The Happiness Recipe

Decision made, I walk quickly to the tube station. I promise myself I’ll go round to Marjorie’s this weekend. Or maybe next weekend. And I’ll eat green leafy veg another day.

Right. Let’s start over. Stressful day, happy pasta shape needed. Farfalle! Butterflies are happy! And there’s the other half of that pack of bacon from Monday. I was planning a vegetarian dinner after watching Devron demolish a piece of bone marrow with his fingers earlier. Still bacon’s not really meat-meat. Pigs are more like chickens than cows, when you think about it.

And I’ll chuck in some frozen peas, they’re definitely vegetables … and there’s that carbonara recipe that doesn’t need cream – just one egg and an extra yolk – but it still tastes mega creamy: easy, peasy carbonara! Perfect. Crispy bits of bacon, little bursts of fresh, sweet peas, topped with lovely salty parmesan.

My stomach is rumbling on the tube and the minute I walk through my door I start the pasta and pour myself a little glass of wine. It’s just one glass. An hour later I’m in bed and I’m content. This is the best way that this day could end. I have three things that I really wanted. Good food. Good wine. Good TV.

I am thankful for these nights, when I am so exhausted, I can almost forget that I’ve ever been in love. I can almost forget the whole concept of having another person to share my life with. The good stuff, the bad stuff, a photo of ballerinas, the story of Devron and his wine. I’ve almost forgotten what it feels like to fall asleep next to someone and wake up the next morning feeling happy and calm. I’ve almost forgotten all of these things. Except in these moments in the dark before sleep comes. And who ever really does forget, really?

Jake, my ex, used to have this thing about foreign catchphrases and quirks in other languages. For example, he thought it was hilarious that the English call condoms ‘French letters’, but the French call them English hats, ‘capotes Anglaises’. He’d often try to amuse my male friends with this fact, to the point where I’d have to leave the room from sheer repetition.

Another phrase he loved was ‘Metro, boulot, dodo’. Metro = subway. Boulot = French slang for ‘the grind’, i.e. the day job. And dodo = sweet slang for ‘dormir’ = to sleep; like you’d use to a child, i.e. sleepy time. The line is taken from a poem by a French writer, Pierre Béarn, about the tedium of monotonous work: tube, the grind, sleep. Welcome to my world.

Some mornings when I’d be struggling out of bed at 5.30 a.m. for a pre-meeting with Berenice where my sole purpose was to lay pencils for her in Boardroom Two at perfect right angles to the pads, Jake would grab my hand and try to pull me back into the warmth.

‘Why do you do that bullshit job? It’s Metro Bullshit Dodo, Susie, I don’t get it.’

‘I’m thirty-three, it’s the only job I’ve ever done. I’m not qualified for anything else.’

‘Your skills are totally adaptable, there’s loads of other jobs you could do.’

And then a year later, ‘Jake: I am thirty-four. That’s too old to change careers. I couldn’t afford to go back to college now, even if I wanted to.’

‘Stop being so negative. People older than you re-train to be doctors or even architects.’

‘I can’t stand the sight of blood, and I’m not smart enough to be a doctor or an architect.’

‘I didn’t literally mean those two jobs. I meant you could do anything – even if it takes a few years to get there.’

And then last year, ‘It’s easy for you, Jake! You’re naturally talented, you love your job and you’re paid loads to do it. I am average at everything. I have no hidden talents. What am I good at?’

‘Food. You just need to figure out a way to make it into a career.’

‘Yeah right, chip shop assistant number three, minimum wage and the boss gets to grope me behind the deep fat fryer …’

‘I don’t know. You could run your own café, do a mix of English and Italian classics, just simple, beautiful stuff. You’re such a good cook, and you love all that.’

‘Do you know how expensive it is to set something like that up? And do you know how many catering businesses fail in their first year? And if you think I’m busy and do horrendous hours now, what do you think that would be like?’

‘You could write a cookbook! Or do a recipe blog, or a blog all about pasta! That girl at work I was telling you about, she’s started doing a blog about make-up …’

‘Which girl?’

‘You know … my friend who does make-up.’

‘Who? Leyla Dempsey?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘The one whose dad bought her a flat in Notting Hill and a Birkin bag, and pays all her bills for her, but you say she’s not at all spoiled and she’s really down to earth? That one?’

‘Oh Susie, stop it.’

