by Celia Walden
Sure enough, Katie looked about to drift off in the heat, and after a barely perceptible head-shake – would it come to her? – Maria gave up and with a wave went on her way.
‘I know it’s a school day – and I promise I’m not an alcoholic –’ clearing their plates, Maya bit her lip ‘– but we could have one more glass? Unless you have to be somewhere?’ And Alex laughed, partly because after what had just happened there was nothing she needed more, and partly at the idea of having to be somewhere. Thanks to your cock of a husband, Alex thought as the two women clinked glasses, she didn’t have anywhere else to be.
By the second glass Alex was filled with the same irrational sense of well-being she’d felt in this house the week before. Maya found her funny, or at least she seemed to – throwing her head back and snorting with laughter at some of the stories about Kieran (Alex was proud of how quickly her fictional husband’s name had come to her). And when they’d clinked glasses, Alex had surprised herself with an anecdote about her parents.
‘My dad doesn’t like her drinking. He doesn’t like her doing much, actually. He’s …’ she searched for the right word, before settling for an understatement, ‘controlling. I remember once, he’d let her join a book club. And she’d been so thrilled to be in the company of these other women, to feel free, I suppose, that she’d come back from their first session a bit tipsy. That was it.’ Alex shook her head. ‘He never let her go back after that. Called her “an embarrassment”.’
‘Lexie – that’s awful.’
‘It is, isn’t it?’ She’d never told anyone these things. ‘Their marriage. It’s not something I could ever survive. Thank God I found a man like Kieran, right?’
‘It’s hard though, isn’t it?’ Maya was saying, her eyes dimmed down to an almost seaweed green by the wine. ‘I mean, they worship you for a while but then gradually you can feel yourself becoming, I don’t know, irritating, in so many small ways. And there’s nothing you can do about it.’
‘I think Jamie still worships you. I mean, it seems like it from what you say. And he should, shouldn’t he? Plus don’t you find him irritating sometimes?’
‘Oh I do. But I’m lucky. I married a good man.’ Maya put her hand to her chest. ‘So if ever something really bothers me, I tell him and we talk it over and he will pretty much always see my point of view and stop doing it. Take the secret smoking I told you about last week. Once I confronted him and told him how upset it made me he swore never to do it again, and I know he’ll stick to that. It’s the secrets I don’t like, you know?’
‘Sounds like he really respects you.’ Alex smiled, but inside she was smirking. Yes Jamie respected his wife so much that he kept a pack of Marlboro Lights in his bottom drawer at work. He respected her so much that he raped co-workers.
‘In the end respect is the most important thing,’ Maya said. ‘The rest of it –’ she lowered her voice to a sultry whisper ‘– the intimacy. Well, I know it matters, but when you’ve been together a few years …’ Her eyes flicked from Alex’s face to her own hand on the wine glass, as though she were trying to assess whether what she wanted to say would be too much, too soon. ‘And it’s just harder to get yourself in the mood with a newborn around? I remember that with Christel. But now, with two of them and me that little bit older …’
‘Maya, you look like a twenty-year-old!’
‘I wish!’ she snorted. ‘I’m thirty-six next week. Anyway, it’s taking me longer to get back … you know … into it this time around.’
Alex was liking this. Already an idea of how she could make use of these confidences was coming to her. ‘It can’t be easy for men,’ she prodded.
‘No.’ Maya’s intonation had hardened now, ‘but I do think that, given what we go through, they could be a bit more …’
‘Sensitive?’
‘Yeah!’
‘Because anything that feels like pressure is only going to make things worse.’
‘That’s it!’ Maya looked relieved. ‘Jamie has always been pretty insatiable in that area, which I used to love, but right now … To be honest, we’ve fallen out a couple of times over it.’
‘I’m sure most couples have. I’m lucky that Kieran has got where I’m coming from.’ Alex was beginning to feel quite fond of this fantasy husband of hers. ‘And I don’t know Jamie, but you have every right to be annoyed if he’s being thoughtless.’
‘You’re right.’
‘Maya, can I use your loo?’
