The Forgotten Girl (10 page)

‘Why do you live in a squat?' I said abruptly. ‘What happened to you that makes living in a squat better than where you came from?'

Suze made a face.

‘I don't want to talk about it,' she said.

‘I thought we were friends,' I said. I knew I was being a bit prickly because I felt uncomfortably like I was in her territory, where she knew everyone and let me pick up the tab. ‘I told you my secret.'

Suze looked at me over the top of her vodka glass, her kohled eyes blinking. Then she sighed.

‘Not much to tell,' she said in a matter-of-face tone. ‘Mum always liked men more than she liked me. She had loads of different men round all the time. Some of them were nice. Some not so nice. Sometimes I went to live in foster homes for a bit when she went off with a bloke. I always liked that, and I hated when Mum came to get me again. When I was thirteen she moved in a bloke called Gordon. When I was fourteen, he felt me up.'

‘Urgh,' I shuddered. ‘What did you do?'

Suze drained her drink.

‘I ran away,' she said.

‘To the squat?'

She shook her head.

‘Not then. I went to my teacher. She was nice, Miss Broxburn. She was the one who said I was good at writing. She was an older lady, lived on her own. She said I could stay with her while I did my O levels.'

‘So did you?'

Suze pinched her lips together.

‘No,' she said flatly. ‘Mum came and got me. She said I was a slut for making a move on Gordon and that I had to come home and make it up to her.'

I felt sick.

‘She blamed you?' I said. ‘That's awful.'

Suze carried on, like I'd not spoken.

‘Gordon had gone by then,' she said. ‘Mum was angry with me. She hated being on her own. So I knew it wouldn't be long until she found herself another fella and probably it would all start again.'

‘One morning, I pretended I was going to school but instead I stole Mum's purse, then I got on a train and came to London.'

‘And you were fourteen?' I was amazed by her courage and determination.

‘Yes,' she said. ‘I wanted to get a job, but it was hard without an address. And then I met this guy – Walter – and he said he had a place where I could crash. But his friends were, well, not nice…'

‘Did you take drugs?' I said.

Suze shrugged.

‘Drugs,' she said. ‘Booze. Whatever. It helped me forget stuff.'

‘How did you pay for them, Suze?' I said, not really wanting to know. ‘How did you pay for the drugs?'

‘I'm not proud of it,' she said fiercely, staring into her glass. ‘I didn't choose it. I was just surviving…'

She paused for a moment, then she looked up at me. I half-expected her to be crying but her eyes were dry.

‘Then Walter got nicked for something. Nothing major, but it was enough to lock him up for a bit. I saw my chance and took over the squat. I don't reckon he'll come back,' she said with what I assumed was false bravado. ‘He's pissed off too many people round here.'

The big padlock on the door made more sense now.

‘I reckon you're right,' I said. I reached out and squeezed her hand. ‘Sorry for dragging it all up again.'

‘It's fine,' she said. ‘I'm fine.'

Chapter 15

2016

Since I'd handled the whole Damo situation back in Oz so very badly, I'd forced myself to change from a stick-your-head-in-the-sand type of person to someone who faced my problems head-on. I'd learned that scary situations never got more scary if you dealt with them, and generally they got less frightening once you took them on. If I'd spoken to Damian about my change of heart maybe we could have sorted things out but instead I was left with the memory of him walking away from me on that sunny afternoon in Sydney.

As I stared at the dreadful sales figures for my first issue of Mode, though, I went back to my old default position of hiding away from problems. I knew I should go and speak to Lizzie about them but I just couldn't face it. I was worried she'd force me to tell her what I was going to do to shake things up and I wasn't ready yet. If I presented my ideas too soon – and she didn't like them – I'd probably have to abandon them and come up with something else and I didn't want to do that.

Instead, I replied to her email like a coward.

‘Disappointing,' I typed. ‘But not entirely surprising. Next issue should be different.'

I pressed send before I could add the apology I was itching to write, and sighed. These sales figures meant I had to be seen to be acting quickly and dramatically. I picked up my phone and called Jen.

‘Busy?' I said.

