Cover

About the Author

Daisy Buchanan is an award winning journalist, author and broadcaster. She has written for every major newspaper and magazine in the UK, from the Guardian to Grazia. She is a TEDx speaker, and she hosts the chart topping podcast You›re Booked, where she interviews legendary writers from all over the world about how their reading habits shape their work. Her other books include the non fiction titles How To Be A Grown Up and The Sisterhood, and the novel Insatiable: A Love Story For Greedy Girls.

Dedication

This story is for every person who
has ever messaged me and asked
me if they should quit their job.

Our jobs are our private fantasies,
our disguises, the cloak we can creep
inside to hide.

A Month In The Country,

JL CARR

Chapter One

Cupboard love

Imogen

‘Through sharing my most audacious desires…’ Audacious, or outrageous? ‘…outrageous desires with my rapidly growing readership, I am confident…’ Oh. Is that too much? It’s such a thin line, with job applications. How do I convey that I’m dazzlingly and uniquely talented, while sounding just the right amount of desperate, available and cheap?

I’m writing this, sitting on an upturned bin. Well, my left cheek is on there, anyway. The right one went numb some time ago. The best thing about being exiled to the fashion cupboard is that it guarantees a little privacy for ‘personal admin’. (The worst thing is that an intern can occasionally get forgotten about, locked in and sometimes get left overnight. Rumour has it that this happened to a girl called Bella when she was working on a posh lifestyle mag called Trunk.)

For all of my efforts, it’s possible that no one in the Flair HR department will even read this letter. I know, from bitter experience, that CVs do not hold any weight. No one can be bothered to read beyond ‘Imogen Mounce, 26’. Even though I’ve made up a Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award, purely as a creative writing exercise.

There’s probably another intern, a Millicent or an Isobel who is already in situ, lined up for the role with all the right qualifications—uncles on the board, old school friends on the Beauty desk. I got very lucky when Mum named me after her favourite Jilly Cooper book.

On paper, I can pretend to fit in. I don’t think my CV would even grant me access to this cupboard if my dad had got his way and called me after Michelle from EastEnders.

I’m inches from the clothes rail, and I can see a pair of cobalt blue, neoprene hotpants. That’s what confident looks like. Out of habit, I squint for the label. Alexandre Vauthier. Nine hundred quid, minimum, although press samples don’t really have a price. Imagine having a grand to spend on Net-a-Porter and blowing it on shorts! What would I do with a grand? I permit myself a brief fantasy of fancy skincare and estate jewellery, until reality bites. I’d pay my rent, wouldn’t I?

Squinting at my cracked phone screen, I check the time. Oh fuck. Oh help. The deadline for this application is in twelve minutes. And I should have left twelve minutes ago, I’m going to be late for my shift, again. I’m going to get my wages docked, again.

Maybe I should go for broke and tell the truth. If nothing else it would make the application stand out. ‘Through setting up a sex blog and describing some of the most intimate and embarrassing details of my life, I’ve gained writing experience, even though no bloody newspapers or magazines will let my words anywhere near their pages. I’m desperate for a day job, I’m very, very tired, and I’m fed up with supplementing my casual part-time bar work with odd shifts at the pen factory. Tonight I’m on lids, which means I won’t be able to feel my thumbs for a week.’

Without warning, the Acting Editor sticks her head around the door. ‘Everything OK in there, Imogen? You all right? How are you getting on with the Box of Doom?’

Arghhhh! ‘Hello, Harri! Yes. Sorry!’ I throw my phone behind me and lunge for the box.

I’m supposed to be untangling necklaces and returning them to their rightful press offices—not applying for magazine jobs on Panache time. Still, it’s not as if Panache are paying me. Also the Box of Doom is busywork, it’s something to do when the server goes down, or when Rosa, the old editor, was having a major tantrum and Harri, her deputy, had to come up with a scheme to get the interns out of the way and keep them quiet.

