Last Resort

by Susan Lewis

  ‘That’ll be great. What time’s your meeting with Sylvia?’

  Penny glanced at her watch. ‘Five minutes ago,’ she winced.

  ‘Will you call me, let me know how it goes?’

  ‘Sure,’ Penny grinned, ‘if you feel up to dealing with a self-pitying—’

  ‘No, no, don’t say it,’ Monica cut in. ‘The job’s yours and we both know it. Just call me when it’s confirmed and I’ll grab a cab and come help you celebrate.’

  A few minutes later, after abandoning the Mini by an out-of-order parking meter, Penny made a quick dash through the rain and in through the revolving front doors of Starke magazine. Greeting the receptionists and security staff she headed on past them towards the lifts, hoping they wouldn’t notice that she was as nervous as a witch on a stake. She so desperately, desperately, wanted this job. She knew that everyone was rooting for her, that they, like her, didn’t relish the prospect of working under such a coldly efficient fish as Linda Kidman, but what everyone else wanted wouldn’t necessarily hold too much sway with Sylvia – in fact, knowing Sylvia, it wouldn’t hold any sway at all. And maybe the run of luck that had gone on for almost two years now, the virtual Midas touch that could so easily have gone to her head for the recognition it had brought her, was about to do a rainbow on her.

  With an unruly shudder of nerves she stepped out of the lift, fighting the lack of self-confidence she tried always to keep carefully hidden. No doubt for the most idiotic of reasons, she was suddenly believing that the decision on her promotion was still in the balance and that it was her appearance here, at the final hurdle, that was going to let her down. She hadn’t done her hair properly, she’d simply pulled a long, shapeless sweater on over a scruffy pair of leggings and her boots were quite shamelessly in need of a clean. Oh God, why did she never think about these things until it was too late?

  ‘Ah, there you are,’ Rebecca, Sylvia’s secretary, said with a chuckle as Penny came haring across the office, apologizing for being late and inadvertently knocking things off desks as she passed them with her heavy bags.

  ‘I’ll be right there,’ Penny called, stopping at a secretary’s desk and dumping her Walkman on the top of the in-tray while begging Gemma, the secretary, to give the transcription priority.

  ‘You can go straight in,’ Rebecca told her when Penny finally presented herself, grinning and breathless.

  Penny turned to look at her colleagues who had stopped what they were doing to give her surreptitious winks and discreet fingers-crossed, not wanting to offend Linda, who was successfully feigning nonchalance at her desk over by the window and still awaiting her summons.

  Taking a deep breath, Penny treated them all to a comical face, dropped her briefcase and umbrella where she was standing and pushed open Sylvia’s door.

  ‘Ah, Penny,’ Sylvia smiled, swivelling away from her computer terminal. ‘My, you look flustered. Bad journey in?’

  ‘You could say that,’ Penny answered, stripping off her fake Barbour and glancing anxiously at the coat stand, where Sylvia’s silk number was hanging.

  ‘Go ahead,’ Sylvia said, getting up from her desk and walking across the rose-coloured carpet to a tray where fresh coffee was percolating. She was so elegant with her short, silvery hair framing her elfin face, her tall, slender body and exquisitely tailored black suit that Penny could have groaned aloud at her own sartorial fiasco.

  ‘This is the first time I’ve seen you to congratulate you on the Frederick Lacosta interview,’ Sylvia remarked, her Swiss-French accent as enchanting as the sparkling humour and urbanity in her soft, grey eyes. ‘I know how much you enjoy giving coverage to the oddball characters of the world, though I must confess I found your choice in this instance somewhat startling. But then I had forgotten that sometimes there’s an amusing side to death, which, may I say, you handled with admirable sensitivity. I was afraid, to begin with, that you were about to trawl the depths of sentimentality, but I should have had more faith. It was an excellent piece, Penny, dignified, compassionate, informative and funny – and, no doubt, it will have turned Mr Lacosta’s Knightsbridge funeral parlour into one of the busiest terminals between here and the Elysian Fields. Coffee?’ she added, starting to pour into the exquisite bone-china set her secretary laid out all sparklingly clean and ludicrously dainty each morning.

