Tall Poppies (13 page)

‘Dragon Chemical is the largest drug company in the United States. We have revenues of half a billion dollars on turnover of three billion.’

There was absolute silence as they gazed at their new boss.

‘Taat’s not enough,’ Jax continued coldly. ‘Lord Cz.erhaven wants to be the biggest in the world. We aim for radical improvements in US market share. We pay the highest salaries and we expect the best. Dragon is looking to you to implement its expansion.’

Jax surveyed the spellbound-new recruits.

‘We’re not easy to work for. We want results fast. Those who do not deliver will be fired. Those who do - will become extremely rich. I expect to see tangible progress in the first month of your employment. Then we’ll know who’s intended for which fate.’

He leaned forward slightly, as hypnotic and menacing as a swaying cobra.

P

‘We remain the best because we never let up. Remember this: if you rest on your laurels, they become funeral wreaths.’

Dismissed, they rose from their chairs and began to leave. As Nina stood up, Jax motioned to her to stay.

‘Good morning, Nina. Welcome to Dragon,’ he said. ‘Thank you, sir,’ Nina answered carefully.

Jax nodded at the crowd of young men. ‘By now you may have realised that you’re quire an exception. We haven’t had many women applicants with your ability.’ His tone was unapologetic. ‘I hope that’s not going to be a problem for you.’

Nina looked the vice-president straight in the eyes. , ‘No, sir. No problem at all.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ Jax said coolly, turning aside.

His gaze followed Nina with vivid interest as she left the room. Tony had asked for a report on this one. She didn’t know it, but Nina Roth was going to be very closely watched.

Th speech might have been macho melodrama, as Nina told herself once she was safely back in her office, but a part of her thrilled to the challenge. She had one month to come up with something hot. Brainstorming all afternoon, her first day, Nina fished out a dramatic idea from her fertile subconscious. Dragon was richer than Dolan MacDonald, but it followed a lot of the same practices - shipping the same drugs at the same prices right across the States. There was huge wastage, but that was ‘the price of doing business’.

What if I could change that? Nina thought. What if I could get Dragon to invest in another mainframe, a computer that could track what drugs sold where? If we had a clearer picture of the market …

Nina titled the project ‘Customised Response’. Her phones buzzed incessantly and the mailcart stopped by

Io4

her door five times a day as data she requested came flooding back. It was a mammoth task, and even harder than it had to be.

Simon and Tom kept pretty much to themselves. Nina’s trouble was the support staff. There was no sisterly feeling at Dragon Chemical. The receptionists and secretaries, far from being pleased to see a woman executive, all resented her bitterly and let it show. They called her ‘Ms Roth’ and made it sound like an insult. They took for ever to do her filing and often did it so

sloppily Nina found herself staying late to correct things. But the major problem was her assistant.

Tracy Jones had been assigned to the three of them. A sexy-looking redhead with wild hair, short skirts and long nails, she hated having to work for a woman. Tom’s letters and Simon’s charts always came before the work Nina needed typing.

Nina didn’t complain at first. She was new. But eventually she had to say something and told Tracy she wanted her reports assigned equal priority.

‘They are,’ Tracy insisted insolently, with a flick of her rosy curls. Nina flushed, hating the confrontation, but saw all the other girls in the pool slow down their typewriters so they could eavesdrop.

She knew she had to assert her authority.

‘I’m sorry, Tracy, but I don’t think so. I want these

letters on my desk first thing tomorrow.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Tracy said icily.

The letters were delivered to her by mailcart at nine a.m. the next day. They had two spelling mistakes and a word Tipp-Exed out in each of them.

Gritting her teeth, Nina did it herself.

Three weeks into the deadline she was seriously behind. Her proposal needed detailed statistics, and she’d have to check it before it went off to Jax. If she gave it to Tracy on schedule, Nina realised, it would be handed in

late or so messy she couldn’t use it at all. Gerald Jax wasn’t interested in excuses.

Besides, there were no excuses. Nina wanted to get to management, but right now she couldn’t manage her own secretary! Tracy and all the others assumed a woman had no place being an executive. They preferred flirting with the boys and Nina was basically letting them get away with it.

