The interview was humiliating, but I’m not ashamed, and I’m not embarrassed. I’m furious. I thought that ambition meant trying for trying’s sake, pushing myself beyond the point of pain, desperately grasping at the next rung on the ladder, no matter what it costs me. Since I left that room, I’m not sure that makes any sense to me, any more. I want to have choices. Under no circumstances would I choose to work at The Gentleman. I’m shocked to realise that I no longer need these people to validate me. That that feels liberating.

Maybe there would be more money, but I might be even more stressed, burned out and exhausted. I’d be choosing between a boss who makes me go to sex parties and write about it, and a boss who might make me go to a sex party as his date. Perversely, this feels like ambition. Putting my own happiness and wellbeing before some obscure, arbitrary definition of success. I don’t know who said ‘Dress for the job you want, not the job you have’, but I think they should change it. ‘If you go to the interview in an outfit that feels like fancy dress, you really don’t want the job.’ I can’t wait to take my shoes off.

As I totter out of the building, into the cold, I realise that my trainers are in my tote bag. In the boardroom. Under John Thompson’s chair.

Chapter Forty

You can never be bigger than the building

Harri

‘They’re firing me.’

‘Fuck! NO. Giles! Oh my God, I’m so sorry. Fuck. Fuck.’

Harri is choking on her white wine, gulping for air, frantically waving away her concerned friend’s administrations and scissoring the air in front of her as she struggles for oxygen. Giles hands Harri a pint glass filled with water, and equilibrium is momentarily restored.

‘I’m sorry, that was…oh, Giles. How can they? I mean, can we sue them?’

Giles smiles, ruefully. ‘Redundancy. Fucking Katie and Lily have recommended that fashion be folded into advertising, so everything will be a bastard advertorial, organised by some twelve year olds from a call centre in Reading. In three months, my job stops existing.’

Harri frowns, and gulps some more. She doesn’t want to pull focus, but she fears she might be sick. ‘That makes no sense. Without a fashion editor, Panache is just…a catalogue with some features in it.’

‘Right. I mean—Harri, honestly, it’s been awful. It’s not been Panache since you and Rosa went. It feels like a ghost town. It’s almost a relief. But…but…’

Harri has never seen Giles cry before. She takes his hands in hers.

‘We’ll work something out. We will. And if it’s redundancy, you must get a decent pay off?’