‘Stop what? No, it’s fine. I’m glad she can afford to spend her days writing about eye shadow, I’m sure it’s deeply enthralling, but you know, my dad didn’t buy me a flat and he doesn’t pay my bills and buy me handbags that cost a year’s salary in the chip shop.’

‘Well actually you do live in a flat that your grandma gave you.’

‘No, I don’t! She did not give it to me, that’s ridiculous. I pay seven hundred and fifty pounds a month to my brother, I have never asked my parents for money since I was twenty-one and I never would. Not least because my parents would tell me to get stuffed, and be a grown up.’

‘Well, why don’t you?’

‘Why don’t I what? Ask them for money?’

‘No. Why don’t you be a grown up?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Man up. Grow some balls. Stop wasting your time in a job you don’t even like. You’ve got no respect for most of the people you work with.’

‘That’s because they’re all letches or bullies. Anyway I do like Rebecca. And Sam …’

‘You’d still be mates with them if you leave. They might leave before you. Have you ever thought about that?’

‘Sam’s never going anywhere.’

‘Sam’s a loser, but he’s not the point.’

‘Don’t call Sam a loser,’ I say. ‘So your friend’s blog, presumably she doesn’t make any money out of it, it’s just some little vanity project? Oh, that’d be a great name for a beauty blog, The Vanity Project …’

‘Stop having a go at some girl you’ve never even met just because she’s got off her arse and is doing what you want to do.’

‘Are you saying I’m jealous of some twenty-three-year-old who writes about bloody lip balm?’

‘I’d say you’re clearly jealous, yes. And a bit vicious as well.’

‘I think it’s a really good idea if I go to work now.’

‘Yeah, I think that’s a really good idea.’

‘Am I seeing you later?’

‘Not sure …’

‘Why not?’

‘There’s a work-drinks thing in Soho …’

‘Oh … the whole company?’

‘A few of us, yeah.’

‘Oh. Well let me know if you pick up any brilliant tips on how to apply mascara. Am I supposed to look up or down? Gosh, it’s all so terribly confusing …’

‘Go to work.’

Sometimes I have an overwhelming urge to call him, to tell him that I’m finally going to hand in my notice, as soon as they promote me. I want him to know that at long last I’m about to be brave, jump off this treadmill, very soon. I am. But then he’ll ask me when, and what I’m going to do instead, and I don’t know yet, so I can’t, and I’ll look foolish.

And also if I call him, he’ll think I want him back. Which truly I don’t. After what happened? I couldn’t forgive him. And also she might answer. And that’s one voice I don’t ever need to hear again.

Friday

Back to ‘the grind’. Forget jumping off the Boulot, I’d jump on the bloody Metro track if I worked at Fletchers’ Head Office, I think, as I walk into their lime-green reception and develop an instant headache above my left eye.

Whoops. I forgot. As of three months ago, no one is allowed to call Head Office ‘Head Office’. Why not? Because the word ‘head’ would insinuate some sort of ‘us’ and ‘them’ hierarchy among Fletchers staff, with ‘us’ being the two hundred people who work short hours in Head Office and get paid more; and ‘them’ being the eight thousand workers who work long hours and stack shelves and work tills and drive trucks and get paid less.

So Head Office is no longer called Head Office. No. It is now called The Building. That’ll fool them. Head Office is now The Building. Executives who work in The Building are ‘Friends in The Building’. The guys who stack shelves are ‘Stretchy Friends’. Guys on tills are ‘Customer’s Best Friends’. And the truck drivers are ‘Friends On Wheels’.

The worst thing about this? NMN came up with all of it over the course of a six-month consultation process, called, oh irony, ‘Cut The Crap’. Cut The Crap involved a lot of digital mood boards and much talk of empowerment. Fletchers paid us a £130k fee. Devron wrote the cheque in the same week Fletchers announced they’d no longer pay their work experience teens a minimum wage for shelf stacking, sorry, make that ‘Stretchy Friending’.

I tell reception I’m here to see Tom, get my security pass, then sit down and prepare for the wait. Regardless of who I’m meeting at Fletchers they will always make me wait twenty-three minutes in reception. I can set my watch by it. It’s a basic power play. I am an agency serf: they are the Client Masters. Therefore they will make me sit there while they’re sitting at their desks on Facebook or laughing about last night’s Made in Chelsea. And when their little egg-timer goes off at twenty-three past Meeting Time, they’ll saunter down, pick me up and never once acknowledge this whole charade. I once made the mistake of asking Berenice why we couldn’t just turn up twenty-three minutes late and I could see her right eyebrow twitching with fury as she struggled to restrain herself from slapping me.

