Chapter 1: Friday Afternoon

Some people worked late in the evenings so they could take a long weekend starting Friday lunchtime. Others went to the pub for a very long liquid lunch, then returned late afternoon and killed time until they could finish. Others, cognisant of the alibi provided by the long, liquid lunches, went on extended shopping sprees and returned to the office laden with bags of the latest fashions.

So on Fridays, from lunchtime until mid-afternoon, the office was usually pretty much deserted.

I’m Michael Turner, the Senior Software Specialist for CornerStone Systems, a medium-sized software company, where I eventually landed after a roller-coaster journey through to adulthood.

My early childhood was free from any significant troubles. My parents were freelance diplomats, travelling across the world to hotspots where independent mediators were needed. Sometimes they took me with them, other times I stayed home. But they made sure nannies and private tutors were looking after me whether I went with them or not.

Everything changed when they both died after their plane was shot down, having left me at home during that particular assignment. None of my relatives wanted to take me in so I ended up in an orphanage. I was a quiet kid, not mixing well with others. It wasn’t too awful but, since I had difficulties interacting with the other kids, I mostly avoided them. There was some bullying but mostly I was left alone; I think the other kids realised there was something different about me.

Nobody wanted to foster or adopt an eight-year-old boy who had difficulty interacting with others. Occasionally prospective adopters looked me over but none took it further when faced with a kid who wouldn’t look them in the eye and would only respond in monosyllables, if at all. So I became institutionalised.

I was sent to state schools, where the teachers didn’t know what to do with me. There weren’t enough teachers to give one-to-one help where it was needed so lesson plans were all about groups and group learning. The frustrated teachers couldn’t be bothered with me and lumped me in with the intellectually-challenged kids, and so I got left behind. However, being an orphan accorded me special educational protections and the school couldn’t kick me out because I was guaranteed a state education until 18.

When I was 15, a government assessment rated my current school as inadequate at catering for special needs kids, and it was forced to recruit a specialist in the field, Mrs Fairbairn. For some reason she took a particular interest in me.

“Michael, would you mind if I gave you some individual testing?” she asked during a weekly one-to-one session.

I grunted my agreement, despite fearing the worst when she found out how far behind I was. Despite my reservations, the tests weren’t related to the curriculum: they were like little puzzles. Although I found them challenging, they were quite enjoyable.

At our next weekly session, Mrs Fairbairn said, “Michael, I’ve got your test results here. Has anyone ever mentioned Asperger’s Syndrome to you?”

“No.” That had me worried. Was it contagious? Would I have to be isolated?

“Despite your school results, you’re actually very intelligent. At the moment you’re not coping very well, but I think you have it within you to be high-functioning and lead a very fulfilling independent life.”

I hadn’t thought about what sort of life I’d have after school. But what Mrs Fairbairn said sounded attractive.

“Michael, I can squeeze enough out of my budget to give you some intensive coaching, more than these one hour sessions. You’ll never be truly empathic but I can coach you on how to fake it. You’ll never work well with others but I can coach you on learning for yourself from textbooks, so at least you’ll be able to get decent exam results. Is that something you’d like?”

“Yes”.

“Good. Now lesson one is to look me in the eye...”

Although I still got lumped with the intellectually-challenged kids, my results from the end of year exams completely shocked the teachers. Although I was let down by my coursework, which was largely done in groups, my overall performance put me above halfway in class rankings in most subjects.

The other lasting change instituted by Mrs Fairbairn was to introduce me to the local squash club, where she served as a committee member. Initially I was reluctant, but Mrs Fairbairn stressed the importance of exercising throughout my life. The school concentrated on team sports and once they realised I was never going to actively participate, they had given up on me and let me spend the time reading.

My first session on a squash court was a nightmare. I was uncoordinated at the best of times but how the hell are you supposed to hit a ball that doesn’t bounce properly! Mrs Fairbairn managed to rustle up some cash from somewhere for me, possibly from her own pocket, and I was signed up for weekly lessons for a whole school term. By the end of the term I was running around on court and mostly hitting the ball. When Mrs Fairbairn asked whether I wanted to continue I said yes, if only to make her happy. She somehow put the screws on the orphanage and they were persuaded to pay for club membership. At this point I wasn’t going to ring up complete strangers and ask for games so I was entered into the bottom tier of the club’s mini leagues. My record at the end of the first period was played eight, lost eight.

By the end of the next school year, my exam results were more than adequate for me to qualify for two more years of schooling by right, rather than having to rely on orphan privilege.

“Michael, your final year exam results are likely to qualify you for a university place, if that interests you,” said Mrs Fairbairn. “As an orphan, the government would cover your expenses. You’d have to leave the orphanage and move into university accommodation, but you’d have had to leave anyway.”

I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do with my life so three more years of education sounded good. And being an orphan with Asperger’s greased the diversity wheels for me. So my application was accepted more readily than most. And that’s when the relatively good times came to a crashing end.

