It’s pouring down, just for a change.
Not that it rains all the time in London. I mean, come on – it’s not Scotland.
It rains just the right amount. Which, objectively speaking, is quite a lot at the moment.
Ok, I give up – in early August it pours down every bloody day…
I really ought to stop wasting time staring at the water streaming down my windows, though, and get a move on – that nice watch that my parents gave me a few years ago when I got my degree is telling me mercilessly that I’m already way behind with my daily schedule, and from down the hall I can hear the threatening sound of the phone ringing.
At this time of the morning it can only be my mother, so fat chance that I’m going to answer – never start your day by letting your mum hassle you. A day that starts off like that can only get worse. My mother has spent her whole life being a housewife while dreaming about having a career. So why did she never get a job, then? you’ll be asking yourself. Don’t ask me. All I know is that she’s always been convinced that working her only daughter to death was a better idea than actually working herself – with obvious repercussions on my life. She calls me every day in the office to ask exactly the same question: “What are you doing, darling?” And every day, I reply, “I’m at work, Mum.”
She likes that phrase, it makes her feel proud.
The truth is that I’ve never been a dyed-in-the-wool feminist, and she’s never wanted to accept the fact. She still thinks she’s some bloody suffragette from the beginning of the twentieth century.
The only reason I ended up agreeing to study economics at university was for a quiet life, because Mum wanted me to work in a big investment bank. The only thing I liked about the women who worked in those places was their nice suits. I’ve always been very honest – at least with myself – and the truth is that I’ve never really had the willpower or desire to make my way in life or any of that kind of stuff.
But destiny would have it that, thanks to an incredible series of coincidences and bits of luck, I actually did end up working for an investment bank – which still seems weird, even all these years later. I remember that when I was at junior school, in a composition titled ‘What I Want To Do When I Grow Up’, I wrote that I wanted to be a seamstress. I loved being able to make clothes out of practically nothing and thought that actually creating something gave life meaning. Ah, the illusions of childhood! Well nowadays I don’t create anything – in fact, I often feel like I’m destroying things. That’s why I’m not entirely convinced about my job.
I only passed the entrance exam at the Economics Faculty because I managed to spot a brainy looking girl in the crowd, clung tightly to her and somehow managed to copy enough of her answers. The questions might as well have been in Farsi, as far as I was concerned. In my defence, I can only say that identifying the right swot to copy is an art that has never been given the recognition it deserves.
Jane not only helped me pass the exam, she also became a good friend, and we’ve been inseparable ever since. Two rather introverted girls who don’t really want to be noticed – that’s why we bonded immediately. She works at Goldman Sachs now (she was a genius then and she’s still a genius), but she helps me out when she can. If I managed to get myself into a prestigious investment bank, I owe it all to her: after uni, she spent a month helping me prepare for the selections. I have a sneaking suspicion that the only reason I worked so hard to get in was so as not to disappoint her. Well, not to mention that if I hadn’t, my mother would have killed me. Literally.
I’m part of the team that takes care of foreign mergers and acquisitions. Ten people, completely dedicated to their job. Or rather, nine of them are – I just pretend to be. But I’m really good at pretending. As far as I can tell, no one has yet had any doubts as to why I’m there.
The main problem with my job, apart from the fact that it involves the study of budgets and taxation (yawn) is our ridiculously long working day: we start pretty early, which is standard practice in these places, but in particularly busy periods we practically forget to go home. To carve myself out a couple of hours to do a bit of shopping I sometimes have to fake some sort of ailment, a really bad tummy ache or a headache of unprecedented violence. My colleagues are generally so wrapped up in their work that they don’t even notice I’m not there. It’s absolutely unimaginable that someone would actually want to get away from the office. I have a sneaking feeling that they’d come to work for free, while I can barely force myself to go even with the (admittedly decent) salary they pay me. And there are times when not even the pay is enough to cheer me up.
Once, during one of my little jaunts to the shops, I bumped into Theresa from the commodity derivatives office and we exchanged a complicit smile.
Since then, every time we meet in the lift we give each other a look. Discovering that I wasn’t the only one skiving off was reassuring, and I started feeling less guilty about it.
Sometimes I still think about those beautiful girls clad in their gorgeous suits that I used to see running around the City when I was a kid – when the hell did they manage to buy the damn clothes if they had to work all day, and often Saturdays and Sundays too? You couldn’t even shop on line back then!
According to my mother, women don’t need a husband. Let me just repeat that: my mother, who got married at the age of twenty-two, is totally convinced that men are unnecessary and that every woman should seek gratification exclusively through success at work. But she only thinks that because she’s never worked a day in her life: if she had, she’d have rushed off to get married the following one. My father puts up with it all patiently and in silence, and when the atmosphere in the house gets too overwhelming he goes off to play golf.
Obviously, a feminist like her can’t waste time with housework, so she employs other people to do it for her: over the years, legions of girls with more or less unpronounceable names have ironed, washed, cleaned and cooked for my family, while I – who work an average of twelve hours a day – do my housekeeping myself.
Today got off to a terrible start: I’m super late, wearing uncomfortable shoes, I think I’ve laddered my tights and the beautiful black umbrella with white polka dots. which I bought for a few quid last week is broken. Let that be a lesson to me: if something’s cheap, there’s probably a reason.
