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remedied.’
    An hour later, we have totally rearranged the office. Our desks are now almost side by side, both directly in front of the windows overlooking the courtyard, and the sofa (plus Doggo) has been shifted to fill the space vacated by Edith’s desk. These changes may appear trivial, but they’re
our
changes. We now possess the place in a way we didn’t before, and I trap the moment for posterity with a photo on my phone.
    ‘What now?’ she asks.
    ‘Lunch, of course. My shout.’
    It’s a restaurant I know on Lexington Street, a bit on the gloomy side unless you happen to get one of the four tin tables in the postage-stamp yard out back, which luckily we do.
    Edith tells me to call her Edie. She wants to talk about work, and so do I, just not the stuff she means. I’m looking to get the low-down on Indology, the blood and guts, the friendships and rivalries, rumours, truths and half-truths. This is more than just lurid curiosity on my part. I know from hard experience that such details matter when it comes to picking the path of least resistance through a new organisation.
    After almost a year on the front desk, Edie is a storehouse of water-cooler gossip. I discover many things (not least of all that she prefers Chardonnay to Sauvignon Blanc, and that after a couple of glasses the cutest ghost of a flush brightens her long pale neck). The important revelations are these: that Megan and Seth had been struggling for a while with the SWOSH! poster campaign when Edie first mentioned her idea about the black-and-white kisses to Patrick, who brought it to the attention of Tristan, who flagged it up to Ralph, who thought it was a great concept and told her to run with it. Patrick is regarded by Ralph as a good guy, smart and highly personable, but a little on the weak side, possibly not quite up to closing the big deals expected of a top account man. As for Tristan, one-time journalist, he muscled himself the position of managing director after bringing in some crucial financial backing (not his own). He’s married to a lawyer, and they have a young son.
    Edie seems very protective of him, which isn’t so surprising when you consider that it was Tristan who championed her promotion from receptionist to budding new art director. Never bite the hand that feeds you, as the old adage goes. They’re words I would also be wise to remember. It seems it was Tristan who suggested me as the perfect copywriter to partner Edie.
    ‘He rates you very highly.’
    I’m only human; I’ll take the flattery, although somehow I can’t see Tristan Hague having any interest in me or my work. Edie reads my expression correctly.
    ‘Ask him if you don’t believe me. Now, can we talk about the campaign? We can’t go back to the office empty-handed.’
    I won’t be. I can now safely assume that Megan and Seth want us to fail, that Tristan is keen for us to succeed, that Patrick needs us to succeed, and that Ralph ultimately calls the shots.
    These are the bold brushstrokes. With time, I’m sure the more subtle shadings will fall into focus.

Chapter Eight
     
    T HERE’S THE RETURNING home to an empty flat at the end of the day, of course, but the worst thing is the weekends.
    Even when Clara and I were stretched on the work front, we always made sure that Saturdays and Sundays remained sacrosanct. We also had a rule that once a month we would drive off somewhere for a night in our clapped-out little Peugeot. (Ours? Mine. Still mine.) It was always a surprise for one or other of us, a guessing game for the person in the passenger seat until we finally pulled to a halt in the car park of some far-flung pub or hotel.
    I took Clara to Ely, out in the Cambridgeshire fens (or what used to be the fens before they drained the wetlands for pasture), and to Studland Bay on the Dorset coast, and to see
Twelfth Night
in Stratford-upon-Avon. She introduced me to the Neolithic standing stones of Avebury Ring and the thermal waters of Bath, and