A Very Accidental Love Story (6 page)

‘I’m really putting my foot down on this Eloise,’ he’s saying, pacing up and down while throwing me the odd scorching look for added dramatic effect. ‘You have to trust me. I absolutely, categorically refuse to give the Culture cover to a kids’ Disney movie … not when Wim Wenders has a new art-house film out. It insults our reader and it’s just … just plain degrading. May I remind you, it’s called the Culture section, not the commercial section, you know. We’re trying to be out-there and edgy. And that bloody kids’ film has all the cutting edge appeal of … of Val Doonican sitting in his rocking chair and wearing a woolly jumper.’

Marc, as you see, is a passionate movie lover in his early thirties and even manages to look exactly like a European art-house director should, with a clever, lugubrious face, eccentric hair and let’s just say
difficult
glasses. It’s also received wisdom round here that he’s official holder of the title Dossiest Job Ever. He’s forever annoying everyone else by pootling off to art-house cinemas in the middle of the day to review obscure, subtitled films badly dubbed from Finnish, then writing three page dossiers on directors I’ve never heard of. Which it’s my job to then edit down and try to make a bit more, let’s just say, reader-friendly.

I, on the other hand, am in a constant push-pull battle with him to reflect cultural choices that our readers might, perish the thought, have actually heard of. Basically, that’s anathema to someone like Marc, who considers a movie seen by more than a dozen people to be an over-hyped, commercialised Hollywood sell-out. But then Marc is someone who regularly claims that Paul McCartney’s
Maxwell’s Silver Hammer
is the greatest offence ever perpetrated on mankind, in the history of the planet. Even worse than Cromwell.

‘Too bad Marc,’ I tell him firmly, while at the same time tapping out an editorial about the health service on the computer screen in front of me. ‘It’s coming up to the Easter holidays, parents with kids need to know what family movies are opening and the Disney Pixar one will be a blockbuster. Sorry, but you’ll have to swallow your art-house pride and just get commercial once in a while.’

‘Eloise, please don’t take this personally, but what in the name of God would you know about culture? You never go out anywhere.’

I look up at him in dull surprise; it’s not often anyone makes comments about my private life and even though it’s true, I don’t particularly like hearing it. Mind you Marc and I go back a long way – we were at college together – so in his defence, he knows he has the liberty to use that kind of shorthand with me.

What he doesn’t know though, is that the board of directors is seriously concerned at the overheads his department are running and that when the axe falls, which it inevitably will, mark my words the Culture section is certain to be in line for a good pruning. And Marc, who’s been here as long as I have and who’s being paid what management consider a highly inflated salary, could well be first for the chop.

Marc’s a good writer, I’ve pleaded with them in the past, with a large and ever-growing cult following. Readers buy our Saturday edition just to read his columns and reviews. Which, frankly, is the main reason he’s lasted as long as he has in the job. But the hard, cold reality is that unless he wises up and stops being such a cultural snob, he could well be in trouble.

And so the only reason I’m being as hard on him as I am, is because I just don’t want him to lose his gig. Not on my watch.

‘Oh, I support the arts alright,’ I smile quickly back at him. ‘I’ll write the cheques, I just haven’t time to see anything. And just on a point of order, you try sneaking off to a movie at the weekends in my job and then see how fast you’re propelled to the back of a dole queue. Disney gets the cover, Marc, and that’s final.’

Then out of the blue, my internal phone rings, sending an ice-cold chill right up my spinal cord. Never, ever a good sign. I tell Marc I have to take it, and he skulks off, knowing he’s been beaten. This time.

Okay, the internal phone ringing usually only means one thing.

Oh Christ alive, no. Please don’t let this be happening … Not today.

But no two ways about it, the nightmare is real. The chairman’s assistant is on the phone, summoning me upstairs to a meeting of the board of directors – the T. Rexes – right this minute. This rarely happens on the spur of the moment like this and it doesn’t take Einstein to figure out why they’ve convened this meeting at such short notice.

