by Fiona Gibson
I consider this for a moment. ‘Less fat,’ I reply.
A small smile plays on Jules’s lips.
‘Is that the right kind of thing?’ I ask, feeling my cheeks reddening. It’s ridiculous, to feel embarrassed in front of her. I’m sure she’s heard people spouting all kinds of crazy stuff.
‘There’s no right or wrong thing,’ Jules says kindly. ‘Whatever you want to express is valid. So, can you expand on that a little bit?’
‘Well …’ I start, noticing the empty family-sized crisp bag lying on the armchair, which I must have delved into last night after Izzy had gone to bed. That’s how meaningfully I guzzled those crisps; I have no recollection of stuffing them into my face. ‘I suppose,’ I add, lapsing into a silly jokey tone, ‘I don’t exactly feel like my best self right now.’
‘Hmm. Well, that’s understandable.’
‘I feel like shit a lot of the time, actually,’ I add, and Jules nods. Mercifully, she isn’t taking notes or – horrors – recording me. ‘On Thursday,’ I continue, ‘I went out and spent over two hundred quid on stuff for my face.’
She blinks at me. I know for a fact that Jules uses one product, which costs something like £3.99, from a supermarket. ‘There’s nothing wrong with treating yourself,’ she says.
‘Yes, I know – but it helps if you can afford it, which I couldn’t, and anyway, I don’t think it’s terribly healthy to think, okay, if I slathered this stuff on, if I looked a bit better, then maybe my life would improve. Don’t you think that’s a bit … desperate?’
‘Viv, I have to say, I think you’re being pretty hard on yourself,’ Jules cuts in. She looks at me for a moment. ‘How about focusing on the aspects of your life that you feel you’re handling well?’
I clear my throat and try to think. ‘Well, I suppose I’m getting along day to day. I mean, all the basic things happen. Izzy’s well looked after; at least she hasn’t been torn away from me by social services. I don’t seem to have messed anything up too badly, so far …’
‘You’ve handled being a mum, and your work life, amazingly well throughout the break-up,’ she remarks.
‘I’m not sure about amazingly well,’ I say with a shrug, ‘but from the outside I suppose we are functioning.’ I’m starting to relax a little now. If nothing else, Jules has a wonderfully sympathetic manner, and one of those soothing voices that would be perfect for narrating audio-books for bedtime.
‘I’m glad you’re giving yourself recognition for that,’ Jules says. ‘Can you think of any specific recent achievements you’re proud of?’
‘Proud of?’ I frown. ‘That might be overstating things a bit.’
‘How about things you’ve enjoyed lately? Positive changes you’ve made in your life?’
I ponder this. ‘Oh, I know – Izzy’s become fanatical about cooking. This is all your fault!’
Jules laughs. ‘She’s a natural, isn’t she?’
‘She is. She loves playing TV chef in our kitchen. It’s a regular thing with us now, her Izzy Cooks! shows. So that’s been fun. I mean, it used to be virtually impossible to wrangle her away from pasta, noodles, rice – all the plain carbs. And now she’s demanding manuka honey and Himalayan pink salt. Obviously, her mission is to ruin us financially …’ I break off. Is that the best I can do? That I’m encouraging my daughter to vary her diet? I think of Penny, and her son Nick, and the Angel Delight (‘He turned out just fine! What’s the problem?’).
Jules smiles. ‘And you’ve been encouraging her and facilitating all of that.’ She’d never use that word normally: facilitating. For some reason, I want to laugh.
‘Yes, I suppose I have.’
‘How about we go back to achievements?’ she suggests. ‘Any more you can think of?’
‘I don’t think so,’ I say.
‘They don’t have to be huge things. Small ones are important too. But it’s important to recognise them because, so often, we don’t even notice what we’re managing in life. We just think it’s part of being a woman, a mum, all that. We don’t give ourselves the credit we deserve.’
I exhale, trying to dredge up something else.
‘Take your time,’ she says.
