by Celia Walden
‘I just really need you to trust that I can handle things,’ he said, releasing her. ‘That’s so important to me with everything you and Stan have going on.’
Jill nodded again, more concertedly this time, and when she went to log out of her computer saw with relief that Tara had already emailed. She was ‘99 per cent certain that those emails were written by the sender on those dates and times’. She was also ‘very sorry if that’s not what you wanted to hear’.
CHAPTER 15
JILL
5 AUGUST
‘Are you going to be able to do this?’
Through her fish-eye vision, Paul’s questioning face was warped, the open-plan office beyond his glass wall distorted into a nightmarish panoramic curve.
‘I don’t know.’
‘I’ve drafted something. An email. To go out company wide. The announcement should be along the same lines, don’t you think?’
Pulling a sheet of paper from the printer tray, Paul handed it to her.
To: All Staff
Subject: [Company name] mourns the loss of [Insert job title], [Insert employee first and last name].
Dear [Company name] team,
On [Insert date], our team suffered a terrible loss. Our [Insert job title], [Insert employee first and last name], passed away after [Insert cause of death]. He/She was a hard worker and we will all miss his/her positivity.
Jill looked up from the blur of print and handed the sheet back to Paul. ‘What is this?’
‘Shit. That’s the sample email.’
Thumbing through the sheath of papers in the tray, he found what he needed.
‘This is the one.’
Jill stared. ‘There’s a sample email for …’
‘For deceased employee announcements, yes. HR provided it. Because now that it’s out there, on the news … and the police told us they’d need to talk to people, take further statements. So we need to do this now.’
The right document was there in her hand, but Jill made no attempt to read it, eyes still on Paul.
‘So you filled in the blanks. You inserted Jamie’s cause of death,’ she murmured. ‘Did you mention that he was still alive when they found him this morning? That’s what they said on the news. Something must have broken his fall on the way down, they said, otherwise he’d have been killed outright. But instead he survived for hours. Hours. Until they cut him off those railings. That’s when he bled out.’
‘Jill.’
‘But he was a “hard worker”. We’ll “miss his positivity”?’
‘I know this is difficult.’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘In answer to your question: no. I can’t do this.’
CHAPTER 16
NICOLE
SIX WEEKS EARLIER
‘Inever told him that, Jen, I swear. I just said that you were single.’
‘Only I don’t know if I’m looking, that’s all.’
‘I know, and that’s what I said. We can just stay for one drink.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Maybe two if he’s as hot as he looks on Insta. Pass us your mascara.’
Whenever possible Nicole preferred to use the Ladies’ room on the third floor. The one she was in now was larger with better lighting, but come 6 p.m. on a Friday night the sinks were cluttered with make-up, the cubicles full of young women changing into ever-tighter clothing – and it grated. Because she’d never done the dating thing in the extended and gloriously meaningless way that these girls were doing it. Christ, she’d been married at their age. And because when she was heading off to meet her husband for dinner at the end of a long day like she was now, she didn’t feel that same hot-cheeked excitement. Instead she felt tired – and secretly resentful that they weren’t just having a curry in front of the telly.
Still, Nicole had worked late three nights this week, and Ben, whose only adventurous streak involved keeping track of every restaurant opening in west London, had got them a table at a new tapas place on the Fulham Road that had been written up by Jay Rayner. There was no way she could cancel now.
Avoiding the wad of foundation-smeared tissues beside the basin, Nicole leaned into the mirror and began to apply her lipstick. She usually found the process of contouring and filling in what men had always told her was her best feature soothing, but today the lines were ragged, and her trusted shade seemed to leech all colour from her face. Pulling a tissue from the dispenser she wiped the lot off.
‘Too dark,’ chirruped the woman behind her.
‘Sorry?’
‘You’re so gorgeous. But your lippy – washes you out.’
Nicole was tempted to tell her she’d been wearing it for almost a decade.
‘Try this one.’
