Year of Being Single (9 page)

Imogen, the serious schoolgirl with the A grades, was not going to end up alone. She was going to bag herself a great man. The best she could possibly get, and she’d work at it as hard as she studied. She treated having boyfriends at school like a career, trying to climb a rung up the ladder each time. Each boyfriend had to be better than the last.

She reached the end of her mum’s road and headed smartly down the next. She felt happier the nearer she got to the train station – there were shops and convenience stores and takeaway places and noise and smells and life. She was more comfortable in an urban environment; suburbia didn’t suit her. She’d loved drunks shouting outside her window at 3a.m. in Putney, all the noise and the bustle. And she loved going to London to work, despite the fact she hated her current job. Thank
God
it was Friday.

She had become an actors’ agent at twenty-two, after being an assistant agent for three years and an intern for one. She had been one of eight agents in a big company. It was a busy, glamorous job – sending actors for castings, negotiating contracts, dealing with actor’s egos, schmoozing casting directors and producers at lunches and dinners. She loved it.

Her glory days, she called those early years. She went to places like the Met Bar and the Titanic. She got drunk and went home to Putney in mini-cabs. She knew a lot of TV blondes and once snogged one of Supergrass’s roadies, in the VIP area of a festival. She drank red wine in fancy restaurants until her teeth were black, and she’d grin at herself in posh Philippe Starck-type toilets that had no locks on the door, and think she not only had it all, but she had it all before her. They were the good old days – apart from one small blip. Her days in the sun.

She smiled as she remembered them, as she fed her ticket through the barrier and climbed the steps to Platform One. Her glory days had lasted for a long time. Even after she’d had to move back to Essex, she’d tried to keep them going. She was still out every night, watching plays and productions with up-and-coming actors in, attending networking dinners in trendy restaurants and, before the Man Ban, dating the most eligible and unsatisfactory men in the capital.

The last train back to Chelmsford had been a good way of separating the wheat from the chaff. After ten past midnight bad decisions about men were all too easy to make. The only time she’d missed it and had to get a cab all the way home was after a fantastic night salsa dancing with an investment manager from Deloittes. Their revelry had ended drunkenly at 2a.m., the cab cost her £140 and there had been no return on her investment. Deloittes Man turned out to have a wife, five children and a house in Mayfair that he got a £15 taxi home to.

The last train to Chelmsford had also stopped her from bringing any men back to the boxy new build she was slightly ashamed of. That’s what hotels were for.

Imogen got on the train. She frowned, as the only remaining seat was next to a woman eating a very smelly ‘breakfast bagel’ that looked like it had a full B&B fry-up stuffed into it. She squeezed as close as she could to the window, got out her Kindle and wondered exactly how, last November, she had suddenly got fed up with it all. Being an agent. At the time her thought processes seemed quite clear: she was forty, she fancied a career break, a change. She’d been an agent for twenty-two years. She couldn’t climb any higher with it. She’d done it all. It was getting boring.

She thought she’d see what was out there. Sniff around a bit. Maybe get a job in a different field, like television. Television production, maybe. She had a lot of skills. She could temp. She’d met someone who’d told her it was brilliant. You could get a foothold in the door of a new industry but at the same time enjoy a sense of freedom. You could walk out that door whenever you liked. And there was no pressure. Imogen was sold.

She left her agency, Potters, in a triumphant cloud, with a loud and boozy champagne send-off, then, within days of joining a temp agency, got a job at Yes! Productions, covering someone’s maternity leave.

She pushed open the door there now. The trendy reception area always met her with a pepper and ginger biscuit-infused room spray that made her sneeze. She’d suffered it all week and had just about had enough of it.

‘Morning, Imogen.’

‘Ach-oo! Sorry. Morning, Fred.’

She always had to show her pass, everyone did, no matter how long they’d worked there. Fred once refused to let Marge the cleaner in, because she’d forgotten hers, and she’d worked there for ten years. It was an independent production company. They made sitcoms and the occasional gardening programme for the BBC.

As she walked to her desk, a formidable figure was lurking.

‘When you’re ready, Imogen.’

‘Yes, Carolyn.’

Carolyn Boot. Tyrant was way too mild a word for her.

Carolyn disappeared into her office. Imogen would follow, in approximately one minute, once she’d taken her coat off, to have her Daily Diary Meeting with her. It was Friday the 13th, but every day was unlucky for Imogen at this job.

