by Joan Ellis
‘What are we doing here, Peter?’
‘Tweaking my script. Mike wants it first thing,’ he replies smoothly, paying the driver.
‘My script,’ I protest stumbling onto the pavement. ‘My script, not your script.’
Confused, I watch as the taxi’s tail lights disappear onto Old Compton Street. After several attempts to fit the key into the lock, Peter manages to open the door. The reception is dark and quiet, I feel like we’re about to rob a bank. A pair of tights over my face would do wonders for my appearance right now. Like a trusting puppy about to be flung into a sack and drowned, I trot behind Peter, following him across reception, up the stairs and into his office. He flicks on the light and opens the fridge. He brings out a bottle of Chablis before disappearing out of the door, presumably to locate some glasses.
I lie back on his leather sofa and close my eyes. Ah, that feels good. Now, not so good.
‘Peter! Peter! I’m going to be ...’
Just as he appears, I vomit in his waste paper basket. Fashioned from a lattice of wicker-work it is not up to the job.
‘You want me. You want… my carpet! Oh my God!’ exclaims Peter retreating down the corridor.
‘Peter,’ I wail.
For once, I need Peter. I really do. Desperate for something to wipe my mouth, I stagger across to his desk and open his drawer. I thrust my hand inside and feel about. I find something soft and silky. A pair of knickers. Very small, very expensive silk knickers. I hear footsteps.
‘Hello, Ella,’ says Darren watching me from the doorway.
Navigating around the mess on the carpet and covering his nose with his arm, he helps me up.
‘Sorry,’ I blub.
I never play the ‘helpless-little-me’ card. It works for some girls in this business but I’m not pretty enough to get away with it.
‘I’ll call you a taxi. Let’s get you downstairs,’ he says picking up the receiver and dialling. ‘You live near Highgate, yeah?’
He gives the person on the other end of the phone, the agency’s address.
‘They’ll be here in five minutes,’ he tells me. ‘Were you with Peter?’ I nod vigorously.
‘Lucky I was working late and turned up when I did. You’re not going to be sick again, are you?’
Darren’s not as bad as I thought. When the cab pulls up, I fall onto the seat where I slump against his shoulder.
‘Don’t throw up on me,’ he says.
Chapter eight
Say something effective
I am awake. Alive. In my own bed. With someone next to me. No! We are lying back to back. The slightest movement and I can touch them if I want to. Which I don’t. Who is it? Who did I sleep with? Because that’s all I would’ve done. Is it Mike? No, I remember waving him off outside the restaurant. Thank goodness. Please don’t let it be Peter. Even Mike would be preferable, at a push. Well, it would have to be more of a shove.
I struggle to piece together what happened after the meal. Peter and I went back to the agency. Big mistake. Should never have done that. I threw up. And he left me. Nice. How did I get back here? I have a vague memory of lolling in the back of a cab as it took the Archway roundabout at full tilt. The taxi driver? Perhaps, I didn’t have the fare and I really am no better than the girls in Soho who wear too much make-up and too few clothes, smiling hollowly at men for money. I want to crawl away, not just from the person lying next to me but from the person I have become.
This is my bedroom. I recognise the Designer Guild wallpaper even if I don’t recognise the feel of the man next to me. The embarrassment is paralysing. Unwanted images flicker across my brain. Gagging on the pavement, bringing up a pellet of bread. Shouting at the client. Throwing up in Peter’s bin.
I turn over slowly so as not to disturb my sleeping partner. I have to see them before they see me. But, I am naked so they have already had an eyeful. Peeping beneath the covers, I am greeted by a long, muscular back. Now my eyes shoot down his spine, looking for boxer shorts or Y- fronts; I’m not fussy just so long as they’re doing their job.
Naked buttocks, like two hard boiled eggs, side by side. I hold the covers down so I can’t see the body, just the back of a head on my pillow. My Egyptian cotton pillow. My bed that up until last night, only I have slept in.
‘Don’t be sick on me,’ Darren says, turning over and edging away.
‘Darren, you...’
He shifts his weight momentarily and the soles of his feet rub against my legs. My unshaven legs. The shame. I have standards. No, apparently I don’t, I am in bed with Darren.
‘You undressed me?’ I ask.
‘You undressed me,’ he says cockily.
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Not what you said last night,’ he leers. ‘I rescued you from Peter Pervert. You were very grateful.’
‘We didn’t...?’
He replies by lifting the duvet and inviting me to look inside the tent of shame. I pull the sheet around me. Too late for modesty, I have slept with Darren, the man who rejoices in putting his hands in his trouser pockets, lifting them up and thrusting himself at me, asking,
‘What d’you reckon to that then, Ella?’
Now his bare, over-pumped, over-excited body is soiling my beautiful bed-linen, new white pillow-cases with pink rose buds hand-embroidered on each corner.
