It's Not Me, It's You

by Mhairi McFarlane

  ‘I meant the rice. What were those shitrags going to do, make a huge paella? The whole caper made me sick.’

  Delia nearly laughed until she realised she wasn’t meant to. She also refrained from pointing out you’d want Arborio in a paella. Basmati was more of a pilaf opportunity.

  For someone who said so many amusing things, Kurt delivered them in a completely deadpan fashion, leaving Delia unsure how much humour was intended.

  ‘I like to do PR for notable individuals, I shade into what you could call a publicist. I do consumer, if it’s interesting. Occasional bits of crisis management, spraying foam on the fire. No business to business, I’d rather watch cement set.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Tell me. What’s the worst day you had at your last job?’

  ‘Well, the day I left, I called a team-building exercise bullshit.’

  ‘Team building,’ Kurt snorted. ‘Did the Avengers assemble to fight evil and then do an egg drop?’

  ‘Hah!’ Delia said, thinking, she’d never heard of an egg drop.

  ‘And what was the best day?’

  ‘Oh! Er … there was a sculpture in a local park that looked quite phallic, which was under construction. There were some complaints from the Why Oh Why Oh Why types. We knew the eventual outcome would be less … willy-like but the artist was being a diva about secrecy and not discussing a work in progress and wouldn’t be quoted. So we couldn’t definitively say so. My contact at the local paper stitched me up, said he’d wait and then ran the headline What A Cock Up!’

  Delia had no idea if this was the right anecdote, but Kurt was nodding.

  ‘Anyway, it was a “modern take” on a maypole. The Mayor did the official unveiling with lots of schoolchildren running round. We were one short at the press call, so I made the reporter who’d done the cock-up story join in the dancing, as revenge. He’s very small. It was a bit harsh perhaps, but very funny.’

  ‘Love it.’

  Kurt sat back in his seat.

  ‘OK. This is on,’ he said.

  ‘Uh … Sorry?’ Delia said.

  ‘You’re hired. Start Monday at nine. I’ll be in for a team briefing and we can sign contracts then.’

  ‘Oh, wow. Great!’ Delia said, wondering if he was winding her up. Kurt scrutinised her, in a slightly uncomfortable way.

  ‘Your accent says trustworthy, your face says friendly and your art college clothes suggest creativity. Clients will like you. And frankly when it comes to account management, I’d rather train you my way.’

  ‘Oh. Thank you,’ Delia said, thinking this sounded ominous.

  ‘I warn you now, I’m unconventional. I like to jump out and pull the rip cord at the last minute. I’m not the guy who says “why”, I’m the guy who says “why the fuck not?” I take a dump on the rulebook, basically.’

  Delia thought there might be hidden filming going on. She was going to end up on Britain’s Baddest Bosses or similar, surely.

  They said brisk farewells and Delia wondered how it was possible she’d secured herself a job in one eccentric exchange in a café, and what sort of job it might be. Wow. The thing about succeeding as soon as you weren’t trying held true. Delia was pleased, and mildly stunned.

  Still, it was definitely cause to return the champagne arrival favour to Emma. One of the boons of living in London, Delia had discovered, was incredible takeaways. When Emma staggered through the door, Delia had a washing-up bowl full of ice and Moët and two thin crust pizzas the size of dustbin lids, steaming gently inside cardboard.

  There was much squealing and Delia could see Emma was overjoyed at Delia being pinned down to stay for longer.

  Emma fired up Delia’s laptop, a sagging triangle of chorizo and green chilli in one hand, to conduct her own inquiries.

  ‘Twist & Shout looks kind of mysterious from the website, doesn’t it, but then it’s a new company I suppose?’ she said. ‘Oh, Deels, well bloody done. I knew someone would see you’re special.’

  Delia slopped more fizz into Emma’s glass and, as she felt a small explosion of nerves, tried to quell them; she had Monday morning to be apprehensive. For now, it was time to celebrate.

  As Emma closed the browser window for Twist & Shout, she saw an open email with a large CONGRATS banner across it.

  ‘Well-wisher?’

  ‘Peshwari Naan.’

  ‘You talk to him now?!’

  ‘Yes, he keeps me company. He’s really funny.’

  ‘But you’ve never met him?’

  ‘No. I don’t even know his real name yet.’

