Rebound (3 page)

I drive back home around midday, knowing that it’s not going to be one of those productive and soul-restoring Sundays that make you feel smug and on top of everything. It’s going to
be a waste of time in a can’t-be-bothered kind of way. It’s OK, everyone needs one of those from time to time. I call them Wispa Sundays. She loves them because she gets me, slouching
around the house in a pair of old track bottoms, all to herself.

The house feels stuffy. I open the windows to air it, but it’s wet and windy outside and the dampness immediately seeps into my bones. I feel tempted to turn on the heating, even though
the calendar tells me not to. No one in their right mind turns the heating on at this time of year in this country. It’s supposed to be summer, for God’s sake, except it’s not.
And, as the cheerful weather people tell us, this is what we’re going to get for the next ten years, if we’re lucky. It could be twenty, if we’re not. I decide to ignore the
weather and warm up in a different way. I wrap myself in a green raincoat I picked up in a chandlery in a small coastal village while on a weekend trip to Norfolk with James and head out into the
rain. It’s pretty disgusting outside but I push on towards the Heath, Wispa lolloping about like a happy seal.

I would have thought the Heath would be empty, but there are quite a few hardened walkers defying the weather. I decide to do our usual loop and Wispa and I fall into a nice marching rhythm. As
I enter the woods I’m reminded of the two guys I saw yesterday. No chance of catching any of them in this weather, I think to myself. But there is someone coming from the opposite direction,
down the path leading from Kenwood. It’s a tall man in a grey Barbour wax jacket and as he approaches I’m struck by how handsome he is. Passing each other, we exchange a casual glance
and he reminds me of the men from Dior’s moody ads. Probably gay, I think to myself. I’m distracted by Wispa bundling towards me dragging a branch covered in wet moss. I wrestle it from
her and throw it high in the bushes where she can’t reach it. When I look round, the guy is gone.

We climb up Fitzroy Park and reach the village, both totally wet. As we pass the charity shop something in the window catches my eye. I stop suddenly, pulling on Wispa’s lead. In the
middle of the display, among the dusty crystals and yellow-with-age crockery, at the feet of a headless dummy in a flowery dress sits my teddy bear! I come closer to the window and stare at it. It
definitely looks like James’s
peluche
; not an old toy with a wonky paw and matted fur like you’d expect in a charity shop, but a brand-new, clean and immaculate plush teddy. But
it can’t be, mine got nicked from the car, I try to think logically. But what if . . . no, no, no, this is absurd. Why would anyone break a car window to steal a toy and then take it promptly
to a charity shop? I walk away from the window, having decided it’s just a coincidence, the result of a sudden unexplained surplus of teddy bears in North London. Then a niggling thought
stops me in my tracks. Could it be James, after all? No, it’s impossible. This is absolutely not the kind of thing he would do. I wouldn’t put it past Andrew, but thankfully he’s
been out of my life for years. James wouldn’t do anything so creepy. Wispa pulls on the lead like crazy as we walk down our street. At least one of us is ready for dinner.

I open the front door and remember I should get my keys back from James. I pick up the phone and dial his number. He answers almost instantly.

‘Anna? What a lovely surprise.’

‘How are you?’

He tells me he’s great, has made some new resolutions, signed on a new fitness plan.

‘You know, burn that fat, build the muscle, reshape the body . . .’

‘There is nothing wrong with your body!’

‘Well, there’s always room for improvement.’ The way he says it sounds funny and we both laugh. I like his laugh.

We chat for a while longer and I feel increasingly uneasy about the true reason for my phone call. Eventually we run out of chit-chat and I have to bite the bullet.

‘James . . . I know it’ll sound a bit mean, but it’s not really, it’s just that I need . . . could you possibly drop my keys off?’

I waffle on about needing the spare set for my handyman, who’ll do a bit of work in the house. I know I sound like an idiot, a mean idiot at that. But his reaction makes it instantly all
right. Of course, he says, sounding as if he’s to blame for the oversight, he’ll swing by and put them through my letter box. It’s no problem at all, he assures me. I thank him
profusely, too profusely, and we say goodbye, wishing each other the best of luck.

