Authors: Airlie Lawson
Don't Tell Eve
Airlie Lawson has worked in publishing in Australia and internationally, in a variety of roles.
Don’t Tell Eve
is her first novel.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian
Copyright Act 1968
), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Don’t Tell Eve
eISBN 9781742745459
A Vintage book
Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd
Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060
www.randomhouse.com.au
First published by Vintage in 2009
Copyright © Airlie Lawson 2009
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, companies, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian
Copyright Act 1968
), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia.
Addresses for companies within the Random House Group can be found at
www.randomhouse.com.au/offices
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication Entry
Lawson, Airlie.
Don’t tell Eve/Airlie Lawson.
978 1 74166 874 2 (pbk.)
A823.4
‘Art is a lie that tells the truth’
Pablo Picasso
The boardroom, Infotainment Ltd, Midtown
Oh Christ, was his first thought. Talk about being caught with your pants down. His second was to pull them up, but unfortunately the flash had gone off before he managed to complete this – in the circumstances – awkward procedure.
‘I have a proposition for you,’ she said carefully, watching them both from the doorway. ‘Or call it a challenge, if you prefer.’
Jess was struggling through yet another interminable meeting in the overheated boardroom, trying to make the most of her time by surreptitiously sketching her new boss’s shoes. She’d dropped her pen twice already to get a proper look at them. This particular pair was sky-blue suede with platform cork heels, round toes and ankle straps. They were shoes not designed for the thick of calf.
As she leaned down, just one more time, Jess had the urge to reach out and … No, she shook her head to dislodge that disturbing thought before it took hold. Stroking her boss’s shoes, in public, was not only potentially a bad career move, it was also sure to arouse a certain amount of suspicion.
Eve had materialised several months earlier, and while some said she seemed too much like a plump, middle-aged Barbie doll to be able to run a prestigious, venerable company like Papyrus Press, Jess wasn’t one of them. She’d always been fond of Barbie – she’d even once made a coffee table using a clan of the oddly shaped creatures for legs – so she certainly wasn’t going to judge Eve by her appearance. Her actions, however, were a different matter.
Which is not to say that Eve’s appearance wasn’t intriguing. It wasn’t so much the bouffant, gravity-defying hair, or the disproportionately large, distracting bust: it was the way she dressed.
When Eve had arrived at what she and many others saw as a global backwater, her already bold outward persona had evolved and the Eve who presided over the boardroom table was a woman who was afraid of neither shoulder pads nor batwings. Sequins didn’t scare her at all. And, sartorially speaking, where she went, she expected others to follow. While she didn’t expect – or want – her new employees to emulate her distinctive style, she did expect them to make an effort. In her first staff meeting she had quickly assessed the employees she’d inherited, rolled her kohl-rimmed, lilac-shadowed eyes and immediately banned the wearing of careworn, threadbare, comforting cardigans of integrity, Hush Puppies and bargains from the local op shop. She had ignored the subsequent collective intake of breath from the editorial department. It wasn’t just that Eve didn’t want to be forced to look at drabness, there was more to it than that. She had a plan and part of that plan involved giving the company a makeover – on every front. Her time there was going to be memorable, of that she would make sure. It had to be, because getting home, away from what she saw as a humid, hot, insignificant outpost of cultural and financial empire, depended upon it.
She’d come to this decision on the disastrous day she’d been told of her exile; of her chance to – as the old yet virile man lying next to her had put it – ‘prove yourself a businesswoman’. After her initial fury, Eve had relaxed. It was true, things had got a little complicated after their liaison had been discovered by his obviously unstable wife, and neither of them wanted it to appear as though Eve’s rapid rise through the company’s various media divisions had been connected to their ‘special’ relationship, so she’d convinced herself she’d
be back home in a corner office in Midtown in no time. After all, as she’d said to her husband while they sat sipping champagne in Business Class high above the Pacific Ocean on the way to her new position, how hard could it be to reverse the fortunes of a small antipodean publishing company?
Within days of her arrival, Eve had signed a lease to take over the long-time vacant top floor of the building in which Papyrus was housed, and had hired an interior decorator. Pre-Eve, the boardroom had been a dark panelled space, more like a traditional gentleman’s club than a corporate office. On the walls had been shelves featuring the award-winning, best-selling – or not – books published by the company. On the floor had been a discreet carpet, so discreet that when it had gone no one could recall what it had actually looked like. And, in the centre of the space, there had lived a practical, slightly scratched and mug-marked oval table, the irregular colour of heat-damaged chocolate. It had been surrounded by matching straight-backed, hardwood, mean-bottomed chairs.
