The Banker's Niece: List of people and places

On the whole, I haven’t included people mentioned only once.
Jane, being the heroine, isn't included either.

Some of the places are real, some imaginary, and some a mixture.

Agricultural Inn Pub in Black Dog

Alan A research analyst at the bank where Jane works during her first stint in London

Black Dog North Devon village where Rick was born and brought up, where his parents and grandparents live/d, and where he buys a derelict farm

Bristol A large city in south-west England

Bunty  Dog of Jane’s parents’ gardener

Chris (Beckford) Academic at the University of Devon

City (with capital ‘C’), the The financial district of London

Clerkenwell A trendy district of central London where Jane lives during her second stint in the capital

Clio Jane’s Renault Clio car

Colin Fletcher A writer of science fiction and controversial non-fiction books, published by Courtney Press

Courtney Manor The family seat of Henry Courtney and home to the book publishers, Courtney Press

Dart, River A major river in Devon, running from Dartmoor to the south coast of the county

Dartmoor A wild upland and protected National Park in south and west Devon

Devon A rural county (region) in south-west England

Dougie Drummer in Minotaur, schoolfriend of Rick

Dulverton A town on the southern edge of Exmoor

Exe, River A major river, mostly in Devon, running from Exmoor to the coast near Exeter

Exeter The county city of Devon situated on the River Exe

Exmoor A wild upland and protected National Park, partly situated in north Devon

Fiona (Fee) Housemate of Jane during her first stint in London

Flo Grandmother of Lauren and friend of Peggy

Fulham A rough (at the time) district of south-west London where Jane lives during her first stint in the capital

Gavin Fiancé of Lauren

Gordon Housemate of Jane in her third year at the University of Devon

Greenaway, Mrs Cleaner for Jane’s parents (married to the gardener)

Heather Friend of Jane at the University of Devon and housemate in her third year

Helen Rick's girlfriend when he was aged 19-23

Henry Courtney Owner of Courtney Press

Ivan (Van) Boyfriend of Wendy

Jasper Labrador dog of William

Johno Keyboards and harmony vocals in Minotaur

Joe (the Taxi) Taxi driver from Muddicombe

Kelvin A research analyst at the bank where Jane works during her first stint in London

Kent A semi-rural county (region) in south-east England near London where Jane was brought up and where her parents still live

Lauren Receptionist at Courtney Press

London Britain’s capital city and its financial, administrative and artistic centre

Lucy Girlfriend and wife of Ollie

Maisie An artist living on Exmoor

Martin Brother of Rick. A policeman in London

Merry Harriers Pub in Muddicombe

Mike A housemate of Jane's in her last year at university

Moreton Courtney A village on the southern edge of Exmoor, near Courtney Manor

Mr Turner A semi-retired member of staff at the bank where Jane works during her first stint in London

Mrs Henry Wife of Henry Courtney. Hosts bed and breakfast and weddings at their house, Courtney Manor. Later known to Jane as Rose

Muddicombe A village in mid-Devon to which Jane moves and where Lauren and William already live

Ollie Jane’s younger brother

Peggy Mother of Rick

Pete A housemate of Jane's in her last year at university

Philip Father of Rick

Puddleglum Jane's nickname for Van

Rick Technician, musician

Ridge Farm A farm near Exeter. Jane and Rick rent a flat here in a converted barn

Rose Courtney Trainee counsellor, married to Henry

Sam(antha) (Fletcher) Commissioning editor, fiction, at Courtney Press

Sharon Psychic, living in London

Sheila Sister of Rick. Lives in a teepee in Wales

South Molton North Devon town where Rick and Dougie went to grammar school

Steve Bass guitarist in Minotaur

Stockland Farm Farm near Muddicombe belonging to William

Sylvia Wife of Kelvin

Theresa Jane's counsellor, recommended by Rose

Tom A woodsman on Exmoor, married to Maisie

Van (Ivan) Boyfriend of Wendy

Wales A wild country in west Britain

Wendy Friend and brief lover of Rick. Leaseholder of house where Jane and Rick spend summer 1978

William Davenport Owner of Stockland Farm near Muddicombe and Jane’s nearest neighbour

The Banker's Niece 23: The first letter

Spring 1978

Monday
My dear Jane

It is difficult to say that it was lovely to see you at the weekend. I think it was almost the saddest time of my life.

