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Chapter One I’m completely lost. ‘You know what I mean?’ I am nodding at Freddie, but I have no idea what he is talking about. I lost interest ages ago, letting myself be distracted by the noise of the pub, the buzz of the alcohol in my veins. His mouth is moving, words are coming out, and my eyes are staring intently at his face. Externally, I’m giving off all the correct signals to Freddie – that I am listening to and engaged with his monologue, which is mostly about our colleague Paul getting the promotion Freddie thinks he should have got. We’ve had this conversation before. Freddie is physically attractive: tall, with a classic swimmer’s physique, and dark blond hair, always worn a little scruffy in that slightly posh way. He loves running his fingers through it when he talks, sometimes just holding it back off his face; his beautiful, clean, pretty-boy face. And he always smells expensive. Sadly, none of this compensates for the fact that Freddie can be supremely boring. Him being boring hasn’t stopped me from snogging him a few times, especially if the cheap house red has kicked in, because he’s nice-looking and, well, he’s right there. The set-up suits me fine because it is on my terms and very, very casual. I know you’re not supposed to mix work with your personal life, but when you spend so long at the office and socialise in the hours afterwards with the same people, it becomes your personal life. But now I need to back myself out of this situation. So, no more of that house red, which gives me killer headaches anyway. I look around for a glass of water, silently congratulating myself remembering to hydrate, for once being sensible. But all I can see are empty bottles of wine and half-finished pints. ‘Are you listening?’ ‘Totally, Freddie, just thirsty.’ 'Here, have a sip of this.’ He hands me his pint and I drink it. So much for sensible. We always come to the same pub – a total dive – after work. The lighting is too low, the fl oor is sticky, and the toilets should come with a toxic-waste hazard sign, but the music is great and I’m much happier here than at the anodyne chain bars in town. Give me a place where you can skulk into a corner and slowly head nod over your whisky or dance until 2 a.m. on a Wednesday. Always nice to have options. It’s not a group of people that could have come together in any situation other than a work-related one, united by our passion for marketing. The entire team is here today to celebrate Paul’s promotion. Freddie is right: he should never have got it. Paul is outstandingly average at his job but has this amazing ability to walk into every room as if he owns it, and he has that knack for stating his opinions so confidently that you’re convinced he’s right – until you realise days later, he really wasn’t. I’m still trying to figure out how he does this. Has he always walked through life believing he was right and no one has done him the favour of telling him otherwise? He’s with his usual gang of lackeys from accounts. They help to shore up his fragile ego by laughing like seals when required. ‘Rebecca, are you heading to the bar?’ Paul shouts across the table to Rebecca, then nudges one of the seals and sniggers. Rebecca is a marketing executive who knows more than Paul will ever know about ‘creative synergy problem solving for start-ups’ and most other things, but she’s a junior and he loves the ‘wind-up’; he also loves the ‘bants’ and the targets of his misplaced joshing are always the youngest in the office. Rebecca looks like she’s very much in the middle of a conversation and not heading anywhere close to the bar anytime soon. ‘Be a sweetheart, Becks – I’d love another pint and you can grab yourself one too. Oh, come on, don’t give me that look! Be a good lass, go on, get your boss a drink; we are celebrating me today and I thought we were living in the age of equality?’ I’m watching and listening to Paul’s pathetic routine and still nodding at Freddie, willing Rebecca to give him the finger. Don’t get up, don’t get up, don’t get up! She got up. As she’s walking away to the bar, Paul nudges his mates with a stupid, satisfied look on his face and right on cue the lackeys from accounts do their job and begin laughing like seals. I feel like a zoologist observing a very basic animal species. I take another swig of Freddie’s pint. Freddie is still sharing his pain with me at not getting the promotion, expecting me to do what I aways do: comfort him, make him feel better, tell him how great he is and what an injustice it is that he didn’t get the promotion. No. The promotion should have been mine; every promotion in the last four years should have been. But why should Freddie be expected to know this or care? I’ve been at this sodding advertising agency, sitting on the same floor, working all the hours across different accounts, managing the massively overinflated client expectations with what my team can actually deliver on the miniscule budget they’ve set for far too long. I am everyone’s big sister who needs one, which means I always end up giving a listening ear whether I’m interested or not. In my head I’m shouting in Freddie’s face, his beautiful snoggable face, ‘I DON’T GIVE A SHIT!’ But no, I’m nodding and making comforting, attentive sound effects. Desperate to have a conversation with my actual workmates, Supriya and Jojo, who are cracking up over something, but I can’t extract myself from Freddie. I have the curse of never wanting to be seen as rude, even if my own brain is melting inside me. This job was meant to be temporary and yet, ten years later, I’m still doing it. I’m good at what I do, but I used to be great. Our managing director, Siobhan (who now wants us all to call her Shiv since watching Succession) has perfect hearing yet fails at the basic repetition of sounds. Anyone with a vaguely non-Anglo-Saxon name gets a wonderful new one, created through the audio tuner of Siobhan’s brain. She’s never once managed ‘Supriya’ in the two years she’s been with the company. Sopra. Supree. Soup. Sophie. Sssuuuuuuu— Oh, let’s keep it simple, I’ll call you Sue. I look over at Siobhan. She’s cornered the new starter, talking at him, invading his personal space. I can almost see him trying to duck the saliva molecules being spat in his direction, squinting his eyes and retracting his neck. The new ones always get trapped. I can see his eyes glancing across the room pleadingly and it crosses my mind to stage an intervention and save the poor guy, but this would mean having to speak to Siobhan and I’d rather hang with my gang, try to switch my work brain off. For the first few years, I really bought into my career. I slowly worked my way up the greasy pole to get to management level and gave the best of my liver to it. I’ve worked hard. I watch the signs, read what’s required of me and use initiative, but never in a way that feels like overstepping. I bring a light-hearted attitude to the office, make small talk, go for drinks – OK, perhaps too many drinks. I’m organised, I have good people skills (more than most in my office) and I am empathetic. I’m great at thinking up hooks, even for other people’s campaigns. Clients specifically request that I’m lead on their projects. And nobody writes better copy than me. The writing is what I really love; I don’t have to collaborate with anyone, it’s just me and my words, telling a story. Sometimes, though, when I’m in a certain kind of mood, I wonder: am I good at my job or do people like me just have a really good work ethic? I was brought up to excel – or at least to work as hard as possible and harder than the person next to me. Dad gave me the ‘twice as hard’ speech when I went off to uni – ‘we have to work twice as hard to get half as far’ – but I dismissed it. ‘Not anymore, Dad, the world is changing.’ At a snail’s pace, it transpires. The promotions I worked so hard for were never mine. First, Andrew got one, and then Sarah. My hard-working, just happy to be here attitude morphed slowly, my facial muscles started to feel so much heavier, my energy levels dropping alongside my ability to raise a smile. After I didn’t get the promotion the second time, I should have told them where to stick their stupid job. Or at the very least, started considering my options. I tried to ask why I wasn’t considered and was told I just wasn’t quite ready yet. That I’m so good at what I do in my current role, it would be hard to replace me. And now I’ve been overlooked for a promotion a third time, despite working even bloody harder to prove how good I am. I thought I was going to run the world by now, but I’m just exhausted and, yes, a bit bitter. I wonder if Freddie could understand any of my work troubles. He thinks he’s got it bad? ‘If only I’d bought some when the cost was low – it’s now worth . . .’ Freddie seems to have moved on from the topic of Paul and has chosen crypto currency as his next subject, lord help me. My ears have turned to the song on the speakers, which I love but can’t remember the name of. ‘Who is this?’ He’s surprised that I’ve cut him off midflow and looks a bit put out. ‘I have no idea. Never heard it.’ I turn to Supriya and Jojo, and oh, the sweet relief. These two are my work saviours. We’ve been thick as thieves ever since an away day four years back when we all discovered that we do not enjoy any activity described on an itinerary as an ‘icebreaker’. Jojo’s a couple of years younger than me and Supriya’s only just twenty-seven. She’s Indian but fifth generation South African; she came to study business at Manchester Uni and never went back. We all share a love of drinking after work, drowning our food in chilli sauce and, of course, a mutual hatred for Siobhan. ‘Who is this? I love it but can’t think who it’s by?’ I can feel Freddie’s eyes looking at the back of my head, probably a little crestfallen. But I really can’t support his one-man conversation about the crypto markets. I just want to have a laugh with my mates. ‘Oh, it’s on the tip of my tongue . . .’ ‘I’ve never even heard it before,’ says Supriya. ‘You’ve never heard of anything, Ms Gen Z,’ Jojo says back. And then the chorus kicks in and I sing along. ‘Na na naaaa nanananan naa.’ Sups has already shazam’d it. ‘Jermaine Jackson!’ she shouts. I make a mental note to add it to my party playlist on Spotify. Sups reaches out to me, pulling me to my feet and dancing exaggeratedly. ‘Come on, it’s your birthday tomorrow, let’s party!’ she yells over the music, and I can feel myself laughing at Freddie’s bemused expression as I abandon him and throw my arms up in the air to sing along with my friends and begin our excellent game of pulling ridiculous dance moves to make each other laugh. The booze has worked its magic: I’m feeling light and free and living exactly the sort of modern-girl life my mum is constantly warning me against . . . Later on, there’s no escaping it – it’s time to brave the toilets. This type of bar requires the full thigh-engaging hover action but at least there’s loo roll. The watermarked mirrors fail to disguise my drunk face or that my eyeliner is starting to slip and, oh, nice: I still have my lanyard on. I need to go home, and as I step out of the loo, I am already making a plan: grab coat, say goodbye, bus, pyjamas, toast, maybe even some wings from the chicken shop, bed. I step out of the loo and all I hear is, ‘Hey, Simran . . . tequila?’ Simran is also not my real name. But there is no way on earth anyone I work with, no matter how much of a pal they’ve become, is getting to know the name on my birth certifi cate. The mischief in Sup’s eyes is infectious, though, so to hell with it. Pass the salt.
