In Office Hours

by Lucy Kellaway

  After a while the sobs started to subside and she tried to breathe in and out without her breath catching. She wetted some toilet paper and pressed that into her swollen eyes. The water ran down and made a dark patch on her shirt.

  She waited until she could hear nothing from the surrounding cubicles, and then opened the door.

  She looked, if anything, worse than she had expected. Old and crumpled, and the new suit for the board meeting looked ridiculous, as if made for someone else: someone who was a proper professional businesswoman, someone who did what they said, someone who did not fall in love with young subordinates, and did not weep over them in the loo.

  Stella thought of the card game Funny Folk – she had loved it as a child – where you match heads against bodies. She looked as if someone had taken the body of a smart executive and matched it with the head of a madwoman.

  She put on a little eyeshadow to try to hide the red around her eyes, but succeeded only in accentuating it. She smeared some pink lipstick on her mouth, and practised smiling at herself in the mirror.

  Just as she was uncertainly baring her teeth at her image, the door opened and Nathalie came in.

  – Oh, there you are. I’ve been looking for you, she said.

  And then, with concern: Are you OK?

  Of all the questions in the world that Stella did not want to be asked, this was top of her list. Obviously, she thought, I’m not OK.

  – Yes, she said. I’m fine.

  Bella

  – Two things, Bella, James was saying. I understand that the Telegraph wants to interview Stella about her board position and write a piece on work/life balance.

  He smiled a little stiffly. It was nearly a week since he had told her about the bus lane ticket but since then they had been back in each other’s arms in the hotel more passionately and more desperately than before.

  While they had been in the hotel Bella had felt triumphant. Disaster had struck, but instead of running away he was still with her, courting further disaster. It proved, she reasoned, that this was what he valued in his life more than anything.

  But as soon as they left the hotel he was more aloof than ever.

  – Can you check that she’s OK with that, he went on, and also get her to call me? I want to go through the points that she needs to stress. We need to get a win for AE out of this as well as a win for Stella herself.

  – Sure, said Bella, bleakly.

  – And can you do me some briefing notes on what you think are some of our greatest diversity successes? I’m sure Russell will be more than happy to give you the data, but perhaps you can cut through the HR crap and present some concrete facts in normal language?

  Bella sat at her computer trying to marshal some diversity facts for Stella’s interview. The numbers in themselves were rotten: 40 per cent of graduate trainees were women at entry level, but two ranks up, at associate level, it was only 17 per cent, and by the level of general manager, it had fallen to just 6 per cent.

  However, Bella had been asked to present the numbers positively and so she found out that ten years earlier only 5 per cent of general managers had been women. What percentage increase was that? She took her calculator out of her drawer, but couldn’t remember which way round to put the numbers.

  So she got up and walked down the corridor to find Rhys at his new desk. She sat down on the edge of it.

  – I know this is an embarrassing question –

  Rhys’s face tightened apprehensively.

  – But what is 6 expressed as a percentage of 5?

  – Really, he said. Not now.

  – Are you telling me, said Bella, that you work as assistant to the head of Economics and you can’t do a simple sum?

  Bella laughed to show that she was teasing him, but Rhys did not think it funny.

  – Of course I can sodding do it. I’m just busy.

  So Bella went off and asked Anthea, who said at once:

  – It’s an increase of 20 per cent.

  At lunch that day in the canteen Bella was joined first by Ben and then by Beate. Now that she was no longer a PA the fast-track employees were much more likely to sit with her.

  – Beate, said Bella. I’m doing a briefing note on diversity, and I wondered if you think women are discriminated against here?

  – You only need to look around you, said Beate. Where are the successful women?

  – Well, said Bella. There’s Stella.

  – Yes, but what is she doing to help other women? She is our Margaret Thatcher. She has climbed up and pulled the ladder up behind her.

  Bella thought this a little unfair, but did not say so.

  Later that afternoon she took her work into James’s office. The visit was unnecessary, but the sight of him bent over his desk made her want to go in and touch him. She needed him to smile at her, to show some sign of warmth. Nothing else mattered to her.

  – I’ve done the thing for Stella, she said, hovering at his door.

  – Thank you, he said, barely looking up. There was something else I wanted to walk by you. I don’t know if you know, but every year I throw a big Christmas party in my house for the team, and also for a few friends in other departments. There was some uncertainty this year about whether we would hold it, as Hilly’s been so unwell. But she’s – touch wood – a bit better and so we’re going ahead. I’ve told her that she doesn’t have to do anything apart from being there to welcome everyone, and that you and Anthea will sort everything out. You don’t mind, do you?

  Bella stared at him in horror. As he spoke, James wasn’t even looking at her but was idly scrolling through his emails.

  – As a matter of fact, said Bella, I do mind. There is no way on earth that I’m going to make lovely chit-chat to your wife about canapés and then shag her husband behind her back.

  James looked panic-stricken and gestured at her to keep her voice down.

