you been at the company?’ Karen was asking.
‘I’ve been there a year,’ the girl said. ‘It’s a marvellous place! Miss Sassoon is amazing, last year she gave us all a five-pound Marks voucher for Christmas. When I phoned Mum to tell her, she was like, that’s what the Queen gives everyone at Buckingham Palace! Amazing.’
What the hell is your name? Elle smiled. ‘It seems like a nice place to work,’ she said.
‘Oh, yeah,’ said the girl. ‘It’s great. Dave says I go on about it all the time, don’t you, Dave!’ She nudged Dave, who said nothing and went back to staring into his pint. ‘So where do you live, Eleanor?’
‘Just round the corner, for now,’ said Elle. ‘But it’s only temporary, I need to find a place.’
‘Seriously? That’s so weird.’ The girl sucked on her straw. ‘My flatmate’s just moved to South Africa, it was all really sudden. Really sudden – like she went last week, only told me the week before that.’ She stuck her tongue out. ‘Dave said she was sick of me, but it wasn’t like that! Anyway, you should come and see it. The flat, I mean.’
‘Wow, that’s – where is it?’ said Elle. She didn’t want to commit, but then she caught Alex’s eye, and he gave her a cold look.
‘It’s at the top of Ladbroke Grove, above a cab company, right by the Sainsbury’s. You know that big sign appealing for witnesses for that assault? Right there. It’s actually really safe round there, that’s not a problem, honestly.’ She smiled her toothy smile. ‘Anyway, I’m looking for someone, and the rent’s like eighty quid a week each which is amazing, so—’
A shadow fell over the table. ‘All right, mate?’ Alex said, leaping up.
‘Hi, mate. Hi, everyone. Hi, Elle.’
‘Hi, Fred,’ Elle said, her heart thumping in her chest. ‘How’re you?’ she said nonchalantly, flicking her hair and sounding uninterested – this was something she’d picked up from observing Cara, who had men flocking round her like bees round honey.
Fred nodded. ‘Good, good. It’s nice to see you, Elle, how’s the first day been?’
‘Good,’ she said, pleased. The girl from work was grinning expectantly up at her. ‘Yeah, this is one of my new work colleagues,’ she said. ‘Um –’
Fred waited, as Karen stared at her.
‘I’m sorry,’ Elle blurted out eventually. ‘I can’t remember your name. I’m really sorry. I – I met loads of people today.’
‘That’s OK. It’s Sam!’ Sam stood up. ‘Hiya! This is my boyfriend Dave. I’m Sam! What’s your name?’
Fred smiled at Elle. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘What’s my name?’
‘Er –’ Elle couldn’t believe it, but she had to think for a moment. ‘God. It’s Fred. I’m going mad.’
Fred sat down, next to Alex, who slapped him on the back, while Cara smoothed her short Afro back from her forehead, and took another sip from her drink. Karen smiled at Fred ingratiatingly, while Elle, thoroughly flustered now, stared at the ground, thinking she’d better go to bed early, and then remembering with a sinking heart that the bed that awaited her was orange and green seventies acrylic, and had fag butts stuck down its back. She was so tired all of a sudden, all she wanted to do was sleep, get into work and attack this job properly. Tomorrow is another day, as Scarlett O’Hara would say.
‘So –’ Sam leaned forward, speaking loudly into her ear. ‘Do you want to come and see the flat? I mean, I don’t want to pressure you or anything, but it’s pretty nice and cheap, and I’m going to be spending lots of time with Dave, obviously, so I won’t be around much, and it’s Ladbroke Grove, and you could move in right away, and we could go to work together and be like amigos, you know, look out for each other.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I think it’s actually amazing, in fact, don’t you? The universe is telling us it’s supposed to happen, otherwise why would me and Dave come in here the same night you’re in here?’
There were several things Elle could have said to this speech, and if she’d been older and more jaded she might have done, but she was sick of sleeping on a manky sofa, and she wanted to put her books out and her CD player up.
‘I’d love to come and see it,’ she said, turning to Sam. ‘When’s good for you? Tomorrow?’
‘Yeah!’ said Sam, clapping her hands together. ‘Amazing!’ She clinked her glass against Elle’s. ‘You’ll love it. What a day! Just think, this morning we hadn’t even met!’
This morning seemed to be a thousand years ago. All the things that had happened. It felt as if, finally, she was on her way somewhere. Elle pulled discreetly at the armpits of her raspberry sweater. Amidst the maelstrom of new faces and facts she’d learned something concrete today, at least. Don’t wear tight-fitting, pale-coloured, wool-mix knits when you’re nervous.
ON THE FIRST day of the month Elle woke early, with a pounding headache. Her throat was dry, her eyes puffy and sore from the crying she’d done the previous day. The room was too stuffy. She opened the window and lay on her back, looking up at the ceiling, blinking. Cool air blew in from the street, though Ladbroke Grove was quiet, and Elle knew suddenly that, even though it was only the first day of September, autumn was here. She sat up in bed, rubbing her tender eyes, as the memory of the previous thirty-six hours slowly returned.
She wished she didn’t have to go to work. Could she just call in sick? She’d drunk an awful lot over the weekend, which was partly why she felt so dreadful, but it was the crying too; she’d cried all day. She had forgotten how crying always made her feel rubbish the next day, as if she’d been beaten up and left for dead.
Elle and Libby had been at Kenwood House on Saturday night, listening to the open-air concert (on the other side of the boundary, so they didn’t have to pay). They’d taken a blanket, some crisps and wine, and though they didn’t have a corkscrew and Elle had had to jab the cork into the bottle with her hair clip, it had been loads of fun. It always was fun with Libby, whether they were eating pasta at La Rosa, the tiny Italian place in Soho that only bouncers and strippers frequented, or arguing drunkenly over books (Elle, at Posy’s recommendation, had just read the Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard, and thought they were the best books she’d ever read; Libby refused to touch them on account of their pastelly covers), or films (Elle wept through The English Patient, Libby snorted with laughter every time burnt-out Ralph Fiennes appeared on screen), or boys in the office (to Elle’s fury, Libby tormented her about her alleged crush on Rory, and Elle couldn’t come up with anyone in return for as Libby said, ‘Publishing boys are total losers, Elle, get a grip’).
They’d ended up at the Dome in Hampstead, and drunk even more. It had been a brilliant evening. When Elle had fantasised about the life in London she’d wanted it had been something like this, sitting in cafes discussing life and books long into the night, feeling the city under her feet, the still-terrifying but exhilarating sense of possibility out there. Daily life at Bluebird was alternately monotonous and scary: after four months she was starting to see just how far away was her dream of being a glamorous editor. You didn’t get to be a glamorous editor by sending faxes to important literary agents called Shirley that began, ‘Dear Shitley’. Glamorous editors didn’t leave prawn sandwiches in filing cabinets, stinking out the office for a week with a smell so awful Elspeth became convinced they were being haunted by the ghost of a disgruntled author. They didn’t photocopy four hundred pages of manuscript upside down, resulting in an entirely blank pile of paper, and they certainly didn’t pass out in a corner of the pub after too many house whites, to the amusement of their colleagues. Yes. Elle knew she had a lot to learn.
The two of them had stayed out so late that they were shivering in the