So that, in my sun-filled living room, is what I start to do, simply because Jules has asked me to. Never a natural rebel, I have always been happier to follow instructions. And I haven’t achieved heaps; I don’t save lives or speak at conferences. There are no pictures of me looking polished with a microphone, beaming confidently from behind a podium. When I was a child, I didn’t do brilliantly at academic subjects; I passed my exams through sheer hard graft, wanting to please my parents and teachers and feel that I’d done well.
Maths baffled me. Biology was manageable, but physics and chemistry scrambled my brain. This frustrated my mum a little, as she was a science teacher herself. Dad, who ran his own wedding photography business, was more relaxed over school-related matters. I loved drama, mainly: writing and helping to stage school plays, rather than performing. I enjoyed college, opting for theatre studies, and had a wonderful career, or so I thought; but like so many women I allowed it to falter, and then fizzle out completely. Perhaps I should have cast the net further when looking to get back into theatre after I’d had Izzy. Temping at Flaxico had seemed like an easier option at the time. I could kick myself now for lacking the determination to find a job I loved.
But then, Jules is encouraging me to think of achievements, and on a positive note, I am managing. Although I’ve had plenty of wobbly moments, I haven’t entirely lost the plot since my marriage fell apart. Nor have I gone round and brained Andy in that cheesy flat. I haven’t descended into a state of shabby personal hygiene, or got hideously drunk (at least, not too often). Meanwhile, what I have done is played with Izzy, helped with her homework and read her bedtime stories. I have weeded the borders, de-mossed the patio (no high pressure hose man for me!), cooked endless dinners and managed to shield Rose from countless journalists on the phone.
As far as achievements go, these are starting to feel distinctly barrel-scrapey. But Jules insists they are all significant, and listing them – whilst feeling slightly silly – at least proves that I haven’t just been flailing around these past few months.
I’ve been surviving, all these little things seem to say. I might have shelled out £49 on a tiny pot of ‘microspheres’, but I have also taken care of the important stuff and been getting on with my life.
Before she goes, Jules seems to break her own rule by offering one small suggestion. ‘Perhaps,’ she ventures, ‘you could talk to Rose on Monday and find out what sort of plans she has in mind for you?’
‘I do keep asking,’ I say, ‘but she’s always too busy to talk.’
‘Could you ask her to schedule some time for you, then?’ she asks with a wry smile.
I nod. ‘Yes, of course.’ Now, why didn’t I think of that?
‘And next time we get together,’ Jules adds, ‘we can talk about how that went. Because I think she’s very lucky to have you.’
‘Really?’ I exclaim, blinking at her.
‘Yes, really,’ she says, hugging me as she leaves. It’s even more effective than the rescued seagull video at making me burst into tears.
Chapter Eighteen
Monday, August 19
As it turns out, I don’t have to ask Rose about her plans for me, because as soon as I sit down at my desk, she appears and asks if I can clear some time to chat today.
Today, just like that!
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Can you do lunch?’ she asks.
‘Sounds great,’ I reply, trying to mask my surprise. ‘Shall we go up together or shall I meet you there?’
‘Oh, let’s not eat in the canteen,’ she says quickly. ‘Let’s go somewhere proper, away from this madhouse. I’ll book.’
A proper lunch, out of the building, where normal people go! And Rose isn’t even asking me to make the reservation! Already I’m picturing myself t
elling Jules about this at our next session: how we went somewhere fabulous where Rose laid out her plans for my glittering future.
In terms of achievements, it’s a step up from ‘managing to not brain Andy’.
Her choice of venue is surprising, but I take it as a good sign. It’s a ‘chef’s theatre’ place, where the tables are either in booths, or arranged in a semi-circle around the cooking area where the chef is chopping vegetables with aplomb. Actually, I’d say it was more like ‘showing off’. A carrot flies above his head, to be grabbed mid-air and slammed down onto the chopping surface with a sharp thwack. Rose probably thought it would be ‘fun’, which suggests that she’s in a positive mood. We are seated in front of the chef in the vast, under-populated restaurant, which he seems to take as a sign to rev things up a notch.
