Payday

by Celia Walden

  ALEX

  ‘He’s out. Gone. Suspended until further notice.’

  Alex had been waiting for Nicole’s call all morning, checking her phone so frequently throughout the first half hour of Little Gym that the instructor had finally told her off for ‘taking herself out of the mum moment’.

  When there were still no missed calls by the end of the class, Alex had started to question whether Nicole had been able to go through with it. Yet Maya’s soothing effect was such that, as they ambled back to the house for lunch, she’d forgotten about the phone in her jacket pocket – until that first muffled tinkle; until the words she’d been waiting not just hours but months to hear.

  ‘Good news?’ Maya had asked after the brief exchange in which Nicole had passed on the news alongside one other fact: ‘He’s out – and drinking his way through the pubs of Hammersmith by all accounts.’

  ‘The best,’ Alex had smiled back. ‘I won’t bore you with the details. But isn’t it great when a plan actually comes off?’

  Maya no longer bothered inviting Alex back for lunch after Bumps & Babies. It was understood that twice a week almost without fail they would go back to the house together, often by way of Turnham Green Terrace. Sometimes, when Maya had errands to run or Alex had ascertained that Maria was due over later, Alex would stay only an hour or two, aware that a second meeting with the nanny was all that might be needed to spark a definitive memory. But other times she would spend the whole afternoon at the house.

  Today she was more grateful for the distraction than ever, having finally forced herself that morning to tell her mother that she wouldn’t be able to pay back her loan in time: that she’d lost her job, that she was as big a disappointment as her father had always intimated. She could still hear the panic in her mother’s voice – ‘What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to tell him?’ – and the limpness of her own reply: ‘Sorry, Mum. I’m so sorry.’

  But she couldn’t think of that now. All that mattered was that Jamie was gone. The plan had worked. And this: the clattering of the lunch plates being tidied away by Maya in the kitchen, the naps the girls would take in a moment, and the lazy hours of wine and conversation they’d be left to enjoy.

  She wasn’t worried about Jamie coming home. She’d seen him on boozing missions before, and this one was bound to be more protracted than most. Since Maria was also taking Christel to a birthday party after school, that meant that Alex had most of the afternoon before her, and she lay back on the rug Maya had thrown down on the lawn for them and the girls, trying not to think of the heart dip she’d experience when she stepped out of that house and back into her empty life and flat. Because increasingly that dip would descend into something darker, with sobbing Katie clearly feeling the same, and Alex somehow unable to do what was necessary to comfort her.

  Looking over at Maya now as she bent over the girls, the low-cut rose-pink summer dress she wore gaping as she did so to reveal tidy breasts encased in a white cotton bra, Alex marvelled again at that preternatural tranquillity. She’d met serene and grounded women before, but those attributes usually came at the expense of others, making them boring or priggish.

  ‘I don’t know how you do that – calm Katie down just by being around.’ Alex moved herself over an inch or two so that her face was in the shade. ‘I’ve seen her about to go off the dial and then she looks at you and …’ She shook her head. ‘It’s like you’re some kind of baby whisperer.’

  Maya sat back down at the table, steadying herself on Alex’s shoulder as she did so. ‘What a nice thing to say. I think she’s just had a spot of colic? But she’s over the worst – aren’t you, little one? I’m more worried about those burns of yours, Lexie. And do you know what? I’ve nearly done exactly the same thing and been about to reach into the oven without gloves on.’

  Alex had forgotten about the gauze she’d started wrapping around her hands in an effort to stop the looks and the questions. She’d forgotten too exactly what burn story she’d told Maya a week ago was.

  ‘Oh, it’s actually healing nicely. I can’t even feel it any more. I think maybe your French grape juice might be helping.’

  A case of Maya’s favourite rosé had arrived at the weekend – an impromptu gift from her ‘sweet but naughty husband, who’s got some making-up to do’ – and Alex had allowed herself to get a little tipsy over their long lunch. ‘What do you mean you’ve never had Minuty?’ Maya had cried when she pulled the bottle from the fridge, popping a couple of ice cubes in each of their glasses. ‘It’ll change your life!’ And in anyone else’s mouth it would have been such a ghastly Chiswickism but in Maya’s – and said with her faint accent – it had the charm of a phrase borrowed from grownups by a child. And yes, the wine was good, but it was the woman who had changed Alex’s life.

