by Pippa Wright
‘I don’t think it’s fags, I reckon it’s the steam from her cauldron,’ hisses Lucy as she makes her way back to her desk. ‘Eye of newt . . .’
As the morning progresses, it brings further revelations about Randy. Rochelle, it seems, got spectacularly drunk at Randy’s party on Saturday and let slip to a journalist that she has sunk her leopardskin claws into Randy on several occasions. She didn’t hesitate to confess that one of those occasions was as I waited downstairs before Lulu and Dan’s party. I remember her flushed face and messy hair as we waved goodbye. God, I even offered to help her with her stupid bags. But more embarrassing still is the fact, revealed in stark black and white on the Hot Slebs website, that Randy told her I was just a fake girlfriend, purely PR, and that I didn’t really mean anything to him. My humiliation is complete.
But at the same time, it’s all over. There are no more secrets to hide. I’ve no doubt that there will be other revelations – that bitchy girl from the underwear shop is surely saving her story for a rainy day – but for me it’s finished. I know, once and for all, that I never meant anything to Randy. Surely nothing further can hurt me.
As I sit at my desk, email upon email piling up in my inbox, I’m overcome by a peculiar feeling. I don’t care about any of it. I really don’t care. Sorry, Caspian Latimer, but I can’t be arsed to reply to your email about picture credits. Nope, Isobel Valentine, I am not going to find someone to look after your dogs while you have a pedicure. As for Declan Costelloe’s request for a written apology for the kiwi fruits: denied. Why am I spending my life pandering to the whims of spoiled celebrities? I could be doing something that actually matters, something that makes a difference. Why should I sit here and get a formal warning for doing what I was told to do in the first place? It’s clear that Camilla has changed over the last few weeks. She’s back in charge. She doesn’t need me any more. And I don’t need her. It’s like a fog has lifted and I can at last see the horizon ahead. Afterwards. For me, it will have nothing to do with Carter Morgan.
Full of resolve and confidence, I push open the door to Camilla’s office. She looks up in surprise, her expression cold.
‘Yes?’ she snaps, covering the papers on her desk with her hand.
‘Camilla, I’ve been thinking about what you said,’ I say, hovering in the doorway. ‘And I’ve decided I have no choice but to resign.’
Her face softens a fraction, but there is a peculiarly triumphant smile on her lips.
‘Lizzy,’ she says calmly. ‘That is positively the best news I’ve had in weeks.’
28
It’s not that I was expecting tears and rending of clothes, nor that Camilla would fall on to her knees and beg me to stay, especially after this morning’s discussion in Sloane Square, but I did think that at the very least she would be a little sad to see me go. After all, it’s been more than four years. I’ve booked her holidays, bought her pregnancy tests, wiped baby sick off her clothes with tedious regularity. I thought we were more than just colleagues. I thought we were friends. It seems that about this, as about so many things, I have been wrong.
‘Pack up your personal belongings,’ says Camilla, standing up and collecting the papers in front of her with purpose. ‘I’d like you to put your resignation in writing and be ready to leave immediately following the twelve-thirty meeting.’
‘What twelve-thirty meeting?’ I ask, confused.
‘The one I’m about to announce just as soon as I’ve spoken to Jemima,’ she snaps.
As she passes me in the doorway of her office, she stops for a moment and squeezes my arm with baffling chumminess.
‘You did the right thing, Lizzy,’ she says, smiling as if we are the best of friends again, and then heads down the corridor to Jemima’s lair. Heads turn to watch her pass like a mini-Mexican wave.
And then I’m on my own, rooted to the spot with my mouth hanging open. So Camilla has finally completely and utterly lost it. Or – my stomach clenches at the thought – is this what she wanted all along? To get rid of me? I guess I’ve saved her the trouble of firing me. Fine! Fine, if that’s how she wants it. Let her see how she copes without me. I allow myself a brief fantasy of torching the office with a can of paraffin, burning all evidence behind me and destroying forever my peerless filing system before I pull open the drawers to my desk and begin the much more mundane task of packing up.
