Strictly Business

by Francesca Clementis

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

Kate Harris is a high-flying executive who wants nothing more than to be liked. She never criticises, never delegates and feels guilty about asking her secretary to type letters. But when as she prepares to leave for a new job, and her workmates present her with a doormat as a parting gift, Kate decides enough is enough. From now on, she's going to be tough and ruthless.

But playing Cruella de Vil by day and Julie Andrews by night is giving Kate an identity crisis. And her staff are determined to try every trick in the book to bring back the old Kate, even if it means trying to put a bit of sparkle into her love life. . .

Release date: August 2, 2012

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 448

Sample

When Kate Harris left her last job, her colleagues bought her a doormat as a leaving present. It was a joke, of course. And not a cheap one. They had found a company that wove her name and a cruel caricature into the mat.

An expensive joke. How appropriate, Kate thought wryly. Just like me. Seventy thousand pounds a year and incapable of asking a secretary to type a letter. Seventy thousand pounds a year and most of my working day spent dealing with administration and office bureaucracy that I’m too pathetic to delegate to my staff. Seventy thousand pounds a year and, after two costly years, I will be remembered solely as the one group director who made coffee. For everyone; all the time. They even moved the coffee machine into my office.

No wonder I consistently underachieve when so much time is spent trying to make people like me.

And no wonder I always burn out so quickly. I have to work evenings, weekends, whatever it takes, just to get through the daily workload – I’m hampered by my hopeless lack of leadership.

Kate smiled relentlessly through the farewell speeches that mocked her. She laughed politely as all the stories were rehashed: the one about the time ten of them went to that expensive restaurant for lunch and left her with the bill; and that occasion when she was giving a key presentation to a client in Rome and they’d switched her slides with pictures of the team’s photocopied backsides; and last Christmas when they told her that the venue of the office party had been changed and she turned up at a lap dancing club, where a rugby club were having their Christmas do. She’d laughed then too, of course.

The stories continued until Kate could stand them no longer. She’d also run out of money, since it had been assumed that she would buy all the drinks, all night, for everyone and their friends and partners. And everyone else in the bar who recognised the portrait on the doormat and immediately grasped the implications for a free night out.

Kate hated the lot of them, or rather she didn’t exactly hate them but felt that she should. She wasn’t good at hating or anything negative like that. She had never shaken off the legacy of her upbringing, which had instilled the need to be good and kind and loving. Every time she came home from school, claiming to hate someone (usually for just reason, having been kicked, whispered about, or not picked for the rounders team until she was the last one left), her parents insisted on inviting the object of hatred round for tea. The theory was that Kate would find some common ground with the other child that would transform her previous hostility into a glorious pink haze of admiration and respect. They might even become friends.

It could have worked if Kate’s mother had been able to cook anything other than boil-in-the-bag cod in parsley sauce with tinned potatoes and marrowfat peas. In other words, no chips. Once the unfortunate guest had been presented with this feast, Kate’s future was doomed. It was bad enough being labelled as rubbish-at-games, but add to this a-mum-who-doesn’t-cook-chips-for-guests and she soared to number one position in the girl-you’d-least-want-to-go-to-tea-with chart. And all because she’d used the hate-word.

Such an experience sows seeds of deep-rooted, pernicious weeds that a person spends a lifetime fighting despite the certain knowledge that all resistance is futile. She became physiologically and psychologically incapable of letting the badness out.

Yet the torment didn’t stop even when the niceness began. Now she was being punished for her inability to fight back, defend herself or just make herself feel better by lashing out occasionally. The injustice of this was a sting, burying its poison deep under her skin looking for a home where it could fester. She was not a serial killer or an internet stalker or even one of those appalling women who phone in the middle of EastEnders and read monotonously from a script, asking if you would like stonecladding or a Victorian conservatory. She was a nice person, that was all. She couldn’t help it. And this was her reward: to be immortalised in a doormat.

She examined the picture more closely. Do I really look like that? she wondered. For while it was a caricature and exaggerated the lines of her bone structure, it was the caricature of a beautiful woman. Kate never regarded herself as beautiful or even particularly attractive. She knew that there was nothing wrong with her face but she had learned that it didn’t turn heads or widen eyes or encourage wolf whistles.