So half soaked and already exhausted from jumping puddles, I’m on my way into the lift when I meet Tom from the legal department. He smirks as he presses the elevator button and tells me with a certain arrogance, “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but from next month I’ll be in New York!”
The smarmy bastard knows full well that I’d asked to be transferred to the New York office, and it’s more than obvious that if he’s going there then I’m not, since I have it from reliable inside sources – I bribed them with coffee and snacks – that there’s only one position going.
To be honest, the idea of moving abroad to discover the world and further my career was not entirely my own. John, my fantastic boss – who is one of the main reasons I’ve never been fired – had strongly recommended a few months ago that I ask to be allocated to some foreign office, saying it was an indispensable condition for professional growth. I, who had no intention of leaving London, hadn’t taken him seriously, so he applied on my behalf, ignoring all my protests. What John never really seems to get is that my ambitions don’t actually include having a brilliant career. I just couldn’t give a monkey’s. All I need is a job that pays the rent while I work out what I want to do when I grow up. And I will admit that if tomorrow some Prince Charming with a large bank account or an inexhaustible trust fund were to ask me to marry him, I wouldn’t think twice about handing in my notice. To the immense horror of my mother, who perhaps suspects something but at least has the good taste not to ask.
“Never ask questions with answers you don’t want to hear,” is one of her wise rules. I must admit that even in her madness she always displays a certain wisdom – certainly more than her daughter, the non-feminist, does.
Despite what you might have heard, the world of finance isn’t particularly sexist: my colleagues don’t really care if I’m a man or a woman – they only care that I’m able to do my job.
When I walked into this bank six years ago, John immediately took a liking to me. He said I was ‘out of the ordinary’. Ha! Well, no, I don’t actually have much in common with those who think that work ennobles the soul. No one will ever convince me of that. Work will never be better than sleeping. Never.
John is approaching fifty, has a beautiful wife who stays at home to look after the garden and the dog and cooks for their beloved eighteen year old son who wants nothing more out of life than to play the guitar. I guess he sees me as a sort of daughter he can hand his trade down to. If only the daughter were a tad more willing…
In any case, I’d be completely lost without him. Moreover, my colleagues know that I am his favourite so they leave me in peace and you might even say that I enjoy a certain position of privilege in the office. Leave here after having worked so hard to attain peace? Forget it.
But after he got in touch with them, the HR office contacted me for an interview. They pretended that it was all very informal, while actually making notes about even how often I blinked, and asked vaguely where in the world I would like to work. I’ve never been any good at beating around the bush, so I just said straight out that I wanted to go to New York. There or nowhere. Call me extreme: I prefer to think I’ve got clear ideas. Everyone knows that there’s no better place for shopping than the Big Apple, not to mention that it’s somewhere where there’s a very strong chance that I might come across some rich potential husband.
And now Tom, who knows all about my request, is here standing next to me boasting about his transfer. He’s probably been going up and down in this bloody lift for the last hour in the hope of meeting me and being able to rub my nose in it. I am very obviously late, and he certainly hasn’t just arrived. Brown-noser that he is, he’s always one of the first to get here in the morning. With a hint of irritation I have to admit that his strategy has paid off.
Striving to appear unruffled, I press the button for my floor, turning away from him and waiting patiently for the lift to begin its ascent. But Tom is unhappy with my reaction and goes all out to make me lose my temper.
“The best news is about your destination though, because you see, Maddison, a little bird told me that you’re going to be leaving too…” he almost giggles. Seeing him chortling away is really more than I can endure this early in the morning, so I reluctantly turn towards him with my seraphic expression beginning to crack.
The lowlife has dropped his bombshell and can see that I’m feeling the effects. On the one hand I’d like to ignore him, but on the other I have to find out more.
“What are you talking about? Everyone knows that I was only willing to go to New York – and since they’ve decided that yours was the profile best suited to being sent overseas, I’ll obviously be staying here. But it doesn’t matter – I like living in London and not moving away might have its advantages,” I say, trying to sound like I mean it. I don’t like showing weakness in front of idiots like him.
Tom, though, just smiles more and more mockingly. I don’t like the annoying gleam of his thirty-two perfectly whitened teeth at all.
“Then you’ll find that your day will be full of surprises,” he whispers in a voice that makes it sound like a threat.
Finally the lift stops at my floor and I march towards the door without even bothering to say goodbye. To hell with him!
As the doors close again he adds, “We could have a joint farewell party! Think about it and let me know!”
I freeze for a moment with irritation, looking at my distorted reflection in the elevator doors. Ok, I’m not going to New York, that looks pretty certain, unfortunately – but someone upstairs must have decided in any case to give me this ‘enviable formative experience abroad’. If I’d really wanted to experience the thrill of the unknown, I could have spent a year of university in some other country. It was no coincidence that I clung to Britain like a castaway to a lifebuoy all those years.
And anyway, where could they be sending me? I wouldn’t mind Paris, though my French isn’t great, so making myself understood would be a job in itself.
Never mind, I’ll just sign up for a language course! The one my mother insisted on making me attend for ten years in a row never had the desired effect, because I wasn’t motivated. Although the teacher did say a hundred years of lessons wouldn’t have sufficed to turn me into a person able to utter two intelligible sentences in a language that I’d never liked anyway.
