Victoria Line, Central Line

by Maeve Binchy

  ‘I never thought a notice would do that,’ said Sara admiringly.

  ‘Wait till we get things going properly, you’ll be amazed,’ said Eve.

  Eve refused a drink, a girly chat and the offer of a share in a taxi. Instead she took out her notebook again.

  ‘You should have an account with a taxi firm,’ she said briskly. ‘I’ll set that up tomorrow, when I’m organising the flowers and your dress allowance.’

  Sara stared at her in the windy, wet street as if Eve had gone completely mad.

  ‘What are you organising . . .?’ she began.

  ‘Plants, flowers for the office, all the male senior executives have them, and they also get a special expense allowance for clothes because they have to travel, it being a travel company, and . . .’

  ‘Eve, I’m not a senior executive, I can’t have free flowers paid for by the office.’

  ‘As assistant manager you are technically a senior executive. The other two assistant managers are elderly men who have been pushed upstairs, so if you equate your title with theirs then you can have flowers, nothing extravagant, about six nice flowering plants. I think we can choose them from a brochure, they’ll arrive tomorrow.’

  For the first time for a long time Sara sat back contentedly in her chair at home and didn’t think about Geoff and wonder when his new obsession would end. Often she felt lonely and sad during his absences, so that she would hide from the feeling by having the television on or listening to music for long hours. But tonight she just sat calmly drinking her tea and looking into the fire. Eve’s arrival meant that a lot of the tension in the office had been eased. It was like someone massaging your shoulders and taking away the stiffness – you didn’t know how tense you had been until the massage was over – Eve was going to make things a lot better, and she was going to force Sara to take herself more seriously too. It was a bit exciting in a way.

  Next morning was a Friday and Eve wanted to know whether Sara had any important plans and engagements for the weekend. Sara shrugged. ‘I was going to sort out those figures for Mr Edwards, you know the ones he wanted on the breakdown of age groups on the coach holidays. We need to know where to direct some of the coach tour promotions this year.’

  ‘Oh, that’s done,’ said Eve. ‘I did it this morning, I saw his note. I’ve two copies here for you to sign, one for Mr Edwards and I thought you should send one to the head of marketing, just to let him know that you are alive and well and working harder than Mr Edwards.’

  ‘Isn’t that a bit sneaky?’ asked Sara looking like a doubtful schoolgirl.

  ‘No, it’s standard office procedure. Mr Edwards is the sneaky party, by not acknowledging your part in all the work that is being done.’

  With a weekend free Sara agreed happily to go to look at second-hand furniture and office fittings. Eve had already organised the office partition, and it began with great hammering and activity after lunch.

  ‘I suggest you go and check out a few new outfits for yourself, Miss Gray,’ said Eve. ‘You can’t possibly work here with all this noise.’

  ‘Could you come with me, I’m not exactly sure what I . . . ?’

  ‘Certainly, Miss Gray, can you wait five minutes while I tell these gentlemen I shall be back in two hours to see how they are getting on?’

  Eve managed to make three large men look as if they knew she was going to have them fired unless the partition was perfect. Then she went to the shop with Sara.

  There was a brief objective discussion about what clothes Sara already possessed. Eve explained that she had only seen two tweed skirts and one black sweater in the three days she had been working there. Shamefacedly, Sara said she thought there were a couple of other sweaters and perhaps two more workable tweed skirts.

  Eve seemed neither pleased nor put out; she was merely asking for information. In the store she suggested three outfits which could interchange and swap and make about a dozen between them. They cost so much that Sara had to sit down on the fitting-room chair.

  ‘I took the liberty of getting you a credit card for your expenses, Miss Gray,’ said Eve. ‘I rushed it through, and what you are going to spend now is totally justifiable. You have to meet the public, you have to represent the company in places where the company may well be judged by the personal appearance of its representatives. What you are spending on these garments is half what Mr Edwards has spent in the last six months, and you have been entitled to expenses of this kind for over a year and never called on them.’

