Learning curves: a novel of sex, suits, and business affairs

by Gemma Townley

  “I don’t believe you,” Jen said hotly. “He wouldn’t . . . there’s no way . . .”

  “Darling, you really don’t know your father that well,” Harriet said quickly, and Jen bit her lip. It was true—she barely remembered him. Even when he’d been around he’d cared more about work than about her, and when he left her mother, he didn’t even try to keep in touch.

  “Your father would do anything to make money for his precious firm,” Harriet continued, taking advantage of Jen’s silence. “And believe me, I’m not the only one who thinks he’s involved.”

  “Then why are you telling me?” Jen demanded. “You should be telling the police!” She waited for her mother’s response. Talking about the police or the Environment Agency or any other official body was generally a good way of ascertaining whether Harriet was talking in terms of fact or fiction.

  “Oh, it’s far too early for that. They’d find no proof. The fact that Axiom is one of your father’s clients might make you or me suspicious, but sadly not everyone knows him like we do. No one’s found a shred of proof that Axiom has been paying bribes, but then, I suspect they might be looking in the wrong place. No one thinks to question the management consultants, you see . . .”

  “Axiom? What’s Axiom?”

  Harriet tutted. “Darling, do keep up. Axiom is the construction company that’s been winning all the contracts for all the building. If you can call it building.”

  Jen shook her head in disbelief. It was all too much to take in. Could her own father really be behind something like this? “Mum, look, this is all really interesting,” she said cautiously, “but don’t you think you should be talking to someone who can do something about it rather than me? Or, you know, get hold of some proof? Find something to incriminate him. You need someone to go undercover—I’d suggest Gavin, but we’re not exactly on speaking terms right now . . .”

  Harriet sighed, but suddenly the sigh seemed a bit calculated, and Jen’s antennae quivered. “Oh, Jen, someone like Gavin would never get the better of your father—he’s far too clever. No, to get the proof we’d need someone who works at Bell Consulting, and they’d never talk to us. Your father’s firm and mine . . . well, can you see a Bell consultant telling me anything?”

  Jen shook her head silently. Bell Consulting and Green Futures were very much the products of their leaders and the consultants shared the same animosity as Jen’s parents.

  Still, she wasn’t entirely happy with her mother’s liberal use of the word “we” as if this were now “their” problem. If it did have anything to do with her father, then she wanted nothing to do with it.

  At least, she wanted nothing to do with him. She frowned. If he was involved, then he couldn’t get away with it. Frankly, he’d got away with enough already.

  Jen rolled her eyes as her mother continued to talk. Anyone else would be wondering why Harriet was talking as if she was the only person who could possibly find out the truth, but she knew her mother too well. If there was something untoward going on, Harriet had to get to the bottom of it—she didn’t trust the police, the government, or anyone else for that matter—to do a better job than her. And the truth was that Jen was the same—they both rushed headlong into crises, determined to take on the problems, sort things out. The fact that her father could be involved in this particular situation was like waving a red flag at a bull. Of course Harriet was going to run at it.

  “So you should get someone in there, like the guy who got a job in that fast food restaurant and wrote an article about the lack of hygiene procedures,” Jen said cautiously. It was one thing for Harriet to get involved, but this conversation was giving Jen the uneasy feeling that there was going to be some big request for a favor from her. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to help, she thought to herself as she bit her lip apprehensively. It was just that she’d kind of had enough of trying to save the world lately, and anyway, she was always very dubious about getting involved in her mother’s plans.

  Another pause.

  “Well, that does give me an idea . . . but no, no, you’d never agree. And it would be too much to ask.”

  Jen looked up at the ceiling and counted to three.

  “Never agree to what?” she asked patiently.

  “Well,” Harriet said slowly, “it’s just occurred to me that you’re right—the only way we’ll find out if Bell Consulting is involved is by having one of our own people in there. Someone who can dig around a bit, listen to people’s conversations.”

  Jen frowned. “Exactly. So what’s the big idea? They must have jobs that someone could apply for. The post room or something?”

