one finger up at her brother, which was about the rudest thing she knew how to do. ‘You’re such an idiot. You’re only being like this ’cause you’re upset about Mum and Dad.’
His face clouded over and his eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t know anything,’ he said. ‘No, I’m not, so fuck off.’
‘No. Go away. I hate you.’
‘What a weirdo.’ Rhodes smiled. ‘A Happy Ending is when you wank someone off. Give them a happy ending. Yeah? Wanking. Rubbing my dick till I spunk.’ He grabbed his crotch. ‘Like Lucy Haines did to me, last month. That’s a happy ending. Oh, yeah.’ He smiled, and rocked his hips back and forth. ‘Oh, oh, oh, yeah.’
Eleanor didn’t know what to say, or where to start. She was silent. ‘You are disgusting,’ she said after a pause. ‘You are vile. Go away.’
Rhodes was still smiling. ‘I’m going. Happy endings. Mmmmm.’
‘Piss off.’
Eleanor slammed the door after him, then opened it and slammed it again, as hard as she could, and then she pushed the chair from the desk up against the handle and put her hand up to her mouth, clamping her lips together. She sorted her books into a pile: the Sylvia Plath poems, the Sylvia Plath biography, Forever Amber and a couple of spare books just in case so she didn’t have to resort to those stupid magazines like Just 17, 19 and Mizz. They riveted her as well as terrifying her, full of silly girls going on about boys and rubbing almond oil into your cuticles – she didn’t even know where cuticles were. It was so stupid, trying to pretend that silly stuff was part of real life, when real life was ugly and horrible, like Rhodes, like this house, like … everything.
She looked down at the poem. ‘A Happy Ending for Me’. She ripped the page out of her notebook and tore it into tiny pieces, her bottom lip sticking out as the tears she had pushed down inside her came up; and as she sank to the floor, Eleanor Bee hugged her knees and told herself that one day, it’d be OK. She’d be a grown-up, and she would have a happy ending. The nice sort. Happily ever after, with a house full of books, a video recorder to tape Neighbours and all the clothes she wanted from Dash and Next.
But even as she sat there, rocking herself, tears dropping freely onto her scabby knees, her dark fringe falling into her eyes, she knew that sounded stupid.
‘London eats up pretty girls, you know.’
‘Not me!’ she assured him triumphantly. ‘I’m not afraid!’
Kathleen Winsor, Forever Amber
‘SO, ELLE, WHAT are you reading at the moment?’
Her palms were stuck to the leather chair and Elle knew if she moved them they would make a loud, squeaking sound.
‘Me? Oh …’ Elle paused, and tried to gently manoeuvre one hand out of the way, but found she couldn’t. ‘I don’t know. Um …’ She racked her brains for the ‘buzz phrases’ she and Karen had gone over that morning in Karen’s tiny kitchen. Karen had written them on Post-it notes.
Buzz phrase. Buzz phrase. Oh, God.
‘Well, I love reading,’ she said eventually. ‘I’m passionate about it.’
Jenna Taylor tapped her biro on the grey plastic desk. She cast her eyes over to the blue fabric wall dividers, then looked back, forcing a smile to her face. ‘Yes, that’s great, so you’ve said. What are you actually reading at the moment, though?’
Elle already knew this interview could not be going more badly. It was like when she’d begun her second driving test by pulling out and nearly crashing into a grey Mercedes which meant an automatic fail, and she’d still had to take the rest of the twenty-minute test. But her mind was a total blank. She could feel the angry red blush she always got when she was flustered starting to mottle the skin below her collarbone, creeping up her neck. Soon her face would be luminous red. She moved one hand. A high-pitched, farting shriek emanated from the chair. ‘Um – what kind of thing do you mean?’
Jenna’s voice was icy. ‘I mean, can you demonstrate that you’re up to speed with what’s going on in the world of publishing at the moment? If you love books as much as you keep saying you do, it’d be great if you could give some examples of what you’ve read lately.’ She smiled a cold smile.
Elle looked around the tiny open-plan office. It was almost totally silent. She could hear someone typing away at the next office space to Jenna’s, and the whirr of the air conditioner, but apart from that, nothing. No one talking at all. They were all reading, probably. Being intellectual. Making decisions about novels and biographies and poetry and other things. How amazing. How amazing that she was even here, having an interview at Lion Books.
‘Lately …’ Elle knew what the truthful answer was, but she knew there was no way she could actually admit it. She was halfway through Bridget Jones’s Diary and it was the funniest book she thought she’d ever read, plus at least once every other page it made her shout, ‘Oh, my God, me too!’
But she couldn’t say that. She was at an interview for one of the most respected publishers in London. She had to prove she was an intellectual person of merit. Intellectual person, yes. She coughed.
‘Well, the classics, really. I love Henry James. And Emily Brontë. Wuthering Heights is like one of my favourite books ever… . I love reading. I’m passionate about …’ Oh, no.
Jenna crossed her legs and wheeled the chair a little closer. ‘Eleanor, look around my office. If you’d done your research you’d know I publish commercial women’s fiction.’ She slapped some spines on a shelf, dragged out a handful of thick paperbacks. ‘Gold foil. Legs in lacy tights. I need a secretary who wants to work with commercial authors.’ Her face was hard. ‘If you like Henry James so much perhaps you should be applying for a job at Penguin Classics.’
Elle could feel hot tears burning at the backs of her eyes. The red blush was crawling across her cheeks, she knew it. I don’t understand Henry James. I only liked The Buccaneers on TV. I’ve applied for jobs everywhere and no one’s interested. I’ve been sleeping on a friend’s floor for three months and eating Coco Pops twice a day. I’m drinking in the last-chance saloon, Jenna. Please, please give me a break.
‘… If you’d told me you liked Bridget Jones, for example, or you were reading Nick Hornby, or Jilly or even bloody Lace I’d have some indication that, despite your total lack of office experience, you were interested in working in publishing. Hmm?’ Jenna fingered a lock of long Titian hair with her slim fingers.
‘I do like Bridget Jones,’ Elle said softly. ‘I love it.’
‘Really.’ Jenna obviously didn’t believe her. She looked at her watch. ‘OK, is there anything else you’d like to say?’
‘Oh.’ Elle looked down at her sweating thighs, clad in bobbling black tights and a grey and black kilt that, she realised now, was far too short when she was sitting down. ‘Just that … Oh.’
I know I screwed this up, can you give me another chance?
