Tony Hill u Carol Jordan 08 - Cross and Burn

thorn in her flesh, stirring up unease at the way she was going about things. So she’d smiled sweetly and said, ‘I always think the more the merrier when it comes to thrashing out new ideas. We’ll be having short group meetings every fortnight from now on. Gareth, I’d like you to write a proposal for the next meeting that outlines your ideas and the reasoning behind them. I’m sure we can find better ways to achieve our goals, and nobody understands that better than you. I’m counting on all of you to come up with constructive suggestions. Gareth, I’m delighted you’re going to lead the way on this one.’
    He’d scowled at her, clearly baffled at being outflanked. But he’d said no more. And he hadn’t had the chance to foment dissent round the water cooler because, like Rob and half a dozen others, he was using his accumulated time owing to take the afternoon off. Bradfield Victoria were due to play Newcastle United in the FA Cup, and their loyal fans were leaving work early to travel up to the North East for the game.
    When lunchtime rolled around, Marie followed the football fans out. She wanted half an hour outside the office, looking at faces that weren’t her responsibility, stimulating her mind with images of beauty rather than office cubicles. The city art gallery was a brisk three-minute walk from the office, and she particularly liked their collection of Scottish Colourists on the second floor. Twenty minutes of staring at the paintings of J. D. Fergusson and William McTaggart and she would be refreshed and renewed, ready to face the next bunch of employees who needed to be energised and inspired.
    Marie sat on a leather-covered bench in front of a large canvas showing the impressionistic figures of two small children in white smocks kneeling among sea grass and pinks, behind them the tousled blues and whites of the sea, above them a sky filled with plump cumulus clouds. She took from her bag the carrot and home-made piccalilli salad she’d made that morning and munched her way through it, eyes fixed on the painting, drinking in the complicated build-up of brushstrokes that came together to create certainty in the mind of the spectator. She’d loved these paintings ever since she’d first encountered them in a small Scottish town where she’d been seconded to a branch of her previous employer. She’d escaped to the art gallery during the lunch hour and she’d been astounded by the effect they had on her. She’d hardly been able to credit that there was a whole collection of them in the very city where she lived. ‘We’re philistines,’ she’d said to Marco, insisting he visit the gallery with her. ‘Imagine not knowing this was right here on our doorstep.’
    She knew that Marco didn’t share her enthusiasm for the paintings. But he liked to come with her, to share her excitement. And somehow, it gave her a sense of security to know he was sitting on one of the benches, playing Angry Birds on his phone while she moved among the paintings.
    But it wasn’t Marco who was watching her that day. Marie ate her lunch, oblivious to the fact that she was being studied. On a similar bench in the next gallery, a man was apparently enjoying a pair of L. S. Lowry seascapes, a surprising contrast to the artist’s usual subject of working-class life. However, the target of his attention was quite different. He was intent on Marie, fixated on every move she made. She was a neat eater, he thought. You wouldn’t want just anyone eating their lunch in the midst of expensive artworks. But Marie was someone who could be trusted not to splash or drip or even leave a trail of crumbs behind her. He liked that about her. A woman who took care about how she ate in public would probably be fastidious in other ways. Not one of those sluts who couldn’t look after a man properly.
    The world seemed to be full of women who were rubbish at being a woman. It took a man like him to see clearly that something needed to be done about that. The trouble was his foolish optimism. Three times now he’d been mistaken. He’d had such high hopes of the latest one, but it was already obvious she wasn’t capable of meeting his criteria. He’d been willing to deal with the consequences of his mistakes, but deep down, all he really wanted was a woman who would fulfil his dreams of womanhood. It wasn’t as if he asked too much. The failure was theirs. Every time. And it was his right to set things straight. He was