Читать книгу A Very Accidental Love Story - Claudia Carroll - Страница 10

Not today. Just please not today. I can’t tell you how I so do NOT need this today.

It’s barely five thirty in the morning and already my whole life seems to be spiralling dangerously out of all control, something that’s happening with all-too alarming frequency these days. For starters, while I’m trying to slip out the door at the crack of dawn (nothing unusual there, this is when I have to leave for work every morning), Elka, my Polish nanny, picks today of all shagging days to have an out-and-out meltdown.

There I am, sneaking downstairs in my bare feet, trying not to wake anyone, already running late for the early morning news briefing. Never, ever a good start to the day. Next thing, madam stomps out of her bedroom, still in her dressing gown, not so much asking, as demanding, to have a ‘queek word with you.’

‘Emm … yes, of course, Elka,’ I say, instantly smelling trouble and deliberately keeping my voice down to a low hiss, so as not to disturb Lily.

Lily, by the way, is my little girl; almost three years old now and the light of this exhausted, knackered-to-her-very-bone-marrow mummy’s life.

‘Is everything OK?’ I ask politely, biting my tongue and bracing myself for the answer. Elka is the one nanny we’ve had who Lily adores and behaves beautifully for, and for her part, Elka herself genuinely seems fond of her too.

‘I neeeeed to speak with you, and this crazy hour of morning is only time I am seeing you all this week,’ she tells me in her still-rubbishy English, in spite of the small fortune I’ve forked out on audio books and private lessons for her over the past few months.

Please don’t tell me you’re about to leave. Please for the love of God, don’t let another one leave …

‘Go ahead, Elka,’ I manage to say calmly, but with bowels clenched, only dreading what’s going to come out of her mouth next.

‘In my contract, it say that you am paying me to look after Lily,’ she says crisply, arms folded, ponytail swishing back, nostrils flaring. ‘But you must understand me when I tell to you, this mean during reasoning hours.’

‘I think you might mean reasonable hours,’ I tell her. ‘Can I ask you what’s suddenly brought all this on?’

‘You have huge nerve to ask that of me!’

‘Shhh! Can you keep it down please? You’ll wake Lily.’

‘I have many, many problem with the hours you expect me to be working. None of the other nannies who am my friends work as long days as I must.’

‘But Elka, your hours are hardly long. At least, not compared with mine, they’re not …’

‘Look at time now! Five thirty a.m.! And already you are going to office, which mean I am in care of Lily. You meant to be home at seven in the night times so I can have free time for me, and you never are. Ever!’

Okay, I’m momentarily silenced here. Because actually, the girl does have a point. Technically I’m supposed to be home at seven-ish in the evening so she can clock off, but … well, for the past while, it’s been a tiny bit later than that. Like eleven p.m. Or even midnight.

‘All other nannies have evenings free! They am all meeting for coffee and beer and movies. All having good time in Ireland! All have boyfriends and days off and nights out! But never me! No fun for me, ever. I tell you I am sick of it, have enough! Is total crap!’

‘Shhh! Elka, please will you keep your voice down,’ I stage whisper at her, but madam’s having none of it. Instead she’s whipped herself up into a right frenzy and there’s no stopping her now.

‘No, you must be listening to me. Because you am working late, I must too. It’s too much and I want to quit!’

‘I hear what you’re saying and I completely understand but can I also remind you that this is the nature of my job?’ I tell her as soothingly as I can, knowing full well she has me backed into a corner now. Because if she walks out on me … Oh dear God, it just doesn’t bear thinking about.

‘And if you don’t like the schedule I have to work Elka, well … I’m really sorry but there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it. Believe me, I don’t like working such long hours, any more than you do. So if you’re looking for someone to blame, then take it up with … Eurozone leaders and the global economic meltdown. Or … blame the Arab Spring in the Middle East, which is hardly my fault, now is it?’

‘I no understand … you must use little words for me!’

I take another deep breath.

‘I’m so sorry Elka,’ I tell her as calmly as I can, given that I should have been out the door ten minutes ago and even though the day has barely started, I’m now already well behind schedule, ‘but if there’s a big news story, the editor has to be there to oversee it. That’s my life. News doesn’t take time off and therefore neither can I. Editors at the Post don’t sit around. In fairness, I did make this perfectly clear to you when I hired you. Plus, can I point out that I pay you far and above the rates all your other nanny pals are earning? But of course,’ I tack on brightly, hoping against hope that this might just work, ‘if it’s a question of giving you yet another salary increase, I’d be perfectly happy to discuss it with you later.’

No, not even that sways her though. In fact, I might as well be talking to the back of my hand.

‘You work too long days and it no good for Lily, as well as no good for me,’ she lobs in, a cheap shot if ever there was one. The old emotional guilt-card thrown at a busy working mother.

‘She miss her mama so much when you not here. All the time she ask me, when is Mama coming home?’

‘Come on Elka, that is blatantly ridiculous and deeply hurtful …’

‘Even at the weekend time, when you should be with her, you am still in the office. Always, always working.’

Now that bloody stung, and just as this conversation was heating up, temporarily stuns me into silence. I mean, yes, of course I wish I could spend twenty-four hours a day with Lily, I mean, who wouldn’t? But how can I possibly?

I get a lightning-quick flashback to the first year she was born, when somehow, I seemed to manage just fine; got to spend whole weekends with her, even managed to get home relatively early most nights. I can do this, I thought; I can have the best of both worlds. I can be Superwoman. I had my whole work/life balance sussed back then and can honestly say it was the happiest time of my life. By far.

But then the recession hit hard and the staff cutbacks started and that was the end of that. Suddenly I was expected to do the work of three people for the same money or else get out, that was it. Well, it was worse than Sophie’s bleeding Choice. Because much as I love and adore the ground Lily walks on, work is a hugely important part of my life too and if these are my new working hours, then bar resigning, there’s not a whole lot I can do about it.

In brutal moments of introspection, I just know I’m someone who’d go off her head in less than a week without a full-time career to nourish my soul. Sure, parenthood is a huge high, but then so is my job. Peppa Pig and Barney videos could never possibly give me the same buzz. So, if it’s not too much to ask, can’t I just have both? I mean, plenty of other women do, don’t they?

