Strictly Between Us

by Jane Fallon

  I claimed tiredness and an early start and retreated to my room. The thought of sleep seemed like an impossibility, though, so I put in a DVD of The Princess Bride – a film I have watched at least seventeen times and slept through countless more, swallowed down two Nytol and somehow managed to pass out.

  Tamsin has a slightly hysterical whiff about her this morning, like a kid the week before Christmas. She’s a woman on a mission. I know she’s gagging to talk to me about it. Now she’s opened up those floodgates nothing will close them again. I get the impression she’s looking forward to a brainstorming session because she’s already asked me what I’m doing at lunchtime. It’s laughable.

  Of course I haven’t heard anything from Patrick. We don’t have the kind of arrangement that includes heart to hearts on the phone. All I can do is wait for him to text me about a meeting time – I’m always free, by the way. Whenever he has sent me a date and venue I have only ever said yes. I’ve cancelled plans and let friends down to be at his beck and call. Suddenly this strikes me as a bit pathetic. I don’t know why it’s taken me so long.

  I wait until Lucy finally decides to go out and get herself some lunch. As usual it doesn’t even cross her mind to offer to pick something up for me, too. Mind you, I’m as bad these days. Once I realized she was never going to reciprocate my goodwill I gave up. Let her pick out her own minuscule low-fat, low-carb, low-calorie sandwich. Tamsin is out at a meeting. Across town at the offices of ITV.

  I shut the door. Pick up the phone. Dial the number.

  ‘Patrick Mitchell’s office.’

  ‘Hi,’ I say in what I hope is a happy, confident tone. ‘This is Bea from Castle. I have Tamsin Fordham for him.’

  ‘Hold on, Bea. I’ll see if he’s available,’ Verity – I assume it’s Verity – says.

  I wait. The door handle rattles and I jump. I hold the handset over its cradle, ready to hang up at any moment. Ashley sticks her head round the door.

  ‘I’m just—’ she starts to say and I can’t help it, I practically bite her head off.

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Ashley. If the door is shut then knock.’

  I hear a rustle on the other end of the line and flap my hand at her to leave. She backs out, mouthing, ‘I’m so sorry.’ Just in time. I hear his voice. He sounds wary, and why wouldn’t he?

  ‘Tamsin?’

  I can’t be bothered with the niceties. ‘Anything you think you should tell me?’

  ‘Jesus Christ. What the hell are you doing calling me at work?’

  ‘Because I knew you wouldn’t call me and I needed to talk to you.’

  ‘I thought we’d agreed …’

  ‘Yes, well, I don’t feel like sticking to that agreement at the moment.’

  ‘You want to tell me what this is all about?’ He sounds angry.

  ‘Do you want me to over the phone?’

  ‘Stop playing games, Bea.’

  ‘I’m not. It was a genuine question.’

  He sighs noisily. ‘What are you doing after work? I could meet you for an hour at six.’

  He’s already waiting by the little kiosk that sells teas and coffees when I get there. Not that we are planning on sharing a cuppa. It was just the only place we could agree on in the whole of Hyde Park, tucked just inside, right by Lancaster Gate tube.

  I’m ten minutes late because I couldn’t get away from Tamsin’s manic plotting. She’s like a dog with a bone now that she’s decided to catch Patrick out. We already spent half the afternoon throwing out more and more laughable ideas on how to go about it. Mine were deliberately idiotic, obviously. At one point she accused me of having watched too much Scooby Doo. Thankfully she hasn’t stumbled across any plans worthy of serious consideration yet. Nothing Patrick or I should lose any sleep over.

  I feel a little flutter of excitement when I see him, as I always do. He’s looking down at his phone; he hasn’t noticed me yet. Then I feel bad for having worried him and for breaking the Ben Rules so flagrantly. I’m not the only one who has things at stake.

  And then, of course, I remember why we’re here and I just feel angry.

  He looks up when I’m still a few feet away. Neither of us smiles.

  ‘Sorry I’m late. Tamsin kept me talking.’

  Patrick starts to walk towards the ornamental pond and I follow.

  ‘So,’ he says, dispensing with the niceties, ‘are you going to tell me what this is all about?’

  I have already decided I’m just going to say it. I’m not going to bubble wrap it for him.

  ‘Tamsin told me about you and her.’

  That stops him in his tracks. ‘She did what?’

  I mean, it’s actually quite incredible that his first thought is how this might impact on him. ‘The fact that she told me is hardly the point. Did it happen?’

  He looks at me. ‘Are you jealous? We’d only known each other a couple of days.’

  ‘That’s not the point … I mean … Tamsin?’

  ‘I didn’t sleep with her.’

  ‘So I hear. She’s already given me a “blow by blow” account.’

  I pause to see if he will jump in and deny what I’m implying. He doesn’t. I force myself not to get sidetracked in pressing for details.

  ‘But … what? It was her you really fancied all along? You’ve been waiting for this to happen for years? What?’

  ‘Of course not. If you really want to know I did it to shut her up.’

