After what she’d said to me in Milan I kept expecting her to look over at me at some point in triumphant disdain, but she didn’t. She just stared at Bee, waiting for approval in her usual rabbit-in-the-headlights way, who praised her lavishly. For my ideas.
I was in such a daze I didn’t even realize immediately that her performance had just left me with nothing to read out and I was on next – any minute. I felt completely panicked. While I had come up with my packing idea under extreme pressure last time, I didn’t feel remotely up to spontaneously producing a whole list of them, so I did the only thing I could do in the circs. I ran out of the room.
‘Sorry, Bee,’ I said, putting my hand over my mouth like I was just about to vomit. ‘Carry on without me, I’ll be back in a minute.’
I ran out of Bee’s room, out of the Chic offices and right out of the building without stopping. I was in such a state of shock all I could think of was getting some fresh air. I also didn’t want Bee sending Nushka round to my office to find me.
I leaned against the wall of the building, panting, my breath hanging in white clouds in the freezing March air. I didn’t have my coat, bag, or any money with me, so I couldn’t ring Ollie, but I knew I could seek comfort from the Greek guys in the café across the road. They knew me so well, they were happy to give me a cappuccino on the house and at that moment I found their normally irritating line of ‘lovely laydee’ patter quite comforting.
I sat there with my cooling coffee for about an hour, alternately staring into space and drafting my resignation letter on a paper napkin. Between scribbling, I did consider alternatives. I could go upstairs – show Bee my ideas list and tell her what Alice had done, then and the previous two seasons, but somehow I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was all so nuts I didn’t think she’d believe me. And somehow, although Alice’s behaviour had been so appalling, I still couldn’t shop someone like that.
So, with much crossing out and rewriting, I kept going with my resignation letter and then I wrote it out clearly on a second napkin. When I’d finished I asked Demetrios if I could use their phone. First I rang Rosie, to make sure her offer was still open – it was – so I accepted it, and then I rang Nushka.
‘Are you all right, Emily?’ she said, sounding genuinely concerned. ‘We were about to send out the St Bernard. All your stuff is still here, but you just vanished.’
‘No, I’m not all right,’ I said. ‘Is the trends meeting over?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is Bee available?’
‘Yes,’ said Nushka, who had the perfect PA’s instincts about when her boss needed to be made instantly available.
‘OK then,’ I said. ‘I’m coming right in to see her.’
My heart was beating so fast as I walked back to the office, I really did feel physically ill. The more I thought about leaving Chic, the worse I felt, but how could I carry on working with Alice after that?
Gemma sprang up when I walked past her desk on my way to Bee’s office, but I just brushed her away. I had to get it over with before I lost my nerve. Bee was leaning out of her window smoking when I walked in. I knocked on the glass partition to get her attention.
‘Emily!’ she said, flicking the fag end down into the street. ‘What is going on with you? Are you ill?’
‘No,’ I said and handed her the paper napkin.
Bee glanced over it and pointed at a chair.
‘Sit,’ she ordered, coming over to join me at her big round meeting table. ‘What the hell is all this about, Emily? You were already acting like a freak in Paris and now you run out of the ideas meeting, and then come back to resign one of the best jobs in fashion – on a serviette. Have you gone mad?’
‘I don’t think so, but I want to leave. I’m really sorry, Bee.’
She narrowed her eyes and popped two pieces of nicotine gum into her mouth.
‘Have you got another job?’ she said after a few life-giving chews.
‘Yes,’ I said. It was by far the simplest explanation.
‘Aha!’ said Bee, clicking her fingers. ‘I knew there was something going on in Paris. What is it then? Not something at pure, please…’
‘God no, but I can’t tell you where. It’s a secret project.’
‘Oh, no,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘It’s that dopey thing Rosie’s doing, isn’t it? That’s interesting, I thought she might try and steal Alice and she’s gone for you. How interesting. I wouldn’t have thought your work would be pretentious enough for her. She must be savvier than I thought.’
‘How did you know?’ I squeaked.