But I have at least established clear boundaries with the office and made it perfectly clear to everyone that my Sundays with Lily are sacrosanct. The one day out of an otherwise mental week when I get to read her stories and make pancakes with her, then maybe take her to a Disney movie, or else to feed the ducks in the park. You know, spoil her rotten. Be a proper mummy.

Mind you, ever since the most recent staff culling started, I reluctantly have to admit that Elka might have a point and that even Sacred Sunday Mummy Time seems to have been seriously curtailed lately. Last week for instance; I’d made Lily her breakfast, played imaginary tea parties with her small army of dolls and was just about to take her to the toystore for a very special treat, when I got a call to get into the office ASAP. There was an emergency news conference about a breaking story developing in Afghanistan, so what else could I do? I had to be there, simple as that. Goes with the job.

And I may not let it show, but I love my little Lily so much that it physically aches to be away from her for any length of time, never mind for the eighteen-hour days I’m practically expected to put in right now. For God’s sake, don’t I have enough guilt of my own to deal with at being apart from her, without having it flung into my face by someone who I’m employing? And at premium rates too, I might add?

‘Tell you what, I have a suggestion Elka,’ I say, evenly and deliberately locking my voice into its lowest register, which I’ve learned is absolutely the best way to deal with any confrontational situation. And I should know, having been through more than a fair few in my time. ‘Is it too much to ask that you just get on with your job, let me get on with mine and then this evening when I’m home from work, we can discuss this calmly, at a more appropriate time. Come on now, what do you say to that?’

But madam’s in no mood to listen to reason.

‘I say to all the other nannies, you have no husband, you have no boyfriend, no man, instead you are married to your work.’

And … bam.

‘Excuse me, what did you just say?’

‘… all other children I know each has each mother and father, but not Lily. She only have mother. So the mother need to be here for her more. Much, much more.’

Okay, now that feels exactly the same as a hard wallop across the cheek and hurts so much it momentarily stuns me. So of course, the second I come to, I snap right back at her, the way I seem to snap at everyone these days. But there you go, that’s what deep, ongoing exhaustion and off-the-scale stress levels will do to you.

‘Elka, I made it perfectly clear to you from day one that I was a single parent,’ I tell her crisply. ‘I don’t have a problem with it and neither does Lily, but if this is some kind of issue for you, you really should have said so before now.’

‘Single parent need to spend more time with kids, not less.’

Okay, so now I’m fuming, feeling like smoke is physically puffing out of my ears, cartoon-like. Because she’s hit my weak spot square-on, with all the accuracy of an aircraft bomber. Yes, I’m a lone parent and yes, there can be huge disadvantages to that. But deal with it, is my attitude.

The subject of Lily’s father is one that’s not up for discussion. Not now, not ever.

And when I think of the amount of money I pay Elka every month – and all for what? So she can stand here, pass judgement on my life and make me feel about two inches tall? So she can spend all day playing with a little girl who’s not even three years old? Does she think that I wouldn’t jump at the chance to stay home all day and be a full-time mum? Doesn’t she realise how it’s like a stab in the chest every time I have to kiss Lily’s little strawberry-blonde head of curls goodbye? Or, worst of all, when I have to listen to the innumerable voice messages she leaves on my phone when I’m at work, in her angelic little baby voice, all with the same unvarying theme? ‘I miss you Mama. When are you coming home?’ There are times when all I want to do is hug her and hold her and tell her not to bother growing up, it’s not worth all the hassle. Just stay like this, stay my little girl forever.

Doesn’t anyone realise how gutted I am that I seem to be missing out on so much of her? Missed her taking her first baby steps, missed her saying her first words … I’m never there, I’m either in a meeting or writing an editorial or chairing a news conference; always, always, working. And of course I went into single parenthood with both eyes open; I knew massive life changes would be involved. Which is why I hired a live-in nanny, plus two back-up childminders in case of emergencies. Hired them – and then subsequently had to accept all their resignations, one by one like ducks in a row, for exactly the same reasons Elka is now citing.

But come on, in my defence, how was I supposed to know with all the redundancies at work in the past two years that my workload would effectively double? Anyway, I think, furious with exhaustion now, what does Elka think I’m putting in all these ungodly hours for anyway? Only to keep myself sane, while giving my little girl the best life that I possibly can. Hardly my fault that I can’t be in two places at once – not with the hours I’m expected to put in, and certainly not with my contract up for renewal in six months. Not now. Apart from everything else I have to worry about, now there’s trouble afoot at work, you see, though it’s not normally something I articulate out loud.

Trouble by the name of Seth Coleman, managing editor of the Post.

Ah, Seth Coleman. Where do I begin? He hasn’t even been in the job that long; he was headhunted from The Sunday Press when his predecessor at the Post left. Who by the way was a gorgeous, preppy, easy-going guy I strongly suspect I drove out of there and who I now miss more than my right hand. His official reason for quitting was for ‘work/life balance’, and to be perfectly honest, who could blame him?

Anyway, when pressed officially as to my opinion of Seth, I smile curtly and acknowledge his fine leadership qualities and firm grasp of the newspaper business, always adding that he’s never anything else than a consummate professional, at all times, always.

But when I’m standing in the shower, which is about the only place I get any kind of private time to myself these days, I will name-call Seth Coleman as the sleaziest, most hypocritical b**locks on the face of the planet, with a thin, slimy, greasy head of hair, and pockmarked, boiled-red skin, whose total absence of neck gives him more than a passing resemblance to Barney Rubble. Oh, and with an ego the approximate size of Saturn’s fifty-seven moons. Represents just about every trait that I despise in the male sex and even manages to discover a few new ones along the way. Patronising to my face, but behind my back, I know right well that he’s deeply resentful of working for a woman. And with my seven-year contract up for renewal in the next few months, even the dogs on the street seem to know that his greedy eye is now firmly focused on the big prize.

A classically mean-spirited man, he’s also someone who keeps a mental tally of all my losses in work, diligently measuring all my shortcomings, rather than any of my gains. For starters, he’s been busily spreading rumour after rumour about me and they’ve all filtered back; that I’m slipping, that ever since I had Lily I’m not the firebrand I once was, that I’m not living and breathing the job like I used to. And I know, just know without being told, that he’s just biding his time, waiting for me to crack, and so therefore I can’t.