‘No matter how drunk I was, I would never sleep with you,’ I tell him.
If I say it out loud, it must be true. ‘Get out, Darren.’
He swings his legs over the side of the bed and stands up, facing me, challenging me to look at him. I turn away as he bends down, pick his boxer shorts off the floor and puts them on. Thank heavens for small mercies. Very small. I hear him pull on his jeans and zip up his flies.
‘You were in a right state last night,’ he says.
He is balancing on one leg, putting on a sock.
‘What do you use for contraception, personality?’ I quip quoting a put- down I had once heard a comedian use to great effect on a rowdy heckler.
‘You weren’t worth the cab fare,’ he sneers buttoning up his shirt. ‘And look at the size of those thighs.’
Darren has found my Achilles Heel. Well, my fat thighs. He sits on the bed and puts on his shoes. I kick him hard. He gets up and brushes his hair, using the brush on my dressing table.
‘Thanks for having me,’ he says, smirking at me in the mirror. That old joke. It’s not even funny let alone true.
‘See you at work. Better not arrive together or people will get the wrong idea. Or the right one,’ he winks.
I hear him go to the toilet. He leaves the door open so am forced to listen to him having a wee. As soon as I hear the front door close behind him, I get up. The bed stinks of his musky after-shave. I start to rip off the sheets. Last night’s clothes are scattered like breadcrumbs around the place. I follow the trail into the bathroom and I slip on my bra. Grabbing hold of the sink, I just manage to save myself.
Standing in the shower, I rejoice as the spiky jets of water hit my flesh, washing Darren away. There he goes, scum spiralling down the plughole.
When I arrive at work, Wally’s waiting for me.
‘Morning, young ‘un. You alright?’
‘Been better. Fancy a cuppa?’
He nods and we walk towards the kitchen where I busy myself with the reassuringly mundane routine of making tea. I manage to put the bags in the mugs and boil the kettle but my hand begins to shake as I attempt to pour the water, it goes over the side, narrowly missing Wally’s arm.
‘Here, let me,’ he says, gently taking the kettle with one hand and wiping up the pool of water with the other.
He hands me my drink.
‘Careful, it’s hot.’
He watches me as I take a sip and replace it on the counter.
‘Here, Wally, I’ve got something for you,’ I open the cupboard and bring out a tin of assorted chocolate biscuits, his favourite.
‘Thanks very much,’ he sa
ys, opening the lid.
His eyes light up when he sees the glossy selection of milk, plain and white chocolate cookies.
‘Want one?’ he says thrusting the tin at me.
‘No, they’re yours.’
He looks as happy as if I’d given him a gold watch. ‘Tell you what, I’ll leave ‘em ‘ere and we can share ‘em with our tea of a morning.’
‘Yeah, I’d like that.’
He chats away, munching through an entire stack of chocolate chip cookies. He dips a Bourbon in his tea and tells me how his wife is always on a diet and only buys rabbit food. With expert-timing, he lifts out the biscuit and puts the soggy mess in his mouth.
‘Lovely,’ he says smiling and licking his fingers. ‘Right, gotta love you and leave you. The wife and me are going to the park to feed the ducks.’
Again, I see the joy in his face, like he’s about to swim with dolphins.
He replaces the lid and hides the tin in one of the cupboards, behind a pile of crockery.
‘Have a good day, Wally. See you tomorrow.’
He pops the biscuit he had secreted in the palm of his hand into his mouth and scampers off.
There’s no-one in the creative department when I arrive, just a huge white, pink and mauve floral arrangement where Peter’s secretary should be. Seems like a fair swop, a bunch of flowers could easily do her job. With her gone, we would save a fortune on washing powder.
‘You look awful,’ she tells me as she darts out from behind an orchid. Stating the obvious is her one talent, apart from knowing how to programme the company washing machine.
‘Thanks. Who are the flowers from?’ I ask. She blushes and looks away.
‘Peter gave them to me,’ she says rearranging them. I raise an eyebrow.
‘Oh, they’re a ‘thank-you’ for all my hard work on the High-Pro presentation,’ she tells me by way of explanation.
‘Your hard work?’ I ask incredulously. ‘You mean making the coffee?’
Twisting the vase from side to side, she tries to align the blossoms next
to her face as she pouts at her reflection in the mirror. I check my office to see what token of appreciation Peter has given me. Not so much as a dandelion.
‘He wants to see you,’ she tells me. ‘He’ll be back soon; just popped down to the studio to see Darren.’
No doubt Darren is enjoying telling Peter about last night in lurid detail. If the news has reached the creative floor, Peter’s secretary will be the first to know. I search her face. She looks clueless. No change there.
We both turn when the lift doors open. Peter emerges like a beast exiting the gateway to hell. I fantasise about him being sucked back in to face the roaring flames of the underworld.
