by Carrie Adams
“Listen, I’ve had a crazy idea,” said James.
“I like your crazy ideas.”
“I’ve got this morning meeting, then a lunch. As long as I can get out of something this afternoon, I could be free again from about four.” I waited. “What would you say to holing up here until then and being really decadent and staying another night?”
My lips spread into a wide smile before I had time to be cool.
“Is that a yes?”
“You bet.”
“OK. I’ll see you later.” He kissed me hard on the lips and then groaned. “God, I wish I didn’t have to go.”
I was quite glad. I needed to clean my teeth, I was desperate to go to the loo, and the truth was, I had terrible wind. I may have felt extraordinarily at ease with this man, but there were limits.
The second sleep I had was luxurious. As was the second bath, though not quite as enjoyable. My limbs felt like I’d been to the gym. I know, it was very Harlequin, but my lips felt bruised. James sent me a text saying, “can’t concentrate!” I read it many times. Two words. I was being pathetic.
I decided that I would really go for it so, with every intention of paying for the “extras” myself, I summoned a masseuse to the room and had a ninety-minute massage, I ate lobster and drank fine white wine, then I had a facial. I even sent the concierge out to get me ridiculous glossy magazines that I never normally read and sent my crumpled, smoky clothes to the ridiculously expensive express laundry. Everything was ridiculously expensive. My peppermint tea with one small piece of shortbread cost a fiver. What did I care? This was the sort of thing I never, ever did. I created a whole world inside the White Room, was on first name terms with the staff, and counted down the hours until four. It wasn’t hard. I almost wished I had more time.
Then my phone rang. Why, oh why, did I pick it up? I believed I had been cured. I believed James Kent had cured me. And so I picked up a call from one of my oldest friends in the world.
“Hey, Ben, how are you?”
“Good. You sound like you’re in a good mood.”
“I am. What can I do for you?”
“How was your date?”
“Really fun, thanks.”
There was a pause from Ben. It confused me. Why was he silent? Did he disapprove?
“You didn’t sleep with him, did you?”
Was he jealous?
“No,” I lied.
“Thank God for that.”
He was jealous!
“What’s going on, Ben?” I asked, trying to keep the excitement out of my voice. Damn this man.
“I remembered where I’d met him. The reason why I couldn’t remember was because I hadn’t met him exactly, I’d met his wife.”
“What?”
“We were at a City lunch, I was with Sasha. She’s a cool lady, actually. We were talking, then he came up and they left.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. Did she say they were married? When was this, anyway?”
“Not long enough ago to get a divorce.”
I was panicking now. “But did she say they were married?”
“No, but her name was Barbara Kent and his name is James Kent, right?”
“Brother and sister,” I argued. There was no way James was married. No way. No one can act that well. Can they?
“With two kids at Francis Holland, whom they were late picking up?”
“What?”
“The one in Baker Street.”
“What?”
I was playing dumb, but I knew exactly what Ben was saying. Baker Street. I rewound to our lunch. What time was it when he jumped into the cab? It was when I’d mentioned the pavement being awash with school kids. Baker Street. He’d gone to pick up his daughters.
“I remember it perfectly. We were talking about the school because Sasha’s nieces go there.”
“Do they?”
“You know they do.”
My heart was beating far too fast. The lobster was repeating on me. I thought I might be going into anaphylactic shock.
“I’m mortified I didn’t recognize him the other night but we were so pissed. They’re married and they have two daughters, Lainy and Martha Kent. Sorry, hon, I wanted to warn you before you did something stupid.”
“What, like kiss a married man? I’ve already done that!”
