Chapter 14
There was no getting away from it: the job situation – or rather the non-job situation – was turning into a bit of a slippery slope. Having made a list and embarked on a blitz of applications on Monday, Mimi had discovered that the current market was even trickier than she’d imagined.
It was her own fault for wanting to continue in PR. There had been only three positions available within a twenty-five-mile radius, and the interview for the first had got off to a dodgy start when she’d reached Malmesbury and called into the café next door to the office on the high street.
‘Hang on, I’m confused,’ said the chatty middle-aged waitress when she’d ascertained the purpose of Mimi’s visit. ‘How can Alma still be interviewing people when she’s already given the job to her sister?’
‘You daft wazzock,’ the other waitress retorted. ‘No one’s supposed to know about that. Her husband told her she had to advertise to try and get someone better, so she’s just going through the motions to shut him up.’
‘Oh,’ said Mimi, downcast.
‘Me and my big mouth. Sorry, love. I shouldn’t have told you. Don’t mention it to Alma, will you? She’s a nightmare if you get on her wrong side.’
Mimi went for the interview anyway, in case it was all an elaborate double bluff to test her in some way. An hour after returning to Goosebrook, she received a text from Alma spelling her name wrong and breezily informing her she wasn’t right for the position.
Presumably because she wasn’t a blood relative.
The second job, upon closer inspection, turned out to be less of a prestigious PR position and rather more of a trudging-the-streets-going-door-to-door affair, trying to convince people to sign up to buying a range of eye-wateringly expensive anti-cellulite creams.
Interview number three, at an advertising agency in Oxford, seemed to be going really well until the Spanish girlfriend of the man interviewing her stalked into the office, took one look at Mimi and demanded to speak to him outside. When he returned three minutes later, he heaved a sigh and said, ‘Did you hear any of that?’
The flashing-eyed Spanish girlfriend hadn’t bothered to lower her voice. Mimi nodded. ‘Most of it.’
‘She’s the possessive type.’ He shrugged apologetically. ‘Jealousy issues, you know? If I’m going to hire a female, it has to be an ugly one. And let’s face it,’ he gestured at Mimi, ‘you’re the opposite of ugly. She’d make my life hell if I took you on.’
Through the closed door, his eavesdropping girlfriend bellowed, ‘That’s because you sleep with all the pretty ones, you cheating bastard!’
Yikes. Mimi reached for her handbag, keen to leave before the other girl came bursting back in with a loaded Beretta. ‘Well, good luck with—’
‘I know, I’m sorry, she’s an absolute nightmare.’ Rising to his feet on the other side of the desk, he shook her hand and lowered his voice to a supposedly seductive whisper. ‘But look, I’m always free on Tuesday afternoons if you ever fancy meeting up for a couple of hours. That’s when she gets her nails done.’
By done, he presumably meant filed to razor-sharp points, all the better to attack her rivals with. Poor woman, thought Mimi, no wonder she was pathologically jealous.
Anyway, that delightful encounter had happened yesterday. And now, to top it all off, she had drastically lowered her expectations and was still not being offered a job.
It was sheer frustration that had driven her to apply for a kitchen job in a café in Cheltenham, because any work was better than nothing.
‘Honestly, I’m a really hard worker,’ she protested. ‘I wouldn’t let you down. I’m great at washing up!’
But the skinny café owner was already shaking his head, his mind clearly made up. ‘You say that now, but look at you.’ He pointed with a nicotine-stained finger at her tailored white shirt and smart pencil skirt. ‘You ain’t the kitchen-helper type, not for more’n a few days, at any rate. Soon as you get yourself a better offer, you’ll be off on yer toes and I’ll be back to square one, havin’ to advertise all over again. See, what I’m really after is some old dear who’s desperate for a bit of cash in hand who’ll stay for the next year at least.’
He clearly didn’t have a lot of time for political correctness. It was also one of the grottiest cafés Mimi had ever encountered. Oh well, she didn’t want the stupid job anyway.
