Consent Read online

  I still visit Laura on occasion and she still cuts hair, already more of a Cézanne. Time was I went often, but I moved on a bit, then she moved too, some miles away in fact, in search of better pay she told her mum and dad, but I think just wanting a flat of her own to audition husbands in. She knows nothing of me. It’s fanciful, I know, but I think of myself bringing comfort to her with my notes on the death of her dream. I can’t make her happy, but I can know that someone is watching and saying, I’m here, Laura. I understand.

  It is not Laura that I need to tell you about, however. It’s Frances. I’m going to take a break. Then I am going to try.

  Frances B is awake. Sunlight glows in the curtains but she hears no alarm. Did she silence it and forget? She never wakes so calmly, and this is a big day. In a frenzy she checks the clock but no, it is early. She’s been woken early by nerves. She lies back and extends her legs through the sheets into cool new regions. It’s like being lowered into a deserved bath of relief.

  The alarm sounds. She pulls off her pyjamas and stands with a finger in the shower waiting for heat. She is not overweight, but recently had an attack of optimism and before showering tried morning runs. She bought an expensive pair of shoes, like other people’s. She loves their science, their sprung seriousness. She loves their height. (She isn’t tall.) Altogether she has worn them three times, not counting in the shop. Three times she pushed through the cold of the day’s first mist until she was hot. While she ran she thought about work, then about work and running, then only about running, then about when the running would stop. She imagined giving birth would be a bit like this. Three times was plenty.

  Wet from the shower she trembles even in her towel. There’s no heating because her housemate Stephanie insists they do not need it in the mornings, seeing as how they are both gone by eight. This is rich coming from Steph who half the time stays at her boyfriend’s.

  Frances slips on tights, a yellow blouse and a charcoal suit she likes but which she knows she overwears. In the kitchen she tidies away the remnants of a traditional paella, according to the packet. She half-listens to the radio with tea and reads through the new business pitch she has to do that day. Using her time to work instead of eating cereal will justify later buying a coffee and a pain-aux-raisins. She scoops vile food into the cat’s speckled feeding area, as required by the cat. She is – she dreads being asked – a management consultant. It is ten past eight.

  The pavement clatters with the shoes of the just washed, all walking to the station. A year ago, when work was not so good, Frances used to get a rutted feeling from the crowd. Now it gives something that is almost joy. She knows that sounds ridiculous. You’re meant to moan about commuting, but for her there’s some sleepy comradeship in these roads. Some understanding in the way they shiver into motion. This is how we get things done.

  Steph calls while Frances is queueing at the station cafe. Steph’s boyfriend Greg has gone off with her keys, so Frances has to leave a spare under the bin outside. They laugh, she and Steph, about what Steph is like. Frances returns to the house, rummages in the kitchen drawer until she finds the key, then hurries back, not wanting to miss the pain-aux-raisins. On the train she reads a novel and leaves flakes of pastry in the pages.

  Passing through the office turnstiles she returns the smile of the security guard. He knows nothing of her triumph at QTel, an overextended telecoms firm whose business Frances helped to stratify, Frances and her team, with calm and convincing demonstrations that they were spending too much on staff, but also with proof of the potential in their high-street units. More potential than Will thought.

  Will is her team leader. She likes him enough. At any rate she sees the value that he adds. Clients find it easier to be told what to do by a tall, privately educated man. Will is also a director of the company. She and he are becoming a good combination, and this is becoming known. (Although she does all the work.) (Although this is known as well.) Today they’ve been assigned the pitch to ComPex, a facilities management firm. She won’t actually lead the pitch. She’s just written what Will is going to say.

  She emerges gratefully from the lift on the eighth floor. She remains not very keen on lifts, but does not let on. Here they work voluntary hours. It’s compulsory to call them that. This morning the office is crowded. People lean against the glass walls and chat in the kitchens. Half of them are with clients most days, so they chat when they can. Celia is washing something in the sink and getting a little sprayed. The taps here are ferocious. Celia is probably the best runner, Frances thinks. She runs to work each day before her family are awake. Her hair is dark and flat from showering.

  Frances doesn’t have her own desk. Nobody does. There are sofas and coffee tables and rows of stools and shelves and basically everything that isn’t a desk. The shelves have espresso pod machines that some people are obsessed with. Bowls of fruit everywhere get secretly replenished. You grab a coffee and some fruit and a bit of shelf, is the idea. You also recommend this way of working to other firms. It stimulates creative exchange, you say. (Although the directors still have offices. There are limits.)

  Hi Fran. Do you have a minute?

  This is Will now. He’s come over before her laptop is even open.

  Hi Will, she says. Sure. You feeling pumped? I’ve just got a few things I’d like you to look at before we go over to ComPex.

  Yes, that’s what I meant to say.

  What?

  They’ve gone with LPP.

  Sorry, what?

  I got a call first thing. They’ve already appointed LPP. We’ve been stood down.

  Turned down, this means, but the words are too final for Will, who thinks bad news can be ignored by calling it temporary. It’s one way he thinks he is a leader.

  You’re kidding. Why?