“Oh Tess—”
“I didn’t mean him!” I swore extremely loudly, put the phone down and burst into tears. I clutched my head in my hands. I couldn’t take much more of this. When was this going to end? Even when the opposite sex were playing by the rules it was hard, but this, this was too much. Let’s make a pact now, no rehashing of past love lives…The little-known Burmese restaurant chosen because you never see anyone you know…Even Blakes, it felt like it was my idea, it felt like I was the one making all the suggestions, but I was played. I was played good and proper. I very much doubted he was coming back at four. And even if he did, the next day would have been the last. Or was he going to tell me about his wife and daughters when I was too weak to resist? Was he going to turn me into the other woman and lie to us all? Why did men do things like this? What was the point? I wasn’t thinking straight. I was all over the place. Married with two kids. Married with two kids. It went round and round in my head. I was full of fury. And then I did something I will always regret. I ordered a £200 bottle of wine, watched calmly as the sommelier theatrically opened it in front of me, then got dressed in my beautifully pressed clothes, stole a dressing gown and, with the bottle and a glass swinging from my hand, left the hotel not really knowing whether I was furious with James, Ben or myself.
At ten past four my phone rang. James left a message. “You are coming back, aren’t you?”
Then another.
“Pick up the phone, Tessa, this is very weird.”
Then another.
“If this is a joke, I don’t like it.”
Then another.
“I’m checking out. I’ve seen the bill. What the fuck is going on?”
Eventually I switched off my phone. He didn’t deserve a response.
I walked through the enviable houses of Kensington until I reached Holland Park. I deliberately found myself a bench in a place that would hurt the most. Overlooking the playground. From the swings and sandpit the nannies and mothers eyed me warily. I didn’t blame them. If they stared at me, I stared right back. They always looked away first.
I sat like an old wino in designer clothes and a dressing gown and drank my vengeful bottle of wine. I was being mad, I knew it, but I didn’t care. I started to think, as the alcohol warmed my stomach, that it had cost more than money, it had cost my sanity. James Kent was married with two kids. I had been fooled. Even if there was the remotest possibility that he had recently separated from his wife, Ben was right, he couldn’t be divorced by now. I could almost, almost understand why he hadn’t bothered mentioning an ex-wife; it could be construed as too much excess baggage, especially since it was recent, but this was too recent. This was rebound with possible reconciliation. And that did not put me in a good position because I already knew that I liked him more than anyone else I’d met in a long time. Failing to mention two flesh and blood children, however, was something else entirely. That was a big black mark. It was mean. It was disrespectful. It was a terrible thing for a father to do. It was the sort of thing Christoph or Neil would do and as far as I was concerned there was not a worse type of man than them.
Wide, flat leaves fell intermittently from the plane trees around me. The day darkened. Was it that time of year already? Halloween was around the corner. Then Bonfire Night. Fireworks. Sparklers. And then, oh God, it was too awful to think of. My birthday, swiftly followed by Christmas and New Year—the triple-headed assault course I tripped up on every year when I was forced to accept that another year had passed and nothing had changed.
When there was more wine in my body than in the bottle my self-pitying, angry thoughts turned to the inevitable. I was n
ot cured. I was worse than ever. Ben was who I wanted. Ben was who I fell back to when all else failed. Ben. He wouldn’t do this to me. Whatever else the difficulties were, and yes, that included being married to someone else, he did love me. Even if he wasn’t in love with me, which he obviously wasn’t since he had married someone else, he did love me. That meant he wouldn’t hurt me, or lie to me, or cheat on me, or lead me up garden paths, or strip me of another layer of dignity, or make it impossible for me to love someone else. I lowered the glass from my lips. Actually, he did do that.
People stared, I didn’t really care. I got very cold. I took it as another sign of old age. When I was younger I would skip around London in barely any clothes at all, and don’t remember ever feeling the cold. Now, however, I harped on about the cold weather like an old woman. I was an old woman. A lonely, sad old woman. How the hell had this happened to me?
I watched the kids squabble over their position on the slide. I watched expressionless women push swings like robots. I watched kids fall and cry and run to their mothers and nannies. I watched the endless blowing of noses. I heard the endless “why?”s I saw women yawn and sigh and respond over and over again to the same hop, skip or jump. Every few moments someone yelled. Somewhere at some time a tantrum was unfolding before my eyes. I saw one boy hit his mother. I saw one woman pretend she had not been reduced to tears by her charge. But my pity was reserved solely for myself for I would have given my left leg to be any goddamn one of them. I got colder and colder as I watched until eventually I couldn’t feel the cold any more. The bottle was empty, the park was dark and all the children had gone home to be warmed up in bubble baths, read stories to and be tucked in.
