Friday morning May 28th Week Minus 3 BNTN
"What's that terrible smell?" Nikki asked.
"Oh, and good morning to you too" Harry replied.
"No, really what is that smell?" she said looking round searchingly.
"Well, it could be Mrs. Johnson's appendix, that I'm using as a paper weight, or your over priced Latte that I stopped off for on the way?"
Harry couldn't help but feel a bit miffed, her favourite coffee shop was not on his route to work and he'd left early to accommodate the detour, but his diary said BNTN and he knew better than to turn this into a fight.
"Have you got a new phone?" he asked hoping to change the subject.
"No, it's Henry's he forgot it, he needs me to courier it to him." Nikki replied.
"What? To Switzerland? Won't he be back before it arrives?" Harry asked incredulously.
"No, he's phoned three times already this morning to say he's at the London office, and not to touch it. He's a bit protective about it really."
"Ooh, do you think it's got all the names and addresses of all his other girls on it, or maybe the latest million dollar pharmaceutical break through, we could buy shares and be rich?" Harry asked eyes glinting, willing her to play along with him.
"I don't know," she said flatly. "It's password protected anyway." And with that she lifted her laptop lid and Harry understood the conversation to be over.
He hadn't mentioned their Saturday night kiss, and neither had she. Over the last few days they had almost slipped back into their old ways. But only because every time Harry looked up he saw Leo glaring at him. It was one thing for him to choose to leave himself, but he couldn't bare it, if Leo decided to split them up somehow.
"I need to run this by Leo." Harry said, waving a folder in front of her.
"Do you need me?" Nikki asked.
"Always," he replied, he'd tried for his jokey voice but it hadn't quite worked.
"But, I wasn't involved in the Johnson case.." and then it dawned on her that it was a joke.
"Sorry Harry, bit slow today, bit of a headache."
Harry went into Leo's office and sat down. He managed to position himself so that he could still see Nikki's back. There was something up and until he knew what it was, he wanted her where he could see her.
Half an hour in to the meeting, the quietness of the office was broken by the noise of a crowd chanting "Wayne Rooney, Wayne Rooney, he goes by the name of Wayne Rooney."
"What on earth?" asked Leo.
Harry looked from his vantage point and saw Nikki pick up Henry's phone and the awful noise stopped.
"Henry left his phone at Nikki's," Harry stated.
"Oh," Leo replied. "It's not going to ring often is it? Can she turn it down?" he sounded quite alarmed.
"She's got to courier it back to him." Harry added just looking across the room once more.
Immediately he could see that her posture had changed, this was obviously not Henry on the phone.
It only seemed a few minutes later that the Rooney chant began again. This time Harry noted the conversation went on for longer and he could see Nikki sitting bolt upright, and the discussion getting particularly heated. It was Nikki who hung up, only to have the phone ring again. The noise of the ridiculous ring tone filling the office made it impossible for Nikki not to press the connect button. This time he saw her write something down and then drop the phone onto the desk. She wasn't moving, she was just staring at the phone. It bleeped it's little email bleep and Nikki began to type something in. She had obviously been given the phone's password and now all Harry could see was her holding the phone in her hand and staring.
When a full five minutes had passed and Nikki still hadn't moved. Harry made his excuses to Leo and walked back to the desk. He had found her once before in the office by herself, crying, and knew it was best to give her a bit of space rather than pull her into his arms, as every fibre in his being wanted to do. So he sat down opposite her and reached out to take the phone out of her hands, and to look at the screen.
There were only a few, but there were enough. Photo's of Henry's wedding day, photo's of Henry, his wife and daughter somewhere sunny and obviously recent, and there at the end a picture of his daughter winning some horse riding trophy or other. She was standing arm in arm with her mum and dad, holding a trophy and rosette in front of the sponsors sign, proudly displaying the date as...May 15th, 2010.
The Saturday before last.
"Oh, Nikki, I am so sorry." Harry said. He couldn't reach her hand across the table and he couldn't quite make out what emotion she was currently experiencing. Shock he guessed. She continued to stare straight into the desk, her body trembling but almost imperceptibly.
It was at that moment the courier arrived. Harry was glad it wasn't the one who thought the bodies in the morgue had come back to life. If he took a close look at Nikki now, white as a sheet, in full rigor sat at her desk, he might never come back either. He chucked the phone into the envelope and filled in the business address. He then pulled a post it note off the pad and simply wrote.
"Don't ever try to see her ever again." and stuffed it in with the phone.
With the phone gone it seemed as if Nikki had started to breathe again and so Harry thought it wise to get her out of the office and somewhere slightly more private before the inevitable shit storm began.
He sat her down on the bench in the locker room and then thought he'd better tell Leo where they were. He expected to find her crying quietly when he returned and so was ill prepared for the onslaught of words and the pair of shoes that nearly hit him as he came back through the door.
"Everyone," Nikki screamed.
"Everyone I've loved has lied to me, left me, abandoned me or died and left me, everyone! The one time I finally thought I had someone worthwhile in my life and he turns out to be the biggest cheat and liar of them all. I hate him. How could he pretend. How could he lie?" Nikki thumped one of the lockers with her fist and then continued with the tirade.
"Why do I even bother with men, they've all been useless, starting with my father and every one in between, they just use me and move on."
"Come on Nikki," Harry tried. "It's not entirely true. That old school teacher of yours, he helped you, you said so yourself."
"And he only needed me to boost his school's results in the league tables!" she spat.
There was no pacifying her. She thumped the locker again, harder this time and shouted,
"Why do they all lie?" As she lifted her hand for the third strike on the locker Harry quickly grabbed it from behind.
"Let me go!" she screamed wildly. Twisting and writhing to be free of his grasp.
"I said let me go!" she repeated. Harry had let her swivel her wrist in his hand and held it and her up against the locker.
"I am really really sorry Nikki." Harry said and that was enough to let the tears begin. She fell into his embrace and sobbed like a child.
(Consider this dedicated to you, if you too hated Henry!)