The peony-pink, lightly pearlescent gloss was too young for Nicole, and she had always found the idea of borrowing another woman’s lipstick unhygienic, but she thanked her and took a strange pleasure in daubing it on, picturing the look of surprise on Ben’s face when she turned up looking nothing like his wife.
‘So go on.’
The two women resumed their chatter.
‘He’d asked Sophia if she was seeing someone – casual, like. Then he’s all “I hope you’ve been made to feel welcome here. We should have a getting-to-know-each-other drink after work.”’
‘He didn’t.’
‘He did.’
‘Then – get this – he says, “You should know I don’t take no for an answer.”’
‘Stop it.’
‘Apparently.’
A break in conversation was permeated only by the residual rumble of female laughter and the sound of sticky lips being smacked against one another.
‘I wouldn’t mind a getting-to-know-you drink with him.’
‘Wait. Sophia goes for the drink.’
‘She does?’
‘Yep. And the next day tells Sandra, who told Emma, that he really doesn’t take no for an answer – like, as in something that totally weirded her out.’
‘Came on too strong?’
‘Like, way too—’
A signal, unseen by Nicole, silenced her.
‘Who are you girls talking about?’ Nicole took care to keep her eyes on the mirror.
The pair glanced at one another, only now registering Nicole as senior.
‘I’m just curious.’ She added a light laugh. And if it’s a state secret maybe don’t gossip about it in the Ladies.
‘Friend of ours in marketing.’
‘No, I mean the “welcoming” man.’
‘Oh.’ Another conspiratorial glance.
‘Jamie?’
Both women were staring at her now, clearly appalled at their own indiscretion. ‘Well …’
‘God, everyone knows what he’s like. And what’s said in the Ladies …’
‘Stays in the Ladies,’ chuckled the loudest. ‘Yeah – Jamie. But keep it to yourself? Sophia’s a sweet girl and not been here long. She won’t want to cause any trouble. I don’t even know if she “does” married men.’
‘Right.’
Zipping up her make-up bag, Nicole took one last look at herself, pausing as she opened the door to leave. ‘By the way, in my experience it tends to be the married men causing the trouble.’
‘Sorry, sorry!’
If Ben weren’t always early, she wouldn’t always be made to feel late. But he’d got them a good table looking out over the Fulham Road, and she could tell that her husband had been enjoying watching the pretty Chelsea girls and their Ralph Lauren-shirted boyfriends overflowing onto the pavements from the nearby pubs and bars.
Reaching for Ben’s nearly empty gin and tonic, she knocked back what was left. ‘I need one of those urgently.’
Ben motioned at the waiter for two more, before holding up his glass, now thickly smeared with pink gloss. ‘Care to explain?’
He didn’t like it. Of course he wouldn’t. She had never met anyone more averse to change than Ben, especially where she was concerned.
&
nbsp; ‘Just something I’m trying out. You hate it.’
‘What? Give me a chance.’ He tilted his head back, taking her in. ‘Makes you look … I don’t know, different. Tough day?’
‘Just … long. I had to take some new clients around the old theatre today and then get from there back over Kensington way for another meeting. I spent the whole morning stuck in traffic and that Shepherd’s Bush place I took on in March isn’t attracting any interest at all.’ Shrugging off her jacket, she exhaled deeply. ‘Maybe people just aren’t buying right now. Anyway it’s all dull, dull, dull. Tell me about your day.’
‘Well that sour-faced single mum you hate – the one with the eyebrows – was on pick-up today.’
‘Oh, she’s dreadful.’
‘She was actually quite chatty for once. Even mentioned setting up a play date.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Nicole glanced anxiously back inside the crowded restaurant towards the bar.
‘Give them a sec, Nic.’
‘They’re taking their time.’
‘The place is heaving.’
‘Then they should get more staff.’