But she wanted some kind of job, and so far none had been offered. They were halfway through August and she was running out of options fast.
Now, arriving back in Goosebrook following today’s unsuccessful interview, Mimi drew up outside Bay Cottage and parked behind a gleaming black Mercedes. Idly wondering who it might belong to, she peered in through the tinted glass and saw a smartly dressed man sitting behind the wheel reading a book.
When she let herself into the cottage, she caught a waft of distinctive cologne – Aventus by Creed – and realised who had travelled down here to see her.
The question was: why?
‘Hi.’ Marcus appeared in the hallway and greeted her with his warning face on. ‘You have a visitor.’
‘Well that makes me sound like some posh old bat out of Downton Abbey,’ bellowed CJ Exley, materialising behind Marcus.
‘Hello, CJ.’ Mimi greeted him with a polite kiss on each cheek. ‘This is a surprise. What are you doing here?’
‘Well I’m not planning to declare my undying love, if that’s what you’re hoping.’ Up close, the cologne was stronger than ever. He was wearing a crimson polo shirt with a gigantic Ralph Lauren logo on the chest, his favourite Hugo Boss jeans and deck shoes by Chanel, because if it wasn’t designer, CJ wasn’t interested.
‘I’ll try to hide my disappointment,’ said Mimi, which caused him to beam with delight.
‘And that’s the reason I’m here. Because you aren’t afraid to take the mick out of me. Bloody sycophants, sick of the lot of them! Anyway, what happened with you and the agency? And are you quite sure you don’t have any vodka tucked away somewhere in this house?’
Evidently not for the first time, Marcus said patiently, ‘We don’t. I’m afraid we’re a vodka-free zone.’
‘Huh, you don’t know what you’re missing.’ CJ gazed down with disappointment at his half-drunk cappucino.
‘I left the agency,’ said Mimi.
‘Well I know that. Called them up, didn’t I, and tried to book you for a job. Your man Rob said you wouldn’t be able to do it and tried to fob me off with Mary Poppins instead.’
‘Brenda,’ murmured Mimi. ‘She’s very efficient.’
‘So I told him to fuck off. I said I didn’t want her, I wanted you. Which was when he had to tell me you’d moved on, but he wouldn’t say where.’
‘Go on,’ Mimi prompted.
‘So I called back an hour later, told the squeaky woman on reception that I’d found your driver’s licence in my suitcase after our last trip and said I needed to get it back to you. That was when she told me you’d broken up with lover boy and hightailed it out of London. She didn’t have an address, but said she’d overheard someone saying you’d gone back to the village your dad moved to before he died.’
‘Right.’ Mimi nodded; during a previous author tour he’d asked about her family and she’d told him about the accident.
CJ shrugged; uncovering information was his stock-in-trade. ‘So I did some googling, found out the name of the village . . . and here I am.’
‘I can see that. But what I’m wondering is why.’ He was after something, clearly. And he definitely didn’t have her driving licence.
‘I need a PA.’
Inside, Mimi’s heart did a small leap, half optimism, half wariness. Because on the one hand CJ would be a living nightmare to work for, but then again . . . it was a job.
‘What’s happened to Willa?’ She’d never met CJ’s long-suffering personal assistant, but had liaised with her on the phone on many occasions while they’d been putting together itineraries for publicity tours.
‘Willa’s let me down.’ CJ shook his head in disgust. ‘She left yesterday.’
‘Am I allowed to ask why? Or has she just had enough of working for the world’s trickiest employer?’
‘I’m not tricky.’
‘OK then, let’s call it temperamental.’
‘She’s gone off on extended sick leave, if you must know.’
Mimi was appalled. ‘Oh no, poor Willa! What’s wrong with her?’
