Hope you're still enjoying this, I'd love to know what you're thinking.
She was sitting alone at a table with a white cloth, in the middle of a busy dining room. She had not been to the annual Home Office dinner and dance for years, and it was not something she had missed. To be honest, she was more interested in examining the crumbs on the table cloth than talking to any of the people she had seen, the personnel of the department had altered so much since she'd worked for the government. Charles and Elsie were both here, but as a head of department plenty of people wanted to talk to Charles, so much so that Elsie had taken on the valiant role of trying to deflect the people he didn't really want to talk to. But Charles had been the one to suggest that it would be a good idea for her and Joe to come tonight, for him to be able to get to know the people he'd be going back to work with. She felt the kick in the teeth at the implication that she would not be there when he did. She was only here as Joe's wife. That was something she was wholly unused to, but she was proud nonetheless. And it had the undoubted plus-side that no one was paying her any attention.
But she wished she knew where Joe was. A little while ago someone knew from their section had wanted to speak to him- he had looked absurdly young, Phyllis had thought, barely more than a boy- and they had gone to the bar and she had not seen either of them since. He had been a bit quiet as they left the flat and it had left her a little bit unsettled. She was wearing a shiny black dress that was good for disguising the black iPhone on her knee when the screen was dimmed. She checked it again. Nothing. What she was expecting exactly, she did not know. She was checking it almost nervously; torn between anxiety and boredom. Resting her forehead carefully against her fingers, she gave a quiet sigh.
She felt a gentle hand on her shoulder and turned quickly, expecting Joe. It was not.
"Oh, hello," she said to Charles softly, looking up at him at his not inconsiderable height, even slightly inclined towards her.
"Do you mind if I sit down?" he asked her quietly, "Or do you want to be left alone?"
"No, sit down," she replied, "I don't mind you."
She saw him smiling slightly, trying to disguise it. He knew that that was a compliment coming from her. God, somewhere over the years she'd become really quite severe. With most people.
"Have you seen Joe anywhere?" she asked him.
"Believe it or not I don't provide a husband-tracking service," Charles quipped, looking a little tired as he settled his eyes on her, "I'm sorry, no I haven't."
She gave a half-smiled.
"That's funny, I could have sworn that's what you did do," she replied.
Just as she herself had done a moment ago, he rested his forehead briefly against his hand.
"Well, if I do I'm not very good at it," he told her, "I've lost track of Elsie too."
"They'll turn up," she assured him.
"Oh yes," he replied lightly, "They will." There was a moment's pause. "How are things Phyllis? With you?"
"Me?" she replied, "I'm fine. A bit bored, maybe, and I wish I knew where Joe was but-…"
"I meant at home," he replied, "With Joe."
"Oh," she replied softly.
Oh, damn. He really was asking that. She was silent for a moment.
"Fine," she replied, "As good as could be expected. Better, even."
"Oh?" he looked encouraged by her response, if surprised.
"Yes," she affirmed, "It's really lovely to have him back."
"Of course it is," he acknowledged, "Of course. But difficult too?"
She shrugged slightly.
"A little," she replied, "But I would take the difficulty any day rather than-…"
"Of course," he replied, nodding, "Of course you would."
They were silent for a few moments.
"It's not so bad," she told him, "But I just wish he would talk to me. I mean, really open up. I know it's hard for him, I know. But we've never had secrets from each other. We've always kept our secrets together."
"As your boss I didn't hear that," Charles replied, "And cautiously remind you that you did sign the Official Secrets Act, you both did."
"I mean our personal secrets," she told him, "He knows everything. He did."
Charles eyes flitted towards her.
"I was going to say, you surprise me there," he told her, "I didn't think you'd told him about-…"
"I will," she told him hastily, "But this is the thing that's difficult for me to say to him."
"I know," Charles replied sagely, "I understand."
Irrationally, Phyllis wanted to tell him that he didn't, he couldn't. But she couldn't do that. Charles had been very kind to her and Joe. He was a retiring man, and he was doing his best to understand this bizarre situation.
"You know the DG is here?" Charles told her, "She seemed pretty keen to have a word with Joe."
"What, old Violet?" she asked him.
It had been recently announced that Violet Crawley, Isobel's first head of section, had been made Director General of 5. She had been in imperious in the old days, Phyllis could only imagine what she'd be like now.
