by Molly Flatt
Alex forced her lips into a rictus of a smile.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Never better.’
3
As the Uber inched away from Old Street roundabout, Alex closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the cool leather headrest. The car was an extravagance. She’d be early for lunch with her parents. But after the drama of the past eight hours she’d decided to skip the brainstorm for their mindfulness pop-up and give herself some much-needed headspace.
Now that the shock and indignation had faded, she almost felt bad for Not John Hanley. She had hardly been able to believe it, a month ago, when she’d received the snail mail from some two-bit Surrey law firm accusing Eudo of intellectual-property theft. Sure, Opa! also had a Greek-derived name, and it too had tried to corner the digital market in holistic health. But its motto – Find Your Awesome – was as far away from Be Your Best Self as Jeff Bezos was from Buddha. Not to mention that the whole outfit had folded while Eudo was still in seed-round. However, Alex knew all too well how tempting it was to pin the blame for your own mediocrity on those around you. How depressing it could be to watch your peers soar while you shuffled along the ground.
Of course, the accusation of actual murder had been a surprise. She hoped that Not John Hanley had been referring to Opa! as a business, personified. She could understand that impulse. It was all too easy to think of Eudo as her child. The more worrying alternative was that Opa!’s failure had driven someone in their team to suicide. She’d already checked on her phone and confirmed that the founder – a pompous Dutch-Russian she had once met at a networking event – was still tweeting away. But it was certainly possible that some fragile designer or bipolar developer might have been tipped over the edge by Opa!’s untimely wipeout.
It was a terrible thought. Alex was pretty certain that, even in her worst pre-Eudo moments, she had never seriously considered killing herself. Although she couldn’t be entirely sure. She found it impossible, now, to remember – really remember – how it had felt to be such a failure, from the inside. As her stomach twinged and the familiar nausea rose up her gullet, she quickly steered her thoughts back to the now. Lockie had friends in the force; she’d asked him to find out whatever he could. If there were some secret tragedy behind the slander, she’d try and find a way to help the family. Without admitting any corporate responsibility, obviously. An anonymous donation, perhaps.
In the meantime, rather sadly, it had become obvious that Not John Hanley’s outburst would only add to her cachet. Word, Google Alerts told her, had already got round. From the evidence of the gossip on the digital street, the intensity of the guy’s ire had only illuminated the sparkle of her own rising star. The poor sod had proved that she was literally one to watch. What’s more, Alex thought grimly, remembering the intensity of his gaze, misogyny certainly had a part to play. If the past six months had taught her anything, it was that people still – in the twenty-first century, for Christ’s sake! – couldn’t handle the idea that a woman could succeed. Openly admitting that she believed in her vision, daring to hustle, allowing herself to be exposed in the public spotlight . . . Despite their surface enlightenment, most men and women still seemed to believe deep down that these were not feminine qualities.
Whatever you are.
Stop it. Stop dwelling. Move on.
Alex cracked open the car’s complimentary mini-Evian and downed a couple more painkillers. She straightened her spine. She murmured the power affirmation she’d crafted with Chloe: I steer my fate, I embody my dreams. Of course she had wondered, for a few stunned minutes back at her desk, whether this morning’s nutter and last night’s mugger might have been one and the same. But that was the sort of narcissistic paranoia that old Alex would have pedalled – I’ve put myself out there, so they’re out to get me: retreat, retreat! No, she would not let them force her into becoming fearful or cynical. In fact she would go one better. She would sprint to the other end of the scale. Put her heart right out on the line.
The driver, who was 0 per cent The Knowledge and 100 per cent outdated satnav, was busy executing a seven-point turn in a dead end off the Strand. Perfect. A rare window of writing time. Settling back against the seat, Alex pulled out her phone and began to draft the bones of a post for her Founder’s Blog, entitled Speaking Out: 10 Hard-Hitting Truths on Gender in Tech.