So I do what I have to do. Go into work and act the part of the bossiest boss that the world of big bossy business could ask for. Do exactly what I’m programmed to do. And it’s tough and getting tougher by the day, even though my job defines me; it’s who I am and not for one second could I consider doing something less stressful.

But having said all that, the brightest part of my day isn’t when I sign off on the next issue of the Post, it’s seeing the little strawberry-blonde head of an almost-three-year-old sleeping like an angel when I get home, cuddled up in her bed with her favourite teddy bear beside her. And I’ll gaze at her adorably freckled pink little angel’s face and whisper to her that I love her so, so much and that one day we’ll have proper time to be together.

Then I do what I always do; collapse into bed and try to lock away the guilt that feels like heartburn every time I realise the one single thing that has the power to kill me on the inside; the only time I seem to see my baby girl these days is when she’s sleeping.

But back to Elka, still spitting fire and venom at me on the upstairs landing.

‘Lily is beautiful little girl,’ she spews, ‘and I will be sad to say goodbye to her, but the hours you make me work are crazy. Crazy! And they making me crazy too!’

‘Really sorry about this,’ I’m forced to interrupt, unable to take much more, But ‘I’m going to be late for work. Could we please discuss this later?’

‘I not finished! I know my entitlements too. My other friends tell me you must give me P45 with full salary entitlements paid up front before I leave.’

Interesting, I think wryly, grabbing my car keys. Elka’s grasp of English is so weak she can barely get by in the supermarket and yet her vocabulary freely encompasses quite scarily impressive phrases like ‘P45 with full salary entitlements paid up front’?

‘Elka,’ I tell her, as briskly as I can, given that I’m now running so late it doesn’t bear thinking about. ‘Can I just point out that it’s not as if you have to take care of Lily all day, every day? She’s only just started in preschool and is there till early afternoon every day, which gives you a good five-hour break, plus it’s not like you’re expected to do housework on top of everything else. I’ve a cleaning lady, a gardener and a handyman, who between them pretty much do everything that needs doing around here, so you’ll forgive me for thinking that you actually have it pretty easy compared to some.’

Like oooh … me for starters.

But the snarling harridan stands firm, arms folded, eyes slitted, ponytail swished defiantly back over her shoulders.

‘You not listening to me. I am handing you in my notice and I want to be gone by the end of the week. I’m veeeery sorry, but that’s final.’

It’s all I can do to nod curtly, resisting the temptation to wham the hall door behind me, and get into my car as calmly as I can, above all trying not to let her see how much she’s knocked me for six.

Stopped at traffic lights on Leeson St. on the way to work, I have to pull the car over when I realise that out of nowhere, there’s a hot hole in the pit of my stomach and suddenly I have an urgent need to cry. And now here it comes, my daily anxiety attack – jeez, I could nearly set a clock by its arrival. So out they come, messy, uncontrollable, dry, hiccupping tears of frustration and tiredness that I never allow myself, born from not having paused for breath in … Oh … about seven years now. Can’t help it. It’s like my heart is aching with a pain that’s completely indescribable.

Christ alive, not even six a.m. in the shagging morning and already I’m filled with a darkness that’s almost unbearable at the thoughts of the day ahead. To my knowledge, I’ve never actually had a heart attack, but I swear, it couldn’t possibly feel much worse than this.

Because I have never felt so torn in my whole life. Not just between work and home; that I could deal with, that wouldn’t be a problem. Trouble is my job isn’t just one big job, it’s also about nine hundred and ninety-nine small jobs that go with the one big job, so instead of feeling pulled in two directions, I’m being pulled in around a thousand. And frankly there are times when I just don’t know how much longer this can continue.

‘Oh what the hell is wrong with me?’ I say aloud, starting to get panicky as I fish round the bottom of my handbag for a Kleenex. Can this really be me, Eloise Elliot, acting like such a complete milksop? Time was when I would work this exact same schedule and it barely knocked a feather out of me. Time was if I happened to drive past a woman on her own sobbing her heart out in a parked car at dawn, I’d look at her pityingly and assume she was having some kind of breakdown and clearly needed professional help. Time was when I used to think that I’d somehow been born without tear ducts.

But that girl only existed B.L. – before Lily – and now in her place is a shadow of the old Eloise Elliot, a woman filled with darkness who’s expected to do the work of a dozen people and never ever crack, all the while eaten up with guilt like I’ve never known. And why? Because a little girl who’s nearly three will come home from preschool later on today, full of stories and chat that her mummy will never get to hear.

And now, on top of everything else, I’m nannyless. Yet again.

The six a.m. news comes on the car radio and I know this bout of unforgivable self-indulgence is over and it’s time to go and face into another day. So I make a huge effort to compose myself, knock back a large gulpful of Rescue Remedy (an editor’s best friend), pat a bit of concealer round my puffy, red-raw eyes and with shaking hands, drive on. I’m already a good fifteen minutes behind schedule so I put my foot to the floor to try and make up the time. If I dared to arrive in late, word would spread that something was up and rule one of survival in my job is simple; never let anyone see a chink in the armour for any reason, ever. They’re like a pack of barracudas in my office, I swear they can physically smell the fear.

Calmly as I can, I make a mental note to find another childcare agency and leave a voicemail message for Rachel, my assistant, telling her to start setting up interviews as soon as she gets in. Easier said than done, given that the last agency I went to fired me about two years ago. Which stung more than a bit too. But I managed not to let it show. You just can’t in my game, not for one second.

Anyway, by six fifteen a.m. I’m racing upstairs from the underground car park of the Post’s offices on Tara St., the only bit of exercise I ever seem to have time for these days, what with all the extra work that I’m now expected to do for pretty much the same money I was making three years ago. Which by the way, is a fairly standard change in the newspaper industry now, ever since the recession hit in a big way and our sales took a sharp decline. I.e. yet another stress-inducing source of sleepless nights, if you’re the editor and your contract is up for renewal later on in the financial year.

Particularly if you happen to be answerable to a board of directors who are all male, with a collective average age of about sixty-five. The T. Rexes, I call them; they’re like dinosaurs from a bygone era, representative of a time when all you could hear in the newsroom was the furious clacking sound of clunky metal typewriters. The days when senior editors swaggered in drunk after big, boozy lunches, where they’d all quaff cognac, wining and dining advertisers on fat expense accounts, then roll back to the office late in the afternoon pissed as farts and no one would so much as bat an eyelid.

