In the mail room, mostly, and sometimes in the basement toilets where no one can hear me scream.
‘Perfect timing, Martin,’ I say. ‘Devron was just telling me the name of the new range.’
‘Berenice tells me it’s a game changer,’ says Martin.
Come on, Devron, tell Martin and he can nip this whole Fat Bird thing in the bud …
‘Fat Bird pizzas,’ says Devron, giving me a smile that might as well be a middle finger.
‘Terrific, I can see the spreads now!’ says Martin.
‘You don’t think the feminists will get their knickers in a twist?’ says Devron.
‘No way!’ says Martin. ‘Susie darling, you don’t think anyone would take offence?’
‘I think there are probably less controversial names.’
‘Darling, so many other brands out there competing,’ he says, staring me in the eye. ‘Sometimes you need to be a little bit provocative to get the attention you deserve …’
I return my gaze to the floor. ‘It’s a super-quick turnaround, Martin,’ I say. ‘Robbie still hasn’t allocated a creative team …’ And if there’s any sort of fuck-up on this project Berenice will blame me and I won’t get promoted and if I don’t get promoted I can’t quit and then I will kill myself.
‘Darling, you’re such a worrier, isn’t she a worrier, Devron?’ he says, rubbing my arm. Devron nods his head vigorously. ‘Now, Devron, you and I have a little date with a Mr Ramsay I believe? Shall we?’
Back upstairs I pop to the fridge to grab my lunch, some leftover Moroccan chicken tagine that’s been in my freezer for six months. I think it’s chicken; it was entirely covered in ice crystals so I couldn’t figure it out last night. I stick it in the microwave, then hurry back to my desk, hoping to see an email from Jeff.
No, nothing. It’s been almost two days since I sent my email and suddenly anxiety creeps in. Have I over-flirted? Does ‘Good to meet you too’ actually come across as ‘I’m not wearing any knickers’?
Maybe instead of typing ‘Looking forward to Monday and your cake’ I accidentally typed ‘your cock’? I’d better check in my sent mail. It’s been so long since I flirted with a man, I’m sure it’s not supposed to be this traumatic.
No, all is fine. Back to the microwave, and I wolf down my lunch. It was actually lamb and pearl barley casserole. (I must remember to put stickers on my Tupperware before they go in the freezer.) The lamb was delicious; one of those slow-cook one-pot dishes that make you feel all warm and happy inside. I return to my desk in a much better mood than I left it in, only to be greeted by an email that is the exact opposite of what I want to read. It’s so bad it actually makes me let out a small yelp of horror.
No, not Jeff telling me he’s calling HR and Berenice because I’m sexually harassing him. And not Jake telling me he’s impregnated his twenty-three-year-old girlfriend, and that he never loved me anyway. Worse than either of those. It’s an email from Robbie, finally telling me which creative team will be working on Fat Bird.
‘Sam, seriously, I should just quit now,’ I say, as I storm into the mail room, only to find him dozing, head on the counter, with his hand covering his packet of fags protectively in his sleep like a nicotine security blanket. God, he looks so adorable and unsarcastic when he’s unconscious.
He wakes with a start. ‘Huh? What are you doing in my flat?’ he says, before realising he’s still at work. ‘Christ, what time is it?’
‘Don’t worry, it’s nearly the weekend. What have you been doing? You look like shit.’
He runs a hand through his hair. I have to resist the temptation to straighten it out for him. He has such thick, shiny hair; it really is a drag that he’s chosen to opt out of relationships. Rebecca’s right – he’s a missed opportunity. If only he stopped smoking, stopped wasting his time in the mail room, changed those old jeans and did something with his life, he would be a decent prospect. ‘I’m knackered,’ he says. ‘Been helping a mate with his website, didn’t get to bed till 3 a.m. Anyway, what’s wrong with you?’
‘You know how I’m totally late on this brief, and now it has the worst name in the history of brands, and all I need is a team that can be grown up and sensible and turn around some scripts quickly? So guess who Robbie’s given me?
‘Dumber and Dumberer?’ Benjy and Al, the pretty-boy coke-head Mancunians.
‘If only!’
‘Doug Lazy and Sir Dicks A Lot?’ The twins, Doug and Dean – nicknames require no explanation.
‘Much worse.’
‘It can’t be …’
‘It is,’ I say, as he rolls a seat towards me and I slump down onto it.
‘Karly and Nick?!’
