Chapter 16 #2
‘Well,’ she began. ‘The whooping cough story. We’ll have some new angles on that. Also, the prospective Green MP, Savannah Tyler, we’ve got a cracking first ever, up close and personal interview with her.’
Spikey chipped in with: ‘A real team effort. Great story.’
Team effort?! Crap! Her effort and a tip, a mere tip, from Aidan.
‘Oh God, I hate that woman,’ was de Groote’s magnanimous reply to this.
‘Bleating on about recycling and taking the train. She just doesn’t live in the real world, does she?
I’m not giving up my car for anyone. Took delivery of the classic Aston Martin DB-7 the other day.
Probably does about two miles to the gallon.
’ He gave a cheery guffaw. Did he expect them to agree?
Did he expect them to politely join in dissing their week’s exclusive?
There was her own editor nodding in agreement.
Savannah was sliding right off the front page as they spoke.
‘So whooping cough,’ de Groote added. ‘Tell me what you’re doing on that. No, I’ll tell you—’ he gave a big grin: ‘Inform every parent in the country to go out and get their child vaccinated with the new injection made by Wolff-Meyer. I’ve got a lot of shares in that company.’
A tray of canapés swung in front of them and she picked the one nearest to her and bit in, hoping he would go away and pick on someone else.
What the hell was this? She’d attempted to bite the canapé in half, but now she realised she had a piece of crumbly oatcake in her mouth and between her teeth was the stringiest bit of ancient smoked venison, or maybe even smoked deer hide, she’d ever encountered.
She was trapped. If she let go with her teeth, the remains of the strip of venison would be hanging from her mouth.
She couldn’t bite it in half, but nor could she hoover the whole thing into her mouth.
She would suffocate, not to mention spend an hour trying to chew the bloody thing down.
She was frozen, hand at her mouth, teeth clamped down on this monster, when, of course, the boss asked her another question.
‘So where do your ambitions lie, Jo? Going to stay on the news floor for ever, or do you think you’d like to join us up in the stratosphere one day?’
No one needed to tell her that this was an important question.
She suspected that she probably would not like to join the stratosphere, she probably wouldn’t fit in.
But it was bloody nice to be asked and it deserved a careful, well chosen, ambitious kind of answer.
Not silence as she wrestled with Grampa Roe Deer.
She moved the oatcake away and sort of coughed the offending sliver of smoked venison into her hand.
‘Excuse me, so sorry about that… The stratosphere… I haven’t thought about it, Mr de Groote.
I enjoy my reporter’s job. But the newspaper needs to grow, develop, and I hope I can help with that.
’ See? Great answer, situation rescued… victory.
Except, the boss smiled, held out a hand to her and said: ‘Good, good, well it’s been a pleasure to meet you, Ms Randall.’
Oh God! She transferred the oaty reindeer remains to her left hand, which was also holding her glass, making a clumsy mash of things, wiped her right hand hastily and gave it to her boss’s boss to shake.
‘Well… it’s been…’ Jo stumbled over her excuse, ‘been a p-pleasure to meet you, but I’ve got a mountain of work to get through tonight… that front-page exclusive isn’t going to write itself!’
De Groote made a curt nod.
Come and work in the upper echelons?! Jeeeez, no thanks, can you imagine working for a bunch of arseholes like de Groote every day of your life? She’d rather poke her eyes out with a spoon.
‘How did that go then?’ Jeff was at her side.
She snorted at him: ‘Don’t think you have to worry about me being summoned from the news floor just yet.’
‘Good,’ was his verdict. ‘Are you heading back to the office?’
‘What do you think? I’ve got to knock the Savannah piece into some sort of shape. Then, as I explained to you in great detail yesterday, I’m meeting my friend at the Wolff-Meyer headquarters.’
‘Maybe you should leave that till next week,’ Jeff suggested, possibly feeling guilty at how much work seemed to have piled on to Jo’s shoulders.
‘But she’s already there. This is the best chance I’ve got to do some serious research,’ Jo said.
‘Well, just go and join her. Do the Savannah write-up tomorrow. We’ll wait for you.’
‘Thanks, I appreciate it.’ And she really did. ‘Is your wife here tonight?’ she asked.
‘No, I have to talk to you about that—’
‘Really? Is she OK?’ Jo suddenly worried.
‘She’s fine. We’ll talk tomorrow, post-deadline. After work drinks? Are you staying on tomorrow night?’
‘Am I staying on?! I’ll probably still be filing,’ she replied.
She waved him goodbye and slipped out of the party.
‘You stupid, bloody, fluff-headed fashion twit!’ It was no use swearing at the door, it was no use jiggling the handle up and down a hundred times, and it didn’t even help to kick the door hard with her size five torture shoes.
The door had been locked. The key was in Tilly’s handbag and Tilly was already halfway to Battersea. But Jo’s clothes were on the other side of that door. Jo knew this, Tilly had now been informed of it, too, but there was nothing either of them could do about it.
‘Just go home in the dress, your clothes are totally safe,’ Tilly had told her on the mobile.
‘But I’m not going home, that’s the freaking point,’ Jo had pointed out, ‘I’m going to do some subtle undercover work in a freaking pink lamé dress from freaking H&M. Unless you know of a 24-hour suit shop, I’m absolutely stuffed!’
‘Oh, just shut up now, Jo, it’s not the end of the world,’ Tilly had told her. ‘Button up the coat, take your disgusting old handbag with you and I’m sure no one will bat an eyelid.’
‘Disgusting old handbag?!’ She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘My handbag is a Mulberry bag. It cost nearly a month’s wages and you told me it would be an investment purchase.’
‘I told you to get it in any colour apart from russet,’ Tilly snapped.
‘Oh, did you? Well… well… so what? I liked the russet,’ But she felt winded. All that money and it was the wrong bloody colour! That was bloody fashion for you. It was a game with so many tortuous and complicated rules, she should never even try to play. ‘I have to go,’ she added.
‘I’m sorry about your suit,’ Tilly said. ‘And it’s not really a disgusting bag… I just said that because I was annoyed.’
‘Thank you. I like the flipping bag.’
‘It’s great, really,’ Tilly added. But it was no use, Jo didn’t believe her.
Investment bloody purchase. Who was she trying to kid?
It had been in fashion for five minutes, well no, apparently it had been the wrong colour for even those five minutes.
And what about all those other investments she was supposed to be making?
The pensions plan, the savings account, the rainy-day fund?
She had ‘invested’ in the stupid handbag.
Maybe she could resell it on eBay? Just the thought of that made her feel sad.
She was joined at the hip to this bag and to the big, battered leather wallet inside it.
Jeff had given her the wallet last year.
‘Jo, do you realise you’ve been here four years to the day?’ he’d said, casually leaning over her desk.
‘Have I?’ She’d felt horrified that the time had passed so quickly but it had also occurred to her that generally, she loved her job, and Jeff would probably be celebrating her 20th anniversary here one day. ‘Let me go and see what I can find in my freebie drawer to mark the occasion,’ he’d added.
‘Oh, you’re too kind! Yes, I could really do with another baseball cap with the crappy logo of a kids’ film that went straight-to-video.’
‘I’ll look out for one of those, then.’
But he’d returned to her desk with the wallet. ‘You’re in luck,’ he’d said, handing it over.
‘You get freebies from Mulberry?’ she’d asked.
He had tapped his nose in reply.
‘Look, it has room for all the receipts you’re supposed to hand in to me slightly more often than twice a year, please,’ he’d added.
‘Thanks. This is very nice.’ She’d looked it over appreciatively.
It matched her bag exactly. Same colour, same leather, same design. What were the chances of that?