Читать книгу Cathy Kelly 6-Book Collection: Someone Like You, What She Wants, Just Between Us, Best of Friends, Always and Forever, Past Secrets - Cathy Kelly - Страница 48

That same Thursday, Sam Smith sat in her office and put her head on her desk for one wonderful minute. Not on the desk, exactly: the bleached maple was hidden by layers of paper, mostly marketing reports, spreadsheets of expenses and letters she had yet to read. She had to clear it all before seven o’clock that evening, an impossibility since her assistant, Lydia, was off with flu. Sam’s own throat ached and a dull throbbing behind her eyes convinced her that she was next in line to get it. Only she simply couldn’t afford to take any time off. She had a gig tonight, one that would go on until the wee small hours, and an eight-thirty meeting the following morning, followed by a three-hour budget meeting. Illness, like tiredness, was not an option. Not when you were barely two weeks into the job, a job people would kill their grannies for.

Sam rubbed her eyes, not caring for once whether she’d smudge her mascara and give herself racoon eyes. Why did she have to feel ill now? Everything had been going swimmingly for the last eight working days. She loved Titus Records, adored her new job as managing director of the LGBK label, got hugely excited at the idea of developing people’s careers and making them international stars. It was a huge step up from being director of marketing at Plutoni-ous Records. Despite the long hours she’d been working, she’d gone home every night buzzing with an inner electricity at the thrill of the job she’d been fighting for every day of the past fifteen years.

But Lydia had been snuffling and sneezing all day Wednesday and had given Sam her germs. Lydia, a carefree twenty-five-year-old, could afford to take a few days’ sick leave. Sam, teetering on the abyss of forty and the most recently hired executive with a lot to prove, couldn’t. Illness in female execs was viewed with as much disfavour as working mothers racing home from important meetings to take care of toddlers with high temperatures. At least Sam, childless by choice, didn’t have to worry about the latter.

The telltale click of her door handle alerted her to the fact that someone was about to enter the office. Immediately, she jerked upright, flicked back her glossy dark blonde hair, and opened her eyes wide to banish the exhaustion from them.

The door opened abruptly to reveal Steve Parris. Sam mustered up her best, most professional smile. When the company chairman himself deigned to arrive at your office at half-past five on a Thursday evening, it was your duty to look alert, on top of things and enthusiastic. Not half-dead with flu symptoms.

Sam shoved her seat back and got to her feet in one fluid movement. ‘Steve, what can I do for you?’ she said, hoping to infuse her words with the correct amount of deference. In her two weeks at LGBK, the biggest label at Titus Records, she’d divined that Steve Parris, no matter how much he slapped workers on the back and went about with his hail-fellow-well-met routine, was a control freak who needed subservience the same way other people needed oxygen. Short and skinny, he was still a formidable presence in his black Prada suit. People who underestimated Steve because he was so physically unprepossessing rarely made the same mistake twice.

With his shock of hair, heavy eyebrows and disconcerting habit of smoking a cigar the size of a nuclear weapon all along the no-smoking corridors of Titus, Steve was the sort of man who made people nervous. Sam was no exception.

She was no coward but she knew Steve didn’t like her. He’d wanted a man for the job. The Titus European President, who was Steve’s superior, had wanted Sam. Steve had given in but he wasn’t happy about the decision.

‘Just dropped by,’ he said now, small black eyes constantly moving over Sam, her messy desk and the office, which was still only half-furnished. Sam had dumped the previous incumbent’s furniture, an act designed to show people that she was the new broom.

Sam smiled at him as warmly as she could manage. Steve never ‘just dropped by’.

‘You’re going to see Density tonight,’ he said, half-question, half-statement…

That was it, Sam realized. Density, the band Steve himself had signed at huge expense, and who had just finished recording their first album, were performing in a small club in Soho. Sam, as head of the label they were signed to, would be very involved with their future, so it would be interesting to see them live for the first time. A future that would mean big trouble for Steve and Sam if they didn’t make it. He was in her office to make sure that she was giving his protégés every help, so that their album would be a mega success and he’d get the kudos for signing them. If it wasn’t, someone’s head would roll and Sam would bet her enamelled golly badge that it wouldn’t be Steve’s.

For the first time, Sam felt the strain of being the boss. Suddenly she wondered why she hadn’t stuck with her enjoyable first job all those years ago in the film distributors where the biggest stress was looking after some neurotic movie star on a promotional tour who wanted Earl Grey tea and lemon in a motorway café where the only serious menu choice was what sauce you got with your deep fried chicken. But no, she’d wanted power and a fabulous career and had left the film industry to spend fifteen frantic years in the music business. Fifteen years of hard slog to end up with Steve Parris growling at her every day. Had it been ambition or masochism? It was the flu talking, she thought, angry with herself for such weakness.

‘I’m really looking forward to seeing Density live,’ she said now. ‘I love the parts of the album I’ve heard.’

Steve’s beetle eyebrows bristled and the small black eyes got smaller and meaner.

‘You mean you haven’t heard it all before?’ he barked.

‘I’ve heard most of the tracks but they’re remixing three. The producer is going to send the final version tomorrow,’ Sam said, trying to remain cool.

‘Jeez, you should have heard it before tonight. It’s out in a month. I’ll see you at the gig tonight and we’ll talk about the album tomorrow,’ he said, slamming the door shut on his way out.

Sam sank back into her chair and automatically put one finger to her mouth to nibble the nail. Shit, shit, shit.

She shuffled her papers again and then made up her mind. An executive decision. After all, she was a bloody executive, so she could make a decision. She was flu-ey, she had a gig to go to and she really needed to change her clothes if she wasn’t to look like a complete dork at the gig. The change of clothes she’d meant to bring was still sitting in the hall of the flat where she’d left it this morning. Wearing a suit, even if it was a pretty slick grey one with a discreet DKNY label, she’d stand out like an elderly sore thumb amidst crowds of combat-trousered trendies with Kangol hats and trainers. Bugger the paperwork: she was going home to mainline anti-flu products and to change her clothes. She locked her door and walked past the glass offices, and past the open-plan section of the fifth floor, LGBK’s centre of operations. Luckily, Steve’s office was on the seventh floor, with all the Titus presidents, vice presidents, and other assorted control freaks. She hoped nobody was looking at her, sure she had a guilty look on her face that said ‘Going Home Early’.

But even though she didn’t know it, as she strode along the glass corridor, people were looking; people just looked at Sam Smith. Not that she was beautiful or supermodel-tall or startling in any movie star way. But because energy emanated from her like electricity and because she moved like a dynamo.

At five foot six, Hope was two inches taller, physically bigger, and yet when the sisters were together, Sam was the one people noticed.

While her sister was a mixture of pale shades, with fragile colouring and a rounded, welcoming face, Sam was the opposite: all strong colours and strong features. Sam’s hair, mouse at birth, was long and a gleaming dark blonde. She had it blow-dried at a salon most lunchtimes and it fell in severe, gleaming straightness to her shoulder blades. It was a classy look, one which she’d deliberately chosen so that people would look at her and instantly know she was a player: a somebody. Her face was oval with a strong chin, a long straight nose and slanting eyebrows that showed up intensely coloured tawny brown eyes. Her skin was darker than Hope’s, almost olive. In the summer, she could pass for an Italian because she went a rich, golden brown. At school, people never believed she and Hope were sisters. Only their mouths were similar: they shared the same soft plump lips, a feature which made Hope look unsure and innocent and which gave Sam the look of a woman who’d had collagen injections. To counteract this model-girl plumpness, Sam drew her lipliner inside her natural lip line and only ever wore pale lipstick so as not to draw attention to her mouth. Hope’s mouth was vulnerable and slightly sexy, both looks Sam was keen to avoid. As far as Sam was concerned, once you let your hard-as-nails façade down, you were finished in business.

Slim, due to hyperactivity rather than because of any time spent in a gym, Sam looked like the perfect career woman in her tailored grey trouser suit, with a sleek nylon mac, mobile phone and briefcase as accessories. Straight out of Cosmopolitan’s career woman pages, except that at thirty-nine she was a fair bit older than the Cosmo babes. The vibes she gave off said ‘unapproachable’ and that suited her just fine.

‘If you were seaside rock, you’d have a line through you saying “tough cookie”,’ joked her best friend, Jay, on those nights when they shared dinner together in the local Indian restaurant they both loved.

Sam always laughed when Jay said that but lately it didn’t sound as funny as it used to. Jay was a willowy Atlanta woman she’d met in college, part of a small group of people who were Sam’s closest friends. Jay who wore bohemian chic clothes, worked in a bookshop and was only interested in her job as a means to pay the bills. She admired Sam’s single mindedness but said the career fast track wasn’t for her. Tonight, Sam didn’t feel as if it was for her, either.

On the packed underground train, she clung to the side of a seat as they hurtled along. Sam hated it when the train was full. She got off at Holland Park, bought some anti-flu capsules in the chemist, and trudged through sleeting rain to the flat, one of four in a huge, white-fronted converted house in an expensive, tree-lined street.