The online issue of the
Post.
Can’t possibly be anything else. I know it’s a matter of huge concern for the board and the last time I bumped into Sir Gavin Hume, our esteemed chairman since the year dot, he as good as told me it was a matter requiring their immediate attention. That it’s costing too much and is effectively losing readers. And here’s me in a severely weakened position, because it was my brainchild and I’ve effectively staked my reputation on it. So I whip out a bulging file of notes I’ve been working on about the online edition and mentally steel myself for the grilling that lies ahead.

Anyway, I’m just clickety-clacking out of my office to get the lift to the boardroom on the top floor, when Rachel, my assistant, stops me in my tracks.

‘Eloise?’ she says standing up behind her desk and looking petrified. ‘Thank God I caught you. There’s a phone call for you. And it’s urgent.’

Odd, it strikes me: Rachel looking so terrified about whoever’s on the phone. Mainly because every single phone call that comes for me is urgent; there’s always some emergency. Frankly, the day that someone leaves a message for me saying, ‘Oh tell her it’s not that important, no rush at all in getting back to me’ is the day hell will freeze over.

Plus, Rachel is normally the epitome of glacial blonde coolness under pressure, which is not only why I hired her, but it’s the main reason why she’s survived so many staff cullings round here. She’s around my own age and the human equivalent of half a Xanax tablet; always chilled, always in control, never loses her head; in short, the perfect assistant for someone like me.

But right now, she’s thrusting a phone at me, looking ghostly pale, ashen-faced and like she needs to be treated for deep shock.

‘Trust me, you need to take this call.’

‘I’m on my way to the boardroom!’ I almost hiss at her impatiently, not meaning to be rude, but come on … surely Rachel of all people knows that when the board of directors calls, you drop everything and go running?

It’s non-negotiable.

‘I’m sorry Rachel, but you’ll just have to tell whoever’s on the phone that they’ll have to wait till I call them back.’

‘Eloise, you
have
to listen to me. Please try to stay calm, but … it’s about your little girl.’

And the day from hell rolls relentlessly on.

I’m now sitting in a poky little waiting room outside the principal’s office at the Embassy PreSchool, where Lily has been a pupil for about three weeks now. The emergency call came through from the principal, one Miss Pettifer, to say I needed to get here urgently – but as soon she’d reassured me that Lily was neither sick nor had been in an accident but was safely at home with her nanny, I calmly told her that I was on my way to a board meeting and it was a bad time for me to talk. Elka, I told her in no uncertain terms, would call her ASAP and troubleshoot whatever storm in a teacup was going on. So I’d just get her to do what she was being paid to do, while I obeyed the royal command to haul my arse up to the T. Rexes in the boardroom above, right away.

But Miss Pettifer was having none of it.

‘I’m terribly sorry if there’s any inconvenience Miss Elliot,’ she told me in no uncertain terms, ‘but I’m afraid this is a matter for the parent and the parent alone, which I can’t simply delegate out to a childminder. I realise that you’re a busy woman but I can assure you, I am too. Now, we close for the day in just under an hour’s time and as this matter is of some significance, I strongly suggest that you come in here immediately. Surely you agree that the welfare of your child is more important than any board meeting?’

No more information forthcoming about what in the name of God could be so pressing anyway, or why the antics of a little girl now had her principal acting like the child had tried to set fire to the place or else gone into her preschool brandishing a shotgun. And if Lily’s okay and not sick or anything, then what in the name of God could it possibly be?

‘Ah, Miss Elliot, please come in; so sorry to have kept you waiting.’

I look up from where I’m impatiently perched in the waiting room and there she is, the famous Miss Pettifer. We’ve never actually met before; a few months ago, when I stuck my head in the door to vet the place and see if I could enrol Lily as a pupil, I was dealing with her assistant and of course, ever since then, Elka brings her to and from preschool. So apart from writing humongously inflated cheques for their services, to my shame I’ve next to nothing to do with the place. Or with Miss Pettifer, who’s now holding out an outstretched hand and beckoning me into her tiny little office, decorated with dozens of kids’ class photos and cute little drawings done in coloured pencil dotted all around the brightly painted walls.

