‘Well this is a fucking dog’s dinner, isn’t it?’ snarled the Managing Director as I walked on shaky legs into his office. Megan and Josh were huddled like generals in a war cabinet around his desk.
I had nothing to say. What could I say? Inside I was fuming. It was eleven-thirty and they’d kept me waiting for three hours, after issuing a summons as soon as I walked in the building that morning. I didn’t think I was going to get the sack and I did anticipate a lengthy post-mortem, but not this level of anger.
Some instinct or maybe it was pure self-preservation made me press record on the camera on my phone and pop it into the top pocket of my blouse. It looked to everyone else in the room as if I were switching it off and putting it away.
‘You clearly took your eyes off the ball on this one.’ He sneered at me over the top of his coffee cup. ‘You had a whole fucking week … and this is what you achieved. Bloody marvellous.’
I stiffened and clenched my fists. I hadn’t even been offered a seat. Megan and Josh looked uncomfortable, him toying with the keys on the laptop in front of him and Megan twisting one of her rings.
‘Have you spoken to the little scumbag?’
‘No,’ I said thinking of the unanswered texts from Ben.
‘I assumed as much and in the interests of damage control, we thought we’d cut out the middle man. Since you’re incapable of handling him, I’ve had Josh draft an email to the editor asking for an explanation. Not that it’s going to make a blind bit of sodding difference. The damage is done. Johnson must be pissing himself laughing. A week’s hospitality with a bimbo of a PR girl on call, and then screw you. Surely you had a heads up on this.’
I shook my head, my lips clamped tightly together. Christ knows what he’d say if he knew I’d slept with Ben.
‘Well you fucking well should have.’ Megan and Josh flanked him, looking accusingly at me. He looked at them. ‘Looks like we made the right decision. You need a lot more experience before we put you in charge of anything like this again. I can’t believe you’ve been so incompetent, but we’ll explain to Lars that you’re quite junior, and that in future we’ll have more senior personnel running the account. Luckily for us we’ve been distancing you from the account since you got back.’ He and Josh exchanged a look. ‘You’ve become too close to the client. Thinking of him rather than the company. I’ve not seen one decent idea from you about how we maximise more fees or income from this client.’ He shot one final furious glare at me before turning to Josh and pointing to the screen on the open laptop. ‘In fact, as of today you’re back to being a Senior Account Manager.’
‘Pardon? You can’t do that.’
‘I think I can. I’m your boss. I can do what the hell I like. Right, where were we?’
Josh, the weasel, gave me a sad insincere smile before saying, ‘How about if I add in here …’ He started typing.
Suddenly as if my fury had raced up a hill, reached the top and plateaued I felt utterly calm, an almost out of body experience. I swung around remembering Fiona’s Dalek impression. There was no laughter now. Conscious of the camera recording in my pocket, I deliberately asked the question.
‘Did you just call me a bimbo?’
The MD paused and looked as if I’d hit him. Megan’s mouth dropped open and Josh’s fingers stopped dead hovering over the keyboard.
‘A bimbo?’ I pressed again on the issue.
‘Yes, I bloody did.’ A fat pulse beat in his neck and he shook Megan’s warning hand from his wrist.
‘Just checking,’ I said, things popping into place in my head one by one.
My growing inner calm was quite surreal and in direct proportion to the rising tension among them. Inside me everything settled like dust motes dancing to rest.
He raised an imperious hand. ‘You should have known this was coming. Did you speak to him this week?’
‘Yes, but-’
‘The fact that you had no idea is doubly incompetent.’
‘And still a bimbo?’ I asked again.
The MD rolled his eyes as if to say so what.
I maintained eye contact with him waiting for him to speak.
‘OK, so I called you a bimbo. What of it. You screwed up. You are a bimbo. But you did good with the breakfast thing. So keep going like that and maybe you’ll get promoted back to where you were before.’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said in a quiet calm voice, which belied my quivering legs. ‘Actually, not I think, I know it’s a no. I’d rather get a job cleaning the portaloos at Glastonbury. I quit.’
Sitting in the coffee bar, I felt quite proud of myself. Dignified if foolhardy. Before I vacated my desk, I’d pulled my phone out of my pocket and uploaded the video footage and emailed it to the head of HR. Bullying. Constructive dismissal. Sexism. I had no idea how many employment laws had been broken but she would be horrified and although I had no intention of letting the video go anywhere else, the company would worry it might go viral.
After that I grabbed my bag from my desk, a couple of files from the top of my in-tray and walked out of the building without saying a word to anyone. Shocked adrenaline carried me here but now nursing a large Cappuccino, I felt the pinch of a headache. What was I going to do now? Since coming back from Copenhagen, the thought of perhaps leaving and going to join a smaller agency had crossed my mind several times, but did I want to play this game anymore? I could go in-house. Work for someone directly instead of for an agency. I straightened and pulled out my notebook, starting to make a list of possible options.