The place looked as if it had been burgled, which was pretty much the way she’d left it that morning. A huge pile of ironing lay on one corner of the dining room table; the previous few days’ papers were scattered on the rest of it and the coat she’d been wearing yesterday was thrown on the sofa. Usually chronically tidy, she hated mess with a vengeance. And when the flat was messy, the cool, clean lines of the all-white rooms looked all wrong.

Since starting her new job at Titus, Sam had been working horrifically long hours and the housework had fallen by the wayside. Her cleaner had left a month before and Sam hadn’t managed to find a new one. The flat wasn’t enormous or anything, but doing any housework at the end of a murderously hard week was the last thing she had energy for. The flat was a two-bedroom, financially crippling, investment in a posh bit of London and the living room cum dining room was the only decent-sized room in the entire place. The kitchen was so small that two people really needed to know each other intimately if they wanted to spend any amount of time in it together, while the bathroom was minuscule and without one of Sam’s favourite amenities: a bath. Showers were functional, she’d always thought, but a bath was luxury. Still, with her mega new salary, she’d be able to move soon, to somewhere bigger, more opulent and with a bathroom where you couldn’t stand in the centre of the floor and touch both walls with your outstretched hands.

She couldn’t face the effort of sticking anything in the microwave, so she spread a few crackers with cream cheese, poured herself a vodka and red bull to give herself energy and took the first dose of her anti-flu medicine.

In the bedroom, she sat down at the computer and connected to Outlook Express.

Hi Hope, she wrote. How’s it going with you, love? I’m a total grump today because I’m feeling fluey and work is a nightmare. Sorry, shouldn’t be bothering you with this but I’ve got to tell somebody. Going mad. It must be my age. I am running out of the ability to talk crap to people, which is worrying in this business. Talking crap is how I got hired in the first place. (Only kidding.) Plus, I’ve got to go to a gig tonight and the band in question make the sort of music that Toby and Millie might make if you left them alone in a room with two guitars, an effects pedal and a drum kit. Just as well there’s paracetamol in the flu stuff I’ve taken. Talk more at the weekend,

Sam xx

She had a speedy shower to rinse off the sweaty flu feeling and dressed quickly in black nylon trousers, a small orange T-shirt and a long black leather coat that clung to her like it had been tailored to her body. The stuff in the bag in the hall would be creased and would have had to be ironed again. Wearing crumpled clothes was not her style. Draining her vodka, she was out the door only an hour after arriving.

‘I hope you’re not going to have any wild parties this week,’ yelled a reedy male voice from the landing above hers. ‘I’ve got guests and they couldn’t sleep last night with the noise.’

Sam resisted the impulse to answer back. There was no point. Mad Malcolm, as the rest of the residents called him, was oblivious to reality. He lived on the top floor flat and spent his life accusing the other residents of having orgiastic late-night parties and disturbing him, which was utterly untrue. The most noise Sam had ever made since moving into her flat a year ago had been the night she’d dropped a saucepan of hot pasta sauce and it had splashed onto her leg, making her yelp in pain. Used to getting up at dawn to be at her desk by seven thirty, her idea of a late night at home was being in bed at half eleven watching the late movie. The people who lived downstairs were similarly quiet and it was only Mad Malc himself, who had wooden floors, bad taste in music and a constantly barking Pekinese, who disturbed the peace. Neighbours. As if she didn’t have enough on her plate without a nutter living above her.

The club was hot, sweaty and already full of Density fans when she got there. Her name was on the guest list and she slipped past the queue near the backstage area.

Backstage, long-haired roadies humped equipment around, biceps glinting with sweat in the hothouse club environment. They ignored her completely. Sam had no idea where she was going and had no intention of asking.

She blindly followed a winding corridor and found herself in a big cool room where tables, plastic chairs and two kegs of beer were positioned. Two record company people were sitting in a corner, drinking beer from cans and chatting to a skinny young bloke with a shaved head.

She didn’t know the Titus people very well yet but at least she recognized these two. Darius was a handsome, upper-class sort of boy in his late twenties from Artists and Repertoire, commonly known as A & R. Normally young, musical and deeply hip people, A & R staff trawled clubs and venues spotting talent. They worked on the road and were rarely in their offices before half ten, arriving with tired eyes and demo CDs people had pressed on them the night before. A & R people sometimes resented people like Sam, whom they saw as ‘suits’ who screwed up their wonderful signings and who refused to sign up avant garde stuff the A & R people were passionate about. Sam had heard that Darius was brilliant at his job and had a fantastic ear for music; vital in a job which involved working closely with bands, songwriters and producers.

The other Titus person was a publicity woman whom Lydia had said was nicknamed Cher because she looked exactly like the American singer as a thirty-year-old and loved wearing Seventies hippie clothes to emphasize the effect. Sam couldn’t for the life of her remember Cher’s real name.

‘Hi guys,’ she said, pulling a chair up. ‘You been in to see the band yet?’

‘They don’t like seeing people before a gig,’ said Cher severely. ‘Except Steve,’ she added reverently, as if Steve Parris was God. Steve certainly thought so, Sam thought ruefully.

‘Is Steve here yet?’ she asked, knowing she’d have to stand beside him during the gig.

‘No, he’s delayed,’ said Darius. ‘Would you like a cigarette?’ he added politely, proffering a pack.

Sam momentarily wished she still smoked. Everyone else was dragging deeply on full-strength cigarettes. At least it gave you something to do.

‘Given up,’ she said. ‘But thanks.’

What she could have killed for was a cup of tea to soothe her throat. There was a huge hot water urn in one corner complete with teabags, plastic cups and sugar but in this beer ’n’ fags atmosphere, Sam felt it would mark her for ever as a dorky ‘suit’ if she had tea now.

After fifteen minutes of chat, the support band went on and the room cleared while everyone went to stand backstage and look at them. The noise was terrible. Like the sound of two wrestlers having a fight in a saucepan factory. Sam managed to look interested for two songs, then sloped back to the hospitality room and made herself a cup of tea. Who gave a damn who saw her. She wasn’t a kid who had to pretend to be cool, she was probably fifteen years older than most of the people backstage and if she wanted tea, then she was going to have tea. Age had to have some compensations.

When the support band were mercifully finished, she rejoined the others at the side of the stage and waited for Density. Finally, after ten minutes of screaming and clapping from the fans, they appeared, none of them looking over the age of twenty-one, all lanky young guys with weird haircuts, mad clothes and strange piercings. Their music wasn’t her scene but she could sense the raw intensity of it. She only hoped that the people who bought CDs agreed with her.

Steve appeared, deep in conversation with the band’s manager, so Sam was able to just nod hello to them. She’d have to speak to them both later and say how wonderful the band had been, but for now, she wanted to listen and not have to make polite small talk.

After half an hour, she decided to go down into the club itself and watch the band from the audience’s point of view. She liked doing that: seeing how the fans reacted was one of the essential litmus tests for a band. Seeing if people bought their album was the other, more important one.

Telling the backstage bouncers that she’d be back, Sam slipped out into the crowd and was hit immediately by the scent of young bodies, sweat mingling with perfume and the tang of dope. She stood at the back and breathed in a waft of what smelled like l’Air du Temps.

The smell of floral perfume at gigs always astonished her. There she was, surrounded by gyrating young bodies, a mass of humanity in leather jackets, hipster trousers and death-defying heels with hard young eyes staring at her arrogantly. Then she smelled the fresh scents of their perfume rising in the heat: floral bouquets from their mums’ dressing tables mixing with the fresh scent of carefully applied deodorant, innocence meets sexy. Suddenly they weren’t tough little cookies any more, but vulnerable young girls anxious before they went out, hopeful that they were wearing the right clothes, yelling that ‘Honestly, Dad…’ they wouldn’t be home late as they blasted themselves with a spritz of something suitable for a wood nymph.

They were all so young really; trying hard to be grown up. And she felt so old. Sam rubbed her temples tiredly. What was wrong with her? She’d been feeling so old and worn out all day: too old to be standing at a heavy rock gig trying to get it. She didn’t want to get it any more, she didn’t want to have to stand in a smoky club and tap her foot to some incomprehensible beat.

She wanted to be sitting at home, drinking a nice glass of red wine, perhaps listening to some mellow Nina Simone and feeling relaxed.

Sam closed her eyes and gave herself a mental pinch. Get a grip! she told herself. You’re a working woman, so work. She went looking for Steve to tell him he’d signed the band of the century.

The following morning, the flu hit her like a ten-tonne truck. She woke at half past five, bathed in a cold sweat with her head aching and her throat the consistency of rough gravel. Moaning as she dragged herself out of bed, Sam stumbled into the kitchen and boiled the kettle. Hot lemon and honey might help. So much for the anti-flu stuff she’d gulped down the night before.

Enveloped in her big navy towelling dressing gown, she slumped in front of the television with her hot lemon and flicked through the channels.

‘Useless rubbish,’ she muttered as she discovered that the breakfast television shows hadn’t started yet and the only alternative was Open University or news. After half an hour watching a programme about mountain gorillas, Sam still felt physically sick but mentally much improved. She never read anything any more apart from marketing reports and Music Week, and her daily culture came in the bio yoghurt she tried to eat most mornings. She really must learn more stuff. It was terrible to be uninformed, capable only of discussing sales, royalties, budgets and the marketing spend per unit of the latest hot CD. She dimly remembered a time, fifteen years ago, when she went to museums and galleries; when she had a bit of a life.

