And—an e-mail from Emmy. The last wisps of alcohol vanish from my brain. Little Emmy, half brat and half sweet kid. Growing up in leaps and bounds, faster than her father could bear. I couldn’t help resenting the hold she had over him. What’s that hanging off Emmy’s little finger? I’d ask. Oh, it’s Ben, I’d answer.
Although I admired his devotion to his daughter, I wished he had more for me.
I open the message.
Dear Lin, I just heard that you’re down here in New Zealand! I hope you’re going to come and visit. Dad didn’t say what happened, just that you and he had broken up and he didn’t know if we’d see you again.
Anyway, I just wanted to say hi, and that Dad misses you and I do too, so I hope you can visit us. Maybe you and Dad can sort it out?
Love, Emmy
Now, how was I to reply? Insult her with prevarication or hurt her with the truth?
Chapter 15
In the room the men come and go, talking of ultrafast broadband.
For my first public event as Hera’s CEO, I wear a dark-gray suit with a skirt that ends just below the knee and a pair of modest heels. No cleavage, no thigh, no toes, nothing see-through and nothing too tight. Definitely nothing that says “fuck me.” Women chief executives do not seek to be fucked.
There is a crowd around the chief executive of the country’s incumbent Kiwicom. Although run by foreigners and owned by mainly foreign investors, they are still considered “the local” telco. As Tom and I pause at the entrance to the room, a short man with a thick moustache peels away from the group and approaches us. Tom introduces him as chairman of the Telecommunications Forum, but I am so busy basking in my new title I forget to listen to his name.
Another two men leave the group and join us. Their eyes quickly skim my figure before settling on my face. One is partner-manager for Kiwicom, and the younger of the two is a management consultant specializing in transformations, he tells me. He has a quick line of banter that breaks the ice.
I practice my executive smile. Although I know these men are not interested in Lin the person, only in Lin Mere, chief executive, it is hard not to enjoy the attention.
A young waitress holds out a tray and offers me a miniature hamburger, an inch in diameter, stuck on a toothpick flying a Kiwi flag.
“Pretty,” I say, and take one. I try not to eye the tray too eagerly. I missed lunch and I’m hungry.
“Yes, they’re from Ruth Pretty Catering. Top up?” she gestures with the bottle. I shake my head. I will wet my lips, I will not drink.
A fair-haired man with a hawkish nose and a square jaw greets me. “Luke Holden,” he says and reaches out a well-manicured hand. “You must be Linnette Mere.” He holds my hand a second too long.
“Linnet,” I reply. “Are you in the telecommunications business too?”
He smiles ruefully. “Afraid so. Is your husband with you?”
“I don’t have a husband.”
“Boyfriend?”
I shake my head. “Not even a cat. And you?”
Luke is signaling the waitress. “Let me get you a drink,” and he places a glass of red wine in my hand and smiles down at me. “Bit of a crush tonight. Do you know many people here?”
I am whisked around the room to meet more guests. Tom catches up with us and takes my arm.
“I must take Lin to meet—” he says and starts to move away.
“So you’ll join me at the ballet?” Luke asks, his eyes creasing into a smile just for me.
“I would like that.”
I smile back with a real smile as Tom pulls me away.
“Henry, meet Lin Mere. Lin, Dr. Grey chairs the technology committee.”
A thin man holds out a limp hand and gives mine a perfunctory shake.
“American,” he says, accusingly.
“Nice to meet you,” I reply.
Dr. Grey grunts. “Tom, give me a call next week,” and he moves away.
Luke appears beside me and puts his hand on my arm. “Do you want to meet Wilson?” he asks.
“Does he still have any power?”
“Not much,” says Tom, glaring at Luke.
“But his opinion influences others,” Luke says.
So we thread our way through the gaggle to where an older gentleman with a lined face, hairy brows, and a tired brown suit, is accepting homage by the window. He does not look out onto the city that sparkles beneath us. Instead, he looks down at his hands, busy demonstrating the latest technological masterpiece given him by some sycophant.
The old guy looks at Luke and nods in recognition but does not relinquish his new toy. Luke introduces us and Wilson studies me briefly.
“Do you know Larry Ellison?” he asks.
“No,” I reply.
“Bill?”
Which one? Although it doesn’t matter because I don’t know either Clinton or Gates. I shake my head. “No.”
Wilson grunts and turns back to his toy.
“Sorry,” says Luke with a quick smile as we move away and leave the aging politico to the admiration of his cronies. “He’s a bit of a fame groupie these days.”
Tom takes my arm, swinging me away from Luke’s genial presence and leads me to a tall woman with a calm face and dark hair pulled back in a small bun that rests on the back of her neck.
“Georgette Meyer,” Tom says. “This is Lin Mere, our new chief executive. Georgette is the associate minister for the broadband initiative.”
Georgette gives me a large hand to shake.
“Congratulations on the new job. We’re looking forward to Hera’s involvement,” she says. “We need more international investment.”
“But as a junior partner,” I say.