  “Too remote,” Harriet said vaguely. “No, we need something more central. You know that Bell runs an MBA course?”

  Jen breathed in sharply. She had a horrible idea that she knew why her mother had called her. This wasn’t a favor—it was way bigger than that.

  “Um, no, no I didn’t. But you’re not thinking about putting someone on it, are you?” she asked tentatively. “That’s a lot to ask of one of your employees, isn’t it?”

  “You’re right. But not because it’s a lot to ask; it’s because none of them would be up to the job. You would, of course, but then why should you be interested? It would be very demanding. . . .”

  “Me?” Jen’s eyes opened wide. Even though her mom couldn’t see her, she felt she had to feign surprise.

  “I couldn’t trust anyone else, darling. But forget I said it. Really. We’ll just have to think of something else. Anyway, I’m sure the . . . authorities are looking into it.”

  Harriet emphasized the word authorities in a way that suggested that they would be doing no such thing. Jen sat back, trying to gather her thoughts. Trying to remind herself that right now, she wanted a quiet life. That she was meant to be figuring out what she wanted out of life, not agreeing to one of her mother’s crazy schemes. That this ridiculous feeling of excitement bubbling around her stomach should be ignored. It was insane, the whole idea. Do an MBA at Bell Consulting? Spy on her father, whom she hadn’t seen for more than fifteen years? The man who was one of the most successful businessmen around and who hadn’t even bothered to contact her once since he moved out of the family home? No. No way. Although it would be a pretty good way of paying him back.

  “Don’t you think that doing an MBA is a little extreme?” she asked gently. “I mean, those things last for a whole year. And there are exams and stuff. I think the post room idea’s much better. I wouldn’t mind doing that.” Jen had seen a fly-on-the-wall documentary recently in which the post room staff of a big corporation whizzed around on roller skates and her inner teenager rather liked the idea.

  “You think that it wouldn’t look odd, a girl your age, with your talents, working in the post room? And you think the post boy or girl gets access to important meetings?”

  Jen was about to say that the post room probably got more access to information than any other department except perhaps the IT department, but she didn’t get a chance, because her mother was now in full steam. “Believe me, Jen,” she said briskly, “I’ve thought it through and this is the only way.”

  “Funny, your way always seems to be the only way,” Jen said, only half under her breath. “Anyway, I thought you’d only just had the idea? Look, I’d never get on the course,” she said quickly. “And even if I did, Dad would recognize me immediately.”

  “Nonsense. You’re a clever girl, Jen. Of course you’d get on. And with more than three thousand people working in Bell Towers I shouldn’t think you’ll be exactly running into him. . . .”

  Harriet’s voice was silky now, and Jen knew exactly what she was doing. You didn’t start your own environmental management consultancy firm and build it into a three hundred-person-strong business without the ability to persuade people to do things they’d usually never dream of doing.

  Don’t be flattered into saying yes, Jen told herself.

  “You’d be back in the action,” Harriet con
tinued. “You’d be really . . . achieving something.”

  “And what if it’s nothing to do with him?” Jen asked, stalling for time. She was trying hard to overcome her tendency to jump straight into things before considering whether it was a good idea or not. Trying even harder to convince herself that this was a very bad way to get over her “what’s the point of everything” issues.

  “Then we’ll be a step closer to finding out who really is behind it.”

  Jen sighed. She knew when she was defeated, and had known her mother long enough to know that she wouldn’t give up until Jen agreed.

  “You had all this planned, Mum, didn’t you? I mean, you’ve had this idea for a while now, right?”

  “Darling, what do you take me for?” Harriet asked, her voice incredulous. “Although I did take the precaution of sending off for the MBA prospectus, which you should get tomorrow. Who knows, you might even enjoy it.”

  Jen laughed. “Enjoy it? You really are mad. I’ve lived in a tree for a week, which, let me tell you, is pretty uncomfortable. But I’d rather move back there for a month than sit in a room full of bloody MBA students learning about . . . well, whatever it is they learn about.”