‘Anyway,’ Ben pushed on brightly. ‘Chloe said she’d been talking about us at school today. Mostly you, really. Apparently they had to describe their parents’ jobs.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. So she said, “Mummy sells buildings – big ones.”’
‘Is that really what she said?’ Her drink was on its way and Nicole felt lighter. If she could just pretend she hadn’t heard that conversation in the Ladies …
‘And “Daddy looks after me.”’
There were so many curdled emotions in Ben’s smile, and even in her distracted state she could make out most of them: pride and shame; embarrassment and defiance. The same emotions he must feel every time he ticked that emasculating ‘primary caregiver’ box on forms. But although he might not have acquired the title entirely through choice, Ben must know how valuable his contribution was and hate the idea that he might be looked down on for doing the most important job of all.
Nicole took his hand. ‘I never take that for granted, you know. And Chlo adores you. It’s like you two are a unit. To be honest, I sometimes even feel jealous.’
‘We’re OK as long as we have you.’ He smiled. It should have made her feel safe, loved, but instead it bred only a familiar sense of being slowly suffocated.
Nicole took in the sun-glazed temples her husband had acquired from afternoons at the park and the cool blue of his eyes and felt an equally familiar pang of unworthiness.
‘I can’t even imagine how people manage on their own,’ Ben went on, aware that anything resembling slushiness made his wife uncomfortable. ‘Now, what are we having?’ He turned his attention to the menu. ‘Shall I just order a load of “small plates”? Rayner says the tartar is “unmissable”. Oh, and there’s a tasting menu, but you’re never keen on those.’
‘As long as we have some squid and some of those croquette things, I’m happy.’
But as Ben began to read out a list of dishes to the waiter, Nicole felt anything but. She couldn’t get the conversation she’d just overheard out of her head. Then there was Ben’s comment about the single school mum, which had reminded her of Alex. Nicole thought about the woman she’d sat with until the early hours that night: the effort she’d gone to with the new hair and the dark murmurings about ‘the things I’ve seen. The things I know.’ Alex had seemed so grateful that Nicole and Jill were giving her the time of day, so keen to ingratiate herself with them. It was as though all she had wanted was to belong. And something about the nakedness of that gratitude had put Nicole on edge at first. But by the end of the night, Nicole could recall feeling not just united with this intense, freckle-faced woman she’d never noticed before but vaguely protective of her. If what she’d said was true, Alex had been used as a scapegoat, and was now navigating life as a single mother, with no prospect of a job to go back to after maternity leave. Maybe she was so immersed in motherhood that she no longer cared; maybe she’d already found another job. Or maybe Alex had somehow found a way to go ahead with her ‘wake-up call’ alone.
While Ben went on quoting Rayner’s review, Nicole cast her mind back to the one and only time she’d been sacked, as a student trying to make some extra cash at a little Bristol sandwich place with pretensions above its station. When the owner had called her into the storeroom one day, citing her ‘attitude’ as the main reason, along with the fact that she kept ‘running her fingers through her hair’ while serving customers, Nicole had nodded, taken the cash he owed her and as she turned to leave flung back ‘It’s pronounced ciabatta, Lee – not “sia-batter”.’ As an image of his fat ordinary face popped into her mind, she was surprised to find that she still hated him.
‘It’s bloody typical Oscar went with Westwick for the brand film. Told you he would, didn’t I?’
‘You heard back?’ Nicole helped herself to another Padrón pepper. ‘No surprises there. He was always going to go with someone as stuck up as him. His loss. If that were me I’d have taken one look at your portfolio and booked you on the spot. It looked great by the time we’d revamped it.’
Ben blinked.
‘Tell me you sent him the one we updated.’
‘I just felt like if he really wanted me …’
‘Ben.’ Nicole slumped, tired at always being the motor behind her spluttering husband.
‘Just leave it, OK? Leave it.’
They ate in silence for a few minutes, pulling shrimps off wooden skewers and spitting bits of shell discreetly back into the palms of their hands, both acutely aware of how tense and joyless they must have looked in comparison with the shrill flirtations happening outside the bars across the road.
