His Girl Monday to Friday Page 2

  Her mother looked disappointed. ‘Well, naturally Charles doesn’t want to force you to do something you don’t want to do, darling,’ she said, sublimely oblivious to his impatient look. ‘It did seem such a wonderful opportunity, but if you’re sure, we won’t talk about it any more. I do hope you’re staying for dinner, Charles.’

  ‘I’d love to,’ he replied. ‘And of course I won’t press Barbara, but I trust she’ll change her mind.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ said Barbara, and she lowered her eyes to gaze, for the sixth time, at the account of the compound perfect in Colloquial Romanian.

  ‘Neither would I,’ said Charles, and he added, in a low voice that only she could hear, ‘I never bet on a sure thing.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHARLES MALLORY took the folder of letters for signing out of his in-tray, opened it, pulled out the first letter and glared. Where did they find these people? he thought in exasperation. An impatient finger jabbed the button of his intercom.

  ‘Temsa,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, Mr Mallory,’ said an almost inaudible voice.

  ‘Have you ever thought of using the spell-check facility before printing out a document?’ he asked.

  ‘Is there a spelling mistake?’ whispered the voice. Charles fipped through the rest of the pile, scowling. ‘Falicitate‘ for ‘facilitate‘, ‘mofidy‘ for ‘modify’, ‘myrtptidr’ for God only knew what. Where did they find them?

  ‘It’s also quite helpful to proofread a document before bringing it in to be signed,’ he added silkily. ‘I’ve signed the one that’s fit to be seen,’ he added, suiting action to the words. ‘The rest will have to be done again. I’ll bring them out to you.’

  He closed the folder, stood up and stalked to the door. He emerged just in time to see the rapidly retreating back of the latest temp disappear through a door clearly marked ‘EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY. ALARM WILL SOUND IF OPENED.’

  The howl of a fire alarm filled the building. Where did they find them? he thought bitterly, punching the buttons of the alarm disenable with the ease of long practice. He stalked back to his desk and punched the extension of Personnel with the ease of equally long practice.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Mallory,’ said the resigned voice of Personnel. ‘I heard the alarm. Such a shame. I felt sure she’d last till lunch-time.’

  Charles drummed his fingers on his desk. ‘I don’t know what the problem was,’ he said. ‘I simply reminded her of the existence of the spell-check and suggested she proofread her work. She should know that without being told. If she doesn’t know without being told she should at least be able to take a little constructive criticism.’

  Personnel sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Mallory, but she was the only one the agency had available. All the other temps had been here before and refused to come back.’

  ‘Well, try another agency,’ said Charles.

  ‘None of the other agencies had anyone who hadn’t been here before.’

  ‘What’s the matter with them, anyway?’ said Charles. ‘I’m not asking for Wonderwoman. I just want an experienced secretary with the usual skills and the maturity to deal with a high-pressune environment.’

  ‘Yes. Mr Mallory,’ Personnel said doubtfully. ‘It’s just—’

  ‘It’s just what?’ snapped Charles.

  ‘The really experienced, highly qualified people can pick and choose. We’re offering a competitive package, of course, but the crème de la crème can get the same money and benefits elsewhere, and they don’t like to be shouted at.’

  ‘Shout!’ Charles exclaimed indignantly. ‘I never shout. Obviously, if a whole project has to be redone because someone hasn’t shown the intelligence of a child of two I might get a little impatient…’

  ‘Apparently, you use a tone of voice that has been perceived as shouting,’ Personnel said diplomatically.

  ‘Ridiculous,’ scoffed Charles. Why couldn’t they find someone like Barbara? Someone who didn’t dissolve in tears if you asked a simple question? Someone who’d catch your mistakes and oversights in a report, instead of adding fifty of her own? Her agency had given her an assignment with him one day a couple of years ago. He’d never had such a dream of a secretary before or since.

