In Office Hours

by Lucy Kellaway

  Stella’s heart was beating furiously and she felt sick at herself. What thickening of the arteries had happened to make her able to lie so bare-facedly to her daughter?

  In the space of thirty minutes she had lost two more lives. But, thought Stella, she still had six left.

  Stella had lain awake that night trying to make sense of the day and of the disaster that had nearly struck. The problem, she thought, was that she and Rhys didn’t have enough time together. She would not have left the earrings behind if they hadn’t been so rushed, and if they hadn’t been so rushed they would not have had such a horrible scene.

  The answer, she decided, was to get him back working for her again, and then she would be able to control his workload as well as her own. Now that she was Chief of Staff she was expected to have an executive assistant, and she thought that she could give the job to Rhys.

  She did, of course, realize that to promote him was unprofessional, possibly corrupt and dangerous to both of them. But she squashed that thought by reasoning that it would allow them to be together all the time. His current stint with James would come to an end soon, and after that he would be sent to Alaska. To do this would keep him by her side. And, in any case, she reasoned, Rhys was talented and she was sure he would do the job at least as well as anyone else.

  Stella got into work early the next day to execute this plan, and as she arrived the cleaner was just leaving.

  – Hello, said Stella. How are you? How is your family?

  Bonita shrugged and said her family was well but that she wasn’t going to be working at AE any longer.

  – Oh dear, said Stella. Why?

  – They say I put bleach on the boardroom table, but I didn’t do it. I didn’t even come to work that day.

  – But that’s ridiculous, said Stella. Haven’t you told them that it wasn’t you?

  Bonita gave her an almost pitying look.

  – Of course. But they didn’t listen.

  Stella watched her gather up her things and go.

  She thought the cleaner was facing unemployment with considerably more equanimity than Stella was dealing with her own, self-imposed, problems.

  She turned on her computer and drafted an email to Russell saying that she wished to start at once interviewing for an executive assistant. Then she emailed Rhys telling him what she was planning.

  He emailed back:

  Don’t I have a say in this?

  Stella frowned at the screen and typed out a reply.

  Of course you have a say in it. I thought you would be pleased – it’s a massive promotion.

  His reply came in seconds:

  So I’m sleeping my way to the top?

  No, you aren’t, she emailed. You deserve this.

  Stella sighed, closed down her Hotmail, and asked Nathalie to find out who in the company was responsible for their cleaning contract. Then she drafted a second email.

  Dear Shane

  I understand we have just fired a cleaner for allegedly using the wrong cleaning product on the boardroom table. She says that she was not even working on the day when the damage was done. Did we investigate this at the time? Can you please let me know precisely what happened?

  Stella

  Within five minutes she had a reply. Last time she had emailed the facilities manager it had taken five days for him to reply. This, Stella was realizing, was one of the advantages of being Chief of Staff rather than Chief Economist.

  Hi Stella,

  Thank you for your message. As a result of the incident, which will incidentally cost us in excess of £5000 to repair, we have put the cleaning company on probation. The decision to fire an individual was taken by the management of KleenTeam, not by AE personnel.

  Shane Edwards

  Facilities Manager

  Stella hit ‘reply’ with a sense of purpose. She found she was enjoying this correspondence.

  Dear Shane

  I am surprised that you think we can hide behind decisions taken by companies which we outsource. All companies that work with us as partners must be able to prove to us that they treat their staff decently. Can I leave it with you to find out what happened in this particular case?

  Thank you,

  Stella

  Later that day she got the following reply.

  I have touched base with Kevin Patchett of KleenTeam. He informs me that no decision has been taken to fire Bonita Carlos and that she remains on the payroll. I hope this answers your question.

  Rgds, Shane

  So they were all covering their backs. Stella considered pointing out that they were liars, but didn’t feel the need to score any points with Shane, so she let it go. The cleaner, it seemed, would get her job back. It was Stella’s good deed for the day. There hadn’t been many of those recently, she thought.

  Bella

  Bella and James were lying in their hotel bed one afternoon, and Bella asked: What were you like when you were a little boy?

  James hesitated and then said: I think I was a very careful child.

  – Now why doesn’t that surprise me, she said.

  He then told her that he couldn’t really remember his childhood at all.

  – Is that because it was such a long time ago? asked Bella.

  James laughed.

  – No, he said. I just can’t remember it.

  He told her how he had only one childhood memory: being taken to Kensington Gardens by his nanny and losing a toy soldier that he had been given for Christmas.

  – So then what happened? Bella asked.

  – Nothing, he said. We went back to look for it and didn’t find it, and I was really upset.

  – Well, if that was the most upsetting thing in your childhood, it doesn’t sound very bad.

  – It was traumatic, actually. But why do you want to know about my childhood?

  – Because I want to know everything about you.

  This wasn’t true. She wanted to know nothing at all about the biggest slice of his life – the Wimbledon slice. Her interest in his childhood was an attempt to stake out a claim on his life before he got married.

  – You know everything there is to know about me, he said. In fact I think you know me better than anyone in the world.

