It's Not Me, It's You

by Mhairi McFarlane

That was it! The conversation at the Cock & Tail she overheard, that was the thing she needed to remember! Adam had compared her and Steph to the Peru Two!

  Hang on … Delia came to a complete standstill, as passersby flowed around her. Freya had suggested Adam might sleep with her to get information … he’d mocked her as an unlikely prospect …

  And he’d said something like ‘When the time comes, I’ll throw her to the wolves. It’s no more than she deserves.’

  She’d just told him he was kind?

  Oh, for five minutes he’d had her. For a moment there, she even thought there was a distant possibility they could be friends, if Delia survived his exposé of Kurt and later, at a time of her own choosing, left Twist & Shout. What he’d said about Kurt was awful, but was it the whole truth?

  Delia had always fretted she shouldn’t trust Adam. Just because Kurt was bad, didn’t make him good. Now, solid proof of his treachery had arrived at last. It was all the more upsetting, having sat there and gaily chatted about his sister’s garden fence arrangements for housecat Stuart, feeling bad for him about Australia: Interrupted.

  What did Adam have planned for her?

  When the time comes …

  Had the time come?

  Delia and Kurt clambered from a black cab – Delia didn’t think the man ever took public transport – to the meeting point; half past nine by the bronze Boudicca statue on Westminster Bridge.

  They took up a position next to a stall full of Union Jack-laden tourist tat – Big Ben keyrings and Buckingham Palace snowglobe paperweights and I HEART LONDON sweatshirts, the real Eye and Houses of Parliament over its shoulder.

  Delia only felt as if she was getting to know the capital when she was in Emma’s slipstream, learning the patterns by which residents moved around within its vastness. Whenever she was somewhere central, she felt as fish-out-of-water alien as when she visited as a little girl with her aunt and uncle, for face-painting and a trip to the Hard Rock Café.

  ‘Lionel’s late,’ Kurt said after a few minutes, checking his watch. ‘Hope he’s not piled into the Rémy Martin with his cornflakes and slept through.’

  ‘Does he do that?’ Delia said, and Kurt swivelled what do you think sarcastic eyes towards her. ‘His last housekeeper left when she found him doing his “morning yoga”, naked as a jaybird. He said it was the “Happy Baby” pose. She said an eyeful of Lionel’s taint is more Lionel than she’s being paid for.’

  ‘… Taint?’

  ‘You know. That bit that ain’t the front and ain’t the back.’

  Delia grimaced.

  A fidgety ten minutes followed, Kurt scanning up and down the road in both directions.

  Delia’s heart was beating double time and she cursed Adam West for making what should simply be a day at work – albeit an unconventional one – so laden with foreboding.

  A red bus rumbled past and there in the distance across the street, amid a momentary gap in the teeming bodies, Delia saw a flash of dirty-blond hair on a tall-ish man. And a beige coat …?

  Oh no. Adam West was leaning against the railings on the bridge, watching from a distance, phone in his hand. She had a feeling he was taking photos, but she couldn’t be sure. These were the photos that’d end up on his website, and there she’d be, right-hand woman to Kurt when something dreadful was about to unfold: the camera never lies. Kurt would put two and two together about who the tipster was. She felt surging panic.

  Kurt was still scanning for the tardy Lionel and it would be a matter of minutes, or seconds, until his eyes alighted on the same spot and he saw Adam.

  There was no way it was going to be plausible that Adam was here by any sort of coincidence. But maybe it was never supposed to be believable? Even if Kurt didn’t clock that they were under surveillance, something was about to unravel with Lionel Blunt, and if Adam inserted himself into the middle of the action, it’d become clear enough then.

  Delia could feel the sweat collecting on her upper lip and under her arms.

  In that moment, she realised she was sick and tired of feeling afraid. You know what, fuck Adam West for putting her in this position. She’d been skulking around like a cornered animal, letting other people set the terms.

  And that conversation with Freya – the ugly, dismissive way he’d spoken about her, then gulled her into thinking they were matey.

  Delia still had choices – she could walk away, having taken back some control. She wasn’t being caught in some miserable version of a ménage à trois between him and Kurt. Once again, she was caught in the current, rather than picking her own direction. It was the story of her life.

