by Maeve Haran
Ginny came in and Liz closed the door behind her. ‘I thought you might like to see this.’ Liz pointed to a document on the desk.
‘What is it?’
‘The first repayment on the bank loan. I’m making it today.’
Ginny closed her eyes. ‘God, what a relief!’
Liz pulled her up. ‘There’s something else you might be interested in.’
And Liz led her, mystified, out of their offices, down several alleys to the main shopping street of Lewes. Sandwiched between Boots the Chemist and Woolworth’s was a large electrical showroom.
‘You know you’re always nagging me about expanding? In a month’s time this becomes free. The letting agents rang this morning. What do you think?’
‘It’s amazing! But can we really afford it?’
‘Yes, Ginny, I think we really can. In fact if things go on as they have been, we could think of opening another branch in Brighton too.’
When they got back to WomanPower Nick was sitting on the reception desk with a bottle of champagne, and everything had stopped in the office as fifteen interviewers crowded round him, having their glasses filled.
Liz smiled and shook her head. Ever since that first night a month ago he’d come into the office at least twice, often three times a day and had taken to ringing up for a lengthy chat to tell her how much he loved her. It was wonderful, but wearing.
‘What are we celebrating today?’
‘The fact that I’ve come to take you out to lunch.’
‘Oh, Nick, I’m sorry, darling. I’ve got a working lunch at Brandon’s Chemicals. Exec Dining Room stuff. I can’t get out of it at this sort of notice.’
Nick looked mutinous. ‘But they’re only some boring old farts in personnel.’ He leered suggestively. ‘You’ll have a much better time with me.’
She heard a muffled giggle from one of the interviewers.
‘I’m sure you’re right. But unfortunately they asked first.’ She wished she didn’t sound like a schoolma’am. But she’d noticed it was a tone a lot of people took with Nick. She eased him off the desk. ‘And it is rather important. They’ve always held off employing women and now they’re about to start. Through us.’
He turned to Dawn. ‘Will you come with me then, Dawnie? Terrible shame to waste the booking?’
Dawn looked at Liz, clearly embarrassed.
‘Go on,’ Liz said with a hint of exasperation, ‘he’s quite right. You’ll have a much better time than me.’
When she got back at four p.m., feeling pleased with herself that Brandon’s personnel man had been more useful than she’d expected, Dawn still wasn’t back and messages and phone calls were piling up. She felt a definite wave of irritation this time. She knew she should be above caring what the rest of the office thought, but she couldn’t help noticing people glance from her to the clock. Damn Nick!
It was so unlike Dawn that by four-thirty she felt a frisson of worry and decided to see if Nick had gone home to Dream Cottages. Not entirely to her surprise it was Henry who answered the phone.
‘Isn’t he back yet, Henry?’
‘Not yet, no.’
‘Still at lunch?’
‘Heaven knows, love. You know Nick. He comes and goes.’
‘Don’t you want to kill him sometimes, Henry? I mean if Ginny swanned off for four-hour lunches every day I’m not sure I could put up with it.’
‘I’m used to it.’ Henry’s tone was patient and long-suffering.
‘Why do you put up with it, Henry?’
‘Why do you?’
The question startled Liz. She hadn’t been aware that there was much to put up with. So far the fun she got out of Nick far outweighed the minor annoyances like losing her secretary for half a day. She wondered for a moment what he meant.
‘How well do you really know Nick?’ Henry asked quickly.
‘Pretty well, I think.’
‘So you’ve learned lesson number one, then. Nick likes to go his own way.’
She heard in Henry’s world-weary voice an unspoken litany of missed appointments, broken promises, instances of petty unreliability too numerous to mention. And she realized that he was giving her the discreetest of warnings.
‘Do you read Noël Coward, Liz?’
‘Only the obvious things.’
‘Then maybe you haven’t read the piece of advice he gave?’
‘What was that?’ Liz felt the slightest shadow of apprehension as she answered.
‘Don’t expect people to change more than they’re capable of changing.’
Liz smiled wryly to herself. It was good advice. And she realized for the first time what the conversation they were having reminded her of.
