Chapter Forty-Two

Now I’ve been back at my desk for three weeks, and everyone in the corporate world has finally shaken off their Christmas hangovers and paper hats, work is in full flow. It’s sadly not as much fun as baking for a living, but it’s as close as you can get. There have been plenty of invoices to put through, as we’re bringing in so much new ad business with our keen efforts and the new maternity feature. To top it off, poor Gina broke an arm AND a leg skiing just before work started again. She was full of apology but I said not to worry and to set her out-of-office so that anything urgent would come my way. Otherwise, I’ve been beavering away, putting in the extra hours to polish up my maternity project before I sit down and present it all to Sam. I bribed the Design department to put together a series look for all the pieces, a pistachio green border with a repeating pattern of egg-timers, nappy pins and chunky slices of cake. And I branched out a bit beyond our usual ad-buying clients and sold space to a bottle steriliser company, organic rusk producers and even those guys that make the baby genius DVDs with classical music. I have mapped out the content for four issues, plus extra exclusive online material. I’m feeling pretty proud of myself. With this and the Best Dishes stuff that we can roll out as soon as the show starts (there’s no air date confirmed just yet), we are jam-packed with great content and all sorts of good revenue potential. And that doesn’t happen every day at Crumbs.

Sam’s looking through the A4 printouts and mock layouts, nodding occasionally and giving the odd ‘hmmm’ between sips of a soy latte.

‘This is good,’ she says finally. ‘I like it, Ellie. Very much. It’s good work, it’s focused, it’s doing everything it should. And I think it might just do wonders for our website. God knows we could do with a bit of extra traffic.’

I feel at least seven parts of my spine relax. I couldn’t wait to share this with Martin – he’s looking unusually gaunt post-Christmas.

‘Tell me, have you enjoyed it?’

‘Yes, of course. It’s been great to stretch myself with something new.’ I lace my fingers together in the international sign language for ‘I am a very serious business person.’

‘Seriously, though. If you can see yourself doing more of this – thinking of topics and concepts that will make great copy but also work for ad sales and SEO, then I think I can make a new role for you.’

I swivel my wedding band round and round on my finger. ‘Seriously?’

‘Yes. I think it makes a lot of sense to give you more creative space but also link that to how the ads are sold. I’ve spoken to Martin. He’s impressed with how you’ve handled this extra workload. So what we want to offer you is a merging – well, I’m not going to dress it up for you, Ellie: it’s your current job but with a creative role added on top.’

‘It’s two jobs?’

‘It’s two jobs. But we’ll give your intern a chance to take on more of the day-to-day in selling space, under your direction, perhaps promote her and hire another assistant. You’d then cross the two departments, sit in on my meetings, report to me. There’s a salary increase but also an increase in expectations. But I wouldn’t be saying this if I didn’t think you’d do an excellent job.’

‘Yes,’ I blurt.

‘Yes, you’re excellent, or yes, you’ll take it?’

‘Yes, I’ll take it.’ I put out my hand. It feels like the thing to do. Sam smiles wryly and shakes it.

‘Great. Glad to have you on my team. Now, start thinking of something beyond babies, please.’

My face pales.

‘For the next feature series,’ she says clearly.

‘Ha ha, of course!’ I trill.

I can’t wait to tell Pete! Ooooh, must call my mum too! And Lyds!

‘And have a think about Gina,’ Sam says carefully, ‘just be sure she’s the right person for the job. And maybe check what she’s up to at the moment.’

Sam wouldn’t say any more, just held up her arms in surrender and sauntered off to her next meeting, so I speed-walked back to my desk.

What is she up to? I dig out the Cow & Gate notes Gina gave me, weeks and weeks ago. In all my budget chasing, I haven’t been any sort of mentor – I should have helped her with this ages ago.

Gina’s still off with her broken limbs, but picking up emails and getting her mum to type up replies. Her poor mum.

I bang off an email.

To: Gina

Subject: Status report

Hey Gina,

How are you feeling? Just wondering if you could update me on any irons in the fire? I’ve looked through the C&G deal and it all looks fine in principle but the cost you gave them is far too low. Not competitive and not worth us giving away such huge spreads. Let’s talk about it soon.

