Upgrading (20 page)

It is actually just after ten. I pull on the inevitable massive fluffy white bathrobe and knock back a glass of icecold, freshly squeezed orange juice.

“I hope you’re hungry, honey,” says Marion, tearing off a piece of dry toast and popping it in her mouth.

“Starved,” I say, yawning and bending down to kiss her. She lifts a huge silver dome from off a plate to reveal scrambled eggs, hash browns and sausages.

“Here,” she says, handing me a cup of coffee. “Now, hurry up or we won’t have time for lunch.”

Not surprisingly, we still manage to do plenty with Marion in charge of the itinerary. We visit some shops at the top of Fifth Avenue where the staff are all delighted to see her. We go to Bloomingdales and she actually buys me some clothes. A pale grey DKNY suit, a white shirt to go with it and some trousers I would never wear but I don’t dare refuse. Perhaps she took on board my remark about needing some money. Perhaps she realizes that, like Mark says, if I don’t look good, she doesn’t look good. As we leave the store and look for a taxi back to the hotel, I feel that my luck might just be changing.

That night we go to see an opera at the Met and in the interval a woman comes up to Marion and kisses her fondly on both cheeks.

“How are you?” she says, holding both of Marion’s hands.

“Good,” says Marion. “I’m good, thank you.”

“And this,” says the woman, “must be Andrew.”

“Hello,” I say, extending a hand.

“Andrew, it’s such a pleasure.”

“Yes,” I say. “I mean, it’s a pleasure for me too.” Can’t I ever get it right? The woman turns back to Marion.

“It’s so good to see you back in New York. Can we have a drink, just the three of us, before you go back to England?”

“I’d really like that,” says Marion, batting her eyelids with sincerity.

“Enjoy the second half,” says the woman, walking off.

“Who was that?” I ask.

“No idea,” says Marion, still smiling sweetly.

The next day we have brunch at a café where normally you have to book six months in advance just for coffee, according to the people at the opera the night before. They serve a mixture of Italian and native American food.

“My name is Walter,” says a very tall, improbably thin, redhaired guy as we sit down at a table beside a huge Roy Lichtenstein-style mural of an Indian chief. “I’ll be your server this morning and I’d very much like to welcome you to the Café Hueva today. If there is anything I can do to make your visit just that little bit more pleasurable please just let me know. Now, let me tell you something about the specials we can offer you. Today we have—”

“Er, Walter, honey,” says a voice. I look across the table and realize it is Marion. “Can we have some coffee and juice and then I’ll be all ears for your specials.”

Furious at having his speech interrupted, Walter hisses, “Yes, ma’am” and waltzes off.

I start laughing and Marion looks up from unfolding her napkin at me in surprise.

“What’s funny?”

“You are,” I say. She shrugs her shoulders and smiles.

I push open the door of our office and stride in, hoping I look relaxed and casual, although I feel sick with depression, jet lag and nerves. Someone has hung their jacket on my coat hanger so I carefully take it off and hang it on a peg and then put my new DKNY jacket on it. I can’t believe how irritated I feel—almost violated. Working in an office makes you so petty, so territorial.

My strategy has not worked. I am not the first into the office. Well somehow when I came to set the alarm last night I compromised on that one; seven seemed beyond endurance in my jet-lagged state so I set it for seven-thirty and decided not to bother trying to be the first. But, as I look round, I realize that I am not even one of the first! It’s eight-thirty and this shabby little hell hole is almost full, humming with activity.

I take my seat and Sami gives me her “Oh, Andrew” look. I make a silly face but my heart isn’t really in it. She finishes her call.

“How was New York?”

“It was great, really good fun,” I say quietly.

“I’m glad. What did you do?”

“Central Park, Fifth Avenue. We went to the Opera.”

“Wow,” says Sami gently. Then she says what I least want to hear: “Debbie wants to see you.”

I nod gratefully and smile.