Bee just rolled her eyes. Of course she knew. She always knew.
‘But you can’t be serious, Emily,’ she said, her voice softening. ‘You can’t leave Chic to go and work on some pretentious start-up with no reputation, no job security and an untried and appallingly badly dressed editor. You’re doing so well here, you know I love your work and – even more importantly – I love working with you.’
She gave me a deep nod with raised eyebrows that said it all. She was telling me she liked me more than Alice. But it wasn’t enough. After what had happened at that meeting I couldn’t stay on at Chic for another day. I felt like Alice was going to appear wearing my clothes at any moment.
‘No, Bee,’ I said. ‘I’m really sorry. I love working here, I think you are wonderful, but I need a fresh challenge. I’d like to leave immediately, if you don’t mind. It’s a good time for me to go, I’ve done all my shoots for this season and…’ I petered out, thinking: and Alice will be doing all my shoots for the next one.
Bee sighed and stood up, lighting a cigarette, en route to her usual spot at the window. She looked really, sincerely, disappointed. I felt rotten.
‘Emily, my dear girl,’ she said. ‘If you really feel you need to go now – go. But I know there is more to this than you are telling me. Something has happened and I will find out what it was, but hear this first. I am giving you one month’s grace to change your mind about this crazy idea. Just one month, OK? Here’s the deal – I’ll give you a hefty pay rise if you stay and I’ll change your title to deputy fashion director, if that would make a difference.’
I just shook my head, laughing inwardly at the irony of it, and then just hung my head. I felt absolutely sick.
Gemma got all tearful when I told her, Janey and Frannie my news.
‘You can’t leave,’ she said, actually sobbing. ‘You can’t. I can’t bear it if you leave. I’ll probably die.’
‘What are you talking about – leaving?’ said Frannie. ‘What the hell’s going on?’
‘I just need a new challenge,’ I said, determined to stick to my story. I just couldn’t cope with trying to explain that Alice had psychically stolen my ideas for the second time. I’d sound like a nutter. And with my family history, that was something I was not prepared to risk.
‘Well, I’ve got some news for you too,’ said Frannie. ‘If you do bloody leave you’re not going to get to see me get really, really fat – because I’m three-and-a-half months bloody pregnant and now you won’t be around to watch, you big idiot.’
‘You’re what?’ I said and gave her a big hug. ‘Oops, mustn’t squeeze you too hard. That is the most wonderful news. So that’s why you weren’t drinking in Paris, you sly dog,’ I said, leaning down to kiss her tummy. ‘Well, I won’t see you every day, but I’m not leaving the country. I’ll still get to see you turn into a human barrage balloon. I wonder if it will show much?’
She punched me on the arm, but Gemma was still wailing.
‘Where are you going?’ she sobbed. She wasn’t up to taking in two such big pieces of news at once. ‘Can I come with you? I might get someone really horrible as my boss, instead of you. Oh, you can’t be serious, Emily. Tell me you’re joking.’
But I wasn’t and it didn’t take me long to gather up the few things I was going to take home with me that night. Gemma would pack up my other bits and pieces and bring them over at the wee
kend.
By the time I was ready to go, word had got round the entire office and Tim the art director and most of the rest of the staff had come round to our office with bottles of wine they’d had stashed away to give me an impromptu leaving party. I was touched by how shocked and upset everyone seemed to be that I was going. Bee even came in and told them all they hadn’t seen the last of me yet, if she had anything to do with it. I knew better, I thought, but I smiled weakly at her.
By seven o’clock people were beginning to drift away, with lots of hugs and good wishes and ‘you’ll be back’s and I decided it really was time for me to leave. But first I had to confront Alice. She and Fatalie were just about the only people who hadn’t come to say goodbye to me.
I told Frannie and Gemma I was going to the loo and walked round the corner to Alice’s office. She wasn’t there, but Natalie was. Sitting in Alice’s chair, tapping away on Alice’s computer. Wearing one of Alice’s signature hats – a vintage stetson.
‘Where’s Alice?’ I asked her, taking in the scenario.
