by Celia Walden
By the time she’d found the address she needed on BWL’s intranet and made it all the way to Acton, it was already coming up to ten. Alex’s street was sketchy, with a cluster of young hooded men on the corner clearly in the midst of some transaction, and Nicole had to ask the cabbie to reverse up the street when they zoomed straight past her house number.
She had a moment’s hesitation before ringing the unmarked top bell. But she was here now and she needed clarity. Hearing a window go up on the second floor, Nicole took two steps back, forcing herself to smile when she saw Alex’s tired face lean out.
CHAPTER 17
ALEX
Soothed by the motorised whir of her breast pump, Alex wandered in and out of the three rooms in her flat, chewing on a chocolate Hobnob. When these two ‘express and go’ pouches were filled, she would have ten – all dated in marker pen – lined up in the door of her fridge, and the thought filled her with satisfaction.
This time of day, the period between 9 and 10 p.m. when she finally flopped into bed, aware she’d have to be up an hour and a half later, was the only time Alex felt like herself. It sometimes felt like the only time she could enjoy Katie, too. Lying there in her basket, breathing the imperceptibly shallow breaths that had in those first few weeks left Alex panic-stricken, she looked peaceful: released from the tyranny of her constant, unquenchable cravings.
Content that her daughter’s face was clear of any bedclothes – ‘soft toys, wedges or sleep positioners should be removed prior to sleep’, First Time Parent had stipulated – Alex sat down at her desk, and, still harnessed to the pump, double clicked on the BWL portal.
Since that afternoon at Maya’s, checking in on Jamie’s daily movements had become an evening ritual she looked forward to.
Tonight the corners of her mouth twitched just short of a smile as she took in the tense tone of Jill’s emails to her increasingly negligent partner. ‘We really do need all three partners present in a finance meeting, J. This one had been scheduled for weeks.’ All those months working for Jamie had taught Alex that he responded badly to scoldings. And sure enough his response – ‘I was 20 minutes late, Jill. Pretty sure I didn’t miss anything’ – was as far from contrite as she’d hoped.
Jill had clearly felt she’d gone too far that night in the pub and regretted her openness the following morning. She needed to understand that hers hadn’t been an overreaction but the appropriate reaction. And right now she must be seething. Paul, however, seemed relatively unruffled by Jamie’s behaviour and, aside from the one gentle post-Minerva chiding, was his usual matey self in emails. As the pump whirred on, Alex ploughed through the rest of the day’s messages; she would know what she was looking for when she saw it.
She’d been rereading a furious email from Maya, a forwarded message from Greenleaf nursery school expressing their regret at not being able to offer Christel a place – When an interview slot is missed without any prior warning, we have to accept that schooling your child at Greenleaf is not your priority – and was trying to quash a twinge of remorse for the woman whose kindness had disarmed her earlier that week, when the doorbell rang.
Ready to shout down to the Deliveroo guy that he wanted the takeaway-dependent in Flat 3, Alex draped a cardigan over her machine-operated breasts, pushed up the window and stared down at the woman standing outside her front door.
‘Nicole?’
Bright-eyed, with a sheen of perspiration along her hairline catching the security light and something sparkly on her lips, her former colleague looked like she’d been drinking.
‘Sorry. I know it’s late.’
‘What are you doing here?’ It came out sharper than intended. ‘Hang on a sec.’
Ripping off her Velcro harness and cursing as the milk slopped over the nozzles and down her stomach, Alex buttoned herself up and ran downstairs.
‘Are you wanting to come in?’ Again, she was aware of how rude this sounded. But seeing this smart and slightly cold woman she knew only in a professional context standing there on her doorstep had unnerved her. Had Jamie been sacked? No. She’d know if he had. Was it Nicole then – had he done something to her? ‘You’d better come in.’