    I wonder if you quite realise what you are doing. At the moment you are living in a somewhat unreal atmosphere at university. Everybody is equal and simply accepted for what they are there. When you get away things are not quite the same.

    If you marry Rick you are cutting yourself off from all the things you have been brought up to accept and expect. Firstly on the purely practical side:

  no trips abroad

  no extras of nice clothes etc.

  no private medicine

  above all, none of the advantages for your children that you have had.

    Secondly and far more important you will be committed to such a narrow limited world and circle of friends, with really not much hope of improvement. It may not matter to you now, but I think you will get very bored. It does still matter what your background is and the mere fact that you worry about this yourself proves it. You can ignore the background and upbringing if someone has great brains, or charm, or talent, but they must have some compensation.

    I rang up my friend Patricia after you left. I wanted to hear her reaction and see if I was being prejudiced, snobbish etc. She was terribly distressed to hear about you. I think she feels as upset and worried as we do. She said she could not bear to think of you wasting your very good brain – not to mention ability and looks. I think she feels for you as for a daughter and being a little further away she can think less emotionally. I would not call her cynical, but she put even more emphasis than I do on the importance of background, how you have been brought up and what you expect from life. It is this that gives you confidence and the ability to mix with anybody.

    Anyway, don’t do anything in a hurry. If you are not dying to have babies what is the hurry? Get your degree and get away from your narrow world of Exeter. You have so many talents. Don’t bury them all and turn into a bored and boring housewife too soon.

    Enough of preaching. You know what I think and I shan’t mention it again. My next letters will be the usual mundane gossip.

    Love Mummy

‘What - a - load - of - bollocks,’ said Rick, throwing down the letter.

    They were in Jane’s room, sitting on the mattress. The letter had arrived that morning shortly after she stood in the street and waved goodbye to Rick. He was heading to work in the Mini, she was staying at the house to try and make a start on revision for her finals in six weeks’ time. Instead of revising however, she’d spent the day in tears, longing for Rick to return. Now here he was, but if anything she felt worse. How could she discuss with him something that was about him? But if not Rick, who else could she talk to?

    ‘It’s all very well for you to say that,’ cried Jane, her face in her hands. ‘But I can’t bear the thought of making my mother so unhappy.’

    ‘What about her making you unhappy?’ said Rick.

    Jane couldn’t answer that. If she was unhappy it was obviously her fault, wasn't it? That was what everyone always said.

    ‘But what if she’s right?’ she said.

    ‘Right about what?’ said Rick.

    ‘About not having books and holidays and things.’

    ‘Well what do you think?’ demanded Rick.

    ‘I don’t know,’ she cried. ‘It doesn’t seem important now but what if I’m being naïve or spoilt?’

    ‘Well what if you are?’ said Rick. ‘It’s your life.’

    Was it? She felt as if she belonged to a network of parents, uncles, aunts and cousins, all wanting something from her, something that she never seemed able to give them.

    ‘And what about what she says about you?’ she carried on. ‘I can’t understand how she can have one view and I can have another completely different. How does that happen? How can we both be right? What is the truth?’

    Rick pulled her hands away from her face and made her look at him. ‘You’, he said, ‘are right for you.’

    'But what do I know? What experience do I have? I’m only twenty-two. I’m twenty-five years younger than her.’

    ‘Exactly,’ said Rick. ‘You’re different from her. Of course you’re going to see things differently.’

    ‘But how do I know what I’ll feel in the future?’

    ‘What do you feel now?’ he demanded.

    ‘I don’t know,’ she cried, flinging herself face forward on to the mattress.

They thought they’d got away with it, even though both she and Rick had hated every minute of the visit to Jane’s parents and left as soon as they could after breakfast on Sunday, as no one had said anything untoward. No one, in fact, had said anything much at all.

    Jane stopped singing along to the cassettes when Surrey turned into Kent, but it wasn’t until they turned into her parents’ drive and went past the woods and the fields and the tennis court that Rick stopped.

