Precious You

You looked at the road ahead and muttered, ‘I’m actually starting at a trade today. Interning.’ I noticed your fingers were gripping your laptop case. Clearly, you’d have liked it if I’d just stopped talking. You made me feel something I was suddenly aware I’d been closing in on without being able to badge it: you made me feel like an old fool. You continued, ‘It’s about management and stuff. Interviews with businesspeople. Things bosses care about. It’s called Leadership?’ You didn’t look at me as your voice inflected upwards again at the end of a sentence in a way that made you sound unambiguously young and annoying.

The next words formed in my mind, but they seemed to lose their power as soon as I went to say them. The offhand way you described the magazine told me you wouldn’t be deeply impressed by what I was about to say. And if I didn’t find myself remotely impressive anymore, why should anyone else, least of all you?

‘I edit Leadership,’ I said quietly.

You looked right at me, ‘Oh. That’s literally where I’m heading right now.’

‘That’s a bit fucking mad, isn’t it?’ I said. I didn’t register it then, but would learn later that you winced whenever I swore.

‘Wow. I guess it is.’

But it couldn’t have been that exciting, because you already sounded bored. It was the tone of a cooler person you meet at a party who spots someone more interesting over your shoulder and grabs a superlative out of the air as a sign off. I used to do that, but now it’s people like you who do it to me, young people who use my magazine as a mere departure lounge that allows them to soar somewhere brighter and better, me existing only to on-board the next batch of interns who would leapfrog my life.

‘Do you know who’ll you be reporting to? I wasn’t expecting a new intern today.’

‘Gemma Lunt, the publisher. It’s her first day too.’

‘Right, well, don’t worry, I’ll explain why we’re late. Stick with me, and my deputy Asif. You’ll be fine.’

‘Should I be worried?’

‘No. Not really. Just keep your head down. You’ll probably be set up in my team.’

You nodded. ‘Sounds great. I’m super-focused on what I need to do, like you say, being somewhere I can learn from older people?’

A spike. The sense of the smooth, hard finger of youth prodding my loosening life. Subtle, and few would deny the barb if they heard it themselves. But I would learn very quickly that every single person in my world would take your side first, always give you the benefit of the doubt before they would me. A privilege given to the young and beautiful, a privilege I didn’t know I had until I lost it.

I watched you for a moment from the corner of my eye as the first inkling there was something less than innocent about you prickled my stomach. I didn’t yet know if it was just paranoia; a wild idea sprouting from an already unreliable mind. I never fully realised how much danger a person is in when the individual they trust least is themselves. After you, Lily, I’ll never ignore my first instincts again.

‘It’s great you’re so ready to learn…I’m Katherine, by the way.’

‘Lily.’

You offered me your narrow palm, but gave no indication you knew exactly who I was.

The minutes dragged as we passed Liverpool Street. It had gone nine. I was supposed to be in Gemma Lunt’s office in fifteen minutes. I’d only agreed to the early slot so I could avoid the usual Monday morning social interrogation. I thought about dropping her a line to manage expectations, then decided I’d chance getting there on-the-knuckle and avoid my first communication with her being about something I’d failed to execute effectively.

The cab suddenly picked up speed and we caught a couple of green lights. For a moment, it seemed possible I might just be OK.

You leant forward to speak to the driver, ‘Hi, could you pull in here, up on the left?’ and we swerved into a side street. Turning to me, ‘I have to pick up something from my mum? I’ll be so quick.’

‘But I’m already late, couldn’t you—’

‘It’s OK. I can square it with Gem, promise.’

‘Gem?’ You knew my new boss. How?

I tried to remember what I’d only that hour told you about my work. When I struggled, a fresh anxiety rose in my chest. Another symptom of the beige cloud: forgetfulness followed by panic about what might have happened in the gaps.

Before I could say anything else, you were out of the taxi, running through a carved stone archway. When you clearly thought I couldn’t see you anymore, you stopped running and instead walked slowly towards a heavy lacquered door. You pressed on a buzzer and spoke sullenly into an intercom, all urgency gone. In my head, I begged you to yank the door towards you and race through it like your life depended on it, but instead you pulled it carefully and stepped gently into the building.