  She looked up at Boudicca, riding into battle. Was quitting a PR job really so terrible? What was the worst that could happen about coming clean? She’d be getting public transport home? If you make a mistake, better to admit it. That’s what you were told in life. Delia was going to admit her mistake, and find out who she was working for.

  ‘Kurt,’ Delia said, ‘there’s something I have to tell you. You remember the first time I met Adam West, I didn’t know who he was?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  Delia was sharing Kurt’s attention with his BlackBerry.

  She cleared her throat and spoke confidently and clearly.

  ‘I had the strategy folder with me. I left it behind by mistake and he’s been blackmailing me ever since.’

  ‘Blackmailing you? For what? He’s banging you?’

  She had Kurt’s attention now.

  ‘No! For information.’

  ‘Oh right. And what did you tell him?’

  ‘Nothing, other than when and where we were meeting Lionel today.’

  Kurt put his head on one side.

  ‘Why are you telling me now?’

  ‘I can see him over there …’ Delia inclined her head and Kurt’s line of sight followed. ‘I can’t be responsible for him ruining anything. I understand if you sack me.’

  ‘Thing is,’ Kurt made a face, ‘West’s bullshitted you. I’d have never sacked you in the first place. There’s nothing in those folders that matters.’

  Delia’s mouth fell a small way open. ‘But … you said …?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s a little thing I do. A test. If the contents get out and about after that, I know not everyone’s to be trusted. Not all of the clients inside are actually clients.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Everything Twist & Shout needs is in here,’ Kurt tapped his head. ‘Or in my little friend who never leaves my side.’

  Delia didn’t know what that meant but thought an apology here might be the thing.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I was very new when it happened and I didn’t know what to do. I’d only just got this job and I really wanted to keep it. I wanted to prove myself before I owned up.’

  Kurt narrowed his eyes and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Seems like you manned up when it mattered.’

  He checked his watch.

  ‘We need to get rid of him before the show starts.’

  He cast around. Eventually his vision snagged on something. He turned back to Delia, eyes dancing with malign excitement.

  ‘As I learned as a kid, Red – if you make a mess, you gotta clear it up. Back me up.’

  A pair of police officers passed them, one male, one female, in high-vis jackets, giant chirruping walkie-talkies strapped to them.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Kurt said, in assertively loud Aussie. ‘That guy over there indecently exposed himself to my girlfriend.’

  ‘What …?’ Delia said under her breath, aghast.

  Kurt threw a supportive arm around her.

  ‘She’s embarrassed. You’ve gotta tell people when things like this happen, honey. You can’t let sickos get away with it.’

  ‘Who are you saying did this?’ the female police officer asked.

  Delia swallowed thickly and couldn’t immediately reply.

  Kurt pointed at Adam, who saw that he’d been ‘made’ and was looking deeply concerned, frowning, hands in poc
kets.

  ‘Uhm. Over there. In the light-brown coat. Fair hair,’ Delia muttered.

  ‘What happened?’ said the male police officer. He got a pocketbook out and starting jotting down details.

  Delia had an out-of-body experience, where a version of herself she barely recognised stood on an historic London bridge after the morning’s rush hour, falsely accusing an innocent man of waving his pork and beans at her.

  ‘I … uhm. I was on that side of the bridge taking a photo of the view on my phone and he was right next to me and I looked down and …’

  ‘Filthy bastard,’ Kurt said, with vehemence, pulling his arm tighter round Delia and shaking his head.

  ‘Would you be prepared to make a statement?’ the male officer said, and Delia nodded, thinking Oh God what am I doing? as they noted her name, address and phone number down.

  ‘Don’t make her go to the station with that depraved animal!’ Kurt said, hotly.

  ‘She can make a statement later. Leave it with us,’ the female police officer said. Together they strode across the road to speak to Adam.

  ‘Don’t worry, you don’t have to make a statement,’ Kurt said, arm still round Delia. ‘Say you’ve changed your mind and the sun was in your eyes. Or it was too small to be sure, har har.’

  Delia watched in misery as the police officers had what could be sensed as a heated altercation, Adam throwing furious looks back in their direction and pointing. Delia thought: his problem is, he won’t have a very good reason for why he’s hanging around, or why he won’t leave.