Alex headed up, as bidden, to the bathroom on the landing – ‘It’s nicer for guests’ – and had a quick rifle through the small mirrored wall cabinet. There was nothing in there but a spare Diptyque candle and the rainbow ‘days of the week’ pillbox stuffed full of multicoloured vitamins Alex recognised from Maya’s Instagram post, and Alex was about to head out when she spotted something metallic on the windowsill. Jamie’s wedding ring.
Hearing Maya gently trying to rouse Christel from her nap downstairs, Alex pocketed it and headed up to the next floor, pausing only to stuff the half-full packet of Marlboro Lights she’d brought with her beneath a towel in the linen cupboard on the landing – where it would easily be discovered – before peering into Jamie and Maya’s bedroom. It was dangerous, she knew, but Alex wanted to see where Jamie slept.
Large, sparsely furnished and painted duck-egg blue, their bedroom overlooked the garden from a huge double bay window. Alex stared out for a moment, trying to imagine how Jamie might feel when he drew the curtains in the morning, as Maya lay there in a silk slip like the one poking out beneath her pillow now, lazily planning what they’d have for breakfast.
Did he look from this beautiful, kind and clever woman who clearly adored him to the view from his castle and ask himself how long … how long did he have until he was busted? Was he even aware that he was a fraud who didn’t deserve all this? The answer to both had to be no. Nobody who appreciated what they had could jeopardise it in the way Jamie had been doing for years – professionally and personally. Alex wasn’t stupid: she got that the appeal was in that jeopardy, as with the MPs and their researchers, the presidents and their interns. It was the same macho playground taunt: ‘You can’t catch me.’ Only, Jamie was about to be caught out in every way. And maybe then he would appreciate everything he had lost.
Her afternoons with Maya were yielding so much ammunition. But while all that inside knowledge had thrilled Alex the first time she’d been to the house, and switching the time of Greenleaf’s interview had given her the same hit of power as tinkering with the location of the O’Ceallaigh brothers’ ‘last chance’ meeting on Jamie’s online calendar, her relationship with his wife had quickly taken on an unexpected form: that of a genuine friendship. There was something completely straight about Maya, it had occurred to Alex as she and Katie made their way home that afternoon, stopping briefly to hurl the thin gold wedding band in her pocket into a skip. And the irony of Maya being married to a man who didn’t seem able to open his mouth without lying wasn’t lost on her.
Alex had been asking herself whether her thirst for payback might be close to being quenched when she’d logged onto BWL’s intranet to see Jamie and Jill’s email exchange on Spiro happening in real time. Had Jill’s question on how Jamie had ‘managed to swing’ a deal that had looked dead in the water – only to be suddenly pushed through at breakneck speed – not been enough to awaken her suspicions, the excessive emoji use would have been. Like his extra-wide smile, these were always a sign of duplicity with Jamie, and Alex hadn’t been able to resist blowing his little plot with Spiro wide open, her pulse quickening as her fingers skimmed across the keyboard, as though powered by some external force.
How easy it had been to read back through their emails until she found the one encouraging the slippery Greek developer to take things into his own hands. Whether Jamie had been any more involved than that, Alex would never know, but a quick anonymous call to the Telegraph soon had someone with superior investigative skills to h
ers looking into it. And although the piece that appeared was more condemnatory of Spiro than of ‘Deal Don Jamie Lawrence’, the impact this would have on BWL’s reputation could surely not be ignored by Jill or Paul. Given how likely it now seemed that with her gentle rocking of Jamie’s world he would be quite capable of capsizing alone, maybe all that was left for Alex to do was sit back and watch.
Nevertheless, as she waited for his inbox to open that night she experienced the usual not entirely unpleasant stomach flutter. Could he somehow have found out what she’d been doing and changed his password? But she was in, and scrolling from one message to the next until she had a complete picture of Jamie Lawrence’s day, with all the mounting tensions and micro-humiliations he deserved.
