Chapter Five
The first day of her new job dawned bright and sunny. Anna dressed carefully, not wanting to appear either too smart or too casual. She’d been fretting all weekend about what to wear and had eventually settled on a shirt, black jeans and boots. It wasn’t exactly a corporate position, so a suit probably wasn’t appropriate, but she didn’t want to look as though she hadn’t made an effort.
She’d woken early with butterflies in her stomach. She couldn’t sleep and, when she’d got up, she’d been too nervous to eat. Instead, she’d made herself a sandwich for later and shoved it in her bag, unsure what her lunch arrangements would be.
The last two weeks working at the gallery had been almost unbearable. Both Mark and Jemima had gone out of their way to make life difficult for her. Considering that Mark still supposedly had feelings for her, he hadn’t even acknowledged her birthday, halfway through her notice period. But then why should that surprise her? Mark usually only did things to serve himself. Her dad and Harry had made a fuss of her and she’d gone out on a girl’s night with Daisy on the Saturday, so she’d enjoyed it without any contribution from him. During the last few weeks, the thought of her new job had kept her going, but now that the day had arrived, she wasn’t quite so confident. In fact, walking into the unknown terrified her.
She left for the Tube station in plenty of time. The journey passed without hazard and she was on Daniel’s doorstep half an hour early. She wondered whether she should bide her time and find a coffee shop somewhere. But half-afraid she would get lost and end up being late again, she rang Daniel’s doorbell with a trembling finger.
He took a while to answer the door and when he did he was dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt, with a towel wrapped around his neck, as though he’d just got out of the shower.
‘I’m sorry, I’m early.’ Anna wondered if he was going to be as cross with her for being early too.
‘Well, it’s better than being late, I suppose,’ he said somewhat gruffly. ‘Go through to the kitchen and I’ll be in with you when I’ve finished getting ready.’
Inside the gleaming white kitchen, with stainless-steel appliances and black granite worktops, Anna put her bag down and perched on a stool beside a huge island in the centre of the room. Five minutes later Daniel arrived, looking more composed.
‘Sorry again about being early. One day I’ll get it right,’ she said.
‘Let’s hope so.’ He wasn’t smiling at her attempt to joke.
There was a silence until he said, ‘Sorry. I’m not a morning person — not at least until I’ve had my first cup of coffee.’
Anna jumped off her stool immediately. ‘Then let me make you one.’
‘No, it’s okay, I’ll do it,’ he replied quickly and then, as if he’d spoken too hastily, added, ‘At least on your first day. I can show you where everything is and then you can do it in future. I need plenty of coffee in the mornings.’
She nodded. ‘Noted. Happy to be chief coffee maker.’
When the coffees were made he said, ‘Come on then, let’s take these upstairs.’
‘Upstairs?’ she asked, panicked.
‘Yes, of course,’ he replied. ‘My studio is in the attic.’
‘Oh, right, yes, of course.’ She felt foolish at her overactive imagination.
* * *
Daniel led Anna back through the house and up the sumptuous stairway. The whole house looked like something out of an interior-design magazine and everything was white — the walls, the woodwork, the curtains and the plush carpets. Anna tried to imagine her lot living here and almost burst out laughing. The place would be grubby as soon as they walked through the door. The house was enormous for just one person. What was so amazing about it was how high the ceilings were, each containing intricate ceiling roses with hanging chandeliers. This was definitely how the other half lived. As they made their way up the second flight of stairs to the attic, Anna was tempted to pinch herself to make sure that her new workplace was actually real.
At the top of the stairs, Daniel opened the door into a large, open-plan area. The loft was the length of the house, with large roof windows that let in an abundance of light. Anna gasped at the sheer size and splendour of the studio. Again, it was all white, with blonde-coloured flooring. At one end was a huge desk with a large-screen iMac. At the other, an area where portrait photos could be taken. This was interspersed with comfortable sofas, racks for clothing and built-in wall cupboards, which Anna presumed would contain Daniel’s equipment.
‘Wow!’ It was all she could say as she moved inside the doorway.
‘Like it?’ Daniel asked, his face beaming with obvious pride.
‘It’s magnificent.’ She gazed around the room.
‘Good, because when we’re not on shoots, this is where you’ll be spending most of your time.’
‘Suits me,’ Anna said. She just hoped they would be able to get on — this looked like it could very well turn out to be her dream job.