She went into the bathroom and showered, determined to make herself feel ready for work. Calling in sick so early in the new job was not a possibility, no matter how swollen and painful her head felt. Then, wrapped in her dressing gown again, she slumped down in front of breakfast TV. Just another little rest and she’d be ready to leave the house. Seven ten, Sam’s normal time for leaving for work, came and went and she still felt as if her head was the size of a basketball.

She’d call a taxi instead of going by train. She was sick, she had to cosset herself.

The taxi driver finally arrived at half eight and turned out to be one of the cheeky Cockneys so beloved of tourists and so hated by anyone with the flu and a thumping headache.

‘…so you see, they nicked him for having six people in the cab even though they were all one family. Ridiculous, it is. You can’t break up a family who’re looking for a cab, even though the rules say you can only carry five passengers. Mad, that’s what I’d call it…’

Sam sat in the back and made heroic efforts with her Clinique base. However, being mere base and not miraculous make-up straight from the Jim Henson creature shop, it couldn’t hide her blotchy, feverish skin, or make her look anything other than a sick, 39-year-old woman who hadn’t slept well. To compensate, she made her eyes up heavily, hoping they’d distract from the rest of her.

‘…so I says to him, don’t go busting me, mate. I’m just doing my job…’ said the taxi driver.

She got into work at ten past nine to find a chirpy Lydia behind her desk.

‘You look rough,’ Lydia said.

Sam glared at her and wondered where she’d gone wrong in the choice of this particular assistant. Normally, her assistants would never volunteer such personal opinions. She must be getting soft in her old age. The only consolation was that Lydia was proving to be very efficient, despite her breezy, carefree demeanour.

‘Thank you for that, Lydia,’ Sam replied, ‘and thank you for giving me your flu.’

‘You poor love,’ Lydia was sympathetic. ‘It was a bad dose. Do you want me to get you tea or some tablets?’

‘Tea would be nice,’ Sam said tiredly. ‘Any calls?’

‘Yeah, Steve Parris’s assistant’s assistant, wondering where you were because you’d missed the half eight meeting.’

‘Shit!’ Too late, Sam remembered the all-important breakfast meeting. She was forty minutes late, unforgivable. Well, unforgivable when the person you were meeting was Steve. Her mind sprinted through several plausible excuses but the only real one was a no-no. She’d already heard that Steve was phobic about illness. He’d have the entire office fumigated if he thought anyone in it was ill. Not for the rest of the staff’s benefit, mind: for his own.

Lying was the only option. She phoned his assistant and lied that she’d been sure the meeting was for half nine. ‘It’s my fault,’ she said apologetically, ‘my assistant was away and I mistakenly scribbled it in the wrong line of my appointments book.’ She dutifully wrote ‘Important meeting with S Parris – NNB’ on the half-nine line of her book just in case Steve appeared and asked for proof. She wouldn’t put it past him.

‘The meeting’s over and Steve isn’t happy,’ said his assistant in nervous tones.

Steve was never bloody happy, Sam groaned. He’d been born bad tempered. After knowing him for two weeks, she knew this to be true.

‘Oh gosh, I’m so sorry. What do you think I should do to make it up to him?’ she asked sweetly, knowing that if anybody knew how to handle Steve, it was the poor woman who had to put up with him all day.

‘Grovel,’ was her advice.

Grovelling didn’t work. Steve roared into her office just before lunch, evicting the two publicity people who’d been discussing a forthcoming album release with Sam. He hadn’t waited until they’d fled before he’d started shouting abuse at her. Sam sat calmly, then apologized for her mistake.

‘But,’ she said, naked steel in her voice, ‘coming into my office and screaming at me is not the answer. That isn’t the way I run my office and it’s not the way I expect to be treated, Steve. I am not some junior you can intimidate.’ Her tawny eyes were as hard as nails. She glared at him.

Faced with resistance, Steve backed down. ‘Yeah, I guess I get a little riled occasionally.’

Sam smiled glacially, wishing he’d lose the American accent. He was from Liverpool.

‘I’m glad we understand each other,’ she said, then, knowing that it was time for her to kowtow a bit, added with a large dollop of fake enthusiasm: ‘and I loved Density last night. They were incredible on stage, they just blew me away. They were one hell of a find.’

Steve smiled smugly. ‘It was a good gig, wasn’t it?’

‘We’re going to make a fortune with them,’ Sam added.

Steve practically swelled with pride.

He was so pathetically easy to manipulate. Was it because he wasn’t used to women standing up to him? Most of the female staff were so many levels below him that when he barked at them to make him a coffee, he almost expected them to hop. A woman who gave as good as she got unnerved him. Perhaps that was why Steve had been so keen to hire a man and not Sam. She sighed silently. This job would kill her if she had to go up against Steve Parris every day.

It was a frantic Friday. Sam managed to eat half a sandwich at her desk before she had to attend the weekly marketing meeting. Then, she had to work on paperwork, talk to someone in production about a glitch in an album cover and return all her phone calls and internal e-mails. Lydia went at six and so did most of the rest of the staff but Sam stayed at her desk until half seven, wearily returning e-mails. The pain of her sore throat and throbbing headache were almost eclipsed by her exhaustion. On her way out, she popped into the loo and grimaced at her reflection. She looked like death microwaved up, all pale and pasty.

The security guard nodded as Sam left. Outside, it was dark and raining, typical October weather in London. It was hard to remember that only a month ago there’d been a week of Indian summer sunshine. Feeling miserable, Sam trudged along to the Underground, stopping only to buy some milk and a couple of lemons for her lemon and honey tea.

She got a seat on the train and sank into it gratefully. Around her, people were visibly relaxed, happy that the week was over. A crowd of young women all dressed up to the nines stood like colourful birds of paradise just inside the train doors, too fired up to bother sitting down even though some were wearing ankle-breaking stilettos. Sam leaned back in her seat and watched them laughing and chatting. She remembered being like that once, young and thrilled to be going out. Full of joie de vivre and enthusiasm for life. Now, the only thing she felt full of was flu remedy. What was wrong with her? It wasn’t just being sick; it was something more. But what? At home, she boiled the kettle and made herself some lemon tea before heading to her bedroom to change clothes. On the off chance that Hope might have sent her an e-mail, she switched on the computer while she drank her tea. Hope had been in touch. Sam grinned. Why was it that she loved the words: ‘you’ve got mail’ when she was at home and hated them in the office? Probably because the home mails were nice, friendly ones and the office ones were generally staccato demands to get statistics, information and updates now!

Hi Sam,

You sound terrible, you poor thing. I bet you’re not looking after yourself at all. I know you: all work and no play. And never feel you can’t moan to me about work and stuff. That’s what sisters are for. Matt says thank you for your card. He had a dinner party that was more corporate hospitality than wild fortieth birthday party. But I do have one piece of news. Matt and I are thinking of moving to Ireland for a year. I know it sounds a bit sudden but we’ve been thinking about it for ages and now seems like a good time.

He thinks he can go on sabbatical and it’s not as if I’m exactly on the fast-track to promotion in Witherspoon’s. It’s still only a plan right now so I’ll tell you more when I know more. It’s a bit of a long story. See you soon, love, Hope.

Sam stared at the screen, stunned. Move to Ireland? Matt taking a sabbatical and Hope giving up her job? Weird wasn’t the word for it.

Hope always discussed things with Sam; it was so strange of her not to have even mentioned this startling new plan, unless…unless. Sam’s eyes narrowed. Bloody Matt. This was some damn fool plot of his, she’d swear to it. As ever, Hope was going along with it. Sam quickly checked out the train times to Bath on Saturday mornings, then phoned her sister. Flu or no flu, Hope needed sense talked into her and face to face was the only way to do it.

They stowed Sam’s small weekend bag in the boot of the Metro with the groceries, Hope marvelling that her sister could always look so immaculate and yet bring so little with her. To look half-way decent when she travelled, Hope needed a giant suitcase and would still forget something vital. Though very pale, Sam looked Vogue-fresh with just a small, squashy bag. Her flu had improved miraculously, probably due to the quantity of anti-flu capsules she’d been consuming.

‘Let’s go for a coffee in town before heading out,’ suggested Sam to her sister, pleased that, for once, Hope hadn’t brought the kids, which gave them the opportunity to have a private chat about the madcap idea of moving away for a year. In fact, Hope hadn’t told the children their beloved aunt was coming so she could have some time alone with her sister. If Millie had heard the news, she’d have thrown a complete tantrum wanting to go along too. Hope had also told Matt she preferred to pick up Sam alone: Matt wouldn’t have been able to resist arguing with Sam if she criticized his precious plan.

‘Is this quiet cup of coffee on our own so that you can give me the “are you insane?” lecture without Matt butting in?’ inquired Hope with a faint twitch to her mouth. She wasn’t stupid. Her sister wasn’t given to last-minute visits and you didn’t need to be a nuclear physicist to figure out why she was here now.

‘Yes Sherlock, that was precisely the plan,’ admitted Sam, grinning. ‘I’m shocked that you saw through me that quickly. I must be losing my touch. I can remember the far off days when we were small and I could make you do anything I wanted purely by using the correct tone of voice.’

