by Lucy Diamond
She hungrily forked her food in, barely tasting it as she thought hard about what, exactly, she should say to Elliot. It would be amazing, landing a job with him. Amazing. That would show Hugo Warrington that she was a player. Imagine if she could persuade Elliot to somehow buy out Waterman’s, and then she could – would, more like – suggest a few redundancies of her own. Oh, yes. Redundancy number one: Warrington, that was a given. Out on his big wealthy ear, and good riddance to him. Redundancy number two: Marcus-frigging-Handbury, who had no doubt spent the afternoon arranging his personal belongings in her office, with an annoying smirk on his posh pink face. As for the traitor Jake, maybe she’d spare him the chop, but humiliate him by giving him the most dire, dreary, menial tasks possible. She’d crush him beneath her Ferragamos – just watch her.
Polly waved as she saw the two Sophies, Johnny and Richenda sauntering in, loaded with laptops and briefcases. It was weird being there without hers. She had missed her BlackBerry’s bleeps and vibrations all day, had stretched out a hand to check it countless times already before remembering it had been taken away from her. Note to self, she thought: first thing tomorrow, buy a new one. Got to keep in the loop, still be seen as a player. How was she going to explain the fact that she didn’t have hers with her now, in fact? Surely they’d notice that her phone was missing from its usual place on the table. It made her feel underdressed, as if she’d come out without make-up on, or any shoes.
‘Hi,’ she called out. ‘Come and join me.’
In the next instant, she regretted her words. Seeing their faces en masse gripped her with panic. Could she tell them she’d lost her job? Could she actually bear the looks of pity, the smug glee that might sparkle in blonde Sophie’s eyes? They’d bombard her with questions and it would be horrendous trying to keep her cool throughout, maintain some kind of confident composure, especially when she still didn’t have a clue what lay ahead. If she pretended nothing had happened, everything would go on as normal. Wouldn’t it?
Then she remembered her fruitless phoning around earlier that day, the increasing despair with which she’d sent off email after email with her CV and a polite covering letter. On the other hand, she needed all the contacts she could get.
She flicked her gaze sideways to the bigshot table. They were deep in conversation now, laughter muted, all expressions serious as they leaned in towards each other. She had to embark on her schmoozing mission with them before too long, she reminded herself. Hi, may I introduce myself? Adrenalin surged through her at the thought. She would do it. It was fate. And oh, how she’d laugh about it later. Well, I lost my job out of the blue – yes, I was shocked – but by close of play I’d already lined up something even better. You know me!
‘Hi Polly, you got here early today,’ blonde Sophie said, sitting next to her, sharp eyes scanning the half-drunk champagne bottle, as if already suspicious of Polly’s reasons. ‘Don’t tell me you’re slacking off now, because I won’t believe a word of it.’
Polly smiled, a fixed fake smile. ‘Delegation is the new black,’ she said, tapping her nose. The others laughed. Sophie didn’t, but then she was a humourless robot and never did. Polly reckoned she might have got away with that one. Turn the focus on everyone else, she decided. She’d always been an expert tactician. ‘So, how are you guys?’ she asked lightly. ‘Richenda, how did your presentation go today?’
Richenda looked pleased to be asked and started describing in full Technicolor detail her pitch and presentation to an important new client she’d been chasing for the last few weeks. Not wanting to be outdone, Johnny soon weighed in with the awe-inspiring deal-making he’d worked his magic on that day, and the nicer Sophie told everyone some gossip she’d heard about Santander. Yack, yack, yack. Lucky for Polly that they all loved the sound of their own voices. Lucky for Polly that they were arrogant enough not to think of asking her anything in return.
It was all going okay, she thought, draining the last of her champagne. (Christ, had she finished that bottle already? She felt as if she’d barely started.) Perhaps now would be a good time to wander across and mingle with the big fromages. There was nothing to lose, and her friends would be well impressed if she just moseyed on over to them and started chatting. She could already imagine their raised eyebrows, their astonishment. Is that really Elliot McCarthy Polly’s talking to? I didn’t know she knew him.
