Humbug

Chapter One

23rd December

All I want for Christmas is…you…

Oh, piss off, I grumbled at the radio alarm. Eyes still closed, I flailed my arm in the general direction of the snooze button, thumping my hand on the plastic casing several times before I finally managed to cut off Mariah’s cheerful warbling.

Fucking Christmas.

Fucking mornings. I hated mornings. Especially mornings after late nights in the office. I’d stayed in the office till one in the morning to complete my final report on Project Charlie, fuelled only by yet another takeaway pizza. It had been after two before I’d finally rolled into bed.

Oh, and then there had been that rude awakening at four when my flatmate Freddy had returned from her work Christmas party. Her stumbling progress to bed, complete with singing, had been loud enough to wake the neighbours too, probably. It’d taken me ages to drop off again afterwards.

And now it was seven forty-five, and I felt like death warmed up.

I forced myself to sit up and rubbed at my face, yawning hard. I could, of course, just pull the blankets up over my head and go back to sleep. No one would blink an eye if I swanned in a little later than usual—not after working the whole weekend followed by several late nights—but I made it a personal rule to keep the core office hours. How could I expect everyone else in the office to improve on their basic utilisation if I wasn’t around during those core hours?

A shower and a shave, then. That would at least halfway wake me up. Coffee would take care of the rest.

When I walked into the kitchen twenty minutes later, I expected it to be empty but to my surprise, Freddy was there, slumped at the kitchen table over what looked like basin of cereal. She looked rough. Product-mired hair stuck up every which way, and last night’s quiff was sadly wrecked. Smudged eyeliner and mascara ringed her bloodshot eyes in black cakey smears. Frankly, I was amazed she was even conscious given how lairy she’d sounded on her return a few hours before.

Morning, she said. Her voice was a throaty husk. She’d probably ruined it by screaming along to the music at whatever club she’d ended up in last night.

I just glared at her.

What’re you looking like that for? she said. What did I do?

"You woke me up when you came in at fucking four o’clock this morning. I yanked open the fridge and grabbed the milk. Some of us have to work, you know."

I have to work! Freddy said indignantly. Though not till Thursday now, thank Christ. She slurped another spoonful of cereal.

I can’t believe you’re even up. I filled the kettle. Have you seen yourself? You must still be drunk. Any normal person would be comatose after coming home in the state you were in.

I’m not normal, she said morosely. I’m a nurse.

Well, there is that. I loaded up a mug with a splash of milk and a teabag, adding witheringly, Bunch of drunken whores.

"Hey! I meant that the night shifts fuck with my body clock. Then she yawned hugely and added, Although we are also a bunch of drunken whores, it’s true."

I let out a single huff of amusement at that—no more, since I was still hugely pissed off at her—and concentrated on making my tea, grabbing a spoon out the drawer to mash the bag against the side of the mug till my brew was brick red and builder-strength.

I felt Freddy’s attention on me as I worked. She had to know how irritated I was. Everything about me—my silence, my thin-lipped expression, my drawer-banging—was signalling my bad temper loud and clear. And sure enough, when she finally broke the silence between us, it was to confront me about it. Freddy was a head-on kind of a girl.

You know what, mate? she snapped, after I chucked the teabag in the bin and slammed the lid back on. The mate was anything but friendly.

I looked up and regarded her coolly. What?

You need to lighten the fuck up. It’s fucking Christmas.

I rolled my eyes. Jesus, the world doesn’t stop just because it’s Christmas. I’m so sick of it. Every year, the season gets longer, and everyone starts winding down earlier. It’s ridiculous.

I’m a nurse, Quin. I know the world doesn’t stop—unlike you, I’ll actually be working on Christmas Day so don’t give me that bullshit.

Fine. Don’t give me yours. You’re off today—I’m not. And thanks to you, I’m going into the office feeling bloody knackered.

She looked guilty at that. I’m sorry, okay? I had this idea that you were finishing that big project you’d been working on. Didn’t you say that yesterday morning?

Well, yes, but just because the project’s complete doesn’t mean there’s nothing left to do, I exclaimed. There’s internal reports to be filed and our final bill to be sent out—I need to go through all the time records before I process the invoice. Plus I want to pick up with Phil in London to see if he could use anyone else on his new Singapore project, which should be kicking off this week.

I wanted in on that Singapore job. For one thing, I wanted the billable hours. I prided myself on my utilisation rate, which had made me one of the top-performing senior associates in the UK this year. If I could persuade Phil to use me, I’d avoid the inevitable couple of weeks of post-project downtime and keep those figures up—with Christmas coming up, there was a good chance Phil would end up under-resourced. More important than the billable hours, though, was my five-year plan. I planned a lateral move to the London office this year, and Phil’s team was my top target.

"What? Freddy’s voice distracted me from my thoughts and when I glanced at her it was to find her staring at me as if she thought I’d gone mad. Why on earth do you want to go straight onto another project? Even you must need a break sometimes, and it’s Christmas, for God’s sake. Let this Phil guy sort out his own project."

I sent her a patronising look. One of the best things about my job is that I get to travel all over the world. And I’ve never been to Singapore.

Freddy looked distinctly unimpressed. "Oh come on, it’s not like you’ll get to see Singapore. Even if you get the chance to go over, you’ll just end up sticking your