It’s A Man’s World. Polly Courtney

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СКАЧАТЬ ran its course and Alexa looked around hopefully. She wasn’t going to bring the meeting to a close – not with Derek sitting three seats down.

      ‘One more thing,’ said Neil, just as Derek started noisily bashing his papers against the desk in a conclusive manner.

      ‘Mmm?’

      ‘As usual, we’ve had a shockingly bad set of Banter Confessions in this week.’ He pulled a face. ‘I was hoping Sienna might have time to write a few?’

      All eyes turned to the peroxide blonde next to Derek.

      ‘I reckon I could fit it in,’ she replied, with extra emphasis on her last three words.

      Alexa frowned, ignoring the ripple of smutty laughter that was travelling across the room. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘But shouldn’t we be getting real girls to send in their confessions?’

      Derek rolled his eyes. ‘That’s the idea, yeah,’ he said. ‘But like Neil said, we don’t always get enough and most of them are too crap to print. Sienna does a much better job, don’t you, darling?’ He turned to his PA and winked.

      ‘Apparently I do a very good “compliant”,’ explained Sienna, smiling demurely at Alexa as the dirty laughter flared up again.

      ‘I just wonder . . .’ Alexa feared that she might already be testing Derek’s patience, but she wanted to get something straight. ‘I was just wondering why we don’t get more confessions in. We offer a fifty pound incentive for the best one, right?’

      Derek nodded reluctantly. Marcus rolled his eyes. The pallid redheaded news editor always seemed to side with Derek. It was as though they had some secret allegiance. Alexa persevered, nonetheless.

      ‘We have nearly fifty thousand female readers . . . But we have trouble eliciting three decent confessions from them each week?’

      ‘Yeah. Look, this isn’t exactly a new problem.’ Derek rolled his eyes impatiently and exchanged a look with Marcus. ‘It’s just the way it is.’

      Alexa disagreed, again, but this time she was willing to speak out. Something was ringing bells.

      ‘Last year,’ she said, ‘when I was working at Hers, we noticed a massive drop-off in letters coming through to our agony aunt.’ She looked around. Sienna was inspecting her nails. Derek was spinning a pen around his thumb. Marcus was trying to do the same only failing and most of the others looked half-asleep. Only Neil and Riz seemed to be listening.

      ‘We realised that the drop-off coincided with the new editor mugshots. Our agony aunt’s new photo made her look about twenty years younger and a lot more attractive. It was putting the readers off. They wanted to see someone they could relate to. What mugshot are you using for the confessions?’

      Neil looked up immediately. ‘It’s a picture of a random lad, looking kind of curious. I’ve always thought it’s a bit seedy, actually. My wife thinks it looks like a paedophile. Maybe we should change it? We could pitch it as “send your confessions to our secretary, Sienna”.’

      ‘Hey,’ Sienna pouted, pushing her breasts a little further onto the desk. ‘Not if it means an ugly mugshot.’

      ‘It doesn’t have to be ugly.’

      ‘Medium-ugly,’ said Marcus, raising a ginger eyebrow.

      ‘Oi!’

      ‘Tell you what.’ Neil was obviously adept at spotting potential deviations. ‘We’ll make someone up. Give her a medium-ugly mugshot and create a fake email address for her, then we’ll see what she brings in.’

      ‘Hallelujah!’ cried Derek, rolling his eyes. ‘Thank God that’s sorted. Real girls confessing to a fake secretary, saving Sienna about . . . what, half an hour a week? Fucking marvellous.’

      There was silence for a moment. Alexa managed to maintain some semblance of a smile and then, since Derek was preoccupied with throwing his arms about and pulling stupid expressions, she checked for any other business and dismissed the team.

      The deputy editor was one of the last to leave the room.

      ‘Derek?’ She caught his attention as he passed. ‘Can I have a word?’

      Derek stopped in his tracks, holding his position in the doorway as though deliberating over whether to heed or ignore the request. Eventually, when everyone else had returned to their desks, he turned to face Alexa.

      ‘I’d love to have a word with you,’ he sneered.

      Alexa could feel herself tense up as she watched him return to his seat at the head of the table. They were now separated by four chairs, which seemed odd, but she didn’t comment.

      ‘I just wanted to say . . .’ Alexa took a breath and pushed out the words. ‘Well, I thought it would be sensible to talk about our roles and responsibilities.’

      ‘Our roles and responsibilities,’ he echoed mockingly.

      ‘Yes, let’s.’ Alexa thought for a second. She had known that this wouldn’t be easy, but she hadn’t quite anticipated the extent of Derek’s resentment towards her.

      ‘So, to clarify,’ she persevered. ‘In my mind, you are still the acting editor of this magazine.’

      Derek snorted. ‘I don’t know what the fuck is going on in your mind. All I know is that a few weeks ago, I was demoted to deputy editor for no apparent reason and then you come along with a fancy title and start talking about rejuvenation and engagement.’

      Alexa sighed. So this was what it was all about. Derek blamed Alexa for his demotion. It wasn’t exactly a revelation, but at least there was no longer any room for doubt. Alexa wished she had spoken out when Peterson had told her of his plans. She ought to have foreseen this problem; she should have realised from Peterson’s cryptic mumblings that Derek Piggott would prove to be a problem. She should have advised the chief executive not to demote him. Inflated egos were far easier to deal with than crushed ones.

      ‘Look,’ she said, picking up on Derek’s last few words. ‘We need to get this magazine back on its feet. That’s why I’m here, and as soon as I’ve done my job, I’ll be out of your hair.’

      ‘Back on its feet?’ Derek stared at her, nostrils flaring. ‘Who said it wasn’t on its feet?’

      Alexa was about to reply and then stopped.

      He had no idea.

      For the last few weeks, she had been working on the assumption that Terry Peterson had told Derek about the Americans’ plans to dispose of the title if it didn’t improve its profitability. She had assumed that he was being discreet by not mentioning it around the office. She should have thought. Derek wasn’t capable of discretion. Peterson had clearly kept him in the dark on purpose.

      ‘Sorry,’ she said, watching Derek tug irritably at his goatee. ‘That was melodramatic. I just mean, I’m here to try and help Banter hit its April targets. I’m not here to run the editorial side of the magazine.’

      Derek just stared at her, shaking СКАЧАТЬ