‘Reading page proofs,' she said, sounding like she'd rather be anywhere else.

‘Spare me an hour?' I said. Jen's office wasn't far away and it was almost lunchtime.

I heard the relief in her voice.

‘Your office?' she said. ‘I'll be there in half an hour.'

Grinning to myself, I ended the call and pulled out the first issue of Mode again, and the issue of Home & Hearth. These magazines had a lot of stuff in them to read, I thought. They were more like Sunday supplements nowadays in that they covered fashion and style and newsy issues… and they had given me an idea. We had to give our readers more – and it wasn't free gifts they needed.

‘What free gifts?' Damian was lurking in my office doorway again and I realised I'd been muttering out loud again.

‘Would you stop doing that?' I said, smiling in spite of myself. ‘I keep spilling my coffee.'

Damo crossed my office in one long stride and folded himself into the chair opposite me.

‘Sorry,' he said, with an unapologetic grin. ‘Thought you might want to know – I'm all yours.'

‘You are?' I said, my heart beating a little bit faster with a mixture of relief and dread. ‘When can you start?'

Damo shrugged.

‘Now?' he said.

I raised an eyebrow.

‘Don't you have Homme stuff to do?'

‘Nah, it's all good,' he said. ‘Might have to pop over and check some pages now and then but I'm out of there.'

‘Can you stay now?' I said. ‘Jen's on her way and I've got an idea to run past you.'

‘Sure,' said Damo. ‘I'll grab us some coffee and come back up in half an hour?'

‘Great,' I said, trying my best to sound professional, even though my heart was racing. ‘Get a latte for Jen too. See you in a bit.'

I bent my head to look at the old issues again. I could sense Damo watching me for a moment but I didn't look up until he was gone.

I greeted Jen like a returning hero when she arrived ten minutes later.

‘Oh thank god you're here,' I said as she hurried into my office and shut the door behind her.

‘What the bloody hell is that?' she said, gesturing outside. My office was like a glass box and through the large windows I could see the editorial team staring in with blatant hostility. Apart from sweet Emily who was typing madly with her headphones on. ‘They're not very welcoming, are they?'

I laughed without any real humour.

‘Riley's nice,' I said. ‘But she's on a shoot today.'

Jen looked out at the office again and shuddered.

‘Can we wait to do the introductions until she's back?'

A burst of laughter from outside made her raise her eyebrows in surprise and we both looked to see Damo coming past Vanessa's desk, carrying a paper tray with three coffees on it, and a box of doughnuts. He threw the box at Vanessa and she caught it, smiling. I was pleased to see she could actually smile.

‘Doughnuts,' I hissed to Jen. ‘I should have brought doughnuts.'

If only I'd known that was all it would take to make Vanessa smile, I'd have bought everything in Krispy Kreme.

Damo burst into the office and dumped the coffees on the table.

‘Jen!' he said, sweeping her into a hug. I watched her head rest on his broad chest and felt a brief flare of envy that I immediately pushed aside. Professional, remember?

We all sat at the round table by the window and Damo and Jen looked at me, waiting for me to wow them with my amazing idea to save Mode.

‘So like I said to Jen, we're theming the issues,' I said.

‘Back to Basics was not great, but that wasn't surprising because it was a very last-minute decision. I feel a bit more in control now. Our next issue's theme is Body Confidence and we're theming the whole mag. Fashion, beauty, everything. We've got an interview with a plus-size fashion blogger, our cover star is Hayley Hanwell – that model who was attacked by her ex-boyfriend and whose face is scarred…'

Jen looked less than excited. I could almost hear her thinking, ‘I gave up being editor for this?'

Undeterred, I ploughed on.

‘We planned a vintage issue,' I said. ‘And then Emily, my workie, gave me a pile of old issues...'

Jen looked faintly more interested. Damo slurped his coffee. I pulled out the issue of Home & Hearth I'd been looking at and held it up.

‘This is amazing,' I said. ‘Amazing. It's got so much in it.'

‘It's a pie,' said Damo.