Imogen had had the misfortune of being Carolyn Boot’s personal assistant for the past three and a half months, and it was hell. Working for her was not so much like walking on eggshells, but tiptoeing on a tragically thin sheet of ice, where one wrong move could place you into the black, icy water that was Carolyn Boot’s disapproval. Nothing was ever good enough; nothing was ever done quickly enough or accurately enough or with enough
expediency
, one of Carolyn Boot’s favourite words. And it was so
easy
to get things wrong! Especially with that threat of utter contempt hanging over you.

It was totally mad, really; Imogen had been an
agent
, for goodness’ sake! But this woman could reduce
anyone
to a quivering wreck. Employees, especially the younger girls – well, they were all younger than Imogen – quaked when she walked in the office. She could fell a conversation with a pointed glance. She had a way of telling people off that reduced them to tears. And when Carolyn Boot laughed, someone had better laugh along with her.

Imogen picked up her pad and pen and walked into Carolyn’s office.

Carolyn Boot took her shoes off in the office and walked around in her stockinged feet. Tan tights, usually. Woe betide if anyone else did, though. Elaine Marks tried it once and got a right telling-off. The old cow also did this really bizarre thing where she would kneel on the carpet by the side of an employee’s desk – the high kneeling, where the bottom doesn’t touch the legs – stick her head right next to them and mutter earnestly. It was a misguided attempt at ‘chumminess’, Imogen suspected. Carolyn stank of cigarettes and colleagues were too scared to reel back from the smell. She also had a despised Leslie Judd from Blue Peter haircut.

‘Take a seat.’

Carolyn was propped on her desk, her legs dangling like splints and her tights bunched round her toes. Imogen sat on a low chair facing her.

‘Have you sorted the talent for next week’s dinner at Four Bridges?’ Talent didn’t mean tasty men, or anything like that – not that Imogen would currently care – it was a poncey word for actors, creative people, producers, whatever… You could use it to describe anyone with the merest sniff of the stuff. Carolyn
loved
the word. She used it at least six hundred times every day.

‘Yes, Carolyn.’

‘And don’t forget the electrician’s coming next Thursday.’

‘All in hand, Carolyn.’

One day a week, Imogen had to go to Carolyn Boot’s house in Oxford and sort out all her domestic arrangements. It involved things like waiting three hours for a courier delivery, tending to plants and doing the recycling. It was not really what Imogen had imagined for her new career. Even a temporary part of it. Watering some old dragon’s begonias and shuffling her husband’s junk mail into a recycling bag one day a week (yes, amazingly Carolyn Boot was married), and working under her cruel regime in the office the other four.

For twenty more minutes, Carolyn gave out orders and Imogen bitterly noted them down. What parallel universe had she made herself wander into?

Finally, she returned to her desk. But soon after, the stench of stale fags and coffee breath alerted Imogen to the fact The Kneeler was by her side.

‘I forgot something important,’ said Carolyn. ‘Could you please make sure you order three sets of duck wraps and four sets of finger rolls – turkey
not
ham – for tomorrow’s Acquisitions and Agendas breakfast meeting. Graham Grinch likes a light bite. Those hideous bacon things you organised last time didn’t go down at all well.’

‘Yes, Carolyn.’

Carolyn stood up and padded back to her office and Imogen swiftly sent an email to Teresa, who worked the other side of the partition.

If that cow kneels at my desk one more time, I’m going to bosh her over the head with my hole punch,
she wrote and sent, in a matter of seconds.

Bish, bash, bosh. An email swooped straight back.

Imogen’s heart jumped up to the top of her head. It was
her
subject line (‘Ughh!’) but the email was from Carolyn Boot.

I beg your pardon? Come into my office.

She hastily checked her sent emails. She’d definitely sent it to Teresa. What the hell had gone wrong? She fired off another email to her colleague.

Are your emails being forwarded to Carolyn Boot?

Too late, she realised Carolyn may get that one, too.

Teresa popped her head over the partition and hissed, ‘Yes! For today. I’m being monitored – every email I send or receive, after that “sending the wrong letter” incident.’ Teresa had recently sent out a letter to some very important Talent, inviting them to a Facilitatory Brainstorm Catch-all,
three years ago
, as she’d used a template letter and hadn’t changed the previous date. ‘Bloody hell, Imogen!’ She’d read the email, then.