She’s early fifties, I’d say, holding middle age tenuously at bay, with more than a touch of the Aunt Agathas from P.G. Wodehouse about her; grizzly grey hair that looks like it could be used for scouring pans tied back in a no-nonsense bun, clipped speech and dressed like she’s about to referee a hockey match any minute. Stern and stentorian; I instantly get an image of her parading up and down past a line of toddlers inspecting their finger paintings and checking for runny noses. A bit like the Queen doing a meet and greet on a visit to a toilet roll factory.

She invites me to sit down on a coloured plastic chair opposite her desk, which immediately wrongfoots me; normally it’s me on the far side of a desk, the one who’s about to initiate a meeting and take charge.

‘Miss Elliot, may I call you Eloise?’

I nod mutely, thinking, please for the love of God, just cut to the jugular and tell me what this is all about. No time for preambles here. No time for anything.

Mercifully, she’s a woman who seems not to believe in sugar-coating things and comes straight to the point.

‘Eloise, I’m afraid we’ve been having problems with Lily, which I strongly feel you need to be made aware of. And so, it’s my duty as principal here to ask you, let’s just say a few
personal
questions.’

Okay, now I’m staring dumbly back at her, thinking, ehhh … What exactly can a little girl who’s not even three years old have got up to that merits the bleeding Spanish Inquisition?

‘Fire away,’ I manage to say, calmly as I can, given that the mobile on my knee is switched to silent and hasn’t stopped flashing up missed calls from the office ever since I got here.

Miss Pettifer instantly cuts across my stream of worry.

‘Eloise, I’m afraid I need to be perfectly frank with you here. You’re a single mum, I know, and a very hardworking one at that. You single-handedly carry out an incredibly demanding job. I’m an avid reader of the
Post
every day, you know, and greatly admire your editorials …’

I nod mechanically, pathetically grateful for the bone she’s just thrown me.

‘But leaving your career aside, being a single parent is probably the toughest job in the whole world. May I ask if you have help of any kind? Apart from your nanny, do you have family support? Your parents, perhaps?’

‘No, I’m afraid not.’

‘Because you know there are any number of wonderful one-parent support groups locally that I’d be more than happy to recommend to you …’

One-parent support groups? I find myself looking at her numbly. What does this one think I am anyway, on welfare?

‘I feel they might help you to cope with a lot of the demands laid on any busy working single mum. They could help. You see, I have some most unwelcome news to tell you, I’m sorry to say. A problem for us, which sadly could represent an even bigger problem for you.’

Involuntarily, I throw a look of pure panic across the desk at her.

Tell me, just tell me quickly before I pass out with worry …

‘There was a deeply regrettable incident earlier here today, which is why I’ve had to call you in.’

Okay, now I’m on the edge of my seat, palms sweating, breathing jaggedly, bracing myself for what’s coming next. ‘What happened?’

‘Lily, I’m afraid to say, got into a heated row with Tim O’Connor, another little boy here in preschool. There were tears, there was screaming, and worst of all, Lily resorted to smacking him until he cried …’

‘She
WHAT?
Are you sure?’

‘I wouldn’t have called you in here if I weren’t,’ she says, looking evenly at me.

‘But that’s outrageous! Lily has never behaved like that before!’

I’m on the verge of spluttering indignantly at her that I’d surely know all about it if she did, but then, with a sudden, sharp stab of guilt have to remind myself … How exactly
would
I know? These days, when do I ever get to see or spend quality time with the poor child anyway, barring our precious Sundays together? The only way I know if there’s trouble at home is if Elka tells me, and lately Elka’s been telling me nothing, just whinging about how late I work and how there are no KitKats in the fridge and how we’re out of Cheerios. And these days I’ve been working so late, even she mostly communicates with me via Post-it notes stuck on the door of the microwave.

So instead of opening my mouth, I sit quiet and listen to the sound of the blood whooshing through my brain while Miss Pettifer relentlessly goes on and on.

‘… Which of course is behaviour we simply can’t put up with. We have a strict policy of zero tolerance, you see, with any kind of unruly behaviour. We expect children to attend having already been taught the rudiments of basic manners and social skills around others.’

‘But …
why
did Lily smack him? Do you have any idea what the row was about?’

‘Ahh, you see that’s where it becomes delicate and personal. And believe me when I say I hope this doesn’t cause you any offence, but it was over the question of Lily’s father.’