Something Like Happy

They walked companionably side by side, not really talking much, through the streets that by now were bustling with people, out for Saturday shopping. Jade stopped at the entrance to the station.

‘So, what’s the plan for next weekend?’ Nick wanted to know. ‘You know. The next thing on the list.’

Jade had been lost in thought, wondering about Nick and what his story was. ‘Oh. Yeah.’ She thought for a minute. If he wouldn’t laugh at her, she could take him …

Screw it, she thought. Nothing to lose. ‘Kelvin Hall. Quarter to eleven. Wear something comfortable. Sweatpants or something.’

‘Are you going to tell me what we’re doing?’ Nick looked sideways at her.

‘Nope. That’s part of the fun.’ Jade winked at him.

‘Oh.’ Nick seemed to suddenly remember something. ‘Today was all about the second thing on the list. But you never actually told me what it was.’

Jade smiled. ‘Do a kindness for someone else. Feels good, doesn’t it?’

Nick didn’t reply for a second, then he unexpectedly leaned over suddenly and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. Before she could say anything, he gave her a little wave and disappeared up the stairs. Jade put a hand to her cheek and stared after him for a minute, unsure of the meaning of what had just happened. Then she turned and walked slowly home.

‘You look very thoughtful,’ her mother remarked later that evening while they were both sitting in the living room after dinner. ‘Something on your mind?’

‘Just this guy I met. I took him to see Lily today.’

‘Ah.’ Her mother, never one for excessive speech, could convey a thousand messages with one word. ‘So what is he like, this man?’

Jade considered, the images of Nick flitting through her mind. ‘Nice. He seems nice.’ She snuggled up on the sofa in her blanket, content just to spend some time alone with her mother tonight. ‘Let’s watch some of your favourite programme, Mum.’

Her mother’s raised eyebrows indicated surprise, but she didn’t say anything, just reached for the remote. And as the familiar theme music started, Jade felt a strange feeling of contentment, which was something she hadn’t felt for a long time.

Chapter 3 (#ulink_12170cc5-8586-5f42-8654-c13995113ed1)

Nick lay on his bed that evening thinking about things. He was starting to wonder about the wisdom of taking a bedsit in the centre of town. He had originally done it because then he wouldn’t have to spend any time commuting, especially because they occasionally shifted a working day to match the hours in the US and he would get home really late. But he missed green fields and trees. The constant hum of the traffic was getting him down. Maybe if he took a flat somewhere out of the city like Lenzie or Milngavie? The commute wasn’t huge, just half an hour each way. And he could spend the time usefully doing something. Reading. Or watching something on his phone. Or something like that.

But then, the real problem was his job. Well, it wasn’t really the job. In fact, he liked it more than he had expected to like an office job. He loved the feeling of solving problems and being master of the web. Of fighting the dark forces of evil with only a few lines of computer code. But the real problem was his colleagues, but mainly his boss. Well, actually, all of them. It was all rolled into a massive knotty problem that he had no idea how to solve.

He supposed he should just try to find another outdoor job, but it was hard. He’d been watching websites for months, and the job he’d interviewed for a couple of weeks back – organising outdoor activities for kids – had been the only one he’d seen for ages that was even remotely close to what he wanted to do, even though the owner of the company hadn’t seemed much better than the boss he had now. And having them offer him the job, and then a few days later call them to say they’d changed their minds? That had been a major blow.

If they don’t want you, you don’t want them. He recited the mantra that his dad had taught him to help him stand up to the bullies at school. The trouble was, it wasn’t always true. A job working outdoors with a tosser for a boss was better than the job he had now, where he was stuck in an office and still had a tosser for a boss. And so his thoughts continued circling, his chest growing tight as he felt more and more trapped in his head.

If he stayed in the same type of work that he was doing now then he would probably have to go down to London to find another job, and the thought of that scared him even more than carrying on in his current job. Besides, he didn’t like the thought of running away. Even though the blokes in his office all seemed the same, odds were that some of them were as frustrated as he was. If he could only find a way to sort things out …

‘New Year, new start.’ Nick jumped as one of his colleagues threw a backpack onto a nearby desk. Nick normally had the office to himself until at least nine. He liked to come in early, before eight if possible. It gave him at least an hour before the office banter started up and he got distracted by people asking him for things. But it seemed that someone had decided to start the new year with a new resolution.

‘Yeah.’ Nick tried to be enthusiastic, but to be honest he was missing the mountains. And being back home. And there wasn’t even any snow in Glasgow to make things look pretty. ‘How was your holiday?’

‘Oh, you know, the usual. Too much food, too much drink. Family rows. Glad to be back really. How was yours?’

