No prizes for guessing what chapter this one is called in the original.

Will had only been sitting on his hands for all of two days, but predictably he'd hated every minute. And now in his wisdom Raj has chosen the week of tradePad's first live trade to ask him for some numbers from the archive of Elisabeth's spreadsheets. Elisabeth herself was obviously too busy to compile them hence Will, despite being no quant, was adding up spreadsheets.

Or perhaps he was adding up spreadsheets precisely because he was no quant. Perhaps Elisabeth would have magicked her computer to add them up for her instead. Hence Will couldn't help wonder whether Raj had assigned this to him as some belated punishment for tormenting Elisabeth at that first off-site.

Bloody punishing it was, anyway, and it was getting late, and then one of the spreadsheets wouldn't compute. It was just the one line of data messing the whole thing up but Will couldn't see what to do about it, so he channelled the nearest he had to an inner Dean and swivelled his chair right and asked:

'Elisabeth, you got a minute?'

'Hmm, not really, why?'

'Something's gone wrong here, can you have a quick look?'

'It never ends up being a quick look,' she said, her eyes still on her own work, then sighed. Will followed her eyes up to the ticker tape and back down: quarter to eight, already? Wow, time really did fly when you were doing sums.

Elisabeth was staring at her screen again as if she'd not heard him, even though they both knew she had, and at a quarter to eight in the evening that annoyed him. He let it annoy him, granted, and granted he shouldn't have, but he did, and so it did:

'OK, can you come and have however long a look you'd like, but please do it now?'

'Well, since you do ask so nicely,' she said, sighing and wheeling her chair his way.

So now he was far more annoyed with himself for annoying her than he was annoyed with Raj, this stupid spreadsheet, or indeed with her, but net-net he was also a lot more annoyed than before, because he couldn't help feel that he'd just gone and undone two months' worth of coffee runs.

'Let's see, what have you done?' Elisabeth said, very much as if he had, indeed, written off any goodwill he'd ever managed to accrue, one tiny double macchiato at a time.

'I haven't done anything,' he protested, not meaning the spreadsheet. He'd only got a teensy bit annoyed with her but now she was getting really annoyed with him, and it all felt very annoying, and not exactly fair on him.

'Well, if it's not you then it'll be Market Data,' she said, making for his keyboard, which meant he had to wheel back pronto and give her a good yard's elbow room, because even at this distance and at this late hour, she probably smelt too much the way his dinner jacket had, after the Christmas party.

'Off you go,' she said, after a lot of sighing and typing and clicking and tucking her hair back. She pushed off the edge of his desk and rolled back to hers.

'Thank you, Elisabeth,' he said, making sure to say it nicely, and to use her full name.

'That's right, piss off.'

'Excuse me?'

The rest did not unfold so much as a result of her actual words, since traders and brokers told each other to piss off and worse a hundred times a day. Rather, it was that no one had probably dared take that tone with Will since his 6th form's rugby captain. Hence he now responded with the same refined maturity that had characterised all aspects of his interactions on the school's pitch:

'Right, Elisabeth, enough now. What the hell's your problem?'

'OK sorry, don't piss off, I didn't mean that. Mind if we get back to it?'

Again with that tone! Like he was an annoyance for pointing it out but excuse me: she was the one who'd just told him to piss off out of nowhere at all. Actually no, cross that, out of week after week of him trying to play nice and her sighing at him and telling him that tradePad was on track. Well not tonight, Sweetie:

'I do mind, actually. You gonna tell me what your problem is?'

'Well, I thought that'd be rather obvious: it's gone eight o'clock and I'm still here debugging.'

'Go home then! But for pity's sake cheer up, Elisabeth. Please.'

'What?'

'Cheer up, please, it might never happen.'

'Right.'

Will had a "did I just say this" moment right after the "it might never happen" one, but by then it was too late. Way too late.

