I did everything I thought I was supposed to do, to land myself my dream career as an art curator, and everything had been going so well. I left the tiny northern seaside town where I grew up, I went to university where I got my BA in art and history, then I moved to London to try and bag myself a job. The problem was that it is such a competitive industry, so I had to work my way through a variety of jobs, some only loosely related to what I wanted to do, but it all felt like progress. Still, I didn’t feel as if I was getting anywhere until I saw the job listing seeking an assistant for ‘the great Damian Banks’ – to give him the full title people so often refer to him by. I was blown away when I got the gig. Little did I know back then that I would only be assisting Damian with his private life, because his working life has been very much absent recently.
I look into my own eyes in the mirror, narrowing them as I mentally tell myself I can do better. I can find a better job. If I had more time I could probably try and have a love life too. I’m only thirty-three, that’s still young, and I take pride in my appearance. My long, slightly wavy, honey-blonde hair passes my waist, in a sort of arty, boho way. As for my style, well, I’m just a bumpkin managing to pass as a cool wanderling. I fit right in here, with the cool art kids, but only in the sense that everyone looks so individual, so no one looks uncool. Everyone here looks as if they travel the world, for fun, probably on their parents' money. Of course, I know that’s not true for me, but I do my best to have my own look. My eccentric outfits are mostly pulled together from items I picked up in vintage or charity shops. I’m no stranger to an Oxfam, with a keen eye for spotting a rare work of art, whether it be a loud pair of trousers or a delicate lace dress. I’ve also, over the years, curated myself one hell of a chic wardrobe from items of clothing that my mum and gran were about to throw out because they were old-fashioned. It’s hard, doing what everyone else does on a much smaller budget, but by the time I make items my own, and load myself up with accessories, I feel as if I’ve created something truly unique. I am my own walking piece of art… although I suppose to everyone else I just look like a bit of a weird hippie.
I can do better. I need to do better. But not tonight. Tonight I need to have a drink with the girl whose heart I just broke, and then tomorrow I need to be up bright and early to turn up for work, for the man who made me do it.
I used to think that each day was a blank canvas, when I was young and naive, but these days I feel as though I’m aimlessly completing the same dot-to-dot puzzle, just going through the motions, following a path I can’t deviate from. Still, at least I didn’t just get dumped, hey? I’d have to have a love life for that to happen…
Chapter Two
I used to think that working in a creative industry would make every day a little brighter, that the world would seem more beautiful, that each day would be different.
I grew up ‘up north’, with a dad who used to command soldiers for a living and a mum who used to (even worse) teach children; routines and rules were always at the heart of everything I did. I reckoned, in that way you do when you up and leave your home town, that I was moving to somewhere better, to live something different. I thought that art was creative, that artists were such free-flowing people who moved in whatever direction life took them, that I would be the same if I could just surround myself with them.
With Damian I have the worst of both worlds. I have the routine and the chaos, because somehow Damian is both impulsive and unpredictable, all the while still being so completely boring to work for. I always know what my days will look like. Other than a handful of occasional events, I know that most of the time we work out of Damian’s apartment, or wherever he wants to go, apart from two days a week when we work here, at his office. The days that I’m here, I am bored beyond belief, because lately Damian isn’t actually doing all that much work.
I pull myself up the stairs to Damian’s loft offices, meaningfully grabbing at the wooden bannister, yanking myself up as though my life depends on it. This strange old building is a real labyrinth, a complicated mashup of corridors and staircases, far too complicated for a lift to have ever been installed. It doesn't even have one main stairwell, meaning you have to cross the building from one set of stairs to another about halfway up.
Damian's studio is made up of three rooms. There is his private office, the small room I work in right outside his room, and then there’s the general office where the actual studio space is, the rest of the staff work, visitors are greeted, etc.
As far as staff goes there aren't that many people working here on a daily basis. There’s Karen, the office administrator, and she really is a Karen. A middle-aged boomer with a can-I-speak-to-the-manager haircut who has lots of opinions about lots of things but none of them feel all that well thought out. At the other end of the scale, we have Ollie, the ultimate millennial, who handles the more techy side of the business. Then we have Colin, a chap in his forties who handles the business side of things – including planning trips and schedules (jobs I assumed would be mine when I started). Most other employees are only here as and when, for photoshoots or business meetings, and Damian does have a manager/agent-type person, but I don't see much of her.
I’m glad that I'm only here two days a week, and that I work in a small room on my own, because Karen, Ollie and Colin have Damian pegged as this nightmare boss and they see me as an extension of him. So they don't make me coffees when they turn-take making the hot drinks, they don't show me photos of their kids or tell me about their holidays. I don’t suppose I mind too much but it does make my in-office workdays very boring.
I say hello to everyone as I pass through the room, heading for the kitchen area where I make myself a coffee. I don’t ask if anyone else wants one because, not only can I see that everyone already has a mug in front of them, but they barely look up when I speak to them anyway.
You’ve probably already worked this out for yourself but Damian is not a popular boss – not with me or with anyone else in the office. You would think this would create a sense of solidarity amongst the staff but, with me being Damian’s right-hand woman, they treat me with a similar level of coldness. Except it’s worse for me, because I’m not their boss, so they don’t even have to pretend to respect me.
