Foursome

by Jane Fallon

  ‘No… Well, I don’t know. Eventually, yes.’ Come on, Rebecca. Spit it out. ‘The thing is that I think I want to be an agent myself. With my own clients and stuff.’ I look up at her to see if she laughs at the ridiculousness of what I’ve just said, but she doesn’t. ‘Only, obviously, I have no real experience and I was hoping you could give me some advice, you know, on what I should do next.’ This suddenly doesn’t seem like a good idea, asking my current employer how I can get a better job probably isn’t the cleverest thing I can do.

  ‘I thought you didn’t want any responsibility. You always said so…’

  ‘I know. But now I do. Or maybe I always did, I just didn’t want to admit it to myself.’

  ‘Well, you know it can’t happen here?’ she says. ‘We’ve just promoted Lorna and we’re only a small company.’

  ‘Of course.’ The minute she says that there’s no chance of my being promoted at Mortimer and Sheedy I realize that I have been secretly hoping that that was exactly what would happen. The idea of having to go somewhere else, to start again, scares the shit out of me. I feel absolutely deflated suddenly and she must be able to read it on my face.

  ‘I wish we’d known you had these ambitions before…’

  ‘I didn’t even know it myself. Sorry…’

  ‘You know we’ll hate to see you go, but I’ll do whatever I can to help you. I’ve always thought you were capable of so much more.’

  She tells me she’ll have a think about where might be good for me to apply. She knows a few people who she can talk to, she says. She and Joshua will give me a fantastic reference, it goes without saying. I thank her and I tell her again that it’s not that I want to leave Mortimer and Sheedy, it’s not like I’m unhappy, I just need to do this for myself. In fact, if nothing comes up then I’ll happily stay here, doing what I’m doing, for the rest of my days. Melanie laughs and tells me she understands completely.

  ‘I’ll mention it to Joshua,’ she says, ‘prepare him for the worst,’ and I feel sick, like I’ve set something in motion and now I’m not going to be able to stop it even if I wanted to.

  It’s only a few days till we shut down for the Christmas break. Two whole weeks of no work and overindulgence. Traditionally Dan and I always have Alex and Isabel and the girls over for a big celebratory dinner on the twenty-first with a few random other friends, whoever we are feeling well disposed to at the time, and then the four of us plus kids all get together again on Christmas Eve.

  This year we haven’t organized anything, but as the day draws nearer William starts asking who’s coming and when are we going to start decorating the house, and it makes me realize that more than anything the kids need a bit of stability. I mention it to Dan and he says of course we should go ahead and we shouldn’t let Alex’s bad behaviour get in the way of us all having fun. He doesn’t quite sound like he’s convinced by his own words, but I figure it’ll do us all good so I tell Isabel it’s on, as usual.

  We decide to invite Rose and Simon and I tell Dan I’d like to ask Kay along too. I get the impression she’s dreading Christmas, although she’d never admit as much. Her eldest has decided to spend the holidays with his new girlfriend’s parents and her youngest isn’t coming home till Christmas Day when it’ll just be the two of them. In keeping with our own little established traditions, we will be serving sausages and mash with trifle for dessert – I can’t remember when or why this became the official twenty-first of December menu but now it would seem wrong to change it – and pulling homemade crackers, which with everything that’s been going on I haven’t even given a thought to this year.

  I set aside tomorrow lunchtime to go to Fortnum & Mason to buy the little gifts to go inside, and I break the news to Zoe and William that they will have to spend Tuesday and Wednesday evenings on the production line. Dan and I will make two in secret for them after they have gone to bed. I write a list of ingredients for Dan to buy at Waitrose after work tomorrow and then William and I climb into the tiny storage space we call the loft, even though we are on the third floor of a six-storey block and it’s really just a cubby hole built into the suspended ceiling in the hall, and dig out the decorations. We spend a happy hour or so putting up the tree while William tries to convince me that buying him a chemistry set for Christmas would be a real investment for his future as a mad scientist as opposed to an irresponsible and potentially lethal thing to do.

