– Cooking?
He frowned at her over the top of his reading glasses and Bella, fearing his disapproval, started to gabble.
– It’s all about working in teams under stressful conditions in a kitchen. I mean, I know it sounds stupid in a way, because I don’t really see how cutting up leeks or whatever is going to help all that much, but everyone ends up eating the food they’ve made and getting quite pissed. So maybe that’s how they bond –
James let out a loud laugh.
– I can’t boil an egg, he said. It’s shaming but it’s true. I used to be able to, but my wife deskilled me years ago.
So Anthea had been right on this point, but Bella felt her spirits fall a little in a way she didn’t understand. Why would she mind if he talked about his wife? She knew he had one, and what did she suppose they ate, baked beans?
The taxi crawled up Northumberland Avenue and into Trafalgar Square, and Bella looked out of the window and saw a couple pressed together in a passionate embrace.
James seemed to have observed this too but said nothing. The lights changed and the taxi moved on.
– Have you spent much time in Russia? he asked.
Bella explained that for the second year of university she had been sent there, but that soon after she arrived she’d found she was pregnant and had come home and that after Millie had been born she hadn’t gone back to finish her degree.
– Is your husband a linguist?
Bella wanted to laugh. Was this how he saw her? As a woman not ambitious enough to have finished her degree, and to have settled into a little secretarial work to ease the boredom while her linguist husband used his languages to greater effect?
And then she thought of Xan and his knowledge of Russia. This amounted to a vodka-drinking spree when he had gone out to see her after she had phoned from Veronysh telling him that she was pregnant. That evening had ended with him lying on the lino of the student hostel being sick through his nostrils, and her crying and telling him to get out of her life.
– No, she said. No, he isn’t. I’m not married.
And then, in order to forestall any further questions about a partner, she said: I’m a single mother.
– I see, he said, and got out his BlackBerry.
The rest of the journey passed in silence.
Stella
Stella was going to Moscow. There wasn’t much point in this, as it wasn’t a project that she was involved in and there were already twelve people from AE going – three engineers and six geologists and the head of legal counsel as well as James and Stephen. In addition there were a professor of marine biology from the LSE, three environmental consultants, four civil servants, three corporate lawyers and two translators.
Stephen had insisted that Stella fly out with him, as he had something he wished to discuss with her on the flight. The following day he would have his meetings with the Gazprom chief as well as with representatives from the environmental agency, and Stella and James would fly back with him afterwards. The others would get an internal flight to Siberia to look at the platforms and assess the evidence of environmental damage.
Stella sat in a wide first class seat next to the CEO, while the other members of the party made their way down the aisle to business class beyond. This arrangement suited no one. Stella did not want to be sitting next to her boss for the whole six-hour flight, as it meant she could neither sleep nor read a novel. The other members of the party took it as a sign of favouritism and felt aggrieved.
– Fancy seeing you here, the senior engineer said, leering at her. Stephen has kept the eye candy all for himself.
Stella looked at him coldly; she was used to such taunts from engineers and they no longer upset her. Stephen pulled a pile of papers from his briefcase and started to flip through them. He scanned the environmental summary that James had prepared for him, and then shifted in his seat so that he had turned his body towards hers. Stella looked at his narrow hips and gold belt buckle and shuddered.
– Stella, he said. I’ve got a proposal to make to you. I’m really excited about it and I hope you will be too.
Stella smiled anxiously, knowing that his profession of excitement was not necessarily a promising sign.
– I am proposing to make some changes to my top team, he went on. Our business is getting ever more complicated, globally and strategically. What we excel at is the functional side of the business. We have the best engineers, geologists – even economists.
He smiled at her, revealing a set of perfect white fronts fitted on a recent visit to the US.
– You are too kind, Stella said.
– What we need are visionary leaders within the business whose task it is to break down those silos, and ensure that we have joined-up thinking at all levels. As CEO, this is my role, but I can’t do it single-handedly. So what I propose is to create a new position that I hope you will fill. Your title would be Chief of Staff, and you would head up my private office. You would deputize for me in all strategic matters, back me up and advise me.
He looked at her with an energy and intensity that Stella did not find altogether pleasant. She felt, as she had felt on all previous occasions in her life when she had been offered a promotion or a challenge, a small stab of panic.
When Stella finally got to her hotel room that night she was exhausted. Dinner had gone on interminably, and she had sat between a pair of thick-necked Russian oil magnates, one of whom ignored her completely in favour of the impossibly beautiful teenage model on his other side, who seemed not to object to having her breasts fondled by a sausage-fingered man.
James had shown no interest in the Russian model who had been placed next to him, and every time Stella looked up at him, he was looking down at the BlackBerry in his lap. Stephen, on the other hand, was evidently delighted by the six-foot blonde nineteen-year-old who was caressing his thigh under the table, though he was pretending to be unmoved.