She was classically pretty with long, dark hair tucked artlessly behind her ears, clear healthy skin, smiley whole-some features. In 1950s small-town America, she would have been very desirable. But in today’s London where beauty was apparently most appreciated when contrived rather than natural, she was in every way a throwback.

The sad truth about Kate was that she belonged to another time and another place. Perhaps even another planet. For there appears to be no age in our history where a tendency to be virtuous is rewarded with anything apart from a film of your life story starring Julie Andrews or Ingrid Bergman in the title role. A consumptive death helped, always a good dramatic challenge for an actress perceived as lightweight.

And that’s a tough fact to face in the third millennium, where looking consumptive has become redefined as something to die for rather than from.

Management consultancy may seem a strange choice of career for someone so ill at ease in the contemporary workplace. But Kate even had noble motives for this. Her father’s small business had gone bust through poor management practices, i.e. through extending credit to everyone with a sob story, a war wound or simply a nice smile. His subsequent bankruptcy had devastated the family.

Consequently, Kate had always recognised the human ramifications of any struggling business, however impersonal the corporate infrastructure might appear. She liked saving companies, particularly family-owned companies. And she was terrific at her job, working tirelessly, coming up with creative solutions to brick-wall problems.

Clients respected her because they sensed her total personal dedication to their cause. Her colleagues envied her professional style and success rate which led to her being given the most prestigious projects. Spotting Kate’s weakness in handling her own staff, they took pleasure in undermining her at every opportunity. Although this didn’t affect her results, it made her daily working life miserable and drilled craters into her already crumbly ego.

‘Excuse me, do you mind if I smoke?’

Kate looked around. The train carriage was empty except for herself and a timid-looking man, nervously fingering a cigarette. Kate glanced at the ‘No Smoking’ signs stuck to every window. She accepted that the question was rhetorical, a concession to social courtesy that a more self-assured man would have ignored. She glanced down at her doormat, wrapped securely in a black bin liner salvaged from a skip outside the wine bar. That explained it. He hadn’t realised that she was someone who didn’t merit social courtesies.

Maybe it was the fifth glass of wine or the bristles of the doormat, sticking through the bin liner and irritating her hand. Maybe it was the dry throat and tickly cough, legacy of four hours in a smoky atmosphere, or the memory of her leaving party. It was still in full swing when she slipped away, unnoticed and unmissed. They’ll miss me when they run out of drinks, Kate grumbled to herself. She was in a foul mood and a headache was poking annoyingly at the backs of her eyes, demanding attention.

Whatever the reason, she spoke before pouring her words through her nice-girl filter. Her automatic pilot seemed to be temporarily out of order. This was a first. She didn’t even smile and Kate always smiled at strangers (‘Spread a little happiness,’ her parents would chirp as they inched ever closer to their goal of becoming the Vera Lynn and Harry Secombe of South London.)

‘Yes, I do mind. I bloody do. I mind a lot, as a matter of fact.’

Kate glanced up, looking for the hidden loudspeaker through which this strangely familiar voice was echoing. She saw nothing except some cryptic graffiti about Arsenal fans and and a rainbow-coloured advert promising cheap phone calls to Sierra Leone. No phantom voice.

Oh, she thought flatly, it’s me. I said that. The man’s expression confirmed her suspicion that she had indeed spoken, but it was not an expression she could immediately identify, at least not when aimed in her direction. Surely not, she argued sensibly with herself. It couldn’t be, could it? Could it possibly be true that this man, this big grown-up man with no obvious signs of drug or alcohol abuse or genetic in-breeding, could be intimidated … by her? By Kate Harris?

And yet … and yet … he was putting the cigarette back in the packet, the packet back in his pocket. He was ever so slightly shrinking back into his seat. Defeated. Only a seasoned victim like Kate would have spotted such a subtle acknowledgement of failure.

The creaks and shudders of the antiquated train were suddenly overwhelmingly loud as they filled the silent carriage. Kate sat motionless, waiting for the man to come to his senses, to realise that he had deferred to someone more used to being ignored (on a good day) or ridiculed (on a bad).

