by Hazel Osmond
‘Have a lie-in tomorrow, Edith. You can stay here all day if you like. Take it easy.’ She was careful not to sound as if she was fussing.
‘Oh, there’s no need for that, Ellie dear. A few hours’ sleep and I’ll be ready for anything.’
Ellie was not fooled. As Edith leaned on her arm, she could feel how light she was, how frail she had become beneath all that bluster and bizarre clothing.
‘A little lie-in, eh?’ Ellie cajoled. ‘Just for me. You know I think you do too much.’
Edith patted her hand. ‘I know you do, dear, and it’s very sweet of you, but I like to keep busy.’
That was something of an understatement; Edith was rarely still, and Ellie had noticed that every time one of her great-aunt’s ageing circle of friends dropped off their perch, she redoubled her efforts to make the most of every hour of every day.
‘I understand all that, Edith,’ Ellie said gently, ‘but sitting here with your feet up would recharge your batteries. Put the telly on, get the heating toasty. I could make you something to have for your lunch before I went to work.’ Ellie saw Edith do a little gesture as if she were about to remonstrate. ‘Now, don’t make me get all sentimental,’ she said quickly, ‘or I’ll start telling you how much you mean to me now Mum and Dad are … well, you know.’
She felt Edith squeeze her arm. ‘You’re a sweetheart Ellie dear, but don’t worry about me, please. I’ll rest when I need to. You concentrate on those knickers of yours.’
Edith offered her cheek for kissing before toddling off into the spare room.
Ellie wandered back into the kitchen and found a spare key to the flat and put it in an envelope. She’d leave it on Edith’s breakfast tray in the morning. If she was going to keep turning up on the doorstep, she might as well be able to let herself in.
Sam got back in the early hours of the morning, smelling of beer and giggling inanely. He snuggled up to her back, winding himself round her, and Ellie told him that her knickers had gone down well. She wriggled against him, being deliberately provocative and hoping he’d take the hint. He didn’t, simply patted her on the bottom, said, ‘Well done,’ and then fell asleep.
*
Next morning Ellie stood in the lingerie shop and gulped. It was a real eye-opener. She held up a hanger and looked at the price tag on the attached knickers. Never had so much been charged for so little. Two teeny wisps of material held together by rhinestone-covered laces cost as much as a three-course meal for two. With wine. It was unbelievable what some people would pay for underwear.
Then Ellie’s eyes strayed to the other things in the shop. Nipple tassles, blindfolds, handcuffs. All in the best possible taste, of course. She felt a bit uneasy. It was as if she were peeping through a keyhole at slightly forbidden stuff, stuff that people with more glamorous lives than hers would wear.
Silk, satin, marabou feathers: it was difficult to know what to choose. In the end she picked out a pair of the hottest, pinkest knickers with tiny black ribbon bows up each side. Perfect for the sex-kitten character. On the way to pay for them, she was distracted by a set of bra and knickers in pale gold with delicate cream lace trimmings. She expected that they only did the bra in svelte model-girl cups, but the assistant gave her an assessing once-over and produced Ellie’s exact size.
In the changing room, designed to look like someone’s idea of a brothel, Ellie looked at her reflection and actually blushed. The bra pushed her up in all the right places, and the knickers barely covered any of her important bits. She had never seen herself like that before. The colour complemented the gold and red in her hair and her skin tone, and the feel of the material was lovely.
She automatically crossed her arms over her breasts. She wasn’t used to ‘getting them out’. Her preferred way of dressing was to cover them up. Her breasts had arrived a good year earlier than any of her schoolmates’ and the boys had all made icky comments. Hiding them had been her only defence.
Apart from developing a penis-shrivelling sense of humour.
Nonetheless, she still had that hiding thing going on. Her mother had been constantly pulling her shoulders back, telling her she’d get a stoop.
