‘Everyone, we can start now! Miss Eversholt has deigned to grace us with her presence.’
‘Sorry Mr Rooney. Sorry everyone.’
As usual, the rest of the surveying team looked at her with complete blankness. They always did this, as if they thought being Assistant Administrative Director of Business Development was in some way odd. Ellie hated her job. Beyond hated it. She’d liked the idea of it, but then her idea of it was kind of sexy architects crossed with sexy builders. This didn’t turn out to have a lot to do with what it was, which involved large numbers of protractors and lots of long division. And for some reason the men who worked in it seemed to be required by law to wear loads of pens clipped onto their top pockets, and great big shoes that looked like Cornish pasties.
‘Well, you’ll be glad to know we’ve got a new job in, and it’s going to be taking up lots of our time. They’re turning the old library into … anyone? Anyone?’
‘Don’t tell us, groovy new fake open-plan warehouse flats with fake wooden floors and metal sinks,’ Ellie muttered to the person sitting next to her who was wearing a polyester blouse and completely ignored her.
‘… a revolutionary evolution in inner city migration.’
‘Thought so,’ said Ellie, slugging back some more revolting polystyrene coffee.
‘Miss Eversholt, if you have anything to say, perhaps you’d like to share it with the rest of the group?’
‘No Mr Rooney.’
‘And are you chewing?’
‘No Sir,’ she said. That wasn’t true. There was an undislodgeable and inedible piece of Brantastic stuck to the roof of her mouth.
‘Well, I need a volunteer to dig up the archived Victorian plans … anyone? Anyone?’
There was silence.
‘Ellie, why don’t you take that on?’
This was the filthiest job possible and usually meant several sixteen-hour days in a locked windowless basement, which was good if you were a method actor researching a play about the Beirut hostages, but not particularly useful for anything else.
‘Sir, how can I look for things down at the library when you’re converting all the libraries?’
‘Don’t play smart mouth with me young lady. Now, any other business?’
Ellie sighed and ate another fusty custard cream. Rooney & Co. specialized in ripping the guts out of proper, useful buildings and turning them into Lifestyles for young single professionals; identical rough-walled wanker machines that sold for hundreds of thousands of pounds. As well as it being horribly dull, Ellie always had the sneaking feeling that there was something actually totally wrong with what she was doing, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Arthur had patiently explained it was post-modern and at least they weren’t ripping up the countryside, but the niggling feeling remained, alongside the budding repetitive strain injury.
‘What’s up?’ she remarked to her sullen and uncommunicative temp as she wandered into her cubicle after the meeting.
‘Three churches, six cotton warehouses and a shipyard some wanker wants to offload. Did you have a nice birthday?’ said the temp without lifting her head from Take A Break magazine. What was worse, Ellie wondered: inviting the temp to her birthday party or the temp not turning up?
‘Not really,’ she said. ‘You’re not meant to enjoy your own birthdays, are you? Too fraught.’
The temp shrugged.
‘Can’t remember. I’m always too lashed out of my head.’
‘Maybe that was my big mistake,’ said Ellie. ‘Actually remembering being there.’
What was worse, Ellie wondered: playing patience at work or caring about it enough to change the design on the back of the cards?
Thank God she had something to look forward to after work. Elms, their Clapham local, looked lit up and busy that evening. There was a band playing in the corner with a saxophonist who fortunately wasn’t Billy, friendly waiting staff with aprons, who let you run tabs, and long red-checked-tableclothed tables. Siobhan and Julia were joining them, to see if they could remember what a good night out felt like. As she walked in, Ellie was disappointed at how relieved she was that her friends had found a place to sit and the music wasn’t too loud. She plucked off Arthur’s red hat and sat down.
‘Hey! Where are we up to?’
‘B,’ said Arthur.
‘Perfect. I’ll have a Bloody Mary.’ The waitress nodded and headed off.
‘How are you?’ said Julia tentatively.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Ellie. ‘I’ve had the crappiest day in the universe. I just can’t … God, do you ever feel you’re getting into a big fat rut?’
‘Aha! The middle class Olympics!’ said Arthur.
‘G2 does,’ said Siobhan, handing over the newspaper. The headline read, ‘Are You and Your Twenty-Something Friends in a Big Fat Rut? Why not Experiment With Scented Candle Sticks, Scatter Cushions and Cocaine, Just Like Everybody Else Is?’
‘This is EXACTLY what I mean,’ said Ellie. She picked the paper up. ‘I don’t feel I can have one tiny original thought in my head. And if anything goes wrong I’m just supposed to go and buy something taupe and put it in the right corner of the living room.’
‘Thatcherbaby,’ said Arthur.
‘I know. But I didn’t ask to be a Thatcherbaby!’
‘Well, you are.’
‘I mean, is this it? Is there really nothing more to life than getting your gold card?’
‘Oh, I got mine!’ said Siobhan.
‘Really! Let’s see. Ohh. God, I’m so shallow.’
‘Of course you are,’ said Arthur. ‘Your number one fantasy in life is to kiss Andrew McCarthy in a pink dress. Although world peace runs a close second.’
Ellie sipped her newly arrived Bloody Mary. ‘I think I’m unhappy. I need an adventure. Maybe I should change jobs. Or career. Or dye my hair?’
‘You’re affluent, you have no responsibilities, you have plenty of free time … you are making up INVISIBLE WESTERN PROBLEMS,’ said Arthur. ‘Go see a therapist. They love invisible problems.’
‘It’s just thirtyangst,’ said Julia. ‘I got that too. Don’t worry about it.’
‘Easy for you to say,’ said Ellie. ‘You’ve got your own flat AND a devoted love slave.’
Loxy smiled and put his arm around Julia. She shrugged him off and raised her eyes to heaven, whereupon his smile faded. Loxy was aware at some level that the more uxoriously he behaved the less attention he received, but was too nervous to put any lovebastard techniques into practice. In short he was universally referred to as Sweet with a capital S, never the epithet of choice for strong-armed love gods, unless your name is Eric Cartman. This often puzzled Loxy, as he was six foot two, built, had a fairly difficult responsible job as a prisoner’s advocate and was never normally like this around women. In fact, before he’d met Julia, he’d never done a sappish thing in his life. However he’d never met a woman before who did such a convincing job of combining Felicity Kendal and Ulrika Johnson.
There was no point in envying the fact that Julia got all the great men though, as Siobhan, checking her watch for the hundredth time, was well aware.
‘Where the hell is Patrick?’ she said. ‘He’s so unreliable. I wish he wouldn’t work so late.’
‘Actually, Shiv, Patrick’s