his breath. He needn’t have bothered. I can tell he’s made a mess, with or without his help. He has mess written all over him, in bold black marker. ‘I knew I’d forgotten something.’
‘Did you forget to give me a letter, Benjamin?’ I ask, because it’s torture watching him do this. My hands itch to do God only knows what. I can feel terrible, terrible words clawing at the back of my throat – words like we’re going to have to do something about you, Benjamin. Even though I know that’s one of the first things Woods said to me.
‘I think … yeah. Maybe … just hold on, Ms Harding.’
I don’t want to hold on. I want to say it: We’re going to have to do something about you, Benjamin.
‘Oh, man. Here it is. Here,’ he says, and I have to wonder if I looked like that when I first stumbled into Mr Woods’ office. Clothes barely fitting me, words all fumbling one after the other. Scorchingly sensible of a mistake I’ve just made.
Though when he speaks again, I’m almost relieved. There’s at least one glaring difference between the way I was and the way he is – and it comes to me as he tells me he’s always getting things wrong.
He’s not ashamed like I was. He’s almost bright and boyish about it instead, the expression on his face full of a kind of hope I don’t know how to process.
‘I’m so sorry, Ms Harding,’ he says, as some of the papers spill out of his hands. And then I simply have to stand there, frozen, as he tries in vain to gather them up. Everything about him so big and clumsy and sweet somehow, in a way I know I never was. ‘But I swear, it will never happen again. I swear to God.’
What a strange creature he is – though I confess, I’m grateful to him. For a long moment I’m so transfixed by his utter awkwardness and his ever-hovering grin that I can’t focus on the true matter at hand.
Woods is gone.
And I am his replacement.
* * *
I have three contact numbers for Gregory Woods. One is for his office, which would now mean I’m ringing myself. The other is his mobile phone, which always goes directly to his curt little voicemail message: Woods. Speak. And the last is his home number, which I have never on pain of extreme torture rung.
I will never ring it, not now. He’s done this thing, and that’s all there is to it. It’s the sort of person he is; it’s the way he operates. He makes a decision as brisk as a knife coming down, and if you get one of your limbs chopped off in the process, well.
So be it.
Though I swear I don’t feel that way. I feel calm and composed, all the way through the rest of the Monday morning break-down. I am like a summer breeze as I field questions from the head of the sales division about targets Woods has decidedly not set. I’m the very soul of inner peace, when I discover the other seventeen thousand problems no one ever thought to ask a man like Woods about, because Woods always looked like someone in control.
He treated me like someone in control.
But as I learn at one-thirty-five on Monday afternoon, his legend was definitely somewhat exaggerated. In fact, by the time Benjamin asks me if I’d like my midday Scotch, I’m convinced Gregory Woods was some sort of magician.
I knew him in so many appallingly intimate ways, but I didn’t realise his level of incompetence. And judging by what Benjamin is now telling me – in all innocence – it wasn’t sober incompetence.
I think I actually say to him: ‘Are you serious?’ though I swear I don’t mean to.
It’s Woods I’m angry at, of course it is – and yet I snap at Benjamin so hard his teeth practically rattle. His mouth comes open again, though this time it at least has the wherewithal to seem voluntary. He almost catches it before it’s reached the halfway mark, but I still glimpse those odd teeth he has – so perfectly straight and white and gleaming, apart from the hint of point on the incisors. It’s not a hint really. It’s strong and obvious and like he should have a lisp, though I’m not sure how I come to that conclusion.
And I can still feel the words he wants to get out, pushing at the back of his throat.
‘Uhhh … well …’ he starts, and that urge to correct him beats on me so hard I’ll be feeling it tomorrow. Don’t start your sentences like that. Don’t, don’t, don’t oh God don’t please I hardly know what’s happening to me. ‘Mr Woods tended to like his Scotch with –’
‘Benjamin, sit down,’ I say to him, while my insides scream at me: do not ask him to sit down.
I should never have sat down when Woods asked me to, that first time.
‘O – K,’ he says.
I’m grateful that he looks so bemused, I really am. Though I’m less grateful when he seems to have the most appallingly difficult time picking a chair. At first, he actually seems to think I want him to sit next to the antique sideboard, on a leather wingback that has no real purpose being there. I mean, he does realise that thing is about twenty paces away from my desk, right?
‘Sit here, Benjamin,’ I say, but when I do I realise something even more horrifying than all of the rest of the weird urges bubbling up inside of me. His name … the way it sounds …
It’s better than the way Woods used to say Ms Harding. The whole thing just rolls right off my tongue, with emphasis I don’t intend on syllables that shouldn’t have it. And when he takes the chair opposite my desk – all of his big body folding down into it as though he’s half the size he actually is – I’m almost certain he knows it.
He knows how I’m saying it. Those guileless blue eyes and that almost-smile on the faint imprint of his mouth … they tell me what I need to know.
‘Are you OK, Ms Harding?’ he asks, as I sit behind the vast safety of the desk that once belonged to him. Unfortunately, doing so just makes me wonder if he ever needed to hang on to it the way I’m doing right now.
I’m like the survivor of a shipwreck. Barrett and Bates is going down in flames, and I’m thinking about some awkward creature’s secret face signals.
‘I’m perfectly fine, Benja–’ I catch myself this time, though I’m sure he notices. Something flickers across his otherwise completely innocent gaze, something I recognise without even trying to. And then I get control of myself and start again. ‘I’m fine, Ben. I just want to get across a few things to you, before we go any further.’
He nods, eagerly. I wish to God I didn’t have to add that ‘eagerly’ onto that description.
‘Of course, Ms Harding. I mean – I guess I’m your assistant now. And to be honest, that suits me a lot better. You’re so direct, you know? So –’
‘Stop!’
I don’t mean to shout it, I swear. It just happens. A lot of things seem to be just happening, and I don’t know if I can cope with them all.
‘Sorry. You go ahead, Ms Harding. I’m listening. I’m really doing my best to be all ears.’
Lord, he punches the air a little, after that last statement, the way a cartoon character from the fifties might have done. Gee willikers, Ms Harding! I sure am glad I’m working for you, gosh yes!
‘You’re doing fine, Ben. But what I really wanted to stress to you is this: you’re not my assistant. You weren’t really Mr Woods’ assistant. You –’
‘Oh my God, am I fired? Oh man, I –’
‘Benjamin,’ I say, and am deeply disheartened to find that his full name has the exact effect on him I expect. It freezes him in place, big hands clutching the chair arms. Those soft eyes caught somewhere between wounded and a promise that he can do better. I wish he wouldn’t want to do better for me quite so