  “But you’ll do it?”

  Jen frowned. She looked around her cozy flat and thought of her desk at Green Futures. She did like the stability of her new job and home, but the truth was, she also missed the excitement, the passion of her old job. Hadn’t she wanted a challenge like this? Wasn’t this an opportunity to make a difference, and without even having to give up this place! But then again, this wasn’t some exciting adventure—it was a business course and it would be full of boring geeks in suits. It would be hideous, beyond hideous, even. And if Gavin found out, she’d never live it down.

  Unless she uncovered a huge scandal, she found herself thinking. She could be a hero . . .

  “I’m not wearing a suit,” she said flatly, playing for time. She didn’t mind nice shoes and the odd pencil skirt, but she really hated suits, and Harriet knew it. Part of her strategy for getting Jen to work at Green Futures had been to emphasize the “casual” dress policy and to warn her that pretty much every other company in the whole of London insisted on their employees wearing suits, even Friends of the Earth.

  Harriet laughed. “I’m sure you won’t need to. But we’ll need to think up a name for you, too. I think putting ‘Jennifer Bell’ on your application form might just raise a few eyebrows, don’t you?”

  “You’re talking like I’ve agreed to do it.”

  “Haven’t you?”

  Jen shook her head resignedly. “It would appear that I have,” she said with a little smile. “But I have one condition.”

  “Anything, darling.”

  “I don’t want anyone to know. This is not going to become one of your stories, one of your dinner-party gossip fests.”

  “Oh, Jen.” Harriet sounded hurt, but Jen knew that she was just disappointed.

  “I don’t want you telling anyone at Green Futures, none of your friends, no one. I’m really serious.”

  “Well of course, darling. What do you take me for?”

  “Even Paul.”

  There was a silence.

  “But I tell Paul everything . . .”

  “Well, you tell him, and the whole thing is off.”

  Another silence, then a sigh. “Very well. I shan’t breathe a word.”

  Jen raised her eyebrows, wondering whether her mother would be able to keep her promise, then shrugged. “Look, I’ve really got to go now, okay?”

  “Of course. See you on Monday. And you’ve made the right decision, you know.”

  That was when Jen had put the phone down and realized the enormity of what she’d agreed to. The phone rang again, and she picked up quickly.

  “What now?” she demanded.

  “Okay, okay, don’t bite my head off. I just wanted to know what time you were planning to be at my place. Only I thought we were meeting half an hour ago . . .”

  It was Angel. Shit. They were meant to be going out to a glamorous new bar, and Jen hadn’t even started to get ready. She looked down at her jeans-clad self and jumped up.

  “Sorry, got caught up in something. You just won’t believe what . . . I’ll, um, be there soon. Give me twenty minutes?”

  “Jen twenty minutes or a normal twenty minutes? Only yours always last twice as long as anyone else’s . . .”

  Jen grinned ruefully. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay?”

  She ran into the bedroom and scanned her wardrobe for something to wear.

  I’m doing an MBA, she thought to herself again as she pulled out and then rejected various T-shirts and shoes. I’m actually doing an MBA at Bell Consulting.

  It already felt like a terrible mistake.

  1

  Jen looked up at the large, gray building in front of her and tried to convince herself that she was doing the right thing.

  Somehow it had seemed easier when it was just a matter of telling her mother she’d do the MBA. She’d had visions of herself spying on board meetings, eavesdropping on conversations as she walked down long corridors, compiling a dossier of information and bringing the perpetrators and their heinous crimes to justice. In her mind she’d been the heroine of her own little film in which she (pretty much single-handedly) saved the world and got a thank-you letter from the Queen. Even Angel’s protestations that she had finally lost the plot completely hadn’t deterred her. In many ways, they’d made her feel more of a rebel, made the whole idea more appealing.