  Sure enough, the police escorted a vociferously protesting Adam away. He’d been arrested.

  ‘Haha, burn. Shouldn’t have worn that flasher’s mac,’ Kurt chuckled. ‘Ah, here’s Lionel at last! LB, let’s get you on to this radio interview. Maybe after we can get a pass to the Commons Bar.’

  ‘Oh good. I feel like a badger’s knapsack,’ announced a bloodshot Lionel.

  Delia trailed behind Kurt and Lionel towards the Houses of Parliament, wondering what happened to Adam West and whether he was having a photofit of his Member of Parliament taken.

  She’d had to act, she had no choice; that it spiralled out of control once Kurt was involved ought to have been no surprise. Delia should be pleased: she’d vanquished the folder threat and pre-empted Adam West’s strike. Yet she didn’t. She remonstrated with herself: You’re bound to have regrets by getting in first. Yes, it would have been nice to have absolute proof he’d turn you over. The trouble with that is, by that time you’d have been turned over. And this wasn’t Old Delia, she was The Fox: controlling her own destiny.

  As sanguine as Kurt had been about Delia’s mistake, she doubted he’d have felt the same if he’d heard about it from a triumphant Adam West, while Adam acted as wrecking ball to his plans.

  Halfway along the bridge, they came to a knot of people blocking their path.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Kurt barked, ‘we’re in a hurry here.’

  One of the people said: ‘He’s going to jump.’

  Through the onlookers, they glimpsed a man sitting on the bridge’s railings, leaning on one side against its verdigris Victorian street lamps. He was dark-haired, forty or so, dishevelled in a dirty t-shirt.

  ‘Don’t do it! Get down!’ someone cried, from the crowd.

  ‘I have nothing left! I want to go,’ he replied, in a thick accent.

  The atmosphere had that car crash rubberneckers’ electricity, when something deeply aberrant has occurred in an everyday setting and everyone has dispensed with their usual Britishness to stand around, riveted by the spectacle and united by tension.

  Delia’s gorge rose at the thought of seeing someone end their life, and she fought the urge to lunge forward and pull the man back to safety. Any attempt at intervention could see him jump, of course.

  Then – WHUMP, like a sandbag – it hit her. This was it? This was the stunt? She glanced at Kurt and Lionel, who both looked curious enough about the scene before them. Hmmm. Though they didn’t look too bothered about being late for the interview, and these weren’t men whose hearts bled for others.

  Minutes ticked past as the crowd swelled and police arrived in two patrol cars with lights but no sirens, blocking the traffic on the bridge, an ambulance behind them.

  ‘Get back or I’ll jump!’ the man shrieked, twisting his head to look at the sudden swarm of yellow jackets.

  ‘No one’s going to do anything you don’t want them to,’ soothed a female police officer. ‘Take it easy.’

  People produced phones and started silently snapping away, some recording film. Delia wondered if there was any size of human calamity or indignity that people didn’t think was fit for recording and posting on social media. Given that she heard a man mutter to his companion: ‘Some of them take hours to do it. Come on you’ve taken it now, let’s go,’ she had her answer.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Lionel bellowed, cupping hand to mouth, causing everyone to turn and look at him.

  ‘Bogdan,’ said the man.

  ‘Do you smoke, Boglin?’ Lionel said.

  ‘Bogdan,’ Kurt hissed.

  ‘What, smoke?’ said the man over his shoulder, straining to see who was addressing him. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’ve got a damn fine cigar here. Cohiba, the No.1 in Cigar Aficionado’s poll of the cigar smokers’ cigar. I was saving it for a special occasion. I’d like to give it to you, if I may?’

  The police presence looked concerned. An officer said: ‘Sir, please don’t involve yourself. We’re handling this.’

  The crowd held its breath.

  ‘A cigar?’ Bogdan said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘… I like cigars.’

  ‘Perhaps if you climb down, sir, you could—’ began a police officer.

  ‘I AM NOT GETTING OFF I AM GOING TO DO IT!’ screamed Bogdan, wobbling dangerously as he clung to the railings, giving Delia a seasick stomach, causing the police officer to step back.

  ‘Take it easy, take it easy.’

