Just then, an extremely thin man with an extremely flat bottom came mincing into the office in a pair of extremely clean white trousers. His frail build looked incapable of supporting his vast black sunglasses, let alone the two huge and clinking bags of duty-free swaying from each beringed and wrinkled hand.
'Should keep me going until lunchtime,' he remarked, crashing the bags theatrically into the middle of his desk.
'That's Larry, the travel editor,' said Tish. 'He's just got back from holiday,' she added, rather unnecessarily.
'And who's this?' Jane asked as a glamorous older woman with violent purple lipstick, white cropped hair and a pair of extremely tight cream leather trousers made her entrance.
'Oonagh, the picture editor/ supplied Tish. 'She and Larry are a brilliant double act. Just watch them.'
'How are you, dear one?' cried Larry to Oonagh. 'Well, I hope.'
'Ghastly, actually,' replied Oonagh, checking her reflection in a black Chanel compact. 'My husband actually wanted to have sex with me last night. Can you imagine?'
Larry shuddered. 'Not with
your
husband, darling.'
'Precisely,' said Oonagh.
'Such
a drag.' She snapped
197
shut the compact. 'Still, no
visible
damage. Anyway, how were the Bahamas, darling? Just beyond blissful?'
'Oh, beyond, beyond,' trilled Larry. 'Except that I nearly had a
very
nasty accident. I was putting on my bathers and there was a scorpion lurking in my crotch. Can you imagine?'
'Well, frankly, darling, I'd think yourself lucky,' sighed Oonagh. 'Nothing's lurked in my crotch for years. Apart from my wretched husband, that is. Right, now I need to talk to Jeffrey Archer, darling,
urgimento.
Any ideas how I can get hold of him?'
'Oh, just lean out of the window and shout, I should think,' replied Larry.
Jane's attention was distracted from this fascinating exchange by the arrival of four girls who immediately went into a huddle over the newspaper horoscopes.
'No
way!'
the tall, chestnut-haired one in the centre exclaimed dramatically. 'I just can't
believe
what he's said about my star sign. It's just, like,
uncanny.
He says I'm struggling with an impossible dilemma. So true. I've been invited to a fancy dress party on Friday and I can't decide whether to go as Sharon Stone or Grace Kelly.' She closed her eyes and shook her head in amazement at the perspicacity of the astrologer.
'Unbelievable.
I simply can't work out whether I'm more
Basic Instinct
than
Rear Window,
do you know what I mean?'
Jane gazed at her discreetly. Rear End was nearer the truth. There seemed little outward resemblance between the ice-blonde, stick-thin Princess of Monaco and this frankly rather buxom brunette, but Jane was not going to jump to conclusions.
Fabulous,
even more than
Gorgeous,
was famous for its wealth of well-connected employees. The brunette was probably a duchess at least. The only
198
comfort was that she plainly hadn't been to the Glamour-tron either.
'That's Tash,' whispered Tish. 'She's the drinks party editor.'
'What about me?' exclaimed a thin blonde. Tve been asked to go to Woggle Wykeham's tonight to play Boggle, as well as being invited for drinks at Minkie Rochester's.'
'That's Tosh,' whispered Tish. 'She's the weddings editor.'
'So you can't decide between Boggle at Woggle's or drinkies at Minkie s?' asked Tash.
'Yah, 'xactly,' said Tosh.
Jane cast eagerly about for any handsome men. There were none. Nor were there, as far as she could see, any men at all, apart from Larry, who hardly counted. Her heart sank. The office had the atmosphere of a girls' boarding school dormitory. She never thought that she would miss Valentine and Josh, but. . .
A few minutes later, a throwing open of doors and rustle of bags announced Victoria's arrival. She marched in frowning, distracted and impeccable, swinging a tiny handbag violently back and forth. Behind her staggered Tish under a heap of boxes, bags, newspapers and dry-cleaning. Victoria didn't need a secretary, Jane decided. She needed a Sherpa. Nodding frostily in Jane's direction, Victoria stalked into her office and slammed the double doors.
