Sushi for Beginners - Marian Keyes [116]
‘You’d like to work in a magazine?’ Yvonne pretended she was finding it hard to stifle a smile. Clodagh nodded cautiously. ‘Wouldn’t we all, dear?’ Yvonne sang.
Clodagh decided she hated her, this powerful, merciless child. Calling her ‘dear’ when she was half her age.
‘What kind of salary did you have in mind?’ Yvonne asked, turning the screws.
‘I don’t… ah… I hadn’t thought… What do you think?’ Clodagh handed the last vestiges of her power over to Yvonne.
‘It’s hard to say. I don’t have much to go on. If you’d consider retraining…’
‘Maybe,’ Clodagh lied.
‘If anything comes up, I’ll be in touch.’
They both knew she wouldn’t be.
Yvonne accompanied her to the door. It gave Clodagh savage pleasure to see that she was slightly pigeon-toed.
Out on the street, in her hateful, ridiculous, expensive suit, she walked slowly to her car. Her confidence was shattered. This morning had been a terrifying lesson in how old and useless she was. She’d hung all her hopes on a job but, manifestly, the world of work was a too-fast place which she didn’t have the skills to belong to any more.
Now what was she going to do?
34
On Tuesday morning, Lisa was pawing the ground and champing at the bit outside Randolph Media, desperate to get in. Never again would she endure a weekend like the one she’d just had. On the bank-holiday Monday, she’d been so bored that she’d gone to the cinema on her own. But the movie she’d wanted to see had sold out, so she’d ended up having to go to something called Rugrats Two, sharing the cinema with what seemed like a billion over-excited under-sevens. She really hadn’t known there were that many children in the world. And how ironic that the people she was spending so much of her time with lately were children…
She glared at Bill the porter, as behind the glass door he jingled his keys to let her in. It was all his fault, the lazy, workshy old bastard. If he’d let her come to work over the weekend she’d never have found out how empty her life was.
‘Jayzus, you’re early,’ Bill grumbled in alarm.
‘Nice weekend?’ Lisa asked acidly.
‘Bedad, I did indeed,’ Bill said expansively, and launched into an account of visits from grandchildren, visits to grand-children…
‘Because I didn’t,’ Lisa interrupted.
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ he sympathized, wondering what it had to do with him.
But on the good side, Lisa thought, as she went up in the lift, she’d made some decisions. If she was going to be stuck in this horrible bloody country, she was going to build up a network of friends. Well, maybe not friends as such, but people whom she could call ‘darling’ and bitch about other people to.
And she was going to have sex with someone. A man, she hastily specified. Never mind the New Bisexuality which she’d profiled in the March issue of Femme – one sheepish snog with a model at the Met Bar had been all she could manage. Like Sensible Chic, having sex with women just wasn’t for her.
That terrible weekend urge to call Oliver was a clear sign that she needed a bloke. Jack, if possible. But, with a hardening of her resolve, she decided if Jack wanted to play Burton and Taylor with Mai, she was going to find someone else. Perhaps that would bring him to his senses. Either way, things couldn’t go on as they were.
Of course, she mightn’t be able to find a suitable boyfriend immediately. But she swore to herself that at the very least before the week was out she was going to sleep with someone.
Like who? There was Jasper Ffrench, the celebrity chef, he’d certainly been up for it. But he was much too much of a pain. There was that Dylan she’d seen with Ashling. He was a babe. Married, unfortunately, so she wasn’t really likely to run into him in a nightclub. Spending the weekend hanging around DIY stores would be a better bet.
‘Jesus Christ,’ she said aloud, coming to a halt when she walked into the office. Champagne bottles, mugs, tin foil and wire were strewn everywhere, and the place stank like a pub. Obviously the cleaner didn’t think it was her job to clear up the remains