Would I Lie to You?

by Aliya Ali-Afzal

  Thirty

  Two months after Tom had lost his job at Apex and fifteen years after my last day at UBS, I was back in the City.

  I exited ‘the drain’ – the Waterloo and City Line – at Bank station and was swept along in a wave of people. The crowd shuffled up the narrow stairs of the tube station and, once released, scattered in different directions. Dry-cleaned raincoats and suits in grey, blue and the occasional moss green, mingled with dresses in muted colours. I hurried along as fast as the people in front, behind and alongside would allow. The City swallowed me up.

  Earlier that morning, as I blow-dried my hair, Tom insisted on feeding me a few mouthfuls of scrambled eggs, even though I felt as if I had lost the ability to swallow.

  ‘Remember, you’ve done this before. These guys were in nappies when you were making mega sales. You’ll be fine!’

  He grabbed my bottom. ‘I like this skirt.’

  ‘I’m so nervous,’ I said.

  ‘It’s only natural, but there’s no need. I’m very proud of you.’

  I’d been concentrating so hard on getting a job that I hadn’t once thought about what I’d do once I had it. I was expected to deliver results and I only had one month. I’d done it before, but that felt like another lifetime.

  When I called Daniella to thank her, she said, ‘You need to get those sales in quickly. Remember, I won’t get my commission either, unless you pass your probation!’

  The weekend before I started, I spent hours reading articles on PWM and researching the latest deals and investment portfolios in the market. I’d also spent every spare moment brushing up on my Russian.

  Just as important was what I would wear. The urge to go and buy clothes was like an unbearable itch. I needed the armour of new clothes for my new identity. The only saving grace was that the dress code in the City was more relaxed these days. I wouldn’t look out of place wearing the dresses that I wore on more formal social occasions, in my role as ‘corporate wife’ and ‘yummy mummy’.

  I trawled through my wardrobe, looking for anything with a designer label and a hefty price tag. I knew how much the aura of money mattered in the business of making money. The solitaires, designer watches, handbags and coveted logos were all symbols of success that City slaves collected, to proclaim their dominance. That hadn’t changed since my days in banking.

  I chose a navy Hugo Boss dress, a Gucci belt and nude, high-heeled courts. I carried my Prada bag. For once, I was grateful for the money I’d splurged from the emergency fund.

  The children were still asleep when I left. I left a note for Alex next to his cereal bowl: Have a brilliant day. Good luck with your spelling test. Love, Mum. I had a feeling he might scrunch it up or fling it to the floor. He wasn’t happy that I was going to ‘leave him’ every day.

  Sergio was in New York, so Sabine, who had dismissed my answers at the interview with a ‘Pah!’ and a shake of her glossy bob, took me up to the offices on the twenty-fifth floor. Despite a warm ‘Bonjour!’ she made no further attempt at conversation.

  We stood at the edge of an open-plan office, with around ten desks, each with six or seven people, who were already talking into phones and looking at computer screens. I walked on the hard, dark-grey carpet, past walls that were unadorned except for whiteboards covered with black and red numbers, and punctuated by occasional steel filing cabinets. There were no windows, except at the far end of the long room. I could barely make out the other buildings outside and a tiny patch of dirty sky.

  At my interview, I’d only seen the lobby, with designer furniture and floor-to-ceiling windows. The bathrooms had been luxurious, with green marble and wood-panelling. This was very different.

  We stopped at a desk in the middle of the large room.

  ‘This is your spot.’

  The team, who I’d met at my interview, sat around the desk behind their computers and stood up to shake my hand.

  ‘Hi, lovely to see you again,’ I said to Teresa, who’d been the only friendly face at the interview. She was around my age and wore a wedding ring.

  ‘Anything that you need, Faiza, let me know. Anything at all.’

  ‘So, you managed to tear yourself away from your children, then?’ said David, addressing my breasts, as he’d done the last time I met him.

  Ivan stood up, even taller than I remembered.

  ‘Privet!’ He said hello in Russia.