‘Gone home,’ she said, leaning back, her arms folded behind her head, her overcooked cleavage quivering with excitement. ‘To celebrate.’
‘Oh really,’ I said, in my most ice-maiden tones. ‘I hope she enjoys herself. She might even smile; that would make a change. Well, I’m off then. Goodbye, Natalie.’
Julie Andrews couldn’t have done it better, I told myself, but as I turned to walk out of the office she called my name. With that irritating instant reaction we all have, I turned back round and was immediately furious with myself I hadn’t just ignored her.
‘By the way, Emily,’ said Natalie, with a fake smile. ‘Fuck you.’
And she gave me the finger.
21
Ollie had seemed delighted I’d actually made the big scary break, but when it came to my first day at Surface two weeks later he wasn’t there to see me off. He’d gone off to Milan for the furniture fair, where Slap was having a stand. He sent me a text to wish me luck the night before, but that was it. I had rather expected flowers.
When I arrived at the magazine’s offices in a rather obscure corner of Bloomsbury, near King’s Cross, half of the furniture still hadn’t been unwrapped. In fact the first thing I had to do was to set up my own room, which was more like a generous broom cupboard, wrestling acres of plastic sheeting off a really nasty pale grey desk and chair. The rest of my facilities comprised a second-hand filing cabinet. I didn’t have a computer yet – or a phone.
The staff weren’t particularly welcoming either – all one of them. The first issue was due out in just over four months and at that point the only person in place, apart from me and Rosie, was the art director, a lanky young man called Steve, who she had recruited from Wonderdog.
Although I did think he was very talented, Steve, in person, was not my scene. He had multiple piercings, overcomplicated facial hair and a shaved head. We looked each other over and in that first instant I knew we were unlikely ever to be buddies. It was clearly mutual and I hoped we could just rub along. The ad sales were being handled by an outside agency – all part of Rosie’s determination to keep the two sides of the magazine completely separate – so there wasn’t even a jolly commercial team to pad things out and lighten the atmosphere.
At least Rosie made an effort to make me feel welcome, inviting me into her office for a rosehip tea, before realizing, after a few minutes scrabbling on her desk, which was covered in great piles of paper, books and unopened envelopes, that she only had one mug. I tried not to compare it with Bee’s office, with her immaculate glass-topped desk that she cleared of paper every night before she went home, and Nushka walking in with freshly brewed espressos in Limoges demitasses.
‘It’s great to see you,’ said Rosie, clearly doing her best. ‘It’s really starting to feel like a magazine now you’re here.’
‘When is everyone else arriving?’ I asked.
Rosie looked at me blankly.
‘The rest of the team?’ I continued.
‘This is it,’ said Rosie, apparently surprised that I had expected there to be more than three people. There were thirty on the staff of Chic – and that was just editorial. There was a marketing department and a big ad sales team as well. That was when I realized there were an awful lot of questions I hadn’t asked Rosie before taking this job.
‘But what about my assistant…?’ I asked, hesitantly. That was one thing I had made a point of raising with her and I remembered very clearly that she’d said, ‘We’ll sort it out when you get there.’
I’d taken that to mean, we’d sort out the details of the salary and starting date when I got there, and had been planning to ask Gemma to join me.
‘Well, obviously we can’t take anyone else on the staff at this stage,’ said Rosie, as though it was the most normal thing in the world to do an international fashion magazine with three staff. ‘But once we are more established, you’ll be able to have someone part time. For the time being, you can use fashion students. It would be great experience for them.’
But probably not for me, I reflected.
‘What about your assistant?’ I asked, starting to feel quite alarmed.
‘Oh, I’ve got work experience people booked from Saint Martins and the London College of Fashion, to cover all that, and Steve’s going to use graphics students to help him when we get nearer the deadline, and the odd freelancer for the really busy time.’
I was horrified, but she seemed so confident about it all, I decided I just had to go and get on with it for the time being and hope things improved. I sat at my desk and wondered what to do with myself. It was so weird to be in what was supposed to be a magazine office and not be surrounded by endlessly ringing phones and overexcited people. It was almost creepily quiet in there.