By the time we are all called into the boardroom for the twelve-thirty meeting, my handbag is bulging incriminatingly, stuffed with a Rolodex, my personal stash of Muji office equipment (so much more attractive than that stuff from the Viking catalogue), and a selection of emergency snacks, painkillers and nail files that were floating around in my desk drawer. I prepare for my last meeting at Carter Morgan.
We crowd into the boardroom, jostling for chairs around the table. You can tell this meeting is a hastily arranged one because there’s not a biscuit to be seen. Usually no one at Carter Morgan would think of turning up without first checking that sufficient Marks & Spencer’s Extremely Chocolatey Mini Bites had been purchased. I place myself as far from Jemima as possible, but it’s impossible to escape her cold stare. It’s as if she’s one of those Dementors from Harry Potter, sucking all warmth and happiness and joy out of the room until everyone loses the will to live.
At last everyone is settled. Jemima sits at one end of the table, Camilla at the other. They stare at each other coldly. Jemima waits for the room to fall silent before she stands to speak.
‘I’m sorry to have to announce,’ says Jemima, ‘a series of departures from Carter Morgan.’
There is an audible intake of breath, and everyone glances at each other with silent questions. Jemima waits again, like a professional actress, for the room to be still.
‘Randy Jones has left Carter Morgan. With immediate effect he will be represented by the McCormack Agency in New York and Los Angeles.’
This time people don’t bother keeping silent. The McCormack Agency is one of the biggest in the world, a behemoth with offices in every major city. No wonder Camilla was in such a terrible mood this morning. Randy has betrayed her – all of us – for his shot at world domination.
Jemima clears her throat to speak again. ‘All media queries regarding Randy’s departure are to be directed to me, and me alone.’
All heads swivel to the end of the table where Camilla sits. Why would Jemima take it upon herself to handle the fallout from Camilla’s former client? Camilla smiles implacably, but a small muscle pulses vigorously at the base of her throat. As Jemima begins to speak again, the heads swivel back in her direction as if we’re all watching an extremely slow game of tennis.
‘Camilla Carter will also be leaving the company today,’ Jemima says stiffly.
I almost fall out of my chair with the shock of it. I turn to look at Camilla along with everyone else, but she sits as still as if she were made of stone, and her smile never wavers. ‘Her personal assistant, Lizzy Harrison, leaves with her. I regret that circumstances mean we don’t have the chance to give them a proper send-off, but I’m sure we all wish them well for the future.’
I’m not sure how Jemima has managed to make these few brief words imply that Camilla and I are both leaving in shame and disgrace immediately following Randy’s departure, but it’s clear from the way hardly anyone will meet my eye that the staff thinks we must have done something appalling. Only Lucy stares at me openly from the other side of the boardroom table, mouthing, ‘Did you know?’ I shake my head and look down into my lap.
‘I will be sending out a press release this afternoon announcing these departures, and that Carter Morgan will henceforth be known as Jemima Morgan PR,’ says Jemima with a victorious glint in her eye, though I note she’s not able to look in my direction for a moment.
‘That’s all for now,’ she says, standing up and smoothing her Lego hair with both hands. ‘Thank you.’ She glances at Mel, who leaps to her feet and follows her out of the meeting room with the unquestionin
g obedience of a lapdog.
You can see that none of the remaining staff knows quite how to act with us. Do we carry the taint of failure? Might it be catching? Will Jemima punish anyone who’s seen to regret our departure? Lucy breaks the silence and grabs me into a hug.
‘I’ve got no idea what’s going on here, but I’ll miss you. You’ll stay in touch, won’t you? And let me know where you end up?’ She breaks away with an anxious look in the direction of Jemima’s office.
‘Course I will, Lucy. I’ll miss you too,’ I say, and she steps towards Camilla to say her farewells.
That breaks the deadlock, and for a few minutes we’re surrounded by cautious well-wishers carefully expressing their regret at our departure without in any way appearing to take sides or say anything which may be used against them by Jemima later. It’s like a Communist purge – no one dares to ally themselves with the dissidents, afraid they might be next. Only Josh, the work-experience boy, who has nothing to lose but an unpaid job, confides that, if we ask him, we’re well out of it.
Five minutes later we’re standing outside on the steps of the building, and the Carter Morgan PR Agency is no more.