9.03.

9.05.

At 9.07 I drafted an email to Gemma, trying to convey confidence, a lack of guilt, but also some necessary undertones of contrition. I noticed your laptop case next to me.

9.12.

I wanted to know what the hell you were doing. I thought about telling the driver to get going, but you were apparently on intimate terms with ‘Gem’, the very woman who’d masterminded the buyout of Leadership. I couldn’t leave you there, even if I wanted to. The day had felt like a huge test I needed to pass. You were making me fail it.

When it got to 9.17, the meter bust forty-five quid and I was getting seriously pissed off. Not only because I’d lost all hope of not being late, but also because once it got past £60, I’d have to submit a ‘business case’ with the receipt under the new staff code of conduct.

I looked at your laptop case again. The driver thumbed his phone. The courtyard was empty. I let my hand inch over to the far side of the back seat. Your case was made of suede, soft as butter. It felt expensive. The closing mechanism was a string and leather tag wrapped around two buttons. Anyone wanting to sneak a peek would have to remember exactly which direction you’d tied the figure of eight around the buttons. They would have to be quick about it.

Before I could stop myself, my fingers had unspun the twine and flapped the case open. Your phone number and your name in sensible black ink capitals:

LILY LUNT

So, you were some relation to Gemma Lunt.

Well, wasn’t that a neat detail you’d chosen to keep to yourself. I wondered what else you might be opting to not tell me and what you would divulge to Gemma from the information you’d gleaned from me so far.

The driver stirred, saying something like, Here we go. I looked up to see you sweeping out of the door and into the courtyard. My fingers were suddenly sodden. Was the string wrapped round the top button first or second? From the left or the right? I tried one way, it didn’t look right. I tried another, it still looked wrong. I quickly glanced up again. You were still a few seconds away, but on seeing me, broke into a quick jog, a wholly fake display that you gave a shit over how late you were making me. I fumbled desperately. You were at the other door and your perfect little figure of eight had been replaced by a damp, slack tangle. You climbed in, and if the mangled thread didn’t tell you I’d been tampering with your things, then my sweaty guilt surely would. I’d have to distract you and hope against hope you wouldn’t notice. So although you should have been apologising to me for royally fucking-up my morning, instead, I found myself over-brightly asking you, ‘Everything alright?’

‘Yes, good thanks. Hi, we can go?’ you said to the driver.

Your eyes rested on your case.

You knew.

You were carrying a black cube with the words Caran d’Ache embossed in silver. I didn’t know they were a luxury pen maker until I googled it later. This, the family business and a mother working in the City? You had to be made of money.

‘Something for Gemma?’

You pulled your eyes off the dirtied twine and breathed as if you were saying Look, Katherine, without actually saying it.

‘I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t want to make things, like, at all awkward. So, Gem is my aunt. I know a bit about optimising content, that sort of thing, with the magazine and the website, I guess it seemed a bit of a no-brainer, me helping out? Gem and my mum, they haven’t always been best buds.’ You tapped the box with an alabaster finger. ‘Sorry. Family stuff. Look, I’ll explain to Gem it was me. I made you late. My bad, honest,’ and your dark eyes flickered down onto your laptop case again before returning to my face.

Optimising content. We used to call it ‘good writing’, and once upon a time some, just a few of us got our jobs on merit, not because of the luck of birth. Now I was going to end up walking in with you, like I was in on it. My team were going to disrespect me even more than they already did.

‘Don’t worry about it. Really. How about we start again from the beginning?’

You smiled: surprisingly wide and meaningful, some strange energy coming off you as your sunny lips stretched over tombstone teeth, eyes darting across my face again. My anger started to recede. That smile of yours. Another one of your gifts.

‘You got it. Let’s start again.’

A minute later in Monument, the traffic was dire. My stomach turned with dread. I couldn’t afford to feel this way. I summoned what Iain would have said to me: It’s not so bad, is it, girl? Let’s get a bit of perspective, will we?

OK.

Maybe I wouldn’t have made it on time anyway, and now I’d rescued the boss’s niece from a puncture and missing buses. Perhaps this was a good start after all? Maybe I was actually winning.