The thing is, I don’t mind waiting. It’s a rare chance to have twenty-three precious minutes to myself. If Berenice were sitting beside me now she’d be on her iPhone, frantically mailing the office about Five Year Plans for World Domination. Thankfully she’s not, so I can relax. I consider trying to source a glass of water. Except that’s an impossible dream because I haven’t got two pound coins on me. Yes, that’s right. If you want a glass of water while you’re waiting in reception, you have to insert two pound coins into a vending machine, which then spits out a small bottle of branded tap water. The trout on the front desk will not give you tap water even if you’ve just run the marathon for Children in Need dressed as Barney the Dinosaur.

No water. So instead I sit and wait. There’s a copy of the Times on the table and I flick briefly to the food pages. In the ‘My Favourite Meal’ column, there’s a recipe from Celina Summer, some pop star’s wife who’s just launched herself as the next celebrity chef. She’s done a recipe for a chicken sandwich: chicken, lettuce, bread – no butter, not even low-fat mayo. Inspiring stuff, thanks, Celina. Oh great, and your new book, Eat Music, Dance To Food has gone straight into the charts. Still, you do look terrific in a bikini, which is ultimately the thing that matters most in a chef.

You know what? It’s all very well Jake telling me to write a recipe book, but unless you’re skinny and beautiful you’re not going to be able to compete with these food celebs. Maybe I should flirt more with Devron, persuade him to put me in the next TV ad. No - I’d definitely rather work in the chip shop than flirt with Devron. Or Tom for that matter. Grim, it’d be like flirting with a teenage boy. And not one of those naughty sixth formers at the back of the bus who smokes and gets someone pregnant. No, like the little red-eyed geek at the front of class who puts his arm around his GCSE physics paper so no one can copy him.

Speak of the devil, here he comes, like clockwork, yep, it’s twenty-three past. Although, hang on a minute, who is that man walking next to him? And I do mean man. (Tom does manage to make everyone around him look more masculine. He’s such a pipsqueak, he always looks like he’s in school uniform when he wears a suit.)

Oh, but this new man is sexy. I don’t normally fancy bald men but this guy has got something. He looks older, early forties, with a little bit of stubble, but not contrived or manicured stubble; just a little ‘I Am Not A Corporate Man’ stubble. Universe: please let him be the new pizza developer. Please: give me one tiny break.

Tom greets me with the softest handshake in Christendom. It’s like trying to grasp onto tofu.

‘Hey, Su-Su-Sudeo.’

‘Hello, Thomas.’

‘Tommo, not Thomas!’ Tom likes to be called Tommo, or Ton of Fun Tom. He turns to the guy next to him who is fixing me with very blue eyes and an intense stare, to the point where I’ve started to blush. ‘Let me introduce you to our new development chef who looks after our diet ranges. This is Jeff.’

‘Jeff. Jeff the chef?’ I say, holding out my hand and stifling a giggle.

‘You think that’s funny?’ he says, shaking my hand firmly. ‘The cleaner on the fifth floor’s called Katrina.’

‘Really?’

He nods. ‘And when I lived in New York I had a doorman called Norman.’

‘You’re making that up,’ I say.

‘True fact,’ he says, grinning. I sneak a glance at his wedding finger. Yay! No ring.

‘We used to have a gardener called Norman!’ says Tom. ‘That was in the old house. When we moved to Oxshott my mother had to let him go.’

Jeff raises an eyebrow at me. ‘Shall we head to the kitchens then? I’m sure you can’t wait to see the product,’ he says, with a trace of sarcasm.

‘Oh no!’ says Tom. ‘I really wanted to show Susie my slides that set up our brand rationale positioning.’

‘Uh-oh, Thomas. Is this another one of your Death by PowerPoints?’ says Jeff. His tone is light, but Tom bristles nonetheless.

‘This is a mega-strategic, super-high-profile, game-changing project. A lot of rigour’s gone into the thinking.’

‘Mega-strategic and game-changing? That sounds very important indeed,’ says Jeff. ‘I thought we were just trying to flog some pizzas?’

‘You don’t have to see the presentation, Jeff. I can take her through the slides and we’ll meet you in the kitchen after?’ says Tom.

Jeff looks me straight in the eye. It is a look filled with conspiratorial naughtiness. You and I are the same. We are not like Tom. Let’s have some fun.

