I try not to let the surprise show on my face.
Something must reveal itself because Maggie adds, ‘Agatha was very worried you had come down with another migraine and wanted me to know. I understand you tried to find me, but as I explained to Agatha I had a meeting before lunch and went straight out for a sandwich afterwards.’ She smiles apologetically. ‘Sorry about that. Hopefully you didn’t wait around too long. I expect you were desperate to get home?’
‘That’s OK,’ I manage weakly. Agatha seems to have covered my absence pretty comprehensively and rather convincingly. I wonder if a request for a return favour is waiting in the wings.
‘Anyway,’ Maggie says, ‘the reason I wanted a word, is, well, these headaches…’ She stops and glances down at the pristine arrangement of pens and post-it notes before continuing, ‘I’m aware they can sometimes be a sign of stress, and I wanted to check you weren’t feeling too overloaded or overwhelmed by the work?’
‘There are a lot of cases—’
‘Yes.’
‘And sometimes it can be difficult preparing them all in time for the hearing—’
‘Of course…’ Maggie cocks her head on one side, giving the impression of a concerned robin.
‘But I don’t think that’s the problem.’
‘No?’
‘The headaches started a long while before I began working for the department, nearly five years ago now.’
‘Right.’
My boss’s relief is evident. Her mouth opens and although her lipstick is a similar shade to the colour of her shirt, the harshness of the light reveals it to be very slightly more orange. I know she wants to ask what caused my headaches to start but is unsure on which side of the caring or blatantly curious line such an enquiry would fall.
‘It was an accident,’ I say, to resolve her dilemma. ‘An accident at university seemed to trigger them.’ I don’t add that I wasn’t the victim of the particular accident in question.
‘Oh,’ Maggie says, ‘I see.’ Her conflicted expression suggests I have raised more questions than have been answered. ‘Well’ – her tone becomes more businesslike – ‘I hope you know you can come and talk to me at any time. About anything at all that might be affecting your work.’
I wonder if hiding a replica gun for a man who resembles my dead boyfriend falls into this category. At least it would give her a break from discussing the falling levels of highly skilled migrants. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Thank you.’
‘And if you are ill, then of course you must go home. Though hopefully’ – she cocks an eyebrow – ‘that won’t be too often.’
‘Of course. I mean, no. Thank you.’ I push back the chair and escape.
I have barely taken two steps out of the office before Agatha appears at my side, I have the strong impression she has been watching the door to Maggie’s office.
‘Is everything all right?’
I nod, walking briskly towards my desk. Agatha trots by my ankles as if she is a terrier on a very short lead.
‘I was worried you might say the wrong thing to Maggie. Since you didn’t know what I had told her. When you didn’t come back from lunch I wasn’t sure what to do, and as Maggie wanted to find out why you weren’t at the team meeting—’
‘It’s OK.’ I cut across her chatter to shut her up. Agatha’s cheeks are flushed with the excitement of the subterfuge and she is speaking louder than I think she realises. Although it is not yet nine o’clock various work stations are filling up with people unzipping coats and moaning about the tube or the weather, I don’t want to give them something less banal to talk about.
When I reach my desk, Agatha is still beside me. She hasn’t said another word, but her face is fixed anxiously on mine. ‘Look,’ I whisper at last, ‘thanks so much for covering for me yesterday, I really appreciate it.’
I hope this is enough to placate her and I switch my attention to my files, open at the pages where they were abandoned yesterday morning. I need to get back to the claim of an adult son who wants to leave Nepal and join his elderly Gurkha father who is resident in the UK. The hearing is tomorrow and I have another three cases to prepare plus a load of admin to get through.
Agatha, however, keeps hovering. She clearly expects some kind of an explanation for my daring to go AWOL during the sacrosanct occasion of a team briefing and a thank you, it appears, isn’t quite sufficient to tick the box.
‘The thing is Agatha,’ I say finally, ‘nothing much happened.’ Other than getting pissed on arak, being given a gun and finding out my fiancé has probably slept with a woman who wears string for underwear and has the bum size of a twelve-year old. ‘My lunch went on longer than it should have done and afterwards I wasn’t really in much of a state to come back to the office. You know how these things can happen.’
