Alice tried the front door key again, then checked the key ring. No, she had the right one, but for some reason it didn’t work. She pushed it in the lock and wriggled it left and right, before giving up, and pushed the bell in exasperation. There was a long wait, and she was about to ring it again when she heard her son Sam yell, ‘Door!’ presumably to Cyril, her husband; but there was no answer. She rang the bell again, and shouted, ‘It’s me, my key isn’t working, let me in!’ She heard the heavy, tread of her son, Sam, as he descended the stairs and opened the door. ‘Thank you,’ she said stressing the word, to make it clear she hadn’t appreciated being kept waiting so long, but she was talking, as usual to the top of his head. He didn’t even look up from his phone, as he chewed a piece of toast and stomped back to his lair. Typical of most interactions now, she couldn’t remember the last time they’d made proper eye contact.
She dropped her work bag at the foot of the stairs and carried the shopping into the kitchen. Cyril was lying on the sofa in the snug, eyes closed, his new headphones on.
He must have sensed some change in the air, because he opened an eye, and nodded at her. Not an effusive welcome, but she nodded back and unpacked the grocery bags. ‘My key didn’t work,’ she mouthed, waving them at him.
A look of annoyance crossed his face, as if she was interrupting him at a crucial moment, which was typical of their interactions now, but he slipped the headphones off. ‘What?’ There was a silent ‘now’ implicit in the way he’d said that word. She drew a breath, ‘I said: my key didn’t work. I couldn’t get in. Sam had to let me in, didn’t you hear?’
‘How could I, with these on? They’re the best noise cancelling ones on the market,’ he said, not for the first, or even fiftieth time. He walked over to her, ‘Give it to me,’ as though she was a naughty child. He held his hand out imperiously and she dropped the key into it. He opened the door and tried the key in the lock. Of course, it turned as easily as if it had just been oiled. ‘But it wasn’t working. It wasn’t,’ she protested. He dropped the key in her hand with a roll of the eye and walked back to his nest without a word. Not for the first time, he manged to make her feel stupid.
—
The office was quiet, except for the clacking of computer keys, the odd shuffle of paper, and Tom in the corner, holding a murmured personal call, that he was trying to keep discreet, but they could all hear the, ‘No, not then, book it for May, after Easter and before the schools are out for summer. Spain is good?’ He’d catch it if Mark overheard, but Mark was out of the office at some big meeting. Alice was just deciding whether to start the next report or make a coffee first, when she noticed a general movement to leave, as if the rest of the office had heard some silent alarm. ‘Where are you going?’ she asked Sheila, who sat near her.
‘The meeting? On the restructuring? Ten o’clock today. Didn’t you see the email?’ Email? What email? She hurriedly scrolled through her inbox, but there was nothing. ‘No, I didn’t get it!’ She felt a panicky feeling of being deliberately left out, like at school, when she’d always been picked last.
‘Oh? Weird. Well, come on or we’ll be late. Bet they’re going to do redundancies or something, that’s what they usually do at these meetings. Spring it on you.’
Sheila was right, the company was downsizing, and Alice’s department was one of them. Quality Assurance could be outsourced it seemed. Afterwards, they stood around the coffee machine. ‘What will I do?’ Sheila worried. ‘I was going to book a holiday,’ Tom said looking grim, unaware that was news to no one.
‘Our department needs to be down to six people, so we’ll need to lose four.’ Sheila mused, counting people on her fingers, ‘There’s me, Tom, Dave…’ naming them one by one. Except Alice.
‘And me.’ Alice said timidly, putting her hand up. It was like she was invisible today.
‘Oh, Alice! Yes, of course, sorry, keep forgetting,’ Sheila recounted. ‘Yes, so that’s five.’
Their boss Mark, strode in towards his office, and Alice catching him, said, ‘Can I have a word please?’ Mark stopped looking at her blankly for a second before saying, ‘Er, Alison, sure.‘
‘Alice.’ What was wrong with everyone? What was she, a potted plant?
‘Sorry, Alice. Heads a bit…’ he made an explosion motion with his hands, before smiling and said, ‘What can I do you for?’ He was always trying to be faux-friendly with them. Alice smiled, trying to be pleasant. ‘I didn’t get the email? About today?’
‘Really? I’ll chase HR about that. Don’t worry Aliso…Alice.’
