Chapter 30
30
Shards of broken china littered the carpet.
‘You should sit down. You’re shaking,’ Annabel said. ‘Take my seat. I’ll get you some water.’
The smell of pastries wasn’t enough to tempt Fiona to take a bite. She wouldn’t have been able to swallow anything. Her throat had seized up, stopped functioning, like the rest of her, every part of it numb. It was only thanks to Annabel’s dash across the room that she hadn’t ended up on the floor too.
‘Here, drink this.’ Annabel slipped a glass into Fiona’s hand and pulled up a chair next to her.
She took a tentative sip before placing it on the desk.
‘You don’t believe him, do you?’ Annabel asked, shifting in her seat ever so slightly. ‘About our clients? You don’t believe he’ll stop them working with us, do you?’
Fiona stared at the glass of water, as if the answer lay in its calm surface.
‘I do,’ she said. ‘It makes sense. We’d remarked ourselves how strange it was that the ones who dumped us suddenly returned. He’s a powerful man. He told them to stay, and now he’ll tell them to go.’
‘But they won’t. Surely, they won’t. They liked your new ideas, didn’t they? You said they liked the new direction you’re taking.’
‘Maybe they did. Maybe they were just using that as an excuse to save face. It won’t matter either way. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours; that’s how these things work. And Stephen’s going to do anything it takes to get back into Orbiten’s good books after this and the affair with Penny.’
It felt peculiar, giving a name to his mistress like that. She wasn’t just a random, anonymous person any more. She had a name and soon she would probably have anything else she wanted too.
‘So you think he’d go so far as to destroy his wife’s company, her livelihood?’
‘Well, he was intent on destroying our marriage,’ she reminded her. ‘It’s not a huge leap from that.’
The sentence drifted into silence.
‘What do we do now then?’ Annabel asked, attempting to be positive, yet failing to hide her worry. ‘I mean, when will we hear?’
‘I don’t know. I guess we just wait.’
And that was what they did. They sat at their respective desks, staring at silent screens, awaiting the inevitable.
Thoughts of her mother came to Fiona’s mind. Of that last day at the hospital. The waiting. She’d been admitted before, after her first fall and the second. And then after the awful incident, when she’d gone missing for nearly twenty-four hours and was found in such a state, they all thought she would die of pneumonia. She hadn’t. The last time, when Fiona was fairly certain that the inevitable was going to happen, had seen it coming for months, she thought she was prepared. How wrong she’d been.
As it turned out, they didn’t have to wait long. No doubt Stephen had urged them all to make their intentions known as soon as possible. He would want quick results. A short, sharp, focused attack.
One of the executives sounded genuinely regretful. ‘We really have enjoyed working with you, Fiona. And the new direction you’re taking sounds very interesting. We’re just not ready for that sort of change yet. Maybe in a couple of years.’
‘Thank you, Chris. I appreciate you calling me in person and I’m so sorry we couldn’t work it out together. Like you say, maybe down the line somewhere.’
By contrast, other clients sounded almost relieved. Not that it made any difference in the long run. Two didn’t even have the courage to phone and sent emails. Dear Johns.
Different reactions, but the same outcome. Omnivents was dead in the water.
At midday, they decided to get some lunch. Fiona asked Annabel to head to King’s Cross Market and grab a couple of tortillas there. She didn’t actually want any food – she still hadn’t touched the breakfast pastries and wasn’t even sure if the tortilla man still had a stall over there any more – but she wanted some time alone. Even if Annabel didn’t want to leave her on her own for long, she didn’t have a choice.
It was absurd how a few hours could transform a place. This morning, her office had been alive, buzzing with opportunity. Now it felt dead. An empty echo chamber. There was nothing she could do. This was it. Then she remembered the card in her wallet.
Fishing around, she found it. She checked the name and dialled the number.
As soon as it was answered, she asked, ‘Hello? Is that Catherine Green? It’s Fiona. From the eco-conference. Fiona Reeves.’
‘Oh, ah yes.’ The voice at the other end sounded somewhat confused. ‘Fiona and the whale.’
‘Yes, that’s right. That’s me.’
‘How are you?’
‘I was just ringing to arrange that interview you talked about. I could come and meet you anywhere that’s easy for you. I’m free all day today. Well, I’m free all week.’
‘Oh, yes… thank you. Well… I spoke to my editor about it this morning and… well…’ Short pauses punctuated her reply. ‘At the moment, we’re looking for something a little different.’
