There is a note on the fridge. There has always been a note on the fridge.
The present one is printed, in capitals, and laminated, so somebody meant it. It says that the fridge will be emptied at 4pm on Friday and that ANYTHING left in it will be THROWN AWAY, including containers.
Underneath, in biro, somebody has written: “Which Friday?”
What is in it
Milk, in six bottles. Each has a name on it in marker pen. One says TEAM, and it is empty, and has been put back.
A lunch in a carrier bag, tied at the top. It has been there since before the note.
Half a lemon. Nobody in the building has ever been seen using a lemon.
A birthday cake in its box, with a third gone. It belongs to a team on the first floor, who have their own fridge, and I do not like to think about what happened in it.
On the top shelf, at the back, there is a jar of pickled onions. It has no name on it. It was here when I started. I have asked people who were here before me, and it was here when they started. We have agreed to leave it alone.
The meeting
It came up at the team meeting, under any other business, after an hour on caseloads and a restructure.
We had been quiet all the way through the restructure. People had looked at the table. Then somebody said, “Can I just raise the fridge,” and the room turned over like an engine.
Everybody had a view. Two people who had not agreed about anything in a year agreed about milk. There were two camps on labelling. Somebody proposed a rota and somebody else said she had been on the last rota, thank you, and had done it alone for a year. A man who has not spoken in a meeting since the spring spoke for four minutes without notes.
Our manager let it run. I thought at the time that she had lost control of the room. I think now that she knew what she was doing. We had sat for an hour with things we could not change, and she gave us twenty minutes on something we could.
Friday, 4pm
Nothing is thrown away. The person who wrote the note is on leave.
The following Wednesday
I come in early, and the fridge is clean. The shelves have been out and washed. The milk is in a row. The carrier bag has gone, and the lemon, and the cake.
The pickled onions are still there, on the top shelf, at the back. Whoever did it had moved them, wiped under them, and put them back.
There is no name on the note that has been left, either. It is a sticky one, and it says: “You’re welcome. Label your milk.”
I have my suspicions. It is somebody who gets in before seven, and has a key to the cleaning cupboard. It is somebody who would sooner scrub a fridge than sit through that conversation again. I have narrowed it down to one person, and she chaired the meeting.
This is a scene, and it is made up, like the book. Nobody in it is a real person.
Maisie x
Next in the notebook: The student