I rest my head on the counter. ‘Those sadists are going to blow it for me.’
‘Maybe it’s not that bad, Susie. Maybe success has mellowed them …’
‘It’s only made them feel more invincible! They gave Sandra Weston a nervous breakdown last Christmas. Karly even had the nerve to Tweet about it!’
Sam shakes his head in disgust.
‘The only thing that sets Karly apart from those feral girl gangs who terrorise people on the number 38 is the fact that Karly wouldn’t get on a bus in the first place because her Louboutins would never recover …’ I say.
‘Her Louboutins? Is that the big bag she carries round like it’s the cure for cancer?’
‘That’s her Birkin, the one Robbie bought her when they started shagging. Louboutins, Sam. Shoes with red soles, cost about five hundred pounds a pair.’
‘Do they come with a built-in DVD player?’
‘Oh Sam, where have you been for the last five years?’
‘Working hard to keep you in Post-its.’
‘Sam. Do you live in a cave? Do you not watch TV? Have you never read
Grazia
?’
Actually I do know the answer to all of these questions: Sam lives in a two-bedroom flat in Walthamstow – it’s spacious and surprisingly tasteful.
He only watches American TV shows that he streams live online with some dodgy pirate software. He’s always three seasons ahead of anyone else, and his greatest pleasure in life is being able to plot-spoil by saying things like ‘You
still
haven’t got to the ep where Big Louie gets whacked?’
As for print media? He has a subscription to
Uncut
magazine and enjoys reading about popular recording artists such as Steven Van Zandt (guitarist in the E Street Band, Silvio in
The Sopranos
, how can you not
know
that?). He never reads
Grazia
.
‘Suze, how can a pair of shoes cost five hundred pounds?’
‘Oh Sam, you’re so innocent. Don’t you understand luxury goods? Have you never been to Terminal 5 in Heathrow? The more something costs, the more important it makes you feel and the more other people will envy you. Anyway, you think five hundred pounds for shoes is expensive? It’s a bargain compared to that bag. Guess how much?’
‘One thousand pounds,’ he says, like The Count in
Sesame Street
.
‘Higher.’
‘Go on then, two?’ he says.
‘Try eight.’
‘For that Dalston market tut? How is that possible?’ he says, with genuine distress in his voice.
‘It’s simple,’ I say. ‘The Birkin is not about what it looks like, it’s about what it says.’
‘Which is?’
‘Which is: “I am rich. I mean proper-rich, Hermès-rich, not Marc-by-Marc-Jacobs rich. And what is more, I don’t care if you think I’m a spoilt brat for jizzing the cost of a car just to wear on my arm. Because guess what? I am proper rich (well, my dad is). Now do excuse me while I finish my gold sandwich …”’
‘Whoa. You can tell all that from a bag?’ he says.
‘It’s brands, Sam. It’s what we do in this building. Build something out of nothing. Find an object and give it significance, meaning, aspiration. This brick will make you happier, sexier, more popular. Then you can charge what you like for it.’
‘Forget Karly,’ he says, looking thoughtful. ‘I’d be more concerned about Nick.’ He suddenly looks worried. I never see Sam look worried. Even if Berenice calls down personally to shout at him that the world is going to end if her Boden delivery doesn’t get brought up in two minutes flat, even then he never looks fazed. But right now he looks anxious. It’s almost like he feels protective of me. Maybe he’s confusing me with his packet of fags …
‘It’s going to be bad,’ I say.
‘It is going to be bad,’ he says. ‘But … They’re team of the year in
Campaign
. They won gold at Cannes. It could actually work in your favour.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Suze – if you’re going to be on the board you’re going to have to get used to playing with the big boys. It’ll toughen you up once and for all.’
Maybe I don’t want to be toughened up that much, I think, as I head back out of the mail room and towards the weekend.
I’ve lounged around all of yesterday and most of today and achieved pretty much nothing other than catching up on last week’s TV, and making a rather good dark chocolate mousse. It’s now 4 p.m., the guilt is about to overflow and I can no longer put off the inevitable: a visit to my neighbour, Grumpy Marjorie, who lives on the other side of Peartree Court.
My grandma and Marjorie knew each other well. They were not great friends.
On a good day Marjorie can be decent company: fun, vivacious even. She and my grandma would occasionally sit having tea, chatting about the horrors of growing old. Or gossiping about the Langdons, or the new couple in number 14 who definitely weren’t married, and looked more like father and daughter, except they were always touching each other in public: ‘Disgraceful, always pawing her like a wild bear.’