    When the drive fanned out into a circle in front of the house, they parked behind the central rosebed and scrunched across the gravel hand in hand. The three-storey Georgian façade with its wide stone steps and portico loomed ahead, blocking out the sun. A bird screeched in the shrubbery. Jane’s head was full of white noise.

    Rick disappeared into the bedroom he’d been allocated and Jane sat in the drawing-room nursing a glass of chilled white wine and making polite conversation with her parents. How was the journey? How was Exeter? When were her finals?

    She had written to them saying that she’d met someone and he’d asked her to marry him, but no one mentioned the letter.

     At 7.30 Jane’s mother sent her up to retrieve Rick.

    ‘I don’t know where he’s got to,’ she said snappily.

    Jane hadn’t bothered to explain to Rick that pre-dinner drinks were an essential part of the ritual. At the end of their visit to Rick’s parents, Peggy had found a copy of a 1950s’ book on etiquette and told Rick he ought to read it. Back in Exeter, Rick had spent the evening lying on their mattress reading bits out to Jane and roaring with laughter.

    ‘What sort of a world do these people live in?’ he exclaimed.

     

Supper was always at 7.30. Any later and her father would have a third glass of whisky and then he wouldn’t want any food and then he’d fall asleep in his armchair, sometimes till morning.

    They ate in the dining-room, the four of them ranged around the 12-seater mahogany table. The starter was avocado and Jane saw Rick watch her as she picked up her teaspoon and dug in. She wondered if he’d eaten avocado before.

    ‘Where do you come from?’ asked Jane’s mother of Rick.

    ‘Devon,’ said Rick.

    ‘Oh how lovely,’ said Jane’s mother. ‘Do you know …?’

    She rattled off a list of names, none of which Jane had heard before. She didn’t think her mother was actually making the names up. They were probably people she’d met once at some party, or friends of friends.

    ‘No,’ said Rick.

    Of course he didn't. Why would he want to?

    Her father emerged from his smokescreen. (He smoked about sixty cigarettes a day.) ‘What job do you do?’

    ‘I repair things,’ said Rick.

    Jane winced. Why did he have to make his job sound so dull? Why couldn’t he explain that he was a genius with inanimate objects? That there was no object he couldn’t deal with? That he healed them by instinct? That as well as repairing things he built prototypes and helped postgraduates with their research?

    ‘Any prospects?’ asked her father.

    ‘Nope,’ said Rick.

    Jane hastened to explain. Someone had to. ‘He’d need a degree to get any further.’

    ‘And he hasn’t got one,’ said Jane’s mother.

    ‘No,’ said Jane.

    What could she say? His brain didn’t work that way. He wasn’t interested in the subjects you studied at university. He didn’t take exams seriously. In any case he was dyslexic so all his letters came out the wrong way round, and his handwriting was atrocious as he’d been off sick when they learned joined-up writing at school so any piece of work he handed in was automatically marked down.

    But, even if she had been able to explain all that, would it make any difference? Her parents were like the academics at the university who thought they were superior because they worked with their heads rather than their hands. To her parents, people who repaired things were tradesmen and Jane had heard her mother talking to them.

    Jane’s mother spent the rest of the meal talking about Ollie. How well he was doing at Cambridge. What a good doctor he would make. How nice his girlfriend Lucy was. What a lovely time they’d had when Ollie and Lucy visited.

    As she always did when she was at home, Jane helped her mother clear the table and wash up. Neither of them spoke.

    As soon as she could she went into the hall where she found Rick pacing like a caged lion. He’d been left alone in the drawing-room with her father.

    ‘He wanted me to ask for your hand in marriage,’ he exploded. ‘I know he did.’

    ‘What did you do?’ asked Jane.

    ‘I walked out,’ said Rick.

    That night, Jane crept into Rick’s room and they clung together without speaking.

Click here for the next instalment

The Banker's Niece 22: The party

‘Hello,’ says Jane groggily.

    She’s been listening to the phone ringing for a while but has only just realised what the noise meant and picked up the receiver.

    ‘Jane?’ says a female voice.

    ‘Yes,’ she croaks.