The bright, polite schoolgirl in Nina shrank from appearing a bitch. She remembered how hard it had been when she started at Green Earth, and she had no desire to be anyone’s boss from hell. But as the deadline got closer, she had no other choice.

On Friday Nina went down to the typing pool at eleven a.m., to find Tracy sitting at an empty typewriter, painting her nails. As Nina approached, she brazenly continued.

‘Hello, Tracy. I need this report typed up today. It’s got quite a few statistics,’ Nina told her, laying the sheaf of neatly written notes on her desk. ‘Do you think you could get it done for me?’

The girl barely glanced at her. ‘Sorry, I’m too busy.’ Aware of the others watching her, Nina drew breath. ‘How can you be too busy? Coffee break is over and you’re painting your nails. ˘gbenever I need something done, you’re always too busy. I think the problem is that you just don’t want to work for me.’

At that moment, all the girls in the pool stopped typing.

Tracy shrugged, without looking up. Then she turned to Maria, a hard-working Spanish girl who sat next to her. ‘Maria, can you do this?’

Nina tapped the paperwork sharply. She was red faced, but her voice was firm. ‘No, Tracy. You are my assistant and I want you to do it. I am leaving it oN your

desk and I’ll be back for it at three. If it isn’t done by then, I am going to fire you.’

‘Oh, really,’ Tracy said with a sneer.

‘Try me,’ said Nina.

There was complete silence as Nina walked back down the corridor. Her heart was hammering in her chest and her palms were sweating, but she held up her head. She could feel the eyes of all the typists boring into her back.

Nina tried to get on with her research. It was impossible to concentrate. She didn’t eat at lunch and wondered what on earth she was going to do. Nina was a new hire, very junior, and already she was making waves, but it was a matter of principle and she knew nobody else Could get her through it.

At five of three Nina marched down to the typing pool to find Tracy languidly tapping at her keyboard. One look at he paper told her this was a letter of Tom’s. Nina’s own project was resting on Tracy’s desk, exactly where she’d left it.

The typing pool fell completely silent as Nina stood in front of her secretary.

Tracy shot Nina a defiant look.

‘You haven’t typed up my report,’ Nina stated flatly. ‘I gave express orders that it was to be ready by three. Is there a reason why you haven’t done it?’

‘I told you. I’m too busy,’ Tracy said rudely.

‘And I told you. You’re fired,’ Nina said. ‘Collect your papers from Gary Bellman in Personnel.’

The room was so quiet she could hear the other girls breathing as they watched the confrontation.

‘You can’t do that. You don’t have the right,’ Tracy challenged her.

‘I’ve just done it. If your desk isn’t cleared in ten minutes security will throw you out,’ Nina replied.

Then she turned on her heel and marched back to her office.

I07

Breathing deeply to calm herself, Nina lifted the phone and dialled an extension in Human Resources. Her palm was clammy with sweat where she gripped the receiver.

‘Gary? This is Nina Roth in Business Development,’ she said when he answered the phone. ‘I’ve just fired Tracy Jones.’

‘Nina, you can’t dismiss anybody. You don’t have the authority,’ Gary Bellman said, sounding worried.

‘Gary, I have fired her,’ Nina told him firmly. ‘And I have fired her in front of thirty-five other secretarial staff.’

There was a long pause.

‘In that case, she’s fired,’ said the personnel director. That night, Nina could hardly sleep. She lay on her bed ‘and stared into space. What if Tracy had needed the money? What if she herself had been responsible for not fixing the problem sooner?

But she knew that under the same circumstances, she’d do the same thing again. Tomorrow, if necessary.

Hans Wolf was right. The amount of work it took to claw back just a few seconds on each race was staggering. That first day at Val d’Isre, even with the ferocious training she’d done that morning, Elizabeth still came third in the slalom. It didn’t help that Jack Taylor watched at the finish line, and left without comment.

‘I can’t believe it,’ Elizabeth said, heartsick with disappointment.

“.]a. You have a long way to go. Heidi does not give up the crown just because now you want it,’ Wolf replied, but then he softened. ‘You were only three seconds behind.’

‘For ever!’

The old man smiled grimly. ‘Listen to my little snow leopard, who yesterday is calling five seconds nothing.’

Elizabeth nodded briskly, preparing to face the barrage of cameras for her post-race interview. ‘Yeah, well. Today, things are different.’