The new boardroom had rather a different feel. The walls were matt aubergine and hung with huge movie posters. The floor was covered in white rubber, and blood-red fluffy sheepskin rugs lay dotted about. The table, now oblong, was white and supported by a tree trunk, also white. No actual books were on display anymore.
It was a room that was only spoiled, the new management believed, by the views from the vast windows – views that changed every few minutes, as this particular floor revolved, a legacy of its days as an unsuccessful theme restaurant. During most meetings, a newly installed set of pistachio-coloured blinds were pulled down.
Hiding the view was Hilary’s job.
Hilary did have other responsibilities, although no one but Eve knew the full extent of them. Hilary had arrived at Papyrus just after Eve and, because she seemed to be in
charge of departures, it was believed she had something to do with human resources. However, she also attended every key sales, editorial and marketing meeting, so it seemed her influence wasn’t limited to this area. Head of Special Projects, her official title, told people nothing: what was clear was that wherever Eve went, Hilary followed. But if Eve was a peacock, Hilary was a peahen. Her uniform consisted of storm-grey, dangerously tailored pants suits, stiff dark leather boots and hair wrenched back into a bun so tight that it rendered the use of Botox redundant.
During this particular meeting, as at all others, Hilary balanced primly on the edge of a small purple velvet armchair, while next to her Eve lounged on an orange velvet throne, nibbling periodically on a never-ending supply of chocolate macadamia nuts. Flanking these two was an assortment of people – ‘the team’. ‘The team’ were united only in their mutual discomfort: all were perched on stools designed to look like mushrooms and feel like concrete.
Roger sat closest to the door. As always, he wore a tense expression and an inadvertently snug grey suit with a slight sheen. His focus was on the non-existent cleavage of the girl to his left, Daisy. Young Daisy wore a tight red tank top featuring a photograph of a pug, and the words ‘you gotta love me’. She was simultaneously chewing gum, fiddling with her hair elastic and doodling on her notepad. The pad revealed that she dotted her i’s not with small circles but with hearts.
Opposite these two were David, Ilona and Kate. David had written ‘buy eggplant, garlic and tomatoes’ at the top of his agenda. Ilona, a deceptively soft-featured woman of a similarly indeterminate age to Eve, had written ‘cami? merry widow? dusty pink, watermelon or lilac? must leave by noon’; she had an afternoon fitting at the town’s most exclusive lingerie boutique. And then there was Kate, whose unnaturally rosy complexion was evidence that she was listening to what her
volatile new boss was saying. Kate had a predilection for guilt, and Eve the knack of inducing it. Several others around the table had arranged their expressions to indicate they were paying attention, and others were attempting not to slouch on their stools.
Jess, who was busy redefining the term slouch, was hoping that she could have just a few more moments under the table.
‘Jeh-ess?’ Eve drawled from high above, in her distinctive Southern accent.
‘Shit,’ Jess responded as she emerged, having hit her head on the way up.
‘Have you discovered somethin’ down there that you’d like to share with the rest of us?’ said Eve.
‘Sorry, dropped my pen.’
‘Three times in the last ten minutes? What’s wrong with you?’ Hilary had perfected a kind of low-pitched nasal snarl that she’d found she could use on most occasions. ‘Jessica?’
Jess took a couple of deep breaths. Hilary didn’t frighten her, just riled her, especially when she called her Jessica. It wasn’t Jess’s name: ‘Jess’ appeared on her birth certificate.
‘That’s right, take your time, Jessica. No one here has anything more important to do than witness your amusing antics.’
‘Sorry, it’s one of those days. Don’t you ever have them?’ As Jess asked the question it occurred to her that Hilary probably didn’t allow herself to have those days.
A sniff suggested she was right.
While this exchange was going on, Eve, in a manner that indicated her intentions were not benign, had been carefully straightening the pile of books in front of her. After Hilary’s sniff, she picked up the one on top and waved it in the air. ‘So, who wants to tell me about this?’
Silence. The team was listening, but not stupid.
‘Oh, be brave.’
Bravery, as each member of the team knew, was for masochists. They glanced surreptitiously at each other.
‘Well,’ began Roger, breaking ranks, ‘It’s number one on the fiction bestseller list, has been for weeks and —’
‘Yeah, yeah, we know that,’ said Eve impatiently.
Roger was about to continue when Eve clarified herself.
‘What I want to know is why we didn’t publish it.’
They all knew the direction in which this was heading and that there was no way to stop it. The best that could be done was to remain perfectly still and hopefully ride it out.
What felt like hours passed and then David started to scratch at the neck of his new black poloneck jumper.
