Chapter 16
As soon as Jo had passed through the double doors into her newsroom, she sensed a strange atmosphere.
There was the slightly hushed, heads down, every desk filled, hard-working Friday evening feeling, but also something else, something bubbling under. Everyone was so smartly dressed, for one thing. The news desk were all in white shirts. She saw Jeff’s best suit jacket hanging over his chair.
It wasn’t until the features editor crossed her path, thirty yards ahead in a red silk dress, that Jo twigged.
‘F-u-c-k,’ she spelled out to him. ‘I’ve got to write the whole Tyler interview up now. Then I’m going out on something important tonight. I can’t do director bloody drinks. Why the bloody hell have they picked a Friday anyway? It’s our busiest night.’
‘Number one reason: it’s drinks with the whole group, not just us. Number two reason: you think they give an arse? So long as we’re bringing home the bacon, who cares what our office hours are.’
‘Jo?’ Jeff walked up to his chair, having heard most of this exchange, ‘I know you’re snowed under, but you have to come for half an hour, shake the relevant hands.’
‘Why didn’t you remind me?’
The answer to this question was too obvious: ‘Would you have come back in here if I’d reminded you?’
‘No.’
‘Well then.’
‘Jesus, I’ve not got anything to change into—’
‘Go and speak to Tilly. She’ll have something,’ was Jeff’s suggestion.
‘You think I can just slink into something from the fashion department’s rail?!’ she spluttered, but still, the compliment was nice.
‘Go and ask her… she did a piece on fat birds last week. There might still be something left from that,’ he teased.
‘Your charm, sir, knows no bounds.’
‘Go away!’ He flapped his arms at her. ‘Sort this out. We’re both far too busy to even talk about this. But Savannah’s good stuff, is it?’ he asked just once again. They’d already spoken about it on the train.
‘Top of your list, matey, unless you’ve got anything better.’
‘No. Good, good.’
She had turned to walk away but still caught Rod’s teasing: ‘Jeff! Jeff! There’s a beetle in my drawer… Please can you come over here and stun it with your big strong arms?’ which provoked some raucous giggles.
Oh ha, bloody ha.
Tilly was at her desk in something diaphanous, pale grey, chiffon and perfect.
‘You look fab,’ was Jo’s opener.
‘Oh dear and you look like you’ve just got off the bus,’ Tilly said back.
‘Train, actually. Four-twenty from Oxford. I’ve got a whole interview to write up for the front page tonight, plus some late-night detective work. Somehow, I’m supposed to do cocktails in between… and no one reminded me.’
‘Oh dear, oh dear, and have you come to me in the hope of a rescue remedy?’
‘Well, I mean, if you had something I could dress this suit up with a bit?’
But Jo looked down at her boxy navy-blue jacket and matching trousers without much inspiration. Even if she took off her shirt, added jewellery, a lacy bra and strappy heels, she wasn’t going to transform into Kate Moss.
‘No. I can’t rescue that suit, Jo,’ was Tilly’s verdict. ‘But don’t worry, There might be something in the storeroom for you. We did “best dresses on the high street” last week, as modelled by our readers, and I don’t think they’ve gone back yet.’
Jo followed Tilly into the little room, kept locked at all times, from which the fashion pages were created.
‘Over here in the bags.’ Tilly summoned Jo to a pile of carrier bags, taped up and labelled, ready to be returned to the shops that had lent the clothing.
‘Open those up, we’re bound to find something,’ Tilly instructed.
Everything that Jo got her hands on was hideous: clingy, satiny – there was even a dress in pea-green and mushroom.
‘Look, I don’t know about this,’ she told Tilly. ‘Is it so bad if I turn up in my suit? I’m working, I’m at work, for Christ’s sake. Isn’t it enough that I’m going to be working till God knows when – without any overtime, by the way – without having to dress up in cocktail gear as well?’
‘I agree with what you’re saying,’ Tilly replied.
‘Yes, it is ridiculous, yes, it is a pantomime, yes, they should pay us overtime… But… it’s a free drinks party with our bosses’ bosses, you’re there to meet and be met, to impress everyone with your charm.
Plus, you’re single now and you should be allowed to enjoy these rare treats to the full.
Now what about this? This was my favourite of the whole shoot. ’
With a flourish, Tilly lifted a shimmery pink and gold number from its carrier bag resting place and shook it out.
‘Size 12,’ she added with a degree of practicality. ‘Most of us are paying the nanny overtime so we can stay on for this bloody party for free,’ Tilly threw in. ‘Welcome to free market economics! If our bosses treated us the way we treat our nannies, we’d all be a lot happier. Wouldn’t we?’
‘That’s really very nice,’ Jo took a closer look at the dress, reaching out to touch the fabric.
‘Careful,’ Tilly warned. ‘There’s a reason it costs ￡54.99 and not ￡540.99.’
