of our open-plan expanse, made more private by metal archive cabinets on one side and chest-high acoustic panels on the other. The publisher – who had a very nice office – had fixed ideas about editors working in the midst of their staff. And so it had been, back in the Errol days: he had a big desk opposite Ilse, right in the middle of the floor, surrounded by his team. By the time I started on the magazine, Eddie had migrated to the corner. The archive cabinets and acoustic panels had appeared during a reorganisation a couple of years ago, a reorganisation made possible by our declining numbers. We would tease Eddie about his fortress, and he would tease back, saying he needed a bit of space to himself, to give him a break from all of us. Then those deep, gentle brown eyes would turn serious, perhaps even a little sorrowful, and he would say that sometimes people, us, came to him with delicate matters, sensitive personal or professional issues, and he wanted us to feel secure in doing that, to have some privacy. Really it was for our benefit, not his. And didn’t we prefer having a bit of distance from our boss? Not having him looking over our shoulder the whole time?
He really was an amazingly thoughtful guy. But he was talking with Polly, and it looked tense. Polly was holding her steel clipboard in Clipboard Pose #4: Body Armour, clutching it to her chest in crossed arms. As Eddie spoke, she gave a series of little nods to punctuate what he was saying, a human metronome on a slow beat. She was behind the De Chauncey stitch-up, I was certain of it. Two interviews – the injustice of it was planetary, galactic.
As if to confirm my private suspicions, she abruptly turned to leave Eddie’s office, and as she did so she looked straight at me. Our eyes connected, and something burned in hers, something that could be read as ruthlessness, or even cruelty.
Eddie looked up wearily as I entered his enclosure, announcing myself with a knock on the acoustic panel, a knock robbed of almost all its sound, reduced to a submarine bump. I had gone over as soon as Polly left, wanting to catch him before he picked up the phone or was detained by someone else.
‘Jack …’ he began, and his expression said, Never a quiet moment.
‘Eddie,’ I said. ‘These two interviews …’
He rolled his eyes. ‘No. Stop. We discussed this in the meeting. You’re doing both.’
‘It’s fine, that’s fine,’ I said, holding up my hands in surrender. There was a little armchair by Eddie’s desk for visitors to sit in but I chose to stand, as Polly had done. Business-like. On task. ‘I just want to make sure it’s OK to take the time I’ll need to do them properly. I’m seeing Pierce tomorrow, Wednesday for transcribing, then Thursday and Friday for writing. So if we arrange De Chauncey for Monday next week …’
‘No,’ Eddie said. He frowned, eyebrows coupling. ‘No. No. I’m not having you out of the office for two weeks, not when I’m out as well. You don’t need that much time. You’re meeting Pierce tomorrow morning, right?’
I nodded.
‘You can do De Chauncey in the afternoon, while you’re out. Transcribe both on Wednesday. On Thursday I can take a look at both transcripts, and we’ll know where we stand.’
I shifted from one foot to the other, uncomfortable. Standing suddenly felt like a lot of effort.
‘Come on,’ Eddie said. ‘Don’t give me this. I know you can do it, you used to do it all the time. Come Thursday, I want you back in the office, and we’ll make decisions about which feature to prioritise. I want clear progress before I go on leave, something I can have confidence in. Ready to show on Friday. Important day, Friday. Then you’ll have a clear run at writing, OK? Without me breathing down your neck.’
My ankles were doing a lot of extra work to keep me upright, I realised. I was being undermined – the pleasant sensation of the sand being sucked from under the soles of your feet by a receding wave on the beach, reborn as a nightmare. Undermined, yes, that was it – Polly digging away at my basis, unseen.
‘Sure,’ I said. I wished I had sat down when I came in – it might have looked less formal and professional, but there was nothing formal and professional about falling over.
‘Look, I don’t enjoy micromanaging you this way, but I also don’t enjoy it when you let us down, and when I have the others complaining that they have to pick up your slack.’
Polly – that had to mean Polly. Or Freya?
‘I don’t want a reprise of last month, or the month before,’ Eddie continued. ‘You were in the meeting this morning – it’s a tough time. The toughest. We can’t carry anyone. No passengers, get it? Need you up front, stoking coal.’
‘Sure,’ I said, squeezing out a smile. Had I been in the meeting? What had been said? It was a swirl already, nothing but half-gestures and loose words.
‘Great.’ Eddie smiled back, a comforting sight, which gave me hope I might make it out of his office and back to my chair without total collapse. ‘Pierce is a good catch. How did you get him?’
‘Uh, I’m a fan,’ I said. ‘Quin – F.A.Q. – put me in touch with him.’
‘The Tamesis guy? F.A.Q.?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I thought he wasn’t best pleased with us?’
I shrugged. ‘I smoothed him over.’
‘Anyway, Pierce could be great,’ Eddie said. Even in my depleted state, I noticed this was a bit more equivocal than ‘great catch’. ‘Get the goods from him, something new and exclusive, and you’ll have a great piece. Listen for a strong opening. Once you’ve got that the rest’ll write itself on the Tube home.’
‘Sure thing,’ I said, and my affirming smile took a little less effort.
‘Big week, then,’ Eddie said. He nudged his computer mouse, waking the screen, to indicate that the meeting was over. ‘Real chance to do something great. Make us all proud.’
‘Sure. Great. Thanks, Eddie.’
It was 12.04. That would do. I slipped out of the office. Having had my dreams for the rest of the week dashed, I had no desire to be interrupted over lunch, so I ‘accidentally’ left my phone on my desk. The bubbles, the vibration, had completely left me.
It was about ten to two when I returned. We were allowed an hour for lunch and I liked to do some generous rounding in my interpretation of that rule. Eddie was pretty relaxed and didn’t count the minutes. I figured that if it was twelve-something when I left and one-something when I returned, that’s an hour. The people who left at one wouldn’t be back yet, the people who left at twelve thirty would have only just returned. It was normally quite easy to slide back into the office without anyone paying attention to how long I had been gone.
Normally. Today, however, there was a small crowd of my colleagues gathered between my desk and the window: woman Ray, Polly, Mohit, Kay, Kim from promotions, and even a couple of golf wankers and craft weirdos from downstairs, whose names, of course, I did not know. My desk, with its dank heaps of notebooks and magazines, was not their focus, thank heavens. They were looking out of the window.
‘Walthamstow?’
‘Don’t be silly, Walthamstow’s over there. It’s the estuary somewhere.’
‘Royal Docks?’
‘City