  By Monday Sara could hardly recognise either herself or her new surroundings. On Eve’s advice she had had an expensive hair-do; she wore the pink and grey wool outfit, put the pink cyclamens on her window sill, near the lovely old table with its matching half-dozen chairs which they had eventually found for half nothing since it was too big for most homes, and nobody except Eve would have thought of it as office furniture

  Eve was living in her purpose-built annexe surrounded with files and ledgers. She had just begun to compile a folio of Sara’s work so far with the company, a kind of illustrated curriculum vitae which would show her worth and catalogue her achievements. Nobody was more surprised than Sara by all she seemed to have done during her years in the company.

  ‘I’m really quite good, you know,’ she said happily.

  ‘Miss Gray, you are very good indeed, otherwise I wouldn’t work with you,’ said Eve solemnly, and Sara could detect no hint of humour or self-mockery in the tone.

  Towards the end of the second week, Eve pronounced herself pleased with the office. She had bought an old coat-stand which ideally matched the table and chairs, and on this she urged Sara to hang her smart coat so that the whole place just looked as if it were an extension of her own creative personality. If anyone gasped with amazement at the changes in the room, Sara was to say that there was all this silly money up in requisitions for her to decorate the place, and she did hate modern ugly cubes of furniture so she had just chosen things she liked – which had in fact been cheaper. People were stunned, and jealous, and wondered why they hadn’t thought of this too.

  Remarks about her appearance Eve suggested should be parried slightly. No need to tell people that she now had regular twice weekly sessions with a beautician. Eve had booked her a course of twenty.

  So on the second Friday of her employment Eve came into Sara’s part of the office and said she thought that they were ready to begin.

  ‘Begin?’ cried Sara. ‘I thought we’d finished.’

  Eve gave one of her rare smiles. ‘I meant begin your work, Miss Gray. I’ve been taking up a lot of your time with what I am sure you must have considered inessentials. Now I feel that you should concentrate totally on your work for promotions and let me look after everything else. I shall keep detailed records of all the routine work that I am doing. Each evening I’ll leave you a progress report, too, of how I think we have been getting on in our various projects. These I think you should take home with you or else return to my personal file. We don’t want them seen by anyone else.’

  Sara nodded her thanks. Suddenly she felt overwhelmed with gratitude for this strange girl who was behaving not as a new secretary but as if she were an old family retainer blind with loyalty to the young Missie, or a kindergarten teacher filled with affection and hope for a young charge.

  She felt almost unable to express any of this gratitude because Eve didn’t seem to need it or even to like it.

  ‘Are there any, er, major projects you see straight away?’ she asked.

  ‘I think you should look for an assistant, or a deputy, Miss Gray,’ said Eve.

  ‘Eve, you can’t go, you can’t leave me now!’ cried Sara.

  ‘Miss Gray, I am your secretary, not your assistant. I certainly shall not leave you for a year. I told you that. No, you need to train someone in to do your job when you are not here.’

  ‘Not here?’ Sara looked around her new office which she was beginning to love. ‘Where will I be, why won’t I be here?’


  ‘Because you will be away on conferences, you will be travelling abroad to see the places the company is promoting, and of course, Miss Gray, you will be taking your own vacation, something you neglected to do last year I see.’

  ‘Yes, but that’ll only be a few weeks at most. Why do I need to have an assistant, a deputy? I mean it’s like empire building.’

  ‘You’ll need to train an assistant to take over when you get Mr Edwards’ job at the end of the year. One of the many reasons why women fail to get promotion is because management can say that there is nobody else to do their job on the present level of the ladder. I suggest you find a bright and very young, extremely young man.’

  ‘But I can’t do that. They’d know I was plotting to get Garry Edwards’ job.’