‘I remember that too,’ Hope remarked, ‘and I have moved on a bit.’

‘Only a bit,’ Sam retorted. ‘Matt certainly manages to make you do exactly what he wants.’

Hope locked the car. ‘How about we have a cease-fire on the question of our trip, at least until we’ve got a cup of coffee in our hands.’

‘Done.’

It was only half ten in the morning: a crisp early October day with a watery sun low in the sky. They strolled past the Abbey, vast and majestic in the sunlight.

‘This is such a beautiful city,’ Sam sighed. ‘I never seem to get the chance to spend any time here, just wandering around like a proper tourist.’

Hordes of tourists meandered through the streets, some excitedly wielding high-tech cameras and taking endless photos, others looking weary, as if the tour bus had just dumped them there and they were feeling the strain of a whistle-stop tour of the hot spots of Britain.

Hope and Matt had done all the touristy things when they’d moved there first. They’d sipped the sulphuric water in the Pump Room. ‘Disgusting,’ gasped Hope, wishing she could spit it out. ‘A bit like tonic water,’ said Matt, reflectively. They’d toured the Roman baths and listened to stories about when the city was Aqua Sulis, the Roman stronghold with lots of gracious villas complete with proper underfloor heating. Matt’s favourite part of the tour had been the Roman sites, while Hope’s romantic soul loved the Georgian history of Bath. As a teenager, she’d secretly adored the Georgette Heyer romances where Bath often featured as the fashionable watering hole for wealthy aristocrats. She was fascinated by the Assembly rooms where both Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer’s heroines had swirled around in Empire line dresses; she loved the Museum of Costume and she liked nothing better than idling around the pretty, curving streets with their yellow sandstone colonnaded buildings, imagining ladies stepping from carriages and sedans into the houses.

The sisters walked past a trio of classical buskers playing something that Sam instantly identified as Mozart. Two years as product manager of a classical label had taught her a lot, and she no longer immediately thought of the Lone Ranger theme music when she heard the first strains of the ‘William Tell’ Overture.

‘It is lovely here, isn’t it?’ said Hope, who practically never came into Bath to do anything other than rush into work or rush into some shop or other. Simply coming in to wander around aimlessly was sheer heaven.

Sam insisted on going into Sally Lunn’s cake shop, a spot where Hope insisted that true Bathites would never set foot.

‘It’d be like you walking round London’s Piccadilly Circus with your mouth open in awe or having your picture taken right outside Buckingham Palace,’ she said as Sam dragged her into the cosy, tourist-filled spot where the scent of the unique Sally Lunn buns rose into the air. ‘My reputation for being cool and trendy will be ruined. Locals don’t “do” Bath!’

‘Don’t be a spoilsport,’ said Sam, suddenly aware that she’d eaten practically nothing for the past few days because of her flu. She could murder one of those Sally Lunns covered in salmon. ‘Next time you come to London, I promise I’ll get my picture taken with a Beefeater. Deal?’

‘And in Madame Tussaud’s and outside Harrods too?’

‘You drive a hard bargain,’ Sam sighed. ‘I’ll even buy a “My friend went to London and all she brought me was this lousy T-shirt” T-shirt, OK?’

Sam ate her Sally Lunn and had the left over half of Hope’s too. Hope was currently on what she called her ‘half’ diet: she got to eat half of anything she fancied. Half her dinner, half a biscuit, etc. It was very difficult.

Sam chatted as she ate, being funny about work, how she’d missed an important meeting and how her social life was suffering as a result of the new job.

‘Mad Malcolm upstairs accused me of having a party,’ she said, licking crumbs from her fingers. ‘Honestly, I’m in the office so much, there’s as much chance of me having a wild party as there is of Steve Parris developing a nice personality.’

‘That bad?’ Hope asked, knowing that her sister used humour and funny stories to hide how she really felt.

For a moment, Sam’s eyes were opaque. ‘We’re not here to talk about me,’ she said quickly.

‘Pardon me,’ said Hope. ‘As you’ve come all this way to deliver a lecture to me on living my life, at least let me get my two penn’orth in about your life.’

‘I don’t have a life, I have a career. There’s a difference,’ Sam said sourly.

Hope leaned forward over the little table in a ‘spill the beans’ manner.

‘It’s this flu,’ Sam said quickly, sorry she’d revealed so much. ‘I’ve been feeling a bit low lately, I don’t know why. I’ve had two 24-hour bugs since September, although it’s one way of keeping my weight down. I keep getting the most awful periods that put me out of commission for two days each time, and to cap it all, Steve Parris, my new boss, is a complete asshole, excuse my language, but he is. I’m going to have to keep proving myself until I’m a hundred, which feels like it’ll be any day now.’

Hope reached over and squeezed her sister’s hand.

‘Sam, you should go to the doctor and have a check up. That’s three bouts of illness in nearly two months, it’s not good. And the periods…you need to get it checked out. I bet you’re anaemic, heavy periods can do that. You need a tonic or something.’

‘Don’t mind me, I’m grumpy today. There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m strong as an ox,’ Sam said. She managed to laugh convincingly: ‘Too much sex and not enough sleep, probably,’ which was a lie. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had sex. Well, she could; she and Karl had been in Paris. That was the last time, the last bittersweet time.

‘You’re seeing someone?’ asked Hope delightedly.

It was time to change the subject. ‘I’ll tell you about my love life another time,’ hedged Sam, who didn’t want to have to admit that her last relationship had ended two years ago. Career women appeared to scare men off faster than saying you had herpes. ‘So, what are you going to do in Ireland? I know Matt has it all worked out but he hasn’t thought about you.’

‘He has,’ protested Hope. ‘I’ve wanted to spend more time with the children for ages. You’ve no idea how souldestroying it is to send them into that nursery every morning when I’m going into work to smile at total strangers, knowing Toby’s doing new things every day and I’m missing it. Somebody else saw him walk for the first time.’ That memory still haunted her.

‘Fair point,’ Sam conceded. ‘But you like going out to work, it’s part of your life too. How will you cope in a strange country with no work mates, perhaps no nursery nearby and no old friends to rely on when you’re miserable?’

Hope had no real answer to this.

‘What about at night, what about going to the theatre, or the movies, or to the latest restaurant?’ Sam continued.

‘Oh come on, Sam, let’s be real here,’ interrupted Hope. ‘This is me you’re talking to. I’m a woman with two small children, not some socialite who spends her life in the Gucci shop wondering what dress to wear to the movie premiere. I can’t remember when I last went to the theatre. We saw Miss Saigon in London with you that time and I haven’t been since. And as for films, by the time we get the kids in bed, I’m too tired to think about going to see a film. I prefer to get videos.’

‘Oh well, that’s OK, then,’ Sam said fiercely. ‘You’ll settle in fine as long as there’s a video shop in this village at the back end of nowhere.’

She knew she sounded cruel but she had to say it. Hope wasn’t one of life’s outward people. Well, she was chatty and bubbly when she was with Sam, but with other people she was one of the quietest women imaginable. Hope was the woman who liked sitting in corners at parties, watching others instead of joining in. Some people would thrive in a new country, relishing the opportunity to meet new friends and become part of a thriving community. Hope was not such a person.

‘You’ve never been the sort to join in,’ Sam pointed out. ‘You’re not into amateur dramatics or joining the choir or becoming the stalwart of the parents’ association. That’s fine and dandy when you’ve got a job and you live on a housing estate beside a hundred other families, but not when you’re in the middle of nowhere and you’re not working.’

There, she’d said it.

Hope didn’t react for a moment. ‘I can learn,’ she said finally. ‘Anyhow, I’m going to be with Matt and the children, that’s what I’m doing this for.’

‘But what about you?’ Sam said earnestly.

‘It is for me,’ Hope repeated. ‘Haven’t you been listening, Sam? It’s for them, for me, for all of us.’

She’d have loved to have told Sam about how terrified she’d been when she thought Matt was having an affair but Sam was brittle and sharp today. Hope was convinced her sister would briskly tell her that gratitude because her husband wasn’t cheating on her was no reason for upping sticks to live in another country.

Sam would have loved to have told Hope that she was feeling miserable, middle-aged and somehow unfulfilled despite her fabulous new job. But Hope had enough problems of her own to cope with without hearing Sam’s. Ever since Hope’s wedding day, Sam had been convinced that Matt was trouble. He made all the decisions and he was far too good looking to be trusted. But then, Sam never trusted any man.

Millie threw herself delightedly at Auntie Sam as soon as they arrived home.

‘Auntie Sam!’ she squealed, before realizing that there had been more to her mother’s trip than buying groceries. Her bottom lip wobbled ominously.

‘Auntie Sam wanted to surprise you, darling,’ Hope said brightly.

‘A nice surprise, I hope,’ Sam said gravely. ‘Won’t you say hello to me?’ she said to Toby.

He gave her a small hug and showed her his toy train. ‘Look Auntie Ham.’ He never could say Sam.

‘Hello,’ said Matt guardedly, appearing from the kitchen.

‘Hello you,’ she replied, just as guardedly.

If Sam and Matt did not get on, it wasn’t because they were so different. It was because they were so alike. Both were strong-minded, a bit bossy and capable of being jealous. Neither seemed happy about the presence of anyone else important in Hope’s life. Their rivalry was a source of anxiety for Hope, although neither Sam nor Matt seemed bothered by it.