  Rose sounds delighted when I call her. I think she has been a little nervous around us since she told me what she knew about Luke, that she might have put her foot in it. Isabel says that, of course, she just assumed that it would be on. It’s the twenty-first of December, it’s tradition, what else would be happening?

  ‘Have you decided what to do about Christmas yet?’ I ask, not for the first time. If I’m being honest, I’m worried that Alex is going to use the holidays to try to crowbar his way back into her life. On the other hand the girls will want to see him, of course they will; he’s still their father. I’ve thought about suggesting to Isabel that she tell him he can come over either before or after lunch, but not for the actual meal itself. Preferably before when he is less likely to have had a few glasses of wine too many, although that way there is always the danger that he will get there and then refuse to leave and Isabel won’t want to cause a scene in front of the twins. Anyway, I haven’t offered up my suggestion because I am trying to live by my new rule of keeping out of things that really don’t concern me.

  ‘No. It’s hard to have a rational conversation with Alex at the moment,’ she says. ‘I’m just playing it by ear.’

  That’s a recipe for disaster in my book, but I don’t say so. Instead I say, ‘You know you and the girls would be really welcome to spend the day with us?’

  ‘Thanks. We might take you up on that. I just don’t know…’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I say, thinking of the turkey I’ve ordered that will never feed seven of us, ‘you don’t have to give us any notice.’ I add ‘frozen free-range turkey crown’ to Dan’s shopping list although I have little hope they’ll have any left.

  I can hardly breathe. Joshua has me in a bear hug. To say I’m in shock would be an understatement. Kay is laughing while Lorna, who is looking for something in the script pile, just looks horrified.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re leaving us,’ he cries, mock distraught. ‘What are we going to do without you?’

  ‘You’re leaving?’ Lorna says, sounding genuinely surprised.

  ‘Maybe,’ I manage to say from the depths of Joshua’s armpit somewhere. He lets me go just before I pass out from lack of breath.

  ‘Rebecca has discovered her inner ambition,’ he says to Lorna. ‘She’s got fed up with typing up my letters and making me coffee.’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘It’s not like that…’

  ‘About bloody time too,’ Joshua goes on, laughing loudly to make it clear he’s joking.

  ‘You should have seen her face,’ Kay says once they’ve both gone back to their rooms. ‘It was priceless.’

  Now I have made my announcement I feel like I should be seen to be doing something about it. I start making a list of the other agencies. I can’t imagine going to work for one of the big successful companies. They’re too corporate, too showy. And God knows why they would even think about employing me either when they have their own thrusting young assistants champing at the bit to be promoted. So that leaves the smaller – for that read less successful – outfits. The Mortimer and Sheedys.

  I don’t know where to start there are so many of them. And what are the chances I’ll approach one just as they’re thinking of expanding? Let alone how would I then convince them to hire me? I’m starting to despair a little. Why didn’t I just keep my mouth shut, keep my stupid ambitions to myself? Now I’m going to have to deal with the embarrassment of failure – or at least of never really having had the guts to try – on top of everything else.

  Having made the list I decide that at least I’ve done someth
ing, so I try to think about what I might put in the crackers instead. The gifts are always small but personal, and I usually think about them well in advance. Kay is easy. She’s always losing her keys around the office because every time she gets them out of her pocket her keyring falls apart. I write down ‘Kay: key ring’, and then sit staring at the piece of paper for a couple of minutes. Kay is beyond thrilled, by the way, to have been invited to our little Christmas do. She’s heard so much about Dan and Isabel that she can’t wait to put faces to the names and I think, to be honest, she’s just glad to be getting out of the house for the evening. I indulge her in five minutes of chat about her boys. The ways she has of justifying the fact that she’s hardly going to see them over the holidays breaks my heart, actually.