Immediately he starts to juggle in the style of a flame-thrower, not with torches, but leeks. In between giving him the odd polite smile, we try to peruse the menu, which is proving tricky as the chef has moved on to tossing sliced sautéed potatoes directly from the sizzling hotplate towards our heads. ‘What are you doing?’ Rose exclaims, ducking as one whizzes past her ear.
‘It’s fun,’ replies the grinning chef, clearly misjudging our keenness to be pelted with scorching Maris Pipers as several more oily discs are pinged at us.
‘What the fuck?’ Rose mutters under her breath.
‘I think we’re supposed to catch them in our mouths,’ I say, trying not to laugh.
‘Fine, but can he stop now?’ She gives me a wide-eyed stare, clearly expecting me to sort it. If this is meant to be some kind of test – i.e. to find out how I act under pressure – surely she knows me by now? Or perhaps it’s a simple mistake, and she’s so unused to booking restaurants that she genuinely had no idea where to go?
‘Let’s move tables,’ I say, masterfully, summoning a waiter who ushers us to the safer environment of a booth.
We order, and Rose looks across the table at me, grimacing. ‘I didn’t realise it was this kind of place. Look at that.’ She indicates a greasy mark on the front of her azure silk shirt from one of the flying potatoes. ‘I’ll send them the dry-cleaning bill. Who enjoys that kind of thing, really?’
‘Teenagers on a date night?’ I suggest. ‘Honestly, I have no idea.’
‘Maybe this shirt should go in as soon as we get back?’ She frowns. ‘I have a spare one in the office I can change into. Would you mind?’
Would I mind sorting it for her, she means. ‘No, of course not.’
She smiles stoically. ‘Anyway, sorry it’s taken so long for us to get together …’
‘I know it’s been crazy busy lately,’ I say.
‘Just a bit.’ She smiles ruefully. Despite her tendency to use me as an all-round fixer, I like and admire Rose. I know she’s at least a decade younger than I am – barely forty, I’d say, although she keeps her age under wraps – but there’s something oddly ageless about her. I can imagine her organising her playmates with formidable determination when she was nine years old. ‘So, lots of things are happening,’ she start as bowls of uninspiring noodles are set before us. I suspect all the effort goes into the performance aspect here, rather than the actual cooking. ‘I’m especially excited about the platforms for innovation,’ she adds.
I nod and spear a slithery noodle. ‘I think it’s a great idea to bring new life into the company. I know we do our own consumer research, but there’s nothing like having young people involved right from the ideas stage all the way through to design, packaging, the whole lot.’ I pause, actually quite impressed with myself. I believe it, though, about the benefits of bringing young people in. Flaxico has been a creaky old organisation, as huge and unwieldy as a shabby ocean liner, for far too long.
‘I agree, absolutely,’ Rose enthuses. ‘But they’ll need careful management to bring out the best of them. We can’t just shove a bunch of youngsters into a room and hope for the best.’
‘No, I can imagine that could spiral out of control,’ I say, remembering the time I let the sixteen-year-old Spencer and his mates ‘take charge’ of a barbecue in our garden and foolishly took my eye off the ball. They had somehow got hold of about fifteen types of meat and fish – I suspected they had plundered the freezers of everyone they knew – which was served in states varying from barely defrosted to burnt black. The boys tanked into a load of beers (illicitly) and one of them threw up all over the patio. I overheard one of Andy’s doctor pals muttering, ‘Isn’t anyone in control of this thing?’
All valuable experience, I’m thinking now as I wonder if my hunch was correct: that Rose is working up to suggesting that I might step into one of the mentoring roles. Otherwise why would we be here, talking about the new young teams she’s planning to take on?
‘Didn’t you used to work in theatre before you came to us?’ she asks.
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘And what did you do exactly?’ It’s the first time she’s ever thought to ask. I was never formally interviewed for the PA job; Rose just gave it to me after a perfunctory chat when the vacancy came up.
‘Stage management,’ I reply, ‘which meant everything really, apart from performing, as most places had pretty small teams.’
‘So you’re used to supporting people, assessing their needs?’
