Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 It was about a week after Carla's return to California.  I was beginning to
feel a bit like the coal miner who, on being elected as an MP, turned up at
the pit for his next shift because no-one had told him any different.  In
my case, I was supposed to be developing some sort of human centred
approach to global corporate consultancy but actually I was spending a lot
of time hanging around at home, cooking stuff, playing with computers,
sometimes wishing I had a cat.  Or some other excuse for being distracted
and unable to concentrate.

   Basically, I was in limbo.  Carla had blown in, blown out (pun, sadly,
intended) and subsequently I'd had a couple or three e-mails from her: Home
safe, thanks for your hospitality, things moving on, will be in contact. 
Nothing remotely precise, though, and no hint as to where future untold
riches were coming from.  Or when.

   In theory, therefore, I was COO of a significantly capitalised
consultancy and software development agency.  In fact, the company had no
saleable product and no plan and I was sitting in a tiny rented flat in
North London with not a lot to do.  Looking back, I know this to have been
a classic case of the need to be careful about what one wishes for.  It may
have been a frustrating period, but things were about to change extremely
rapidly.  And not immediately for the better.

   Inevitably, too, things moved on at precisely the wrong moment.  I had
actually just agreed to spend a few weeks working through a reconfiguration
programme with CareSpan, a major UK charity - which is what I did in real
life - when Carla got back in touch With Instructions.  OK, I'd got to know
C quite a bit better than when she first pissed me off with a peremptory
e-mail - for a start, I now knew her to be a brilliant and beautiful woman
- but even so I was taken aback by the tone of this message.  OK, too, it
was written at about 3am, California time, so maybe she'd been having a bad
day.

   Nonetheless, I was somewhat less than happy at simply being starkly told
that funding was in place, corporate structures agreed (by and with whom, I
wondered?) and that I should therefore get on with recruiting people and
porting code from Linux to Windows.  'You what?', I thought.  How do I do
that, exactly?  Where would I put anyone I did recruit, and why would they
want to work for someone who had no way of paying them in the first place?
And shouldn't we be talking to some customers about what the details of
what they wanted the code to do before we started actually rewriting it?

   I started to write a stroppy e-mail back but some vestige of good sense
stopped me.  Actually, I paused for a calming cup of coffee and this was
just enough time for me to remember some of the good times I'd had with
Carla when she was briefly in London - and to remind myself that I'd never
quite believed her when she described me as indispensable for the current
project.  Not wishing to shoot the auriferous goose, then, I went for a
more emollient line.  Actually, I went for a slightly pathetic wheedling
tone, which I suspect was completely the wrong approach, but, hell, I never
claimed to be competent at this sort of stuff.

   What I got back, an hour or two later, was an e-mail from someone called
Zhu Lui, signing him / herself as "Executive Specialist", whatever that
might be, and bullet pointing in a brusque but presumably business-like
fashion some stuff I was presumable supposed to have known.  Or maybe just
intuitively guessed.  Specifically, that funds were held by PCW - or our
"corporate partners" as they now appeared to be - and that said
organisation would also be handling the legal bits around establishing the
new business as a legal entity in the UK and EU.  Finally, office space
would be made available for me to use in the interim in their offices, the
e-mail also giving me a contact in one Deborah Jensen who would apparently
act as my liaison with "our partners".  Even if partners seemed a slightly
euphemistic description of a group who appeared to be in control of pretty
much everything.

   I decided that it would be a good idea to think about this a bit before
replying and in any case had agreed to a preliminary chat with the good
folks at CareSpan which I was in danger of being late for.  So I set off in
the tube, again, and once again my thoughts were more of ways to fake
suicide and run away rather than any vaguely constructive ideas on how to
make it all work.  Actually, by the time I emerged onto the street, I'd got
to the stage of thinking that I should just save all the buggering about
and top myself for real.  I thought I knew just enough about the corporate
world to know that I didn't fit and frankly didn't even want to try to do
so.