I unpacked my office essentials – a photo of me, Frannie and Nelly taken at a Jasper Conran after-show party, a handwritten thank-you note from Karl Lagerfeld, a postcard of my father’s painting from the Tate Modern and my shoot kit. This was a Prada washbag – a Christmas freebie – packed with safety pins, tampons, aspirin, Sellotape, tit tape, scissors and other essential emergency supplies of my trade. Paul had once slipped a packet of condoms into it as a joke.
Then I went looking for the stationery cupboard to try and make my little cubby-hole look more like a working office. There wasn’t one. I sat in my horrid grey chair for a moment feeling quite stunned about it all, then I roused myself and made lists on envelopes I had floating around in the bottom of my handbag, of all the things I needed to bring in to the office and all the people I needed to ring with my new details.
But what new details? I didn’t have a phone number or an email address to give out, for a magazine no one had ever heard of. Feeling more and more wobbly, but still determined not to allow panic to set in, I decided to use my mobile to let a few key PRs and agents know where I was. There was no signal in my so-called office, so I spent the next hour crouching in the building’s drafty stairwell making my calls and telling them all to use my mobile number for now.
It wasn’t until I went back into my broom cupboard that I realized that if any of them did ring me, I wouldn’t be able to pick up the calls in there. What an idiot.
As I sat there my mind drifted inexorably to what it would be like in the Chic offices that morning. It was mid-April and everyone would be wearing their new spring looks and comparing purchases. There would be lots of excitement as they packed to go on trips to impossibly glamorous places. Rails and rails of gorgeous clothes coming in to be selected for shoots. Pre-release CDs blaring out from the features department’s stereo.
There would come Bee, clicking through the office in new Prada sandals with a perfect pedicure, a freshly sprayed-on tan and gleaming hair. Frannie would be sitting at her desk eating for two. Gemma screening calls like a pro, between reading out Kent’s horoscope from the Evening Standard as evidence he was just about to call her. Janey throwing darts at a notice-boar
d with a pure cover pinned on to it. Tim squealing over some hot bod he’d found on the internet. I shed a small tear, then slapped my cheeks and told myself to keep it together.
Despite the unpromising start, I was determined to give Surface a fair go – out of pride, more than anything. Rosie had promised me a phone number and an email address the following week and as the days went by, with a few of my fashion pictures pinned up on my walls, a newly purchased Roberts radio playing and a large vase of flowers on my desk, I was starting to feel a little better.
Art director Steve was about as communicative as a speed hump when I tried to engage him in office banter, and I still hadn’t found anywhere nearby to do my lunchtime yoga, but I set my mind to staying positive. Even with nothing to do. I kept trying to have meetings with Rosie about planning some shoots, but she seemed to be perpetually busy.
Her office door was always closed and her phone – the only one in the entire office at that stage – had started to ring non-stop as Surface’s number had finally been published in London’s fashion PR Bible, The Diary. Her response was to leave it off the hook. We must have been the only magazine office on earth it was impossible to contact, I reflected.
By the end of the week I was getting so frustrated I typed up a memo with a list of shoot ideas on Ollie’s computer at home and took advantage of one of Rosie’s occasional mystery disappearances to get into her office and put it on her desk.
I wasn’t snooping, but she had left her computer screen active and as I put my memo down I saw what was keeping her so busy. She was finishing her book on the Fifties American sportswear designer Claire McCardell. I knew that’s what it was because she’d told me all about the project ages before, in one of her mini lectures. I’d just assumed she would have finished it before she took on a magazine editorship. It was getting more and more weird in there.
I left the office at lunchtime that Friday, because I still had nothing to do, and I thought it would be nice to cook Ollie a special welcome-home-from-Milan dinner. He always appreciated that kind of gesture. As I walked back from Fresh & Wild with the ingredients, I waved to the man in the dry-cleaner’s. He waved back and gestured for me to come in.
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