This chapter may feel a bit like it's just filler, but it is important, I promise. And the rating is going to go up next chapter (so well all have that to look forward to).
"I'm sorry it's such a mess," she told him as they entered her room.
"It's fine, it's difficult to keep a little room tidy," he replied, "Mine is the same. I would say we should go there, there's a bit more room, but Spratt's a nosey git at the best of times."
She laughed particularly sharply at that; their housemate Jeremy Spratt certainly had a habit of insinuating himself into other people's business to an alarming degree. Over the years, Phyllis had found her distaste for him growing gradually stronger, and she was sure it was only due to his own charitable nature that Joe had agreed to take the room next his. So they would have to make do with here. Her room really was very little. It was the smallest in the house and then only place for them both to sit was the bed. She thought she saw him looking a little uncomfortable for a moment, but then he sat down, perching just on the edge of the mattress and opening his chips.
"I'll make that tea," she told him, filling the kettle up at the little sink beneath the mirror and getting two mugs down from the shelf above her desk.
The dress she was wearing was a little bit short and very snug over the hips, and if she hadn't thought that Joe would die of mortification, she would have slipped it off and put on her pyjamas in their place. So instead, she waited quietly for the kettle to boil before pouring out the water and bringing the tea over to him.
"Thank you," he told her, taking the mug.
She sat down on her bed beside him.
"God, I'm starving," she told him, opening her own chips, resting her own mug of tea on folder.
He smiled and then, pointing at the folder, asked "Are these your revision notes?"
"Yes, why?"
"Can you put them a bit further away from me? I can see myself causing an absolute disaster with than tea, and you'd have every right to kill me."
She smiled at him.
"You'll be fine," she told him, but moved it to the other side of the bed as he had asked, "God, I'm sick of the sight of these things, though," she added, "I almost wish you would destroy them for me."
"It'll all be over soon," he told her gently, "And if you fancy a different form of self-flagellation, you can always switch to job-hunting for a day."
She smiled a little ruefully, but said nothing. He caught sight of the look on her face though.
"Don't tell me you actually enjoy it?" he asked incredulously.
"No," she answered honestly.
There was a pause.
"Is it giving you a hard time?" she asked sympathetically, bringing her tea to her lips and taking a sip, watching him over the rim of her cup.
He had moved further onto the bed at some point, and now he cast his head back thinking about his own frustration, resting against the wall and letting out a sigh.
"In a way," he replied, "It's certainly playing hell with any sense of self worth I once had."
"Don't say that," she told him softly.
He pivoted his head a little towards her.
"Well, you did ask," he reminded her, with a wry little smile.
"I mean you do have worth," she told him firmly, "Of course you do."
He blinked in surprise and his smile broadened a touch but he remained wry.
"You sobering up yet?" he asked her.
She grinned, taking another sip of tea and continuing to eat.
"Just about," she responded.
"Anyway, the marketplace would seem to disagree with you," he continued a second later, "No one is exactly biting my hand off at the moment."
She frowned a little.
"What sort of stuff are you applying for?" she asked him.
"All kinds of things," he replied glumly, "Anything that will have me." He waited a moment, "I had fancied teaching," he confessed, "But the careers people seemed determined to put me in touch with banks. Probably because of my dad."
As Phyllis understood, Alfred Molesley was some kind of well-know, and well off, financial bigwig whose job did not sound appealing in the slightest. She had no doubt that if Joe really wanted to work in finance, the last people he would see fit to go to would the people in the careers department.
"Teaching what?" she enquired, "Classics?"
"Well, it would probably end up being Latin," he replied, "At most schools. But essentially, yes."
She pondered for a moment.
"I think you'd be good at that," she told him.
He looked at her.
"What?" she asked.
"But you don't approve?" he asked her.
"Why should I disapprove?" she asked him, taken aback, "Who am I to disapprove of you, Joe? There's nothing wrong with teaching, if that's what you want."
"I don't know," he responded after a moment's thought, "Just something in your voice sounded… a bit doubtful, I think."
Well, he was certainly perceptive. She could not fault him for that. Very perceptive indeed.
"I was just thinking that teaching would never be for me," she replied.
There was a moment's silence. She got off the bed, taking their empty chip containers and putting them in the bin.
"How about you?" he asked her as she returned to sit on the bed again.