‘Who’s looking after Chlo?’
‘Susanna.’
‘You think she’s got her playing doctors again?’
Was this why couples got themselves dogs when their children left home? So that they’d have something to fill the silences with?
‘Probably.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She leaned in towards him. ‘It’s all been a bit messy at work and it’s stressing everyone out.’
‘Messy how?’
‘Jill and Paul are pissed off with Jamie after that Minerva disaster I told you about. The clients pulled out.’
‘Nothing to do with you though, is it? That was Jamie’s mess-up.’
Nicole didn’t like hearing his name in her husband’s mouth, but she hadn’t been able to resist telling him about it. ‘It was, but now we’re all under pressure to make up for it.’
And although Jamie was the last person she wanted to talk about, Nicole heard herself launch into an account of his recent failures – and how easily he’d managed to shrug them off.
‘Can I say something?’ Ben frowned. ‘You seem to spend way too much time fretting about Jamie Lawrence.’
Nicole put the meatball she’d speared back down on her plate.
‘I don’t.’
‘You really do.’
‘Because only a man would get away with this stuff. And every time he gets away with it,’ she went on, consciously echoing Alex’s words that night, ‘he knows he can push things a little bit further the next.’
‘But it doesn’t sound like he is getting away with it?’
Nicole stared, unseeing, at her husband. She’d felt a certain release after that drunken conversation in the pub, as though telling those women what she had, hearing their own experiences and deciding that Jamie should be punished for his behaviour had been enough to temper her anger. Only it had flared up again as she’d watched him wriggle out of Minerva. And again in the Ladies’ room earlier. ‘You should know I don’t take no for an answer’: that was what he’d told that Sophia girl. And Nicole knew all too well how true that was.
Having cleared away the last of their dishes, the waiter hovered. ‘Would either of you like to see the dessert menu?’
They r
eplied simultaneously.
‘Why not?’
‘No thanks.’
What Nicole wanted right now, what she needed more than anything, was to know whether Alex really was behind Minerva. There would be no way to slip away over the weekend, and waiting until next week to find out was out of the question. Because if Alex was somehow going ahead with the plan, it wasn’t working. And Nicole knew now how desperately she needed it to. ‘Ben, I’ve got to go.’
She’d murmured it without thinking, but as soon as she heard her own words, Nicole knew what she had to do.
‘What are you talking about?’
She focused back in on Ben: Ben who had ripped out the restaurant review all those months ago and gone to the trouble of putting their name on a waiting list. Ben who looked sexiest in summer when he let his stubble grow – something she forgot about and realised all over again every June. Ben who always ordered too much food and liked to extend their dinners into four-hour affairs.
‘I’ve forgotten a file I had to send … and it’s urgent. I’ve got to nip back to the office, but it won’t take a minute.’
‘What? Why can’t you do it on this?’
He tapped the iPhone she kept beside her plate at mealtimes – much to Ben’s annoyance.
‘It’s not on there. It’s on my desktop.’
Aware she was making little sense, and that it sounded like lies because it was lies, Nicole threaded one hand through the sleeve of her leather jacket and reached for her purse with the other. ‘Sorry, Ben. I’m such an idiot. But that was great. Rayner was right.’ That wasn’t cutting it. ‘You didn’t want pudding, did you?’
‘I thought I might.’ Ben glared at her as though she’d lost her mind. ‘You’re seriously going back to the office now?’
‘I’ve got to. Sorry. Here.’ She put her credit card down on the table.
‘For God’s sake. I can pay for it myself.’
‘With what?’ she wondered, impatience making her nasty. But the black cab she’d flagged down in a brisk gesture was pulling over and she drew Ben’s furious face in towards hers. ‘I just need to fix this one thing. It’ll drive me mad all weekend otherwise, and I’ll be home in an hour, max.’