Come on, it’s a good day, no?

We reached the open air of London Bridge and I let the thin March sun reflecting off the river lift me. I nearly loved London again in moments like that, when your eyes sweep left and right over the Thames and it feels like the Southbank, Big Ben, Tower Bridge and good old HMS Belfast exist just to make you feel it’s good to be alive. Today will be a good day.

‘So, have you been editor for very long?’ you asked from nowhere.

‘Some might say too long,’ I replied before I could stop myself.

‘Would they?’

‘I’ve been there about twenty years now … I still love my job.’ The sound of ‘twenty years’ in my mouth felt like a great stone I wanted to spit out. I thought, for the thousandth time, about how it had got to such a vast amount of time. Thankfully, you seemed to have lost interest before I’d even finished faking the joy of my two decades at the same place.

We crossed the river and pulled up outside the office. I needed to pay by card. You sat forward on the edge of the back seat, your legs pointing in the direction of the door.

‘You go ahead while I sort this out,’ I felt obliged to say, as I tried to add a tip in a way that made mathematical sense and didn’t look tight, but still kept the total south of £60.

‘Thank you. Is that OK? You’re sure?’

‘Out you go.’

‘I’ll be super-quick with Gem.’

‘That’s not—’ I said, pressing the button that added 15 per cent on top of £57.50 in my distraction.

‘Thank you, Katherine.’

The first time you said my name.

You gave me a thousand-watt smile which I returned in a kind of wonder.

‘That’s fine,’ I said to the air as I watched you skip towards the revolving doors of my office building.

Out on the pavement, as I stuffed my card back in my purse and tried to regroup before heading in, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

‘Thought you could do with this today.’ Asif handed me a tall black coffee. He smelt of a recent spritz of his beloved cologne, Fierce by Abercrombie & Fitch, his forehead glistening in the strengthening sunlight, hazel eyes gleaming under dark, soft curls that made all the interns swoon. At least I had him in my corner.

‘My god, you fucking star.’ I took a sip that burnt my tongue. ‘You been in yet?’

‘I have.’

We went through the doors, swiped our passes and started to mount the marble stairs to our floor side-by-side. ‘And?’

‘And it was fine, she’s fine. A bit … you’ll see, I don’t know. We should be alright.’

He seemed to be holding back, trying to protect me.

‘Emphatic stuff. Have you met the niece yet?’

‘Niece? Not another hopeless bloody intern? Not yet. When did you?’

‘It’s kind of an unfunny story.’

Asif and I walked in as you emerged from a hug with Gemma, a woman with hen-brown curls pinned into an insubstantial French twist. Like me, she was in her early forties, but with her corporate skirt suit and sensible hairdo, she seemed so much older than me. I’d heard she had built and sold many businesses, and that she’d bought Leadership practically on a whim once she’d identified ‘the brand’s multi-platform potential,’ whatever that meant. She had no kids and a fancy duplex in Marylebone, a house in Norfolk and some kind of Alpine ski chalet. Imagine.

I watched you and her inside the recently-constructed glass office she’d commissioned for herself. They were actually on the verge of building me my own office, just as things started to turn at Leadership. The end of year accounts came out and the directors suddenly went from signing off my every request to stalling on my requirements, then actively sidestepping contact with me so they could dodge admitting the perilous state of Leadership’s balance sheet to ‘their girl’, the junior reporter they’d ‘groomed for greatness’ and then appointed youngest-ever editor nearly twenty years earlier.

In that office, which in a better world would have been mine, Gemma grasped your shoulders with both hands. I could see you were staring at the floor as she tried to force you to look her in the eyes. You wouldn’t meet them. She gave up and scanned the office over your head, drew you close to give you a quick kiss on the head before finally letting you go. You kept gazing down before visibly gathering yourself and flouncing out of her office and into the open floor. It took just a couple of strides to get you to your assigned desk space, diagonally opposite mine. She wanted to keep you close to her, and close to me. And even then the reporter in me was asking why. What are you?