This time, less encumbered by food, she sat a little closer to him.
"What about me?" she asked him.
"What sort of stuff are you looking to go into?" he asked her, "What are you applying for?"
She was quiet.
"Well," she admitted at last, "I've already got a job offer lined up."
He looked at her in something close to awe.
"What? You didn't say! Where?"
She bit her lip, torn between annoyance at herself for allowing this conversation to continue as long as it had and to suppress her urge to grin like an idiot at his reaction.
"I can't tell you."
This proclamation almost had for him.
"What do you mean?" he pressed.
A grin broke out on her lips.
"I mean I'm not supposed to tell anyone," she replied, closing her eyes, trying to work out how to do this without cocking up or just sounding like a complete dickhead.
He wasn't having any of it.
"Because?" he questioned.
"Because it's for the government."
He looked at her uncomprehendingly for half a second. And then it clicked.
"Oh," his voice was suddenly very serious, "You mean, as a spy?"
"Well, not as a member of parliament," she answered, joking a little, wanting him to seem a little bit less shocked, "Yes, as a spy."
He was quiet for a few seconds.
"You can't tell anyone," she told him firmly, "No one else knows. I wouldn't have told you if you'd asked me when I was sober. I shouldn't have told you- I'm only supposed to tell my next of kin or significant other, and I'm sure as hell not going to tell either of my parents."
"I could get down on one knee," he offered weakly.
"Thanks, Joe," she told him, suppressing a laugh, "But it's alright. And I think they'd make you sign the Official Secrets Act if you did do that."
"Oh," by the look on his face that wasn't something he wanted very much. He looked rather awed. He was quiet for a few long seconds.
"How did you-…? Did they approach you or-…?"
"No, they didn't," she explained, "I've always known I wanted to do this."
"Really?" he asked, "I could have sworn you said you wanted to go into management."
And, she thought, he could retain snatches of conversation very well.
"It obviously helps not to tell everyone," she reminded him, "It seemed sensible to come up with a suitably vague alternative. You're now wondering if everyone who's said they want to go into management actually wants to be a spy, aren't you?"
"Well now I am!" he replied, and she laughed, "No, actually," he concluded a second later, "Most of them are far too dull. I expect most of them really do want to go into management."
She continued to grin away for a moment. Then he asked her;
"So why do you want to do it? Why have yo always known?"
She looked at him carefully. She knew he was asking seriously, he was genuinely interested.
"Well," she told him, trying to answer as precisely as she could, "I've always wanted a job that was really useful, that made a really big difference, which got a lot harder once I realised I didn't want to be a doctor or a lawyer or anything like that. And unfortunately, Joe, I think there are going to be more people in our year graduating to become teachers than you can shake a stick at."
"You're probably right," he agreed with her, looking a little downcast, "But won't it be-… not wanting to state the obvious, I mean you've obviously thought of this, won't it be terribly difficult?"
"A lot of jobs are difficult," she replied, "In different ways. I'd rather struggle with something that will make a difference than struggle with sheer boredom."
"That's fair enough," he replied, "I see what you mean. But won't it be difficult, later on, if you decide you do want to have a family. Or get married."
"I don't want to have a family," she said simply.
He knew better than to question her.
"Alright," he replied simply, "Fair enough."
There was quiet for a moment.
"You know," she suggested after a moment, "If you still don't have any luck on the job front, you could always apply."
He caught her meaning but seemed, at first, not to be able to quite believe it.
"Can you imagine me as a spy?" he asked incredulously, "I'm the last person that would ever be a spy!"
She couldn't help but smile a little bit at the irony.
"I believe that's rather the point of a good spy," she replied.
He said nothing.
"Think about it," she told him, "You understand people very well, you're certainly not stupid, you know what to listen for, you're not in bad physical condition- I remember that time you lifted me up those stairs in that club because it was getting a bit pushy where I was- and you are, you're right, the last person anyone would suspect. Ever."
He was quiet for a long moment.
"I'll think about it," he told her, to her surprise.
"Oh," she replied, "That's good. Do think about it."
"They don't give you a better placement to start off in if you manage to recruit your friends as well?" he asked her, his voice light and a little frivolous.
"Sadly not," she replied, smiling back at him, "Or I'd have got to work on Anna and Daisy earlier."
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