a kind of imprinting. I’d been let down by my life and orphaned by my friends. I hadn’t talked properly to anyone who wasn’t my partner in so long, it was as if I had an overflowing store of friendship backed-up in me. You. Yes, Lily, even though I wasn’t sure about you, I was that pathetic; I was ready to bury my doubts. This is who you become when no one returns your calls, and the only people troubling your mobile are your GP, your partner, or Vodafone.
On Tuesday morning I spent ages choosing an outfit that might make me look fresh and relevant and not mutton dressed as lamb. I hopelessly tried to do my makeup to achieve a dewy sheen. I wondered if the time was coming when I should let my natural colour come through, or dye my hair something other than black, which seemed suddenly blocky and incongruous against my dulling face. I desperately wanted to collapse the years between someone like you and someone like me.
Part of me was glad when you weren’t at the bus stop. I was disturbed by the horrid dream I was struggling to shake off, but buoyed by the fact my articles would be live on the website and in the shiny new editions on everyone’s desks by the time I got in. You may have changed the cover for the issues they’d distribute at the awards, but this edition would be all mine.
I got to my desk. Still no you. And no coffee from Asif either. I turned to find the two of you nestled next to each other on the old sub editors’ desks, huddled around what looked like proofs of the most recent issue.
‘Good morning. Time for a quick catch up? Katherine?’ Gemma tried to get my attention from the doorway of her office.
‘Be right there,’ I said distractedly, watching Asif run his fingers over his beard as you looked to gauge his reaction to something you’d just said. I watched until I couldn’t anymore, closing Gemma’s office door slowly on the sight of you throwing your head back in glee. Asif looked as if he could just climb right inside you there and then.
‘Congratulations on this.’ She threw a fresh copy of Leadership towards me over her desk. ‘Some great foundations we can really build on.’
‘Thank you.’ Is that it? For 12,000 words from your most senior writer? Patronising.
‘What I want to talk to you about, today, is how we’re going to achieve that.’
‘Yes?’
‘I hope you’ll take what I’m about to say in the spirit in which it is intended … I’d like us to talk about reorganizing our content, making a few tweaks to your writing. So, to that end, I’ve asked Lily to look at what’s working and not working on the website. I should probably tell you, early indications on the two articles she posted—’
‘Two articles? I didn’t see any copy from her.’
‘Asif edited them yesterday evening. Well, they’ve already had more click-throughs and longer combined viewing times than all of your content in the last four weeks put together.’ I watched you through the glass. You were now flicking your fingernails under your chin, before biting your bottom lip as you started to type. I was ready to assume it was your picture byline driving your traffic. ‘She’s young, but she’s a quick learner and she knows how to give online readers in particular what they want, so I’ve booked some time away from the office for you and her. She’s going to help you look again at your writing. There’s no shame in needing to re-boot. You could find this is the best thing to happen at this stage of your career. Details to follow. Now, are you up for the challenge?’
What a slap in the face. The humiliation. You were going to teach me. I didn’t yet know you would teach me the lesson of my life.
I had no choice but to say, ‘Of course I’m up for it.’
You kept trying to talk to me all day, but I gave you the brush off. I needed more of an idea of what I was dealing with before I let you know anything else about me.
I read your pieces. A horrifying truth dawned. You were actually pretty good at this. A natural attention-grabber. Your headlines were nearly as enticing as your picture byline; your copy was as taut as mine was saggy. When I re-read my features, they felt in the reading how they’d felt in the writing: hard work. I was angry, I thought it was at you and Gemma, but it was really at me, for being so tired of it all.
But what had Asif been thinking, putting up two pieces from a day-old intern like that? He sent the odd smile over from his side, but knew me well enough to give me some space. It wasn’t until gone seven when the office had emptied that I heard him come up behind me to say goodnight.
I looked about. You weren’t at your desk, but your machine was still on, so if you were going to file any more sparkling ‘content’, it would have to go through me.
‘Late night at the office, K? Kind of reminds me of old times.’ Asif, hands in his pockets, took a step closer. I guessed he was trying to get back into my good books and it was only to make him feel better that I told him, ‘Ah, the days of yore. I miss them too. But you know me, Mr Khan, there will always be a part of me that’s down with the brown.’ I smiled and turned in my seat to face him.
And I don’t know how, but there you were, right behind him; a millennial spectre clutching an orange Bobble water bottle, complete with a luminous shard of cucumber glowing within. You looked flustered, maybe because you were appalled at the idea of Asif’s buff twenty-six-year-old body against my creaking bones as they had been once. I noted to one day tell you that just because you’d turned his head, you couldn’t undo history. Not even you.
‘Sorry, I thought I’d get a head start transcribing my—I can’t concentrate in my flat.’ You turned to Asif who was by then smirking at his shoes.
‘Don’t worry. I’m off. I’ll bid you ladies goodnight. Don’t work too hard.’
We both started typing and a difficult silence settled.
‘Would you like me to pretend I didn’t hear that?’ you said eventually.
When did young people get so prissy, so unable to take, give, or hear flirting? I had seen this attitude in so many of my interns in recent years. The rebuffed compliment, the blatant distaste when I’ve said something, anything, even faintly sexual. This wasn’t the first time I’d wondered exactly when and why a whole generation became so joyless, so sexless. Then I wondered if your indignation was fired because you’d heard I had a serious partner and believed there was only one way to do that right.
A pause.
‘Shall I tell you something? My partner and I have a code,’ I began. I wanted to shock you now, I had you on the ropes and this would be my one-two jab, to show you up for the wrong-headed innocent you were, give you something else to chew on. ‘There are rules. I meet someone I’d like to have sex with, we discuss our feelings and he signs it off, or he doesn’t. If he comes across someone he’d like to have sex with, I say yes, or I say no. My partner signed off on Asif, once or twice, but then we agreed I should stop. You see, we’re a couple who are first and foremost for each other. That never changes. But if we’re lucky, Lily, we’re a long time alive, and a long time together. People my age are capable of believing there’s more than one way of doing something. My advice to you? Don’t judge what you haven’t tried.’
Suddenly, displaying the full peacock tail of my sexuality, I felt restored; the real me rising from the ashes of the day. But this wasn’t my one-two jab, it was your rope-a-dope: the art of taking blows, letting the other fighter expend themselves before going in for the kill.
‘I
