Having It All

by Maeve Haran

  Lifting her chin, Liz looked him directly in the eyes, and tried to think about Ginny’s house which would be repossessed if she didn’t find a way of saving WomanPower. ‘The angle I’m interested in is advice to a beginner.’

  ‘I see.’ He looked sceptical.

  ‘The fact is every idiot out there thinks they could be Ross Slater if only they got the breaks and I’m trying to show the skill of making money, the way you create your own breaks.’ She smiled at him, and he smiled back, seeming to relax. ‘So how did you start World of Work?’

  ‘On a £2,000 overdraft, in a moth-eaten office in London’s most boring suburb.’

  Liz’s heart quickened. If he could build the biggest agency in Britain from such humble beginnings in five years, then she could at least save WomanPower!

  ‘And how big is it now?’

  ‘A hundred branches. In every major town in Britain.’

  Liz decided it was time to take the plunge. ‘So,’ she asked brightly, ‘what advice would you give to someone starting out in the employment business?’

  Ross Slater thought for a moment.

  ‘First find out who your potential customers are, and the kind of businesses they’re in. There’s no point in signing up two hundred spot welders if all businesses want is computer programmers. Second, find out who the opposition’s clients are and steal them . . .’

  ‘How would you do that?’

  ‘Really, Miss Smith, you’re not showing much imagination. Go and work for them.’

  Liz was riveted. She’d never thought of trying that.

  ‘Third, make sure your people are good. That they can do what they say they can do. If a girl says she can word process at 120 words a minute make sure she doesn’t mean 120 words an hour.’

  There was a brief silence and Liz looked up from her notes to find Ross Slater studying the narrow band of pale skin revealed by the wedding ring she’d slipped off just before coming.

  ‘Is that all?’ She covered her left hand with her right.

  ‘No. Last and most important point. Make local contacts. Go out and look for your customers, don’t wait for them to come to you or they’ll always go to a firm they’ve heard of.’ He stood up, giving Liz the message loud and clear that the interview was over. It had lasted precisely twenty minutes.

  ‘One last question.’ Liz was amazed by her own nerve. ‘Could an agency specializing in part-timers catch on?’

  He looked at her curiously, ‘Why do you ask?’

  Liz smiled modestly. ‘A pet scheme of mine, that’s all. I’ve always thought it was quite a good idea, with so many women being wooed back into the workforce.’

  ‘No chance, I’m afraid. It’s far too specialized.’

  He couldn’t be right. He just hadn’t looked at part-time working as a prospect that was all. She knew WomanPower was a good idea.

  So preoccupied was she with reassuring herself about WomanPower’s chances of success that she didn’t notice he had already walked to the door and was dismissing her.

  ‘Goodbye, Mrs Ward.’ He held the door open, a silky smile lifting the corners of his mouth. ‘And good luck with the agency.’

  ‘Hello, Suzan, this is David Ward speaking.’

  ‘David? How are you?’ Suzan put her feet up on her desk in the crowded newsroom and picked up a press release in the attempt to hide her excitement and sound casual. ‘What are you up to?’

  David grinned. Nothing had been finalized yet but he had seen round the Selden Bridge Star and had liked what he saw. He’d expected outdated machinery and a dyed-in-the-wool staff who didn’t even want the paperclips moved, but he’d been pleasantly surprised. Still, he had a long way to go yet and he didn’t want any bar-room gossip to screw up the deal. What’s more, the hardened hacks of the News would think he’d finally lost his marbles. For them the known world stopped around Wembley.

  ‘I’m fine. Very well.’ He wondered if she’d think he was mad too. ‘Cliché, cliché but I’ve gone back to my roots. It’s amazing what a few days of good Yorkshire air will do for you. I’m feeling terrific.’

  Suzan smiled. He sounded it too. ‘What can I do for you?’

  David felt embarrassed to be asking Suzan to do him a favour but she was the only person he could think of. ‘Could you possibly deliver a box of presents to my kids down in Sussex? It’s a lovely drive.’ He took Suzan’s fractional pause for irritation. ‘I expect you’re very busy. I’m sure I could find someone else . . .’

