30. Late for work

“Henk wants to see you,” Ana said when I finally got to the office at 9:30. I had stopped at a pay phone along the way to let her know I was going to be late.

“Am I in trouble?” I asked. Ana shrugged.

I rushed upstairs to my office, feeling enormously glad I had finished the sample units the day before. I realised I really needed to go to the toilet and went in there first.

I looked at myself in the mirror. My eyes were bloodshot, my hair unkempt and my face was covered with stubble. And I still had my loud polyester shirt on which I had worn to work the day before and which now stank of smoke and sweat. Lovely.

I splashed some water on my face and tried to sort my hair out as best as I could — there was no time to do anything else — and then went downstairs to meet my destiny in the shape of Herr Henk.

However he seemed more amused than annoyed at my condition. “Hard night last night, eh Wilson?” He poured me a cup of coffee. “I bet you’re needing this.”

“Thank you,” I said, sipping at the coffee gratefully.

“Don’t worry, I was a student myself once, I know what it’s like.” He nodded at my manuscript. “So, what do we have here?”

I handed him the chapters and watched him flick through the pages. If I hadn’t been feeling so terrible, I would have worried about what he thought, but all I could think about was how much my head hurt and how fuzzy and disgusting my mouth felt.

“I like it,” said Henk, finally putting down the manuscript. “This is much less boring. More fun, even. Well done.”

“You really like it?”

“Yes. Yes, I do. All we need are 10 more chapters like these and we’ll have a book. And if we’re lucky we might even have a success on our hands. Let’s stick to the deadline we agreed before, okay? So you have a month.”

“Okay,” I said, delighted by his approval.

“Good. Now go home and go back to bed. You can take the rest of the day off.”

* * *

After I had take a shower and a long, luxurious nap, I phoned Isobel to tell her the good news.”

“That’s fantastic,” she said. “I’m so pleased her like your work.”

“Our work,” I said. “We only have a month to finish the rest of the book, though.”

“We’d better get a move on. When do you want to meet?”

“How about tomorrow?”

“Why not today? You’ve got the rest of the day off. Why not take that opportunity to get a head start with the work?”

I had been planning to spend the rest of the day recovering from my hangover and possibly going to see a film later if I felt like it. But she was right — we didn’t have much time.

“My place or yours?” I asked.

* * *

Before I left to go over to Isobel’s, I phoned Jasmilla up to apologise for being so drunk the previous night, and to thank her again for letting me sleep there.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I’ve seen a lot worse. At least you were a compliant drunk.”

It occurred to me that I should do something to make things up to her. “Listen, I’d like to pay you back for being so kind. Would you like to, I don’t know, maybe come over for dinner some night?”

“You don’t need to do anything to thank me,” she said. “But dinner sounds nice. When do you feel like cooking for me?”

“How about Friday?”

“Friday it is.”