Unsuitable Men

by Pippa Wright

  ‘Friday,’ he said.

  ‘Saturday.’

  ‘Friday’s the end of the week.’

  ‘There’s going to be a lot going on this week. Saturday is better,’ I insisted. ‘I want to think about this properly, Martin. I owe you that at least. Please don’t rush me.’

  Martin took my hands and looked at me with such intensity I worried he might be in physical pain.

  ‘Saturday,’ he agreed, crushing my fingers in his own. ‘Please come home then, Rory.’

  36

  There is a school of thought that says work can be a place of refuge during difficult times in one’s personal life. And in some ways I can see that might be true – my colleagues had at least offered some sort of distraction from everything when I’d first broken up with Martin. Getting up and dressed every day, catching the tube and sitting at my desk had forced me to carry on, instead of just sobbing under the duvet. And finally writing up my piece about Malky had been quite cathartic, drawing a line under our fling. Yet going back to the office the day after Auntie Lyd came out of hospital felt far too soon to me; but she had become irritable when I said I’d stay with her, and insisted she was hardly going to come to harm in her own home. So although I went back to Country House mostly to make her happy, I will admit that I thought I could at least get some headspace there to think about what was happening with Martin. I had imagined it would be an easy decision – he had cheated on me and betrayed me, and that should mean it was over. But it wasn’t that simple to think about throwing away a second chance at a relationship that had once meant everything to me. Life wasn’t black and white, I knew that. It’s just that I wasn’t sure if I was able to deal with the exact shade of grey of the new relationship Martin was offering. At least at Country House, where things were reassuringly always the same, I could allow myself to think about it all properly.

  But when I got in to work, although things looked the same, it turned out that everything was different.

  The first thing that struck me on walking into my office was that Ticky’s desk was suspiciously spotless. For one scary moment I thought the feared redundancies might have started already, but when I opened one of her desk drawers it was reassuringly still full of expensive make-up and low-carb chocolate bars. Instead of the usual scattering of papers, Heat magazines and pink heart-shaped Post-its, Ticky’s desk was empty but for a lined pad with a neat list in her rounded handwriting:

  Marvellous Englishwoman??? URGENT

  Layouts – to Man for final approval 11/04

  Freelance subs for emergency cover – no from

  Binks Hamilton & Lara Brooks. Still to try:

  Savannah Fitzroy

  Zelie Brennan-Leigh

  Rollo Morris?

  English Heritage press briefing for 2012 – 05/05.

  Noonoo?

  Armdale Gardens – visual direction?

  Brief to Jeremy

  If it hadn’t been in Ticky’s hand I wouldn’t have believed her capable of a list that demonstrated not only a thorough grasp of what needed to be done in my absence, but actual forward planning and initiative-taking. It seemed a little excessive to be looking for a freelance sub when I had only been out of the office for a few days, but I couldn’t fault her for trying. Despite this demonstration of efficiency, Ticky wasn’t here on time, of course, though I actually found this a bit of a relief. Otherwise I would have suspected some sort of body-snatching Stepford scenario.

  Lysander arrived in my office before Ticky did, which was even more peculiar, since it was far too early for one of his post-lunch office perambulations. Something was up. He reclined in the chintz chair in a manner that said he intended to be there a while. Settling himself comfortably, he rested his elbows on the arms of the chair and tented his fingers like the pensive detective in a murder mystery. Perhaps he was about to tell me someone had done away with Ticky after all.

  ‘What a week, Aurora, what a week,’ he said. When I failed to take the bait he seemed to remember that he had yet to acknowledge that I had been out of the office for personal reasons. He hastily added, ‘I can’t tell you how relieved we all were to hear that your aunt is making a full recovery.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘She’s doing well.’

  ‘How well I remember her in Those Devereux Girls,’ Lysander said. ‘A glorious woman. Indeed, how well I remember meeting her at Annabel’s in, oh, it must have been about ’82.’

  ‘You knew Auntie Lyd?’ I asked, goggling at him. ‘Really? You’ve never mentioned this before.’