  ‘No, no, of course I’ll do it.’ Suzan wondered why she felt an instinctive reluctance to meet David’s wife and children. ‘Where do I find the presents?’

  ‘They’re in the hall of my house in Holland Park. I’ll send you the key with the address. Thanks a million.’

  And he put down the phone, imagining the pleasure on Jamie’s face when he opened the Ghostbusters Proton Pack, and feeling relieved to have found a solution to the practical problem that had been niggling him.

  So it didn’t occur to him to wonder what Liz would make of a young and beautiful woman arriving on her doorstep loaded down with Christmas presents for Jamie and Daisy.

  ‘He sussed me! I was just walking out of the bloody room and he called me Mrs Ward! I nearly died!’

  Even though Liz threw herself, giggling, into Ginny’s arms she could still feel herself going cold and clammy when she realized that Ross Slater had known exactly who she was all along.

  ‘How did he find out?’

  ‘He must have phoned the News, I suppose, and then done some detective work.’

  ‘So why did he see you?’

  ‘God, Ginny, I don’t know! To play with me perhaps? To flex his millionaire’s power muscles? Maybe even to put me off. He tried, you know, said WomanPower couldn’t work. But, weird man, he also gave me some useful tips which we are about to follow now this minute.’

  Forgetting Ross Slater, Liz pulled out her notebook from her briefcase and flipped it open. She couldn’t wait to get moving. ‘First, you, Ginny, are going to get a job with Nine to Five and steal all their contacts, while Dawn tests the speeds of the measly number of applicants who have shown the slightest desire to get a job through WomanPower and I, poor fool, will try and find us some customers!’

  ‘And the same to you, you stuck-up cow!’

  Liz slammed down the phone and let rip with the tension of two fruitless, frustrating days spent on the phone crawling to patronizing PAs and superior secretaries who clearly felt that they were doing her the big favour by even lifting the phone, and that no, Good God, no, she could not speak to the Personnel Manager/Head of Recruitment/Exec in charge of Hiring and Firing.

  After two whole days of it Liz had vowed never to be rude to a double-glazing salesman or Personal Pension Plan adviser who cold-called her ever again.

  Used to relying on the magic word Television to open every door, Liz couldn’t believe how difficult it was for ordinary mortals to get to speak to anyone in authority. Trying to ring the Personnel Manager of some tinpot little company specializing in plumbing supplies or spot welding was marginally harder than getting through to Buckingham Palace.

  Liz gazed down the long list of numbers she still had to ring and slumped back in her spanking new office chair. She had to face it. This wasn’t working. They were going to have to try something else.

  If only she had a name to drop or had met the man before, no matter how briefly, she knew things would be different. It was all very well Ross Slater banging on about making local contacts, but how the hell, short of joining the Rotary Club or becoming a Freemason, was she going to meet any?

  ‘I know, why don’t we have a party? A really gruesome one packed with every Personnel Manager, dead or alive, we can manage to dig up?’ Ginny had just come back, full of energy and stolen ideas, from a week’s spying at their rival Nine to Five, and clearly felt ready for anything.

  Thinking it over for a minute, Liz decided it wasn’t a half bad idea. After all anything, anythi
ng would be better than being told to get lost by another uppity receptionist. At least they’d get their picture in the local paper and they could capitalize on it by taking an ad on the same page to outline their services. In its own small way, WomanPower would have arrived. But to justify all that expense they’d have to be damn sure the paper would run a story.

  ‘I know.’ Ginny leaped up and started pulling up her suit and showing her legs. ‘Hire a model. Sit her behind a typewriter and get her to flash a bit of leg at the camera. You know. The boring tired old sexy secretary routine. They’re bound to fall for that one.’

  ‘Ginny’– Liz jumped up and put her arms around her –‘you may not be a feminist but you’re absolutely brilliant!’

  But by the time she packed up to go, and they’d worked out how much it was going to cost them, Liz was starting to lose her nerve. What if it didn’t work? They’d have poured hundreds more pounds down the drain.

  On the other hand, they had to do something.