  – That’s a lie, she said.

  – I am lying to everyone else, he said. But I’m not lying to you.

  From the beginning James had made it clear that Bella must not contact him at weekends, though sometimes he would break his own rule and send her little messages saying:

  Good night

  Or

  Good morning

  Or

  I’m out shopping.

  She longed for these messages, as she had decided to invest in them all the emotion that they did not betray. She took them as a sign that he was thinking about her and wished he were with her.

  The Saturday following the day he had told her about the soldier there had been no such messages. Bella had checked her phone every five minutes throughout the day, feeling increasingly angry. If he was closer to her than to anyone in the world, how could he spend two days a week pretending she did not exist? After she put Millie to bed on Saturday night she drank two glasses of wine and sent him a text saying:

  Please call.

  And then she waited for her mobile to ring, but it didn’t.

  At lunchtime on Sunday she got a text that read:

  Sorry, didn’t see text until now. Hope all well?

  Bella stared at it in disbelief. Hope all well? Hope all well?

  She texted back:

  No, all not fucking well. All totally shit.

  She waited ten minutes, and when no reply came, she texted again, saying:

  forget it

  And then on the Monday he asked what on earth the matter had been, and she said she had felt miserable and missed him, and he replied that he had missed her too, obviously. He always did, he said.

  Briefly she felt better. But then he said:

  – Bella, yo
u mustn’t text me at home. Last time my son saw it, but this time it was my wife. She’s not one to snoop, she trusts me as a point of principle. But she saw your last message and gave me a curious look. I suddenly had a feeling of total panic. That all of this was unravelling, and that I would lose everything.

  Bella looked at her boss coldly.

  – I’m sorry for causing you any embarrassment.

  He missed the sarcasm.

  – Well, no harm done, he said. Let’s put it behind us.

  Stella

  Stella had hoped that she would be able to conduct the interviews for her executive assistant on her own, but Russell had insisted on sitting in on them. They saw half a dozen candidates during the morning, the strongest of whom was Beate. She had made a PowerPoint presentation of her achievements and had thought carefully about what the job would consist of and what she would bring to it. The performance was as impressive as it was alienating.

  Rhys’s interview was much more shambolic. He had given the job little thought and was more or less reading from the prompt sheet that Stella had prepared for him the night before. Afterwards Russell said: There was no contest. Beate has grown so much during her spell in HR.

  – Yes, replied Stella. But I have worked with both of them for months, and he is the talented one. He has rough edges, for sure. But we can deal with those.

  Russell raised his eyebrows in surprise.

  – I appreciate your feeling on this, Stella went on. But in the end I need to trust my own instinct. And that tells me that Rhys is the one to go for.

  On his first day as her executive assistant, Rhys got up from his desk and came into her room at least every fifteen minutes throughout the day. And when he wasn’t standing in her office she could see him sitting bent over his desk. It felt like the happy times when he had just joined her department as a trainee and was trying to get her attention. Stella now looked back on that period – which was just nine months ago but felt like another age – with regret and nostalgia. It was before the guilt and self-hatred had set in, when his admiration made her feel admirable.

  But within two weeks she was beginning to wonder whether the new arrangement had been a mistake. Spending more time together did not reduce the tension between them; it increased it.

  Stella now was obsessed with the idea that his interest in her was cooling. And being able to see him all day was more torment than reassurance.

  She felt he was coming into her office less often, and when he did he stayed only briefly. She watched how well he was getting on with the others and started to feel lonely. Every time she heard him laugh she was aware of his separateness. Every time she looked up and he wasn’t there, she wondered where he was.

  – I’m going to cancel the dinner I’m meant to be going to tonight, she said. I’ve got my appraisal with Stephen at six, but I can come to you after that?

  – Oh God, I’m sorry, he said. I’m having dinner with Rosa. I can’t cancel, as I cancelled last time.

  At first Stella hadn’t minded that he still saw Rosa from time to time. He had split up with her the week after he had come to dinner but had said they were still friends. Stella now found that she minded very much indeed. It wasn’t really that she thought they had got back together, but that she minded everything that distracted his attention from her. This minding was mad and ugly, she knew, but she did not know how to stop it.

  – Fine, said Stella coldly. Now where are the briefing notes for my four o’clock meeting?

  Stella’s annual appraisal was usually a farce.

  The CEO would solemnly tell her that she was a high achiever, but Stella, instead of feeling cheered by this, was usually left feeling demoralized. Perhaps it was because she was annoyed that every year they had to fill out the ‘areas for improvement’ box and every year this said that she needed to forge closer links with the international subsidiaries, which meant more travel. As if she wasn’t travelling enough as it was. Or perhaps it was hard to sit and listen to someone praise you in this stupid stilted way without feeling that the whole thing was a charade, and one in which your actual efforts were irrelevant.

  This year, for the first time, Stella was nervous. She knew she had made little of the new job, which seemed to involve nothing more than attending a few more meetings with Stephen and being copied in on a few more emails. She clearly hadn’t really grasped it – or ‘stepped up to the plate’ as Stephen liked to call it – at all.