  A gentle breeze blew a flurry of pink petals down onto the girls, and the two women looked at each other and laughed.

  ‘I wonder what they think about it all,’ Maya murmured at the tail end of that laugh, wrapping the maroon baby sling, like a scarf, about her shoulders. ‘About life.’

  She shook her head, embarrassed by her sudden seriousness. But Alex nodded, eager to reassure her that she had had similar thoughts, even if she hadn’t. Still it seemed like a natural continuation and proof that she was the right kind of mother to suggest that they too lie down beside their girls and stare up at the world – that they too try to see it anew. Because something about it did feel new to Alex, now that Jamie had successfully been brought down and Jill had guessed that it was down to her – well, all of them, really. Not that the email the BWL founder had sent Alex’s anonymous account that morning had bothered her. They’d planned all this together, so nobody would be saying anything to anyone.

  ‘Ahhh.’ Maya exhaled as she let her soft blonde head fall back on the rug. ‘Head rush.’

  ‘Well, we finished the bottle, didn’t we?’

  ‘We did.’ Maya closed her eyes. ‘But rosé … doesn’t count, does it? And it’s nearly the end of the week.’

  ‘Wednesday?’

  ‘Whatever.’

  Maya went quiet and for a moment Alex wondered whether she might have fallen asleep, but when she looked over at her friend she saw that her eyes were open and fixed on that cloud of magnolia above.

  ‘Lex?’

  Alex pulled herself up onto her elbows.

  ‘That your phone?’

  The chirping was just audible from the kitchen table, where she’d left it.

  ‘Think I drifted off for a sec.’

  Alex padded off indoors, half hoping she’d miss whoever was trying to reach her. And she had. But no sooner had she logged the words on her screen – ‘Missed Call: Nicole’ – than the chirping started up again.

  ‘Hey.’ She was groggy from the sun and the wine, and, wedging the phone between ear and shoulder, Alex located a glass on the draining board and filled it with cold water from the tap. ‘Listen I’m in the middle of—’

  But Nicole wasn’t going to listen. ‘He’s … at my house … husband?’

  Broken up by violent bouts of wind static, as though she were moving at high speed through a tunnel, Nicole’s phrases were coming out in fragments. And Alex thought about cutting her off and blaming the bad connection.

  ‘I can’t hear you. You what?’

  While Nicole continued to make difficult-to-make-out noises on the other end of the line, Alex gazed out of the kitchen window into the quiet sycamore-lined street beyond, imagining herself the owner of the blue Conran tumbler she was filling with water, this house and this life. Everything but the husband. She didn’t want him. As of today, nobody would.

  ‘Nicole? Where are you?’

  An Ocado van pulled up opposite and the driver got out, earpod leads dripping from ears to pocket, mouth moving silently along to his music. As he began hoisting red plastic crates out of the back and piling them up outside the neighbour’s front door, Nicole’s words finally began to join up. />
  ‘… in my house.’

  Alex was prepared to bet she could list every item in those Ocado crates: the inevitable avocados and almond milk catering to some kind of spurious allergy; the organic steaks and the Manuka honey.

  ‘Who’s in your house?’

  ‘Jamie was in my fucking house. Two hours ago.’

  Alex set her glass down. ‘What?’

  ‘Two hours ago. Ben called me. Apparently he was trashed. He’d clearly gone out boozing before deciding to confront me. He knows, Alex. He must do.’

  Glancing out of the open patio doors into the garden, where those three figures were still horizontal on the grass, Alex lowered her voice and managed a limp ‘He can’t – not so soon. But obviously they will have to tell him the details of the allegation moving forward.’

  Whatever Alex had assured her, Nicole must have known that?

  ‘That’s not what you said last night. And why the fuck did he go to my house? Ben hasn’t told me what was said, but Alex, I’m losing it here.’ Nicole was sobbing now.

  ‘Calm down. Like I said, HR won’t have told him it was you – for now.’

  ‘I just … I thought I’d have a moment in which he would cool off and I could sort my life out. You promised me this was safe.’ Nicole’s tone had swerved from plaintive to accusatory, and it was starting to annoy Alex.

