Payday

by Celia Walden

  ‘Lexie, do you mind just …’ She gestured towards the play gym, the implication clear. ‘I just need to get my head around this and I can’t with that …’

  ‘Of course. Want me to take Elsa, too? Let you—’

  But Maya made an involuntary move away from her. A blotchy triangle had appeared at the part of her throat left exposed by the wrap that looped loosely around her neck like a scarf, and she looked around the kitchen, momentarily disorientated.

  ‘Actually, do you know what? I think I’m going to need you both to leave. Sorry, I’ve got …’ She turned to Nicole. ‘When you said my husband had been suspended earlier, you didn’t say why.’

  Lips pressed together, Nicole looked around awkwardly. ‘I was out on a viewing when it happened. But there was … an allegation. Jill told you? But listen, I’m sorry I troubled you.’ She gestured towards the hall. ‘I’m going to leave you to it now.’

  ‘Right.’ Maya was staring out of the kitchen window at a street and a world that must now look very different. ‘Sexual assault,’ she added, jolted out of her stupor and turning to face Nicole. ‘That was what Jill said. That some woman at the office is saying he … he assaulted her.’

  ‘Maya.’ Alex was by her side in an instant, a hand raised but not quite touching her friend’s arm.

  ‘I just can’t …’ Maya scratched a temple.

  ‘Let me take Elsa.’

  ‘No, no – I’m OK. I just need to be on my own.’ Then to Nicole: ‘In answer to your question, I’m hoping my husband is with his lawyer.’

  ‘OK.’ Nicole nodded, with a last murmured ‘I’m so sorry’ as she left the room.

  Were it not for the absence of any incidental noise at that precise moment – no lawnmower next door, no van pulling up outside or baby’s squawk – Nicole might not have heard the two words Jamie’s wife, eyes still on her phone, said next: ‘Stupid bitch.’

  Alex stopped stuffing wet wipes and sun cream back into her bag and stared over at Maya. She looked like the same kind, bright and wholesome woman she’d got to know so well over the past two months, but that voice, those words, belonged to someone else.

  Nicole reappeared in the kitchen doorway. ‘What did you say?’

  Maya moved towards her, Elsa still in her arms, and for a moment Alex had the dramatic notion that she might slap her, but instead she sat squarely down at the end of the kitchen table, legs slightly apart, Elsa across her lap, and began to unbutton her dress. Then, with a small sigh of irritation at having to repeat herself: ‘I called you a stupid bitch.’

  The two women stared at one other, Nicole so astonished that a current shivered beneath the surface of her skin, Maya cool, borderline amused. Crouched down beside Katie in the corner of the room, Alex had been forgotten.

  ‘You’re not asking why?’ Glancing down at Elsa, Maya slipped a sleeve down over one shoulder to reveal that bright white bra. ‘It’s coming, my sweet. It’s coming.’

  A second dip of that same shoulder allowed the strap to drop, and sitting back, making herself comfortable, Maya tugged one side down, scooping up a hard, blue-veined and brown-tipped breast and pulled her daughter’s fretful head towards it. All the while, her eyes never left Nicole’s.

  ‘You’re not asking why I called you a bitch?’ she went on, her tone ponderous. ‘I’m guessing because you think a wife is allowed to speak this way to the woman who’s fucking her husband.’

  Only a very occasional jumble of words – in particular a confusion with ‘this’ and ‘that’ – told you that English wasn’t Maya’s mother tongue. It could be charming or give her statements the severity they had now. And as Alex looked from Nicole in the kitchen doorway, handbag dangling from the tips of her fingers, to majestic Maya and her suckling child, she wondered what on earth would keep her there in her lover’s house, listening to his wife spew venom at her. Why didn’t she leave? The moment she heard Maya say those words, why didn’t she leave? Jamie wasn’t here, and he was the only reason she’d come. She was ruining their afternoon, and now she really needed to leave.

  ‘Allowed?’

  It was a challenge – one Maya countered by donning a faintly puzzled expression.

  ‘Yes, allowed. Surely it’s to be expected, even.’

  Nicole swallowed, visibly trying to reassert control. ‘Listen, I don’t know what you think you know, or what Jamie’s told you.’