Only when they reached the top of the stairs did Alex see how her flat must look to an outsider. Over the first two months, when the NHS health visitor was dropping in regularly, she’d tried to keep things tidy, but over the past couple of weeks the wash basket had disappeared beneath the mound of dirty linen and she’d started kicking dirty clothes into corners. The crusts of a toasted cheese sandwich she’d made in the early hours of that morning, ravenously hungry from all the pumping, sat on a plate on the sofa, a pile of junk mail and unopened post beside it. On the coffee table, amidst the tangled cords of the pump, sat the two half-filled bottles of breast milk.
‘Let me just get this out the way,’ she murmured, gathering up the humiliating contraption and taking it through to the kitchen. ‘Can I, um, get you a tea?’
‘Please.’ Nicole had picked up the half-eaten sandwich and followed her through. ‘Or – something stronger?’
‘You don’t need to whisper. Katie’s out.’
‘Oh.’
In the freezer, Alex located an old bottle of vodka – a present from the Christmas before last that she’d forgotten about. ‘Sorry.’ Why did she keep apologising? ‘This is all I’ve got. And I have no idea what cinnamon-flavoured vodka is going to taste like.’
‘Anything’ll do.’
‘There’s no ice.’
‘It’s fine.’
‘Shall we … ?’ Alex motioned to the sitting room and the two women sat down awkwardly at either end of the sofa.
‘Handy to have a local dealer on your doorstep.’
If Nicole’s nervousness was an admission of regret at her silence, Alex was going to let her stew a bit longer.
‘Isn’t it?’ She glanced at the window. ‘He must do pretty good business. He’s there every other night flogging God knows what.’
‘Ritalin.’ Nicole cleared her throat. ‘That’s what all the youngsters are into now, apparently. The “study drug”, they call it – helps you pull all-nighters, keeps you awake.’
‘Not something I need help with right now.’
‘No. And of course back in my day we made do with Pro-Plus and a litre of Coke.’
Alex nodded, and waited.
‘Listen, I know this is weird, and that we haven’t spoken since Joyce’s …’ She had the grace to look sheepish. Because there had been a closeness that night. Alex hadn’t imagined it. They’d made a plan, swapped numbers – and then nothing, for almost two weeks. But Nicole so desperately wanted to be let off the hook.
‘We’d all had a lot to drink.’ Alex shrugged. ‘And look it’s not like we …’
‘Well, no. But I should have checked in – seen how you were getting on.’
A pause.
‘Is that what this is about? You checking in?’
‘No.’ Nicole took a sip of vodka and shivered. ‘Weird. Nice, though. No, I came because things have been … well, strange at work, since that night. Jamie –’ there was a ripple of emotion around her mouth as she said his name ‘– well, he messed up this huge deal.’
Alex frowned, enjoying the feeling of being the more in control of the two. ‘Which deal?’
‘Remember that Minerva development? The one near Gunnersbury? It’s a long story but we had the O’Ceallaigh brothers primed to make an offer, and he bungled the sell.’
Aware that Nicole was watching her closely, Alex took a sip of her drink before spitting it straight back out again. ‘That’s disgusting. Tastes like baby powder. That smell … it gets everywhere. You’ve probably forgotten. Anyway, go on – about the development?’
‘The D-list we talked about that night. Somehow it made it into his presentation dossier.’ She paused, eyes still fixed on Alex. ‘And there’s been other stuff since. Little things. He’s been getting confused about places and times. Turnin
g up late to meetings. And I know Jamie can be arrogant and lazy sometimes but …’
‘But?’
‘But I don’t think Jill wants to rock the boat, whatever was said that night …’
‘Whatever we said.’
‘Right. About putting him back in his box.’
‘Oh, I remember what we said. It’s you and Jill who seem to have wiped it clean out of your heads. Which isn’t altogether surprising, given you’ve both got great jobs you’d quite like to keep.’
Nicole shook her head. ‘I didn’t forget about any of it. I couldn’t,’ she went on, the words rushing out. ‘And listen, I can’t speak for Jill – I’ve hardly said a word to her since that night, and you know how close she and Jamie have always been. But I was out with my husband earlier and telling him how tense things had been in the office, and Alex …’ Nicole leaned in, her expression moving from concern to curiosity ‘Minerva – and the rest. It’s you, isn’t it?’