She nods, although she looks a little blank.
‘Anyway,’ I say, because she still hasn’t moved, and I feel it might be useful to remind her why we are both here, ‘what are you working on at the moment?’
‘Oh!’ She blinks, as if she’s just woken up. ‘The usual statistics report, Maggie wants to have it at the next team meeting.’ Agatha means a report setting out the percentage of the cases – the appeals – that succeeded at the tribunal during the last month. This regular, tedious task inevitably falls to Agatha, probably because out of all of us she’s the one least likely to complain about having to do it.
‘OK, well, lucky you…’ I gesture at my papers in a need-to-get-on way and sit down. After a moment Agatha does the same, but before I have read more than two or three lines of text she taps on the low Perspex screen separating our desks. Lifting my head, I see she is holding out a page of single-spaced type.
‘These are the minutes I made at the briefing yesterday afternoon. I thought you might like a copy to keep up to speed with what we discussed.’
‘Oh. Well, brilliant. Thanks.’ I take hold of the sheet over the top of the divide.
Before she has quite let go of the paper, Agatha says all in a rush, ‘Claire, actually it’s my birthday tomorrow and some of us are going out for a few drinks. Would you like to come along?’
Her pale, needy gaze latches on to mine. I realise I have no idea who Agatha is friendly with at work, who the ‘some of us’ might comprise, and whether they are likely to dilute or exacerbate the strangeness of an evening out together. However, with my hand clutching the fruits of her diligence it feels as though I have no choice.
‘OK, thanks,’ I say. ‘That would be great. What time are you going?’
She smiles broadly. ‘About five thirty. Since it’s Friday.’
‘Sounds good.’ And then, because I can’t quite help myself, ‘Who else is joining us?’
There’s a small pause before she replies, ‘Jane is definitely coming, and Nigel said he could probably make it although he may not be able to stay long.’ Jane is Maggie’s secretary and Nigel, my companion at the immigration conference, is one of the dullest men I have ever met; the fact that even he appears to have a competing engagement says more than I want to know about the allure of Agatha’s birthday drinks. I wait for further additions to the list, but that seems to be the lot.
‘Right,’ I say, ‘fine.’ I know that if I’m going to back out I need to do so this very second, remember a theatre booking or a weekend away. Or that I want to wash my hair or have plans for a vital supermarket trip. ‘Agatha?’ I catch her attention just at the second she lowers her head and I see the panic bloom on her face. ‘Just a thought,’ I say, ‘shall I speak to a few of the others about tomorrow? See if I can boost the numbers a bit.’
Agatha looks like she can’t believe her ears. ‘Would you really do that, Claire?’
I shrug. ‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Why not? You had my back yesterday.’
She beams so intensely I have to look away.
* * *
Walking home from the tube I stop off at an M&S Simply Food. Normally I’m a Tesco girl: ‘Every Little Helps’ and all that jazz. I
t certainly did in our house when I was growing up. Although my stepfather’s modest terrace was a significant improvement on the flat above the newsagent, stretching his salary to cover a family of four must have been like trying to make a double bed with a single sheet. My mother measured her housekeeping to the last silvery five pence so she could budget small treats into the weekly schedule: chips after swimming, cinema trips on two-for-one Mondays and, most thrilling of all, visits to Pizza Hut as a reward-come-bribe for suitably shiny school reports. You could probably plot my academic trajectory between the ages of six and sixteen in servings of pizza dough, ice cream and coke, all consumed in the alcove of our local high street branch, with Rob beside me taking full advantage of his sister’s unexpected talent for nailing A grades.
Tonight, however, Tesco won’t quite cut it – for our evening meal I want indulgence and sophistication on a plate, and with minimal effort. For once I’m feeling pleased with myself and in a mood to splash out because I’ve already managed to convince another ten people to join in the wild fiesta that is Agatha’s birthday tomorrow evening. To be honest, as soon as a couple more from the department agreed to come out it was easy to persuade the others, since I could sell the event as a simple Friday night piss-up rather than anything to do with Agatha. However, to make sure her part in the festivities is not entirely overlooked I have at least organised a collection; at the last count I now have about thirty quid to buy a card and a couple of vanilla-scented candles or something equally safe.