  – I will not be quiet, she hissed. And I don’t give a shit who hears. I’ve put up with this for long enough. You even had the NERVE to say to me that if you ever got found out you would blame me. I don’t know why I didn’t dump you then. I suppose it was because I thought you’d fire me. That’s just the sort of shitty thing you’d do.

  Bella turned and ran out of his office, and as she did so Anthea stared, got up and came after her.

  – Are you OK?

  – What does it look like? she spat at her, and went down in the lift and ran out of the building and stood shaking with tears outside.

  The brief feeling of release and power in saying – shouting – what she thought was quickly overtaken by dread. Why had she done that? What had possessed her? She might have lost the job, and might have lost him too. She stood outside, struggling to calm her breathing, and her phone rang.

  – I think you’d better come back in, he said. It’s all right, I’ve explained you’re under a lot of stress at the moment.

  – Well, that’s all right, then, she said bitterly.

  She went back up in the lift and sat at her desk and started to type up the notes for the interview. At one point James walked past her desk and tried to catch her eye but she stared resolutely at her screen. Later, just before she was about to go home, she received an email from him. She opened it with trepidation.

  Dear Bella, I’m very sorry if I unintentionally upset you. That was not the idea at all. I’m sure that Anthea will be perfectly capable of organizing the party. Can we just put the whole thing behind us?

  J

  She read it and pressed ‘delete’. He did not begin to understand how difficult this was for her. Or if he did, he didn’t care. And there was that same phrase – put the whole thing behind us – that he had used to Julia.

  At 5.30 on the dot Bella got up and walked out without saying goodbye to anyone. She walked down Moor Lane briskly, anger making her numb. As she reached Moorgate tube, she heard her name. She turned and saw James, breathless and jacketless, running towards her. It had started to rain, and the dr
ops were making dark blue splatters on his light blue shirt.

  – Bella, he said. Don’t do this. Please.

  – Do what?

  – Shout at me in the office, dump me, make a scene, refuse to talk to me or answer my messages. Why the hell do you think I’m risking my marriage and my career? It’s because I’m attached to you. That should go without saying.

  – It does not go without saying, Bella said. It needs saying all the time. It needs shouting from the rooftops. I don’t want these dregs of ‘attachment’ any more. Fuck off, James. Just do me one favour. Let me stay until I find a new job.

  She got out her Oyster card and went through the barrier, leaving him standing there, staring after her.

  The first thing Bella did when she got home that night was to check her messages. It was the second thing and the third thing, too. She shouted at Millie for not eating her baked beans and made her cry. Then she cried herself. This silenced Millie, who put her thin arms around her mother.

  – Don’t cry, Mum, she said.

  To be comforted by her daughter, as if she were the helpless child, was too much. Bella fought to control herself.

  – I’m fine, darling, she said, giving a wide and entirely unconvincing smile. Let’s do something fun. Let’s bake some fairy cakes. We can put pink icing on them.

  Even as she said this she knew that there was no icing sugar in the cupboard and that at eight o’clock at night she didn’t feel like taking Millie down to Morrisons to get some.

  – It’s OK, Mum, she said. Let’s just watch Desperate Housewives.

  So they put in the DVD and Bella watched the inhabitants of Wisteria Lane being a lot less desperate than she was feeling.

  Stella

  Stella was late coming into the office, as she had an appointment with Finn’s housemaster. Her son had been selling firecrackers to his classmates and the school was threatening to suspend him.

  – As I am sure you are aware, the long-faced schoolmaster said to Stella, Finn has broken two school rules. Boys are not allowed to trade on the school premises, neither are they allowed dangerous items.

  – Oh dear, she said, feebly.

  In fact she thought he had done well to spot an arbitrage opportunity: he had bought the firecrackers in bulk with his pocket money and was now selling them individually. Finn had at least shown some initiative. Maybe he would grow up to be a trader. She remembered Rhys telling her that he had sold sweets at school, then tried to suppress the thought. She must stop thinking of him.

  – I thought it would be helpful to have this conversation, as it is important that school and family are singing from the same hymn sheet when it comes to enforcement of rules, he went on.

  Stella endured the rest of the telling off, nodding and agreeing at the right points, but it took longer than she had thought, and by the time the taxi pulled up outside the building the Telegraph journalist had already been waiting in her office for twenty minutes.

  She started guiltily when Stella came in; she had evidently been looking at her desk, on which there were three signs of Rhys – a Twix bar, a picture of a ferret that he had downloaded from the internet and made into a card, and a yellow Post-it note on which was written the Auden quote about fish.

  – Hi! she said, as if greeting an old friend. I’m Zoe Stevens.

  She was not what Stella had been expecting. She looked about twenty and was wearing a shocking-pink coat.

  – How do you feel to be the first female executive on the board of a major oil company?

  I feel, thought Stella, as if something big is sitting on my chest and I can’t breathe. I keep getting these surges of panic. I feel OK for about twenty minutes, and then a wave of despair breaks over me. She gathered herself together and said:

  – It’s a bit scary to be labelled as the first woman to do this; it’s like being the first man on the moon. That was a small step for man and a big step for mankind. This is a small step for woman and a big step for womankind.

