They are there for an organized tour to familiarize themselves with their new desks and the new computers and telephone systems before Monday’s final move. Ellie follows the Features party through the various departments while the young man with the clipboard and a badge marked “Transfer Coordinator” tells them about production areas, information hubs, and lavatories. As each new space is explained to them, Ellie watches the varying responses of her team, the excitement of some of the younger ones, who like the sleek, modernistic lines of the office. Melissa, who has clearly been there several times before, interjects occasionally with information she feels the man has left out.
“There’s nowhere to hide!” jokes Rupert as he surveys the vast, clutter-free space. She can hear the ring of truth in it. Melissa’s office, on the southeastern corner, is entirely glass, and overlooks the whole Features “hub.” Nobody else in the department has their own office, a decision that has apparently rankled several of her colleagues.
“And this is where you’ll be sitting.” All the writers are on one desk, a huge oval shape, the center spewing wires that lead umbilically to a series of flat-screen computer monitors.
“Who’s where?” says one of the columnists. Melissa consults her list. “I’ve been working on this. Some of it’s still fluid. But Rupert, you’re here. Arianna, there. Tim, by the chair, there. Edwina—” She points at a space. It reminds Ellie of netball at school; the relief when one was picked from the throng and allotted to one team or the other. Except nearly all of the seats are taken, and she is still standing.
“Um . . . Melissa?” she ventures. “Where am I supposed to be sitting?”
Melissa glances at another desk. “A few people will have to hotdesk. It doesn’t make sense for everyone to be allocated a workstation full-time.” She doesn’t look at Ellie as she speaks.
Ellie feels her toes clenching in her shoes. “Are you saying I don’t get my own desk area?”
“No, I’m saying some people will share a workstation.”
“But I’m in every day. I don’t understand how that will work.” She should take Melissa to one side, ask her in private why Arianna, who has been there barely a month, should get a desk over her. She should expel the slight anguish from her voice. She should shut up. “I don’t understand why I’m the only feature writer not to—”
“As I said, Ellie, things are very fluid still. There will always be a seat for you to work from. Right. Let’s go on to News. They’ll be moving, of course, on the same day that we do . . .” And the conversation is closed. Ellie sees that her stock has fallen far lower than even she had thought. She catches Arianna’s eye, sees the new girl look away quickly, and pretends to check her phone for more nonexistent messages.
The library is no longer belowground. The new “information resource center” is two floors up, set in an atrium around a collection of oversize and suspiciously exotic potted plants. There is an island in the middle, behind which she recognizes the grumpy chief librarian, who is talking quietly with a much younger man. She stares at the shelves, which are neatly divided into digital and hard-copy areas. All the signage in the new offices is in lower case, which she suspects has given the chief subeditor an ulcer. It couldn’t be more different from the dusty confines of the old archive, with its musty newspaper smell and blind corners, and she feels suddenly nostalgic.
She’s not entirely sure why she has come here, except that she feels a magnetic pull to Rory, perhaps to find out if she’s at least partly forgiven, or to talk to him about Melissa’s desk decision. He is, she realizes, one of the few people she can discuss this with. The librarian spots her.
“Sorry,” she says, holding up a hand. “Just looking around.”
“If you want Rory,” he says, “he’s at the old building.” His voice is not unfriendly.
“Thank you,” she says, trying to convey something of an apology. It seems important not to alienate anybody else. “It looks great. You’ve . . . done an amazing job.”
“Nearly finished,” he says, and smiles. He looks younger when he smiles, less careworn. In his face she can see something she has never noticed before: relief, but also kindness. How wrong you can get people, she thinks.
“Can I help you with anything?”
“No, I—”
He smiles again. “Like I said, he’s at the old building.”
“Thank you. I’ll—I’ll leave you to it. I can see you’re busy.” She walks to a table, picks up a photocopied guide to using the library, and, folding it carefully, puts it into her bag as she leaves.
She sits at her soon-to-be-defunct desk all afternoon, typing Anthony O’Hare’s name repeatedly into a search engine. She has done this numerous times, and each time is astonished by the sheer number of Anthony O’Hares that exist, or have existed, in the world. There are teenage Anthony O’Hares on networking sites, long-dead Anthony O’Hares buried in Pennsylvanian graveyards, their lives pored over by amateur genealogists. One is a physicist working in South Africa, another a self-published writer of fantasy fiction, a third the victim of an attack in a pub in Swansea. She pores over each man, checking age and identity, just in case.
Her phone chimes, which tells her of a message. She sees John’s name and, confusingly, feels fleeting disappointment that it isn’t Rory.
“Meeting.”
Melissa’s secretary is standing at her desk.
Sorry couldn’t talk much other night. Just wanted you to know
I am missing you. Can’t wait to see you. Jx
“Yes. Sorry,” she says. The secretary is still beside her. “Sorry. Just coming.”
She reads it again, picking apart each sentence, just to make sure that, for once, she’s not pitching a mountain of unspoken meaning onto a molehill. But there it is: Just wanted you to know I am missing you.
She gathers up her papers and, cheeks aflame, enters the office, just in front of Rupert. It’s important not to be the last in. She doesn’t want to be the only writer without a seat in Melissa’s office as well as outside it.
She sits in silence while the following days’ features are dissected, their progress considered. The humiliations of that morning have receded. Even Arianna’s having bagged an interview with a notoriously reclusive actress doesn’t faze her. Her mind hums with the words that have fallen unexpectedly into her lap: Just wanted you to know I am missing you.