Nick thought of the ten days he had spent at home. The wild waves whipped up in the sea lochs. The perfect sheen of the snow on the hills. The deer spread out on the mountain sides like chocolate sprinkles on a white iced cake.

He suddenly realised the other man was waiting for a reply. ‘Oh. Great. It was great.’

Too great, he thought, as he returned his eyes to the screen and back to what he was working on. He had come up with some really good ideas over the holiday for a particularly knotty problem the whole office had been trying to solve. Maybe if he spoke to his boss about it then it might make him more likely to get a good bonus come April. Then he could buy that new amazing winter jacket he had been wanting for ages. If he was really lucky it would be in the summer sales … Then he sobered. Maybe he could just send his parents on holiday. They hadn’t been abroad for years.

It wasn’t long before the office filled up, loud and noisy with people exchanging their holiday stories. Nick wondered some days how ten people managed to make so much noise. Still, they weren’t bad people. They had bought him cake on his birthday. And taken him out for dinner and drinks when he first started. It was just that he struggled to fit in to their casual talk about cars, and golf, and women. And he felt like everyone knew it.

It was no use trying to concentrate on work until everyone had settled down. Time for a cup of tea. He rounded the corner into the breakout area, only to find three of the guys in there, clustered around the noticeboard. One of them took something and pinned it up with satisfaction. ‘There we go. How about that.’ They stood back to admire the view.

Nick looked at the notice board and frowned. Up at the top was a calendar. But not just any calendar. It was some kind of trade calendar, from God knew what kind of company, because January’s picture showed a scantily clad woman bent in a supposedly enticing position over a car bonnet.

Nick sucked in a breath. His mother would have been horrified, and not just because she was a devoted Catholic. He found himself speaking before he thought about the consequences. ‘You can’t put that up there, for goodness sake.’

Andy, the one who had pinned it up, turned towards him. ‘Oh yeah? Why not?’

Nick just shook his head in bewilderment. ‘How can you even ask that? That’s totally inappropriate for an office environment. What kind of image do you think it gives our company? How do you think women will feel when they look at it?’

Andy folded his arms. ‘Tell me, when do we ever get any visitors to this office? And there aren’t even any women here.’

‘What about Sadie?’ Nick couldn’t believe his ears.

‘Her? She’s just part-time admin. She doesn’t count.’ Andy clearly didn’t even see her as a member of staff. Which made Nick angry. Before he knew what he was doing, he had grabbed the calendar off the wall and torn all the pages in half.

He dumped them in the bin, trembling, part with rage and part with fear. ‘There you go. That’s the only good thing that your calendar is good for.’

Andy grabbed Nick and raised his fist under his nose. ‘That was my calendar, you little shit!’

‘Gents! Please!’ Their boss had pushed himself through the group of people watching at the doorway. ‘What is going on here?’

‘He put up a calendar with naked women on it.’ Nick was still angrily defiant.

‘And he ripped it in half and threw it in the bin.’ Andy crossed his arms again.

The big boss sighed. ‘Andy. Nick is right, unfortunately. A naked calendar is not appropriate for the office.’

Nick didn’t like the word unfortunately, but since he was being backed up then he supposed he couldn’t complain.

But the man wasn’t finished yet. ‘But you, Nick. Ripping up other people’s property is not an appropriate way to resolve a conflict.’ He gave a theatrical sigh. ‘Since you’re so junior, I’ll overlook it this time.’

The man turned on his heel. ‘Everyone, back to work! Work doesn’t do by itself, you know.’

Andy gave Nick a dirty look and walked off back to his desk. Nick took a deep breath. He almost wished he hadn’t said anything in the first place, but as he passed Sadie’s desk, he looked at her and saw her mouthing ‘thank you’ at him. His heart lifted. Maybe he had done the right thing?

It was a week later when Nick finally felt ready to go to his boss with his ideas. This was a real gamechanger. It could make them a lot of money. He’d prepared a presentation to show to him, with details of the potential market and everything. He’d grab him right after their weekly team meeting and ask for some of his time. He could barely contain his excitement when he got in that morning.

‘Right, everybody,’ the boss said as they sat down in the conference room, around the white-topped table. ‘We’ll go through the regular business soon, but meanwhile Andy has some exciting new ideas to share with us.’

Andy stood up to the usual claps and hoots of approval, and Nick sat back, curious to know what was coming next. But as the slides displayed on the screen, he felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was his presentation. OK, changed a little bit, but his charts were there. And his ideas. All of his precious ideas.

Nick barely registered the rest of the meeting, so caught up was his mind on how Andy had stolen his work. How had the man done it? And then he suddenly remembered. He had stored all his work on his personal folder on the shared drive. And none of it was password protected. Anyone could have looked at his stuff.

As the others were filing out, he grabbed Andy by the arm. ‘I can’t believe you did that.’