In which my faith in humanity is restored
I collected Benji’s ashes on Friday afternoon. His solitary cremation and wooden urn cost £720. No wonder people ship ailing equines to the abattoir. My love of horses began aged five, when my parents ill-advisedly let me watch Animal Farm. The image of Boxer being carted off to the glue factory gave me nightmares for years.
I had a terrible row last week with someone who said they ‘can’t take a pay cut’ even though their workload has reduced. I’m such a fool. I’ve given away so much, I’m struggling to find the deposit to buy my house. I don’t know why everyone treats me so badly: a sibling, husband, employees. This person piped up to say the common denominator is me.
Which is true. I’m too generous. Exactly like my mum. Give me something – a No 7 goodie bag from my readers’ talk, say, or a throw from Laura Ashley (I’ve come down in the world from the days of Prada and Vuitton) – and I will immediately pass it on to someone more needy than me. But it never works. All employees hate their bosses. When I was an editor, I had a staff of over 30, overwhelmingly female. I gave them all my freebies – even my Louis Vuitton rolling luggage (to my then PA, who complained it was embossed with my initials) – and Friday afternoons off. Tolerance when they disappeared on maternity leave without a backward glance. No one ever said thanks for a pay rise. They all hated me, and after I was sacked, tried to sell stories to The Guardian.
This is why I have a reputation for not being difficult now I’m a writer: I’ve been on the receiving end of ‘I now charge £4 a word, even short ones’ and ‘I won’t fly to LA unless it’s business class’ and (said as Eeyore): ‘Do I have to interview the author of A Short
History of Tractors in Ukrainian? The book’s awfully looonnnggg.’
I was once roundly told off by a famous American author (OK, it was Jay McInerney) for inserting asterisks in his f-word. ‘But it’s a family newspaper!’
I always say, when asked to write, ‘Yes, of course, thanks for the commission.’ Perhaps I should be more diva-ish. I gave a talk to readers the other day and one woman’s hand shot up: ‘Is it true that you never turn down work?’ She spat it as though it were a negative. ‘Um, I do say no if I think the piece isn’t right for me. But I try to suggest someone better.’ I do this with TV, too. I’m called almost daily to be a talking head on breakfast TV. I generally say no but, mindful how harassed the researchers seem, I always suggest someone else, with a brief biog, like Bridget Jones at a work party: ‘So and so has a whippet, and she’s very beautiful and witty.’
I had such a nice life when I was a low-paid worker bee with no PAYE to operate and worry about. I had lunch hours! Gossip! On a daily newspaper, the hours were so gruelling (5.30am until 8pm; on call every Sunday to edit and respond to celebrity deaths), the pressures so constant, I decided to make it fun. I called the fearsome female editor-inchief ‘Mummy’ so she’d seem less scary; soon, even the newsroom boys started calling her that. I performed a stupid, inane grin I’d learned from Trina in Penny Serenade; even the sports editor started to gurn.
I was struggling the other day to hear a phone call, so I called a friend for help. I heard her say in the background, ‘Hang on, it’s her again.’ Maybe I’m paranoid; I don’t know. I really hate people.
But then, on Saturday, I collected a reader’s cat from a referral clinic. She’d emailed to say she was sorry about Benji, telling me how sick her cat has been. She doesn’t have a car and is a pensioner. The cat is really heavy. I told her I was happy to help. I dropped him off, and the woman pressed a small package into my hands. I tried to demur, but she insisted.
I got home after a four-hour round trip, fed my dogs, sat down. Oh, the gift! A box of Matchmakers, maybe? Inside was an Hermès silk scarf and a note, saying she had kept it in a drawer for 45 years.
You see, some people are lovely. It’s just a question of snuffling them out.
Some people are lovely. It’s just a question of snuffling them out