Chris Cleave - Little Bee

I was conscious of eyes watching us from all around the office. I smiled.

“Yes that’s great,” I said. “Really. So what have we got so far?”

“For this issue? Wouldn’t you like to sit down first? Let me get you a coffee, you must feel terrible.”

“My husband died, Clarissa. I am still alive. I have a son to look after and a mortgage to pay. I’d just like to get straight back to work.”

Clarissa took a step back.

“Fine,” she said. “Well, we’ve got some great stuff. It’s Henley month, of course, so we’re doing an ironic what-not-to-wear for the regatta, which is a cunning pretext for some pics of gorgeous rowers, bien évidemment. For fashion we’re doing something called ‘Fuck Your Boyfriend’-see what we did there? That’s going to be girls with whips snarling at boys in Duckie Brown, basically. And for the ‘Real Life’ slot there’s two choices. Either we go with this piece called ‘Beauty and the Budget’ about a woman with two ugly daughters and only enough money to pay for cosmetic surgery for one of them. Ugh-yes-I know. Or -my preference-we’ve got a piece called ‘Good Vibrations,’ and I’m telling you, it’s an eye opener. I mean, my god, Sarah, some of the sex toys you can buy online these days, they’re solutions to desires I had no idea existed, god save us all.”

I closed my eyes and listened to the hum of the fluorescent lights, the buzzing of fax machines, and the fluid chatter of the editorial girls on their phones to fashion houses. It all seemed suddenly insane, like wearing a little green bikini to an African war. I breathed out slowly, and opened my eyes.

“So which piece do you want to go with?” said Clarissa. “Cosmetic conundrum, or carnal cornucopia?”

I walked over to the window and rolled my forehead against the glass.

“Please don’t do that, Sarah. It makes me nervous when you do that.”

“I’m thinking.”

“I know, darling. That’s why it makes me nervous, because I know what you’re thinking. We have this argument every month. But we have to run the stories people read. You know we do.”

I shrugged. “My son is convinced he will lose all his powers if he takes off his Batman costume.”

“And your point is?”

“That we can be deluded. That we can be mistaken in our beliefs.”

“You think I am?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore, Clar. About the magazine, I mean. It all seems a bit unreal suddenly.”

“Of course it does, you poor thing. I don’t even know why you came in today. It’s far too early.”

I nodded. “That’s what Lawrence said too.”

“You should listen to him.”

“I do. I’m lucky to have him, I really am. I don’t know what I’d do otherwise.”

Clarissa came and stood next to me at the window.

“Have you spoken with him much, since Andrew died?”

“He’s at my house,” I said. “He showed up last night.”

“He stayed overnight? He’s married, isn’t he?”

“Don’t be like that. He was a married man before Andrew died.”

Clarissa shivered. “I know. It’s just a bit creepy, that’s all.”

“Is it?”

Clarissa blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Sudden, I suppose I mean.”

“Well it wasn’t my idea, if you must know.”

“In which case I revert to my original choice of word. Creepy.”

Now we both stood with our foreheads against the glass, looking down at the traffic.

“I actually came here to talk about work,” I said after a while.

“Fine.”

“I want us to go back to the kind of article we did while we were making our name. Let’s just, for once, put a real-life feature in the ‘Real Life’ slot. That’s all I’m saying. I won’t let you talk me out of it this time.”

“What, then? What kind of a feature?”

“I want us to do a piece on refugees to the UK. Don’t worry, we can do it in the style of the magazine. We can make it about women refugees if you like.”

Clarissa rolled her eyes.

“And yet something in your tone tells me you’re not talking about women refugees with sex toys.”

I smiled.

“What if I said no?” said Clarissa.

“I don’t know. Technically, I suppose, I could sack you.”

Clarissa thought for a moment.

“Why refugees?” she said. “Is this because you’re still cross we didn’t go with the Baghdad woman in the June issue?”

“I just think it’s an issue that isn’t going to go away. May, June, or anytime soon.”

“Fine,” said Clarissa. Then she said, “Would you really sack me, darling?”

“I don’t know. Would you really say no?”

“I don’t know.”

We stood for a long time. In the street below, an Italian-looking boy was cycling past the traffic queue. Mid-twenties, shirtless and tanned, in short white nylon shorts.

“Five,” said Clarissa.

“Out of ten?”

“Out of five, darling.”

I laughed. “There are days when I would cheerfully swap lives with you, Clar.”

Clarissa turned to me. I noticed the very slight mark of foundation left on the windowpane where her forehead had been. It hovered like a light flesh-toned cloud over the bone-white spire of Christ Church Spitalfields.

“Oh Sarah,” said Clarissa. “We go too far back to let one another down. You’re the boss. Of course I’ll get you a feature on refugees, if you really want it. But I really don’t think you understand how quickly people’s eyes will glaze over. It isn’t an issue that affects anyone’s own life, that’s the problem.”

I felt a lurching vertigo and I took a step back from the glass.

“You’ll just have to find an angle,” I said shakily.

Clarissa stared at me. “You’re bereaved, Sarah. You’re not thinking straight. You’re not ready to be back at work yet.”

“You want my job, is that it Clar?”

She reddened. “You didn’t say that,” she said.

I sat down on the edge of the desk and massaged my temples with my thumbs.

“No, I didn’t. God. I’m so sorry. Anyway, maybe you should have my job. I’m losing the plot, I really am. I don’t see the point in it anymore.”

Clarissa sighed. “I don’t want your job, Sarah.”

She waved her long nails in the direction of the editorial floor.

“They’re still hungry for it, Sarah. Maybe you should move on and let one of them have the job.”

“Do you think they really deserve it?”

“Did we deserve it, at their age?”

“I don’t know, Clarissa. All I remember is how badly I wanted it. Didn’t it seem so thrilling, back then? I thought I could take on the world, I really did. Make real-life issues sexy. Be challenging, remember? The bloody name of our magazine, Clar. Remember why we chose it? Nixie, for heaven’s sake. We were going to bring them in with sex and then immerse them in the issues. We weren’t going to let anyone teach us how to run a magazine. We were going to teach them, remember? Whatever happened to us wanting that?”

“What happened to wanting, Sarah, was getting a few of the things we wanted.”

I smiled, and sat down at my desk. I scrolled through the mocked-up pages on Clarissa’s screen.

“These are actually pretty good,” I said.

“Of course they’re good, darling, I’ve been doing the exact same story every single month for ten years. Cosmetic surgery and sex toys I can do with my eyes closed.”

I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes. Clarissa put her hand on my shoulder.

“But seriously, Sarah?”

“Mmm?”

“Please just give yourself a day to think about it, will you? The refugee piece, I mean. You’re in a state at the moment, with everything that’s happened. Why don’t you take tomorrow off, just to make sure you’re sure, and if you are sure then of course I’ll make it happen for you. But if you’re not sure, then let’s not throw away our careers over it right now, okay darling?”