Alex traced a drop of condensation down the side of her glass but said nothing.
‘God, Alex. I didn’t mean to … don’t cry.’
Until Nicole said that, Alex hadn’t realised she was. But it felt good. Because she hadn’t cried since the birth itself, and those had been tears of effort, not sadness or even pain, thanks to the drugs. And when she had let herself back into the flat the following day, the weight of Katie in her car seat pulling down on her imploded womb, the words of a Daily Mail panic piece – ‘carrying new-borns in car seats puts new mums at risk of organ prolapse’ – ringing in her ears, all she had wanted to do was curl up in her bed and cry. There was no one else there to carry it, was there? And the person she wanted most was miles away in Portugal, still seeking permission from her husband to fly over. But there hadn’t been time to cry because the sheets were still stained a marbled pink from her waters breaking, and when Alex had pulled them off to find that the mattress too had been soaked that desire to cry had been replaced with rage. None of this … none of it could be undone.
From the depths of her handbag, Nicole dug out a tissue and handed it to her.
‘I moved a few documents around; switched a couple of dates and times. Minerva … it was just so easy. Jamie never reads over the presentation files. I was forever putting them out for him on his desk, telling him to have a last check, but …’ He’d always get away without doing the work, without taking responsibility. ‘So I thought maybe that if Jill and Paul could see how entitled he is, how he makes up his own rules as he goes along …’
‘That what?’ Nicole prompted, but she didn’t seem surprised or angry. ‘That he’d get fired? We told you about the D-list in confidence. You weren’t supposed to use that.’
A high-pitched sound like a siren rang out through the flat.
‘Shit.’ Alex put her glass down, wiping her nose on her sleeve. ‘She’s awake.’
‘Shhh …’ Nicole held up a finger. ‘Just wait.’
They both sat in silence for a minute. Nothing.
‘If you always go straight to her she’ll never learn to settle by herself.’
Alex gave a sodden semi-smile. ‘I didn’t have you down as an earth mother.’
‘Why does everyone say that? And maybe I’m not, but God I love my daughter more than I find bearable most of the time. Only, my husband …’ She shrugged. ‘He’s more involved than I am; better at it than me. And all this, what you’re going through, seems like a long time ago now. Amazing how quickly you forget. But some things you do remember.’ With a few drinks inside her, Nicole seemed so much warmer. ‘Listen to me,’ she said softly. ‘I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t glad to see him on the back foot. And after what he did to you, I get why you’d want him to know what paying for something you didn’t do feels like. But how did you even manage it? You didn’t … hack into the system?’
Alex met Nicole’s eyes, but kept her mouth shut.
‘That’s a criminal offence – isn’t it?’
‘Probably,’ Alex admitted. It was something she’d deliberately avoided thinking about. ‘He’d changed the intranet password, but it wasn’t hard to guess the new one. And I only did it because he lied. He lied about everything. I wasn’t made redundant; I was fired for “serious misconduct”. And how the hell am I supposed to find myself another job now? How the hell am I supposed to pay …’ She thought of the tremor in her mother’s voice when she’d called to warn her earlier that day that ‘I might need a bit more time – on that loan.’ The dip down into whispering confirmed how important it was to her that Alex’s father never found out about the money she’d been lent, and how discovery of the deception alone might set off the kind of scene that Alex had willed her memory to block out, knowing it could never do so while her mother and father were still living under the same roof.
‘Sorry.’ Nicole pressed her lips together. ‘But are you saying you’ve accessed his emails too?’
Alex decided to play it safe. ‘Only once.’
‘Recently?’
‘I had a look last night.’
Something indecipherable flashed across Nicole’s face, and she opened her mouth as if to ask a question before closing it again.
‘I know I shouldn’t have, and I swear I won’t do it again. I just wanted to check that Minerva had …’
‘Gone according to plan? Well it did. But you can’t ever do that again. Seriously. Apart from anything, you’ll get caught.’