‘Ok, thanks. By the way, I have a doctor’s appointment at 12, do you mind if I leave now?’
‘Hmmm? Yeah, yeah, no problem,’ Mark was already busy looking at his computer, distracted and miles away, as if he’d already forgotten her. She closed his door, picked up her coat and bag, and left, watching the frantic discussions going on in the corner, the rumours, the ‘what-if’ scenarios playing out, as the employees gossiped about the news and tried to work out who might be for the chop.
She had a bad feeling, based on today’s vibes.
—
The doctor had prescribed an ointment, and she went next door to the pharmacy, joining the queue, her mind on the announcement at work. She would call Cyril after this and let him know.
‘Who’s next?’ the pharmacist called and the woman behind Alice stepped forward. ‘Excuse me,’ Alice said, her voice so low, no one seemed to hear it. She tried again, ‘Excuse me!’ That was too loud, she’d overcompensated, and the woman and pharmacist looked at her. Great, they’d think she was a stroppy cow now. ‘Sorry, but I was in the queue before you.’ The woman who had pushed before her looked at her, then the pharmacist, as if checking. Both shrugged but let Alice go first. Alice knew they didn’t believe her, and she felt her face grow hot with embarrassment. She wanted to cry, but managed to hold it in, until she was served and then grabbed the bag and almost ran out of the chemists, and down the street back towards work.
She was walking so fast she almost collided with two men, walking side by side on the pavement. ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Alice blurted out. This day was one disaster after another.
‘Alice Reynolds,’ the speaker announced. He was a tall, thin man in a sharp suit, and she looked at him in bewilderment. Did she know him? He looked vaguely official, the suit an expensive deep charcoal. Maybe he works in insurance? But the other man was a marked contrast, short and chubby (was that word allowed these days?) and he wore a black and white tracksuit with a blue tie. It was an odd outfit, made odder by the pairing of the sharp suit next to it.
‘Yes,’ she said cautiously. ‘I’m Alice.’ She waited. The tall man gave a thin smile and said, ‘We are here about your Termination.’
Her mind skittered over the word, what did he mean? Termination of employment? But why would they be out here on the street.? And so quickly? They’d had the meeting this morning.
‘Are you from Helicon? I don’t know anything about the restructure in detail yet, we haven’t been told much, so I’m not sure what…’
‘No, it’s not about your job.’ Alice was stumped and stood still, she couldn’t seem to think clearly. ‘I’m sorry, I am not following you.’ As she spoke a woman rounded the corner and sidestepped the men, saying ‘Oh, sorry.’ Before moving on.
‘Did you see that?’ the shorter man said, his voice gruff.
‘See what?’ Maybe this was a scam: she couldn’t work out what the scam was, but they were always trying new angles. ‘Excuse me, I need to get back to work’ she said, trying to sound firm.
‘That woman saw us. But she didn’t see you.’ Ok, that settled it, they were definitely scammers. She didn’t know what they were talking about, but that’s how they got you, by engaging you in conversation. She tried to walk around them, but the small man blocked her way.
‘Excuse me.’ She said more loudly. She was getting frightened, perhaps they would try and rob her, even in daylight. She looked around nervously, but the street was quiet. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’ she asked, her mouth set in a grim line, and she clutched her bag more tightly.
The tall man handed her an envelope. ‘I am Mr Winter. And this gentleman,’ he indicated the shorter of the two, ‘Is Mr, ah, Threshor.’ On the envelope, in a beautifully calligraphic script, it said, ‘Alice Reynolds. Personal.’ So, it was to do with work, it must be. She took the envelope, and the small one said. ‘Read it. Absorb it. We’ll see you very soon.’
She looked at the envelope, feeling the weight of the it’s thick, creamy paper. The only one she’d had like this before, was a wedding invitation. She looked back up, but the men were nowhere to be seen; she looked up and down the street, but there was nothing. They must have gone into one of the buildings, even though most were residential addresses here. She walked on, her legs wobbly. This day was turning out to be a strange one, what with the meeting, the pharmacist, that woman and now these two weird men. She would be late for work, but the envelope was a heat in her hand, the weight seeming to increase as she walked, and she spotted a bench opposite the tired looking park. Checking no one was around, she sat and tore the top open.
