to an end. It is only the most tiresome of things that go on forever.”
Sylvie goes to the bar to get another drink.
“How much? London prices…” a well-rehearsed conversation is underway.
“Seven pounds and fifty pence,” the young barman explains apologetically, “it’s not me that sets the prices. The Moonie’s better. Or the Nuff.”
“Or the Nuff,” says the grumbling man scathingly, “what would I want to go up to that shit hole for?”
“Cheap beer,” suggests Sylvie, trying to catch the barman’s eye.
“Well sometimes you get what you pay for,” declares the grumbling man as if revealing a profound truth, “and nowhere is that more true than the Nuff. Cheap beer. Shit beer.”
“And what about here?” counters Sylvie, “do you get what you pay for here?”
“If you did,” grumbles the man, “theý’d have to serve it by the gallon, not the pint.”
And he consoles himself by sipping his too cold Guinness very slowly until it returns to the temperature he remembers it being when he first started drinking in this pub. Sylvie orders another Piña Colada.
The drinks continue to flow and fuel the giddy chatter, increasingly lurid gossip about their CEO’s love life and laughter.
“Right my darlings,” announces Lakshmi, “it really is time for me to go. Never outstay your welcome, my mum taught me that when she kicked me out of my childhood home. So I will love you… and leave you.”
“I’ll come with you, walk you back,” suggests Sylvie.
“No, no. Don’t be silly. It’s the wrong way for you,” Lakshmi edges towards the door.
“But are you sure you’re safe, walking home alone?” Sylvie follows her out.
Lakshmi starts to wave her away but stops, and takes a step towards her, “don’t you worry about me Sylvs babes. I’ve been plenty of way scarier places than Oxford and survived. I’ll be just fine, promise ya. Anyhows, make sure and message me, yeah? I’ll priority you on Curate This.”
“Okay,” half-smiles Sylvie, trying not to seem sad, “what’s that? I don’t think I’m on it.”
“Oh, it’s just an app to sort your messages and socials. Makes sure you see the stuff you want to see. I use it but you don’t need to, you’ll appear in my feed anyway,” explains Lakshmi, “but Sylvie dear, forget about phones and that for a second. Give us a hug babes, it’s been such a blast.”
She embraces Sylvie, gives her a quick kiss on the cheek and a goodbye wink. And heads off down a side street, her pale cotton dress swaying beneath orange streetlights in a cool evening breeze.