‘Ben, don’t, it doesn’t matter,’ June interrupts, anxious for her new colleague not to cause a scene.
‘Look,’ Ben tells Fitch, ‘if she’s suffering from stress-related illness, she can report it to me and I’ll take action for her – until then, sober up and back off.’ He storms back to his station in anger.
‘I like you like that,’ Miranda whispers.
‘Well, I don’t like myself like that.’
‘Fitch has been getting at June all week, but I’ve never seen her like this before.’
Clarke sees them talking and calls Ben over with a curt: ‘Harper. My office. Now.’
When Ben comes into the office, Clarke stalks around him in a predatory, unsettling manner. ‘Do yourself a favour. Stay away from Jameson. She’s good at her job. But she’s trouble.’
Ben finds himself defending her. ‘Miranda’s concerned about my predecessor getting dismissed.’
‘Of course she’s concerned. She was going out with him. When she broke it off, he was so upset that he had to leave. He couldn’t bear to keep seeing her.’
Ah. That would explain it.
Miranda runs to catch up with him. He’s leaving for the night. Ben keeps walking.
‘Hey, wait for me. I thought we were spending the evening together.’
‘You didn’t tell me you were going out with Felix.’
‘Did Clarke tell you that? We had a one night stand, all right?’
‘You dumped him.’
‘Bullshit. He ended it, not me.’
‘He couldn’t stay any longer because he felt uncomfortable around you.’
‘Clarke’s trying to divide us, don’t you see? I’m just worried about him. Clarke knows what happened. There has to be a way to make him admit the truth. You know it’s the right thing to do.’
‘Yeah, that’s what I usually get fired for. Doing the right thing.’ Ben carries on, leaving her behind. He doesn’t want to be angry with her, but the devil in him won’t forgive. She catches him up.
‘Ben, I’m not using you. I wouldn’t do that. I think you’re … I don’t know. You care. You’ll make a difference whatever you do. I liked Felix a lot. Now I’ve no-one else. Please Ben.’
The devil wins. Ben leaves for the night. Miranda can do nothing but watch him go.
Up on the twentieth floor, senior manager Meadows sits in a glass box like Clarke’s, ploughing through piles of paperwork while working two computer screens and taking three calls, crazy-busy. His assistant, Jo Cousins, a battle-tough woman in her fifties, puts her head around the door. ‘New York’s on Line 2, Mr Meadows, and your wife’s still holding on 3.’
‘I told you to tell her I’ll call back,’ Meadows hisses. He takes a call, then another, wipes his forehead and examines the flickering call switches, buzzes his assistant. ‘Hold all my calls, Cousins.’
‘I can’t. New York is urgent, I can’t keep –’
‘Hold the fucking calls!’
Meadows rises and locks Cousins out of the office. For a moment, he thinks he can smell burning. Then he methodically turns off the computer screens and tears the phone jacks out of the wall. He puts on a CD – ‘Barcarolle’ from ‘The Tales Of Hoffmann’ – and cranks the music up high. Next, he begins to take off his clothes, neatly folding each item – shirt, tie, trousers – on his desk.
His flustered assistant sees what is happening and tries the door of the office. Meadows’ behaviour attracts the attention of others.
Now completely naked, the supervisor goes to the window and strikes it with a chair. He has to do this six times before the glass cracks. Cousins hammers on the glass wall as others try to break the office door down.
As the music reaches its height, Meadows climbs out onto the window ledge. His is naked, and has cut himself badly on the broken glass. Meadows’ eyes cloud over a milky white. He braces himself, then swan-dives, out into the sky and the streets below, sailing, sailing all the way down to his death.
There is a rending of flesh and glass as Meadows’ body explodes through the canopy above the station platforms, and home-going commuters scream and run.
5. THURSDAY
The building’s security guards have roped off the area around the shattered window. It’s stormier than ever outside, raining grey pellets. Normal work has been disrupted as everyone talks about what has happened. There are boards around Meadows’ office that only serve to draw attention to it.
Ben passes Willis with a dry, knowing look. ‘You said you’d get me data if there was unusual behaviour. I think that constitutes “unusual behaviour”, don’t you?’
Willis guiltily agrees with a sigh. ‘Meet me for lunch. I’ll have your data for you.’
Puzzled, Ben looks through the door to Meadows’ shattered window, then walks back through the open-plan floor to his desk. What the fuck is going on? he wonders.
Two male office workers are having a violent argument about – it seems – pens. A girl is crying quietly at her workstation. Others seem to be suffering from bad headaches. One is staring into an empty waste-basket as if searching for the meaning of life.
Ben watches Miranda working, her tongue poking from the side of her mouth in concentration. Suddenly smitten, he draws a red love-heart on a piece of paper and folds it into an aeroplane. He remembers how to do this from his last job as a carer.
He launches the paper plane at Miranda’s desk. It hovers for a moment, then gets sucked into the wall grating between them. If he concentrates hard, he can actually see the air in the room. It’s like the building is respiring.
Miranda feels him looking. She glances up and smiles. Checking the coast is clear, she comes over to speak to him. ‘What do you think about Meadows going for a walk in the clouds? The official line is that he was under a lot of pressure and had a nervous breakdown. Some breakdown. They had to hose him off the platform. They found his teeth in McDonalds –’
Suddenly Ben looks sick and disorientated.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing. I feel a little weird. I need to go to the bathroom.’ Once there, Ben is violently, volubly sick. He soaks a paper towel in cold water and presses it against his forehead. Hearing rhythmic noises, he turns and sees a couple, Alison and another office worker, making intense love in one of the open toilet cubicles, their bouncing, fleshy images distorted in the mirror. Now they are photographing each other and laughing. Ben looks at his watch. ‘It’s ten o’clock in the morning. Jesus, get a room.’
Spotting a slew of discarded photographs lying across the floor, he picks them up and studies them.
Perspiring and pale, he walks with Miranda. ‘You okay?’ she asks.
‘Better than the others.’ He points to their fellow workers, some mumbling, rocking in their chairs, clutching their heads like lunatics in Bedlam. Others are simply eyes-down and working hard, just as they always have.
‘Clarke had most of the division working all night. Not me, thank God. Temps charge too much overtime.’ They pass the photocopying/scanning room, where a girl is sitting on the photocopier, running out pictures of her arse. ‘She’s been doing that for nearly an hour. I wouldn’t mind, but I’ve got some photocopying to do. What did Willis say?’
‘I’m meeting her in the restaurant. Does everything seem strange to you? I mean really strange?’
‘Hallelujah, he sees the light. C’mere.’ She grabs his face and kisses him.
‘I’ve seen a lot more than the light. Take a look at these. They were in the bathroom.’ He hands Miranda the set of Polaroids. ‘The staff seem to have spent part of last night photographing each other naked.’ He calls out to the passing Swan, who looks harassed. ‘Mr Swan, would it be possible to have a word with you?’