The Forgotten Girl

As Damo gave away the few possessions he’d accumulated during his time in Sydney, and planned a route round South East Asia, he’d tell me stories about amazing things we’d see in Thailand and Laos and Cambodia.

But I had my eye on another prize – the next step on the career ladder. The deputy editor on the magazine I worked for had told me she was leaving and I wanted her job. I wanted it so badly it was like a physical pain. I knew I could do it, and do it really well. I knew I’d work brilliantly with the editor and I knew she wanted me to apply. It was perfect – but I’d not mentioned to Damo that I wanted to stay in Australia.

‘Tell him,’ Jen emailed me. ‘Tell him that you’re not going.’

‘I can’t,’ I typed back. ‘There’s never a good time.’

‘Better now than at the airport,’ she’d written.

But in the end, I’d chosen the worst possible time. We’d gone out one Saturday, into the city centre. Damo was fidgety with excitement because he’d hit his savings target, he’d shed his belongings and he’d decided today was the day we were going to buy our tickets to Bangkok.

‘And after the full moon party, we’ll head over to some of the smaller islands…’ Damo was saying.

I stopped walking.

‘Fearne?’ Damo said. ‘What’s up?’

I looked at him, standing in the clean Sydney street, his shaggy hair blowing in the wind and his brown eyes scrunched up against the sun, and I couldn’t believe what I was going to say.

‘Fearne?’ he said again.

‘I’m not going,’ I said.

Damo looked confused.

‘I thought you said you were free all morning,’ he said. ‘We can go to the travel agent later, if you’ve got something else on…’

I shook my head.

‘I’m not going to Asia,’ I said. ‘I’m staying here.’

Damian got it straight away.

‘Patti’s job?’ he said.

I nodded, biting my lip.

‘I really want it, Damo,’ I said. ‘I need that job.’

‘There will be other jobs.’

I shook my head.

‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘Maybe not.’

Damo took my hand.

‘You can spend your whole life trying to make your parents proud of you,’ he said. ‘And who knows, maybe one day it’ll work.’

I looked at my feet, tanned in my flip flops – thongs they called them here, though I’d never get used to that. I couldn’t meet Damo’s eyes.

‘But maybe,’ Damo carried on. ‘Maybe nothing you do will ever be good enough, and maybe you should live a little. There are more important things than work, you know.’

I gave a small smile.

‘Like what?’ I said.

‘Like me.’

For a moment we stared at each other, both of us knowing it was one of those Sliding Doors moments. And then, slowly, I shook my head.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m not going.’

Damo let go of my hand.

‘I’ll see you around,’ he said.

And then he walked away. He’d taken all his stuff out of my apartment by the time I got home that evening and he booked his flight to Asia for a few days later. I was heartbroken, of course. Despite everything, I’d fallen really hard for him, and he’d hit a nerve when he’d talked about my parents. But, true to form, I dusted myself off, threw myself into making Patti’s job my own, and returned to London a year later to carry on climbing that career ladder.

I missed Damo of course. I thought about him a lot during my time in Sydney and even when I returned to London. But I didn’t see him again until he showed up in my office.

Now, sitting opposite him, I was amazed he didn’t hold more ill will towards me.

‘Damo,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry about what happened. With us, I mean.’

He shrugged.

‘Long time ago,’ he said.

‘I know.’

My mouth was dry. I hated apologising.

‘I handled it all really badly,’ I said. ‘And I still think about you a lot. I’m sorry if I hurt you.’

Damian looked up at me. He had odd greeny-brown eyes, which looked bright in his brown face – he was still tanned, even though the London weather had made him paler than I’d ever seen him before.

‘I’ve not been moping for five years,’ he said, bluntly. ‘We had a great thing, but it ended and we moved on. We’re over it. I’m over it. Aren’t you?’

I swallowed.

‘Of course,’ I said in a squeaky voice. I couldn’t look at his face so I focused on his arms instead. His buff, brown arms… Nope. His face was better. I was over it. At least, I had been, until he turned up in my office.

I took a deep breath.

