The lift door slides open onto the thirtieth floor, a vast open-plan area, its high smoked-glass windows looking out across the Thames and Lambeth. When Emma had first come to London she had written hopeful, ill-informed letters to publishers and imagined the envelopes being sliced open with ivory paper knives in cluttered, shabby Georgian houses by ageing secretaries in half-moon glasses. But this is sleek and light and youthful, the very model of the modern media workplace. The only thing that reassures her are the stacks of books that litter the floor and tables, teetering piles of the things dumped seemingly at random. Stephanie strides and Emma follows and around the office faces pop up from behind walls of books and peer at the new arrival as she struggles to remove her jacket and walk at the same time.
‘Now, I can’t guarantee that she’ll have read it all, or read it at all in fact, but she’s asked to see you, which is great, Em, really great.’
‘I appreciate this so much, Stephanie.’
‘Trust me, Em, the writing’s really good. If it wasn’t I wouldn’t have given it to her. It’s not in my interest to give her rubbish to read.’
It was a school story, a romance really, for older kids, set in a comp in Leeds. A sort of real-life, gritty Mallory Towers, based around a school production of Oliver! and told from the point of view of Julie Criscoll, the mouthy, irresponsible girl playing the Artful Dodger. There were illustrations too, scratchy doodles and caricatures and sarcastic speech bubbles like you might find in a teenage girl’s diary, all jumbled in with the text.
She had sent out the first twenty thousand words and waited patiently until she had received a rejection letter from every single publisher; a complete set. Not for us, sorry not to be more helpful, hope you have better luck elsewhere they said, and the only encouraging thing about all those rejections was their vagueness; clearly the manuscript wasn’t getting read much, just declined with a standard letter. Of all the things she had written and abandoned, this was the first which, after reading, she hadn’t wanted to hurl across the room. She knew it was good. Clearly she would have to resort to nepotism.
Despite various influential contacts from college, she had taken a private vow never to resort to asking favours; tugging at the elbow of her more successful contemporaries was too much like asking a friend for money. But she had filled a loose-leaf binder with rejection letters now, and as her mother was fond of reminding her, she wasn’t getting any younger. One lunch break, she had found a quiet classroom, taken a deep breath and made a phone-call to Stephanie Shaw. It was the first time they had spoken in three years, but at least they actually liked each other and after some pleasant catching up, she came out with it: Would she read something? This thing I’ve written. Some chapters and an outline for a silly book for teenagers. It’s about a school musical.
And now here she is, actually meeting a publisher, a real-life publisher. She feels shaky from too much coffee, sick with anxiety, her febrile state not helped by the fact that she has been forced to bunk off school herself. Today is a vital staff meeting, the last before the holidays, and like an errant pupil she had woken that morning, held her nose and phoned the secretary, croaking something about gastric flu. The secretary’s disbelief was audible down the phone-line. She will be in trouble with Mr Godalming too. Phil will be furious.
No time to worry about that now because they are at the corner office, a glass cube of prime commercial space in which she can see a reedy female figure with her back to Emma, and beyond that a startling panorama from St Paul’s down to Parliament.
Stephanie indicates a low chair by the door.
‘So. Wait there. Come and see me afterwards. Tell me how it went. And remember – don’t be scared . . .’
‘Did they give a reason? For dumping me?’
‘Not really.’
‘Come on, Aaron, just tell me.’
‘Well, the exact phrase was that, well, the exact phrase was that you were just a little bit 1989.’
‘Wow. Wow. Right, okay. Okay, well – fuck ’em, right?’
‘Exactly, that’s what I said.’
‘Did you?’
‘I told them I wasn’t best pleased.’
‘Okay, well what else is coming up?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing?’
‘There’s this thing where they have robots fighting and you have to sort of introduce the robots . . .’
‘Why do the robots fight?’
‘Who can say? It’s in their nature, I suppose. They’re aggressive robots.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Okay. Car show on Men and Motors?’
‘What, satellite?’
‘Satellite and cable’s the future, Dex.’
‘But what about terrestrial?’
‘It’s just a little quiet out there.’
‘It’s not quiet for Suki Meadows, it’s not quiet for Toby Moray. I can’t walk past a television without seeing Toby-bloody-Moray.’
‘That’s TV, Dex, it’s faddy. He’s just a fad. You were the fad, now he’s the fad.’
‘I was a fad?’
‘You’re not a fad. I just mean you’re bound to have ups and downs, that’s all. I think you need to think about a change of direction. We need to change people’s perception of you. Your reputation.’
‘Hang on – I have a reputation?’
Emma sits in the low leather chair and waits and waits, watching the office at work, feeling a slightly shameful envy of this corporate world and the smart-ish, young-ish professionals who occupy it. Water Cooler envy, that’s what it is. There’s nothing special or distinctive about this office, but compared to Cromwell Road Comp, it’s positively futuristic; a sharp contrast to her staffroom with its tannin-stained mugs, torn furniture and surly rotas, its general air of grouchiness and complaint and dissatisfaction. And of course the kids are great, some of them, some of the time, but the confrontations these days seem more frequent and more alarming. For the first time she has been told to ‘talk to the hand’, a new attitude that she finds hard to reason with. Or perhaps she’s just losing her knack, her motivation, her energy. The situation with her headmaster certainly isn’t helping.