She was still typing when the car finally deposited her onto a roasting, heaving Charing Cross Road. Weaving through the tourists and the ticket touts, Alex switched apps to send her mother a text letting her know she’d arrived. Seconds later the reply came through: The early bird catches the worm! Except the work i still looking at soap doshes in Heal’s. Find yur father in Foyyle’s see tou there. Mum x
She found him easily, obscuring a large chunk of Fiction on the first floor. He was scanning the ‘M’s, big shoulders rounded, hands stuffed into the pockets of his city jacket. One frayed shoe was stabbing the floorboards in an unconvincing show of nonchalance. As Alex approached from behind, she saw him remove his right hand from his pocket and run his thumb along the row of spines, all the way from Brian Moore’s Lies of Silence to Richard C. Morais’s The Hundred-Foot Journey. He paused, reversed the process, then slowly dropped his arm.
As quietly as she could, Alex crept back down the stairs to the tables just inside the door. She finished the blog on her phone, then forced herself to lock the screen and zip it into her bag. Realizing that she hadn’t been inside an actual bricks-and-mortar bookshop for at least a year, she selected a random hardback from one of the tables and started flicking through the pages. As far as she could tell, it was yet another high-concept psychological thriller. Albeit one making a bid for award status, by dressing up the convoluted plot in wearisomely literary prose.
‘I thought you only downloaded those things nowadays.’
She closed the book and smiled into the screaming face of the woman on the cover, then suddenly noticed the Novus Young Novelists to Watch sticker plastered in the left-hand corner. Shit! Smile sliding off her face, she replaced the book and, trying to block the Novus display with her back, turned. ‘Dad!’
‘Hello, Kansas.’ He held out his arms and she burrowed into the bearlike warmth of his chest. ‘That’s a terrible book, by the way,’ he added as she emerged before an episode could take hold.
Alex glanced back down at the screaming woman, then grinned back up at her father. ‘Derivative movie bait?’
‘You got it, Kansas, you got it. Then again, those folks at Novus never had any taste. They’ll put any old rubbish on that damn list. I should know.’ His beard creased in a smile and he winked, but she could tell that he was putting on a show.
‘Shall we go and find Mum?’
‘Excellent idea.’
They were almost out of the door when a freckled, red-haired girl in a red-and-black name badge stepped into their path.
‘I’m terribly sorry,’ she said, ‘but are you by any chance Tom R. Moore?’
He did this shrinking action whenever this happened, deflating his chest and ducking his head, as if he was trying to deny his name with every inch of his flesh.
‘Yes,’ Alex’s father said.
‘Oh my God.’ The girl looked around her, as if she was surprised not to see a clamouring horde gathering at her back. ‘Well, I’m sorry, because normally we’re not supposed to bother people, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. The Switch is literally my mum’s favourite book. She made me read it when I was, like, fifteen. She rereads it every year.’
‘Well, thank you for telling me,’ he murmured. He flashed the beard-crease and shoved his hands back into his pockets.
‘This is so great. Could I get you to sign a copy? I’ll just see if we—’
‘Oh, well, I was—’
‘Please? Please,’ the girl pleaded, looking around again. ‘God, my manager will kill me, but it’ll only take me a sec. Let me go and check the database.’
Alex snuggled into her father’
s arm as they waited beside a rotating stand of grown-up colouring books. ‘That was nice,’ she said.
‘I’m fine, sweetheart.’ Her father twisted so that he could look down into her face.
‘Of course you’re fine, I just know you . . . hate that kind of fuss.’
‘Seriously,’ he said, extricating her from his arm. ‘Alex.’ He put a hand on her shoulder. ‘You do know that, don’t you? That I’m fine with this. With all this. By now.’
Alex looked deep into his pouchy eyes. ‘Seriously, Dad, I do. I don’t underestimate you, unlike those short-sighted publishing dicks or those lazy journos looking for an easy headline. Look, I know the press gave you a hard time for a while, and I’m sure it’s still tough at moments like this’ – she gave him a playful prod in the stomach – ‘being reminded that there are still so many rabid fans out there waiting on you. But Dom obviously still believes that Book Two is worth waiting for. And I know that underneath it all, you’ve got a core of steel.’ She put her hand on top of his. ‘We’re the same, Dad, you and I. I never realized how true that was, until everything kicked off with Eudo. Now I’ve found my work, my real work, I get it, I really do. You and I might take our time, but we get there in the end. Other people’s expectations don’t matter, not deep down. We have our vocation. We’re much stronger than everyone thinks.’
