Chapter 3 April – Two Weeks Before the Lift
April – Two Weeks Before the Lift
Tam had been dreading telling her family that she was no longer MD in an acting capacity or otherwise. She knew both her brother and sister would delight in the upstart being put back in her place.
Sometimes, Tamantha wondered if she had been swapped at birth with a child from different parents who weren’t all about appearances and who didn’t have stones for hearts.
Something she remembered from very early on in her school life, so it must have been significant enough to linger in her brain, was her father reading aloud her school report and harrumphing at what her teacher had written: Tamantha is a very kind and pleasant girl.
She’d beamed at that and her father had destroyed her pride with that single scornful sound.
As she got older, Tam realised he’d have been more impressed if her teacher had written: Tamantha has absolutely no conscience and would step on anyone to get to the top.
The word ‘kind’ never appeared on any of her siblings’ school reports.
She’d read them and they were full of ‘intelligent, driven, will-go-far’s, but there was nothing about either of them being nice. Because they weren’t.
Tam concluded she must be a throwback like one of her aunts, who was a bit dotty but really sweet.
Her father, mother and siblings were all slim and willowy with pale-blue eyes and straight fair hair whereas she had wild dark hair and was much shorter in stature (or ‘squat’, as her brother liked to say).
Her features were softer, her eyes big and hazel, her lips fuller.
She couldn’t have been more different to the family mould.
And she had admitted something to only one person in her life – not Natasha or Harris but Anna, a friend she’d had at uni – that she may have been designed to love her relatives on some intrinsic level, but she didn’t like them very much at all.
The plan had been to leak the news about her job demotion to her parents first, but she hadn’t had the chance. What she didn’t want to happen was what, in the end, did happen.
‘Do we have a dress yet?’ asked Davina Bullivant, spearing some guinea fowl on to her fork while staring hard at Tam with her beady little bird eyes. ‘Isn’t it a little ridiculous that you haven’t got one yet, with the wedding in six weeks?’
‘I’m on the case now,’ Natasha answered in Tam’s stead. ‘I’ll find the one we want.’
Tam noted the ‘we’. Even from Natasha. This wedding had been hijacked from the off by her mother and mother-in-law-to-be.
The menu, the venue, the choice of bridesmaids, the printed order of service, flowers, hymns – every element of it.
Tam was only surprised they hadn’t dictated in what positions she and Harris would have sex on their wedding night.
It had been easier to just relent rather than fight them.
It would be exquisite, of course, of that she had no doubt, but the one thing Tam had insisted on was choosing her own dress.
She must have tried on at least a hundred, but not one of them had made her think, this is the one.
She had gone dress shopping alone because she didn’t want to be swayed by anyone’s opinions, and as fond as she was of Natasha, she could be a bit ‘my way or the highway’ on occasion.
But with the wedding so close, Tam did think it was maybe time to enlist her help and so they were going shopping together next weekend.
‘Finally, there will be a result,’ said Davina, smiling indulgently at her daughter.
‘Make sure it is a dress that befits a company Managing Director,’ said Thomas, from his place at the head of the table.
Harris turned to Tam and said, not under his breath, ‘Oh, haven’t you told them?’
Tam’s heart sank into her shoes.
Hellen was straight on it. ‘Told us what?’
Harris cringed and mouthed an apology at Tam.
Jame’s face said he’d possibly guessed what was coming.
‘Oh, don’t tell us it’s bad news?’ Though his tone intimated that he hoped it would be.
There was nothing for it but to confess now she had been forced into a corner. Tam took in a breath to strengthen herself and then delivered the news as casually as she could. ‘Sadly, I’m not the MD any more.’
‘Shock,’ said Hellen, dabbing at her lips with her napkin, not even attempting to throttle back on the sarcasm.
‘Ah,’ nodded her father. ‘Did what I imagine happen then?’
Tam didn’t ask what that was, but she could make a stab at it.
‘They managed to woo Jack Cesaroni to the firm,’ she answered calmly, forcing out a bright smile that didn’t reach as far as her eyes.
‘Who on earth is he?’ asked Hellen distractedly.
‘Big cheese. King Stilton. Hatchet man,’ explained her father with a sniff. Of course he knew the name. He’d been an industry chief before he retired, and a hatchet man himself. ‘Someone they bring in when they want to chop out the dead wood.’
Tam’s mother got up from the table and approached her. Tam prepared herself for a hug because she really needed one, but Samantha was merely on a mission to get to the dish of buttered cabbage.
‘How unfortunate,’ Davina supplied, looking sympathetically at Tam as if making the assumption that she and dead wood were somehow connected.
‘Still, I imagine your redundancy package will be quite substantial,’ said Jame, whose main focus in life was always the money.
‘Where will you go, Tam? What will you do?’ piped up Meredith, making a rare contribution to conversation. Halley’s Comet went past more often than Meredith dropped a comment.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ said Tam, sounding much braver than she felt. ‘I’m to act as Jack’s second-in-command.’
‘I suppose being demoted to an assistant is better than the dole,’ said Jame with more than a touch of glee.
‘Don’t be cruel, Jame,’ admonished Meredith.
‘Oh, shut up, Meredith, she knows I’m only joking,’ said Jame, not liking one bit that his girlfriend had the affront to tell him off, which told in the rough way he nudged her with his elbow.
‘Anyway, I have good news,’ said Davina. ‘I’ve sourced some wonderful personalised serviettes for the wedding.’
‘Whoop-de-doo,’ said Jame, rolling his eyes.
And for the first time in probably ever, Tam found herself in agreement with her brother.