  Moreover, the time she had put into the job in the last six months had gone down by half and her concentration by much more than that. No one had said anything but she knew she was slacking and so, presumably, did they.

  Stephen was not smiling.

  – I don’t want to be disturbed, he said to his PA. I need a full hour with Stella.

  Her heart sank at this. He pointed to his armchair in a gesture to sit and made a big thing of closing the door.

  – Stella, what can I say?

  He paused, and Stella braced herself for the blow.

  – Class act. Total class act. You do not cease to amaze me. You have taken on this new job, and have surpassed my expectations. And more than that, you have continued to excel in your old role as head of Economics.

  Stella looked at him warily and waited for the ‘but’.

  – We have this stupid form that we have to fill in, he went on, and so I suppose we’d better go through the motions. But a couple of words first. You have proved that you can step out of your ivory tower in Economics and into the real world. Your revised forecasts for the investor briefing were compelling. Thank you. We have a very powerful tale to tell and you have told it.

  I am going to tell you something that I would ask you to keep under your hat until we announce it next week. I have thought long and hard about this, and I know it will ruffle some feathers. But as you know – here he gave an indulgent little laugh – that is not something that I’m ever too scared of doing.

  He paused for effect and then went on:

  – I have decided to put you on the board.

  Stella made a spluttering noise, which Stephen took to be a sound of joy.

  – Yes, he said. It is unexpected in the sense that neither Chief of Staff nor Chief Economist are typically board positions. But you have shown the ability. You deserve this in your own right. But I should also say something else: I don’t think we are diverse enough as a board. And I’m not merely talking about gender. I’m talking about outlook. You, Stella, are so rare. You are fiercely honest and independent.

  I’m not, thought Stella.

  – You take risks, he said.

  More than you know, she thought.

  – But above all, he went on, you are a loyal and supportive colleague. I know that I can trust you implicitly. I’m not saying that I don’t trust the other members of the team. But I sometimes feel that they have agendas. You will always stand up to me and say the truth. That is what we want on this board.

  Stella smiled and nodded. Here was this wonderful thing, fallen into her lap, and she was quite unmoved. Never had she put so little into her work, and never had the rewards been so great.

  But mostly she just thought: I don’t want to be on the board. I don’t deserve it, and I can’t cope with it.

  – Thank you, she said. She could think of nothing else to say.

  Stella called Rhys. He picked up at once, but from the noise in the background he was already in a bar.

  – I’ve something to tell you. You mustn’t tell anyone, as it hasn’t been announced yet. I’m joining the board.

  – That’s great, he said.

  Stella felt this wasn’t quite the response she was after.

  – You don’t sound very pleased, she said.

  – I am, he said flatly. It’s just that I can’t really talk right now. So do I get a rise, he went on, now that I am executive assistant to a main board director?

  Stella felt a chill. Was this a joke? She certainly hoped so.

  *
>
  At dinner that night, when Stella had announced to the family that she was going on the board, Charles had laughed. This was not the response she was looking for either.

  – Incredible, Stella. So it paid off?

  – What paid off? she asked.

  – You’ve been going in early so much and working late and have been so preoccupied.

  – Have I?

  Stella had thought he hadn’t noticed or cared particularly.

  – Now you’ve made it can you slack off a bit?

  – No, she said. I don’t think it works like that. I think it may get even worse from here.

  Finn was briefly diverted from texting his friends.

  – If you are getting more money, then I don’t see why I can’t have a plasma screen in my bedroom.

  Charles’s mother, who had come round again for dinner, beamed at Stella.

  – Hallelujah! Stella’s bored. Well, it’s not before time if you ask me.

  – No, Granny, said Clemmie, Mum’s on the board.

  Bella

  Bella wanted James to spend a night with her at her flat. She had wanted this for a long time: if only she could get him on to her territory their affair would feel more real and she would be increasing her foothold in his life. But each time she asked, he said that although he would like that, it was complicated.

  – It’s not complicated, Bella protested one day. It’s simple. You want to, but you are guilty and frightened of being found out. Complicated, no. Compromising, yes.

  She had expected this to make him angry. But instead he laughed.

  – You are a genius, he said.

  – So are you going to come?

  He hesitated, and then said: I can’t. Sorry.

  After the ‘hope all well’ incident, Bella had said that she wasn’t sure she could carry on like this; their affair was making her too unhappy. She hadn’t meant it as a threat, but he had suddenly announced that he could come and spend a night at her flat the following week. He had been due to go to Aberdeen on a two-day visit to inspect the work on one of the refurbished oil platforms in the North Sea, but decided that he could get there and back in a day, which would free him to spend the previous night with Bella.

  In preparation for his visit Bella had spent the weekend cleaning. She had cleaned the cupboard under the stairs, and vacuumed behind the sofa; even though she didn’t really imagine him shifting the furniture around to see how many crisp bags and 1p coins were underneath it, knowing that everything was clean made her feel more confident.