The Pollyanna Plan

Chapter One

Another rejection, Emma Beckett muttered, shaking her head. With the swipe of a key, she dismissed the loan application on the screen in front of her. The tiny company was asking for an amount twice its annual earnings! What on earth possessed people to be so blindly optimistic? If only the business had lowered its expectations and requested something more reasonable, she might have been able to help.  As it was, their pie-in-the-sky figure had done them no favours.

Rolling her aching neck to ease the pain, Emma glanced over at the clock on her desk. God, twelve already? The morning had flown by in a welcome blur of mortgage and loan applications, with plenty more awaiting her judgement. In this economic climate, people were increasingly desperate for money, and the requests came thick and fast.  As an underwriter, Emma needed to stay detached and base any decision on set lending criteria. No emotion; just logic. The ideal job. Hell, the ideal life.

‘Emma, my dear, you’ve been here since six. Why don’t you go for lunch and get some fresh air? It’s a beautiful day.’ Henry’s husky voice interrupted her thoughts, and she smiled up into her boss’ whiskered face. Ever since starting at Gladstone Insurance ten years ago, he’d been like a father figure, always checking she’d taken her lunch break and that she wasn’t working too many hours. On a few occasions, he’d practically dragged her from the building, ordering her to go home and get a social life.

The thing was, she didn’t want fresh air – not that anyone could call London air “fresh”. Just this morning, the paper had said smog levels were rising. She didn’t need a buzzing social life, either. The fewer people around, the lower the risk of being hurt – intentionally or not. Emma’s fiancé George and her best friend Alice were more than enough.

But Emma knew from experience Henry’s suggestions were actually orders, and if she didn’t follow them, he’d badger her until she did. Turning to look out the window, she was surprised to see it was a beautiful day. A deep blue November sky framed the City of London’s cluster of metal and glass buildings, and sun poured into the narrow streets below. It had been dark when she’d come to work this morning, and she’d barely lifted her head since.

‘Okay, okay, sarge,’ Emma said to Henry, grinning as she pulled a mock salute then shrugged on her coat. ‘You can go back to your office now. I’m on my way out.’ At the very least, she could pop in to visit George; maybe bring him one of those hideous spinach pastry things he loved. Her fiancé worked as an actuary at nearby Aquarius, developing risk models for the large insurance company. His office was just around the corner, but he’d been so busy she hadn’t seen him since . . . Emma’s brow wrinkled as she tried to remember. Last week, maybe?

That was fine, she told herself, twisting the engagement ring on her finger back and forth as the lift whooshed downwards. They didn’t need to see each other every day to know their relationship was solid. On paper, they couldn’t be more perfect: healthy, young (well,young-ish – Emma had just turned thirty-two, so they’d have to get started on babies quickly, since the risk of genetic mutations increased every year), solid jobs, and property-owners. They’d got on well for the past two years with no arguments, and things had progressed in a reassuringly smooth manner. Getting married, as George pointed out over an after-work dinner, made sense tax-wise, too.

Sure, it hadn’t been the world’s most romantic proposal, but with six out of ten marriages ending in divorce, there was no point mooning over how they’d be together forever or how each was the love of the other’s life. Statistically speaking, they’d probably go on to have another marriage after this one.

Lots of people found this way of thinking depressing, Emma knew. People like Alice, who firmly believed in love at first sight, and had a string of broken relationships to show for it. But thinking realistically was the only way to cope with what life could throw at you, and Emma counted herself fortunate she’d found someone who shared her outlook.