    ‘Are you all right?’ says the voice.

    It’s Lauren. What a relief. For a moment she feared it was her mother.

    ‘I, er, I think so,’ she answers.

    ‘Only, what with you being off work the last two days, and you being a bit upset at lunchtime on Wednesday –’

    Jane remembers her embarrassing flood of tears and her brain leaps into action.

    ‘Oh that,’ she says, trying to inject a chuckle into her voice. ‘Sorry about that. It was probably the migraine. I shouldn’t have come back to work so soon.’

    Lauren presses on, ignoring Jane’s explanation. ‘And then I was talking to my gran about that news item. You know, the one about Rick the Rock, and she said . . . ’

    Jane grits her teeth. And she’d hoped women would be different down here in Devon.

    She keeps quiet and Lauren falters. ‘. . . well anyway, so long as you’re all right.’

    ‘Getting better,’ says Jane. ‘Just having a rest.’

    In fact, now she looks at her clock, she realises that she’s been asleep for three hours. She did get dressed that morning however, for the first time since Wednesday, and even managed a few chores – like stacking the dishwasher, throwing clothes into the washing machine and rinsing out her sick bucket. But then after lunch she’d collapsed back to bed.

    ‘That’s good,’ says Lauren, ‘cos what I was really ringing about is the party tonight.’

    ‘Party?’ says Jane, head starting to pound again and stomach recoiling from lunchtime’s baked beans on toast. (She was hungry and it was all she had.)

    ‘You know,’ says Lauren. ‘The one for your “friend” Colin Fletcher.’

    Jane groans. ‘Oh God. I suppose I’ll have to come.’

    Henry gives a party for the staff every time Courtney Press has a book in the bestseller lists. Attendance isn’t compulsory but, since Henry provides free food and drink and since partners are invited as well, most of the company’s twelve staff, as well as a smattering of estate workers such as gardeners and cleaners, manage to put in an appearance. Jane will certainly be expected as Colin is one of ‘her’ authors.

    Colin writes fiction (sci-fi) as well as non-fiction but sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. Courtney Press categorises his factual work as ‘Controversial knowledge’, while Jane describes it to herself as ‘flights of fancy in disguise’. He’s had a runaway success with his latest oeuvre Spiders from Mars after it featured on television’s Mystery channel. Here he put up a surprisingly good case for his claim that the Earth is run by a race of super-intelligent arachnids from the Red Planet. Surprising, not because of his lack of word skills - unlike many of Jane’s authors, who are experts rather than wordsmiths, he can express himself in a grammatical and interesting way - but because of his lack of interpersonal ones. And Jane knows all about that.

    Authors aren’t usually invited to the parties unless they live locally, and Colin doesn’t. Thank goodness.

    ‘Oh I do hope you will come,’ says Lauren. ‘I’m bringing Gavin and I wanted you to meet him.’

Why is the world full of people she wants to avoid, wonders Jane as she sits at her dressing-table in her pink fleecy dressing-gown and grey knitted Ugg boots. She’s seen photos of Lauren’s fiancé on Lauren’s phone and they don’t inspire confidence. Is it his scowl or his paunch that puts her off, or is it the knowledge that he works in a building society in Exeter and can do no wrong in the eyes of Lauren’s mother? Not that she's met Lauren's mother but she sounds terrifying - a pillar of the community (or pillock of the community as someone she once knew used to say).

    Then again, what will Gavin think of her? She’s hardly your average woman and he looks like the sort of man with fixed ideas on what women should be like. And what about all the other guests? This is the third party Henry has thrown in the six months since she started at Courtneys and she remembers the other two as a whirl of polite conversation with strangers, something she feels less capable of by the day.

    She’s had a shower and washed her hair in honour of the event but, really, she’d much rather stay in her night attire and watch rubbish television, or even return to her beloved down-filled duvet and unbleached organic brushed-cotton bed-linen.