  His fingers drummed on the desk again. He needed a decent permanent secretary if he was going to take on Eastern Europe. He’d been planning to go to Barbara’s flat and talk her round. With Ruth out of the way it should have been easy enough. But he hadn’t had the time, and if he waited any longer he’d find Barbara had left for Sardinia. Maybe it would be better after all just to get her in as a temp and take it from there. At least it would give him a chance to concentrate on work for a change.

  ‘I really don’t have time to go tiptoeing around some hypersensitive girl who can’t even spell,’ he said. ‘See if you can’t get Barbara Woodward through one of the agencies, will you? Make it worth their while. We’ve certainly sent enough business to pretty much every agency in town—that must give us some clout. Do whatever it takes to get her in.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  BARBARA wanted to take one more temp assignment before leaving for Sardinia. She’d had money saved, but had spent some of it on a multimedia course in Bengali. On Monday she rang Jobs for the Girls, her agency, to ask for an assignment, and was immediately offered a position with the Mallory Corporation.

  ‘It’s a marvellous assignment,’ enthused Sue, her supervisor. ‘Directorial level, open-ended, great rate. Terribly flattering—they asked for you specifically.’

  ‘I’d rather not,’ said Barbara, wishing she’d called Charles a few other names while she’d had the chance. Devious, conniving, unscrupulous…

  There was a little silence. ‘Hmm,’ said Sue. ‘Well, I don’t seem to have anything else on the books just at the moment, but obviously I’ll keep you posted. Let me know if you change your mind.’

  Barbara hung up and dialled Girl Monday-to-Friday. ‘Barbara, I’ve got just the thing for you,’ said Cathy cheerfully. ‘This is a terrific place—Mallory Corporation, central London, taxi home after ten, free dinner, directorial level, top rate, open-ended…’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Barbara, ‘but I’m looking for just a couple of weeks.’

  ‘Well, you could go there for a couple of weeks and see how you go…’

  ‘I’d rather try something else.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Cathy. ‘Well, the thing is, things are pretty slow right now. I don’t have a lot else to offer, nothing really that would suit your qualifications.’

  ‘I don’t care what level it is,’ said Barbara.

  ‘Yes, well, I really don’t have much of anything, to tell the truth, but I’ll let you know.’

  Barbara hung up and glared at the phone. Devious, conniving, unscrupulous, Machiavellian…

  She rang three or four other agencies, with similar results. Blast the man!

  Of course, if she told her mother, Ruth would call Charles and tell him to call the whole thing off, but he knew Barbara wouldn’t give him away like that—it would hurt Ruth too much. She supposed she should feel flattered—he must have called every agency she’d ever worked for. He’d probably got the information from her mother—Ruth wouldn’t have realised the dastardly use he meant to make of it.

  She could, of course, sign up elsewhere—but there was no guarantee he hadn’t called elsewhere. The problem was, no agency in the world was going to put the interests of a lowly temp, however well qualified, ahead of the Mallory Corporation. Charles wouldn’t have had to threaten to withdraw his patronage. He could have guaranteed to give the successful agency first shot at all his future business, and no agency would have passed that up. So now what? Barbara gritted her teeth, picked up the phone and dialled.

  ‘Good morning. Mr Mallory’s office,’ a voice said softly.

  ‘Good morning. I’d like to speak to Mr Mallory,’ Barbara said crisply.

  ‘I’m afraid Mr Mallory is in a meeting.’

  ‘He alwa
ys is,’ Barbara said drily. ‘Could you put me through anyway? It’s fairly urgent.’

  ‘He’s asked not to be interrupted. Could I take a message?’

  Barbara mused over a number of unrepeatable comments which she could hardly expect a secretary to transcribe. ‘Yes,’ she said at last. ‘You can take a message. The message is, “Never in a million years.” He’ll know who it’s from.’

  She hung up with a bang.

  Her first thought was to call some of the firms she’d worked with over the years. Barbara had never worked for anyone who didn’t want her to work for them for ever. You weren’t really supposed to deal with people independently of your agency, but then it wasn’t exactly kosher of her agencies to cold-shoulder her as soon as she turned down an assignment with Charles. She could probably turn up something, but it would take time, and meanwhile she was furious. Instead of thinking of leads, she kept thinking of things to say to Charles.