I head for my private office and plonk myself down at my desk. I mean, I say it's my private office, but it’s purely circumstantial. It’s not my office, it’s just an office that no one else happens to be sitting in whenever I’m here.
I know that Damian is here – he’s always the first one here, on the days when we’re working in the office. There’s post on my desk waiting for me to open it. I can see the little light blinking on my phone, alerting me to the voice messages – and there are always lots of voice messages. But despite all of that I do what I always do first. I open my desk drawer and see what’s waiting inside for me.
Sure enough, there’s a Twirl chocolate bar there for me, and there’s a bright yellow Post-it Note stuck to it that says:
I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT NEED THIS.
He’s absolutely right – I do need this. I’m starving, and there are few things on this earth I love more than chocolate.
When I say ‘he’s right’ I’m not talking about the Post-it. I’m not so lonely and overworked that I’ve reached a level of delusion where I think the Post-it is a man. I’m talking about the person who wrote the note. I’m talking about Adam.
Adam is the person I share my desk with. I’ve hot-desked before, in other jobs, and I’ve always found it so strange. When you have your own desk, you have your own space, everything is always where you left it, but when you hot-desk you never know what you’re going to find when you open a drawer – someone else’s work, their half-eaten lunch, their anti-diarrhoea medication (which no one ever owned up to, unsurprisingly).
It’s a little different here though, because here I only share my desk with Adam.
I remember when I first started working for Damian. My very first day on the job wa
s working here in the office. I’d met Damian at my interview and he seemed great. So cool, so charming, so undeniably handsome. And, of course, I was such a huge fan of his work, so I was completely in awe, pinching myself every few seconds because I couldn’t believe my luck. I remember sitting in Damian’s office across the desk from him on my first day, chatting about his work and his plans for the future, and it all seemed great until I went and sat at my desk, opened the drawer and found a Post-it Note stuck to a stapler.
THE BOSS IS A NIGHTMARE. GOOD LUCK.
I just closed the drawer, putting the note to the back of my mind, going about my business, getting set up for my first day on the job. Then I noticed the framed photo on the desk, of a tall man with dirty-blond hair, big muscular shoulders, and an arm wrapped around a woman next to him. Going by the age gap, and the family resemblance, I knew that it just had to be his mum. That was when I realised I was sharing a desk. The picture, the various other personal items, the note. This wasn’t just my space, it was someone else’s too. I was sharing a desk with someone, someone who was looking out for me, someone who thought Damian was such a nightmare that they left me a note to warn me about him.
When Damian called me into the office, to give me my very first assignment, I was so excited. I figured it was going to be something to do with his next project, whatever it was, because the art world was waiting with bated breath for what Damian was going to do next. What he actually gave me was a list of errands. Personal errands. Picking up dry cleaning, moving a dental appointment, trailing around Harrods for a very specific pair of shoes, which, you’ll know if you’ve ever been to Harrods, isn’t a quick process – the place is like a maze. By the time I got back to him, way after I was supposed to finish work, I was knackered. Not only was the work tiring but it was mind-numbingly boring. I was so disheartened that I grabbed my wad of pink Post-its from my bag and wrote back to my desk mate. Nothing too controversial. I just wrote:
He certainly is.
And I stuck it on top of the original note, to make clear that it was a reply.
So I worked my first couple of days in the office, then I had a few working out of Damian’s apartment with him and it became very obvious that my job as Damian’s assistant wasn’t so much assisting him with work, it was mostly just managing his life for him, practically babysitting him most of the time. The following week I found a reply to my Post-it Note. It said, ‘We need to stick together. I’m Adam.’ and just like that a weird, Post-it-based friendship was born. It felt strangely exciting but mostly I was just happy to feel as if I had a friend.
During my first couple of weeks I tried to talk with my fellow employees – that was when I realised they were lumping me in with Damian, keeping me at a distance, so I couldn’t ask them about Adam. Eventually I asked Damian. He said Adam worked for him on the days he wasn’t in the office, managing the place in his absence, which meant Adam also only worked the days that I wasn’t in the office. So I haven’t actually ever met Adam, despite months and months of swapping notes. I waited a month or so to subtly add a framed photo of myself to our desk, so that Adam could see who he was talking to. Not just a photo of myself, that would seem at best unsubtle, or, at worst, incredibly narcissistic. I opted for a photo of me and David Attenborough, who I met when he popped into a museum gift shop I used to work in. I am such a huge fan of his and it’s actually a really great photo. I was so nervous when it was taken that I was convinced I was probably making a weird face, but it turned out perfectly. It’s one of my favourite things.
The funny thing about my friendship with Adam is that I feel close to him, even though we’ve never actually met. I feel as if we know each other pretty well though, and I feel as if he knows what I’m going through. Adam has worked for Damian for far longer than I have, and for him to feel as if he needed to warn me on my first day, he must have known exactly what I was letting myself in for.