  Lysander leaned forward. ‘No need to “freak out”,’ he said, making quotation marks with his fingers in a move he believed helped him appear down with the kids. Even though the kids today had not been born in ’82, let alone hanging out at Annabel’s. ‘I had no idea Lydia Bell was your aunt until Amanda said so on Monday – none of us had.’

  ‘So you, Lysander Honeywell, are a friend of my aunt’s?’ I asked, unconvinced. ‘How come I’ve never heard her mention you?’

  He waved a hand dismissively before resuming his crime detective position. ‘Oh, not a friend, Aurora, no. I cannot claim that privilege. We just met the once. But I’ve never forgotten. A marvellous woman.’

  ‘She is,’ I agreed, but his misty-eyed reminiscences over Auntie Lyd had already ended, replaced by the expression that I knew preceded the telling of gossip.

  Lysander rubbed his hands together, building suspense. ‘Item two,’ he said. ‘Martha’s left. Resigned on Friday night, gone already.’

  ‘What?’ Was this why she had been trying to get me to cover for her over the weekend? Had my refusal caused her to entirely lose the plot?

  ‘Oh yes, Aurora, it’s been busy here while you’ve been away. And you will never, not ever, imagine where she has gone.’ His eyes sparkled with amusement. Wherever it was, Lysander was delighted by it.

  ‘Wait – she’s left? Just like that? Without giving notice?’

  ‘Well . . .’ Lysander leaned forward again and I could see how much he had been delightedly anticipating my return to the office. Not for my own sake, but for the opportunity to tell the story to the one member of staff who didn’t already know it. He had probably been lying in wait for me this and every morning to ensure he got to me before anyone else. ‘She told Amanda that she’d consulted an employment lawyer. She was going to sue for constructive dismissal and age discrimination, but instead she’d settle for a year’s salary and no notice period.’

  ‘What – but – a year’s salary? She’s been here for twenty years, that’s nothing!’ I wasn’t sure why I was leaping to Martha’s defence since she had done little but make my life difficult over the years, but how could she give up her job – her life – like that? How would she live? Surely she’d find it impossible to get another job? What about her retirement plans, her pension?

  ‘Ah,’ said Lysander, his face breaking into a broad grin. ‘She doesn’t need money where she’s going.’

  ‘Of course she needs money, Lysander,’ I snapped. With his rich family he had no idea what it might be like to be a woman of a certain age facing a penniless future. None. Martha did; that had been why she worked so hard. ‘Unless – no, she’s not – she’s not joining a religious order, is she?’ It would be just like her to leave in a manner that implied not only that she was on to better things, but that by remaining at the revamped circulation-chasing Country House we were all in some way morally inferior. Also it would neatly do away with the need for a pension.

  Lysander shrieked with laughter, slapping his knees. ‘A religious order!’ he exclaimed, wiping at his eyes. ‘A religious order! Oh my. Aurora, no, it’s not a religious order. Quite the opposite.’

  I was beginning to feel annoyed by his hints and allusions. It wouldn’t have surprised me if he’d whipped out a fan and hidden behind it Dangerous Liaisons-style. ‘A brothel?’ I asked facetiously.

  Lysander’s smile dropped. ‘Please do not speak like that about my future co
usin,’ he said sternly. ‘I do not care to have the Honeywell name brought into disrepute.’

  ‘Your cousin?’ I echoed. Light slowly dawned. The softer colours she had been wearing. The weekends away. Hadn’t she even brought a tin of Scottish shortbread into the office one Monday morning? I had been blind. We all had. ‘No! Teddy?’

  Lysander beamed again and leaned forward, rubbing his hands together in delight. ‘Yes! Ethelred! She offered to pass on the contact details of the women who wrote in to the website about him, apparently to save me the bother, but she got rid of all of them and contacted him herself instead. Et voilà – l’amour!’

  I nearly clapped my own hands together. It was like a fairy story. Martha was going to be the lady of the manor.

  ‘Amazing,’ I said.