  ‘I would like a cigar.’

  Lionel approached, brandishing the cigar, holding it out at arm’s length as if giving a horse with tombstone-sized teeth an apple.

  ‘I’ll put it in your trap, stay steady, soldier …’ he said.

  Delia thought Lionel staying steady was more of a worry.

  Bogdan opened and closed mandibles over the cigar, and Lionel took a silver nude woman-shaped lighter from his pocket, snapping at it twice before it lit.

  When Bogdan inhaled, Lionel took it from his mouth while he exhaled, then replaced it, keeping up a stream of chatter.

  ‘Splendid flavour, no? Only good thing communism has ever produced. What do you do for a living? A builder? Good, noble profession. I’m detecting an accent, from whither do you hail?’

  There continued the strange pantomime of Lionel helping a hands-free Bogdan from Macedonia smoke his cigar while they talked, now more quietly.

  Word had clearly gone round that this strange thing was occurring on Westminster Bridge and people wearing lanyards and proper-sized cameras were snapping away, along with the iPhone paparazzi.

  They seemed to conclude their chat, Lionel gallantly took the cigar and stubbed out the remainder on the metal, then turned to address the crowd.

  ‘Bogdan, divorce is a terrible thing. Well, if you were married to my ex-wife, it’s a blessed release, but that’s by the by. If you reconsider your decision today, I’d like to offer you a friendly listening ear whenever you need it, to find you a job, and a lifetime supply of Cohibas. With these—’ Lionel swept his arm at the crowd ‘—fine people as my witnesses. You’re a good man and the world can’t afford to lose one.’

  Bogdan turned back to look down at the Thames.

  Collective breath was held as they all wondered if they’d witnessed an MP incite a potential suicide into an actual one. Delia felt fairly confident of the outcome.

  ‘A lifetime supply of Cohibas?’ Bogdan said.

  ‘Yo
u have my word,’ Lionel said.

  A pause. Bogdan pushed himself backwards, swung his legs over the railing and set his feet back on the pavement. Lionel hugged him in a hearty, clap-on-the-back way. There was loud applause and cheering as Bogdan was led to the ambulance, with police carefully steering him. Delia felt deeply uneasy. She wished she shared the emotions of the onlookers, thinking this was a rescue.

  Kurt sidled up to Bogdan, had a word in his ear and slipped him his business card, before the police shooed him away.

  ‘You’re a hero!’ a chalkily made-up sixty-something woman was saying to Lionel, ‘A hero! You saved a man’s life.’

  ‘Not me, my darling. My cigar,’ Lionel said, to more adoring laughter from the audience.

  ‘You’re going to be late for this interview, Blunty Boy, but for a damn good reason. Your heart’s too big, my friend. You suffer from a condition called an enlarged heart,’ Kurt said to Lionel, yet also to the crowd.

  ‘Preferable to my piles.’

  The crowd corpsed with laughter and Delia wanted to shout STOP! IT’S A TRICK! Too late. She was a collaborator. She was Kurt’s right-hand woman and Lionel’s lackey. She could plead ignorance and claim she was only following orders.

  Nevertheless, she was going to be on the wrong side of history.

  ‘So Lenny, something priddy outta the ordinary happened to you on the way to the studio this morning. Can you tell us more?’

  The presenter, Stevie, spoke in that faux-chummy quasi-American lilt that seemed mandatory for local radio DJs. He’d also seen fit to christen Lionel with the nickname ‘Lenny’. They were in a studio near Parliament and Delia considered that they had no reason to meet on the other side of the bridge, yet it led them to parade past Bogdan. Kurt Spicer had orchestrated the story of the depressed Macedonian immigrant with faithless wife, and Lionel’s lifeline cigar, of that Delia had no doubt. Kurt had apparently offered to ‘handle’ Bogdan’s requests for interview to get him the best price, which equally meant ‘control access to him’.

  Lionel, member of The Albion Party with its range of batty, offensive and regressive policies, would be served only softballs, as he’d swept in on a wave of sentimental acclaim. The DJ had kept the audience going during the wait, trailing Lionel’s delayed arrival with promise of a ‘miraculous, heartwarming’ story, helpfully relayed by Kurt to a researcher as they left the bridge.