Violet: Gillian

Global Resource Management: even the name makes Violet feel overwhelmed by the extent of her new responsibilities. The job is both more challenging and more interesting than she’d thought at first, and she starts to imagine herself growing into it until she too will be storming like a tiger into the Lloyd’s Building and winning contracts by the sheer power of her research.

After her afternoon out with Gillian, she feels a new respect for her boss’s talent. So when Gillian hints one morning over a cup of organic ashwagandha that in a man’s world it’s important for women to dress in a feminine but businesslike style, her heart sinks. Does that mean turning up for work in tailored suits and pussycat bows? Please! She thought her straight skirts and opaque tights were businesslike enough, but apparently Gillian thinks otherwise.

When she mentions her difficulties with the shopping mall proposal, Gillian replies in her schoolmistressy voice, ‘Every risk is insurable at a price, Violet. You have to match the underwriter to the risk. Some of the people we met at Lloyd’s specialise in problem risks.’ Then she gives what is probably meant to be a reassuring smile.

Violet returns to her dossier trying not to show her dejection. She had gone into her new job bouncing with confidence. Now at the end of her first month she is wondering whether she has chosen the wrong career.

Then on the Friday afternoon something miraculous happens.

She is summoned into Gillian’s office to be told that Laura has gone into labour prematurely and has been taken into hospital – and as the Wealth Preservation Unit is under a lot of pressure, would she mind very much taking a temporary secondment to that department starting next week?

Would she mind very much? She struggles to control the grin that tugs at the corners of her mouth.