The Yorkshire Pudding Club by Milly Johnson Read Free Book Online

filing and an explanatory email waiting for her from Julia. It was such a far cry from the days of the late MD Mr Robinson, who breezed in with a, ‘Good morning,’ charm and warmthbillowing behind him like an invisible cape. His presence warmed up the whole building; people smiled more and moaned less. Then he was sent out to pasture so that Eyebrow Man could move in to replace him. He died not long after, which was yet another reason to hate Laurence, should she need a spare. Robbo had managed quite adequately without a power-crazed, email-reliant ‘ass-istant’ who was supposedly a languages graduate. Universities must be taking anyone in these days, Elizabeth had thought when she first heard that one, for as far as she could make out, there wasn’t a lot of furniture in Julia’s attic. However, there was an enormous chest on the floor below that might have had something to do with her ascension to the seat at the side of Laurence’s throne.
    It wasn’t hard to work out what Julia’s ‘sparkling potential’ translated as for a man who hadn’t worked out yet that bras didn’t have pupils, for the woman was a walking bouncy castle. What size her breasts were was anyone’s guess, but they were too big for the regular alphabet and had entered the realms of another–possibly 42 pi. They looked ridiculous on her baby-bird frame; her little bony legs were bowing under the weight of them, but there was no doubt that the Ice Man of business and the doe-eyed skinny runt with the overflowing cups enjoyed a rapport that lesser mortals would have killed to share with him. It was quite an achievement to connect with Laurence, seeing as his own PR department called him ‘the Prince of Darkness’, but whatever it was that was needed, Julia had it by the bucketload. Overnight, as holderof the ‘King’s ear’ she acquired status and power and she relished it like Lucrezia Borgia on PMT week.
    Somewhere, though, in all that cloud of Über-confidence was a big insecure hole, because every potential office junior who came into the department and showed any sign of popularity or nous suddenly found themselves back in the temp agency they’d come from. Pam had been very outgoing, Jenny was very industrious, Catherine was very clever, Leonora was just lovely, Jess had initiative, Lizzie was ambitious, Cindy was enthusiastic, Sally was efficient…and yet all of them were rejected as unsuitable within three weeks of their placement. They were now without an office junior–again–which left Elizabeth grudgingly holding the teapot. Even though Julia’s ethnic-cleansing process had so far only been limited to the young, colourful and dynamic, Elizabeth figured her own days were very much numbered too.
    She took a late lunchbreak that day, reasoning that it would make the afternoon session seem a lot shorter that way, and decided that she really ought to eat something if only to try and combat the relentless fatigue. There was a tempting prawn cocktail on brown in the bakery across the road. She bought it, determined for once to take her fully allotted hour. First, she would nip back up to her desk for her book and then return to scoff in the canteen, which would be peacefully empty at that time. It was the nearest to heaven she was going to get that day. Yep, it sounded good.
    She snagged her tights on her heel crossing the roadback to Colditz and just managed to miss making a total prat of herself in front of the middle-aged suit, already in the lift, by almost trapping her other leg in the door as it closed. The lift pulled upwards, juddered, made a few weird rattles and then sighed to a halt. The lights flickered on and off indecisively then finally decided to choose off, and what seemed like 2-watt emergency lighting took over. Elizabeth made some polite quip about it being lucky that she’d had some carrots the night before, which obviously registered as a zero on the suit’s humour clap-o-meter, although, in fairness,