'Can I think about it?' she asked.
'
Think
about it?' barked Champagne to whom this was obviously an alien concept. She glared at Jane with all the impotent rage of someone who has never been refused anything. For the first time ever in her dealings with Champagne, Jane experienced the amazing sensation of being in charge.
Til call you this afternoon,' she said, getting up.
'Well, I've got a colonic at three and my acupuncturist's at four,' honked Champagne. 'I don't want any sudden shocks during those or I'll have to spend the rest of my life on the loo. Call me at five. Oh, and could you get the bill? I'd love to treat you but I don't think my plastic will stand it.'
Why didn't she just accept Champagne's offer? Jane wondered as she climbed the stairs to the managing director's office. Flying in the face of Fate seemed foolish, particularly when she stood to gain a large sum of money and the sort of freedom she had hardly dared dream about before. As she knocked on Archie Fitzherbert's door, she made up her mind to say yes. After all, she was not likely to hear anything in the next few minutes that would make her want to change her mind.
'He's ready to see you,' said Georgie. 'Just go straight in.'
Jane knocked timidly on the oak door with the shining gold handle, wondering why she was bothering. She didn't need to go through this. She could turn and walk away, call Champagne and accept the book offer. But she was here now, and anyway she'd always wondered what Fitzherbert's office was like. Perhaps the Glamourtron was in here. She pictured the managing director sitting in a
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vast white leather swivel chair like Blofeld in the Bond films, stroking a white cat with a malevolent glare. The floor would be glass, with piranhas gliding menacingly beneath it, ready to slash to ribbons any editor whose circulation figures had slumped.
At a murmur from within, Jane pushed the door open. A pale room the approximate size of the entire
Fabulous
offices stretched away before her. Just as Fitzherbert in person resisted the stuffy, pinstriped manager stereotype, his office, too, was innocent of all mahogany or heavily framed oil paintings. Full of fat white sofas the size of stretch limos, book-piled glass-topped coffee tables, and concept bookcases of undulating wood, it resembled a film stars penthouse. The only clue to its inhabitants profession were the framed magazine covers on the cream-painted walls. There was no desk. Fitzherbert, it was said, hated them, preferring to do all his work on sofas, or on the move. And rumour, for once, appeared to be true. The managing director, clad in a shirt of his trademark lilac set off with baby blue braces, was sprawled with his feet up on a white day bed, holding the
Daily Telegraph
inches from his nose. On top of the skyscraper of magazines beside him on the coffee table was the latest issue of
Fabulous.
Jane's heart sank.
Fitzherbert held his position for a few more seconds before sitting up, swinging his long, spare legs on to the polished wooden floor and grinning at her. He was, Jane decided, clearly trying to lull her into a false sense of security.
'Jane! Thank you so much for coming to see me. Sit down, do.' Fitzherbert pointed at the sofa opposite him with one dayglo pink-socked foot. Jane sank gingerly into the deep embrace of the cushions and wondered if she
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could ever get up again. Fitzherbert's office seemed deliberately designed to confuse and confound expectation. Which, of course, gave him more power over what went on in there.
'I asked you to come and see me because I have an idea to put to you,' Fitzherbert announced in a voice almost as bright as his socks. 'It concerns a slight change of, er, um, career.'
Jane nodded. This was what she had been expecting.
'I had a long conversation with Victoria yesterday,' said Fitzherbert, a slight frown rippling his tanned forehead.
Doubtless because one of the new issues had been hiked round to her and she had hated it, thought Jane. 'She's back from New York, then?' she croaked.
Fitzherbert nodded.
'She's
back,
but she's not, ah, very
well
at the moment.' Fitzherbert agitatedly tapped the coffee table before him with the thick bottom of his Mont Blanc pen. 'In fact, she's apparently on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Stress. Overwork. Whatever,' he said, waving his hand in a half irritated, half dismissive gesture.
Jane stifled a gasp and cast her eyes down to disguise their outraged expression.
