When Bernice got to the Dog and Duck to join the others for their wake, half of Wright's seemed to be present. The place positively roared with a thousand animated conversations. It was as if everyone were leaving, or some national holiday had been declared. It reinforced her sensation that something strange had happened to the world, and that she was now adrift in a place she no longer understood.
As she passed through the dense, chattering crowd, she saw familiar faces who were nonetheless unfamiliar here. Was that really Charles Company standing alone by the bar, looking stern and yet vulnerable? And was that Blue Sue from Production, laughing and smiling as Bernice had never seen her before? And was that Tim over there, sitting sadly with his arm around a couple of the former security men? She was too numb, too tired really to take all this in, to analyse what it might mean. She was only conscious of her team sitting in a corner, watching her approach.
They saw instantly that she knew, and felt sorry for her, sorry that they had known and that she had not. Chris stared shamefacedly at his drink, while Yasmeen just looked at her unflinchingly with that new hardness she had acquired. And Bernice saw that she was no longer one of her team, an underling, but a rival, and a capable one at that.
As she sat down, Terence went off to get a drink for her.
"Ah well, George," she said, trying to seize the initiative and to break the silence that had descended on them with her arrival, "at least you should be happy now, what with that redundancy you've been after for so long" - something he had made no secret of in the office. This turned out not to be such a good choice.
"I don't care about that, now," he said sadly.
"Why not, George?" Bernice asked, unable to switch off her caring Editor's act.
"It's - it's my son," he said increasingly upset, "he's been in such terrible trouble this last year, you wouldn't believe it. First this cursed pyramid selling, and now its drugs - it's such a mess. I've tried everything, but it's hopeless, hopeless...I just don't understand the world today." And with that he lapsed into silence, and so did everyone else, a silence all the deeper for the surging buzz of conversation around it. There was also the distant sound of fire engines.
Suddenly Janice came in - Bernice felt guilty not to have noticed that she was not there.
"Hey, everybody," she said breathlessly, "have you heard? About Achilles'? The café, it's a burnt-out wreck - it looks as if a bomb has hit it." Even their locales are going, thought Bernice ruefully. "But it wasn't an accident. Seems that Achilles' women came in half an hour ago and destroyed the place before setting it alight. Rumour is that Achilles was carrying on with one of the catering ladies at Wright's - and they found out and took their revenge."
"Talking of dallying," said a very rotund Kate, keen to keep this new momentum going, "my sources in the production department tell me that Blue Sue isn't so blue these days..."
"Yes, I thought she looked different somehow," said Bernice.
"She should do," said Terence, "she's five months pregnant."
"What?" said Yasmeen.
"So she got back together with her husband?" asked Janice.
"Hardly," said Kate, her eyes twinkling, "I have it on good authority that her production machinery was oiled by none other than Mr Lubricant..."
"What?" said Bernice, "the bastard."
"Why?" said Wobs, "She told me she's been dying to get a-pregnant for years. She's happy, what's the problem?"
Well, thought Bernice, perhaps there isn't one. Perhaps good can come of selfishness.
"And that's not all," said Janice, "I hear that Martin's old secretary Cristina is getting married - to Trevor. She always did admire 'great' men." Everyone cheered: a kind of reckless euphoria was gaining strength amongst them, brought on by the shocks of the day and the strains of the last year.
"Talking of marriages, " said Kate looking at Terence, "we thought we'd get married too."
"Ay, give the lad a proper family, like..." he said, smiling broadly.
And suddenly Bernice could see that they were a couple, and that obviously Terence was the father of Kate's child, and that clearly she, Bernice, was becoming completely blind even to the obvious.
"When's the big day?" asked Janice, delighted and not nearly as surprised as Bernice.
"Well, we thought we'd combine it with my birthday next month," Kate said shyly.
"And you're all going to be invited," said Tel, beaming with pleasure.
"Anyone else?" said Bernice quite lost amidst all these developments.
"Well," said Yasmeen, and Bernice almost feared what she might say with her new-found strength, "we're going to India - "
"Who's 'we'?" asked Janice - Bernice had not the courage.
" - then south-east Asia - " said Wobs, answering the question. Wobs?!? thought Bernice; and then: why not?
" - then Australia - " continued Yasmeen.
" - South Pacific - " added Wobs.
" - America - "
" - South America - "
"I wanted to do some real travelling after all these pseudo-bloody trips" - it was the first time that Bernice had heard Yasmeen swear - "and Wobs and I were talking, and we thought 'why not?" Why not, indeed? Bernice asked herself once more.
"But will your redundancy stretch that far?" asked George, who seemed to have come out of his depression slightly, and was ever the worrier about practical issues - for him and for 'these young people'.
"Well," said Wobs, "there's also the single."
"What single?" asked Chris, also so caught up in the conversation as its spiralled away with the mounting revelations and excitement that he forgot his embarrassment towards Bernice.
"You know, the one that goes de-de-dah, dit-di-dit dah-dah" and Wobs sang some snatch of melody that did sound familiar.
"But that was on the jukebox a minute ago, " said Kate, "Is that yours?"