  I tell her I’d like to take the early lunch and I’m just putting my coat on, ready to go off to potter around Fortnum & Mason, looking for cracker gifts, when Melanie pops her head round the door and says, ‘Rebecca, I’ve spoken to a few people. Carolyn Edwards at Marchmont, Edwards and Wright said they’re thinking about expanding in a year or so’s time, maybe. They’re looking for a new assistant, so she said you could go in and meet if you were interested. You’d be well placed when they did want to expand… It’s difficult, you know, because we know you’re brilliant, but for other people, if they don’t know you at all…’

  She runs out of steam and looks at me apologetically. Great. The only choice seems to be that I move sideways, take the same job as I’m doing here somewhere else and then try to work my way up. I kick myself for all the years I’ve wasted. I feel too old to be starting again, hoping that someone will spot my potential eventually and give me some more responsibility. ‘OK. Thanks,’ I say, and I try to sound grateful.

  ‘How’s the career hunting going?’ Dan says when I get home from work, laden down with bags of goodies for Thursday night.

  ‘Oh, you know…’ I say, and I change the subject.

  30

  Joshua, Melanie and Lorna have been shut in Joshua’s comfortable office for nearly an hour now. At one point Melanie calls through to Kay to take them in a fresh pot of coffee and, she says, they all sit there in silence when she pours it out and clears away the dirty mugs. I’ve somehow managed to make Kay as paranoid as I am and she’s convinced that they are discussing her inefficiency and the best way to get rid of her.

  ‘I don’t think that’d take them an hour,’ I say, laughing. ‘Lorna would just say, “I want to sack her,” and they’d say, “Fine.”’

  ‘That makes me feel so much better.’

  ‘It’ll be strategy,’ I say. ‘They’re plotting how to win more clients and take over the entertainment world.’

  Nevertheless, I’m anxious about what they can possibly be talking about for so long. Maybe, now they know I’m thinking of moving on they’re deciding whether to cut their losses and get someone in to replace me right away. After all, what loyalty do they owe me now, the ingrate who’s throwing their years of support and generosity back in their faces?

  When Melanie sticks her head round the door and says, ‘Rebecca, have you got a moment? We’d like to talk to you,’ I nearly have a coronary.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ Joshua says genially when I reluctantly edge my way through the door. ‘Sit down.’ He’s smiling at me so I try to smile back and manage a kind of snarl. I can’t even look at Lorna who, I imagine, will be revelling in whatever awful fate is about to befall me. I’m tempted to throw myself at Joshua screaming, ‘I don’t want to leave, don’t replace me,’ and, if I thought it wasn’t already a fait accompli, I probably would. Mortimer and Sheedy is my second home. Where else am I going to work where they’ll remember William’s birthday or let me go home early because Zoe’s in a school play?

  ‘We’ve been talking about you,’ Joshua says as if I hadn’t already worked that one out. ‘Lorna’s been telling us some very interesting stories.’

  He waits as if he expects me to say something, but I’m struck dumb. I was never any good at being in the headmaster’s office. I just want this to be over with.

  ‘So, the idea for Heather’s new game show came from you, I gather?’ he says, and I nod because it seems to be expected of me. ‘They definitely want to make it, by the way, isn’t that right, Lorna?’

  ‘Next summer,’ Lorna pipes up. ‘Once we’ve got her out of her ITV commitments.’

  I’m starting to get a little confused about why I’m in here. Do they just want to show off about how successful they’re going to be once Heather’s big new BBC contract kicks in next year?

  ‘And she also told us that you were at the lunch with Niall Johnson,’ Melanie says. I look at Lorna. She’s doing that strange smile type of thing at me again. I look away. Never smile at a crocodile. ‘And that you basically took charge of the situation because she was a little… under the weather.’

  I grunt and look at my feet like a fourteen-year-old who’s been accused of smoking in the stationary cupboard.

  ‘Plus we’ve heard all about what you did for her clients while she was off sick. They were all very impressed with you apparently.’ When Melanie says this I manage to look up at them and see all three of them beaming at me like proud parents.

  ‘Now,’ Joshua says, attempting a more serious note. ‘Obviously we can’t condone you keeping us in the dark and telling us that you were acting on Lorna’s instructions when we now know that you weren’t, but… it’s obvious that you thought you were doing it all for the right reasons, not only for Mortimer and Sheedy, but for Lorna’s sake…’

  ‘… Which is good because, as you know, Joshua and I have always worried that the two of you didn’t get on,’ Melanie interrupts.