Turned out he was right too, when he'd joked to Neil that he wouldn't like her when she was angry. Neil wouldn't have, and Will didn't either. She went something like:

'…let me tell you what might never happen, at this rate: tradePad might never happen. Not this Thursday, certainly. Paul's written us this settlement program here, which randomly loses between five and twelve trades per broker, which I'm pretty sure isn't part of the original spec. I'll tell you what might very well happen though: Pointless Poynton's gonna lump us with a full internal audit unless we re-file our blooming User Testing Documentation for the umpteenth time, before we go live. Oh, and Raj's just emailed to give me precisely a week's notice to produce a full report on a year's worth of UK and European cost numbers, but I guess there's no way that's gonna happen either. So you know what, Will, if I forgot to smile sweetly while fixing Market Data's umpteenth cock up instead of dealing with any of that then I'm terribly sorry and you have my most sincere apologies. Will that do?'

Will wasn't really paying attention to her actual words by the time she stopped talking: he was too transfixed by her rage. Something about smiling sweetly? Never mind. Even her rage was beautiful. For the first time since forever, Will felt that she was letting him in. Shame that it was only anger she'd found to channel at him so very intimately, but it was a start. Besides:

'Smile sweetly, that'd be the day…'

He may have mused it out loud, because her face set to stone and she turned back to her screens again. He'd not meant it that way, of course not. He'd seen her smile before, plenty of times, and very sweet it was indeed, but she never did it for him, that was all. Not wholly anyway, not for real, with him she always held something back.

'Look who's talking,' she spat back, and yes, fair enough. 'Because of course you smile sweetly all the time, don't you, Will? Well I tell you what, why don't I just get back to Paul's code, if I'm such a pain in the backside?'

'I never said you were a pain in the backside.'

He never had, he'd never even thought it, not tonight anyway, and not for a very long time before that. How had they got to this?

'You're right: you probably meant a pain in the arse.'

'Jesus, Elisabeth, what's wrong with you!'

Surely he'd meant: what's wrong with me? Perhaps: what's wrong with us, why can't we be decent to each other for five minutes? How did we get to this?

Also, surely he'd not meant to raise his voice, but he had, like the stupid fucking neanderthal that he was. Might that, mayhaps, be precisely why Elisabeth didn't like to smile at him?

Except now. Now, that he was in the wrong – again – and that they both knew it – again. Now she smiled, but it wasn't a sweet smile at all. It wasn't even the gotcha smile she'd served him perhaps a few too many times before. He liked the gotcha smile well enough, after all. But this smile now, that was hardly a smile at all. Her face was cold in spite of it, and blank:

'Me?' she said, pointing at her own chest, like he didn't expand enough of his mental faculties on that on a daily basis, 'Hey, don't think there's anything wrong with me, Will. Nothing I can't handle.'

No need to look at her hands to know that this was a very blatant, very poor lie. She could handle tradePad, yes, and transaction cost reports for Raj, sure, and any amount of paperwork Pointless Poynton might care to throw at her, that was all true. But there was one thing she'd been failing to handle ever since the New Year, and that, that was really, but really starting to get to Will:

'Then do us a favour, will you? Quit snapping at everyone, whining at everything and starving yourself. Go on, give it a go. Because if you think that's gonna bring that idiot back then let me tell you: it won't.'

To describe the silence that ensued as awkward was surely going to be a strong contender for understatement of the millennium. Will watched her face disintegrate, then he watched her try to pull herself back together again a few times, all the while clinging onto the edge of her desk like it was the Medusa's raft. In the end she said, very slowly:

'What was that supposed to mean?'

'Have a guess, I think you can work it out.'

But he said it kindly. He did, because he could see that he'd hurt her and he may be a moron and a neanderthal but no, whatever she thought about him he did not enjoy seeing her like this. On the contrary. If there was a point to this whole argument it was in fact this: please stop suffering this much, because I can't bear sitting here watching you.

'You have no right to bring Tom into this,' she said, her voice beginning to quiver, but her spine straight.

Kudos, but still:

'If you don't want me to bring him into this then quit beating yourself up over some foreign-dwelling idiot who's not worth the...'

Will was trying to think of a way to end on something less like "buck up" and a bit more like "please, Elisabeth, you can do it", but his inner Dean was too slow for her. Way too slow:

'Will, butt out!' she shouted.

She shouted. At him. She'd not done that before and he didn't like it, for sure.