It was hardly an effusive welcome. Inside the huge glass box, Victoria was gesturing dramatically, the phone glued to her ear.
'Who is Victoria talking to?' Jane whispered to Tish. The important new writer, perhaps. Or Archie Fitzherbert, the magazine company's dynamic-sounding
199
managing director who, so rumour had it, was reasonably young, reasonably charming and reasonably presentable. He sounded, thought Jane, distinctly promising. 'It seems to be someone terribly important.'
'It is,' said Tish, pushing her bottom lip out as she tried to choose from among the myriad bottles of nail varnish on her desk. They were, Jane noticed, the only bottles there. Tippex, or anything else one might expect secretaries to need in the normal run of events, was noticeably absent from Tish's desk. There were no staplers, no letter-headed paper, no pens. There was a Sellotape dispenser, but it was innocent of Sellotape. With its lipstick, mirrors and nail varnish, Tish's desk bore more resemblance to a dressing table than anything appertaining to a professional amanuensis. 'Victoria's calling the agency for a new nanny for her children,' said Tish breezily. 'She often does on a Monday. They tend to leave over the weekend, for some reason.'
The novelty value of hearing people saying
'Fabulous
instead of 'Hello,
Gorgeous'
when they answered the telephone was already starting to grate. Jane was dreading the moment when her phone rang and she had to say it herself. It wasn't long in coming.
'Hi there,' honked horribly familiar tones.
'Champagne, hello,' said Jane, vaguely touched that her old adversary was bothering to call her in her new place of work. 'How are you?'
'Pretty bloody chuffed with myself,' yelled Champagne. 'Just signed the Superbra contract. Half a million notes for lying around on a beach in my underwear. They're going to shoot the ads in the South of France. Talk about Monte Carlo or bust. Haw haw haw. God, I'm funny. But it's bloody annoying to think I've
200
been doing it for free all these years at Cap Ferrat.'
'Well, that's wonderful,' said Jane briskly. 'I'm really very glad for you, Champagne.' After all, she told herself, she could afford to be generous now.
'Yah, bloody marvellous, isn't it? I'll be on massive billboards all over the country,' honked Champagne. 'And all over the back of buses. I'll look like the back end of a bus. Har har har!'
'Marvellous,' said Jane. 'I
am
glad you're doing so well,' she added through gritted teeth. 'It's lovely to hear from you but I've got to go now.' Victoria had finally detached the telephone from her ear and was gesturing at her to come in. 'I have a meeting with the editor.'
'Haven't finished yet,' Champagne shouted imperiously. 'Wayne and I have just got back from the new villa in Marbella, the one I helped him buy.'
'Is it nice?' asked Jane, making coming-soon movements to Victoria.
'Fabulous. Three swimming pools and ten bedrooms, one with a two-way mirror so you can spy on the guests. Hilarious. My idea. Love to know what other people are doing in bed. Staff are morons though. No one speaks a word of bloody English.'
'Really? Oh dear.'
'Yah. Bloody nightmare, basically.
And
I've gone and lost the yellow sapphire ring Wayne gave me. He'll go ballistic if he finds out.'
'Oh dear,' said Jane, with exaggerated patience. 'What a shame.'
Get off the phone,
she thought, furiously.
'But I've thought of a brilliant way round it,' Champagne continued mercilessly. 'I'm going to claim it on my car insurance. All I have to do is blow up my Lamborghini and pretend it was in there.'
201
'But didn't he give you that as well?' asked Jane, incredulous.
'Oh. Yah. Think you're right there,' bawled Champagne. 'I'd forgotten that, actually. Oh well. You are writing all this down, aren't you?' she added suspiciously.
'Writing it down? But why should I? I've moved magazines, you know,' Jane said as gently as she could. 'I'm working for
Fabulous
now.' Champagne was obviously in denial. How sad. And yet, in a way, how touching as well.
'Yah, I know you are,' Champagne yelled. 'So am I.'
