Читать книгу Precious You - Helen Monks Takhar - Страница 12

5th March – The First Day

I so love the ritual of writing this at the end of my day. The stiff cover, the rustle of real paper, a safe space for me to unload and observe, and so much more intimate than my MacBook. Vintage, like a proper diary, one I can’t delete or undo. This notebook is perfect.

I should have been long gone by the time Katherine Ross showed up at the bus stop. It was so weird. She kept turning around, blatantly staring, which got me thinking. Why don’t I blag my way into the woman’s cab? So I do. Easily done.

At first, all I get from her is the generalisable hate she has for people my age. It was radiating off her, the way she looked at everyone at the bus stop. Total disdain. But then she lets herself talk and the hate starts to lift. She likes chatting to me, I can tell. What’s more surprising is how much I enjoy talking to her, watching her speak. It’s like there’s a whisper of something warm, and I get the feeling she’s throwing me a rope she wants me to grab onto. I’ve only felt it once before in my life. When I realise it’s happening again, and with KR of all people, I have to stop myself from massively over-sharing.

Don’t ask me how, but at one point she ends up stroking my face. Now that, I was not expecting! It feels pretty intense when I have to keep my head straight. I also need to make my life easy wherever I can, so I decide to pick up Mum’s gift for Gem as I’d promised. I have it that we swing by one of the offices she cleans on Mondays. God knows how many fat cats’ bins she had to empty to pay for that pen, but Gem will, and I guess that’s the point – to make Gem feel crappy on a day she should be feeling good, guilting her out about how much Mum would have toiled to buy something Gemma could pick up with the change in her Smythson purse.

When I get back to the cab, I can tell KR had been looking at my MacBook. For about a second, I brick it, but she looks so guilty, I know she’d not got very far. I kind of feel sorry for her.

Gem gives me The Talk the second I walk in. I make all the right noises, of course. When it comes to telling people what they want to hear, I am, of course, something of an expert.

KR is scared of Gem. When it’s her turn to go into Gem’s office for the first time, she looks petrified, so I see an opportunity. I do what any supportive subordinate would when their boss has an important meeting, I give her a bit of friendly encouragement that might help keep her on her toes. Isn’t that what ‘normal’ female friendships are all about? Show me even the best of friends who don’t have to watch what they say, bend over backwards to keep everything on an even keel, all the while trying to make the whole thing look like it’s not really hard work.

I also make a point of showing KR I’m onto way better things than the grunt work she’d inevitably give me, the freshest of the fresh interns, the lowest of the low. I get a couple of pieces published, make them change the front cover of the awards reprint.

I invite the right-hand man Asif out for coffee. He jumps at the chance. Too easy.

She’s made sure everyone knows I’m there because I’m The Niece. She didn’t tell them I wasn’t being paid though did she. Gem tells me I need to be seen to ‘earn my stripes’ first and wait for an opening. The ground is already shifting, even if she, and KR, can’t feel it yet.