Going Viral Read Online Free Page B

crossed the room and opened it… just a downstairs loo. Another quick look round… no other doors, so back to the cubby hole.
    She took a breath and looked at the bookshelves.
    Books on Africa, its ecology, politics and sociology… maps, folders, ring binders – only a highly organised person would be able to cram so much into so little… Anything inflammatory?
    She peered at the books, found one with the promising title of Desperate Times, Desperate Measures, eased it out and flicked through the pages…
    Disappointingly respectable and middle class. She heard him coming back and replaced it.
    He had a chair in one hand and two mugs in the other. He handed her one and sat down.
    ‘No difficulty finding me, then?’
    She shook her head. ‘I googled it.’
    He looked younger than his wife, she thought, maybe thirty. He was tallish, thin, had a boyish, friendly face, untidy hair and blue eyes. She told him how she’d been living in London and had recently moved down here.
    ‘But you weren’t in any overseas aid groups in London, I think you said?’
    ‘No…’ She hesitated as though unsure of herself… ‘I wanted to… join an overseas aid group… but my partner, he disapproved of anything like that. But now we’ve split up…’ She shrugged and smiled. ‘I can do what I like.’
    ‘What made you come down here?’
    ‘I wanted to get right away. And it seems a nice place.’
    ‘Oh, there are lots worse, believe me...’
    He certainly didn’t come from here, she thought – he had that kind of nondescript accent that she thought of as vaguely West London; Hounslow, or somewhere like that.
    ‘What did you do in London?’ he asked.
    ‘General admin in the NHS. Salaries and wages.’
    ‘And you’re looking for a similar job in Exeter?’
    She’d signed on, she told him, but didn’t think she’d get anything quickly. ‘Which is one reason why I’m here – as I said, I’m probably going to have some time on my hands.’
    Pause, then, ‘You said you wanted to join an overseas aid group – what made you pick us?’
    She looked away while she pretended to think about it. ‘I looked at all the websites, starting with Oxfam, but so many of them are…’ she pretended to be searching for a word…
    ‘Up themselves?’ he supplied.
    She grinned. ‘Yeah, something like that. I liked your directness, your way of getting to the centre of things.’
    ‘How d’you mean?’
    ‘Oh… You put the blame where it belongs – with us. We were the ones who started slavery, we were the ones with the empire who raped Africa and left it in such a mess.’ Contrived pause… ‘And it’s no use us trying to blame their leaders. It’s our fault and ours to put right.’
    ‘And you’d like to help us?’
    ‘Very much,’ she said simply.
    ‘Well, you’ve come to the right place,’ he said softly. He took a sip of his coffee. ‘Let me tell you about the set-up here. We’ve got around sixty members, and –’
    ‘That’s pretty good, isn’t it?’
    ‘Yeah, but we’re lucky if twenty of them turn up to a meeting.’
    ‘How often d’you have them?’
    ‘Monthly, which you wouldn’t think was too onerous.’
    He told her there was a committee that also met monthly, but staggered with the general meetings. They had a Chair (himself), Secretary, Events Organiser and Local Authority Liaison.
    He looked at her for a moment as though trying to make up his mind about something… ‘What we don’t have at the moment,’ he said, ‘is a Treasurer. There’s a reason for that – it’s boring. Probably the most boring job in creation. Would you be interested?’
    She didn’t have to put on a flustered act – this was too good to be true …
    ‘Well… I thought… if anything, you’d want me to push leaflets through doors, stuff like that…’
    ‘Oh, you’re welcome to do a bit of that as well if you insist,’ he assured her.
    ‘But won’t the rest of the committee want to see me first?’
    ‘Mm.