As you moved, I saw Asif take in every centimetre of you and your legs – solid stripes of muscle tense under black opaques, disappearing at the very last moment into a pelmet of leather. Asif, my one-time intern, my protégé who’d even chosen his login to please me when he’d first joined (StephenPatrick59, in honour of my love of Morrissey), someone who stood by me during the worst of it. He had seen me at my very best, just before my illness, before anyone understood the old company’s catastrophic finances, when it seemed me and my merry band could go on writing away, propped up by a semi-loyal base of subscribers and a modest advertising revenue, forever. These were the days before the first ‘tough conversation’ with the old directors on the ‘hard realities’ we couldn’t run away from anymore: the world had moved on and we hadn’t. Shortly after came the first redundancies, when we said goodbye to senior reporters who’d come up the ranks like me and who we couldn’t afford anymore, then the second round, where we lost our grizzled sub-editors, the connective tissue that always held the bones of Leadership together.

But even in those changing times, I’d been able to lobby for us to switch off below-the-line comments to encourage an elevated debate at real-life events where we’d document the outcomes. But that period, when people couldn’t hide behind their keyboards and usernames, was gone. Comments were now activated and often spilled over into the, at turns banal and cowardly, Twittersphere. Integrity and discipline were wholly lost in this modern world where people like you and, worse than that, those my age, feel it’s somehow both appropriate and interesting to share the first thing that comes into their heads. And as I watched Asif drink you in, something else I once understood was altering before my very eyes. I suppose you know, when you walk into a room, something in the air changes. I used to be capable of doing that.

‘She’s ready for you,’ you said as you passed by me, then, ‘Just be yourself, Katherine.’ I felt your breath on my ear, smelt your clean, warm scalp again. I shuddered.

‘Hi, come in, come in. Wonderful to be able to put a face to the name, finally. I’m sorry it’s taken this long to meet, I’ve been neck deep in the strategy, the financials and so on, but I know all about you.’ Gemma gestured towards a swivel chair I knew to be broken, though she didn’t. I nodded and perched on the crap chair without letting my weight bear down.

‘Likewise.’

‘We’re a bit late, so I’ll cut straight to it.’

My stomach fell. I knew she and her new board had been discussing ‘my future’.

‘Nothing formal or anything. No need to look so worried!’

‘I’m not, I’m just … Sorry, I had a bit of a nightmare this morning. I hate it when one of my team shows up late and goes on about the failures of the Jubilee Line, or whatever,’ I tried to smile over the familiar thrust of cortisol in my veins.

‘Lily explained. Did she tell you much about her background on the way in?’

‘That she’s your niece?’ And as I thought about it, I realised we’d been together in that taxi for almost an hour and all I knew was that you blogged. (Who doesn’t? Besides me, of course.) I should have asked you a million questions, but there I was, armed only with a scrap of information on your relationship with Gemma.

‘That’s right. She’s also very bright and very young, but I wonder, could I ask you, in confidence, to keep an eye on her? Asif says you’re much stronger than you seem on paper.’

I was confused. Damning me with such faint praise didn’t sound like the Asif I knew. I looked over at him, walking towards the space behind your chair, then placing his hands squarely on the back of it, right above your shoulders.

‘Right. Thanks. I am really strong,’ I flustered.

‘You probably understand it was a bit of a tussle with the new board to keep you on, but I won and I’m really glad I did.’

‘No. No, I don’t, exactly. A tussle? Could you … what does that mean?’

‘Oh, Lord, I assumed they’d kept you quite close to the process … Well, it was the board’s preferred option that we maybe start afresh. New look, new management, new editor. But I thought it right and proper you got to be part of the new now, so here we are.’ She smiled, as if she expected me to thank her for letting me keep my post at a magazine I’d lived and breathed since I was almost a girl, a title I’d shaped. I had no choice but to play along. I needed my job, my second home in the world, so I couldn’t get as angry as I was entitled to.

‘OK, well, thank you, Gemma. You can count on me to … I’ll always keep going,’ I garbled. My once-familiar territory as unstable as the broken chair trembling beneath me. Gemma began speaking again, talking at me like she’d made index cards beforehand. I knew if I could muster the energy, I’d already despise her.