  ‘I’ll have six of those,’ Penny said, referring to the oversized thimble Sylvia was holding up as she sank into a deep leather sofa. ‘God, I hate London,’ she sighed, tearing the elastic band from her hair.

  Sylvia looked surprised. ‘But I thought it was your great passion,’ she said.

  Through the vertical blinds at the vast picture windows Penny could see the familiar glimpses of Victoria’s glistening rooftops and the gloomy oppressiveness of the February sky. ‘It is,’ she said. ‘I just hate the dreary weather – and the traffic.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Sylvia commented, seeming, somewhat bewilderingly, to approve of this response. ‘Well,’ she went on, sitting on the sofa opposite Penny and crossing her ankles, ‘it could be that the news I have for you is going to come as something of a pleasant surprise, then.’

  Penny’s heart skipped. She’d got the job! God only knew what it had to do with the weather, but who the hell cared as long as she’d got it? ‘I won’t let you down,’ she vowed passionately, sitting forward and wanting to squeeze Sylvia with all the might of her gratitude. ‘You won’t regret this decision. I know you’ve had your reservations about my age, I know there’s still a lot for me to learn, but I’ve got what it takes, Sylvia, I just know it.’

  Sylvia smiled and looked down at her cup. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you do have what it takes, I won’t argue with that, but your euphoria as well as your promises are a little, how shall we say, premature?’

  Penny looked as though she’d been struck. What did she mean, premature? Hadn’t she just said that she’d got the job? Well, OK, not in so many words, but what other good news could there be? There wasn’t anything else she wanted.

  ‘You’re aware, I’m sure,’ Sylvia went on, smiling into Penny’s watchful eyes, ‘that we have recently acquired Fieldstone Publishing.’

  ‘I had heard,’ Penny said warily, not knowing anything about Fieldstone other than the fact she’d never even heard of any of their publications.

  ‘Well,’ Sylvia continued, ‘I’ve decided that I would like you to edit one of the magazines in that group.’

  ‘Edit? You mean, full-blown editor?’ Penny said cautiously.

  ‘Yes, full-blown editor. You have just the sort of energy and enterprise needed to get this particular magazine off its knees and back into the marketplace.’

  Penny wasn’t thrilled. ‘Which particular magazine are we talking about?’ she asked, feeling a dread of the answer start to burgeon.

  ‘The Coast,’ Sylvia answered, looking at her through lowered lashes and bracing herself for the response.

  ‘Oh my God, you’re sending me to Bournemouth!’ Penny cried in horror.

  ‘No, not Bournemouth,’ Sylvia smiled. ‘The South of France.’

  Penny’s mouth dropped open.

  ‘The Coast is a magazine that caters for the English-speaking community on the French Riviera,’ Sylvia explained.

  ‘I don’t believe this,’ Penny mumbled, trying not to panic. ‘Are you telling me that you’re sending me to the South of France?’

  Sylvia nodded.

  ‘Oh my God, this is terrible,’ Penny declared, getting to her feet. ‘What did I do?’ she challenged. ‘Why are you banishing me? I thought you were happy with my work?’

  ‘More than happy,’ Sylvia assured her, ‘which is why I have set you this task. You are quite capable of getting that magazine up and running and turning it into something you are going to be extremely proud of.’

  ‘But I loathe the South of France!’ Penny exclaimed rashly.

  ‘Have you ever been?’

  ‘Of course I have. And I hate it.’

&n
bsp; Sylvia was baffled. ‘Most people would jump at the chance to go and live in the South of France,’ she commented.

  ‘Yes, people who are planning retirement or rip-offs,’ Penny said cuttingly. ‘In other words, vegies and villains. Well, thanks, but no thanks.’

  ‘The alternative is to carry on here under Linda Kidman,’ Sylvia pointed out.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Penny groaned, clapping a hand to her head and slumping back on to the sofa.

  ‘And,’ Sylvia went on, ‘your French, I believe, is virtually fluent.’

  ‘No!’ Penny lied, shaking her head. ‘I don’t know a word of French except pasta.’

  ‘That’s Italian,’ Sylvia said, her eyes brimming with laughter.

  ‘You see,’ Penny cried, throwing up her hands. ‘I can’t speak a word of French.’

  ‘It says here that you can,’ Sylvia said, opening up Penny’s personnel file, which was lying on the cushion beside her.