E x

I put the kiss in to seem approachable, but I didn’t feel it. I especially don’t feel it when I start wading through the long list of invoices that need to go out and find one to Cow & Gate. For precisely the low amount I had just warned against. Gina had booked the bloody ads, done the deal. Without telling me.

I do something sneaky in my rage. I go to the loos, compose myself, then slink off to IT and say I need to reset Gina’s password because she’s off sick.

That sneaky … little … word that will not get me fired when this goes to HR.

When I see emails from Gina to the Cow & Gate people, to our design team, to production, even to Martin, I am ready to combust. She’s even emailed Sam to boast about the deal, and nowhere has she mentioned that I said in no certain terms that she should wait till I’d seen the notes to act. She’s a flipping intern and she’s selling one of our most valuable business assets. And then I see the surname in the ‘To’ box of her emails to C&G. It’s Trible. The same as hers.

What the frick.

Gina’s not picking her mobile or landline, so I email again.

To: Gina

Subject: URGENT. Call me.

Gina, I’m wondering why the marketing assistant you’ve been emailing at C&G has YOUR surname? Is Shelly Trible your sister?! This ABSOLUTELY breaks regulations, to do a deal with friends or family below competing prices. We are going to be in all sorts of trouble.

Call me.

E.

No kisses. If there was a symbol you could drop in an email to represent a poisoned arrow, I’d be up for using that. {----- maybe. But it would only really get the right effect with a big splash of blood too.

That girl has caused me a whole world of headaches, and set my budget back. Sam’s invitation to balance all this and a second job is suddenly much, much scarier. And now I have to face Martin and explain it all. Thanks, Gina. Maybe don’t apply for that permanent position, yeah?

‘Heavenly fuck.’ Martin rubs at his temples. ‘What can we do?’

‘I’ll renegotiate with them. With someone who isn’t Gina’s sister, obviously. A smaller placement, same price. This all got out of hand. I don’t know who authorised this Shelly to agree a deal on their behalf but—’

‘I don’t know who authorised Gina to do the same.’ He looks pointedly at me. ‘Really, Ellie. I thought you had a handle on this. I asked you to push for bigger ads, save our skins. The maternity project was all well and good, but it seemed to take up your focus. Why is that, hmmm?’ His weary eyes skirt over my stomach.

Oh no he didn’t.

‘Excuse me?’ The Incredible Ellie has been unleashed already today, she’s not going to cower in a corner now. ‘I’ve been working my ARSE off for you, Martin. Shouldering this pressure, bringing in serious numbers, thinking of new creative options. I seem to have done enough to impress Sam but not you. Or are you going to say that’s because she’s of childbearing age too?’

Martin just presses his lips together and pulls on his cufflinks. No secret James Bond devices up there, Mister, you’re just going to have to take this.

‘I am not pregnant. I am doing my job. Even if I was pregnant, I could still do my job. Yes, I cocked up a bit with Gina but that has nothing to do with my ovulation cycle. Got it?’

My hands are trembling slightly. I shove them on to my hips.

‘I’m even trying to get on a sodding TV programme to promote this magazine. Don’t you dare tell me I’m not focused.’

I turn on my heel, almost spent, stalk to the loos and burst into tears.

‘Well, I wouldn’t exactly say they headhunted me, Mum, seeing as it’s in the same company but … well, maybe cherry-picked, yes. No, I won’t be writing the articles. Except maybe one of them. But mostly just giving direction about what others should write. Nope, I’m not the editor. Well, that’s nice of you to say but I don’t think the current editor would like to hear that.’ I’m having that odd emotional comedown that you get after a big surprise, good or bad. And I’ve had both today. A new job and a balls-up in the current one. It was a long day and I had to recharge-slash-celebrate with a Krispy Kreme on the way home to get back on an even keel.

And now I’m telling my mum. She was predictably supportive about Gina and is now trilling with excitement about my new role. ‘Yes, it really has come at a good time. Uhuh. Oh, Mum, I’ve just heard Pete’s key in the door, so I have to go. Yup, OK. Yup, will do. OK? Bye.’

The key swishing sound is followed by the bag-dumping plonk and the twin clunks of shoes being kicked off.

Pete walks into the kitchen, a grey tinge to his face.

‘Hey love, are you all right? What’s wrong?’

‘Just a pretty shitty kind of day. Do we have any beer?’

