ironic, really, this anonymous work being assigned to me. I can see how it will play out: months and months of painstaking research, hope creeping in despite my best efforts to keep it at bay, the crushing sense of defeat as every clue, every lead, ends in nothing, absolutely nothing. Maybe I should confess to Tom that I don’t have a very good track record when it comes to things like this.
I stand and walk towards the window, which runs the full length of the wall, bathing the room in light. Looking down, I see Sydney buzzing below me: cars, trucks, ferries, and lots and lots of people. I like this city, with its blue water and skies. Though I’ve lived here less than a week, I’ve already been wooed by its beauty and glamour, and the startling sky that makes me want to reach up and scrape away a colour sample to preserve for darker, gloomier days. The sun catches off the water and the glass windows of the skyscrapers, and everything glitters. I can see greenery, both in the foreground and background, and I know this city can breathe, that it’s open and airy and has somehow escaped that boxed-in, contained feeling that other cities have. Yes, this a good place to visit … to live … to stay.
Is this where you are? I whisper under my breath.
Chapter 2
Emma
Today is Louise’s first day in her new job, and even though I should be concentrating on my own job, I can’t stop thinking about her. Of course it’s night-time in Sydney now, so Louise isn’t at work: she’s fast asleep, and her first day is over and done with. To be honest, the time difference is as bloody hard to comprehend as the fact that I won’t see her for twelve months.
‘Emma?’
Katie, the graduate we hired last month, interrupts my train of thought. She’s a nice enough girl, but she can’t make a decision to save her fuckin’ life. All day she shadows me, asking questions at every available opportunity, her neediness so blatant that I’m almost embarrassed for her. I’ll put up with it for another few weeks, give her the opportunity to grow into some semblance of independence. But if she doesn’t improve, I’ll have to tell her straight: For fuck’s sake, Katie, stand on your own two feet. I bet she’ll cry. It never ceases to amaze me how easily my female colleagues burst into tears. A blip in their carefully laid plans: watery eyes. The slightest confrontation: bawling their faces off. I’m not a crier. No matter how confronting the situation, or how loud someone is shouting at me, or how sad or stupid or disappointed I feel, I don’t cry. Criers are die-ers, Jamie and I used to sneer. Stop. Don’t think about Jamie. Not here. Work is one of the few places where I can almost fool myself into forgetting about him.
‘Emma, sorry, I just need to know where to find that document, the one that … sorry …’
I’ll have to tell Katie to stop apologising, too. It’s constant with her, like a nervous twitch she can’t control. Sorry, sorry, sorry … Sorry is a futile word, Katie. It can’t change outcomes, or retract words. It rectifies nothing, absolutely nothing. It wastes all our time. Now, what did you want?
‘I had a look … I just can’t seem to find … sorry …’
I shoot her a smile to calm her down, to let her know that even though she has interrupted me yet again, and even though she should really be able to locate this file without my help, my patience is still — somehow — not at its end.
Opening the appropriate window on my laptop, I click down through the drives and folders until I’ve reached the document she’s after.
‘Here.’ I tear off a post-it note. ‘I’ll write down where it is. Alright?’
‘Thanks,’ she mutters, her eyes downcast, before repeating, ‘Sorry.’
Katie has trouble meeting my eyes on most days. I suspect I look and sound coarse to her, coming from one of those scary suburbs her mother would have warned her to avoid. My hair is very short, its natural mousey colour dyed a bright defiant blonde. My ears are pierced, three times. I have a tattoo — a Celtic knot — on the inside of my wrist, and I chew a lot of gum, a habit I took up when I stopped smoking. Then there’s the swearing, but I’m trying to cut that out — for Isla’s sake. And as if all that’s not enough, there’s the blotching on my neck. I do my best to cover it up, but it’s there, an ominous shadow above the collar of my blouse, another unwelcome reminder of Jamie.
Poor Katie. It’s not just me making her feel uncomfortable, it’s the job too. At university she was smart, one of the best in her class. Here in this office, she knows nothing, she’s dumb, and she’s beginning to realise that taking verbatim notes in lecture theatres, sipping overpriced coffee in the university canteen, and buying a cashmere scarf in this season’s colours to combat the biting wind that rips through campus have left her totally ill-prepared for the working world.
Katie, still looking uncertain, goes back to her desk. I’m only three years older than her but she has this way of making me feel ancient.
Where was I before this latest interruption? Yes, Louise. I can’t begin to imagine her new workplace, the windows and light, the feel of the place, but I can see her dark hair and sweeping fringe, her slight figure arched over whatever painting she’s working on. For such a diminutive thing, she’s been a big part of my life. Louise has always been there, even during those times she’s been physically apart from me. She spent two years training in London, but she was home every other weekend, sharing the sophistication and making me feel like I lived in London, too. Then she went to New York, filling in for someone on maternity leave. She wasn’t able to come home as frequently, only once every few months, but she phoned and emailed and sent touristy postcards that still cling to my fridge door. I regret that I didn’t go to visit her in New York. I didn’t have the money but the wasted opportunity still grates on me, makes me feel useless, hopeless. The truth of it is, I’ve never lived fuckin’ anywhere but here. Though we grew up side by side — next-door neighbours — in that extraordinarily ugly block of flats, Louise has managed to travel, while my life has been confined to the same desolate suburb. Now she’s in Sydney, quite literally on the other side of the world. She’s not planning to come home during this contract — another maternity one, apparently. It’s too far away, and the flights are too expensive.
My desk phone rings, redirecting my attention from Sydney and the cost of flights.
‘The repairs and maintenance account is over budget …’ It’s Brendan, my boss, his sanctimonious tone filling my ear.
Hello, Emma. How are you today, Emma?
I’m fine, thank you, Brendan.
‘It’s just timing, that’s all,’ I tell him. ‘It should even out over the next few months.’
He doesn’t listen. ‘Can you do a full analysis? By the end of the day would be good.’
‘Yeah. Alright.’
Yes, Brendan. Three bags full, Brendan. I detest you, Brendan.
Opening a series of windows on my computer, I begin the analysis straight away. I’m fast, a whiz, even if I say so myself. Brendan isn’t the type to acknowledge my skills and experience, so I’m left to sing my own praises.
It’s ready in a few minutes, Brendan’s analysis, but I hold off sending it. He can wait. I dabble with the heading, changing the font a number of times: REPAIRS. This leads me back to Louise, as everything seems to do today. I’m a self-confessed ignoramus when it comes to her job and the elite world of fine art. I think of her work as repairs and restoration, despite the fact that she insists on calling it conservation. ‘We do as little as possible, Emma. As little as we can get away with. We try not to compromise the integrity of the piece.’ Conservation, restoration, the distinction is lost on me. In school, I never had any interest in drawing or painting, and could think of nothing more boring than spending an afternoon in the National Art Gallery. It was the same with English, History, Geography: fuckin’ tedious, all of them. Maths was the only subject I tolerated, so no surprises I’ve ended up an accountant of sorts. (I’m not qualified. My below-average Leaving Certificate results ruled out tertiary education.)
Oh, how