  ‘Oh faahrk,’ snarled Ticky, waltzing into the office, swinging her handbag off her shoulder. ‘Lysander, are you still going on about Martha? Jeez, get, like, a life, would you? Get a life and get out.’ She stood over him in a stance that was made even more intimidating by her high stilettos, knee-length skirt and blouse. I was so used to seeing her dressed head to toe in Jack Wills that I couldn’t stop staring at this new, business-like Ticky. ‘Out!’

  Lysander leapt up obediently from his seat, muttering, ‘Sorry, Victoria,’ and fled the office.

  ‘Christ, Rory, am I glad to see you back. Faahrking major nightmare,’ sighed Ticky, dropping into the space just vacated by Lysander. ‘Martha walks out, you’re nowhere to be seen; like, absolutely everything has landed on my desk.’

  ‘Well, it’s not been a particularly great week for me either, Ticky,’ I said stiffly.

  ‘Oh Goouurd, sorry, Roars,’ said Ticky, slapping a palm to her forehead. ‘Like, how rude? How’s your aunt? Maaahn says she’s like, some sort of famous bird from back in the day?’

  ‘She’s fine, thanks.’ I wondered if I should have some sort of T-shirt made that said,

  Lydia Bell is much better now,

  thanks for asking.

  Yes, she was quite famous once.

  ‘Look,’ said Ticky, ‘I don’t mean to be, like, an insensitive bitch here’ – which was in itself a surprising admission – ‘but we are having a faahrking horror with the new issue: print deadline is next week and I really need to start handing stuff back to you, like, prontosaurus.’

  ‘Sure, sure,’ I answered, astonished that Ticky, of all people, would steer the conversation away from personal gossip and towards work. I gestured at her desk. ‘It looks like you’ve got everything under control, Ticky, thanks so much.’

  ‘Yah,’ she said, rising up from the chair and flicking her hair over her shoulder. ‘It’s, like, actually been sort of fun.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I know, Roars, I know. Fun in, like, a totes ‘mare sort of way. But Maaahn’s had to, like, trust me with shit, you know? And nothing’s gone completely tits-up yet, so, yah. It’s been quite good.’

  ‘Is that what the new look’s in aid of?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, like, dress for the job you want, yah? Not the job you have. That’s what Daddy always says, you know, although he completely meant Please dress in Country Casuals like Mummy does and stop walking around in denim cut-offs distracting the gardener. There are going to be some changes round here and I’m, like, dressing up for them.’

  Ticky’s revelations were almost as amazing as Lysander’s. The workshy public schoolgirl had suddenly turned into an ambitious career woman. I had the strange feeling that I was about to be professionally leapfrogged by my own assistant. And the even stranger feeling that I wasn’t sure I cared. Seeing Martha’s unexpected escape made me think. I had assumed my only choice was to follow in her Weldon’s of Ludlow footsteps up the Country House ladder; what if I should instead be following her out of the door?

  ‘Roars, like, are you listening?’ demanded Ticky. ‘I said Maaahn wants to see you at eleven.’

  ‘Does she?’ I asked. ‘What about?’

  ‘Well, obviously she sat me down in her office and explained precisely why she wanted to see you,’ said Ticky, rolling her eyes at me. ‘Then she told me all about the state of her marriage and lent me a tampon. Jeez, Roars, like I know. She just said go to see her at eleven. End of.’

  I supposed it was only to be expected that Amanda would want to see me now that Martha had left. But it made me nervous. With the features editor gone I was now officially the odd one out. Martha had never been my ally, of course. In fact, we had probably avoided each other rather than clung together, fearing that our lack of poshness would become magnified by proximity, but in some way I had felt that there was one person on the magazine who understood what it was like to be in this world but not of it. I knew she valued my dedication where others just wondered at my lack of useful contacts or blonde highlights. Without Martha there I felt exposed and vulnerable as the hour of my meeting with Amanda approached. Clearly I wasn’t the only one to think that I might be in trouble. Flickers and Noonoo were huddled together in a corner, whispering and casting looks over towards me. When they saw me looking back they both waved with unconvincing nonchalance. The pointing and whispering just added to my sense of foreboding.

  I kept my eyes fixed on the carpet as I walked to Amanda’s office at the appointed hour, but even so I could feel the frisson of interest that accompanied my progress down the corridor. It wouldn’t have surprised me to discover that I was the subject of the latest office sweepstake. In fact, it would have surprised me more if I hadn’t been.

