The I.T. Girl (2 page)

‘The Milky Bar is on me. Way-hay,’ Boris threw his hips forward.

‘Oh Boris.’
I cringed.

‘Sorry... sorry... that was a naughty one. A bit of a naughty
one,’ Boris laughed.

The dance floor slowly filled when the gambling tables were covered.
We brought stools over to the beer taps and watched Boris gather a crowd around
his Seventies dance moves. Once we started a shot round, the late night was inevitable.

Cameron and I fell into a Muse versus Radiohead argument, music
being our only common ground, while Sam and Boris made supportive remarks about
each other’s football team.

‘They are politically
and
musically more experimental.’ Cameron slurred and his glasses slipped down his nose.
He looked like an admonishing school teacher until he couldn’t get his cocktail
straw into his mouth.

‘But there has to be a point to whiny.’ I opened out my hands,
pleading to win the point but realised I was repeating myself and my words were
beginning to slur too. I exhaled steadily. ‘I’m going to get some fresh air.’

I made my way to the double doors as the room started to spin.
The balcony was empty and the grounds below were clear except for a group of smokers,
huddled near a side-door. I leaned over the railing and focused on one spot trying
to get the spinning to stop. There was still a winter chill, but I was grateful
for the sobering air.

The music from inside grew louder for a moment and I realised
the balcony door had opened and shut. I was in silence again until a footstep, the
soft clunk of a man’s shoe, told me I wasn’t alone. A figure stepped up to the railings
and I turned as he cleared his throat ceremoniously. His eyes were heavy with alcohol
and intent.

‘Do you come here often?’ he asked.

I laughed at the clichéd line. ‘About once every six months,
depending on management whim.’

‘You work in R&D?’

‘Yes. Which department are you?’

‘Me? I’m Columbus.’ He shrugged sheepishly as if admitting a
secret and then pinched the ruffles on his shirt, trying to lift them towards me.
‘It’s supposed to be period costume.’

‘I guess you have a lot of travel with that.’

‘Ha. Yeah I find new lands with client potential.’

‘Aren’t you supposed to have a hat?’ His hair was in excited
clumps as if it had also been drinking.

He lowered his mouth to his glass. ‘Left it on the tube,’ he
mumbled and took a sip. I noticed a tie hanging out of his pocket. The top buttons
of his shirt were open and the sleeves were folded back to the elbow. The bottoms
of his trousers were rolled up too and the shirt was pulled out over them. He looked
like a man who was trying to shed himself of the city to walk on a beach.

‘Where’s your scroll then?’

He rubbed a hand over his jaw making a scratching sound against
stubble. ‘I’ve already given it to the Arawak Indians.’

‘
The who
?’

‘They’re the first people Columbus discovered,’ he gestured with
his glass, slopping some beer. ‘Oops,’ he said. Then: ‘They invented raft building.’

‘Really?’

‘Is one of those nerdy IT guys your boyfriend?’

‘No.’ I laughed again.

‘I think you’re lovely.’

‘Thanks,’ I said casually, hiding a shot of excitement.

‘Sorry.’ He held his face and groaned. ‘I don’t drink.’

‘Well, in that case I’d see a doctor.’

‘No. Hah, hah. Obviously I’ve had too much to drink tonight.
But normally, I don’t drink.’ He swayed towards me.

‘Careful.’ I pressed my fingers to his chest to straighten him
up.

He stood back, making space between us. ‘Who are you supposed
to be?’

‘Calamity Jane.’
He looked me over with
the new information. ‘So if you don’t drink, how come you’re drinking so much tonight?’

‘Because I fancy a girl and I’m trying to ask her out.’

‘Would you like to dance?’

‘Oh fuck no.’

‘You know, to the Arawak Indians, dancing was a sign of virility,’
I teased.

‘If you gave an Arawak Indian as much as I’ve had to drink tonight,
he’d drop dead.’

When the slow set started, smokers began to join us, silently
meeting their relief with a distant stare over the lawn.

‘Come on then.’ He took me by the hand back inside to the middle
of the dance floor and huddled me like he was trying to protect me from rain. I
laughed into his shoulder as I tried to move us round in circles. Fast music started
and I broke away in a dance. He stood watching for a moment and then shrugged in
defeat and threw himself around in a flurry of moves that looked more like a pre-basketball
ritual. ‘This is my mating dance,’ he said into my ear.