Not a big problem, though, come on: everyone everywhere speaks English nowadays. They can’t not speak my language, right? The shopping in Paris isn’t bad, and the food is divine. Yes, now that I think about it, Paris would be even better than New York! I don’t know why I didn’t think of it in the first place…
Or maybe they’re sending me to Rome: Italians are so charming and warm, and I love their clothes and their way of life. And you don’t even need to learn the language: everyone knows that Italians speak with gestures. As a child I was very good at mime, so I have every reason to think that I’d do brilliantly at it.
When I get to my desk I’m really happy that everything’s going to go smoothly and that John’s going to send me somewhere beautiful. Somewhere much, much better than New York. Everyone goes to the Big Apple, why follow the crowd?
My eye falls on the messages that my colleague Jess has left for me. My mother must have called at least ten times: she knows that the transfers are being announced today, and I would imagine she hasn’t slept from all the excitement. Just as I’m about to call her, I notice from the corner of my eye that from the other side of the office John is gesticulating to me strangely: he gestures several times at the door of his room and then races inside to take refuge. If I didn’t know him so well I’d say he was agitated. That’s never usually a good sign.
Meanwhile, Jess has returned to her desk with a steaming cup of coffee in hand. “What the hell’s going on this morning?” I ask worriedly.
She looks at me with a strange expression, as though deciding whether to let me in on the secret.
“I don’t know exactly. I saw a man go into John’s office half an hour ago. Not long afterwards, the boss came looking for you. We even tried calling you at home and then on your mobile, but it was off,” she tells me between sips. “I think he needs to talk to you urgently.”
This means that for once in history it wasn’t my mother at the other end of the line, then. Well, hooray for mum! And, for the record, I always forget to turn on my phone – too many emails that I’d rather ignore and that might stress me on my way to work – if I was actually aware of the hassle awaiting me at work, there’s every chance that I’d do a runner! I’ve dreamed so many times of just walking right past the main door without entering, and if the opportunity presented itself I might actually decide to take it.
“I’d better go and see what he wants immediately,” I mutter. No point pretending to be calm when my voice betrays me.
I start walking timidly towards the office of the big chief with my stomach doing somersaults. As I go in, I have a strange feeling: I know that it’s not going to be anything good – in fact, I feel with absolute certainty that there’s trouble ahead. I’ve always been able to sense when some misfortune was on the way. I remember that sometimes at school I was even able to tell when the teacher was going to single me out for an oral test. Some might call me psychic, but I just call it a survival instinct. And now it’s telling me to scarper, without even opening the door. If only I could just skive off like at school.
For a moment I’m actually tempted to make a run for it, and I’m not ashamed. If only John hadn’t seen me arriving… Trying to not think too much I force myself to knock, and when the boss’s voice invites me to come in I summon up all the courage I have, or at least what little I have left, and decide to throw open the door. Across the room, John sits regally behind his large black desk: he raises his eyes to my face, staring at me with a hint of embarrassment, before turning to the person in front of him, whose face is hidden by the back of the shiny leather chair.
“Ah, finally – our Maddison!” he greets me, unable to hide the tension in his voice, despite pretending to be relaxed. “Jess told me you’d be a little late because your mother was unwell…” he stammers, giving me a funny look clearly meant to communicate some secret coded message.
I stare quizzically: my mother has never been ill in her life. John is clearly lying to provide me with an alibi, and more besides – with that look, he’s obviously suggesting that I lie too. But why?
Warily, I walk over to his desk, but I still can’t work out who the mystery man sitting opposite him might be.
I start sweating like crazy and billions of disturbing scenarios immediately pop into my mind, which is already a bit pessimistic by nature. Is it one of the internal auditors? Have I really cocked up this time?
I’ve always known that I wasn’t cut out for this job, and I’d go so far as to call myself a harbinger of disaster rather than a creator of ingenious restructuring plans. It must be something to do with the time I spilt coffee on the printout of the transactions then rewrote it entirely at random. God, I’d start biting my nails from nerves if I hadn’t already almost chewed them down to the cuticles thanks to never having learned to cope with stress.
My confused thoughts are interrupted when the mysterious man finally decides to turn round: I don’t know exactly what I had been expecting, but whatever it was it was certainly nothing like this. In front of me is a guy with very dark, expressive eyes. He’s wearing a charcoal grey suit, clearly tailored, which is perfect and flawless in its austerity. He looks serious, too. For a few seconds no one says anything, while the stranger stares at me without ever breaking eye contact or even blinking. If he’s trying to intimidate me, I’d say it’s working amazingly well.
The only thing that betrays a touch of vanity is the over long black hair, extending down to the collar of his blue shirt, as perfect as everything else. There’s not even a single, tiny fold around that slender neck.
I’ve always hated characters like this. They look you up and down with that superior expression of theirs, as though no one could ever be as good as them – as though no one was worthy of even laying eyes on them.
“Ms Johnson,” he says very seriously, getting up from the chair. I’ve always been very proud of my five foot nine, and to emphasize my height I usually add a couple of inches of heel. Today, for example, I’m wearing my uncomfortable but beautiful shiny black two and a half inchers, but he’s still a couple of inches taller than me. I sense, though, that he is surprised too. He can’t take advantage of his height to intimidate me further. He scrutinizes me carefully, but I’m not quite sure whether he likes what he sees. In fact, if I had to guess, I’d say he doesn’t like it at all.
“Maddison, this is Mark Kim,” says John, finally deciding to speak.
