Campaign Ruby

by Jessica Rudd

  Campaign

  Ruby

  Jessica Rudd, 26, is a Canberra-born, Brisbane-raised ex-lawyer, ex-campaign worker, ex-PR consultant who lives with her husband in Beijing. She has written the occasional column, a host of legal letters, countless press releases and one novel. She hopes this one won’t be her last.

  Jessica Rudd

  Campaign

  Ruby

  TEXT PUBLISHING MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA

  The paper used in this book is manufactured only from wood grown in sustainable regrowth forests.

  The Text Publishing Company

  Swann House

  22 William Street

  Melbourne Victoria 3000

  Australia

  textpublishing.com.au

  Copyright © Jessica Rudd

  ‘Just You Wait’ © 1956 (Renewed) Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe

  Publication and Allied Rights Assigned to Chappell & Co

  Print Rights For Australia & New Zealand

  Alfred Publishing (Australia) Pty Ltd

  All Rights Reserved. Used By Permission.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  First published in 2010 by The Text Publishing Company

  Cover design by W.H. Chong

  Text design by Susan Miller

  Typeset by J&M Typesetting

  Printed and bound by Griffin Press

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

  Rudd, Jessica.

  Campaign Ruby / Jessica Rudd.

  ISBN 9781921656576 (pbk.)

  Australia--Politics and government--Fiction.

  A823.4

  While window-shopping on New Bond Street

  during one of my career crises, Mum turned to me

  with love in her eyes and said, ‘Just write something.’

  So I did, and dedicate this book to her.

  Contents

  Not quite the boot I wanted

  Drink a case, pack a case

  Meet the family

  The party’s party

  The morning after

  Yarrawhatla?

  Jackie oh no

  The mother of all To Do lists

  Oscar nomination

  Fast food, fast policy

  Bankers anonymous

  Fish out of water

  In the can

  Catch Twenty-Loo

  Felicia Lunardi

  Territorial

  Stuffed up

  The Debate

  Ex-PMS

  Sailing blind over Cataract Gorge

  Too late To Do

  Crossed

  Tug of war

  Hallway of shame

  The Launch

  A dish best served with mini-pies

  One more sleep

  Desperate and voteless

  This is it

  Acknowledgments

  Not quite the boot I wanted

  An email popped into my inbox. There was no subject.

  Received: Wednesday, 24 February, 9.15 a.m.

  To: Stanhope, Ruby (Emerging Markets)

  From: HR Department

  Dear Stanhope, Ruby (ID: 521734EM)

  You will be aware that the company recently entered into a consultation process with some of its Merger & Acquisition and Emerging Markets staff at Analyst and Senior Analyst level.

  That consultation process is now complete. Regrettably, your position has been made redundant.

  As such, attached is a detailed description of the redundancy package we would like to offer you. Please reply to this email, acknowledging receipt and confirming that the terms are acceptable to you.

  There are two boxes labelled with your employee identification number in the staffroom on level seventeen:

  the first for your personal possessions to assist with your homeward journey, and the second for company items provided to you during your employment. A full list of those items is set out in the attached document.

  The second box should be left on your desk. You need not return the first box.

  Thank you for your service to this company. You may leave the premises at your earliest convenience.

  Regards

  HR Department

  Fuck.

  A wave of rage swept over my body. How dared they? In this climate I, more than any of my colleagues, had defied gravity. I had brought in thrice my annual worth in as many months. Yes, they were smaller deals than those before the economy fell arse over tit, but they were deals, and billions of kilojoules of my energy had been spent on making them happen. Missed opportunities flashed before my eyes. I’d left my sister’s wedding reception before she did so that I could wake early for a conference call with Slovakia. I’d swapped a holiday in the Seychelles with my ex for a 40 million Kazak pipeline plan that required my input in Amati. Countless yoga classes and family dinners had gone unattended, rays of sunlight unabsorbed by my pores. Vegetables had turned flaccid in the fridge. It was a life unlived.