Victoria,
stressed? To her certain knowledge, the most anxious-making thing in Victoria's life was deciding between the Ivy and the Caprice for lunch.
'She needs a break,' Fitzherbert stated, raising his eyebrows slightly. 'Needs to get the city out of her system and all that stuff, find herself again et cetera,' he continued in a swift monotone, tapping his pen again. 'So the company's er, um, booked her into this place she wanted to go to. New ashram in the West Country. Called Millions or something, and from what they charge for a month
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there, that's about right.' He flashed Jane a wide but rather mirthless grin. She looked back at him blankly, failing to see what any of this had to do with her. Poor Tally, she thought vaguely. She must tell her to slam Victoria in a shed to get to grips with her inner child as soon as she arrived.
'The reason why I'm discussing Victorias, er,' Rtzherbert raised his eyebrows, 'um . . ,
indisposition
with you is that we've decided she should take a year off.'
Jane said nothing. What was all this leading to? Why didn't he just get to the point and put her out of her misery?
'So, I wanted to offer you the position. Acting editor, of course. For the time being, at least. Interested?'
Jane gulped. Was she hearing right? She had come here to be sacked, and now she was being offered what sounded suspiciously like Victoria's job. Acting editor
of Fabulous.
Jane's heart soared up into the back of her throat. She wanted to squeal with delight, jump up and down on the spot, turn cartwheels all round the spacious room. But she did none of these things. Instead she said quietly, 'Yes.'
'Great)
said Fitzherbert. 'Really great. I've just seen the new issue.' He stabbed at the shining cover on the coffee table before him. 'I thought it was really
excellent.
Very fresh, energetic, enthusiastic. One of the best issues for years, in fact.'
'Thank you,' stammered Jane, blushing a violent, confused and very un-editor-like red.
'Great
cover, this girl, too.' He bashed Lily's nose with the end of his pen. 'Great pictures inside as well. And what
fantastic
legs she has. Terrific ankles.' Fitzherbert leapt to his feet. 'I understand you've got someone even better for the next. Well, that's
marvellous.'
Fitzherbert
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shook Jane's hand. 'Carry on the good, er, um, work. Personnel will be in touch about contracts and all that jazz.'
And the Glamourtron? Would Personnel be in touch about that as well? wondered Jane. Surely now, when she was poised to take over one of the house's glossiest titles, it must be her turn at last. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask Fitzherbert, as, wreathed in smiles, he ushered her out. But his door shut smartly behind her, and the chance was lost.
Outside, Jane hugged a puzzled Georgie and dashed downstairs to the foyer. She was captain of her own ship, finally. She had the job she had always wanted, and, at last, no doubt whatsoever that she could do it brilliantly. After all, did she not have Jordan Madison lined up for the next cover? Whatever mess her private life might be in, her professional one was shaping up just dandy.
Little did Victoria know, thought Jane, that she had no intention of relinquishing the editorship now she had her feet under the table. She had serious plans for
Fabulous.
They raced through her mind as she walked briskly along in the sunshine. More interviews. Better features. Funny pieces. Investigations. More sex.
Much
more sex.
Jane gazed joyfully up at the azure sky above the grimy buildings, a thank-you-everyone speech babbling through her head. Thank you, Josh, she thought, for being sufficiently horrid to drive me into the
Fabulous
job in the first place. Thank you, Champagne. If you had been one iota less nightmarish, I would have taken your book offer and never gone to see Fitzherbert today And most of all, thank you, Victoria, for your blissful, hysterical self-indulgence. Thank you, everyone. I want to thank everyone I ever met, ever. Jane grinned ecstatically at a number of doleful
passers-by. She buzzed with confidence. She felt brilliant with light. She radiated with energy. She felt like a human power station. Most of all, she was full of hope, which she needed, considering what she was about to do.
Rounding the corner, Jane spotted Camilla lounging, as usual, in the doorway. She raised an eyebrow as Jane crossed the street towards her. 'Hi,' beamed Jane, striding through the door and descending, sure and fleet of foot, down the stairs at the back. At the bottom, she paused just a second before throwing open Tom's scabby door.