She stood up suddenly, but her movement was clumsy and she managed to knock over her empty glass. ‘Oops,’ she giggled, picking it up again. Her hand felt as if it was made entirely of thumbs. Shit, everything was swaying. She clutched the table for support, trying to right herself.
‘Everything all right, Polly?’ asked Nice Sophie, tilting her head on one side. (What was Nice Sophie doing in the business world? Polly had wondered before. She was far too … well, nice, frankly.)
Polly was about to reply, yes, of course, never better, when her eyes locked with those of Marcus Handbury who’d just walked into the room, and she froze. She didn’t seem able to drag her gaze away for a horribly long few seconds. Her insides turned cold and the bar seemed to list sideways as if she was on board a ship. Marcus-effing-Handbury. The last person in the world that she wanted to see.
He was coming over. Shit, he was actually coming over, his gaze still firmly on hers. She felt trapped amidst the others, the table blocking her from running away. Aargh. What should she say? How should she act? Panic bubbled up inside her and her knees felt uncharacteristically weak.
‘Polly, hi.’ He’d reached the table now, and the conversation halted abruptly. Everyone swung round to gawp at him.
A scarlet stain of embarrassment crept up Polly’s throat and into her face. ‘Hi,’ she said coldly.
‘I just wanted to say, I’m sorry about how things have panned out,’ he said. He was one of those tall, solid rugby types, Marcus. The sort of person you could cannon into and they’d barely twitch. He had a plain, fleshy face and sandy hair, slightly thinning, she noted spitefully. ‘Really gutted for you, but no hard feelings, yeah?’
No hard feelings. He’d just shafted her for her job and he had the nerve to say ‘No hard feelings’? What did he think she was, some kind of cyborg?
She swallowed the lump of anger that had risen in her throat. Don’t lose your cool. ‘Whatever,’ she said, affecting a disdainful shrug and staring past him.
The others were looking from Marcus to Polly in confusion, not following. ‘What’s this all about?’ Richenda asked. ‘What’s happened?’
Blonde Sophie leaned in closer, sensing blood was about to be shed. ‘Yeah, what’s happened?’ she asked in faux concern, as sincere as a politician.
Marcus looked taken-aback. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Well, Polly’s redundancy. I’ve been moved up as a result, so, you know, kind of awkward, really …’
To be fair, he did look genuinely pained at the situation. Not half as pained as Polly felt, though. She was trembling with the sheer awfulness of it all. ‘Kind of awkward’ was the understatement of the flaming year.
‘Shit, you’ve been made redundant?’ Richenda asked in horror. Her voice seemed to echo around the room – redundant-redundant-redundant – and Polly cringed. ‘When did this happen?’
‘Why didn’t you say?’ Nice Sophie asked, her blue eyes boggling. ‘Bloody hell, Polly. What a nightmare!’
‘It’s not a big deal,’ Polly replied, waving a hand in what she hoped seemed a casual fashion. Richenda made a grab for her glass just before that got knocked over too. ‘To be honest, I’ve got something way more exciting lined up,’ she lied, tapping her nose once more. It was becoming her signature gesture tonight. Any minute now she’d go to tap her nose again and she’d find that it had shot out twenty centimetres like Pinocchio’s.
‘Oh yeah? What’s that, then?’
Polly wished Mean Sophie didn’t have to sound quite so disbelieving. She tipped her head right to indicate Elliot McCarthy’s table. ‘I’ve got an in with Elliot,’ she said loft
ily. ‘I was just about to go and discuss things with him when you lot arrived actually, so if you’ll excuse me a minute …’
‘What, now?’ Nice Sophie looked concerned. ‘With Elliot McCarthy? Polly, don’t you think you’re a bit’ – she hesitated, clearly agonizing over whether to offend Polly or potentially save her – ‘you know … a bit pissed for a discussion with him right now?’
‘Of course not,’ Polly said, trying to disentangle herself from the table. She stuck her nose in the air, not making eye contact with any of them. Sod ’em. They were nothing to her. Watch this, losers, she commanded in her head as she stumbled towards Elliot McCarthy. Watch and learn. This is how Polly Johnson likes to operate – she scents blood and goes straight in for the kill.
