Even when I’m not with Jax, every now and again I’ll have a sneaky look around the shop or the bus or wherever I am and play the game myself. But I always figured that unless I came across the perfect guy with wavy brown hair eating cheese on toast, watching a Dave Allen DVD and scratching his psoriasis I’d probably never even come close to knowing.

But isn’t it funny about one never knows, because now there’s a good chance maybe I will.

17

Sadie

OF COURSE, DENNIS refused to let Leonard take any time off. Anyone could see that coming, but especially me, because I had a ringside seat. I might even have seen Dennis’s head twitch a little as Leonard walked up to my desk and asked for a leave form. I handed him one from the file and he filled it out in his lovely shaky cursive there and then. Two weeks, starting in three weeks. Then, without looking back, he walked over and knocked on the glass wall that separated my desk from Dennis’s office. I’d long ago arranged a little bookshelf of catalogs and lever-arch files that was mercifully able to obscure at least two-thirds of Dennis from my view, although, to be honest, nothing short of the Great Wall would be able to hide that hair. But I had to take what I could get.

Dennis took the form with no more than a fleeting glance, so whether he noticed it matched the dates of my already approved two weeks coinciding with Norman’s school holidays that I’d had booked for a couple of months I don’t know. I pulled out two thick catalogs to create a little viewing tunnel and saw him lean back slowly in his chair and put both hands behind his immovable head of hair.

“Holidays, eh? Well, you know, Lenny, you can’t just front up and expect to get holidays anytime you feel like going back into retirement. I don’t know how it worked back in the dark ages, but I’m running a business here. We can’t allow you to drop everything and leave the loo walls to get splattered in shit just because you want a bit of a lie-in, can we?”

I didn’t dare dismantle any more of my camouflage, so Leonard was just a smudge at the edge of my vision. But his voice was clear as a bell.

“No, Dennis, of course not. I certainly understand the challenges of running a business, but it’s three weeks until I require my leave and I have it on good authority that it’s a simple task to get a temporary cleaner from an agency. And regarding your other point, I’m happy to say that, in all my months of employment at Pearl’s, I’ve not yet once encountered any excrement on the walls. Your employees are to be commended for their aim.”

I had to duck my head swiftly to disguise a snort, but even without a direct eye line I could sense Dennis bristling and his bouffant swung in my direction. I dropped my head lower and my forehead banged on the desk. I knew he could really only be bothered bullying Leonard if he thought he had an audience, and presumably he gave up on me because the dead air that was oozing out of the office would have taken a chain saw to get through.