Women of a Dangerous Age (33 page)

‘Are you ready?' At the sound of Mark's voice she looked up to find herself eyeballing a Lycra-covered crotch that revealed much more than she wanted to know about any man outside the privacy of the bedroom.

‘I should have warned you,' said Mark, looking understandably sheepish. ‘I must apologise for what isn't the most attractive look. But cycling is much the easiest way to get around London.'

‘Mmm. Breathing in those traffic fumes must be so good for you.' Her mother's words rushed into her head: ‘Sarcasm is not the finest form of wit, especially from you, Bea.'

Bea assumed his trousers had been in the bicycle pannier bag that had been hidden under his seat throughout lunch. His shirt must be in there now having been replaced by an old white T-shirt that had long ago lost its shape. On its front was a washed-out photograph. Bea peered more closely. Yes, below the words ‘The World's Best Dad' was the near invisible image of Mark with his arms round two indistinct young children. Bea swallowed. ‘Yours?' she asked unnecessarily.

But Mark didn't hear her. He was already striding out into the street where she could see what must be his bicycle, chained to a lamppost. By the time she had caught up with him, he was ready to go. Bea yanked her eyes from his pale over-muscled and extremely hairy calves to his face, now crowned by a royal blue crash helmet – never the ideal fashion accessory. Mark removed the impenetrably black goggles over his eyes and leaned forward to kiss her cheek, catching the side of her head with the helmet. ‘So sorry, Bea. Stupid not to wear it, though.'

‘Yes, yes, it would be. Of course it would.' For once in her life Bea was lost for words, torn between hysterical laughter and tears. How could the agency have made such a mismatched pairing? You couldn't have invented it. But wait. Perhaps she should consider, just for a moment, the impression she had given the agency. Perhaps she actually looked like someone who would find this sort of person attractive. Impossible. Much more likely was the dearth of right-aged men on the market. There can't be many who specified they wanted to meet a woman when the shine had rubbed off a bit. Most of them found themselves a younger model within weeks of ending a relationship – or before. She knew that from bitter experience. What was it they said? When a relationship comes to an end, the man finds another woman while the woman finds herself. She wasn't in a position to be picky.

‘So, do you have a card? Then I can email you with a when and where.' Suddenly he looked so vulnerable, the hope in his face contrasting with the faded vision of youthful certainty on his chest. She knew then that she couldn't disappoint him. What had she got to lose anyway? Whatever she had agreed to do, it couldn't be that bad. She delved into her bag, scratching her hand on a thorn of the rose, whose existence she'd forgotten, and failed to find her cards in the jumble at the bottom.

‘I'll have to scribble my details on this.' She knew she was probably committing herself to more than she wanted. But what the hell? He took the slip of paper then, to her surprise, offered his hand and gave her a vigorous handshake and replaced the goggles. Bea prayed that no one from the office had seen them together. In some disbelief she watched the back of what, if Let's Have Lunch had their way, might be her future cycling off towards the City, then turned to look for a cab back to the fray.

As Bea tapped in her security code, the plate-glass doors to the editorial and publicity floor clicked open. She walked past the reception desk, where the young temp manning it while Jean was on holiday was busy multi-tasking – nails, book and interrupting her too-loud conversation with her boyfriend to connect outside calls. Impressive as a feat of juggling, maybe, but not exactly what one looked for in a receptionist. Bea made a mental note to mention it to HR. The shelves in the reception area were crowded with Coldharbour's latest books, primed for the bestseller list. In our dreams, she reflected wryly.

All the team knew that whatever the promises made to earnest young novelists or ego-bound celebrities, the reality was that only a few would really get the marketing push they'd been promised and only one or two might, just might, make it to the holy grail of the bestseller list. All the team knew the chances of making it were remote. The ratio of disappointment to expectation in her job was much higher than when she'd been an eager young editor twenty years ago. Back then she could take a punt on an unknown writer and expect to be supported. Calculations were done on the back of envelopes and editors shaped the profile of the publishing list, rather than accountants and salesmen. Was it any wonder that she had her increasing moments of disenchantment?

Only a few steps towards her office and Bea could sense the tension in the air. Something had happened since she'd left for lunch. Unusually, all four assistants in the open-plan area were at their desks, half hidden by piles of manuscripts, boxes of books and the low dividing screens pinned with postcards and notices that made up each workstation. The excited buzz of conversation tailed off as she approached and the girls looked up at her expectant as she walked by. Puzzled, but desperate to take off the new red suede peep-toe shoes that were killing her, she smiled at them and carried on, willing the blister she could feel burning on the side of her right big toe to subside. She was surprised to see that Stuart and Jade, the two editorial directors, were still there. In all the years she'd known them, they'd believed that, whatever the emergency, their weekends began at Friday lunchtime. They were huddled in Stuart's glass-sided goldfish bowl of an office, door shut, intent on their discussion. Stuart looked up as she passed and said something. Jade glanced at her too. Bea ignored them, too anxious to get comfortable.

