‘I met someone last night.’ I catch Issie’s eye – we both know she is giving my mother false hope. ‘But I took his number down incorrectly, one digit too many.’ She’s just bending the truth to protect the feelings of an older lady. Anyone would do it. My mother and Issie then spend an hour looking at the telephone number working out which is likely to be the wrong digit. This is one of the most pointless exercises I’ve ever witnessed. I spray the roses, which have a spot of greenfly.
2
He is appallingly ugly. And whilst most people are embarrassed by their physical drawbacks, Nigel Bale, my boss, is blissfully unaware that he looks like Hissing Sid. His mannerisms are, by some way, less attractive. He is very tall and should be skinny, but he has wide, middle-aged woman’s hips and a pot belly. The pot belly is a testament to the numerous occasions he’s cornered some poor, defenceless junior in the pub and drunk them under the table or, more accurately, into bed. He has large feet and fat fingers. He’s balding. The hair he does have is greasy, serving to glue his dandruff to his exposed scalp. And yet he is inconceivably arrogant, confident and vain. So much so that he will not recognize himself from this description. He considers himself to be the most intelligent of the male species and although he doesn’t come across as crushing competition on a day-to-day basis at TV6, he is mistaken. He firmly believes he is irresistible to the opposite sex. Sadly, to many he is.
It’s his bank balance. It is huge. Massive.
And he is powerful. Extremely so.
Two compelling aphrodisiacs. I am ashamed to be female when I see Hissing Sid surrounded by an entourage of young vixens, willing to lie back and think of the Bank of England. It disgusts me that these women, always attractive and often intelligent, are too lazy to think of anything more creative than sleeping with the boss to ensure a promotion.
I can sense his presence, and this isn’t entirely to do with his body odour and bad breath. A deathly hush has fallen. Hissing Sid is oozing his way across the open-plan office towards me. I brace myself for his visit by starting to breathe through my mouth.
I force myself to look up. Nigel is leaning over my desk. He has no perception of personal body space and does not seem to understand that I don’t want to be close to him. Could his mother? I think of dead fish in a fishmonger’s window.
‘A word, if you please,’ he sprays. He mistakenly believes that the fake Dickensian language is distinguished. Flapping my arms, encouraging the air between us to circulate as quickly as possible, I follow him back to his office. As Controller of Entertainment and Comedy (a position he secured by uniquely blending bullying, bullshitting and – much as it pains me to admit it – a genuine business acumen) Bale has three offices. The executive office on the sixth floor, which is bigger than my flat, heaves with mahogany and teak, deep shag-pile carpets (literally), and numerous pictures of Bale with celebs. It doesn’t work for me – I still don’t think he is interesting, I still think he is offensive. This office is straight out of a set from Dynasty. This man is blissfully unaware that New Romantics are passé and even their retro revival has been and gone. His second office is a pied à terre in Chelsea. I shudder to think what kinds of contracts are negotiated there. I’ve never visited. The third office is the one on our floor, which he is currently leading me to. Again, huge – this time very modern and open. Not so that we are encouraged to drop in on him (no one wants to) but so that he can terrify us through constant surveillance.
Although visiting Bale’s office is unpleasant, at least I am one of the few heterosexual women in TV6 who is safe from his advances. He obviously asked me to sleep with him when we first met, but I refused. He quickly became distracted by a far prettier but less fastidious PA. By the time she received her P45 (following her justified but failed attempt to bring a sexual harassment case to court) I’d proved that I was actually quite good at my job. Lascivious Bale is, but stupid he is not. He realized that actively