Precious You

When Christmas rolled around again last year, I’d been off for nearly ten months. I knew I had to bed myself back in before the new team took over. I had to persuade them and anyone else who was looking that I was back to ‘normal’. By January I’d come off my pills and was back at work, but in my heart, I knew I hadn’t been ‘fixed’. The beige cloud was lying in wait to blow in again; I could see the faint shape of it growing larger on the horizon the day I met you.

Lily, when you came along you were like a flash of hot pink, cleaving through the paper bag tone threatening to take over my world again. I think this is why it was so easy for you to do what you did. If you ever flattered yourself by thinking for one moment you’d sent me to rock bottom all by yourself, you really have no idea what state my life was already in.

I knew the route to Borough you’d suggested would add at least ten minutes to my journey to work, meaning I had no chance of making my first meeting with the new publisher, Gemma Lunt, on time. She’d know I was missing in action for the greater part of last year and why. I was sure she’d be looking for signs of weakness.

‘We’ll go your way.’

When these words left my mouth, it was my very first act of knowing submission to your will. This was the precise moment my life, such as it was, started to end.

We didn’t talk at first. I looked out of the window on your side and waited for you to thank me, as you had to, surely. You couldn’t have failed to notice the banks of increasingly forlorn faces on the 141’s route up to De Beauvoir. But you were silent, holding your laptop case on your legs in what I’d soon recognise as the buttoned-up, butter-wouldn’t-melt way you choose to hold yourself. I said nothing, waiting for you to speak. But my curiosity finally got the better of me. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen you at the bus stop before,’ I said. ‘You just moved here?’

‘Yeah, but with any luck, I’ll just be passing through.’

You must have seen the flicker of offence on my face, ‘Not that Manor House isn’t awesome. I mean, it’s so super-easy to get everywhere. I cycle mostly.’ You turned your head away again to watch the world from your window as we crawled up Kingsland Road.

‘Well, if you’re not wild about Manor House now, you should have seen it round here twenty-odd years ago. The whole place was a red-light area. Hard to imagine now.’

‘That sounds pretty dark.’ You didn’t seem to think very much of my corner of the capital. It seemed that just like the constantly-changing bus stop crew, you’d use Manor House as a stepping stone; once you started earning more than me, as you all seemed destined to, you too would be off to a more desirable postcode than mine.

It struck me that your poise and your choice of words added to the sense that you were some kind of chimera; stilted mannerisms that tried to convey control and maturity, but then you’d defaulted to a childish Americanism: ‘awesome’. Young and old at the same time, just as I’d guessed by looking at you. Your accent was unanchored too, a southern clip with northern vowels.

‘Are you a native Londoner?’

‘So, I was born here, but I grew up all over the show. Some time here, on and off. Right now, my mum has a little bolthole and she wanted me to move in with her, but I told her it’s time I took responsibility for myself, because that’s important, isn’t it? You should take ownership of your life, don’t you think?’

‘I think that is important.’ I was thrown by the sudden panorama of your sentence, but I liked how you now seemed to want to share your thoughts with me.

‘Well, anyway, for now I’m on my own in one of those vile, gentrifying Woodberry Downs high-rises – right behind the bus stop – you probably totally hate.’ You turned to look me up and down. ‘You look like you’ve probably got a beautiful Victorian house, tonnes of character, lots of beautiful things. My place is kind of a nowhere place.’

I was taken aback by your flattery. It was the nicest thing anyone had said about me for a long time, besides Iain, of course. An unexpected compliment. How good that had felt. As your eyes moved urgently over my face to assess my reaction, I suddenly got the notion you were lonely in that newbuild tower of yours. Maybe you needed a friendly neighbour. I wanted to think this because, Lily, I was so lonely too.

I considered admitting I had a Victorian flat, not a house, but you didn’t need to know the limits of my success. Not yet. I wanted more from you before I let you go at Borough. I pointed to the dirty stripe on your face, ‘I think you’ve got oil on your—’

‘Oh god – puncture. Trust that for a Monday.’ You lifted the back of your hand to the opposite side of your forehead to the smudge.

‘Other side. Here.’ My fingertips reached the skin on your face.

I didn’t mean to touch you, but it happened. My blood seemed to surge towards the surface and I know I felt yours too, coming forward to meet mine, like iron filings to a magnet. You blinked and pushed yourself back into your seat, saying, ‘Thanks, I think I’ve got it.’

The cab was suddenly hot and small. I thought about texting Iain, but it was way too early in the day for that, so I cracked open the window and tried to move the conversation on.

‘What is it you do?’

‘I’m a journalist?’

Not Training to be, or Hoping to be, but I’m a journalist, already, though no one had probably paid you a penny for a single word yet. People your age are incredible. I didn’t tell anyone I was a journalist until my second promotion, when I’d just about stopped living in fear of someone telling me I wasn’t good enough to be there. We didn’t have ‘Fake it ’til you make it’ in the nineties. Neither did we have parents who had us believe we were the centre of the universe and that universe was rightfully ours.

‘Who do you write for?’

‘Myself mostly, I guess. I blog.’

‘What about?’

‘You know. This and that. My life…What I see.’

I thought and I waited. I enjoyed that moment before I said what I said to you next, ‘I edit a well-thought-of trade title. We’re always looking for interns if you’re in the market for the next move.’ I anticipated your breathlessness, the sound of your body turning towards me to give me your full and urgent attention. But it didn’t happen, so I kept talking, ‘I usually have between four and six interns working for me – one on design, another on picture research and at least two writers.’

Nothing.

‘I’ve seen people your age really learn their trade working in a professional environment, so, have a think, maybe. Opportunities can be hard to come by. Maybe this is fate?’ I tried to laugh, but it didn’t come. I sounded so old, so seasoned. I was forty-one, but I wanted to feel fresh and relevant, not like someone who says things like Your age and Learn your trade. I still felt young inside, but then thought, Isn’t that what old people say?

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!’