  ‘Just sit tight. It’ll all be over soon.’

  Out in the street a blonde in ripped jeans she was too old for was signing for her Ocado delivery.

  ‘I should never have gone along with this.’

  ‘Nicole.’ Alex took a breath. ‘Nobody forced you. And don’t forget,’ she added, dropping her voice down to a whisper, ‘that last night you were sitting in a pub telling me how badly Jamie had screwed up your life.’

  A pause while Nicole seemed to give in to a rush of tears. ‘My daughter was there! Chloe was there in the room!’

  There was a blaring of horns and an expletive from Nicole, then the background noise seemed to abate. ‘I mean, how dare he? How dare he come into my house, my life, after what he did?’

  ‘Well, I bet that’ll be the last we see of him.’ Any minute now Katie was going to wake up and howl. And Maya was going to wonder what was taking her so long. Alex really needed to end this call. ‘Listen I’ll call you back later, OK?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Nicole sounded a little deranged. ‘You go. I’ll call you back later, once I’ve found him.’

  ‘Great.’ Relief – then a sudden tightening of her chest. ‘Found who? Nicole?’

  The Ocado man was stacking his crates over the road, and as she waited for Nicole to respond Alex lost herself in his methodical movements. Then she followed the direction of the man’s eyes as they logged the arrival of something or someone in that quiet street. A woman approaching with fast, purposeful steps; a woman with a phone to her ear, standing less than three feet away from Alex, now, on the other side of the kitchen window. A woman whose words, when they finally came out, weren’t muted by the glass between them but shockingly loud in her ear: ‘Jamie,’ said Nicole, staring in at her. ‘Once I’ve found Jamie.’

  For a second everything sealed itself over, as though a membrane were protecting her from the sudden atmospheric pressure. Then Alex’s ears popped and everything happened at once: the doorbell, Katie’s cries, Maya at the patio doors, holding her pink-faced daughter, her mouth a tragic mask. ‘Think someone’s hungry.’ Again, the doorbell.

  ‘Here.’ Handing over Alex’s daughter, Maya headed towards the front hall.

  ‘Wait.’

  Maya half turned.

  ‘Don’t …’

  But it was too late; in a second all of this would be over.

  ‘Hold that thought.’ Maya smiled. ‘Let me just get this.’

  ‘Hello.’

  The wall separating the hallway from the kitchen was thin, and from her position at the head of the kitchen table Alex could hear a multitude of inflections in that one word. Recognition, first and foremost, because although the two women had never met, they had seen each other more than once across rooms. Confusion: Nicole’s was probably one of those faces that only made sense in a professional context. And something else: a tension that suggested some form of prior knowledge on Maya’s part.

  ‘Maya – I …’ Whatever courage had propelled Nicole on seconds before seemed to have deserted her. ‘I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Nicole Harper.’

  Were the two women shaking hands?

  ‘We haven’t actually met before, but I work with your husband and we’ve …’

  ‘Of course I remember.’ Perhaps Alex had imagined that strain. ‘Come in.’

  The sound of high-heeled boots in the hallway, the kind that do irreparable damage to hardwood floors like these; the kind that leave divots in carpets.

  Katie – who had been quieted by the implication that she was about to be fed – broke out into a new wail of impatience and, spotting her bag on the side, Alex reached for a bottle with fumbling fingers.

  ‘Sorry.’ Nicole’s still unsteady voice from the hall, where the footsteps had stopped. ‘You’ve got your …’

  ‘No, no. It’s a friend’s. My little one’s just napping. How can I help?’

  Maya’s coolness had spilled over into something brisker now, and a wild hope flared up in Alex: Nicole must have guessed that if she was here, Jamie wouldn’t be. Maybe she wouldn’t make it any further into the house. Maybe Maya would get rid of her before she had the chance to say much more. Then Alex could find a quiet place to call Nicole and explain her presence.

  ‘I’m looking for Jamie. We haven’t been able to locate him. And after what happened today …’

  ‘Sorry – you’ve lost me.’

  ‘You don’t … ? He’s not here?’

  ‘No.’ Maya gave a frustrated laugh. ‘I thought he was at the office. What happened?’