Revenge? What was I thinking? He’s a good man. But no, I warn myself, don’t even consider getting back together with him. It was nice while it lasted, but now you need time on your
own, stay single for a while, I hear Bell’s voice in my head tell me.

‘OK, girlfriend,’ I say, partly to myself, partly to Wispa, and go to the kitchen to fill her bowl.

As soon as I arrive at work I know it’s going to be a day from hell. Claire informs me my calendar has been cleared of all afternoon appointments to make room for a
meeting with the President. Julian, as he likes to be called, although in my opinion Mr President would suit him much better, is coming to his London office personally. It can only mean bad
news.

I ponder all the unsettling scenarios. Reorganization. Hiring freezes. Budget cuts. Lay-offs. They all imply change. I’ve been around the block a few times, so I’m pretty used to
change. I know I can survive, even if I get the sack today. But the majority of my staff, all those supposedly free-as-a-bird creative types, producers with the resilience of a butterfly’s
wing, dread change. A rumour of lay-offs or even an unexpected promotion, anything that brings up fears of being unemployed, sets them off into a frenzy of panic or turns them into perpetual
moaners who carry their hurt egos around like open wounds for anyone to see. Then there are the ‘permalancers’, who our business relies heavily upon. Freelancers who hang on to one job
for months or even years, against the advice of their accountant and their own better judgement. They can be difficult and needy too, although in reality they haven’t got a leg to stand on
and can be got rid of with a click of a mouse. Whatever change Julian will announce this afternoon, I’m not looking forward to it. And I dread its fallout.

Gary puts his face through my open door. Damn, I forgot to shut it. My open door means anyone can pop in, in the spirit of the open camaraderie so painstakingly perpetuated by the company. Gary
is my biggest promotion blunder. A fourteen-year-old boy trapped in the ageing body of a forty-year-old man, carrying his fat beer gut like an attribute of youth, Gary used to be a mediocre, but
useful, senior producer until I promoted him to Creative Director. Big mistake. Now the boy thinks he’s a man. He shows his temper exactly when he’s not supposed to, then crumbles in
tears like a baby at the sight of any challenge. Now he’s on a mission to destroy Bill. Bill is an editor, one of the longest serving in the company, and he has something Gary fears most:
balls. And Bill has witnessed Gary dressing down, in a particularly nasty way, a shy and rather sweet-looking permalancer named Lisa. What Gary didn’t know was that Bill was going out with
Lisa. So he ripped Bill’s girlfriend to shreds over nothing right in front of him, in his edit suite. Bill went straight to HR. HR reacted in their own wishy-washy way. Gary was gently
reprimanded. Freelance work for Lisa had immediately dried up. Bill was left fuming. And Gary had embarked on a back-stabbing mission to get rid of Bill. But as nothing happens very quickly in our
company, they are both still here, hating each other’s guts. I find Gary increasingly nauseating and I wish I could turn back the clock. But clocks go only one way in this place, onwards and
upwards.

‘You busy?’ says Gary with his boyish grin that is supposed to mean ‘Oh, I’m so cute.’

‘I am, Gary. Sorry. Can it wait till tomorrow?’

‘Sure.’

‘Oh, Gary, can you shut the door?’

My glass door closes and I’m left in peace. I hide in my glass sanctuary through the morning, nipping out for a quick bite to eat in a cafe everyone avoids. It has famously bad food, but
at least it’s always quiet.

At five to three my work calendar pings and I make my way upstairs to the executive floor. Julian welcomes me as if I’m a long-lost relative. He is a small man, always immaculately dressed
and smelling of good aftershave. He has the air of success and satisfaction about him, something that evolves over many years of huge salaries and bonuses. He asks me to sit on his comfortable
leather sofa. He offers me coffee, which I accept. And then he tells me the bad news, disguised as an exciting development. It’s actually a message from the Chairman, he hastens to add,
relieving himself of the immediate responsibility for what he’s about to announce.

