Learning curves: a novel of sex, suits, and business affairs

by Gemma Townley

  “Isn’t there?” Alan asked, slowly pulling himself up straight. “I thought that was the point of going to the pub—going over the exam and working out where we went wrong. Prepare ourselves for failure. Mind you, I’m already prepared. Been preparing all my life.”

  Jen rolled her eyes. “Alan, don’t be ridiculous. You got a first in your degree, for God’s sake—I wouldn’t call that failure. You’re just suffering from post-exam stress disorder. Lara will be here with the drinks soon and you’ll be fine.”

  Alan regarded her dolefully. “I won’t be fine. Lara was right about me—I don’t have a life. All I’ve got is passing exams and if I do badly, well, there’ll be nothing left.”

  “Alan, don’t be stupid—there’s loads more to your life than exams.”

  “Like what?”

  Jen frowned, searching her mind for something positive to say. She liked Alan, she really did, but they’d only ever really spoken about the course.

  “Like your personality, Alan. You’re a nice bloke.”

  He shook his head balefully. “I’m a boring bloke. That’s why I haven’t got a girlfriend.”

  Jen grinned. So that’s what this was all about. “You want a girlfriend? Is that the problem? Alan, there are probably girls tripping over themselves to go out with someone like you.”

  “I don’t exactly see them queuing up.”

  “Well, they wouldn’t, would they? I mean, you do have to talk to people a bit before they’ll declare their undying love for you.” Jen looked over to the bar to see what was holding Lara up and saw her emerging from the Ladies. Oh God, she realized, she hadn’t even gone to get the drinks yet.

  Alan shook his head. “I can’t do that whole talking thing. I don’t know how.”

  “’Course you do. You talk to me and Lara, don’t you?”

  Alan looked at her shiftily. “Only about work stuff. When you two start talking about shoes or the weather or holidays I just switch off.”

  Jen frowned. He was right—she’d had plenty of conversations with him about the balanced scorecard, and plenty more arguments with him about the nature of business, but she’d never talked to him about anything else.

  “Okay, so try it now. Tell me about your family. Are you seeing them for Christmas?”

  Alan shrugged. “Yes.”

  “That isn’t exactly telling me about it.”

  Alan sighed. “Yes, I am. I have a normal family. They live in a house. And we’ll be having turkey for dinner. That’s it.”

  “Where do they live?”

  “Chester.”

  “Is it nice?”

  Alan looked at Jen, then scratched the back of his neck. “Not really. Look, I’m sorry, I’ve just had a bad morning, that’s all. Just forget all that crap I’ve been spouting.”

  Jen smiled, slightly relieved. Then she frowned and leaned over. “Alan, when was the last time you went out on a date?”

  He looked uncomfortable. “I dunno. A while back, probably.”

  “Be more specific.”

  Alan looked around and started to go red. “I dunno,” he said, more defensively. Then he shrugged. “Never, okay? I’ve never been on a date. I had a girlfriend from school, went out with her for ten years, and then she dumped me a year ago for some bloke she met at work. End of story. And it doesn’t matter anyway . . .”

  Jen nodded, trying not to look as shocked as she felt, watching Alan struggle to maintain his composure. She thought for a moment.

  “Would you like me to help you?” she asked eventually. “Alan, you’re a great guy. You should be going on dates. You just need to . . . relax a bit. Learn the art of conversation.”

  “Fat chance,” he said quickly, but he looked as if his ears had pricked up a bit.

  “Come on,” Jen urged. “Just give it a go. What have you got to lose?”

  Alan pushed his glasses back up his nose. “You’d really help?” he asked, his voice suddenly smaller somehow.

  “Help at what?” Lara had returned from the bar and was depositing drinks on the table.

  “Ansoff,” Jen said quickly, winking at Alan who smiled gratefully. “I’m going to help Alan to understand Ansoff’s matrix better.”

  Lara rolled her eyes. “You’d better help me too, then,” she said. “I can’t even remember who Ansoff is.”

  “So, your exam yesterday. I hope you did well?”

