Payday

by Celia Walden

  ‘You look fab,’ Lydia grinned. ‘I’m just glad you came.’

  ‘You can’t believe I came.’

  ‘That too.’ She shook her head. ‘I know I keep saying this but, Alex, I’m so sorry – I still can’t get my head around it.’

  ‘You and me both. But Lyds, you’ve kept it to yourself, haven’t you? Jamie’s agreed to keep it quiet, you know, tell everyone it was my decision. Which I need people to think if I’m going to get another job.’

  ‘Well that was big of him. Dickhead. I wouldn’t have blamed you for sitting this one out.’

  Alex shrugged. ‘I told Joyce I’d be here.’

  Which was true. But not why she’d gone to the trouble of weaning Katie onto the bottle just for tonight, booked her daughter her first sitter, spent money she didn’t have on a hairstyle that would give her the confidence she’d need, and made the trip from Acton to Ravenscourt Park. No, as fond as she was of Joyce, tonight was about something more important: cornering Jamie, and getting him to make good on his promise.

  ‘You still haven’t told me what happened. One minute you’re all smiles and off upstairs with little Katie, the next you’re coming down that escalator in a right state telling me he –’ Lydia didn’t bother lowering her voice ‘– telling me he fucking fired you!’

  Alex winced, wishing for the nth time that she hadn’t blurted the truth out to her colleague as she’d left the office in tears a fortnight ago.

  ‘You’re firing me?’

  Jamie hadn’t liked that word, either.

  ‘I’m letting you go.’

  As Alex had tried to take in what her boss was saying, her first thought had been: this is what that hesitation over her bringing Katie into his office was about. This was why Jamie had wanted her to leave her daughter with Joyce. And while the ramifications of his words tipped into one another like dominoes in her head, she’d kept coming back to that. This was the last time she’d set foot in the office that had become a second home to her: a safe space where she knew that her efficiency, loyalty and discretion were noted and appreciated by all. There would be no more of the client meetings she loved to attend, no more falling asleep to the silent run-through of Jamie’s schedule, the following day, in her head. What would she tell people? What would they think of her? And her mother’s loan. Jesus, the loan. Without a job there was no way she’d be able to repay her by the end of August, as sworn. But Jamie hadn’t wanted to fire her in front of her baby – why? Because of the guilt. Because of the lies. Because none of what he’d said to her in his office that day was true.

  ‘You told me that file could be signed off!’

  Alex had been so taken aback by the baldness of those lies that she’d dropped her respectful tone.

  ‘No.’ A frown. The twitch of a smile, as though it were awkward, embarrassing really, that she should be questioning this. ‘You must have misremembered. And listen, if you got confused … but we’re not here to debate how this happened.’

  ‘I know how it happened!’ Having what she knew to be true so easily dismissed had made Alex feel as though she were trapped in a nightmare, impotent against some greater force that kept pushing her back. ‘I remember because I didn’t feel right about it at the time, Jamie – not without the solicitor’s checks in place. But no: “I’ll sign off on the Khalvashi file,” you said. “I’ll pop the last few documents in once we have them.”’

  ‘Alex.’

  ‘I remember querying that. I remember. And “Don’t they call it due diligence for a reason?”’ Because wasn’t that the whole point of all that international transparency stuff in the papers a while back? So that men like Levan Khalvashi – ‘import–export’ moguls who were vague about what it was they either imported or exported – had their money vetted before they poured it into the country?

  ‘Alex, I’m as gutted about this as you are. Honestly, it’s going to feel like losing my right hand. I won’t hold it against you, though. You had a lot on your plate at the time with, um, the pregnancy and so on.’ One eye had been drawn to his screen at this point, and his mouse discreetly clicked. Was Jamie checking his emails as he was firing her? ‘Clearly this was a mistake, and I can see that you feel terrible about it, but you know we’ve got to be airtight on due diligence. If it hadn’t been spotted we could all have been in the shit. And it very nearly wasn’t.’

  ‘So are you going to tell me what happened?’

  Alex poured herself another glass from the bottle in the cooler on the bar. ‘It’s an open bar until ten. Drink up.’

