Lee Rourke: Vulgar Things

Look at them both sitting at their desks, feigning important business. What do they think they’re doing with their lives? What are they hoping to achieve, acting the way they do, alienating everyone else in the office? I’ve asked myself many, many times: What am I doing here? I’m pretty much resigned to the fact that I’ve more or less chosen the wrong path in life. Not that I have any idea what the correct path might be. I look at what my life, until now, has amounted to: a boring job, a failed marriage, a small flat I can barely afford, and each working day the same agonising prospect of these two loathsome cretins, sitting at their desks, constantly talking to one another. It sickens me. To be honest, I don’t think I have the strength for it any more.

lunch hour

Jessica, the younger of the two and my line manager, had taken me to one side in the company kitchen earlier that week. Her words had been rattling around my head ever since, delivered, as they were, in her usual pseudo-flirtatious manner: ‘What’s wrong with you these days? Have you been having trouble at home again?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Have you been having trouble at home, you poor dear? I know things didn’t work out for you last year … your marriage … I’m genuinely worried for you. Is that why you’ve been letting things slip here?’

‘ Slip? ’

‘Your journals, some haven’t met cover month, when you said they would. Editors have been complaining, plus those suppliers’ invoices haven’t been sent that I asked you to send last week.’

‘Oh, those … I’ll send them today …’

‘Are your journals even on schedule?’

‘Yes, of course they are. I might not have hit cover month on a couple, but everything else I publish is published on schedule, on time and to budget, you know that.’

‘Jon, you know … I only ask you this because I actually care … It’s just that, things are slipping, people’s confidence in you has started to drop … We’re thinking of taking some journals from your list …’

‘What!?’

‘Just a couple … Maybe IBD and VVA … Nothing’s concrete yet, just to ease the pressure you must be feeling, you know … It’ll help ease your schedule … and if, you know, if there are problems outside here, this should ease the stress levels, too …’

‘Jessica, there are no problems outside here … and I’m not stressed …’

‘Well, you sound stressed …’

‘You’ve just told me you’re taking journals away from me, depleting my list … of course I’m going to sound concerned …’

‘Jon, I know you can pull through all this, it’s just a phase … a bad patch. I know you can get through this.’

‘Jessica … there’s no …’

‘Oh, I didn’t say … You’re still on for my engagement drinkies this weekend, yes? Blacks of course …’

‘…’

My time is up. Publishing is nothing to me. To be honest, I don’t even remember how I fell into this profession in the first place. I’m a good editor, I think, but the job bores me to tears. It must have been some kind of accident, some heinous sleight of hand — something that happened when I was looking the other way.

I’ve had a sense something has been wrong for some time. Jane, Jessica’s boss and the head of production, has been in a strange mood for a number of days, singing loudly and quite inappropriately to Jessica across the office, annoying the editorial team to her immediate right, who suffer on a daily basis at the hands of this bizarre office friendship, which I and a few others have always thought unprofessional at the best of times and verging on surreal the rest. Today, each time I look up from my proofs Jane is staring at me, and then I’ll notice her glance over to Jessica when she thinks I’m not looking, who in turn pulls some sort of face back at her, as if to say: ‘ I know, I know, I’ll sort him out. ’ I try to ignore this behaviour as best I can, but it’s no good. I bury my head in the proofs I’m working on, hoping this phase will pass — but it doesn’t.

As usual I go for my lunch alone. I sit on a bench in St James’s Park across the way from the ICA in some sort of stupor. I don’t think, or look at much in particular. I can sense people all around me, office workers and tourists going about their business. Everything in front of me — people, birds in trees, dogs and squirrels in the park, cars and cyclists on the Mall — I can’t reach, whatever it is that is happening, because I’m stuck in it. I feel helpless. There’s nothing I can do — and the way I’m feeling, even if there were I probably wouldn’t bother to do it. This sense of helplessness stays with me all through my lunch hour, like a bad smell.

I walk back into the office and immediately notice Jessica staring at me. I ignore her and walk over to my desk to check my emails. There are thirty-seven unopened emails in my inbox, all of them from this morning. I sit there looking at them, pretending to be busy. I can feel Jessica’s eyes on the side of my face, my cheeks reddening. I try my best to ignore what is happening. Then, just as I let out an exasperated ‘What!?’ in Jessica’s direction, I notice the email from Jane. It had been sent exactly one minute after I had left for lunch, as I was walking out of the building. I don’t bother reading all of it. I know immediately what it is.

everything looks as it should

I knock on the door to Meeting Room 4 as requested. Jane is sitting at the table. She doesn’t smile. I sit opposite her.

‘Jon, there’ve been some serious complaints made by editors … about your productivity and capability … The editors of IBD , for example, they didn’t see the final set of proofs before issue 5 went to press … and …’

‘It’s okay, I know.’

‘We just don’t think it’s working, Jon.’

‘Really.’

‘Jessica thinks you’re unsuitable for this role, she’s been keeping me posted for the past few weeks … She feels …’

‘Jane, I’m not interested in how Jessica feels … Just give me the letter.’

I walk out of the office without clearing my desk. At the door I look back — everything looks just as it should: people are at their desks, oblivious, heads down correcting proofs, or up staring at their monitors, working. Only one thing looks out of place: Jessica’s empty desk. She hasn’t even bothered waiting until I’ve left the building before scurrying over to her pal in Meeting Room 4. I exhale and walk out of the door.

into a room

I walk into Soho. I need a drink and something to eat. I take a seat in Spuntino’s on Rupert Street and order a bottle of red wine and some truffled egg toast . Two portions for myself. I immediately feel calmer, but it doesn’t last all that long. Two men sit down beside me and ruin my thoughts. They are loud. Media types. They work in the film industry and want everyone to know. I can’t hear myself think, so I just sip my wine and listen to them instead, staring down at my food.

‘When are they shooting?’

‘June.’

‘Where?’

‘Dunno. Somewhere near Kingsland Road. They’ve found some old buildings.’

‘Who’s shooting?’

‘Stevens.’

‘From United Agents?’

‘Yes. He’s shooting that before he heads out to LA for the location meetings on Rob’s project.’