  ‘Sergio has his own office, like the directors, at that end.’ Sabine pointed towards a partition at the far end of the room.

  It was only when I sat down at my computer, next to Teresa, that I noticed a large whiteboard next to the desk, with the names of everyone in the team, including mine. It all came back to me: the sales board. Every team member’s progress, or lack of it, was charted there for all to see. Next to my name someone had written ‘monthly and quarterly targets’ with numbers that looked frightening in their finality.

  ‘You’ve got some catching up to do,’ said David, when he saw me looking up at the board. ‘Annie, the woman who you’re replacing, was a bit of a rocket.’

  ‘Why did she leave?’ I asked.

  No one replied for a minute, then Ivan said, ‘Personal reasons.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll do very well,’ smiled Teresa.

  ‘Here’s a list of Annie’s clients.’ Sabine passed me a thick file. ‘IT haven’t set you up yet so just find their details in here. Sergio’s afraid her clients may be starting to feel neglected. He wants you to start calling them this morning.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Where can I call them from? Is there an office I can use?’

  Everyone laughed.

  ‘This is our only office, I’m afraid. But use your headphones and you won’t even notice anyone else,’ said Teresa.

  Ivan brought me a steaming cup of coffee and put it down without a word before sitting back down.

  I had no idea what I was going to say to the clients. I was aware of the others sitting just a couple of feet away and was anxious that they would hear my calls.

  I decided to start with a woman, someone who was an existing client. I rehearsed my script in my head. I’d introduce myself as Annie’s replacement, tell them how to contact me, ask them if they needed any help and make some small talk. I scanned the list and picked Melody Carruthers, CEO Nail Emporium. A woman, English, probably older as she was a CEO, maybe around my age, and in a business I felt comfortable in, beauty.

  I bent my head as I dialled the number, trying to hide the terror rushing through me.

  ‘Yes?’

  A woman answered, sounding displeased, as if I was interrupting her in the middle of something.

  ‘Good morning, may I speak to Melody Carruthers, please?’

  The rest of the team seemed to stop what they were doing, to watch me. I looked down at the client sheet. I had to forget about the others and concentrate.

  ‘Who is this?’ The voice at the other end sounded impatient, angry even.

  I smiled. I couldn’t let the team see that my first call wasn’t going well. Besides, I’d read somewhere that if you smiled while talking on the phone, your conversations were more productive.

  ‘I’m calling from Hamilton Hughes and my name is Faiza Saunders. I’ve taken over from Annie Dill. It’s a pleasure to speak to you Ms Carruthers—’

  ‘What the hell?’

  ‘I’m sorry, have I caught you at a bad time?’

  By now I’d forgotten about the others watching me and became flustered as I tried to salvage this conversation. I didn’t know what I’d done wrong. Opposite me, David snorted loudly.

  ‘I can call you back later if—’

  The phone slammed down at the other end. I tried to pretend that I was going to end the call myself, so though the line was dead, I carried on speaking into the phone.

  ‘Of course, I understand if you’re busy. It’s no prob—’

  ‘Which idiot is calling me on my extension and pretending to call a client? Do you really thi
nk I’d find this kind of thing funny?’

  I looked up and saw a woman with East Asian features, a cropped dark pixie cut, and wearing a tight-fitting red dress, coming out from behind the partition. She was around my age. She may have been petite, but her voice filled the office and boomeranged back from the walls. Everyone sat up a little straighter as she approached.

  ‘Well? Who decided to disturb me as I finished the Nordic tech projections? Hmm?’

  My team all looked at me, waiting for me to confess. My face burned. The people on the other desks had paused what they were doing.

  I put up my hand and said, ‘Me. I’m so sorry. I must have misdialled by mistake.’

  David’s shoulders shook and his hand covered his mouth.

  ‘Who are you? Stand up.’

  I stood up slowly.

  ‘I’m replacing Annie. My name is Faiza.’