  Jen looked at her father nervously, but was relieved to see that his eyes were twinkling. He’d been obsessed with exam results when she was growing up, and she’d half expected him to berate her for not working hard enough. Although, since she was having lunch with him every other day, she figured it was partly his fault if she didn’t do well. “I think that anyone who thinks that exams this close to Christmas are a good thing is deranged, ” she said matter-of-factly, sitting down carefully as a waiter fluttered over her, placing a napkin on her lap and pouring her some water.

  “But doesn’t it feel more like Christmas now that the exam is over?”

  “I suppose,” Jen conceded. “But that’s like saying that you should starve yourself before a meal just so that you enjoy it more.”

  George laughed. “You always were argumentative. Just like your mother.”

  Jen raised her eyebrows.

  “Okay, and a bit like me,” George said immediately. “So, tell me, how are you?”

  Jen grinned. “Well, not much has changed since I saw you on Monday. And since we spoke on the phone yesterday.”

  George nodded. “Tease me if you like,” he said, pouring Jen a glass of wine, “but it won’t dampen my enthusiasm. It’s just so good to have you back. To be . . . part of your life.”

  Jen noticed a little tentative look on George’s face as he spoke, which almost immediately disappeared, replaced by his usual, confident smile.

  “So,” he continued quickly, “what are you going to have? I thought I might go for turkey.”

  Jen shook her head and looked at the menu. “Turkey? You must be joking. Aren’t you going to be having enough of that on Christmas Day?”

  George flinched slightly, then he smiled broadly. “Can’t ever have enough turkey in my book,” he said. “But if you’re too much of a wimp to take it, I suggest the steak. It’s really rather wonderful.”

  Jen frowned. “Dad, what are you doing for Christmas? You do have plans, don’t you?”

  George looked at her incredulously. “Plans? Of course I’ve got plans. Too many invitations, truth be told. Can’t decide which ones to turn down.”

  Jen smiled, relieved. If he’d said he was going to be on his own, she’d have had to spend Christmas with him. Which would be fine as far as she was concerned, but breaking the news to Harriet . . . well, it didn’t bear thinking about.

  “You’re going to your mother’s, I presume?” George continued as if reading her mind. She nodded.

  “You could appear more enthusiastic. She is your mother, you know.”

  Jen looked at her father curiously. Harriet was never this charitable about him.

  “I am looking forward to it,” she said cautiously. “But you know what Christmas is like. Lots of people, lots of drinking, the inevitable arguments . . .”

  George shook his head. “Nonsense. Christmas is a wonderful thing. Didn’t you used to enjoy our Christmases? I remember every one.”

  He looked at her wistfully, and Jen suddenly felt a huge urge to hug him, to sit on his knee like she did when she was five and feel utterly and completely protected and contented. Mothers were wonderful, she thought to herself, but they just didn’t have broad enough shoulders sometimes.

  “Me too,” she said quietly. “Especially the one when you got me a bike.” They’d spent the whole day together that Christmas, George encouraging her to ride without her training wheels, and her screaming with delight when she finally mastered riding solo.

  George laughed. “Well, I’m afraid I don’t have a bike for you this year, but I hope you’ll like it all the
same.”

  He pulled out an envelope and passed it to Jen. She opened it and found a Christmas card—“with all my love, from your father,” and a certificate with her name on it and a picture of a funny-looking planet. She wrinkled her nose, trying to remember if she’d ever told her father she was interested in outer space, and drew a blank.

  “It’s a star,” George said softly. “I always promised you the moon, and I failed abysmally, but you’ve got a star now, in your name. I . . . I hope you like it.”

  Jen stared at him and felt little tears start to prick at her eyes. “It’s beautiful,” she said, digging her nails into her palms to try and maintain a bit of composure—she was in a smart restaurant, after all. “Thank you, Dad. I . . . I didn’t get you anything.”

  George frowned. “You’re here, Jen. Believe me, for an old fool like me, that’s Christmas present enough.”