  I shut my eyes—partly out of exhaustion from not having left the office until two that morning, partly to conceal a tear. It was more the humiliation than the pain, similar to when I slammed face-first into a glass door during a party my parents threw in Bellagio last summer. Prada Wayfarers askew and dripping with Mojito, I was shocked and then mortified—I ought to have anticipated the door. I should have seen it coming.

  My phone rang. ‘Delivery for you,’ announced Sean from the level-three mailroom.

  They had arrived. I’d ordered them online at Net-a-Porter to congratulate myself for sealing the Hungarian telecommunications deal. Downstairs, inside an elegant box adorned with ribbon, waited a pair of Mr Louboutin’s tallest matt, black, leather ankle boots complete with signature red underbelly. They were meant to take me to my next performance review. Now they would prop me up in the queue at Job Centre Plus.

  ‘Thanks, Sean. I’ll be down shortly.’

  I swivelled my high-backed leather chair in chorus with at least eight of my colleagues, all reeling from the same email.

  Those spared had already formed a small coalition in the corner. Overcome with survivor’s guilt they would forge new alliances with old enemies over takeaway macchiatos. I knew this because I used to be one of them, having been retained in the last three ‘headcount control phases’. Sebastian and George were nowhere to be seen. Once sworn adversaries, they were probably already at St Paul’s tavern enjoying a round of congratulatory backslapping over a cheeky pint and a bowl of deep-fried common interest. ‘I’m not terribly surprised that Ruby’s head’s finally on the chopping block,’ Sebastian would sneer. ‘Quite,’ George would reply. ‘She’s always assumed she’s untouchable because of her father—that’ll be a tense family dinner at the club next week.’

  Slap, slap; chap, chap.

  Stop wallowing and get your shit together, counselled my head, so I drafted a To Do list.

  1. Pick up Louboutins from mailroom

  2. Collect boxes from staffroom

  3. Place in Company Items box:

  3.1 BlackBerry

  3.2 Swipe card

  3.3 Company lanyard

  3.4 Corporate credit card

  3.5 Corporate umbrella

  3.6 Laptop

  3.7 Business cards

  4. Place in Homeward Journey box:

  4.1 Coffee mug

  4.2 Yoga mat

  4.3 Peace lily

  4.4 Travelling Toolkit, including:
/>
  4.4.1 Spare pants

  4.4.2 Spare bra (including One Cup Up enhancers)

  4.4.3 Dental hygiene pack

  4.4.4 Razor and shaving gel

  4.4.5 Shower in a can

  4.4.6 Plasters

  4.4.7 Shoe cushions

  4.4.8 Kleenex

  4.4.9 Tampons

  4.4.10 Sewing kit

  4.4.11 Double-sided tape

  4.4.12 Spare phone battery

  4.4.13 Make-up remover wipes

  4.4.14 Industrial-strength concealer

  4.4.15 Hand salve

  4.4.16 Lavender refresher mist

  4.4.17 Travel-sized moisturiser

  4.4.18 Vitamin B

  4.4.19 Whiteboard marker

  5. Reply to email from HR

  6. Get coat; leave.

  I made my way to the lifts and hit the down button. Ping. Out fell Sebastian and George as if I’d scripted it. Wankers. Sebastian sailed straight past me, but George cocked his head. ‘Sorry about all this, old girl.’

  ‘Old girl?’ I walked into the lift. ‘What are you, an Edwardian vet about to put down a sick filly?’

  Satisfied with my response, I was alone in the lift. I glanced up at the tiny television monitor. Today’s entertainment was a Charlie Chaplin film set to a track from Birds of Paradise II: Sounds of the Amazon—porn for ornithologists. The film cut to a sequence of Charlie with a hand on each cheek, his mouth agape. ‘Scream,’ said the white text on the crinkly black screen. Good idea, I thought. I stomped my feet and screamed, drowning out squawking macaws and ribbiting tree frogs. At level ten, I didn’t hear the lift ping. The doors opened like curtains to reveal me harmonising with the howl of a lone spider monkey. My decrescendo wasn’t fast enough. I cleared my throat. The tea lady readjusted her trolley.