  ‘Ah, Sergio’s “experiment”. Welcome, welcome! Tilly Madison – I’m one of the directors.’

  She came forward to shake my hand and said, ‘Can someone please show her how to use the phone?’

  Tilly smiled, as if she was sharing a joke with me, not making one at my expense. The whole office erupted in laughter and, as she walked away, I heard her say, ‘Don’t they have telephones in suburbia anymore?’

  I dug my nails into my palms to stop myself bursting into tears and making my humiliation complete. Instead, I smiled as if amused at my mistake.

  ‘OK, OK, at least I’ve provided everyone with some entertainment,’ I said.

  ‘Did you dial 900 first, for an outside line?’ Teresa leaned across and whispered.

  I shook my head. She showed me how to dial for an outside line and gave me the team’s security code, which I also needed to enter. I wrote it on a piece of paper.

  ‘You must have gone through to Tilly’s internal extension. Anyone could have made the same mistake,’ said Teresa.

  ‘Absolutely,’ said David.

  He started laughing.

  ‘Stop it,’ said Ivan.

  *

  Later, when the others were away from the desk, I decided to call the clients again, but I couldn’t find the paper with the security code. I was too embarrassed to ask Teresa again. Instead, I took the client list down to Starbucks and made the calls on my mobile.

  As I was going back up to the office, the lift door was just about to shut when a large, trainer-clad foot inserted itself between the doors, so they jerked back open. A tall man, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, muscled legs on show, stepped in. As I moved back to give him room, my client list fell to the ground.

  ‘I’m sorry, my fault,’ he said.

  He sounded amused, rather than apologetic.

  We bent down to get the papers at the same time and his hands touched mine. I stood up quickly as he handed me the papers. I felt self-conscious as he looked at my face, smiling as if he was admiring something he liked. I didn’t know if he was being friendly or flirtatious.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, wishing that my office was not on the twenty-fifth floor.

  I wasn’t used to handsome men looking at me like that. It wasn’t the harmless flirtations that I usually came across, from waiters or shop assistants, and nor was it the unwelcome attention from men at parties who complimented me on my ‘eastern beauty’. This man’s eyes showed clear interest and attraction.

  While the lift moved slowly, I stared at my papers as if I was trying to understand a complex problem and didn’t look at him again. He also got out on my floor, letting me go ahead, and when I looked back, he’d disappeared.

  For the rest of the day, my eyes kept darting to the partition where the directors’ offices were. That’s where Julia’s husband was also sitting. He wasn’t on another floor, in a penthouse, away from the lowly workers, but just a few feet away from me. Sam was wrong that I was unlikely to come across him. I’d already met Tilly within half an hour of being at work. She seemed to know about me as ‘Sergio’s experiment’. What if Julia’s husband was also curious and came out to see me, then later told Julia about a woman called Faiza, who had just joined HH, and who, until recently, was a full-time mum?

  My head started to hurt. This was too risky. I wouldn’t be able to get away with it. I pretended to read through my notes, wondering what I should do.

  ‘Si, can you pass me your stapler, mate?’ said David to someone passing.

  I had an idea. I had to hide anything that could give me away. I looked at the team and said, ‘Oh, guys, I didn’t say this at the interview, but everyone calls me Fi. It’s my nickname, and clients also find it easier to pronounce.’

  Later, Teresa asked me about my children.

  ‘I have two boys,’ I said, thinking it would be best if no one knew that I had a teenage daughter at Brookwood.

  ‘And you live in Wimbledon, right?’ said Sabine.

  ‘I did for years, but we moved to East Sheen a couple of months ago. We needed somewhere bigger now the boys are older and everything in Wimbledon is so expensive.’

  All the years of thinking up quick-fire, appropriate answers for each parent to keep the plates spinning when I was growing up, had paid off. If Ami told me to lie about her secret shopping to Baba, I would. If Baba bought me a treat when he got a bonus, he often asked me not to tell Ami about his windfall. If either of them probed my lies, I had to think up additional answers in a split second. It was no trouble at all to think up my alter ego. I had found a solution to the ‘Julia angle’.

