Free Underground Time by Delphine de Vigan Page B

the in-house journal on product innovation in the division, but he was snowed under, he wouldn’t have time. And so he’d asked Barbara to get in touch with Mathilde. The article had to be submitted by Monday morning at the latest.
    For the first time in weeks, Jacques was asking something of her. Through an intermediary, it was true. But he was requesting her help. To do that, he must have uttered her first name, and recalled that she had written dozens of texts for him which he had signed without changing a single comma, or remembered at the very least that she was still part of his team.
    The timing could have been better. Mathilde and the boys had planned to spend two days with friends. In addition, she was intending to take a half-day on Monday morning to go for an X-ray after the plaster came off her wrist.
    She said yes. She’d cope somehow.
    She took her laptop to the country and worked through most of the night from Saturday to Sunday. The rest of the time she laughed, played cards, helped prepare meals. She went walking by the river with the others, breathed in the smell of the earth in great lungfuls. And when people expressed concern about whether things at work had sorted themselves out, she said they had. Jacques’s request was enough for her to believe that the situation could change, go back to how it was before, to believe that ultimately it was just a bad patch, a crisis they would get over and which she would forget in the end, because that was how she was – she didn’t bear grudges.
     
    On the Sunday night she sent the article to Jacques using the company’s internal mail, which she could access remotely. He would have it when he got in on Monday morning, or perhaps even that evening if he was back. She fell asleep with a feeling of achievement she hadn’t known in a long time.
    The following day Mathilde took Théo and Maxime to school. Then she went to her appointment at the hospital, where she had to wait a good hour before she was seen. Later that morning she went back home, where she took advantage of the free moment to tidy the boys’ cupboard and iron a few things. At one o’clock she bought a sandwich at the baker’s down below and then she went to the metro station. The trains were almost empty and her journey seemed to flow smoothly. She dropped in at the Brasserie de la Gare for a coffee at the bar. Bernard complimented her on how well she was looking. At 2 p.m. on the dot she walked into the building.
    Jacques was waiting for her. Scarcely had Mathilde got out of the lift when he began shouting.
    ‘The article! What happened to the article?’
    Mathilde felt the point of impact in her stomach.
    ‘I sent it to you last night. Didn’t you get it?’
    ‘No, I didn’t get anything. Not a thing. I waited all morning. I was looking for you everywhere and I had to cancel a lunch to write the bloody thing which I asked you to write on Friday night! I suppose you had better things to do than devote a few hours of your weekend to the company.’
    ‘I sent it to you last night.’
    ‘So you said.’
    ‘I sent it, Jacques. If that weren’t true, you know full well that I’d tell you.’
    ‘Well, maybe it’s time you worked out how your email system works.’
     
    Faces appeared at half-open doors. There were furtive glances in the corridor. Stunned, Mathilde said nothing. Short of breath, she leaned against the wall. She had to retrace step by step what she had done after getting back on Sunday night, before she was able to visualise the scene: she had set the table, put the pizza in the oven and asked Simon to turn his music down. Then she switched on the laptop. Yes, she could see herself turning it on, sitting at the low table. Next she must have sent the article, nothing else was possible.
    And then she began to have doubts. She was no longer sure. Perhaps she was interrupted and didn’t send the email. Maybe she pressed a wrong key or got the wrong recipient or forgot the