The fashion cupboard is a sort of rarefied priest hole. Sometimes, you come back from lunch and there’s a real atmosphere in the office—it’s obvious that Something Has Happened, and it feels as though it must be your fault. (As if I had that kind of power! Usually, it’s a brand pulling the ad that’s paying for the rest of the mag that week. Once, it was because someone microwaved some leftover fish curry, and no one would own up to stinking out the kitchen.)

Harri smiles. ‘I’ve got to pop upstairs for a bit, I’ve been summoned by the boss man.’ She dusts herself down for invisible lint, non-existent wrinkles. ‘Actually, I’ve just realised what the time is, you can probably get going.’

How does she do it? Harri is one of those magical people who always gives the impression of having showered no more than thirty minutes ago. After about 4 p.m., I start to feel stale. Biscuit crumbs collect on my knees and elbows, regardless of what I’ve actually eaten. Harri is a human toothpaste advert. A riddle, wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in a heavenly cloud of Santal 33. She has her own Wikipedia entry, which I know off by heart—but even though I’ve been her eternal intern, on and off, for over two years, I know almost nothing about her life outside Panache. All I have are the rumours. Giles the fashion director has hinted that she had an affair with a famous movie star, back in the nineties. Araminta, my old boss at Splash!, sniffed that the movie star was on the fringes of the Brit Pack, and now only gets work popping up in home insurance adverts—but then, Araminta put most of the budget up her nose and the magazine got shut down after six months, and I don’t think she enjoyed watching Harri’s star soar as hers descended. Poppy, a woman I interned with at Sleek a while back, reckons that Anna Wintour herself tried to headhunt Harri, and Harri turned her down.

I believe a three-year-old child could identify Harri as the editor of a fashion magazine. I have absolutely no idea how old she is. There’s a whisper of a wrinkle in the corner of her eyes, and I can’t work out whether she has perfect skin, or access to the most expensive, subtle Botox going. Probably both. I’ve never seen another person with hair as shiny as hers in my life. Not even on TV. Not even on Instagram. But sometimes she twists it up and pins it with a chewed Biro. And when she pulls the Biro out, it falls perfectly into place. (I tried it once on a night shift—bad idea—and I had to cut the lid out with nail scissors.) Harri has eyebrows like Elizabeth Taylor. Once, I asked her what she used to get the perfect arch, and she said ‘Vaseline.’

Yet, she’s warm. It might be her accent—I think Yorkshire, maybe Sheffield? Harri expects excellence from everyone, but she’s fair. She sees people. She says hello, she asks how I am, she has never once addressed me as ‘oat latte’ unlike most of the fashion team. I suppose she had to put out plenty of fires started by Rosa, but Harri is decent. It’s not a quality I encounter very often in this industry. She’s always in immaculate black, never greying, never bobbly. Although—not today. She’s in a fitted flowery dress, splodged with pink and green. It looks odd on her. She doesn’t look like a media star, she looks as though she’s going to the wedding of someone she doesn’t like very much. Still, she’s probably ahead of a curve, and the rest of us will all be in the Zara version in a month.

‘Thanks Harri, see you tomorrow! I hope it…’ Can I say I hope it goes well, when I’m not sure I’m allowed to know what ‘it’ is? The funny thing about being the most junior, least important person in any office is that you’re not supposed to let on that you know about anything. Even though your invisibility invites indiscretion—people will say anything in front of you. I am omniscient, and sad proof that knowledge is not always power. ‘I hope it’s a lovely evening! For you! Um…’ Urghhh.

Harri chooses not to respond to the fact that I sound as though I started learning English after lunch. ‘Thanks for today, you’ve been ace, as always. See you tomorrow.’

Ace. Harri Kemp, industry legend, thinks I’m ‘always ace’. That will keep me warm at midnight, when my numb, inky fingers are wrapped around a polystyrene cup of Nescafé. That will soothe me when I’ve been on my feet for eight solid hours, and every tiny bone in my body is aching so acutely that I feel like a skeleton in a wig. That’s enough to make me smile when my alarm goes off after three hours’ sleep and I haul myself out of bed to the bus to the train to the tube and do it all over again.