Two adults discussing a lovable, but wayward child.
‘Liz! Liz!’ Ginny hissed at her across the noisy office, when she finally put the phone down. ‘There’s someone from the Daily Mail on the phone. They want to do an article about WomanPower!’
It was amazing how, in the space of a few months, WomanPower had grown with mind-blowing speed. And now, the final accolade, media interest.
Very calmly, in a voice that implied she talked to national newspapers every day of the week, she answered the phone. ‘Hello, this is Liz Ward speaking. When would you like to come? Next week? Fine. See you Tuesday.’
Very carefully as though it were made of glass Liz replaced the phone. Then she whooped at the top of her voice, attempting to do a high-kick in spite of her pencil-slim skirt while at the same time imitating a black power salute, and almost fell over. Behind her the door opened and Dawn crept in looking sheepish and very, very drunk.
Mel came out of the meeting she’d been having with the fashion editor about livening up their swimwear coverage feeling like a wet dishrag. The woman was a moron. Like all fashion freaks she had discount vouchers for Browns scrunched up in her head instead of brains.
When she’d suggested they shoot a set with the swimwear modelled by dummies, Mel, picturing those terrific plaster casts from the Fifties, thought it was a great idea, until she realized the basket case had said mummies.
Yeah, you know, mummies, the Invisible Man in a tanga, that sort of thing. Great. And for the hundredth time Mel had sympathized with the theory that fashion journalism was a massive con trick perpetrated by the thin and terminally insane on the fat and relatively normal. Mummies! God Almighty! Next it would be corpses. She shook her head to try and dislodge the unpleasant thought and caught sight of the Post-It sticker staring out at her from the screen of her word processor. OLIVIA WANTS LUNCH TODAY. THE RITZ. ONE P.M.
How like Olivia. Not Please or Thank You, just Be There. What time was it now? Twelve-fifteen. Jesus Christ, she didn’t have long. She buzzed her secretary and cancelled all her appointments. Then she leaned down into her filing drawer and retrieved a miniature of Remy Martin and two large blue laundry bags.
Swallowing a large gulp of the brandy, she got to work.
By the time Olivia’s rake-thin greyhound’s body sashayed across the Ritz’s restaurant, her Chanel suit rustling expensively as though it were lined with fivers, Mel was already sitting at the best table in the restaurant overlooking St James’s Park, courtesy of her friend Louis, the maître d’.
As Olivia handed him her coat, Mel glanced around her at the voluptuous murals, the formal trompe l’œil, the vast chandeliers, the gilded garlands and the glorious view out over the park. People said the Ritz had the most beautiful dining room in Europe and who was she to argue. She couldn’t think of a lovelier place for what was ahead.
‘Melanie, darling, hello!’ Olivia threw Mel a smile of such uncharacteristic sweetness that Mel almost threw up into the exquisite floral arrangement. ‘What are you having to eat?’
Mel had been brought up to believe that ordering food had nothing to do with preference, and everything to do with locating yourself on the social scale. Choose the most expensive things and you look grasping, the least expensive and you look cheap. The unwr
itten rules of Golders Green upward mobility decreed that you should always order from the middle.
Well, screw that today. She scanned the menu for the most expensive dish she could find. Ah ha.
Avoiding Olivia’s eyes she spoke directly to the waiter. ‘Thanks Louis, I’ll have the caviare and the lobster.’
A faint choking sound indicated that Olivia’s champagne had gone down the wrong way.
The waiter looked at her. ‘And you, madame?’
‘Thank you, Louis. I’ll skip the starter. A small grilled sole, as usual.’
The waiter departed.
‘Tell me, Olivia, do you have any vices?’
Olivia leaned towards her confidentially. Maybe this was the moment she was going to confess to being a cokehead or a shopaholic.
‘As a matter of fact’ – Olivia dropped her voice and looked around –‘I’m very partial to water biscuits.’
‘No kidding.’
‘Yes.’ Olivia sounded as though she were passing on some secret formula. ‘They only have 18 calories each, so it’s only 360 calories if you eat the whole packet.’