  ‘Fine. We don’t have to talk about it tonight. But you’re not allowed to take off as soon as Jamie gets here.’

  Again the door swung open – and Alex held her breath. But it was only a gaggle of women from marketing.

  ‘Alex! You won’t take off?’

  ‘I won’t.’

  Quite the opposite. Alex wasn’t leaving this pub until she’d had the conversation she’d been trying to have with Jamie for the past two weeks, only to be fobbed off and put off on the phone and via email by both Jamie and, still more humiliatingly, Ashley. Every time he’d either been ‘in a meeting’, ‘out at a viewing’ or, earlier that week when the excuses had clearly run out, ‘busy’.

  Still, Alex trusted Jamie to have stuck to the agreed line of her leaving BWL to ‘spend more time with the baby’. Just as she trusted that there would be ‘no mention of this “oversight” on the paperwork, which will simply state that you resigned’. But more than anything she trusted him to deliver on the job he’d promised her. ‘I’ve already bigged you up to a mate at JLL who is looking for a new PA. More than bigged you up. So it’s basically just a question of me putting you two in touch so that you can get the formalities out of the way – and sort a start date.’ Why did she trust him? Because he knew as well as Alex did that she was being scapegoated. Jamie owed her.

  ‘You remember Danielle, don’t you?’

  The girls from marketing had joined them at the bar, shrugging off their jackets and helping themselves to wine, and Alex smiled and nodded her hellos.

  ‘You came!’

  She didn’t like the surprise in Danielle’s voice – or the wide eyes.

  ‘Ye-es.’

  What she said next, Alex liked still less.

  ‘I’m really sorry about what happened.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Being let go.’ Glancing from Lydia’s wide eyes back to Alex, Danielle struggled on. ‘And when you were on maternity leave, too. But he’ll have a tough job finding anyone as good as you.’

  Conscious that the conversation wasn’t flowing as it should, Danielle moved away, leaving Alex very still, eyes downcast.

  ‘What the … ?’ Lydia squeezed her arm. ‘It wasn’t me. Alex, I swear I haven’t told a soul.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You do believe me, don’t—’

  Alex didn’t hear the rest. A burst of shouting and slow handclaps drowned it out.

  ‘He made it!’

  ‘Better late, eh mate?’

  ‘Finally!’

  Jamie had arrived.

  As the pub filled up, and the hierarchical cliques formed at the start of every office party broke up – partners and department heads falling into easy conversation with everyone from IT personnel to interns – a few more people wandered over to express their regret at Alex’s sacking. Not that they used that word. It was mostly ‘let go’, and one ‘moved on’, which made Alex feel as though she’d died. And as the extent of Jamie’s treachery became clear, she felt her anger raise her up into a quasi-levitating state. Jamie hadn’t expected her to turn up any more than anyone else had; he’d assumed they’d safely seen the back of her.

  But she needed to calm down before she made her approach. All that mattered now was that JLL job. So as Jamie finally took off the stupid padded Patagonia ‘power vest’ she’d had to order in from Mr Porter after he’d seen Jeff Bezos wearing one – four hundred quid for something you’d
find for forty at Snow+Rock – as he drank, laughed and flirted away on the other side of the room, Alex tried to lose herself in small talk, showing the pictures of Katie when asked, smiling in response to the cooing, and assuring concerned faces that she actually already had ‘another job lined up’ – all the while keeping one eye on Jamie. Until she couldn’t any longer.

  ‘Back in a sec, Lyds.’

  Ignoring her colleague’s worried glance, Alex began to thread her way in a purposeful diagonal through the crowd towards Jamie.

  ‘Hello.’

  At over a foot taller than her, Alex’s former boss hadn’t seen her coming, and it took him a moment, she noticed, to rearrange his features in a convincing impression of civility.

  ‘Alex,’ Jamie blinked, sucking the beer foam from his top lip. ‘You came.’

  ‘I did.’

  Picking up on the awkward body language, the broker Jamie had been chatting to took off, leaving them hemmed in by the crowds, and uncomfortably close.

  ‘Like the hair.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Alex didn’t smile.

  ‘Listen, I was going to reply to your last email,’ Jamie assured her, his eyes roving the room for some form of escape.