‘Give me six months,’ I said. ‘I’ve got some brilliant ideas to turn the magazine around, but I need you to help make it work. Six months is all I need.’

Nine months would be better, but somehow that sounded much longer.

‘Six months,’ Damo said. He wiped his plate with a piece of naan.

‘That’s it,’ I said, hoping to appeal to his flighty nature. ‘Six months.’

‘Is Jen in?’

‘She’s in.’

‘All right,’ Damo said. ‘I’ll do it.’

I swallowed the squeal of delight that rose up in my throat and instead I gave him what I hoped was a professional smile.

‘Great,’ I said. ‘I’ll let HR know.’

Chapter 12

Getting Jen and Damo on board was the easy bit, I knew that. But I hadn’t quite expected the rest of it to be so hard.

We’d finished the Back to Basics issue, and moved on to Body Confidence. I was very aware that I’d already been at Mode for a month and basically done nothing. My deadline was getting closer and things hadn’t changed. I hardly did anything but work and sleep, although I had to confess that was nothing new. And despite all that, I couldn’t help thinking my ideas were dated and tired. I spent ages poring over back issues of Mode and Grace, trying to find out where we’d gone wrong but I hadn’t yet hit on the magic formula that would make our readers come back.

It was Monday, the Back to Basics issue had been on sale for a week, and I was getting a bit antsy about getting some early sales figures which I was expecting that day.

And I knew I had to have a catch-up meeting with Vanessa too, which I was dreading. She’d gone from being obstructive and rude, to being outright hostile – I wanted to get to the bottom of it.

She slid into my office a little while later and sat opposite me in such a sulky fashion that I almost expected her to stick her tongue out.

‘Hi,’ I said, cheerfully, gathering together my pile of old issues of Grace and Mode and dumping them on top of the vintage issues Emily had given me.

Vanessa gave me a tight smile and I suddenly felt angry. I had worked with all sorts of people over the years, some nice, some not – and she was just one more. If she didn’t like me, fine, but we had to work together.

I took a breath.

‘Vanessa,’ I said. ‘Do we have a problem?’

She flushed.

‘What kind of problem?’

‘You tell me,’ I said. ‘You’re sullen, unhelpful and you obviously don’t like me. But we have to work together and unless you can lose the attitude, you can’t stay.’

Vanessa looked horrified and for a moment she stared at me in defiance. Then her angular shoulders dropped and she nodded.

‘That’s the problem,’ she said.

I raised an eyebrow and she sighed.

‘I wasn’t supposed to stay,’ she said. ‘I was supposed to be going with Sophie to her new magazine – as her deputy. But they had someone in place, and Sophie ditched me rather than miss her chance.’

She looked up at me.

‘I guess I’m still a bit annoyed.’

Well, that was an understatement. But I felt a slight flush of shame – what Sophie had done to Vanessa wasn’t a million miles away from what I’d done to Jen.

‘Look,’ I said. ‘I don’t know exactly what went on between you and Sophie, and you don’t need to tell me, but let me lay my cards on the table. Unless we all pull our fingers out, Mode is going to close. They’re desperate to shut us down, and unless we all start coming up with some ideas, we’re toast.’

Vanessa winced.

‘I’m not very good at ideas,’ she said.

Another understatement. I started to speak but she hadn’t finished.

‘But I did have one idea,’ she continued. ‘About where we sell the mag.’

I nodded.

‘I love magazines,’ she said. ‘I work in the magazine business. And I can’t remember the last time I went into a newsagent. Probably at the airport last summer.’

I nodded again, not sure where she was going with this.

‘So I look online – because my phone is always where I am and magazines aren’t.’

‘You’re not making me feel any better,’ I said.

Vanessa smiled.

‘We need to sell the magazine where the readers are,’ she said. ‘Gyms, cinemas, coffee shops, Topshop…’

I was staring at her, open-mouthed.

‘It was just an idea,’ she muttered.

I reached across the desk and gripped her hand. She looked alarmed.

‘It’s an absolutely brilliant idea,’ I said. ‘Brilliant.’

Vanessa pulled her hand away but she gave me a proper smile this time.

‘Really?’

I smiled back.

‘Really.’

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