A whole other age ago, during the glory days of the newspaper industry. And right now, frankly there are times when I feel like all I’m doing is fighting a brave rearguard action trying to sustain what I worry is turning into more and more of a twilight industry, with the internet now leading the field as the gutteriest gutter press out there. More and more each day, I’m starting to feel that my job is like trying to steer an oil tanker through a minefield and that it’s only a matter of time before the whole industry is declared as extinct as the dinosaur.

It’s as though the board of directors feel that survival is a form of success and as far as I’m concerned, that’s just not enough, not in this climate. Their old-fashioned attitude is that the Post is a bastion of tradition that holds up the sky, and while that may have been the case at one time, it sure as hell isn’t now. Times have changed and we either evolve or we die, simple as that.

What’s worse though is that redundancy is now in the air again. I can smell it sharp as you like; it’s hanging round every office corner, it’s in the stale, recycled air we’re breathing. And I know, just know without being told, that it’s only a matter of time before there’s yet another staff culling, another round of people being asked to exactly the same job, except for far less money, on a three-day week.

Oh God, I think, suddenly sickened just by the very thought that I have colleagues I pass on corridors each and every day whose days here are numbered and what’s worse, that I’m the only thing standing between them and a dole queue. Or more precisely, me and the amount of sales volume I can continue to generate for the paper. They may not know it, but they’re dependent on me and me alone for their job survival, and the pressure is at times overwhelming.

I quicken my pace, puffing and panting to make up time, thinking must try harder. Don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I’m just going to have to find more hours in the day, somehow. Because if it kills me, no one is going to lose their job, not on my watch. Not if I can help it.

Oh God, half of me wonders if I’ve got room for another stress ulcer.

My office is all the way up on the fourth floor, a gorgeous, airy, spacious room with floor-to-ceiling windows that look down onto all the briskness and business of Tara St. below me. Not that I’ve ever got a spare second to enjoy the view, that is. Or indeed, to luxuriate in the early-morning stillness, a few precious hours before the phones start hopping and things really get pressurised round here.

And every single morning of my life when I flash my pass at the security doors and stride across the main open-plan office to get to my inner sanctum, there waiting for me on the wall above my desk is a giant portrait of one Douglas Merriman, our founder and first editor. Who by the way, would have sat in the very same office now occupied by me, all of a hundred and fifty years ago. He’s a heavily bearded geezer who looks exactly like Tolstoy, and when I feel those stern Victorian round owl glasses glaring down at me, I look back up at him, thinking the same thought that I do every single day since I took this job.

Bastard. You never had to work in a digital age, with email and mobiles to connect you to the office even on a Sunday at two a.m. did you? You never had to compete with twenty-four hour news channels or try to sell papers in the middle of the worse economic slump since the Great Depression, did you?

I’m just flipping open my briefcase and whipping out my initial draft of notes on today’s edition, always how we kick off the day round here: with a thorough going over of this morning’s early edition; where we scored, where we could have done better, where there’s vast room for improvement, that kind of thing. All department heads are required to be here for this, which means about a dozen people sitting round the conference room in total, ranging from political affairs, to foreign, to sports and culture.

Next thing, without even bothering to knock, Seth Coleman’s lean, slimy, Basil Rathbone-esque form is filling my office door. Looking like he always does, like he was dressed by his mammy. Funny, but for the longest time I assumed he was gay but still in the closet; no straight man would ever wear trousers that sharply ironed, for starters. But then a few years back, he made a bizarre and badly misjudged pass at me at the Christmas party. I remember looking at him in blank astonishment that he’d somehow misread my deep loathing of him for in-your-face lust and it now lives on forevermore in the comedy quadrant of my brain.

‘Morning Eloise. So what’s keeping you? In exactly one minute, you’re going to be late.’

Like this is an episode of 24, and I’m Jack Bauer.

‘Everyone’s already waiting for you in the boardroom, you know,’ he says in his nasal whine, slicking his hair back, even though there must be a half-pound of grease already holding it there. ‘All department heads, present and correct. Hope there’s nothing wrong with you, is there? Not like you to sail this dangerously close to unpunctuality.’

I say nothing, nod curtly and smile though gritted teeth.

‘So have you thought any more about my offer to escort you to the directors’ weekend this year? It’s just round the corner you know.’

A brief, unspoken thought filters between us, him mentally spelling it out to me: ‘and let’s face it, I’m the best offer you’re going to get’.

I totally ignore it, hide my annoyance behind a sheet of A4 paper, then briskly brush past him, ready to start the day.

And just when I think things can’t get possibly get any worse, da-daaa, they do. Course they do. What else did I expect? It’s already past two in the afternoon and I’m back in the conference room, feeling like I’ve never left it, chairing our first meeting about the mock-up of tomorrow’s paper.

This, by the way, is where we sit around and thrash out the overall shape of the news, what the lead item should be on the front page, what stories are developing and need to be closely monitored over the next few hours, what feature and opinion pieces should be placed where. Everyone’s here at my insistence, the political editor, foreign, financial, regional, culture, the whole lot of them, all pitching their stories and vying for the maximum coverage possible, with a front page slot the absolute Holy Grail.

Ordinarily I get a huge buzz out of this meeting; tempers tend to flare, passions run high – something I freely encourage – and it’s always exhilarating to hear each editor push their stories and battle to get the maximum number of column inches allowed. We’re a bit like a debating club, minus the alcohol, but bear in mind the department heads here are about as vocal, argumentative and aggressive a bunch as you’d care to fight in a bar-room brawl on a Friday night. For some reason though, I just don’t seem to be on the ball this afternoon.

Can’t concentrate, can’t focus. Impossible to after what’s unfolded since this day from hell began, and certainly not given what’s happening in my personal life outside of these four walls. Oh sure, no doubt about it, by about eight this morning I was supremely confident that I’d have a replacement for Elka before the day was out; someone far more suitable, I even went so far as to think smugly. Someone, let’s just say, a bit less moody and demanding, who understood what it was like to work for a busy, professional single parent.

By ten-thirty, when I’d clocked a look at the first few candidates for the job, admittedly I was taken aback, but still reasonably sure that it was just a matter of trawling through the dross before I hit on my perfect Mary Poppins. Candidate numbers one and two were just a bit of a blip, no more that that. Just a simple matter of doing a little bit more weeding, that was all, with absolutely no call for panic whatsoever.

