by Maeve Haran
It was her very first day at WomanPower and the excitement had taken her by surprise, making her turn up the music and, although she was normally a careful driver, put her foot down on the accelerator. She remembered how, five years ago, Britt had asked her if she ever looked at her own reflection in shop windows as she sat at the traffic lights and she had replied in amazement, ‘No of course not.’ But today she did. And an elegant woman with a sleek bob and dark glasses in an expensive-looking coat with its collar turned up gazed back at her, smiling.
You’re like one of those young bimbos, all hair and sunglasses and blaring stereo, she told herself. You’re making an exhibition of yourself. But she didn’t stop. She threw back her head and laughed, so that the sluggish Oh-God-it’s-Monday drivers in the other cars turned and looked at her as though she was mad.
But she wasn’t mad. She was a thirty something woman who loved her children but who found she needed something else in her life as well, on her way to work for her very first day in her new job. And as she drove along Liz had an overwhelming sense that, cliché or not, it really was the first day of the rest of her life. And she didn’t need a clairvoyant to tell her that, this time, it was all going to work out.
David sat, feeling blissfully warm and full for the first time in what seemed like days, a pint mug – which was what they meant by ‘large’ in Yorkshire – of strong tea in his hand and surveyed the pile of newspapers spread out in front of him on the café table. It was ten o’clock and he had the place to himself, the early workmen having breakfasted long ago and not yet stopped for bacon sarnies as their elevenses.
He’d bought the papers for two reasons. First, because he was a news junkie and even if he was stranded, lost and penniless in the Gobi desert, he’d find a corner shop and borrow the local paper, and, second, because he knew he had to decide whether he wanted to work for any of them.
Modesty isn’t one of the qualities that characterize editors of national newspapers, and David knew his worth. Greene Communications wouldn’t employ him but they weren’t the only newspaper group in town. Even the fact that Logan was no doubt spreading the lie that he hadn’t jumped but had been pushed didn’t really matter.
Newspaper editors were always rising from the dead, and unlike Lazarus they’d often been in the tomb a lot longer than four days. One Fleet Street veteran had been fired – and given a handsome payoff – so often that people said he’d been born with a silver knife in his back.
Helping himself to another huge doorstep of white toast, thickly buttered, David bit into it with relish. It was great to be back home where butter meant something yellow, delicious and deadly instead of the tasteless sunflower margarine or low-fat spreads favoured by soft Southerners that made the toast damp and oily but certainly not hot-buttered.
But did he want to go back and work for another proprietor like Logan Greene who didn’t really want an editor, but a minion?
David threw down the copy of the Daily News in disgust and delved in his pocket for change to pay for breakfast, remembering with annoyance that he’d spent his last couple of quid on the papers.
He’d just have to pay when he’d been to the bank. For a moment he grinned, imagining the scene if he had been power breakfasting at the Ritz or the Savoy and had forgotten his credit cards. But life was a lot simpler here.
He strode across to the cash machine outside the NatWest bank and punched in his personal number. A hundred pounds spewed obligingly into his hands. That would last two weeks up here. In London it seemed to be ten minutes.
On his way back to the café an advert for the local paper caught his eye and he dipped into a newsagent to pick one up. It sat there, the Selden Bridge Star, nestling between Big Ones and Auto Car Weekly. As he reached to pick up a copy he overheard a snatch of conversation that made him stand still for a moment, a mad, crazy idea sowing its first tender seedlings in his excited mind.
‘Welcome to WomanPower!’ Ginny brushed the dust off an ancient desk with one of her sheepskin-lined gloves and gestured expansively round the tiny, unprepossessing office.
Liz smiled back, trying not to think about Jamie and Daisy and whether or not they’d settled down with Minty, and doing her best to ignore the peeling paintwork, the battered grey filing cabinets with drawers that didn’t shut, the desks that looked as though they were third- or fourth-hand rather than second-, and tried to picture it once they’d given it a lick of paint and bought a few cheap black desks from The Reject Shop.
