One
It felt strange but good to be back in the office after so long. I missed the buzz of the workplace, the banter with the guys and the evenings in the pub after work. As a result, I was one of the first to take up the offer of getting back in. A fair few had joined me as things began to get back to normal - or as near as they could.
The 'New Normal' seemed to be the universal term for it. Whether or not it would be any different remained to be seen.
Quite a few people I knew loved the idea of working from home and had become used to it. No nasty commutes at the mercy of Transport for London and the rail franchises that provide the unreliable services into the capital. And no telling looks if you were back from lunch late or sloped off home or to the pub a few minutes early.
Some were still reluctant to come back after so long and I couldn't blame them. We had been through a lot in the last year and a fair few had fallen foul of the disease that swept over us in a tidal wave. Most of them had recovered fully. One or two still felt the long-term effects and sadly, three that we knew of in the eight regional offices across the globe would never again have to worry about commuting to work. None of them had been in the 'at-risk' category - a salutary reminder that the fell disease could strike at random and bring devastation in its wake.
We had been back for two weeks and it was a big day. A rallying speech by Madeleine Colton, our CEO, to welcome us back, remember our fallen colleagues and look to a brighter future. It would be a stripped-down version of her usual addresses -- only around sixty of us would be there in person, in one of the smaller conference rooms in our huge Canary Wharf offices. Over four hundred of us had attended the previous company meeting, prior to the pandemic, at a plush Park Lane hotel with hundreds more watching down the line in our other locations.
This time it would be a little less ostentatious, with smaller gatherings in each office and many dialling in from home.
As ever, when waiting for one of Madeleine's events, time dragged. She was a skilled orator and everyone looked forward to her inspirational words. This time, we needed them more than ever. We needed to hear her calm, measured and warm Yorkshire accent reassure us that the future was rosy after the dark days we had endured.
I glanced at my watch -- one-thirty. Still ninety minutes until we assembled on the floor below. As colleagues chatted aimlessly around me, I recalled the previous meeting over a year ago. At the time, we all thought it would only be a short gap until the next one. How wrong we were.
It was February 2020. Most of continental Europe was locking down. Everyone could see it coming. At least everyone except for those that were elected to govern the country. While they delayed and dallied, things got worse by the minute and nothing was done to stop it. As with the rest of us, Madeleine knew all too well what was about to unfold and decided we should go out with a bang before everything ground to a halt.
The 'Park Lane Bash,' as it became known, was a blow-out by any standards. Even for a company known for its excess in celebrating success, it was extravagant. There was a fin de siècle feeling about the whole thing. A last waltz. The end of an era. We knew that all too soon, things were going to be very different.
We just didn't know how different.
Madeleine and some of the heads of department tried to keep our spirits up before the real partying began with speeches about how we would get through it individually and as a whole. After the formal part of the evening, the food was amazing and the banter at the dinner table laced with gallows humour as we tried to make light of the oncoming storm. It was a company directive that people from the same departments and divisions were kept apart and it was nice to converse with colleagues we barely knew over fine food and wine. Over the years, some strong friendships had been made as a result.
This time, six of my seven dining companions were great fun and the table rang with laughter and good humour. The seventh person was an exception -- a taciturn woman of around forty years old, the Deputy Director of our newest office in Mumbai, India. They had only been on board for a few months and she was in London for the director's meeting that preceded the event. She was certainly a very elegant and attractive lady, but Indira Chandra seemed to look down her long, aquiline nose at the rest of us as though we were a bunch of unruly children. She may well have been right, but given the circumstances, maybe a little leeway was required.
Once the dinner was finished and the covers band struck up, she disappeared for long periods, which was at odds with the usual company culture of mixing and fraternising. I wasn't a great one for dancing myself but was prepared to put up with it for one night as a relatively new girl in a neighbouring department had caught my eye.
When I saw her boogying energetically with Shaun Price, I knew I was out of luck. The look on her face said it all and once Shaun had his claws into someone, no-one else had a look-in. I had a few stumbling hops with girls I knew and as the evening drew to a close, reluctantly had to admit that I would not be taking anyone back to my room at another hotel a couple of blocks away. The late booking of the shindig meant we were scattered over a few nearby hotels and some lucky people would only have a short elevator ride to their homes for the night.
Having been blown out for the third or fourth time, I headed back to the dinner table to refresh myself with some of the generous allocation of wine that remained. The enigmatic Ms. Chandra sat all by herself, tapping at her phone. I had barely spoken to her all night thanks to her reticence and aloofness. Having partaken of a fair amount of said wine, I wondered if maybe she would grace the dancefloor with me.
As I poured myself a cheeky glass of Merlot, she never even looked up from her phone. That clinched it for me. She obviously had no interest in making any effort to mix, so I decided to press the issue and force her into either accepting my invitation or be seen as the party-pooper by her refusal.
In the interests of the spirit of the company's ethics, I would try and break her layer of permafrost and ask her to dance. The hour was getting late and there could only be about three songs left, so it would be a short ordeal one way or the other.
It didn't need an expert in body-language to read her expression of disdain as I spoke her name with my hand outstretched and nodded to the dancefloor. For a moment, I thought she was going to refuse, but maybe she too remembered the company ethic and rose from her seat, reluctance oozing from every pore.
Her fingers barely brushed mine as I led her to the floor. I tried to coax her into the throng, but she stayed resolutely on the edge, close to the table we had occupied. It was as awkward as I expected as I set up my usual, graceless sway and she studiously ignored me, never making eye contact. I felt it was only the proximity of the table behind her that stopped her from backing away from me.
But I was surprised at the grace with which she danced. Her arms and upper body moved in elegant, sinuous curves. Almost like a Bollywood dancer, her arrogant, aloof expression only added to the allure. She seemed to flow with the music and I found her quite mesmeric. Her sheer silver cocktail dress contrasted with her café au lait skin in a very appealing way. Once warmed to her task, her silky, waist-length black hair shone under the lights and glitterballs and I suddenly began to see Ms. Indira Chandra in a very different light - even if it was pretty obvious that the feeling was not reciprocated.
As the first song ended, I fully expected her to return to her seat. Then the band leader announced their last up-tempo song of the night before the inevitable last, slow smooch, and to my surprise she stayed on the dance floor.