   I was, thus, not the happiest looking visitor when I got to CareSpan and
got plonked into a reception area sofa.  I had a few minutes to wait for my
contact, a woman called May who I'd met briefly before but couldn't claim
to know.  I spent it staring into space and, well, wallowing in self pity
which did not do much to improve things.  In fact, I'd got into such an
effective wallow that it took me some moments to notice that someone was
standing in front of me, repeating my name in an amused tone of voice.

   Looking up, I saw a pair of tan nylon covered legs, a knee length beige
skirt, a grey knitted jumper and, finally, an intelligent, smiling face
framed in a mass of curly grey hair.  I got quickly to my feet, shook my
head clear of preoccupations and shook her hand.

   "I'm May Harris", she said, "and welcome to CareSpan.  Or welcome back
to the planet, perhaps I should say." I laughed, turned down the ritual
offer of coffee and followed her through to the broom cupboard that she
used as an office.  I'm fairly sure that there was a PC on her desk, but it
was hard to tell amidst the piles of paperwork.  She shifted enough of this
to find a couple of chairs, though, and we began to talk through the work
she felt they needed done.  Actually, it was fairly standard stuff except
for the fact that she'd thought it through for herself a lot more astutely
than most of my clients had on first meeting.  As a result, within half an
hour or so we had the beginnings of a plan, and had agreed that my
involvement would not be as extensive as first suggested, though possibly
of longer duration.  She apologised for that and I had to explain a little
of the situation with Carla, and in particular that it looked like it would
have been difficult for me to actually commit full time to her organisation
- as I liked to do in at least the early stages of a project - in the near
future anyway.

   Despite the main business of the day being done so quickly, I kept up
the conversation for a while in the knowledge that she'd cleared three
hours from her diary - and I know how busy charity Chief Executives always
are - and that, anyway, I'd hardly made a brilliant first impression. 
After a while, though, we really had done all we could do so I arranged
some dates to meet with some other key people in the organisation for
initial chats, agreed a deadline for getting a more detailed plan to her
and accepted a huge wodge of paperwork which she claimed would give me
loads of background information on their work and people.  I stood up to
say my goodbyes and offered my hand for a parting handshake.  To my
surprise she also stood, picked up a jacket from behind her chair and her
bag from the chaos on her desk and said that she'd come out with me.

   "Enough for the day," she said, "I don't normally work Tuesdays, so I'm
only here for this meeting and if I stay a moment longer people will
imagine that they need me for stuff.  So best if I sneak out with you. 
Then everyone will presume that we've gone to the pub to conspire and get
really worried about you and your role ..."

   She smiled as she said this, making clear that it was a joke, that
inducing paranoia was not one of her management strategies, and I
apologised for ruining her day off.  Not at all, she said, it had been
interesting - and she was now curious to know more about this strange world
of international business that I seemed to be getting into.  So I offered
to make the pub a reality, satisfy that curiosity over a drink.  I really
did need to talk to someone objective about it, I realised, and May seemed
like a sensible person to bounce stuff off.

   So we went to the pub, a tiny affair just round the corner from the
CareSpan offices and we talked.  Turned out that her ex ("*very* ex", as
she put it)-husband had been a management accountant with one of the firms
who merged to form PCW as is.  She didn't have a very high opinion of their
world, or more precisely their view of the world the rest of us lived in.
We laughed a lot about that, swapping bad "suit" jokes and generally
agreeing that she was far from the objective outsider that I thought I'd
been looking for.  Good company, though, so it was well after eight when we
staggered back outside, both, I think having had a good time.  I said as
much and she suggested that we should do it again some time, just before
leaving in something of a hurry to catch a half hourly train home.  Ah,
well, I thought, she has my number and I know where she works, so...

   I only remembered that I'd switched my mobile off for our meeting as I
was getting off the tube on my way home.  Not expecting to have missed
much, I promptly switched the thing back on again and discovered that I had
two new voice mails and six texts ...  the latter all from Carla, all
variations on the theme of 'have read your e-mail, call me'.  Once I'd got
back onto the street I found the voice mails were from her, too, sounding
tired and with fairly hectic bar sounds in the background; saying pretty
much the same thing.  I checked my watch, tried to work out the time in the
States, decided to phone her anyway.  Got her voice mail, of course, and
left a similar sort of message of my own.

