‘I’m sorry.’
Cara flicked her hair. ‘You can’t let a friend down and Emily is my best friend. No, the best friend a girl could have.’
‘I’ve got a spare room. It’s not much bigger than a shoebox, but if it gets too much, she could shack up at my place for a while.’ Adam shrugged. ‘I could do with the company.’
Cara shuddered inwardly. If a man could leave his hair so untidy, just imagine what his kitchen sink must be like. ‘It’ll be fine. We just need to establish some ground rules.’ At this, she thought she saw Adam flinch.
Reaching over to Chris’s desk, Cara picked up the day’s news list. As she did so, her hand brushed the mouse lying next to his computer and it activated his screen, whisking aside the screensaver.
‘Oh flip!’ Cara sank into Chris’s chair, biting the end of the news list.
Adam leaned over. ‘Oh shit,’ he said. ‘Sorry about that.’
Cara looked up at him, stunned. ‘It’s Emily.’
‘Who?’
‘My friend, Emily. The one I was just talking about.’ Cara glanced at the screen again. ‘What on earth is Chris doing with this?’
Adam blanched slightly. ‘What do men usually do with porn-site pictures?’ He wetted his lip nervously. ‘Chris is totally in love with her. Besotted.’
Cara closed her eyes. ‘This is terrible. A nightmare. Her ex put it on the net. She didn’t know about it until yesterday. That’s why she’s left him.’ Cara lowered her voice. ‘Emily’s a schoolteacher.’
Adam sucked in his breath. ‘Not good.’
‘He was supposed to take it off last night. Clearly, he hasn’t. I bet tons of people have looked at it by now.’ Cara pulled at her lip. ‘I’d better ring her.’
‘I’ll tell Chris to get rid of it,’ Adam offered.
‘Yeah,’ Cara said distractedly and headed back to her desk to phone Emily straightaway.
Chris wandered in ten minutes later. Adam gave him a look that said, ‘Hurry up.’
‘What?’ Chris glanced at his watch. ‘I’m not late.’
‘No. But we have a little crisis.’
‘Ooo,’ Chris said, rubbing his hands together appreciatively. ‘I like the sound of this.’
‘You won’t,’ Adam said, lowering his voice. ‘It’s to do with Miss Noel Knickers here.’ He nodded towards Chris’s computer screen.
‘My lovely Saucy Santa?’ Chris sat down and wiggled his mouse so that the image appeared again.
‘Don’t do that!’ Adam hissed, glancing across the office. ‘Cara’ll do her pieces.’
‘Not that sexual harassment stuff again!’
‘No.’ Adam checked that Cara was still out of earshot. ‘It’s her mate.’
Chris’s eyes widened and he flicked a thumb at the screen. ‘That is?’
‘She is.’
‘Bugger me.’ Chris twisted his lips. ‘Cara’s not going to be the Easter Bunny Girl, is she?’
‘Don’t be stupid.’ Adam sighed. ‘Look, it would be a really good idea if you could tear your eyes away from her and ditch it before too many people see it.’
Chris looked puzzled. ‘Isn’t the point of it being there precisely so that lots of people can see it?’
‘No. Not in this case.’
‘I’ve already forwarded it to all of my address-book chums.’
‘What?’
‘It’s a bloke thing. You know, Adam,’ Chris said with a wink. ‘Share and share alike.’
‘That wasn’t a good idea.’ Adam shook his head. ‘Cara will go ballistic.’
Chris spread his hands. ‘She’ll never know.’
‘Make sure she doesn’t,’ Adam advised. He nodded at Chris’s screen and Emily’s fur-trimmed but otherwise bare breasts. ‘She’s a schoolteacher.’
Chris roared with laughter. ‘You what?’ He tilted his head to get a better view. ‘We never had teachers who looked like that at my school.’
‘Neither did we,’ Adam admitted. ‘Apparently, she’s distraught. That was her crying in reception last night.’
Chris’s eyes widened. ‘She was here?’
‘Yup. With her clothes on,’ Adam added drily. ‘You wouldn’t have recognised her.’
His friend looked gutted. ‘She was here and I didn’t even know.’ After a moment of sulking, he brightened considerably. He glanced up at Adam. ‘If she was here, that means she’s local.’
