Chapter 50
50
‘My plant’s here!’ Bel said, childlike delighted at the colossal paper box blocking the stairwell. Toby had agreed the décor budget could stretch. She wrestled with the cardboard to free a potted palm in an earthenware urn. It turned out to be too heavy for her to move. After some comic straining noises and managing to wheel it an inch, the leaves shaking violently, Connor got up and moved it to the corner of Bel’s choice.
‘Ta dah! It needs a name.’
‘Like draping Christmas lights in a squat,’ Aaron said. ‘Like a Bagpuss beanbag in a crack den. If it makes you happy, though. Got some more good news for you an’ all, Bellatrix,’ Aaron said. ‘The photographer from Friday’s do has emailed the general address for the office saying he met a woman who didn’t want to be in the photos and he doesn’t know her name. Gotta be you?’
‘Oh yes, that was me,’ Bel said, brushing earth from her sleeve as she sat down. ‘I asked him to respect my zero imagery online policy.’
‘Well well, in that case …’ Bel realised too late that Aaron had laid a little mousetrap and she had nibbled the cheese, ‘He wants to ask you on a date.’
‘Piss off, seriously? What?’ Bel said. She blushed a hard red as if they were in school, which was not like her.
‘I quote: “She was lovely and I’d like to see if she fancies a drink, if that’s not too forward.” Bet I could get the horny little toad sacked from his picture agency for it.’
Bel had no comeback, also unlike her. Somehow, the involuntary troubled look that passed between herself and Connor complicated things. Why did she care what he thought? She did, for some reason. She also realised she’d blushed because Connor was here.
‘How does that make you feel, Connor?’ Aaron added.
‘Me feel?’ Connor repeated.
Oh, fuck.
‘Aye. If someone was hitting on my woman I’d not like it very much.’
Connor frowned– he was back in office Connor mode– and left a ‘You Haven’t Intimidated Me’ length pause.
‘Bel isn’t “my woman”.’
‘That’s surprising then, cos on Friday my mate saw you holding hands, ’ Aaron said, with an accusatory flourish, looking to Bel. ‘And then you got into a taxi together and left early? Sudoku and a mug of Knoops hot chocolate was it?’
‘God Almighty, do you have people monitoring CCTV?’ Bel said, genuinely a little shaken. The Hackney rank was several minutes’ walk away and out of sight of the venue.
‘How long have you lived in this city? And how long have I lived in this city? Speaking of mugs,’ Aaron said.
‘There’s a tangled explanation for it and none of it involves what you think it involves,’ Bel said.
‘Aye, does it not?’ Aaron said. ‘Try me.’
‘Tell you what,’ Connor said, somewhat terse, ‘I’ll do the coffee run and you get Aaron up to date? I don’t think my contribution adds anything.’
‘Good idea,’ Bel said, with relief, as Connor opened a filing cabinet and rifled in the petty cash.
It would be easier one to one. Also, she didn’t know if Connor had enhanced powers of intuition or just really needed a flat white but Bel knew Aaron’s irritation with her would contain things not suited to Connor’s ears. Actually, on reflection, she suspected Connor was principally fuming at the idea Aaron had rights to know who he was sleeping with, and she didn’t blame him.
Once the door downstairs had clanged shut, Aaron looked to Bel.
‘This should be good,’ he said. ‘Your faces just now! As transparent as a jellyfish’s arse.’
‘You know the man from the Yorkshire Post you spoke to the other day for me, Ant? Trying to get up here to say hi?’
‘Yeah?’
‘He’s actually got an unhealthy fixation with me. He tried to hassle me at the awards, Connor happened to see it and intervened. Ant assumed we were a couple and it was effective to play into it to scare him off,’ Bel said.
‘Mmm. Chivalry isn’t dead. Adams worked all this out by clairvoyance and had the confidence to stride over, did he? You know what, Macauley, I didn’t think you’d ever treat me like a fool.’
‘I said it was a tangled story and you’ve only had the first part.’
Aaron made a hands up ‘enlighten me’ gesture.
‘A month ago, I’m undercover—’
‘ Undercover ? All right, Spy cop.’
‘Indeed … and Connor barges right into the middle of it by pure chance. I had no time to warn him, so I tell the person I’m with that he’s my boyfriend. In saying this, I simultaneously alert him to the fact I am up to something. It worked like a dream in the few moments I used it, and then obviously we have to see it through. He’s been having to play-act our being a couple at evenings and weekends ever since. So his helping me out at the awards, which was unrelated– it didn’t come from a standing start. I haven’t told you about the undercover thing because as you know, I’m not supposed to tell you what I’m working on until I’m actually typing it. Toby knows all about it. He signed off Connor having to come on board.’
‘And Connor’s also come on board ?’ Aaron waxed an imaginary moustache.
Bel shook her head at him. ‘I should warn you that, thanks to Ant, I have dramatically low tolerance for men thinking they have licence to attack me over nothing right now.’
Aaron swung on his chair and twirled his pen.
‘Who were you “play-acting” to when you left early together?’ Aaron said.
