What Women Want. Fanny Blake
seat, headed for the Gents. At least they didn’t have the awkwardness of establishing who was going to foot the bill. Let’s Have Lunch settled up for them. So they damn well should, given the little they had to do for their money, mused Bea. Perhaps Mark wasn’t so awful, really. She must try to be less demanding. He wasn’t bad-looking, just a bit humourless. She imagined he might be quite a considerate lover, if not very inventive. She was a fine one to talk. What would she bring to that particular party? She was much more out of practice than she cared to remember.
‘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 His shirt must be in there now having been replaced by an old white T-shirt that had long ago lost its shape.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.
Chapter 2
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