‘Yeah,’ Adam agreed. ‘I suppose so.’
‘She’s a local schoolteacher and porny pics of her have been on the net?’
Chris had a mind like an abacus. You could hear the beads clicking into place. ‘Looks that way,’ Adam agreed.
‘Why was she upset?’
‘Wouldn’t you be?’
Chris nodded indifferently.
‘Apparently, she didn’t know anything about it,’ Adam explained. ‘Her boyfriend slapped it up there without her knowing.’
Chris snorted. ‘I bet that’s what they all say.’
‘Well. Who knows.’ Adam shrugged. His bacon sandwich was long past its best and he’d lost interest in Miss Saucy Santa, not that he’d ever had much in the first place.
Chris jumped up. ‘I have died and gone to heaven!’ He could hardly contain himself. ‘What a brilliant news story!’
‘What?’
‘And on my patch.’ Chris gazed at the ceiling. ‘Thank You. Thank You, God!’
‘Wait. This is not a news story. Repeat – not a news story.’
‘Not a news story?’ Chris was standing now. The only time Adam had previously seen him so animated was when Manchester United were about to score. ‘This goes to show why you’re a mere snapper and I’m a hot-to-trot news hound.’
Adam shook his head. ‘You won’t be allowed to run with this one, mate.’
‘Are you mad? This is the news story of my career. We are the newspaper that makes a front-page splash of a library book being stolen from the Heath branch library.’
‘It was a rare edition library book,’ Adam protested.
‘Oh, excuse me,’ Chris countered. ‘That makes all the difference. Adam, sweetheart, we ran an in-depth exposé about a leaking pipe in a toddlers’ group toy cupboard.’
Adam opened his mouth.
‘And before you say it,’ Chris held his finger up to shush him, ‘I know that the ickle-pickle toys all went mouldy and all the teenie-weenie toddlers cried.’
Adam closed his mouth again.
‘If that is a fucking news story, mate, how can we possibly ignore this? We have a teacher, possibly a primary school-teacher, romping about in obscene poses on the Internet for any pervert’s delectation.’
‘You were one of them half an hour ago.’
Chris looked hurt. ‘That’s before I knew the full story.’
‘You would have married her, given half the chance.’
‘I didn’t know then that she was a scarlet woman purporting to be an upstanding pillar of our society. Instead she’s a scourge among us. Secretly corrupting our young.’
‘She didn’t know anything about it,’ Adam said flatly.
‘Pah!’ Chris tucked his thumbs behind his lapels and paced about a bit, like a barrister summing up a trial.
Adam twisted one of his curls round on itself in frustration. ‘This is exactly the sort of trumped-up scandal that I hate in the tabloids, let alone the Hampstead Observer.’
‘It’s news, mate,’ Chris declared loftily. ‘This is a newspaper. And we are newsbreakers.’
‘She’s Cara’s friend, Chris. Be very careful how you go about this. You are going to stamp on a lot of toes in your size tens if you don’t tread gently.’
‘She cannot stop me from running a story just because it’s about her mate. Particularly if it’s about her mate. Haven’t you heard of the freedom of the press, Adam? It’s one of the few joys of living in Britain – apart from the beer. And Manchester United. It’s not a police state. Yet.’
Adam tried to be reasonab
le. ‘All I’m saying is, go easy.’ He wished to hell he’d never let the cat out of the bag now. Although if the pictures were already halfway round the Internet, it probably wouldn’t stay quiet for long. These things took on a life of their own once they were out there. Friends copied them to friends and the damage spread like wildfire. Poor Emily. This was going to take some living down, whether it was her fault or not.
‘This story will run, Adam.’ Chris narrowed his eyes. ‘I will make sure of it.’
Adam wanted to curl up in a ball and go back to bed. He’d always wanted to work in a danger zone – but then he’d assumed he’d have to change jobs to do it. He just hoped that he could stay out of the firing line on this one.
‘It’d be great if she’s a primary schoolteacher,’ Chris breathed hopefully. ‘Just imagine the headlines.’
Adam hung his head. He was afraid he could. Very afraid.