I stood up before I was politely, but firmly, asked to move on and took myself home. I tried a bubble bath. I tried reading. I tried tucking myself in and falling asleep. It didn’t work. In the end I took a sleeping pill. With vodka. I didn’t think I was being overdramatic, I just wanted my brain to stop and couldn’t be bothered to go and get any water.
When I woke up the next morning, I took another one. Honestly, I had no idea how strong they were.
It was the sound of the buzzer that finally pulled me out of my heavy, dreamless sleep. I was completely disorientated. It was dark outside. The buzzing continued. I hit my alarm clock and fell back to sleep. Had I been in less of a stupor I would have remembered that my alarm clock bleeps, not buzzes.
Someone was shaking me. It was really annoying. I tried to turn over. A man’s voice was talking loudly into my ear. Hadn’t I put the “Do not disturb” sign on? I didn’t want any more disgusting airplane food.
“Mizz King, Mizz King. Wake up, Mizz King.”
“Leave me alone,” I said, though later Roman told me all I had actually managed to do was drool. That was when he saw the pills and the empty tumbler by my bed which one sniff confirmed was not water. He panicked and started shaking me. What woke me up in the end was the shaking. He wanted to call a doctor; I told him he was being ridiculous. Well, I tried to tell him, but my God, my head felt heavy. I just wanted to close my eyes again. It was very embarrassing, or would have been, had I been more with it. I forced myself to sit up because Roman was about to call 999, and I really didn’t want him to do that. I explained again slowly that I had simply taken a sleeping pill because I hadn’t been able to get to sleep.
“Not sleeping pill,” said Roman, holding up the empty bottle. Funny that, I could have sworn I’d had two in there. “Horse tranquillizer.”
“What?” I took the bottle. “How do you know?”
“I read. Where did you get these from?” I frowned at him. Who are you, my father? Perhaps I had got too friendly with my doorman? The truth was, someone at work—a bit of a party boy himself, now I come to think of it—had given me the pills ages ago. I was paranoid about my ex-boss getting into the flat. Every noise made me sit bolt upright and I hadn’t slept for weeks. I was a mess. He was trying to help but in the end I never took them because I was too terrified that if I did I wouldn’t hear my ex-boss break into the flat and he’d murder me in my sleep. During that whole period of my life I’d never actually resorted to these, but now…I looked at the empty bottle of pills again. Were things really worse? Roman brought me a cup of coffee. I took it from him without asking why he was giving it to me. I was being very slow.
“What time is it?”
“Eleven-thirty.”
I slumped back against the pillow. “What are you waking me up for? I need more sleep.”
“You’ve been sleeping since Wednesday night. You came back blue.”
I vaguely remembered seeing Roman behind the desk when I finally walked in through the door. I didn’t stop and exchange pleasantries with him as I usually did. I grant I may have looked a bit of a state, what with an empty bottle of wine still in my hand and a toweling robe over my clothes. But then again, nothing he hadn’t seen before. I frowned at him crossly.
“So?”
“It’s Friday morning.”
“Hmm…” I felt my eyes closing again. Those pills were good.
“Did you hear me?” Roman took the cup from me before I spilt it. “It’s Friday morning—not Thursday.”
I rubbed my eyes. “What?”
“You’ve been up here for thirty-six hours. There is a woman trying to get hold of you.”
“Someone’s looking for me?”
“I tried knocking, I buzzed, we’ve rung and rung, I got worried…”
“Who?” Had James come to tell me that Ben had got it wrong, he didn’t have children, there was no wife. Or that there were all those things but he couldn’t live without me, and he was leaving them. Or was it B—
“Billy. You must call her, it is urgent.”
I groaned. “I’ll call her back later—”
“She is in the hospital.”