  Eve smiled. ‘I’m glad you are calling Mr Edwards by his first name at last, Miss Gray. No, you need an assistant to do your work for you while you are away, of course. Otherwise, if this whole office is seen to tick along nicely without you in your absence, people will wonder why your presence is so essential. If on the other hand, it turns into total chaos, they will blame you in absentia. So you need a harmless, enthusiastic, personable young man to sign letters which I will write and to postpone anything major until your return.’

  ‘Eve, why do you have to go away in a year?’ Sara said suddenly. ‘Why can’t you stay and together we’ll take over the whole place. Honestly it’s not impossible.’

  ‘Oh, Miss Gray, there’d be no point in taking the place over. It’s not what either of us want, is it?’ asked Eve, accepting naturally that it would be perfectly feasible to take over the largest travel company in Britain if she put her mind to it.

  ‘You never tell me what you want,’ Sara said, impressed by her own daring.

  ‘I like to see women getting their work recognised. There’s so much sheer injustice in the business world – I mean really unjust things are done to women. I find that very strange. Men who can be so kind to stray dogs, lost strangers, their own children, contribute generously to charities and yet continue appalling unfairness towards women at work.’

  She stopped suddenly.

  Sara said, ‘Go on.’

  ‘Nothing more,’ Eve said firmly. ‘You asked me what I wanted. I want to see that injustice recognised for what it is, and to see people fight it.’

  ‘You should write about it, or make speeches,’ said Sara. ‘I never even saw it in my own case until you came. I do agree now that I’ve been shabbily treated and now I’ve got a bit of confidence to demand more. And that’s only after ten days with you. Think what success you’d have if you were to go on a lecture tour or on television or something.’

  Eve looked sad.

  ‘No. That’s just the whole trouble. It doesn’t work that way, damn it. That’s why it’s going to take so long.’

  Politely she extricated herself from further explanations, from any more conversation, from having a drink at a near-by pub with Sara. She had to go home now.

  ‘You never tell me about your home,’ said Sara.

  ‘You never tell me about yours, Miss Gray, either,’ said Eve.

  ‘I would if I got a chance,’ Sara said.

  ‘Ah yes, but you and I would not get on so well if I knew about your worries and problems!’

  Sara took it as a very faint warning. It meant that Eve didn’t want to hear about Sara’s problems and worries either. She sighed. It would have been very helpful if Eve could apply her amazing skills to Sara’s disastrous relationship with Geoff. He had been gone now three weeks. No, it couldn’t be three weeks. It was. She could hardly believe it. The last ten days had passed so quickly she had scarcely missed him. She was so stunned by this that she hadn’t heard what Eve had said.

  ‘I was only saying that I left your invitation for the supper party tomorrow night there on your desk,’ Eve repeated as she gathered up her things. ‘I hope you enjoy it. I heard that all senior executives were normally invited to meet the chairman and board members so I made sure your name was on the list. Nice chance to wear that black dress too, Miss Gray, I expect you’re thinking.’

  Sara’s eyes were big with gratitude. As if by magic Eve seemed to have known that another lonely weekend was looming ahead. But she knew not to admit to any emotion.

  ‘Great. I’ll go in there and knock them dead. And on Monday we’ll be ready to begin the campaign.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Eve. I suggest you find out whether any of the board have young and hopefully stupid sons who might want to start in the business. As your assistant, you know. We need someone rather over-educated with no brains.’

  ‘What are you going to do for the weekend?’ asked Sara.

  ‘This and that, Miss Gray. See you Monday,’ said Eve.

  Sara spent Saturday reading the company’s reports which Eve had left thoughtfully on her desk. She took Eve’s advice and wore the black dress to the party where Garry Edwards’ surprise at seeing her was as exciting as any romantic flutter. ‘I can see how people can become obsessed with all this infighting and competitiveness,’ thought Sara.

  She was charming to the chairman, she was respectful to Garry Edwards and risked calling him Garry once or twice: she caught him looking at her sideways several times. She was very pleasant to a middle-aged and lonely woman who was the wife of a noisy extrovert board member. The woman was so grateful that she positively unburdened her life story. Eve’s face came like a quick flash across the conversation; Sara remembered how she had implied that people don’t really want to be bogged down with personal life stories, particularly of a gloomy nature. She murmured her sympathy for the details and disclaimers of the woman’s tale about neglect and being pushed into the background.