"What does she want with Joe?" she asked him.
"To thank him, I think," Charles replied, "For his outstanding service. I know," he added, catching the look on her face, "To hear that she wants to see any man for a reason other than to eat him alive came as a shock to me too."
She smiled vaguely at that. That was a pretty accurate assessment of Violet. Her thoughts were interrupted by the buzz of her phone against her palm. It was from Elsie.
"Oh no," she stood up abruptly, muttering under her breath, "Shit."
Charles also stood up.
"What is it?" he asked her.
She handed him her phone, and left before he could give it back.
Come now. Bathroom on the fifth floor. It's Joe.
Shit, she should have known that something was going to happen when he had been so quiet earlier on. Phyllis made her way blindly through the other tables and then across the dancefloor, not caring about the people around her, making a beeline for the door and for the stairs. She barely even noticed that Charles was following her, bringing her phone with him. She took the stairs two at a time, turning sharp left into the empty corridor, breaking out into a run.
"Joe!" she called, clattering through the door at the other end of the corridor, not even thinking that she didn't know where the bathroom was, just trying desperately to find him.
"In here, Phyllis."
It was Elsie's voice. She has been going so quickly that she had almost instantly drawn level with a door, half-open, half way down the hall, which was obviously the bathroom.
Elsie stood back, opening the door letting Phyllis inside. Her eyes immediately took in the room, finding Joe leaning against the sink at the far side. He was looking at the floor. He embodied the despondency she had noticed in him earlier, only worse.
"What happened?" Phyllis asked Elsie in a low voice, lingering by the door.
"I found him having a panic attack," Elsie replied softly, "I think it was all the people that did it. I brought him up here. I think the worst of it is over."
Elsie rested her hand gently on Phyllis's arm.
"I'll leave you," she told her.
Phyllis squeezed her hand gently for a moment.
"Thank you," she told her quietly, and then, "Charles is on his way up here too."
"That's alright," Elsie replied, slipping out of the door, "I'll meet him on the way down."
She closed the door behind her. Phyllis looked over at her husband.
"Joe?" she murmured softly, approaching him slowly, "Are you alright, my love?"
He looked up at her in such surprise and confusion that she added, "It's me, Lissy," as if he needed to be reminded of that. He looked terrible. His arm gave a jerk, as if to reach out for her, but then fell back to his side, helplessly. But she took the hint, moving swiftly towards him, wrapping him securely in her arms, cradling his head with her hands.
"What happened, sweetheart?" she asked him.
But at the moment, it seemed he didn't want to talk, he had buried his face in her neck. And he was crying.
"Oh my love," she told him softly, stroking her hand up and down his back, her hand spread wide, trying to soothe him, "It's alright, it's alright. I'm here. I love you. It's alright."
He continued to cry against her shoulder, a catch sounding in his throat, his breathing uncontrolled. Her stomach seemed to clench. She could remember her own panic attacks, and she wanted to talk him through it.
"Elsie said you didn't like being around so many people?" she questioned him softly, "I'm sorry, my love, I should have thought about that. We should have just stayed at home."
"Everyone thinks I'm weak, Phil," he said softly, his voice hoarse and broken.
"What?" she asked him, "What to you mean by that?"
"They think I'm finished," he told her, pulling away from her neck, trying to meet her eye, "Because I fucked up in Russia. They think I'm too weak to come back to work, and they're right."
"No one thinks that," she told him firmly, grasping a hold of the front of his jacket, tugging at it a little, "No one thinks you're weak. They'd have to be mad to think that. Anyone who has any idea what you went through would have to be insane to say that you're weak. You are anything but that. You may not be ready to come back to work yet, but you will be."
He said nothing, and she felt as if he wasn't listening to her.
"I'm so proud of you," she told him quietly, but with all the conviction she possessed in her voice, "I'm so proud of you because you're so bloody strong, Joseph. You're incredible. I'm so proud that you're my husband."
Beyond that she didn't know what she could say. She kissed his forehead, whispering, "I love you" to him again.
"I don't deserve you, Phyllis," he said softly.
She pulled away from him a touch so that she could look at him clearly. Cupping his face softly, she made him look at her too, even as tears were welling in her own eyes.
"You may not be weak," she told him quietly, her voice shaking as she spoke, "But you're a bloody fool to say things like that, Joseph Molesley."
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