Billy was in hospital? My brain started moving. Billy was in hospital? Moving faster. Billy didn’t go to hospital. Bam—I was awake. The most effective smelling salts invented. Unless—
“Cora,” I said, leaping out of bed. My legs gave way under me. I fell. What the hell had I taken? Roman helped me to a chair and brought me clothes as I drank his coffee and listened to the answerphone.
8:30 a.m. “Tessa, are you there? Your phone’s switched off. Pick up.”
8:45 a.m. “I have a huge favor to ask you. Cora isn’t well and Magda can’t sit for her, she’s got exams this whole week. Please, please could you come over…I guess you’re in the shower. Call me when you’re out.” I turned my mobile phone on, it immediately started to bleep. I had six missed calls. Five from Billy. One from Ben.
8:50 a.m. “Don’t worry, the Calpol is working and she says she’s feeling better. She’s going to school. Call me, anyway, at work.”
11:28 a.m. “Tessa, slight panic. Cora’s in the sickroom with quite a high fever—any chance you could be fairy godmother? I’m the only one at work, Sue’s on holiday. Sorry to ask. If you can’t, don’t worry, I’ll sort something out. Is your mobile broken?”
3:02 p.m. “I’m at Chelsea and Westminster. Cora is very ill. Please call me.”
3:44 p.m. “Where are you?!”
5:02 p.m. “Will you come? Whenever you get this message, just come…”
7:59 p.m. “They’ve done a lumbar puncture and they’re taking her to intensive care. Tessa, they think it’s meningitis…Oh my God, where are you? They say I should prepare myself for the worst…”
8:03 p.m. Dialing tone. The worst…?
8:22 p.m. Dialing tone. The worst…?
I didn’t hear how many more times Billy had tried to call only to get the answering machine, because, half-dressed, I threw myself out of the chair and ran unsteadily to the door, leaving Roman in the middle of my bedroom looking bewildered.
He followed me into the corridor. “Mizz King, you should take it easy.”
“Don’t you understand?” I shouted. “They need me.”
I saw him shaking his head as t
he lift doors closed. On Vauxhall Bridge Road I hailed a taxi. Sitting in the back of it anxiety, lethargy and disbelief overwhelmed me. Had I really slept through an entire day? I tapped on the driver’s partition.
“Could you turn that up, please?” I asked.
According to BBC Five Live, it was true. It was Friday. The midday news. A scandal had erupted in government, according to the presenter, following “yesterday’s revelations”…I had slept through a scandal. I had lost a day of my life. I hadn’t been there when Billy and Cora needed me. I didn’t know very much about meningitis except it killed children unless caught in time. Any chance you could be fairy godmother? No. I’d been too busy wallowing in self-pity. I shifted uncomfortably in the back of the taxi recalling how I’d sat on a park bench, in front of children, and swigged wine from a bottle. I recoiled at the thought of myself stumbling into my building wearing the dressing gown I’d stolen. What sort of crazy behavior was that? I remembered taking the first pill because I desperately wanted to stop thinking about Ben and James, Sebastian, my ex-boss and all the other pitiful excuses of relationships that I’ve had. Obviously I didn’t realize how inebriated I was or I would never, ever have taken the pills with…I stared out of the window as the Embankment shot passed. I could still taste the bitter residue the pills had left at the back of my throat, and the sting of vodka as I gulped them down. I tried Billy’s number again. It was still switched off. I stared out at the cloudless, blue sky and imagined the worst.
I paid the driver and, still uncertain on my legs, climbed out of the taxi. I felt stupidly weak as I half jogged, half walked through the massive revolving doors of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. The man behind the crescent reception desk took one look at me, excused himself from the person he was talking to and offered me his assistance. He rapidly explained where I would find the children’s ward, and told me I would be directed to the children’s intensive care unit from there. I ran the length of the hospital to the correct bank of lifts and pressed the button. I was tapping my foot nervously; I looked up at the illuminated numbers to track the painfully slow journey of the lift coming down and saw a small cloud pass over the glass atrium of the hospital. Was I hallucinating or did that cloud look like an—