By eleven forty-five, yes, okay … so the mood had shifted a bit and now I was starting to get tetchy, unable to figure out why in the name of God it was so bloody difficult to fill a perfectly simple job in the throes of an economic meltdown, but I still held onto a sliver of hope that so far I’d just been unlucky and it was simply a matter of hanging in there till the perfect nanny calmly strolled into my life. To stay.

And right now at two in the afternoon, after the last and final disastrous interview, there’s no other way to describe it: I’m in a blind bleeding panic. About a dozen voices are bickering for all they’re worth, clamouring for my attention across the boardroom, while I sit at the top of the table, looking and acting like I’m listening intently; but actually, I’m a million miles away.

Because now I know. It’s finally official. I’m on the brink of a crisis.

I Have. No. Childcare. As of the end of this week, I have no one to help me; not a single soul. And what in the name of God am I going to do then? Take Lily into work with me and stick her into a playpen in the middle of my office, hoping no one will notice? Yeah, right, some hope. If I were to even think about doing that, I might as well tie a large neon sign around my neck saying, ‘Have finally cracked up, kindly fire me ASAP as Seth Coleman is only chomping at the bit waiting to take over anyway’.

The more I dwell on the problem, the more my mouth begins to feel dry; and although I’m desperately trying not to let it show, I know that tiny beads of worry sweat are forming on my forehead, as my heart palpitates with anxiety. I hear nervous rattling and realise it’s my ring off the desk in front of me, so I snap open a bottle of water and try to focus on the length of my inhale and exhale, desperately trying to stay in the game. Because if I am in the throes of a full-blown panic attack, no one in this room can ever know about it. Try as I might though, the same sickening thought keeps playing like a loop in my head, over and over again, and there’s just no getting away from it.

Every available nanny out there is completely unhireable, I’m in the middle of the biggest crisis I’ve had since having Lily, there is no one, absolutely NO ONE out there to help me and what in the name of arse am I supposed to do now?

Earlier today, Rachel, my long-suffering assistant, managed to trawl through the few childcare agencies that I haven’t been blacklisted from as of yet and scraped together a grand total of four nannies for me to interview. Yes, that’s right, four. We’re in the middle of the deepest recession since the Dark Ages, no one is spending a red cent, property values have dropped so much that people’s homes have fallen back to the prices they would have been in Viking times and above all … There are NO JOBS.

And yet here I am, fully poised to pay top dollar plus bribe money to someone who’ll take care of a child who’s almost three years old, and move into a perfectly comfortable home in Rathgar, with their own bedroom and ensuite to boot. Not exactly a demanding gig; it’s not brain surgery, it’s not like running a global corporation, all I’m looking for is some reasonable, responsible person who’ll make sure a little girl eats up her vegetables, gets to pre school on time, takes her naps when she’s supposed to and doesn’t spend the entire afternoon watching CBeebies on telly … and can I find anyone to fill the vacancy? No, not a solitary soul.

It beggars belief. Three interviews in total today and each and every one has been an unmitigated disaster. You want to see the standard – and I really wish I were joking, but some of these people would make Mel Gibson look employable. And so now, there’s no getting around it; as of the end of this week when Elka buggers off, I can’t get anyone to take care of Lily for me. I have no one. No one.

And believe me, I’ve done everything. I’ve swallowed my pride and called Elka, offering to double her salary and negotiate more time off if she’ll only reconsider, but no joy; she’s had enough of the job and wants out, simple as that. In desperation, I even thought of calling on my sister Helen, but know without even bothering to ask that it’s not a runner.

Being brutally honest, I have to admit that Helen and I have little in common and have never really been all that close, so she’s hardly someone I can expect to come to my rescue in my hour of need. Besides, since I had Lily, Helen’s gone and met a guy called Darren who runs a small seaside B&B in Cobh and within an alarmingly short space of time, she upped sticks and announced she was moving down the country to work side by side with him. Packed everything in for him; her job in a call centre, her brand-new flat, the lot. But then that’s my sister for you; she’s always struck me as someone who panic-dated, panic-settled and is now living with the consequences … in Cobh, miles and miles away from her old friends and her old life.

Total insanity, I thought at the time, and I still continue to think it. And although I’ve only met Darren a handful of times at Christmas dinners, or else on the rare occasions when they both come to Dublin and drop in to visit me and Lily, I can’t help wondering if Helen is actually happy living with him, two hundred miles away in a tiny remote village. But then, keeping up to date on what’s happening in each other’s lives is tough and apart from the odd ‘Hi, great to hear from you, but can I call you back? I’m running into a meeting’ type chat, we never seem to really get a chance to catch up properly.

And no, I still haven’t taken Lily down to Cobh to visit, in spite of all the child’s entreaties and in spite of the fact that she adores her auntie, because how could I possibly leave work? Every now and then Helen will email, mainly either to vaguely moan for a little bit about Darren or else, in a roundabout way, to ask for a lend of money; it seems people in the hotel business are even more savagely affected by the economic downturn than the rest of us. And I always oblige and fire off a cheque and never ask for it back, and she’ll gratefully accept, then send bright, breezy emails inviting Lily and me down for a freebie weekend anytime we want. Which is a nice thought and much appreciated, but come on … me? Get a whole entire weekend off? Saturday AND Sunday? One day after the other? Are you kidding me?

That aside though, I know Helen’s up to her tonsils with trying to make ends meet at the B&B à la Sibyl Fawlty anyway, so I’m sure she’s quite enough on her plate without me landing Lily on top of her too. Plus, no matter how desperate I was and no matter how much money I paid Helen to take care of her till I got sorted, it would mean I’d never get to see my little girl at all, wouldn’t it? And frankly the snatched glimpses of her slumbering little head first thing every morning and last thing at night are about the only thing keeping me sane after the daily grind I’m expected to get through. The one dangling carrot in my life that somehow makes the rest of it all that bit more bearable.