  Jen nodded silently as the waiter came over to take their order. He was right, she thought to herself as she ordered. Being here with her father was the best Christmas present she could have wished for.

  15

  “We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!”

  Jen smiled tentatively as her mother handed her a glass of sherry and sang along to Geoffrey’s terrible piano accompaniment. Harriet hated to be alone at Christmas and regularly invited virtual strangers to spend the festivities with them rather than face an empty dining table, and Jen had always enjoyed it before. But now all these people just seemed like barriers between her and her mother, preventing Jen from speaking her mind. Stopping her from asking Harriet whether it was true she had an affair, and why she’d lied for so many years about George not wanting to see her. She sighed— maybe it was a good thing all these people were here. Right now she was so confused about everything it was probably best to keep quiet.

  Jen bit her tongue and looked around the room to see who she’d be spending the day with. Geoffrey was a Green Futures’s stalwart—he’d been at the company nearly as long as her mother and was also a regular at Christmas. Then there was Hannah, who’d joined the firm around the same time as Jen and who always eyed Jen with a certain level of suspicion, and Mick, who worked for Tim in the accounts department. She didn’t know him very well at all. Finally in the corner, nursing a drink that looked suspiciously like whiskey neat, was Paul Song.

  He did a little mini bow when he saw her, and she wandered over unenthusiastically. “Good trip?” she asked conversationally. “Mum said you were away.”

  He nodded. “Yes. I was in Ireland. A very beautiful place. Very enjoyable.”

  Jen frowned. “I thought Mum said Scotland,” she said. Paul blanched.

  “Of course, sorry. I get confused. Yes, it was Scotland. Definitely Scotland.”

  “Come on, darling, sing along. Good tidings we bring to you and your kin . . .” Her mother motioned for Jen to join them. Jen eyed Paul suspiciously and moved over to where the others were standing.

  “We wish you a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,” she chipped in halfheartedly and helped herself to a handful of peanuts.

  “Very good for your skin, peanuts,” Hannah observed. “Cashew nuts, too. Actually, all nuts.”

  “To eat or rub in?” Jen asked.

  Hannah looked at her oddly. “How would you rub a peanut into your skin?”

  “Rub a peanut into your skin?” Harriet said, wandering over. “I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in my life. Who wants you to rub peanuts into your skin, Hannah?”

  “Jen does,” Hannah said, eyeing her cautiously.

  Jen smiled weakly and sat down on the sofa. She considered telling Hannah that she’d meant the oil—peanut oil—but decided it would probably be best to let the whole matter rest.

  “If you were going to rub them in, I suppose they might be a good exfoliator,” Hannah continued thoughtfully. “Although you’d probably have to break them up a bit first.”

  “Nuts have a very low glycemic index,” said Mick in a deadpan voice. “My ex, Shirley, used to eat them all the time. Said they had good oils in them.”

  “See?” said Hannah triumphantly. “Good for your skin. Like I said.”

  “Personally, I thought that oil was fattening, but that just shows how much I know about diets,” Mick continued. “Like potatoes. One minute they’re low fat, the next they’re forbidden. I can’t keep up. I just used to say you eat what you want. ’Course, then she said I was trying to keep her fat. When I said I wasn’t, she said that proved that I thought she was fat. Or something like that. She always found something to criticize, did Shirley.”

  Jen stared at Mick, mesmerized by his monotone voice. “Why did you split up?” she enquired.

  Mick looked up in surprise, as if he hadn’t expected anyone to actually be listening to him.

  “Don’t know, really,” he said dolefully. “Said I didn’t really understand her. She had a point, too. I didn’t know what she was going on about half the time.”

  Jen nodded sympathetically as her mother wandered back into the kitchen, followed swiftly by Hannah.

  “You got a boyfriend?” he asked interestedly.

  “Kind of. Yes.” Jen felt a little warm feeling rush over her and took a few seconds to enjoy it. Daniel. The very thought of him made her feel so much better, even if strictly speaking they weren’t exactly boyfriend and girlfriend yet.