‘She hasn’t had a nervous breakdown, before you start thinking that. She’s suffering from hyperemesis.’ He grimaced. ‘Like a fountain. It’s not pretty, I can tell you. It makes me feel sick just knowing it could be about to happen again at any second and she’ll have to rush off to the bathroom—’
‘Hang on,’ Mimi interrupted. ‘Why’s she being sick all the time?’
He sighed. ‘Reckons she’s pregnant.’
‘You mean she is pregnant.’
‘I suppose. Bloody inconvenient.’ CJ tutted at the temerity of his employee. ‘I thought she’d be working all the way up until it popped out, but no, the puking’s put the kibosh on that. She’s buggered off back to her mum’s place in Sheffield, leaving me up the creek without a paddle. And that’s why I’m here.’ He fixed her with an irritated gaze. ‘I need someone to organise me and I can’t be doing with interviewing strangers. I need someone who isn’t going to get on my nerves or burst into tears if things aren’t going their way. I thought of you and planned on hiring you through lover boy’s agency, but—’
‘Could you please stop calling him lover boy?’ said Mimi.
‘How about dickhead?’
She shrugged and nodded. ‘That’ll do nicely.’
‘But then I found you’d left, which was even better.’ CJ spread his hands. ‘You aren’t working, so you’re free to come with me.’
‘Who says I’m not working?’
‘I called into the pub before coming over here. Woman who runs it told me you hadn’t had any luck yet with finding a job. How’d it go this morning at the café?’
‘None of your business,’ said Mimi.
‘Didn’t get it, then.’ He looked smug. ‘Come on, stop trying to play hard to get. I’m making you an offer you can’t refuse. Who in their right mind would say no?’
‘You told me yourself that before Willa came along you’d had seven PAs walk out on you.’
‘Did I tell you that?’ CJ looked surprised. ‘Must’ve had a drink or two.’
‘That’s an understatement,’ said Mimi.
‘It frees up my mind, makes the words flow when I’m on a deadline. I write better after a couple of sharpeners.’
‘And yell at people better too. If I came to work for you, I wouldn’t put up with any yelling.’ She lifted an eyebrow. ‘Just so you know.’
‘Is that a yes?’
Of course it was a yes. Aloud, Mimi said, ‘It’s a cautious maybe. How much would you pay me?’
CJ took out one of his business cards and scrawled a figure on it with the flashy fountain pen he always used at book signings. ‘More than you’d earn working in that cockroach-infested café.’
This was his way of letting her know he’d weaselled the name of the café out of Maria, then checked out the less-than-flattering reviews on TripAdvisor.
‘Where would we be based?’
‘Puerto Pollensa, northern Majorca. Officially you’d be covering Willa’s maternity leave, but who knows if we’ll see her again? So I’d need you up until next March at least. If she decides not to come back, you could be permanent.’
‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. How soon would you want me to start?’
‘Well I’m off to LA tomorrow for a fortnight. I’ll be back on the thirty-first of August. We can fly out to Majorca together the day after that.’
Mimi glanced over at Marcus, who was leaning against the Aga observing the exchange with interest. ‘What d’you reckon?’
‘Me? I think if you turn it down he’s not going to have time to find a replacement. Which I’d say puts you in a pretty strong bargaining position,’ Marcus replied in his deceptively mild way.
‘That’s a very good point,’ said Mimi.
‘Oh for crying out loud. Fine.’ Uncapping his flashy fountain pen again, CJ crossed out the first offer and scrawled a higher figure across the card. ‘Bandits, the lot of you.’
‘That’ll do nicely.’ Mimi reached out and shook his hand. ‘You’re on.’
‘At last.’ He broke into a grin. ‘Made me sweat a bit there.’
‘Eww.’ She let go of his hand, then smiled. ‘If Marcus hadn’t said that, I’d have done it for the lower price.’
‘Yeah? Well I’m just glad you went with the second one. I’d have paid more.’
‘Damn, I knew it,’ said Marcus.
‘Too late, the deal is done. Come on then.’ CJ was already heading for the door. ‘Now can we go over to the pub and get a drink?’