  ‘I lied,’ Penny said, catching a glimpse of her application form.

  Laughing, Sylvia said, ‘I might have believed you were it not for the interview you did with Madame Mitterand entirely in French just a few weeks ago.’

  Penny looked crestfallen. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ she wailed. ‘Why couldn’t you just have made me features editor here?’

  ‘Because I want you in the South of France. It’ll be good experience for you . . .’

  ‘Sylvia, we’re talking about a readership of nine geriatrics and a poodle and an exposure of such limited proportions I’ll be one of the geriatrics before I make it.’

  Sylvia laughed again. ‘You’re in too much of a hurry, young lady,’ she said. ‘Your time will come, make no mistake about that and if you do turn that magazine into a success then who can say what kind of opportunities will open up for you as a result?’

  OK, Penny, she said to herself, straightening up, time to resign. She took a breath, but now that the moment had come the words for some reason wouldn’t. She’d never find another Sylvia and, much as she abhorred the idea of leaving London, to refuse this offer might just turn out to be one of the biggest mistakes of her life. On the other hand, so might accepting it. ‘How long are you intending to send me over there for?’ she asked miserably.

  ‘A year, maybe two.’

  Penny collapsed over her knees in dismay. She was on the point of raising another objection, when Rebecca popped her head round the door.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ she said, ‘but your sister’s on the phone, Penny. She says she’s been arrested.’

  Penny’s arms circled her head as she gave a wretched groan. Well, at least one thing was for sure: today couldn’t get any worse. ‘Do you mind?’ she asked Sylvia, who answered by waving her to the phone.

  ‘Did she say where she was?’ she asked Rebecca as she crossed the room.

  ‘In a police station,’ Rebecca answered prosaically.

  Penny shot her a look and picked up the phone. ‘Sammy?’ she said.

  ‘Ah, Pen, there you are,’ came Sammy’s chirpy voice.

  ‘What have you done to get arrested?’ Penny sighed. ‘If it’s drugs, I’m going to let them hang you.’

  ‘I haven’t been arrested,’ Sammy giggled. ‘I just said that to make whoever the old sourpuss was go and get you.’

  ‘Ingenious,’ Penny muttered. ‘So, where are you?’

  ‘You’ll never guess.’

  ‘No, you’re right, I won’t.’

  ‘I’m in Casablanca. You know, that place they made the film about.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard of it. Have you figured out how you got there yet?’

  ‘Somebody brought me here on a private jet. He didn’t own it, or anything, he’s just the pilot. But anyway, it seems like he had to go off again in a bit of a hurry and ended up forgetting about me.’

  Refraining from remarking on the pilot’s discerning lapse of memory, Penny said, ‘So how much is it going to cost me to get you home?’

  ‘Um, I worked it out that if you send me three hundred pounds that should cover my hotel and air fare.’

  ‘OK, give me the bank details,’ Penny said, too practised in this now to show any horror at the amount.

  ‘That,’ she said to Sylvia, pointing to the phone as she turned back to the sofa, ‘is one very good reason why I can’t go to the South of France. She’s not safe to be left alone. I mean, look what happens when I’m here. I dread to think what she’d do if I weren’t.’

  ‘They have telephones in the South of France too,’ Sylvia remarked drily. ‘But why don’t you take her with you?’

  ‘Take Sammy to the South of France! Are you kidding! She’d have us both arrested before you can say Jacques Médecin.’

  Sylvia arched an eyebrow. Médecin, the notorious ex-mayor of Nice, was, if memory served her correctly, still facing charges of corruption, so maybe Penny had a point about villains. Still, it wasn’t a topic she was going to pursue. ‘Take Sammy with you and give her a job,’ she said. ‘It could be just what she needs. Something to concentrate her mind. A bit of responsibility, a pay packet of her own . . .’

  ‘And whole harbours full of yachts to smuggle herself away on,’ Penny added woefully.

  ‘Well, think about it,’ Sylvia chuckled as she got to her feet. ‘I’m sure you’ve got a busy day in front of you so take the weekend to think things over and we’ll have a spot of lunch together on Monday when you can give me your final decision.’

  ‘Do I have any choice?’ Penny enquired.