Once alone in her ludicrously opulent room, Stella arranged herself among the silk cushions on the bed and opened her laptop to do her email. There was a long, funny message from Clemmie telling her about her day at school, signed off with Loveyaloads xxx. Stella had been brought up in a household where no one would have dreamt of telling any other member that they loved them; such things were taken for granted. Even though she knew her daughter had picked up the habit of emotional incontinence from trashy TV shows, she nevertheless was pleased by the warmth of the sign-off. She also thought, not for the first time, that it was easier to communicate with one’s teenage children by email than face to face.
She looked further down the list and there were two messages from Rhys. Stella clicked on the first one.
Hi,
Hope KGB haven’t got you. Beware honey traps and Russian gigolos. Nothing happening here. V dull without you. I’d like you to know that I’ve spent a vast amount of time today collating data for your paper on our internal cost of capital, so have been very well behaved.
Only thing to report is that have noticed Beate sniffs all the time. Have decided she has a coke habit.
Cheers, Rhys
And then another one, sent about ten minutes later:
Hi Stella
Am concerned that previous message may have sounded a tad unprofessional. Sorry. R
Stella read them again and smiled. It was unprofessional, but also funny. Still, she wasn’t going to reply. She brushed her teeth and got into the big bed, whose oyster satin sheets felt unpleasantly slippery against her brushed cotton pyjamas. She slithered around and could not sleep, the dumplings and vodka mingling uneasily in her stomach. The conversation on the plane was troubling her, and she was also worried that the permission slip for Finn’s skiing trip had to be handed in the next morning. So she turned on the lamp by her bed and sat up.
It would only be ten at home, so she called and Charles answered.
– How’s Russia? he said.
– Russia’s fine, but I’m worried about Finn’s permission
slip. I think it’s in the kitchen – can you make sure it’s signed tomorrow?
– OK, he said. When are you back?
– Probably in time for supper tomorrow. I’ve been offered a new job.
– Oh? I’m watching the football with Finn.
– Tell him to go to bed. And give him a kiss from me.
She put the phone down, slid down into the bed again, turned off the light but found herself even more awake than before.
Maybe she would type a quick reply to Rhys. Just to reassure him. So she sat up against the cushions and turned on her laptop again, but the computer would not let her log on to her AE email. Undeterred, she opened up her Hotmail account instead and typed:
Dear Rhys
Thank you for your warnings. There have been no suspicious young men, though just had extraordinary dinner with Russians. Gorgeous women on tap for Stephen and James, though both doing their best to show no interest. I had to talk to bruiser from Gazprom and had too much caviar and feel sick.
You might also like the detail that before dinner we met in Stephen’s room for a briefing and such is atmosphere of trust that we wrote things to each other on white boards fearing that room was tapped. I daresay there were cameras in there too, but in that case Russians will have got an eyeful of twelve dithering Brits with no decent game plan. Sat next to Stephen on plane on way out, and he has plan for me to leave economics and work directly with him. Please keep that under your hat, as not at all sure what I’ll do.
And no, I don’t think Beate has a coke habit.
Stella
She read through what she had written and sent it, feeling uncomfortable about just how much she had enjoyed writing it. She had also told Rhys much more about the trip than she had told Charles; but then Charles hadn’t asked, or, if he had asked, hadn’t really wanted to know. Outside she could hear the funny whine of Russian sirens. She hadn’t slept for thirty-six hours but felt wide awake, and the inside of her head felt dry. She flicked through the telly channels and watched Gordon Brown on CNN explaining why he wasn’t going to call an election after all.
Her BlackBerry winked its red light at her. There was a message from Charles:
Can’t find the form – where did you say it was? xC
And one from Rhys:
Hi Stella
V excited to get your message. Was fearing that unprofessional behaviour might have sent you straight to Russell to make further complaints re unsatisfactory trainee.
Well it’s a rough life … caviar, prostitutes … my heart goes out to you all. New job sounds v exciting … I’m now sitting in a bar in Covent Garden waiting for my girlfriend.
In the end got her new ipod for her b day, which she claimed to be delighted with.
What time is it there?
R
Stella sat up in bed to study this. The cocky confidence that had once enraged her now delighted her. She smiled down at the little screen and read the message again.
Then she messaged back.
Will tell you about job when I’m back. Enjoy drink. It’s late here, so must sleep.
And instantly the reply came:
Night night.
Bella
Bella was sifting through the messages in James’s inbox. Nearly 200 had arrived since yesterday, mostly things that he had been pointlessly copied in on. But then she came on a message with a red exclamation mark by it, sent by Russell, with the subject line: Headcount. Bella opened this and read:
James – I have been tasked by Michael Evans to conduct a headcount audit throughout the ER function looking to find synergies resulting from the merger with Press Relations. It appears that you have two executive assistants, which is no longer in accordance with the operating plan. Can you revert to me on this asap?
Best, Russell
Bella read it twice.
– Have you seen the email from HR about headcount? she asked Anthea.
Anthea nodded.
– It’s classic, she said. He has never seen fit to follow the rule-book, and in my experience of this company, if you don’t do it by the book, it bites you on the ankle in the end.
The books and ankles created a surreal picture in Bella’s mind, which distracted her from a more troubling idea: Anthea was pleased by the memo, and wanted Bella gone.