Still the cigarette remained unlit. The man remained bowed. Kate remained Supreme Champion (unbeaten, unbowed) of the 21.25 Victoria to Epsom Downs Would-be Smoker vs Teensy-bit-belligerent Commuter with a Tickly Cough Knockout.

She wasn’t sure how to react. Well, actually she knew exactly how. All her instincts were on their knees begging her to recant. Run over to the poor man, they were screaming, yank that cigarette from his jacket, place it tenderly between his lips and light it yourself in an act of contrition. Plead for mercy, apologise until your raw throat can apologise no longer. Think of your poor parents, how disappointed they’d be in you.

But there was a new voice in town, a brave, confident, adult proclaimer, urging her to sit still. You see, it was saying, you can do it! You’re not invisible. You can be seen and heard. You have bearing. You are someone who is listened to.

Yeah, right, Kate thought. When I’m so exhausted, so worn down, that all my civilising faculties have lost the will to function.

Her muscles twitched as the conflict played out inside her. And then, at Carshalton Beeches, the man stood up and tossed a mumbled ‘sorry’ at her before getting off the train.

Kate was stunned. He apologised to me. It’s supposed to be the other way round, it’s always the other way round. As the train pulled away, Kate watched the stranger shuffle towards the exit on his way to – what? To a life where he played a role of less significance than hers? Could it be possible?

YES! shouted the new assertive voice from within, punching the air invisibly as if stirred up by a life coach at a motivational seminar in California.

Her other, nice, voices were being drowned out. They were shaking their collective heads and uttering ominous warnings. Be true to yourself, they were chanting, smile though your heart is aching, happy talk keep talking happy talk.

Oh shut up, Kate thought irritably. And she switched the saccharine saboteurs off.

It was that easy. That was the lesson she learned. She could switch off one person and become the other person, whenever she wanted. Maybe everybody else had already learned the same lesson, she realised. How to play different roles for different situations. What was wrong with that? Perhaps all of the mean, vindictive bullies she had ever worked with were sweetie pies outside the office. Perhaps they spent their Saturday nights distributing soup to the homeless, or helping toads cross motorways, or arranging flowers in church.

I could do that, Kate thought. I could pretend to be tough at work and still be myself when it really matters, with my friends, with my family.

She sat up a little taller, her back a little straighter, as she looked out at the dark anonymous suburbs shooting by. The city was behind her. She didn’t look back. She wasn’t going to do that any more.

On Monday she started a new job. That gave her the weekend to rehearse her new persona. Surely it couldn’t be that difficult, she reasoned. I did all right just now without any preparation.

Sadly Kate was lacking one vital element at this critical juncture in her life-changing plan: a friend to tell her not to be so stupid. To point out that her hard talking had not just disarmed a deranged gunman holding a child hostage. The man had probably been too tired, on a Friday night, to argue with her, so it was no great ordeal for him to wait ten minutes before lighting up. None of the above justified embarking upon a massive pretence that she could not possibly sustain under the pressures of a new job.

And even if Kate heard these same objections whispering from somewhere within her own sensible, rational self, she wasn’t listening. What good has listening to myself done in the past? she argued.

She tried to make out her reflection in the filthy carriage windows, anxious to see if she looked different. But it was so hard to tell. It could have been any face smeared across the opaque backdrop of dubious stains and angry etchings.

It didn’t matter. Her appearance would be the easiest aspect to change; she would enjoy the challenge. As the train approached Banstead, she struggled to the door carrying the detritus of two years’ nest-building in her recent job. Never again, she muttered to herself, as she tucked the yucca under her arm to make hand-room for the framed photos, paintings by her nieces and nephews, cuddly toys and pointless executive playthings, given to her by well-meaning relatives, that she felt obliged to put on display. And the doormat.

It began to rain, an event that Kate took personally on this momentous day. Her arms were too full to be able to put up an umbrella, so she just had to keep her head down and hope that it would be a passing shower, or that a taxi would be parked right outside the station. Or that a bus would come along.

As the thunder and lightning tore across the sky, and the rain whipped against her face in vertical sheets, Kate ploughed on miserably. Of course there hadn’t been a taxi, or a bus. Or even a maniacal minicab driver in a balaclava with whom she would have been prepared to take her chances on this wretched night.

