Destination India (23 page)

Paroxysm (n.) A sudden violent emotion or action; outburst

‘Morning!’ Serena said in a sing-song voice as I walked into the office.

I was used to rushing down the street to get to my desk but today for some reason each step was taken in trepidation, even with the pep talk I’d given myself in my dad’s car that I could do this.

‘Morning.’

‘I’ll pop the kettle on, shall I? You look like you could do with a strong coffee.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, trying to bite my tongue at the way she’d looked me up and down before she’d made that offer. Ben was already at his desk and on the phone so I waved brightly. ‘Is Kelli not here?’

‘No, not yet. I gave her the morning off,’ Serena said, busying with the kettle.

I nodded and tried to hide the bristling feeling inside. ‘Great, well I’ll just get started then.’ I looked at my desk, too nervous to touch it in case I messed up the pristine order of things on there.

‘Morning, Georgia. I thought maybe you could use Kelli’s desk,’ Ben said ending his call.

I swung my head to face him. ‘Oh.’

‘Just for this morning,’ he hurriedly added. ‘Just to give Serena time to get her things sorted and moved across. Then we’ll need to sort out somewhere for her to sit permanently.’

‘Yeah, fine.’ I smiled tightly and went to sit further down the office at Kelli’s messy wooden desk next to the fireplace. The room would be way too cramped if we tried to shoehorn another desk in. I couldn’t face having Kelli sitting cross-legged on the floor but I didn’t know where else she could possibly go.

Luckily the morning passed quickly. We’d had a slow but steady stream of customers coming in. I’d decided to focus on working through my emails, paperwork and other dull admin whilst Ben and Serena took centre stage. It pained me to admit it, but Serena did have a good bedside manner, subtly pushing a box of tissues near the tearful ones before making them a cup of tea, and buoying up the more nervous ones with an infectious excitement. I’d tried to get Ben alone, without bloody Serena sticking her neat nose in, so I could tell him about India but just hadn’t had the chance. Strangely, he hadn’t asked me a thing about what I’d been up to over there. It was as if he thought I’d been on some relaxing holiday or something.

Just after midday Kelli arrived in a frenzied whirlwind, clutching a pair of tickets in her small hands. ‘I got them! I got them!’

Serena did a little jump. ‘No way! You didn’t?’ Kelli nodded. ‘Oh my God, excellent!’

Kelli beamed at her. ‘Couldn’t get the front row but near enough. I can’t believe it! I never thought I’d get to see Battlestar Death Wing live!’

‘Who?’ I asked, my nerves frayed from seeing Serena so bubbly.

Kelli rolled her heavy kohl-lined eyes. ‘God, Georgia, Battlestar Death Wing. They’re like
the
band of the nineties.’

‘Oh, right. Them.’ I spotted Ben trying to contain a small laugh as if he didn’t have a bloody clue what they were on about either.

‘You don’t remember them?’ Serena asked, finally stopping dancing around with Kelli. I shook my head. ‘I had ALL their hits. Was a bit of an emo in my youth,’ she whispered loudly behind her hands.

‘So, you’re going together?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, we were chatting one day about music and it was Serena who found out they were making a special one-off comeback gig. Here in Manchester!’ Kelli told me looking at Serena adoringly. ‘Thanks so much for giving me the morning off to queue for them.’

‘Oh, no. Thank
you
for getting them. I’ll sort the money out later, OK?’ Serena blushed and swatted Kelli’s compliment away.

Ben just shrugged and smiled to himself. I turned back to my screen feeling very left out, very uncool and very irritated.

‘I was going to grab us some sushi for lunch. I know you said you liked it, but I didn’t want to be late,’ Kelli said to Serena.

‘Ah that’s so sweet. But don’t worry as I’ve made some healthy curry, in honour of Georgia coming back,’ Serena jumped up. ‘I’ve got enough for everyone, though I forgot to bring some rice,’ she apologised. Probably the batch she’d handmade didn’t puff up to the preferred height, I thought grumpily.

‘Is it lunchtime already?’ Ben glanced at his phone.

‘Yeah, doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun!’ Serena giggled. ‘So, is curry OK for you, Ben? I remember you
saying you liked it spicy so I’ve made you a separate hotter version.’ Oh God, she was like some robotic Stepford wife.

Ben’s eyes lit up. ‘Ace. Could get used to this; beats a soggy sarnie any day.’ He laughed. ‘I need to head to the bank anyway, so how about I buy us some rice that we can chuck in the microwave. You want anything, Georgia?’ Ben asked as an afterthought as he got up to leave.