    She picks her hairdryer off the floor and points it at her head. Three weeks ago she gave up the unequal struggle with the Devon weather and had her smooth conventional shoulder-length bob turned into something short back and sides. She doesn’t care that the cut, combined with her new slenderness (all right, skinniness), makes her look like a boy. It puts her face back centre stage. It makes her look like her. It's even - dare she say it - a little edgy. And in a couple of seconds her hair is dry and she gives it a quick comb with her fingers. That’s all it needs. So different from all that straightening she used to have to do.

    She’s also made changes to her wardrobe, in that she bought in the sales after Christmas a fuchsia-pink velvet t-shirt. Somehow, all the dark colours she wore in London seemed inappropriate in Devon. She’s never worn the t-shirt before, but maybe today is the day.

    She slips the t-shirt on over a pair of charcoal wool trousers. It’s more fitted than the tops she usually wears but she likes the way the colour brings out the green in her eyes. She’s always wanted green eyes and was keen in her teens to point out that her eyes were not light brown but hazel - which implied greeny-brown, she thought. The trousers of course match her hair – once brown-black and now a mixture of greys. She doesn’t care about that either. The grey hairs are her battle scars. She’s suffered for them.

Jane stands at the door of the Courtney Press staff rest-room. It’s already full of people, and the scent of soaped bodies wafts towards her.

    She can see Mrs Henry, dressed in flowery pastels, taking clingfilm off plates of nibbles on a table against one of the long walls. Pete the production manager is presiding over turntables in the corner to her right, no doubt playing his collection of 60s and 70s vinyl as he did at the last two parties. She can hear some Motown struggling against the din of voices.

    In the centre of the room Henry and Sam are dancing. Henry, in a striped red-and-white shirt, jeans and shiny brown tasselled moccasins is making inappropriate moves with hips while Sam, in an electric-blue ballet-dancer dress, ripped black leggings and biker boots, is stomping around like some stroppy bird of paradise.

    Jane wants to turn tail and flee.

    She rang Joe the Taxi, who brought her and Jasper home from the village after their walk the previous Saturday (Was it only a week ago? It feels like a lifetime) and arranged for him to take her to and from the party. She didn’t fancy negotiating the back roads on her own in the dark, especially in her current fragile state of health.

    Now she wants nothing more than to ring Joe again and say ‘Fetch me now!’ His dark silent presence was so comforting. He reminded her of Gabriel Oak, Bathsheba’s eventual choice of husband in Far from the Madding Crowd*, as played by Alan Bates in the 1960s film. According to Lauren (as Jane is always saying to herself), he's in his fifties with a daughter and two young grandsons. His wife died of breast cancer five years ago and he’s only now beginning to get out and about again. Perhaps she should have brought him along to the party as her partner!

    The clusters of people clear for a second and she sees Lauren at the far end of the room behind a table of bottles and glasses. Taking a deep breath, she makes her way over. Lauren is wearing a purple-and-cream jersey wraparound dress that shows her every curve and roll of fat. Jane’s mother would be horrified but Jane thinks Lauren looks magnificent. Standing next to her is a tall dark scowling man with knife-sharp creases down the arms of his white shirt.

    ‘Jane,’ calls Lauren, waving a bottle. ‘You look gorgeous.’

    Touched to the point of tears, Jane sidles up.

    ‘And this,’ says Lauren proudly, ‘is Gavin.’

    Gavin nods his head unsmilingly in Jane’s direction and she finds herself unable to think of a single thing to say.

    ‘Glass of something?’ says Lauren, breaking an uncomfortable silence.

    Jane nods. ‘Red, please.’

    ‘Should you be drinking?’ says Gavin. ‘I hear you get migraines.’

    Jane takes the glass proffered by Lauren and downs it in one.

    Almost at once the world softens and she holds out her glass for a refill. A few more of those and she could almost be back in her down and brushed-cotton nest.

Jane lies on the floor behind a rest-room armchair, the party going on around her. Three glasses of wine taken at speed on an empty stomach so soon after a migraine were probably not a good idea. She’s staying absolutely still because she knows from experience it's the only way to have a chance of keeping her stomach in check. She's been sick once, in a handy metal wastepaper basket, and she doesn’t want to repeat the experience. 
    Not long now till Joe arrives to take her home.

