1
‘Berne?’
The dark locks cascading down Essie Munroe’s back retain just a bit of the expensive styling they’d had the day before, to tame them before the Burns Night charity ball, and she tries not to fiddle with them as she stands in front of her boss. He hasn’t even asked her to sit down.
‘So,’ she says, keeping her voice absolutely level, which is difficult, because the party only finished at three a.m., and she vaguely remembers drinking something that might have been on fire. ‘So . . . I’m moving to Berne?’
Essie’s suave boss, Hari Mendip, looks at her with a hint of sad affection in his eyes. As finance bros go, he certainly isn’t the worst. Her boyfriend Connor’s colleagues are much worse. But even so . . .
They are in the smart boutique office in the West End of Edinburgh where Essie works. Nobody has changed the expensive lilies in a couple of days, and they are starting to smell weird. Belatedly, Essie wonders if this might have been a sign.
Even to Scottish people, coming from as far north as Carso, as Essie does, is pretty extreme, and Hari calls her Teuchteress (first having checked with her that she won’t report him to HR, which is frankly very progressive behaviour for the industry).
‘Teuchteress, where do you think Berne is?’
Essie bites her lip. She isn’t from the kind of family that went on fancy foreign holidays, so the question makes her prickle. She doesn’t have the faintest idea.
‘Uh . . . Europe?’
‘It’s okay,’ says Hari. ‘There’s no good way of saying this, Teuchs: you won’t need to know. The news is right: I’m afraid we’re relocating. The mother ship is calling us back home. And . . . we’re going to have to do it without you.’
Essie is so stunned that it takes a moment or two for her eyes to start pricking with tears. She’d read the news alert first thing this morning, but she hadn’t believed it until she’d got the text summons to come in on her day off.
It had taken her so long to get this job. Unpaid internships – where other people got their parents to pay their rent, she was working long shifts in bars and living off purloined peanuts, desperately networking and burnishing her CV and cosying up to posh people she had nothing in common with. Plus some begging.
‘You can’t . . .’
‘Have you got French or German or Italian language skills?’
‘I’ve got a phone with Google on it!’ she says, defiantly.
She glances round the shiny glass office. It is incredibly quiet. People must be being summoned in one at a time. Starting with her. Bottom up, she realises. Get the bad news out of the way first. The ones coming in this afternoon will probably get a party. They’ll go to the free-flowing champagne fridge Hari has in his back office and talk about mountains, tally ho.
She isn’t going to cry. She isn’t.
‘When . . . when is this happening?’
‘Beginning of March,’ says Hari, trying to be hearty. ‘Lovely for you! Take the spring off, plan your next move. There’s aseverance package.’ Then he frowns suddenly and checks his laptop. ‘If you’ve been here two years. Ach. Sorry.’
‘But I’m . . . I’m good at my job.’
‘You are!’ says Hari. ‘You’ll find something else in five minutes!’
He is beaming at her in a way that suddenly makes her want to poke him with his poncy fountain pen.
‘Pleasecan I come to Berne?’ she says, quietly, swallowing hard. It costs her a lot to say it.
‘It’s the other side of the Himalayas,’ says Hari. ‘You’d have to commute by elephant.’
Essie frowns. ‘That’s not funny,’ she says.
‘I know,’ says Hari. He puts both hands down on the shiny boardroom table, lets his jolly face slip. ‘Honestly, Essie. I have to spend today telling people with families, mortgages, kids, caring responsibilities that they’re losing their job. I’m sorry. You’re young, free, great head for figures, completely employable. I genuinely thought you would be the easiest.’
Essie nods. ‘I’m glad you have faith in me,’ she says.
‘I do!’ says Hari, surprised. ‘I absolutely do!’
‘Okay,’ says Essie.