What if life had taken a different route? What if she had persevered with those letters to publishers when she was twenty-two? Might it have been Emma, instead of Stephanie Shaw, eating Pret A Manger sandwiches in a pencil skirt? For some time now she has had a conviction that life is about to change if only because it must, and perhaps this is it, perhaps this meeting is the new start. Her stomach churns once more in anticipation as the PA puts down her phone and approaches. Marsha will see her now. Emma stands, smoothes down her skirt because she has seen people do it on television, and enters the glass box.
Marsha – Miss Francomb? – is tall and imposing, with aqualine features that give her an intimidating Woolfish quality. In her early forties, her grey hair cropped and brushed forward Soviet-style, her voice husky and commanding, she stands and offers her hand.
‘Ah you must be my twelve-thirty.’
Emma squeaks a reply, yes, that’s right twelve-thirty, though technically it was meant to be twelve-fifteen.
‘Setzen Sie, bitte hin,’ says Marsha, unaccountably. German? Why German? Oh well, best play along.
‘Danke,’ Emma squeaks again, looks around, settles on the sofa, and takes in the room: trophies on shelves, framed book covers, souvenirs of an illustrious career. Emma has the overwhelming feeling that she shouldn’t be here, doesn’t belong, is wasting this redoubtable woman’s time; she publishes books, real books that people buy and read. Certainly Marsha isn’t making it easy for her. A silence hangs in the air as she lowers the venetian blinds then adjusts them so that the exterior office is obscured. They sit in the half-light, and Emma has the sudden feeling that she is about to be interrogated.
‘So sorry to have kept you waiting, it’s unbelievably busy, I’m afraid. I’m only just able to fit you in. I don’t want to rush this. With som
ething like this it’s so important to make the right decision, don’t you think?’
‘It’s vital. Absolutely.’
‘Tell me how long have you been working with children?’
‘Um, let me see, ’93 – about five years.’
Marsha leans forward, impassioned. ‘And do you love it?’
‘I do. Most of the time, anyway.’ Emma feels as if she’s being a little stiff, a little formal. ‘When they’re not giving me a hard time.’
‘The children give you a hard time?’
‘They can be little bastards sometimes, if I’m honest.’
‘Really?’
‘You know. Cheeky, disruptive.’
Marsha bridles, and sits back in her chair. ‘So what do you do, for discipline?’
‘Oh, the usual, throw chairs at them! Not really! Just the usual stuff, send them out the room, that kind of thing.’
‘I see. I see.’ Marsha says no more, but emanates deep disapproval. Her eyes return to the papers on the desk, and Emma wonders when they’re going to actually start talking about the work.
‘Well,’ says Marsha, ‘I have to say, your English is much better than I expected.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I mean, you’re fluent. It’s like you’ve been in England all your life.’
‘Well . . . I have.’
Marsha looks irritated. ‘Not according to your CV.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Your CV says that you’re German!’
What can Emma do to make amends? Perhaps she should pretend to be German? No good. She can’t speak German. ‘No, I’m definitely English.’ And what CV? She didn’t send a CV.
Marsha is shaking her head. ‘I’m sorry, we seem to be talking at cross-purposes. You are my twelve-thirty, aren’t you?’
‘Yes! I think so. Am I?’
‘The nanny? You are here for the job of nanny?’
‘I have a reputation?’
‘A little bit. In the industry.’
‘As what?’
‘Just a bit . . . unreliable, that’s all.’
‘Unreliable?’
‘Unprofessional.’
‘In what way?’
‘In a drunk way. In an off-your-face-on-camera kind of way.’
‘Hey, I have never been—’
‘—and arrogant. People think you’re arrogant.’
‘Arrogant? I’m confident, not arrogant.’
‘Hey I’m just telling you what people say, Dex.’
‘“People”! Who are these “people”?’
‘People you’ve worked with—’
‘Really? Good God—’
‘I’m just saying, if you feel you’ve got a problem—’
‘Which I haven’t.’
‘—now might be the time to address it.’
‘I haven’t though.’
‘Well then we’re fine. In the meantime, I think you might also want to watch what you’re spending. For a couple of months at least.’
‘Emma, I am so sorry . . .’
She walks towards the lifts, hot-eyed and embarrassed, Marsha walking close behind, Stephanie following behind her. Heads pop up from cubicles as they pass in procession. That’ll teach her, they must think, for getting big ideas.
‘I’m so sorry about wasting your time,’ says Marsha, ingratiatingly. ‘Someone was meant to call and cancel—’
‘S’alright, not your fault—’ Emma mumbles.
‘Needless to say my assistant and I will be having words. Are you sure you didn’t get the message? I hate to cancel meetings, but I simply hadn’t got round to reading the material. I’d give it a quick read now, but poor old Helga is waiting in the boardroom apparently—’
‘I quite understand.’
‘Stephanie here assures me that you’re extremely talented. I’m so looking forward to reading your work . . .’