Inside was more beautiful paper, folded in three, which she opened to reveal the same copperplate writing. It was addressed to her and she read:
‘Dear Mrs Reynolds,
You are being served this paper as notice of intent to Terminate. It has become increasingly clear that you are only a Minor Character in your own Life Story, and we are hereby exercising the rights, as listed in Section 5, subsection 5.3.4 to ‘Excise, remove, or otherwise Terminate Minor Characters From their own Lives.’ This is clearly stated in the Contract of Life which you signed up to and implicitly accepted by being born.
Unfortunately, you have become irrelevant in your own life, and as such, this is a Waste Of A Life, A Bloody Disappointment and will cause generic statements such as, ‘Very Sad’ to be uttered at your funeral.
It is the role of every Life Contract to perform Living in such a way as to be Important to At Least One Personage, including but not limited to family, friends, pets and of course, Oneself.
It has come to our attention that were you to be removed from Life, it would make Absolutely No Difference To Anyone Whatsoever.
There have been numerous chances to make improvements, but no such improvements were forthcoming.
It is therefore with immense sadness, that your Contract of Life will be Terminated forthwith, and you will be expunged and forgotten as a player in Life.
Regarding Cyril Reynolds (husband of Terminee) and Sam Reynolds (son of terminee), they will be provided with Vague Feelings of Warmth and Affection for the titular roles of Wife and Mother, respectively, but they will be able to move on with their Lives per their own Contracts and without reference to this Terminated Contract.
Colleagues at Work will forget you Existed and indeed, you may have noticed this process has already begun.
We hope this is clear, please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.
The Contracts Team.
Alice read it through again, twice. And again, giving a small nervous titter. Then looked around for the men. She supposed they were filming her for some online ‘Gotcha’ episode. Maybe the general public were fair game now. So, even though she wanted to scream, she smiled, put the letter in her bag and headed back along the road, toward work.
—
At the entry gate, she scanned her pass, but instead of the usual ‘thunk’ of disengaging locks, there was a dull bleep, as if she’d got an answer wrong on a gameshow and a red light blinked. She tried again, what was going on today? She didn’t understand any of it. Was this part of the prank? She tried again, with the same result and, frustrated, pushed and pulled on the metal rotating gate, rattling it with increasing anger and panic.
‘Excuse me?’ the voice of the security guard at the gatehouse rang out. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ She sighed in relief. He should recognise her, even though there were hundreds on site, she came through here every day. ‘My pass doesn’t work. Can you buzz me through?’ His face showed an uncertain scowl, but he beckoned her over taking her pass to scrutinise it. ‘Where did you get this?’ he asked, looking worried.
‘What do you mean? It’s my pass! I’ve had it for years. It’s got my picture on it.’ He looked at her impassively, before showing her the pass, which was the generic blank of a Visitors pass.
‘What? No, that’s not… I just gave you my pass! What’s going on? I work here- you know that!’ Something in her desperate and indignant tone must have made the guard decide to at least check. He turned to the gatehouse, pointing through to the visitor’s door. Once in, he joined her at the desk, and he held his fingers above the keyboard, ‘Name?’
Alice felt as though she had fallen down the rabbit hole. ‘Alice.’ She enunciated with deliberate slowness. ‘Al-ice Rey-nolds.’ His fingers tapped out the information and he hit enter. She watched him shake his head. ‘No Alice Reynolds here,’ he said, standing up.
‘What? That can’t be. I’ve worked here for years! Years!’ a thought occurred to her, remembering Mark’s inability to recall her name. ‘Try Alison. Alison Reynolds.’ He chewed his lip but seemed to decide he may as well check. His fingers tapped away. ‘Nothing.’
Alice shook her head again. The guard stood and came around the desk, ‘And now I am going to have to ask you to leave.’ He tried to take her arm to steer her out of the gatehouse. She shook him off, ‘Is this a trick? It’s a prank, isn’t it? I have worked here for fifteen years! Everyone knows me. Call Sheila. Sheila Evans, She works in QA with me, she’ll vouch for me.’ She heard her panting breaths of panic.
