S. K. Tremayne - The Assistant

HarperCollins Publishers

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First published by HarperCollins Publishers 2019

Copyright © S. K. Tremayne 2019

Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2010

Cover photographs © plainpicture/Philippe Lesprit (front cover); David Paire/Arcangel Images (back cover).

S. K. Tremayne asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books

Source ISBN: 9780008309510

Ebook Edition © December 2019 ISBN: 9780008309534

Version: 2020-09-10

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Author’s Note

Chapter 1. Jo

Chapter 2. Jo

Chapter 3. Jo

Chapter 4. Jo

Chapter 5. Janet

Chapter 6. Jo

Chapter 7. Jo

Chapter 8. Jo

Chapter 9. Jo

Chapter 10. Jo

Chapter 11. Jo

Chapter 12. Jo

Chapter 13. Jo

Chapter 14. Jo

Chapter 15. Jo

Chapter 16. Polly

Chapter 17. Jo

Chapter 18. Jo

Chapter 19. Jo

Chapter 20. Jo

Chapter 21. Dr Hussain

Chapter 22. Jo

Chapter 23. Jo

Chapter 24. Jo

Chapter 25. Jo

Chapter 26. Jo

Chapter 27. Jo

Chapter 28. Simon

Chapter 29. Simon

Chapter 30. Jo

Chapter 31. Jo

Chapter 32. Jo

Chapter 33. Jo

Chapter 34. Jo

Chapter 35. Jo

Chapter 36. Jo

Chapter 37. Jo

Chapter 38. Tabitha

Chapter 39. Jo

Chapter 40. Jo

Chapter 41. Jo

Chapter 42. Jo

Chapter 43. Jo

Chapter 44. Jo

Chapter 45. Jo

Chapter 46. Tabitha

Chapter 47. Jo

Chapter 48. Jo

Chapter 49. Jo

Chapter 50. Jo

Chapter 51. Jo

Chapter 52. Jo

Chapter 53. Jo

Chapter 54. Simon

Chapter 55. Jo

Chapter 56. Jo

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by S. K. Tremayne

About the Publisher

There are numerous quotations from the works of Sylvia Plath throughout the book. These lines are taken from her poems ‘Death & Co’, ‘The Bee Meeting’, ‘Disquieting Muses’, ‘Electra on Azalea Plath’, ‘Facelift’, ‘Mirror’, ‘Elm’ and ‘Childless Women’.

I must thank Faber & Faber for permission to quote, more widely, from two poems in particular: ‘Munich Mannequins’, and ‘Daddy’, both in the Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath.

As usual I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my agent Eugenie Furniss, and editors, Jane Johnson and Sarah Hodgson, for their characteristic wisdom, and insight.

Finally, I would like to thank my beloved wife, Star, for the many times she unknotted problems, and offered ideas, along the way.

Are you a woman, man, other?

Well, that’s easy enough. Despite that curious wish for a twirly moustache, age ten, and a twelve-year-old’s desire to be an astronaut, which came with the vague yet outraged sense that only boys could be proper astronauts, I am quite sure on this one.

As the daylight in the room shades to grey, I lean towards my shining laptop screen and click,

woman

Are you straight, gay, bisexual, other?

A pause. A long pause. I’ve no doubts about my sexuality, I’m just bemused by what other might mean in this context. What is that fourth possibility of sexuality? A desire for ghosts? Ponies? Furniture? My dear beloved mum can get oddly excited when reading magazines about interior decoration. But I somehow don’t think her demographic is the target of this website.

On the other hand, sitting here at my laptop in the fading winter light, I’d quite like a fourth choice, or a fifth choice, or, dammit, seventy-eight choices . Because if you were in a critical mood you could say my choices so far in life have not turned out entirely optimal: divorced, childless, and nearly homeless at thirty-three. OK, yes, I might be living in a sleek flat in the nicer end of Camden, North London – where it merges into the real, five-storey Georgian opulence of Primrose Hill – however, I know I’m only here because my richer friend, Tabitha, took pity on her newly divorced and virtually bankrupt old university mate. Hey, why don’t you have the spare room, I really don’t use it much …

I think it was the casually generous way she made this offer, the blasé effortlessness of it all, which confounded me. At once it made me feel impossibly grateful, and even more fond of Tabitha – funny, kind, generous, and the best of best friends – yet it also made me feel guilty and a tiny tiny tiny bit jealous.

Turning from the laptop, I look out of the darkening window. And see my own face reflected.

OK, I was properly jealous, if only for a minute or two. What barely mattered to Tabs – Here, have a spare room, somewhere really nice to live – was so crucial and difficult for me, and she was barely aware of the emotional difference.

This is because Tabitha Ashbury already owns, Tabitha Ashbury will also inherit. I love her but she’s never understood what it’s like not to have all that: in London.

By contrast with Tabitha, I’m not just Generation Rent, I am Generation Can’t Afford to Rent Anywhere Without a Major Knife Crime Epidemic. And it doesn’t look like this is going to change any time soon, because I’m a freelance journalist. I have become a freelance journalist when the phrase free lance has become a kind of fantastical joke in itself: hey, look, I know that these days you basically have to write for free , but where’s my lance ? Don’t we go jousting as well?

This career, however, was – for all its challenges – definitely one of my smarter choices. I love my job. The work is varied and compelling, and every so often I get to think I have changed the world slightly for the better, revealing some scandal, telling a decent story, making someone I’ll never know chuckle for two seconds, over a sentence that may have taken me six hours to get right. But that scintilla of human gladness wouldn’t have existed if I hadn’t made the effort. Or so I hope.

Reverting to my computer I refocus on OKCupid. I may have a home (however fortunate), I might have a job (however sketchy the salary), I have, however, no other half. And I am beginning to feel the absence. And perhaps the magic of internet dating will guide me, like a digital fairy godmother, with a wand of sparkling algorithms, to a new man.