Click here for the next instalment

* By Thomas Hardy

The one that got away

There is no extract from the novel this week. The chapter I was hoping to post didn’t work out. (This usually means it’s not the right place for it and that it will come later in the novel.) I took a day out to reset my brain with a new chapter and fell ill with one of the dreaded migraines.

There may have been a connection as the chapter that got away deals with a painful subject. However I’m also doing a lot of clearing out of my psychical attic since my mother’s death (two years ago) with the help of the wonderful Louise Hay (and her book You Can Heal Your Life) and I’d got in a bit of a tizz about several things.

In the meantime, the weather here has been divine, with spring bursting out all over. On Friday Frog dragged me from my sick bed and we went for a (very slow – with lots of rests) walk by the sea. I hoped to take some pictures for you to make up for the lack of Novel but as most of my energy was occupied with keeping upright, the results were slightly low key. Here they are anyway.

The view from the cliffs.
The sea was glassy calm and several people were trying to swim
(standing with their swimmers on, in water up to their knees, egged on by their dogs).

Blue gromwell, a rare wildflower at its northernmost here by the sea in the south-west.
I'm always pleased to see it again each year. It's related to lungwort.

Blackthorn blossom and some very pregnant sheep.
'Enjoy the lambing experience' said a sign at the field gate. I wondered what that meant.

I hope to be back with Jane and co next week.

The Banker's Niece 21: Cupidity and lust

1974

Cupidity and lust are on the prowl

            In Princes Street and Moorgate, cheek by jowl;

            While on the Stock Exchange and other marts,

            The talk is partly money, partly tarts.

Mr Turner was different from the other men working at the Bank. His name was ‘Mr’ for a start, rather than Kelvin or Rob or Neil. He was older and quieter and only worked two days a week. He asked Jane about herself instead of whistling at her or ogling her or trying to grope her. So when he gave her a copy of a poem he’d written comparing the West Country and London it occurred to her that he might be trying to warn her.

    She had to look up the meaning of ‘cupidity’ and was surprised to find that, while it did derive from Cupid the god of love, it meant covetousness in general, or even avarice – the desire for money. She supposed that this was the meaning Mr Turner intended.

She’d arrived at the Bank after six months as a temporary secretary, trudging from one dingy basement to another, being bossed about by dingy depressed women and doing all the jobs that no one else wanted to do, like sorting out twenty years of dusty box-files or making three hundred photocopies of five-hundred-page documents.

    The building was so new that she could see workmen’s hobnailed footprints in the chalky dust outside the lifts and when she arrived at the Bank’s offices on the fourteenth floor she could hear drilling in the floors above. She almost expected the carpet to unroll in front of her.

    She walked into one big space painted white and flooded with light from floor to ceiling windows. From such a height London looked almost colourful: she could see dabs of brown and even green in amongst the grey. In any case, the metropolis didn’t need to concern her any more. It was a different world.

    A stick-thin woman with staring eyes, dressed like a man in charcoal pinstripes, marched up to her.

    ‘Are you the temp?’ she demanded.

    Jane nodded.

    ‘This way.’

    The woman weaved her tiny hips between desks and chairs, many of them still being shunted into position, and Jane scurried after her.

    ‘Here,’ she said, pointing to an empty desk pushed against two other desks at which sat two young men, one with long blond hair and the other with short dark hair.

    ‘Good luck,’ she said, and vanished.

    ‘Well hell-ohhh,’ said the men in unison.

The Bank kept asking her back, and she kept going back. And now they wanted to give her a permanent job as a Trainee Research Analyst.

    ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she wailed to Fiona, gulping from a large glass of Dubonnet and bitter lemon.

    Alcohol and food kept her going these days. Chocolate punctuated her days at work. She went to winebars at lunchtime. She bought sticks of orange-wrapped smoked cheese to accompany her on the grisly walk back from Fulham Broadway tube station in the evening. As soon as she arrived at the house she dived for her bottles in the fridge. When she was at home in the evenings she couldn’t stop eating – toast, cereal, biscuits.

