The Forgotten Girl (27 page)

Suze stared at the bits in despair.

‘So that's it,' she said. ‘It's all gone? All our work?'

She started breathing heavily.

‘That's it,' she said, panicking. ‘It's gone. Our future. It's gone.'

She got up and started pacing across the floor.

‘Without this, there's nothing to aim for,' she said frantically. ‘We were stupid to try and escape, Nancy, so stupid.'

‘Calm down,' I said, scared by her haunted look. ‘Suze, calm down.'

Suze grabbed her bag and pulled out a brown bottle of pills.

‘What's that?' I said. ‘What are those pills?'

Suze poured a couple into her palm and swallowed them, washing them down with a swig of gin.

‘It's just my Valium,' she said, staring at me defiantly.

I took the bottle. The name on the label read Edna Evans.

‘Oh Suze, this isn't the way to cope. Where did you get it?'

Suze snatched it back.

‘I told you, I know people. It helps me, Nancy. It keeps me calm.'

I rolled my eyes.

‘Fine. But don't take any more,' I said. ‘I need you to stay awake.'

‘Why?'

‘It's not over,' I said. ‘The interview's not until tomorrow afternoon, right?'

Suze nodded, staring glumly into the bottom of her almost-empty mug.

‘So we've got hours to make this work.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I mean,' I said. ‘We've got notes, yes? And loads of ideas?'

Suze nodded again.

‘We don't need the magazine to show the people at Mode what we're capable of. We just need ourselves.'

‘Re-do it, you mean?'

I shook my head.

‘We don't have time to re-do it. But we can write a brilliant presentation. Wow them with how excited we are, how talented, how innovative…'

Suze looked at me, a glimmer of a smile on her face.

‘We've got copies of our articles,' she said.

‘Exactly.'

‘All right,' she said, chinking her mug against mine. ‘Let's do it.'

Chapter 43

2016

Suze was eager as anything to help me with the relaunch of Mode. I was absolutely thrilled – and more than a little relieved – to have her on board. As soon as she got my email begging for her help, she rang me and we chatted for ages about ideas and cover lines and how to promote the new issue. She was so full of energy, she was going to be a real asset. I wondered if I could give her an honorary title, like consulting editor or something. I felt like she deserved to be rewarded for the help she was giving me and I was fairly sure Lizzie wouldn't let me put her on the payroll.

I didn't mention George, obviously. I didn't want her to think I was digging into her past when it was clearly uncomfortable for her. And I really didn't want to put her off helping us. I knew we needed her much more than she needed us. No, I was going to keep my conversation with George to myself. For now at least.

Chatting to Suze, though, was a bright spot in a pretty gloomy day. Later on that afternoon, as most of my team started leaving for the day – they had things to do, unlike me – I sat at my desk, staring at my budgets. They were small. Tiny, in fact. And I was expected to work miracles.

I spent about an hour moving money around, trying to trick the finance department into thinking I'd spent less than I had, then I gave up and opened my email instead.

I had one from Mum with the subject ‘Exciting News'. I sighed and clicked on it to open it.

‘Darling,' she wrote. ‘I know how hard you're finding your new job…'

I rolled my eyes. Mum had barely asked me anything at all about work when we'd had lunch the other day.

‘It sounds like rather a thankless task.'

That was true.

‘I was talking to a friend, Bev, at work yesterday and mentioned you. I said you were stuck in this job and having trouble finding something else…'

What? I wasn't stuck, and I definitely wasn't even looking for something else.

‘Bev agreed with me that creative jobs are simply never as engaging, as rewarding or as financially stable as other roles,' Mum wrote. ‘And then this morning she came to find me and she mentioned she's launching a new journal for economists. She needs someone to edit it, darling, and of course she thought of you. She thinks you could do a really good job, and when I told her how savvy you are in terms of social media and whatnot, she was thrilled. She wants you to phone her and have a chat, but I said you'd bite her hand off for the opportunity. It's perfect for you, Fearne. It's creative but not frivolous and it could lead to you becoming the face of our research on television and radio – I know you enjoy that sort of thing. And, best of all, it's a well-paid job…'

And here she wrote a figure that was slightly less than half of what I was earning on Mode.