  Now, I was Fi, who lived in East Sheen and had two boys.

  Thirty-One

  My first client was Thomas Seddon QC, a top divorce lawyer. I carried my brochures and navigated my heels along the cobbled square in the hidden legal enclave near Temple. I’d made a good start and was going through my proposal when Teresa walked into his office. I was surprised but relieved. I was feeling out of my depth. Instead of supporting me, though, she proceeded to demolish my proposal and suggested a different portfolio, winning the pitch from the client and leaving me looking like a fool.

  The sales numbers went up against Teresa’s name, not mine.

  Sitting on a bench outside St Paul’s, I called Tom, too upset to eat my sandwich.

  ‘It was so humiliating.’

  ‘You’ll get better at it. At least now you know you can’t trust Teresa.’

  After dinner, Tom gave me an update on his job search. The headhunters all said he had a stellar profile and a great reputation, but that jobs at his level were few and far between. He had to be patient.

  ‘I don’t know what that means? Two months, six months?’ He sighed. ‘It’s good that you’re working, at least. Our savings wouldn’t have lasted at this rate, not without your job.’

  I wondered if that would be true in four weeks, if I kept having client visits like the one that morning. My euphoria at getting the job had turned almost instantly into nervous panic.

  ‘I heard some news about Sam’s husband too,’ said Tom. ‘One of the headhunters mentioned James’s firm. They’re cutting a thousand people globally. I hope James isn’t one of them?’

  ‘No, he’s safe. Sam told me they’ve fired three people in his team so he’s doing their work too and staying late every day. I don’t think they can afford to fire him!’

  I missed having my coffees with Sam and Lizzie. Naila had been texting me but I couldn’t bring myself to reply to her. All I could focus on, for now, was passing my promotion.

  That night, I sat cross-legged on the sofa, laptop perched on my knees, researching all the products and portfolios that we offered in as much detail as possible. I was not going to let myself look like a fool again. After the headhunter’s prognosis, my job was our only lifeline.

  Every night in bed, I asked Tom to test me on the latest products I’d been studying. Sometimes, as I stood at the foot of the bed in T-shirt and knickers, I pretended to do presentations and pitches, while Tom fired questions at me in a client’s tone of voice. He told me I was ‘killing
it’ and gave me tips when I stumbled on a question. It was like having my personal business coach in bed.

  ‘You can do it, I know you can,’ he said.

  After a while, I started to believe it too. I no longer stayed silent in team meetings and I began to feel a little less like an imposter.

  *

  The loan from Roberto was getting used up, so I hadn’t been able to send Farrah any money for ages. I told her that I would, once I got my salary. I’d been helping her out from the emergency fund, before Tom lost his job. I worried about how she’d manage.

  ‘Don’t worry, Baba sent me three thousand pounds,’ she said.

  I was furious.

  ‘Farrah, how could you? That’s half their life savings!’

  ‘It’s not “half their life savings” – Baba cashed in those shares he’s had forever. He got ten thousand, plus they have ten thousand savings. He told me exactly how much they had when I was refusing to take any money from them.’

  ‘You have to pay them back.’

  ‘Of course I’ll pay them back. I wouldn’t be in this mess, though, if it wasn’t for them, would I?’

  I wondered if I would have taken the money for Dr Keane if I’d known about my parents’ savings? No. It would have meant telling them why I needed five hundred pounds when Tom had a £250,000 safety net. I couldn’t have put them through that kind of stress.

  I was glad I hadn’t known. This was my mess and it was only right that I sort it out myself.

  Thirty-Two

  The spa was the last place I wanted to be. The weekends were the only time I had now, with Tom, the kids and my parents. I knew Sam would be disappointed, though, if I missed her celebration and I hadn’t seen her for ages. Besides, I’d paid my contribution – a hundred pounds, which had seemed nothing a few months ago – to Lizzie weeks ago, so I put on a suitable dress and a smile, and went.