'Oh, I
thought
you'd be thrilled,' beamed Victoria as Jane rushed, panic-stricken, into her office. 'Seemed such an obvious thing for
Fabulous
to do. Champagne's exactly the same age and background as our ideal reader, as well as being
slightly
more famous and glamorous. She should send our circulation rocketing. Not to mention,' she added, almost as an incidental, gazing complacently at her perfect nails, 'being a death blow to
Gorgeous.'
'But why didn't you tell me?' stammered Jane.
'No point until everything was signed and sealed,' said Victoria, silkily. She grinned. 'I was going to just now, but Champagne beat me to it. But I
knew
you'd be thrilled. Champagne never stops telling me how
brilliantly
you get on together. But we couldn't let you in on our litde secret because Champagne, bless her, was
terrified
that wily boss of yours would suspect we were after you and try to stop it.'
'Champagne was?' asked Jane, stunned. 'But why? You mean she
knew
you had approached me?'
'Knew? My dear, she was the only reason I
did?
said Victoria, smiling incredulously. 'She made it a
condition
202
of her coming here that
you
would edit her copy. You know how temperamental these famous writers are. Most of them hardly need
anything
doing to their work at all, but they think they can't do anything without their dear old editor.' Victoria smiled pityingly.
The photograph-crammed walls of Victoria's office began to spin round Jane. A cold sweat broke out on her forehead. So Victoria hadn't approached her for her legendary editing skills at all. She had recruited her solely at the whim of Champagne who had been cunning enough to see that her lucrative new contract would be of very short duration once Victoria realised how poor her raw copy was. Not only that, Champagne had persuaded Victoria to keep her own move to
Fabulous
a secret from Jane.
The extent to which she had been outmanoeuvred sank in. Champagne had succeeded in making her her pawn, dependent on her for her job. The roles had been reversed. Jane saw with awful clarity that she was far worse off than she had ever been at
Gorgeous.
She was now utterly in Champagne's power.
'It's marvellous,' Victoria said, dimpling and beaming at Jane as she sipped a cup of black coffee. 'Champagne's first job for us will be to cover the New York fashion shows next week. Should be quite a read!'
Jane felt the soles of her feet fizz with envy. Champagne, doing the fashion shows. Crammed between the stars and the fashionably starving in a little gold front-row chair, watching as Naomi and Kate sashayed languidly by in a variety of unfeasible -outfits. Rushing from one show to anothe rin a whirl of limos; drinking in gossip and cocktails at the post-show parties. Jane longed with all her soul to go.
203
'
I see,' she said dully to Victoria, forcing the corners of her mouth up into a semblance of a smile and trying to sound enthusiastic. 'Well, it should be quite a read, as you say.' If only she could go as well, Jane wailed inside because there were no prizes for guessing who would write the reports in the end. And the expense of sending Champagne to New York would be phenomenal. Even Josh, who had given her a Bentley and a chauffeur without a second thought, would never have gone this far. Jane wondered what personal transport arrangements
Fabulous
had offered Champagne. A Learjet, probably.
'Features meeting!' Victoria suddenly shouted through the open doors of her glass box. 'May as well see what rubbish this lot have come up with for the next issue,' she added
sotto voce
and with a conspiratorial wink to Jane as Tish, Tosh, Tash and co. filed in. 'Thank goodness we have Champagne's column, at least.'
Thank goodness, thought Jane, sourly, noticing, as she took her seat, that another man besides Larry had appeared. He had, Jane noted with interest, undeniably film-star looks. With his thin, pale hair, long nose, little round rimless glasses and quivering chin, he reminded Jane irresistibly of Charles Hawtrey. He was, it appeared, one of
Fabulous &
freelance contributors.
'Right, let's get started,' rapped out Victoria, revolving in her executive swivel chair with a pen between her teeth. 'We need more
Fabulous
people,
Fabulous
homes and
Fabulous
lifestyles for the next issue. In particular, we need someone
Fabulous
for the cover. A real star. Any suggestions?'
'What about Lily Eyre?' ventured Jane. 'Up and coming actress. Going to be huge. Apparently Hollywood wanted her for
Full: Throttle
with Schwarzenegger, but she turned