  Catherine bustled over as soon as she saw me approaching. ‘Oh, poor dear Rory, what an ordeal. I am sorry.’ I wasn’t absolutely sure if she meant Auntie Lyd’s heart attack or the impending meeting, so I just smiled politely and said thank you to cover both eventualities. Catherine ushered me into the editor’s office.

  Amanda, who had her chair turned outwards to the window, spun around and stood up, smiling ingratiatingly. She motioned to the chair opposite her desk and I sat down, folding my hands in my lap to prevent any nervous fidgeting. It wouldn’t do for her to see that I was anxious.

  ‘Rory, how is your aunt?’ she asked, nudging a box of tissues on her desk closer to me.

  ‘Much better, thank you,’ I said. ‘And thank you again for the flowers, we were both touched.’

  Amanda waved away my thanks. ‘Oh really, a mere gesture. What sort of employers would we be not to acknowledge such a difficult time in your family?’ Well, I thought, the sort of employer who has never before taken an interest in my personal life. The sort of employer who had refexively sent flowers to a former celebrity having no idea that she was the aunt of one of her employees.

  I left space for Amanda to speak. It was best to let her take charge of a conversation from the very beginning, I found, since she was bound to do so in the end anyway.

  ‘Although it was a surprise to me that you hadn’t mentioned before that your aunt was Lydia Bell – after all, she would be a wonderful candidate for the Marvellous Englishwoman interviews.’

  ‘She – she’s not really a public person these days,’ I answered. ‘It didn’t occur to me to suggest it.’

  ‘Rory, you need to think more like a journalist,’ Amanda said. ‘Lydia Bell is always going to be a figure of interest to our readers – she’s the right age, the right demographic. Everyone remembers Those Devereux Girls. You should have told me about her before. I mean, who else are you hiding?’ She tapped her pen briskly on her desk as she looked at me, and I realized this wasn’t a hypothetical question. I felt like Ticky, forced to squeeze her contacts at every opportunity.

  ‘Er, Percy Granger and Eleanor Avery?’ I offered, unsure if she would be impressed by either.

  ‘Eleanor Avery from Not Now, Padre? Percy Granger from Whoops! There Goes the Neighbourhood?’ she asked, eyes narrowed. ‘Why didn’t you say so before?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure you’d be interested,’ I said, although the truth was it had never occurred to me to offer them up for p
ublicity in order to further my own career.

  ‘Think. Like. A. Journalist,’ Amanda enunciated, tapping her pen sharply on the desk with every word. ‘Rory,’ she said, and she too tented her fingers as Lysander had earlier. I wondered if it was a technique they had been taught at public school: position to be adopted when conveying difficult news. ‘Rory, you will no doubt be aware that Martha has decided to leave us.’

  ‘Yes, I had heard that,’ I admitted.

  ‘Very sad,’ said Amanda, unconvincingly. ‘For us, I mean; of course it’s delightful for Martha, and we are all so happy for her. And for those of us left behind it means some changes. Which is why I asked you here.’

  Amanda seemed to be looking at me as if for the first time. I wasn’t sure what such intense scrutiny was in aid of. Get on with it, I thought, digging my nails into my palms. Stop acting like you’re about to reveal whodunnit. Just tell me you’re making me redundant.

  ‘Rory,’ she said. ‘I have yet to decide who is going to replace Martha. I’m sure you will appreciate that it’s not simply a matter of just moving everyone up a level. There is a real opportunity for change here and I need to think about it seriously.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, wishing she would hurry up and put me out of my misery.

  ‘I’m going to be changing around some responsibilities. Taking this chance to shake up the editorial team. That being said, I’d like you to apply for the position of features editor. Formally, I mean. You’ve surprised me lately, Rory. The Unsuitable Men column has been fun – witty. Very different from the staid art history pieces I’m used to from you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said cautiously, suspecting that my stock had risen in her eyes less because of Unsuitable Men than because she had discovered that my aunt was once well known. I tried not to be offended that she considered my previous work staid.