‘What we want to create is an efficient and streamlined organizational structure,’ he says and my heart sinks. As the vision of ‘accelerated growth’,
‘integration’ and ‘single operational structure’ fills the office I’m already imagining a long list of redundancies, people having to reapply for their jobs, tears,
grievances, employment tribunals. And then he drops an even bigger bombshell. It appears an external management consulting company has been hired to, as Julian puts it, ‘manage the
change’. From now on, and for the foreseeable future – the next three months to be precise – Cadenca Global will be our guardian angel. I’ve never heard of Cadenca Global,
but Julian assures me they are the best money can buy. I don’t doubt that. Spend money to save money: that sounds like a standard way of doing business in our industry. Oh, what great news.
The day from hell has just turned into the beginning of a whole season from hell.

I go back to my office considering filing for voluntary redundancy myself. But of course I won’t do it, the pull of the corporate gilded cage is too strong.

As soon as I’m back, Sarah puts her basset face through my door. She’s a permalancer turned full-time Senior Producer, because she couldn’t hack the constant insecurity and
challenges of the freelance life. She’s also a jolly fat girl turned miserable gastric-band dieter obsessed with her weight loss. The excess stretches of skin that used to contain fat hang
loosely on her face and neck giving her the permanent expression of a sad dog.

‘You all right?’ she asks me in a concerned voice.

‘Yes, Sarah, I’m fine. How can I help you?’

‘No, no, no.’ She waves her hand. ‘If there’s anything I can do to help,’ she puts extra stress on ‘I’, ‘please just let me know.
Anything.’

‘Thank you,’ I say and open my laptop pointedly.

Basset Face gets the message and disappears. She knows. How on earth has she managed to get confidential information that was disclosed in Julian’s office not even five minutes ago? That
doesn’t concern me much. She’ll be the first one to go in the restructuring of the department. What worries me more is the fact that if she knows then the whole building will know by
tomorrow. I need to act quickly, arrange a departmental meeting to announce the changes before the rumour mutates into some hideous, morale-destroying monster. It will be a monster to deal with
anyway, but it has to come from me. I pick up the phone.

The next few days are a blur of meetings, planning, announcements, speculation and frayed nerves. On Tuesday Cadenca Global makes its first appearance. It arrives in the shape
of five young and sharply dressed uber-androids, four male and one female. It’s the female who is the scariest: cold, precise and unsmiling, she paints a frightening picture of the market
realities that apparently reshape, like a pack of wolves, the media and entertainment industry. As they tear with their fangs at the old reality, new technology platforms pop up, new competition
and business models emerge, gnawing at the old consumers until they are forced to change their viewing habits, shift their fat arses to a slightly different place on their sofas and start
exercising different fingers, pressing different buttons. But not to worry, we’re not going to lose them, Cadenca Global is at hand with its extensive media consulting experience.
They’ll help us adapt, simplify, break new ground and, of course, capitalize on new opportunities. I leave the conference room reassured. Reassured that life will never be the same.

By Thursday the dust begins to settle and the painful process of implementing The Change begins. Although Cadenca Global are overseeing the whole process, the dirty work has been left to us, the
middle management. Some people will have to reapply for their jobs, some will have to be told there are no jobs to reapply for. Some will doggedly pursue their careers, some will crack under
pressure and leave. Some will have to be pushed. The new, shiny, streamlined structure is supposed to be ready by October. An ambitious plan. But there is one good thing about the upheaval at work.
It has made me almost forget about my Heath stranger. Almost . . .

At home I rely on my dog walker Nicole for taking care of Wispa. I barely have time and energy to take Wispa out for her evening walk when I get back from work. She’s not happy with a
short stroll around the block and makes it obvious by whimpering at night. She ignores her Kong chew toy even when I put a dollop of peanut butter in it. I’ll have to make it up to her at the
weekend.

By Friday I’m ready for some proper human contact. I call Michael, one of my oldest and most reliable friends. He was an art designer at a company where I was starting out as a rookie
promo producer. We were both going through a rough patch with our boyfriends at the time and we hit it off straight away, comparing notes on the love front and counselling each other. I was there
for him when his lover Phil died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of forty; he stood by me when I was going through the emotionally exhausting divorce from Andrew. We’ve been through the
wars together. He sounds as if he’s been waiting for my call and we arrange to meet in the evening at the Spaniards Inn, a Dickensian pub by the Heath where – and this is crucial for me
– dogs are most welcome.