He addressed the clients first, all smooth charm. “Excuse me for interrupting, but Emily here can take care of your viewing. Cherry, would you mind just sorting something out in the office for me, please?”
She stared, bewildered, but his arm was out, indicating the way, and she had no choice but to stand. The honey-haired girl gave her a mocking look as Emily slipped into her warm seat.
Cherry felt the atmosphere change to one of obsequious wish making as she followed Neil to the back.
“Take a seat,” said Neil.
“What’s this about?” she asked, trying to regain some dignity, but still she sat down.
“I’m going to make this quick,” he said, “as I think it might be better all round.”
Her stomach flipped over. Was she in some sort of trouble?
“Your latest comments, on the clients we have here. It’s just not acceptable.”
“That girl out there, she was a bit strident,” defended Cherry, “rude, actually, with me. Demanding. But I didn’t say anything to her.”
“Not her. Not anyone specific. Or perhaps everyone.” He leaned over to the desk, where a computer was lit up. “‘Once again, my day is filled with arrogant, rich wanker foreigners who seem to persist in wanting to buy the whole of London. I’ve had enough of them, throwing around their millions and taking all our houses.’” He stopped reading and looked at her. “You’ve even mentioned this agency by name in another message.”
Cherry stared at him in horror, leapt up to see the screen, and realized he was reading from two tweets—hertweets. “But that wasn’t me. I didn’t write those!” she said hotly.
He considered her a moment. “It’s your account—”
“Someone’s hacked in. It happens all the time, you read it in the papers—”
“This is incredibly damaging.”
“No shit! God, to think you think I wrote that!”
“I meant to the agency. We’ve already lost a sale. A Chinese businessman has pulled out of a house that was due to close at the end of the week. Found somewhere else. With someone else. It’s worth over thirty-five grand to us in fees. And I’ve just spent half an hour on the phone with a client, trying to persuade her to keep her two apartments on with us. She declined.”
Fear gripped her; she had to get through to him. “But, Neil,please, this wasn’t me. You can’t blame me for something I didn’t do.”
“I’m sorry, Cherry, but I just don’t think it’s working out—”
“No—”
“It’s not just this. I sense a general attitude change. . . .”
“My boyfriend’s just died! And now you’re firing me. I’ll sue you.”
“Or you can go quietly and we’ll pay you two months’ salary.”
It was paltry. Insulting. She burned with rage. “Six. And a reference.”
“Three. And that’s my final offer. Clients need to know they’re welcome here, and they can work with us. And I’m sorry, but I think a reference is out of the question, given the circumstances. I think it would be best for us all if you could take your things home now.”
Minutes later, Cherry barged defiantly down the street, not caring if she knocked into people. She got more than a few disapproving looks, but couldn’t give a damn. Who had done this to her? Was it some joke? Could it have been Emily or Abigail? Then the tears came. She quickly swallowed to push them back. A hard pain formed in her chest. With no reference, she had very little chance of finding another job. No job meant no money to pay for her flat. She was going back to Croydon.
33
Monday, July 27
AS USUAL, SHE WOKE AT SIX A.M. NO ALARMS, JUST A USELESS HABIT, as now she had nothing to get up for. She would lie in bed wondering. Who’d done it? Nothing else had been posted. She’d closed her account, but the damage had been done. She would stay in bed, silently, until just past seven so she missed her mother. She listened to Wendy turn on the shower, the dull drone of the hairdryer through the thin bedroom walls, the clink of the teaspoon in the mug, then finally the soft thud of the front door.
Even then, Cherry didn’t get up, not at first. She wanted to make sure her mum didn’t come back for something forgotten, had enough time to get on the bus that took her to the vast supermarket three miles away. At about seven-twenty, Cherry got out of bed. It was a single, wedged against the wall of the small second bedroom. The covers were the same as she’d had when she’d lived there as a schoolgirl, pink and floral. The entire room was the same: the beige Ikea wardrobe with the shadow white doors, which sold in the thousands, castoffs of it on eBay not even fetching ninety-nine pence; a mass-reproduced picture of New York on the wall, probably also from Ikea; some tissues in a “designed” box. She felt the same stifling despair as when she’d lived there before.
Cherry had had to serve notice on her flat after she’d been fired from her job. She’d packed up her belongings and they were now rammed under the bed and at the bottom of the wardrobe in the tiny room, her last vestige of privacy. Most of her gear she hadn’t bothered taking out of the boxes. There didn’t seem to be any point.