‘Barack Obama’s re-election campaign has just GOT to get a page one tomorrow, Eloise,’ Robbie Turner is thundering on, interrupting my incessant stream of worrying. Robbie is the Post’s chain-smoking, gravelly-voiced chief political editor; a likeable guy, young but never youthful looking, he just streels round the office night and day looking as washed out and baggy-eyed as the rest of us. But then, because of the time differences involved in covering any foreign story, the political editor is expected to put in hours almost as ridiculous as I do myself. The general rule of thumb is that if I’m here till the night editor takes over at eleven p.m., chances are I’ll catch a glimpse of Robbie’s thick, prematurely white shock of hair and John Lennon glasses still at his desk, bashing out a first draft of a story breaking in the Middle East while the rest of the Western world snoozes peacefully on.

So I happen to know that Robbie rarely gets any time off to be with his own young and growing family and to his credit, it’s something he’s never once complained about. I may not let it show, but I’m genuinely fond of him; as I’ve told the Board of Directors on many occasions, Robbie is someone who does consistent good work in the face of pressure that would drive a lesser personality straight to the nearest home for the bewildered.

The only slight downside in these meetings is that Robbie’s sole weak spot tends to come to the fore; his unhealthy obsession with Barack Obama, to the point that the running joke in the office is that he’s actually a tiny bit in love with him. I’m not kidding, he eats, drinks, sleeps and breathes Barack Obama and the highlight of his life to date was getting to shake the hand of The Mighty One when he visited Ireland. True, there were about four hundred other people in the room with him at the time, but Robbie still managed to wangle past the secret service and touch the hem of the garment of the Chosen One, so to speak. All while making it sound like they’d shared an intimate one-on-one meeting, just the two of them chatting about the re-election campaign over a nice cuppa and a plate of Hobnobs. He even had a photo of said momentous event taken and turned it into his personalised Christmas card last year.

‘Eloise, you have to listen to me,’ Robbie’s insisting, getting red-faced now as his voice rises to be heard about the clamour. He doesn’t lose his cool often, but when he does, it’s almost like watching a cartoon: eyes popping, red veins bulging out of the side of his neck, white hair nearly standing up straight on the top of his head, the whole works.

‘This is getting to be too big a story just to tuck away on page three in world news beside David Cameron making a speech about landmine victims in Angola, like we did yesterday.’ He has to almost shout to be heard above the racket in the room. ‘The primaries are in full swing, the election proper is only round the corner and it’s high time it got the front page! Can I remind you that it’s page one on every US national daily and has been for weeks now? So why are we lagging behind US coverage, when we need to keep pace with this story!’

Robbie might sound narky and aggressive, but I know he’s not; this is just how he comes across and I know him well enough to know it’s not bolshiness on his part, it’s purely because he cares so much.

Sign of a good political editor.

On and on he goes, enthusiastically firing off statistics about Democratic versus GOP expenditure on the President’s re-election, to heated shouts of ‘ahh, not this again! Give it a rest, will you?’ from the rest of the room, while a few hacks start humming a sarcastic chorus of The Star Spangled Banner.

Next thing, Seth Coleman sits back, arms folded, and throws in his two cents’ worth.

‘Yes, we’re all aware there’s an election coming up in the US, thanks for that Robbie,’ he spits dryly, with his lizardy unblinking eyes focused on me. ‘As ever, your fundamental grasp of the obvious is overwhelmingly helpful. Can we please move on to some actual hard news?’

And although I’m nodding, giving the outward appearance of being focused and interested in the game, the truth is … to my shame I’m actually miles away, utterly and totally absorbed in my own worries. I may look like I’m listening but all I can really hear is the sound of the blood singing in my ears as my pulse rate feels like it’s soaring well up into triple figures.

Then, dimly in the background, like a kind of accompanying soundtrack to all my stressing and fretting, our Northern correspondent, Ruth O’Connell manages to successfully shout Robbie down, take up the intellectual cudgels and is now aggressively pitching a two thousand word story on a car bomb that went off in Newry last night, injuring a high ranking senior sergeant in the PSNI.

Ruth’s from Belfast, thin and wiry with severe jet-black bobbed hair and the whitest skin you ever saw, which kind of gives her the look of Louise Brooks, except with muscles. Even her teeth, which are irregular and uneven, seem to strike an attitude. She wears skinny little trouser suits like they’re a uniform, always in varying shades of black or grey, and has exactly the same washed-out, bleary-eyed look on her pale, gaunt face as the rest of us.

Ruth’s also a terrific sub-editor, feisty and like a dog with a bone when she’s on the verge of a breaking story, always with an uncanny sixth sense for what will be next week’s big lead. On the down side though, she’s a bit too fond of the sound of her own strident voice and tends to try and dominate these meetings, pushing her own agenda with the aggressive tactic of simply yelling down the rest of the room. At the best of times I’m always glad to have her here because, hard as it is to believe, she and I are the only two women in the room. But I’m even more so today; her banging on about Catholic versus Protestant attitudes to joining the PSNI and the resultant socio-economic effect on whole communities gives me space to think a bit more clearly about the disastrous interviews I had to suffer through earlier.

Ohgodohgodohgod. Where do I start? Maybe by asking Rachel if she’s accidentally rung up a theatrical agency and told them I was holding open auditions for ‘third thug from the left’ in some TV cop show? Maybe then I’d be able to understand the parade of headcases I had to deal with. And to think that these people were actually vetted and approved by a nanny agency? It’s just beyond comprehension.

Candidate number one sauntered in earlier this morning, ten minutes late and wearing a tracksuit with a tight leather jacket over it, with – and I wish I were joking here – the words Mega Revenge written in flames across the back of it. Oh and if that wasn’t enough, she had a pierced nose and eyebrow with a black tattoo all down the side of her hand. I caught a glimpse of her in the reception area outside my office and that was frankly enough. The very sight of this one was enough to make my bowels wither and I knew Lily would take one look at her then either start crying, or else innocently ask me who was the scary lady and why did she have an earring coming out of her nose? Not a runner. So I called Rachel in and told her in no uncertain terms to get rid of her. And that if she wouldn’t leave, then to threaten her with security.

Hot on her heels was candidate number two, who tiptoed pale and shaking into my office, stinking of cigarette smoke. No CV, no experience, nothing. Her boyfriend had just left her, she immediately told me, and now she not only had nowhere to live, but absolutely no reason to live either. ‘So, what have you been doing for the past few years?’ I asked, anxious to get off the subject of her private life. I’ve been a patient in the John of God’s, she told me, suffering from bipolar manic depression. But according to her, the good news was she was officially off suicide watch and fully prepared to mind my child for forty euro an hour. I was half afraid she’d throw herself out of the window if I told her there and then that she wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, so I gave her the more cowardly ‘don’t call me, I’ll call you’ line, and gently shooed her out of there ASAP.