   I finally got hold of her at 8 the next morning, figuring that midnight
her time wasn't all that late for us busy international business types. 
She sounded bleary, though, and I realised that I probably had woken her
up. Indeed, I was sure that I could hear someone gently snoring in the
background.  Ah, well, I thought, at least I didn't wake them *both* up.

   Carla, thankfully, was a model of befuggled calm, not getting involved
in any detailed discussion, just explaining that what she'd set up so far
was just the basic legal stuff to allow me to get paid (by her) and to pay
for stuff - and for people, eventually - on corporate accounts.  How the
thing ended up structured, where it was based, who worked on it and what
they did would be up to me.  It would be a good idea, though, to check out
what PCW were offering as she felt that they needed to get familiar with me
and spend time with me - "face time", she actually called it - and in any
case were better able to advise on UK company law and stuff than her people
in CA were.  I promised to call them, agreed to maintain more regular
contact in the near future.  Rang off after about quarter of an hour, not
really any clearer but feeling a little more reassured.

   At nine, I phoned Ms Jensen at PCW, got a secretary of some sort, agreed
a time to meet that afternoon at their HQ.  Got myself a coffee, sat down
at the PC and started to make notes on the bumf that May had given me about
CareSpan.  It was good stuff and the relevant parts had been carefully
highlighted, saving me a great deal of time: I was impressed.

   I was about half way through the pile when my mobile rang: Ms Jensen
from PCW.  I immediately assumed that she was phoning to cancel our meeting
but she quickly explained that she merely wanted to change the venue. 
Apparently someone or the other at HQ had suggested that I might not want
to be based directly there and she wanted to suggest an alternative
location.  Of course, I cynically thought that someone had actually felt
that I'd make the place look scruffy, but took down a new address from her
and agreed to meet at a cafe near by at the original time.  Hanging up, I
realised that this was actually more convenient for me to get to, and,
mentally shrugging, felt that I could probably live with being shoved away
in some corporate backwater for the moment.

   Later that afternoon, then, I was sitting outside Romano's, a fairly
typical Italian joint just on the edge of Bloomsbury, enjoying the sun, and
having a cigarette with my espresso.  Ms Jensen, as you would expect,
turned up exactly on time and in exactly the persona I'd envisaged for her:
Crisp business suit, white blouse, medium high heels and the inevitable
laptop bag over her shoulder.  Just to add the final touch, she was busily
playing with a mobile phone, but she put it away almost immediately and
came and sat down at my table, introducing herself without confirming that
I was actually me beforehand.  Say what you like, having long hair and a
beard can be an advantage when it comes to being recognised by total
strangers.

   Obviously, I took the opportunity to discomfit her by introducing myself
in full in return and immediately regretted doing so as she blushed - and
blushed deeply - in embarrassment.  I felt guilty enough to offer to get
her a coffee, vaguely amused by the thought striking me that she was on
expenses and anyway probably earned about ten times what I did.  Only been
moving in these circles for about a fortnight, Dave, I thought to myself,
and you're getting obsessed with money *already*?

   When I got back to the table, I was slightly surprised to see her also
smoking and - get this - a roll up, rather than a Marlboro Lite or
whatever. Then she added sugar to the coffee and tiny bits of my
presumptions as to her character and personality that I'd constructed from
sheer prejudice began to crumble ...  very, very slightly.

   Actually, she was quite relaxing company, chatting away happily about
the area and her time at UCL - a college that now occupies most of
Bloomsbury, with ambitions to take over the rest.  She didn't seem to be in
any hurry to get onto business, and, frankly, neither was I.  Instead, I
began to take more of an interest in my "liaison person", not in the
standard Bloke Meets Girl type of way - hey, I really don't *do* that - but
more to try to see behind the corporate camouflage.  OK, the suit and stuff
was convincing, as was the carefully bobbed blonde hair, the ever so subtle
make up, the terribly discrete jewellery (a small broach, a wrist chain, no
rings).  But this was also a woman who knew her London history - much of it
revolutionary, had studied philosophy and seemed to have been good at it,
had her share of very entertaining stories.  I wondered how she coped in
the uber masculine environment that had been my experience of PCW to date,
then wondered whether that was how it seemed to her.  Maybe they could be
nice to each other in private and all the machismo was just to scare off
outsiders?

