“Not long now, Bill. Looking forward to retirement?”

Janice made the coffee, then we both checked and dealt with the early morning post. The ever-increasing amount of junk mail was just one aspect of life I wouldn’t miss. In fact, the only thing I would miss would be our early morning chats.

Janice would tell me all about her children and grandchildren; her husband, also coming up for retirement; her holidays; her hobbies; her sciatica, her hilarious recent visit to her optician (“Cover the right eye; read the chart with your left. What do you mean, “What chart?””)

She would occasionally ask about my interests. With no wife and no children, it was fairly easy to return the subject of the conversation to Janice.

“I am looking forward to it, Janice. In fact, I can hardly wait.”

“What are you going to do, Bill? We’ve worked together for ten years and I still know little about you. I know you’ve no family. You don’t seem to socialise with anyone at work, yet you don’t seem unhappy. You’ve obviously looked after yourself and haven’t run to fat like most of the blokes here.

“I can’t make you out; you seem well read, well educated and as aware of what’s going on in the world and in the office as anyone I could name, but there’s something about you, a mystery, that’s got to me over the last ten years.”

“Well, I couldn’t tell you all my secrets, could I?” I joked as we consigned another dead tree to the recycle bin.

“Are you going to the party?”

“I thought about not bothering but I suppose I ought to go; I’ll never see anyone from the office again so it’ll be an opportunity to say goodbye.”

She looked a bit stunned. “Aren’t you going to keep in touch with those who are still here mopping up the debris?”

“No: clean break, clean start.”

“That sounds as though you’ve got it all planned out.”

“Yep. New town, new me.”

“What do you mean; “new me?””

“You’ll see at the party.”

Friday October nineteenth. Janice kept giving me funny looks all day, until some director appeared and we were all chucked out at three o’clock. I smiled at her as I said, “Bye Janice, see you this evening.”

The company had hired a big function room at a local hotel, put several thousand pounds behind the bar and arranged a disco.

I glanced across the room and noticed Janice talking with a group of other women. I casually wandered over and put my glass of wine on a nearby table.

“Hello, may I join you? I’m on my own; I’m Sarah, by the way. Sarah Holderness.”

Janice’s face was a picture. After a few moments, that felt like a few minutes, she shook her head and then smiled.

“Hello Sarah, I’m so pleased to meet you after all these years.”