Before I go inside the store I message Angus: OK 4 2nite? My question is followed by a heart and three kisses. I am being ultra-cautious, since I already texted him earlier to check he wouldn’t be home late. To my relief he responds straight away with a jaunty thumbs-up sign and the exact same composition of hearts and kisses. Affection by emoji. Say that in the right way and it sounds like a perfume instead of a substitute for real communication, but at least his reply means my plan is still on course. I intend to cook us a nice meal – or, more accurately, heat one up, since it hardly seems worth the bother of preparing one from scratch when M&S is several culinary leagues ahead of me – open at least one bottle of good wine, and make good my ambition to move on both from Mark and the absurdity of having a gun in my living room by having wonderful, relationship-restoring sex with my fiancé. Didn’t the Red Queen tell Alice to believe six impossible things before breakfast? Apparently, it’s just a matter of practice. Well, taking a leaf out of the good book of the Red Queen, I intend to practice forgetting about Mark.
* * *
I lay the table with great care, or properly as Angus would describe it, searching out butter knives and dessert forks despite the fact there is no accompaniment of bread and the dessert is lemon posset. I even fold real napkins beside each plate rather than simply using torn-off squares of kitchen towel. The food looks pretty impressive too: a large piece of salmon topped by latticed pastry and served with crushed parsley sauce; a tub of layered and shredded vegetables in a cheery mix of colours; and a bag of new potatoes that I gambled on being able to boil without the assistance of either Mr Marks or Mr Spencer.
By the time the front door opens an open bottle of wine is chilling in a cooler and a selection of tea lights are throwing a dancing, flickering light around the walls that sings of romance and reconciliation. I’ve even found time to change out of my suit into velvet jeans and a low-cut black top, twisting my hair into a ponytail that hangs over my right shoulder. It’s a while since I’ve made this much effort with my appearance at home and flexed the beauty muscle – I’ve been a little lazy.
‘Wow,’ Angus says, putting down his briefcase. ‘Is it a special occasion? Did I forget something? An anniversary?’
‘Nope.’ I go right up to him and loop my arms around his back. ‘I just thought we’ve both been working so hard that we don’t seem to have much time for each other at the moment. So tonight we’re going to change that.’
Angus’s gaze skates around the room, takes in the table and the lights before settling back on me. I’ve made up my lashes with black mascara and wetted my lips with scarlet gloss; I imagine I look rather different from the beige woman to whom he said goodbye this morning, barely bothering to make eye contact.
‘Sounds good to me.’
His voice is hoarse with surprise, but he adjusts pretty speedily. One of his hands slides into my hair, while the other pushes between our bodies, settling on the rise of my breasts under my T-shirt. We kiss – properly – and I realise I can’t remember the last time our embrace seemed this natural or this greedy. I feel his fingers prise my top from under the belt-loop of my jeans and find my bare skin.
I squirm in his grip, taking a step backwards. ‘Dinner first.’
Angus shrugs off his jacket in one quick movement and eases the knot in his tie. ‘Is that really necessary? Won’t it keep?’ The muted glimmer of shadow and flame soften his starched good looks, turning his features less prim and more unbuttoned.
For a moment I’m tempted to postpone dinner, but I know the tiny potatoes, the artful, polychromatic vegetables and the tender pink of the salmon, all of them waiting in the oven, need to be appreciated right now. They are cooked to perfection and I’ve never produced a perfect meal before.
‘No,’ I take his wrist and tug gently. ‘Come and eat, or else it will spoil.’
Angus sighs in a mock-tragic sort of a way. However, he lets me lead him to the table and sits down while I fetch the food. Before I pour the French Chablis that was nearly twenty pounds a bottle, I drape a tea towel over my forearm. ‘Would Sir like to taste it?’
‘Yes,’ he says, ‘Sir would very much like to taste it!’ But instead of raising his glass he pulls me towards him and kisses me again. When the wine splashes my arm he licks it off, holding my gaze as he does so, and I think we might not make it through dinner after all until he glances at his plate and says with real relish, ‘This looks wonderful, Claire.’