The guard seemed to hesitate at the mention of someone’s name he recognised. He tapped the laptop again, then keeping his eyes locked on hers, he dialled a number. ‘Sheila Evans? Right, bit of a strange question: do you know an Alice – or Alison – Reynolds?’ he listened, ‘Uh-huh. No, I didn’t think so. Uh- huh. His voice dropped, ‘Somone who is claiming to work or worked with you? Uh-huh. No, no problem. I’ll sort it.’ Alice realised he was about to put the phone down and, in a move, she couldn’t believe she was making, grabbed the phone out of his hand. ‘Sheila? Its Alice! Alice! I sit next to you! I was just with you!’ She heard Sheila’s familiar voice now filled with doubt, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what this is, but I don’t know you.’ Alice tried to say something else, but the phone was snatched out of her hand and slammed down.
‘Right,’ the guard said, pointing at her. ‘You’ve got one minute, then I’m calling the police.’ Alice was still reeling from hearing Sheila, who unless she took acting lessons part time had done a very convincing job of sounding like she’d never met her before. She staggered out of the gatehouse; the guard close behind her, and off site. In a daze, she wandered back in the direction of town. By the verge, she was sick into the grass. She’d call Cyril. He’d know what to do. Something legal.
She rummaged for her mobile at the bottom of her bag, pulled it out and went to Recents. The list was empty. That was odd, but where she would usually spend time figuring out why, she had no time, and it wasn’t the strangest thing that had happened to her today. She went to Contacts. Empty. There was a lump of cold fear in her stomach ‘Will forget you Existed’ and ‘You have become irrelevant,’ whispered in her brain. Luckily, she could remember Cyril’s number. It rang six or seven times before his clipped tones answered, ‘Reynolds.’
‘Cyril. Cyril, thank god. Something terrible has happened and I don’t know what to do. They’ve thrown me out of work I think it’s some restructuring or something, but they won’t even let me on site now and are pretending I don’t work there and…’ she babbled it all out, breathlessly.
‘Excuse me? Who is this? I think you may have a wrong number.’ His voice was cold.
‘Cyril? Cyril, its me.’ She panted; why was he behaving like this?
There was a pause. ‘I am Cyril. That is correct, but I don’t know who you are.’
‘It’s Alice. Your WIFE,’ she screamed, ‘What’s wrong with you? What are you doing?’. There was a longer pause, then in arctic tones, Cyril replied, ‘If this is some sort of elaborate scam, I’m afraid you are out of luck. You should do your research. My wife died last year… Good bye.’ The phone went dead.
‘Cyril! Cyril!’ she was shouting into a dead phone, she knew it, but couldn’t seem to stop. She redialled again and again, but there was no answer. She realised she was crying although she couldn’t remember when it had started and now she was heaving great, loud sobs in and out, in what -a distant part of her brain told her- was a panic attack. She seemed to be saying, ‘Oh god, oh god, oh god’, over and over again, and she thought she might faint, here on the pavement, when a firm hand reached under her elbow and held her up. ‘’There, there’,’ the voice said, smoothly in an off-hand way.
‘What?’ She looked up confusedly into the cadaverous face of Mr Winter, who smiled with what she supposed was sympathy.
‘I said, ‘There, there’. I believe it’s what people use to comfort one another. No?’
‘I don’t know what’s happening.’ She whispered, her voice lost in shock.
‘No, of course not. That’s entirely normal,’ Mr Threshor said, cheerfully, as he pulled out a document. There was another bench nearby, one she was sure wasn’t there before, and they steered her to it. ‘So,’ Mr Threshor continued, ‘as you have hopefully, now realised, the Termination procedure is almost complete. And soooo…we just need you to sign….’ he opened the document which concertinaed open in a welter of pages, ‘Here,’ he pointed to the bottom of a page, ‘and here, and here. And here. And finally,’ he closed the document showing her the last page, ‘Here,’ he said triumphantly as if she was signing for a prize car. He waggled an expensive looking fountain pen at her and raised his brows expectantly.
She felt as though she had been hit by a truck, picked up and laid on train tracks to be run over and then the remains fed through a blender. Mr Threshor put the pen in her limp hand and placed the document on her lap. Through the fog of shock, she said, ‘Sam. What about my son, Sam? I need to call him!’
Mr Threshor sucked his teeth. ‘Really? After your call with Cyril? We don’t recommend it.’ Mr Winter, moving closer to Mr Threshor, shook his head. ‘Kinder all round, if you don’t.’