The phone went, and Anthea got there first. James Home, it said on the display.
– James Staunton’s office, she said. Oh, hello, Hillary. Well, no, I haven’t spoken to him this morning, but I’m expecting him to call in any moment now. If his mobile is off, then I imagine he’s in meetings … Is all well? … Ah, I see. Oh dear… Well, I will tell him when he calls.
Anthea put down the phone.
– That was Mrs J, she said. Completely hysterical. She’s gone and lost some tickets to their son’s play tonight.
The phone started to ring again and this time Bella answered. It was James.
– Have you spoken to your wife? she asked.
– Not recently, he said.
– Well, she has just rung to say she’s lost the tickets to your son’s concert tonight. I think she’s rather upset –
– Oh God, he said, his voice sounding heavy. I’ve got the tickets. They’re in the top of my desk. Bella, can you help her? She is a little – fragile at the moment. Can you bike them to her, or maybe, if you’ve got time, take them yourself?
Bella went into his office and opened the top drawer. It was almost empty: a packet of Nurofen, and a neat line of pens and the tickets in precisely the place he said they would be. Bella closed it, but then, without any clear idea of what she was doing, found herself opening the next one down. There was a file saying expenses, and below that another saying ‘RECEIPTS – PERSONAL’. She opened the folder and saw that one was for lunch at the National Portrait Gallery restaurant, dated three months earlier.
This rang a bell. She knew from her reading of Julia’s emails that he had taken her there. She looked at all the other receipts and all were for lunch or dinner, six in all and over a period of four months. Was that all it had been?
– Having a snoop?
Bella wheeled around to see Anthea standing at the door. She shoved the folder back into the drawer, and picked up the tickets.
– No, she said. I’m just getting the tickets. He wants me to take them over to her.
– Why not bike them?
– He asked me to do it. He says she’s fragile.
Anthea stared at her disapprovingly but said nothing.
Bella got out of the cab outside number 16 Willowdale Crescent. There were stucco pillars on either side of the front door, and through the large bay window on the ground floor she could see a handsome rocking-horse.
She rang the china bell, which made an old-fashioned ring deep inside the house. After a while she heard slow footsteps crossing the hall. A woman with a slightly puffy face, almost unrecognizable as the smiling one in the picture, opened the door and looked at Bella in surprise, as if she had forgotten that she was coming.
– I’m Bella, said Bella. And I’ve brought the tickets.
– Ah yes, said Hillary. Thanks for coming all this way.
She took the tickets and then hesitated.
– Would you like a cup of tea?
She didn’t look cold, or mad, or a handful as Anthea had warned she would be. Instead she looked vague and detached and oddly diffident for the mistress of such a large and beautiful house.
Bella badly wanted to go in and look around. She was curious about where people lived, and thought the fridge and the bathroom cabinet usually held as many clues to what someone was like as their face did. But standing on her boss’s doorstep she had a strong sense of being somewhere she did not belong.
– I’d better get back to the office. But could I just have a glass of water?
Hillary opened the door and led Bella over the pale wooden floor and into the kitchen. There was every outward sign of the cooking that James had talked about. The
re were mixers and a pasta machine and a granite island with saucepans hanging from an old wooden clothes drier. But there was no smell of food or evidence of any meals ever having been made, and all the implements looked new. Bella thought of her own Ikea kitchen, the whole bought for 360 quid including the sink.
Hillary produced a heavy glass tumbler and poured some Badoit into it.
– Lovely kitchen, Bella said.
Hillary smiled weakly.
– You’ve got some amazing gadgets. I wouldn’t have the first idea what to do with most of them. I’m really hopeless at cooking – the only thing I can make is pasta, and even then all I do is boil it and then empty some sauce on the top. Do you do masses of cooking?
Hillary gave this question a lot of thought, as if struggling to remember the answer, and then said: Yes, I suppose I do.
– The reason I asked, said Bella, is that James has asked me to research team-building courses, and I’ve found one where they go and cook together to get to know each other, or bond …
James’s name hung in the air between them. It sounded wrong on Bella’s lips spoken so casually, here in his house.
Bella took a sip of water and Hillary said: So he has two secretaries now.
Bella cringed at the word secretary, but didn’t correct her. Yes, she agreed, though she didn’t say perhaps not for much longer.
– I imagine he’s delighted with the arrangement, Hillary remarked.
Was she bitter? Or possibly amused in a patronizing way? And why did she have to imagine what he felt? Didn’t they talk?
Bella put the glass down and said she had better get going. Hillary showed her to the door and Bella stood outside in the street and looked around her. Hillary hadn’t offered to get her a taxi; she didn’t know which way the tube was and the neighbourhood was so quiet there was no one around to ask.
Stella
On the flight back from Russia, Stella asked James what she should do about the new job. She was well aware that he would be jealous, but had worked out a long time ago that the best way to take the sting out of the competition was to act as if James was unquestionably the senior partner. As long as she deferred to him, he was more than civilized and lavished his wisdom upon her.
In Office Hours Page 8