Ellie thought of Rachel and uncrossed her arms and stuck her chest out. Well, perhaps she’d save that for Sam’s personal viewing. She did look hot, though. She gave her everyday underwear, lying on the floor, a pitying look as if it were some ugly relation who insisted on following her. Another twirl round in front of the mirror and she wondered whether she had the nerve to buy a blindfold too. No, definitely not. The only way she’d ever be able to tackle that was through mail order; she couldn’t face an assistant. Although, by the look of the assistant on the till, she probably wouldn’t have batted an eyelid if Ellie had wanted to buy a full-length, crotchless rubber suit with thigh-high tartan waders.
It was almost lunchtime when she got into the agency and ended up sharing a lift with Jack and Mike, fresh from a client meeting in the City. Mike was talking nineteen to the dozen and doing his usual impersonation of an overenthusiastic puppy, which made Jack seem even more like a large block of granite.
It didn’t take Mike’s eyes long to lock on to the distinctive carrier bag from the lingerie shop. Ellie could almost see the drool on his shirt. Funny how most men were so predictable when faced with anything involving skimpy underwear. It pressed all the right buttons.
Except for Sam, apparently. He’d hardly been able to find the bed last night, let alone locate any of her erogenous zones. Another night without anything more than a beer-induced cuddle.
Ellie felt the bag being lifted out of her fingers by an almost panting Mike. Before she could stop him, he said, ‘Let’s see what you’ve got in there, then,’ and pulled out her matching bra and knickers. He whooped with delight and held them up.
‘Very nice, Ellie. Very classy, but sexy too. What’s the bra for, though? Thought you were only doing knickers?’
‘Those are mine.’ Ellie said, grabbing the carrier bag from Mike and shoving the knickers back into it, cross that she had become so flustered. ‘These are the ones for the campaign.’ She pulled out the hot pink satin knickers and put them on the palm of her hand. They didn’t take up much room.
Mike made a lunge for them and then whistled in awe at the price tag. ‘Don’t get much for your money, do you? I’ve never seen knickers that expensive.’
Ellie wished Mike would shut up. If he went on like that, Jack was going to think she’d been wasting agency money. Even now he was giving her that intense stare of his, the one that made you feel that he could actually see what you were thinking. Suddenly the lift seemed too small and Jack seemed too close and Ellie wished that she had taken the stairs.
Slowly Jack reached over and lifted the knickers from Mike’s hand. He casually flipped over the price tag. ‘Looks OK to me,’ he said. ‘Ellie’s obviously an expert.’ He dropped the knickers back in the carrier bag.
Ellie studied the lift floor in minute detail and tried not to think about how the knickers had looked in Jack’s hand.
As the lift reached the next floor, she chanced one more look at Jack, only to be met by his cool, grey gaze. She felt the colour rise and spread across her cheeks. What was this? She was turning into some kind of chameleon that only appeared to do red.
When the lift doors opened, she darted out, glad to escape even though it was not her floor. She thought she’d got away with it too, until she heard the ever-helpful Mike say, ‘You know you got out at the wrong floor, Ellie?’
‘I do, Mike,’ she said, thinking frantically. ‘It’s just the sign in the lift says it can only carry seven hundred kilograms and I’m a bit worried about how much all of that testosterone and drool of yours weighs.’
Hurrah, she had timed it perfectly: the lift doors closed before either of its occupants could say anything in response.
CHAPTER 5
Ellie knew from the moment she saw Mr Hetherington and the Sure & Soft team that things weren’t going to
go well. Hugo had obviously got his facts wrong because Hetherington was telling them that he was still very much in charge, although this was his last big outing. Pauline Kennedy stood next to him, her smile looking a little forced, and they all knew she wouldn’t be making the decisions today.
It was no consolation to Ellie that Jack was glowering at Hugo, or that Hugo’s eyes were bulging in a distressing way. She and Lesley were the ones who actually had to stand up there and sell the idea.
Ellie took another look at Mr Hetherington as he was introducing his team members to Jack. She imagined he was the kind of man who referred to ‘monthlies’ and ‘having the painters in’. He was going to hate the singing knickers.
