the very woman who’d masterminded the buyout of Leadership. I couldn’t leave you there, even if I wanted to. The day had felt like a huge test I needed to pass. You were making me fail it.
When it got to 9.17, the meter bust forty-five quid and I was getting seriously pissed off. Not only because I’d lost all hope of not being late, but also because once it got past £60, I’d have to submit a ‘business case’ with the receipt under the new staff code of conduct.
I looked at your laptop case again. The driver thumbed his phone. The courtyard was empty. I let my hand inch over to the far side of the back seat. Your case was made of suede, soft as butter. It felt expensive. The closing mechanism was a string and leather tag wrapped around two buttons. Anyone wanting to sneak a peek would have to remember exactly which direction you’d tied the figure of eight around the buttons. They would have to be quick about it.
Before I could stop myself, my fingers had unspun the twine and flapped the case open. Your phone number and your name in sensible black ink capitals:
LILY LUNT
So, you were some relation to Gemma Lunt.
Well, wasn’t that a neat detail you’d chosen to keep to yourself. I wondered what else you might be opting to not tell me and what you would divulge to Gemma from the information you’d gleaned from me so far.
The driver stirred, saying something like, Here we go. I looked up to see you sweeping out of the door and into the courtyard. My fingers were suddenly sodden. Was the string wrapped round the top button first or second? From the left or the right? I tried one way, it didn’t look right. I tried another, it still looked wrong. I quickly glanced up again. You were still a few seconds away, but on seeing me, broke into a quick jog, a wholly fake display that you gave a shit over how late you were making me. I fumbled desperately. You were at the other door and your perfect little figure of eight had been replaced by a damp, slack tangle. You climbed in, and if the mangled thread didn’t tell you I’d been tampering with your things, then my sweaty guilt surely would. I’d have to distract you and hope against hope you wouldn’t notice. So although you should have been apologising to me for royally fucking-up my morning, instead, I found myself over-brightly asking you, ‘Everything alright?’
‘Yes, good thanks. Hi, we can go?’ you said to the driver.
Your eyes rested on your case.
You knew.
You were carrying a black cube with the words Caran d’Ache embossed in silver. I didn’t know they were a luxury pen maker until I googled it later. This, the family business and a mother working in the City? You had to be made of money.
‘Something for Gemma?’
You pulled your eyes off the dirtied twine and breathed as if you were saying Look, Katherine, without actually saying it.
‘I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t want to make things, like, at all awkward. So, Gem is my aunt. I know a bit about optimising content, that sort of thing, with the magazine and the website, I guess it seemed a bit of a no-brainer, me helping out? Gem and my mum, they haven’t always been best buds.’ You tapped the box with an alabaster finger. ‘Sorry. Family stuff. Look, I’ll explain to Gem it was me. I made you late. My bad, honest,’ and your dark eyes flickered down onto your laptop case again before returning to my face.
Optimising content. We used to call it ‘good writing’, and once upon a time some, just a few of us got our jobs on merit, not because of the luck of birth. Now I was going to end up walking in with you, like I was in on it. My team were going to disrespect me even more than they already did.
‘Don’t worry about it. Really. How about we start again from the beginning?’
You smiled: surprisingly wide and meaningful, some strange energy coming off you as your sunny lips stretched over tombstone teeth, eyes darting across my face again. My anger started to recede. That smile of yours. Another one of your gifts.
‘You got it. Let’s start again.’
A minute later in Monument, the traffic was dire. My stomach turned with dread. I couldn’t afford to feel this way. I summoned what Iain would have said to me: It’s not so bad, is it, girl? Let’s get a bit of perspective, will we?
OK.
Maybe I wouldn’t have made it on time anyway, and now I’d rescued the boss’s niece from a puncture and missing buses. Perhaps this was a good start after all? Maybe I was actually winning.
Come on, it’s a good day, no?
We reached the open air of London Bridge and I let the thin March sun reflecting off the river lift me. I nearly loved London again in moments like that, when your eyes sweep left and right over the Thames and it feels like the Southbank, Big Ben, Tower Bridge and good old HMS Belfast exist just to make you feel it’s good to be alive. Today will be a good day.
‘So, have you been editor for very long?’ you asked from nowhere.
‘Some might say too long,’ I replied before I could stop myself.
‘Would they?’
‘I’ve been there about twenty years now … I still love my job.’ The sound of ‘twenty years’ in my mouth felt like a great stone I wanted to spit out. I thought, for the thousandth time, about how it had got to such a vast amount of time. Thankfully, you seemed to have lost interest before I’d even finished faking the joy of my two decades at the same place.
We crossed the river and pulled up outside the office. I needed to pay by card. You sat forward on the edge of the back seat, your legs pointing in the direction of the door.
‘You go ahead while I sort this out,’ I felt obliged to say, as I tried to add a tip in a way that made mathematical sense and didn’t look tight, but still kept the total south of £60.
‘Thank you. Is that OK? You’re sure?’
‘Out you go.’
‘I’ll be super-quick with Gem.’
‘That’s not—’ I said, pressing the button that added 15 per cent on top of £57.50 in my distraction.
‘Thank you, Katherine.’
The first time you said my name.
You gave me a thousand-watt smile which I returned in a kind of wonder.
‘That’s fine,’ I said to the air as I watched you skip towards the revolving doors of my office building.
Out on the pavement, as I stuffed my card back in my purse and tried to regroup before heading in, I felt a tap on my shoulder.
‘Thought you could do with this today.’ Asif handed me a tall black coffee. He smelt of a recent spritz of his beloved cologne, Fierce by Abercrombie & Fitch, his forehead glistening in the strengthening sunlight, hazel eyes gleaming under dark, soft curls that made all the interns swoon. At least I had him in my corner.
‘My god, you fucking star.’ I took a sip that burnt my tongue. ‘You been in yet?’
‘I have.’
