Ready, set, to her death, she raced.
Chapter 1
San Francisco, May, 2016
Alison, as she decided to go by, turned the golden key. The scent of stale lavender floated in the air amidst all her hopes and dreams.
She scanned the furniture in the dimmed apartment. Excited at the prospect of living a life she only dreamed of instead of repeating the same mistakes, she couldn’t make out much.
The long and difficult journey started before she got on that plane. In London, she burned with ambition to make her mark on the world by holding up a prestigious career. She struggled to carry her own body, now. The rat race turned her into a rodent.
The plane turbulence meant she didn’t sleep ̶ yet again. Her mind buzzed with anticipation for this new chapter.
A kind man with dusty blonde hair carried her bag up the stairs at Ladbroke Grove station.
'What’ve you got in there ̶ a body?'
'Several,' she smiled, looking up to see his girlfriend staring back at her.
She packed multiple selves in her luggage: arty skirts, glamorous gowns and an assortment of underwear. Each item a part of her past, now a hazy memory. She held family secrets - out of sight, for now.
Alison flopped onto the sofa.
'Home,' she whispered.
Next morning, sunbeams streamed in. The bright start to the rest of her life. A quirky three-legged glass table stood by the window. She could see herself writing there. A blackbird flew past the window and a thought popped up: why is a raven like a writing desk? There were female magazines that left clues of the previous tenant. Optimism leaked into her weary soul.
The view of the hills joined her for breakfast: coffee bubbled in the background, creamy scrambled eggs cooled, and a bowl of raspberries freshly washed, before her. Alison squeezed an orange. The juice trickled into her glass. She smiled - the first time in a while.
The housekeeper bustled around the small apartment.
'Little stain on the carpet, I do everything, but no, does not go,' Rosetta said. 'I tell the last young lady ̶ no glasses on bookshelf, but never listens,' she continued. 'Young girls never listen to good advice.’
'Thank you, Rosetta,' Alison glanced up, sipping her orange juice. 'No glasses on the bookshelf, got it. I also give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.’
'The fridge, I fill, but some... mould, you know? Doesn’t go.'
Smiling and nodding, the mention of mould worried Alison. A vision of her previous apartment, with mould climbing up the walls, came to mind. The decay followed her from her previous life.
After Rosetta left, Alison opened a newspaper at the jobs page. She drew little swirls on the top corner, finally free to sit and wander. 'Barista.' She underlined, circled again then scribbled out the word. 'Salesman,' she underlined, drew a little box around it, scribbled it out. She could be anything she wanted to be.
Later that day, she sat opposite her old friend in Philz Coffee, with the background of the hills swapped for a hive of hipsters chatting, laughing, buzzing about each of the round tables.
'I’m telling you, man, the best coffee you will ever taste,' Lee smirked.
Alison sniffed at the coffee and looked up at Lee in disbelief.
'It’s like the richest blend and so totally fresh because the secret is, they only store it below 60 Fahrenheit.' Lee leaned back with his legs stretched wide apart.
'Fahrenheit… really?'
Alison could barely recognise her friend staring back at her with his big, all-knowing, Cheshire grin. The lines of cynicism were still etched on his brow. His face now taut with a smile stretched across it, like a pole holding up a tent.
'Feels like ten minutes ago we were smoking weed in Uni Halls trying to find some kind of meaning to life.’ 'Ha! I always said you should join me out here, with your mum having an American passport. Cookies! Have you tried the cookies here?' Lee said with a new rev of energy.
'Erm…'
'They are to die for.'
'I’m ok.'
'Seriously… best ever.'
'I’m really not hungry.'
Lee jumped out of his chair in the hunt of biscuits.
The cafe was full of young, attractive people making fashion statements. She wanted to fit in. Lee returned.
'Got chocolate chipped, vanilla glazed and, my all-time favourite, lime & orange peel.' He pushed the plate of biscuits up to Alison’s face. Eat me ̶ they beckoned.
'Thanks,' she said and put one on the plate Lee placed in front of her.
'So, Al…What’s the plan in San Fran-fabulous-cisco?’
Alison choked on her coffee at Lee’s creative use of words, but it was delicious coffee.
'Well…' Alison started.
'There is so much you gotta do out here. SF has some awesome spots, but then you gotta take some trips. Grand Canyon, obviously, then there’s Tahoe, the Redwoods and Yosemite. Yosemite will. Blow. Your. Mind.'
Alison wondered what happened to the nervy geek she once knew.
'I don’t have a plan.'
Lee hesitated with a blank expression and blinked, then jolted back into action.
'Ah, cool man ̶ that is so chill. Not like the old Al I remember.'