Things certainly were different. As the World Cup continued across the Alps, the British team watched her transformation open mouthed: Ronnie Davis couldn’t believe it was the same girl: Elizabeth rose early in the morning to jog, practised with Karen, and turned up to formal practice religiously. She apologised to him for being so bloody minded before.

‘I was a jerk, Ron. I’m sorry. I’m paying for it now.’

‘No problem,’ said her coach, waving it aside. Ronnie was a bus-driver’s son from the East End of London’.

He’d never voted Tory and despised the upper classes, but Lady Elizabeth was sweating it so hard she’d almost changed his mind. ‘You’re Welsh. You’re stubborn. Goes with the territory.’

‘Diolcb for nothing, cariad bach,” Elizabeth retorted, pulling her mane of shiny honey-blonde hair back from her face.

Ronnie whistled under his breath as she plunged off down another downhill. Prolonged exercise, sun and crisp mountain air made that girl more attractive every season. They were having to lay on extra security at the hotels to keep the reporters away. Back home, Britain was slumping further and further into recession, and his dazzling champion offered a total contrast. The Ski Club ‘of Great Britain had reported a four hundred per cent increase in membership, especially from girls. Skiing holidays were selling out. He knew several travel agents had tacked posters of her young ladyship up in their offices.

This time she wasn’t letting it swell her head, but they still had problems. If Elizabeth was ever going to get that gold medal, she needed to go an extra mile. Reluctantly, Ronnie concluded that it couldn’t be with him.

It was all very well, Elizabeth turning up for practice. Trouble was, there wasn’t much he could teach her. Now she was making an effort, her real talent was coming through.

She was leagues ahead of his other girls. She was leagues ahead of him.

Ronnie called the office back home and secured some extra funding. Then he called Hans Wolf.

‘We want you to come in as coach for Liz Savage.’ A dry chuckle. ‘Acb, Ronnie. You know I am retired.’ Davis swallowed his pride. ‘She needs more than I can give her, Hans. What’s the point of you discovering her, if you don’t see it through?’

‘She’s the world bronze medallist.’

‘So fucking what? Come on, Hans. Don’t muck me about. Are you up for it?’

Hans Wolf took over as Elizabeth’s coach. It was the first time in her life she’d known what real work was. To her runs, he added heavy backpacks. In gym training he upped her weights. When she studied videos of Heidi and Louise, he made her write notes. The second an event was finished, Elizabeth barely had time to shower before she was being hustled on to a plane. If they got to the next stop ahead of time, Hans explained, there’d be an extra evening for practice runs.

‘Don’t I ever get a break?’ Elizabeth gasped, as Hans rushed her away from the press after a downhill victory in Grindelwald.

‘Nein. “Plenty of time to sleep when you’re dead,’ Wolf told her briskly.

Travel, train, race. Travel, train, race. Elizabeth spent day after day lost in the brutal cycle of competition. The chic bars and glittering hotels she’d hung out at last year faded from view, replaced by an endless, interchangeable set of cable-cars, black runs and slalom poles. At night she dreamed about run layouts. On planes she fantasised about sleeping till noon. But in spite of the punishing pace, she never considered cutting back.

Motivation was easy to come by. It was right there in the stocky, skilful form of Heidi Laufen, twice World Champion, and the aerodynamic crouch of Louise Levier, her heir apparent. The commentators” called them unbeatable.

Elizabeth knew better. She sweated, strained, pushed her way forward, eroding the lead. Bronze turned to silver, then to gold. In one punishing month she wiped out Louise’s lead. Now there was only Heidi to chase. The two girls struggled for supremacy across Europ6.

III

Sometimes Heidi topped the table, then Elizabeth, then Heidi again. Elizabeth found she suddenly wanted victory desperately. She was twenty years old, with nothing to show for her life. She didn’t even have a degree, thanks to Tony’s attitude. In the World Cup, her breeding and her bank account meant nothing. Talent was the only thing that counted. And she wanted to show she was worth something. She wanted to be the best.

Basically, Elizabeth admitted to herself, she wanted to be like Jck Taylor. She couldn’t stand him, but she had to admire him. Hans forced her to watch tape after tape of Taylor’s victories, pointing out the speed, the technio ,que, the mastery.