But Marjorie also has terrible black moods – she can turn from upbeat to aggressive in a moment. My grandma could go six months without exchanging a word with her. I wouldn’t be surprised if Marjorie was bi-polar. Ironic, given that she used to be a psychotherapist. Mind you, psychotherapists must be properly crackers, sitting all day listening to other people’s misery.
Marjorie has a son in his fifties but he lives in Brighton and they rarely speak. He comes round once a year on Boxing Day, stays for two hours, then flees back to the coast claiming he doesn’t want to get stuck in traffic. ‘Traffic, on Boxing Day?’ she says, practically spitting. The only thing she’s ever said about him is that he is the greatest disappointment of her life. All credit to him for visiting at all.
Still, since my grandma died and I moved into the block I’ve felt a weird sense of duty towards Marjorie. She doesn’t get many visitors, although you can see why. I try to visit her, and Terry the caretaker pops in most days, though she once threw a can at his head a few years back. She’d had a bad fall and broken her hip, and he’d merely suggested it might be time to consider her options, perhaps move to a residential home. ‘Why would I want to be around depressing old people?’ No point arguing that misery loves company.
Today I head down to Waitrose to buy her a couple of punnets of raspberries and some seeds for her budgie, Fitzgerald. I’ll take her some bolognese I’ve defrosted too, and the chocolate mousse. She’s a sucker for sweet things and mousse is her favourite – the only dessert I make that doesn’t get stuck in her dentures.
‘Who is it?’ she says at the front door, though I know she’ll be squinting through the spy hole at me.
‘I have raspberries for you, Marjorie,’ I say.
‘Where from?’ she growls back.
‘Don’t worry, they’re not from Sainsbury’s.’ I wouldn’t dare.
‘Then you can come in.’ She opens the door and greets me with a neutral expression; not huge on warmth, our Marjorie. She’s wearing her usual floor-length grey robe and mid-brown suede sheepskin slippers. She has terrible gout and her ankles are purple with swelling. She shuffles slowly down the dark corridor and into her living room. The air is heavy; the smell reminds me of my junior school – a mix of canned soup and disinfectant.
‘Marjorie, how can you see where you’re going? It’s practically pitch black in here, why don’t you open the curtains? Let some light in.’
‘What’s to see?’
She slowly winds her way through the chaos in her living room: stacks of
Radio Times
are piled on the floor, and a collection of side tables house Sudoku books and mail-order catalogues; magnifying glasses bookmark pages of dressing gowns and neck pillows.
‘Marjorie, do you want me to help you tidy up in here? It’s getting a bit messy.’
She ignores me. She’d only tell me that she knows exactly where everything is and to mind my own bloody business.
Finally she reaches her destination and her face lights up. ‘Look who’s come to see us, Fitzgerald,’ she says, bending down slowly to talk to the little green and yellow bird, twittering loudly on a perch in his cage. ‘You’re right, Fitzgerald, it has been a long time,’ she nods at him. ‘Yes, she does live very nearby, we could almost throw a stone, couldn’t we?’ I wouldn’t put it past her. ‘And that’s correct, Fitzgerald, it wouldn’t be so hard to visit us more often, would it, my darling? What a clever bird to remember where Susie lives when it’s been so long. Isn’t he clever, such a good memory?’
‘I bought Fitzgerald a little treat,’ I say, following her through the obstacle course and handing her the seeds.
‘Oooh, look at what we get when someone has a guilty conscience!’ she says. ‘Your favourite, Fitzgerald! Sunflower seeds!’
‘And I brought you some bolognese sauce and your favourite chocolate mousse too.’
She tries not to show that she’s pleased.
‘Just think,’ I say. ‘If I’d left it another month you might have got a whole suckling pig.’
She looks at me out of the corner of her eye. A tiny smile creeps up the side of her mouth.
‘Put that lot in the fridge, make me a cup of tea and come and play a round of cards with me.’
Marjorie’s fridge is the size of a shoebox. All that’s inside is a pint of full-fat milk and three half-eaten, uncovered cans – one of Campbell’s condensed chicken and mushroom soup, one of pilchards and one of steak and kidney pudding.
‘Marjorie, shall I pop home and bring you back some clingfilm?’
‘That stuff gives you cancer,’ she says. There’s no point in arguing with her, or pointing out that she’s more likely to get ill from leaving food in cans, half-opened.