She reached the sanctum of her office, kicked off the beautiful but offending shoes and hung up her jacket with relief before turning the air-con up a notch as yet another flush threatened. Surrounded by the books that, over the years, she had brought to fruition, whether by acquiring them from American publishers or by gently prising from the authors the best book they could write, she felt at ease. This was where she belonged. Editing, working with authors, was all she wanted to do. If only it didn't come with all the additional admin that she found so trying. Once she had dreamed of being a writer herself but that had retreated into the distance as she'd seen what a precarious existence it could be. As she sat at her fashionably curved desk, which gave her a view across the rooftops of central London, she longed for the days when she'd had a secretary who would tidy her desk whenever she went out to lunch, putting everything in order. No longer allowed such a guardian angel, this afternoon she was faced with God knew how many unread emails and assorted muddled papers – a half-read manuscript, minutes from various meetings, costing forms and the still unopened post.

As consolation, she opened her desk drawer and selected a pink-and-brown-wrapped square ganache chocolate, Earl Grey Tea flavour. Every girl needs a particular passion, she thought, as she popped it into her mouth – and hers was good chocolate. It had begun seventeen years earlier when she was thinking about getting pregnant and needed consolation after she'd cadged her last cigarette (she'd given up buying them months before). But, over time, she'd exchanged the bars of Fruit and Nut for specialist brands, so good they demanded she ate less of them (or so she'd convinced herself ). The pocket box of chocolates from Demarquette had been a present from an agent who'd found the most direct way to her heart. As her mouth filled with the divine bitter-sweetness of the chocolate suffused with the delicate citrus undertones of bergamot, she turned to the task in hand.

She tried to live by the maxim ‘only touch each piece of paper once'. It had been shared with her by someone much more successful than herself. Since then she had struggled to deal with or delegate each one as she made herself take it from her in-tray but it just didn't work for her. So often she'd be interrupted in the middle of dealing with something and would succumb to the temptation to slip that piece of paper into the pending tray – her desk's graveyard. Once there, nothing ever came out. Of course, there was less paperwork now than there had once been. Welcome to the world of the email. She sighed, noticing that forty more had accumulated during her brief absence. She clicked on the first just as her door opened.

‘Bea. What's going on?' Stuart shut the door behind him and, without waiting to be asked, cleared the unsteady pile of manuscripts off the extra chair and sat down. The rich slightly acrid scent of his sweat reached her at the same time as she noticed the damp stains in the armpits of his shirt, which was grubby at the cuff and neck. He was a good-looking guy of about thirty-five, one of the most astute and commercially minded editors she'd come across, but his personal hygiene left something to be desired. His rather brutal haircut and the razor-thin white scar that ran from his right ear to the side of his nose suggested an aggressive streak that she had never, in the three years they'd worked together, come across. If anyone asked him how he'd got the scar, he just smiled and said it was ‘one of those things'. As a result he retained a slightly mysterious aura that clearly made him extremely attractive to some, judging from the comments that Bea had overheard in the Ladies.

‘Not a clue. Why would I know anyway?' Bea's attention was suddenly caught by an email from Let's Have Lunch and another from Mark that had just pinged their way into her mailbox. Damn. She'd have to open them later.

‘Come on. You're always the first to know everything. Stephen's always in and out of here.' Stuart's anxiety to find out whatever was going on was bordering on desperate. He pulled his fingers one after another so they cracked.

‘Do you mind not doing that? I honestly don't know what you're talking about. What's happened?' She hated the way everyone assumed that her long-standing friendship with the managing director meant she knew everything there was to know. Though she hated it even more when she didn't.

‘Piers arrived just after you left, looking like thunder. He came straight up to Stephen's office and they've been in there ever since. They pulled the blinds so they couldn't be seen.' Stuart's voice rose with excitement as he described the unexpected arrival of the chief executive of Rockfast. ‘Then all the directors were called in, one after the other, and Jan's been looking for you. They all came out looking absolutely stony and won't talk to anyone.' He leaned forward as if expecting Bea to share whatever secret there was.

‘I've no idea what's happening.' Bea hated confessing her ignorance. ‘Nobody's said anything to me.' Only because she'd been a bit late getting back from lunch, dammit.

‘But Stephen tells you everything,' Stuart sounded outraged that Bea hadn't got the answer.

‘Not this time.' But why not? Bea asked herself. She knew that Stephen was talking to the management about retiring early some time next year because he'd decided he wanted to concentrate on his silversmithing. He'd always kept the one thing he was passionate about in second place to his career while his kids were growing up but now they were in their twenties, as he'd told Bea, ‘I'm desperate to give it a proper go before it's too late.' Bea had wanted to protest, but she could see he had a point. She had only to glance in the mirror to be reminded that she had her own ticket on time's winged chariot. So that was next year. If there was something to do with the business, she was sure she'd have got wind of it somehow – smoke signals always drifted off the fire in the end.

