What had she got to lose anyway? Whatever she had agreed to do, it couldn’t be that bad. She delved into her bag, scratching her hand on a thorn of the rose, whose existence she’d forgotten, and failed to find her cards in the jumble at the bottom.
‘I’ll have to scribble my details on this.’ She knew she was probably committing herself to more than she wanted. But what the hell? He took the slip of paper then, to her surprise, offered his hand and gave her a vigorous handshake and replaced the goggles. Bea prayed that no one from the office had seen them together. In some disbelief she watched the back of what, if Let’s Have Lunch had their way, might be her future cycling off towards the City, then turned to look for a cab back to the fray.
Chapter 2
As Bea tapped in her security code, the plate-glass doors to the editorial and publicity floor clicked open. She walked past the reception desk, where the young temp manning it while Jean was on holiday was busy multi-tasking – nails, book and interrupting her too-loud conversation with her boyfriend to connect outside calls. Impressive as a feat of juggling, maybe, but not exactly what one looked for in a receptionist. Bea made a mental note to mention it to HR. The shelves in the reception area were crowded with Coldharbour’s latest books, primed for the bestseller list. In our dreams, she reflected wryly.
All the team knew that whatever the promises made to earnest young novelists or ego-bound celebrities, the reality was that only a few would really get the marketing push they’d been promised and only one or two might, just might, make it to the holy grail of the bestseller list. All the team knew the chances of making it were remote. The ratio of disappointment to expectation in her job was much higher than when she’d been an eager young editor twenty years ago. Back then she could take a punt on an unknown writer and expect to be supported. Calculations were done on the back of envelopes and editors shaped the profile of the publishing list, rather than accountants and salesmen. Was it any wonder that she had her increasing moments of disenchantment?
Only a few steps towards her office and Bea could sense the tension in the air. Something had happened since she’d left for lunch. Unusually, all four assistants in the open-plan area were at their desks, half hidden by piles of manuscripts, boxes of books and the low dividing screens pinned with postcards and notices that made up each workstation. The excited buzz of conversation tailed off as she approached and the girls looked up at her expectant as she walked by. Puzzled, but desperate to take off the new red suede peep-toe shoes that were killing her, she smiled at them and carried on, willing the blister she could feel burning on the side of her right big toe to subside. She was surprised to see that Stuart and Jade, the two editorial directors, were still there. In all the years she’d known them, they’d believed that, whatever the emergency, their weekends began at Friday lunchtime. They were huddled in Stuart’s glass-sided goldfish bowl of an office, door shut, intent on their discussion. Stuart looked up as she passed and said something. Jade glanced at her too. Bea ignored them, too anxious to get comfortable.
She reached the sanctum of her office, kicked off the beautiful but offending shoes and hung up her jacket with relief before turning the air-con up a notch as yet another flush threatened. Surrounded by the books that, over the years, she had brought to fruition, whether by acquiring them from American publishers or by gently prising from the authors the best book they could write, she felt at ease. This was where she belonged. Editing, working with authors, was all she wanted to do. If only it didn’t come with all the additional admin that she found so trying. Once she had dreamed of being a writer herself but that had retreated into the distance as she’d seen what a precarious existence it could be. As she sat at her fashionably curved desk, which gave her a view across the rooftops of central London, she longed for the days when she’d had a secretary who would tidy her desk whenever she went out to lunch, putting everything in order. No longer allowed such a guardian angel, this afternoon she was faced with God knew how many unread emails and assorted muddled papers – a half-read manuscript, minutes from various meetings, costing forms and the still unopened post.
As consolation, she opened her desk drawer and selected a pink-and-brown-wrapped square ganache chocolate, Earl Grey Tea flavour. Every girl needs a particular passion, she thought, as she popped it into her mouth – and hers was good chocolate. It had begun seventeen years earlier when she was thinking about getting pregnant and needed consolation after she’d cadged her last cigarette (she’d given up buying them months before). But, over time, she’d exchanged the bars of Fruit and Nut for specialist brands, so good they demanded she ate less of them (or so she’d convinced herself ). The pocket box of chocolates from Demarquette had been a present from an agent who’d found the most direct way to her heart. As her mouth filled with the divine bitter-sweetness of the chocolate suffused with the delicate citrus undertones of bergamot, she turned to the task in hand.
She tried to live by the maxim ‘only touch each piece of paper once’. It had been shared with her by someone much more successful than herself. Since then she had struggled to deal with or delegate each one as she made herself take it from her in-tray but it just didn’t work for her. So often she’d be interrupted in the middle of dealing with something and would succumb to the temptation to slip that piece of paper into the pending tray – her desk’s graveyard. Once there, nothing ever came out. Of course, there was less paperwork now than there had once been. Welcome to the world of the email. She sighed, noticing that forty more had accumulated during her brief absence. She clicked on the first just as her door opened.
‘Bea. What’s going on?’ Stuart shut the door behind him and, without waiting to be asked, cleared the unsteady pile of manuscripts off the extra chair and sat down. The rich slightly acrid scent of his sweat reached her at the same time as she noticed the damp stains in the armpits of his shirt, which was grubby at the cuff and neck. He was a good-looking guy of about thirty-five, one of the most astute and commercially minded editors she’d come across, but his personal hygiene left something to be desired. His rather brutal haircut and the razor-thin white scar that ran from his right ear to the side of his nose suggested an aggressive streak that she had never, in the three years they’d worked together, come across. If anyone asked him how he’d got the scar, he just smiled and said it was ‘one of those things’. As a result he retained a slightly mysterious aura that clearly made him extremely attractive to some, judging from the comments that Bea had overheard in the Ladies.
‘Not a clue. Why would I know anyway?’ Bea’s attention was suddenly caught by an email from Let’s Have Lunch and another from Mark that had just pinged their way into her mailbox. Damn. She’d have to open them later.
‘Come on. You’re always the first to know everything. Stephen’s always in and out of here.’ Stuart’s anxiety to find out whatever was going on was bordering on desperate. He pulled his fingers one after another so they cracked.
‘Do you mind not doing that? I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about. What’s happened?’ She hated the way everyone assumed that her long-standing friendship with the managing director meant she knew everything there was to know. Though she hated it even more when she didn’t.
‘Piers arrived just after you left, looking like thunder. He came straight up to Stephen’s office and they’ve been in there ever since. They pulled the blinds so they couldn’t be seen.’ Stuart’s voice rose with excitement as he described the unexpected arrival of the chief executive of Rockfast. ‘Then all the directors were called in, one after the other, and Jan’s been looking for you. They all came out looking absolutely stony and won’t talk to anyone.’ He leaned forward as if expecting Bea to share whatever secret there was.
‘I’ve no idea what’s happening.’ Bea hated confessing her ignorance. ‘Nobody’s said anything to me.’ Only because she’d been a bit late getting back from lunch, dammit.
‘But Stephen tells you everything,’ Stuart sounded outraged that Bea hadn’t got the answer.
‘Not