What does she think I’ve been doing for her, these past five years? ‘Yes, definitely,’ I reply. She chats on a little more about the new product lines she’s hoping to launch, assuring me that the bunnygate fallout seems to be fading. And now I’m thinking: there are definitely gaps in my knowledge, if I were to head up a group of young employees. I’d need to learn about food technology, budgeting, every stage of production. It would be a huge learning curve for me, but doable. She’s lucky to have you, Jules said. And I decide that, as Rose clearly hasn’t brought me here for the food, this is my chance to sell myself.
‘I think I’m the ideal person for this kind of thing,’ I say, as our greasy bowls are whisked away.
‘Really?’ She looks pleased, but surprised.
‘Yes, I do. You know, people are always moaning about youngsters today, how unmotivated they are – all these pampered snowflakes a mere unripe avocado away from mental collapse …’
Rose smiles in recognition. Although she doesn’t have children, occasionally she mentions her nieces as if they are a species of exotic bird that she admires, but doesn’t fully understand. ‘I have to say, I’ve met a few who fit that description.’
‘But most kids aren’t like that really,’ I add. ‘My son and his friends are all working hard. They care about their futures and the wider world, and they’re out there, getting their lives together.’ I pause for breath. ‘They’re just a little different to us.’
‘In what way?’ She seems genuinely interested.
‘Well, they expect a lot, you know? I don’t mean in an entitled way. I mean in terms of things being just right. For instance, my son’s girlfriend makes jewellery and sells it on Etsy. She knows her customers are just like her – that they don’t just want a bracelet stuffed in a Jiffy bag. They expect a beautiful hand-written note with their purchase, written with a quill …’ Rose chuckles. ‘They care about ethics,’ I add, ‘and sustainability …’
‘Do they?’ she asks, looking amazed.
‘Yes! They’re passionate about environmental issues and they boycott big, tax-avoiding conglomerates. Imagine that, that they think about tax, at twenty years old!’
‘That is impressive,’ she says thoughtfully.
‘So, if you’re suggesting I work with these young people, I’d like you to know I’d be delighted—’
‘Oh, I wasn’t thinking of that.’ She smiles tightly and blinks at me.
‘Weren’t you?’ Hotness whooshes up my neck.
‘Um, no, not exactly …’ Her jaw seems to tighten as she looks around the restaurant. The only customers who appear to be appreciating the potato-throwing routine are two almost identically dres
sed girls with silken black hair, who are sitting directly in the chef’s firing line. ‘I was thinking I’d like to see you in a more … visible role, though,’ she adds.
‘Right,’ I say, nodding. ‘Well, that would be great. I do feel I’m ready for a new challenge.’
‘Yes, I can see that. But it wouldn’t be working with young people.’ She sips her water.
‘Oh, really?’ I’m trying to appear positive and open to all kinds of possibilities.
‘No, the way I see it, you’d be working more with …’ What, for crying out loud? ‘Older people,’ she says. ‘I mean people – women – more of … your sort of age.’
I stare at her over the plastic tray bearing smeary bottles of soy and chilli sauce and a bunch of paper-wrapped chopsticks in a lacquered pot.
‘My age?’
‘Yes,’ she says, brightening now. ‘The way I see it, inclusivity will be all-important from now on. We’ll have our young, vibrant teams, the ones pushing us forward with exciting ideas, fizzing with energy.’ I nod, aware of a tightening in my gut. ‘But, as a company, we also have to …’ It’s almost imperceptible, the wince that flickers across her face, but I definitely see it. ‘Well, we can’t be seen to be discriminatory,’ she adds.
‘No, of course not.’
‘So, we might as well face the fact that we’ll always have older people working for us too.’
‘Erm, yes, I suppose we will.’ Dear God. Is the lower basement going to be converted into a euthanasia clinic?
‘So, what I’m thinking,’ she goes on, ‘is that we should appoint someone to address the issues that these women are facing every day of their lives.’
I must look baffled, because Rose seems to realise that she’s being less than clear. ‘What I’m saying is that I’d like to appoint a Menopause Ambassador.’
At first, I assume I misheard. ‘A Menopause Ambassador?’
‘Yes, to have one-to-one chats with anyone who’s at that life stage, and then assess their needs, so we can fully support them.’
‘Erm, how would we do that?’