‘I’ll come with you,’ says Jeff. ‘I might learn how to be mega-strategic and game-changing. But will it be quick? I’ve got another meeting at 10 a.m.’

‘That’ll be fine,’ says Tom.

‘Can you do me one favour though, Tom?’ says Jeff.

‘What do you want?’ says Tom warily.

‘Can we do your presentation over coffee in the canteen? The fluorescent lighting in those meeting rooms makes me lose the will to live.’

Tom weighs this up as if it’s a trap. He takes a breath, then nods. ‘OK. I’ll go and fetch my laptop and meet you guys up there. Grab me a soy chai, would you Jeff?’

‘Will do,’ says Jeff. ‘Take your time.’

We walk through the building to the central lifts. Somehow it feels like we could be on a date, walking in the park rather than in a concrete office block with giant photos of grey, veiny prawns bearing down on us. There’s a crackle of something between us that feels almost visible. I know it’s ridiculous, we only met a few minutes ago, but he is most definitely flirting with me. And not just normal flirting. Mega-strategic, game-changing flirting. Flirting in a way that is totally caveman and presumptive: I, Man, flirt with you. I fancy you. You, Woman, flirt back. You fancy me. Let’s go to the toilets, take our security passes off, and take it from there.

Of course this is probably all in my mind and yet …

‘I like your earrings,’ he says. My hand immediately moves to my ear, and I find myself twirling with my hair.

‘I’ve forgotten which ones I put on,’ I say. ‘Are they the amber ones?’

‘They’re a sort of moonstone,’ he says. ‘They make your eyes look more blue than grey. You’ve got those sort of eyes that change depending on what you’re wearing, don’t you?’

I am definitely not imagining this.

‘So is it Susie with an ie or with a zy?’ he says, as we get in the lift.

Lift, for once, could you please get stuck, please? I’ve been trapped in these buggers at least once a year for six years, and never, ever with anyone remotely attractive.

‘Susie with an ie,’ I say.

‘I once went out with a Suziii who spelt her name with three Is. She used to put little flowers instead of dots on them. It was never going to work out,’ he says.

Aha! Proof that he’s straight too. Excellent. ‘So is it Jeff with a J or a G?’ I say.

‘J, like Jeff Bridges, though obviously he’s got a bit more hair than me. Have you seen The Big Lebowski?’

‘Like ten times,’ I say. ‘I think The Dude is based on this guy Sam who I work with …’

Jeff laughs a low, deep chuckle. ‘And there’s me thinking The Dude was based on me.’ he says. ‘Did you see that film the Coen brothers did a few years back, the Western?’

‘No Country For Old Men?’ I actually thought it was a touch over-rated but it looks like Jeff loves it, so I don’t want to say I didn’t like it …

‘No,’ he says. ‘I thought it was over-rated. I meant True Grit, also with Jeff Bridges.’

‘Oh I loved True Grit, with the young girl with the plaits. So great!’

OK, enough of this time-wasting. I need to find out if he has a girlfriend. We’re now entering the canteen. Tom’ll be at his desk already, I haven’t got much time. I’d better ask some smart, open questions.

‘Do you go to the cinema much?’ I say. See if he replies with a ‘we’ …

‘Not as much as I’d like,’ he says. ‘You?’

‘Same. I don’t seem to have much time, you know, day job, and then I’m quite busy. With my friends …’

‘Yeah, I know what you mean. Work seems to take up far more energy than it used to when I was in service.’

‘The army?’ I say, looking at his chest. He’s so broad-shouldered, I could totally see him running through a muddy field in camouflage, carrying an injured colleague on his back to the medi-tent …

‘The army? God no. Why would you think I was a soldier?’

Because I’m totally carried away in some insane fantasy based on your fit body?

‘Me?’ he says. ‘I’m a total wimp. No, I meant service, as in restaurants. I used to run my own pub up in Suffolk. Local, seasonal food, nothing fancy. So, what coffee would you like, young lady? You’re not into this soy chai malarkey too, are you?’

‘Black coffee, thanks.’

‘Good, a proper drink. And any cake or a flapjack?’ he says, eyeing up the selection of goodies on the counter.

In all the years I’ve worked on Fletchers, neither Devron nor Tom has once offered me a piece of cake. I think I love Jeff. Or maybe I just don’t love Devron and Tom. Or maybe I just love cake.

‘That chocolate sponge looks delicious,’ I say. ‘But I can’t be eating cake for breakfast, it sets a bad precedent, don’t you think?’