Eve saw movement and pounced. ‘David, perhaps you can enlighten me?’
David’s forehead was quickly covered in beads of sweat. ‘Um … well … um … oh God.’ He paused for a tiny instant before choosing, in a gesture of wild inappropriateness, to tell the truth. ‘We saw it, okay? I wanted it, but no one else did. Well, I don’t mean no one else exactly, but the thing was that the sales people said, well, they said quite a lot of things, but essentially they didn’t think the market was quite ready for it – and wasn’t going to be – not for a long time.’
‘Why was that?’
Melting under Eve’s glacial gaze, David chose this moment to dab at his forehead with a tissue. It was a clean tissue but not, apparently, a fresh tissue. Instead, it was one that must have been sitting for weeks in his pocket, disintegrating a little more each day. Everyone around the table watched with morbid fascination as the tissue’s tiny particles clung to David’s face.
Unsure of how to interpret Jess’s throat-cutting gestures, David ignored the health risks and answered Eve’s question. ‘The subject matter, I guess. I mean, it’s a novella, set in a
dystopian near future and narrated by a blind, genetically modified donkey and there was nothing else on the bestseller list like it, though of course there have certainly been a number of authors who have, books which have, from Huxley to Self to —’
Eve cut in. ‘Don’t bore me with a lecture in lit’ry history. The point is: what did you think of the writin’?’
‘Oh, the writing, right, the writing, yes, of course, wonderful – moving, imaginative, inventive —’
‘Okay, we get the picture. What about the author?’
If it hadn’t been on a par with shoe-fondling in terms of career moves, Jess would have covered her ears at this point.
‘The author? What do you mean?’ said David.
‘“Who” is the word you’re lookin’ for. You know, the person who wrote that “movin’, imaginative” work.’
‘I don’t quite understand what you’re getting at …’
Jess silently willed David to admit that he’d fucked up. After all, he knew it, Eve knew it, they all knew it.
‘Did you consider mentionin’ to either the sales or marketin’ people, or, hey, both, the actual name of the author?’
‘Of course not.’ David was genuinely shocked. ‘It was written under a pseudonym. It wasn’t meant to go public, not ever, not the way it did, not … Oh my God …’
And there it was.
Eve finished his sentence calmly. ‘Not at the time of publication, causing a media frenzy – no, of course it wasn’t. It was always going to be a little secret, because when a country’s,’ her voice rose marginally, ‘FUCKIN’ president —’
Hilary whispered to Eve.
‘Prime minister, whatever, writes an AWARD-winning novel, sure, that’s always going to be easy to keep quiet about, no problem.’
During the interrogation Roger, who always had something better to do, had been tapping away at his BlackBerry,
flirting online with someone he assumed was both young and female. At the word FUCKIN’ he stopped and added his own thoughts. ‘David, you cocksucker.’ His tone indicated this wasn’t meant as a compliment. ‘Don’t even try to put the blame on us – we’d NEVER have turned down the FUCKING prime minister’s novel if we’d known it was the FUCKING prime minister’s FUCKING novel. Sure, it was unreadable and pretentious, but hell, we’re talking about the prime minister here. And one who’s actually in office, NOW, not one of those sixteen old tax leeches.’ Roger took what would have been a thoughtful pause, if he had been a thoughtful man. ‘Did he come into the office?’
Jess tried to hide her smile. Roger was in a sulk because he had wanted to meet the prime minister. The impenetrable novel was a side issue.
‘Of course he didn’t come into the office, we met in a hotel suite, with his agent – and I signed a confidentiality agreement. His agent said that he wanted to keep his careers separate; that he didn’t want people judging his book by his politics, and it’s completely understandable, as that’s exactly what’s happened, hasn’t it? Have you read some of the reviews?’
‘You’re missing the point, David. Why do you think the agent told you it was the prime minister’s book in the first place? And introduced you?’ It gave Hilary great joy to direct her pointy black boot at a prostrate body.
‘I … I … don’t … Because he trusts me?’
‘So, nothing to do with making sure the book was taken seriously, that the advance paid for it was huge and that we could structure an enormous promotional campaign around it “accidentally” being revealed that he was the author?’ said Eve.
Even after months witnessing Eve’s inquisitions, Jess still found them disturbing. It wasn’t the pyrotechnics, those she could handle, it was knowing how much Eve enjoyed herself. The thing about Eve was that she didn’t look like a witch. If
anything what she most resembled was an amateur ballroom dancer: big hair, big lips, big hips. She was fantastically flamboyant, carefully constructed and yet, somehow, always just a little bit wrong.