Never again, Kate declared to herself. I won’t be rained on again like this, with a yucca and paintings and a doormat and the rest. It will all be different next time. I will be different.

After a lifetime of settling for the cameo roles of perfect daughter, most compliant colleague, most passive girlfriend, dinner-party guest who never took the last chocolate, she was going to reinvent herself. In the new scenario, she was going to be a star.

She didn’t notice the giggling couple rushing past, wrapped up in the romance of the storm. Like children, they were jumping in puddles, splashing each other, then shrieking in mock protest.

Kate passed them just as they leapt together into a huge expanse of water that was flooding the gutter. As Kate was splattered with a vast muddy spray, the couple looked horrified.

‘We’re so sorry!’ they both cried.

Without hesitation Kate smiled, with a sunniness reminiscent of Doris Day. ‘No, I’m sorry, it was my fault, I wasn’t looking where I was going.’

It was the English thing to say and the couple accepted the apology as being insane but utterly proper, coming from this smiley person.

It was also the Kate-thing to say, the old Kate-thing, which depressed her. Oh dear, she said to herself, this is going to be harder than I thought.

‘So tell me again, what look exactly are you going for?’

Justine trailed behind Kate, watching her friend pulling hangers from rails, with no obvious rationale.

‘The I’m-not-a-woman-to-be-messed-with look. The I-don’t-make-coffee look.’ Kate stood in front of a mirror holding up a jet-black fitted dress with a tightly fitting jacket. ‘What do you think about this?’

Justine raised her eyebrows. ‘I think it’s more the best-dressed-guest-at-a-Mafia-godfather’s-funeral look.’

‘Yes, very funny, just not very helpful.’ Kate shoved the suit back on the rack.

Justine shrugged. ‘Sorry, Kate, but you know what I think about this idea.’

Kate turned to face her. ‘It’s all right for you, you’re a midwife, you don’t have to deal with office politics.’

Justine laughed. ‘Kate, like you, I have colleagues, I have managers and I have clients. It’s just that my colleagues are nurses and doctors, my managers are hospital and practice administrators and my clients are pregnant women. But guess what, I have to deal with them all.’

Kate reluctantly conceded the point. ‘Yes, but I bet everyone likes you.’

‘How long have you known me, Kate?’ Justine snorted. She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Twenty years, that’s how long. And you admit yourself that you didn’t like me when you first met me.’

Kate couldn’t argue with that. They’d met at sixth form college. Kate had been dreading the new start. It took her a long time to make friends, and she’d been happy at her private school. But her parents couldn’t afford the fees any more so she was forced to move on.

Justine’s presence quickly dominated the common room even though she was new too. Kate envied her and feared her at the same time. She longed to be so at ease with people but she feared the sort of attention that such confidence would inevitably bring.

Since she and Justine were doing exactly the same A-levels, the gradual birth of a friendship was inevitable. And by associating with this dynamo, Kate began to accept that she would be thrust into the centre of college life whether she wanted it or not.

Slowly she became used to Justine’s loudness. She understood that it stemmed from the same insecurity that made Kate so quiet.

Justine went on. ‘I talk too much, too loudly, too fast. My own husband tells me that daily and he loves me to death, so don’t pretend it’s not true. I frequently say the wrong thing at the wrong time and seem to offend everyone I meet.’

Kate smiled. ‘It’s what everyone loves about you.’

Justine tilted her face to one side in amusement. ‘None of your boyfriends have liked me …’

‘Well, apart from them,’ Kate agreed.

‘And your parents and your brothers and most of the people you introduce me to and most of my patients’ husbands and …’

Kate held up her hands in protest. ‘OK, OK, I take your point.’

Justine softened her tone. ‘The real difference between us is that I don’t care whether all the people I meet like me. I don’t need it. And you do. And the crazy thing is, if you stopped trying so hard to make people like you, you’d find that they liked you anyway. You’re much nicer than me!’

It was Kate’s turn to smile now. ‘I’m just not brave enough to take that risk.’

‘Rubbish!’ Justine said. ‘You must have been popular at your last job.’

