‘I get fired,’ Eve answered.
‘Did she say that?’ asked Zara.
‘“Plenty of others wanting this job, Eve,” she told me. And she also said I could explain it to everyone at the redundancy party if I failed.’
‘Honestly, she’s such a cow,’ Zara told Anita. ‘She told me once when I was wearing a skirt from H&M that she had the real one from Gucci. As though this was supposed to make me feel shite about myself or something.’
‘She is the queen of the put-down,’ said Eve.
Zara looked furious. ‘And now you have to babysit her biggest author because she wants to go to New York and continue her affair with Paul from Non-Fiction, whose wife is pregnant.’
‘Paul Wallis? He’s awful. He gets spit in the corner of his mouth when he’s pitching.’
Anita laughed. ‘Oh my God, your work sounds insane.’
Eve put down her fork. ‘I really need to find another job.’
‘Publishing is tough at the moment,’ said Zara. ‘Why don’t you wait until Christmas is done, and then you can look. The job market always opens after new year. All those people drunk and deciding they hate their boss and need a new direction.’
‘I don’t need it to be new year or to be more drunk than I am to know I need a new direction.’ Eve started to clean up.
‘Stop, we’re on duty tonight,’ said Zara and she turned on the television. ‘Look it’sI’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. They’re going to eat spiders.’
Eve lay on the sofa. ‘Sounds better than what I have coming for me,’ she muttered.
2
The train rocked in a soothing rhythm as though trying to calm Eve’s nerves and anger.
It was the third of December and she hadn’t even thought about her Christmas cards. Eve mentally made a list of who she needed to send cards to. Serena Whitelaw wouldn’t be getting one – of that she was certain.
God, this was going to be torturous, she thought as she watched the country landscape pass her by.
She was to meet the housekeeper – someone called Hilditch – at the station, who would drive her up to the house, and then she would be straight into work. Hilditch? Was it a man or a woman or a man or a they?
Edward Priest must be very rich to have his housekeeper meet her. Or lazy, or busy? Her mind was whirling at the same speed as the train.
The email from Edward Priest to Serena had come through the night before she left. Serena had taken pleasure in schooling Eve on what to do and not do on the manuscript.
‘Just do the copy edit and I will look at the structure when you’re done with it. I don’t want your mucky paws on it – you’re not experienced enough, but I can’t start straight away so we’ll have to do things back to front.’
Eve wanted to punch Serena with her mucky paws but said nothing. There were plenty of times Eve had edited works and Serena had taken credit for her work.
Breathe,she reminded herself,and just get through Christmas and then look for a new job.
Eve had taken a copy of Edward Priest’s previous book from the shelf at work to look at on the train. It was a best-seller but not as high in the charts as his previous books.
It was a historical thriller about World War Two and Nazi hunters who also collected art or something, but she lost interest a quarter of the way into the book. It was overwritten and hadn’t been edited the way it should have been, but Eve found this to be true with any successful author. Once they reached a certain level of success, some authors refused to be edited or pushed back on the changes.
Eve could think of at least five authors who were on the rich list and who needed a machete taken to their books.Cut, cut, cut,she would mentally say when she was reading one of their books.You don’t need this much backstory.The corridor of backstory she called it when she read some works.We don’t need to know all about why little Johnny didn’t get a red truck one Christmas and how that led to him become a detective with one arm and a lisp.
But this book of Edward’s was lazy, and it rushed through some of the more promising themes.
Serena had done the edit, but she was as afraid of Edward and his reputation as Eve was of Serena and her constant threats about unemployment.
She put her head against the window of the train. The cool glass calmed her a little. The countryside flew past, little stone houses and walls, then busy stations and towns and so many people coming and going.
Cows watched the train, and fat sheep huddled against each other from the cold as the wind blew over them.