  “Oh,” said Mick. “Oh well. I suppose there are other fish in the sea. Now that’s something my mother used to say a lot, and I don’t know why. What’s anything got to do with fish?”

  Jen raised her eyebrows as if to sympathize with the sentiment, but she wasn’t really listening to Mick anymore. She was thinking about Daniel. Wondering what he was doing. Northumberland suddenly seemed an awfully long way away.

  “You all right?” Mick asked.

  She realized that she’d been staring into space for a couple of minutes. And that she’d been left alone on the sofa with Mick. Everyone had gone into the kitchen apart from Paul, who was staring into his drink. Jen picked up her glass.

  “I think I need a refill,” she said quickly, swigging down nearly an entire glass of sherry in one go. It filled her stomach with a welcome warmth and sent a rather nice rush to her head. “Can I get you one?”

  Mick shook his head. “Alcohol. That’s fattening, too,” he was saying as he followed her into the kitchen.

  Harriet, as usual, was holding court, standing at the head of the kitchen table with everyone else sitting round in silence, listening to her.

  “And that’s when I had the brainwave,” she was saying, as everyone listened attentively. “A poster campaign in all their shops with pictures of the children they were helping from the local neighborhood. It was a triumph. . . .”

  Jen sat down and listened appreciatively as her mother regaled the room with stories about Green Futures, its clients, its early wins, her various television appearances. She could hold a room like no other, and Jen had always loved her stories, loved the fact that she was Harriet’s daughter. She’d felt so proud.

  But now Jen realized that she’d heard all these stories a hundred times before. And she didn’t know if she could believe a single one.

  “So come on then, little miss MBA,” Geoffrey said when Harriet had finished a story with a flourish. “Are you going to tell us what it’s like at Big Bad Bell?”

  Jen looked at him uncertainly, then looked at Harriet. No one was meant to know, she said with her eyes.

  Harriet smiled nervously. “Darling, I couldn’t keep it a secret forever. And I’ve only told everyone here. They’re practically family.”

  Jen looked at her incredulously. “Mum . . . ,” she started to say, then shrugged. What did it matter if everyone knew, if Harriet had been unable to resist the urge to tell an exciting story, even if it resulted in her breaking a promise to her own daughter?

  “I thought about doing an MBA once,” Mick sa
id behind her. “But I did an accountancy qualification instead. Wanted to work in finance so I thought it would be best. Difficult to know, though, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, thanks for that, Mick,” Geoffrey said with a little smile. “Come on, Jen, spill the beans. Tell us about the bastards at Bell Consulting. I have to say, better you than me.”

  “I’d rather not talk about it if it’s okay,” she said stiffly. “Do you need any help with the food, Mum?” she asked quickly. Questions were bubbling up inside her, and she didn’t know how long she could last playing the role of happy daughter.

  “Food?” Harriet asked vaguely. “Oh, you mean Christmas dinner? Well, actually, there’s been a bit of a change of plan on that front, too. I was thinking, since we are fortunate enough to have Paul here, that he could cook us a traditional Tibetan Christmas meal. And he very kindly agreed, didn’t you, Paul?”

  Paul nodded and smiled, and Jen looked at him uncertainly. “I didn’t think they celebrated Christmas in Tibet.”

  “Oh, well, sometimes they do,” he said quickly. “Really, this is more of a generic celebratory meal, though.”

  Jen nodded, trying to hide her disappointment. “So, no turkey and mince pies, then?” she asked, attempting to sound jovial and failing miserably.

  “No, darling,” Harriet said firmly. “Now, let’s put on some music, and we can open our presents!”

  Jen bit her lip and went to find the myriad presents she’d wrapped. She never knew in advance who would be at her mother’s for Christmas, so she tended to over-buy, bringing a sackload of generic presents that would suit anyone, just in case.

  “Right, here you are,” her mother said brightly, depositing a beautifully wrapped parcel in her lap.

  Slowly, she unwrapped it. She peeled off the thick cream paper, and then started to unravel the tissue paper that lay beneath, and finally found herself holding a lacquered, white box. Carefully, she opened the box and found herself staring at a wooden block.