Victoria Line, Central Line by Maeve Binchy Page A

Eve worked on before me, she’s practicallyrunning industry in this country nowadays. In her case it had something to do with having dinner parties at home.’
    ‘What?’ said Sara.
    ‘I know, it sounded crazy to me too, and I got real uneasy, but apparently she needed to show people that she could sort of impress foreign contacts by having them to a meal with grace and style and all pizzazz in her country home. Eve sort of set it up for her with outside caterers and it worked a dream. You see, it’s different for everyone.’
    Sara was puzzled. She walked down to the local snack bar and bought a salami sandwich. She ate it thoughtfully on the road coming back to the building. In the lift she heard that Garry Edwards was going to a conference in the Seychelles next week. It was a conference for people who brought out travel brochures, a significant part of promotions for any travel firm. Sara had done all the imaginative travel brochures, Garry Edwards had okayed them. Yet he was going to the Seychelles and she was eating a tired salami sandwich. When she opened her office door Eve was sitting there typing.
    ‘I’ll do it,’ she said. ‘Whatever it is, play golf, give foolish dinner parties . . . I’ll do it. I want his job. It’s utterly unjust that he’s going to that conference, it’s the most unjust thing I’ve ever known.’
    ‘He won’t be going to it next year,’ said Eve. ‘Right, Miss Gray, I have a few points ready todiscuss with you, shall we put this sign on the door?’
    ‘What is it?’ Sara asked fearfully.
    ‘It merely says, “Engaged in Conference”, I made it last night.’ Eve produced a neat card which she then fixed on the outside of the office door.
    ‘Why are we doing that?’ whispered Sara.
    ‘Because it is absolutely intolerable the way that people think they can come barging in here, taking advantage of your good nature and picking your brains, interrupting us and disturbing you from whatever you are doing. We need a couple of hours to plan the office design, and it’s no harm to let them see immediately that you are going to regard your job as important. It may only be half the job they should have given you, but don’t worry, you’ll have the right job very soon.’
    ‘Suppose that the really big brass come along, or Mr Edwards or you know, someone important.’ Sara was still unsure.
    ‘We are having a conference, about the redesign of your office.’
    ‘But there isn’t any money to redesign it . . . even if they’d let me.’
    ‘Yes there is, I’ve been up to the requisition department, in fact they looked you up on the book, and wondered why you hadn’t applied. Whenever you’re ready Miss Gray, we can start.’
    Together they worked out how the office should look. It was a big room, but it was in no way impressive;apart from the inferior furniture, its design was all wrong. Eve explained, that a separate cubicle should be built for her near the door. Eve should act as a kind of reception area for Sara, she should call through to announce visitors, even though it was only a distance of a few yards.
    ‘They’ll walk past and come straight on in,’ said Sara.
    ‘Not if I walk after them and ask can I help them. They won’t do it twice, Miss Gray,’ said Eve and Sara realised that most of them wouldn’t even do it once.
    The costing of the partition was not enormous, and it left a reasonable amount for the rest of the furnishings.
    ‘We’ll have the filing section in my part since you shouldn’t really have to be looking things up yourself, Miss Gray, but it will of course be kept in a very meticulous way so you can always find anything.’
    ‘What will I have in my part of the office then?’ asked Sara humbly.
    Eve stood up and walked around. ‘I’ve been giving it a lot of thought, Miss Gray. You are really the ideas woman here. I’m sorry, I know it’s jargon, but that’s what you do for the promotions department. You thought up that whole