  At last, with the inspiration of genius, she realised that she could still say them to Charles. She would go to his office, say all the rude things she wanted to Charles and then look for work.

  Half an hour later Barbara strode into the immense marble vestibule of the Mallory Building and took a lift to the twelfth floor. She fenced successfully with the receptionist and strode on, unchecked, down a long carpeted corridor to Charles’s corner office. A girl sat, weeping, by the word processor outside.

  Barbara stalked to the door and flung it open, unchallenged.

  Unfortunately, Charles was not in the office.

  ‘Where is he?’ Barbara asked tightly.

  ‘He’s in a meeting,’ the girl said damply.

  ‘Him and his ego,’ agreed Barbara. ‘Some things never change. Just where is this little tête-à-tête taking place?’

  ‘Sorry?’ sniffed the girl.

  Barbara sighed. She dug a little packet of tissues from her bag and handed it over. ‘The meeting;’ she said patiently. ‘Where is it?’

  The girl gestured at a conference room. Maybe he was in a meeting after all. So much the better; she could embarrass him in front of a roomful of millionaires. She walked to the door and flung it open.

  Twenty men in dark suits stared at the door. Some were fat, some were fit; some were attractive, some were not; some were young and eager-looking, others middle-aged and bored—none was worth a second look. Charles, at the head of the table, was looking ever so slightly harassed, but he still outshone every man in the room, just as he’d always effortlessly put in the shade every man she’d ever known. She’d expected him to look seriously annoyed at the intrusion, but he merely raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Barbara,’ he said suavely. ‘So glad you could join us.’

  She was standing in the doorway, hands on hips, blue eyes blazing, red hair crackling with energy. This was more like it, Charles thought with satisfaction, congratulating himself for getting Personnel on her trail. Just looking at her you knew you could throw anything at her and she’d cope. Maybe he’d send Personnel a dozen roses—women liked that sort of gesture. The morning had been an unmitigated disaster so far, but now that Barbara was here it was bound to pick up.

  He explained to the room, in rather stilted German, that Miss Woodward was his assistant.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ said Barbara.

  There was an irritated murmur of comment from the collected men. She heard Czech, Polish and something that sounded bizarrely like Arabic.

  She’d expected Charles to try to hurry her out of the room but he merely stared at her, a challenge in his eyes. Well, if he wanted to challenge her, so much the worse for him.

  ‘There’s something I want to discuss with you,’ said Barbara. ‘Do you want to join me next door, or would you prefer to discuss it here?‘

  He shrugged, raised an eyebrow and stood up. ‘Will you excuse me, gentlemen? This should only take a moment.’

  He followed Barbara into his own office. ‘I don’t know what the hell this is all about, but couldn’t it wait?’

  ‘No, it could not wait!’ fumed Barbara. ‘How dare you ask all those agencies for me? How dare you make them refuse me any other work?’

  ‘Is that what you brought me out to hear?’ He glowered at her. ‘Of all the preposterous—Look, it’s perfectly common to request a specific person from an agency. We’re desperate to get someone in here fast so I told the office manager to contact the agencies you’d worked for. We certainly never told them not to give you any other work. But now that you’re here you may as well make yourself useful.’

  ‘Useful!’ exclaimed Barbara, at a loss for words to express her fury.

  ‘We’re having some difficulty with the minutes,’ he said coolly. ‘The young woman who was helping us was overoptimistic about her linguistic abilities. We’re taping everything, but you can see why we’d like a written record.’

  ‘Too bad,’ said Barbara.

  Charles scowled. ‘Look, you’ve said you’re looking for work.’

  ‘I never said I wanted to be a slave.’

  ‘We were planning to pay you,’ Charles said sarcastically. ‘Look, I’ll give you what we’d have paid the agency—a hundred pounds if you stay today, five hundred to stay the week.’

  ‘Done,’ Barbara said gloomily. She followed him back across the hall.