Dinner progresses just as I hoped it would. At one point the candle I have placed in the middle of the table goes out and Angus insists on fetching matches from the kitchen to relight it. ‘You look so good tonight, Claire. I don’t want to miss a second.’
When the spark is restored we laugh for no reason, and toast each other with extravagant, happy gestures.
As we chat, I tell him about my Gurkha case. I don’t, of course, stray into the problematic territory of my meeting with Maggie or my absence from work the afternoon before, which is beginning to seem like the plot of a film I watched a long time ago, rather than a day, the previous day in fact, of my own life. Angus discusses the American acquisition that has been taking so much of his time, a bargain location called Ditmas Park, where property is much cheaper than the trendier areas. Wanting to sound intelligent and interested – the paradigm young professional – I ask about the staffing costs in New York as compared to London. However, to my surprise, Angus shrugs off the query. Apparently, that type of cost is not a big consideration, since it turns out his hotels don’t need as many staff as he had thought. Although his answer strikes me as odd, the mood is too good to spoil by posing difficult questions, so I change the subject.
Angus distributes the remaining wine between our glasses. Our plates are empty and I’m about to go and collect the posset from the kitchen, and perhaps another bottle, but there’s no hurry, like the song says, it feels as if we have all the time in the world.
‘By the way,’ Angus says, leaning back in his chair, ‘you know we’re having dinner with friends of mine on Friday? The good news is I’ve managed to get us a table at The Ivy.’
‘Wow, that’s fantastic,’ I say, meaning it. I’ve never been to The Ivy, and probably never would if I wasn’t with Angus. I beam at him, taking a sip of the Chablis.
I am trying to remember if I put another bottle of white in the fridge when a thought arrives like a fire engine screaming on to the scene with lights flashing and siren blaring. In that instant I feel the evening, my even
ing, hang for one moment in the balance before plummeting off the edge of my beautifully constructed rails.
‘Wait,’ I say slowly. ‘Friday? Isn’t it Friday tomorrow?’
‘Is it?’ Angus frowns and then chuckles. ‘Yes, you’re right. God, I can’t believe how quickly this week has gone. I must have lost track with all those late-night calls to America.’
‘Which means the dinner is actually tomorrow night?’ Inside my stomach the salmon and potatoes is rapidly congealing into a rancid pink lump.
‘I suppose if tomorrow is Friday then it must be. Why?’ Angus’s tone lifts, ‘That’s not a problem, is it?’
Oh shit. I close my eyes and pause a second before I open them again. ‘Yes, I’m afraid it is. I completely forgot about the dinner and now I’ve agreed to go out with some people at work.’
Angus blinks at me. ‘Well, tell them you can’t make it after all. If you’ve only just made the arrangements it shouldn’t be difficult to alter them.’
‘It’s not that easy…’ I recall Agatha’s expression during that split second when she thought I might change my mind, when I thought I might change my mind. ‘It’s somebody’s birthday—’
‘There must be others going, surely?’
‘Yes, about ten, but—’
‘In that case one less won’t matter.’
‘It will matter because I’m the person who arranged it. If I don’t go, I’m not even certain it will go ahead.’
Angus puts down his wine glass and then adjusts its position, as if the precise distance between his drink and his plate is a matter of significance. ‘I told you about this dinner three weeks ago.’
‘I know—’
‘So how could you not remember?’
I don’t reply, although several possible reasons spring to mind, given the events of the week so far.
‘Look, Claire, you’ll just have to cancel. I really don’t see why it’s such a problem.’ Angus’s features have acquired a watchful intensity.
‘It’s very hard to explain.’ I drop my eyes to avoid his gaze, twiddling the stem of my glass between my fingers. I can’t tell him that Agatha covered for me, since I can’t tell him why she had to cover for me, and I don’t feel able to communicate the complexities of precisely why she needs me to support her birthday drinks – without actually meeting Agatha, which Angus has never done, it would be impossible to understand.
The Couple: An unputdownable psychological thriller with a breathtaking twist Page 12