Cass Green - In a Cottage In a Wood

Her phone pings with a text and she snatches it up.

Not around much this week and away for Xmas. Can we make it in the NY.

There’s no question mark. No D . And no X .

And before she gets any warning that it is coming, she is crying. Hard, hot tears course down her face and she clamps her arms around herself, rocking with grief.

Neve’s office is set to close for Christmas a couple of days later.

Portland Cavendish Crafts is a publisher of specialist magazines on Gray’s Inn Road. Across from the reception desk at which Neve sits for eight mind-numbingly boring hours every day is a stand filled with various magazines with cheerful titles in colourful fonts, titles such as Cross Stitch Crazy and Creative Craft Weekly .

When she had first started here, she’d vaguely thought she might become a journalist. Wasn’t this the kind of career thing successful people said? They were all, ‘Oh, I started out making tea and now I am the Controller of the BBC,’ and the like. She imagined herself laughing fondly about the funny old magazines she used to write for, before she was taken on in some blurrily defined way for a more glamorous position elsewhere.

She doesn’t particularly want to be a journalist anyway, which is a good thing because five years on she’s still answering the telephone and saying, ‘PCC, can I help you?’

More often than not she says, ‘No, I’m sorry, this isn’t the Police or the Press Complaints Commission,’ and, ‘No, that’s IPC . It’s a different magazine company.’

The rest of the time she photocopies things and tries to do as little work as humanly possible while still getting paid a salary. A terrible salary, but it had been just enough to live on when she was with Daniel.

Now that she is staying with Lou and Steve, it’s almost but not quite enough to live on. But it certainly isn’t enough to live on judging by the flat shares she sees circled pointedly in Biro by Steve on the dining room table.

This is one of the things that causes icy licks of fear in Neve’s stomach late at night.

Now she attends to the few admin jobs required before the office closes and ponders miserably the thought of a whole week under Lou and Steve’s feet.

His prim parents are coming for Christmas Day and she can already feel the claustrophobia of sitting around the table and wishing someone else would have a second glass of wine.

She hears a loud out-breath now and looks up to see Miri, bent over the photocopier. Her friend is tiny – barely five feet – and with her swollen body is now almost as wide as she is tall. She kneads a fist into her back and groans quietly.

Neve told Miri all about the woman on the bridge as soon as she was back at work. Once, Miri would have been agog at a story like this but late pregnancy has made her formerly feisty friend oddly fearful about the world. Miri looked away from her as she described the moment Isabelle jumped off the bridge; Neve had sensed she didn’t really want to hear it, even though she had made the right noises and hugged her friend awkwardly, the hard bullet of her belly nudging Neve’s side.

A few moments later she had scurried away, eyes gleaming. It made Neve feel as though she was the one who had done something shocking and violent.

She’s gazing balefully at her friend now when someone comes through the double doors and stops by the desk. It’s Fraser, the editor of Modeller Monthly , a magazine filled with stories about model trains that is, bafflingly to Neve, one of CPP’s best sellers.

He’s only in his thirties but favours tweedy academic-looking jackets and, with his unfashionable glasses and thin pale hair, looks much older. He behaves as though he’s the editor of a major broadsheet and heaven help anyone who cracks jokes about the readership, as Neve has done many times.

It’s why, she thinks, he likes to throw his weight around with her, and gets her to do silly little admin jobs he’s perfectly capable of doing himself.

She pretends not to notice him, so he has to clear his throat. It’s childish, but she takes her pleasures where she can in this job. Looking up, she rewards him with a beaming smile, all teeth and sparkly eyes, which makes the tips of his ears flush almost purple.

‘Uh, yes, Neve,’ he says, quickly, ‘I wonder if I can trouble you to do something for me.’

Neve leans over, conspiratorial, and says, ‘Fraser, you know that serving your needs is what I live for.’

She’s hoping Miri will hear and that they can snigger about it later, but she glances over to see that Miri has finished her copying job and gone.

‘I did actually email you about this earlier,’ Fraser says pointedly and Neve, chastised, lets her grin slide away.

‘Phones have been crazy,’ she lies.

‘Yes, well, anyway, there was a problem with some of the subs for Creative Stamp Monthly and Weave It ,’ he says. ‘I need you to send out a standard apology letter to the readers affected.’ He pauses and his eyes gleam as he adds, ‘There are quite a few. Should keep you busy for a while.’ He hands her a sheet of paper, dense with names and addresses.

Neve takes it from him and murmurs that she will get on to it. As he moves away with his quick, pigeon-toed walk, she watches him go and thinks there’s no sport in this job any more. She is suddenly filled with an overwhelming weariness.

She turns the switchboard to the answering machine and goes to the Ladies to hide for a while. Inside the cubicle she blows her nose furiously until the desire to cry passes.

When she is washing her hands she hears a flushing toilet. She’d thought she was the only one in there and is relieved when it’s Miri who emerges from the cubicle.

‘Christ on a bike,’ says her friend. ‘I swear it would be easier to wear a nappy and be done with it. That’s the sixth time I’ve had to pee since nine.’ She pauses and sees Neve’s blotchy face. ‘Oh, what’s the matter, honey? Thinking about Mum and Dad?’

One of the many reasons Neve loves Miri is that her friend is capable of mentioning Neve’s orphan state.

Neve shrugs and washes her hands. When she speaks, her voice is thick and snotty.

‘Not really. Just … this place, you know? Can’t believe I’m still here sometimes.’

Miri washes her hands and regards her in the mirror, her brow creased and her eyes soft.

‘Well you’re not alone there,’ she says kindly. ‘Anyway, not long now until the holidays.’

Neve snorts, impatiently.

‘Yeah, I’m really excited about Christmas,’ she says, deadpan, then makes a doomy face in the mirror.

‘Spending it with Mr and Mrs Tight Arse?’ says Miri doing a pert, rabbitty gesture with hands bent like paws.

‘Yep,’ says Neve. ‘Yay.’

Miri sighs. ‘You know I’d have you to mine in a shot,’ she says, ‘but I have several million aunties and uncles coming over in order to create my own festive hell.’ She slips into a broad Indian accent and waggles her head, ‘You need to eat a bit more, Amira-Ji, or that baby is going to come out a lanky bean like his father.’

Neve laughs as she throws the tissue into the bin.

‘Arjan is dreading it,’ continues Miri with a sigh. ‘It’s his first one where he hasn’t been on call and he’d rather be there. Can you imagine preferring to help sick people than have a family gathering? That’s my lot for you.’ Miri holds her hand up with a flourish, as though revealing words on a banner. ‘The Sharma family: Not quite as much fun as a winter vomiting virus.’

Neve laughs and feels cheered up, a little.

Miri pauses before speaking. ‘Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you. Did you find out anything else about that woman? The one who killed herself?’