‘So what brings you here, or can I guess?’ Matt said sarcastically.

Hope glared at him. ‘Sam’s only here until tomorrow lunchtime so let’s have a nice weekend, shall we?’ she said in the voice she used when she was trying to get Millie to eat broccoli.

It wasn’t the best weekend ever. Sam was furious with Matt because of what she thought of as his ‘crazy plan’. Matt was furious with Sam for daring to put a spanner in the works and on Saturday night when he and Hope were getting ready for bed, he said he hated the way her sister barged in and tried to tell people what to do.

‘She’s the most bossy woman I’ve ever met in my life,’ he snapped, walking round their bedroom somehow managing not to look ridiculous in socks and a shirt.

As Sam had said practically the same thing about Matt only hours before, Hope just gritted her teeth and prayed that she’d be able to survive the rest of the weekend. Normally she loved it when Sam visited. They spent lots of time on their own, going for walks and talking. But after that first morning, Matt seemed to be there all the time, as if he didn’t want to give Sam the opportunity to put her sister off the trip to Ireland. He nagged Hope about Sam who, in turn, nagged Hope about Matt.

Like piggy in the middle, Hope felt weighed down by their disapproval and broke out her secret supply of dark chocolate soft centres to comfort herself. She couldn’t bear to upset either darling Sam or her beloved Matt, so she did her best to stay out of it and spent her time saying ‘more tea anyone?’ or ‘look at what Millie’s up to,’ in a cheery manner every time the other pair began to argue.

They were all relieved when Sunday afternoon came and Hope drove Sam to get the train.

‘I’m sorry we were all a bit tense over the weekend,’ Sam said as they stood in the station.

‘Don’t be silly, it was great,’ lied Hope, who hated acknowledging that things were ever less than perfect.

‘Will you try and get to London to see me before you go?’

‘I hope so.’ Hope’s eyes filled with tears. ‘And we can have a proper visit.’

They hugged each other and then Sam turned and walked away, elegant in her shearling coat and buttermilk cashmere wrap, her pale hair gleaming as she walked. She waved as she got on the train.

Hope fought a losing battle not to cry as she watched her sister disappear into the carriage. She wished she saw Sam more often; she wished Sam and Matt didn’t fight so much; she wished…she didn’t know what she wished any more.

On the train back, Sam thought about Karl. She tried not to think about him these days. Karl. Even his name sent a shiver of remembered pleasure rippling through her. She’d met him at a sales conference in Brussels and they’d hit it off immediately. In fact, a lot of the record company women had liked the idea of hitting it off with the tall, blond Swede but he’d had eyes only for Sam.

They’d delicately side-stepped around each other for the entire week, talking about their respective jobs (Karl was with the international office and travelled a lot) and sitting beside each other at dinner, but nothing more. It was only afterwards, when Karl arrived in London for two months, that they began to see each other properly. He had the use of a company apartment in the Barbican but he spent most of his free time with Sam, curled up in her bed in the old mansion flat she lived in then. They did things like Häagen-Dazs couples did in adverts: feeding each other take away food in bed, drinking wine while dressed in knickers and T-shirts, lounging around with the newspapers and watching old movies on late night TV.

In spite of his cool, measured demeanour, Karl had been impetuous and deeply romantic at heart. He saw their future together and begged Sam to follow him to Paris where he was going to be based for at least two years.

Something in Sam had recoiled at the idea.

Give up her job to follow Karl, to be his girlfriend, his companion, a hanger on instead of a mover and a shaker? No way. He’d pleaded with her, pointed out that with her skills and experience she’d get a job in a shot, a better job, perhaps. But Sam was having none of it. She wasn’t going to be anybody’s accessory, their significant other instead of a person in her own right. She’d always wanted to stand on her own two feet and she wasn’t about to change the habit of a lifetime.

It had taken a week of arguments before Karl had realized she meant what she said. That had been two years ago. Last she’d heard, he’d married a French woman who worked in the couture business. Now there was a job with little possibility for relocation. Let him try and move her to his next posting.

A woman with a toddler got on the train and sat opposite Sam, the woman pale and make-upless, the toddler rosy cheeked and up to mischief.

‘Sit Lily, don’t mess, please,’ begged the mother. ‘It’s only for half an hour. We’ll get into trouble with Mr Train Driver if we don’t behave.’

She produced several books for Lily to read.

‘Juice!’ demanded Lily loudly, clearly not bothered by idle threats about Mr Train Driver. To prove her point, she shoved the books out of her way and stared big-eyed at Sam.

She was just like Millie, Sam thought with amusement, utterly sure of herself and determined to get what she wanted. How had poor insecure Hope ever produced such a confident child?

The woman extracted a carton of juice from a huge shoulder bag, the same sort of bag Hope always seemed to drag around with her, Sam noticed. Mothers were all lop-sided from schlepping round giant shoulder bags that contained everything from toddler outfits to entire meals with plenty of toys, books and bumper boxes of baby wipes thrown in for good measure.

Sam looked out of the window and tried not to notice Lily staring at her while sucking on her juice straw. The more Sam gazed out of the window, the more Lily leaned towards her, standing up on the seat beside her mother and leaning over the table until she was lying on it. Her big eyes were fixed on Sam, willing this new grown up person to look at her, intent on being noticed.

‘Lily!’ warned her mother.

Lily moved back a fraction and stopped sucking on her straw. She inadvertently squeezed the carton and an arc of juice sailed up in the air like a fountain and then down onto Sam’s beige shearling coat.

‘I’m so sorry,’ said the child’s mother with a deep weariness.

Sam, thinking of Hope dragging Millie and Toby around, desperately hoping they wouldn’t cover other people with orange juice or smears of chocolate, shook her head. ‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘It needed to be cleaned anyway.’

The woman shot her a look of such gratitude that Sam was pleased she’d been polite. Once, she’d have snapped about people not being able to control their children in public. It must be age creeping up on her. She was getting mellow now that she was on the brink of forty.

Forty. She shuddered. It sounded so old. Karl would never fall for her if she met him now, she thought ruefully. It was odd thinking about him: he never crossed her mind most of the time. She didn’t miss him per se, just the experience of being with somebody. That was nice; cuddling up in bed with a man, having someone to share the day with, someone to occasionally buy coffee or milk when she forgot.

She liked that side of things but not all the other hassle that went with it. All that crap they were forever talking about in women’s magazines or at women-only dinners: maintaining relationships, worrying about whether he felt happy or not, trying to keep the spice in your sex life…sheer hell. Sam couldn’t see why women were supposed to do all the hard work. Men carried on doing whatever they felt like while women did questionnaires to see if He was happy or if He would stray or if He needed to talk more. Why the hell bother? Sam thought. Let Him worry about Himself, she wouldn’t.

What she needed was a virtual boyfriend: a sophisticated robot who could cuddle her, make love to her and ask her about her day at work, and who shut up when she was tired and who never said things like ‘I’ve been thinking about our future and I want to take up this job offer on Mars…’

She grinned to herself. How weird that nobody had ever thought of it before. A virtual boyfriend would be perfect for millions of women. No emotional hassle but all the physical advantages.

Lily smiled engagingly at her.

Sam smiled back. ‘Sweet, isn’t she?’ she said.

‘When she’s asleep,’ Lily’s mother said with feeling.

Back in London, Sam picked up some groceries from the nearest shop and cooked herself some vegetable pasta with organic pesto sauce. Stir-frying vegetables, boiling pasta and adding a sauce and some parmesan shavings was the nearest thing to cooking that Sam ever got.

She piled it all onto a large white plate and sat down at the table with her favourite Nina Simone CD playing softly in the background and the Sunday papers spread out in front of her. But strangely, she didn’t feel hungry. Normally, she adored pasta and hoovered up anything with pesto sauce on it but tonight her appetite had deserted her.

After a while, she gave up and shoved the almost untouched plate away from her. If she wasn’t hungry, it was her body’s way of telling her she didn’t need any more food. Anyway, after two days with Hope shovelling down Sally Lunns, she could hardly expect to be hungry.

On Monday before lunch, Steve held a top level meeting where the subject was company cutbacks. Ten senior executives sat around the glossy boardroom table and focussed on their departments. All present looked outwardly unconcerned but quivered inside their designer jeans and hoped they personally weren’t for the high jump. All except Sam. She was fed up with quivering at things Steve Parris or anybody else said. She’d had a hellish morning and didn’t care a fiddler’s toss if she was fired at that precise moment, not least because she’d just signed a three-year contract. She’d spent the entire morning on the phone to Density’s manager who was explaining all the things that his charges wouldn’t do to promote their album. So far, the ‘wouldn’t do’ list included talking to any interviewer who hadn’t been at one of their live gigs and doing any breakfast television or any other media the band described as ‘…facile and cretinous…’. They didn’t want to pose for any photos on the basis that they liked the publicity ones and couldn’t go through all that hassle again of having make-up applied and having to look moody for hours. And they were not, absolutely not, letting any tabloid journalist near them.

Sam had tried pointing out that this little list would make the record company’s job extremely difficult but the manager was having none of it.