‘Bollocks,’ said Imogen, and she rose from her chair and went to the guillotine.

Carolyn was behind her desk this time. Her face was set hard. Hatchet face, hammer face, sledgehammer face, thought Imogen. A face of an old boot. She felt sick with fear. She felt like a child sent to the headmistress’s office. A foot soldier sent to be court-martialled.

Then she remembered who she was, who she had been and who she was
supposed
to be and almost laughed to herself. Why was she frightened of this bloody woman? Why was everyone frightened of her? She didn’t need this. She was an
agent
! People were supposed to suck up to
her
– not that she’d ever be so officious, so nasty, or so downright up her own bottom as this awful bloody woman. Plus, she was way too old for this nonsense.

Carolyn opened her mouth to speak.

‘Before you say anything,’ said Imogen, ‘and I’m sure it’s going to be just delightful, I’ve got something to say to you.’ She went and stood right in front of the desk and looked over Carolyn.
She
wasn’t in her stockinged feet. She was in four-inch heels and she used her height for extra power. She told Carolyn exactly what everyone around her had been longing to say – for years, probably.

‘Just because you happen to be Controller of Executive Demonstrative Facilitative Relations, it doesn’t make you a better person than everyone else. Smarter, maybe. Luckier, definitely. But not
better
.’ Carolyn made to protest but Imogen shut her down. ‘Let me finish. Your
job
does not give you the right to lord over, belittle, terrorise and frighten people. It just doesn’t.’ Carolyn tried to open her mouth again but Imogen ploughed on. ‘You’re an awful old bag. Everyone thinks so. Even
you
know so. You get business done by striking fear into people. There’s just no need for it, Carolyn! It is possible to be successful
and
nice, you know. Lots of other people manage it.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’ll sum up, if I may. You’re an absolutely hideous, horrible old BOOT. And I’m not going to work for you a second longer. Goodbye.’

And she turned on her high heels and walked out of there, leaving a flabbergasted Carolyn sitting at the desk, her mouth hanging open like a trapdoor. Carolyn’s
actual
door had been open. If anyone had dared, there would have been
An Officer and a Gentleman-
style applause and loud whooping. As it was, Imogen quietly got her bag, gave Teresa a wink, and walked out of the office. She said goodbye to Fred, emerged from reception and got straight on the phone to her old friend Marcia Lacrosse.

‘Marcia!’

‘Imogen, darling!’

‘Are you still looking for an agent to be your number two?’

‘You bet your last shiny penny I am! Come see me?’

‘I’m on my way.’

Three Tube stops later and Imogen was at the Marcia Lacrosse Agency in Soho. When they’d met, twenty years ago, Marcia was an agent at a rival company to Imogen’s. They’d hit it off immediately at some networking art gallery schmooze-fest, bonding over some limp sushi that smelt a bit off. Marcia was fabulous fun. She was about a decade older than Imogen and had a very loud laugh, a huge, swaying bottom and a selection of very expensive handbags. She was one of those women who believe their handbags said all there was to know about them; she always held a giant one before her, in a differing rainbow of colours depending on the day, like a shield. Then she came into shot. A severe black bob, laughing hazel eyes and plum lipstick.

Together she and Imogen were a delightfully bad influence on each other. They’d had many memorable ‘think tank’ meetings in trendy London bars back in the day, which often ended with one of them being sent home drunk and disgraceful in a taxi – usually Marcia, who had once been discovered flat out on the floor of the ladies’ of the hottest venue of the moment, giggling into her Dictaphone.

Imogen smiled to herself as she pushed open the pale blue door of the ML Agency’s tiny Flora Street entrance. That bloody Dictaphone! Marcia had always been
obsessed
with it. At random, and usually in the middle of a conversation with someone, Marcia would lower her chin to it. ‘Jerome Cleaver possibility for
The Dark Horse
,’ she would whisper urgently. Or she would walk down the street murmuring, ‘Casting for
Danger in the Manger
, Tuesday next. Thinking Sam Burrows, Timothy Tampari or that guy with the navy roll-neck.’ Or she would give herself instructions. Once, in a bar, she’d been whispering in it, ‘Can you lay a finger on that, soon as,’ and a passing man had surprised her by saying, ‘Don’t mind if I do.’