  The men around the table were all in a bad mood. They were tired of talking business in languages not their own about things they didn’t entirely understand. They looked with mingled irritation and appreciation at the girl at the door, her slim figure set off by a dark blue shift dress. Charles sensed the change of mood in the room. He glanced down at Barbara, seeing her suddenly as if for the first time. She was spectacular all right—but completely infuriating. They wouldn’t be so appreciative, he thought irritably, if they knew what a little hellcat she was.

  Barbara frowned up at him, trying to make out the odd look on his face. Probably just wishing he’d negotiated her out of her lunch-break, she thought. She shrugged, closed the door and followed him down to his end of the table where she took a seat beside him.

  Barbara took up a pad and pencil. Five men burst into argument at once, and part of her mind threw itself into disentangling the various strands. But she was sitting at Charles’s elbow and her whole body seemed to be aware of the fact that he was only a couple of inches away.

  If she looked down at her pad she’d suddenly find that her eyes had refocused on something more interesting a foot or so from the pad—the long, powerful line of his thigh, the muscle straining against the businesslike dark grey of his trousers. Or, if she looked up to identify a new speaker, she would see out of the corner of her eye the close-cut black hair and aquiline nose of the man beside her, and she would find herself waiting for him to speak just so she could look at him without pretending not to.

  Then he would speak, and it would be a relief to turn her head. She’d turn her head, and the brilliant green of his eyes would dash over her like a cold, careless ocean wave, leaving her shivering inside, struggling to get intelligible shorthand on the page.

  In spite of these distractions, she managed to make some sense of the proceedings. She soon discovered that the meeting was running into real difficulties; the second language of most of those present was German, but there were two who spoke English, another two who spoke French and one who knew Italian. A complicated system of translation, in undertones, out of the various languages into German, or from German into one of the others, was going on. She couldn’t imagine what the transcription of a tape of this was going to be like.

  It also became clear to her after a while that the man who was helping out the Italian speaker was slightly misrepresenting the drift of the discussion and the speaker’s responses, whether deliberately or unintentionally she wasn’t sure.

  Half an hour went by. At last, hesitantly, she put a note in front of Charles. He nodded, and wrote, ‘We’ll break for coffee—take over afterwards.’

  It occurred to Barbara that i
f they were going to break for coffee this would be a perfect opportunity to tell him what a swine he was, but something kept her silent. Perhaps it was the hapless Italian-speaking Czech. She thought the Pole who was helping him out was taking advantage of him, and if she left he’d have no one to help him. So she organised coffee, and when the second session began she sat beside him and took over the task of translation. It soon became apparent that he was an important player in the discussions. A number of points which had been agreed earlier were reversed, and everyone began to get very annoyed.

  At last Charles called a halt to the proceedings. They would, he said, adjourn until the following day.

  The men filed out of the room, talking animatedly—and for the most part angrily—in their native languages. Barbara began putting her notes in order.

  ‘Charles!’ she exclaimed suddenly. ‘I’m an idiot! I just went on translating Italian to German—but I could have just translated from Czech! It’s been a few years since I read Colloquial Czech, but I’m sure I could have done it—at least some of the time.’

  ‘I’m glad you didn’t, though,’ he said. He stood up and stretched, then turned to her and raised an eyebrow. ‘You’ll probably disapprove of this, but you may be more use to me if people don’t know how much you know. They’re likely to be a bit more open among themselves if they don’t realise you understand.’

  Barbara was about to start arguing about this when she realised what was going on. ‘It doesn’t matter whether I approve or not,’ she said curtly, ‘because I am not going to work for you. Didn’t you get my message?’

  ‘Oh, I got it,’ he said. ‘I could have wrung the girl’s neck for not putting you through. You could have been here half an hour earlier.’

  ‘If I’d got through,’ said Barbara, ‘I wouldn’t have come.’

  ‘Then it’s just as well she didn’t put you through, isn’t it?’ he said with a shrug.

  Barbara remembered something else. ‘What on earth did you say to that poor girl?’ she demanded.