“I bought you this, by the way.” It’s the Statue of Liberty in a snowstorm. I bought it at JFK on the way home. Sami looks up at me and smiles sadly.

My stomach suddenly feels light and empty. A couple of people look up discreetly from their desks and watch me go towards her office. She is on the phone telling someone to leave it with her and she’ll come back to them. And I know she will. I sit down and decide that sullen apology is my best bet so I stare moodily at my shoes.

“Where have you been the last two days?” she asks quietly, looking down at her desk.

“I was ill,” I say, more in the way of a suggestion than an apology. I look away—I can’t meet her eyes.

“I rang, Claire rang twice. What was the matter with you?”

“I dunno, I just felt—”

“Bullshit. I don’t care where you were, Andrew, and I don’t care what you were doing but you’re supposed to
work
here, remember?”

“I was ill,” I mumble again.

Ignoring me, she goes on. “It’s been really busy in this office while you’ve been running around. Our figures have been down over the last few months and this was our chance to catch up, to turn the corner. We’ve had people working twelve-hour days trying to meet the targets upstairs have set us.” She stops and then adds, “We needed you, it’s just not fair on everyone else.” That hurts.

“I’m sorry.” There is a pause, my excuse is dead and buried. “Did you meet them?” I don’t know if I really care or whether I am just being polite, trying to fill the awful heavy silence. Now Debbie seems slightly surprised and irritated by my question.

“Well, we just did it but it was tough on everyone. Paul’s dad’s been ill and Maria had to leave on Tuesday afternoon to pick up her youngest who’d had an accident at school or something. You know, it’s just not fair.” Oh God, why did I ask?

“Sorry,” I say again, getting up to leave. I’ve had enough, this is beginning to piss me off. I don’t know who I’m angriest with: Debbie or myself.

“Hang on a minute,” she says quietly. But I know it isn’t good news: this is not going to be an olive branch. “I’m giving you another warning. I’ve got to.” She hands me a letter.

“Sure,” I say quietly and go.

From all round the room eyes follow me as I make my way back to my desk. Sami looks at me sadly and says, “Sorry.”

I laugh bitterly. “You didn’t do anything. I did it.”

I pick up a piece of paper and stare at it for a few moments. I can’t bear it. I get up again and Sami says, “Andrew?” I laugh again and tell her that I am just going to the loo.

The thick, sterile air of the corridor, enclosed for weeks by fire doors feels fresh compared to the atmosphere in the office. I push open the door of the gents; the smell of disinfectant and an echo of dripping water welcome me. An older man I don’t know is finishing at the urinal. For a second I can’t decide what to do next so I wash my hands, dry them for ages under the dryer and then go into one of the cubicles and close the door. I lower the seat, sit down and put my head in my hands.

I never got into trouble much at school. If I ever did, it was a sin of omission rather than commission, as my headmaster put it. Come to think of it, I never did anything much at all at school. No outrageous pranks, no leading my classmates in rebellions, nothing to make the teachers say, “He’ll come to nothing, that boy” like they do about most millionaires and successful politicians.

I was a petty criminal, not a great train robber or a serial killer. My crimes were small, whitecollar ones: skiving games, spur of the moment cheating in an endofterm test, not giving my parents my report one year. I suppose that is why I used to receive a dreary nagging rather than a fully fledged, all guns blazing bollocking, together with a caning, which I could have taken like a man while biting my lip. Nothing I could have boasted about in later years.

Just the ancient, unanswerable question: “Why? Why did you do it, Andrew?”

“Because I wondered what it would be like, because I thought I could get away with, because I was bored, because I couldn’t be bothered not to.” Which answer do you want to hear? Which will fit best and get me out of here fastest?

I wonder what Jane would think. She wouldn’t do a thing like this at Paperchase, or if she did she would have made a better job of defending herself. Sitting on the loo, scratching the roll of toilet paper slightly so that it distorts and blisters, thinking about her, I’m embarrassed.