After I’d filled a page of notes, I paused. Closing my eyes, I listened to the hiss of the espresso machine and immediately thought of cinnamon snails, blue earthenware plates, glass domed cake stands, coloured glass displays on the walls and Eva’s perky ponytail bobbing as she whisked around tables. When I opened my eyes, I felt a terrible sense of dislocation. Chipped Formica tables. Dralon upholstery in shades of green and plum, the same in every branch. The glass display cabinet with expensive packaged cakes and biscuits. The serving unit of milk in stainless steel jugs and wooden sticks. Not even real spoons. The lighting was all wrong. Too bright. Too false. Too cold. It all looked so ugly and commonplace. Not one of the waiting staff caught my eye.
I longed for the warmth and colour of Varme with bittersweet heartache. I wanted to smell baking, talk to people and feel I mattered. I might as well be invisible in this place. Once you’d paid for your coffee, you were done.
I studied the mass produced black and white photos of European cities from the thirties. Despite the nod to heritage, there was nothing authentic or particularly inviting about this place. Convenience. Coffee on the go. As far away from hygge as humanly possible.
If this were mine, what would I do? What would Eva do? I looked down at my notes and straightened. At least I had the beginning of a plan.
The front of the department store was still covered in scaffolding and the sounds of hammers, drills and a radio came through the polythene sheets shielding the front doors. I pushed through them and stopped dead. Inside certainly didn’t look like a construction site. The interior was coming along well and already looked stunning.
‘Katie!’ I looked up and hanging over the balcony to my right waving madly was Eva in a bright yellow hard hat. The first genuine smile in days lit my face at the sight of her as she came rushing down the stationary escalator.
‘Hello.’ We hugged each other. ‘You came.’
She beamed at me. ‘Of course, I came. Lars says you have a meeting, but after that we can go to lunch and you can talk to me. I’m very intrigued. And you can bring me up to date with all the latest news. How’s Ben?’
I’d been really strong. Mad, furious, and determined to erase him from my mind. It was easy on the phone, social media, a quick swipe, delete, block and done. For the last two days, since I’d walked out the offices at the Machin Agency, I’d been busy, plotting and planning. Refusing to think about Ben.
The HR department couldn’t respond quickly enough when they saw my video. I had a settlement letter agreeing to a more than satisfactory pay-off. That gave me a lot of breathing space.
Eva’s gentle question brought Ben back to the forefront of my mind and immediately my eyes filled with tears.
‘Not who I thought he was,’ I said, swallowing hard. ‘And I’d rather not talk about him … at the moment. I have a meeting with Lars.’
Eva nodded immediately understanding that I needed to ground myself.
‘And here he is,’ she nodded over my shoulder.
Now that I was sitting here in front of Lars, my palms had suddenly become very sweaty and I had the urge to keep wiping them down the skirt of my dress, but I needed to look in control. I was banking on coming across as gutsy and direct.
‘I’m guessing you’ve seen the coverage in Sunday’s paper.’
Lars nodded but didn’t look terribly perturbed.
‘I’m sorry about that.’
He held up a hand. ‘Wait. You are not responsible for what Mr Johnson chose to write.’
‘Well …’
‘Are you? I wasn’t worried by the article. You have managed to secure far more coverage than I would have expected and the key thing about the trip was that you came to understand the concept of hygge.’ He smiled gently. ‘And now you are here, we can start planning the opening without any talk of balloons, bombs or any other such nonsense.’
I gave a quick frown. ‘You do know I don’t work for the Machin Agency anymore.’
His mouth tightened. ‘I found out last night, but as you’d arranged a meeting today, I assumed you’d explain.’
‘I … resigned. They felt I could have done more to influence B- Mr Johnson’s article. They weren’t very happy about its tone.’
‘Their loss and my gain.’
He opened a desk drawer and pulled out an envelope, sliding it across the table towards me, his blue eyes dancing. ‘I have a proposition for you. I’d like to offer you a job here. As Press Officer for Hjem. Working here for me. I think you would do a great job.’
A few days ago, I would have snatched that envelope up, but now … I took a deep breath. ‘Thank you, Lars. That’s a very kind offer.’
‘You haven’t even looked at it.’ He tapped the envelope with his hand.
‘I don’t need to. I want to do something else.’
Confusion creased his face and for a moment I wondered if I was completely mad but since I’d first thought of it, the compulsion wouldn’t go away. With the promise of a year’s salary I could afford to take some time for me. My conversation with Dad had replayed in my head. It was time to make a choice and do something that made me happy, instead of chasing promotions and hoping that ambition would one day pay off with the elusive golden ticket of happiness.
‘Did your florist ever find the flowers she wanted?’
‘No.’
‘So is that space still available?’
‘It is.’
I smiled at him. ‘Then, if your mother is willing, I’d like to make you a proposition.’