I take a quick look in the fridge. ‘No. But we do have ginger wine. From the Christmas cake.’

‘That’ll do. I think.’ He takes a deep drink from the tumbler I fill for him, then slowly exhales.

‘Is it Spencer?’ I start to rub the back of his neck but he shrugs and walks off into the living room.

Pete flops down onto the sofa. ‘If only. One of the start-ups we mentor and sponsor has been exposed as a massive,’ he holds his arms out wide, ‘massive fraudulent operation. And they’re now trying to say that we told them how to do it. That we sanctioned it verbally, and they had no idea how wrong it was. Huh!’ He smoothes across his brow with thumb and index finger.

‘So I’m fire-fighting all day, talking to the regulating body, trying to stop this thing getting bigger. I took the team to a pub for a few nerve-settlers at lunch and when I came back, Spencer dressed me down in front of the whole office for having a “cheeky half” when there was so much work to be done. Before I left he also told me in his subtle way that should this thing fully blow up in our faces, all the budget for supporting environmental start-ups would go and I’d be relocated inside the company. Basically, demoted. Which is just great for the shrinking house fund and,’ he looks at me finally. ‘And anything else that … might happen.’

I sit down next to him, and lift his dead-weight arm up and over my shoulder. ‘We’ll be OK, Petey. We can cut back on a few things here, to save more. And even if he moves you to another team – if – then it just means you have the chance to show what you can do to another boss, a boss who potentially has a sense of humour bigger than a gnat’s scrotum.’

Pete’s head falls back against the top of the sofa and he closes his eyes. Seeing him despair is like living through an earthquake: I don’t quite know which way is up.

‘I suppose.’

‘Are you hungry? I’ve made a beef—’

‘Not really, love, sorry. I just want to sit here and veg a bit, get my head together.’

I bite the inside of my cheek. ‘Course. Well, just shout if you want a sandwich. I’m going to make myself one.’

Back in the kitchen, I take my golden-brown beef wellington out of the oven and let it rest. Still, a cheese and crisp sandwich is always welcome.

Pete and I watch twenty minutes of this, ten of that. He’s a restless couch commando, scrolling through the TV menu and huffing at each new page. I don’t know if he’s hoping to find something on Dave Ja Vu called ‘The Ten Worst Work Balls-Ups’ to try and get some perspective.

‘Ah, last bit of a Masterchef repeat. Probably with Greg’s old hamster cheeks. Before the WeightWatchers. I don’t like a skinny Greg. It’s unnerving.’ This is not Pete at his sunniest.

The last bit of the episode is the anxiety-making professional kitchen test and seeing all these dripping foreheads, swallowed tears, and raw pigeon breasts isn’t really helping the mood in the living room.

‘Tea? I’m going to have a Kit Kat, so I need the tea to justify that. Want one?’

‘Yeah, go on then. Thanks, Smells.’ Some of the grey is washing away from Pete’s face. It might not be a totally ruined night. And if he continues feeling five per cent better with every cup of tea, I could tell him about my new job by next week.

As I bring in the two mugs of steaming tea, the credits are rolling on Masterchef. ‘Did she ever cook the pigeon all the way through?’

‘Nah, she got moved to the mackerel salad. But at least she only cried the once. Thanks, baby.’

I go back to the kitchen for the Kit Kat. We’ll have to share, but I love Pete that much.

‘What?’ His shout reaches me through the kitchen walls.

I expect to find him covered in burning hot tea and in need of a cold compress, but instead I find Pete sitting dead upright, his hands on his knees, his eyes fixed on the TV.

And when I follow his stare, I see me.

Me and Joe.

The smooth voiceover is mid-spiel. ‘… beginner to the expert, baking recipes to surprise and delight. Home-cooked favourites, tried and tested by real cooks. Starting with a Valentine’s special for any couple in love …’

Joe’s arms are around me and in the sugar bowl, and I’m laughing. Then it cuts to me prodding his pec, with Joe smiling down at me.

‘Or any new family, in the making …’

And then there we are at the table, my hand to my stomach and Joe looking sympathetic. The red tablecloth and fairy lights now make a lot more sense.

Pete’s face is no longer grey. It’s white.

The final shot is of me mixing a big bowl of batter, smiling into the camera.

‘Join us on BBC Two for Best Dishes, on Thursday the Twelfth of February at eight p.m.’