‘I won’t. But it’s been so … hard.’ The word came out slow, deliberate and filled with hate. ‘I look at him and his perfect family, and I think about how easy it is for them.’
Had the two women not been sitting so close, Alex may not have noticed Nicole flinch.
‘Have you met Maya?’
Nicole shook her head.
‘Just seen her across the room, you know, at the BWL anniversary bash. And she seemed … I don’t know. We didn’t speak. You?’
‘No.’ A body language expert would have known that the headshake was a millisecond too late. ‘We spoke on the phone sometimes,’ Alex went on, omitting the fact that she’d last spoken to Maya the previous afternoon – to schedule another lazy afternoon at her and Jamie’s house. ‘She actually seemed …’
‘OK?’
‘Yeah. Nice even.’
Was that why Alex had agreed to see Maya again? Was it as simple as that? Or was it something more malevolent: keeping your enemies close? Until the next time, Alex couldn’t be sure.
‘I mean I know they’re far from the perfect couple. The way he behaved with you – and you won’t have been the only one.’
Nicole glanced away. ‘No.’
‘But they put on a good show.’
Reaching for her iPhone, Alex jabbed at the screen until an image of Jamie and Maya filled it.
‘Look at them – look at their perfect Scandi catalogue life.’
She’d wanted to make Nicole laugh, or at the very least smile, keen to alleviate the heaviness of their conversation, but when she glanced up Nicole didn’t look amused; she looked queasy.
‘What are you even doing looking at that?’
‘It’s Jamie’s Instagram – and it’s not private. Here – have a look at this post from last weekend.’
‘No.’ Nicole pushed the phone away. ‘I don’t want to see it. All that stuff, his life, it’s none of our business. And I’ve got no problem with Maya. She can’t be blamed for what her husband gets up to.’
‘Her husband gets up to all sorts, trust me.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning even when in the doghouse for some pretty major mistakes – and these are just the ones BWL know about – even when he should be keeping his head down, Jamie still seems to find the time to letch over his pretty new employees.’
Nicole seemed to be holding her breath, and Alex realised how insensitive she was being.
‘Sorry. What he did to you …’
‘Never mind that. Who are you talking about?’
‘T
here’s a new girl in the office, Sophia something. He’s been emailing her. I think they even went for a drink, and it looks like …’
But her guest was on her feet. ‘Shit, it’s after midnight. Listen I’m sorry for coming here so late. I’ve really got to go. I told my husband I’d come straight home.’ Nicole was looking wildly around the room. ‘My jacket?’
‘In the kitchen.’
But when she didn’t move, Alex guessed that there was more. Something Nicole might never have said out loud before. And she was pretty sure that she knew what it was.
‘It wasn’t just harassment, was it?’
A beat. Nicole sat back down. ‘I’m going to need another drink.’
CHAPTER 18
JILL
The quarterly sales report always made for dry reading, but Jill liked dry – dry soothed her – and as she moved her index finger slowly down the list of potential and past sales, making occasional notes in the margin with the Cartier pen Stan had had engraved with their wedding date for their ruby anniversary, she felt calmer than she had in weeks.
Only when she reached Jamie’s sales did she squint a little harder at the page. His outgoings had always been a little elevated, his figures often only loosely tallying. But today it wasn’t the usual dismissible discrepancies that caught her eye, but how high his quarterly figures were.
Jill would have expected his numbers to be considerably down thanks to the Minerva mishap, but in the past quarter a sale had gone through that Jamie had never mentioned to her, bumping them up to a decent level.
Why Jamie hadn’t immediately bragged about the sale of the pub at the bottom of Westbourne Grove, Jill couldn’t fathom. She’d never been a fan of Adrian Spiro, the Greek developer who wanted to turn it into a boutique hotel, but that wasn’t what niggled. Then she remembered: Spiro had pulled out, initially, at the last minute. Something to do with planning or historic designation.