‘Oh, I’ll come with you. Think I’ll just stick with a Boots meal deal,’ I said.

Serena looked dejected that I wasn’t as excited about her curry as the rest of the office.

‘Sorry, Serena, it’s just that I’ve had enough curry to last me the rest of the year, thanks.’

‘Oh, OK. Well some other time,’ Serena said sadly.

I knew I was being a bitch throwing my toys out of the pram, but I was glad to finally get Ben to myself for a moment. I grabbed my jacket as the phone rang, and with Serena heating up her curry, I called over to Kelli to pick it up and take a message.

‘You know you might be curried out but she has gone to a lot of effort to make lunch for everyone, in your honour,’ Ben whispered nodding his head over to the small kitchen.

‘I just really fancy an egg mayo sandwich,’ I muttered.

‘No one ever fancies an egg mayo sandwich,’ Ben said, raising an eyebrow. ‘I know it might feel weird for you coming back with her being here but trust me, she is a real asset.’

‘A real ass more like,’ I whispered more loudly than I’d planned as Ben gave me a look. ‘Sorry. I just think it’s going to take a bit of time to get used to her perky ways. We hardly know her, you know?’

Ben sighed. ‘You don’t trust her?’

I was spared from replying when Kelli called out. ‘Georgia! Wait!’

She hurriedly put the phone down, a strange look on her pale face. ‘That was a journalist.’ I stared at her patiently, feeling my stomach grumbling. ‘He works for the
Daily Times
and is running an exposure on us.’

‘Do you mean exposé?’ Ben asked, stepping back into the shop. ‘What did he say, Kelli? Exactly.’ He was biting his bottom lip and had his arms crossed.

Kelli rolled her eyes to the sky and started tapping her chin trying to remember this information as if we’d just asked her what she’d eaten for dinner two weeks ago. ‘He said, he wanted to let us know that an article would be published in a few days, out of curtsy.’

‘Courtesy,’ Ben interrupted, for once looking irritated at how long she was taking to spit out a phone message.

‘Yep that.’ She pointed her finger at him.

‘An exposé?’ Ben repeated shaking his head. ‘Why would the
Daily Times
be running an exposé on us?’

‘Erm, he said he went on the Indian tour and is writing a piece about our business. About our unusual methods of management or something.’

My stomach lurched. ‘Kelli, did he say what his name was?’ I asked slowly, feeling the ground rise up to meet me.

She nodded and looked down at her hand where she’d scrawled the details. ‘Erm, yep. Kennings, Christopher Kennings.’ She glanced up at us.

Ben spun his head to face me, waiting for a reaction.

‘Fuck.’

‘What do you mean fuck?’ His tone of voice and the smell of Serena’s curry wafting through the already crowded room was making me feel sick. ‘Everything went OK on the tour, didn’t it? Didn’t it, Georgia?’

I gave a nod that was half a shake and half a shrug.

‘Georgia?’

Damn! I’d been planning on telling him what had happened when we went to the shops, finally getting him on his own, so I could explain properly.

‘I’ve found him!’ Kelli shouted from Ben’s laptop. She’d immediately started cyber stalking Christopher Kennings. I ignored Ben’s scowl and raced up to his screen that Kelli was jabbing her finger at. ‘Was this dude on your tour?’ she asked me. ‘Wait … I remember this guy. He was a weirdo who came in here aaaaaages ago asking about the finances; do you remember, Georgia?’

Chris’s smirking face filled the screen; Kelli started reading out loud from the text under his large, grey face, oblivious to my aghast expression. ‘Says here, he’s a renowned and scathing – whatever that means – investigative journalist in the world of business.’

Chris was a journalist. No wonder it was him who’d found out about my real identity and had wanted to stir things up with the group, why he’d never really opened up or got involved, and had always been writing stuff down in that notepad of his, or snapping away with his camera. Not for some travel journal or holiday memory book at all.

‘Whoa.’ Kelli stopped.

‘What?’ Ben demanded, flicking his narrowed eyes between me and the laptop. Serena had heard the commotion and tottered over to Ben’s desk that we were all huddled around, still wearing a pink frilly apron that she must have brought in from home.

‘Everything OK?’ she asked nervously.

No one answered her.

‘You remember that bread business, Grains and Barley? The one that went bankrupt because of some undercover report of their dodgy management style or something?’ We nodded. ‘Well our Mr Kennings here was the guy who wrote it.’