This is what should be on the front page, the complete and utter lack of childcare for busy working parents, I find myself silently ranting while Ruth thunders on. Now she’s rolling up her sleeves – always a bad sign with her, means a row is never too far off – and spouting on about a recent survey indicating the tiny minority of Catholics who now are fully paid-up members of the PSNI and the general unfairness of it all and how it’s setting the whole peace process back a full decade.

That’s another thing about Ruth; she’s superb at what she does, but never in your life have you come across anyone carrying as many chips on their shoulders.

Anyway, Kian O’Sullivan, sports editor, former Irish rugby international and something of a lust object among just about every female P.A. up and down the building (who I happened to know have collectively nicknamed him Don Draper), playfully fires a rolled-up ball of paper over at her. Then in no uncertain terms he tells her to shut up and demands to know why sports always gets considered last on anyone’s list of priorities when we’re blocking out tomorrow’s paper.

‘Because people only really care about sports results on a Sunday after all the Saturday games, you gobshite,’ growls Robbie in his twenty-fags-a-day voice, but coming from him that could be deemed a term of affection.

‘Seriously Eloise, you have GOT to listen to me on this!’ Ruth is almost screeching to be heard over the racket, waving a fistful of notes in front of her, like that’s going to catch my attention. ‘It’s front page stuff and if we don’t run with it, make no mistake, The Chronicle will and then it’ll be my head on the block, won’t it?’ On and on she spews, thumping her fist off the table in angry frustration now.

Meanwhile out of the corner of my eye, I’m dimly aware of everyone looking to me, waiting on me to call the lot of them to order, like some overly strict school headmistress whose class has sensed that she’s a bit distracted and is now all acting up accordingly.

‘Eloise?’ says Seth Coleman from directly across the table, de-latticing his fingers, slicking back the lank, greasy hair and giving me one of his unblinking, lizard-like stares. Very disconcerting, if you’re not used to him. ‘We really do need to wrap this up. Tempus fugit.’

I hide my irritation and point out that we haven’t heard from our finance editor yet, throwing the floor open to Jack Dundon, a bespectacled, grey-haired, grey-skinned, softly spoken guy with a background as an award-winning economist; someone who rarely shines at these meetings, but who’ll consistently come up trumps and turn out impeccably researched stories written in language readers can grasp, unlike those on some of our rivals’ finance pages, that you’d nearly need a Harvard master’s in finance to get your head around.

He draws the air of experience deep into his lungs and addresses the now silent room. The European Central Bank have announced an interest rate hike of half a per cent, is his calm opener, which mightn’t exactly be the sexiest lead story at the table, but it’ll affect hundreds of thousands of mortgage holders and so therefore it has massive bite. On and on he goes, giving me the freedom to let my thoughts take me back to my more pressing concerns and back to about noon today, when in sauntered a slightly more promising candidate for the job of nanny/lifesaver.

But when I say ‘slightly more promising’, all I mean is she was young, reasonably well groomed and at least had the courtesy to turn up for the interview appropriately dressed, even if her eye make-up did happen to be the exact colour of bright yellow hazardous waste. Trouble was, she had precious little experience in childcare and when I asked her why her CV only had one reference on it, her answer was that she was really an out-of-work actress and thought this would be a nice little earner until her big break arrived.

‘I mean, it’s only minding a kid, isn’t it? Besides, I’ve loads of nieces and nephews and I know I’m well able to handle it,’ she coolly informs me. ‘And the reference I have is good, my auntie went to load of trouble to write it for me. Oh, but by the way,’ she added, hammering a further nail into her own coffin, ‘if my agent rings about an audition, then I’ll need time off. Plus I don’t work evenings after seven p.m. or weekends. And I should probably tell you that I already have my holidays booked for the first two weeks in June, I’m going to Spain with my boyfriend, so that’s out as well. I assume that’s all OK with you?’

It’s not often I’m at a loss for words, but on this occasion I was. I didn’t answer, couldn’t. Just sat there staring at her in disbelief thinking, ‘next!’

And the piece de resistance? Just after lunch (which in my case is rarely more than a cereal bar wolfed down at my desk between phone calls, and that’s if I’m very lucky), Rachel buzzes into my office to say the final candidate the agency have available to start work is now waiting patiently at reception. I stride out of my office to greet her, praying, just praying that this one will look not unlike Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins, act like a firm but kindly Angela Lansbury in Bedknobs and Broomsticks and keep perfect law and order in my house when I’m not there as strictly as Emma Thompson in Nanny McPhee.

Initial reaction was positive and for once, my stomach didn’t sink at the sight of what was waiting beside Rachel’s desk for me. Mrs. Adele Patterson was sixty-something, with a grey perm so tight it looked like someone had accidentally poured a tin of baked beans over her head, wearing a coat that looked like it was made out of the same upholstery they use on bus seats and laden down with two Marks and Spencers grocery bags. But she was the only candidate who actually looked like an actual proper nanny, wise and calm and experienced, someone you’d unhesitatingly trust your child with. Plus she at least looked me unflinchingly straight in the eye, doing me the courtesy of coming straight to the point.

‘I don’t work in other people’s houses,’ she told me straight up in a no-nonsense style that I at least respected, even if what she’d just said made me break out in an anxiety sweat. ‘You’re welcome to leave your daughter, Lily isn’t it? Well, you can drop her to my house at nine in the morning, no earlier, and I’m strict about collection time too, no later than six o’clock in the evening please. That’s quite a long enough day for any child, believe me. And for me too, I might add. I’m not getting any younger, you know.’

‘Mrs. Patterson, I’m afraid … Well, the thing is that’s going to be a problem. What I need, you see is … Well, let’s just say that there might be the odd evening – just the occasional one, that’s all … when I could possibly get delayed getting home from work, so I really am looking for someone who’s prepared to live in, at my house, which is very comfortable, by the way … It’s in Rathgar,’ I tack on hopefully, like this’ll make a difference.

‘Makes no difference to me if you live in the penthouse suite of the Four Seasons, love,’ she snapped back, sounding shell-shocked at the very suggestion and getting pinker in the face by the minute.

