Getting Organised. Carolyn Caterer
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to oblige by ensuring that the cabinets were kept locked at all times. Not that this was the kind of place that people just suddenly ventured into, but what with data protection and all that, Abi was determined that she was going to do her job to the best of her ability and make Imogen see that she had made the right choice in employing her and that she wouldn’t let Mabel down.
The files were soon all sorted and organised. Abi realised that it was almost lunchtime and that meant that the first client would be arriving soon.
Imogen had also organised a delivery of locally baked sandwiches for their lunch and they ate those in Abi’s office and chatted away convivially.
‘I have told my clients to expect a new assistant, so your presence here should not come as a shock to any of them.’ Imogen explained.
‘All you have to do is call me to let me know they are here and then send them through. No need to make small talk, or show them into my office, as they all know where it is. Do you have any questions Abi?’
‘Only ‘Have I died and gone to PA heaven?’’ Grinned Abi.
‘Welcome to your new job Abi, I am sure you are going to find it a blast and with more opportunities than you could possibly imagine.’ Imogen walked through the door towards her office leaving Abi to wonder how it could possibly get any better than this.
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It seemed that in no time at all she heard footsteps outside approaching the offices and, as she looked up from her desk a distinguished man in his early sixties walked through the door. He didn’t seem overly surprised at seeing her and nodded in her direction with a polite but brief ‘Good afternoon.’ Abi checked in the diary and smiled at him.
‘Good afternoon Mr Makepeace. I will just let Ms Fraser know that you are here.’ She picked up the phone and spoke to Imogen who asked her to send him through. Abi noticed from the diary that his appointment was for two hours. In fact most of the appointments seemed to be for this length of time and Abi could only conclude that these high profile clients must lead very stressful lives if they were prepared to take two hours out of their day to come and see Imogen.
From this she worked out that Imogen only saw twelve or so clients a week. Most of them seemed to pay in cash from what she could gather and one of her tasks was taking the money to the bank to deposit it. A few paid by cheque or bank transfer, but looking at the amount of money that seemed to be paid for these two hour sessions with Imogen, Abi felt she must have a great reputation within her industry to be able to charge the amount she did, but she was a well qualified woman so why shouldn’t she earn that much? Besides, Abi was certainly reaping the benefits.
By the end of her first ‘week’ of work Abi felt like she had been there all her life. She was never bored, despite it not being the most challenging of jobs, simply because she was fascinated by the men that were coming through her door (and yes, so far they had all been men, but then as men dominated the top jobs in industry was this any surprise?) and the fact that they were obviously men of substance. Some no doubt were very senior within local companies, while others worked up in the city but lived more locally. These tended to be the ones that arrived for the later appointments and, exceptionally she knew that Imogen would work beyond six o’clock for some of them. Of course she charged a premium for this out of hours service and Abi was impressed. It seemed to her that Imogen was extremely confident in her abilities and the fact that her diary was always full backed up the fact that these men were most certainly happy with the service she provided.
Abi was quite pleased that she wasn’t a man in such a high powered world, where the stresses and strains meant you had to employ someone to confide in, but she wasn’t going to complain when she was doing so nicely out of it all, thank you very much.
One thing that Abi was sure of was that her discretion would be tantamount. Even with Mabel she would not discuss details about her job and Mabel never seemed to ask anyway. The good thing about being a PA was that you could just tell someone what you did and if they asked any more their interest soon waned when they realised you worked locally and not for some actress or musician.
By the end of her first month Abi had the filing system and booking system well under control and was on smiling terms with Imogen’s clients. Other than that her interactions with them were the bare minimum in terms of greeting them, getting them refreshments while they were waiting or booking in their next appointments. Most seemed to schedule monthly visits and some (who were obviously under even more pressure) would visit twice a month. All were polite but distant and barely gave Abi a second glance most of the time. This didn’t trouble Abi one single bit. She was never one for being the centre of attention and she was more than happy to blend into the background. In fact she was sure that if any of the clients were to bump into her in the street they wouldn’t have a clue as to who she was.
Her new income enabled her to add more additions to her garden, this time in the form of a climbing rose up the front of the cottage and a new patio around the back, replacing the one which was more weeds and grass than patio and which Abi was sure was such a health and safety hazard that she half expected to be sued by a guest who was tripped over by a particularly vicious clump of weeds which had made themselves very much at home in one of the many cracks that had appeared.
The new patio completely transformed the garden and she was soon able to add garden furniture, wood of course, rather than the plastic stuff which was always prone to blowing away in the wind. She felt very extravagant making so many purchases, but now she could afford it and was answerable to no one but herself she wasn’t going to hold back from getting just what she wanted. As the evenings started to grow lighter and warmer she was looking forward to sitting out in the sunshine and enjoying a nice glass of chilled wine before dinner and of course entertaining her new friends. Well by that she meant Mabel who had become more like the grandmother she had always wanted. It wasn’t that Abi was unsociable, she just chose her friends carefully and that took quite a bit of time. She firmly believed in quality and not quantity when it came to friends and in Mabel she really had found the jewel in the crown. For someone who was a good deal older than her Abi was impressed at how young Mabel was. She always seemed to have her finger on the pulse of what was going on in the arts world and was not averse to listening to the latest pop bands so that she could stay in touch with the ‘young people’ as she endearingly called them. If anyone would be able to hug a hoodie and get away with it then Mabel was that person. In fact Abi was wondering why David Cameron had not snapped up her skills and employed her as one of his campaign managers.
Her other neighbours were friendly enough but seemed to spend most of their time out of their houses. As some of the houses in the cul de sac were much newer, they didn’t enjoy the luxury of the bigger gardens that went with the houses owned by Mabel and Abi and so were not the kind of people who did much gardening at all, if any. In fact Abi realised she could go for weeks without seeing any of them as they all tended to leave the house at different times and those who commuted to London had left well before seven when Abi was getting out of bed and contemplating her day ahead over a cup of coffee.
Brian and Cara both worked for an airline company as pilots, so they kept particularly odd hours and very rarely seemed to be in the house at the same time; then there was Gemma and Craig who were first time buyers and who lived in a house that was so small Abi wondered how Craig managed to get his rugby player’s frame through the doors and up the stairs. Good luck to them for getting on the property ladder she thought to herself. She knew it must be tough as Gemma was a nurse and Craig worked for a telecoms company, so they were obviously watching the pennies. She would regularly see Craig outside tinkering with their car at the weekends which seemed to be a temperamental beast at the best of times. She noted that Gemma usually walked to work at the cottage hospital at the other end of the town.
So most of the time Abi said a welcoming hallo to these neighbours and made the odd comment about the weather, and that seemed to suit everyone. Of course there were the neighbours in the enormous house at the end of the drive who seemed to avoid any contact with anyone and were hardly ever seen, other than to drive their very expensive cars in and out through the five bar gate with barely a glance at the people who lived within a stones throw