He’s uncomfortable but he has to make the introductions. The stranger offers me his hand – a large, perfect one, which makes me feel embarrassed about never having gone for a manicure in the last God-knows how long. I take it with a little hesitation: I really hope that my own hand isn’t sweaty.
He has a firm grip, just as you’d imagine. After he releases my hand, he sits back down in his chair without uttering a single syllable. Assailed by worries, I have no choice but to plop down much less gracefully in the chair next to his.
“Mark and I have spoken at length about you, Maddison,” explains my boss, not without a trace of pride, “and I’ve told him about all of your qualities.”
I blink, poorly concealing my astonishment. Qualities? Me? What’s he talking about?
I’ve obviously missed something: why would John, who knows me so well, cover up for my being late to this stranger and try and make out that I’m someone who I certainly am not? And who the hell is this Mark Kim to be making John act so weird anyway?
I’m officially panicking now and, as always happens to me in crucial moments, totally random nonsense starts emerging from my mouth. “Are you Chinese?” I ask him, before I manage to stop myself.
Mr Kim, who already gave every sign of not being what you might call a talker, seems to stiffen even further at my unexpected question. Perhaps starting with an interrogation isn’t the best way to make friends with people you don’t know.
Looking almost offended, the mystery man rolls his eyes as though my question is a ridiculous one. Okay, I might have been a bit undiplomatic, but certainly not enough to deserve the look of absolute contempt he gives me.
“No. I’m American, but I have Korean origins,” he finally deigns to answer, grudgingly. It seems that his words are an extremely rare commodity.
His voice is deep, and would even be quite charming if it weren’t for that irritable tone of his, which contains a kind of veiled threat. Who the hell is he? The killer the company sends to assassinate lazy employees?
I can tell by the expression in his eyes that he already hates me. We’ve known each other for thirty seconds, and the mutual dislike is more than evident. There’s something in the air that I can’t quite put my finger on… hmm, a storm on the way, maybe? My God, what unhappy alignment of the stars is causing all this?
John must have sensed my embarrassment because he tries to give me an explanation. “As you know, a few months ago you made yourself available to work abroad for a period, and the company has decided to take you up on it.”
It might sound like a great opportunity, but for some reason I sense that there’s a catch about to be served up on this silver platter: I’m about as willing to abandon London as the Ravens at the Tower, and my boss knows it.
“Actually, I made myself available to work in New York,” I point out with a glare which means ‘and it’s all your fault’. Being ‘available’ – as he puts it – has never been one of my strong points.
Mr Kim is trying to hide a wry smile and not succeeding terribly well. But then, he’s not trying that hard. Clearly Americans, or at least those of Korean descent, don’t know much about good manners. Has no one ever told him that in certain cases, and especially here in England, pretending is obligatory?
At this point I no longer care about making a good impression on him, so I try to incinerate him with a stare, and he seems to notice. Despite being a pain in the ass, I must admit that he’s perspicacious.
“Yes, it’s true, I know that you specifically asked to go to New York, but our US office needed legal counsels and so they chose Tom Brady. But it would have been such a shame to waste this unique opportunity, and that’s why we decided to go ahead with your transfer to the office of M & A in Seoul.” John has gathered up all his courage – courage he’d probably been wondering whether he actually possessed – and, blushing bright red, reads out my sentence.
I’m sure that I must have misheard: his words are still ringing in my ears, but my brain refuses to process them. It is as if I had been sentenced to death and guillotined in one shot.
“Where am I supposed to be going!?” I exclaim, red-faced, in a tone several octaves higher than normal. It doesn’t even sound like me.
Mark Kim has no wish to lose the chance to give me the coup de grâce, so he adds, “To Seoul – South Korea, if you weren’t sure where it was. I have come personally from our South Korea office to make your move… how shall I put it… easier.” He finishes the sentence with a sigh.
It’s clear that he’s not even trying to hide what he means, though: he’s obviously going to end up making my transfer a living hell.
This can’t be happening, it just can’t be! They must all be crazy! I don’t even know where South Korea is – or rather, I know that it’s far away and I don’t remember it being famous for shopping or for excellent food. A feeling so deeply unpleasant comes over me that it becomes hard even to breathe.
“When?” I ask, in what is barely more than a whisper.
“In a fortnight,” answers my extremely uncomfortable boss. John can see the effect the news has had on me, and hardly dares look me in the eye.
“And is that definite? I can’t say no?” I force myself to ask.
“I would say that, yes, it’s definite,” he says – the traitor!
For a few long moments, no-one says anything: Mr Kim has no sarcastic retort, I have lost the power of speech, and John is crushed with guilt. He is the one to break the silence. “Mark will be your boss in Seoul: he’s only just learned that you’ve had the good fortune to be selected to go with him. I know both of you well, and I am confident that you will work well together.”
I appreciate his attempt to calm the waters, but as far as I’m concerned, the goal is far from being reached.
At least the reason for our exotic looking guest’s ill-humour has been revealed: like me, he was totally in the dark about all this. Who knows what little genius he’d been promised, and now he has to make do with yours truly.
In the room, another awkward silence descends. It’s clear that too much has been said.
I’m in shock – if someone asked me to get up from the chair I’d probably collapse to the ground. I’m trying with all my might to recall anything I can remember about South Korea, but nothing’s coming to mind! I know zilch about Seoul or the Koreans, not one single, solitary thing. Not a very promising start.