We staggered down the pebble-scattered steps to my basement flat.

‘You are the sunshine of my life,’ he sang.

I leaned him against the wall while I opened the door and then
pulled him inside.

‘Is this a dungeon?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ I said, switching on a low lamp. ‘Would you like a glass
of wine?’

‘Great,’ he said, collapsing on the bed.

The landlord’s cat appeared at the window. ‘
Hsst
,’ I warned with a pointed finger. It sprang away making
the window rattle. Fridge light illuminated the room for a moment, reaching sleeping
porcelain figures along the bookshelf. I poured us a glass of wine to share and
began taking off jewellery.

‘Oh steady on.’ I held his arm as he struggled out of his trousers.

‘What’ll I do with these?’ he asked.

‘Oh just throw them... Here, give them to me.’ I folded them
over a chair.

‘What will I do with my watch?’ He held it up with a clink.

‘You can put that on the dressing table.’

He took off his shirt and handed it to me. Then he sat back heavily
on the bed. I stole a glance over his body. Dark hair spread across the top of his
chest and continued in a line down the middle, making a tee-shape. His legs were
long and pale, covered with dark curly hair. I watched as he bent over struggling
with his socks, his body swaying as if he was under water. When the second sock
came off he collapsed back on the bed and made a groaning sound that seemed like
the last of his energy. I stripped down to my pants and got in bed next to him.

‘I don’t think I can perform sexually,’ he said.

‘You only have to perform sleep.’

He opened up an arm for me and as I lay my face near his heartbeat,
he began to snore.

I woke to the sound of busy traffic and turned, remembering the
night before. He was awake already, staring at the ceiling.

‘Morning,’ I said.

‘Morning,’ he croaked.

‘You okay?’

‘
Er
, yeah... what happened last night?’

‘You
chatted
me up at the CPR party
and I brought you home.’ I watched him for a reaction. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah.
I don’t usually drink.’

‘No shit.’

He lifted the covers and looked down.

‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘You’re still a virgin.’

‘Jesus, I’m sorry.’ He laughed. ‘Hope I wasn’t too much trouble.’

‘No trouble at all.’

He looked around the room and saw his clothes folded on the chair
‘I hope
er
... you didn’t have to kick me in the nuts at
any point?’

‘You were a gentleman.’ I turned towards him and closed my eyes.
After a while, body parts brushed and our faces nudged towards each other. In the
extra silence of caught breath our mouths connected. We kept still except for the
kiss – aware of goose-pimpled flesh below the covers – until I brought my hand down
his chest like a paw and we let skin open up to skin, as if we had been trying to
tell each other something the whole time.

Saturday changed London for me. An event had happened that I
couldn’t control, in the same way that I controlled work. We had left our mark on
each other. After six months of working for
CouperDaye
,
I would no longer feel like a shadow coming and going from the office.

We slipped into each other’s curves as the morning went hazily
by until the light from the curtains could not be shut out and we realised we were
starving.

I brought him to the greasy spoon where I was beginning to be
known. Going about the serious business of replenishing our hung-over systems, talking
about our plans for the week ahead, the intimacy which descended earlier slipped
away. Outside the café, in the grey afternoon, he must have been thinking the same
thing that I was when he came towards me with pursed, goodbye-lips.
What would happen when we saw each other in
CouperDaye
?

Chapter Two

I rose earlier than usual for a Monday morning. I had to be in
for European market open since my new feed was going live. I showered and dressed
while the rollout checklist scrolled through my head. My hair was a quick job –
blow-dried holding my head upside down, then I tied it in a high bun and let the
short strands fall out. I thought about the new project I was about to start. The
business side wasn’t interesting to me, but if it went well, it would get me noticed.
I wanted to move into Quantitative Analysis. It had always been my philosophy –
if you want to get ahead, get noticed. It had worked for me so far. I flicked through
my wardrobe and took out a wrap-around dress, knee-length, navy, with a high-cut
v-neck.

