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‘And then, there’s the way you treat the rest of your colleagues, always shutting them down in meetings if they dare to disagree with you. You’ve managed to insult each and every one of them over the years, whether you realise it or not.’
‘It’s business,’ Georgie barked. ‘This is the real world, not some lovey-dovey kindergarten that we’re running here. For God’s sake, if they can’t take a strong woman’s opinion maybe they should go and get jobs as church wardens or lollipop ladies.’ She walked towards the expanse of glass, beyond which stretched a view across the city she had envied for as long as she had worked here.
‘Yes. I think you said something like that to one of your assistants before and we all know where that ended up,’ Cole snapped, reminding her suddenly of those days they’d spent in the employment court. In spite of his easy smile, he was not a man to be trifled with.
‘The insurance covered all of that and I’ve fulfilled the mediation requirement down to the very last letter.’
‘Still doing the therapy?’ Paul smirked, but she could easily rise above this. Even now, she wouldn’t allow him to goad her, even if she badly wanted to take a swipe at him about accounts lost and office affairs that were hardly discreet, much less professional.
‘I want a review of the interview process and a reversal of this decision.’ She kept her voice low, just menacing enough to raise the tension further in the air between them so that it felt like even the slightest movement could set off a bomb that could blow the whole company apart. She waited, staring out as London packed up for the weekend in the streets and buildings far below her.
‘That’s not going to happen,’ Paul said, his voice icy and his eyes boring through her like steel. ‘The decision has been made, it’s been ratified and our legal team have been with us through every single stage in the process.’
Georgie surveyed Cole’s reflection in the glass. He was sitting far too confidently for her to question the legitimacy of Paul’s words. ‘I see. So, it’s all sewn up nice and neat.’ She mentally flipped through the various options open to her at this point. She couldn’t bear the idea of having to go back out and face her colleagues knowing that some whippersnapper had taken her seat at the table. ‘I could just leave,’ she said then, a little absently.
‘Yes. You could,’ Paul said, and in that one devastating moment, she knew that was exactly what he was hoping she would do.
*
Nola looked out the café window. Raining. Again. Why did it always start just as she was finishing her shift? The last of the evening crowd were shuffling into coats, and an old man who couldn’t afford it was leaving her a tip. Nola watched three office girls, gossiping in a corner – she could have been one of them instead of delivering their coffee and depending on their tips. If Georgie had come through for her all those years ago, would she be in a nice safe office job now, wearing a smart suit and sitting on a comfortable pension? Probably. Would she have been happy?Well, what is happy anyway?she thought. At least she’d have had security, a future. She wiped the counter fiercely. No point thinking of what might have been… but damn Georgie, anyway.
Shalib, the owner, was deep in concentration, counting up the day’s takings. A mini cab pulled up outside, disgorging a shrieking hen party arriving for the nightly performance ofGuys on Tour. Distracted, Shalib looked up at them, scowled, and started counting the sheaf of notes again.
Nola turned to gaze back out of the window. She’d applied for the job in this shabby café precisely because it was next to the little theatre that looked like it might one day be one of those hidden London gems. Nola didn’t want to think about how long ago that was exactly. It was meant to be a filler, between acting jobs, but she was still waiting tables, serving coffee to smart office workers while her own dreams died a little more with every passing hour. These days the nearest she got to show business was a customer commenting on how much she resembled someone who used to be on the telly. Nola had lost the heart to tell them that itwasher, Nola Delahaye, who had once been famous enough to be recognised from her part in one of the country’s most popular soaps. Meanwhile, next door, the Stockton Playhouse had changed hands twice and hadn’t staged anything more arty that a drama summer camp for disadvantaged kids about a year ago. She sighed. The nine-hour shift she’d just completed was enough to suck the soul out of Laurence Olivier, never mind Nola, who’d happily sacrifice her eye teeth for a bit part at this stage.
And she was getting older. Maggie, her agent, put it bluntly, when she phoned for her regular badgering session; ‘Frankly, Nola, you’re too old. They all want Saoirse Ronan and you’re never going to be that package.’
‘I’m sure she didn’t mean it like that,’ Shalib said when she told him about the conversation, her face etched with misery. Dear Shalib, he listened patiently every time she wanted to let off steam about the career that had so easily slipped through her fingers. But even Shalib must be sick and tired of listening to her talking about what her life had been like once. The parts she’d turned down, the people she’d met and the parties she’d attended. She only talked about it because otherwise it felt as if it had never really happened at all. He handed her a cup of extra-strong coffee. It was like heavily scented aromatic sludge but she drank it, welcoming the tingling shock of caffeine hitting her system.
