There was a fair amount of photocopying and note-taking and tea-making to be done, but I was also getting to do the odd bit of writing, as well. Mostly, though, my three years at Thump were spent trying desperately to ignore the near-constant stream of casually sexist and homophobic ‘bants’ that washed back and forth between the other staff members. A stream that tonight, at the Christmas party, will be in full flow.
Still, none of that really has anything to do with why today ended up being so terrible. No, the real terribleness was all down to that email. I try to remember now: what time did I receive it? It must have been late afternoon, I reckon. I spoke to Daphne just after it landed in my inbox, and everything just spiralled downwards from there. The idea of experiencing it all over again makes my stomach clench with dread.
The bus is approaching my stop now, and as I stand, I examine the ghost of my reflection in the window. I’m still insanely young-looking compared to my thirty-four-year-old self, but the four years I’ve just skipped over have definitely left their mark. There are the beginnings of two sharp lines at the edges of my mouth, and the skin around my eyes seems a little darker and looser than it was ‘yesterday’ in 2006.
I hop out at Holborn station and make my way through the back streets towards Covent Garden, past the theatres all decked out in festive red and gold. I find I can still perfectly recall the short walk to the office: a grubby, iMac-filled basement in a huge grey nondescript tower block.
I’m the first to arrive – it’s 9.15, still early in media terms – and I sit down at my desk and switch on my computer. I have absolutely no idea what I’m supposed to be working on, and suddenly, the idea of muddling through a whole day in this office seems laughably impossible. I found it difficult enough to fit in at this job when I wasn’t inexplicably travelling through time, so God knows how I’m supposed to interact with my colleagues with any degree of normality now. I resolve to just do exactly what I used to do: shut up and keep my head down.
There are a few documents scattered across my computer desktop, so I click on one at random. The headline screams: FRANKENSTEIN’S WAG!
Ah, yes. I remember this masterpiece quite clearly. A photomontage feature in which the best body parts of the UK’s top WAGs were cut-and-pasted together to create a Mary Shelley-inspired hybrid monster that would represent the Ultimate Footballer’s Wife. Hallowe’en was a good six weeks ago, but our editor, Graham, hadn’t let that stand in the way of such an outstanding and ground-breaking idea.
My job, I remember as I scan the Word document, was to write fifty words apiece for each selected body part. Half a dozen short, exclamation-mark-heavy odes to Cheryl Cole’s lips, Danielle Lloyd’s breasts, Louise Redknapp’s legs, Abbey Clancy’s buttocks, and so on.
I wince at the sentences in front of me, and close the file. Next to it on the desktop, though, is another one that makes me wince even harder.
There it is. My novel. Well, actually, ‘novel’ is probably being slightly too kind: it’s more of a grotesquely bloated short story. There are forty-thousand-odd words in that document, and yet if you asked me what the actual plot was, I would struggle to tell you. I’d spent the last two years chipping away miserably at this pretentious, rambling mess, giving up countless nights and weekends when I could have been out having fun with Daphne or Harv.
Then, a couple of weeks prior to today, I finally got the nerve up to send it out to an agent. And later this afternoon, I will hear back from her.
I’m wondering if my stomach is strong enough to try reading a bit of it when a deep voice booms out behind me.
‘Fuckin’ hell, you’re in early, mate. Or did you sleep here?’
Jonno – the features editor of Thump, the creative genius behind Frankenstein’s WAG – stomps into the office, removing an expensive-looking pair of Oakleys, despite the fact that the sun is a no-show outside. Jonno is in his mid-thirties, with a shaved head and a permanently self-satisfied smirk. He’s wearing combat trousers, a black parka jacket and a bright red Kasabian T-shirt.
‘I’m all right, thanks,’ I say. ‘How are you doing?’
He nods. ‘Yeah, chipper as fuck, mate. Chipper. As. Fuck.’
I’m guessing I’ve been in this job about six weeks at this point, but I’m still not entirely sure that Jonno knows my name yet. If I remember rightly, he tended to address me exclusively as ‘mate’, ‘buddy’ or, on special occasions, ‘fella’.
He plonks himself down at his desk and starts removing various cables and wires and headphones from his rucksack. ‘Had an early one last night in preparation for tonight’s shenanigans,’ he says, adopting a wonky Irish brogue on ‘shenanigans’. Jonno speaks as if he’s constantly hosting the Radio 1 Breakfast Show: loud and brash and irritatingly chirpy, with a strong Cockney inflexion despite originally hailing from Chichester.
‘You’re out with us tonight, right, buddy?’ he asks me. ‘Christmas piss-up?’
‘Yeah, think so.’
‘Oh, mate …’ He runs a hand over his stubbly head. ‘It’s going to get messy. Trust me. Honestly, the girls at Archie’s are absolute filth. Mingers, mostly, but they’re up for anything.’
‘Oh. Right. OK …’
Throughout my entire three years at Thump, I was never quite sure how to respond to comments like this. Obviously I didn’t want to start spouting a load of sexist cobblers right back, but I also knew that saying I found these conversations at best mildly distasteful and at worst aggressively hateful would just result in being told: ‘Chill out, mate, it’s just a bit of banter!’
So for the most part I just used to stay quiet.
Jonno starts making himself a cup of tea, while launching into a long, powerfully depressing monologue about an unattractive stripper he’d encountered on a recent stag do. I’m guessing that when this story unfolded first time around, I just sat here laughing along and feeling like shit inside. But right now, I honestly can’t deal with it. I used to tell myself that if I wasn’t actively contributing to the belittlement of women or gay people or everyone who wasn’t straight and male, then I could still consider myself a decent person. But in hindsight, you know you’ve got problems when you’re employing the same case for the defence as a World War II collaborator. The truth is: I left this job in 2013 with a fair chunk of my self-confidence missing. And it was all because I didn’t have the guts to stand up to a load of idiots.
Without offering any explanation, I get up and walk out to the corridor. I’m suddenly hot with anger, and I have the worrying urge to boot the wall as hard as I can. The truth is, I was miserable here. Totally miserable. And my misery was compounded every day by the fact that I wasn’t brave enough to quit. I suppose I was too scared of being broke again, back doing pub shifts and spending my nights endlessly trawling the Guardian Jobs website. I also thought – deep down – that this job might eventually lead to something more interesting if I stuck with it. It never did.
I take a deep breath and reach instinctively for the phone in my pocket. I think about calling Daphne, but I’m not sure if I’m ready to speak to her yet. I scroll through my contacts until I get to Harv, and before I can think what I might say to him, I’m dialling. He answers after one ring.