‘Yeah, the cover's not great,' I admitted. ‘But it's so well planned. It's got short pieces, humour, meatier features on some quite controversial issues… and this was aimed at housewives. The early issues of Mode are even more relevant.'

I looked past the others out into the office.

‘They've got everything we haven't.'

Jen made a face.

‘You got that right,' she said.

‘So I want to recapture all this energy,' I said. ‘Magazines are expensive, I understand that, so we need to give our readers a lot of content. A lot of good, worthwhile content.'

‘You want to turn Mode into a news magazine?' said Jen in disgust.

‘No,' I was annoyed that she wasn't getting it. ‘Of course not. I'm not saying ditch fashion and beauty, or celebs – I love all that. I'm just saying young women are interested in more than shoes. They're intelligent. They're engaged. If we can tap into that, we're set.'

‘You need to get digital on board,' said Jen. ‘If you want to be newsier, then the web team is the place to start.'

‘You're right,' I said.

‘So we're still doing the themes?' Damo checked.

I nodded.

‘Still theming, but I want us to think bigger, better, more off the wall,' I said. ‘Different cover stars. Campaigns. Weightier features.'

Jen – finally – looked interested.

‘I think this could be really exciting,' she said. ‘It's what we've been talking about for years.'

I smiled. She was right. We'd always moaned about how young women were underestimated and undervalued.

‘Hopefully it'll get the team's energy back and get them buzzing again,' I said.

I paused.

‘And I have to be honest, our sales figures are dreadful,' I said. ‘This is our last chance to turn things around. But I really think we can get people talking about this. We can get coverage in other publications. If we get the right cover stars we can syndicate those interviews. If we run some campaigns we can get lots of press…'

Jen was smiling again, much to my relief.

‘I think you're right,' she said. ‘What's the PR department like here?'

I shrugged.

‘Not sure,' I said.

‘I know them,' Damo said. ‘Felicity Jenkins is in charge. She's a great girl.'

I rolled my eyes inwardly. Of course Damo knew her.

‘Could you ring her?' I said. ‘Give her a heads up. Get her on board?'

Damo nodded.

‘Sure,' he said.

I looked from him to Jen.

‘So we're doing this?' I said.

They both nodded firmly and I grinned.

‘Great,' I said. ‘So now for the hard bit – getting the team on board.'

Chapter 16

I'd given a million presentations in my career, given talks at schools, hosted awards ceremonies, and run company meetings. But I was more nervous that morning than I'd ever been before. I wanted this to work so badly and I wasn't stupid – I knew with a shoestring budget, a skeleton staff and hardly any money, the odds were against us.

We gathered in the big meeting room at one end of the office. I perched on the wide windowsill at the top of the room, Jen by my side like a lucky mascot, and looked at the team. Emily looked at me expectantly, but everyone else was ignoring me. Riley – who was back from her shoot – and Damo were deep in conversation at the other end of the table and I felt a flicker of annoyance. Or was it jealousy? Either way, it bothered me.

I cleared my throat. No one looked up.

‘Right,' I said loudly. A couple of people dragged their eyes up to me. Vanessa carried on doodling on her pad.

‘As you know, things are tough,' I began. ‘But I'm convinced Mode has a future and I'm determined we're the people to shape it.'

Someone sighed, but I carried on.

‘We need to attack this on all sides. With distribution, pricing and with some really brilliant content.'

I didn't quite say ‘tah-dah!' but I meant it.

There was a small murmur of interest, which I took as a good thing, but Pritti grimaced.

‘What's the point?' she said. ‘The magazine's closing anyway, what's the point of relaunching?'

I'd had it with negativity. I glared at her.

‘The point,' I said, icy cold, ‘is to make sure the magazine doesn't close. I know this is going to be hard. But everything that's worth doing is hard. It's a brilliant opportunity for you all – you're all great and this will lead to bigger and better things. But I need you all to put your heart and soul into it or it's not going to work. Are you all with me?'

You know that bit in Jerry Maguire when Tom Cruise writes that email and asks who's with him and no one stands up except Renee Zellweger? Yeah, it was like that. Without Renee.