‘You’re fired,’ he mouths at me as he draws his index finger across his throat. ‘It’s never okay to talk to a client the way you did and certainly not a million pound client. I’ve been on the phone to him all morning trying to persuade him not to resign the account. Alienating clients is the only thing you’re good at.’
He strides into his office and I scuttle behind him like a beetle. Unwise, given he wants to crush me under his Gucci loafers. He sits down and toys with a long white envelope, flipping it adeptly through his fingers.
‘Here’s your P45 and a cheque. I’ve paid you ’til the end of the month - very generous under the circumstances.’
It’s the 29th today so hardly magnanimous.
He drops the envelope onto his desk, swivels 180 degrees in his chair and stares out of the window.
‘Please, Peter...’ I implore, my voice shaking. ‘This isn’t fair. You wouldn’t even have the client if it wasn’t for me.’
He spins around to face me.
‘Close the door on your way out,’ he says trying to hand me the envelope.
‘I’m not taking it. You can’t do this, Peter.’
‘I think you’ll find I can. You were abusive to a client.’
‘This is because I ran out on you last night, isn’t it? You can’t fire me for that.’
‘You still here?’ he asks yawning like a dog in my face.
I pick up the envelope and run downstairs to the studio. Darren is sitting with his feet on the desk, flicking through a body-building magazine,
looking at a picture of a triangular-shaped man flexing his huge biceps and showing off his tiny tackle. He must be Darren’s role model. His team of drawing-board monkeys are drinking coffee, sketching and wielding scalpels like butter-knives as they slice through paper with surgeon-like precision. Given they are permanently befuddled on a heady mix of spray glue and marker pens, it’s a wonder the place doesn’t look like the cutting room floor of Sweeny Todd’s.
‘Get much sleep after I left?’ asks Darren, licking his finger and turning the page.
‘What have you been telling Peter?’
‘For once, little Miss Know-It-All is the last to know,’ he says closing the magazine and laying it down on his desk. ‘Peter was just briefing us on a job. How’s it coming along, boys?’
‘Can’t fit her legs on the page,’ guffaws one of the lads holding up a grotesque caricature of me: big head, small boobs and fat thighs.
‘Like your leaving card?’ he asks.
Everyone laughs. I want to run to the loo to tell mum. But she is at home, too old to be hanging around outside advertising agency toilets listening to my sob stories. I slowly go back upstairs to my office.
‘Peter’s says you can’t go in there ...’ says his secretary without looking up.
I run in, slam the door behind me and pick up the phone. It’s a long shot but perhaps there’s a chance we can salvage something.
‘Steve, hi, it’s Ella. Fancy drowning your sorrows at The Fox this lunch- time?’
I do my best not to let him catch the worry in my voice.
‘Oh it’s you,’ he slurs.
It sounds like he’s already had a skinful.
‘You told me Richards hated your idea and wasn’t going to present it. You said he had come up with some crap of his own. Then, you call me, with only an hour to go before my meeting with the client, to say Peter is presenting your idea after all, leaving me with nothing to show the client. You stitched me up so CBA would definitely win. I could probably sue you for this.’
‘No,’ I protest. ‘Peter stabbed me in the back. He’s taken the credit for my idea.’
‘Whoosh! Did you hear that, Ella? That flushing noise was my job disappearing down the pan.’
He slams the phone down before I can explain. I didn’t plan any of this. I’m not that smart. I’ve been shafted. Not that he cares. Too busy clinging on to the rim of the toilet bowl of life.
Thankfully, I can’t imagine his case would stand up in court but I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore, except I have screwed up big time. My only consolation is never having been screwed by Peter. Or Darren.
I haul the cardboard box of work out from under my desk, toss in a couple of marker pens, three unused A4 pads, a stapler and a hole- punch. Not because I need them but because they are some compensation for Peter’s skulduggery. Four pounds fifty worth. That’ll teach them. I take my certificates off the wall, Golden Arrows, Euro Best, Campaign Press and Design and Art Direction, the Oscars of the advertising world. Pretentious, but true. Usually, they boost my confidence but today they mock me from inside their silver frames. Hopefully, they still mean something and will continue to open doors. This is it, my career in a cardboard box. But as long as Mum and I aren’t living in one, I am still winning.
I can’t tell her. She would only worry. With any luck I can get another job quickly and we’ll be fine. Pigs might fly. This pig will soar. Well, once I’ve shifted a few pounds.
I walk past Peter’s office. He’s not there. Then I hear the familiar roar of his Porsche pulling away. When he took delivery of his new company car he insisted it was parked right outside the front door where everyone could admire it. Big, bold and black, it screamed succe
ss. He was mid- way through firing Steve Winter and had just delivered the well-worn line, ‘This isn’t me. It’s you. I’m going to have to let you go,’ when he spotted a young traffic warden slapping a ticket under the windscreen wipers. He opened the window and hurled an eye-watering volley of abuse at her.