‘Ah.’ The pale pink dress was synthetic satin, the kind nighties had been made of when she was a child. The stuff that made your hair stand on end when you whipped it on and off. If you did it in the dark, you could even see sparks.
Over the pink was a clever golden layer made of a coarse, striped nylon mesh. It felt horrible but still, the dress looked lovely.
‘And we’ve got the shoes.’ Tilly dangled pale pink strappy sandals from one hand. ‘And somewhere in here, the coat that we photographed with it. Go on, try it on. It looks lovely.’
Jo got out of her suit and shirt, not minding that Tilly would be able to appraise her workaday white bra and shorts.
‘At least you’re shaved, that’s all I’m going to say.’
‘Ha. Well, I was out on Wednesday night.’
‘And not going to get out much again, if you carry on wearing pre-pubescent underwear.’
‘I thought it was back in fashion. I’m sure I’ve read all about “the new modesty” on your bloody pages.’
‘Yes, well, that’s fine if you’re eighteen. Not if you’re thirty-eight.’
‘Thirty-five!’ Jo exclaimed. ‘I don’t look thirty-eight. Do I?’
‘Yes, darling,’ Tilly trilled, ‘Of course you look thirty-eight. You wrinkled old crone!’
Once Jo was in the dress, Tilly was delighted with the effect.
‘Your fairy godmother has triumphed again. Now shove your feet into these shoes, let me give you some of my free sample Dior apricot lipstick, since you still insist on wearing that purple gunk, and we shall be off to the ball.’
‘What size are these shoes?’ Jo asked, scrunching her toes hard against the unyielding pointy ends.
‘A five, unfortunately, but you can do it for half an hour, can’t you?’
‘Maybe,’ Jo replied, very uncertain.
The room, spread out over the penthouse of the building with a wall of windows overlooking sparkling city lights and London’s most exclusive marina, was already packed by the time Jo and Tilly arrived.
Jo was trying to squeeze through to the long table laid out with food and drink but she knew almost everyone in the room, so it was impossible not to keep getting drawn into those irritating mini-conversations an event like this was all about.
‘Yes, we think the redesign is working well, ah, here’s Jo. Her pages have a much more unified feel to them now, don’t they, Jo?’
‘Um, er yes… hello, Floyd, how are you?’
Several minutes of listening to the chief sub, aka most boring man on the planet, and his ideas for the sport pages followed, before she could politely say: ‘Look, I’m just on my way to the bar. I’ll catch up with you later.’
But before she made it there, a champagne glass was nudged into her hand, then a hand at the small of her back began to steer her towards the circle of frighteningly important looking bigwigs in the centre of the room. ‘Nice dress,’ Jeff said.
‘Yeah, watch it though, it’s pretty scratchy and if I get too near a naked flame – whoosh, I’m going to be toast.’
He gave an amused smile then added: ‘The directors want to be introduced to you.’
‘Oh, joy. Let me just have a few sips of this first.’ She gulped at her champagne, despite the difficulty of rapidly swallowing the small, sharp bubbles.
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ Jeff warned, ‘or else you’re going to burp at the Chief Executive.’
‘OK,’ she told him, when her glass was half drained. ‘Lead me to my execution.’
The little party drinks and little party snacks were so deceiving.
You thought you’d eaten, when in fact you’d only had twelve beads of fish egg on a Ritz cracker, and you thought you’d only had a drink or two, when in fact you’d necked down four cocktails with the alcoholic equivalent of a bottle of vodka.
Meeting the paper’s Chief Executive, which she had done several times before, provided just the sort of panic-inducing situation where all the drinks party disasters could happen at once.
She gulped hard at the champagne and tried not to actually pant with fear as Jeff led her over.
‘Jo Randall, how do you do?’ The steely-haired, immaculately dressed über-boss was holding out his hand at her. ‘You’re much prettier than in your byline photo.’
‘Oh n-n-n-no, not really,’ she stammered.
‘Get a new photo taken of her immediately,’ he said to the assorted execs standing in the circle around him, in his inimitable: ‘Am I joking? No one can be sure, so rush to do what I’m asking anyway’ power trip.
Jo was now in the inner circle, the boss opposite her, various executives, the Finance Director and Spikey all crowded around.
‘Busy week?’ Boss was asking her. Terror, terror.
‘Yes, as always,’ she smiled, winningly she hoped, praying he wouldn’t ask the follow-up.
‘So, what are you working on?’ No luck, he’d asked it.
‘Oh well, I’m not sure if Mr Skinner would want me to breathe a word,’ she said with a smile. And look, she’d managed to refer to her editor publicly as Mr Skinner, not Spikey. That was a good thing.
‘Feel free,’ Spikey volunteered. ‘I’m sure Mr de Groote isn’t going to tell our rivals.’
Oh, thanks a lot.