HR

‘Fuck,’ said Lucinda Powers-Updyke. Her hand trembled as it held the paper which had evoked this expletive. ‘Fuck,’ she repeated as she dropped into her seat, her face a mask of dread.

Cecilia Webb-Spinner looked up from the confidential file she had been pretending to study. In her cut-crystal accent she asked, ‘What, now? I mean, what now, darling?’

‘Darling’ came out of Cecilia’s mouth as ‘dahhhling.’

‘My God, this is terrible. Sydney Lickstensteinberg is coming over from the States.’

‘Who the hell is he?’

‘Not he, you ass, she! Sydney is a she and she is global head of Pan–Global Jilling HR.’

‘So? I mean if Ms Lickspittle or whatever she calls herself wants to come to dear old Blighty, what’s the problem?’

Lucinda looked up at her colleague and junior assistant. She saw the arrogance of rank bred into Cecilia, daughter of the Marquis of Twerton, just as one can see the aggression bred into a pit bull terrier. The high cheek bones and the blonde mane, the lazy eyelids drooping seductively over ice-cold blue eyes, the full, glossed mouth and almost hated her for her self-confidence and astonishing beauty. Almost, but not quite.

‘It’s alright for you, dahhhling,’ she mimicked, ‘you don’t have to explain everything to her. You’ve never met the bitch. She intends to review HR practices at Updyke, particularly those relating to discipline, one of her favourite subjects I understand.’

‘She sounds like fun,’ said Cecilia.

Lucinda, daughter of Updyke’s chairman and not herself without breeding, snorted. ‘She is the daughter of trade’ and she imbued this last word with utter contempt. She ran her hand through her flaming red tresses. ‘Oh, fuck.’

‘Well, we might as well, darling, there’s bugger all else to do.’