Liz had strong ideas about offices. She was convinced if you wanted people to work hard and well, you had to give them the right environment. And it didn’t have to be expensive. Plain paintwork, haircord carpet, maybe ex-exhibition, a few posters. They wouldn’t be able to afford fresh flowers but the trendy gift shops all imported such brilliant lilies and tulips in brightly coloured fabric nowadays that they were more fun than the real thing.
Liz looked round the room, mentally calculating how much it would cost her to transform it from the dingy off-putting place it was now into somewhere that would inspire clients with confidence. If Gavin would do the decorating, she reckoned she could do it for £500. And it would be money well spent.
‘How on earth do you bring prospective clients into this dump, Ginny? Don’t they take one look and run straight off to Brook Street Bureau?’
Ginny didn’t answer but looked embarrassed and instantly changed the subject.
‘Have you met Kim, our Girl Friday?’
Liz looked her up and down. Kim was fat and plain and wore miniskirts which her best friend should have told her were not a good idea. Her manner was a winning combination of apathy laced with – when she could be bothered – unhelpfulness.
Liz decided in Kim’s case Girl Friday probably meant she did a lot of different jobs badly.
‘So,’ Liz moved the dust on her desk round a bit and put down her briefcase, ‘let’s get stuck in! Kim, could you get me the client list and a copy of WomanPower’s Profit and Loss Account, please?’
Kim looked stunned and ambled off towards the rickety filing cabinets where she bent over, displaying as much thigh as a Miss World entrant, and a pair of unappealing greyish white knickers. Liz looked away.
‘I’m afraid I can’t find them,’ the girl announced without surprise.
Liz turned to Ginny, trying to keep the exasperation from her voice. ‘Ginny, have you got the client list in your desk?’
Ginny looked back at her, reddening. ‘The client list? What exactly do you mean?’
Liz tried not to sound irritated. After all, Ginny had no business experience. ‘The list of all the companies you’ve been finding staff for,’ she explained patiently.
‘I see.’
‘Well, where is it?’
Ginny came and sat on the edge of her desk. ‘We don’t exactly have one.’
‘Why ever not, how on earth do you keep track of your clients and their requirements?’ She looked around her. ‘You should have a computer, it would be ideal for this kind of business. You must have at least a card index system.’
Ginny looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, so far I’ve managed to carry it all round in my head.’
‘Ginny, that’s crazy! Don’t you ever forget any of it? You must have a mind like a word processor.’
‘Well, so far it hasn’t been too difficult.’
‘Why not?’
Ginny took a deep breath. ‘Because so far we’ve only placed a few dozen people and most of them were temps.’
Liz looked at her, speechless. She couldn’t have heard her right. ‘But you’ve been open more than two months!’
‘I know. It’s been rather a slow start.’ Ginny smiled engagingly. ‘But it’ll pick up now that you’re here.’
Liz closed her eyes and tried to blot out Kim’s ballooning thighs and Ginny’s wild optimism.
When she’d agreed to work for WomanPower, what the hell had she let herself in for?
‘You heard about the Star?’ T
he newsagent’s head appeared from behind a Mount Everest of unsold newspapers as he leaned out over the counter piled high with Old Holborn, returned Pools Coupons and jars of gobstoppers to tell his customer a particularly choice piece of gossip. ‘Closing down unless they can find themselves a buyer to take it on. It’s that freesheet that did it, it’s taken all their readers away.’
The customer drew in his breath sharply, making a hissing noise of shock and outrage. ‘T’won’t be the same without the Star. That paper’s been going ever since I were a boy.’
‘Over a hundred years.’
‘How much do they want for it?’
‘Look here. There’s an announcement in last week’s edition.’ He leafed through the paper. ‘There. Quarter of a million. But I bet they’d take an offer.’ The newsagent grinned at his toothless customer. ‘Going to make a bid, Stan, eh?’
And the two men cackled with laughter.