“Mark, Jeffrey Wilson told me that he wanted to see you this morning to discuss some urgent matters,” says John, acting as though the Korea question is now a done deal. “I’ve asked Jess to accompany you, and after you’ve finished you can join me for lunch.”
Mark jumps to his feet, obviously thinking that it’s an excellent suggestion. The issue of my transfer is apparently closed as far as he is concerned, too. John picks up his phone and calls Jess who, efficient as ever, appears a few seconds later, following his instructions to the letter and accompanying Mr Friendly out of the office. He goes without even saying goodbye, which isn’t much of a surprise. Annoying, oh yes, but certainly not a surprise. Mark’s departure finally allows me to let out all of my resentment about the matter – another five minutes and I would have exploded, even if he had been there.
“Let me make it clear that I have absolutely no intention of going to Korea! I’ll hand in my notice first! Did you really think that I’d just pack up and move somewhere that I couldn’t even point to on a map? Somewhere halfway around the world? With that… that trained seal?”
I’m so furious I can hardly breathe. I hope this office is properly soundproofed…
John stares at me with a pained expression. “Maddy, believe me, there was nothing I could do about it. Management want a woman in the Korean office – they say the atmosphere there is, well, a bit chauvinistic and they want someone to impose a bit of a balance between the sexes. Not to mention that they really need an expert in mergers, and there is no one else on our team that meets the criteria and is available,” he explains.
Me, expert? Who does he think he’s dealing with? Has he actually managed to talk himself into thinking that I know anything about this job?
“What about Jess?” I snap back.
My boss raises his eyes. “Jessica has a husband and a son, how can I ask her to go?”
I know he’s right, but I don’t want to accept the inevitable. I’d consider the idea of getting pregnant but I’d need the raw material – a father. At the moment I’m single – extremely single – and John knows it. Let that be a warning to me: never tell your boss about your love life.
“But I don’t want to go to Korea, especially not to work for that guy…” I whisper. I’m almost begging – I hope to God I manage to make him take pity on me.
Unfortunately John doesn’t seem to want to give in. “Mark’s very bright,” he begins. “We worked together for a few months when I was in New York.”
It’s official, everyone’s worked in New York except me – and apparently I’m never going to either.
“He’s smart,” continues my boss, “and he has a very keen mind. You’ll learn a lot from him.”
Adamant, I cross my arms over my chest. “I don’t care how keen his mind is – he looks nasty! And how the hell can I work for someone who takes better care of their nails than I do?” I ask angrily. I realize that I’m acting like a moody teenager, but I don’t care. Right now I’d be willing to do anything to avoid going. Even chaining myself to his desk. “He looked down his nose at me like he was some kind of superior creature. And you saw how he took the piss out of me,” I say finally.
“Maddison, it’s time to grow up… and I don’t just mean professionally. Mark is one of the people I respect most in this company – he’s determined and he’s got character. I know that he’s uncompromising but he’ll also give you something in return for your efforts.”
Does John really mean that, or does he just want to get rid of me, whatever the cost? And ‘uncompromising’ might be too bland an adjective to do the gentleman justice.
What all this means is that I’ll have to slave away under a tyrannical boss who already hates me before he’s even had the chance to get to know me. So just imagine when he actually has!
I decide not to give up. “But I don’t speak the language, I only speak English! I’ll never manage to learn a word of Korean… How will I survive in a city like Seoul?” I stammer, growing increasingly flushed. I’m dangerously close to tears.
John seems to have an answer for everything today, damn him. “Seoul’s an international city, practically everyone there speaks English. And in the UK office it’s the main language.”
I don’t know what other excuses to come up with, and I feel trapped. My now former boss knows he’s almost got me.
“And the bank will pay your rent and all the expenses incurred by the move. It’s decided, you and Mark leave in a fortnight. No, even less than that, actually… you leave a week on Saturday.”
I should bloody well hope they are paying for my accommodation. I might be stupid enough to have let myself be manoeuvred into this, but there’s a limit.
John gets up from his chair, happy to have finally silenced me, and leads me out of his office with a pat on the back. “Try to get to know each other in the meantime,” he proposes. “I think you should come and have lunch with us, so you two can spend a bit of time together.”
He smiles at me, but as soon as I’m back in the corridor, his office door closes firmly. If anybody still had any doubts, I’m officially doomed.
At this point, there’s no question about it – this is the worst day of my life. And it’s not even ten o’clock in the morning. I daren’t even contemplate what other misfortunes may befall me by evening.
As I float between despondency and despair I remember that I still have to call my mother, so I walk over to my desk and let myself fall into the chair like a sack before automatically dialling the number of my parents’ house. They live just outside London, in a nice house with garden that they bought when my dad retired. The choice of house was the only thing my milquetoast father has managed to have a say in all these years. And in my humble opinion, he made a pretty good choice.
As expected, the harsh ringing doesn’t last more than a second. How the hell does she always manage to be right next to the phone? At the other end of the line I hear my mother’s loud, croaky voice: she always answers – if my dad ever tried I think he’d probably be risking a limb or something.
“Maddison! What on earth are you playing at? Your father and I have been dying to know how it went!”
Almost without realizing it, I move the receiver away from my ear – I’m really not ready to cope with so much enthusiasm. And I doubt that my father is particularly anxious to find out whether he’s destined to remain alone on mainland Britain with just my mother for company. I’m not sure he’ll be able to manage without me there to protect him.