Georgette nods. “As a junior partner. No selling off the crown jewels to foreigners. How are you enjoying New Zealand?” she asks.
“I spend most of my time in Wellington,” I reply. “But what I’ve seen is very beautiful.”
“You have to get out into the countryside,” she says. “That’s where the real New Zealand lies.”
I nod and give her my polite smile. “I’m hoping to find the time to do a hike.”
“Tramp,” says Tom.
“Pardon me?”
“We call it tramping, not hiking.”
“I’d like to do a—whatever.”
We move away and into the path of a platter of small fritters. “Whitebait,” says the waitress. Eight hands reach in, octopuslike, to secure a fritter. They are white and soft. So are the fritters.
“Where are the rest of the women, Tom? I thought New Zealand was full of senior-level women?”
“They’re still running half the Government departments, but since Tania left Kiwicom there are fewer senior women running the tech companies. Jane Kelly from VNL is over by the bar, the blond woman talking with Scott. She’s keen to meet you.”
I gaze across the room at our lead consultant and his companion. So he’s in bed with VNL, just what I should have expected.
“Your new friend will, of course, try to persuade you to go with LCNS.”
“Luke? He’s with LCNS?”
“Director of sales.”
Huh. Conflict of interest. Damn.
The laughter has grown loud as the guests avail themselves of the free wine. The men start talking about rugby, and then about the property market. I smile politely and nod in the right places. Eventually, the room empties out of the senior people, only the juniors and the freeloaders remain, settling in to drink the free booze as long as possible.
Tom checks his cell phone and tells me he needs to be home in time to watch the fireworks display, so shall we go?
I am barely inside the apartment when my telephone rings.
“Hello? This is Lin Mere.”
“I want to eat your pussy.”
“What?”
“I want to eat your pussy!” the female voice repeats.
I slam down the handset.
Well, that was a first. A dirty phone ca
ll from a woman.
Typical. If a woman is single and in a position of power, there’s always the assumption that she must be like a man and therefore a lesbian.
As I gaze at the telephone handset, I wonder who she was and why she thought she could just ring a stranger and speak like that. My guise of being Caesar’s wife is still in place. Why would anyone think I was interested in sex?
The telephone rings again.
“Hello?” I say, tentatively. “This is Lin.”
“It’s me.”
The skies explode and I drop the phone. Outside, fireworks commemorating Guy Fawkes have started with three balls of gold that splatter into myriad fragments before my eyes.
I retrieve the phone. “Ben.”
“Emmy showed me your e-mail. How are you?”
The skies now fill with multiple silver flares.
“Fine.”
Multiple skyrockets bursting into stars of many colors.
Ben is silent. The shreds of light fall down into the sea.
“I hadn’t heard from you,” he says. “As far as I knew, we were finished.”
More balls of golden fire, exploding into red hearts that evaporate, just like they do in real life.
“You didn’t make any contact, Ben. You made no effort at all.”
“I think it was up to you, Lin, to make an effort. It was you who slept with whatshisname.”
Green lights, yellow lights, red lights.
“I did make the effort! I came all the way to New Zealand!”
“No doubt you came down here at whatshisname’s call, Lin, for your brilliant new job!”
Lights are now exploding all over the sky.
I regain control of myself. “Don’t throw that back at me, Ben. Robert offered me the job after I got here. So. What did you call me for anyway? Do you want something?”
“No, I don’t want anything! Just to set things straight with you.”
“Consider them set straight.”
The explosions continue to dance in front of my eyes, blurred now. It is too much. I switch off the phone and put the handset back on the table, blink my eyes clear, and watch the fireworks without seeing a thing.
When Robert asked me to help him set up a new company in the Channel Islands I was happy to agree. Ben had refused to join me, and it looked like I was on my way to another split. Was it because I wanted to get in first and avoid that loss of face that came with rejection that made me sleep with Robert?
Who am I fooling. It was just another of those stupid decisions you make without thinking, fueled by too much wine.
The fireworks finish with one last crescendo of sound and light. I sit staring down at the nightscape punctured by the scattered windows of the city buildings and the golden trails of streetlights, then I turn back to the documents lying on the table and force myself to scan each page, but my brain is not taking in the words.
Whenever I close my eyes, I can see Ben’s face before he turned and walked away. I can’t get that image out of my head.
It is hot tonight, humid and sticky. Not enough wind. I rub the back of my neck and write a note in the margin of the report.
I am the chief executive of Hera. I don’t need a man to complete me.
Chapter 16
When I open the door the property agent is there, carrying a bag of tools and a section of wrought iron railing. I had put off calling him week after week, and then he rang to ask if everything was to my satisfaction. No, I’d said, not at all.
“I’m about to leave for work.”
“No problem, I’ve got all the keys,” he says.
Nicholas struts in as if he owns the place and pauses in the middle of the room. “Coffee would be nice.”
“I’m out of milk.”
“I’ll take a short black for a change.” He smirks. “Bit of variety is always nice.”
His eyes hold mine and it is me who looks away. I turn to the kitchen and make his coffee very short.