  ‘I might wait for the next one, love.’

  You’re already psychotic, said my head. You’ll be a cat lady in days.

  At level three, I drifted into the mailroom.

  ‘That Mr A-Porter must be quite keen on you,’ said Sean, presenting me with a long black box.

  Tears spilled without warning. Poor Sean didn’t know what to do. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. Someone’s out there for you, poppet.’

  I was crying too hard to explain that the problem wasn’t my lack of man so much as my lack of employment. Then I began to laugh-cry. Sad sobs followed by short snorts then sobs again. I could barely breathe, but it felt good. ‘Treasure,’ he persevered, ‘if I weren’t a raving homosexual, I’d make passionate love to you on this mail counter. Right here, right now.’

  More snorts, more sobs.

  He swept the mail off the counter onto the floor and growled. Yes, growled—like a camp tiger. ‘I’ll lock the door and get the lights. Why don’t you slip into something a little more…’ My legs failed me. I slid down the side of the counter onto the floor.

  ‘I’ve lost my job,’ I managed between snorts.

  ‘Cock,’ he said. ‘You’re fucking kidding me.’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘But you never sleep. You just buy shoes and work.’

  ‘Not helping,’ I sniffed. More tears dripped as I told him the story. About the consultation, the deal, the endless hours, the missed opportunities, the Louboutins, the email and the boxes.

  ‘Darling,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure how best to say this so I’m just going to come out with it: you’re covered in snot.’ I caught a glimpse of myself in the stainless-steel counter. He was right. My usual halo of shoulder-length, strawberry-blonde waves was now a limp slick covering each ear. My alabaster complexion was specked with hot, pink patches spanning brow to neck. The whites of my blue eyes looked like someone had scribbled on them in red pen. My long thin nose was the centrepiece, expelling snot like Vesuvius would lava. My unhelpfully pink collar was covered in foundation. Tears had dripped onto my pitiful excuse for a chest. I looked like a lactating man. The neat silver-grey Hugo Boss skirt suit which usually elongated my petite frame had crumpled and crept up: a casualty of the Amazonian mosh pit.

  ‘Christ.’

  ‘There’s only one thing to do,’ he said, nudging the elegant box in my direction. ‘If you are to cling to the integrity you have earned in this godforsaken cesspit of a bank you must deflower these Louboutins. Prontissimo.’ Sean knelt and slid off my Steve Madden pumps. He loosened the black ribbon, removed the lid and unfolded the tissue paper. Inside was, quite possibly, the perfect pair of boots. ‘Let these be your glass slippers.’ He unzipped the right boot and fitted it to my foot. The left followed. Their curve spooned my arches. I zipped them up and let Sean pull me off the floor.

  It’s amazing what four inches of height can give you. Sean handed me my pumps and kissed my cheeks. ‘I’ll miss you, darling girl. But you mustn’t miss this place. Let this be the making—not the breaking—of Ruby Stanhope.’

  Fifteen minutes later, there were tiny ticks next to Items 1 through 4 on my list. I was looking forward to Item 5 with keen anticipation.

  To: HR Department

  CC: All in London Office; Global Board

  From: Stanhope, Ruby (Emerging Markets)

  Dear HR Department,

  I have received your profoundly ill-mannered email. I’m astonished that you have the audacity to enforce monthly ‘Internal Communications’ training sessions, and didn’t think to inform me in person or even via telephone that certain global investment decisions have had an uncomfortably local impact for me and eight of my esteemed colleagues. I work two floors away from you.

  If the restructuring process hadn’t been masterminded by incompetent nincompoops like those found in your department, we might have seen some very positive organisational change, such as the permanent outsourcing of all HR and IT services to Mumbai. Alas, it wasn’t to be.