Kate closed her eyes as she recalled the experiences of the last two years which were all encapsulated in the leaving party. ‘I’ve just got one word to say to you, Justine – doormat.’

Justine lowered her eyes quickly so that Kate would not see her suppressing a giggle. It didn’t work.

‘It’s not funny, Justine!’

‘Actually, it is a bit funny. And, if you think about it, quite flattering.’

‘Tell me one flattering thing about being given a doormat,’ Kate asked incredulously.

Justine considered this carefully. ‘Well, it must have cost a fortune to get that done. And since you only gave four weeks’ notice, they must have gone to a lot of trouble to have it made so quickly. It’s a real work of art. They must have thought a lot of you, otherwise it would have just been a bunch of flowers from the garage and a coffee-table monstrosity about Renaissance art from a discount bookshop.’

‘Of course they thought a lot of me – I was a complete pushover, every employee’s dream boss!’ Kate shouted. The other customers looked round. Kate was still surprised at the sound of her own raised voice. In the eighteen hours since her confrontation with the smoker on the train (which had taken on the impact of Death Wish in the telling to an amused Justine), Kate had found herself raising her voice more often to test its impact. The impact so far had been: her mother crying on the phone, the man in the newsagent handing her a free Twix as compensation for giving her the wrong change and a boy racer in his turbocharged silver BMW demonstrating a new hand gesture.

In each case the impact was dampened slightly by Kate’s automatic and effusive apology. Damn, she thought, I’ve got to stop saying sorry all the time.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said without thinking as a clumsy sales assistant poked her in the eye with a clothes hanger.

This was going to require more than a new frock.

Somewhere else, not very far away, one of her future colleagues was displaying ominous symptoms of the same compulsion to apologise. If Kate had known this, she could have called him up, bonded with him; they could have made coffee for each other …

‘Sorry,’ Andrew said, for the tenth time that day.

‘I wish you’d stop apologising!’ Rebecca snapped, also for the tenth time. ‘You’ve done nothing but snap at me, sulk about the place, then say you’re sorry, for the past month.’

‘You’re right, sorry,’ Andrew replied.

Rebecca shook her head, sighed and went back to her magazine.

‘Shall I make coffee?’ Andrew asked.

‘OK,’ Rebecca answered, without looking up.

Andrew walked into the kitchen, grateful to have an excuse to get out of the room. He knew he was irritating Rebecca but he couldn’t help himself. And he knew he had to pull himself together if he didn’t want to drive her away, for he was well aware that his hold on Rebecca was tenuous, fragile, woven delicately from a physical attraction like all of his relationships.

He would have been surprised to learn that his absolute belief in his good looks was evidence of his absolute lack of self-esteem. Because, in Andrew’s opinion, that was all there was; there was nothing else to him beyond his regular face, his thick black hair that showed no sign of thinning and his thirty-two-inch waist that hadn’t expanded since 1982. He never bothered to explore, develop or project any other elements of his personality because he thought they might let him down.

Ironically, it was this modesty rather than his face that all his girlfriends found most attractive (although his face was a bonus): the hesitant way in which he expressed opinions; his cautious attempts to comment intelligently on current affairs or mainstream film plots. No woman ever pointed this out to him, wisely understanding that he might simply incorporate the newly appreciated strength into his slim portfolio of vanity.

The day was not going well and Andrew wanted to avoid alienating Rebecca so early in their relationship. But he was finding it hard to control his despair.

A month earlier, he’d been passed over for a promotion that he’d felt sure was his and, two days before the new director joined the firm, a mush of strange feelings were stewing in his head. Now they were starting to froth over.

It was the inability to make sense of his feelings that was causing him the most confusion. For the first time he could recall, he was experiencing failure and he didn’t possess the vocabulary to express his misery. His life story was a film of thirty-eight years’ length, entitled Born Lucky. Except the script had suddenly been changed without anyone asking him, director, producer and star, if this was acceptable.

When he’d been called in to the MD’s office, he had his smile ready, the one he believed communicated an unassuming modesty, the suggestion of surprise that little ol’ Andrew should have won the prize once more.

‘So I suppose you’ve got to give me the bad news?’ he said cheerfully to Ben Clarkson, quietly confident that he was about to receive good news.