  ‘And so we, that is Lorna really but Melanie and I think it’s a great idea, have come up with a proposal for you that we hope you like.’

  There’s a big pregnant pause again and this time I know that something good is coming next so I allow a smile to start to creep over my face.

  ‘What?’ I say. ‘What proposal?’

  Joshua takes a big breath like he’s about to address a meeting and says, ‘Well, Heather is going to take up a lot of Lorna’s time from now on. And she’s going to be earning us a lot of money. Obviously there’s also Mary and Craig, who Lorna feels very passionate about. As you know, Mary has got a big break…’

  ‘Thanks to you,’ Lorna says, and I can’t help myself, I smile at her. It’s a strange sensation.

  ‘… and we need to keep up that momentum for her. Craig is going to need a lot of attention to help him rise in the ranks and Lorna feels she’d like to take the time to build up her roster some more herself, use the contacts she’s making, that kind of thing, you know?’

  I nod impatiently. I daren’t speak because I don’t want to sideline him. I want him to get on with it. What proposal?

  ‘And, of course, Melanie and I feel that with the Heather coup she should absolutely be given the freedom to do that. So… what that means is that Lorna is not going to have time to look after the voice-over work, nor does she feel she can put her full energies into working with Jasmine or Samuel or Kathryn or, indeed, Joy. We don’t want to keep pushing them around from pillar to post, of course, but Lorna has spoken to the four of them and, given what they now know about what has been going on here over the last few weeks, they have all said that they would be delighted – in fact, in Kathryn’s case ‘ecstatic’ – to be represented by one Rebecca Morrison.’

  He sits back and takes in my reaction. I know that my mouth is wide open, but I can’t remember how to shut it.

  ‘Obviously,’ Joshua continues, ‘four clients and arranging a few voice-overs does not quite an agent make, but we thought that maybe you wouldn’t mind being paid the same as you’re on now until we can help you build it up a bit more. Or until one of your clients gets a major highly paid contract, which, given what you did for all of them in a couple of short weeks, isn’t out of the question.’ He smiles at me warmly and I want to hug
him. Luckily I contain myself.

  ‘Yes. I mean no. Of course I don’t mind. Really?’

  ‘Really,’ Melanie says. ‘We’ll have to start looking for a replacement for your old job right away, of course. We thought you and Lorna could share Kay if that’s agreeable.’

  I’m not sure I believe this is really happening. ‘Absolutely. That’s if… Lorna, you’re OK with it?’

  ‘It was Lorna’s suggestion,’ Joshua says. ‘We just have to hope Heather’s new contract is as big as we hope it’s going to be, otherwise we’re all buggered,’ he adds laughing.

  I feel sick with excitement. Suddenly I know how Lorna felt. Why she was so pleased with herself. I want to shout out of the window. ‘Look at me, I’m AN AGENT!’

  ‘I’m… I don’t know what to say. Thank you. Thank you so much. And I don’t care if you pay me the same forever, I just want to do the job and do it well and –’

  ‘Steady on,’ Melanie says. ‘Joshua will hold you to that.’

  The moment over, Joshua busies himself with something on his desk and that’s our cue to leave.

  ‘We’ll all have a glass of champagne at the end of the day to celebrate,’ he says to our retreating backs.

  Lorna is sloping back off to her office.

  ‘Lorna,’ I say, and she stops. ‘I’m gobsmacked. I can’t thank you enough.’

  ‘It’s OK. I doubt I’d still have my job if it wasn’t for you…’

  ‘No. It’s not OK. You didn’t have to do what you just did and I’m so grateful, so unbelievably, completely and eternally grateful.’

  She smiles at me shyly again and I think what the hell and, before I really know what I’m doing, I have got her in a hug. It’s a bit like hugging a skeleton and there’s a moment when I worry that she might snap in two, but I go for it anyway. When I break away she looks flushed, but she also looks happy. It makes her look like a different person.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says.