    The only time she didn’t eat was when she went to parties, so she tried to do that as often as possible. There was no shortage of invitations, given that she had relatives of all shapes and sizes living in the capital, as well as acquaintances from home (the children of friends of her parents whom she’d met at parties in the holidays), and even the occasional schoolfriend. Sometimes she managed three parties in one night. Men did ask her out on her own as well, but she tried to avoid accepting those sorts of invitations. They were too complicated.

    ‘Why’s that?’ asked Fiona.

    Fee, as Jane called her, was tackling a mound of washing-up left by the other tenants, Jane included. Because the house belonged to Fee’s parents, she occasionally took responsibility for it, which usually meant storming up and down the stairs shouting at them all that the place was a pigsty and they were a load of lazy slobs, both of which statements were true. It also meant that she did most of the housework.

    Jane was standing next to Fee holding a tea towel and making sure her glass was safe.

    She’d spent most of the night writing down all the arguments for and against the job. The lists had taken pages and pages of her reporters’ notebook. It was a good thing Fee knew her so well. She didn’t have to repeat everything to her

    ‘I know I should take it,’ she said. ‘I know my father would think it was an opportunity,’

    Even as she said the words, everything inside her was screaming ‘No!’ But what did she know? What sort of a success had she made of her life so far?

    She tipped her glass up and downed the second half of its contents.

    ‘OK,’ said Fee, hands in sink, scouring violently. ‘So why don’t you want to?’

    Fee wasn’t conventionally pretty but her features were always doing something and that made you want to look at her. Jane’s mother called her ‘jolie laide’. She certainly had a stream of boys telephoning her, visiting her and taking her out. But none of them lasted, and Jane knew why.

    Fee had fallen in love with a New Zealand businessman (how they’d met Jane didn’t know) with whom she spent mad weeks on his visits to London two or three times a year and to whom she then had to say goodbye each time he went home, back to his wife and children. She was plotting a visit to his country. He wasn’t going to get away.

    Because of that – because of the parallel with Jane’s life – and in spite of Fee being two years older than Jane, Jane could talk to her. She’d never had a close girlfriend before.

    Jane went to the fridge and sloshed more Dubonnet into her glass, topping it with a smidge of bitter lemon.

    ‘The people terrify me,’ she said.

    Fee looked up. A small wrinkle had appeared between her eyes. ‘How d’you mean?’

    Jane’s first thought was of daleks. She remembered nightmarish shots of the robots rolling through London – places she knew – in one of the Dr Who stories. Both she and Ollie as well as their mother had watched the television through their fingers. But daleks were too slow and not at all charming. She thought of ‘ravening hordes’, but they were too hairy and badly dressed. She thought of zombies, but they were too stupid.

    ‘All they think about is money,’ she said at last.

    ‘Well it is the City,’ said Fee, reaching for a black-encrusted frying-pan and dumping it in the greyish water.

    ‘I know,’ cried Jane, twisting her tea-towel, and thinking of her father who also worked in the capital’s financial district. ‘But it’s what they do with the money.’

    ‘What do they do with it?’ asked Fee.

    From what Jane had gathered over her year working there, the Bank lent money to businesses and most of those businesses ‘developed property’ and that appeared to mean building office blocks. But where did they build them? No one ever asked that, or any other question related to human health and happiness. All they ever asked was, ‘Will this project be profitable?’

    And she should know, seeing as Kelvin and Alan, the blond man and the dark one she’d met when she first arrived, were Research Analysts, writing reports about the companies to whom the Bank might lend money, and she typed their reports.

    ‘They build,’ wailed Jane, ‘and for all I know they could be building on the countryside. They could be destroying nature and I could be helping to make that happen.’

    She downed her drink in one.

    Fee took her hands out of the filthy water and dried them on Jane’s tea-towel. She took a few minutes to answer. Jane waited by the fridge.

    ‘I suppose’, said Fee slowly, as if thinking while she spoke, ‘if you’re already part of the system, it doesn’t really matter what part that is.’

    Relief washed over Jane. She didn’t quite understand what Fee meant, but somehow she saw that she didn’t need to take the whole weight of the world on her shoulders. Not everything was her fault.

    Sometimes she wondered if Fee was the only reason she stayed in London.

The trouble was, it wasn’t only her work at the Bank that made her feel bad about herself.

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