‘It’s lovely, isn’t it?’ Linda said wryly. ‘I only hope for its owner’s sake that it has better fuel consumption than my old one.’
When Hannah stopped her car outside Linda’s shop, Linda invited her in for supper but Hannah shook her head. She would be late enough as it was, and she had some reading up to do on the Jeffreys Group before her interview on Monday.
‘What a pity you couldn’t have taken a longer break,’ Linda commiserated as they said goodbye. ‘You must miss Dorset…’
‘Yes, I do,’ Hannah agreed honestly—an admission she would never have made to any of her colleagues who were such dedicated city dwellers. There were times when she felt almost claustrophobic in London, but living virtually on the river helped to banish that feeling, although nothing could ever really replace the spaciousness and rural beauty of her parents’ home village.
‘Unfortunately, London is where the jobs are. London and other capital cities.’
She wondered what Linda would say if she told her she was taking a special language course in Japanese; not that she intended to go and work in Japan, but the world was shrinking every day and the Japanese money markets were fast-growing business areas. One had to think of the future…
‘Don’t you ever envy the girls we grew up with, Hannah?’ Linda asked her a little wistfully, her hand on the open passenger door of the car. ‘I mean, they’re all married now with children…families…’
‘Not at all,’ Hannah told her crisply. ‘I’m not decrying marriage, Linda, but how many of those girls ever fulfilled their true potential? Oh, I’m not saying that being a wife and mother isn’t fulfilling…of course it is, but I can’t help wondering how many of those girls will turn round in ten years’ time and find themselves alone, their marriages broken up and themselves the sole breadwinner, and how many of them then will regret not having trained for a career…in not having some sense of themselves, apart from their husbands and children.
‘I prefer to rely on myself, rather than to rely on others,’ she added firmly. ‘It’s much safer.’
Linda’s mouth twisted a little bitterly. ‘And that’s a major consideration for our generation, isn’t it? Safety. Have you ever noticed how much the word “safe” occurs in our conversations? We’re almost obsessed by it.’
‘With every good reason,’ Hannah pointed out calmly. ‘The world—today is a very dangerous place, made dangerous by we who inhabit it.’
She gave her friend a final smile, and when Linda had closed the door and disappeared inside her home she set the car in motion again, heading for London.
CHAPTER TWO
‘HANNAH, where the devil are those figures on Hanson I asked you for last week?’
Refusing to react to the biting, bullying tone of her boss’s voice, Hannah went calmly to his desk and removed a file, which she handed to him without showing any signs of either chagrin or triumph.
This was one of the main reasons she had applied for the Jeffreys’ job. Ever since Brian Howard had been head-hunted by the directors, and appointed into a senior managerial post with the company, he had made her a target for his prejudice against her sex. A prejudice, that was, of her sex working in the same professional field as himself.
When he’d first joined the company, he had mistaken Hannah for one of the secretaries; his manner towards her had been insulting in the extreme and, as Hannah had told him coldly at the time, she sincerely felt for the secretarial staff if his behaviour towards her was indicative of the kind of sexual harassment they had to endure.
He had resented the tone she had taken with him, resented her sheer skill in her work and the professionalism that would not allow her to betray how much she disliked working for him.
He was forever needling her, criticising her and generally trying to put her down. And Hannah had resolved to herself several months ago that it would be sensible for her to look for another job. She was not a girl who believed in taking her problems to others, nor expecting them to solve them for her. The man was at fault, but since she knew quite well that what he wanted was a confrontation, whereby he could bully and browbeat her into feminine defensiveness and retreat, if possible accompanied by her loss of temper and, even better, her tears, she knew that to try and reason with him as she might have done with another man would be a sheer waste of time.
He resented her and he feared—not her—but her intelligence, her calm air of authority, her sheer ability.
Confrontation was not Hannah’s way; she had tried it too often with her brothers as a child and lost. Nor did she intend to go behind his back and solicit the support of others. She preferred to handle the situation in her own way.
It had come as an unpleasant shock to realise what other members of her sex had to endure in the workplace. When she had said as much to one of the senior secretaries in an unguarded moment, the other girl had grimaced, and said, ‘You don’t know the half of it! Talk about pandering to the male ego…Some of them are sweeties and the worst you can say about them is that they haven’t bothered to keep up with the new technology and that they expect their secretaries to do their work for them, and to keep quiet about their contributions when the plaudits are being handed out. But that’s the best of them. The worst—’ She had rolled her eyes and added grimly, ‘I advise every junior secretary I train to make it plain right from the start where they stand when it comes to sexual harassment.’
‘But how?’ Hannah had asked, remembering how hard she had found it to get it through her boss’s arrogant conceit that she found his advances repulsive.
‘Oh, it’s not easy, but there are ways. No provocative clothing, no flirtatious or misinterpretable remarks, unless you know the guy on the receiving end is going to take them the right way. And if you do get someone who steps out of line…well, depending on how far out of line he is, there are one or two tricks of the trade to make him see the error of his ways. Spilling his coffee over him, dropping a couple of files where it’s going to hurt, mentioning his wife and saying you think your mother knows her.’
Even though she had laughed, Hannah had been appalled that such measures were necessary.
Now she waited as he studied the figures she had given him, his small mouth pursing meanly. He put down the papers and leaned across her desk, bracing his hands on the edge of it, a threatening sexual stance, which Hannah ignored.
‘Two days off this week. Another off on Monday. Got a boyfriend, have we?’
Hannah bristled mentally at the overt prurience in his voice, but didn’t lift her head from her work.
Her boss was balding and forty-odd, his body running to fat. He had a penchant for strong aftershaves which were unpleasant at close quarters. He was well-groomed, as one would expect of a man in his position, but Hannah reflected that it was more due to his wife than to him. The wife whom he openly boasted about keeping short of money at home…jocularly adding that it was the best place for women to be, while leering at the office junior as she whisked past in her fashionable short skirt.
Hannah detested him and all men like him, but she was wise enough to know that no amount of protesting would change his attitude.
She was glad when her telephone rang, making it unnecessary for her to answer his questions. At least it was Friday, and she had the whole weekend in which to prepare herself for Monday’s interview.
WHEN SHE WAS at home in her docklands apartment, Hannah dressed completely differently from the way she did for work. Jeans and sweatshirts were the order of the day, while she worked happily on decorating the apartment more in line with her own tastes than those of the builder.
She had opted for one of the more expensive apartments, with a generous balcony area and marvellous views of the Thames.
On