Chapter 5
Olivia will stay for two drinks. One would look rude, three would risk her not being back in time to put Jack to bed and make sure Saskia has actually eaten something.
She tells herself she can do this. She can keep up the pretence of happiness for an hour or so.
After all, she’s managed it pretty successfully for the last forty-four years.
Going to celebrate new role with a few drinks, she had texted Nick earlier.
Won’t be late! It isn’t exactly a lie, but it’s not exactly the truth either.
Since he quit his job in PR to retrain as an English teacher, Olivia has been praying for a bigger salary, and now she’s not going to get it, she feels panicky and anxious, not to mention left behind.
He has spent the last year doing something he’s always wanted to, and now it turns out she’s spent the last year working towards something she’s never going to get to do.
She isn’t sure she’s ready to unpack it all with him just yet. Certainly not over WhatsApp.
Proud of you, he had replied. Already booking the builder for our celebratory en suite!
The WhatsApp tab is punctuated by a glaring red dot, full of unread messages she’s swerved reading all day.
Olivia’s heart sinks as she opens her mother’s reply in the group chat.
While I appreciate that you have finally let us know whether or not you will be coming, please could you be so kind as to reply via the RSVP card I went to the trouble of producing?
It won’t take you a minute and I have already paid for the postage.
Any news on the job? says Lily, mentioning the thing her mother didn’t deem important enough to. Olivia feels both wounded by her mother’s lack of interest in her professional life, and relieved that she doesn’t have to go into the more pathetic details of it right now.
At the Red Lion, Olivia makes her way to the bar, where she hopes to down a glass of passable red wine before ordering another one and heading over to her colleagues.
And yet every time a bartender seems to approach to ask for her order, they are distracted by some other, younger specimen who manages to cut in first. She seethes silently as the minutes go past and she remains, desperately, without alcohol.
Joe arrives at the other end of the bar and is immediately served.
He raises his glass in the air with a smug smile at Olivia then sidles over.
‘Do you think Anniversary Architect is slang for “shave down staff numbers to a level that makes The Morning viable enough to move into its next centenary”?’ asks Joe, his lips loosened by the gin and tonic in his hand.
‘I think it means I get to plan an awesome party, Joe,’ says Olivia, staring hard at the barman, in the hope that it will stop her voice from cracking and giving her real feelings away.
Better to swallow them down. She focuses on the bottles behind the bar, thinks how good it will feel once the contents of them hit her throat and extinguish the awful feelings inside her.
‘Right. Can’t imagine anyone putting you in charge of firing people,’ continues Joe, suppressing a chuckle, before wandering back to the table.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ says a young woman in a pale pink suit, sliding in at the bar next to Olivia.
‘It’s the innocent ones you always want to look out for.
Never heard the phrase “baby-faced assassin”?
’ Like Joe, the girl immediately catches the attention of a bartender.
‘A pint of Hells,’ she says as Olivia swears under her breath, ‘and whatever this woman is having.’
‘A glass of house red,’ says Olivia, stunned. She hands the barman her card and looks at this brazen young woman next to her. ‘Thank you. I’ve been waiting for bloody ages to get served.’
‘Rose,’ says the girl. She reaches out a bangled arm and shakes Olivia’s hand. She is twenty-four, twenty-five tops, but has a steely look about her that terrifies Olivia. ‘I’m a new PA at The Morning.’
‘I’m Olivia.’ She leans against the bar and takes her glass of red gratefully from the barman.
Rose pulls some tobacco out of her suit pocket and begins to roll a cigarette. ‘And which department do you work in, Olivia?’
‘Oh,’ says Olivia, her sense of self deflating ever more. ‘I work on the features department. Although actually, my boss has just given me a new job as Anniversary Architect.’
‘What the fuck does that mean?’ laughs Rose, looking up from her Rizla so she doesn’t blow the tobacco across the bar.
Olivia blinks. Who is this woman? ‘It means I need another drink.’
‘Come for a smoke with me,’ says Rose, handing Olivia her freshly created cigarette and beginning to roll another one.
‘I don’t smoke,’ says Olivia, holding it awkwardly.
Rose looks at her, puzzled.
‘Why not?’
‘My mum told me not to,’ she mutters, realizing how pathetic this sounds. ‘It’s, erm, bad for you.’