Chapter Nine
I’m standing outside my own house, my key in my hand, feeling like an intruder. I’m acting so furtively I might as well be wearing a striped jumper and carrying a bag marked swag. Yet all I am doing is stealing in to get a valuation of my own home. The estate agent is going to meet me here to give it the once-over and this feels very much like the first nail in the coffin that is my relationship. I get the urge to phone Declan at work and ask him to try to find a better excuse for his behaviour so that I can stop this excruciatingly painful process. But I don’t.
I live – did live – in a slightly less salubrious area of Hampstead than Cara. It’s still extortionately expensive, but people’s eyes normally just bulge disbelievingly when we tell them the house prices; they don’t die of shock on the spot. When people think of Hampstead, they picture a green, leafy oasis in the smog of London. Well, it isn’t – not all of it. The bit we inhabit is in Scaffolding City, NW1. Every road is Skip Alley. There is so much building rubble around that bits of it look like Beirut on a bad day. Every house is being renovated, restored and refurbished to within an inch of its life. And ours is no exception.
We paid way over the top for this place. When we bought it, it was a two-bed terraced hovel in a nice-ish street – that says it all, doesn’t it? They never come with bargain price tags, despite the fact that this one was all but falling down round our ears when we moved in. This is what used to be called a house with room for improvement, suitable for a DIY enthusiast. Now, several property booms later, it would be classed as ‘a period cottage retaining original features, with unlimited potential’.
For years a dear old lady had owned our particular haven full of original features before shuffling off to God’s waiting room – the nearby Retirement Home for the Terminally Bewildered – and dear old ladies are not generally renowned for their DIY skills. We had a mottled, cracked Victorian bath, turn-of-the-century rising damp and ancient plumbing that required hours of coaxing before it would perform even the most basic of plumbing-type duties. We were probably the only couple in Hampstead who cheered every time our loo deigned to flush. It was pure luck that the old dear hadn’t been electrocuted by the pre-war wiring or felled by one of the many ropey ceilings falling in on her over the last few years. I’m sure the whole structure was only held up by ten ageing layers of wallpaper. But, of course, our survey didn’t reveal that.
Since then the house has consumed every available penny that hasn’t already been consumed by Declan’s business. Everything – and I mean everything – had to be ripped out and replaced. I’m on such good terms with the Homebase staff, they invited me to their Christmas party this year. The amount of paint I’ve bought over the year would easily have paid for all their mince pieces and bottles of Lambrusco.
Now Declan and I are broke. Utterly. There are phenomenally rich people in Hampstead and there are ordinary people – but not many of them. Declan and I are impoverished paper millionaires. We now have a very shiny, non-lethal house worth, I would guess, a King’s ransom, probably more, but we do not have one brass razoo left to our names. Our bank account is full of moths and our mortgage is big enough to give any sane person sleepless nights.
Taking a deep breath, I open the door. It’s funny how your own home smells quite different from any other. Cara’s home reeks of exotic scents, is heady with lavender and vanilla and spices. Mine is filled with newness – paint, carpet, furniture all still bearing a faintly chemical odour that I hope will fade with time. I also catch a whiff of Declan’s aftershave, fresh green grass on a summer’s day, which takes me by surprise.
When I open the lounge door, he is sitting at the far end, surrounded by a litter of papers spread all over the dining table. He has his hair held back from his forehead and is barking into the telephone. ‘I know. Look – I’ve said I’ll pay, and I will. I need two more weeks. Just two weeks. That’s all.’
I stand inside the doorway and watch him, and already I feel like he is a stranger to me. The pull I normally experience when I see him has gone. Instead there’s a gap inside me where Declan used to be that’s been replaced by a creeping nausea. And it feels very weird, because only yesterday I adored him. Really, I did. No one has been more pampered and cosseted than Declan. He demands it. Every fibre of him needs constant attention. He only has to turn on his little-boy smile and I’m gone. I have supported him all through his business difficulties and believe me, there have been a few. I have cooked and cleaned for him, laughed with him and loved him. And, call me foolish, but I sort of expected his undying devotion in return. Not for him to slap pictures of my comely figure on the Internet.