She paused. Her father was looking at her with an odd expression. She was about to ask what was wrong when she realized how strange it must be for him, not having seen her since the whole Eudo rollercoaster began, to witness how much she really had changed. His meek little Kansas, who had clung to him like a life raft for so long, had finally, at the age of thirty-one, blossomed into a woman. There must be a hint of sadness in that for him, mixed with the relief. Alex was just trying to find the words to let him know how much she still needed him, when the girl returned.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she panted. ‘It looks like we don’t currently have it in stock. Or anything else by you right now.’ She smiled apologetically, her freckled skin blooming pink. ‘I’m sure you understand what it’s like, Mr Moore. Shelf space. Overheads. So I wondered if you’d mind . . .’ She held out a Novus Young Novelists to Watch flyer. ‘My mum would love it if you could sign this. Thirty years on from your lot, right? And they only do it once every ten years? Amazing to think Mum was my age back then, when you guys were the first ones ever. Oh, hang on.’ She jogged over to the display table and grabbed one of the screaming-woman hardbacks from the top of the pile. ‘You can lean on this.’
Alex’s father took the book and the leaflet. From his inner jacket pocket he withdrew one of the black Fineliners that lived about his person like elongated tics.
‘You didn’t come along last week?’ the girl asked, as he scrawled his name without looking down. ‘To the announcement drinks? They invited all the alumni from the previous two lists. I kept looking for you, but I couldn’t see you there.’
‘No.’ Tom gave another tight beard-crease. He handed the book and the leaflet back, then glanced at Alex.
‘Sorry, of course, I won’t keep you any longer.’ The girl stepped back, clutching her prize to her chest. ‘Thanks so much, Mr Moore. My mum is gonna die.’
Alex called her mother, who was still in Heal’s. They agreed to meet her there and began the short walk north to Tottenham Court Road. Her father still seemed subdued, so Alex took the opportunity to show how much she needed him by confiding the problems they were having at Eudo: streamlining the CRM system, defining the freemium model, recruiting a half-competent COO. It did feel weird not to mention either the mugger or the Opa! guy – she and her father had no secrets from each other – but she didn’t want him to worry. She was only too aware how much of her new life her parents would find inexplicable. How could they be expected to understand, from the suburban tranquillity of Fring, that crazy shit like that just happened in the cut-and-thrust of the London start-up scene? It would be hard enough for them to believe that such attacks weren’t personal. Even harder, from the evidence of the frown still lingering on her father’s face, to believe that their conflict-averse daughter had finally grown the balls to more than hold her own. Still, it stung, that little lie of omission. Alex found herself longing to reach for her father’s hand, as if he was her child.
They found her mother in the bedroom department, lecturing a terrified-looking boy on duvet togs. ‘If they don’t know their products,’ she grumbled as they left the assistant to contemplate his inadequacies, ‘they can’t exactly complain if they’re replaced by robots. Hello, darling. You look thin. And tired. What time did you get to bed?’
The only space left in the cafe was a row of high chairs at the marble bar, surrounded by people hammering away on laptops. Alex’s mother ordered bacon rolls for all three of them, then launched into a thorough update on life in Fring. The lowlight of this was an ongoing feud between herself and the co-chair of the Local History Committee. The highlight was the news that Alex’s father had been asked to trial a regular book-review column in a Sunday broadsheet.
‘Dad!’ Alex gripped his arm. ‘You didn’t tell me.’
He glanced at her from under his brows. ‘It’s just a trial, Kansas. On a sinking ship.’
‘Oh, don’t be so modest. It’s amazing. And Dom must be pleased.’
Her father grunted. ‘Dom is.’