  And then she’d got the application form. She’d had to write essays, sit tests, and be interviewed by men in gray suits whom she’d had to convince that a career in business management was everything she’d ever dreamed of and more. But now she was actually about to walk right into the Bell Consulting offices and go to her first lecture. Somehow in her daydreams she’d skipped the bit where she actually had to do an MBA.

  It can’t be that hard, she told herself. Just boring. Like being back in a physics lesson at school. Or a Durkheim lecture at university. Jen had taken sociology for a term, thinking that she’d get an insight into people’s motivations, thinking that she’d unlock the key to human happiness, but instead she’d spent weeks learning why people commit suicide less often in wartime. Apparently it had gotten more interesting later on; those who stuck with the course kept telling her how great it was. But Jen couldn’t wait that long; she’d switched to philosophy and never looked back. Well, not until she’d had to endure lectures on Hegel, but by then it was too late to switch again.

  Anyway, she reminded herself, the point was that she just had to get into a role. Everyone here would think she was a perfectly normal MBA student; all she had to do was to go along with it. Pretend she found it interesting. She shuddered. She’d read the brochure cover to cover, and they were going to be learning about things like “business process reengineering” and “managing the bottom line.” It was too hideous to even bear.

  Still, at least she was doing something worthwhile. The truth was that she’d been kind of wondering where her life was going recently. She had started to feel just a little that she was just killing time at a desk at Green Futures and had even started wondering whether she’d been right to split up with Gavin. It was as if she wasn’t entirely sure if her place in the world was the one back in London, wasn’t entirely sure who she was anymore.

  She’d thought it would be different, somehow, working for Green Futures. When the firm had started up, her mother had been huge, talked about by everyone. Hers was the first consultancy firm to talk about corporate social responsibility, to suggest that businesses couldn’t just go around doing what the hell they wanted just to make bigger and bigger profits. When Jen had been at school and university, everyone thought she had the coolest mum and she’d thought so too. She’d been really proud, which had been quite nice really bearing in mind that her father was a total bastard who advised companies to do the absolute opposi
te, focusing on profits alone and not giving a shit about anything so inconsequential as people or global warming.

  And the media had loved it, too. Harriet had worked at Bell Consulting before launching out on her own, after all. Her split from George Bell, and subsequent launch of her own rival firm, filled column inches for weeks. Back then Harriet had appeared regularly on the front covers of Newsweek, The Economist, and Time. She was big news and she loved it.

  But actually, Jen had discovered that Green Futures was just like any other office. Lots of desks and people sitting at them, furiously tapping away at computers and talking about their children/pets/hobbies over the (organic) coffee machine. Maybe it used to be a revolutionary firm once upon a time, but now it all seemed a bit . . . tired. And in truth, they didn’t have anywhere near as many clients now as they used to have. Other firms had gotten in on the environmental act, and her mother didn’t seem to realize that she wasn’t the big name she used to be. In many ways it was a bit of a relief to be out of there.

  Out of the frying pan and into the fire, Jen thought ruefully as she looked up again at the building in front of her. Bell Towers, built to intimidate and impress all those who crossed its threshold. Somehow she’d never seen herself working for either of her parents, and now it seemed she was going to end up working for both of them. But not for long, she told herself. This is the means to an end only.

  Forcing a smile onto her face, Jen walked through the doors, and before she knew it, she was standing in the reception area, signing in.

  “You in the MBA program?”

  Jen looked up at the earnest-looking guy standing next to her in the lift.

  “You’re going to the seventh floor,” he explained quickly. “I don’t think there are any offices on that floor—just, you know, lecture halls.”

  She studied his face for a moment. Slightly chubby, face a bit rosy, glasses slightly steamed up. Your typical MBA student if ever there was one. He was appraising her too, she noticed, his eyebrows rising as he took in her jeans and Ugg boots. She’d meant to buy some smart clothes, had really and truly intended to dress the part, but she just hadn’t gotten round to it yet. And anyway, it had said in the information packet that dress was “smart casual.” She figured that fulfilling one of those descriptors was sufficient for now.