Arriving at the lifts, Emma jabs the call button. ‘Yes, well . . .’
‘At least, if anything you’ll have an amusing story.’
An amusing story? She jabs the call button as if poking an eye. She doesn’t want an amusing story, she wants change, a break, not anecdotes. Her life has been stuffed with anecdotes, an endless string of the bastards, now she wants something to go right for once. She wants success, or at least the hope of it.
‘I’m afraid next week is no good, then I’m on holiday, so it may be some time. But before the summer’s out, I promise.’
Before the summer’s out? Month after month slipping by with nothing changing. She jabs once more at the lift button and says nothing, a surly teenager, making them suffer. They wait. Marsha, seemingly unflustered, examines her with sharp blue eyes. ‘Tell me, Emma, what are you doing at the moment?’
‘I teach English. A secondary school in Leytonstone.’
‘That must be very demanding. When do you find the time to actually write?’
‘At night. Weekends. Early mornings sometimes.’
Marsha narrows her eyes. ‘You must be very passionate about it.’
‘It’s the only thing I really want to do now.’ Emma surprises herself, not just at how earnest she must sound but also with the realisation that the remark is true. The lift opens behind her, and she glances over her shoulder, almost wishing now that she could stay.
Marsha is holding out her hand. ‘Well, goodbye, Miss Morley. I look forward to talking to you further.’
Emma takes hold of her long fingers. ‘And I hope you find your nanny.’
‘I hope so too. The last one was a complete psychopath. I don’t suppose you want the job anyway, do you? I imagine you’d be rather good.’ Marsha smiles, and Emma smiles back, and behind Marsha, Stephanie bites her bottom lip, mouths sorry-sorry-sorry and mimes a little phone. ‘Call me!’
The lift doors close and Emma slumps against the wall as the lift plummets thirty floors and she feels the excitement in her stomach curdle into sour disappointment. At three a.m. that morning, unable to sleep, she had fantasised an impromptu lunch with her new editor. She had pictured herself drinking crisp white wine in the Oxo Tower, beguiling her companion with engaging stories of school life, and now here she is, spat out onto the South Bank in less than twenty-five minutes.
In May she had celebrated the election result here, but there’s none of that euphoria now. Having declared herself suffering from gastric flu, she can’t even go to the staff meeting. She feels another argument brewing there too, recriminations, sly remarks. To clear her head she decides to go for a walk, and heads off in the direction of Tower Bridge.
But even the Thames fails to lift her spirits. This stretch of the South Bank is in the process of renovation, a mess of scaffolding and tarpaulin, Bankside Power Station looming derelict and oppressive on this midsummer day. She is hungry, but there’s nowhere to eat, no-one to eat with. Her phone rings, and she scrabbles for it in her bag, keen to vent some of her frustration and realising only too late who will be calling.
‘So – gastric flu is it?’ says the headmaster.
She sighs. ‘That’s right.’
‘In bed with it, are you? Because it doesn’t sound like you’re in bed. It sounds to me like you’re out enjoying the sun.’
‘Phil, please – don’t give me a hard time.’
‘Oh, no, Miss Morley, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t end our relationship and then expect some kind of special dispensation—’ It’s the voice he has used for months now, officious, sing-song and spiteful and she feels a fresh burst of anger at the traps she lays for herself. ‘If you want it to be purely professional, then we have to keep it purely professional! So! If you don’t mind, could you tell me why you’re not at this very import ant meeting today?’
‘Don’t do this, please, Phil? I’m not in the mood.’
‘Because I’d hate to have to make this a disciplinary issue, Emma . . .’
She takes the phone away from her ear while the headmaster drones on. Chunky and old-fashione
d now, it’s the phone he bought her as a lover’s gift so that he could ‘hear her voice whenever he needed to’. My God, they had even had phone-sex on the thing. Or he had anyway—
‘You were expressly informed that the meeting was obligatory. Term’s not over yet, you know.’
—and for one moment she contemplates how pleasant it would feel to hurl the wretched thing into the Thames, watch the phone hit the water like half a brick. But she would have to remove the SIM card first, which would deaden the symbolism somewhat, and such dramatic gestures are for films and TV. Besides, she can’t afford to buy another phone.
Not now that she has decided to resign.
‘Phil?’
‘Let’s stick to Mr Godalming, shall we?’
‘Okay – Mr Godalming?’
‘Yes, Miss Morley?’
‘I resign.’
He laughs, that maddening fake laugh of his. She can see him now, shaking his head slowly. ‘Emma, you can’t resign.’
‘I can and I have and here’s something else. Mr Godalming?’
‘Emma?’
The obscenity forms on her lips, but she can’t quite bring herself to say it. Instead she mouths the words with relish, hangs up, drops the phone into her bag and, dizzy with elation and fear of the future, she keeps on walking east along the River Thames.
‘So, sorry I can’t take you for lunch, I’m meeting another client . . .’
‘Okay. Thanks, Aaron.’
‘Maybe next time, Dexy. What’s up? You seem downhearted, mate.’
‘No, nothing. I’m just a little concerned, that’s all.’
‘What about?’
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