   Well, maybe.  I got the beginning of a hint as to the answer when I
offered her another cup of coffee and she sighed slightly ruefully.

   "Trust me," she said, "there are few things I'd like more at the moment,
but I can't stay away from the office for ever, and anyway, I'm supposed to
be showing you some possible accomodation, aren't I?" With which we were on
our feet, she was all efficiency again and I was being led a very short way
down the street.  To, it turned out, a Georgian town house, overlooking
Hertford Square, one of the areas signature gardens.  It was a fairly grand
edifice, with a couple of brass plaques beside the front door - a small
publishers and a firm of "eco-architects".  Debbie - not Deborah, she'd
insisted - let us in, greeted the ground floor receptionist familiarly and
led us up a couple of flights of stairs.

   We emerged into a large open plan office with just a few desks and
chairs arranged around the place, a work group printer and PCs about the
only other furniture.  It was all conspicuously clean and fresh looking -
in fact it all smelt of fresh paint.  It had, Debbie explained, never been
used.  PCW had come into possession when they'd invested in the architects
downstairs, co-funding what I learnt was one of the most eco friendly
office conversions in London and then never having been able to find a
final tenant.  Apparently triple glazing, solar heating and the rest simply
didn't appeal to the corporate mindset enough to justify the premium rent,
despite the outgoings being almost zero.  So it was mine if I wanted it,
for a few months anyway.  More than enough space to house a small
development team, she pointed out, all the ICT infrastructure in place and
...  she paused ...  far enough away from the rest of PCW's empire to allow
work to continue without undue supervision.  I had to smile at the last bit
and we agreed, warmly, that it was, in fact a no brainer.  And, as PCW
owned the freehold, we could sort everything out in time for me to move in
in days rather than weeks.

   Which kind of concluded our business for the day.  Except that I decided
to quickly measure the place - despite Debbie's offer to e-mail the plans
to me when she got back to base - and while I was doing this she
disappeared downstairs, returning with two more cups of coffee.  While I
was playing around with the tape measure, she sat on one of the desks -
shoes kicked off with an expression of some relief, I noticed - and I asked
her about her life with PCW.  Turns out that she'd joined from Uni, quickly
realised that she was never going to get anywhere in the mainstream and had
instead carved herself a niche working on special projects, developing new
teams, liaising with external partners and the like.  Currently, she
explained, this meant working with me (and, by implication, Carla's lot) to
ensure that we got any help we needed from the experts within her wider
organisation.  I said I was glad to hear that I had so much of her time and
was looking forward to working with her.  In return, she told me that I
looked like being a refreshing change from her normal contacts and she too
was looking forward to seeing the project through.

   Which was all very nice and a good place to start from, workwise.  Just
as the mutual admiration thing was getting into gear, however, my mobile
rang.  It was May, "touching base", as she put it, but also telling me that
a couple of people I'd arranged to see the next day would have to cancel as
they had a short notice visit from the Charity Commission to deal with.  I
sympathised with the hassle this sort of stuff always caused, agreed to
rearrange the meetings and finally also agreed that we should get together
for a drink sometime before cutting the call short, explaining that I was
in a meeting of sorts myself.

   Debbie was looking at me curiously when I turned back to her, so I
explained that May was CEO of a charity I was moonlighting with.

   "Not your girlfriend, then?", she asked, reddening again.

   "No", I laughed.  "I don't really have one.  Yourself?"

   "Oh, no", she said, smiling.  "I'm not really into girls."

   ooo+++ooo+++ooo+++ooo

   Did you enjoy this story?  Hate it?  Let me know -
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