Remember… a twinge of past flickered in her mind…
'Well, it’s good to get out of London,' he said. 'That place is good for no one ̶ people rushing round like they’re crazy ̶ they don’t see the matrix, they think that’s it… ha!'
Alison nibbled one side of her biscuit. 'Umm… I needed a change.’ She stayed the same size but felt as though she shrunk to an inch high.
'Well man, you’ve come to the right place. You must be mad, like the best of us.’
‘How do you know I’m mad?’ said Alison.
'You must be,’ said Lee, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’
Stepping outside, she took in the fresh Californian air ̶ she hoped change would appear. The soft ice-cream-coloured houses were stacked up on top of one another balancing around the curves of the hills. Deep luminous sky poured within the grooves of the dark hill tops. Hill tops that would either inspire or conspire against her. But the novel surroundings swept up all her doubts and tossed them into the bright, breezy sky.
Chapter 2
London, November, 2010
The telephone connection was as strong as her ambition.
‘Lee, I have news ̶ big news,’ Al paced while talking over the phone.
‘Oh yeah?’ Lee didn’t sound as excited as Al would have liked.
‘I got the job!’
‘Which job, Al? Last time we spoke you applied for like a million.’
‘The dream job at the newspaper. Not just any newspaper, but The Main Event.’
The Main Event was one of the most prestigious national newspapers.
‘Really?’ Lee now spoke with an injection of enthusiasm, or was it jealousy? ‘In that case, you are never allowed to complain about anything ever again.’
Yet, Al’s complaints were destined to only get bigger.
On the morning of that first dream paid job at the newspaper, she planned a coffee catch up. She was running late, while he immersed his face in the Financial Times. She tripped over her feet trying to stop from toppling over.
He recognised the footsteps and clunked his tea cup onto its stained saucer. Peering over the top of his paper, he looked her up and down.
'Hi Dad.’ It was always difficult when it was just the two of them. Al’s mother managed to keep the intensity under control ̶ except for when her father totally lost it.
‘I don’t want you to mess this up.’ He spoke with utter seriousness.
‘I promise I won’t, Dad.’ Al looked at his hands gripping his coffee cup. They were large and coarse and she had been witness to them in violent bursts taking out any excess anger on the walls, the furniture or even worse.
He paused, expressionless, then looked at her feet.
'No daughter of mine will wear scuffed shoes.'
Her smile dropped. The rounded toes of her black leather shoes pointed at one another. She loved those shoes. She wore them over and over again. Their fine lines were like an older woman’s creased skin marking her journey. On this trajectory, her own personal journey was at threat of being cut short.
After a dash to the nearest high street, Al walked down the long corridor in tight, new shoes. Her footsteps echoed as they hit the marble on the first day of the rest of her life.
Waiting for the lift, she looked up at an oil painting the size of a large window. It was of a man sitting on a chair. His arms were crossed and with a proud wide smile on his shrivelled face. It conveyed a face that knew everything. The lift doors slid open.
A tall, broad woman, with a heavily made-up face and a deep dent in between her eyebrows, appeared. Al later found out her name was Cherie. Cherie’s face dashed to a believable smile as they made brief eye contact. Cherie threw her Vivienne Westwood scarf over her shoulder and puffed her chest. Her smile disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.
Al shuffled into the lift. It rose with her stomach ̶ one, two, three, four, five. The light stopped at number five. She’d arrived.
A wrinkled, pouty woman called Elenor, from HR, gave Al a brief tour of the offices ̶ the different departments, kitchen, toilets etc. She then ushered her into a small side office. At the back, there was the Managing Editor, Bobby ̶ a tall, bald man with a bulging gut. Elenor was just about to say something before her mobile rang.
'Sweetie, I must take this,' she said and disappeared.
'Who are you?' Bobby had his feet on the desk as he spoke.
'I’m the Al the new gal.'
'What? Who the fuck are you?!'
'The new Editorial Assistant.'
'Well don’t just bloody stand there, go and put the kettle on.’
In the kitchen, she scrubbed a tea-stained mug and got off as much of the discolouration as she could. She took a cup of tea to the office, carefully placed it on the corner of Bobby’s desk, smiling.
'Watch it! Not on my papers for God’s sake,' he gave her a death stare.
'I’m so sorry.'
Bobby picked up the mug with one hand and papers in the other. A few drips spilled onto the desk.
'Look what you’ve made me do.'
Al felt time stand still.
'Don’t just stand there, go and get a cloth or something.'
On Al’s return to the kitchen, she met Rebecca, her predecessor. Hovering around the office, Rebecca overheard the introduction.
'Sometimes, I hate him so much, I spit in his tea,' she smiled slyly as she spoke.
It was another helpful hint among all the other advice. The more practical tips Al did actually follow. She soon found they were deliberate detours, given only to trip her up.