Only, something jarred: too impatient to read the emails in chronological order, Alex had clicked on one sent late that afternoon in which Jamie was arranging to meet a friend for a ‘celebratory’ pint that evening. In response to his friend’s ‘What are we celebrating, mate?’ Jamie had replied: ‘Had something hanging over my head that looks like it’s gonna get sorted. Speak later.’
Moving quickly through Jamie’s inbox, outbox and trash, and ignoring the bank statements, online purchase receipts and unidentifiable female names she would ordinarily have double-clicked on, Alex felt queasy. She could still smell the Johnson’s powder she was sure she’d scoured her hands of earlier, yet still that sickly floral stench followed her everywhere. She was going to need to wash them again in something stronger, but nothing seemed to work. Even the perfume she’d doused them in the other day had only succeeded in reawakening the powdery smell in some curious way. She wondered whether some kind of dishwash detergent might be strong enough to do the job. But first she had to be sure that Jamie hadn’t somehow managed to wriggle off another hook.
Up came a brief email from Paul: Tried my best, mate. She knows every partner needs to agree to a review and I’m not sure she’s got the energy to convince me right now, so fingers crossed she’ll let the Spiro business drop. Course I believe you had nothing to do with it – the guy’s always come across as dodgy as hell. And the fact you’ve got Ainsley nibbling on Minerva is gonna help, obvs.
Alex frowned. Paul must mean Harry Ainsley, the tycoon-turned-TV star, which was a coup for Jamie – and a blow for her.
PS. Go easy on Jill? She’s been through the mill. But maybe you’re right about the other thing.
Good to see the old boys’ network was alive and well. And Alex was ready to bet that the ‘other thing’ was Jill’s supposed professional jealousy. Because that’s what women were, wasn’t it? Jealous and petty.
She spotted a cluster of subsequent emails from Jill: Paul seems to think we might be able to get this sorted without a formal review. And if we can agree on that and you’re able to get your accounts in order for Alan in time, that might be easier all round. Hope you can appreciate that this was never personal – unlike your email of 8 Jan. To which Jamie had replied: Think we both know that’s a bit of a porky. That you never even bothered to ask whether I wrote it in the first place (I didn’t) proves you’ve had a problem with me way before this. And that feels personal.
‘Don’t fall for his crap,’ Alex muttered to herself. But Jill had gone quiet and Alex’s eye had zoomed in on Hayden’s name, which appeared twice in quick succession further down Jamie’s inbox: at 11.02 a.m. and 11.14 a.m.
In an act of desperation driven by a conversation with her mother – ‘I don’t want to pester, but the money … it will be paid back in time, won’t it?’ – that morning Alex had finally decided to call Hayden before leaving the flat to meet Maya at Bumps & Babies. He’d reacted as expected – with a curt ‘No! What happened to leaving me out of this?’ – leaving Alex hating herself that little bit more. And she knew before even clicking on the emails that they would be about her.
Just had the ‘bunny boiler’ on the phone. She wants money (not happening). I’m still not buying it’s mine, for starters.
That’s where sympathy fucks get you, mate, Jamie had pinged back.
Alex froze. Was it Jamie’s term or something Hayden had used in conversation with him? Surely the inverted commas suggested the latter?
Thinking back to the night Katie was conceived, and how those strong male arms around her had felt like everything in the moment, Alex was dizzied by another wave of anger.
The scent rising up from her fingers now was too much to bear. Alex could picture the particles of baby powder being sucked into her nasal cavity and lungs with every exhalation. There they would attach themselves to those tiny hairs – their name the answer to a GCSE exam question – clogging up Alex’s airwaves before eventually suffocating her. But as she leaned over the bathroom sink, scrubbing until any hint of the smell was gone, the idea born at Maya’s kitchen table crystallised into a clear plan. She had a whole series of them now, in fact, thanks to the clean air she could breathe and a palliative afternoon with Maya. And the first could be put into practice immediately.