  ‘Be careful.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s dangerous.’

  ‘I don’t mean for your safety. I’m saying don’t fall in love online. It’s all smoke and mirrors.’

  Delia giggled, high on new jobs, alcohol and general novelty. ‘Hardly!’ And yet it wasn’t entirely true that it was wide of the mark. After a few weeks of correspondence, she’d often caught herself thinking about Peshwari Naan, giving him imaginary physical form. She’d get up looking forward to their interactions, crafting her messages to him in her head. It was like having a diary that talked back to you. He was an unexpected treat, a new ally who had sprung from the unlikeliest of origins.

  So much of her life in Newcastle was enmeshed with Paul. She was Paul With The Pub’s Partner, and everything orbited around Paul, as the planets did the sun. The Naan was hers alone, nothing to do with that life. As she typed replies, she could be whoever she wanted to be. His was a funny, irreverent voice, and Delia felt her heaviness lift whenever she corresponded with him.

  Paul texted her fairly often, sometimes with minor news, asking for hers in return. And he called, explaining he just wanted to chat. Delia ignored the calls, or made excuses. Only when necessary did she give intermittent, terse responses that provided basic functional intel, merely the co-ordinates from a submarine, but no narrative or emotion. The channels of communication remained open but nothing much was travelling down them.

  ‘Someone at work, she met this guy in a chatroom …’ Emma said.

  ‘And he turned out to be a con man? I’m not about to give him three grand when he says his American cousin needs a new kidney.’

  ‘No, worse. She met him after about a year of emailing and she didn’t fancy him.’

  ‘Doom!’ Delia said, mocking.

  ‘Honestly, she was gutted! They’d got married in her head, moved to a farmhouse in Shropshire with good garage space she’d seen on Rightmove and had three kids. Imagine the scale of the disappointment. All I’m saying is, if you start to feel something, meet him, as soon as possible. Otherwise it’s like you’re locked in that moment with someone right before you kiss, for far too long.’

  ‘That’s very poetic.’

  ‘I’m quite pissed. Also, I met this guy when we worked on a big contract …’

  ‘Oh …?’ Delia suspected this advice had the sting of personal injury.

  ‘He emailed me after we closed the deal. I don’t mean the sex deal, I mean the literal deal; we never slept together. He emailed me every day for a month. It got completely het up, like we were soulmates. Then he stopped. That was it, gone, mid-conversation. I sent a few “Where did you go?” messages but he ignored them, so that was that.’

  ‘Maybe he left the firm? Or died.’

  ‘Negative, Ghost Rider. He’s still on their website. You don’t promote a dead man to run your Intellectual Property department. What I learned was this: if something rolls to you too easy, it can roll away again just as easy. Is there any Quattro Stagioni left?’

  Inside the solid stone portico, Delia scanned the list of company names next to the buzzer and couldn’t find Twist & Shout. Was she in the wrong place? Oh, wait – there it was, right at the bottom. Hand-scribbled on a scrap of paper: ‘Twist & Sharp’.

  She pushed the stiff bell of a dirty-cream, boxy Georgian building and waited. As full of trepidation as she was, it had been enlivening to be part of London’s eb
b and flow this morning. In a city full of get up and go, it was impossible to feel part of things when you woke just as everyone had gotten up and gone.

  And although Delia still didn’t see Emma, she was, for the first time, among the commuter crush. She’d tried to act as if she’d always used an Oyster card (Hang on, it worked through wallets? Witchcraft!), all the while waiting for someone on the Piccadilly Line to tap her on the shoulder and say ‘Never seen you here before? Can I see some sort of ID?’

  ‘… ’LO?’ a female voice boom-crackled over the intercom.

  ‘Hello! Delia Moss for Twist & Shout,’ Delia said, feeling as stupid as you always did when talking into an intercom.

  There was some static, it switched off and the heavy door with one of those Hobbit hole, Bag End-ish central metal knobs was dragged backwards over thick carpet. A short, late middle-aged woman with a severe grey bob and spectacles on a string confronted her.

  ‘Twist & Shout?’ Delia said.

  The woman glared at her in suspicious incomprehension.

  ‘Kurt Spicer …?’ Delia added.

  ‘Oh! Kurt,’ she relented, letting Delia in. ‘Downstairs.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Delia said, thinking welcomes had been warmer.