  ‘And the one before, Jamie – were you going to reply to that one? What about the three messages I left on your mobile?’

  Alex was surprised by how easy it was to talk to her former boss in such a combative tone – enjoyable, even. But she had to rein it in: until she was safely ensconced at her new job, she still needed Jamie.

  ‘Listen, I get it. I know your schedule, remember? And, of course, you’ve just got rid of the best PA you’ll ever have,’ she added evenly.

  ‘Alex …’

  ‘It’s doesn’t matter. Just that I’ve still not had the paperwork through.’ She paused. ‘And I really don’t want to miss the window on that JLL job.’ She forced herself to keep eye contact. ‘I need that job, Jamie.’

  Draining the dregs of his pint, Jamie waved at someone over by the bar before turning his attention back to her.

  ‘OK, so here’s the thing, Al. I may have got my wires crossed about that. And I was going to drop you a note to explain but I’ve—’

  ‘Wait.’ Alex closed her eyes, shook her head. ‘What do you mean “wires crossed”? Your friend’s already found someone?’

  ‘Well, I thought he was on the lookout, but it turns out that …’

  Alex stared.

  ‘Was there ever a job, Jamie? Or was this about making sure I go quietly? This, and your promise – because you promised – that we’d say it was my decision to leave. And yet everyone here seems to know I was sacked.’

  He shrugged, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. And feeling like her glass was now a dead weight in her hand, Alex set it down on a nearby table.

  Someone hollered ‘Jamie, mate!’ from the other side of the room and he looked over, trying to locate the source and dropping any pretence now that the two of them were enjoying a cordial chat.

  ‘I’d better—’

  ‘No wait.’ She had no recollection of putting it there, yet her hand was on his forearm. ‘Wait.’ She swallowed, the implications slowly percolating. ‘What am I supposed to do now?’

  He pulled a face. ‘Honestly, I would have loved to help you out, Al. And of course I’ll keep an eye out for you – give you a shout if I hear of anything.’

  Another holler from across the room: ‘Jaaamie!’ Jill’s speech was about to begin.

  ‘Sorry.’ His hand was on her arm. ‘I’m needed. But something’ll turn up.’ Was that a wink? Did he actually just wink at her? ‘I’m sure of it.’

  Up by the bar, beyond Jamie’s retreating back, she saw Lydia beckoning her back: speech time. And in a daze Alex wove her way through the quietening crowds back to the other side of the pub.

  ‘How did that go?’ Lydia whispered, once Jill’s speech was over, the applause had died down and normal chatter had resumed. ‘What did you say to him?’ Then, without waiting for an answer: ‘Two o’clock. Are you seeing this?’

  They’d turned the music up and over by the fireplace, Harry, BWL’s head lawyer, had broken out into a set of staccato dance moves. People watched, amused and appalled, as the sixty-two-year-old tossed his jacket onto a nearby chair and rolled up his shirtsleeves. This was going to be taken to the next level.

  ‘Last time this happened poor old Harry had a TIA,’ came Jill’s voice from beside them at the bar. ‘You waiting to be served?’

  They were, alongside everyone else. But neither Lydia nor Alex was about to tell the company founder to wait her turn.

  ‘You go ahead.’

  There was a moment’s discomfort as the barman uncorked another rosé, and the two women waited for her to leave. But Jill didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get back to the throng, turning, instead, to lean her back against the bar.

  ‘Need to sit,’ she said to no one in particular. ‘That table taken?’

  Alex followed her eyeline to a corner table that was empty, aside from a tray of fried finger food.

  ‘Don’t think so. Wouldn’t touch those, though. They’ve been there a while.’

  Only then, as Jill took her seat with a grateful sigh, did she appear to register who Alex was.

  ‘Alex, isn’t it? How are you?’

  She had had a lot of that tonight. Mostly it came with a cock of the head.

  ‘OK.’ Aware that as a partner and the woman who was known to have mentored Jamie throughout his rise, Jill was unlikely to be sympathetic to her plight, Alex waited for Lydia to fill the silence, but her friend had excused herself ‘for another cig’, and when Jill gestured at the chair opposite, she couldn’t think about anything but the relief of being off her feet.