  Now I’m the one who is taken aback. ‘What?’

  ‘Once you told me about the honey trap I knew I had to do something. I figured if I could get her to feel guilty, too, she’d stop acting like the fidelity police.’

  I flop myself down on an empty bench. I actually laugh. ‘That might possibly be genius.’

  He sits next to me. Close but not too close, in case some random colleague happens to saunter by with their poodle.

  ‘I thought so. Not that it should matter, because we’d only just met and we hadn’t promised each other anything, but I’m not and never have been interested in Tamsin in that way. I swear.’

  OK, so now I’m going to say something really needy. Bear with me. It’s going to be pitiful. ‘And, otherwise, it’s just been me? I mean, apart from Michelle obviously …’

  ‘It’s just been you. It’s only going to be you. I really like you, Bea, you know that.’

  I take a deep breath in. Exhale loudly. ‘You’re actually quite scary. To have come up with that as a plan …’

  ‘It worked, didn’t it?’

  ‘I guess I have to admit it did. But that text she sent you—’

  He interrupts, laughing. ‘She told you about that? That was a fucking godsend.’

  ‘She’s deleted it.’

  There’s a comedy moment where he scrabbles for his phone, checks his messages, scrolls forward and back over and over again. Checks his photos. ‘How the fuck?’

  I tell him what she told me. I’ll be honest, even though I’ve decided to forgive him I still get a certain satisfaction from seeing his confident mask slip.

  ‘Fuck. That must be how she found out where and when we were meeting up.’

  I hadn’t even thought of that. ‘You think?’

  ‘How else?’

  ‘It gets worse,’ I say, and I tell him about Tamsin’s new determination to unmask the real him. ‘She wants me to help her.’

  He thinks about this for a moment. The afternoon has turned cooler. There’s the tiniest hint of autumn in the air. I dig my cardigan out of m
y bag and put it on.

  I start to worry when he doesn’t say anything, wondering if this near miss has made the whole thing seem a bit too real. ‘Are you having second thoughts … about us I mean?’

  And as I say this I realize that I desperately want him to say no, I’m not having second thoughts, I couldn’t give you up now even if I wanted to.

  Shit. I really don’t want him to answer.

  He looks at me. ‘No. Of course not. But it’s complicated now – you do see that?’

  I nod reluctantly. I’m scared about where this is going.

  ‘We can’t get caught,’ he says quietly.

  ‘I know. But if she thinks I’m helping her then I can make sure we don’t.’

  This has only just occurred to me. Tamsin asking for my help might just be the thing that saves me and Patrick.

  ‘I mean, think about it. I can send her off on completely the wrong track.’

  A hint of a smile plays on his lips for the first time since we got here. That lopsided thing he does, where only one side of his mouth turns up. It’s always made me go a bit weak at the knees.

  ‘You think you can pull it off?’

  I’m so relieved that my confidence knows no limits, even though I am not exactly sure what I intend to do. ‘Definitely. It’ll be hilarious. And after a while surely she’ll give up …’

  ‘That I wouldn’t be so sure of. We can’t get complacent. Not for a second.’

  We. He said ‘we’.

  ‘No! Of course not. I know my job’s nowhere near as important as your marriage’ – in all honesty I’ve realized I couldn’t give a toss about his marriage any more, but I want him to feel confident that I do, and I still very much care about my job. At least until I can find another one, then all bets are off so far as I’m concerned – ‘but I don’t want either to blow up in my face. We can use this to our advantage.’

  His smile widens, takes over his whole face.

  ‘So long as she never finds out it’s you she’s got nothing. Nothing Michelle would believe anyway.’

  ‘It’s risky,’ I say, now I’m feeling secure enough to know he’s not going anywhere.

  Patrick laughs. ‘We can really mess with her head. Get her to believe anything we want her to believe. It’s actually funny.’

  ‘I guess we can’t use Ben any more.’

  He thinks for a second. ‘Yes we can. We have to. Just not for real meetings. Then I can make sure I leave my phone for her to find every now and then. I mean, what else is she going to do? Follow me?’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it past her.’

  ‘I can get away next Thursday evening. You?’

  I think about the night out that Ali, Sarah and I have planned. Just a pizza followed by the pub and then a club. Nothing special but we did all promise each other we’d keep it free.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Six thirty at the Covent Garden?’

  I nod.

  ‘I’ll send you a Ben message and you just need to say yes to whatever it is. But the plan is half six at the Covent Garden, OK?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Oh, and get a pay-as-you-go phone before then. I will, too. I’ll keep mine in the office, locked in a drawer that only I have the key to. Texts only, no calls.’

  ‘Jesus,’ I say. ‘This is getting like The Wire.’

  ‘We need to be extra careful,’ he says, and then he looks round to check no one is watching and gives my hand a quick squeeze.

  ‘I really do want to keep seeing you, Bea.’

  I gulp, furious at myself for turning into such an idiot. I have no idea where this is going to end.

  ‘Me, too.’