‘Right, well, first things first.’ He walked over to the desk and picked up a large A4 desk diary. ‘This is my bible — it contains all my appointments, telephone numbers and addresses, times and directions.’
‘Right,’ Anna said.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing. I just assumed that it would all be computerised.’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘It all goes in here. You can’t go wrong with pen and paper.’
‘What if the book got lost? You’ve got no backup.’
‘It can’t get lost,’ he replied grumpily. ‘That diary doesn’t move from the desk.’
‘But what about if you need the information when you’re on a shoot or on the way to one?’
‘Then I have this.’ He pulled a much smaller notebook from the pocket of his jeans. ‘I transfer any relevant information into this before I leave the studio.’
‘Right,’ she said slowly.
‘What’s the matter with that?’ He frowned at her and she could tell that if she mentioned sharing an online diary on their phones he might just explode. She decided to go along with his system for the moment. Maybe, bit by bit, she could bring him into the current century.
‘Nothing,’ she said lightly. ‘It just seems a bit laborious, that’s all.’
‘Well, it’s a system that’s worked for me all my life, so I don’t intend to change it now.’
‘Whatever works for you,’ she replied, trying to be diplomatic. ‘But if it’s all right with you, I might just put all this information into a calendar on my phone, which is backed up to the cloud. That way we can be doubly sure that we don’t lose anything.’
‘If that’s the way you want to work, it’s up to you.’ He didn’t sound pleased about it. ‘As long as you don’t forget to put everything into the desk diary first.’
‘I won’t,’ she said. ‘I’m not about to upset your system.’
‘Good.’ He turned his back to her. ‘Why don’t we go through the diary together? You need to get up to speed with what’s coming up so we can plan accordingly. Let’s sit down on the sofa. We might as well be comfortable.’
Comfortable was not how she felt sitting next to him on the small sofa. She could feel the heat of him, suddenly aware of his hard and muscular form, and the room became stifling as warmth spread through her entire body. She tried to concentrate on the diary, to not think about his proximity, but she was struggling to focus on what he was telling her.
As he talked, she realised how busy he was. It was hard not to be starstruck at the amount of top models and celebrities he was about to photograph, but she was too hyper-aware of his body next to hers. She told herself she was being ridiculous. She had vowed, after Mark, she would never fall for her boss again, and here she was getting all hot and bothered after only a few moments in his company.
‘So you need to learn exactly what equipment you will need for each shoot,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you grab a fresh notebook from the drawer over there and you can make some notes?’
She smiled as she got up to retrieve a notebook and a pen — she was still smiling when she sat back down again.
‘What’s so funny?’ he asked as she opened up the book to a fresh page.
Realising she was at risk of offending him, she said, ‘Nothing’s funny, just happy to be here.’
‘Good.’ He nodded. ‘Let’s get on with it, shall we?’
‘Of course.’
* * *
Daniel found it very disturbing sitting so close to Anna, but he was doing his best not to show it. She was wearing a floral perfume, something he didn’t recognise. The women he mixed with often wore much heavier, more obvious scents, but hers was light and fresh, just like her. He shook his head. He must stop thinking about her like this. She wasn’t his type and she was his employee — or at least she would be if she passed her probation period. And he wasn’t entirely convinced about that. He wasn’t sure he could work with someone he felt was silently mocking him for how he organised his work. He knew it was old-fashioned, but it was a system his uncle had used, and if it was good enough for Uncle Lewis, it was good enough for him.
He continued to go through the appointments for the week, bombarding her with information. She was scribbling down his comments so quickly he was sure her hands must be aching.
Taking pity on her, he closed the diary. ‘You might think I’m a technological dinosaur, but when it comes to editing software, you’ll find I use up-to-the-minute kit.’
‘Really?’ Her eyes widened in surprise, making her look even more endearing. And all of a sudden he found he couldn’t be cross with her.
‘Yes, come on, I’ll show you.’
He got up, walked over to the desk and switched on his iMac, showing her some of the photographs he had taken last week and how he liked to edit them.
* * *
Although she had been dreading today, working with Daniel was turning out to be a lot easier than she’d expected. Spending the entire day immersed in the world of photography was like a dream come true. So much better than having to cram the thing she loved most into the slivers of space between her everyday life. Although Daniel had been terse with her at times, she’d seen flashes of softness in him too. But she also realised he was a complete perfectionist and she’d have to work incredibly hard to meet his expectations. Especially if she wasn’t going to go the way of his previous assistants. And that, she realised, was what she wanted to do. To impress him. She was going to do everything in her power to achieve that.