  ‘Oh, please.’ Maya cocked her head to one side, saddened. ‘Can we assume I know everything? The theatre, the naughty little texts when you’re supposed to be enjoying family days out with your little girl. The Best Westerns and the Hiltons and then that silly, silly Angelini’s idea. So when I say everything, I mean everything. How? Because I set the whole thing up. I chose you.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  Gently, Nicole lowered her bag to the floor.

  ‘Does he call you Nikki? No. No, he calls you “Nic”, right?’ She smiled; shook her head. ‘Doesn’t matter. You’re married, aren’t you? That was always part of the deal. Anyway, the point is that you know – about the boredom, I mean. Same thing with the same person, year after year. We’re all bored. And I don’t think it’s that men get bored first. I think they just give into it first.’

  ‘What are you—’

  ‘Jamie was bored. So was I. But I wasn’t about to let our marriage break down and put the kids through a divorce over a few minutes, a few seconds of what? Nothing. And, well.’ Maya narrowed her eyes and again Alex wondered who this woman she thought she knew was. ‘I started to think that maybe I liked the thought of him with someone else.’

  ‘You two are … you’re messed up.’

  Maya considered this. ‘I don’t think so. I was upset – the first time, I mean, when I found out about his PA, years back. She was trashy, for one thing, and because it was such a cliché it meant people would be more likely to notice. I don’t like people knowing about my cheating husband. I don’t like pity.’

  ‘Jessica?’ Nicole’s voice was hoarse.

  ‘Was that her name? I can’t even remember. But it stung. And I was never going to go through that again. So if there was going to be anyone else, it had to be on my terms.’ Maya paused, gently repositioning her daughter’s head. ‘The Christmas party two years ago – you in that black dress with the fussy neckline and those shoes. I’ve got the same ones in nude. Which is why I noticed them. Then I noticed you.’

  The rise and fall of Nicole’s chest quickened.

  ‘I guessed Jamie had already logged you, you know, as someone he’d like to fuck. Probably already even imagined it when he was with me, and in the taxi on the way home I told him you were unlikely to make it hard for him.’

  Nicole flushed. ‘You don’t know anything about me.’

  ‘Oh, I think anyone could see that. And once we’d worked out that you were right, and that you were never going to leave your husband.’

  ‘You really don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Somehow Nicole had mustered the strength to fight back. ‘Because I did leave my husband, so your little game didn’t work, did it?’

  Ignoring her, Maya went on. ‘But really there were only two rules: that he would tell me everything, every time. And that when I said it was over, it would be over.’

  Her grey-green eyes raised themselves once again to Nicole. ‘You must have known he wasn’t going to be that man? The one who ups and leaves and starts again? After all, you were the only one stuck in an unhappy marriage, Nicole. We’re both fine; always have been.’ She gave a small shrug. ‘But he gets –’ she thought about it ‘– overexcited, carried away. So maybe he promised you things? Things he couldn’t – didn’t want to – deliver. But that’s part of his charm, isn’t it? And secrets are fun. Only Jamie’s not very good at keeping them.’

  ‘I don’t …’ Nicole stared. ‘There’s something wrong with you two.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Elsa had finished feeding and was slumped in a milk stupor against the breast Maya
was slowly covering up. ‘In which case, why don’t you get out of my house?’

  ‘I’m going.’ Nicole took a small step, but couldn’t seem to bring herself to leave. ‘But for the record I’m not buying this. Because if I was just some … some game, then why would Jamie show up at my house a few hours ago?’ Maya made a tiny head movement betraying her surprise at this. ‘That’s the only reason I’m here. To tell him that if he went there to humiliate my husband even further, then there was no need.’ The words were broken up by sobs now. ‘There was no need! Because he’d already been humiliated. I’d left him, just like we planned.’

  Nicole was an ugly crier, Alex noticed with detachment, her eyebrows pulling the skin of her forehead together into a ladder of lines, the corners of her mouth twisting into a rictus grin. And perhaps she knew it, because within seconds, Nicole was angrily wiping her tears away.

  ‘And if he didn’t actually want us, me, to go through with it, then why set up that Angelini’s plan to start with? Who does that, if they’re not planning to go through with it?’