  Dejectedly, joining the small queue of commuters making their way out of Lewes at five-thirty, she tried to ban all thoughts of WomanPower from her mind. Thank God tomorrow was one of her days off and they could go for a walk high up on Firle Beacon, with Daisy dozing in the backpack and Jamie running on ahead looking for a suitable place to do roly-polys on the hard frosty ground. Thank God for kids! For the immediacy of their demands and their need of you now, not in five minutes when you’ve finished the article you’re reading or tidied the kitchen cupboard. She remembered a quote from Lady Antonia Fraser, who’d managed to produce countless children while also producing countless books. The great thing about being a working mother, she’d said, is that if the work is going badly at least you’ve got the children.

  And tonight Liz knew exactly what she meant.

  ‘Mum! Mum! Oww! Your cheeks are cold!’

  She had only half opened the front door when Jamie catapulted himself past a laughing Minty and into her arms, almost knocking her over in his delight at seeing her.

  ‘Hello darling, did you have a nice day?’

  ‘Scrummy! We went to Burger King and Daisy and I had a Whopper and she gave me her pickle ’cause she didn’t like it and I had a Coca Cola and they gave us a free Superman in a car!’

  Wiped out after her thankless day Liz slipped off her coat and hung it on the knob of the banisters, knowing that the pegs were only two feet away, but two feet suddenly seemed like two miles, and wondered why she had bothered to move her children a hundred miles from London slap bang into the middle of some of the most beautiful countryside in the world when they preferred the inside of a Burger King.

  Scooping up the pile of mail that had arrived after her early start, she thanked Minty and flopped down on to the sofa, pulling Jamie on to one knee and Daisy on to the other.

  ‘Me open it! Me open it!’ demanded Daisy, grabbing for the pile and Liz handed her a bank statement. She could tear that up with pleasure. It was, as usual, all bills and mail-shots. Except for one letter, postmarked Selden Bridge.

  She gently extricated herself from the sofa, slotted in a Disney video, reminding herself guiltily that the baby books said you must never, never use a video as a babysitter. Then, using the video as a babysitter, she slipped into the kitchen and sat down at the pine table.

  Looking round at her familiar things, her pretty china, her Staffordshire dogs on the mantelpiece over the Aga, the basket of flowers in the middle of the table, she felt stronger. She was happy here. She wondered then why she felt so reluctant to open his letter. What could David have to say that would hurt her any more than she’d been hurt already?

  With a slightly shaking hand she tore the letter open. It was short and to the point. David was thinking of settling in somewhere called Selden Bridge and wondered if, given that neither of them were likely to be living there, wasn’t it time to put the London house on the market as soon as possible?

  She put the letter down carefully. It was a perfectly sensible suggestion and her only surprise was that he hadn’t come up with it sooner. But why the sudden rush? Maybe it was money now that he’d chucked up his job with Logan, but she couldn’t help feeling there was more to it than that, something he wasn’t telling her.

  Instinctively she got up and leaned for a moment against the Aga, hoping its comforting warmth would banish the sudden chill she felt even though the room was warm. And standing there she had the oddest sensation that a door was closing and that she was on the wrong side of it.

  She was so engrossed in her thoughts that she didn’t hear the gentle, almost hesitant knock at the front door until Jamie launched himself into the room, his face aglow with excitement.

  ‘Mum! Mum! There’s a lady at the door with lots of presents and she says they’re for me and Daisy from Dad!’

  For a moment Liz wondered if Jamie was talking about Britt, but then she realized Britt was the last person who would turn up bearing gifts from David. Burning with curiosity she followed Jamie into the sitting room.

  CHAPTER 27

  Standing by the fire, still loaded with presents, the fur hood of her leather parka framing her lovely ski-tanned face, was one of the most startling-looking girls Liz had ever seen. Tall and slender as a model, even in her flat running shoes, her short dark hair flecked with snow and her huge brown eyes sparkling from the bitter cold outside, she smiled at Liz and Jamie with open friendliness.

  ‘Hello, I’m Suzan. David asked me to drop these in. I hope this isn’t a bad time?’

  Jamie ran up and started to take the presents from her, and as she bent down Liz studied her again. As well as her glowing athletic beauty, two things stood out about her. Her youth, which Liz put at twenty-one or twenty-two, and the tone of her voice when she talked about David. The girl was clearly in love with him.