I ring my mum and dad that evening. It’s not something I do very often, not because I don’t like them, it’s just that I can never really think of anything to say to them on the phone. My dad answers.

“Hi, Dad, it’s me.”

“Hi, there. Good to see you other night. How’s things? Everything all right?”

“Fine, yeah. You?”

“Oh, mustn’t grumble. We were just trying to think of the name of that French teacher of yours.”

“French teacher? You mean Mr. Holden?”

“Holden! Yeah, that’s the one. We saw him in Sainsbury’s last Saturday. Couldn’t remember his name. Anyway, I’ll get your mum.” This is typical of my dad’s conversation—or lack of it.

“Hello, darling,” says my mum as if I had just been plucked from shark-infested waters after two months afloat on an open raft.

“Hi, Mum.”

“Everything all right?”

“Yeah, fine. You?”

“Me? Oh, yes. Well, you know, mustn’t grumble.”

There is a pause.

“We saw your old French teacher—”

“Mr. Jenkins,” shouts my dad from the background.

“Yes, I know, Dad said.”

“In Sainsbury’s. Last Saturday. By the fruit and veg, you know, where you come in. We didn’t say anything. We couldn’t remember his name.”

“We used to call him Twitch.”

“Oh, you are horrible. Why are boys so horrible? He does have that awful facial tick. Poor man. Do you have much opportunity to keep up your French?”

Oh, Mum.

“Mais, oui,” I say.

“Sorry?”

“No, not really.”

“Such a shame. You were very good. Remember when we went to Boulogne on the ferry that time—”

“Yeah. Ages ago.” I don’t want my mum to mention that Helen was with us. I bought her some perfume secretly from the duty-free shop on the boat and then gave it to her as we sat on the bench in the garden that evening. I can’t bear to smell it on anyone now. “Listen, I’ve got to go. I’m going out tonight. I’ll see you soon.”

“Yes, come down for a weekend.”

“Will do. Bye.” I turn the sound back up on the telly.

After my mum and dad I ring Marion and tell her just how much trouble I’m in at work. How much trouble she’s got me into, more like. I’ve just got paid. My salary this month is only just over half the usual amount. I could hardly believe it when I read the computer print out. But it was right—half of what we earn is based on commission and I’ve not been around or not been concentrating for the last few weeks so it’s hardly surprising that I’ve got just enough to pay the rent, cough up for my share of the bills, get a monthly travel pass and buy a sandwich at lunchtime.

I haven’t always hated that place. I used to be good at selling and Debbie used to like me. But now I’m just bored and can’t see a way out and what at first appeared to be the biggest amount of money anyone had ever earned (well, in comparison to a student loan, anyway) soon disappeared in no time. Back then I felt comfortably superior to that bunch of no-hopers who sat at desks around me but now I feel like I’m just not up to it. They can hold this stupid job down but it seems I can’t.

Neither can I do the Marion thing properly. How come Mark can “get that ice” and I just get—what do I get, apart from into trouble at work? I decide to tell her that I just can’t carry on our life together and put in so many hours at this awful sweatshop. Perhaps she’ll feel guilty and tell me just to quit that ridiculous, demeaning job and give me enough money to be able to step off the treadmill for a few weeks or months and decide what I
do
want to do with my life. I’ve never had a gap year and unlike the girls upstairs, those junior fashion assistants who go to the South of France for the weekend, I’ve never had the opportunity to do anything without paying for it with my own hard-earned money or £50 at Christmas from my parents. I just want some money so that I’ve got a bit of freedom to come up for air for five minutes.

Why can’t Marion just go the whole hog, be done with it and just set up a comfortable trust fund for me? It would be nothing to her.

Of course, when I ring her, she is completely unsympathetic. She just suggests I get another job.

“Better still,” she says, crunching pretzels. “Start your own business. Why be a wage slave? You’ll never get rich working for some corporation. My father didn’t and neither did either of my husbands.”