LITMIR.BIZ

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      While Jeanine is splashing around in the bathroom, I fill the wine glasses. I haven’t felt this happy for a long time. It was good to take the initiative. I should do that more often, not stand back and wait. Maybe RenÉe feels like going on a little cinema outing with me. The thought makes me smile.

      Jeanine returns with wet, dark red hair. She’s changed into jeans and a white T-shirt and looks cheerful and lively. She’s back to her old self, apart from the hair colour.

      ‘Nice colour,’ I say. ‘Quite striking, after brown. I can’t believe you dare!’

      ‘It looks a bit darker because it’s wet. When my hair’s dry it should have a kind of a coppery shine. My own colour is so boring.’

      Every day I spend ages blow-drying my hair, but I’m never happy with it. I once thought about getting it cut off, not too short, just a shoulder-length cut. A bit of colour and the metamorphosis would have been complete. But I’ve never got round to it.

      Jeanine gives me the lowdown on all the new people. Her conclusion is that they’re alright, but that no one has realised just how manipulative RenÉe is.

      ‘She complained about you to the others,’ warns Jeanine. ‘Don’t wait until they come to you because they won’t. Go to them yourself and prove that you’re the opposite of what RenÉe has said.’

      ‘Has she really painted me so black?’ I say, dubious.

      ‘As far as she’s concerned, you’re only sick if you’re lying in Intensive Care or you’re in plaster,’ Jeanine says. ‘One time she said that you’re only as sick as you want to be, and that she always gets on with her work, however miserable she feels. And that’s true. She uses up a box of tissues in half an hour and the next day the whole department is sniffing and coughing. She thinks depression is something you just have to get over.’ Jeanine gets up.

      I’ve slipped off my shoes. I sit with my legs curled to one side and pull my cold feet under my thighs.

      While she is rummaging around in the kitchen cupboards, she carries on talking, a bit more loudly so that I can hear her. ‘I know so many people who’ve had a burn-out. My uncle had one, my father too and I’ve seen enough at work. That’s what it was, a burn-out, wasn’t it?’ She returns with a bowl of chips.

      I nod. Burn-outs, depression and break-downs are pretty much the same kind of thing.

      Jeanine fills her glass again and tucks her feet under her folded legs. ‘Once when I had flu and called in sick she sent a doctor round to check up on me. Usually they don’t come to visit you until the next day, or two days later, but a couple of hours after my phone call there was the knock at the door. A special request from my boss, that’s what the bloke said. I’ll give you one guess who lit a fire under Walter’s arse.’

      ‘What bastards,’ I say wholeheartedly and take a handful of chips. Somehow a chip catches in my windpipe and lodges there. I burst into a rally of coughs that bring tears to my eyes, but the chip stays wedged.

      ‘Have a sip of wine,’ Jeanine hands me my glass. I push her hand away—I’m still coughing so hard that I think I’m going to throw up.

      ‘Just have a sip!’ shouts Jeanine.

      I gesture that I can’t.

      It might not be a bad idea for her to hit me on the back, and to convey that to her, I hit myself on the back. It’s much too low but I can’t reach between my shoulderblades.

      Jeanine gets up and whacks me on the spine, much too hard and much too low.

      I raise my hand to tell her to stop but she thinks I’m encouraging her and hits me even harder. ‘Should I do the Heimlich manoeuvre? Get up!’ But then the chip dislodges and I begin to breathe again. I lie back against the sofa cushions panting, wipe the tears from my eyes and drink some wine.

      ‘Idiot,’ I say. ‘You nearly put me in a wheelchair.’

      ‘I saved you!’

      ‘You have to hit between the shoulderblades! God knows what would have happened if you’d tried the Heimlich manoeuvre!’ I shout back.

      Jeanine stares at me speechless, I return the look and we both burst out laughing.

      ‘Where did I hit you?’ asks Jeanine, gasping with laughter. ‘There? And where should it have been? Oh, then it wasn’t far off?’ And we fall about laughing again.

      ‘What do you think? Have we drunk too much?’ I lisp.

      ‘No-oh,’ says Jeanine. ‘I can only see two of you, usually I see four.’

      She giggles and I giggle back.

      ‘You’d better stay over,’ Jeanine says. ‘I can’t let you go out into the street like that. What time is it in fact? Oh my God, 2 a.m.’

      ‘You’ve got to be joking!’ I jump up. ‘I’ve got to work tomorrow!’

      ‘Call in sick,’ Jeanine laughs again. ‘RenÉe will totally understand.’

      We pull bedding from the loft space and make a bed up for me on the sofa.

      ‘Good night,’ she says sleepily.

      ‘Good night,’ I mumble back, crawling under the covers. I lay my head on one of the sofa cushions and sink into an overwhelming softness.

       4

      People are talking about me. I can tell from the silence that descends when I enter the department with the letters book, from the quick glances people give me, and the guilty faces. I pull a requisitions form towards me and fill in scissors, hole punches and paperclips. I keep an eye on the clock. Do the hands sometimes stop?

      A deep voice breaks the silence of the office. ‘Has somebody here got a problem?’

      I swivel my chair and see a body that’s six feet four, a handsome face crowned with thick, blond hair, a broad smile.

      ‘If it isn’t Sabine!’ He perches on the edge of my desk. ‘I thought it was you yesterday. You don’t recognise me do you?’

      ‘Oh, yes, aren’t you…I mean…’

      My colleagues are looking at me with a mixture of amazement and envy.

      ‘Olaf,’ he says. ‘Olaf van Oirschot, you know, Robin’s friend.’

      The haze in my brain begins to clear. I take a deep breath of relief. Lanky Olaf, a friend of my brother’s. When we were both at secondary school, Robin hung out with a group of idiots who were more interested in practical jokes than their exam results.

      ‘Now you remember,’ he says, pleased.

      I lean towards him to get a better look.

      ‘Weren’t you the one who pretended to be blind in that cafÉ?’

      Olaf laughs, looks embarrassed. ‘What can I say? We were young. We’ve made up for it now.’

      Close by, RenÉe has discovered something urgent in the overflowing in-tray, which she usually ignores. She turns to Olaf as if she’s only just noticed that he’s here, and says, ‘Oh, Olaf, I’ve got a bit of a problem with my computer. When I save something, I get all these strange messages. Would you mind taking a look?’ As she speaks she guides Olaf towards her desk.

      Olaf turns back towards me, ‘See you later, Sabine.’

      I try to concentrate on the order forms. It doesn’t work. The unexpected confrontation with a period of my past I’d long since put behind me has left me reeling. And apart from that, I can’t get over the fact that Olaf has become so good-looking.

      When I finally leave at half-past twelve, we bump

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