He sprang up from his desk when he saw her, a half fearful, half hopeful expression in his exhausted, red-rimmed eyes. The bags beneath them were as big as suitcases. Caused by sorrow, or mere overwork? Thrown, Jane hesitated in the doorway, willing her confidence to come back. Tom had every right to be furious. She had judged and condemned him without a shred of evidence. Would he reject her? She scanned his strained face for clues, found none and decided to fling herself on his mercy.
Speechless with remorse, desperate for contact, Jane dashed across the room and flung herself into Tom's arms. 'Oh God, what a mess,' she whispered, burying her face in his neck. 'I'm so sorry. It was all a stupid misunderstanding.'
'I'd have tidied up if I'd known you were coming,' said Tom brokenly into her hair. 'And, by the way, just before you vanish yet again, will you marry me?'
An hour later, snuggled under the duvet with her head on Tom's chest, Jane thought ecstatically that she would rather be in this dingy Soho basement than in the finest suite at the Hotel de Paris. She quickly revised this. Being with Tom amid the splendours of Monaco's finest might just have the edge on where they were now. Well all that
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would come with her glossy new job. She smiled dreamily and pushed her hips closer still to Tom. I want to melt into him, she thought, so that we can never be parted again. But then, that wouldn't be quite so much fun. And it would certainly make sex difficult.
Jane felt she might die and go to heaven any minute. She had won the double. She had the man of her dreams and the job of her dreams and there seemed little more to wish for. Only one nagging, unsolved problem remained. Champagne was unlikely to be thrilled at the news that she wasn't going to be able to write her book.
Jane hugged Tom closer, pressing one ear into his warm flesh to muffle the honking, furious tones that seemed already audible. All the wrath of the Eumenides, she knew, would have nothing on the fury of a Champagne done out of half a million pounds. By her own sister-in-law, as well. Jane rolled her eyes at the thought of it. Josh had been right after all. Sisters under the skin.
She must have sighed, because Tom pressed her closer. He fumbled for another cigarette and lit up, drawing the smoke into his lungs with a happy sigh. Talk about the Duke of Marlboro, thought Jane worriedly. Tom smoked far too much. Not that she blamed him really. Even someone as certain of his own ability as Tom was must find it stressful to work so relentlessly on his writing without ever really knowing where his next rent cheque was coming from.
Jane had no doubt that Tom would eventually make it, but she worried about how he was going to support himself in the meantime. Or
themselves,
she corrected, half enchanted, half fearful. Her wages, even as an editor, would hardly be enough to set up a marital home from scratch. Oh, why had Tom turned down his trust fund?
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It would have come in so useful just now.
She corrected herself sternly, knowing perfectly well that if Tom had kept his trust fund and spent it on cars, cocaine and Krug like everyone else, she would certainly never have met him. Jane pondered again on the amazing differences between Champagne and her brother, a train of thought that returned, with a circularity far from satisfying, to the worrying question,of the book.
Could
she do it?
Should
she do it? It would be easy enough, after all, a mere matter of rehashing some of the columns, as Champagne had said. It might not take up
too
much time. She could do it and work as well, she told herself. Just about.
On the other hand there was another matter to be considered. Through Fitzherbert's offer, through achieving her own editorship, Jane had finally been granted an opportunity to break free, professionally at least, from Champagne. She had at last been given responsibility, a grown-up job that gave her a real place in the world, a profile of her own, a chance to run her own ship, in her own way, with her own ideas. Did she
really
want to go back to ghost-writing now?
Jane turned on to her back as she weighed up the options. She decided to consult Tom. After all, it might be selfish to turn down the money when they both needed it.
An idea struck her. Perhaps, if she found the right person, she could persuade Champagne to get someone else to do it instead. Using the existing columns as material, anyone who could string a sentence together and had the vaguest idea about plot construction and editing could write Champagne's novel for her.
Anyone
could do it really. Anyone ...