On the terrace, he is banging the new section of railing in place.
“Coffee.”
“Thanks!” He slurps the dark stuff down and smiles, his thin face creasing into lines and his eyes sinking into their sockets. His pupils are tiny.
“I’ve been wanting to congratulate you,” he says. “Big, important job, huh?”
“Yes,” I reply.
“I know Tom Heke well. He’s a good man.”
“Uh-huh.”
“He was pretty pissed off when you got the job. He thought it was his, eh? Didn’t think some sheila would pounce and take it from under his nose.”
“Really? I’m surprised he told you that.”
Nicholas’s eyes flick sideways. “That’s what I heard, anyway.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I used to be a boss, too, you know.” Nicholas’s eyes stare through me, before focusing on my face again. “I ran a property development company. We were worth millions.”
I say nothing. Am I supposed to be impressed? I’ve met rich men before. Most of them are mean, like Robert.
“Yep,” he says. “I was rich then, and guess what, I’m going to be rich again. Those bastards will be sorry they cut me down.”
“Good for you.”
Nicholas shoots a glance at me. Then he sidles closer and puts his hand on my leg. “I could do something good for you too,” he says.
I flick his hand away. “Just fix the railing, Nicholas.”
“I was wondering if you’d like to have a meal at the local Thai,” he says. “And maybe take in a movie?”
“I’m not interested in going out with you.”
“I’d be happy to just spend the night again.”
“No, thank you.”
“A quick fuck?”
“Fuck off, Nicholas.”
“Come on, you know you liked it.”
“Which part of fuck off do you not understand? Just fix the fucking railing.”
His eyes narrow and his mouth tightens in anger. I grab my handbag and hurry down the stairs to the garage.
When I glance back at the house, I can see his silhouette etched against the sky, standing at the edge of the terrace, watching me as I leave. I have the measure of this man. A leech that preys upon others. Right now he is hunting high-earning women—like in days of old, when fortune-hunting cads would prey on heiresses.
I remember hazy images of that stupid drunken night, fool, fool! Bile rises in my throat, and then I shake my head and push the memory away.
Deepak and I have been examining the figures and we are worried about Hera’s business plan. Deepak doesn’t think we have enough money on top of insufficient time to launch our services.
“Okay, we need to find a cheaper systems solution. Any ideas?”
Fred and Ian glance at Tom and say nothing.
“Fred,” I say to our IT manager. “Tell me what you really think we should be buying.”
Fred is one of the quiet ones who disappear into the woodwork if you don’t watch them. He wears a bad suit and a diffident smile and nurses a sick wife at home. He came from Kiwicom, where they had passed him over for promotion because he was “too quiet” and their preferred leadership style was the confident egocentric type, the kind with a touch of the psychopath.
But I have learned that Fred is brave and smart and can be trusted to find innovative solutions to the toughest of problems. More fool Kiwicom; their loss, and very much our gain.
Right now Fred blinks rapidly.
“Fred,” I say, pointedly, “I want to hear your views.”
“I think we should get the best systems we can afford,” he says. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get it right.”
“I don’t think we’re going to be able to negotiate the prices down any farther with VNL,” says Tom.
Fred takes off his spectacles and wipes them.
“Fred?” I ask again.
“I think we can reduce the costs,” he finally says, without looking up. “We need customer
order management, activation, usage collection, and the billing software. But we can buy just a couple of licenses for the network records software. And we don’t need a network management system since we only have the one switch.”
I nod.
“We could save a lot of money by building a basic data warehouse instead of buying the big one.” Fred glances up. “We won’t have anything much to analyze initially.”
“We’ll get a better deal if we commit to all the packages,” Tom says.
“Possibly,” I say. “But we can’t afford the whole suite.”
“VNL will charge more for each package if we don’t.”
Fred looks up again and smiles. “That’s where we can make the biggest savings.”
Later, I am alone in my office when Tom strides in, the warrior come to do battle.
“I’m not happy about Fred’s ideas,” he says. “I think he’s oversimplifying the situation.”
“He’s clever,” I reply. “And he has a wealth of experience. We should trust him.”
I watch Tom’s mouth turn down.
“I don’t think you understand,” he says.
“I believe I do understand.”
“We can’t afford to take any risks!” He paces around the room.
“We can’t afford not to take some risks.”
His eyes meet mine and he holds my gaze. In silence, I stare back.
Tom’s mouth slowly relaxes and his eyes crease. “Why don’t you trust me?”
Now he’s trying on the charm.
I hold my face quite still. “I do trust you.”
“I’ve called Scott in for an urgent meeting,” he says, his eyes fixed on mine. He stares at me. I watch the thoughts move behind his eyes; watch him wondering what he can do to convince me.
“Good, I’m looking forward to it.”
Later that day, I sack our consultants. Scott Peake stands before me, eyes glaring and lips snarling. For a moment he is silenced, unable to credit that I plan to survive without his high-priced advice.
“You can’t be serious!” he barks.
Oh, can’t I. “I’m afraid we need to cut back on costs.”
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