The Forgotten Girl. Kerry Barrett

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      I took a breath.

      ‘I have always wanted to work on Mode,’ I said. ‘This is my dream job and I was so excited about it.’

      ‘But?’ Vanessa said.

      ‘But things are trickier than I thought,’ I admitted. ‘Our circulation is lower than it’s ever been.’

      ‘Because of Grace?’ said the art editor – a tiny redhead called Milly.

      ‘Because of Grace,’ I agreed. ‘They’ve really raised their game, and of course print’s a tricky place to be anyway because of digital. But Grace’s success is proving there’s still a place for glossy mags – we just need to remind people we’re here and we’re the best.’

      There was a murmur of voices, but Vanessa wasn’t giving up yet.

      ‘I heard they want to close us,’ she said, raising her voice so I could hear her over the chitchat.

      Everyone fell silent and stared at me.

      ‘Is that true?’ Milly asked. ‘Are they closing us?’

      I thought about lying, but they were all seasoned magazine journalists. I knew I couldn’t fool them.

      ‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘It’s not true. But it’s a possibility.’

      The chitchat became a hubbub of voices. I let them all talk for a moment, then I held my hands up.

      ‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘Listen…’

      Eventually everyone stopped talking.

      ‘Okay,’ I said. I closed my eyes briefly and sent up a silent prayer to the magazine gods that I was doing the right thing and that my already depleted team wouldn’t all hand in their notices immediately and leave me trying to save Mode on my own.

      ‘They’ve given us nine months to turn things round,’ I said. ‘To improve sales, to get our brand out there, to get people talking about Mode again.’

      I paused.

      ‘We’ve got a lot of work to do.’

      I spent the next hour fielding questions about exactly what Lizzie wanted (‘I don’t know,’ I said), about what redundancy packages might be on offer (‘I don’t know,’ I said), about how they would measure our success and whether it would just be sales or if it would be profits too (‘I don’t know,’ I said) and how I was planning to make this all happen.

      ‘I don’t know,’ I said, yet again. ‘But I do know this is a brilliant magazine with a long history.’

      I looked round at the team once more.

      ‘And I know you’re all great writers and editors and designers,’ I said. Vanessa made a face but Milly smiled. ‘I want this to work and I can’t do it by myself, so I need you all on board.’

      I thought for a moment.

      ‘Let’s spend tomorrow afternoon coming up with some ideas,’ I said. ‘Not just cover stars, but let’s think about what we can do to get a buzz round Mode magazine again. Anything and everything you can think of – I don’t care how off the wall the ideas are, but I want everyone here to come up with something.’

      I wrapped up the meeting and the team all filed out of my office and back to their desks, muttering to each other – no doubt saying all sorts of rude things about me – and I was alone once more.

      ‘Bloody hell,’ I said out loud, feeling shell-shocked by my morning. But, I had to admit, being honest with the team had been the right thing to do, even if Vanessa had forced my hand a bit.

      Hopefully we could come up with some exciting ideas tomorrow, I thought, leaning back in my chair. I already had lists of cover stars, features ideas and campaigns that I wanted us to try, but I knew that I needed this to be a team effort. I needed everyone with me if this was going to work.

      Not for the first time that day, I wished I was still working with Jen. She was such a brilliant sounding board for ideas – and always came up with different approaches and creative ways of doing something.

      But I was on my own with this, and I had to do my best.

      I spun round in my chair and stared out of the window at the bustling Soho streets below me.

      ‘I can do this,’ I said out loud. ‘I can bloody well do this.’

      ‘You can do anything you want,’ a voice said. A very familiar Australian accent that I’d not heard for more than five years. ‘You always have.’

      I froze. Then slowly, I turned my chair round so I was facing into my office again.

      ‘Damo,’ I said. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

      The huge figure of my ex-boyfriend filled the doorway. His hair was longer than I’d ever seen it, and he was wearing a grey beanie hat on his head. He looked absolutely knackered, very scruffy, and really, really hot. My heart started to beat a little bit faster.

      ‘What kind of a welcome is that?’ he said, laughter in his eyes. ‘I just came to wish you luck.’

      ‘All the way from Sydney?’

      ‘All the way from over there,’ he said, tipping his head in the direction of the team that produced the men’s mag Homme, and who shared our office.

      What. The…

      He laughed properly at my startled face.

      ‘Don’t read Homme much, huh?’ he said. ‘I’ve been working here for ages.’

      ‘Not full-time?’ I said. My voice was wobbly.

      ‘Nah,’ Damo said. ‘Bit of this, bit of that. You know how it is.’

      I did. His lack of focus was one of the things that we’d clashed about when we were together. But now I was grateful that despite the bad luck that had brought him here on the biggest day of my life, his unwillingness to commit to anything was still intact. If he was only freelance, our paths wouldn’t have to cross.

      ‘But,’ Damo said. ‘I’m actually covering for the art editor for a while. She’s gone on maternity leave.’

      Ah.

      ‘Got to run. Features meeting,’ he said, rolling his eyes and making me wonder how he’d cope with the day-to-day business of life on a magazine. ‘Catch up later?’

      I nodded, dumbly, staring at the door as he shut it, then I put my head in my hands. What should have been the best day ever was turning into the worst. The magazine was in trouble, my new team were hostile – at least some of them were – and my ex-boyfriend (and not just any ex-boyfriend, THE ex-boyfriend) had turned up. What on earth was I going to do?

Chapter 3

      1966

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