  When I was here at 1.20 a.m. today, eating lukewarm teriyaki salmon alone at my desk to the sound of vacuuming—having missed yet another dental appointment, another gym session, another dinner with my sister, another opportunity to meet a future partner— I was comforted by the knowledge that while I might die fat, friendless and alone of a tooth infection, I would die a valued employee of this bank, which employed my father and his before him.

  Once, this institution showed me loyalty. Now, it is showing me the door.

  I accept the redundancy package you offer and thank you for the free box.

  Regards

  Ruby Stanhope

  Former Senior Analyst (Emerging Markets)

  Tick. Tick. Ping.

  The Tube was as empty at half eleven in the morning as it was at half eleven at night. I picked the bluest and therefore newest of all the available seats and put my free box next to me. At the other end of the carriage a suited man was on the phone, taking advantage of the only reliable thing about the Hammersmith and City line—it offered at least ten minutes of uninterrupted mobile signal.

  ‘You assured me that you sent them my CV,’ he fumed, presumably to a recruiter. ‘Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to turn up to an interview like that without a CV?’ He caught me staring at him and lowered his voice. ‘Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to turn up to an interview like that without a CV?’

  Why, I pondered, do people reiterate sotto voce the things they’ve already shouted? It’s nonsensical. First, you’ve already broadcast it. Second, it draws the attention of people like me to the very thing you’re trying to keep private. Anyway, what kind of airhead would go to an interview without a copy of his CV?

  My stomach writhed, reminding me of my new reality. I was now that guy. I was unemployed. Soon, I too would be pacing between stations, blaming my predicament on a recruiter.

  Did I really just send an email to the entire bloody office and the global board? If I did, I was also unemployable. The faces of the old men at my parents’ thirtieth wedding anniversary shuffled through my mind. Many of them were still on the board, including Andrew Leigh, the chairman. I imagined the chairman’s sec
retary knocking on his open door. ‘Andrew, you’ve received an email from Roger Stanhope’s daughter, Ruby—shall I print it for you?’ I couldn’t even remember what I’d said. I grew clammy as I searched through my bottomless pit of a handbag for my BlackBerry. Shit. It wasn’t my BlackBerry anymore. Shit, shit, shit—it was in the other box.

  I pulled out my rickety personal mobile to text Sean. There was a message.

  Brill email, sweet cheeks! Everyone talking. My contact at the mailroom in Paris wants to meet you. Wear those Louboutins tonight to celebrate. Sean xxxxxxx

  Good grief.

  Paris? Merde. I only copied in London and the board. Can you hack my account and hit recall? Password: Rueful. R x

  ‘The next station is Ladbroke Grove,’ the Tube Lady announced.

  My niece, Clementine, explained to me last Sunday on the way home from Covent Garden that there is a magical lady who lives inside the Tube. She is a very small, very busy lady, ‘like Tinkerbell, but with a very big voice’. She runs around at light speed in the ceiling of each carriage giving everyone the information they need. Because there are so many different lines and she is getting old, she has asked her friends to help her, which is why you sometimes hear a man’s voice instead of a lady’s.

  Clem insisted on greeting the Tube Lady and thanking her for the friendly reminder to mind the gap. ‘Thank you, Tube Lady, I certainly will.’

  Almost five years ago, just as I entered the workforce, my sister Francesca left it to have Clem. She was a fearsome litigator at a magic circle firm and was on the brink of making senior associate after leading a messy trademark dispute for a major retail client. The firm urged her to take paid maternity leave when she discovered she was pregnant, a few months after marrying Mark, but she was determined to be a parent first. We all found this news shocking, especially Mark, who probably expected he’d have to fight for my feisty sister to take any leave at all. ‘I was good at my job,’ she maintains, ‘but I didn’t love doing it; whereas I’m a good mother and love being one.’