Alice was swaying where she sat, and she realised she’d never been this tired in all her life. Her thoughts seeped slowly in her head, and she felt a fatalistic sense of inevitability settle over her. After all, what had she ever done? Her husband and son didn’t need her, and most of the time, didn’t seem to want her. Work didn’t notice her and couldn’t even remember her name and now pretended she’d never been there. These weird men were right. She wasn’t even important in her own life. She’d always been quiet, never spoke up at school, but Cyril, in the same class, liked her, so they got married straight out of school. That was so long ago now, and she was sure he didn’t love her anymore. She wasn’t sure she loved him either. They were going through the motions. She’d never been alone, so she hardly knew who she was. She didn’t have any close friends. She didn’t have hobbies. They went to the same hotel for holidays once a year in the same week. Perhaps it was better to go, to sign whatever this was and rest.
‘What happens when I sign?’ she asked. Mr Threshor smiled encouragingly. Were his teeth that sharp before? ‘Nothing at all, dear lady. Not really. We will take you to our intake centre for processing and then, well, you live out your life in a sort of…. wellness centre.’ He smiled again. She was feeling fainter, but surely his teeth were getting sharper? She picked up the pen.
‘Am I dead? Cyril said…he said, I died last year?’ she asked numb with disbelief.
Mr Threshor waggled his head, ‘We-ll, technically not at this moment. But once you sign, it’s backdated, as it were. Like overtime.’ He showed his needled teeth.
What was the point of arguing? She didn’t have the energy. As long as they let her sleep, she didn’t care. Her head felt heavy. She would sign and then lie down here and if she didn’t wake, then so be it.
She took firm hold of the pen, struggling to lift it. How heavy it was. Why was everything so heavy? Maybe, her mind sighed, because she was tired to her very soul. It seemed the heaviest pen she’d ever held. Heavier than her copper-bottomed pan. Heavier than those weights she was supposed to use, to get rid of her bingo wings. Another of her life’s failure. The pen seemed to drag her hand down onto the paper, the smoothest paper she’d ever felt. Like a baby’s skin, silky and soft. Her mind was woozy, and she watched as a bulbous drop of black ink hung at the end of the nib, caught suspended in time. She could see (although how could she?) her reflection in the ink, her eyes lidded, drooping with fatigue. Time seemed to ooze more slowly. She brought the pen closer to the page, but it was taking so long to get there, and that glossy black bead hung, waiting forever to drop. A movement in the reflection caught her eye, showing a large figure looming up by the bench, just behind the men. It was growing and growing, but she was hypnotised by the drop, unable to turn to watch; even as the figure grew, her hand continued to move at its glacial pace towards the paper. The figure seemed made of spines and thin branches, with a suggestion of a head, made of vines; it was mostly thin air, but it was huge, rearing up behind the men, its long arms stretching wide to fold around them. As she watched, the black drop sparked with the reflected light of an incandescent sun, flashing and glittering, and the men were gone.
The drop lengthened and then, released from the nib, fell slowly, its ink absorbing all light now, no reflection at all. It fell to the paper and…the paper was gone in a whisk of pages, and the drop splatted on her pale trousers. Still half faint, she looked at a woman standing next to her, holding the document. She was old, with a wild shock of white hair, a face of fierce downward crags and a fag hanging out of the corner of a lip sticked mouth. The lipstick had bled into the cracks.
The woman looked at Alice. ‘Well come on then, we haven’t got all day. Those buggers will be back once they’ve got their bollocks back and we don’t want to be here when they do.’ Her voice was croaky with smoke and taking a drag on the cigarette she held it to the document. Alice vaguely wondered what the cigarette was made of because the document lit up like a magnesium flare and fell to the ground in a pile of white ash.
Alice followed her numbly. The woman wore a leather biker jacket, and a nightmare of a polyester floral skirt, under which were thick support tights and orthotic shoes. They reached the kerb, and the woman pulled up her skirts, revealing more of the tan tights and long knickers than Alice wanted to see, and got on a motorbike with the words ‘Norton’ on it. ‘Get on then. Chop, chop.’ The woman pulled on a helmet and handed one to Alice. Alice got on and put her arms around the woman, as far as she could get around her ample form.
‘Hold on tight!’ the woman cackled and revved the bike to a deafening roar before streaking down the street at high speed.
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