But he hated it far less than he had the quivering voice and the faux-cocky, self-righteous index finger before. This was her, the whole true her and yeah, she was angry, including at him, and yes she was hurt, including by him just now, but better she yell at him than shut him out, a hundred times over.

'Fine,' he tried to say, but she was off:

'Just butt out, OK? Tom is none of your business, is that clear? And yes, perhaps I will stop beating myself up, yes, the day you stop being such a cold, mean, arrogant, emotionless...'

'You were right before: perhaps we should just get back to work.'

x

It seemed they'd finally agreed on something: she turned back to her screens, and him to his. Right, so two could play this truth and honesty game, as it turned out. And sure enough she rocked at that, too. Also: it hurt. It hurt a lot.

Will had no idea what might be on any of his screens by now, and he still didn't when he heard her pack up and go. How, how, how had it come to this? Oh that's right, because he was a cold, mean, arrogant and emotionless…

'Try and have a good night, Elisabeth,' he said as she walked past behind him. She stopped and turned to look back at him from the doors to the atrium.

It was all he could do not to throw himself at her feet and beg forgiveness. Instead of which it was her who said, one hand in her hair:

'I'm really sorry, I'm just knackered, I didn't mean...'

Well of course she was knackered. She'd been working her socks off for weeks, and now she was apologising to him when all he wanted was for her to be happy. To be as confident as she was awesome.

To stop apologising.

'Don't beat yourself up about that either, OK? It's fine, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you.'

'You didn't upset me,' she lied, hands fiddling madly with the hair that still stuck out from under her red hat.

It was very considerate of her to be lying for his sake. Shame only that she sucked at lying almost as bad as he sucked at being nice, what with being a cold, mean, arrogant...

She let her hand fall back down.

But emotionless?

If only.

'Good night,' he said after a while, but carried on staring at her, so she still didn't go.

Eventually she tucked her hair back one more time and she said:

'Don't work too late', and left.

x

'Owwww, Dean, what the fuck have I gone and done now?' Will said, leaving the building as soon after her as was prudent. No way he could trust himself around Excel now, he'd just have to pray he was sufficiently recovered tomorrow to add together even more spreadsheets.

'You tell me,' Dean replied cheerfully, 'I take it this concerns your pet quant. How has she been?'

'Quantitatively pissed-off with me, for a change.'

'I see.'

'Oh no you don't. She hates me now. Good and proper. Hell, even I hate me right now.'

'OK, so what have you "gone and done", then?' Dean asked, his saintly patience perhaps just a tad on the patronising side. Or perhaps it was Will who was feeling a little sensitive:

'I swear I was being nice. But she went and told me to piss off and…'

'…and?'

'And yes, don't ask me how, but it ended with me telling her to get a grip and her calling me a cold, mean, arrogant and emotionless…'

'A cold mean arrogant and emotionless what?' Dean asked, as if this were the issue.

Will sighed:

'I don't know, I reckon she was probably shooting for bastard or possibly bonehead or moron, but she stopped herself in time so we'll never know.'

'Hmm.'

'What?'

'What do you expect me to say, Will? Fair enough: how many times do Georgie and I have to tell you not to go there with her?'

'I know, but you should see her, Dean! She's so bloody miserable, I just can't watch her torture herself over that tosser anymore, if he was stupid enough to...'

'What,' Dean cut in, 'Would you rather watch her email him again?'

'Well OK, no.'

'So you leave well alone, as we discussed.'

'I know.'

'No evidently you don't, Will. Or you would have left well alone tonight, and sat on your hands like a good head trader'

Yeah yeah. Except this was no mere trade. The stakes were so much higher.

'She told me to piss off first, Dean, and I swear that was out of the blue, you've got to believe me. We were both pretty stressed out but I was being nice, I swear.'

'OK OK, enough with the swearing. I thought we established she didn't like that either.'

'Ha, jolly, ha.'

'Oh come on, Will, you could do with cheering up too, you know.'

'Well I don't want to cheer up: I want to know why it is, that she wants me to piss off, when I'm trying to be good.'

'Aah, that,' Dean said wistfully, '…welcome to my world, Will,'

'Oh no wait, I do know why: it's because I'm cold, mean, arrogant and emotionless, isn't it? Seriously, Dean: emotionless?'