“I called you as soon as I heard the news, Mum,” I reply, summoning up infinite amounts of patience.
“So when are you going to New York? And how long are you staying?” She sounds thrilled. And if I was actually going to New York, I would be too.
Who knows how she’s going to take it…
“Actually, mum, I’m not going to New York – I’m going to Seoul,” I say, throwing it out there with feigned casualness.
On the other end of the line, everything goes silent. Well that’s one satisfaction, at least: for the first time in history, she’s actually speechless. She probably doesn’t know where Seoul is and is trying to remember something about it. I’ve never been much good at geography myself, but she’s absolutely awful.
Her consternation gives me my first real smile of the day and makes me feel almost magnanimous so eventually I help her out. “Seoul is in South Korea, Mum?”
I hear a very deep sigh – almost a kind of gasp. She’s trying to mask her surprise, but the attempt is futile. What do you bet that she breaks the world record for not speaking?
“I’m leaving in two weeks,” I tell her.
Finally she manages to mumble something – she must have remembered some detail about Asia!
“Well that’s wonderful! South Korea is a major up and coming economy! Going there will certainly be an important step forward in your career!” In the background, I can hear the sound of her flicking through the pages of a book: is she looking at the encyclopaedia?
My mother has just found out that her only daughter is going to be transferred to the other side of the world and all she can think is that it’ll be good for my career? The hint of improvement in my mood, tenuous as it was, vanishes instantly.
“I’ll know all the details soon enough, but right now I have to get back to work. Talk to you later, Mum,” I say, and hang up without even waiting for an answer.
And they have the nerve to say that your family’s a crutch in times of hardship – In my case, I either have to support myself or limp on alone.
The morning goes along calmly enough, if you can call this feeling of being suspended in mid- air calm. A vacuum seems to have formed around me: no one dares ask me anything, and everyone’s pretending to be very interested in their PC screens. Jess has understood my bad mood on hearing the news of the transfer and in her own way she’s trying to cheer me up, by offering me marshmallows and liquorice. She’s always saying that sweets are the cure for all ills. I’m not too convinced myself, but I might as well try it, because I can’t think of any others. It’s sweets or suicide, so I’ll go for the sweets.
As I feel myself succumbing to the darkest gloom, I write an email to Jane to briefly fill her in on developments.
Dramatic news: I’m not going to New York, I’m leaving for Seoul in two weeks…
All I’m after is a bit of human sympathy, and you’d think it was pretty clear from what I’ve written that I want to wallow in misery and total despair. But that’s not how Jane sees it, apparently.
Cool! Lucky you, getting the chance to eat all that yummy kimchi! :-)
I blink in puzzlement at her message. Kimchi? I don’t even know what a kimchi is, I’m sure that I’ve never heard of it in my life. Slightly nervously, I start investigating on the internet and find out that it is a popular dish in Korea made of fermented vegetables with spices: it’s usually prepared with Chinese cabbage, to which a pile of hot chilli is added. The site completes its explanation with a photo of something so revolting looking that it would appear awful even if it were actually the world’s most succulent dish – and I’m afraid that this kimchi stuff does not fall into that category.
I am so disgusted by my discovery that I don’t notice Mark Kim magically materialising behind me. I am certain his stealthy step is intentional. It’s clear he’s trying to work out what I’m reading, so I jump to my feet and say to him in a menacing voice, “Aren’t you accustomed to respecting other people’s privacy in Korea?”
He draws back instinctively and stares at me, looking puzzled. My eyes are blazing and I think I might actually have intimidated him, which is nothing short of amazing. Mr Kim seems like a man who is more used to frightening others than to being frightened.
After a moment’s hesitation he gives me that glare of his, which somehow manages to be both suspicious and resentful at the same time. And to think that I only had the pleasure of meeting him a few hours ago!
“Actually, John sent me to look for you – we’re going out for lunch,” he says stiffly. “I didn’t mean to startle you, you were so focused on your work…”
I can tell that he’s being sarcastic, but his tone of voice is so serious that all the others fall for it. Not me, as I clarify with a dirty look.
God, I swear I hate him so much I could kill him. If it had been anybody else I might have thought that I was being unfair to him because he represents the transfer in my mind, but in his case I’m afraid it’s personal. This is probably only the third or fourth time that we’ve spoken, but I have the impression that too much has already been said. Despite not yet knowing anything about him, I’m sure that nothing that I may find out in the future will change my mind, even if it turns out he’s a martyr or a philanthropist – not even if one day he invents a cure for all diseases known to man.
Anyway, I do my best to pretend to be friendly and give him a smile. The attempt, however, is not particularly effective.
“No problem,” I say, and grab my coat and handbag.
Out of the corner of my eye I see that John has just left his office and is heading toward the lift, so I set off too, a silent Mark in tow, and, enveloped in a cloud of palpable tension, the three of us descend to the ground floor, leave the building and walk along the busy streets of London. And lunchtime in London can be really busy.
John and Mark immediately begin exchanging company gossip, as if that was all they’d been waiting to do, and I’m reluctantly forced to accept that they really do think highly of one another, given the way they solicit each other’s advice. I feel a bit of an outsider to the conversation, and every time I open my mouth only rubbish comes out. Perhaps I’d better just give up and walk in silence.