  I don’t know all the details, just that they liked LPP’s proposal yesterday, and did the deal on the spot.

  He begins to walk towards his office and she follows.

  But they haven’t heard ours yet!

  I know. I know. Obviously there’s wheels within wheels.

  They’ve undercut us, haven’t they? They want something in facilities so they’ve gone in cheap.

  Maybe. Probably. If so, it shows they knew they’d have to, which is a real compliment to us. It’s a shame though, after all that work. Were you up late?

  Yes. I was at QTel yesterday, presenting to staff, but I came back afterwards to finish the pitch. I’d rather have stayed, to be honest. It’s going really well at QTel and there were lots of questions.

  I’m sorry about that. But look, there’s something else I want to talk about.

  Oh?

  He hauls his door closed. The glass doors are heavy.

  It’s strange, but we’ve had a bit of an odd email.

  A what?

  An odd email. About your work at QTel.

  My work? Who from?

  Well that’s what’s odd. It’s anonymous. The whole board was copied in on it late yesterday afternoon. It comes from some random address.

  What does it say?

  He hands her a copy someone’s printed.

  It’s a real hatchet job basically. About you. Whoever wrote it, they say that since you started at QTel you’ve been arrogant and rude. As soon as our plan was adopted they say you began hinting that you might go it alone as a consultant, sounding people out to poach the business, basically. There’s also talk about fraud, saying you’ve been inflating your hours and trying to get yourself booked for work that doesn’t exist, promising people kickbacks from your bonus. It’s strong stuff.

  She is staring at the page but can’t make sense of it. The words streak by. She begins again, determined to be patient, and the meaning slowly comes.

  Will is speaking.

  Weird, eh? I’ve never seen anything like it, and of course I see no reason to believe it either.

  You see no reason to? Or you just don’t?

  Well, I’ve not been with you all the
time, so of course … But no. It isn’t something I’d believe about you. No.

  How about the others?

  The board?

  Yes. What do they think?

  Well they’ll take a lead from me, I expect. But I’ve spoken to a couple and from what they already know of you they find this very surprising.

  It’s not surprising. It’s untrue. They do see that distinction? You have told them that? This stuff about how I’m going freelance, and the stuff about my hours, it’s not a misunderstanding or an educated guess, it’s totally made up. They know that, don’t they?

  Right now that’s what everyone is assuming, yes. And we certainly intend to get to the bottom of it. Basically we need to find out who sent this email and what’s going on.

  Come on, Will! Someone has a grudge for some reason. Someone at QTel doesn’t like what we’re doing and they want to stir things up. Maybe they lost their job. Maybe they got divorced. Maybe they’re a drinker.

  But why pick on her? That’s what even the shelves are asking. Something startles birds off a roof outside. Will says,

  I’m sure this is a shock to you.

  Well it would be if it weren’t such utter rubbish. It is a bit weird that somebody would do it, yes. But there’s never been a shortage of weird people in the world.

  No. Quite.

  He laughs too much, like he’s been wanting to.

  Have you asked one of the tech guys to trace it? Did you get the IP address?

  We did that this morning.

  This unsettles her a little. The speed and efficiency of this.

  They say it’s muddled by a VPN of some kind, but it probably did originate at QTel.

  OK.

  Can you think of any QTel employees who might have a problem with you? People did lose their jobs because of what we recommended.

  People did, it was true. But is this how they would react? QTel had been an unusually open and cheerful project, and yesterday an especially cheerful day. Redundancies had been expected long before Frances came to recommend them, and were expected in greater numbers than she achieved. Plus almost all were voluntary. This is something that Will knows, the client knows, everybody knows. This is something that the client specifically expressed gratitude for in a message to the board that mentioned her by name.

  No, she says.

  Will is doing his kind face.

  Here’s what I suggest. The ComPex pitch isn’t happening now, sadly. And like you say, this is pretty weird news. I’d definitely find it hard to concentrate. So I suggest you take the day off. Work from home, and don’t bother too much about the working. Maybe rerun who you met at QTel and jot down some names. Try to remember any conversations you had that might have triggered something. Then come back in tomorrow so we can straighten it all out. The rest of the team don’t know anything yet. If they ask, I’ll just say you went home after we lost the pitch.

  We didn’t lose the pitch. We never did it.

  You know what I mean.

  She looks at him. At his height, at his haircut. It might be good advice to go home, although she doubts it comes from caring. Three small girls smile from the frame on his desk, bunched along the back of a horse that also doesn’t care. She must not cling here spitefully. Not if that’s the reason. She has told clients many times, and it is true, that the most successful businesspeople are the ones who can defy their pride. So it is meekly that she takes her dead pitch back to the lift, then back to the station where the renovations and improvements never end. And gradually she starts to think, on the one functioning escalator, on the train, on the streets of home, blithe now with crocodiles of schoolchildren, hearty with the sounds of building and of builders … She thinks, Am I in trouble here?