‘I’m afraid so,’ Ben said.

Andrew stopped smiling. Those were the wrong words, he thought. There was an awkward silence while Ben waited for Andrew to feed him the next line. It was how they communicated, banter which was strictly controlled according to prearranged rules. Andrew was usually the straight man, as seemed appropriate to his junior position. Ben delivered the punchlines which they both laughed at. This demarcation of roles suited them both. It provided each with a baseline of security from which they could dabble in other friendships and relationships and to which they could retreat when the other relationships failed, which they generally did.

But now Andrew was lost. He was not skilled at improvisation or any kind of spontaneity. He only entered situations where the probable outcome was covered by one of the responses in his limited repertoire. It eliminated most of the obstacles from daily living. That was his aim, to avoid obstacles, so that he would never have to confront the choice of whether to refuse, go over or around them.

Andrew had found the person he wanted to be when he was a teenager and he had not veered from that person in the twenty years since. He was utterly consistent, predictable, reliable. All of his life choices were carefully made to suit his fear of change, his inability to deal with any threats to his obsessively protected status quo. One day, when he finally got round to the self-analysis that most of us go through when we’re sixteen, he’d discover that it was this commitment to risk-avoidance that had determined his easy path through life.

He would never have applied for this promotion if Ben hadn’t practically promised him that the job would be his.

Ben cleared his throat, realising that Andrew wasn’t going to play the game. He’d naively hoped that their friendship would make this easier but it was actually making it a lot harder.

‘The thing is, Andrew, the decision was out of my hands. The others decided we needed someone from outside, someone with different skills, new contacts who could help us to expand the business. And they’d heard about a woman who—’

Andrew jumped up. ‘A woman! You’re joking! Tell me you haven’t hired a woman, that I’m not going to be working for a woman?’ If he’d had a sword, he would probably have impaled himself upon it, such was the need to convey his full dramatic response to this, the worst possible news.

Ben shrank back slightly, not recognising this Andrew. He too depended on the continuity of their friendship, but for different reasons. Unlike Andrew, he had no other order in his life. He had no plans, no vertical progression to his career, no sense of self that he could refer to when making decisions and choices. He simply made himself up as he went along.

When he’d met Andrew on an assertiveness training course eight years earlier, they were thrown together by being the only men among twenty-eight women. They felt like visitors in a strange land as, all around them, women bonded, cried, talked about their feelings and their thighs, ate everything put in front of them and bombarded the two men with random selections of meaningful looks, ranging from hostile to flirtatious.

After a week, Ben and Andrew had told each other everything there was to know about themselves. Of course, everything from a male perspective was different to a woman’s idea of everything. They didn’t, for example, pull out pictures of godchildren, or lend each other hand cream or talk about life. But they exchanged CVs conversationally, competing gently over degrees of impoverished childhood, O and A level results, sporting achievements, professional attainments, value of flat, eccentricity of mothers, that sort of thing.

They had one critical experience in common, however, that was to establish terms of reference in the years to come. They had both been sent on this course by a woman and, seeing that the course was predominantly aimed at women, they each perceived the act as sadistic. With the sample size of two, they came to the statistically meaningless (but very satisfying) conclusion that giving a woman power was inevitably to unleash a plague of Old Testament proportions.

They eventually left their respective employment and, two years later, Ben was in the position to offer Andrew a job. It was always understood that, as Ben rose in the organisation, he would pull Andrew up behind him. Ben understood that Andrew would never put himself forward for promotion, his lack of ambition being the only weakness in Andrew’s otherwise formidable set of business skills.

‘I knew you’d be upset, Andrew, but it’s not as bad as it sounds.’

Andrew exhaled noisily in an attempt to steady his breathing. ‘Frankly, it couldn’t sound much worse.’

‘I was outvoted on this appointment. But I’m the one Kate Harris will have to answer to.’

‘I don’t see how that helps me,’ Andrew said dubiously. ‘She’ll still be senior to me. I’ll still have to answer to her.’

‘In the beginning, yes,’ Ben countered. ‘But we’re a completely different set-up to her last company. She will be judged on her team’s results, not just her own. I made it clear after her interview that I didn’t think she had