‘Steve Parris said we could have what we wanted,’ he hissed down the phone. ‘This is what we want.’ With that, he hung up.

Because she didn’t want any blood spilled just yet in relation to Density, Sam hadn’t rung him back and threatened the manager with a do-it-yourself vasectomy. But she was tempted to. Now she sat at the meeting and caught a sympathetic glance from the publicity director, who had heard all about Density’s can’t-do list. In Sam’s first weeks at Titus, the LGBK publicity director, a tall black American woman named Karen Storin, had been the friendliest of all her new colleagues.

‘Welcome to Steve’s elite club,’ Karen had joked quietly the first time they’d met.

‘Elite club?’ inquired Sam.

‘The women execs club,’ Karen explained. ‘Steve’s not big on female empowerment.’

‘You mean I’m here because I’m a woman and you’re here because you’re a black woman?’ Sam joked.

Karen grinned. ‘We’re here in spite of those facts – and because we’re damn good.’

Sam knew there was another reason she was there: because the European President had put his foot down.

‘OK?’ Sam asked Karen now, hiding a smile because they’d just had a variation of this conversation minutes before on the way to the meeting, safe in the knowledge that they could talk freely before they reached the boardroom where Steve’s earwigging second-in-command would be listening. Karen was handling Density’s publicity schedule and was encountering the same problems Sam had.

‘Everything’s under control. The schedule for Density is working out just fine,’ Karen said gravely, which was a million miles away from what she’d said originally.

Then, she’d been in a rage. ‘I’ve just been on the phone to their manager and I have never dealt with anyone like him in my life. If I didn’t know he was working with them, I’d swear he was trying to sabotage them. They refuse to do anything I ask. Do they want the album to flop?’ she’d hissed at Sam.

‘How about you?’ she said now to Sam across the board room table.

Sam smiled: ‘Utterly under control too,’ she said deadpan, as if moments before she hadn’t told Karen that the Density manager was ruining her entire week. Maintaining the façade that everything in your label was hunky dory was vitally important when you worked under Steve Parris.

The great man himself arrived bringing with him the noxious smell of a cigar. Sam quite liked cigar smoke, having once been a twenty-Dunhills-a-day woman, but she objected to the fact that Steve ignored all the office signs and smoked anywhere he liked. Everyone else who smoked had to rush downstairs to the street so that at coffee break time, the pavement outside the Titus office was jam packed with hollow-cheeked people inhaling furiously to make up for the previous, stressful, nicotine-free hours.

Steve threw himself into a leather chair, shoved it back from the table and put his leather-booted feet on the blotter his assistant had neatly laid out in front of him. ‘So what’s happenin’, gang?’ he asked.

Sam could hear a growl deep inside her body. Where did he think he was? A biker’s club with a bottle of beer in front of him? He was such a weedy little shit. She hated him.

‘Great, just great, Steve,’ said Zak, the Titus A & R director, who probably did think they were in a biker club with beer in front of them. Too much cocaine in the eighties, Sam had been told. If he hadn’t been one of Steve’s personal pals, he wouldn’t have been in the job.

‘Cutbacks and reorganization,’ Steve intoned gravely. ‘We have to lose at least ten senior people to go along with the global restructuring.’ Everyone stared at him, stricken. Ten jobs. Ten senior level jobs. That meant ten people in their building, people who worked for them, people they liked. People they would have to sack. Sam felt the by-now familiar clenching sensation deep in her insides, a painful knotting spasm that she’d half-diagnosed as irritable bowel syndrome. What else could it be? And she felt nauseous too. She still wasn’t over her flu, that had to be it. She hadn’t been able to touch her wholemeal toast this morning and she’d felt so exhausted, it had taken three strong mugs of coffee to get her out the front door.

‘The staffing levels in Europe are way too high and we’ve got to cut back,’ Steve said. ‘The international office say we’re top heavy with staff and this is the only way. Making our powerbase smaller is going to streamline the whole organisation, stop us getting lazy.’

‘Have you identified any particular departments or is it going to be across the board?’ Sam was amazed to discover that she’d spoken.

Steve cleared his throat. ‘Your label is going to be badly hit,’ he said. ‘The ratio is way off compared to the American offices. You need to cut four people.’

Sam felt sicker.

‘We’ve got four hundred people working for us in this country, so it’s not that big a percentage,’ cut in Steve’s favourite yes-man, a smooth guy from finance.

‘But it’s a big deal,’ snapped the company’s head of legal, a dynamic dark-haired man named Curtis. ‘We’re talking about your colleagues, not worker ants. What about my department?’ he asked Steve.

Steve was nervous of Curtis, Sam had noticed. Probably afraid to browbeat a man who knew employment law backwards and could draw up a constructive dismissal suit in ten minutes on the back of an envelope. ‘You’re fine, nobody from your department,’ he said now.

The meeting lasted another twenty-five minutes with Steve giving them the party line on how this was to be dealt with, both within the company and publicly. The trade papers would have a field day speculating on the company’s bottom line if the cutbacks were explained incorrectly. Personnel had already identified the people who were first on the list: they’d inform each department head at a private meeting. Sam’s was scheduled for an hour and a half later.

As they all left the boardroom and walked to the lift, nobody spoke. Suddenly she couldn’t face standing in the claustrophobic lift. She needed some air. Turning away from the lift, she hurried to the stairs and practically ran down four flights to the street. Curtis was there already, lighting up a cigarette.

‘Can I scab a cigarette from you?’ Sam asked, hating herself for having one after all these years.

‘I didn’t know you did,’ Curtis remarked, handing her the pack.

‘I don’t. Not any more. That was a bit rough, wasn’t it?’

He nodded silently.

‘I don’t know how I’m going to sack four people. Sorry, “lose four members of staff to keep us in line with company guidelines”,’ Sam said bitterly. ‘I haven’t been here long enough to make any judgements on the staff and yet, now I’m going to be the bitch from hell and get rid of some of them. That’ll be great for morale. And Steve looks as if he doesn’t give a shit about them. He almost smiled when he said I had to lose four people. I swear he hates me.’

Curtis smiled slowly. ‘Steve doesn’t like anybody,’ he said. ‘Understand that and you’re going to be fine, although it’s no secret that you’re not on his Top Ten list because he wanted someone else to get the job.’

Sam rolled her eyes. ‘Tell me about it.’

‘I’ve known Steve for ten years and he’s always been the same,’ Curtis added. ‘He’s good at his job, though. This company was screwed up when he took over. He’s hell to work with but he gets the job done.’

‘He enjoys making people sweat,’ Sam sighed. ‘He deliberately told us there was a redundancy meeting this morning but never said who was going to be made redundant so that everyone would be nervous.’ She didn’t mention that since she’d just signed a three-year contract, she’d known that she, personally, wouldn’t be on the list. Just her staff.

‘Psychology,’ Curtis shrugged. ‘Steve’s plan is that by the time he tells you that you have to fire four people, you’re so pleased that your name isn’t on the list, you agree to it like a shot. Steve rules by fear. He likes terror and arguments among the staff: divide and conquer are his management rules. That’s the way he learned and he thinks it’s the only way things work. He’s terrified that if he ever tries to be nice, he’ll be taken over in a bloody coup.’

Nauseated after her forbidden cigarette, Sam went back to her office feeling nervous. She shouldn’t have said anything to Curtis about Steve Parris. That was stupid, unprofessional behaviour. She hadn’t been at Titus long enough to understand where allegiances lay and was only guessing that Curtis and Steve didn’t get on. They could be bosom buddies behind it all. She really was losing her marbles when it came to how to behave in the corporate jungle. What was happening to her? It must be the after effects of the flu. She’d better get some perk-you-up supplement in the chemist.

At three o’clock, Sam steeled herself to enter the lions’ den. Steve and the personnel director were sitting in front of a list of names and the personnel director launched into the list of people Sam was to make redundant even before she’d sat down.

Sam listened calmly, hiding her distaste. One of the women on the list had just made it public that she was four months’ pregnant. A young guy in publicity Sam had been very impressed with had just bought an apartment and had signed up for a huge mortgage. Sam’s insides did their clenching routine.

What could she say? Nothing. She was a boss now, she had to make tough decisions and implement them if necessary. Four people from her department had to go and if she balked at it, all she’d be doing was undermining her own position. The personnel guy kept talking and Sam listened, feeling wooden.

When he was finished, she coolly pointed out that there was a pregnant woman among the names. ‘You should check whether she could sue us for getting rid of her at this time,’ Sam said unemotionally, as if she was talking about squashing a spider instead of discussing another person’s life.

Steve laughed from behind his vast desk. ‘I told you Sam Smith would be able to sack her entire department and it wouldn’t bother her in the slightest,’ he said triumphantly to the personnel guy. ‘We did good the day we hired you, Sam. We needed somebody who understands the game. Not some dumb cow who’s going to sob her eyes out whenever she has to sack people.’

Sam blinked. She remembered back to her final interview, the one where Steve had delicately – well, as delicately as someone as bull-headed as Steve could manage – tried to find out her views on kids. They couldn’t ask outright, of course. Asking a woman if she planned to have children, and was therefore looking for maternity entitlements and leaving them with six months of a problem, was illegal. Sam had always understood this interview difficulty and had made it plain to prospective employers that she was not one of those biological-clock-about-to-go-off women. It was an advantage and she used it. Always had.