"Well, yeah," said Wobs shyly, "it's sorta based on an idea from the cover mount we had - speeded up and a new groove added."
"It's been number one for the last couple of weeks, actually," said Yasmeen with what Bernice detected as proprietary pride. My God, things had been moving, she thought - as had young Yazzers. And suddenly she realised that not only was Yasmeen dressed casually - still elegantly, but not in her usual staid business suit - but that she was wearing a T-shirt that said 'Blowing the Dis-ness', with a luscious pair of ruby lips above. Moreover, so was Wobs.
"Aha!" said Kate, "so the music on the CD was yours all along, eh Wobs?"
"Well, yeah, I suppose," he said shyly.
"But I thought you said it was a mate's?" asked Terence mischievously, keen to get this verbal copy subbed into the truth.
"Yeah? Must have been the Lucozade talking..." he said, his face wearing his best wide-eyed hobgoblin smile.
"But what about your career, Yasmeen?" Bernice couldn't resist asking, perhaps some less generous part of her hoping to dampen Yasmeen's enthusiasm for travel.
"Oh, that can wait. I feel pretty sure I can get a job when I get back. There are more important things in life than work, I've decided," she said emphatically. Bernice felt suitably reproached.
"But work is important too," said Janice. "At least, if it's the right work - like journalism. So I've decided to take a journalism course."
"That's quite expensive, Janice," said Bernice, hoping that Janice was aware of the difficulties. She was appalled at how patronising she sounded.
"Oh yeah, I know, " she said, "I've been into all that. But Sue isn't the only one to have been pursued by Mr Slide," she said with a wicked smile.
"And??" asked Bernice, wondering what this could mean.
"Well, James always said that you could get anything you wanted, y'know, if you wanted it badly enough, and were prepared to pay the price. Well, it seems he really did want it badly enough...so I made him pay the price."
"Janice," said Kate, "you didn't - not - really??"
"Oh yes I did," she said cheerily, "One more won't matter, I thought, and it'll pay for my course.... I look on it as a kind of horizontal career move...." She laughed, evidently quite relaxed about the whole business, even if they weren't. And in fact though her friends tended to be terribly protective of The Janissary, she was tougher than all of them put together.
Now everyone was talking about everything - about their common pasts, their recently revealed futures, their hopes, their fears, their desires. Everyone except Bernice and Chris, that is. Chris had relapsed into a silent contemplation of his beer. Bernice, meanwhile, felt terribly alone. She felt that she was losing everything that she had won over the last year - her job, her magazine, her friends. She was glad for them, of course, that they had these bright new futures opening up for them, but she also knew that it meant that they would start to go their own separate ways, that the unique spirit of being a team that worked and breathed together was disappearing even as they spoke.
"OK, then," she said, playing bossy manager for one last time. "I think it's time for some of us to go to those Exit interviews" - only Terence and Wobs had been 'done' that morning - "we don't want to be too drunk, do we?" She did.
And so they gradually made their way back to Wright's, passing for what was likely to be the last time all the familiar landmarks of Southdon which, if they had not exactly come to love, they had at least valued for its familiarity. Most of them were being 'dealt with' by the impersonal Personnel Department, while she was about to enjoy her final perk as a manager and be seen personally by Martin.
"Oh, I forgot," said Yasmeen as they approached the big 'W' of Wright's offices, "I extracted an interesting rumour chatting up Lovely Leonard, the new Security Entrance Officer on reception, as I came in this morning" - and whatever happened to Leda? wondered Bernice. Did she manage to bag her security guard in time? she thought idly, and who would this Lovely Leonard be able marry...?
"Apparently the head of Personnel - what's his name - Dandruff Scurfley or whatever - is jumping ship - no place for him in the merged company, it turns out. Seems he's been head-hunted - horrible thought if you ask me." And she laughed at her own wit.
"Ah, right, that explains it then," said Tel. "When I was up there waiting for the personnel people this morning, the phone rang outside that there Mr Scurfley's office - his secretary was someplace else. Being a well-trained journalist - " he glanced pointedly at Bernice, "I of course picked it up and answered in my best accent. Somebody foreign down t'other end, from a certain Radical Searches - what a name - wanted to talk with him. I knocked on his door, very politely, and passed on the message. He came out and tried to transfer the call to his phone, failed miserably, was clearly too embarrassed to ask me, and cursed a bit, pretending the phone didn't work properly.
Anyhow, this meant that I couldn't help but overhear his conversation - which he seemed mightily pleased about - some good news that he'd been waiting for...about a job as Editorial Director I seem to recall...on a certain Employment Magazine - your old title, I believe," he said to Bernice, smiling mischievously. It was Kate's turn to laugh now, with tears running down her cheeks.
"What is it?" asked Bernice.
"That's all too wonderful," said Kate, "because I've heard - through the Secret Lodge of Production Editors' grapevine, and in strictest confidence you understand, just as I am passing it on to you lot - that Employment Magazine is about to become Unemployment Magazine, but nobody knows it there, not even the Managing Director of the division. So Mr Scurfley will find that he's jumped ship onto a sinking one full of fleeing rats. He should feel at home."