  Maya nodded almost sympathetically. ‘That, I’ll admit, I didn’t know about. And to say that I was surprised when he told me what he’d brought me to the restaurant to do …’ It was the first time since Alex had met Maya that she’d seen her look rattled. ‘Not that we lasted long: we’d only just ordered when he came out with it. And when I looked over and saw you there with—’

  ‘Wait,’ Nicole interrupted. ‘You knew I was there?’

  ‘You’re not listening, are you? Yes, I knew you were there – you and that poor husband of yours. So I made a few things clear. Firstly, that he wasn’t going to leave me and the kids – not then, not ever. And secondly, that if he ever wanted to see his kids again, oh and didn’t fancy being kicked out of BWL for all those little, well, shortcuts he was taking at work – because, yes, I’m well aware that Jamie sometimes likes to speed deals up in a way Jill and Paul wouldn’t be too happy with – then he would eat his steak and drink his wine and leave you to get on with it.’

  ‘You knew and you let me end my marriage?’

  Alex flashed back to the conversation she and Nicole had had in the pub the night before: her saying that something about this husband and wife’s ‘power dynamic’ had been wrong. This was why. All this time they had both seen Maya as the wronged wife, when it had been she, not Jamie, calling the shots.

  But none of that really mattered right now. What mattered was getting Nicole out of the house. Because all this drama was eating up precious time, and Maya would be holding it together out of pride. You couldn’t break down in front of the woman your husband had been sleeping with, but she pictured her friend’s serene features collapsing the moment Nicole left, and knew how badly she’d need Alex then. It was why she’d ignored Maya’s request to be left alone.

  ‘Nicole.’ From the startled looks on both women’s faces as Alex stood, they really had forgotten she was still there. ‘You’ve said your piece, but Maya’s asked you to leave.’ The glue ear was back, and although she could her hear own voice it sounded like someone else’s. ‘She’s too nice to say it again, but I’m not, and you need to get out now.’

  To her amazement Alex saw that Nicole was smiling – with disbelief maybe, but still a smile. This annoyed her.

  ‘I said get out.’

  Nicole shook her head. ‘Don’t worry. I’m going. And by the way, Maya,’ she called out as she headed into the hallway, ‘your new friend’s name isn’t Lexie; it’s Alex. Alex Fuller. Which should ring a pretty loud bell, since she was your husband’s PA until a few months ago – when he fired her for misconduct.’

  As Nicole left, Alex’s ears finally unblocked. And from the look on Maya’s face, the way she was holding little Elsa’s head – protectively, as though she were … wait, was she scared? – Alex knew she had to act fast.

  ‘Maya.’

  Running over to her, Alex knelt at her feet, burying her face in the fresh, clean, redemptive fabric of her friend’s dress.

  ‘Get out.’

  Maya’s voice wasn’t right. Nothing about this was right. It was as though the woman she knew was being played by a stand-in.

  ‘You don’t understand. When we first met, I was …’

  ‘Get out!’

  But Alex wasn’t going. Not until she’d made her understand. She’d tell her about Jamie – what he did to her. And why she’d found herself at Bumps & Babies that day. Because now more than ever they needed each other.

  As Alex tried to envelop mother and child, Maya’s voice wavered into a whisper, then died, before coming back stronger. ‘Get off me or I swear to God I’ll call the police.’

  With a single shove she pushed Alex back, and was on her feet in an instant, clutching Elsa to her chest. Which gave Alex no other choice. Maya had to calm down. If she could just stay still, Alex could make her understand. She launched herself at her friend, grabbing at the baby wrap Maya always wore loosely, like a scarf – that stupid, overcomplicated wrap that only uber-mums like her could master – and clinging tightly to it.

  ‘These past few weeks,’ Alex sobbed as Maya gasped for air and tried in vain to loosen the wrap that had crossed around her neck, ‘they’ve been some of the best of my life. Because you don’t care who people are or where they come from. And you see me. You see me!’ She peered into her friend’s eyes but there was no sympathy or understanding – just fear. And as Alex’s grip tightened Maya seemed to be slipping away from her, the whites of her eyes turning pink, until she slumped to the floor.

