Carrie Greenside sat in her home office, which was carved out of bespoke black walnut. Her job consisted of electronic meetings with other desk-strapped executives from all over the world, so whether she was in the office or here, the outcome was still the same. The journey into London was for days when she fancied a change of scenery, and a teriyaki salmon salad from her favourite deli close to Canary Wharf. When the heat was this incessant, though, it was madness to fight for a place on the tube and choose an armpit to sniff as one hung on to the ceiling straps. Here, she had her pool, the Waitrose delivery and her early retirement plan to dream of.
A quick scroll through the news this morning reminded her that it was exam time again. With no kids to pass on her generational trauma to – a phrase she’d learned only recently, but liked – she forgot the timetabling of such trifling matters. However, it usually had the effect of reminding her of her own woeful state school education. Experts droned on about the importance of good schooling, but Carrie disagreed. She’d never give a job to a graduate who sailed smoothly from prep school to Eton, and who’d emerged from the oiled cogs of the Oxbridge churner. Those kids knew everything from books, and nothing from life. She preferred fighters, like herself. Hunger came from having nothing to eat, not from reading about it in a classroom. She preferred a character that had been hewn from granite, battled the weather and withstood the hardship of deficit.
She spoke into her mic and peered at her computer screen. The faces staring back at her were generational products of the class system in America that everyone denied existed. None of them communicated risk or combat to her and she was bored listening to them vie for her approval. The New York office, five hours behind GMT, had to fit around her schedule, like everyone else. She sipped a glass of ice-cold water with mint and lime and peered out of the window, wishing she’d taken the meeting in the garden, under her cool awning, which spread across the back of the garden from the house.
She’d been doing yoga and her mat was still laid on the neatly cut grass outside in the sunlight, waiting for her to unwind after leaning over her desk for an hour. She sat in her exercise clothes, ready for the gym and a punishing session with her personal trainer. The thought of burpees and cable swings was unappetising, but she knew it was good for her, and she’d feel better after.
‘Trent, stop waffling,’ she barked into the screen.
The attendees of the meeting all wore suits and pressed white shirts, and they were all men.
‘I want the results by ten o’clock tonight, GMT. Get on it.’
She closed the laptop and got up from her chair to stretch. Now she could go out into the garden and enjoy the sun before she drove to the gym. She took her drink with her and closed the office door with a final click that symbolised the end of her working day. Outside, the sun wrapped her skin in a loving blanket of heat, and she breathed deeply. She finished her drink and sat back on the fur-lined garden chair, which matched the set of ten around the huge carved teak table.
Other people’s gardens might ring with the sound of kids playing, but not hers. The thought of them terrified her. They were noisy and messy, and you couldn’t control them. She cast an eye over the shrubbery and was satisfied that the gardener had done his job, even in this heat. The grass was burning brown and it disappointed her. It looked so much cleaner when it was green. She walked over to the shadier part of the vast garden, taking clippers with her, and chose five white hydrangeas. She carried them back to the table and arranged them in a purple glass vase, which she’d already filled with water. As she leaned over, the clippers slipped and fell from her grasp. She jerked, trying to save them from hitting her bare foot, but sliced her finger instead, along the thumb line.
‘Shit!’
She sucked the digit and the dark metallic taste of her own blood dismayed her. She had no recollection of where she stored plasters or dressings for such an occurrence. She went inside to the vast kitchen, lovingly restored and modernised by a local company quite recently, and searched in drawers, where she guessed one might absentmindedly throw such sundries, and found a box of plasters, wrapping one around her thumb. It smarted.
She blamed her lack of concentration, and perhaps even her shortness with Trent in New York, on her session with Alex earlier today. It always put her off balance. But the doctor’s work intrigued her. And she was safe inside her small office, which was like a cocoon of healing, with its photos of serenity and zen colour themes. It was one of the only things that checked her cynicism, and it amused her.
She surprised herself every time she stepped foot into the doctor’s office, with Alex sitting on her ghastly old-fashioned chair, staring at her with her warm eyes and hopeful smile. The woman was a bloody genius. She’d managed to make her feel functional, useful even, though she’d almost walked out on her several times. Alex made her face uncomfortable truths, but she also left her daring to believe that she wasn’t some kind of freak. It had taken some getting used to.
