Читать книгу Getting Organised - Carolyn Caterer - Страница 10

Meanwhile Abi was going about her own business, completely oblivious to the plot that was being hatched by Mabel. She had given herself a couple of months to settle in to the area and then she needed to get some kind of a job. Part time would be ideal but, knowing how much it cost to run a house, she wasn’t sure she could afford the luxury of a twenty hour week. She was also aware that even top PA’s didn’t earn anywhere near what those working in the city earned, but she certainly had no interest in a daily commute up to London and the six a.m. starts that this would involve. Nor did she want to work for a demanding boss who would expect her to be there before he arrived and not leave until he had departed.

Abi shuddered at the very thought of going back to the life she had before she was married. On the other hand it would be good to be earning her own money rather than spending someone else’s. That was something that had always been made clear to her in her marriage; it was David’s money and he had complete control over the purse strings. Every month he would go through her spending with a fine tooth comb and interrogate her about her use of the joint bank account. She constantly felt she had to defend herself and had become very accomplished at spotting bargains in the shops to prove to him that she was spending his hard earned money with care. If she had dared to sneak a look at his credit card bills she would have been surprised at how careless he could be with his money; especially when it came to the little gifts he was buying his mistress. But of course Abi would never dream of looking at his private papers and David was able to live his life on his own terms, only disclosing his misdemeanours and months of deceit once he had decided to leave her.

For Abi it was now fantastic to be in charge of her finances with no one else to answer to except herself. What she was aware of however, was that the small amount of savings she had would not last forever and that she needed to earn some money. She also knew that she had been out of the job market for a number of years and was hardly going to be considered the perfect PA for most companies. If they wanted cheap and pretty they would be opting for someone in their twenties who wouldn’t be too demanding in terms of pay and would be happy to turn up and do as they were asked.

At her age Abi realised that the market was against her because of her long absence from the job, which meant that she was probably completely out of date with the latest technological developments. Additionally she was sure they would expect her to be quite expensive and, no doubt would be wondering if she would be starting a family as her biological clock went into meltdown. The fact that they couldn’t legally ask that question made no difference as far as Abi was concerned. She knew the realities of being a woman in your mid thirties and how companies were reluctant to invest in someone that might soon swan off to motherhood and perhaps never return. The smaller the company the less likelihood there was of her being employed and, she had to face it, out in Hampshire the local companies were all pretty small. Basingstoke and Winchester offered the best opportunities, but did she want to immerse herself in corporate life? Abi felt that this would not be for her. No, she wanted a job that she could turn up to, do and then go home at the end of the day to enjoy her garden and her new life. Maybe she would change her mind at some stage in the future, but for the moment, she wasn’t sure she wanted anything that would be too demanding.

She took to scanning the local paper to check out the kind of PA jobs on offer and realised that they were few and far between. She was determined not to be disheartened and signed up with a temping agency, who looked at her with slight alarm, while at the same time assuring her that they would of course be able to find her something.

A few weeks later they did just that; but it meant using very little of her skills. She was on a three day job to just stock take and convert invoices from Euros into pounds sterling. Abi wasn’t sure that this was where her skills lay and was more than a little relieved when the three days were over.

A couple of more weeks passed by, with jobs in a plumbing shop, an electrical goods shop and finally a builders’ merchant. Abi decided that temping wasn’t for her and told the agency that when she went to collect her pay packet.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like the work, it was pretty basic and the people were nice, but it was the fact that she never knew when, or even where, the next job would be. Abi needed some stability in her life at this time, as so much of what she had believed in had been shattered with the ending of her marriage and the subsequent realisation that her life had not been what it had seemed.

It was while she was getting out of her car that afternoon that Mabel had dashed across and asked her if she would like to pop in for a glass of wine and some nibbles. Abi jumped at the chance of some company and, said she would be right over once she had changed out of her work clothes. Fifteen minutes later she was knocking at Mabel’s door with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc in her hand.