  David signed his name on the three copies of the contract and shook hands with the Managing Director of Star Newspapers and with his lawyer.

  Everything had gone amazingly smoothly. Once he’d got the report from the firm of market researchers he’d hired to evaluate the paper’s potential for growth, had toured the building and met the staff for the second time and pored over the paper’s Profit and Loss Account, it didn’t take him long to make up his mind. And now that it was done he didn’t know whether he was more excited or shit-scared. He was a newspaper proprietor! It wasn’t exactly Greene Communications, but it was his and it would stand or fall by his talents.

  As the fear retreated and the excitement took over he knew he just had to tell someone. Liz. She would understand. She’d spent months building up Metro. And this would be like Metro without Conrad! Like Greene Communications without Logan sitting on his shoulder and subtly, or sometimes not so subtly, steering it in the direction he wanted it to go in.

  Smiling to himself he reached for the phone.

  ‘Liz? Liz, it’s David. Did you get my letter? Look I’ve got some good news and I wanted you to be the first to know.’

  Liz sat clutching the phone, her knuckles whiter against the white of the receiver. He didn’t need to tell her. She already knew. He’d fallen in love. That was why he suddenly wanted to sell the house so fast. She’d known it the moment Suzan walked into the room.

  ‘Liz, I’ve bought a newspaper! The Selden Bridge Star. It’s only small, but it has great potential and I’ll be my own boss! No more Logan breathing down my neck. Liz? Aren’t you going to say anything?’

  Liz sat silently. What about his other piece of news? Was he just going to wait for her to find that out by walking into a restaurant too?

  ‘And will your new love like it in, where did you say – Selden Bridge?’ She could hear the bitterness in her voice, the sarcastic tones of the joyless carping wife, but she couldn’t help it. How dare he send his teeny-bopper girlfriend round with presents for the kids. ‘She seemed like a city girl to me. At her age she’ll be pining for Stringfellows.’

  There was a stunned silence from David. What the hell was Liz on abou
t? And then it struck him, suddenly, ludicrously, and he burst out laughing.

  ‘You mean Suzan? She’s not my new love, for Christ’s sake. She’s just a friend, a reporter on the News.’

  Liz knew she should keep quiet, but she couldn’t stop herself. She wanted to lash out, to strike home. ‘Has anyone told her that? She’s clearly in love with you. A father complex no doubt. She probably screwed her tutor and her last boss and now it’s your turn.’

  Oh, shit. Why had she said that? It was just that Suzan was so young and beautiful, and she’d walked in at the moment when Liz, worried about WomanPower, had felt fat and a failure.

  ‘Liz, what are you talking about?’ She could hear his voice go cold, all the enthusiasm drained out of it, and she wished to God she could take it back. But it was too late. ‘Look, there’s no point discussing this. Suzan is a friend and former colleague, that’s all. Maybe it’s better we don’t talk at all if you feel like this. I’ll get my lawyer to ring you about the house . . .’

  His lawyer! They didn’t need lawyers. They were civilized human beings. ‘David I’m sorry. I . . .’

  But he’d rung off. She’d been incredibly stupid. He clearly wasn’t in love with Suzan, after all. She could tell from his tone. She’d got it wrong. And now she’d planted the idea in his brain, and he’d turn it over and over and wonder if she was right. Oh God . . .

  Liz sat in the freezing darkness of the hall, and put the phone down, going over the conversation word by word. She could hear again the enthusiasm and excitement in his voice when he’d talked about buying the paper. And she hadn’t even said anything, hadn’t even congratulated him. She’d just raved on like a jealous wife. And she wasn’t a wife. Not any more.

  She had to apologize, had to at least wish him luck. She reached out for the telephone and stopped, the gesture frustrated.

  In her fury and jealousy she hadn’t asked him his number.

  Still seething at Liz’s reaction, David walked through the wet, shiny-grey streets of Selden Bridge and marvelled that so many houses could be ranged one on top of the other up the steep hillside. Double deckers, they called them when they built them at the turn of the century. But to David it looked more like every house had fifty others on top of it, their dark slate roofs, polished by the rain, making an elaborate criss-cross pattern. It was amazing they didn’t all slide down the hill into one great slaty heap.