‘Excuse me,’ David interrupted, pointing to the advert, his brain racing, ‘have you finished with that?’
‘Aye.’ The newsagent handed it to him.
‘Is it a good paper?’
‘Used to be. One of the best. Ten years ago, every household took a copy. Now they get sent the Messenger free, most of ’em don’t bother.’ He looked at David for the first time. ‘You interested then?’
David smiled back. ‘I might be.’ He fought his way through the piles of newspapers and magazines to the door as both men watched him curiously.
‘He don’t look like Rupert Murdoch, do he?’
‘I dunno what Rupert Murdoch looks like, but I bet he puts his cagoule on the right way round.’
David heard a deep throaty laugh, swiftly followed by an attack of smoker’s coughing.
He looked down at the bright orange garment. It was inside out. Slowly he took it off and turned it round the right way as he walked, a new spring in his step, back to the café to pay for his breakfast.
Keep calm, Liz told herself, as she looked back on the unmitigated disaster of her first day back in the working world. She had been looking forward to it so much. And what had she found? That Ginny was terrific at persuading women to sign up with WomanPower but it had no systems, no organization, and hardly any customers. WomanPower two months on was exactly what it had been when Ginny had first told them about it: a good idea on paper only. Except for one crucial difference, which Liz was trying to push to the back of her mind, but which kept bobbing up again like a bad apple in a barrel of stinking water.
To set up WomanPower Ginny had borrowed a hefty sum from the bank. But the bank manager hadn’t given her the loan out of the kindness of his heart or because he thought women returners were a good thing and ought to be encouraged. He had given it to her because Ginny had broken the fundamental rule that Liz had been taught at Business School. She had put up her own home, that warm and welcoming haven of love and hospitality, as security.
And if Liz didn’t manage to rescue the fortunes of WomanPower pretty damn quick she would lose it for ever.
Feeling physically sick at the responsibility she had unsuspectingly taken on, Liz turned into the lane that led to Crossways and Jamie and Daisy. The day had been so ghastly that she half expected to see them both waiting in the doorway, their faces stained with unquenchable tears, to accuse her of abandoning them into the arms of a cruel stranger.
Instead the front door was closed and as she walked, physically exhausted and emotionally drained, towards it, she heard gales of giggles coming from inside. She stood for a moment, her hand on the doorhandle and let the delicious sound wash over her, as soothing and restorative as a cooling shower on a long, hot day. Minty was clearly a hit.
David sat over his second pint of tea in Bridge café and smiled at the motherly waitress who kept plying him with rock buns, custard tarts and Eccles cake. He pictured for a moment the equivalent café in the South, where every surface would be littered with dirty cups and plates and the butter and jam came in tiny individual portions, not big enough to feed a flea, direct from the freezer.
The moment he’d walked down that steep and slippery slope to Selden Bridge, David had felt comfortable here. It would be wrong to say he felt as though he were coming home, because home for David was forty miles away over the peaks of the Pennines. But it might as well be four hundred miles, the feel of the place was so different. In Kettley people were friendly compared with Londoners, but they were taciturn by nature and tended to keep themselves to themselves. Here, as he’d discovered in a single morning, people actually talked to you. Complete strangers exchanged news and views, handed out advice, gave directions before you even asked for them.
It would, he knew, drive Southerners, with their obsession about privacy, always surrounding themselves with nine foot hedges, stark staring mad. But he loved it. You felt people cared.
Sipping the last of his tea David added up a column of figures on the back of an envelope provided by the cheerful waitress. He picked up the copy of the Financial Times he’d bought earlier and turned to the FT 100 share prices.
If he sold the Mercedes and all his shares in Greene Communications he could almost do it. He would still need another twenty grand or so and to get that he had three options: he could borrow it from the bank, he could cash in his pension rights for a lump sum payment, or they could sell the London house.
He put down his mug of tea and stared into space. Sell the London house. He’d never wanted to face the inexorable logic of getting rid of their house in Holland Park, but now that he’d left Greene Communications it was madness not to sell it simply to save the mortgage repayments. If he thought there was the slenderest chance of Liz and he getting back together, things might be different. But there wasn’t. Liz had made that abundantly clear.