Fiona inhaled sharply. ‘You mean something that doesn’t upset your advertisers?’
Silence.
‘You know you’re supposed to be a journalist, don’t you? This should be your job: telling the truth, letting people know what’s going on out there. Your lack of balls is half the problem. You should hold people accountable, like you’re supposed to…’ She let the sentence drift.
‘Look, I wish I could help. I really do. Maybe you could try one of the smaller papers? Or one of the online independents? Some of them have huge readerships. You can definitely get your story out there.’
‘Just not with you?’
Another silence was all the reply she needed.
Fiona nodded. ‘Of course.’ She used the cheeriest voice she could muster. ‘I completely understand. Thank you for talking to me.’
‘I really am?—’
Fiona hung up before she could hear another apology.
So that was it. She placed her elbows on her desk and cupped her chin in her palms. Stephen was right. The ones with power keep their hold on it. That’s the rule and damn the planet. Damn anyone and anything they hurt.
Deciding the debris from her fight with him had sat there long enough, she fetched a dustpan and brush from the cupboard. There was something more she was missing, she thought, flicking bits out of the carpet pile. Something that was making him act like that. Maybe there was already trouble in paradise with Penny. Maybe his plan was to make Fiona destitute, so that when he came crawling back, her only option would be to welcome him home with open arms. That would be twisted, for sure, but no more twisted than cheating on her for a year and a half.
She was still on her hands and knees mulling over the absurdity of the situation when a throat cleared behind her.
‘Excuse me, sorry, is this a bad time? We’re looking for Fiona. Fiona Reeves.’
Barely older than Joseph – although substantially less well dressed in a ripped band T-shirt – the girl stood a half a foot taller than the boy beside her, mostly due to the massive, wedged, knee-high PVC boots she was wearing.
‘Is she in?’ The girl spoke again. ‘Fiona?’
‘Oh, yes.’ She pushed herself up from her knees and placed the dustpan and brush on Annabel’s desk. ‘Yes, I’m Fiona. What can I help you with?’
‘Well, with planning an event, we hope.’
‘I’m sorry if we’ve interrupted you,’ said the boy, who she felt was probably technically a man. ‘We’re not too sure how these things go.’
‘You want to organise an event?’
‘We’ve got to organise an event,’ he stressed. ‘A big one. And well, we, it?—’
‘We’ve been struggling and getting nowhere,’ the girl interposed, ‘and then you were recommended to us?—’
‘By whom?’ she asked, wondering who on earth could have survived the Dominic, Octavia, and now Stephen blacklisting. ‘Who was it that recommended me?’
The pair smiled. ‘Jonas. He spoke ever so highly of you.’
‘Said you have a real authenticity about you. A real positive energy.’
‘Oh.’ She racked her brain, trying to think of when, if ever, she’d known anyone by the name of Jonas. It didn’t feel like a name she would forget.
‘Sorry, which Jonas was that?’ she asked. ‘I know a couple,’ she lied to cover her confusion.
‘Of course, sorry. Jonas Oughton.’
Still nothing.
‘He works at the Yoga Palace.’
‘Ahh… ohh.’ Her mouth dried and colour rose in her cheeks.
‘He said he mentioned us to you? About the start up? With the big investors? You gave him your card to pass on to us.’
‘Of course. Of course, I did.’
She studied the young couple. With his inability to make eye contact and her studded choker and belt, Fiona felt sure they were barking up the wrong tree approaching her, for whatever event they’d envisioned. Not to mention the issue of money. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. In the worst-case scenario, she’d listen to their story, tell them she wouldn’t be the right fit for them and send them down to Frolics and Fancies for their party needs.
‘Well, why don’t you tell me what you’re after,’ she said, ushering them to seats. ‘Then I can tell you a little bit about me,’ she offered.
It turned out to be one of those tech-company fairy tales you sometimes hear about. Two young kids design an app for fun, it’s popular, attracts the attention of big business, but they refuse to sell. That attracts the attention of even bigger investors, at which point, they still refuse to sell, but agree to a partnership, still maintaining creative control. She had to admire their chutzpah.
‘It’s a catch twenty-two situation,’ the girl said. She’d introduced herself as Jenny. ‘We don’t want to sell out to one of the big corporations,’ she explained, ‘but we want people to use our app. And to use it they have to hear about it, and to hear about it?—’
‘You need the backing of big investors to help you with advertising, development and everything else. I completely understand. So, what is it you want my help with, exactly? You have an event to organise, you said.’