‘Here's Jan now.' Stuart's excitement was almost infectious as Stephen's PA put her head round the door.

‘Bea. There you are. Where have you been? Stephen and Piers wanted to see you urgently.' Jan's face was almost hidden by a sheet of blonde hair that she swept back with a perfectly manicured hand to reveal a perfectly beautiful face, and a smile that revealed a set of perfectly even white teeth.

‘At lunch, of course,' Bea was immediately on the defensive. ‘What was it about anyway?'

‘Can't say.' The smile became more like a knowing smirk. ‘Anyway, it's too late now. I've been asked to get everyone into the boardroom in ten minutes.'

‘What? It's Friday afternoon.' A meeting on Friday afternoon was unheard of. ‘I'll go and see them now.' Underneath the desk, Bea's feet felt about for her shoes. The pain in her blistered toe as she stood up was excruciating but her desire to find out what was going on overrode it.

‘I think it's too late, Bea.' Another of those slight self-satisfied smiles accompanied Jan's withdrawal.

Irritated both by Jan's cool assumption of control and superior knowledge, and by Stuart's evident disappointment in her ignorance of what was going on, Bea picked up the phone and called Stephen. Engaged. Outside her office, the rest of the staff were moving towards the board-room in the corner at the far end of the floor. Annoyed that her Let's Have Lunch date had been today of all days – and how pointless it had been – she followed the last of her colleagues into the room.

The long modern table had been pushed up against the floor-to-ceiling windows so there would be enough room for everyone. Some perched on its edge, others occupied the chairs that had been randomly spaced around the periphery of the room while everyone else sat on the stained carpet. Bea took a place in the corner by the door, leaning against the wall so she could take the weight off her painful foot. Even turned up full, the air-conditioning couldn't prevent the room becoming a sauna with that number of people crushed into it. Ties were loosened, jackets were off and pieces of paper flapped as people fanned themselves. Voices rose as speculation mounted. Could Rockfast have sold off the Coldharbour imprint? Surely someone would have heard. Perhaps Rockfast was going under. No, there'd have been word about that too. Perhaps they'd acquired another imprint. Bea stood quietly, as mystified as everyone else, batting away questions as if she knew what was going on but couldn't possibly say while feeling cross that she was the only director in the room excluded from whatever it was.

Eventually Piers and Stephen came in, followed by the financial, sales, marketing, art and publicity directors, all of them looking particularly serious. Bea caught Stephen's eye as he mouthed, ‘Sorry.' At that moment, loud alarm bells began to ring in her head, but she still didn't know why. How come Bea was the only one to have gone out that lunchtime? Piers stood. He was the only man in the room wearing a suit, rather a natty Armani, Bea noted, but he still maintained his cucumber cool in the heat. His peachy tie was set off by a lightly striped blue shirt while his dark hair was fashionably short, slicked up and back with just the right amount of gel. Quite the image of an executive who had reached the top and was going to stay there, Bea reflected, as Piers directed a taut smile at the assembled team before beginning to speak. He kept it brief, to the point.

‘As you all know, Coldharbour Press has been in trouble for a while. Despite adjustments to the publishing programme, the turnover has fallen again. The board has decided more drastic action is necessary. As a result, I have both good news and bad for you. The good is that Adam Palmer from Pennant Publishing is starting on Monday as the new MD.' The bombshell dropped. The few who knew of Adam Palmer and his reputation for ruthlessness looked stunned – Bea among them. All heads turned to Stephen, who stood with his eyes fixed firmly on his old brown suede shoes unable to look at his staff. ‘Stephen will be taking early retirement as of August the thirty-first when he has completed the handover to Adam.' There was a collective gasp. That was less than a month away. Bea couldn't believe her ears. Stephen had never suggested this might happen. But Piers hadn't finished.

‘We have also come to an agreement that Louis, your sales director, will be leaving while Sam Spooner will be promoted from his position as sales manager with immediate effect.'

Sam Spooner! He was barely out of nappies. The back-stabbing little toe-rag, thought Bea.

‘Obviously this means that there will be a number of changes to get used to over the coming weeks but I know we can rely on you all to do your best to accommodate them. The Rockfast board is convinced that they will be crucial if we're to turn the company around to perform in the way it should. All I can add is that, apart from replacing Stephen and Louis, whom I would like to thank for all they've done for the company, no other changes are envisaged at this time. Thank you. Have a good weekend.' He left the room followed by the directors, with Bea on their tail.

Stunned, the staff left the room in silence, a few holding back tears. Only a few of them knew or cared much about Adam Palmer at that moment. What they cared about was that the close team that had worked together over the last few years was changing. If the results hadn't been everything they might have been, wasn't that because of market forces, rather than specific individuals who had worked so hard for the company? Change was always unsettling but the more so when it was announced as unexpectedly as this. As the staff filtered back to their desks, they began to talk again, wondering what on earth could have happened to prompt this and why the change had been handled in this way.