‘Lots of things are bad for you, Olivia.’ Rose stands up, and nods in the direction of the door. ‘But the baddest thing of all is not being willing to live a little.’
Olivia clears her throat. ‘Well,’ she says, rising to her feet. ‘I’d better not get off to a bad start with you, if you’re new.’
‘And what would happen if we did get off to a bad start?’ asks Rose, turning on her bright-white Nike Air Force 1’s.
‘Well, I mean, it would just be … suboptimal.’ Olivia winces as Rose throws her a pitying eye roll.
She meekly follows the younger woman out of the door and into the smoking area.
‘If we’ve got to work together, that is,’ says Olivia, watching Rose light her cigarette.
‘It would be terrible if we started off on the wrong foot.’
Rose exhales, then goes to pass her lighter to Olivia. Olivia fumbles with it awkwardly. She hasn’t smoked since her last birthday party pre-pandemic, but she figures the odd one won’t do her any harm. After a day like today, it might actually do her some good.
‘People get off on the wrong foot all the time,’ Rose says, surveying Olivia as she lights the rollie. ‘The world wouldn’t stop spinning on its axis.’
‘Well, I prefer smooth sailing,’ coughs Olivia.
Rose gazes at her, blowing smoke out the side of her mouth. ‘How’s that working out for you?’
‘Great!’ beams Olivia, trying not to choke. ‘Just been promoted, get to work with you, have a wonderful family waiting for me at home. It’s all working out great.’ She coughs out a load of smoke, just as she notices Stephen and Nina walking up the street towards her.
‘Hmmm,’ says Rose, as Nina and Stephen pass behind her into the pub, without giving either of them a second look.
Olivia watches as the pub erupts in celebration at the arrival of The Morning’s editor and his new star columnist. ‘The frown that spread across your face as you watched those two would suggest that everything is working out far from great.’
‘Yeah well, he just gave her the job I’d been promised. I guess I’m still working through my disappointment.’ Olivia sucks furiously on her cigarette.
‘Who are they?’
‘Hang on, don’t you know who he is if you’ve started working here?’
‘I’m still settling in.’ Rose coolly drags on her rollie. ‘Just at the beginning. I’m looking forward to getting going in this thrilling industry.’
‘Well, I’m looking forward to working with you. I should probably go inside and—’
Rose flicks some ash on to the ground. ‘No, you’re not.’
‘Not … what?’
‘Looking forward to working with me. There’s no need to lie.’
Olivia splutters. ‘I’m not lying. I don’t lie.’
‘So far in this conversation, all you’ve done is lie,’ Rose says casually, as she drops the butt of her rollie on to the pavement and crushes it with an Air Force 1. In the pub, Olivia watches Stephen handing over his credit card to the barman, who hands him several bottles of champagne in return.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Olivia feels her phone vibrating in her pocket, and rummages to retrieve it.
Before Olivia has even realized what is happening, Rose has plucked the phone from her hands.
‘What the hell are you doing?!’ It’s the closest that Olivia has allowed herself to a visible expression of fury since she last saw her mother.
Mum, when are you going to be home? We’re out of gluten-free pasta.
Rose’s face is uplit from the glow of Olivia’s phone.
It makes her seem like an avenging angel.
She starts tapping out a response. ‘I’m just telling your daughter that you’re having a well-earned night out with your friends, and you’re not available for requests at this time. ’
Olivia stares at Rose uncomprehendingly as she hands her back her phone.
‘Oh,’ she manages, her brain unable to form anything coherent from sheer shock. Behind Rose’s head, Stephen is pouring out glasses of champagne and gathering their colleagues round the table. ‘Right.’
‘Shall we get the fuck out of this miserable shithole?’ says Rose, looking over her shoulder to the scene taking place inside. ‘And have some actual fun, instead of pretending to celebrate a position with the worst job title since someone came up with the idea of Chief Happiness Officers.’
‘It is kind of shit, isn’t it?’ agrees Olivia, saying the first true thing she has felt all day. She watches as Stephen throws one arm around Nina and raises the other into the air as he makes a toast. Inside, she feels something fracture just a little.
‘Let’s go,’ says Rose, a mischievous smile breaking out on her face, and she leads Olivia towards the Tube.