‘We do,’ Caleb, the male half of the duo confirmed, looking overwhelmed. ‘A launch party.’
‘You don’t sound too happy about that.’
With a reassuring hand on his shoulder, Jenny looked at her partner before turning back to Fiona.
‘The thing is, you know those really geeky tech guys who spend all day shut in a bedroom, never see daylight and have no idea how to interact with humans in a real-life situation?’
‘Not personally, but I get what you’re saying.’
‘Well, we’re them. Like an extreme version of them.’
‘We are not good at talking to people,’ Caleb confirmed, picking at a hole in his jeans. ‘Not good at all.’
‘But you’re talking to me just fine.’
Fiona sensed the overtones of motherly tenderness in her voice. She felt it too. Her thoughts flickered momentarily to Joseph; she needed to check in with him, see how he was doing.
‘That’s because we know what we need to talk to you about,’ Jenny continued. ‘And you are just one person.’
‘And Jonas said you were a great listener.’
This surprised her. From what she could remember, very little talking or listening had been involved at all.
‘Anyway, our investors said that the launch has to be big, make an impact,’ Jenny told her. ‘And they’ve given us a list of people that they want invited. Other than that, they said we were in control. We’ve got to come up with something really good.’
‘We feel we’ve got to show that we are up it, to stand any chance of maintaining control of the business, you see,’ added Caleb.
‘I get it.’ Fiona reached across her desk for a notepad. ‘It makes sense. It’s your launch and you want to have your mark on it.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Great. Okay. How big is the guest list?’
‘Currently, around four hundred,’ Caleb said.
‘All right.’ She wrote down the number, then circled it. ‘That’s doable. We can easily find a suitable space. When’s the event going to be?’
There followed a fleeting exchange of glances and then both sets of eyes studied the carpet. It was, in fact, the very look of Joseph and his friend, before confessing to scraping her car on a bollard, only the second time of borrowing it.
‘We just kind of let it get away from us,’ Jenny finally spoke.
‘Yeah, it’s not like we weren’t doing stuff, you know? We’ve been developing all these upgrades and building this new algorithm…’
‘Okay, so when is the launch party meant to be?’
They still wouldn’t make eye contact.
‘It’s got to be on Wednesday,’ Caleb muttered.
‘Wednesday? As in a week today?’
‘Uh-huh.’ Jenny’s face was red.
‘We didn’t realise it was going to be so big though,’ Caleb was becoming a little more vocal as he tried to justify their lack of action. ‘We thought it would be, like, fifty people, you know? And we could have it a pub or something.’
‘You wanted to launch your business in a pub?’ Fiona couldn’t hide her shock and disapproval.
‘Like we said, we’re new to this.’
Sitting back in her chair, she gazed at the page on her lap, which still contained only the three-digit number.
‘This short notice, for a venue of the right size, you’re really going to have to pay.’
‘It’s all right. We’ve got money,’ Jenny assured her.
‘Yeah, like crazy money,’ Caleb added.
A seed of doubt crept into her mind. A newbie’s idea of crazy money was very different to someone with experience, who knew just how expensive these things could be. She’d seen that enough times with start-ups.
‘How much is your budget, exactly?’ she pressed.
Jenny started flicking through her phone.
‘There’s the email. See.’ She handed her phone to Fiona.
‘Okay, so money is not going to be an issue.’ She swallowed as she handed the phone back. ‘What I don’t understand is how you can have a guest list of four hundred and no venue. Don’t these people already need to know where they’re going?’
‘No,’ Caleb grinned. ‘It’s like one of those secret dining things. You don’t find out until an hour before. No dress code, no venue. Nothing.’
‘Okay…’ That was something at least. Waiting for a venue to be announced had a much more positive impact than suddenly requiring it to be changed.
Had Fiona had a full client list, she would have run a mile from this, even with the size of the budget and the possible commission involved. She would have wished them well and given them the number of one of her solid – but inferior – competitors. But she hadn’t. She’d a handful of clients left, at best. And this could be the exact thing she needed to give Omnivents a boost. Not to mention a few more contacts too.
‘Okay, so I’ve heard what you need,’ she said. ‘But if I’m taking you on, this is what you need to know about the way I work…’