Alex could have spent an hour on the Agent Provocateur website alone, flicking from a cage-like elasticated lingerie set called ‘the Whitney’, whose ‘strategically placed strapped cups’ enabled you ‘to dress or undress the nipple as desired’, to the purple satin ‘Clancie’, with its elaborate ‘cut-out effects’. The Whitney won, evoking, as it claimed, ‘a sense of entrapment’, which was perfect. And after tapping in Jamie’s Amex number, provided for gift-buying missions just like these, Alex added a note: ‘Can’t wait to see you in this. Jx.’
Maya deserved better than a man who’d done what Jamie had to Nicole; a man who talked about women the way her husband had so casually in his emails to Hayden – and Alex was going to make sure she got it. Once Maya found out what her husband had been up to, she would never regret kicking him out of her life. And although it might be tough for a while, Alex would be there to help her through it.
CHAPTER 21
JILL
‘Jill!’
She was through the turnstiles and about to hotfoot it up the escalator when the receptionist’s cries forced her to turn back.
Jill was fond of Lydia, but once that girl collared you, you were there for the duration.
‘I’m running a bit late.’
‘Sorry! I just meant to give you this.’ Lydia handed Jill a small white envelope with her name on it. ‘Someone left it on my desk earlier.’
It wasn’t until after Jill had returned the calls she’d missed that morning and started on the M&S Greek salad Kellie had bought her for lunch that she remembered the envelope. As she ripped it open and unfolded the A4 sheet within, Jill stopped chewing and spat out an olive stone into her hand. It appeared to be a screenshot of a formal letter sent by Jamie two days before – and a day after she’d ordered a formal review into his involvement with the Spiro affair – to the BWL supervisory board. Jill read it twice to be sure, but there it was in black and white: the letter was suggesting she should be forcibly retired.
As the co-founder of BWL Ms Barnes is responsible for creating one of the most powerful and important historical property firms in the country. Beyond that, as a partner, she has been an asset to us for over twenty years now and helped navigate the company through occasionally choppy waters. It goes without saying that her market expertise and management abilities are second to none, and I feel honoured to have been able to work beneath and alongside a broker of her calibre over the years.
Regrettably, however, I feel that the complex personal issues she is being forced to deal with at home, tragic as they are, have impacted those abilities as well as my confidence in her to lead BWL through to its next chapter. The markets are changing and with them the cast of buyers and developers – buyers and developers who have more than once intimated that they would prefer to work with someone more in tune with today’s outlook.
Much as it saddens me to be forced to point this out to you, my primary responsibility is and always will be to BWL, and it is with a heavy
heart and the company’s best interests in mind that I write this letter. Although Paul Wilkinson has made it clear to me that he doesn’t share my views on Mrs Barnes as things currently stand, I am convinced this will change moving forward, and respectfully ask for a moment of your time in order to discuss this sensitive situation face to face.
Yours sincerely
Jamie Lawrence
Maybe it was events of the past few weeks, culminating in that anonymous email, and the reluctant realisation that you could spend twelve years in close professional and personal proximity to someone you never really knew. Or maybe it was simply that with everything she’d been through with Stan, Jill was becoming immune to nasty surprises. Whatever the reason, all she felt in that moment was bone-tired.
‘Jill?’ Kellie had popped her head around the door, but Jill didn’t look up from the letter.
‘Mmm?’
‘The meeting? With Harry Ainsley? It’s starting now.’
‘Oh Christ. Of course it is.’
Grabbing the Minerva file and the battered old Filofax Jamie and Paul were forever teasing her about, Jill strode just fast enough not to draw attention to herself to the corner conference room.
‘Harry! Lovely to see you.’
The slight, bearded TV star leaned forward, allowing his cheek to be kissed, and with a small inward sigh Jill took in the forehead, etched into a permanent frown, and shiny custom three-piece suit that had become his leitmotif. Ever since his show Gazumped! had become a ratings smash, Harry had started believing his own hype, and today she wasn’t in the mood for the rough, gruff shtick his prime-time audience lapped up.
‘Shall we sit?’ She addressed the question to Harry and his cohorts – all East End boys made good, all circa five-foot-five, and all in equally shiny suits – rather than Jamie, who was stood over by the window, wearing a look of infinite patience.