Mel sat there stunned. Could anybody, even Olivia, eat a whole packet of water biscuits? Would anybody want to? After all, let’s be fair, 360 calories was more than a Mars Bar.
Mel glanced at her watch. It was one-fifteen and she reckoned Olivia wouldn’t bring the subject up till two. Mel was an experienced luncher and she knew the form. Power lunches followed an immutable pattern which you altered at your peril. First aperitif and gossip about who was up and who was down. Then undercooked duck and mineral water when you could talk shop, but only in the most general terms. No dessert, natch. Finally espresso or, for the hedonistic non-dieter, cappuccino. It was only then that you could get out your Filofax and go for the kill.
At 2.03 precisely Olivia pushed her coffee cup to one side and leaned towards Mel. ‘Now, Melanie, I think it’s time we had a talk. I’ve been watching you for the last few weeks and do you know what I’ve decided?’
‘That I’m a staggeringly talented editor and you’re going to promote me?’
Olivia ignored her. ‘That you don’t really believe in Femina any more, Melanie.’
Mel wondered whether she should deny it. But it was true. She could believe in a Femina that dared to question its own philosophy, but not in a Femina that refused to recognize a reality that was slapping it in the face, and continued to preach, as Olivia did, that work alone was women’s one true salvation.
To Mel’s horror, Olivia took her hand. Olivia’s felt cool and smooth as an expensively polished stone. ‘I know this will come as a shock to you, Mel dear, but I think it’s time we let you go, before things get nasty. After all, we don’t want blood on the walls, do we, especially not yours after all you’ve done for Femina?’
Olivia reached into her bag and handed Mel an envelope. ‘It’s two years’ salary. But there is one small condition.’
Mel wondered what it was that could be worth that much to Olivia.
‘You must not under any circumstances talk to the press about these crackpot ideas of yours.’
God, she really must be sensitive. A hundred grand to keep quiet about the obvious.
But Olivia hadn’t finished yet. ‘You must also leave now. You don’t need to go back to the office. I’ll send your things over later.’
Mel picked up the envelope and stood up.
She was damned if she was going to let Olivia get away with that one.
‘Don’t bother, Olivia.’ She delved under the table and retrieved two bulging blue laundry bags from beneath its snowy skirts. ‘I’ve saved you the trouble.’
‘Hey! They want to interview me on Radio Brighton!’
‘Ginny, that’s great!’ Liz smiled at Ginny’s engaging mixture of pride and nervousness. ‘I just hope we can cope with the extra business.’
Liz looked round their spanking new offices right slap bang in the middle of Lewes High Street, sandwiched between Woolworth’s and Boots the Chemist, and marvelled that WomanPower was still growing so fast.
All around her was the satisfying beep of computers as the eight new interviewers grilled prospective employees and matched them up with businesses who needed staff.
Dawn had turned out to be a brilliant office manager and had handled the move without a single hitch, even browbeating the phone company into letting them jump the waiting list for new phone lines. And ever since her lunch with Nick she’d tried to make up for it by working twelve-hour days.
But the real revelation in the last couple of months had been Ginny. Buried under the flower-pressing and the jam-making were the entrepreneurial instincts of a market trader. As the weeks passed Liz noticed Ginny’s suits getting sharper, her manner tougher and her appointments book fuller.
But there was one other thing Liz noticed which was beginning to worry her a little. Ginny hardly ever talked about Amy and Ben and Gavin any more.
‘Hello Liz, it’s Mel.’
Liz sat up at her desk. Mel never rang her during the day. And was it her imagination or was Mel slurring her words?
‘Mel, what’s up? You sound like Peter O’Toole on a bad day.’
‘I’ve just had lunch with Olivia.’
‘And was it that awful?’
‘So-so. She gave me a hundred grand.’
‘What on earth for?’
‘My job.’
‘Oh Mel, you got fired! You poor thing!’
‘Let go, darling, please. One does not fire one’s staff, one lets them go. You should know that in your line of business.’
‘Oh, Mel, you got let go! You poor thing!’