Dean made no attempt to contradict Elisabeth's characterisation, but remained silent, and then said:

'OK, OK. But why not look at it this way instead: Tonight Elisabeth showed that she cares that you're cold, emotionless and arrogant. It affects her sufficiently for her to want to tell you to piss off. You used to complain of her indifference, could that be classed as a win?'

'Yeah you're forgetting mean though, don't forget mean,' Will said bitterly.

He sure couldn't. The rest he could forgive himself, after all Raj paid him good money to behave that way, and he was good at it. Being cold emotionless and arrogant, basic mental maths, bullshitting with a straight face and running, with or without a ball. Those were the few things in life he was good at, and he'd never felt the need to be ashamed of any of them but…

'Why mean, Dean? I can see why she'd think I love to watch her suffer, but I really don't. Never did, really. When's she going to get that it's not like that?'

The line went dead. Perhaps even Dean's legendary patience, for all this endless pointless navel-gazing of his, had come to an end, and he had hung up mid-diatribe. Who could blame him?

'Maybe,' Dean said after a long, awkward while, 'do you think that just maybe, if you tried being less of the other three things with her, then maybe then she'd see you for what you really are?'

Eh?

'I get that you're not paid to be a nice guy out there,' Dean said, 'and so does Elisabeth, for that matter. She may be many things but she's not stupid, and she actually respects that you're good at your job.'

'Really? How do you…'

'Because she told me, Will. But the point is that right now, she needs a head trader like a hole in the head. If I'm anything to go by, all she wants is a shoulder to cry on: do you think you could do that? Just ask her how she is in the morning and take the flack if it turns out she's having a bad day? You've done it enough times for me.'

'Yeah yeah,' Will said, as in: much though I love you, Dean, and Georgie too for that matter, it's really not the same thing with Elisabeth because I've never hated Lily Cheng or that Sara woman in the raw visceral way I hate that tosser Tom.

'And start by apologising, obviously,' Dean said, 'Whether or not she told you to piss off first you shouldn't have gone there so this one's on you, Will.'

'I know. And I did.'

'What?'

'Well of course I apologised: I'm not that stupid. I think she apologised first, mind. She even had to beat me at that. Anyway, we both apologised, like we meant it too, but it's not right, Dean. It's just not right,' Will said, thinking of that long sad look on her face when she'd left.

'Wow, Will, you're right, it's not right.'

'What?!'

'Things were said, which the other didn't want to hear. Lessons might even have been learnt, on both sides. Sounds to me like you two came dangerously close to behaving like adults.'

Will shook his head. Seriously, with friends like these...

'Hey look,' Dean said, 'of course she needed to hear it. Perhaps not tonight but you know, she'll get there. Who knows, maybe I'll even get there, some day.'

'Of course you will, Dean! I'm sorry, I realise it's easier said than done but you're gonna be fine, you know you will, right?'

'There you go, Will, like that.'

'What?'

'Just be nice to her.'

'Somehow it's easier with you.'

'And you're going to be fine too, you know that?'

'Right now I don't know that at all, no.'

'Well you will. Go and do your live trade on tradePad on Thursday, everything's going to be fine.'

'Of course tradePad's going to be fine: she's on it.'

'Well just be nice to her 'til then and tell her I miss her, OK?'

'Hmm, not sure I will.'

'Why ever not?'

'I don't want her liking you more than she already does.'

Dean burst into the best, loudest laughter Will had heard him produce in far too long.

'Night night, Will. Please go for a run before you see her again.'

'Will do.'

'Great. Well then, I'll see you and your quant for celebration drinks on Thursday. If you can bear to let me loose on her, that is.'

'Shut up, Dean. I'll see you Thursday.'

On the Market is Copyright Mel Liffragh 2021, all rights reserved

And you will see more of Will, Elisabeth, Dean and the desk on Friday next week, but until then don't forget Gemma, Dylan and the dashing Frank are only a couple of clicks away in A Bee in her Bonnet. Did I mention before it's based on JA's Emma? Read it, like it, comment, all that good stuff.

Til next week!
Mel