‘Hi,’ she said, and then her mind went horrifyingly blank as the bigshots turned their impassive, who-the-hell-are-you? faces on her. Shit. What was his name again? ‘Emily McCartney?’ she blurted out before she could stop herself. ‘May I introduce myself as your biggest fan, Polly Johnson. Hi there.’ And then, with exquisite timing, she swayed on her heels and toppled clumsily into his lap.
Some hours later Polly opened her eyes and then immediately clamped them shut again, as blazing sunlight scorched her eyeballs. Ow. OW.
Her head throbbed in agony. Her mouth felt as if someone had hoovered out all of the saliva and coated its lining with fur. Her stomach was churning as if she was about to—
Oh God. Polly staggered off her bed and just managed to make it to the bathroom before spewing violently into the toilet. Ugh. She heaved again and dry-retched a few times, trying to spit out all the bits of sick that were trapped behind her teeth. Disgusting.
She lay on the bathroom floor whimpering, the stone floor cold against her hot cheek, not even having the energy to reach up and flush the loo or get some water to rinse her mouth. She felt as if she might die, right there on the tiles. Help. How had this happened?
She paged blearily back through what she could remember of the night before, cringing as a series of dreadful images flashed into her head. Marcus humiliating her in front of her friends. Humiliating herself in front of Elliot McCarthy and his companions, who just happened to be pretty much the most influential people in the City. Being asked to leave the Red House by the management, after Elliot McCarthy had complained to the staff about her.
She winced, remembering how they’d tried to manhandle her out of the building when she’d refused. Hell, she’d never be able to show her face in there again. And then what? She vaguely remembered being in another bar, somewhere (where?), drinking gin after gin and pouring her heart out to someone (the barman? complete strangers?), but the details were fuzzy – she couldn’t make out her surroundings, other people’s faces. As for how she’d got home again, it was a complete mystery. Shit.
She lay there for some time on her bathroom floor, not sure whether she was going to throw up again or not, but oddly comforted by the tiles beneath her face, as if there was no further to fall. This is what rock bottom feels like, she said to herself, and shut her eyes.
The whole day was a write-off. So much for continuing the bombardment of HR directors with her epic CV and bullet-pointed letter; it was all she could do to drag herself onto the sofa with the duvet without dying of hangover pain. She lay there for a few hours feeling mortified. How would she ever be able to go back to the Red House, after making such a spectacle of herself? And how would she ever be able to look the Sophies, Richenda and Johnny in the eye, without crying with embarrassment? She might as well face facts: her career was down the toilet, along with gallons of her alcoholic puke.
The only good thing that happened all day was when she found the TV remote, placed neatly in the wooden drawer of the coffee table. This at least meant that she could lie there watching Phil and Holly on This Morning, followed by Loose Women and Paul O’Grady. After several hours she found the strength to make herself a cup of tea. Other than that, she only bothered moving to change channels. What else was there left for her to do?
Several days passed in this vein, although none in quite such a hungover, alcohol-laced vein, thankfully. Oh, she made a few token efforts to check her emails, just in case anyone had replied to her job-seeking attempts with an interview or a welcoming pair of golden handcuffs but, unfortunately, the only responses she had were pro-forma rejections, informing her there were no suitable vacancies at the present time.
She clicked on the FT website several times a day, desperate to stay in the loop – old habits died hard – but whenever she checked out her investment portfolio, its worth seemed to have shrunk even smaller. You’ve got to play the long game, she remembered telling clients time and again. No such thing as a quick fix. She was starting to doubt the wisdom of her own words, though. Since her bonus had been snatched away at the eleventh hour, she didn’t want to play a long game. She needed her shares to start rising again, fast. She needed a quick fix just as badly as a smackhead, damn it.
When she wasn’t on her PC, she spent the rest of her time stretched out on the sofa, feet up, glued to daytime television. Why had no one told her how brilliant daytime television was? She already felt like Phil and Holly were old friends, and the Loose Women were the funny, sympathetic best mates she’d never had. She was getting good at spotting the bargains on Bargain Hunt too. And wasn’t it cosy, just staying in her pyjamas all day? She felt as snug as an unemployed bug in a rug.