  ‘They’re on their way! They’ll be here any minute,’ came Nicole’s voice from behind her. Wait: Nicole was still there? Her voice seemed unnaturally shrill, agitated, like the sirens that were getting louder outside, and all of a sudden, Alex felt very tired. Maya had stopped saying all those vicious things. She wasn’t saying anything at all now – just lying there, immobile, on the tiled floor. And Alex would make her understand, but not now. What she needed now was to get home and lie down.

  Wincing as the sirens grew louder, closer, Alex grabbed Katie and walked out the front door.

  CHAPTER 30

  JILL

  ‘He’s tall. Light brown hair.’ Jill paused. ‘Probably pretty drunk.’

  Another headshake. Her third since she’d started working her way down King Street, scouring every darkest pub corner for Jamie.

  ‘Do you think he might have been here earlier?’ she called out, but the barman was already serving another customer.

  There on the busiest stretch of the high street up by the station, Jill stopped, edged a foot out of the pumps that had rubbed a hole in her pop socks and felt a flood of suppressed pain release itself. It took a second to find Jamie’s home number in her contacts, but as her thumb hovered over the call button, again she decided against it. What if Maya answered? What if he hadn’t told her yet?

  She tried his mobile again, only to get the same: ‘Hello you’ve reached Jamie. I’m available – just not right now.’ That cheeky chappie mockney lilt that only ever came out on his voicemail and in meetings: she’d once asked him about it. ‘Buyers like it,’ he’d flung back. ‘Makes you sound like a good guy, you know? Solid.’ And at the time she’d thought, ‘Why try and make yourself sound like something you are anyway?’

  Anxious to catch their trains and start drinking, people jostled past her. There was still Belushi’s on the corner, but would Jamie really go to a sports bar? She didn’t know the answer to that or any other question in the ‘What would Jamie do’ vein any more. And yet here she was, against her better judgement and Stan’s, who had been uncharacteristically terse when she’d called from the office earlier to tell him she might be late because she wanted, needed, to track Jamie down.

  ‘Why not let him be?’

  ‘Because …’ she’d started, unable to tell her husband about Alex and the confirmation she now had of her involvement – all of their involvement. ‘You should have heard him earlier. He wa
s so angry.’

  Over in Jamie’s empty office a cleaner had started hoovering.

  ‘You realise you’re still, even after everything, making excuses for him,’ Stan had said with an exasperated laugh.

  ‘You don’t get it.’

  ‘No,’ he’d sighed. ‘I don’t. He brought this on himself.’

  And how could she explain that she wasn’t sure of anything any more? Yes, the letter had been genuine, but not the email, and maybe not the claim that had got Jamie suspended. How far had Alex and Nicole gone to bring him down?

  As Jill pushed through the doors of Belushi’s, aware as she asked the punters the same questions that she was being mistaken for an angry wife come to retrieve her husband, it occurred to her that the guilt she’d been burying had morphed into a kind of superstition. As though purely by having that stupid drunken conversation the three of them might have prompted bad things to happen: double, double toil and trouble. ‘Excuse me,’ she called out to the bartender across the din. ‘Can I have a G&T? Make it a double.’

  She’d downed it in three gulps, hoping it might sharpen her mind, but when she emerged blinking from Belushi’s just minutes later it was almost six and the sun was bleeding into the pink evening sky. Unable to decide whether to try Jamie again, yomp along to whatever that pub halfway down Hammersmith Grove was called or just give up and go home, Jill stood for a moment in a cloud of second-hand smoke outside the door. Then she called Maya. If Jamie was home, then at least she could give this up and make contact in the morning. It could all be sorted out then. Only he wasn’t. And when Maya picked up on the first ring sounding both tense and hopeful, Jill knew she had to tell her.

  After assuring her that was all she or anyone other than HR knew, she urged Maya to sit tight. Jamie would be home once he’d finished drinking himself into a stupor, and tomorrow he could thrash out a plan with his lawyer. Jill had kept it short, upbeat – she’d got the feeling Maya had company in any case – but when she’d rung back seconds later to assure her that of course if she located Jamie first she’d send him home, there had been no answer. Which Jill had taken to mean that her husband had just crashed through the door. Until she saw Jamie’s name flash up on her mobile.