‘Lunch?’ asks Camilla brightly.
29
At first I decline Camilla’s offer of lunch; breakfast wasn’t exactly pleasant. But it’s as if she’s had a complete change of personality since the meeting, and she cheerily drags me off to a small sushi place in the back streets behind our office. She picks plates off the conveyor belt with huge enthusiasm, seemingly oblivious that I’m not joining in. When she finally notices that I’m sitting in stony silence, she bursts out laughing.
‘Don’t look so worried, Lizzy,’ she says, tearing open a paper packet of chopsticks. ‘This has all gone absolutely beautifully. Couldn’t have gone better.’
‘What?’ I ask in disbelief. I’ve feared it for a long time, but now it’s clear that Camilla Carter has truly lost it. ‘Randy’s left, you’ve lost your job, so have I . . .’
‘I sacked Randy, darling,’ says Camilla as I goggle at her in confusion. ‘I said I would, and in any case, I can’t represent him any longer. I’ve spent the last month trying to break up the company so I can leave. Jemima – well, Jemima hasn’t exactly made it easy for me.’
‘Break up the company?’ I echo, parrot-like.
‘Yes, darling, I have a new job. And so do you, if you want one. With African Vision.’ Camilla spears a slice of sashimi and dips it in soy sauce.
‘Wh-what? You’re going to Africa?’ I say. ‘What about the babies, what about Jeremy?’
This all seems ridiculously improbable: Camilla exchanging her Chelsea tractor for a rickety jeep in a refugee camp? Setting out to charm dodgy warlords instead of newspaper editors? Surrounded by small children in the manner of Bob Geldof? Handing out bowls of rice with flies crawling all over her three-hundred-pound Jo Hansford highlights?
‘Good God, no!’ says Camilla, roaring with laughter. ‘Not Africa! Jamie Welles wants someone to set up a celebrity department – in London, darling, in London. Oh dear, did you really think they’d send me out to Darfur? I think I can do much more good here. And that’s where you come in.’
‘Me?’ I’m still taking all this on board.
‘I’ve been asked to establish a department to coordinate all the personality-driven PR and events for African Vision. There will be four of us, and I want you to come with me. My original start-up agreement with Jemima meant I couldn’t take any staff with me when I left.’ She smiles at me warmly. ‘That’s why I had to force you to resign. I’m so sorry about this morning. I knew you wouldn’t go if I didn’t push you, and I couldn’t leave you there to face Jemima after Saturday night.’
‘You mean you’re not cross with me?’ I asked.
‘With you?’ She laughs. ‘Oh, darling, I couldn’t give two hoots if you slept with Randy or the full Carter Morgan client list, for that matter. You work hard and you’re loyal, and that’s what matters to me.’ She casts me a shrewd look. ‘But I do hope you’ve realized Randy is not at all the right kind of man for you.’
‘Er, yes,’ I mumble.
‘So, will you come with me? To African Vision?’ she asks.
To my surprise, I hesitate. Two months ago I’d have thought that I’d follow Camilla anywhere. I’d refused promotion after promotion that would have taken me away from the comfortable security of a job I could do standing on my head. But now things have changed. I resigned for a reason, after all: hiding behind Camilla might once have been what I did best, but after the last few months I feel I can’t go back. This is an opportunity for change; I can’t let it go.
‘Camilla, you know I love working with you,’ I say slowly, and a little frown appears between her eyebrows as she listens. I take a deep breath. ‘I think it might be time for me to move on. I’ve been a PA for too long. I need to have my own responsibilities, my own projects, not to hide behind someone else all the time.’
I can hardly believe I’m saying this.
‘Oh, is that all?’ says Camilla, leaning back on her stool in a relaxed fashion. ‘Well, that’s not a problem, darling – of course I didn’t think of you coming as my PA. In fact I’ve already hired my assistant. Naturally you’ll be an account executive, and of course you’ll have your own projects from now on. Haven’t I spent the last two years telling you it was time you challenged yourself?’