  She picked her way past cardboard Lever Arch files and unplugged landline phones and down precarious narrow squeaky steps to a basement. This wasn’t the ice-palace, Fortress of Solitude type of PR office of her recent experiences.

  At the bottom, there was a corridor that led to, on one side, a cramped kitchenette with the standard-issue soggy bag of granulated sugar and ugly mugs, plastic kettle, fridge. Beyond that, she saw a cupboard-sized toilet with a torn-open twelve-pack of Andrex dimpled. OK, Delia had gone the wrong way but now she knew where the essentials were.

  At the other end, she found an office with an old metal filing cabinet, cheap desks, a landline and a whiteboard. The only decoration was a gold figurine of a Japanese Lucky Cat, on top of the cabinet, waving paw rocking back and forth. Delia always found them faintly macabre. Didn’t Kurt say he was getting furniture delivered? By a time traveller, it looked like.

  Delia ducked her head out of the doorway and couldn’t see any more rooms. No. This must be it.

  She felt foolish and unsure, and recalled this was why new jobs were so absurdly stressful. It wasn’t the work, it was all the tiny procedural unknown things that left you standing around cluelessly like a goon.

  ‘Hello!’

  A female voice right behind her.

  ‘Are you Delia?’

  She whipped round. A girl – for once a girl who wasn’t patronising – was grinning broadly at her.

  She looked early twenties at most, with unruly long brown hair held back from her sweetly pretty, unmade-up face. Had Kurt really chosen two such very prima facie atypical-for-PR types?

  ‘I am! Hello,’ Delia stuck out a hand, thinking that this girl had an expression and demeanour where you knew immediately she was wholesome and kind. Something in the smile going all the way up to her eyes.

  ‘I’m Steph.’

  Oh my word. And she was Scouse?!

  ‘A fellow northerner!’ Delia couldn’t help herself exclaiming.

  ‘The Wirral.’

  ‘Have you been here long? At Twist & Shout, I mean.’

  ‘No, I’m starting today too. I think it’s only us.’

  Delia could’ve thrown her bag and coat down, grabbed her and waltzed her round the room. She had been imagining the aloof intimidatresses she might be dealing with. Instead it was Steph, who wore Doc Marten shoes with sheer black tights, like a nurse, and was pulling her ponytail out of her duffle coat hood, saying: ‘Think there’s any form of caffeine on the premises? I left it too late to get to Caffè Nero.’

  Delia felt like she’d made a friend on the first day of school.

  They bonded in the traditional British way, making cups of tea. Steph was a recent media studies graduate and she’d found Twist & Shout in the same way as Delia, via the website. She was doing a tough commute from her aunt’s in Essex in each day and Delia thought how lucky she was, billeted at Chez Emma in Zone 2.

  Almost strange that Kurt would hire two such similar candidates, Delia thought. She wasn’t about to argue, though.

  They carried their drinks back in and surveyed the bare space.

  ‘Brought a laptop?’ Delia said. She had hers, in a new school ‘belt and braces’ spirit.

  ‘Yeah, good job too,’ Steph said. ‘Why didn’t he tell us the computers weren’t here?’

  They set them up – Delia on the old Dell she’d originally inherited from Ralph, covered in Marvel stickers – and logged into the WiFi, drummed their fingers and chatted as they awaited their new boss.

  Ten minutes later, and suddenly Kurt was in the room. The temperature, volume and crowdedness seemed not to triple but to increase tenfold.

  ‘Ladies!’ he barked. ‘Day one of the new dawn. Let’s get going. Client list, strategy notes,’ he said, throwing a ringbinder folder onto each of their desks.

  ‘I prefer to work with hard copies, they’re less easy to share or duplicate. This is our company bible. Protect it like a newborn. Don’t show it to anyone outside this room.’

  Delia and Steph both tried to look suitably fascinated as they flipped through the pages.

  ‘Save it for later!’ Kurt said. ‘I’m out for a meeting on the hour, read it then. A few things first, to explain what Twist & Shout is all about.’

  He pulled a chair out to the centre of the room and sat down on it, as if they were a panel interviewing him.

  ‘Something about me,’ he said, with the weight of introducing a big revelation. ‘I don’t queue.’