She’d been given Doctor Alex’s number as someone recommended for insomnia. She was damn expensive and so Carrie assumed she was at least half decent. The chat about insomnia had lasted about three minutes, before the good doctor began dragging out her bowels and turning her inside out, eviscerating her demons. Five years later, they were getting somewhere. Alex Moore, an average-looking middle-aged woman who needed Botox, had hijacked everything she’d ever known, and all she’d built, and torn it down. It was like getting a sandblasting of the soul, and Carrie was addicted to it. Obsession with her wellbeing had replaced substance abuse, and that had to count for something. Before meeting Alex Moore, Carrie had sneered at emotion as something only the weak indulged in. Only money defined worth. Carrie’s bonus last year had been two million. But she was slowly learning that one was allowed to feel, and it wasn’t too bad.
She’d learned much about herself. There were only three ways to deal with a problem: accept it, ignore it, or deal with it. Carrie wasn’t in the business of ignoring things, nor did she accept much. Most of the time she was known for confronting stuff head on. But the meeting she’d just ended sat with her. It was about more redundancies. It was her job to fire people, because no one else had her balls. Or at least that was her reputation. It was a convenient wall behind which to hide, but Alex Moore was slowly taking that apart, brick by brick. Inside the confines of a shrink’s office, that was all well and good, but outside, Carrie still needed her armour.
She checked her thumb and, happy that the bleeding had stopped, she redressed it and examined her body in the full-length mirror in the hall, checking her gym kit hugged all the right places. She took a water bottle from the fridge and tutted as she spotted blood on the white marble counter top, rubbing it with her finger. A notification on her phone told her that Grace Bridge had uploaded a new YouTube video. Carrie’s curiosity got the better of her and she had a spare five minutes before her session, so she opened it.
Her personal trainer had over one hundred thousand followers. Like a messiah, Grace paraded herself in front of the camera, seducing the watcher. Carrie didn’t hear what she said, but noticed instead the girl’s movements – her body bending this way and that, but more, smiling into the gaping abyss of social media, laughing and touting messages of superiority. Grace styled herself as an influencer, a modern Mecca of perfection and pain. Dishing out advice for the unworthy to follow. She wore matching Lycra sets endorsed by famous nutrition and fitness brands, probably paying her thousands.
Good girl, Carrie thought. A true entrepreneur, thanks to her wealthy parents. Carrie knew the signs, and the background to the videos was a dead giveaway. A personal trainer couldn’t afford a penthouse suite overlooking King’s College. Even if she sold illusions.
The internet offered that thing that had eluded the masses for millennia: free advice. But with it came a bombardment of brainwashing for the inexperienced. And this was the real cost. Grace’s followers worshipped at the altar of self-improvement without the hassle of time and tariff, and they got exactly what they desired: something for nothing. Anybody could style themselves as an authority, with enough technical knowledge and arrogance. Expertise was everywhere. The problem with logging on to perfection, though, instead of working for it, was that it was only fleetingly rewarding. The rest of the time, life remained disappointing. Even to Grace herself, who seemed always afraid of her own shadow. Carrie had seen the twenty-one-year-old girl up close and personal, and her internet image didn’t match her reality. The way she wrung her hands and picked the raw skin around her fingers told of a haunted soul. She was hiding something.
She watched as Grace made a wholesome super salad, and beamed into the camera, promising the layperson the elusive secret to longevity. The salad looked delicious, but who had the time? Watching other people look after themselves was so much more satisfying than being responsible for it yourself. Grace picked up a bottle of dressing and held the logo near the camera. Carrie smiled. She too had started her career in sales.
Carrie left her house and went around the side, through the garage, to her convertible Mercedes, and locked up via a new control system on the wall. The garage door opened and she got into the car, starting it up. It purred. The evening sun shone through the windscreen and she put down her visor, as well as pressing a button to release the roof. It slid down effortlessly. She shot a backwards glance at the house, momentarily panicking that it might be broken into again. She shivered but told herself not to be paranoid.
She pulled away.