Another shift in Point of View ... this time to Debbie's perspective

I was nervous when I got to the office, I'll admit that. I'd thought that using CareSpan's party to resolve some of the stuff I'd left unspoken would be a good idea ... and it had worked, after a fashion. Phil had liked Dave, Dave had seemed to like Phil ... and then I'd gone and asked him about his sex life. How stupid was that? And now I have to meet him the next day. Meet him with a woman I knew he'd slept with ... and a stunningly beautiful one at that. I felt mousey, insignificant and incompetent. In fact, I felt the professional facade I'd maintained for a decade slipping away. This was not good.

I'd left Phil with Karina, his daytime carer, grateful that she'd been able to come in at short notice on a Saturday, knowing that he knew I was going to meet Dave. As adults, we'd had The Conversation, many times. We both knew he was dying, would never again be my lover in any physical sense ... and he'd OK'd my seeking 'solace', as he put it, wherever I found it. Not that I ever had. For five grim years I'd watched the fit, athletic man I'd met lose one function after another until by now ... he could breath, for sure, swallow, had some movement in his right hand. God knows what it felt like for him ... but it screwed me up ... and that made me feel like a selfish bitch.

So, when I got to the office and let myself in, I wasn't best pleased to find Carla already sitting there - at my desk, as it happens, though I suppose she wouldn't have known that. Nonetheless, I was professional enough to greet her amicably, equally to enquire how she got in in the first place.

"Come on, Debs," she said - I hate being called Debs - "you know PCW own this building. I got them to send some poor fuck on a bike with the keys. I have to say, though, you'd do better to get some sort of alarm fitted on this office ... there's a lot of sensitive data on these hard drives."

Yes, I thought, a lot of data - and all of it heavily encrypted ... very heavily encrypted. And a fair amount of it replicated on Dave's home network, I knew, and that probably wasn't protected at all. So I realised that I had to retreat from the moral high ground ... and made time. We had a coffee machine in the office, by now, obviously, but I still went down to the one in reception. It was a risk - and I wasn't sure how calculated a one - but, hell, it gave me a chance to calm down.

Which I did. Deep breaths, positive thoughts. I'd survived in the corporate jungle for a fair while, I'd learnt the techniques. And I really didn't want to lose it now.

* ** *** **** ***** **** *** ** *

When I got back upstairs, coffees in hand, Carla was no longer sitting at my desk. Instead, she was sitting at our coffee machine. I almost dropped the mugs I was holding - Dave didn't hold with cups and saucers - but recovered myself well enough. I could feel tears in my eyes, knew that I was sweating. Go fuck yourself, I thought ... you might be a mistress of the universe or whatever ... but this isn't California, this is my space ... I didn't invite you here ...

Carla took the coffee, took a sip, said it was good. No mention of the fact that it could have been as good made on the machine behind her. No mention, either, of the obvious fact that I was standing in front of her almost in tears, looking and feeling like a chastised child.

* ** *** **** ***** **** *** ** *

Dave ... did not appear. Carla did not speak. It was strange, I thought ... she'd been friendly enough , professional enough ... when I'd met her the night before. Now, I was carrying a whole load of stuff - needed to explain our security, our forward plans to this woman. And she was standing there making appreciative noises about the coffee ... and I was feeling that everything I'd worked for was somehow crumbling into dust.

Dave still didn't appear. Carla - who'd been apparently admiring the decor (OK, Dave's post-its) quite suddenly looked me in the eye ... I almost jumped, so preoccupied had I been with my thoughts ... 

"Debs," she said (I winced inwardly), "I really liked you when I met you yesterday ... I really admire what you've done with the organisation around here ... and I don't think I've been unpleasant to you ... so why are you being so hostile?"

Hostile? Me? No, I was the compliant one ... you pat my bum, I grin and bear it ... And stuff. I thought for a second, reviewed the situation. What I saw was a woman in a smock dress, copious hair tied into a pony tail, looking at me kindly.

God, how I hated her. Hated Dave for not being there. We kept looking at each other. There was no hostility on her part, I began to realise. Just from the way she was looking at me, from her body language as she made an effort to relax. I recognised a nice woman being nice. Strangely ... or maybe not ... I almost wanted to hug her.

I wondered, bleakly, what on earth was going on ... and what had happened to my ability to ... deal with ... things.

* ** *** **** ***** **** *** ** *

Dave arrived. He apologised for being late, although he wasn't, and looked slightly warily at the pair of us before turning to me.

"Hi all", he said briskly, "... Debbie ... Carla must have invited you ... though god knows why as its the weekend and I thought we were only going to go through routine slave/owner stuff ... I was planning on doing the actual work on a y'know work day ... like Monday, for instance. Still, nice of you to let the Boss in."

I couldn't process this, or at least, not fast enough. Was he saying that I wasn't welcome? Or just not necessary? Which would I prefer? Flummoxed, I looked between Dave and Carla. Carla answered for me.

"I asked Deborah to come in - I'm not in Europe for long so I thought it made sense; also I actually let myself in. Your security is crap, by the way."

Dave visibly bristled at that ... I was still standing there like a statue, trying vaguely to keep up ... "Oh ... and how crap exactly? There are five PCs in this office, a printer it took two guys to get up the stairs, some office furniture and bugger all else. Unless your rather attractive sculpture thing would attract a burglar, I'm not sure what we're risking."

Carla rolled her eyes. "The data, Dave, the CastList matrices that are kind of our raison d'etre?"

"Are all encrypted to a higher standard than your Department of Defence uses for its critical stuff. OK, so some of our potential competitors do have access to supercomputers but ... personally I prefer quite a relaxed working environment, which involves not having to jump through hoops to get to your desk in the first place."