If I was even 10 per cent less broke, I’d call in sick, skip my shift at the factory and hang around the office for a little longer to see what happens. Perhaps that would be tempting fate. I’ve been letting myself nurse a secret hope. It’s the hope that kills you, I know. But I’m crossing my fingers and holding my thumbs, all the same.

I’m not an idiot—I know that I’ve been sent to the cupboard because Something Has Happened. But today, I think it might be something good. Rosa left Panache a month ago, leaving Harri as acting editor. The new editor is about to be announced, and it’s going to be Harri. It has to be.

And if Harri is made editor-in-chief, I think she might give me a real job.

Still, it’s a big If, so I start putting one arm through a coat sleeve while rereading the Flair application in my Notes app. I apply for at least eight jobs a week, no matter how much they challenge and stretch the definition of ‘journalism’. Or indeed, ‘paid employment’—so I can copy and paste the final paras, the excited for the opportunitys and the look forward to hearing from you soons. My screen is so knackered I can barely see what I’ve typed any more so it helps to have something I made earlier.

Twenty minutes later, sitting on the bus, I realise just how badly I’ve fucked up.

It occurred to me that the internet in the fashion cupboard can be a little patchy, and I should check to make sure that my Flair application letter is in my Sent folder.

It’s there, all right. Well, half of it.

The other half is a paragraph from a blog post I’ve been working on. One I wasn’t sure I was ready to publish.

The sound that emerges from my throat is something between a death rattle and a moo. Sweating under my coat, I read the words I’d written, furiously in the dark, a couple of nights ago, as Sam Strong snored beside me. ‘There’s an art to the hate fuck. You have to go all in. It’s not just about releasing your inhibitions—you’re dissolving them, in your acid rage. I didn’t know my pussy could grip a cock so tightly, as though I was trying to break it, until I’d completely let go of the notion that I was trying to make him fall in love with me. I know he’s a bad man. Does hate fucking make me a bad feminist? Maybe. Does it make me come? In a way I didn’t even know I was capable of. I’m embarrassed to admit to the number of times I’ve cried over S— but the orgasms are making me so much wetter than any tears could.’

Those words are preceded by these: ‘Here are the ways in which I’ve demonstrated strong attention to detail.’

Chapter Two

Something Has Happened

Harri

Neither of them will sit down. Harri knows he is waiting for her to go first. It’s absurd; sexism, disguised as chivalry. She will not play the game—partly because by staying standing, she is able to retain what little power she has. Mostly because she has worn uncomfortable shoes, in honour of the announcement, and she needs to stay on her feet. If she sits, she may never be able to get back up again. She tips the heavy chrome chair against the big table, surreptitiously stretching a sore calf, like a runner. Will has been speaking without stopping for seven minutes now. He’s rambling, mumbling pointless professional platitudes. When will he get to the point? Why does he have to make such a ceremony out of everything? Well, because his job is dull, and his life is dull, and dullness is his MO. The first rule of media. The glamour of the company is always inversely proportional to the glamour of the person in charge of the operation. Officially, Panache is very much the jewel in Hudson’s crown. The truth is that the whole company is mostly profitable thanks to the steady, consistent demand for Construction & Scaffolding Weekly.

Will is looking at her now. What is he saying? His monotone makes it difficult to concentrate. The man is an utter charisma vacuum, ‘…long term service to the company. In recognition of your talent, and considerable ability, we think…’ Please get on with it. Harri wants to savour this moment, but she can barely concentrate. Downstairs, chaos reigns. The cover interview hasn’t been confirmed, seven suitcases of couture gowns are stuck in Customs and she has just learned that the new girl in Classifieds is taking make-up from the Beauty cupboard and selling it on eBay. She wonders whether she can sneak a look at her emails, by peering into her pocket. But she has no pockets today. She is wearing The Dress, bought the very second she felt sure of her promotion, once Rosa had assured her she was not tempting fate. Most editors wear black, black, black. But the editor-in-chief wears Erdem.

