Original Sin Read Free Page A

Claudia', then left. The room seemed to Mandy very large after the ill-proportioned outer office and she Walked across an expanse of parquet flooring towards a desk set to the right of the far window. A tall dark woman got up to receive her, shook hands and motioned her to the opposite chair. She said: 'You have your curriculum vitae?' 'Yes, Miss Etienne.' Never before had she been asked for a CV, but Mrs Crealey had been right; obviously one was expected. Mandy reached down to her tasselled and garishly embroidered tote bag, a trophy from last summer's holiday in Crete, and handed over three carefully typed pages. Miss Etienne studied them and Mandy studied Miss Etienne. She decided that she wasn't young, certainly over thirty. Her face was sharp-boned with a pale delicate skin, the eyes shallowly set with dark, almost black, irises under heavy lids. Above them the brows had been plucked to a high arch. The short hair, brushed to a sheen,
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    was parted on the left side, the falling strands tucked behind her right ear. The hands which rested on the CV were ringless, the fingers very long and slender, the nails unpainted.
    Without looking up, she asked: 'Is your name Mandy or Amanda Price?'
    'Mandy, Miss Etienne.' In other circumstances Mandy would have pointed out that if her name were Amanda the CV would have said
    SO.
    'Have you had any previous experience of working in a publishing house?'
    'Only about three times during the last two years. I've listed the names of the firms I've worked for on page three of my CV.'
    Miss Etienne read on, then looked up, the bright luminous eyes under the curved brows studying Mandy with more interest than she had previously shown.
    She said: 'You seem to have done very well at school but you've had an extraordinary variety of jobs since. You haven't stuck to any of them for more than a few weeks.'
    In three years of temping Mandy had learned to recognize and circumvent most of the machinations of the male sex, but was less assured when it came to dealing with her own. Her instinct, sharp as a ferret's tooth, told her that Miss Etienne might need careful handling. She thought, that's what being a temp is, you silly old cow. Here today and gone tomorrow. What she said was: q'hat's why I like temporary work. I want to get as wide a variety of experience as possible before I settle down to a permanent job. Once I do, I'd like to stay on and try to make a success of it.'
    Mandy was being less than candid. She had no intention of taking a permanent job. Temporary work, with its freedom from contracts and conditions of service, its variety, the knowledge that she wasn't tied down, that even the worst job experience could end by the following Friday, suited her perfectly; her plans, however, lay elsewhere. Mandy was saving for the day when, with her friend Naomi, she could afford a small lock-up shop in the Portobello Road. There Naomi would fashion her jewellery and Mandy would design and make her hats, both of them rising rapidly to fame and fortune.
    Miss Etienne looked again at the curriculum vitae. She said drily: 'If your ambition is to find a permanent job then make a success of it, you are certainly unique in your generation.'
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    She handed back the curriculum vitae with a quick impatient gesture, rose to her feet, and said: 'All right, we'll give you a typing test. Let's see if you're as good as you claim. There's a second word processor in Miss Blackett's office on the ground floor. That's where you'll be working so you may as well do the test there. Mr Dauntsey, our poetry editor, has a tape he wants transcribed. It's in the little archives office.' She got up and added, We'll fetch it together. You may as well get some idea of the layout of the house.' Mandy said: 'Poetry?' This could be tricky, typing from tape. From her experience it was difficult with modem verse t know where the lines began and ended. 'Not poetry. Mr Dauntsey is examining and reporting on the archives,