another little rest and she’d be ready to leave the house. Seven ten, Sam’s normal time for leaving for work, came and went and she still felt as if her head was the size of a basketball.
She’d call a taxi instead of going by train. She was sick, she had to cosset herself.
The taxi driver finally arrived at half eight and turned out to be one of the cheeky Cockneys so beloved of tourists and so hated by anyone with the flu and a thumping headache.
‘…so you see, they nicked him for having six people in the cab even though they were all one family. Ridiculous, it is. You can’t break up a family who’re looking for a cab, even though the rules say you can only carry five passengers. Mad, that’s what I’d call it…’
Sam sat in the back and made heroic efforts with her Clinique base. However, being mere base and not miraculous make-up straight from the Jim Henson creature shop, it couldn’t hide her blotchy, feverish skin, or make her look anything other than a sick, 39-year-old woman who hadn’t slept well. To compensate, she made her eyes up heavily, hoping they’d distract from the rest of her.
‘…so I says to him, don’t go busting me, mate. I’m just doing my job…’ said the taxi driver.
She got into work at ten past nine to find a chirpy Lydia behind her desk.
‘You look rough,’ Lydia said.
Sam glared at her and wondered where she’d gone wrong in the choice of this particular assistant. Normally, her assistants would never volunteer such personal opinions. She must be getting soft in her old age. The only consolation was that Lydia was proving to be very efficient, despite her breezy, carefree demeanour.
‘Thank you for that, Lydia,’ Sam replied, ‘and thank you for giving me your flu.’
‘You poor love,’ Lydia was sympathetic. ‘It was a bad dose. Do you want me to get you tea or some tablets?’
‘Tea would be nice,’ Sam said tiredly. ‘Any calls?’
‘Yeah, Steve Parris’s assistant’s assistant, wondering where you were because you’d missed the half eight meeting.’
‘Shit!’ Too late, Sam remembered the all-important breakfast meeting. She was forty minutes late, unforgivable. Well, unforgivable when the person you were meeting was Steve. Her mind sprinted through several plausible excuses but the only real one was a no-no. She’d already heard that Steve was phobic about illness. He’d have the entire office fumigated if he thought anyone in it was ill. Not for the rest of the staff’s benefit, mind: for his own.
Lying was the only option. She phoned his assistant and lied that she’d been sure the meeting was for half nine. ‘It’s my fault,’ she said apologetically, ‘my assistant was away and I mistakenly scribbled it in the wrong line of my appointments book.’ She dutifully wrote ‘Important meeting with S Parris – NNB’ on the half-nine line of her book just in case Steve appeared and asked for proof. She wouldn’t put it past him.
‘The meeting’s over and Steve isn’t happy,’ said his assistant in nervous tones.
Steve was never bloody happy, Sam groaned. He’d been born bad tempered. After knowing him for two weeks, she knew this to be true.
‘Oh gosh, I’m so sorry. What do you think I should do to make it up to him?’ she asked sweetly, knowing that if anybody knew how to handle Steve, it was the poor woman who had to put up with him all day.
‘Grovel,’ was her advice.
Grovelling didn’t work. Steve roared into her office just before lunch, evicting the two publicity people who’d been discussing a forthcoming album release with Sam. He hadn’t waited until they’d fled before he’d started shouting abuse at her. Sam sat calmly, then apologized for her mistake.
‘But,’ she said, naked steel in her voice, ‘coming into my office and screaming at me is not the answer. That isn’t the way I run my office and it’s not the way I expect to be treated, Steve. I am not some junior you can intimidate.’ Her tawny eyes were as hard as nails. She glared at him.
Faced with resistance, Steve backed down. ‘Yeah, I guess I get a little riled occasionally.’
Sam smiled glacially, wishing he’d lose the American accent. He was from Liverpool.
‘I’m glad we understand each other,’ she said, then, knowing that it was time for her to kowtow a bit, added with a large dollop of fake enthusiasm: ‘and I loved Density last night. They were incredible on stage, they just blew me away. They were one hell of a find.’
Steve smiled smugly. ‘It was a good gig, wasn’t it?’
‘We’re going to make a fortune with them,’ Sam added.
Steve practically swelled with pride.
He was so pathetically easy to manipulate. Was it because he wasn’t used to women standing up to him? Most of the female staff were so many levels below him that when he barked at them to make him a coffee, he almost expected them to hop. A woman who gave as good as she got unnerved him. Perhaps that was why Steve had been so keen to hire a man and not Sam. She sighed silently. This job would kill her if she had to go up against Steve Parris every day.
It was a frantic Friday. Sam managed to eat half a sandwich at her desk before she had to attend the weekly marketing meeting. Then, she had to work on paperwork, talk to someone in production about a glitch in an album cover and return all her phone calls and internal e-mails. Lydia went at six and so did most of the rest of the staff but Sam stayed at her desk until half seven, wearily returning e-mails. The pain of her sore throat and throbbing headache were almost eclipsed by her exhaustion. On her way out, she popped into the loo and grimaced at her reflection. She looked like death microwaved up, all pale and pasty.
The security guard nodded as Sam left. Outside, it was dark and raining, typical October weather in London. It was hard to remember that only a month ago there’d been a week of Indian summer sunshine. Feeling miserable, Sam trudged along to the Underground, stopping only to buy some milk and a couple of lemons for her lemon and honey tea.
She got a seat on the train and sank into it gratefully. Around her, people were visibly relaxed, happy that the week was over. A crowd of young women all dressed up to the nines stood like colourful birds of paradise just inside the train doors, too fired up to bother sitting down even though some were wearing ankle-breaking stilettos. Sam leaned back in her seat and watched them laughing and chatting. She remembered being like that once, young and thrilled to be going out. Full of joie de vivre and enthusiasm for life. Now, the only thing she felt full of was flu remedy. What was wrong with her? It wasn’t just being sick; it was something more. But what? At home, she boiled the kettle and made herself some lemon tea before heading to her bedroom to change clothes. On the off chance that Hope might have sent her an e-mail, she switched on the computer while she drank her tea. Hope had been in touch. Sam grinned. Why was it that she loved the words: ‘you’ve got mail’ when she was at home and hated them in the office? Probably because the home mails were nice, friendly ones and the office ones were generally staccato demands to get statistics, information and updates now!
Hi Sam,
You sound terrible, you poor thing. I bet you’re not looking after yourself at all. I know you: all work and no play.