So, eat that, Californian, I thought ... relieved that it had been said, confused that I hadn't said it. Carla wasn't satisfied, however.

"OK, lets leave that for the moment and talk figures ... there are things in your business plan that I'm not altogether happy with ..."

Again, Dave cut in, "We've adjusted the pricing upwards as you suggested. No problem, we can produce the results - the profits - that you need."

"No, I've seen that, I'm more concerned about the personnel side of things. Aside from the fact that you've been recruiting pretty much at random - however good the results may have been to date" She nodded slightly towards me - patronising shite, I thought. "I'm not sure about some of the posts you're proposing. Legal input, yeah, sure, equally enhanced IT support, HR capacity, but ... Community Liaison?Facilities manager? I know you guys are planning to relocate to the back end of nowhere, but are these posts necessary? You set up the pay structure, Dave, so you know how much these people will cost."

I thought, she's got us there ... this was back of the envelope stuff, things that Dave and I ... and Naz and Seff ... had talked about in context of the relocation. I knew, absolutely, on the basis of years of corporate experience, that we couldn't justify a penny of the expense. I realised that I'd been feeling a bit more together since Dave had come in ... but only because I now felt myself verging towards the edge of a full blown panic attack.

I looked at Dave. I looked at Carla. He was looking calm, damn him, she was looking ... lovely ... damn her. With a red hot poker. We were, I noticed, all still standing up, leaning against a triangle of desks. Dave moved round to stand beside me, actually so close that he was almost touching me, certainly close enough to feel the tension in me. I forced myself to breath calmly as he said, quietly, "Actually, Carla, we do things our way. You get your profits - your return on investment, we get to spend our bit of the dosh on stuff that seems right to us. On being good neighbours, in this case."

She looked nonplussed for just a second - a rare crack in the corporate visage, I thought - then smiled, seemingly genuinely. I sighed with relief, and Dave gently touched my arm in reassurance. I wasn't certain how we'd got into the battle, but I knew for sure we'd won.

* ** *** **** ***** **** *** ** *

After that, it turned out that there actually wasn't much to say. We went into the contacts we'd had with some of the big banks in the City, agreed priorities with Carla as to which we should chase, which to hold, also agreed that we'd host some of her American staff for "orientation" as soon as we'd got the new office sorted. We talked through progress on the move - leads we'd been following up with PCW's relocation experts and the Regional Development Agency in North West England - and agreed financial stuff around the capital expenditure involved. Actually, we didn't really do any of that - it was purely Dave and Carla, even when the subject was one I'd been leading on. Oh, I contributed the odd fact, found the odd file on the network, but try as I might I couldn't re motivate myself. The exhaustion I'd been feeling for weeks seemed to well up within me after my clash with Carla, earlier - if a clash is what it had been - and the weird non confrontation that appeared to have assured us our independence. I think I could quite happily have fallen asleep if I'd let myself: As it was, I stayed vertical, but very much as a silent partner in the conversation that flowed around me.

Which Dave, of course, picked up on.

* ** *** **** ***** **** *** ** *

We finally finished about noon, which was a bit early for Dave and Carla to go for lunch as they'd apparently arranged. Instead, Carla went off to stare at the queen, or whatever it is that Americans in London do with their spare time, while Dave muttered something about needing to dig out some information on something or the other and buried himself in his PC. I sort of slumped against my desk, too tired even to think of making myself a coffee, going home ... anything, really.

Instead, a cup of coffee appeared in front of me, followed immediately by Dave, sitting on my desk and looking concerned. I wondered if he and Carla had somehow agreed this, to leave the two of us alone, but I wasn't sure ... sure if it mattered or even sure if I cared. I looked up properly when he began to say that I looked tired - well, no surprises there - and apologising for dragging me in on a Saturday. Which, of course, he hadn't ... and in fact I'd have been mightily pissed off if I hadn't been there. I started to say as much, but he cut me off.

"Actually, Debbie, I think you need to take a break. You know we've got the back of this thing broken, really, we have Carla more or less on board, Naz is doing brilliantly with the code, the move is in hand ... OK, in planning ... we have clients waiting. And I think this could just be about the only time in the foreseeable future when we could actually survive for a while without you ..."

He sounded so timid in saying this that I almost laughed. "What? You, a permanently stoned programmer and a punk with attitude ... negotiating with High Finance. I'd give you a week."

He snorted ... there's no other word for it. "Good. A glimmer of recognition of your own worth."

"Debbie, this is a job. OK, its a fun job which pays well and has interesting prospects. Equally OK, we can't do it without you. But for it to happen at all we need you firing on all cylinders ... and that means you have to look after yourself. And I think that means - for you - that you need to look after Phil, too. So take a break. We'll cope - or, at least, we probably won't screw up too badly" I smiled at that one, too. "So what do you say to buggering off for a week or three?"

Phil was dying. I knew that, Dave knew that, Phil knew that ... and, yes, I wanted to spend time with him when I could. Knew also that I'd been neglecting him since I started getting involved with this operation. I realised that this was not some corporate bullshit - of course you can have maternity leave, Ms Jensen, I'm sure we'll have some filing to do when you get back - just a nice guy trying to do the right thing. Everything got a bit blurry as my eyes filled with tears, but I kind of kept it together long enough to nod at him. Ten years of experience of PCW screamed that I was blowing everything for mere personal stuff but eventually I said, "Yes ... I think I will ... I really think that I need to get away ..."

Dave simply hugged me, really tight, murmured something about how it was nice to see me coping and organising, again, and smiled down at me. I thought, bizarrely ... he's really pleased ... not that I'm going away ... but that I'll be coming back.

And the tears I'd been holding back all morning arrived with a vengeance.

ooo+++ooo+++ooo+++ooo

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