Jack gave an inspirational welcome speech in what Ellie noticed was a more pronounced Yorkshire accent than normal. Hetherington, a Yorkshireman himself, smiled and nodded, his chins wobbling. Then a very nervous Hugo took to the floor. He had sensed that Mr Hetherington was one of the old school and that failure was in the air. Mercifully, he didn’t pull any faces, but he undersold them and the reason behind the new approach so badly in his introduction that Ellie wasn’t really sure he had finished until he sat down. She felt panic jitter through her and looked across at Jack, but he was helping Hetherington to some water.
She and Lesley did their best. They were bright and enthusiastic; they talked about how the TV ad would pan out, going through each storyboard and highlighting little details and finishing touches. They passed around a model of the hot pink knickers and showed how they would look when they sang.
The expression on Mr Hetherington’s face grew grimmer and grimmer. The rest of his team was picking up cues from him and one by one their smiles died. In the end it was only Pauline Kennedy and Jack who were maintaining eye contact. At one point Jack smiled encouragingly, a genuine smile that went all the way up to his eyes, but his body language was telling a different story. He was ready for a fight.
Ellie concentrated on Pauline as she pressed the button on the CD player to let them listen to the song, complete with music. The atmosphere worsened as the song played, and as the track finished, there was a tremendous bang as Mr Hetherington slammed his hand down on the table, making all the bottles of expensive water jump and jiggle.
‘I have never, ever seen such a load of amateurish nonsense in my life. I could go to any other agency in town and get something a million times better than this. A professional job. In fact …’ he paused for effect ‘… we saw some impressive stuff from Padstow Scott earlier this week.’ He let that little thought lie there for a while and then he turned to Ellie and fixed her with a baleful stare. ‘Whose idea was this? Was it yours?’
Ellie opened her mouth and nodded. Her brain was crying at her to speak out and say that it was about making a creative difference, about setting his product apart. She tried to remember all the disparate bits of information she knew about demographic trends and audience outlook and the San Pro market, but all that came out of her mouth was, ‘Urrrrrr.’
‘You’ll make us a laughing stock,’ Hetherington bellowed directly at her. ‘What are you, some kind of student here for the holidays? You want to get yourself out in the real world and see how it operates.’
He started counting out the ways he didn’t like the concept. ‘It’s offensive. It’s childish. It’s in poor taste. When I think of my mother having to sit through this … this … filth …’
Ellie glanced around. To her left, Lesley was trying to say it was her idea too. To her right, Hugo was doing a passably good imitation of a side table.
Then Jack was on his feet, smoothing down Hetherington’s anger and reminding him of all the good work the agency had done for his products over the years. He pointed out that there was nobody better at giving his company tried-and-trusted work, but that Hetherington shouldn’t blame them for attempting something different.
Hetherington was still grumbling away, but less forcefully, when Jack suggested they all adjourn to the restaurant up the road, the one with the Michelin stars and the good wine cellar. Just to have a little chat. If they went now, they’d serve them a late lunch.
‘All right,’ said Hetherington, ‘but don’t bother to invite these two. Keep them and their stupid knickers out of my sight.’
Moments later the room had emptied of Jack, Hugo, Mr Hetherington and the rest of the client team, and Lesley and Ellie were left sitting among the debris of what had once seemed like a brilliant idea.
It had taken Ellie and Lesley quite some time to pull themselves together enough to make it back to their office. Ellie was still shaking when she got there, and Lesley wasn’t saying a word.
Ellie put her head down on her desk and wallowed in the shame and embarrassment of failure. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t been able to think of anything to say when Hetherington had shouted at her. The way Jack had looked at her like she was a complete idiot hadn’t helped. He was probably planning to fire her now.
Ellie heard Lesley pick up the phone and then she was talking to Megan. Her conversation was peppered with swear words and negative comments about men who should have retired long ago. When she finished the call, Lesley stared down at her desk. She’d toned her hair colour down for the presentation, a dark black-blue, and sitting there like that, she bore a strong resemblance to a depressed crow.
If the knickers idea hadn’t been so brilliant, perhaps it wouldn’t have hurt so much.
