currently, I could be mistaken for someone heading home to
pay her pimp then breakfast on a crack pipe.
I board the train and avoid sitting near her, not because I resent her disapproving looks, but because I deserve them. The headline flashes into my brain and my throat goes dry, before I open
the clasp on my clutch bag and carefully unzip the side pocket. I pull out a small cardboard packet marked ‘Durex’ and my stomach turns over.
It is unopened.
And I want to cry.
Chapter 13
When you earn your living conjuring up heart-warming stories to make small children smile, it can be difficult to focus when you’re convinced you’ve contracted
chlamydia – or worse.
‘Would it breach the brand guidelines to make a Bingbah ride a bicycle?’ Giles muses, knocking back an espresso the colour of Marmite.
‘Not sure,’ I reply distractedly.
‘Can you check while you’ve got it open?’
‘What open?’ I barely register his voice.
‘The brand book. You said you had it open, twenty seconds ago.’
I shift in my seat. ‘Oh. Sorry, I shut it down.’
Giles scratches his head. ‘Forget it, I’ll look. Though I don’t know why I’m bothering. Our new unofficial creative director will no doubt take one look at the script and
suggest I turn it into a frigging solar-panelled spaceship.’
Giles’s knickers have been in a terrible twist over the issue of Sarah’s replacement – and the fact that Perry is showing no urgency to appoint anyone. Nevertheless, he’s
slightly calmer today for a reason I can’t put my finger on, but it could be something to do with him consuming only twelve cups of coffee by two p.m. instead of the usual fifteen.
Yesterday was a different story.
Having presented a script to Perry – seeing as there’s nobody else to present it to – Giles was advised by our esteemed boss that he should inject a little more
‘oomph’ into his dialogue. At which point I was convinced the veins in Giles’s neck would burst, as if someone had attached him to a 12-volt tyre inflator and forgotten to turn it
off.
‘What are we going to do, Emma?’ he howls. ‘About Perry, I mean. It can’t go on like this. The place is . . . Em?’
‘Hmm?’
‘What are you working on?’ He leans over curiously.
I shut down my browser so rapidly I almost sprain my wrist, although I don’t know what I’m worried about; the only time Giles actually gets up and walks to my desk is when I’ve
got Hobnobs.
‘The usual,’ I grin.
I haven’t produced a jot of work since I sat in this seat at a quarter to eight this morning, having arrived early to try to make up for the work I failed to produce yesterday.
I have instead spent the day Googling sexually transmitted diseases, trying to work out the odds of me having contracted one – or, more likely, a suite of them – and, as a result,
how rapidly this will result in symptoms ranging from mild itching to certain death. And that is not something for which you can go to Boots and get the morning-after pill, as I did. Twice.
‘I thought you weren’t even sure you’d had sex with him?’ Cally says on the phone as I pace up and down Rodney Street later that afternoon, attempting to hear her over
the hum of traffic.
‘I’m now ninety-nine per cent certain that I did,’ I tell her despairingly. ‘I’m now itching. Plus, I’ve been on this medical website and—’
‘Oh
Emma
,’ she interrupts. ‘Steer clear of those websites.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you type in “mouth ulcer” and three clicks later you are convinced you’ve got throat cancer with six weeks to live.’
‘Did you know that incidences of chlamydia have more than doubled since 1999?’
‘That doesn’t mean
you’ve
got it!’
‘I’m bound to now, aren’t I?’ I huff. ‘Even you at the height of your sexual escapades never went out without a handbag bursting with prophylactics, did
you?’
‘Well, that’s true. The time that led to Zachary was my one
pay her pimp then breakfast on a crack pipe.
I board the train and avoid sitting near her, not because I resent her disapproving looks, but because I deserve them. The headline flashes into my brain and my throat goes dry, before I open
the clasp on my clutch bag and carefully unzip the side pocket. I pull out a small cardboard packet marked ‘Durex’ and my stomach turns over.
It is unopened.
And I want to cry.
Chapter 13
When you earn your living conjuring up heart-warming stories to make small children smile, it can be difficult to focus when you’re convinced you’ve contracted
chlamydia – or worse.
‘Would it breach the brand guidelines to make a Bingbah ride a bicycle?’ Giles muses, knocking back an espresso the colour of Marmite.
‘Not sure,’ I reply distractedly.
‘Can you check while you’ve got it open?’
‘What open?’ I barely register his voice.
‘The brand book. You said you had it open, twenty seconds ago.’
I shift in my seat. ‘Oh. Sorry, I shut it down.’
Giles scratches his head. ‘Forget it, I’ll look. Though I don’t know why I’m bothering. Our new unofficial creative director will no doubt take one look at the script and
suggest I turn it into a frigging solar-panelled spaceship.’
Giles’s knickers have been in a terrible twist over the issue of Sarah’s replacement – and the fact that Perry is showing no urgency to appoint anyone. Nevertheless, he’s
slightly calmer today for a reason I can’t put my finger on, but it could be something to do with him consuming only twelve cups of coffee by two p.m. instead of the usual fifteen.
Yesterday was a different story.
Having presented a script to Perry – seeing as there’s nobody else to present it to – Giles was advised by our esteemed boss that he should inject a little more
‘oomph’ into his dialogue. At which point I was convinced the veins in Giles’s neck would burst, as if someone had attached him to a 12-volt tyre inflator and forgotten to turn it
off.
‘What are we going to do, Emma?’ he howls. ‘About Perry, I mean. It can’t go on like this. The place is . . . Em?’
‘Hmm?’
‘What are you working on?’ He leans over curiously.
I shut down my browser so rapidly I almost sprain my wrist, although I don’t know what I’m worried about; the only time Giles actually gets up and walks to my desk is when I’ve
got Hobnobs.
‘The usual,’ I grin.
I haven’t produced a jot of work since I sat in this seat at a quarter to eight this morning, having arrived early to try to make up for the work I failed to produce yesterday.
I have instead spent the day Googling sexually transmitted diseases, trying to work out the odds of me having contracted one – or, more likely, a suite of them – and, as a result,
how rapidly this will result in symptoms ranging from mild itching to certain death. And that is not something for which you can go to Boots and get the morning-after pill, as I did. Twice.
‘I thought you weren’t even sure you’d had sex with him?’ Cally says on the phone as I pace up and down Rodney Street later that afternoon, attempting to hear her over
the hum of traffic.
‘I’m now ninety-nine per cent certain that I did,’ I tell her despairingly. ‘I’m now itching. Plus, I’ve been on this medical website and—’
‘Oh
Emma
,’ she interrupts. ‘Steer clear of those websites.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you type in “mouth ulcer” and three clicks later you are convinced you’ve got throat cancer with six weeks to live.’
‘Did you know that incidences of chlamydia have more than doubled since 1999?’
‘That doesn’t mean
you’ve
got it!’
‘I’m bound to now, aren’t I?’ I huff. ‘Even you at the height of your sexual escapades never went out without a handbag bursting with prophylactics, did
you?’
‘Well, that’s true. The time that led to Zachary was my one
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