  ‘Yes, of course you do,’ Sylvia answered, opening the door. ‘But I think we both already know that you’re not going to take either of the alternatives. Incidently, Rebecca here will give you some back copies of The Coast to look over.’

  ‘Shit!’ Penny muttered under her breath as Sylvia closed the door behind her.

  She was too late to pull a mask over her disappointment which meant that as Linda Kidman sailed past for her session with Sylvia Penny had the joyful experience of being gloated at. Resisting the urge to smack her one, Penny took herself to her desk and sat down heavily.

  ‘What’s this?’ she snapped, pulling a cardboard box towards her. ‘Oh God,’ she groaned when she saw the range of anti-cellulite creams Claude, the celebrity beautician, had sent her.

  ‘Pen!’ someone shouted. ‘Yolanda and Maurice want to see you as soon as you’re free. They want to know how the piece on that Italian judge is coming along. I think they’re rather keen to run it before the Sicilians put Whatever-her-name-is in her concrete boots.’

  Penny rolled her eyes. Great, just what she needed right now: the editor and news editor ganging up on her for an interview she’d done in Rome five days ago with Carla Landolfi, the Italian judge whose courage and rectitude in the face of repeated Mafia threats begged any number of mythological metaphors. The entire interview was in Italian and she hadn’t even translated it yet. Well, she’d just have to wing it, keep Yolanda and Maurice happy for a couple more days and move like greased lightning all weekend.

  ‘Anyone seen the photographs I left on my desk?’ she cried, riffling through the chaos. ‘The ones of her Honour?’

  ‘Frank came up for them earlier,’ Philip Collins, the sub who sat opposite, informed her. ‘He left a note . . .’

  ‘Where did this come from?’ Penny demanded, picking up a giant hardback book by some obscure writer with an unpronounceable name. The note hooked inside read: ‘Thought this was just up your street. A rampantly political Russian romance. Need the review by the end of next week. Any chance? Maybelle.’

  Penny slung it to one side and picked up her phone. ‘Anyone know the number for the art department?’ she yelled.

  ‘4962,’ Philip answered. ‘So, come on, how did it go in there? Don’t keep us all in suspense.’

  Having received an engaged signal, Penny replaced the receiver and heaved her briefcase on to her desk. ‘How are you doing with that transcript, Gemma?’ she called out.

  ‘Anothe
r hour and you should have it,’ the secretary shouted back.

  Knowing they were all watching her, Penny looked up at last and, finding Philip’s curious round eyes and fluffy chin in her direct line of vision, she felt a surprising flood of affection for him. He was an ablutophobe who blithely stank out their corner, irritated her to the point of violence and frequently had her reaching jibberingly for the bottle by lunchtime. But suddenly today she loved him, adored him, wanted to sit opposite him for the rest of her days and inhale the glorious odour of his unwashed body. ‘If I told you I’d got the job it would make me one of Congreve’s first magnitude,’ she answered dolefully.

  ‘You’re obfuscating, Penny,’ he sweetly reprimanded.

  ‘No, I didn’t get the bloody job!’ she seethed. ‘And, what’s more, I’m leaving.’

  A general murmur of surprise and dismay reverberated around the office. Having Linda Kidman as the boss was bad enough, but without Penny there the place was going to be about as much fun as a German resurgence of patriotism.

  ‘You didn’t really give your notice in?’ Karen Armstrong, one of the assistants, asked incredulously.

  Penny shook her head. ‘I’m being banished to the fucking French Riviera,’ she said wretchedly.

  The others exchanged puzzled glances, unable to fathom why Penny should find that such an odious prospect, especially when they learned that Penny was to be given her own magazine.

  ‘Because,’ she explained, ‘all my contacts are here, all my friends are here, I love London, I love my life and I don’t have the remotest desire to end it.’ What she didn’t add, for modesty forbade, was how ridiculously proud and excited she had been to read about herself in The Times just last week when a journalist she didn’t even know had advised Lynn Barber and Zoë Heller to sharpen up their acts because ‘Penny Moon is fast becoming the most widely read and respected interviewer in the country’. How could Sylvia do this to her? It was like asking a bride on the eve of her wedding to exchange the man of her dreams for a deaf-mute dwarf with the life expectancy of Methuselah and the get-up-and-go of a pork chop.