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‘So, what’s the plan?’
‘I’m going to move into a hotel just outside Wakefield for a week or so. It’ll be handy for here until I can find a place to rent.’
‘If you need any help shifting anything, Dmitri’s dad has a van,’ Sheridan offered.
Polly smiled at her. ‘Thank you, that’s very kind of you.’
In an ideal world, Chris would play fair and they’d part as friends. He’d store the things she couldn’t get in her car until she could move them out, but she was ready to cut and run with only the cases she could get in her car. A punctured ego had all the power to make someone as volatile as a broken heart could do and she was pretty sure, if anything, he’d be suffering from the former more.
Polly glanced at her watch. ‘We’d better get back upstairs,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I laid all that on you, Sheridan. It’s not fair and—’
‘Shut up,’ said Sheridan. ‘I wish I could do more to help you. You sound as if you need a good mate.’
‘Oh I’ll be fine,’ said Polly, smiling a smile that sat precariously on her lips. A smile she didn’t feel. A smile that lied she was all right, when really she was anything but.
An unfortunate error appeared in the Diet and Health supplement of theDaily Trumpeton 29 March in which we reported that Mrs Janet Wilkins had lost four stone by farting for two full days during the week for a whole year. We did of course mean fasting.
Chapter 6
Polly had just got back from lunch and was taking off her jacket when one of the young maintenance men came out of Jeremy’s office carrying the portrait of Alan Eagleton, founder of Northern Eagles, which had hung on the wall in there for over a quarter of a century. Polly felt a rush of anger sweep through her entire body.
‘Excuse me,’ she called to him. ‘What are you doing with that?’
‘Taking it to storage,’ he answered.
Polly’s hand unconsciously sought out her necklace, specifically the ring that was threaded onto it. She never took it off. It had been her aunt’s wedding ring and she’d rescued it from her mother’s drawer where it sat in a bag awaiting a trip to the pawnbrokers. It was the only physical thing she had of hers and as such was beyond precious. Her fingers automatically reached for it in times of stress, when she needed some strength. Her talisman.
Polly was fuming. She tried to channel her focus into Auntie Marian’s Bread but she couldn’t. She threw herself out of her chair and headed for Jeremy’s office. She knocked,but opened the door before he had time to say ‘Enter’ to find him adjusting a new photograph-portrait on the wall in the place where Alan’s had been. It was of himself in a pinstripe suit, standing with his arm resting on a mantelpiece.
‘Like it?’ he asked, with the tone of someone who liked it very much. ‘I look very pensive, don’t I? Thought it was about time we said goodbye to old, dead Alan. We don’t need him any more, or his name. Behold a new era, Polly. We are shortly to be rebranded as Business Strength. New logo, out with the eagle and in with the bull.’
You’re telling me, thought Polly. She didn’t offer her opinion on the picture. Jeremy’s pointy face looked extra elongated, as if it had been squashed between two lift doors and the photographer hadn’t been tempted to flesh out his mean line of mouth. Polly thought his expression made him look constipated rather than pensive.
‘Any initial thoughts about Auntie Marian’s Bread?’ said Jeremy, standing back to check for tilt.
‘What?’ snapped Polly.
‘Aun-tie Mar-i-an’s Bread? The would-be new Warburtons?’ said Jeremy, slowly and patronisingly, as if she were a doddery old aunt with hearing problems.
‘Not yet,’ she said.
‘What did you want then?’
She didn’t say that she’d flown in here to scream at him,Put Alan’s portrait back on the wall where it belongs, you knob.The moment had passed and it wouldn’t have done any good anyway. Alan’s era had long gone and his portrait remaining on the wall wouldn’t make any difference.
‘I… can’t actually remember.’
Jeremy smirked. ‘I think you’d better go and get yourself some of that oil of evening primrose, or whatever it is youwomen take. Anyway, as you’re here, any chance of Polly putting the kettle on for me?’
Polly had worked at Northern Eagles for sixteen years now. She’d been a temp drafted in when the head honcho’s PA retired and he’d terrified all other potential replacements off. Alan Eagleton had a fearsome reputation but, as Polly was to discover, it was only fools he didn’t tolerate. He was a big man both in stature and reputation. He had built the company from the ground up and made a major success story of it because what Alan Eagleton didn’t know about how companies worked – and failed – wasn’t worth talking about. He was the best at what he did, he knew he was, and he employed people who were passionate, hard-working, hungry and he rewarded them for their service and loyalty. Had he lived longer, he would have realised that bringing Jeremy Watson into his crew was a rare mistake.
Everyone expected Alan to eat the young nineteen-year-old Polly for breakfast, but he was nothing if not fair and she gave him no reason to bark at her. She was smart and savvy, picked up his ways and accommodated them. They quickly developed a rapport and even though she was only supposed to be there until they found a more experienced permanent PA, every interviewee fell short of his expectations. Then one Friday, just before she was due to call it a day, he pulled her into the office and asked her to sit down.
‘Polly. Do you think I’m easy to work for? No bullshit now, because I can smell it a mile off.’
‘I think you have exacting but attainable standards,’ she answered him honestly, ‘and you get annoyed when others fall short. You don’t get mad for the sake of it.’
‘I don’t get mad with you, do I?’ he asked her. ‘Because you do what I ask and you do it well.’