‘I’m not giving up.’
‘I never said you should, but you should listen to your agent. This idea of trying another way to be involved in the industry you want to be a part of? It might be sensible.’
‘But I’ve spent a fortune on acting classes – I’m meant to be in show business; it’s what I’m trained in.’
‘And you still can be.’ He smiled and his kind eyes wrinkled into a thousand familiar lines. ‘Don’t all actors just want to be directors anyway? What is the difference which part of the elephant you begin to wash, so long as he’s clean at the end?’
Nola gave a reluctant smile. ‘Oh, Shalib, you are funny.’ But the truth was, if Nola could have got a job in any part of a theatre, she’d have taken it in a flash – after all, when it came to cleaning tables, who wouldn’t prefer to be wiping down in the Barbican?
‘It’s only funny because it’s true,’ he said, touching the side of his nose. ‘London is changing; the world is changing. When my father came here, things were simple. He worked and saved and managed to scrape enough together to start this café. Now my children are—’
‘I know you’re really proud of them,’ and Nola thought it was lovely that they were both doing so well in their chosen careers, ‘but I still don’t want to give up on my dream…’
‘That’s not what I meant. When you started here, the theatres in this area, they put on plays, proper plays. And I know some of them wereonlycommunity productions.’ He gave an awkward little cough because at that stage, Nola wouldn’t consider doing an acting job that wasn’t paying some small amount. God, times had changed. How many others had taken those opportunities and were working in the West End now, she wondered? ‘Now, it’s all strip clubs and peep shows. The culture is gone and it’s not coming back here anytime soon.’
‘You’re right. Of course, you’re right.’
He shrugged sadly. ‘I don’t want to be. But I have to say it, because otherwise you could spend years waiting for something that isn’t going to come knocking on any door around here.’
‘I know that,’ she said, and what had been biting away at her thoughts for ages became as real as the tables and chairs in the café. Suddenly the dainty cup seemed to weigh a tonne, and she no more had the strength to hold it in her hand than she had the courage to face the alternative future that seemed determined to pan out before her. How could it be that one moment you had everything you’d ever dreamed of and the next it could slip through your fingers like water? She wiped away a stinging tear from her eye. This was what defeat felt like: heavy, empty, crushing her from the inside out. Really, deep down, she knew it was over. It was either keep going as she was and slowly wither into a tragic has-been, or do something to break out of this prison she’d managed to build for herself.
Shalib cleared his throat loudly to break into her thoughts and bring her back to the present moment. He handed her an umbrella from beneath the counter. It was time to call it a day. And with that thought, she stepped out into the rain.
She woke the next morning to more rain and four bills she could not afford to pay. She would be thirty-five years old in a few days’ time. Thirty-five years old, and what had she to show for it? A waitressing job that covered her rent and would never allow her to see any more of the world than the Tube could take her. Her acting career had peaked in her twenties with a starring role on Britain’s second-most-watched soap opera. Things could have been so different, if she’d set her cap at something else all those years ago. She was too old to change track now.
Wallowing in her bitterness was a luxury she couldn’t afford. Her TV career was over; that was just that. Her character had died under the crushing weight of a falling toilet. And yes, she’d heard every joke going – truly, the sh*t really had hit the fan. She didn’t even pretend to laugh anymore. Since that less than glittering finale her greatest achievement was three words in an overplayed series of television adverts for teabags. Ugh, even thinking about that and the court case that followed just made her fists curl. She had thought she’d be a poster girl for pay equality, pave the way for more serious roles, give her some much-needed gravity. How naïve she’d been. Far from elevating her character, it had only emptied her bank account and made her the most unemployable actress in London. She wanted to thump the crumbling plaster of her bedsit wall. She stopped herself for fear of whacking right through to the rap-music-loving weed-smokers next door.
She sat there, letting her thoughts roll over endlessly in her mind until she wanted to scream with the sheer waste that was her life. As her tea grew colder, instead of dreaming as she once had of the glittering promise that seemed to lie before her, she descended into the now familiar regrets that had taken up residence in her mind. It seemed as if those thoughts had not only moved in, but redecorated every room, so there was no longer space for anything but bitterness at what had slipped away.