  ‘There’s been a … situation. And I’ve tried him on his mobile. Sorry, I thought you knew. Jamie’s been suspended.’

  Silence. Then a murmured ‘You’d better come in.’

  As the two women appeared at the door, Maya, ever the graceful hostess, ushering this woman she barely knew into her kitchen before looking around for her phone, Alex felt herself divide into two. Part of her wanted to run away from the inevitable confrontation, and part of her – the part that increasingly stepped outside of herself – was just curious to see how Nicole would react.

  ‘This is my friend Lexie. Just going to wake up my daughter. Then we’ll try Jamie on his mobile.’

  Leaning against the counter, Nicole silently took in the scene: Alex sitting there at Jamie’s kitchen table, her daughter across her lap; the bowl of fruit salad on the table and the empty bottle of wine.

  ‘Lexie?’

  Maybe there was still a way out of this; maybe Maya didn’t have to know. But Alex was going to have to speak fast.

  ‘I was going to tell you. And I know you said Maya was off limits.’

  ‘Off limits?’ Nicole hissed. ‘Alex, “Lexie”, what the hell is going on?’ A pause. ‘Tell me that’s a nickname. Tell me she knows who you are.’

  Shaking her head, Alex put a finger to her lips.

  ‘This is completely fucking insane. You do know that, don’t you?’

  ‘It was all supposed to be …’ Beneath the table, Alex pushed her wounded hand up against the jutting join in the wood, soothed by the flood of pain through her veins as the hard edges dug through the gauze into the bloody crust beneath. ‘It was part of the plan.’

  ‘Christ,’ moaned Nicole – and she really was going to have to keep her voice down.

  ‘I know, I know. But the things I’ve been able to do and find out from here. It’s been so useful – for us.’

  ‘Oh no, no, no. I don’t want any part of this. I never wanted Maya dragged into things.’

  ‘Will you keep your voice down!’ Nicole just wasn’t getting it. ‘All that office stuff – the email to
Paul about Jill that I doctored – that wasn’t going to be enough. Don’t you see? I needed more access. How do you think I’ve managed all these months? The cigarettes, Jamie’s ring.’ Alex had been longing to claim the credit, she realised. ‘That was all me. His wedding ring will be landfill by now, and I spiked his vitamins with Ritalin, to put him on edge, work him up into the state he left us all in. As for Ainsley …’

  ‘The dinner was you. Of course it was.’

  ‘It wasn’t hard. A few edits to the menu Jamie’s PA had drawn up for Maya did the trick. And while Jamie was off on a pre-dinner livener with Hayden that afternoon –’ she paused before delivering her triumphant punchline ‘– I left one of Katie’s nappies in the guest loo.’

  But Nicole didn’t look impressed: she looked sort of aghast.

  ‘It worked, didn’t it? It worked! Maya never even figured out it was me. She’d been so busy getting the place ready she thought she’d left it there herself.’

  In the garden, Maya had finally managed to rouse Elsa and was making her way back, the rug draped over one arm, towards the conservatory. This gave Alex only seconds to explain something crucial: ‘But I like her, Nicole. A lot. We’re friends. Because Maya’s nothing like him. She’s warm and funny and a good, solid person.’

  Both women fell silent as Maya came back in with a yawning Elsa, and Nicole forced a smile.

  ‘Now let’s just try and give Daddy a call, shall we?’ Maya shifted Elsa from waist to shoulder level and back again as she dialled.

  ‘Voicemail,’ mouthed Maya. Then: ‘Darling, I’ve got Nicole here from the office. She told me what happened. They’ve been trying to reach you. So if you could just call me back?’

  Alex snuck a sidelong glance at Nicole, whose eyes were darting around the room, taking in the details of her lover’s life.

  ‘Can I get you a tea or—’

  The landline rang.

  ‘Ah – here we go.’

  Whoever Maya was talking to, it wasn’t Jamie.

  ‘He … what time was this? Of course you should tell me.’ Then, more stridently this time: ‘What do you mean they won’t say? OK. Thanks, Jill.’

  All three women were still. And Alex was relieved to hear Katie’s cry fill the silence. That Maya was unable to disguise a tetchy glance in her daughter’s direction was a shock.