I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day - Milly Johnson Page 0,36
He smiled, his eyes hopping from one to the other of them, eventually coming to a stop at Bridge.
‘I was a PA once myself,’ she said. ‘I realise that in the cases of the best ones, you don’t always know what they do until they stop doing it. If everything is in place: your diary, your train tickets – if everything is as it should be, then it’s because you have a master “sweeper” on the ice, making sure that your stone runs smoothly on the curling track. Is that what Mary’s like for you, Jack? Do you notice her more when she isn’t there or when she is?’
‘Mary is very efficient,’ said Jack.
‘Efficient,’ Bridge repeated, her tone neutral.
‘Yes, totally.’
That word again, noted Bridge. Like a rote. Cold and businesslike. Mary might as well have been a printer or an iMac.
Jack, hearing the word reflected back at him, became aware it wasn’t big enough by half to describe Mary. Do you notice her more when she isn’t there or when she is? There was a telling question. His brain pulled him down a lane in his memory to what office life was like before her, when he was his father’s deputy. Carol had been his first PA, a middle-aged woman who made Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction look like Anne of Green Gables by comparison. Then there was Jasmina, who had a terribly aggressive telephone manner, and another whose name he couldn’t recall who took slack to a whole new level. On the few and far-between occasions when Mary was absent, her replacement Kimberley never delivered that same standard of service; Jack even thought she made mistakes deliberately so that he would give her the oxygen of his attention.
With Mary as his PA he never had to worry about the minutiae. She reminded him of meetings, edited his diary, even sorted out petty factory squabbling when it occurred so he wouldn’t have to deal with it himself. Coffees appeared on his desk just as an alert of dryness went off in his throat; he never had to check letters she put in front of him for signing. She was like a good fairy working magic in the background, invisible as air and ironically the least memorable of all his PAs because of her efficiency.
‘A lovely girl, too,’ said Charlie, heading for an armchair. ‘Another Anne Elliot, like my Robin.’ He sighed. ‘If only there were more people like them in the world.’
Footsteps on the creaky staircase. Conversation about Mary immediately closed down.
‘What progress, Bridge?’ Charlie asked instead.
‘They’re on their way back,’ reported Bridge.
‘Here you go, Charlie,’ said Mary, with a bright smile, handing over the tablets, which she had wrapped in a pastel-coloured tissue, pulled from a box of them in his room. She hadn’t seen those in the shops before and wondered if they were new.
‘They’re the ones. Like horse tablets,’ said Charlie, taking the two bulky bullet-shaped pills and popping them into his mouth.
‘I’ll go and get you a glass of water,’ said Mary. ‘You need to take them with a third of a pint at least or they won’t work properly.’
‘Going back to 1934 now,’ said Brian from the radio. ‘Can you believe that’s when this song was written? “Walking in a Winter Wonderland”.’
‘Yes I can actually, Brian,’ replied Bridge. ‘Any chance of something by an artist who’s still frigging alive?’
Mary returned from the kitchen just as Robin and Luke walked in, leaving the winter wonderland behind them.
‘Oh very funny,’ said Robin, depositing suitcases and bags on the floor before blowing on his hands. ‘Especially after I have risked life and limb to fetch you clean underpants.’
‘I appreciate it muchly, my darling,’ said Charlie with a beatific smile.
‘How long did you say you were going away for?’ asked Luke, also putting down two trolley cases, all matching oxblood and black. Mary saw some smart and fitting vintage-style luggage; Jack and Bridge saw at least two thousand pounds per piece.
‘So we now have at our disposal: gloves, scarves, a selection of jumpers, many underpants and socks, two pairs of wellington boots, more insulated anoraks and two pairs of snow shoes,’ said Robin.
‘Skis would have been useful,’ said Luke. ‘And a Saint Bernard.’ He expected a look of disdain from Bridge and was rewarded with exactly that.
‘Robin, your alarm went off. Mary kindly fetched the tablets from upstairs,’ said Charlie.
‘Two from the green—’
‘I know, Robin. Two from the green bottle. Now go and