  How many glasses had she had now? Three, four? Enough not to feel the throbbing of her toes, crushed into the points of her pumps – until that moment. She needed to get out of here and away from that man. She needed to go home.

  ‘Better?’ Jill smiled.

  ‘Much. That was a good speech, by the way. I had no idea Joyce had been with you and your husband pretty much from the start. Must be quite a wrench.’ Then, eyes still on a dancing Harry and conscious that she needed to keep the conversation going at least for a minute or two, until she found a way to get out of there: ‘What’s a TIA?’

  ‘A tiny stroke. And I shouldn’t joke about it because honest to God the St John’s Ambulance men took him off, right there in the middle of our Christmas party a couple of years back. Which is not all that surprising: the man’s got a couple of years on me, but I’m not about to start tweaking—’

  ‘Twerking.’

  ‘I’m not about to start doing either.’

  Surprised and flattered that Jill should be happy to spend any length of time with a mere former PA, especially after the heinous crime she was supposed to have committed, Alex leaned back in her chair to get a full view of the action. Harry had been joined by a handful of people on the makeshift dance floor now, and as Jill sat and watched, eyes crinkled in amusement, Alex snuck a look at her.

  She must have been approaching sixty and was good-looking in the way that only a woman who had never been pretty could be in middle age. Her fine cashmere jumper and pleated trousers were expensive but discreet – Jaeger, or maybe Hobbs – and the short ash-blonde hair spun into an efficient, immovable style and the light down on her top lip showed a lack of interest in anything beyond what was needed to appear smart and professional. But her expression was warm and there was a stoicism in Jill’s eyes that reminded Alex of a private grief she’d heard Jamie mention: her husband – that was it.

  ‘Sorry. Didn’t think to get you a drink.’ Jill smiled, and the connection between them – so unexpected – made Alex want to cry.

  ‘Why don’t you two stay put and I’ll get us a bottle?’

  Alex looked up to see Nicole standing there. Harder and glossier than usual in an oxblood dress and high-heeled ankle boots, she
was clearly there to make up to Jill. Along with ‘gorgeous’, ‘hungry’ had been the word most commonly used to describe Nicole at BWL, and Alex remembered how many times, thinking she was the last one to leave the office, she’d caught sight of Nicole working late into the night at her desk. A tête-à-tête with Jill was clearly too good to pass up, and Alex sighed inwardly at the prospect of sitting there in silence as the two women talked shop.

  ‘We’ve never really … I’m …’

  ‘Alex,’ slurred back Nicole. She took half a step back. ‘It’s the hair,’ she said eventually. ‘You’ve cut it.’

  ‘And coloured it.’ Alex smiled, flashing back to the rare moments a ‘cool’ girl at school had deigned to talk to her.

  Nicole nodded impatiently, as though this last part were beside the point. ‘But you were … you’re no longer with us, I hear?’

  ‘Sacked,’ Alex replied. No use sugar-coating it. ‘Yeah.’

  Pulling a chair out, the special projects supervisor sat down. But instead of crossing her legs, Nicole kept them slightly parted in a way that struck Alex as self-consciously masculine.

  ‘I don’t think it’s table service,’ she murmured, as Nicole made elaborate gestures at the barman to bring them over a bottle of wine.

  ‘What?’

  Nicole was staring hard at her now and, feeling a hundred tiny judgements being made, Alex racked up a few of her own.

  Nicole’s expensive outfit was at odds with her nails, which were unpainted and bitten to the quick: a grafter’s nails. Her trademark cherry red lipstick leached her pale skin of any remnants of colour, and it had bled into the tiny twin verticals at the corners of her mouth, pushing her assumed age up to around forty. But she was still, by any measure, a beautiful woman.

  ‘I said I don’t think it’s …’

  But one of the barmen was already on his way over with a bottle in an ice bucket, and Jill chuckled into her wine.

  ‘It is when you look like Nicole.’

  Visibly pleased by the comment, Nicole began to fill their glasses. She’d predictably turned the conversation around to work when a tinkle of metal against glass silenced the room for the second time that night.