Meanwhile, back in Southdon, Bernice too was discovering things.
On the Monday morning after the closure announcement, when Martin was seeing Mexico for the first time, Bernice was going through the post as usual. It was therefore with only half her mind that she took in something extraordinary in the office.
Yasmeen had come in slightly later than usual, and as soon as Bernice said 'hi' to her, she noticed that something was different. She continued going through the post, marking acceptances and refusals on the press invites, filing press releases according to who in the office should follow them up, but her mind was still trying to figure out exactly what was different about Yazzers. Her clothes, her makeup?
And then she had it. It came to her with the blinding force of a revelation, and once the idea had occurred to her, it seemed obviously right: Yasmeen was no longer a virgin. For the first time, she had come into the office as a woman, self-confident, sure of herself, able to look the world and in particular the male part of it straight in the eye. And probably kick it in the groin, too, added Bernice to herself as she observed this new Yasmeen, more forceful, slightly louder, slightly less tolerant of others. And she thought too of Mr Slide's warning about Yasmeen, that she was 'tougher' than Bernice. Once again, she felt that he was probably right - and hoped that she would not have to find out the hard way.
At this point she might have continued to muse upon what lay in store for this impressive young woman, or even to wonder where Chris was, but she had come across an envelope marked 'strictly confidential', which Janice had therefore left unopened, following the protocol of these matters.
As she slit it open using a paper knife that had been sent to her a Christmas gift/bribe from the typesetters - one doubly in vain in that she had no power whatsoever over the choice of typesetters, and because the recent introduction of new technology had reduced their role considerably - she thought that she recognised the handwriting: rather small and tight, as if wanting to disappear into itself. And then she remembered whose it was: Pete's. She wondered idly whether this was some formal reply to her proposals of Friday evening - Pete did so like to put things down on paper. But as she began to read the note, such thoughts soon fled from her mind.
'Dear Bernice,' it began, 'By the time you read this it will all be over. I wanted to thank you for your kind offer on Friday, and say that I really appreciated it. But I just cannot face Monday, not going in to work, having no work to go to. I have even started hating my poor, beloved Elaine and our children, because their presence alone is a silent reproach to me. This cannot go on. Thank you again for everything you have done for me. Do not feel bad about this, there is nothing more you or any one could have done. Goodbye. Yours sincerely, Peter Gordon Lawnesley.'
No!, thought Bernice desperately. She pulled out her personnel file on Pete, found his home phone number and dialled it with shaking hands. Please, God, she thought, perhaps he changed his mind after sending the letter - surely nobody calmly posts such a letter and then....
"Y-yes...?" a tiny female voice exhausted from weeping said. Bernice knew it was all true.
"Elaine, this, this is Bernice, has - I - " what could she say that wasn't trite or trivial or insulting?
"You, you bastards," the same tiny voice said with unbelievable ferocity and hatred, "you killed him, it's all your fault, you just used him and threw him away, all of you, you're all the same, you bastard companies. And now my Big Bear is dead..." She burst into huge sobs. In her anguish she had no self-consciousness, and Bernice knew that there was nothing for her to say in the face of this loss. She put the phone down, quietly, almost reverently, as if Elaine would sense Bernice's respect in that act.
She sat at her desk, numbed by what had happened. She was vaguely aware of the others asking her what was the matter. With effort she managed to focus her mind sufficiently on the office to reply to them.
"Pete's dead," she said. "He killed himself." She wondered whether she should organise a collection, but even that seemed hopelessly inadequate in the face of Elaine's pain. She would almost certainly need money, but equally certainly she would refuse to take it from any 'bastard companies.'
To its shame the Media Messenger picked up the story that week. The closure of New Business had broken too late for the previous week, so Pete's suicide formed a convenient 'human angle' for the piece, turning what was just another magazine closure - one of an increasing number as advertising revenues began to fall throughout the industry - into a juicy story.
Somehow the reporter had managed to get more details about Pete's death - Bernice presumed that they were true, though fabrication was not out of the question when it came to the Media Messenger. According to their story he had slit his wrists on Saturday evening. Bernice was ashamed of her own profession, at the unnecessary facts and the suffering they would cause. But the journalist part of her had to concede that it was a brilliant detail: for days afterwards she was haunted by this image of a bloody Stanley knife sinking down among the darkening bath waters.
