Always and Forever (20 page)

But perhaps these women saw Mel, in her smart plum crepe suit and contrasting amethyst-coloured necklace, as only a brittle

power-broker, a creature from another planet who had no place in their world of sick, tired babies and everlasting waits in doctors’ surgeries.

Wel , she wanted to scream at them, they were wrong. She was from their world. Their no-sleep-with-crying-toddler world. Only they couldn’t see beyond the suit.

Mel made it to the Lorimar building by nearly half-past twelve, in time to meet Hilary - power-suited in red with matching lips - walking out of the building with one of the finance directors. Those guys al looked the same to Mel: weight-of-the-world expressions and suits that tried too hard to be Michael Douglas in Wal Street.

Knowing she was unforgivably late, Mel gave a half-smile and was rewarded with a rather chil y look from her boss. ‘I was looking for you earlier, Mel,’ Hilary said in a way that demanded an explanation.

Mel took a deep breath. ‘My younger daughter was sick and I had to take her to the doctor,’ she said evenly.

‘Oh.’ Nobody could invest the word ‘oh’ with as much depth as Hilary. Oh. You are in so much trouble, you wouldn’t believe, it said. The sick feeling Mel had felt al the way in on the train because she was late jumped up a notch to stomach-churning. ‘She was very bad during the night and I was worried,’ Mel added.

The finance guy looked utterly unmoved. He probably had kids. Mel was sure she’d seen them wheeled out at the company barbecue, along with his long-suffering wife, a woman who didn’t have to keep office hours but could iron pinstripe shirts expertly and knew how to put the kids to bed on her own when he went out for a team-building drink with the hotshots from Lorimar. But he cared nothing for sick kid stories. Neither, it seemed, did Hilary.

‘You know how awful it is when smal children are sick,’ Mel tried again, hoping for some motherly bonding to kick in.

‘They break your heart with those big, sad eyes and only Mummy wil do.’

Hilary nodded. ‘See you after lunch,’ she snapped.

And so did something inside Mel. ‘Carrie goes to a day nursery, you see, Hilary, and when she’s sick, my mother usual y steps in. But last night she was so il , coughing so badly, I wanted to be at the doctor with her myself.’ Mel was speaking more quickly than her usual calm office tone. Mr Finance Guy was suddenly finding his watch very interesting. ‘In fact, it’s a long time since I’ve taken her to the doctor myself because I’ve got to come to work here, in a health insurance company. Lorimar cares -‘ she chanted the company’s new motto brightly - ‘unless it’s an employee’s child who’s sick, in which case Lorimar don’t give a shit. It’s funny that. Ethics around here are skin-deep but hard-nosed corporate nastiness cuts to the bone.

‘The thing is, Hilary, Lorimar might not care but I do.

Because one day I won’t be working here any more and nobody wil remember who I was because as employees we’re al expendable. But,’ she glared at Hilary, who stared back, unblinking, ‘I’m not expendable as a mother. And when I final y crawl out of this workhouse for the last time, it wil be too late for me to make it up to Sarah and Carrie for al the things I missed because I was chained to my desk.

Al I’m asking for is for you to understand that. I’m a better employee because I want to do the right thing by everybody, not a worse one.’

‘This is neither the time nor the place for this conversation,’

Hilary said, unmoved. see you in my office at half-two.’

‘Long lunch, then?’ Mel said, unable to stop herself from being snide.

‘We’re planning redundancies,’ Hilary said briskly. ‘We’l guess who’l be top of the list, then,’ Mel said, and marched into the building.

In the cool of the tiled lobby, she stopped and leaned against the wal for a moment, her heart racing, her breath coming in

shal ow gasps. What had she done? It might have been hugely satisfying to tel Hilary and Finance Guy the truth, but she’d have to pay for it.

During the lunch hour, Mel did none of the things she ought to do. Instead, she ignored the stack of emails in her inbox, left the pile of phone messages and reports on her desk and went out shopping. She bought a magazine and sat reading it over a sandwich and a piece of wildly rich cheesecake in the coffee shop of a nearby department store. Then she walked round the shop, her mind working overtime as she ran her hands over children’s clothes, chic lingerie and prettily coloured duvet covers. Redundancy.

She’d heard it on the grapevine that there were a few planned but the notion of taking a voluntary one had never occurred to her before now. Redundancies were for people fed up with their career, or people who wanted a change of job, or for women who couldn’t hack being a working parent and needed the security blanket of a payoff. Not for her.