By 5 o’clock that day, she made twelve cups of teas, faxed fifteen documents and shredded fifty sheets of draft news stories. It was Bobby’s way or off with your head. She soon learned that the devil wore Prada on a good day and worked as a newspaper journalist the rest of the week.
It had taken a lot to get here. Previously, she worked unpaid at a free newspaper, a television studio and as a Runner for a radio station. She did run back and forth from the offices to local cafes. She had worked six days a week. Her discontent drove her, striving for happiness that was always just out of reach.
She spent commutes to work experience placements reading self-improvement books. One of her favourites was Eat That Frog. It taught her she should start her day doing the hardest task on her to-do list, first. Each morning, she got up at 6am. By 7am she was winning. She read until her eyes were sore ̶ a sign of things to come.
She applied for job after job and collected rejections like souvenirs. She didn’t want any job. She wanted a job that brought her fulfilment. The power of the written word drew her in, but she would be plunged into a long dark path before the possibility of it saving her.
After reading George Orwell’s: Why I Write, she felt she was on to something. ‘All writing is political,’ it said. She learnt that words are the precursor for change. She knew the world needed change. She wanted to be a part of it. Journalism was a way of bringing the injustices of the world to the surface.
She was not afraid of hard work ̶ at any cost. Money didn’t drive her but recognition did ̶ recognition that she could make a difference. She vowed to do whatever it took to ‘make it’.
On the way home on the tube, the distinct metallic smell made her queasy. She continued to escape into books, but now mostly fiction. Feeling like Anna Karenina ̶ roaming in a world she felt she couldn’t fit into. The train tugged over the tracks, often delayed because a person was under them. The passengers huffed at the inconvenience of someone deciding to die the morning of their critical meeting.
She wondered whether death would be a painful annihilation or would it be a long peaceful sleep that was actually quite enticing.
In the side office, there was also the Deputy Editor, Miles. He was a short man with long, grey, wispy hair. Al would watch Miles work on headlines, unnoticed ̶ he’d write down several words, shuffle them, ponder, shuffle again then type them up in a little run like a piano finale ̶ diddly, diddly, dum, with the flick of a thumb. He then sighed in satisfaction. Al longed for that feeling of satisfaction. Her life-long search for it could kill her.
On an average day, the demands came down hard, like a storm, from both Miles and Bobby.
‘Photocopy this now.’
‘How many times have I told you to enlarge the text.’
‘Re-do this page. Can’t you see ̶ the text doesn’t line up.’
‘Are you an idiot or something?! How many times have I told you, it’s got to line up.’
‘I don’t care how busy you are, when I tell you to do something, you do it straight away.’
Al did her best to live up to the impossibly high standards. But it wasn’t only her that got the verbal attacks.
‘Miles, I don’t want you to finesse on this one. We’ve got a deadline to meet.’ Bobby spoke to him the same way he spoke to Al.
‘Right, of course.’ Miles was like two different characters. When he was under orders from Bobby, he acted like a timid schoolboy. But when it was just him and Al, he was like a stressed out single parent kicking the cat.
Miles had come to The Main Event through being Editor of Cambridge University’s student newspaper. He spoke with a plum in his mouth which contrasted Bobby’s working class accent.
‘You need to be quicker, Al, if you want to succeed here.’ It wasn’t said with warmth and encouragement but with a doubt that Al was really suited to this line of work.
‘I’m doing my best.’
‘I’ve told you before that I need this report printed and on my desk by 9am sharp.’
‘I had to do some photocopying for Bobby.’
‘You need to be able to do both.’ He spoke as if talking to a servant.
‘I’ll try harder next time.’ She really meant it, without realising that no amount of effort could ever be enough.
After three gruelling months, Miles opened to a conversation other than giving commands.
'I see you’re reading Anna Karenina,' he tipped his head towards the book on her desk. ’What do you think?’
'I’ve finished it. It was emotional.'
'I wanted to kick her under the train, myself.’
'Oh, I thought it was a great book,' she slid her chair under her desk. She felt as if he could easily have kicked her under a train. At least it would be an end to her constant struggle.
After she had got more than just orders out of Miles, he gave her a story to work on. It was a story about white collar petty theft in the workplace. She wrote the headline: Bent Britain. She spent every evening swatting up, researching statistics of crime in British offices.
Miles seemed mildly satisfied and agreed to give her a joint byline ̶ putting both their names as credit on the article. It was the first time she’d got any kind of byline. It kept her going. It made conversation around family and friends’ dinner tables. Al tasted the recognition. It spurred her on despite the daily aggression.
These crumbs of satisfaction kept Al from quitting. She always had the hope that things would improve eventually.