‘They tell me you’ve put a huge amount of effort into the first new-look issue. I can’t wait to read it all tomorrow, I’m so glad to hear you’ve committed so much to what I really hope is going to be an exciting new chapter for all of us.’

I was glad she’d noticed. I’d gathered enough resolve to make sure we’d come out of the blocks under the new owners with a strong issue, getting the interns to set up most of the interviews, do the background research and fact-checks, but writing the lion’s share of the features and profiles myself. My picture byline would be all over the magazine and website by the following day. I can’t say my heart and soul went into those pieces, but sweat and elbow grease certainly had. I am a fighter by nature, Lily. As soon as I feel my back on the wall, my fists go up. My primal instinct.

‘Thank you, Gemma.’

‘Now, was there anything you wanted to discuss?’

‘No, not really,’ I said, but then you waltzed by outside the glass and I swear you winked at me. Behind you, Asif’s eyes followed your arse until it disappeared into the kitchen area. ‘But I suppose it’d be good to know if there’s anything else I should know about Lily?’ My opening move.

‘Well now, perhaps there is. It’s actually down to Lily we’re here. When she read Leadership was in trouble, she thought it had huge potential. She was excited. It was wonderful to see. I was looking for a new project, she was living with me at the time – I’m really her second mum, if you must know – she could see what it could be and brought me right into her vision. So there you are.’ Gemma beamed at the memory, and I imagined the two of you holed-up together in some palatial slice of prime central London real estate, plotting how to give old lady Leadership some commercial CPR, rescuing her from the demise of which I was the figurehead.

‘So your buyout, it was all her idea. That’s quite a vision for someone so young. Young people are so different now to how I was, how things used to be.’ I was unsettled, almost sure you’d given no indication whatsoever that you were in the driving seat of the buyout. And wouldn’t this mean you’d have known who I was when you muscled your way into my cab? Because for more than twenty years, up until that day, I was Leadership. Perhaps you were embarrassed, too modest to draw attention to your ability to see the latent opportunities in my ailing empire.

But then I watched you again through the glass.

You’d returned to your seat and Asif had come round to lean at the same level as your screen. While you spoke, pausing occasionally to gesture towards the images, he nodded in the general direction of your sideboob. You clocked him doing so and flicked your fingernails to your throat to maintain his attention.

‘Now, I’m glad you’ve mentioned how things used to be, Katherine.’

‘Yes,’ I said, without really listening, as I watched you call my picture research intern over to you. She obeyed and was soon nodding along with you and Asif.

‘I’ve had a bit of feedback from your team. There’s clearly a lot of admiration there for you.’

‘OK.’ I finally had to look away from you as you corralled my team around you, doing what, I didn’t know yet, but I had a feeling I wouldn’t like it.

‘An appreciation you come from a tradition of journalism that has some really excellent traits, one of those being a certain resilience. But certain elements, it might be that some of them are a bit of a hangover, you might say.’

‘A hangover from what?’

‘From maybe the atmosphere of an old-school newsroom. A bit of banter with the interns? Fine, of course, but it may be we need to think about …toning it down a bit.’

‘Toning down what?’

‘I think it’s probably a vocabulary issue as much as anything. One of your team said you’d called them “soft” when they’d been nervous about calling a consultant who’d just lost their business; another individual said you liked nothing more than to refer to them as precious “Snowflakes”?’

‘Who said that?’ Really, it could have been any one of the current crop of interns and I wasn’t surprised they’d swooped on the opportunity to plead their case to Gemma. I was more alarmed the Snowflakes had found such a ready advocate in a woman of my generation. But of course, this conversation, all of it, was about you, not them. Gemma wanted to arrange the world so it worked better for you, matched more closely with your lofty expectations, where any challenge to your status quo was banned. Five minutes in and you were already well into the process of reshaping my office into something closer to your liking. I looked over again to see the picture researcher offer you a palm to high five. You slapped it meekly, smiling at your feet.

‘I’m not going to get into who said what, but let’s take this as an opportunity to think again about the kind of place we all want to work. It should feel inclusive. It should feel safe. I know you’ll want to get on board with that.’