I’m so engrossed in my thoughts that I’m hardly taking any notice of what’s going on around me, until suddenly my damn heel slips on a flagstone that’s still slippery from the morning rain. I’m preparing to land heavily on the ground when, in the middle of my descent, two large hands grab me firmly, preventing the humiliating tumble. At first I think it must be John, who was walking by my side, but when I raise my head, my gaze meets the dark (in every sense) eyes of Mark. It’s an awkward moment to notice that he has incredibly long eyelashes; if he were a woman he wouldn’t need to use mascara. Since when have men been allowed to have eyelashes as incredible as that?
I have no idea how he managed to grab me – he must have leapt like a cat to my assistance.
“Be careful! You don’t want to fall and hurt yourself, it might delay our departure! That’s all we need, you breaking something!” he reprimands me, as though speaking to a child. Is this guy for real?
Seeing as he helped me avoid looking like a bloody idiot, though, I thank him, despite my embarrassment, and try to compose myself.
I’ve regained my balance, but his grip shows no signs of letting up: he holds me anchored to him as though I were fragile. While my cheeks start to go bright red, totally against my will, I find the presence of mind to remove his hands from my waist. The contact is minimal, but it’s still electric. Mark says nothing and merely stares at me with a strange expression in his eyes. Before I can make even more of a fool of myself – which, I admit, would be difficult, but I am known to relish a challenge – I walk off and catch up with John, who’s a few metres ahead.
“You’re blushing,” my boss teases me, in a murmur.
“Oh don’t be stupid! Anyway, where is this bloody restaurant?” I ask, pretending to be perfectly at ease and determined to change the subject. Fortunately the Italian we’re booked in at isn’t far away.
I love Italian restaurants, and I’m crazy about pasta. I don’t even look at the menu, I already know that I’ll have my usual mushroom tagliatelle. At the thought that I won’t be able to indulge myself with it when I’m in a bad mood in Korea, I’m overcome by a wave of sadness. I’m about to emigrate to a distant land where they only eat fermented cabbage.
Fermented. Cabbage.
The horror…
This far from reassuring image of Korean delicacies translates into a suffering sigh. John doesn’t notice anything, but Mark, the man from whom no detail escapes, instantly shifts his watchful eyes to my face. And just like this morning, they don’t look at all satisfied with what they see. I’m very tempted to tell him that he shouldn’t stare at people as though he were looking right through them, and that I don’t think it’s polite.
I’m about to open my mouth when John interrupts the hostile silence by summoning the waiter. For once today I agree with him: ordering food is the priority.
Lunch is proceeding without major problems: the food is great and the conversation between John and Mark doesn’t require much input from me – I’m in company, but it is as though I were alone, immersed in my own thoughts.
I have so many of them flying around in my head that I don’t even notice John has left the table to answer a phone call. When I turn my attention back to lunch, I notice that Mark is looking at me severely without even trying to hide it. He’s direct, if nothing else.
“I don’t particularly like being observed,” I warn him, feeling uncomfortable. “And that’s practically all you seem to do.”
He smiles, almost amused.
“Sorry,” he says, not looking sorry at all, “but I’m trying to find some little clue as to what I can expect from you.”
“What do you mean?” He doesn’t know what to expect? What should I say, then?
“Well, it’s pretty obvious that you don’t want to go to Seoul,” he says, raising a glass of red wine and staring somewhere into the distance.
“There’s not much mystery about that…” I mutter. Well done, Sherlock Holmes, on solving another difficult case.
“And that in itself would not be a problem, if I were able to work you out. But I’m finding it strangely difficult.”
I open my curious eyes wide – I have absolutely no idea where he’s going with this.
“You’re a very bad liar, because it’s obvious what you’re thinking from your face. But there’s something else that’s impossible to decipher. And yet at first glance you seem quite ordinary. Strange,” he concludes flatly, as if he wasn’t insulting me. Which he is, for God’s sake!
For about ten seconds I sit there immobile, paralysed by his words. Me, ordinary??? I’m about to pour that red wine over his head when an idea strikes me – a brilliant one! Why don’t we work together to keep me in London? At the end of the day, we might actually have a common goal.
My anger vanishes instantly, gradually transforming my expression into something much more enigmatic, and an honest to God smile appears on my face.
“I don’t want you to think that this is an insult as opposed to a fact,” I say, trying to prepare him, “but I sincerely believe that you are a windbag who, sooner or later, will inflate yourself so much that you’ll pop. And I can also tell that you think I am a total idiot. So why don’t we join forces to try and make sure I stay in London?” I say, fluttering my lashes while forcing myself to smile.
Mark, who a moment before had been calmly drinking his wine, suddenly starts to choke on it. Could that have been my fault, I wonder to myself as I watch him struggle to regain control?
After he has resumed breathing normally, he has a sip of water. I, however, do nothing at all except continue, undeterred, to smile angelically.
“What did you say?” he asks, still coughing from time to time.
“You don’t like me, and you’re not doing anything to hide it. Come on, don’t tell me you’re surprised that I find you obnoxious too…” I whisper in a sweet voice. They’ll be giving me an Oscar by the end of lunch.
“Generally, people don’t find me obnoxious at all,” he says resentfully. Good to know – as well as being presumptuous, he’s also touchy. He’s a man, I should have known he would be.
I’m not going to say that this lunch is actually nice, but it’s certainly improving. It’s almost fun.