Remembering the biting sarcasm of her tone, he felt the familiar anger and bitterness start to lick at him, but swiftly he kicked it away. That was all in the past.
The future was here. In Selden Bridge. Where the millstone grit of the moors seemed to him not grey and forbidding but welcoming. His waitress returned with the offer of another refill. David smiled. And the well-meaning locals try and drown you in kindness and hot sweet tea.
He must write to Liz and see if she would agree. But first he must get someone to deliver those bloody Christmas presents.
Looking round the newly decorated office, Liz felt her spirits if not exactly soar, then at least rise up a few notches. Just as she’d imagined, the whole place had been transformed by a weekend’s hard graft with the paintbrush and a few hundred quid’s worth of decent furniture.
And, thank God, they’d given the dreadful Kim her marching orders and replaced her with an eighteen-year-old called Dawn, whom Ginny thought Liz was mad to take on since she had no qualifications whatsoever, except a bright personality, eagerness to learn and a gratitude so profound for employing her that she stayed in the office till everyone had left, just in case she might be useful.
The office, with its minty-new designer-grey paintwork, black office furniture and splashes of red in the form of plastic filing trays and desk-tidies actually contrived to look quite smart. And this morning Dawn had arrived with the star attraction – two huge abstract canvases in oil painted by her drop-out art student brother. If you didn’t look too closely you might just think you were in a trendy ad agency in Covent Garden.
But, thrilled as she was, Liz knew that all they’d done so far was move the deck-chairs on the Titanic. On the way into work today she’d given herself a serious talking to and decided she had three months, no more, to get things moving or WomanPower would be finished.
‘Right.’ Liz banged her fist on her new desk. ‘Down to business.’ She had spent the last three days reading everything she could lay her hands on about employment agencies, she had studied the classified job ads and she had lurked outside the window of their rivals till she thought the police would come and move her on. Now she had decided it was time to cut a few corners.
&nbs
p; ‘It’s time we showed a bit of enterprise!’ Ginny looked startled. ‘So I’ve decided to go and get a few tips on starting an employment agency from Ross Slater!’
‘Ross Slater? But isn’t he the millionaire who runs World of Work? He’ll never give advice to a rival!’
Liz grinned. ‘He will if I pretend to be a reporter!’
Ginny’s face was a mask of horror. ‘But that’s dishonest!’
‘Just a bit. But it’ll be worth it. He can tell me more in half an hour than I’ll pick up in a year on my own.’ She started laughing. ‘Naturally I won’t tell him my real name. And anyway if I do a good job Bert at the News will probably publish it.’
‘But won’t he check out your credentials?’
‘I doubt it. Successful men are very vain when it comes to being interviewed. It’s just a chance I’ll have to take. He can only throw me out.’
Before Ginny could raise any more objections Liz reached for the phone and dialled.
‘Hello. Is that Mr Slater’s office? My name’s Susannah Smith from the Daily News. I’m doing a series on Britain’s Top Ten entrepreneurs and I’d very much like to include him.’
‘So tell me Miss, er, Smith, what are you after from this piece?’
Liz sipped her coffee in its dark green and gold French cup and tried not to feel disconcerted by the man sitting opposite her. He was in his mid-forties, wearing a polo shirt and lightweight suit even though it was February, looking fit and tanned as though he’d just got back from the West Indies. Liz identified the style as Design Guru with a touch of Retail Whiz-kid. And he still had just a trace of a Cockney accent. But despite his steely charm she found Ross Slater unexpectedly disturbing.
She’d met plenty of rich men in her time and she knew very well that you had to be a bastard to get to the top, but there was something both magnetic and vaguely threatening in Ross Slater’s manner which was making her nerve trickle down her spine into a small pool on the floor beside her. For the first time she wondered whether it had been such a great idea to lie to him and give a false name.