‘Of course, yes.’ I was hobbled, but I needed to keep fighting somehow. ‘Is there anything else I should know? Anything more on what the interns fed back?’ I paused. ‘Or anything else about Lily?’

The corner of Gemma’s lip twitched. ‘No. Nothing else that springs to mind.’

‘Well, OK then.’ I didn’t move towards the door yet. I wanted her to know I didn’t feel this conversation was really over. You see, I could tell your aunt was hiding something. People like you and me, Lily, we’re excellent liars, aren’t we? People like Gemma? Not so convincing.

‘Oh, one more thing, Katherine. Sorry, I forgot to ask … How are you? Would you say you’re feeling well?’

‘I’d say I was stronger than ever.’

‘Great, well, just to let you know, I’m going to have to keep asking you. It’s part of our new Wellness Policy.’

‘Good to know the new team are committed to caring.’

She nodded and gave me a squishy smile. She believed me. Excellent liar, see?

I got back to my desk, avoiding the eyes of my team, and you. But as I booted up my machine, I heard you say, ‘How did that go, then?’ Casually, as if you’d known me for years; more than that, as if you were my peer. You didn’t even look away from your screen, which you already seemed to be filling with prodigious amounts of copy. Who did you think you were? You thought you’d saved my sorry arse from unemployment. You thought my world was your empire because you were the niece of a chequebook publisher. Lily, there are some postcodes you can’t just buy into.

‘You didn’t say how lovely your aunt is,’ I said loudly enough for the other interns to hear. ‘Let me get organised and we’ll talk about some background research you can help Asif with.’

You moved your hair behind your ears with your fingers.

‘Oh. Should I clear this first?’

I thought I heard a stifled snort from the IT intern in the far corner of our bank of desks. I couldn’t let on I didn’t know what ‘this’ was.

‘Go for it.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yep.’

‘I mean, Gemma wanted me to focus on writing this curtain-raising piece for the awards, but I can prioritise your work if you’d rather—’

A request for consent twice. Signature play. Inserting yourself into the most visible and important areas of my work, also what I’d soon identify as a classic move.

The Leadership awards were the biggest night of our year, our shop window and a rallying cry for readers and advertisers to stick with us for another twelve months. You were already worming your way to the front and centre of it. As I hadn’t been well enough to attend, let alone lead on last year’s awards, this year’s would be my chance to reassert my authority, reinstating my reputation by showing everyone I was alive and kicking, on the outside at least.

You turned back to your screen and started typing again without waiting to hear my mumbled, No.

‘Oh, I should probably also flag, I was just introducing myself to the team and got brought into a little pow-wow about the cover for the reprint of the mag for awards night? I have a couple of ideas on tightening up the cover lines, maybe going for a sharper image. I mean, it’s practically the same, just a teensy bit more contemporary. I’m sure you’re going to love it, but they’re only ideas. Feel free to push back.’

Those dark eyes danced below raised eyebrows, a certain mischief on that smooth pale forehead, your orange lips, perfectly arranged into the faintest of smiles. Well, what have you got for me?

‘I’m sure I don’t have a choice,’ I said quietly to the air.

‘Katherine. You’re so funny,’ you said without a hint of laughter.

That afternoon, when Gemma headed to a board meeting, I watched you brazenly go into her office, close the door behind you and start rifling through her in-tray. You opened a stiff brown envelope, removed what looked distinctively like a corporate credit card, and slipped it into your pocket. I was outraged, not just because of the lunacy of giving an intern her own card on account of being the pretend daughter of the boss, but because I’d been waiting weeks for the replacement one I’d been promised by the new owners.

When you walked out you went directly to Asif’s desk. Whatever you said made him jump out of his seat, pull on his corduroy blazer and accompany you towards the double doors out of the office. It was nearly 3 p.m., the time I’d normally go for a coffee with him. It seemed we wouldn’t be heading out together that day. Neither would I go for coffee with him the next day, nor the day after that.

After watching you disappear with my only remaining ally at work, I dialled a department recently created under the new management.

‘Is this Talent and People? Katherine Ross here. I’ve got a new intern, started today. Trying to work out how best to use her, could you ping over her CV?’

If I was going to get one step ahead of you, I needed to get to know you better.