‘No one, I was antsy and so Connor saw me home. Via the pub.’
‘So, in other words, you were racing off for a late drinks date, for no reason?’
‘No! … Well, yes, but …’
‘Thing is,’ Aaron said, ‘I have a couple of points to make. The first is, office romances hit different in our line of work. How many times did we sit here and rip it out of that guy …’ he nodded towards the stairs that Connor had departed down: ‘All the while I’m thinking you’re on my side, I’m on your side, we’re speaking in private …’
‘We were! We are!’
‘Hang on, I haven’t finished. As you said, “who knows what” is power in this business. If I don’t know you and that guy are banging, then I’m going to conduct myself differently. It’s not fair to let me think one thing, treat you one way, and then you two be pillow talking. You can tell me you don’t pass things on, and I’d believe you, cos I know you’re one of the good ones. But I still want to make my choices knowing if there’s a “bcc” on my email, if you know what I mean?’
‘Fair enough. But you’re referring to me and Connor being romantically involved, which, once again, we are not. Luckily your surveillance doesn’t extend to my bedroom, but in absence of that, you’ll have to take my word for it.’ Bel paused. ‘Also, if we were, why would I not just say so? As you said the other day, we’re all free and single.’
Aaron made a ‘not for me to say’ shrug.
‘Because he’s a right arse and you don’t like to admit you’re shallow enough to go for a fit arse?’
Bel laughed.
‘You know, being forced to get to know Connor much more than I would’ve have chosen to otherwise, sorry to say I have some feedback notes for us.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Yes. He knows he wasn’t friendly on day one but we were somewhat “you can’t sit with us” mean kids, and we outnumbered him. Therefore his defences went up even more. We’ve got to make interns feel welcome in future.’
‘That leads me to my second point. Remember our take on Cicely? What would you think of me if you later found out I’d been slipping her a length? Wouldn’t it make you think I wasn’t exactly who I said I was?’
‘Maybe it would, but mainly because she was twenty-three.’ Bel paused. ‘I don’t think an office where you’re running someone down, gossiping and mocking them, and then getting off with them in secret is the sort of office I want to be founder of, either. That’s not what this is. But in your position, I’d have thought what you thought, because the truth is bizarre. Instead of falling out over it, why don’t we treat this as a chance to write our Constitution? Today’s law says: inter-office relationships with colleagues are OK if they’re consensual, non-exploitative, age-appropriate and not manipulatively covert. However, all interns will be treated with welcome and respect and not as potential conquests. Both of us will disclose to the other if we’re seeing someone working here. In return …’ Bel felt this clause was vital: ‘Neither of us get to complain if all the conditions listed have been met.’
‘All right, agreed,’ Aaron said. ‘You know– you’re all right, you are.’
He smiled a smile that Bel hadn’t seen before. Aaron might be experiencing a newfound sense of responsibility and respect for female agency. Or he might be delighted about the imminent change of intern since he’d found out she was a twenty-five-year-old ex-gymnast called Lexi whose nickname was Flexi Lexi. Hard to say.
‘Isabel’s filled me in,’ Aaron said to Connor, as he reappeared with a tray of cups. ‘I retract my accusations regards your knocking boots.’
‘Good, thanks,’ Connor said, putting a cup down in the mess on Aaron’s desk. ‘One bejazzled Americano.’
‘So, this pretending to be a Mr and Mrs?’ Aaron continued.
‘Yes …?’ Bel said.
‘Who do they think you are– your marks, I mean? You can’t be journalists?’
‘They think I have my best mate’s job, textile designer, and Connor’s still in finance. Luckily he never got round to changing his LinkedIn.’
‘How does it work that yer boy’s all over the awards gallery, then?’
‘What?’ Connor said, head snapping up.
‘The Northern Media Awards. Bel’s suitor obviously thought you were photogenic too. Offer him a throuple.’
He turned his laptop round and both Bel and Connor got out of their seats to look.
Aaron had clicked an image where a group were chatting and Connor was among them, seen in profile.
‘Fuck,’ Connor said. ‘I was so sure I was avoiding him!’
‘Captioned, I’m afraid,’ Aaron said, enjoying himself somewhat, picking another image and opening it so they could see Connor Adams, reporter in the small print.
‘Bollocks!’ Bel said. ‘I’ll call the press office, ask them to take them down.’
‘They’ve gone out, though,’ Aaron said. ‘It’s in the Manchester Evening News and on all them I Love Manny Instagram accounts.’
‘They’ll use ones of the celebrities, surely?’ Bel said.
‘Nah, they’ve run Shagger Bailey but this too cos their reporters are in it. Blame yourself for being a pretty boy,’ Aaron said, opening a browser window to show them the local paper’s website.
Bel and Connor exchanged a worried look. ‘I’m sorry,’ Connor said. ‘You told me to duck and weave and turns out I was shit at it.’
‘Not your fault, it can be really hard to tell. My last paper accidentally outed loads of affairs in panorama pictures of bars and restaurants.’
‘What you gonna do?’ Aaron said.
‘Pray,’ Bel said.