‘Well, I would be paying premium rates, of course, and we can always negotiate a day off for you …’ I exaggerated, astonished at the sheer brazenness of my lie.

Day off? I think. Elka got one day off in the past year and that was on Christmas Day. And even at that, she still had to take Lily for a few hours in the afternoon while I dashed into the office to check the layout for the Stephen’s Day edition of the Post.

But my back is to the wall here, and short of Mrs. Patterson producing references that implicate her in the massacre of a school full of small children, she’s hired.

‘Then I’m very sorry to waste your time, Miss Elliot, but I’m afraid this is just not going to work out, simple as that. You see, I take care of my two grandchildren at home as well, so either your little girl can stay with me daytimes only, with collection strictly no later than six p.m., or that’s it. I’m not here to bargain with you or to offer you any other alternative. And what’s more, I’m going to have to leave now: as it is, I had to ask a neighbour to look after the other children for me so I could get into town to meet you.’

OK, it was at this point that I got desperate, not even able to conceal the pleading in my tone. This woman was my last hope and I couldn’t, just couldn’t let her walk out the door.

‘Mrs. Patterson, as you can see, my job here doesn’t exactly allow me to work regular nine to five hours, but if you’ll just hear me out about moving into my home, only for a short time you understand, I’d be happy to pay you far, far more than the agency rates.’

I look at her pleadingly, silently begging her to say yes.

‘Lily’s such a good girl,’ I tack on for good measure, ‘she’s very well behaved, everyone says so and minding her really is a doddle …’

‘It’s a no, I’m afraid,’ Mrs. Patterson replied crisply. ‘There’s no way that I’d just abandon my own husband and grandchildren to move into a stranger’s house, no matter what you paid me. You must understand that there are some things in life that are far, far more important than any job or any amount of money, like family, for one,’ she said, looking pointedly at me.

Then, picking up her handbag and groceries and tossing me a curt nod, she showed herself out of my office and back towards reception. Leaving me feeling like I’d just been cut and dried and left to hang out for dead on a line.

Back to the meeting and it seems Seth Coleman, with his barracuda-like instincts, is onto me.

‘Earth to Eloise? Are you with us or what?’ he says, rapping a pen with bony fingers impatiently off a pile of folders in front of him. ‘We really need to move on this. Some of us have work to do, you know.’

I’m suddenly aware that all eyes are locked on me and that I’m in danger of losing control of the room. It’s gone quiet, scarily quiet; people are coughing and looking in my direction, anxious to get out of here. Which means it’s now over to me and I’m going to have to make it at least look like I’m on the ball.

‘Fine, thank you Seth,’ I manage to say, crisply as I can. ‘In that case, the mock-up of tomorrow’s front page is this. Firstly, we lead with the ECB interest rate hike.’

Cut to groans and moans from the rest of the table, which I have no choice but to swat aside.

‘Jack, you’re on the story and I’ll need hard copy on my desk by four p.m. at the latest. Second lead is Northern, Ruth, but no more than five hundred words on page one, with an opinion piece in domestic, on page four.’

‘Page FOUR? That is so unfair!’ Ruth yells disappointedly, but again, I override her.

Sorry, but in this gig you learn very quickly how to prioritise.

‘As for the US primaries, they’ll stay in Foreign on pages four and five until one month before the election proper and that’s final,’ I say to frosty looks from Robbie Turner, which I instantly tune out.

‘This story may be front page in the States Robbie, but we’re not living in Washington, now are we? The lead US story we go with on page three is Obama’s statement that he’s not ruling out seeking to overthrow rebels in Afghanistan, in spite of the phased withdrawal. There’s a press conference on the situation from the White House at five o’clock Eastern time, which is going to mean a late night for you Robbie; that’ll be eleven tonight our time and I’ll need full copy for the night editor before the late edition hits the presses.’

A deep heartfelt sigh from Robbie, who’s worked late pretty much every night for the past few months and who has probably forgotten what his kids even look like by now. I feel a sudden flash of sympathy at the sight of his exhausted, washed-out face, but I rise above it and move on. Because I have to. Yes, I know, he never gets to see his kids, but then I never get to see Lily either, do I? And it’s not like I’m asking him to do anything I’m not doing myself.

So on I steamroll, undeterred.

‘Also, make a note that I want an opinion piece on Irish Life and Permanent and how it may be sold off as a result of bank stress tests. Seth? Get Miriam Douglas onto it, seven hundred words. Regional, I want to lead with that car crash in Kerry that killed three kids over the weekend, plus photos too. Find out their ages, talk to the school friends and if you can, get the families to talk too. That’s our big human interest story and I want it to be gut-wrenching. Also, I need six hundred words on the search for those two missing teenagers, latest updates in one hour, please. We need recent photos of both of them, get Derek Maguire onto it right away. There’s a press release on its way here and as soon as it lands I want to see it. Courts page, I want three hundred words on how in the name of God a convicted drug dealer got out on appeal yesterday, no photos of him looking shifty with a hood over his head though, too clichéd. To similar to what the Independent will run with, so get me a better shot than that. World news, we open with Japan scrapping four of its stricken reactors, and follow up with an update on the Greek situation, six hundred words each, photos for both, quarter page. But I want to see the proofs first, so Seth you need to tell the picture desk that’s non-negotiable. Mock-ups no later than four p.m. sharp and thank you all for your time.’

And there it is, the old familiar buzz I get from doing what I do best. Feeding me like an adrenaline rush.

Filthy looks all round at me, but there you go. Sometimes you need to have a spine of steel in this job.

Class dismissed. And onto the next problem.

It’s coming up to three o’clock in the afternoon, and as usual, I’m multi-tasking. Or triple-tasking, to be more precise. I’m in my office checking through the rough drafts of tomorrow’s advertising pages while at the same time trying to type out a rough draft for tomorrow’s editorial, both of which I might add are now well behind schedule. And on top of all that, I’m simultaneously holding a meeting with Marc Robinson, editor of the paper’s Arts and Culture section, a magazine-formatted supplement which comes with our Saturday issue, but which is put to bed the previous Monday. Which is today. Which is why Marc is in my office now, arguing and bickering with me. The way absolutely everyone seems to argue and bicker with me these days.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s non-negotiable.

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

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