Then their food arrived and her father ordered two beers and her mother said, ‘So what’s going on with Harry?’
‘What do you mean, going on?’ Alex, sighing, replaced her roll on its plate.
‘Well, I heard you having a bit of a squabble last night, and he was as sweet as ever to us, of course, but it’s quite obvious he’s unhappy. You still haven’t set a date?’
‘Liz!’ Alex’s father murmured.
‘Well, I’m sorry, darling, but everyone keeps asking.’ Her mother leaned across and took her hand. ‘Darling. I don’t mind in the least whether you’ve changed your mind, but I can’t help but wonder what’s going on. You said it would definitely be this summer and, well, tempus fugit, and we haven’t heard a peep.’
Alex sighed again. In all honesty, she’d barely given the wedding a moment’s thought. Harry had tried to broach the topic a few times since New Year, but she’d been so busy that she’d fobbed him off, without really wondering why. She traced her fingernail round the rim of her plate. ‘I’ve been so busy, Mum . . .’
‘Of course you have,’ her mother said, squeezing her hand. ‘And I want you to know, darling, that we are very proud. It’s incredible, everything you’ve achieved since we last saw you. I can’t say I understand what Eudo is, exactly—’
‘Mum.’
‘No, darling, I don’t, but it doesn’t matter. It’s quite obvious that all those people at the party think it’s going to be a great success, and they’re the ones who should know.’
There was a pause.
‘What?’ Alex said.
‘I just wonder,’ her mother said, ‘if you’re going about it all a little . . . wholeheartedly.’
Alex groaned. ‘Mum. That’s the point. Don’t you see that the exact reason I was so directionless, all those years, was that I never did anything with my whole heart? I mean, sure, nothing was awful, and getting engaged to Harry was lovely, but nothing was great, either. Nothing was extraordinary.’
What was extraordinary was how she had been for so long; how she had allowed herself to be. The days spent sitting in interminable meetings discussing meaningless targets. The evenings wasted on the sofa, watching trashy teen dramas with crusty-edged ready-meals. The hours lost flicking through magazines and dreaming about the amazing life that had to be just round the corner, but which never actually arrived.
Starting to feel queasy, she switched her focus to her new day-to-day. She relived how it had felt to see Eudo’s beta-release go live. She mentally traced the exponential curve of their sign-up figures. She reminded herself of the members who said that visiting the site was the hi
ghlight of their morning. She recalled the deals she had calmly brokered in roomfuls of men. And yes, damn it, she thought about the parties, the new wardrobe, the sight of her retouched face on the front cover of Flair. Slowly, Alex felt a warm swell of conviction spread through her chest. The change she’d undergone recently – no, the change she’d made happen – might be hard for her parents to understand. But she knew it was authentic, because it was, quite simply, working. It was making that amazing life, the one she’d daydreamed about so ineffectually for so many years, finally come true.
‘Committing my whole heart to Eudo is exactly what broke the cycle, Mum,’ she said. ‘It’s like my life coach, Chloe, says: you can only become the person you’re truly capable of being if you unleash all your secret power.’
‘Darling.’ Liz raised her eyebrows. ‘Life coach? And she sounds a lot like Margaret O’C from the Baptist Church.’
Alex gave her mother a calm smile. ‘I know it can be hard to understand,’ she said. ‘Chloe warned me that an empowered attitude can be very threatening. English people, in particular, hate it when someone approaches their vocation in a wholehearted way. But Dad gets it, don’t you, Dad?’ Alex shot her father a look of appeal, but her father was still staring at her with that unreadable frown.
Her mother’s eyebrows had all but disappeared into her hairline. ‘All I’m trying to say, darling,’ she said, ‘is that you seem to have changed so very much in such a short time. It reminds me of that summer you were eleven, when you moved to St J’s. All of a sudden my happy little girl seemed to turn into this miserable shadow overnight. It seemed so dramatic. So abrupt. Oh, of course, back then a lot of it would have been hormones, the pressure of a new school, but I can’t help but be reminded of it now. I’m worried about you, that’s all.’