By the third day she’d wised up to planning ahead. She didn’t want to face the rest of the world yet, so she ordered a food delivery online, full of all her favourite treats. Well, why not? It was about time she took things easy, chilled out for a change. She deserved a break after almost twenty years of pressing her nose against the business grindstone, and she was one hundred per cent convinced that a job would have turned up by the end of next week.
On Friday, when she’d been in the same pyjamas for four solid days, had just eaten cornflakes for lunch again (that Ocado van really couldn’t come too soon) and was wondering if one o’clock in the afternoon was too early to have a tiny little glass of wine while she watched Loose Women, she heard a key in the door and nearly had a coronary in fright. What the hell?
She unswaddled herself from the duvet and leapt up from the sofa indignantly, heart pounding. ‘Excuse me,’ she began as her front door opened, ‘but …’
Then she stopped, as she realized who the intruder was. That effing cleaner again.
Magda recoiled at the sight of Polly standing there, lank-haired and barefoot in what appeared to be quite grimy pyjamas and a dressing gown. ‘Miss Johnson, you are here?’ she asked in confusion. ‘Again?’ She blinked, taking in the sight of empty cereal bowls stacked up on the coffee table, the cold cups of coffee, the plasma screen TV blaring the Loose Women titles. ‘You are ill?’
Polly hesitated. ‘Yes,’ she said after a moment.
‘You want me go? Or I clean?’
Again Polly hesitated. She didn’t want anyone else in the flat right now, she was enjoying wallowing on her own. She’d decided to take the rest of this week off, before throwing herself back into job-hunting again on Monday. Having the cleaner bustling about with the Hoover would break the spell, let the real world back into the bubble she’d created around herself.
On the other hand, the flat was kind of a tip.
‘You can stay,’ Polly said grandly, retreating to the sofa and pulling the duvet up under her chin again. If she didn’t look at the cleaner, she might be able to pretend she wasn’t there. She’d just concentrate on her programme, especially as an interview with Colin Firth was coming up.
‘You want I make you drink? Something to eat?’
The cleaner – Polly had forgotten her name – was standing in front of her, blocking the TV screen. Polly twitched irritably and was about to shoo her away again when she processed the questions. Did she want a drink or something to eat? Actually, she did. She was paying the woman after all. ‘A cup of tea would be great,’ she
said. ‘I’m out of food unfortunately. Oh, and do make yourself one if you want,’ she added as the idea occurred to her. ‘I think the milk’s gone a bit lumpy, so you might prefer it black.’
The cleaner began stacking up the empty cereal bowls, some of which had become rather whiffy. ‘You have no one to look after you, eh? Is no good. I here now. Magda look after you, eh?’ she said, casting a sideways glance at Polly.
Polly smiled thinly, wishing Magda would shut up and get out of the way of the television. She wasn’t exactly in the mood for chit-chat, let alone with a cleaner. She said nothing, just stared pointedly at the TV, and after a while Magda took the hint and vanished into the kitchen.
Magda boiled the kettle and opened the dishwasher to load in the dirty crockery. A dreadful smell arose from the machine as soon as she pulled open its door. There was one plate and a few cups inside that sported dark fringes of mould. How long had they been sitting in there? ‘Môj bože’ she muttered. ‘My God, this woman is a disaster.’
She glanced around the upmarket white kitchen with its granite worktops, which had probably never seen a chopping board or fresh vegetables; its fridge, which was always empty, save for a pint of milk or maybe some champagne; the cupboards, which were largely bare. What a waste it all was, she thought, shaking her head. Maybe she’d got Miss Johnson wrong; maybe her apartment was often full of friends in the evenings – dinner parties, girls’ nights, a lover who cooked for her – but she’d never come across any evidence to support this. Instead there was the lone wine glass, plate, knife and fork occasionally left in the sink. The packaging of a ready-meal for one in the bin. If this place belonged to Magda – ah, it would be so different. It would be a home.
She thought of her own kitchen: small and cramped, but decorated with her children’s artwork and certificates from school, and full of good smells from the stews she cooked on cold days or the apple cakes the children liked to help her bake. Tomasz would sit at the small wooden table, dark head bent over his homework, while Kasia would perch on the worktop swinging her legs and chattering about her day.