I felt sudden despair that whatever I did, however hard I worked, however much money I earned, my mother would always wish I was the editor of some academic journal rather than an internationally-renowned fashion magazine. I wished so much that Mum would just be proud of me, but I was no longer sure that it would ever happen.

I clicked to reply to her message.

‘Thanks for thinking of me,' I wrote. ‘But I'm happy here for now. Fx'

I pressed send, and leaned back in my chair, marvelling that Mum could make me feel so shitty from fifty miles away in Oxford.

‘No,' I said out loud.

I opened my email again and opened another reply to Mum.

‘When I was a little girl,' I wrote, bashing the keys hard as I typed furiously. ‘I used to make my own magazines, stapling bits of paper together, and drawing the covers. Do you remember? Probably not. I've got them all at home – I've saved them and I still look at them sometimes when I want to remember how far I've come. I have always wanted to be editor of a magazine. In fact, I've always wanted to be editor of THIS magazine. And now I've done it. It's not been easy to get here, and it's not easy now I'm here, but I've done it, Mum. Mode – that's the magazine I work on, in case you don't remember – is struggling, but I've come up with a plan to save it. And I'm going to do it. I'm going to save Mode.'

I paused in my typing. This was like therapy. I wasn't sure I should send it but it was definitely good for me to get it all out.

‘I'm recreating the first issue of Mode,' I wrote. ‘My team are all excited. I'm excited. I've tracked down someone who worked on that issue, and she's helping. It's going to be huge. We're planning to create a huge buzz. I'm even thinking we might change how magazines are sold forever – someone on my team has come up with some amazingly creative ways to get young women to buy our mags. You're right, it's a struggle. It's the hardest job I've ever done, and it's emotional, and exhausting and some days I think I just want to give up, but I'm not going to. And do you know why? Because of you. Because you always told me that everything that's worth doing is hard. That the very fact that it's hard makes it mean something. That the reason I'm nervous about making it work is because I care. You told me that, Mum. You're the person who gave me my work ethic. It was you who told me if I worked hard I could achieve anything I wanted. And now it turns out that's not what you meant after all. You meant I could achieve anything I wanted, but you'd only be proud of me if I achieved what YOU wanted. And that's not fair, Mum. You moved the goalposts after I'd kicked the ball. Well, you know what? It doesn't matter any more. Because I'm proud of me. Bloody proud. And you can tell Bev I don't want her sodding job. I've got a job. And I love it.'

Worn out with the effort of putting so much emotion down in writing, I sat back in my chair and took a swig of – cold – coffee. Yuk.

I read through the email again. It said everything I'd ever wanted to say to Mum. But I knew if I sent it I might regret it. What should I do? I wished Jen was here so I could talk it through with her. Or Damo, even. I had no idea where he was – I'd barely seen him all day. I had no one to discuss it with, I realised. No one who'd care about my family problems.

Feeling really alone, I looked at my screen. Then I carefully dragged the email into my drafts folder and saved it. Never send anything written in anger, I thought. I'd keep the tirade to myself for now. But just writing it had made me feel better. And knowing I could decide to send it at any time made me feel better still.

‘Final warning,' I said to Mum, even though she was miles away and probably wouldn't even have listened if she was in the same room as me. ‘Final warning. If you put me down, or criticise my job once more, I'm sending the email.'

I stood up, feeling more in control.

‘Final bloody warning.'

Then I switched off my computer and went home to my empty flat.

Chapter 44

1966

It was a long night. Suze and I trawled through our notes and rewrote our presentation about what we thought Mode should offer.

I sat at the desk and pounded away on my typewriter, while Suze paced the squat, checked that the copies we'd made of our articles were readable, and told me what to write.

It would have been hard enough to do all that anyway, but Suze was on a knife-edge emotionally. She kept drifting off, sometimes in the middle of a sentence – I imagined the Valium was to blame for that – or bursting into tears.