‘Ooo,’ he says with a certain amount of nervousness as he looks up and notices me. ‘I’ll call you back,’ he says briskly into the phone and hangs up. Declan smiles tightly and stands up. ‘Emily. You’ve come back.’
Declan is a bit of a stunner in anyone’s book. He’s a trendy old soul, as befitting the owner of a blossoming dot.com corporation, and favours Paul Smith suits over jeans and T-shirts. He has hair the colour of bitter chocolate, worn long, curling over his collar onto his shoulders. His skin is smooth, olive and unblemished, and even in the middle of a prolonged, grey British winter, Declan manages to look tanned. I think his mother must have had it off with a gypsy because his father is fat, red-haired and typically Irish whereas Declan is a brooding, high-cheek-boned movie-star type. He pouts just like Johnny Depp, which could never be classed as a bad thing.
As he comes closer, some of the gap inside me starts to fill, but I can’t give in to this. I can’t. ‘I’ve arranged for an estate agent to come round,’ I say in as steady a voice as I can muster. ‘Why are you at home during the day? Why aren’t you at work?’
Declan does his Johnny Depp pout. ‘I’m sorry, Emily. I am so, so sorry.’
I can’t look at him when he’s like this. He looks so depressed I think he might throw himself on the carpet at my feet. His shirt collar is skew-whiff and my fingers itch to straighten it.
‘I never meant to cause any harm,’ he goes on sorrowfully.
‘You should have thought of that before, Declan.’
‘I know.’
‘How on earth could you even contemplate that I’d be happy about it? You’ve made me look an idiot. Hundreds of people could have looked at that.’
‘But they won’t know who you are.’
‘That’s not the point. How would you have liked it if I’d circulated pictures of you tied to the bed with silk scarves to all and sundry?’ We have done this too, so it is a possibility, not just an idle threat.
Declan chuckles. ‘I’d have thought it was a great crack.’
‘Oh, yes?’ I fold my arms. ‘Then that’s where you and I differ.’
‘Don’t leave, Emily,’ he begs. ‘I promise you, I’ll take it off.’
‘You mean, you haven’t already?’
Declan hesitates and I can see a gulp travel down his throat. ‘Not exactly.’ He scratches his neck and pulls his ear and does all the sort of things that body language books tell you to watch out for wh
en you’re being lied to.
‘You promised me!’
‘It’s just . . .’ Declan sighs. ‘It’s just proving a bit tricky.’
‘How tricky can it be? You managed to get it up there. You have no idea how upset I am about this.’ And getting more so by the minute, I can tell you. ‘There’s no going back from this. I want the house sold. I want my share and I want out.’
‘It’s not going to be quite as easy as that,’ he says.
‘Why?’ I am rapidly losing patience with Declan, which is a good thing. ‘This place will be snapped up.’
The ex-love of my life casts a very furtive glance at the mess of paperwork on the table. ‘I think you’d better sit down.’
When I do sit down, Declan sits opposite me. He crosses his hands on the table and tries to look meek – which he does very badly. Declan is by nature confident, self-assured and, on occasion, borderline arrogant. He does not do humble.
‘Ha!’ I say as I spy my cheque book. ‘I’ve been hunting high and low for that for weeks.’ I snatch it back and hug it to me as a sign of my independence. ‘What are you doing with it?’
Declan says nothing and for the first time I notice that he’s got dark shadows under his eyes, purple smudges like bruises that spoil his perfect complexion and I don’t believe he got them from one sleepless night over me.
‘We’d better get on with this.’ I gesture at the paperwork, whatever it is. ‘The agent will be here soon.’
‘We can’t sell the house, Emily.’ Declan’s voice has an underlying shake that I’ve never heard before.
‘We have to,’ I inform him coolly. ‘I don’t want to live with you any longer and you can’t afford to buy my share.’
‘We can’t sell the house, Emily, because it’s about to be repossessed.’ Declan’s eyes are unflinching. They are the same colour as his hair, bitter chocolate. And I’d never seen them look quite so bitter before.
My eyes do flinch. They blink several times, uncomprehendingly. ‘What?’
‘I’m in deep, Emily. Way over my head.’
All this dazed blinking has still not succeeded in kick-starting my brain. ‘You’ll survive. You always do.’
A Compromising Position Page 5