  39

  Tamsin

  In one way it feels like a huge relief. A problem shared and all that. In another, though, telling Bea has made it real. Before it would only have been my word against his. Now I have admitted my guilt to a third party. I can’t lie to myself any more because I’ve told the truth to someone else.

  Because that someone is Bea I’m not worried though. Besides the fact that I trust her with my life, she doesn’t know any of the interested parties. And having someone to brainstorm with is going to be a godsend because, to be honest, I’m struggling to come up with any more ideas myself. And I’m certainly not optimistic enough to think I will ever get access to Patrick’s phone again.

  Still, we don’t get much further than wait outside his office and follow him, which is never going to work. On an episode of 24 maybe, when I could access all the CCTV on the underground system, and run up escalators the wrong way, pushing people aside without one of them turning round and flattening me. But this is real life.

  Bea laughingly suggests I stick some kind of tracker to him when he’s not looking.

  ‘There’s a Spy Shop in Portman Square,’ she says. ‘I bet they sell something like that!’

  I almost consider it. I’ve got nothing else.

  The other thing I do to divert myself from everything else that’s going on/wrong in my life is accept an invitation from Ian and Fiona to a party that I would ordinarily chop my finger off to avoid.

  Now, though, I have decided to make ‘an effort’. I need to get out there and get a social life for myself that doesn’t revolve around Michelle and Patrick. Spending less time with them has made me realize just how dependent I am on their company. I’ve become lazy. But the idea of going to a do where I won’t know anyone except the hosts and Anne Marie fills me with dread.

  It’s Ian and Fiona’s fifteenth wedding anniversary. They usually just go for dinner, but because this one has a number attached that’s divisible by five that somehow makes it significant. So, party it is. And actually, to be fair, I know I’ll enjoy myself once I’m there – Ian and Fiona are great hosts and lovely people – it’s just that having to get myself there feels like an uphill battle.

  I get lost on the way from the bus stop – the house is in tubeless Muswell Hill and consequently almost impossible to get to – which goes to show how long it is since I’ve been there. Consequently I arrive at their terraced Victorian villa, which screams ‘nicely off young family’, a sweaty mess.

  I’m wearing a stylish baby pink 1960s fitted dress and painful pointy kitten heels. The bus was supposed to stop right outside their house and actually I’m pretty sure it did, it’s just that I wasn’t still on it. I’d panicked and jumped off early when I thought I saw a landmark I recognized. My hair is up in what was supposed to be a messy bun, but the messy half of the relationship has clearly proved to be the dominant one. I’m clutching a bottle of champagne, so I imagine I look like an upmarket tramp as I stagger along the street.

  I’m about to ring the doorbell when a voice stops me in my tracks.

  ‘Oh my God, you’re a woman! I didn’t realize when we met before.’

  I turn round and there’s Adam. Him of the failed blind date. I’d forgotten that he’d probably be here, too. Great.

  ‘Oh, hello. I have to apologize to you,’ I say. May as well get it over with. ‘I was a bit distracted when we met. I might have been rude …’

  ‘Ah yes, how is your mother?’ he says with a bit of a smirk.

  ‘I just had some … stuff … going on.’

  ‘It’s fine. To be honest I didn’t want to be there either once I got a look at you.’

  ‘Ha!’

  His face breaks into a big, doughy smile. ‘Oh thank God you laughed. That could have gone either way.’

  There are about twenty of Ian and Fiona’s friends and fa
mily at the party. The kids are, for once, nowhere to be seen, and when I ask Fiona where they’ve hidden them she tells me they’ve been bribed with DVDs and pizza and they’re all holed up with the babysitter in one of their rooms. This seems infinitely preferable to the last time I was here, when they did some kind of Sound of Music choreographed performance on the stairs. I imagine the eldest, at fifteen, has reached the ‘over my dead body’ phase where things like that are concerned.

  Their presence still makes itself known all over the house, though. There are childish works of art tacked up everywhere, toys belonging to the little ones and game consoles and sports equipment for the others. Everywhere I go I step on something I shouldn’t – a plastic farmyard cow, a mess of loom bands, a sock. It’s like an assault course for the Borrowers.

  My plan is to huddle in a corner with Anne Marie, at least until I’ve had a couple of drinks, but I forgot to factor in that she is Mrs Sociable and loves nothing more than making cheerful conversation with anyone and everyone. I follow her around for a while like a lost puppy, but in the end I get a bit bored with the constant round of ‘And what do you do?’ type questions, so I park myself beside the buffet and pretend to be absorbed in what to put on my plate. I hate the awkwardness of the early stages of parties. They’re the one time when it feels like it might actually be nice to have a boyfriend to use as ballast.

  The sparkling wine is there, too, so I fill my glass, swig it back a bit too fast and fill it again surreptitiously. I’ve got no intention of getting drunk and disgracing myself, but I need the Dutch courage. I spot Fiona across the room, moving through the guests with a bottle, and I make a beeline for her.

  ‘Lovely food,’ I say. ‘Did you spend all day cooking?’