  *

  The email isn’t crazy. Sat on the sofa in her living room she has read it many times. Controlled, that’s what it is. Direct yet calmly phrased. No lurid idiosyncrasies or solecisms and enough rhythmic variety to imply some thoughtfulness behind the serious claims, but not imply pleasure being taken in them. There is a relaxed attitude to cliché and an infinitive left split. Altogether the impression is of a person who is good at writing and probably good at several things. The author seems familiar with her work at QTel and with consulting generally. The only false note is the central allegation, that a junior consultant has been plotting to poach clients from her firm, a laughable idea frankly, and she expects the board’s been laughing. So why is she not reassured? Time and again she pulls herself back from the brink of believing that she did indeed, at some point, give somebody the wrong idea. She notices herself presuming that the author is a man, and can’t dismiss the feeling. On a whim she sends an email from her own address saying only, Who is this? Then she regrets it.

  She is still wearing her coat, and goes to hang it in the hall. Without it she is cold, so on her return she bends down – not easily in her work skirt, she’ll change – to heap up logs and firelighters in the grate. From the doormat she fetches a handful of pizza leaflets and positions them as fuses. She gets round them all with a single match before her fingers scorch. Kneeling on the carpet she raises her palms to the growing flame.

  Is there someone at QTel? Someone odd she’s noticed? She tries making a list of names, but none convince her. Of course if the claims were true she might well know who sent the email, because she’d know who she had plotted with. She’d be angry with this person for sabotaging her plans but would not want to name them, because then they would be free to accuse her openly. If she were guilty she would probably just act baffled, name no one, and hope that the affair would fade away. The fire is too hot for her knees. She stands.

  She should relax. Hard problems are rarely solved with a direct approach. She lies on the sofa and switches on the television. Nothing good is on so she watches nothing good for a while.

  Later she thinks, Will did it. Will did it. He might not have sent the email himself, but he could have connived with somebody at QTel. Some ally from one of those meals without her. Will or the ally sent the email from an office computer, and Will would see to it that they weren’t caught. Maybe he sabotaged the ComPex pitch as well, not wanting to credit her with winning it? Maybe he thinks her success is a threat to him? Maybe it is? She changes her mind. This is conspiracist nonsense.

  She’s drowsing in the bath when her phone rings.

  Hi Steph, she says.

  Hi Fran. Sorry to bother you at work.

  Ah! But I’m not at work!

  You’re not?

  No. Hear that?

  She whisks the water with her fingers.

  What is it?

  I’m in the bath!

  You’re in the bath?

  I am.

  She wonders where all this levity has come from.

  Why are you in the bath?

  I came home early. It’s all a bit odd. Someone at QTel has been complaining about me to Will. To the whole board actually. They wrote an email saying I’ve been defrauding the company and trying to poach clients in order to set up a consultancy of my own.

  Have you?

  Stephanie! Of course I haven’t!

  Jo-king! It’s just Jo King again. Who wrote it?

  It’s hard to tell with anonymous emails, Steph. When I find out you’ll be the first to know.

  Shit. Well that’s horrible, Fran. Are you OK?

  I think so. I mean it’s obviously not nice. And it’s sad because everything seemed to be going so well when I was at their office yesterday. I gave a report to the staff and answered questions, and people seemed happy with the new system. They’d really begun to feel like it was theirs, you know? I guess that only alienates the dissenters even more, feeling the tide turn against them. Perhaps that’s what drove somebody to this. In the end, I don’t see how one mad email could become a big problem, but I do want to work out what’s going on.

  Has the bath helped?

  Not really. I doubt it’s complicated. Obviously I pissed someone off without realis
ing it, and they’re a bit strange, and they sent this email. The company can’t sack me just for that. Not without getting sued anyway.

  It’s pretty scary though, the idea of someone out to get you. Are you sure you’re OK?

  Yeah, I’m fine. I’m more pissed off about planning for a pitch that didn’t happen, to be honest. That’s another thing. That’s why I came home.

  The big one you were talking about?

  Yes. They went with someone else and cancelled the meeting.

  Poor you! You’re having a rotten day.

  Yeah. Not great.

  Well look, I’m coming home myself soon, so we can talk properly then. Are the keys still where you left them?

  Shit, I forgot. Yes they are.

  Great, thanks. It feels like ages since I saw you.

  Steph is the third housemate. She is a replacement for Annie, who was a replacement for Marina, but there’d been the most jollity when Steph moved in. Old university friends, or at least friends of friends, the two of them straight away found much to laugh about, much more than expected. They laughed about Steph’s clumsiness. They laughed about Annie’s hypochondria and promiscuous belief in remedies. They laughed reliably and regularly, about whatever was to hand, and the laughter bound them as friends as sex binds lovers. They laughed about being nearly the last single women they knew, and about the crazy revenge they’d take on being abandoned for a man. It was a classic prisoner’s dilemma, Frances said, then explained game theory.

  Greg is a lawyer and Stephanie’s boyfriend, the eventual graduate from a parade of flings. He is structurally difficult for Frances to like, because he threatens to take away both Steph and her mortgage payments. These feel like selfish grievances, so Frances is also structurally disposed to find fault with his character, and as it happens the man’s preening misogyny and controlling nature are plain to anyone who looks with open eyes. This is not Stephanie, however. She talks a lot of neoplatonic claptrap about the true, ideal Greg that only she can see.