As she watched him explaining the software to her, she imagined how she could improve her own photographs, if she was ever allowed the chance, forcing herself to push away the feelings he aroused when they were leaning over the keyboard together. So close that they were almost touching. She wasn’t going to have a repeat of Mark.
She’d been attracted to Mark from the moment she’d first met him at her interview for the receptionist’s job at the gallery. He was smooth and sophisticated, and although she’d known nothing about art galleries, he’d made her feel important and worth something. She’d rarely felt like that before. At school she’d struggled with academics, much to her teachers’ consternation. The only thing she’d ever been any good at was art. From her art classes she’d developed a love of photography and from then she’d been hooked. Those classes had been the highlight of her school week, pitted against the frustration of not being able to understand most of her other subjects. She’d dreamed of doing an art foundation course, and even a degree, but then her mum had died and her whole life had changed.
Her mother’s death from a brain haemorrhage had been completely unexpected and all the more traumatic because of it. There hadn’t even been any signs that anything was wrong. One moment she was standing in the kitchen, laughing and joking, the next, she cried out in pain, holding her hand to her head, and then slumped to the floor. Anna flew to her, trying to get her to speak while their father rang for an ambulance. Her mum was already gone by the time the ambulance arrived, leaving the whole family lost and in shock. Afterwards, her father went through the motions of running his plumbing business, but losing his wife knocked the stuffing out of him and he lived on autopilot. When he came home after work he would slump in a chair, watching mindless television programmes, without even seeming to take any of them in. At first Anna tried to tempt him to eat by cooking her mother’s recipes, but, rather than encouraging him back into the world, the memories of the food her mother made for him caused him to push his plate away. Anna then tried to find new recipes that were nothing to do with their mother, imploring him to eat. As if taking pity on her, and not wanting to cause her any more worry, he forced the food down, and slowly, very slowly, he began to heal and return once more to the head of their family. But without his wife by his side, he was never the same again — very much a shell of the man he’d been before.
In an effort to keep things together, and also to keep busy so that she didn’t have to deal with her own grief, Anna took on the running of the house — shopping, cooking, cleaning and doing all the laundry — as well as looking after her brothers. Jack was nine and felt the loss of his mother clearly, whereas Harry was only four and didn’t really understand. She tried to comfort them as best as she could, but she was ill-equipped to be a mother. Sometimes she’d get really angry with her mum, not only for leaving them so suddenly, but also because she’d done everything for all of them, and now she was gone it was all down to Anna.
She was so busy in the year after her mum’s death that she didn’t have time to put any effort into her GSCEs and, although she never expected to get good grades, she barely scraped through the exams. Luckily she managed to pass maths and English, and excelled in her art, having thrown herself into it as a means of escape. But she certainly didn’t have the grades she needed for the further education she dreamed of. Instead, she enrolled at a secretarial college to learn something practical that would get her a job at the end of it. On leaving college she managed to get a boring office job in a stationery company, but each day going to work had filled her with dread. She moved from job to job, trying to find something she enjoyed more, but nothing seemed to hit the mark. And then she saw the advert for a receptionist at a West End art gallery and knew she had to go for it.
She splurged some of the housekeeping money on a new suit and was a bag of nerves as she approached the gallery. But Mark soon put her at ease. After being offered the job, over the next few months, he brought her out of herself, making her believe that she did have skills and talents, and that she could be really good at her job if she put her mind to it.
He became a lifeline to her then, and so it was little wonder that she fell in love with him. And to her amazement he seemed to reciprocate her feelings — for the first six months of their relationship she felt happy again. But he never took to her family or they to him, and more and more Anna began to feel as though she was playing piggy in the middle between them all. He resented it when she put her family first, and they thought he was too smarmy and not to be trusted. Despite Mark’s protestations about how much time she gave to her family, and that he should have her whole attention, Anna refused to give in. Their arguments were followed by painful periods of Mark completely ignoring her, as though in punishment for caring about people other than him. And then one day, when Anna walked into the office, she found him in the arms of Jemima, their boss’ daughter. And her world once again imploded.
‘So what I try to do when I’m editing is to first look at the focus of the picture, and what I want to direct the viewer’s eye to.’
Anna was brought out of her reverie at the sound of Daniel’s words. She quickly pushed all thoughts of Mark from her mind. He was in the past. This was her present and she was going to do her best to make it her future too.