Except that, suddenly, maybe it was.

Her career had stal ed, that was for sure. Becoming a mother had affected her chances of promotion.

But then she viewed her career differently too. Having children had changed her priorities. It wasn’t that she did less work - in fact, she worked harder now than she’d ever done, taking care of Sarah and Carrie, and doing her job -

but she was less prepared to deal with the rubbish that went with a career. Office politicking, high drama over a negative story in the newspapers, pursed lips when she was late, even if she would make up the time twice over - al this bored her. She didn’t know how, but being a parent had taught her that there was more to life. She was sure she had her priorities right. It was a pity that Hilary and Lorimar hadn’t.

‘Can I help you?’ asked the beautiful young woman at the make-up counter in the cosmetics department.

‘I need a whole new look,’ Mel said, taking in the gleaming white and gold of the counter, with its delicious array of pots, jars and tubes of lipstick in every exquisite shade imaginable. ‘I haven’t changed my moisturiser for years and I think it’s about time. Moisturiser, toner, cleanser, whatever you think I need. But what I’d like too, if you can do it in half an hour, is a makeup session. Glamorous, successful, a bit of a change from now,’ she added rueful y. Make-up had been her last priority that morning. The girl patted the chair beside her. ‘No problem. Going anywhere special tonight?’

Mel swung herself onto the chair and leaned back against the padded headrest. ‘I’m leaving my job,’ she said.

‘Oh, how long were you there?’ The girl was asking out of politeness, Mel knew, her expert eyes already summing up Mel’s skintone and flaws to see what magic she could work with her brushes and her pots.

‘Fourteen years,’ Mel said, ‘but it’s time to move on.’ ‘That’s what I always say,’ the girl smiled, wielding a moisturising wipe. ‘Move onwards and upwards.’

Clothes might not maketh the man, but make-up sure as heck cheered up the woman. Mel walked back to the office with a swing in her step, a hefty department store bag of expensive creams by her side and a glowing, newly made-up face. After al , it might be a long time before she’d be able to afford anything but supermarket creams again. This was her redundancy present to herself. Hilary looked a little surprised when Mel walked into her office at half-past two looking fresh and serene.

‘Cheesecake and retail therapy,’ Mel explained calmly, sitting down in one of Hilary’s upright leather chairs without being asked. ‘Nothing like it. So, redundancy. What’s the story? I take it that after today, I’m on your list.’ ‘I was considering you for redundancy before today,’ Hilary said crisply. Mel felt the barb hit home but she didn’t wince. She was

leaving the company one way or the other, the only priority was to make sure she got as much money as possible.

Giving Hilary a piece of her mind would be a bonus.

‘Thanks for that vote of confidence, Hilary,’ Mel said, just as crisply. ‘I’ve always worked hard and it’s not nice to see that my efforts haven’t been appreciated.’

‘They were appreciated until the past few years,’ Hilary interrupted. ‘Are you trying to imply that I wasn’t working as hard?’ asked Mel, stil calm.

‘You weren’t as available, you had other things on your mind, Mel, and that affected your job. When I first met you, you were very driven, very ambitious. That’s changed.’

‘When you met me I was twenty-seven, so of course I’ve changed. You’ve changed, I expect. Life changes a person.

Having children changes a person.’ Mel emphasised the last bit. For the first time, Hilary lost her much-vaunted cool.

‘You were my protegee, Mel,’ she said. ‘I backed you and I wanted you as my second in command. You could have been a publicity director if you’d managed to stick it out.’

‘If I’d not had children, you mean. Or if I’d been like you, Hilary, and pretended I hadn’t got them?’ Mel said. ‘I chose to have my daughters once I’d built up my career.’ She didn’t want to say their names, as if identifying them to Hilary would contaminate them. ‘The funny thing is, I thought I wouldn’t be affected by any working mother discrimination because I worked for you, a woman. And you have kids. I thought you’d understand it al much better. But you’re not just as bad as a male boss, you’re worse. You should understand but you make an issue out of not understanding.’