At university, I was an outcast from the very beginning, my few pitiful attempts at socialising with my peers revealing that I had an exceedingly low alcohol tolerance as well as being unable to manage more than superficial interactions. I discovered my chosen subject didn’t actually interest me and I had no-one to take Mrs Fairbairn’s support role. The Student Counsellors were useless, as were my appointed tutors. I somehow scraped a degree but I suspected that with the orphan and Asperger’s cards, I would have been given a degree just for being able to spell my name. My only solace was that I had been able to continue playing squash because the university also had a mini-league system, and towards the end I had even secured a couple of promotions to higher tiers.

My last benefit from the care system was to be set up in a bedsit while I tried to find a job. One of the bits of my degree course that had interested me and in which I had done pretty well at was a computing module. I submitted applications to a number of computer software companies and CornerStone Systems offered me an interview. The interviewer, Rolf Magnusson, worked for CornerStone’s Human Resources Department. I got off to a good start, looking Mr Magnusson in the eye, shaking his hand and making small talk about the weather. Then I crashed and burned, reverting to my default monosyllabic self. Despite seeing the interview going nowhere, Mr Magnusson nevertheless gave me a computer programming aptitude test. Afterwards, he said that he would mark the test then get in touch with me. The test had calmed me down enough to thank the Mr Magnusson for his time and shake his hand again before I left. I suspected that hell would have to freeze over before they gave me a job.

A week later I got a letter from CornerStone Systems in the post. To my surprise they wanted me back for a second interview. I was tempted to throw the letter away, but since my finances were limited and I didn’t have much else to do, I confirmed the appointment.

Rolf Magnusson was there again but this time he was accompanied by Christina Altropolina, who he introduced as a Project Manager. Mr Magnusson was blunt, admitting I hadn’t interviewed well. Then Ms Altropolina said I had done very well on the aptitude test, and the single-minded focus that came with my Asperger’s could be utilised to the company’s advantage. They offered me a six-month trial, and slid a folded piece of paper across the desk to me that revealed what my salary would be during my trial period. For someone who grew up in an orphanage, it seemed like striking the jackpot. The only drawback was that the job was based in another town. They’d put me up in a B&B during the week until the end of my trial then, if I was taken on permanently, they’d pay for my relocation and they’d help me to find somewhere to live. Thus started my employment with CornerStone.

After being inducted into the company and its software packages, I was started on second line support, interspersed with programming courses in the languages their software was written in. I was handed problems passed on by first line support when they couldn’t be resolved by telling users to ‘read the fucking manual’ or switch something off and on. I was effectively a filter for third line support, trying to recreate the problems before handing them on.

My colleagues had been warned about my Asperger’s and they were good about looking out for me and offering help when I needed it, and I needed a lot of help during the first few weeks. After my programming courses, I was encouraged to look at the underlying computer code in an attempt to locate the source of each problem myself.

I had no social life to speak of, apart from joining a local squash club, which operated a ladder system rather than mini-leagues, so I took to taking manuals back to the B&B and reading them in the evenings.

About five months in, I was seconded to a development team headed by Ms Altropolina and given a small module to code. I completed it and alpha-tested it just in time for my six-month review. Rolf Magnusson and Christina Altropolina had no complaints about my performance and I became a permanent employee, accompanied by a juicy pay rise.

The company found me some affordable one bedroom flats to look at and, since they all had the basic necessities, I chose one that was very close to the CornerStone office. It also had the advantage of being close to the squash club. The company handled my relocation and it went smoothly. My reward was a permanent position on a development team under Ms Altropolina.

Over the next couple of years I continued to gain in experience and confidence at my job but the next really big development in my life came via the squash club.

I was playing a woman named Monica, two places below me in the ladder, who had called me out of the blue to challenge me. She was about my age and very pretty but she was also very fit. We had a very close match that swung first one way then another, but eventually she triumphed. She convinced me to meet her in the bar after showering and changing, to buy her a drink as her reward.

As we sat opposite each other across a bar table, she noted I was drinking fruit juice while she had a glass of red wine.

“Don’t you drink alcohol?” Monica asked.

“No. I have a low tolerance for it.”

“Where do you work?”

“CornerStone Systems. I’m a Software Engineer. What do you do?”

I was proud I’d managed to ask a question in a social situation.

“I’m a working girl,” Monica replied.

She obviously noticed my puzzled expression because she whispered, “You know, a prostitute. Some of my best clients work at CornerStone.”

I vaguely knew what a prostitute was but to discover that Monica was one shocked me to the core: she seemed so normal.

“I bet you’ve never been with a prostitute, have you!” whispered Monica, watching my expression closely. Then, “Oh my God, you’ve never been with a woman!”

“I’ve got Asperger’s,” I admitted. “I don’t socialise and form relationships like a normal person.”

“That’s sad,” said Monica. “And you seem like such a nice guy.” Then she thought for a second. “The agency that handles clients for me frowns on giving away freebies, not that there’s any danger of it sending leg-breakers round since the agency is run by a little old lady who’s like everyone’s favourite grandmother. But I am allowed a personal life and our squash match was sort of like a date, wasn’t it! So buy me a three course meal at the restaurant round the corner and I’ll give you a hands-on crash course on sex with a woman.”