‘Oh, Lizzie,’ wailed Mel, ‘Femina was my life!’
‘Why don’t you come and stay for a few days and we’ll convince you there’s more to life than work.’
‘You’re on. Now excuse me. I’m going to get a crate of white wine and then I intend to work my way through it, preferably tonight.’
‘Better get some Alka Seltzer too.’
‘Oh God, Lizzie, you’re so organized. You can’t buy the Alka Seltzer first. It spoils the fun!’
Liz said goodbye and put the phone down. She’d just had a brilliant idea.
Mel had just finished the second bottle when the doorbell rang and she sat bolt upright like a startled rabbit. All her friends were far too busy to just drop round, there were no windows in their diaries big enough for an unscheduled visit to Mel. Especially now she wasn’t even powerful any more.
Suspiciously she pulled herself up, and padded along the passage to the front door. With her luck some wide boy had heard about her windfall and had come to murder her. She slipped back the spyhole.
Oh my God! It was Garth! Suddenly feeling deathly sober she rushed off to the hall mirror and looked at herself. The moment she’d got back from the Ritz she’d stripped off her power suit and make-up, and jumped into the hottest bath she could stand and washed her hair. It had been as though she wanted to get rid of every trace of Femina and Olivia. Then she’d put on her oldest jeans and knocked back two bottles of wine and a family pack of Fun Size Mars Bars. What with that and the crying she could honestly say she’d never looked worse. What the hell was she going to do?
Maybe if she ignored him he’d go away.
But Garth clearly had no intention of going away. Ten minutes later he was still there, elbow on the buzzer, shouting through the letter-box. ‘I’ve got a message from Olivia.’
Grudgingly she opened the door a few inches, the chain still firmly on, trying to expose as little of herself as possible to his gaze. ‘So what’s this message from Olivia?’
‘She says that what you need is a virile young man to take your mind off your troubles and massage your neck.’
‘Bullshit! If Olivia knew any virile young men she’d keep them for herself!’
‘Well do you?’
‘Do I what?’
‘Do you want a virile young man to massage your neck?’
She peered through the crack in the doorway at the deep V of Garth’s chest which peered out at her from his black leather jacket. She remembered the hardness of his thighs, and the long, lean weight of his body on hers. She opened the door and leaned against it.
‘Is that all you’re offering?’ She pulled him towards her and, smiling, began to undo his buttons.
Stop grinning, Mel told herself, you must look like the village idiot! But as she lay in bed the next morning studying Garth’s face, she felt another unashamedly self-satisfied grin sneak across her face. He was so beautiful! And he wasn’t a shit after all. He had felt hounded, and he couldn’t cope with screwing the boss. It was as simple as that. And if it wasn’t she was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.
The phone rang interrupting Mel’s fantasy somewhere between the proposal and the full white wedding.
‘Hello Mel. It’s Liz. I know this probably sounds crazy out of the blue but Ginny and I have been wondering if, since you’re out of a job, you’d like to join us at WomanPower? We’re growing so fast we need a really good PR, and we thought of you. We could give you a sliver of the action, if you wanted. What do you think?’
Mel was speechless. ‘Me? Come and live in the country? Where there’s no salt-beef sandwiches, no Heal’s, no all-night Turkish restaurants?’
‘Mel, when’s the last time you went to an all-night Turkish restaurant?’
‘I can’t remember. But that’s not the point. If I fancy a mixed meze at three a.m. I can have one. I’m a city girl, Liz, I find rubbish and muggers and taxis that sail past me with their lights on comforting. I couldn’t cope with silence and peace and no McDonald’s.’
‘I could,’ interrupted Garth, waking suddenly and starting to kiss her all the way up her arm. ‘I think it’s a brilliant idea.’
She looked down at Garth in surprise. She hadn’t even noticed him wake.
‘I grew up in the country,’ he persisted, ‘I was born in Suffolk.’
‘You? Don’t have me on.’ Mel put her hand over the mouthpiece. ‘You came from Harrods Toy Boy Department! I ordered you last week.’