It’s going to sound weird, given that we haven’t met face to face, and all of our interactions have taken place over Post-it Notes, but Adam is my best friend at work, the thing that keeps me sane, the person who gives me something to look forward to when I know I’ll be in the office. I just wish we could be in the office at the same time, or that a reason would come up for us to meet – that wouldn’t make me seem creepy – like a work Christmas party, but we’re not even having one this year. Not enough people were able to attend. That speaks volumes, doesn’t it? And I’m certainly not the kind of girl to just ask out someone I’ve never met. That sounds absolutely terrifying.
I maybe, just maybe, have a slight crush on Adam. I mean, obviously I can tell from his photo that he’s completely gorgeous but it’s not just that. His notes to me are so sweet. I feel as if we’ve been slowly getting to know each other. I really feel as if he cares about me too, but don’t think for a second that I don’t know how delusional this sounds, because I do.
I pen a quick thank-you note, asking Adam if he’s had a good weekend, telling him about mine. The best thing about writing on Post-it Notes is that you only have so much room to work with, like an old-school text message. When I was at school, and terrible at flirting, I really had to take my time with text messages to boys I liked. Well, with limited space, and at (what seemed like) a whopping 10p a go, there was always pressure to make sure that the message you sent was perfect. I feel like that with my limited Post-it space. Someone really should develop a dating app around the concept because it might make people think twice about what they say. If my brief stint on Matcher is anything to go by, people really don’t think all that hard about the messages they send on dating apps, and they really, really should. Adam made a better first impression on a Post-it than anyone did in their opening message to me on Matcher.
I grab a bag of peanut M&M’s from my bag – Adam’s favourite desk snack – and stick the Post-it Note to them before returning them to the drawer. Time to stop daydreaming about Adam and get on with my work.
I open up my laptop as I bite into my Twirl. I’ll just take a couple of minutes to enjoy it, before firing up my emails. The calm before the storm. This will probably be the only peaceful part of my day.
The phone on my desk rings, making me jump, just a little.
I glance down and see that it’s Damian, calling me from inside his office.
‘Hello?’ I answer, after quickly swallowing my chocolate, washing it down with my coffee.
‘Morning, Sadie, can you pop in for a minute?’ Damian asks.
‘Sure, I’ll be right there,’ I reply.
I make a point to quickly finish my chocolate and chug a few mouthfuls of coffee before I go. Damian’s minutes are rarely actual minutes.
So much for thinking I could enjoy my poor excuse for a breakfast for a couple of minutes. Time to see what fresh hell Damian has in store for me today…
Chapter Three
I always hesitate before I open the door to Damian’s office. It’s only ever for a second but, with each day I work for him, I’m feeling as if I need to psych myself up more and more. I usually tell myself something before I open it – a different thing every day, but the sentiment is always the same. I remind myself how lucky I am to have this job, how well connected Damian is, how he can open doors for me. I am on the road to my dream job and, as far away as it seems, to stop moving would be a big mistake. And Damian does have the fastest cars, as he is always reminding me. Of course, I’m speaking metaphorically now; he usually means it literally. He’s very materialistic, for someone so artsy.
It’s not that I don’t like him – we have a really unique professional almost-friendship – it's more just that every time he calls me in here he gives me something to do that I know is going to be either boring or completely weird. There is no in between.
‘Good morning,’ I say with a brightness that does not reflect the mood I am currently in.
‘Morning,’ Damian says. ‘Take a seat.’
Damian is sitting at his ridiculously large desk,
smack bang in the middle. His desk is absolute chaos, littered with a sea of papers, photos, miscellaneous camera bits like lenses and straps. His laptop is open in front of him. He pats it shut as I sit down opposite him to reveal a glass with a splash of bourbon in the bottom. Given how messy Damian is there is a chance this could be from another day but, given what a rock star he thinks he is, it could be from this morning.
‘Bit early for that, isn’t it?’ I say. I can say things like that to Damian. I could probably say anything I wanted, none of it would matter, for two reasons. The first is that Damian does whatever he wants, doesn’t care what anyone thinks, and doesn’t listen to criticism. The second reason, which really does feel like a double-edged sword, is that Damian is absolutely, completely dependent on me. I’m sure he could live without me, and God knows I could live without him, but he doesn’t think so. He believes that, to allow him to be fully ‘open’ creatively, he needs someone to bear the burden of, well, day-to-day life, I suppose.
‘I was just on a call with Australia,’ he says by way of an explanation. I’m sure he’s joking but he doesn’t let his serious expression slip. ‘How did last night go?’
Ah, straight down to business. Not actual business, obviously. He just wants to know how the dumping went.
‘Awful,’ I tell him very matter-of-factly.
‘Yeah, breaking up with someone is never easy,’ he says with a sigh.
‘Would you know?’ I ask with a laugh. I don’t wait for an answer. ‘She was a nice girl. I stayed for a couple of drinks with her. Lord knows what you thought was wrong with her. I couldn’t find anything.’
‘Well, Sadie, you have my blessing, if you want to go for it,’ he says, still straight-faced.
Two Night Stand: A fun, festive read - perfect for the holidays! Page 6