As the afternoon ground on, a steady stream of visitors dropped in. Some, like Juliette and Mike, had come to offer genuine support. Others, like Jon and Zak, had come to gloat. Jon had at least kept a straight face, but Zak had barely been able to stop himself from laughing out loud. When he’d stuffed his hand in his mouth theatrically, Ellie had hoped that his black nail varnish would chip off and choke him.
Zak had also managed to drop two little bombs into the conversation that even now were blowing holes in Ellie’s brain. The first was, ‘Don’t worry. I’m sure you won’t have single-handedly lost the agency the account.’ The thought of what that might mean for people’s jobs was horrendous. The second comment, ‘Hmm. Wonder what Gavin will have to say about all this when he gets back?’ was making her feel sick. Who was going to remember that Jack had thought their idea was good?
Gavin was going to really go to town on them. They’d never been his favourite team anyway. They probably came a very poor third after Juliette and Mike. Whichever way you looked at it, today had been a bad day at the office.
Eventually there was a noise in the corridor and Jack was standing in the doorway.
‘Panic over,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t talk him round on the knickers idea – he still hates it – but he’s going to give us another chance. I tweaked Zak and Jon’s idea a bit and ran it past him and Hetherington wants us to work that up and re-present it to him before he retires.’
Ellie didn’t know whether to cry with relief or take bites out of the carpet at the thought of Zak and Jon’s idea making it on to the TV. The way Lesley was digging the point of her pencil into the desk suggested that she felt the same.
Jack came right into the office, bending his head to avoid hitting it on the slope of the ceiling, and Ellie could see that he was carrying a bottle of champagne.
‘Are you going to club us to death with that?’ she said.
He gave her a lukewarm smile. ‘Don’t think I’m not tempted. But really, it’s not your fault. It was a good idea, a brilliant idea. Sometimes you just don’t get the clients you deserve. He’s a dyed-in-the-wool, don’t-stick-your-head-above-the-parapet guy. You could have taken your own knickers off and waved them at him and he still wouldn’t have liked it.’
As he finished talking, Mrs MacEndry arrived with two champagne flutes. She gave them a sympathetic smile and patted Ellie on the hand before going out again. Jack took the wire cage off the top of the bottle and opened the champagne, spilling some down his suit but not appearing to care.
‘Tomorrow we’ll have a bit of a post-
mortem,’ he said, putting the bottle down on Ellie’s desk. ‘There were places we all loused up, Hugo included, and I was at fault for assuming you’d had more experience of presenting to clients than today’s performance indicated.’
That red-hot shame was back and Ellie wanted to say something about the fact that Gavin had never let them get much experience of presenting, preferring to keep them up in their attic, but she was put out to see Lesley nodding in agreement with Jack. She kept quiet and concentrated on watching the froth slipping down the champagne bottle.
‘Look on it as an opportunity to see where we can improve next time,’ Jack said, giving them both a meaningful look. ‘But for now, congratulate yourselves on not being mediocre, then go home and forget about it until tomorrow.’
‘Do you know, I really, really like Jack,’ Lesley said when he had gone and she had consumed two glasses of champagne. She was all moist-eyed and smiley.
Ellie sighed. ‘If you go on like this, I’m going to ring up the Lesbian Party and get you expelled. You need to get a grip.’
‘No, I do not want a grip,’ Lesley said very precisely, showing how drunk she was. ‘I only have eyes and all other bits for Megan. But he is a sheep in wolf’s clothing that man … a gent and not a werewolf.’
‘Crappity, crap, crap, crap,’ Ellie heard herself say, forming the words even more precisely than Lesley had. ‘You are so wrong you couldn’t be wronger. You know nothing … He is a wolf in wolf’s clothing with wolf underpants and matching accessories. However, I will concede that giving us the champagne was extremely decent. Now stop talking gibberish and get Elvis out.’
Lesley stood up and, after much effort, did as she was asked, and they played a few games of Volley Elvis.
Another glass of champagne each and they were feeling greatly cheered up. They started to put the various pairs of knickers on their heads and take photos of each other. Then they finished the bottle of champagne, and once Lesley got her jacket sleeves sorted out, she went off to meet Megan.
