This is Not a Love Story

Chapter Three

Theo sweeps into my office and his eyes settle on the empty chair beside me.

‘Where’s Kelsey?’ He gasps. To be honest, I feel like gasping too. This is a rare and sacred moment; Theo has arrived before the personal assistant he really doesn’t need. I would like to take a picture.

‘In the bathroom,’ I lie, covering for her. ‘Problems with... her uterus.’

‘Oh my goodness me.’ Theo brings his hand to his chest and sinks down into Kelsey’s empty seat. ‘The female body. What an enigmatic beast.’ He leans forward and links his hands in prayer, gazing up at me.

‘Right, yep, but erm, I think she might be in a lot of pain, so—’

‘Pain is beauty, Margaret!’ he shouts. I cringe. Reason number one why Theo is my least favourite person: he calls me by my full name. Also, incidentally, a reason why Martin and I are doomed for failure. Margaret and Martin — absolutely not.

Theo has taken to leaning back in his chair and sighing theatrically, the back of his hand flung across his forehead. By all accounts, Theo was born dramatic. At any given opportunity, he will tell the story of his birth (he ripped his mother in two because he just couldn’t wait to get out and start living) and how he cried for the first four days of his existence until his cot was kitted out with 800-thread count Egyptian cotton bedding. Theo lives in Chorlton and likes to think that makes him well-to-do with an edge, but if it weren’t for his semi-successful, Boohoo-model husband he’d be living in a decomposing one-bed somewhere non-specific like the rest of us.

I want, more than anything, for him to leave before we enter into his favourite subject: female empowerment . I brought this on myself with my excuse for Kelsey, I realise. I should know better. Unfortunately, he’s in a talkative mood this morning, so I’ll need to change the topic myself if I want to win.

‘Romulus not well again?’

Theo takes a sharp intake of breath and runs his hands down his cheeks. ‘Oh, no. Not well at all. I’m at a loss with what to do, Margaret.’ He begins to well up. ‘He’s had this cough for three days now, and his breathing is so laboured, I—’ His voice breaks and I hand him a tissue from my desk. ‘Thank you.’ He clears his throat. ‘It’s such a difficult time. Christopher and I are out of our minds with worry. I’ve had to leave him with Bernadette from next door. She thinks I’m being dramatic. Dramatic! Like she knows anything about what I’m going through. I’m slaving away here every second of every day—’ (I also used my spreadsheet to calculate that Theo spends an average of twenty-two hours per week at the office) ‘—and she just dallies around her kitchen making pies and cakes and taking them to everyone in the bloody village. She doesn’t even try to get to know Romulus. To find out what he likes, who he is . She won’t even give him a gentle kiss on the head when she puts him to bed. She says it’s weird. Weird! It makes him feel safe and comfortable, and I’ve already told her it’s not a problem with me; I know she’s not some creep who’ll get off on it or something. But oh no, Bernadette won’t do it because it’s weird , and of course Bernadette knows everything , but has she ever even owned an iguana?!’

Oh, yes. Romulus is an iguana. And Bernadette, I happen to know, raised five boys on her own while working two jobs. I wish I’d chosen female empowerment .

Kelsey, whose timing is notoriously shit (I could hear her standing outside waiting for the tirade to end before she entered) chooses this moment to grace us with her presence. She sweeps in, flicks her hair back and gazes pointedly at her seat, which is still occupied by Theo and his heavy breathing.

I’m quite pissed off, because I followed the rules of the ‘sisterhood’ or whatever and saved Kelsey with the story of her mangled womb, and now she has betrayed me by making me today’s recipient of Theo’s iguanian infatuation.

‘Kelsey, you’re back!’ I etch concern upon my face. ‘I hope your, erm, pains— ’ I gesture to my lower stomach, ‘—are a little better?’

Kelsey’s face registers confusion, realisation and then anguish at an alarming speed. ‘Oh, yeah, I’m really suffering today. I’d rather not talk about it, though. I’ve actually got some emails I need to go through...’ She eyes Theo again, who still hasn’t moved.

I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, but I’m going to have to drop Kelsey in it if I want to escape. When it comes to Theo, it’s every man for himself.

‘I need to nip to the bathroom myself, actually. Theo was just telling me about poor Romulus and it’s made me quite sad.’ I skirt around her and up the corridor as Theo launches into an in-depth analysis of Romulus’s bowel movements.

* * *

Twenty minutes and two cigarettes out the bathroom window later and I’m back at my desk. Kelsey is determinedly ignoring me, presumably in retaliation for landing her in it earlier, so I am clicking my mouse extra loud in the hope that she’ll chat to me and distract me from my work. My task for the morning is to write a pitch for a new weight-loss drug, which I’m 99per cent certain is just capsules of salt. I have to read the information leaflet, past research and statistics before translating it into normal English and picking out all the best bits. Then I have to write a really moving speech about how great and life-changing it is, based on the 0.0001 per cent of success stories it’s produced. This is where a biology degree takes you, folks.

‘Maggie?’ Rachael from upstairs winds her skinny, annoying neck round the door. ‘Have you got Loss-A-Lot?’ She taps her fingers impatiently.

‘He’s riding his horse back from Camelot as we speak.’ I don’t look up.

