Sure enough, there he was, the big Double J as we liked to call him, sauntering in at the end of the work day as though he was only late because he had won yet another award last night to cram onto his desk. Statistically, he probably had.
‘I still think what he’s doing is in bad taste,’ Tasha said.
‘Journalism for people with brains the size of peas? That’s been a thing for a while,’ I quipped, both of us watching keenly as Double J slumped down into his chair on the side of the office with the view of the Thames. Lord, I hated him. The Managing Editor, Deborah, often had me quietly rewrite some of his articles for web, so it didn’t sound like an unhinged narcissist had complete hegemony over the newspaper printers.
Reminded me of Orwell, you know, the chap who wrote1984, the book every red-faced boomer pretends they’ve read. But it was actually his wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy, who had a huge hand in shaping his work; editing, rewriting, sometimes inserting her own ideas, and he just took all the credit. God, I knew how she felt. Although, let me clarify, Double J is not someone I’d ever consider nuptials with.
Thing is, despite his ego being the size of theDaily Mail’s headline font, I mostly hated Double J because he gave Greta an abundance of passive-aggressive notes when he didn’t get his way. She would just be working away in IT and then he would make the odyssey to the floor above, approach her desk wordlessly, and then drop a note about how he wanted his article at the top of the home page or for her to remove some disparaging comments about anarticle he had written. Man had absolutely no humility or manners whatsoever.
My phone buzzed violently on the desk. It was Greta, letting me know she was done for the day and waiting for me downstairs.
‘Right, I reckon I’m done. I’m off for a pre-birthday meal with Greta,’ I announced, shutting down my computer.
‘Oh, enjoy! Pre-birthday?’ Tasha asked.
‘Yeah, well, Greta’s away in Ottawa on some training seminar for my actual birthday so we’re doing it today. It’s a whole thing. Talk tomorrow?’ I said to Tasha whilst yanking my arms through the sleeves of my jacket.
‘I’ll be here, like most days,’ Tasha replied with a fatalistic grunt, shuffling herself on her wheeled chair back to her desk. ‘But please text me when you get home, okay? And be safe?’
‘I will, I will,’ I said, sounding like a child appeasing a nagging mum although I knew I would have said the exact same to her. ‘Besides, Greta’s staying at mine tonight, so we’ll stick together. Plus, I think there’s a police officer stationed every seven yards in Fulham at the moment.’
Tasha gave me one of her sceptical,don’t quite believe younods as I swiped away Chlo’s messages that were incessantly hogging up the majority of my phone screen. I never understood why all her messages were sent in chunks of ten words or less, if ever she discovered voice notes, I was in deep, deep trouble.
I replied to Greta, letting her know I was on my way down. I had to admit, I wasn’t exactly in the mood for socialising tonight, and not just because of the notorious serial killer lurking about London streets. It was more the fact that I felt utterly and despairingly useless at work. Like a spare part created solely to make the lads at the top look even more shiny and impressive. When I joined five years ago, Greta had pulled all the strings she could, despite being a very junior member of the team, to get me an interview. I had thought this was my dream job, a huge media empire with a reputable paper at its centre that had a distinguished reputation for investigative journalism. And at first, I was brimming with ideas,frothing at the mouth to finally write the articles I always wanted to, and they humoured me, letting me write my various pieces in my first few months, despite some heavy editing. But as time went on, more and more of my ideas were dismissed. If they couldn’t be condensed into 500 words with a catchy headline that would drag someone in from their Facebook feeds, chances were it wouldn’t be green-lit for publication. Eventually, I stopped making suggestions altogether; I had decided that I had quite enough of rejection and would just rather begrudgingly write about how boiling tap water was worse than smoking and could turn you into a senile, impotent human kettle; well, that and Megxit always seemed to get our readers in such a tizzy.
I hurried down the stairs to find Greta waiting in the lobby, wearing her now-iconic beautiful, flowing emerald single-breasted boyfriend coat. She gave me a small wave, and we shed our corporate skins to be real humans again as I broke into a half run across the marble flooring to embrace her, wrapping my arms tight around her petite frame as I used all the strength in my core to gently lift her off the ground. It was ridiculous really, we had only seen each other a few hours ago when I went to bother her in IT. No wonder Sam had once started a rumour that we were both closet lesbians.
‘Hello, friend,’ I whispered, holding her body close to me. ‘How is IT?’
‘Terrible,’ she replied softly. ‘How is Editorial?’
‘Terrible.’
I loosened my grip slightly to let her drop back onto her feet as I could feel my back muscles start to spasm with pain.
‘Well, you look stunning, petal,’ she replied, her voice soft and sing-songy. ‘Happy, Happy Early-Birthday. How are you? How was the rest of your day?’
‘I’m…’ I paused, searching for the right words without being too overly morose. ‘I’m okay. It’s been a bit nauseating with everything going on, but I’m sort of okay… I think.’
‘If you were fully all right, frankly I’d be worried. Come on, let’s walk while we talk, you know how much I love Sabroso. Mindif we delegate maybe a few minutes for me to talk about something important? I think I’m just being stupid, but I guess it would be nice if you can tell me that straight to my face.’
‘Of course,’ I replied, already curious what it might be. She had seemed a bit distracted when I went to say hi to her today, like there was maybe something weighing on her mind.
I liked Sabroso. It called itself a café, but it was really a jack-of-all-trades: sandwiches, coffee, brunch, dinner an all-day menu; the sort of London spot that has to be everything to everyone in order to survive the extortionate rent. It felt a little like it was having a permanent identity crisis. I could relate.
She walked a few paces, then Greta suddenly blurted out the c-word in the lobby, followed by the bizarre suffix ‘-balls’ after it. It made me recoil a little, not just at the shift in Greta’s tone but the inventiveness of this portmanteau. She really should be in Editorial, she would be great at headlines.
‘What is it?’
‘I forgot your birthday card, it’s at my dad’s house when I stayed over last night! I’m such a silly clot.’
She didn’t say ‘clot’.
We left the office and strolled along the high street, the road adorned with various Christmas lights that felt quite out of place this year. We chatted mostly about the books we’d been reading, and making the most of the hustle and bustle of rush-hour London. Previously claustrophobic, presently it felt strangely safe being amidst the bustling swathes of people now that there was a serial killer at large. I spoke about how I’d been working my way through a high-fantasy romance that was as thick as, seemingly, the male love interest’s erect cock, while Greta, a self-professed Obama superfan, was halfway throughA Promised Land; this was her fourth read since its release three years ago.
‘He soothes me,’ she would gently say when I asked her why she was reading it yet again, ‘he soothes me more than any other man can, Ruth.’
‘Yeah, but Obama, Greta. A yank?’