She remembered giving Steve and the other board members her steely look as she had said ‘I’m not the mumsy type.’

They’d all breathed a sigh of relief, and Steve had given her a matey look.

‘Tough as old boots,’ he said now, looking as if, under other circumstances, he’d pat her shoulder in a friendly manner. But Sam wasn’t the demonstrative type. Shoulder patting, double kissing and all that stupid, fake affectionate stuff drove her mad. She shook hands. Why pretend to be best pals with people you didn’t know? It was hypocritical.

‘That’s what I like about you, Sam. You don’t take any prisoners. That’s what they say and it’s true. I like that in my team. Sacking people isn’t easy but we’ve all had to do it.’

Steve waved his cigar, leaving a trail of smoke. Sam was dismissed.

She went back to her office thinking of the irony of Steve saying there was anything about her he liked. Yeah, right.

She also wondered what else people said about her. Tough as old boots. You don’t take any prisoners. Hell, she sounded like a hoary old sergeant major at a boot camp who scared the hell out of the rookies and who could drink rotgut with the best of them. Smith is tough as old boots but boy, can she do the job. There’s a heart in there somewhere, if you can find it. Not bad looking but too tough for any man…Women like her always end up on their own.

Being tough had seemed like a good idea when she was twenty or thirty and desperate to prove herself in the corporate jungle but now, with forty facing her like the north face of the Eiger, she wasn’t so sure. Tough but able to carry off a trendy designer dress was one thing. Tough but wrinkled like an old chicken was another thing entirely. How would she come across at sixty-five when she was tougher, older and with a hard little face grooved into a lifetime of wrinkles?

At that moment, she thought of Aunt Ruth. Ruth Smith, civil servant and scourge of those beneath her in the planning department, had not been the maternal type either and having two small children unceremoniously dumped on her hadn’t changed that. She’d continued to live her life exactly the same way as before her brother and his wife had been killed. To cap it all, Ruth had never even looked motherly: she’d looked like an eccentric maiden aunt from a novel.

Sam could remember the boys across the road teasing herself and Hope about their mad aunt.

‘She’s a witch, she is, eye of bat and leg of toad!’ they’d chant nastily at the girls.

Secretly, the girls had to admit that their aunt bore more than a passing resemblance to a witch, mainly because she insisted on wearing her hair in an antediluvian bun and fancied herself in pince nez spectacles which did nothing for her pinched, narrow face.

Sam felt weary. She’d always had a difficult relationship with her aunt, and swore she’d never be anything like her. And here she was turning into a carbon copy. Aunt Ruth would probably have run Titus Records with a rod of iron and made it the most successful record company ever.

There was a giant skip outside the house next door when Sam arrived home that night. The builders had finally moved in. Sam glared at the rather run down building which was the next in the terrace. For the two years she’d lived in her flat, she’d been irritated by the dilapidated state of the adjoining house which was owned by a dotty old lady who clearly had no time for painters, window cleaners or gardeners. When she’d died, the house had been put up for sale and all the neighbours watched the property pages with interest, dying to know how much it would go for so they could figure out how much their own places were worth.

It had taken ages, but when the sold sign was finally pasted on, all breathed a sigh of relief. Except now, Sam thought grimly, there would be building work going on for ever as the new owners ripped it apart. Kango hammers thumping at dawn and scaffolding positioned so that builders could peer curiously through her windows, not giving her a moment’s peace. Feeling put upon and miserable, Sam stomped up the stairs.

‘Stop making noise,’ roared Mad Malcolm reedily from the top landing.

Sam growled deep in her throat and just managed to stop herself telling him what orifice he could stick his head into.

Inside the sanctuary of her own apartment, she dropped her briefcase wearily, shed her coat and sat down on the big pale couch in front of the fireplace. Determined to ignore the fact that the place was a mess, she switched on the television and watched the end of the evening news. But when it was over, she couldn’t relax. It was no good, she had to tidy up. Compulsive tidiness, Karl had teased her when she’d start changing the sheets on the bed while he was still in it.

Pulling on an absolutely ancient pair of jeans and a threadbare old grey jumper, Sam planned the clean out. The bedroom to start, she decided, tying her hair up into a ponytail.

It took two and a half hours to clean every area of the apartment to her satisfaction. By the time she was finished, the kitchen was restored to its sparkling, pristine perfection and the sitting room was once again a restful, Zen-like spot with all clear, white surfaces free of old newspapers, magazines and scribbled yellow post-it notes about work. The four big modern oils that hung on the warm cream walls stared down at a tranquil, clutter-free room furnished cleanly with big white couches, a low pale wooden coffee table and a muted cream rug on the pale floorboards. The grouping of fat creamy church candles on the fireplace was dust free and perfectly aligned, while the blond driftwood carving on the windowsill had been dusted to within an inch of its life. Even the big Indian silver elephant that stood in the corner beside her towering ficus plant gleamed. Sam knew that not everybody liked the clutter-free look but she adored it. She liked the order and the sense of calm that it brought.

Hope hated it.

‘You’ve no…stuff, no knick knacks,’ Hope had said the first time she’d seen the apartment in all its spartan modern glory. ‘It’s all too perfect for me,’ she’d added, eyes sweeping over heavy cream brocade curtains that would be speckled with grubby fingerprints if Millie and Toby were ever let run riot there.

Seeing the place through Hope’s eyes, Sam had to agree. Hope would have had tonnes of junk on every occasional table, instead of simply placing a lamp or a piece of sculpture there.

When they’d been kids, they’d shared a bedroom and Hope’s side had been a riot of cuddly toys, empty boxes kept because they were pretty, bits of tangled up jewellery and hand-sewn lavender sachets for her clothes, most of which were hung on her chair.

Sam’s side had the only colour co-ordinated wardrobe in their school. Graded from white to black, Sam’s clothes hung in a regimented line that awed Hope just to look at it.

Tidying her wardrobe properly would have to wait tonight, she decided, as she finished the bedroom. It annoyed her when the wardrobe was messy with the greys infiltrating the rail of blacks and skirts hanging with the trousers, but she’d do that tomorrow.

In the kitchen, she put away her cleaning equipment and put some cheese on a couple of water crackers. She poured herself a glass of crisp Sancerre and sat down on the couch again, this time content. As the strains of Mozart echoed softly around the apartment, Sam finally felt herself relax. She willed herself to forget about work and the job losses.

Then, the noise started. It was strange, because at first she wasn’t sure where it was coming from. Surely not upstairs? Even Mad Malcolm wasn’t mad enough to be playing loud rock music at ten o’clock at night. And then the penny dropped. Next door. Still clutching her glass of wine, Sam stared out the front window at the adjoining house and saw two young women lugging a crate of beer up the path. Standing beside the window, the music seemed louder. A taxi pulled up and disgorged more people, all happy and clearly party-bound, judging by the number of off-licence bags they were carrying. Sam felt the veins in her head throb. This was not wild party land. This was a wildly expensive neighbourhood where the notion of a wild party was one where the caterers served too much Bollinger or where guests tripped on their Manolos while staggering out to the chauffeur-driven Mercedes.

Whoever had bought the house couldn’t, wouldn’t, dream of ruining the discreet peace of Holland Park with a party? Or if they thought they could, they’d soon discover the error of their ways, Sam snarled.

Just as abruptly as it had started, the music stopped and Sam felt some of the anger leave her body. Good. Some other resident had complained; therefore she didn’t have to go in and do so. In her current mood of pent-up tension, who knew what she’d have said. The police would have been called sooner rather than later.

She curled up on the couch again, sipping her wine and letting the Mozart soothe her.

With a loud bass thump, the music next door cranked up even louder this time, sounding as if Black Sabbath had turned up and were playing a live gig.

As the music reached a crescendo, so did Sam’s temper. Downing half her wine in one gulp, she grabbed her keys, slid her feet into the espadrilles she used as slippers and rampaged downstairs and out into the street.

‘Oh no, a party,’ sighed one of the nice couple from the basement flat, who were just coming in after an evening out. ‘Have you rung the police, Sam?’ he asked.

‘No,’ snarled Sam. ‘But phone for an ambulance because whoever’s having this party will need it when I’m finished with them.’

With giant strides, she raced up to the other door and pushed. It wasn’t locked and opened easily. From here, the music was eardrum-splitting. The house, which was just a shell with stripped walls and bare, elderly floorboards, had excellent acoustics. Sound reverberated through it. Sam stepped over a rolled up rug and a crate of beer. The place was a disgusting mess. She could just imagine the thought process of whoever had bought it: have the party now, before the wallpaper was up and the carpets down. Or rather, Sam thought grimly, the spoiled teenage children of whoever had bought the house had thought it was a good idea to have the party now and their stupid parents had agreed, not caring about their new neighbours. Big mistake.

In a huge airy room, fairy lights were strung from the high ceiling and a gang of people stood around, smoking furiously and drinking beer from bottles. The scent of marijuana was heady. Nobody took any notice of Sam. In her jeans, she fitted right in. All she needed was a beer and she’d have looked like the rest of them, except for the fact that she had to be up at six a.m. and needed to get some rest, Sam thought furiously as she searched through the throng for her quarry.

