Love to Hate You: Three's a Crowd

Chapter Thirty-one - Cutting Back

'Working from home?' Chris asked, stunned. No one worked from home. Not at Paxton and Colville. Certainly, not during office hours.

'Yes. It happens now, in modern society,' Vicky told him.

'But why?'

'To avoid the commute, for one thing. To sign for packages, avoid having to wash one's hair... to cope with things like children and in my case, to deal with my husband's sodding parrot!' Rudy's African Grey was called Zephyr and he was exceedingly irritating. Chris looked stressed. He was breathing a little too hard. He was quite clearly annoyed, but trying his best not to say anything HR would disapprove of.

'Why don't you lay out why you need flexible working, and how you think you'd manage your role on the hours you propose?' Rafe suggested, because Chris clearly needed a moment.

'Sure,' Vicky agreed. 'Basically, I don't think I need to be in the office to do my job. It helps – that's why I'd still come in twice a week – but most of what I do could be done from home. We have video conferencing set up, so I could still attend meetings. My reports can obviously be done from home, and I'd be able to work longer hours, because I wouldn't lose time commuting. If we agreed to my proposed changes, I obviously wouldn't be working full-time anymore, but I think I could work more efficiently from home.' There would certainly be fewer distractions, because she wouldn't be able to stop and talk to everyone; to butt in on their business. 'I'd still be able to get all of my work done.'

'Why do you need this change?' Chris asked, scribbling notes. 'Is it because of the, erm...' He pointed to her stomach. 'The er...'

'Baby?' she suggested. He nodded. He hadn't wanted to say the word, for fear of drawing attention to the fact that she'd very blatantly had sex.

'That's part of the reason. The children will both be on different schedules, and it will be a lot to manage if I'm working full time and commuting five days a week. But Rudy and I want to focus on our new foundation, too. That's why I'd like to go part-time; so that I can work on the foundation with him.'

'But it's just a hobby,' Chris reasoned, because as far as he knew, Rudy and Vicky wanted to throw money at good causes. One of them apparently being Lukasz's quest for professional qualifications.

'It's not a hobby!' she replied indignantly. She turned to look at Rafe. 'You know it's not a hobby. You've seen all of our plans for "Beyond Bereavement".' Mattie's brow dipped.

'What's "Beyond Bereavement?' she asked.

'It's one of the charities the foundation is working on,' Vicky explained, turning to her friend. 'Raffey suggested it. When you were... y'know,' she said, referencing the shorter woman's father.

'Oh,' Mattie said, articulate as always. She turned to her husband. 'It was your idea?'

'Well,' he replied, with a pink tinge to his cheeks, 'yes. Because of what you went through, because I know how Rudy and I felt, too, but mostly because of how your dad struggled after you lost your mum.' He shrugged, demonstrably uncomfortable.

'It's going to have a telephone counselling service and an app for web chats and connecting with other people in the same position. If we can scale it up, it will have local drop-in sessions for people dealing with grief, so that they can share their experiences and make friends. We'll have resources for bereaved children and parents, but also something specifically for men,' Vicky explained.

'And you've been involved in this?' Mattie asked her husband.

'Not really,' he told her, but she sensed that he was lying. At the very least, he'd been the germ for the enterprise. A good germ. A healthy bacterium.