  What the hell was she saying? That her appointment to the board was significant?

  The journalist was scribbling furiously.

  – That didn’t come out right, Stella said. I don’t mean that this is a big deal at all. I don’t think that it matters terribly whether the people on the board are male or female, so long as they are doing a good job.

  She tried to push out of her mind her own inglorious performance at the first meeting.

  – So does that mean that companies should be gender blind?

  – No, not at all, said Stella and smoothly launched into the diversity speech that James’s researcher had prepared for her.

  As she talked she felt calmer and better. This is what work is for, she thought. It isn’t to earn money. It is to give you a life-raft when you are drowning.

  – That’s very interesting, said the journalist, who was looking bored and had stopped taking notes. But what I’d really like to do in this interview is get across the full Stella Bradberry, what you have achieved at AE, how you juggle home and family and how you keep up an active social life.

  Oh God, thought Stella, but she smiled politely.

  – So: let’s go back to your school days at Oxford High.

  – I was at Headington, said Stella.

  – Yes, of course, Headington. I think you were at school with the prime minister’s wife? What was she like back then?

  – Well, said Stella, she is a friend, but I don’t think this interview is about that. I thought we were meant to be talking about how AE fosters women.

  – Yes, she said. But our readers see you as a role model. They’ll want to read about how you juggle your life.

  Stella privately noted the irony of this, but said nothing.

  – They’ll want to know: you are married to a well-known documentary maker, and have two daughters. How do you manage it all?

  – I’ve got a son and a daughter, Stella corrected her wearily. I juggle it all with difficulty, like every other working mother. I don’t believe in having it all. If I am in one place I’m not in another. But for me the thing that makes me privileged is choice. I’m not the heroic working mother. I have money for nannies and a cleaning lady, and a very nice husband at home who does the cooking. The women I really admire are the ones who are trying to bring up their kids on their own and doing cleaning jobs at night to make ends meet.

  The journalist wrote some of this down and then said:

  – What would you say were your key skills as a manager? Do you think women are better at managing than men?

  – Well, said Stella. I’m not sure. Sometimes I think we are better at motivating people, because we have practised on our children.

  – Do you think you’ve been a good mother, then?

  – I’d rather not talk about the family, if you don’t mind.

  Upside down Stella could see that she had scribbled something on her pad that she couldn’t quite read.

  – Do you feel a special interest in promoting women?

  – I do when I see that a woman is falling behind through a lack of confidence. I see that all the time.

  – But, the journalist said, I understand that you have just promoted a young man to be your executive assistant?

  – Well, yes, said Stella. There is no conflict between trying to help women and giving senior jobs to men. I’m not in favour of positive discrimination. I believe in giving the job to the right person. And in this case the man – Rhys Williams – was incredibly talented …

  – Can I ask you something else? said the journalist as she was gathering up her things and had turned off the tape recorder.

  – What is that fragment of a poem on your desk?

  Bella

  The first Saturday in December each year, Atlantic Energy threw a party for the children of employees.

  Last year, when oil prices were over $100 a barrel, the party had been in the Science Museum, and Millie had been beside herself with excitement to be given a Sylvanian cottage
by Father Christmas (the fat and not terribly cheerful marketing director, who had subsequently been transferred to Nigeria). This year, in recognition of hard times, the party was to be held in the office canteen and a memo had gone round saying that there would be no gifts. This had produced such a storm of self-righteous indignation on the intranet site that there had been back-pedalling. There would be gifts, but the value would be limited to £5 per child.

  Bella had not asked James if he was going, but then she had not asked him about anything, as the two of them had spoken little in the past week. He had been travelling a good deal and when in the office had reverted to his old behaviour. He did not look at her, he communicated with her only as much as professionalism demanded.

  Bella was trying to get through the bleak days in the same spirit. She had built a wall of books and files on her desk and moved her computer so that she did not have a view of his office. This was not entirely successful as a strategy, as it meant she kept getting up and peering around the tower of books because she wanted – needed – to know whether he was in his office and what he was doing.

  She had written herself a list of rules to get her through the day.

  Work HARD!!

  Don’t walk past his office. Take long way to coffee machine.

  Look busy.

  Fix lunches with people.

  Dress up.

  She had included number 5 on the principle that if she looked fine, she’d start to feel fine.

  It wasn’t working so far, as she was feeling awful. Too awful to follow any of the rules, in fact.

  Probably, she calculated, James would not go to the party, because hardly any of the senior people turned up. If he did go, she would keep out of his way.

  Millie, at nearly eight, was old enough to know that a party in a staff canteen – even when decked out with tinsel and strobe lights – marked a falling-off in standards. She ate the burger and lukewarm chips served on a flimsy cardboard tray in sullen silence. She cheered up slightly when the disco started and stood up to dance, leaving Bella alone at the table with a paper cup of mulled wine and a cold mince pie. She was soon joined by her old boss in chemicals, his wife and their exceptionally plain daughter.