Everything We Hoped For by Pip Adam

Author:Pip Adam [Adam, Pip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-86473-666-6
Publisher: Victoria University Press
Published: 2010-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

Mary’s Job

It was the Saturday night before Christmas. Mary sat at her desk looking at her computer screen. The light above her cubicle was the only one on. The rest of the floor was in darkness.

She’d started a publish at two that afternoon. It took five hours to get new content onto the test site. She’d gone to a costume party at seven. She thought she’d just be popping into work to check the test site and push it to live, but now she sat looking at the report on her screen. The publishing system had deleted a thousand pages off the test site and the number was flicking over higher and higher as she watched: 1,207, 1,245, 1,269. There were about 9,000 pages on the ministry’s website. It would stop soon, she thought – she’d been thinking since the report read 800. Mary looked out the window then back at the screen – 1,503 – it would stop soon. She’d call technical support when it got to 1,700, maybe 2,000. She looked at the time, ten fifteen. She didn’t want to call tech support at ten fifteen on a Saturday night. The ministry outsourced maintenance of the publishing system. She put on her headset and rang tech support. The way things were going it’d be 1,700 by the time she finished dialling.

‘How many?’

‘Simon, hi, sorry to . . .’

‘How many?’ Simon said.

‘1,712 . . . 13 . . . 14 . . .’

‘Hilarious.’

Mary heard Simon shift from his chair and walk to another room.

‘What’s gone?’ he asked.

Mary scrolled through the report. ‘All the legislation, most of the forms and all the letters off the internal site.’ She watched as Simon stopped the publish and the report slowed, then stood still. ‘1,812,’ she said.

‘We have a winner,’ Simon said.

‘It’s getting worse.’

‘Ya think?’ Simon said, then, ‘Damn,’ under his breath.

She heard typing and mouse-shifting and began to swing in her chair.

‘Did you go as Gabriel in the end?’ Simon said.

‘Yeah.’ Mary picked at the silk Greek-style dress she was wearing.

‘Feathers or cellophane?’

‘Feather ones.’ Mary looked at the wings on the chair beside her.

‘Very Victoria’s Secret.’

‘Yeah, without them I kind of just look like Jane Austen. There were three of us.’ There was silence over the phone except for the typing. ‘Gabriels.’

‘Did you have an archangel cage fight?’

‘Don’t get weird,’ Mary said.

‘You better get a cup of tea,’ Simon said.

‘Is it going to take a while?’

Mary padded to the kitchenette in bare feet, her long dress sweeping the floor and floating out behind her. It was warm in the building; the air conditioning was turned off on Friday at about midnight and back on at four o’clock on Monday morning. It made the whole place a new type of quiet. When she worked late she could tell time by the level of silence. It was wetter without the air conditioning. As the jug boiled she took hair clips out of her hair. She shook her head and glitter rained on the bench. Her hair stayed in place.

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