“Let’s hypothesize for a moment that long ago I was promised a colleague with tons of experience and a brilliant CV, and then I learn that I’m going to be babysitting a young English woman. A woman who, from what I can see, will find it hard to settle in a new country because she doesn’t want to go. A woman who, at first glance, doesn’t even seem too interested in having a career…” He raises an eyebrow and looks at me to gauge the effect of his words. “So if you were in my position, what would you think of that?”
He’s right, I know, but I couldn’t care less about his point of view. I’m not that noble. What I care about is my problems.
“What about if we forget about hypotheses and come back to the real world?” I propose in a bored voice. Better to get straight to the point. “You don’t want to work with me, and I don’t want to go to Seoul. I say that we should join forces so that I can stay here in London and you can take someone much more suitable with you.”
Mr Kim retires into silence while he reflects upon my proposal, and in his eyes I see a slight glow of interest.
Meanwhile, John returns to the table, completely unaware of how things have been evolving. If he notices the tense atmosphere, he doesn’t comment in any way.
After lunch we return to the office, each of us lost in our own thoughts. I get back to work, but I’m far from relaxed.
The first thing I do once I’m back at home is to call Jane. Since it’s only seven in the evening, I’m absolutely, mathematically certain that she’ll still be in the office. She never leaves before nine or ten, and never has dinner at home. And I doubt that she puts in all those hours just because she loves what they sell in the company’s snack machines.
As soon as she picks up, I get straight to the point.
“Jane, it’s a nightmare! What am I going to do? I don’t want to leave London, and I certainly don’t want to spend a year living in Korea!” I bombard her with words almost without taking a breath.
My friend can’t hold back a tinkling, harmonious laugh. I’ve always been deeply jealous of people who know how to laugh gracefully, because I tend to sound a bit coarse when I do.
“You know that in your shoes I wouldn’t mind getting out of London for a while? I honestly think that this transfer will do you good. Getting away from your family and the whole working environment of your office is exactly what you need. You need challenges, dear girl,” she says, sounding convinced.
Jane doesn’t know what a quiet life is – for her, it’s important to always have new goals. In the past six years she has spent nine months in New York, six months in Hong Kong and as many again in Paris. Sometimes she gets tired of London and goes to live on the other side of the planet. Or, as I put it, she goes to live in an office on the other side of the planet, because it’s obvious she never really has a moment to actually enjoy the various cities that she’s lived in. And an office in London is probably just like any other office in the world.
I, on the other hand, like to put down roots. I like to know what to expect and to have the same challenges to face in the morning. There is something very reassuring about conducting a predictable life. Not to mention that starting all over again requires a strength of character that I’m afraid I just don’t possess. I don’t want to change everything now that I have finally found a kind of precarious balance in the utter chaos I like to call my life.
Ok, I’m not crazy about my job and I don’t have a great social life, but even though I do get bored now and again, I feel that a bit of security is priceless.
“To be honest, I think I need some peace and quiet…” I reply resignedly. She’ll never understand my point of view anyway.
“No, my dear, you need waking up! And South Korea sounds like a brilliant opportunity to me,” she says, trying to encourage me to seize the moment. She’s wasting her breath: it takes a lot of energy to get a body that’s put down roots in a specific part of the world back into motion – it’s so much easier when you’re doing it with a body that’s already in motion – like hers.
“Even assuming that Seoul is this really nice place that you’re telling me it is, which it absolutely isn’t, you have no idea about how painful the guy I have to work with is! A certain Mark Kim, who has hated me since the moment he saw me. Believe me,” I moan loudly, “not even you would be glad to be going…”
At the other end, all Jane does is giggle. Which isn’t much help at all, I can tell you.
“Good God, Maddison, you can’t expect everyone to fall in love with you straightaway! But generally you’re pretty good at entering into people’s good graces after they’ve known you for a while. It’s one of the things about you that I’ve always envied,” she confesses, sounding sincere.
There’s something that Jane envies about me? I’m amazed.
“I would agree with you, except you haven’t met this guy. Believe me, he really hates my guts something awful,” I insist.
My friend laughs even louder. I am glad that she finds it all so amusing…
“Why on earth should he hate you so much? You’ve only just met,” she says, when she’s finally managed to stop. Yeah, good question.
We reflect seriously for a moment. “In all honesty I think he realized that I’m not actually crazy about the job that I do,” I admit reluctantly. I don’t know how he did it, but something tells me that I might be right. It’s always extremely unpleasant to find that someone has seen through your act. The truth implies a weakness that’s a little unnerving.
“I’ve already told you, Maddy: you do like your job – you just like moaning about life even more.”
Jane can be really blunt sometimes.
“Thinking about it, I get the feeling he could see everything that I feel about this job in my face the very moment he saw me,” I reflect thoughtfully.
“Well that’s no bad thing. That way, he knows what to expect from you, and you won’t have to pretend to be someone you’re not,” she concludes seriously. I had phoned her hoping to be comforted, not to have uncomfortable truths thrown in my face.
“Jane, come on, have some pity, for God’s sake! Let’s change the subject – today’s already been challenging enough,” I beg her. I can almost hear my friend smiling at the other end of the phone line. I wish I could too. Eventually we say goodbye: she goes back to the job she loves so much, and I go back to getting worked up.
It feels like the whole world is ganging up on me today.