  ‘All he cares about now is our son, he’s coming down from Cambridge soon, with an Arts Degree: no plans, no interests.’

  Eve would have been proud of her. She geared the conversation gently to her own office, to how she would be delighted to meet the boy – she even gave the woman her card with a little note scribbled on it. How amazing that she should suddenly find a need for those nice new cards which Eve had ordered for her and produced within days of her arrival. Garry Edwards came across at one stage to find out what she was up to; Sara steered the conversation away again.

  ‘Where’s that chap that you are seen with sometimes and sometimes not?’ asked Edwards, determined to wound.

  ‘If he’s not here, it must be one of the evenings I’m not seen with him,’ said Sara cheerfully.

  That night she went to sleep in her big double bed, hoping that Geoff would not come home. She had too much to think about.

  The weeks went by, two more of them. She had already held three successful and supposedly impromptu gatherings in her office. Always she had included several people higher in the pecking order than Garry Edwards.

  Everyone had thought it was a splendid idea to have the handsome young son of their important board member and his lonely wife in the department. He worked most of the time in the general promotions department and two afternoons a week he got what was described as a training from Sara. What it really was was an access to her files, permission to sit in her room as she worked out schemes with some of the other promotions executives, and he learned an almost overpowering respect for Miss Gray from Eve who stood up and expected him to do the same. Eve almost lowered her voice in awe when she spoke of anything Sara had done, and the well meaning, over-educated and not very bright Simon did the same.

  Simply because Eve kept him under such an iron rule Simon did learn something. So much in fact that his parents were utterly delighted with him, and the head of marketing, who had opposed his appointment as the nepotism it undoubtedly was, had to admit that that young Miss Gray was able to do the most extraordinary things. He took to dropping in to her pleasant office occasionally, and once or twice that strange colourless secretary had told him very firmly that she couldn’t be disturbed. When he implied that he was more important than w
hoever she could be talking to, the secretary had said very flatly that her instructions were to ask everyone to make appointments, or at least to telephone in advance if they intended to drop in. Since the head of marketing had been saying long and loud that too much socialising and twittering went on in his department in the name of work he could not be otherwise than pleased.

  Geoff came back. His latest lady decided that she must go back to her husband and children. This she said was where her duty lay. She said it when all Geoff’s money had run out. Geoff had shrugged and come back to Sara. Amazingly she wasn’t at home. He let himself in one night with a bottle of champagne, a single rose and a long explanation, but there was nobody to receive any of these things so he just went to bed.

  She wasn’t there in the morning either. He checked her wardrobe, most of her sweaters and skirts seemed to be there. The place looked neater somehow, and there were no work files strewn about. She had a lot of much more expensive cosmetics in the bathroom too. He wondered what had been happening. He couldn’t have been gone more than a month. She hadn’t run out, surely? She couldn’t have decided to end with him, surely? After all she hadn’t changed the lock or anything. His key still opened her hall door.

  He called her next morning, and a very cool voice that was not Sara’s answered him. ‘Miss Gray’s office.’

  ‘Oh we have gone up in the world,’ giggled Geoff. Loyalty to Sara and building her up to her colleagues was never his strong suit.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said the voice.

  ‘Listen, it’s Geoff here, can I talk to Sara?’

  ‘Can I know who wants to speak to Miss Gray please?’ asked Eve.

  ‘Hell, I’ve just told you. It’s Geoff. Sara’s chap, Geoff. Put me onto her will you, sweetheart.’

  Eve answered very pleasantly. ‘I’m afraid you must have the wrong number.’

  Geoff sounded annoyed, ‘Sara Gray’s office, right?’

  ‘Yes this is Miss Sara Gray’s office, now will you kindly tell me who this is speaking?’