But still I say no. I’m too bruised and battered from the last few days to make any kind of a lasting decision about my future. I promise I’ll think about it. After all, hadn’t I wanted to do something that would actually make a difference in the world? Maybe this is my chance. But maybe it isn’t. I feel as if my world has tilted on its axis, and a whole new array of possibilities is spread out for me to choose from, like cakes on a plate. Camilla tells me she’s negotiated six months’ salary for me as a leaving present, in exchange for my silence on Jemima’s indiscretion, of course. God knows what kind of deal Camilla must have negotiated for herself, but she seems quietly content, so I can only imagine it’s something substantial.
When I say goodbye to Camilla after lunch, I watch her stride purposefully up the road, heading back to her family at home in Chelsea. She has somewhere to go, a new job to prepare for, the children to look after, a husband expecting her. But here I am, rooted to the pavement by indecision, with absolutely nothing to do. For the first time in my adult life, I’m freed from the steadying moorings of the nine-to-five. It’s three in the afternoon, and I can do anything I like. I don’t feel like going home to my flat by myself, but everyone I can think of will be at work right now. Maybe I could run away?
Thanks to my unexpected windfall, I could get on a plane right now and go to Morocco, stay in a riad, tour the souks and sip hot, sweet mint tea from a coloured glass. Come to think of it, why be so modest in my ambitions – I could go travelling for a year! Diving in Malaysia, trekking in Thailand, touring the wats of Cambodia. Or what about volunteering for a charity – maybe I could go and build new homes for families in Guatemala? Teach English to street children in Rio? Save the whales on one of those Greenpeace boats (though that sounds a little chilly; aren’t there always icebergs in the backgrounds of those pictures)? I’m quite taken with the idea of myself as a selfless volunteer worker, preferably somewhere warm so that I end up with a tan to complement my general do-gooder’s glow. And think of the sense of well-being I’d get from helping the needy instead of the famous. I’d return to London skinny from some exotic (but painless and brief) malaise, with stories of encounters with dishy French doctors from Médecins Sans Frontières and an attractive air of peace and tranquillity like a devastatingly sexy nun. People will ask in wonder how I’ve coped living amongst such poverty, but I will say, head modestly bowed, that my life has become so much richer from the experience.
‘Oi, love, are you going to stand there all day?’ demands a bald man in a fluorescent tabard who’s attempting to weave past me with a trolley full
of beer crates.
So I go home instead.
30
When I let myself into my flat, there’s a courier note on the stairs saying that a package has been left with my neighbours. I knock on Hassan’s door and hear the children inside squealing as they race to open it. There is much fumbling with the keys, and then Hassan’s wife opens the door with children peering out from her skirts. I wave the note at her.
‘Hi, how are you? I think you might have a parcel for me?’
‘Okay,’ she says, smiling politely and nodding. She doesn’t move.
‘A parcel?’ I say again, miming a large box, and then a small one, as if I’m a raver from the Nineties.
‘Okay,’ she says again, perfectly still and smiling.
The eldest boy pulls at her skirt and says something I don’t understand. She raises her hands in comprehension and says, ‘Oh!’ Then he turns to me.
‘She says it’s just here, innit,’ he says in perfect Peckham English, and reaches down behind the door to hand it over.
It’s not a parcel, it’s a small holdall that I’ve never seen before, in expensively distressed quilted leather. Two white interlinked Cs are embossed on the side. At first I think there must have been a mistake – this isn’t mine. But a luggage label is attached, and my name and address are clearly written on it in capital letters.
‘Thanks so much,’ I say, taking it from the boy’s outstretched hand. It’s surprisingly heavy.
‘All right,’ says the boy very seriously. ‘That is one sick bag. Later.’ He closes the door behind me and I can hear the sound of children running back down the hall.
If he means sick as in ‘makes Lizzy Harrison feel so’ then he’s spot-on. I know before I open the bag that this must have something to do with Randy, and that stops me from going anywhere near it for nearly an hour. I leave the bag in the middle of the living room and keep myself busy around the flat instead, spinning round every now and again to glare at it as if I might catch it unawares in a compromising position. When I’ve run out of distractions – I draw the line at cleaning the hob – I sit on the sofa and stare at it for ten minutes before realizing that the next step will be speaking to it, and then I will officially have turned into a crazy person.