Once I made the transition into the Quants team, I could think
about doing it as a contractor in a few years time. It was exciting work and it
was where the real money was. I added a belt to the dress and went for high heeled
boots instead of flats. Most of the boys dressed down as much as possible with un-ironed
shirts and casual trousers but the women in other departments dressed up and I didn’t
see why I shouldn’t too.

Entering through the turnstiles, I flashed my ID badge, aware
of a nervous taste filling my mouth. Through the maze of cubicles I offered quick
‘Mornings’ and reached my cube just as the clock clicked 8 a.m. I checked the overnight
reports. All looked clean. I checked the terminals. The prices were happily trickling
down the screen in columns of orders and trades. I sat back, relieved.

‘Hey, she’s in.
The golden girl.’
Boris
cruised alongside the wall of my cube.

‘Morning, Boris.
All running smoothly.’
I felt a stab of irritation at the go-fast fin he had sculpted into his hair. It
was looking particularly jagged this morning, like a surprised cockatoo.

‘Excellent.’ He leaned into the terminal to watch the pricing.
‘I’d like us to grab a coffee later to talk about METX. In fact, why don’t we do
it over lunch?’

Cameron and I followed Boris through the canteen. The large square
hall was like a school lunchroom, constantly noisy with conversations dancing along
the ceiling.

Our team always went for the same spot. There were round tables
in the middle but more private booths along the sides and back of the hall. We sat
in a booth on the window side, overlooking a fountain far below.

‘So, how was everyone’s weekend?’ Boris asked, lifting his tie
over his shoulder.
‘Cameron, study programming?’

‘Is that what programmers do at the weekend?’ Cameron asked,
tucking his earphones into his shirt pocket. ‘I watched the match.
Then went to a mate’s party.’

‘A party, eh?
Any
good?’

‘It was alright. Have five-aside on Sundays though.
Only stayed till two.’

‘2 a.m.?
Blimey, mate,’ Boris said.
‘You’d have to call an ambulance if I was still going till 2 a.m. these days.’

‘Thirty-five’s not that old, Boris,’ I said. ‘I hope,’ I added,
since I was only a few years behind him.

‘Well, in any case, we’ll have to put a stop to that, young man.
Now that you’re one of us.
What did you do at the weekend,
Orla
?’

‘I studied programming.’

‘There, you see?’

‘Where did I go wrong?’ Cameron moaned beneath our laughter.

With his hair too long over a slim face and a small worried mouth,
he always made me think of a bird just broken out of its shell. He had only just
left
business college
and already felt derailed. From my
first day, I remember Boris winding him up over the merge. I remember feeling like
a school girl, being brought around to everyone for a formal introduction.

‘Now we’ll meet young Cameron. You’ll be working with him a lot,’
Boris had said.

‘Cameron!’ he’d yelled over his cube. ‘You got your earphones
in?’

‘No,’ Cameron said.

‘Oh sorry, mate. I can never tell,’ Boris chuckled. ‘Get a haircut.’
He turned back to me. ‘Let me introduce you to
Orla
.
Orla
, this is Cameron. I envision you two working together a
lot.
Orla’s
our new C++ star.’

I laughed. ‘What do you do?’ I asked Cameron.

‘He’s a programmer too,’ said Boris.

‘I am not a programmer,’ Cameron said prickly, and Boris replaced
his serious face with laughter.

‘Okay,
y’see
, so, here’s the big picture.’
Boris spread his hands out in front of us. ‘Obviously,
CouperDaye’s
main activity is trading on behalf of clients. And in order to competitively trade
we need to get market data as fast as possible. So that’s where your team comes
in,
Orla
. Feeds writes the software that extracts orders
– as in buy and sell requests – and trades from what we call a market data feed
and then sends it to Desktop who control how it’s displayed on the trading floor.
Cameron here, as Business Analyst, coordinates all the teams involved and liaises
with the Exchanges.
Absolutely nothing to do with programming.’
He smiled broadly at Cameron and shrugged as if waiting for approval.
‘Unless of course, we merge Feeds with Business Analyses.
It’s
something being talked about to try and improve efficiency,
y’see
.
Have one person handling every step of a project instead of separate teams having
to coordinate with each other. So – if that happens – you’ll both be doing both
jobs.’