  A tense pause. Delia felt, as the older employee, it was her duty to step up.

  ‘You don’t queue?’

  ‘No.’

  Another pause.

  ‘What do you do when you want to buy something which is being served, on an, um, sequential basis?’ Delia ventured.

  ‘I find another way. Or I don’t bother. What I’m saying is, there’s people in life who stand in line, who let other people set the pace and the terms. Then there’s those who take charge.’

  Delia had absolutely no idea how this mantra translated to actual situations. Hello. I don’t recognise your being ahead of me in the queue for the checkout. Stand aside. She imagined Kurt being removed by Sainsbury’s security, shrieking ‘Carpe diem.’

  ‘You’ll start to understand how I operate as we go along. You’ll see clients come to me because I don’t think like all the rest. My campaigns are shock and awe. I’m a rainmaker.’

  I’m more of a tea maker, Delia thought, dismissing all expectation of Kurt making any sense.

  ‘I go out there, and things happen. You are my Girl Fridays. I need you to do the admin, keep the clients happy, answer the phones, write the press releases, manage the media inquiries. Some of our adventures will require ingenuity and flexibility …’

  Delia hoped that wasn’t the literal sort.

  ‘… But I promise you, we’ll have fun. Any questions?’

  Delia felt she should have three thousand questions, but none were coming to her.

  ‘How should we get started this morning?’ Steph said, politely.

  ‘Read the files, get to know the notes. Give me ideas about how we can tackle various clients, if you like. That’s all. Go for lunch and do some girly bonding. We can start slowly. I’m going to need you to pull an evening, now and again.’

  They both nodded.

  Kurt stood up and spun the chair back in its place.

  ‘I’ll be on my mobile if you need me, but I airplane mode when with clients. They need to know they have my fullest.’ As he exited, he threw up a hand: ‘Shalom.’

  There was a pregnant silence as Delia tried to work out how irreverent she could be with Steph.

  ‘Is it me or does he talk in riddles?’ Steph said.

  A combination of the Liverpu
dlian accent, and the relief, made this incredibly funny to Delia, and they both corpsed.

  Steph leafed through the pages.

  ‘I’ve heard of some of these people!’ she gasped.

  Delia shared her surprise at its respectability. It was partly the contrast between the clients’ profile and the down-at-heel offices and haphazard way Kurt ran things.

  He didn’t return for the rest of the day, and at half twelve, Steph said: ‘Shall we get that “girly” lunch we’re supposed to? I think the word bonding is clear approval for us to get a pint, too?’

  Delia was falling in love.

  What are you doing today then, Dynamic Delia? PN

  I’m meeting the Evening Standard restaurant critic for lunch. Apparently Kurt has big plans for him. Although I’m only there to take notes because Kurt says it’ll lend him greater importance to look like he has assistants. Not sure this is dynamism. Or feminism. D

  It was lucky that Delia had managed her expectations with regards to the pleasure of Gideon Coombes, because there was absolutely no pleasure to be had.

  A long wiry creature who wore owlish, oversized, very round glasses, with an expensive-looking grey flannel suit and a gingham shirt, he had a reputation for completely destroying establishments he disliked. His was a poison pen, wielded by a puff adder in Paul Smith.

  She and Kurt met him in a modern Italian trattoria near Soho. Having thought it was a shame she was being treated as Kurt’s sidekick, she soon found herself deeply grateful that the bulk of the conversation didn’t require her input.

  At first Delia assumed this was simply London-ish behaviour from Gideon. But as time wore on, her instincts told her she was in the company of a giant helmet.

  Every so often, Gideon would break the conversation mid-sentence and mutter comments about the food into his Dictaphone. There was no reason that Delia could see to allow it to interrupt conversation, other than as an affected flourish.

  Kurt was discussing Gideon’s wish to transition from print media to television, and suddenly Gideon held up a finger. Click.

  ‘Not one of my strongest gnocchi experiences to date. Gluey consistency. They should float like tiny clouds, not pebbledash the bowl. Compare here with Bocca, Locanda. Things improve with floral notes of fennel and muscular flavours of borlotti and boar sausage. Something about tart’s knickers underneath a Laura Ashley dress. Mention curious smell in the men’s. Incense should not be found outside shops that spell the word magic with a K.’