‘Don’t give me the children thing,’ hissed Hilary. ‘I’ve spent al my working life proving that having children doesn’t mean that I’m any different to the men I work with. If you use your family as an excuse, it lets al of us down. They love to think we can’t do it as wel as they can just because we have ovaries.’ ‘But you are different,’ said Mel in exasperation. ‘You are and I am and Vanessa is. We have children and that makes us different from the guy who can phone home on a whim and say he’l be late. Do you ever do that without making five phone cal s to set it al up? I certainly can’t. Does that make us worse employees? I don’t think so.’

‘Yes it does,’ Hilary shot back. ‘If you can’t give it al , you shouldn’t be in the game in the first place.’

‘Reverse feminism at work?’ Mel asked. ‘When I was young, I looked up to my mother and while I adored her, I didn’t want to be her. She’d given up her job when she got married and she was dependent, real y dependent, on my father al her life. I didn’t want to be that person. I’ve told you that before, Hilary. The point is, I wanted to be able to work and be a mother, and I thought I could. But I can’t if people like you don’t understand that being a mother changes women and changes the way they work. A little bit of flexibility, that’s al I needed, and I would have paid you and Lorimar back in ful .’ She stopped, she’d said it al . Who knew if Hilary had taken a word of it on board?

‘I’m sorry you feel that way, Mel. Because of how long you’ve worked here, there would be a package that we feel is quite generous for you.’ Hilary opened a drawer and took out some papers.

Mel stared at the silver photo frame of Hilary’s children on the polished clean desk. Three boys, laughing on a sun-dappled boat deck with palm trees in the background. They were quite young in the photo, the youngest six, the eldest perhaps ten. So it had to have been taken some years ago.

She knew they were nearly grown up now, with the eldest boy at university. Yet this was the most recent photo Hilary had in her office. Why? wondered Mel. And then, in an instant, she knew.

Hilary took standard corporate holidays, worked many weekends, and never left the office before seven. Just how often would she have had the chance to persuade her growing boys

to pose for the camera? She might think that she hadn’t lost out by acting as a man in a man’s world, but she had. She had missed seeing her children grow up, and in that moment, Mel pitied her from the bottom of her heart.

When Mel final y emerged from Hilary’s office clutching the terms and conditions of her redundancy, Vanessa was there to meet her. The two of them slipped into the store cupboard to talk.

‘What’s going on?’ Vanessa asked in concern.

‘If only we could get the people in charge of the office grapevine to work in publicity,’ Mel laughed, ‘we’d never have any trouble spreading news. Not,’ she added, ‘that Lorimar’s publicity is an issue I’m concerned about any more.’ Vanessa’s hands flew to her chest in shock. ‘Oh, Mel, I can’t believe it. Stacey in accounts phoned me just after lunch and said Nylon Nigel was looking for your file.

He’s doing the redundancy packages.’

‘Yes he is. Hilary’s just offered me one.’ She recounted her conversation with Hilary to a silent and stunned Vanessa.

‘That old bitch,’ Vanessa said at the end of the saga. ‘She wants us al to be Stepford executives like herself. We work miles harder now than we ever did. Shit, I didn’t know what work was until I had Conal but when I had to put food on the table for him, I became an absolute career woman. How dare she say things like that to you? You never stop, Mel.

None of us knows how you manage it al . You stay on top of the work, you’ve got great kids and you even manage to look good.’ Mel hugged her friend. ‘Thank you,’ she said, a little tearful now the shock was wearing off.

‘Where wil you go?’ asked Vanessa. ‘Set up your own agency with the redundancy? I hear KBK are looking for a new partner. They have a couple of big pharmaceutical accounts; they’d leap at the chance of hiring you with your experience in this sector.’ ‘I’m going to stay home and bring up my children myself,’ Mel said lightly. ‘No more nursery, no more getting my mother to stand in for emergencies, no more burning the candle at both ends.’

Vanessa was stunned for the second time in ten minutes.

‘You, stay home?’

‘Why not? I’ve tried the working mother thing; it might be nice to try the other option, go over to the other side.’ ‘The dark side,’ joked Vanessa, ‘where they don’t approve of people like you and me and think we’re heartless for using creches and nurseries. Don’t,’ she begged. ‘I need a friend who understands. My mother never stops tel ing me the damage I’m doing to Conal by working ful time. As if I could work part time and stil afford to pay the mortgage and for holidays, his new mountain bike, the ever-changing footbal kit. Doh! Only if I was working on the flat of my back the rest of the time. Oh, Mel, don’t go. I need my bitching partner.