The noise was coming from another room. Sam pushed through into what was obviously the nerve centre of the party. It was barely recognizable as a kitchen because most of the units had been ripped out by builders but there was still an island unit piled high with bottles of booze, six packs of Coke and a half eaten loaf of tomato bread. Sam ignored the people in the kitchen and headed for the dining room.

There, behind a bespectacled youth with a pile of CDs, she found it. The stereo system.

‘Is there anything you want me to play?’ yelled the disc jockey eagerly.

‘Yes,’ hissed Sam. ‘Cards.’

With one expert movement, she wrenched the plug from the socket and all was quiet.

‘Why did you do that?’ asked the DJ in shock.

Everyone stared at Sam, bottles of beer held at half mast. They saw a small, slim woman with a blonde ponytail who wore ragged jeans and worn espadrilles and had what looked like newspaper smudges on one cheek. ‘I live next door and I don’t want to listen to this sort of crap late at night, do you understand?’ she yelled, not in the least perturbed to have at least twenty curious thirty-somethings staring at her. Sam had bawled people out in public before.

‘Sorry…’ said the DJ politely. ‘We just thought it wouldn’t matter because nobody was living here yet…’

‘Nobody may have been living here but there are eight people living in the house next door, an adjoining house,’ Sam pointed out, ‘where you can hear every bass thump.’

‘So you thought you’d come in here and pull the plug instead of calmly asking us to turn the volume down, did you?’ said an amused, low voice.

Wearing jeans that were astonishingly more torn and faded than hers, jeans that clung to a long, lean body, and a white creased shirt with most of the buttons undone to reveal a hard, muscled chest, was a man who made Sam’s breath suddenly catch.

He wasn’t handsome and he wasn’t a mere twenty-something either. His face was too long, his eyes too narrow and his nose was too hooked to be model material, yet he was somehow the most incredible looking man she’d ever seen. Around her age, she guessed. Sam, who spent hours looking at pictures of male singers who sent other women into paroxysms of joy and left her utterly unmoved, could only stare.

If he could sing, she’d bet her bonus she could sell millions of albums with his face and body on the cover. Even if he couldn’t sing, come to that. Still smiling, the corners of that fabulous mobile mouth twisted up into an ironic little smile, he ambled towards her. The tawny rumpled hair and the barely buttoned shirt made it look as if he’d just dragged himself out of some bed or other. Narrowed, treacly eyes surveyed her lazily as though he was eyeing her up with the intention of dragging her back to bed with him.

Sam objected to being surveyed. She was not some bimbo: she was a managing director, a woman who made subordinates flatten themselves against the walls in fear when she was angry. She drew herself up to her full five foot four inches and prepared for battle.

‘I live next door –’ she began fiercely in her killer boardroom voice.

‘Do you?’ he interrupted, still unhurried and unperturbed. ‘Is it a nice neighbourhood?’

He stopped right in front of her. Even though he was barefoot, he still towered above her. Sam hated that. It was why she liked wearing perilously high shoes for important meetings so only the tallest people ever got to look down on her.

‘It used to be,’ she hissed. Talk about invading her personal space, his body was only a few inches away from hers. Normally, she’d have slayed him with an icy word but feeling strangely vulnerable out of her normal habitat, Sam took a step back. The wall was behind her, she couldn’t go any further. Retreating was a mistake in business, it was now too. She stuck her chin out defiantly and the hand clenching the stereo plug tightened.

‘Is this your house?’ she said, trying to stay fearsome in the face of this Adonis invasion.

He ignored the question. ‘You have something of mine,’ he said, his voice almost a drawl. He reached long arms around her, and for a second Sam’s breath stilled. He wouldn’t, he couldn’t. The charismatic, mocking face was close to hers as he reached down and she felt her stomach contract. His mouth was laughing and it was getting close to hers, so close she could feel the heat of his breath and smell a sharp citrusy tang from his warm body. Without knowing why, she closed her eyes. Then she felt the plug being pulled from her hand.

‘Mine, I think,’ said the man. With one graceful movement, he reached down, brushing against her leg, and plugged the stereo in again. He flicked a switch and loud music pumped into the room.

‘You bastard!’ screeched Sam, shocked and embarrassed. ‘You absolute bastard.’ She had to really yell now to make sure he heard her. ‘How dare you…’

‘I think you’re the one who dared,’ he said, faintly amused. ‘If you wanted us to turn the noise down, you should have asked me. I wouldn’t have refused you.’

Impotent rage surged through her and for one terrible moment, Sam forgot all about good business, about how revenge was a dish best served cold and how any corporate raider needed a cool, calm mind.

He was using his physical presence to intimidate her and she reacted in the age-old, instinctive way of a woman confronted by a larger predator. She kicked him. In the shin as hard as she could, the blunt end of her espadrille connecting with hard bone and sinew.

‘Ouch!’ His yelp of pain could only be heard by her as the current song was at an eardrum-splitting decibel level.

That got rid of the mocking smile. Sam smirked. It had hurt her toe too, mind you, but now was no time to think of her own personal pain. Those years of ballet meant she had tough little feet.

‘Who the hell do you think you are shoving your face in my personal space, you asshole!’

At that precise moment, the DJ unaccountably turned the music down. Sam’s roar reached the entire room and provoked some giggles.

What the hell was the sound down for? Sam wondered blindly before she spotted the one soberly-dressed person on the premises.

The policeman stood in the doorway and hovering behind were the couple from the basement apartment in Sam’s building, who were watching the proceedings anxiously.

‘We’ve had a complaint about a party and loud noise,’ said the policeman in a calm voice.

Sam shot her opponent a triumphant look and was enraged when, instead of looking worried or ashamed, he smiled lazily back at her.

‘Yes officer, I’m afraid we turned the music up a bit high, I’m sorry,’ he said and led the way into the kitchen.

Sam sniffed and held her head high as she marched out of the house and back into her own, followed by her downstairs neighbours. That bloody man. How dare he make so much noise. How dare he humiliate her like that. And her foot hurt…ouch.

‘Are you OK, Sam?’ asked the wife from downstairs as Sam hobbled up the stairs.

‘Fine,’ she said breezily.

In the hall mirror, she caught sight of her face. She looked as if she’d been slapped. Both cheeks were as rosy as bramley apples. As she thought of the scene next door, her cheeks blazed some more in sheer embarrassment. She grabbed the wine from the fridge and poured more into the glass. You moron. Imagine turning into some cretinous, violent bimbo just because some he-man sticks his hairy chest in your face?

Anyway, you’re hardly a bimbo, she groaned inwardly. You’re staring into the abyss of forty.

Sam took a large gulp of wine. How could she have let herself down like that? She should have fixed him with a steely glare and told him exactly what forces of the law she’d use to make him stop his horrible party. When she’d suitably reprimanded herself, Sam went to bed. But sleep evaded her.

It was like being fifteen again, fifteen and horribly embarrassed because the boy in chemistry class had overheard her saying she fancied him like mad. Even twenty-four years later, that memory could still make her burn with shame. Now she’d done it again.

Finally, Sam got up and took one of the sleeping tablets she kept for emergencies. This certainly qualified. She slept eventually but her hot fevered dreams were full of a tall, laughing man in a soft, loose white shirt, a man who laughed at her for behaving like a petulant, hormonal fifteen year old.

When Sam left for work the next morning, she waited to check her mobile for messages until she was outside. She wanted to be doing something when she passed the house next door, she didn’t want to be vulnerable and on her own in case she met him.

‘You have no messages,’ taunted the impersonal voice on her phone almost before she’d got to the front gate. Instead of hanging up, Sam was forced to listen to all her old, undeleted messages in order to keep up the pretence of being a busy, high-octane career woman who wasn’t interested in men. Suddenly she noticed the dilapidated house’s front door swinging open. Quickly averting her eyes in case she saw him again, she began talking into the phone.

‘I’ll be there soon, we’ll have the meeting if you’ve got all the documents lined up from New York,’ she blathered. A taxi sailed up the road and Sam stuck out her hand to hail it.

‘Bye, talk soon,’ called a female voice behind her.

Sam automatically turned to see a beautiful dark-haired girl leaving the house, smiling at the man in denims and bare feet who was holding the door. Bare chested too, Sam noticed with a jolt, and blowing kisses at the girl who looked around twenty-two at most, a stunning doe-eyed twenty-two who’d clearly stayed away from home all night if the silvery dress she was wearing under a big, man’s coat was anything to go by.

‘Take care,’ the man said in that caressing voice, but he was looking mockingly at Sam who stood there, mobile in hand and her mouth open.

‘Do you want a taxi or not, love?’ demanded the taxi driver.

‘Oh, er yes,’ stammered Sam, pulling open the door and half falling in, with her raincoat trailing after her.

‘Late night?’ inquired the driver with a smirk.

‘No,’ hissed Sam, reasserting herself. ‘Covent Garden please.’

What an asshole, she thought. Loud parties, having flings with women half his age. I mean, that girl was twenty and he has to be late thirties at least. Bloody playboy. Probably some trust fund moron who’d never had a job in his life but lived off inherited cash. Sam stared grimly out the cab window and simmered. She hated men like that.