Page 5 of Cover Story

‘I’ve got bad news, I’m still here,’ she said, through a mouthful of cereal, standing aside to let Bel pass.

‘Definitely looks like you’re still here?’ Bel said.

Shilpa had been her best friend since they were teenagers. There was an anecdote she always told to best summarise the Shilpaness of Shilpa– indeed, it was the one Bel told as her bridesmaid at Shilpa’s wedding. When they were nineteen and completely skint, Shilpa bought a wedding dress from a charity shop for a fiver, added a tiara and veil from Claire’s Accessories, and led them round local nightspots getting bought drinks all night.

When it came to real marriages, and a groom she met on a Ryanair flight, it lasted three years– Shilpa and Rufus were now divorced. ‘Did I superstitiously curse it with that fake runaway bride stunt?’ she’d mused. Before concluding: ‘No, it was the raging incompatibilities.’

‘I am going to cut you a deal,’ Shilpa said, putting her Frosties bowl in the double sink and vaguely waving the boiling water tap at it. ‘Wait, did you go to work dressed like that?’

‘I didn’t have any meetings today, no one can see me! Well, only my top half in the Teams meeting.’

‘Fair do’s but your face still says “open casket”. My deal is, I hang around for another evening but I pay for a huge takeaway. Like, colossal. The size where you can eat it tomorrow too. A Chinese banquet.’

‘Agreed,’ Bel said, collapsing onto the sofa. ‘Tell you what I did forget, dressing like this– the new intern was starting. One “Connor Adams”, swags in with a nuclear winter attitude, sees my dreggy ensemble and gives me this look like …’ Bel scrunched her nose up and pushed her chin down and re-enacted an ‘ewww’ face while scanning.

‘Hahahaha.’

‘He went out on a sandwich run at lunch so we were free to gossip about him. Aaron tells me our boss Toby says he’s had an unusual career path, used to work in the Square Mile. We Googled him and he was in private equity, trading floor, a realWolf of Wall Streettype of world. God knows why he’s slumming it in journalism, his pay slips now must look like the tips they left in restaurants.’

‘Why’s he not doing financial journalism at theFT?’ Shilpa said, flopping down next to her.

‘Exactly what we said. Aaron’s got a theory he’s a mole, a plant for the pinstripe boys to do insider trading. Maybe we’re the misdirection part of his CV. Also, he’s handsome in a completely obnoxious way, so you can be absolutely sure he’s going to fail upward so fast it’ll look like The Rapture in a two-grand suit.’

‘Ishe?’ Shilpa paused, rummaging in a bag of Skittles she’d secreted somewhere in the sofa cushions. Bel personally tacked savoury with a hangover. ‘Let the dog see the rabbit, please.’

‘Errr …’ Bel opened her browser on her mobile, searched ‘Connor Adams investment’ and brought up his old LinkedIn headshot. Ugh. He was even giving her an arsey look in that image.

She turned her phone to face Shilpa.

‘Ooh, pass me my eclipse glasses! Retina burn. I wouldn’t mind exchanging my rupees for astrong poundfrom him.’

‘Vomit to infinity,’ Bel shuddered, putting her phone down. ‘He doesn’t need the ego boost of anyone fancying him. A self-saucing pudding if ever I met one.’

She’d thought of their office as a two-person canoe, but if they had interns forever, it was in fact always this: two people and a mulish interloper.

‘This place is an absolute sex parlour, by the way,’ Shilpa said, casting a look at their surroundings. ‘I’ve loved hanging around enjoying it, while you go to work to pay for it.’

She paused. Bel knew what was coming.

‘Heard from Anthony?’

‘Nope. Relieved. Maybe he’s finally got the message. Or rather,not got the messageabout where I live.’

Bel sounded confident and she wasn’t. She wasn’t fooling herself, or Shilpa, yet the pretence felt necessary.

‘If he finds a way to get in touch after this, I think you’ve got to do something about him,’ Shilpa said. ‘Prison door with spyhole’s a good start, though.’

‘I have!’

‘Belly.’

Bel had never consented to Belly, but nicknames didn’t work that way.

‘You have nuked all your social media, blocked him, changedyour phone number and taken a job in a different city. If I wasn’t personally convenienced by my best mate coming to live forty minutes away in an incredible apartment where I can crash regularly, I might have even advised you not to. But I’m a selfish little shit, as my ex-husband Rufus will tell you.’

‘There you go. In cowpats, daisies grow.’

Bel pulled her shoes off her feet and tucked them underneath her. It was a defensive foetal position.

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