I was going to be sick.

‘Georgia.’ Ben turned to me, a heavy darkness clouding his features. ‘What happened with this Chris guy on the tour?’

The steely look Ben was giving me gnawed at my insides. ‘I, erm, he …’ I trailed off feeling a strange heat pulsate through my body. ‘OK, I’m sure it’s not as bad as it seems.’ I let out a high-pitched, fake laugh. No one else did. ‘Ben, can I have a word with you? Alone.’ I jabbed my head to the front door.

He clenched his jaw before nodding curtly. I grabbed my handbag and my jacket and shuffled after him, ignoring Serena’s wounded look that she wasn’t privy to what I was about to tell him, and hearing Kelli grumble that she never got to hear the juicy stuff.

Once outside I began to stride over to the café opposite before Ben grabbed my arm. ‘Will you just tell me what’s gone on?’

‘I screwed up, OK? I screwed up,’ I replied, my arms outstretched almost knocking over a passing pensioner, who tutted loudly. ‘Please, let me just get us a drink and I can explain.’

‘Explain what? You tell me you’re going to India to fix some dodgy reviews and now we’re going to be bent over and fucked royally by some big-shot journalist doing some exposé on the business?’ he half shouted. The old woman I’d nearly whacked had stopped tutting and was now staring at us, as if watching some live episode of
Coronation Street.
‘Why would they be running a piece on us? What went on?’ I could see the anger and confusion swell in his chest.

I was desperate to lead him off the street and into the calm of the coffee shop. Over a mug of cappuccino we could talk about this like adults, not have some slanging
match in the middle of town. My eyes were already on the brink of tearing up. I took a deep breath and glared at the old woman to bugger off, but she ignored me.

‘I went to see what was going on with all these bad reviews and find Nihal to work out what was happening.’ Ben nodded along, already knowing this part. ‘He was in such a state after splitting up with his ex, Ameera, that I had to step in from time to time to keep the fun atmosphere going. It was going well. We eventually found Ameera, who was running her own tour group. We were in this silly Bollywood film and it got Nihal and Ameera back together, and our two groups became one.’ I paused.

‘Okaaaaaay.’ He sighed loudly. ‘But what’s that got to do with this journalist?’

I winced. This second part would be harder to hear. Old grandma had the cheek to start sucking on a Werther’s Original, popping the golden sweet into her wrinkled mouth without taking her eyes off us. The rustle of her shiny wrapper set my teeth on edge.

‘Well, Chris was on the tour but he was really strange, always separate from the rest of the group.’ Ben’s eyes grew wider but he stayed mute, waiting for me to continue. I could have kicked myself that I hadn’t listened to my suspicions that things weren’t right with Chris. ‘Anyway, the tour group started to open up to each other, sharing their secrets and so on. They trusted me and confided in me and everything was going well until … until Chris found this clip of us.’ I motioned my hand to Ben. ‘The one filmed in the office.’

‘So he knew you weren’t Louise the hairdresser …’ Ben said slowly, following along.

‘Yep. The rest of the tour group were so angry with me for deceiving them.’

‘Shit, Georgia.’ He slapped his hand to his head. Old grandma sucked louder. ‘Anything else I should be aware of?’

I scuffed my shoes against the ground not able to look at Ben in the eye. ‘I may have farted on him during a yoga class …’

Ben stared at me aghast. Well there goes that womanly allure – nice one, Georgia, nice one.

‘I know! But I thought I’d cleared the air. I swam in the sea to apologise to them all.’ Ben looked confused; saying it out loud it didn’t sound like much of an achievement. ‘I left the next day feeling like they understood why I’d not been completely honest with them from the beginning.’

‘But apparently not Chris,’ Ben said, rubbing his face and letting it all sink in.

‘Apparently not.’ I wiped the tears from my eyes and swallowed this Kinder-egg sized bubble of emotion clogging my throat. ‘Ben, I’m really sorry. I thought I’d fixed this. That it was just a silly mix-up.’

‘A silly mix-up?!’ His eyes grew wider. ‘Georgia, we’ve got a national journalist crawling all over us probably going to write about how we lie to our customers, how we trick them into sharing their inner secrets just to improve our profits. Do you know how much damage a piece like this can do to a new business?’

I half nodded, half shrugged. ‘I’m sorry. I was only trying to help.’ My voice sounded distorted and childlike.

He let out a deep breath and looked heavenwards, taking a long pause. ‘I think it would be better if you took the rest of the week off.’