I search his face as the cab pulls away into the traffic, silence hanging between us. There’s nothing left to say. I can almost hear our heartbeats thrumming round the car, like a set of drums finally in time with everything else.

246

Marie ~ Deptford ~ 2004

‘You should apply,’ Laurie barks, sending the pile of files balanced on the corner of his desk on to the floor as he slaps a sheaf of paper in front of me. I kneel down to tidy them up. My habit of doing whatever needs doing round here is so ingrained I don’t know how not to do it, even after almost two years of proving myself to be more than just useful.

The Gazette is all that rolls me through every sleepless night. No sooner has a long day become a week than it’s become another month of moving forward, building a new life from the pieces of other people’s stories instead of my own. My name is in every edition, embedded in practically every story the paper can find. It’s how I’ve made it my real name.

‘Marie, I didn’t call you in here for a fucking spring clean. Do you think I regularly get faxes from national news networks soliciting bright and shiny young things? Someone up top must have got seriously stuck into the good stuff.’

I pile a few files into a neat stack on the floor before sitting back down opposite him. The tiny office is so full it’s almost caving in on itself, but the messier it is, the more comfortable Laurie seems. Feet on the desk, he leans back in his chair, nudging the files against the wall behind him as if he’s daring them to fall over.

‘I ask you, Marie, why not? I wouldn’t have been able to get rid of you even if I put a security guard on the door, but months of begging later you’ve gone all coy?’

I glance at the fax in front of me, Nine News logo stamped red in the top corner.

‘Years,’ I mutter, reading off the top line: To whom it may concern…247

‘Eh? Days, months, years … who cares? Opportunity knocks, Marie. Don’t tell me you want to lock the door.’

‘I don’t know,’ I mumble, fingering the papers. ‘I like it here.’