It was late afternoon when a small package addressed to J&J Animation Ltd arrived. A delivery boy brought it through the great double doors of the Regency building and left it with the smartly-dressed woman at reception. She in turn buzzed the J&J offices on the first floor and a minute later their current intern—a teenager called Gareth—came loping down the creaking oaken staircase to collect it. He took it upstairs and went through a door which at one time had led to a ballroom where the lady of the house held lavish costume parties. The ornate plaster reliefs were still visible on the high ceiling of the offices, but the chandeliers had long been replaced by hanging LED lights which hovered over a huge room divided up into workspaces for people at computers. Twelve of the company's sixteen employees were presently busy on various assignments and the buzz of talk filled the room.
Gareth stood near the entrance and looked at the package. It was a white padded envelope which contained something about the size and weight of a box of medicinal cough sweets. The name on the envelope was Jeremy Mantle, one of the Js in J&J Animation. Gareth knew that Jeremy was in conference with the other J -- Joey Gardner -- and was unsure of what to do.
'Hey, Gareth,' said a woman with a working-class accent. 'What you got there?'
Gareth looked up, then back down again, his ears turning red. Lorna Jones, the woman walking up to him tablet in hand, was one of the company's two account managers. Despite her heels, she was shorter than the teenager and he hunched his shoulders as though afraid this might offend her.
'Um ... it's a package for Jeremy,' he said. 'But he's in a meeting right now, so...'
Gareth tailed off, leaving the sentence unfinished. Lorna sighed and held out her hand.
'I'll take it,' she said. 'And, for the record, the only time you should avoid that office is if the
Do Not Disturb
sign is on the door.'
The boy gave a nervous nod, handed over the package and hurried off to do something else. Not once had he stopped staring at his feet. Lorna wondered whether to say something, then decided against it and walked towards her bosses' office. She already knew the reason and it would only embarrass the young man.
Lorna Jones had large breasts.
They weren't grotesquely large and she carried them well, but her short stature and narrow waist made them perhaps seem bigger than they were. Lorna's feelings about them ping-ponged between gratitude and exasperation. In a wine bar or night club, they certainly attracted attention, albeit with a tendency for the quantity of men to outstrip the quality. But in a job which required being taken seriously by clients and co-workers alike, big breasts were a considerable drawback. Lorna experimented with outfits to find ones which downplayed her bosom and settled on cut jackets and silk scarves as her usual combination. Unfortunately, when combined with her unflattering coiffed hairstyle and working-class accent, she gave the impression of a former hooker trying for a job at the bank. This was a shame, because Lorna was smart and good at what she did.
She knocked twice on the office door and went in without waiting for an answer. Her two employers were sat before three huge monitors at Jeremy's workspace; the two monitors at Joey's desk had long been on stand-by. Lorna liked it that Joey's desk was entirely free of action figures and models of cartoon characters—practically every male desk in the place was populated with them. She was less keen on the Perspex block with the photograph of Joey's frustratingly blond wife and six-year-old son.
Joey was studying a line of small characters on Jeremy's monitor, giving his partner his assessment of them. Both men ignored Lorna as she walked up to them.
'I still think that one looks a little too much like one of the Mario Brothers,' said Joey.
'The client liked it,' said Jeremy. 'And he said his kids picked that one out as their favourite.'
'Yeah, probably because it looks like one of the Mario Brothers!'
Lorna stood behind them facing the monitors, but actually looking at Joey. He had one of those faces where you could see the man's intelligence in the features—clear brown eyes, expressive dark eyebrows, with a long nose and jaw whose straight lines were a pleasing contrast to the brown curls of his hair. He was tall but not too tall, and his hands had long sensitive fingers which—
'Lorna, what is it?'
Jeremy had turned in his swivel chair and was looking at her. Unlike Joey, he had lank hair the colour of potato peel and his skin was pallid as though he lived in the dark. Jeremy was actually an okay boss, but right now he looked peeved. Lorna held out the package.
'This came for you,' she said. 'Thought it might be important.'
Jeremy took the package and frowned at it. Joey was still studying the figures on the monitor. He was the one man who seemed immune to Lorna's breasts. She followed his gaze to the screen.
'You know, it's the moustache which does it,' she said. 'If you turn it into a goatee, I think you'd be okay.'
Jeremy turned his chair to look at the small figure. Joey stared as though staring through the screen itself. He looked tired. There was no indication he had heard Lorna speak. Lorna suppressed a sigh, gave Jeremy's chair a pat and walked out of the room.
'Do you think she's right?' said Jeremy.
'Yeah, a goatee could make the difference,' said Joey, rubbing his eyes. 'I'm not criticising the design quality, by the way.'
'I know, I know.'
Jeremy looked again at the package in his hands. He tore open the padded envelope and peered inside.
'Well, fuck me!' he said. 'That was quick!'
'What?' said Joey.
'I ordered this yesterday after our little chat, and it's already here. I'm impressed!'
'What is it?'
Jeremy slid a flat rectangular box from the envelope. It looked like something you'd buy at a chemist's, like tampons or bandages. But this carried the words
Paternity Test -- home DNA kit
. The picture showed a man and a boy smiling at each other.
Joey stared at it. Then he got up and walked to the centre of the room. The blinds were drawn, but Joey stood as though staring through them with X-ray vision, his arms tightly folded, his hands clenched into fists. Jeremy felt a knot in his stomach.
'Look, Joey ... er ...' Jeremy swallowed. 'Look, I know this is personal. But yesterday, you seemed like you wanted to find out, once and for all—'
'I did find out,' interrupted Joey. 'I confronted Celia last night and she admitted to cheating on me. She fucked her ex-boyfriend Bjorn at Jackie Warren's birthday party, just as I suspected. Nine months before Stephen was born.'
Jeremy felt the floor drop out from under him. Even though he half expected this, it was still a shock. He looked at the floor, trying to think of something to say.
'Fuck.'
Joey let out a snort. His folded arms seemed to tighten. Jeremy looked at the box in his hand and put it on the desk next to him. Through the closed door, they could both hear the buzz of voices, the muted sounds of the office. It felt like it was coming from an alternate universe.
'What are you going to do?' said Jeremy.
Joey's frown deepened. After a pause, he went over to the door, opened it and hung the