The floor was white too, large tiles, polished and shiny, it was blinding in the morning sun. A full-sized black marble sculpture of a Roman nymph, shading its eyes, stood at the end of the staircase. In the hallway the ceiling was high and the walls were a bright white. She smiled at me as she did this, as if we might be friends. She then put the cup back in the drawer and closed it. There would be a tea break at 10.30 she said, but not with these cups, they were for meetings. When she took my jacket I noticed her look at the label, briefly, before hanging it on the back of the door. She looked me up and down for a brief moment, not unkindly, but more with a sense of exhaustion, as if she had met people like me before. Her pale, round blue eyes were watery, she possibly had allergies, and she seemed old to me though she was probably only in her thirties. She had curly, pale brown hair and wore no obvious make-up, except red lipstick and her dress was black but faded looking, as if it had been dry-cleaned too often. She informed me she was the “very senior” Personal Assistant. That first morning I was welcomed at the door by Sylvia. It didn’t seem to matter much then, though I think differently about that now. It was a sort of pause in a way, though a reasonably long one, as I ended up working there for almost three months, never once understanding what is was we did there, or why. I had just finished university and needed time, and money, while I contemplated my future. I answered the advert for the job out of boredom. There were only three of us in this large, red-brick building which overlooked a gated park in the south of the city. One summer, a long time ago now, I worked as a temporary secretary in a Georgian townhouse on Fitzwilliam Square in Dublin.
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