‘Nonsense. A girl like you should totally have cake for breakfast! Besides, it looks like a giant Suzy Q.’

‘A what?’

‘A Suzy Q! Your name’s Susie and you’ve never heard of a Suzy Q?’ I shake my head. ‘Little American cakes, cream in the middle? Mos Def name-checks them? Go on, get the Suzy Q. You have to, it’s practically named after you. It’s your namesake. Your namecake.’

I let out a pathetically girly little giggle.

‘Go on, it’d be rude not to,’ he says.

‘Really?’

‘Tell you what, if I share it with you does that make you feel any less naughty?’

DO YOU HAVE A GIRLFRIEND? I sincerely hope not, because this conversation amounts to more foreplay than I’ve had in a year.

‘Deal,’ I say, grinning, and then rapidly not grinning as I see Tom waving to us from across the canteen. ‘Tom’s just walked in.’ I feel like we’ve been caught mid-snog.

‘He’s here already?’ he says. ‘Oh. Right, well I guess we’d better get back to work …’

The man behind the counter comes over to us and gives Jeff a broad smile and a high five. ‘Hey amigo, qué pasa? What can I get you guys to drink?’

‘Hey Miguel, how’s it going? Me pones dos cafes solos y un “soy chai” por favor?’ he says, rolling his eyes as the man laughs. ‘Miguel’s teaching me Spanish, and I’m teaching him knife skills. That’s a good deal, isn’t it?’ he says to me.

‘Knife skills! Did you learn those in combat too?’ I say.

‘Those training kitchens at the Little Chef can be deadly!’ he says.

‘I’m terrible at chopping,’ I say. ‘Whenever you see chefs on the telly and they’re looking at someone else while they’re chopping an onion at a hundred miles an hour – it makes me break into a sweat. I’d have my arm off if I did that.’

‘Nonsense, it’s dead easy. You just need to practise. It’s all about confidence. I could teach you some basic skills, it’d take me half an hour?’

‘When?’ I say, too quickly.

‘Anytime. You’ll have to give me your number,’ he says, grinning.

Tom is hovering a few metres away from us, glued to his BlackBerry. Nodding mostly, but also saying, ‘Sure sure, Devron. Fully strategic’ a lot.

‘So tell me – what do you do at the agency then?’ Jeff says. ‘Do you come up with the ideas for the ads?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘A creative team does that.’

‘That’s a relief!’ he says. ‘So you weren’t responsible for that terrible Perfect Bottom pizza campaign? Find your perfect bottom, we’ll give you the right stuffing …’

‘Actually I did work on that,’ I say, blushing. ‘But I didn’t come up with the idea.’

‘Oh,’ he says, ‘sorry. But they were so cheesy.’

I agree. ‘Sold a lot of pizzas though,’ I say, shrugging my shoulders in despair. ‘Double-digit growth, your boss was very happy with those ads.’

‘So what do you do exactly?’ he says, gesturing to Tom to get off the phone, and pointing at his watch. It’s 9.45 a.m. and I’m sure Jeff had to be somewhere at 10 a.m… .

I reach into my wallet and hand him my business card. That way he has my number and my email too. On the front of the card is a black shiny NMN logo, the legs of the three letters melded together so that the whole thing resembles one big, scary, slightly embossed praying mantis.

On the other side it says:

Susie Rosen

Account Director

That should actually say:

Susie Rosen

Person with the greatest responsibility in the western world

(yes, Obama, that is me, not you). The quest for world peace

is one thing. But do you have any idea how challenging it is

to ensure that there’s always a brand new bottle of Heinz

ketchup on hand for Devron’s bacon sandwich when he

comes in for a breakfast meeting?

On the flip side it should have a little note from my mum:

Really, Susannah

You should have gone to dental school like your clever

brother. I don’t care that teeth freak you out. And now

you’re wasting your life away at that agency while Marian

Bentley’s daughter’s just been awarded an OBE for her

charity work. And did I tell you Sylvia’s daughter now

heads up the cancer ward at UCH? And she’s three months

younger than you!

I’d need an A4 business card.

Jeff stares at my job title. ‘Account Director,’ he says. ‘Like accounts as in finance?’

‘No, accounts as in Fletchers is the account, I look after it. Basically I try to make sure a client’s happy with an idea; if there are any changes I then need to make sure the creatives are happy. Once that’s all happened I try to get the ad made, on time and in budget.’