Pete leans forward, picks up the remote and switches off the TV. And then he stays very still.

I don’t know what to do. I’m standing here, my mouth open and holding a Kit Kat. My husband’s just seen me on national telly, flirting with another man and looking pretty much knocked up by him. Oh God. I’ve just realised the TV people still think I’m pregnant. Why didn’t I just say something?!

‘I can explain,’ I say, like any cheesy cheating husband on a bad TV show. ‘It isn’t what it looks like.’ And there goes cliché number two.

‘Who is that guy?’ Pete’s voice is gravelly and low.

‘Joe. It’s just Joe, from baking class.’

‘Wait. Wait.’ Pete breathes in and out slowly. ‘When you talked about Hannah and Jo from your class, they sounded like women. It’s a baking class, for Christ’s sake. You never said Joe was some tall muscly guy. I thought … Jo, like Joanne, Josephine.’ His eyes are wide.

‘Kind of like when I thought Laurie was a man? Ha.’ My laugh is weak and thin.

‘Not like that. And you’re on TV with him … And you didn’t tell me?’

‘Well, he signed up for this show, and I did sort of accidentally. Long story, but I thought I was pregnant and I needed somewhere—’

‘Pregnant?!’

‘No, no, my period was late. Just for a bit, but Paul Holly—but the show seemed a really good opportunity for work, you know, for some exclusive content just at the right time when budgets were so important …’ Nothing I’ve ever said has sounded as vile and pathetic as this. I hate the words as they leave my mouth.

‘So exclusive content is snuggling up by the oven now, is it? Playing happy families with some bloke?’ He clenches and unclenches his hands. I take a step towards him, but he steps back.

And in the worst case of cosmic timing, my phone lights up on the coffee table, with a text. Pete can see it on the screen.

From: Joe

Whoah, did you see that on telly just now?! We make a great couple! Ha!

‘Pete, baby, please. I can talk you through it, all of it. Just with Rich’s wedding, and you were cross with me about the money and the baby stuff. And I thought I had more time to tell you, I never planned for you to see it like that.’ The reedy, wet sound is in my voice. But I don’t think even if I fell to the floor wailing, pulling out my hair, I could get Pete to look at me right now.

He blinks. ‘Tell me what’s gone on.’

‘Well, I will. But it’s a long story, so let’s sit down, OK?’

‘No, just tell me what you’ve done with him. Tell me how far it’s gone. That’s all I want to know.’

‘Nothing!’ And now my tone is as hard as his. I may have been a prize idiot in not telling him what was going on sooner, but that doesn’t mean I’d ever forget myself so completely and actually cheat on him. And Pete should know that. ‘Nothing’s happened! How can you even think that?’

He laughs a dry sneer through his nose. ‘I don’t know what I think. But I knew something wasn’t … that Bruges trip, that didn’t feel right. And now I know why. You were feeling guilty.’

As he walks past me, I fight the urge to grab for his hand, his shirt sleeve, his anything.

‘Wait! No! Don’t say this, don’t even think it. I just … I was having fun and got carried away. It was stupid, I admit it, but … it’s nothing. There’s nothing between us. I swear.’

Pete rolls his eyes. ‘Everyone we know will see this – see you, being … like that, with him.’ His voice lowers. ‘You said you were taking the baby stuff seriously, Eleanor. What the fuck am I supposed to think now?’

I feel a whoosh of anger wrap round me, for a second giving me a burst of invincibility. ‘What are you supposed to think? What about me? You’re always dropping those hints on the baby thing, making me feel that I’m a monster because I’m not throwing my career away for it. I needed this for work, the magazine needed it, I needed it. I just wanted to escape for a little while, just be myself, without all your guilt trips and hints and suggestions! It’s like Derren Brown is trying to knock me up sometimes.’ As if I’m watching this on a Channel 4 documentary, I can see my teeth gritting, I can hear my voice going high and loud. But just like bad reality TV, I can’t switch it off; I just have to be still and let it happen. ‘This was going to be great for me at work, for a feature I was going to write. And baking is something I’m good at. I even cooked your favour—’

‘God, Eleanor. There’s more to life than fucking cupcakes.’

The credits roll on this awful show. Pete walks away and I’m in too much shock to think of my next line.

I hear the slam of the door as he walks out of our flat.