Harri has fetishised the floral dresses, ever since she saw Alexandra Shulman wearing one to the Vogue anniversary party. Harri is usually careful with her clothes. She is a pragmatic dresser and her outfit choices are dictated by necessity before aesthetics. She is required to move through the world at twice the speed of everyone else. But when all of your dreams come true, you can justify a dream of a dress to match. The birds of paradise and hot house flower print make Harri yearn for the tropical, the botanical, a land of warm nights and soft breezes, free from all cares and MacBooks. Now, Harri wishes her warm thoughts would provide some actual heat. She feels shivery, exposed, angry with herself for every ‘right to bare arms’ pun she has ever let the subeditors sign off. The Regent Street Christmas decorations have just gone up. What was she thinking?

‘So we’re pleased to offer you an exciting new challenge,’ says Will, who is now staring at the table, not making eye contact.

Harri smiles. She has known Will for over ten years, and he has never become any more open, any less awkward. ‘Well, it’s not too new. I know Panache inside out. You’re in very good hands.’ She laughs, because she knows how to play the game, make nice. Come on, Will. Please wrap this up. Let me get back to my magazine.

‘Hnnnnnn,’ says Will, clasping his hands in front of him, like a little boy on a school trip, anxious about straying from the crocodile formation. ‘That’s the thing. We think you need a change. We’ve run the numbers and decided we want to go ahead with the new product idea. The online magazine, for younger women. Everyone was very impressed with the research you did last year. We want you to be at the helm of the new launch.’

‘Right. Right.’ Harri can feel the cogs and cells of her brain whirring, expanding, trying to absorb this information. ‘So—a lot of work. Exciting work! But how would that fit with my role at Panache? Because I have so many ideas and ongoing projects that I was working on with Rosa, and as an editor-in-chief I’d expect to—’

‘Harri,’ Will cuts her off, with something akin to tenderness. ‘You’re not the new editor-in-chief of Panache.’

‘I see.’ Harri will never, ever cry at work. But she may puke. What has she eaten today? She remembers the first three quarters of a banana, abandoned as she left the tube upon encountering its final mushy, brown inch. Then…coffee. More coffee. A cheese sandwich, still in its wrapper, that has been resting on her desk for the last two hours. Every time she has picked it up and started to open it, her phone has rung or an urgent email has come in, or someone has rushed over with an emergency (one was legitimate, a major fuck up with a mascara ad—one was a meme starring a penguin in a party hat). She does not have the energy to throw up. There is nothing in the tank. The sensation is similar to falling in the playground. Running, flying, throwing yourself into a fantasy world, and then having the ground rise up to meet you, sudden and hard. The shock. The pain. Harri does not consider herself to be much of a reader of poetry, but as she feels her soul fly from the room, seeping through the glued shut windows, she finds herself remembering a fragment of Audre Lorde. Something about being non-essential. Wrong. Worn thin.

‘Will that be all?’ No, that isn’t right. Ask a normal question. Ask a human question. ‘I mean, who will the editor be? The new launch—when will that start? How will I transition from my deputy role to the new project?’

Will gulps and looks relieved. Harri is letting him off the hook, asking questions, comfortable, answerable questions, and not the screamingly obvious one, ‘How could you do this to me?’

‘It’s Mackenzie Whittaker, from Hudson US.’

Is that a person, or another company? thinks Harri, for a stupid second. ‘Um, I don’t think I know…’

‘Her background is very much management, not editorial, she’s been overseeing various US titles, and she’s turned them around, profit-wise.’

‘Oh, was she on Glamor? Or Mademoiselle? Lucky? I never came across…’

‘No, no, things with a different profile. Go Fish. The Racing Hound.’

‘But Panache is a women’s lifestyle title. And I would have thought you’d want someone with experience in the sector…’

‘Harri, we both know that things are changing, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to sell a premium print product.’ Against her will, Harri imagines Will screaming the words ‘PREMIUM PRINT PRODUCT’ at the point of ejaculation. ‘We need to make significant changes in terms of how we cost the magazine. And Mackenzie knows money. Don’t worry, I’m sure she’ll still want your editorial expertise.’

Yeah, that bitch can whistle for it, thinks Harri, as she says ‘Of course. You know how much I care about Panache. After all, it’s been my life for ten years!’

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