‘What?’

‘Loss-A-Lot? Lancelot? No?’ She stares at me blankly. Never-bloody-mind. ‘Just finishing it now. I’ll bring it up in ten.’

She totters back out and up to her palace, where she resides with Ben and Mohammed. The dream team. Basically, they sit around slurping skinny lattes all day and wait for me to bring them their briefs, then swan off in their company cars and try to sell drugs to doctors. The official title is ‘sales rep’, but I prefer ‘wanker’.

Rachael is one of those social media queens, with an unteachable knack for posting every single aspect of her life at exactly the right angle. She once spent half her month’s wage on a decorative bed cushion and went on about it for weeks like it was something she was proud of. Secretly, I think she hates me because my Instagram is made up of blurry photos of Domino’s pizza and fish I’ve spotted in the canal, and that must say something about me. She followed me once for about two hours, and then abruptly disappeared from my followers list as quickly as she came.

My phone vibrates on my desk and I flip it over. A text from my sister.

Verity: Mum says I haven’t checked on you for too long. Will be at yours Friday p.m.

I resist the temptation to text her back and ask her if she’d considered that I might have plans on a Friday night (I don’t), and to call my mother and ask her why she constantly thinks I need ‘checking on’, and push my phone between the four dirty mugs on my desk. Veri is always the last person I want to see, but if I get it out of the way she probably won’t bother me for another couple of months.

I finish off the Loss-A-Lot brief, checking that all the facts are vague enough to be uncontentious, print three copies and make my way up to the first floor. I tap on the door and wait until I hear Mohammed say ‘enter’ ( enter?! ) before going in. Rachael is sat on the edge of her massive desk, her slim, waxed legs reflecting the light coming from the window behind her. Mohammed and Ben are lounging on two giant beanbags, sniggering at something on one of their phones. Saddos.

‘Finally.’ Rachael snatches the papers from my hands.

‘I said ten minutes like... five minutes ago?’ I say petulantly.

‘OK, Maggie, well you let us know when you’ve got a job where people actually depend on you, yeah?’ Mohammed pipes up.

I look at him for a second and then turn on my heel, slamming the door behind me.

I head back down to my office and stare at my blank screen for a moment. Kelsey doesn’t look up from her computer.

‘I can’t believe you don’t make more of an effort with them.’ She types as she speaks.

‘Who?’

‘The sales reps.’

‘Because they’re awful people?’

She laughs like a manic toad. ‘They make a lot more money than you.’

‘And more than you... doesn’t mean I have to get on with them. They don’t control my salary.’

‘The company’s growing, Maggie.’

I really don’t like her tone.

‘And?’

‘And when they need more sales reps they’ll be recruiting internally first. Don’t think Rachael won’t have a say in who gets hired.’

‘I’m not going to suck up to them, Kelsey. I honestly couldn’t give a shit.’

She snorts and we lapse into silence. When I glance over at her, she’s peering at me over her ‘designer’ glasses (I saw an identical pair in Primark last week for ￡2.50), ‘That’s why you’ll always be stuck at the bottom, while everyone else makes an effort and actually gets somewhere.’

I gape at her in shock. I cannot believe she just said that to me. She glances over at the empty seat on the far side of the office. Mohammed’s old seat. He used to do what I do, before he applied for one of the rep positions. He trained me up a bit when I arrived and then moved on up to his kingdom upstairs. He actually used to be an ok guy before the status went to his head.

I’m really riled up now. ‘Believe it or not, Kel, running around the city with a superiority complex and a sushi meal deal isn’t my number one career goal. But I’m thrilled for you, your dream of spending the rest of your life in this building isn’t a hard one to achieve.’ I can’t believe it. How can she sit there and tell me I’m going nowhere, when last week we were both crying over a bottle of wine, talking about how much we hate our jobs?

Kelsey and I have the kind of forced friendship that springs from a shared office and a mutual demographic. We’re both twenty-seven, struggling to pay city-centre rent and wondering when the ladder out of here is going to appear. Apart from that, we have very little in common, and our collective dissatisfaction with our lives brings out the worst in us most of the time.

She says nothing.

‘If this is some tough-love tactic you’re trying out, it’s not working.’

She sighs. ‘No, you’re right. I’m sorry. Ignore me. Bad day.’

‘Me too.’ I’m annoyed with myself for mouthing off at her and not being the bigger person. It isn’t her fault I’m unhappy, nor is it mine that she is. Self-consciousness and hopelessness are making me bitchy, though, and I need to reign it in. There’s enough misery around here without the two of us turning on each other, and I really don’t want people to start thinking I’m a nasty cow.

‘What’s up?’ I scoot my chair round to her side of the desk. ‘Anything you want to talk about?’

‘It’s nothing, really.’ She rubs one heavily made-up eye with her little finger, niftily scratching an itch while keeping all her eyeliner in place. I watch in awe. ‘Just an interview I didn’t get. Again.’

Theo flings himself into the office before I can delve further, his bag swinging from his shoulder. ‘Ladies, this place is giving me a migraine. I’m going to work from home.’ He notices Kelsey’s bowed head, my hand on her arm. ‘Feel free to do the same, both of you. You’ve worked hard this month.’