Each time she cried, I paused in my typing, and went to her. I sat with her and listened as she told me how Dad coming to the squat, along with that Vic showing up at Bruno's, had made her feel weak and vulnerable once more.

‘You fought Dad off,' I said. ‘You're not weak.'

‘I'm always going to be looking over my shoulder for Vic or Walter,' she said. ‘Always.'

‘No,' I said firmly. ‘No. They don't care about us. They'll move on, and Walter will forget you.'

Suze wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, smearing eyeliner across her cheek.

‘Will you forget your dad?' she said. ‘He'll always be there for you. What he did. How he smelled. How it felt.'

I pulled a tissue out of my sleeve and gently wiped her eyeliner away.

‘We need to use it,' I said. ‘Use that fear and the anger and the strength that you had when you fought him today, and that I had when I stood up to him yesterday, and we have to use it to make our lives better.'

Suze's face crumpled.

‘I can't,' she said.

I took the mug of gin from her.

‘No more,' I said. ‘We need clear heads for this. And it's making you miserable.'

Suze protested, but I wouldn't budge.

‘No more.'

We carried on working. Once, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw Suze swallow another Valium, but I wasn't sure and I didn't want to challenge her again.

Eventually, as the light in the room grew brighter, we finished.

It wasn't as good as our dummy magazine had been, but we had a presentation for Margi. We had an exciting vision for the magazine we wanted to read – the magazine we thought Mode should be. We had examples of our writing and proof that we had our fingers on the pulse of all the brilliant things that were happening in Britain right now. We had my Stones interview, and my personal pieces about why I didn't want to get married or have children. We had Suze's film previews and music reviews. We had lots and lots of ideas. And we had enthusiasm. If our enthusiasm was tinged with a hint of desperation then so be it. Sometimes it didn't hurt to show how badly you wanted something.

‘This is good, Suze,' I said, gathering together the bundle of pages and slipping them all into a folder. ‘It's really good. We've done the best we could do, under the circumstances.'

She nodded, but she didn't look very confident.

‘I look terrible,' she said.

‘We can have a go at hiding your eye with make-up,' I said. ‘I've had a lot of practice. My bruises aren't nearly as bad as yours, so hopefully mine will be easier to cover, if I go heavy on the panstick.'

Suze nodded.

‘What time is it?'

I looked at my watch.

‘Just after four in the morning,' I said. ‘I might try to get some sleep actually. You should too.'

I wasn't going to work the next day – I had the day off and so did Suze. Bruno was more excited about us going for jobs on Mode than we were. Our interview wasn't until three o'clock. We had plenty of time to catch up on some sleep before we had to start getting ready.'

But Suze shook her head.

‘You go ahead,' she said. ‘My head's buzzing and I can't sleep now. I'm going for a walk to clear my thoughts.'

‘Do you want me to come with you?' I said, though my eyelids were drooping and I really didn't want to leave the squat.

‘No,' Suze said. ‘I won't be long. You get into bed and I'll try not to wake you when I come home.'

‘Okay,' I said. ‘But make sure you sleep, right?'

Suze nodded.

‘I will.'

She grabbed her keys and headed downstairs while I stripped down to my underwear and snuggled down under the sheets. I remember thinking I might not be able to sleep because so much had happened that day, but I must have been asleep within seconds.

I woke to the noise of shouts from the market under Suze's window and for a second I wasn't sure where I was.

It was properly light in the room now – sun shining through the chiffon Suze had draped over her windows. I glanced at my watch. It was after ten o'clock. We really needed to start getting ready.

Suze was at the other end of the bed, top-and-tailing with me. Her head was turned to the wall, and she was fast asleep.

‘Suze,' I said. She didn't stir.

I slid out of bed and pulled on the clothes I was wearing yesterday. I had an outfit for my interview hanging up at work, so I'd go and fetch it in a little while. In fact, I thought – glancing at Suze who was still out for the count – I'd go and get it now.