But she said, where'd you wanna go?
How much d'you wanna risk?
I'm not looking for somebody with some superhuman gifts
Some superhero, some fairytale bliss
Just something I can turn to, somebody I can kiss
I want something just like this
"Ah, here we go - you're over here, I expect. Let me just go and find Judy but I'm sure this is your desk - I don't know where your computer is - wait here, dear, and I'll go and see what's what."
Anna stood awkwardly by the desk. It was one of only three in this office, and the other two were cluttered with computers, papers, stationery, photographs and all kinds of things. This one was completely empty.
It felt a bit like a metaphor. It was as empty as everything else. This was her fresh start, her new life, with this new job and her new flat and even a new town. But her sister was abroad, and her friends had moved on as quickly as her erstwhile fiancé, and the flat contained nothing but a bed, a sofa and a pile of boxes. A blank slate could be the most depressing thing imaginable.
There was a tap on the open office door. It wasn't the HR lady who'd shown her in, and it didn't look like anyone who'd answer to the name Judy. It was a man in maybe his mid-thirties, in a shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a computer monitor under his arm.
"Are you the new designer?" he said.
"Yes? Anna Rendell."
"OK, great. Sorry, they told me you were starting NEXT Monday -" he walked past her and put the monitor on the spare desk - "or I'd have got this all sorted out for you, as it is I've had to drop everything to come running up here because now it's apparently an emergency -" he went past her again and returned with a computer tower - "and I don't even know if we have enough software licences but heaven forbid they give me the budget to buy any more -" now he was under the desk doing things with cables.
"I'm sorry -"
"Oh, god, it's not your fault." He went past her again, and this time picked up a cardboard box and rummaged in it. "Okay. Mouse, keyboard, let's see if this will boot up."
He finished attaching everything, sat down at the desk and turned on the computer. "I'm Kristoff, by the way. I'm the IT department."
"I'm Anna. Christophe, is that French?"
"Hmm? No, with a K and a double-F. My dad's Norwegian. Aha." He started tapping away at the keyboard. "Let's get you online, and I've set you up an email address so I'll put that on - it's first name dot last name, they're all the same…"
"Anna!" The HR woman was back. "I'm so sorry, Judy's in a meeting all morning, she thought you were starting next week for some reason!" Kristoff cleared his throat.
"But no worries!" she continued. "I see Kris is getting you all set up! Kris," she said, her tone changing to one of tender concern. "How ARE you?"
"I'm fine, thank you, April," he replied calmly. "How are you?"
"Oh, I'm very well - I meant, how are you with - everything?"
"I'm fine, thank you, April," he said again, never taking his eyes off the computer screen. "I'll have this all done in ten minutes or so."
"Okay - thank you, Kris. Well, I'd better take Anna off with me for some health and safety training, since Judy's not available. Come on, dear."
"Bye," Anna said to Kristoff as she was ushered out. He raised a hand in a half-wave without looking up.
"He just got divorced," April said immediately they were outside the office door, satisfying the curiosity that Anna couldn't bring herself to express. "Last month. So sad! Such a nice man. But he seems to be bearing up. Are you married, dear?"
"No," Anna said, very quickly. "No, I'm - single."
"Me too," April confided. "You should get a cat, dear, they're such good company. Now then. Let's see what we've got to get through."
At night you could cry. In the day you had to smile, you had to go to work, you had to call your sister because she worried, you had to remember to buy milk. At night you could lie with your face in the pillow and let go, just for a while.
Starting over again at thirty-two. She'd always planned to be married by twenty-five, and then by thirty - but now she was alone, probably forever. No cosy home with husband and babies. No one to care if she cried herself to sleep every night of the week. Maybe she should get a cat.
Kristoff wondered how long it would be before he could walk up the steps to the front door of his own home and maintain a constant heart rate. Leanne wasn't here; no one was, just the empty house. It was over.
After she'd gone, once everything in the house was his, he'd had the locks changed. It had seemed silly and childish, and she'd returned her key, but he'd done it anyway. The thought of finding her there, unexpectedly - it had been worth the locksmith's fee a hundred times over to know it could never happen. Maybe he should have just moved, but he'd always liked the house. Just as well, when it was practically the only thing he'd been able to keep.
You didn't realise how much effort it took until it was over. Tiptoeing round someone else's moods, trying to work out what you'd done wrong before you had to be told (and that was worse, so much worse, when he hadn't been able to read her mind. That was what made her really angry).
Maybe marriage wasn't for him. He'd always thought he'd be good at it, but apparently not. He was better off by himself.