Love Will Tear Us Apart

by Holly Seddon

  I buzzed for Janet to bring me a coffee. She brought it in and placed it on the desk without meeting my eye. Chatty Janet, who normally had to be ushered out of the office mid-sentence.

  ‘Leave the door open,’ I called.

  She left it open a crack and I slid into the doorway, leaning against the doorframe and sipping my machine-splurted pseudo-latte. I decided that if they were going to freeze me out, I wasn’t going to make it easy for them by hiding. I glared at their heads through the window of the boardroom.

  Not a single person looked my way.

  As the last of my lukewarm drink drained away, I saw the boardroom open and Marian scuttling out, empty coffee pot swinging. She saw me watching from my corner, smiled apologetically, and hurried into the kitchen.

  Ten minutes later, most of the senior managers left the meeting, avoiding my office again as they picked their ways through the desks and chairs. Deborah, the head of HR appeared, and started to walk towards me. I met her halfway.

  ‘You want me in the boardroom, yeah?’ I asked, blood pounding in my ears.

  ‘Yes, Kate. Thank you.’

  When I got in to the room, I saw John half-standing in a strange act of deference.

  ‘Is this about us?’ I said to him, knowing it wasn’t.

  ‘Sit down please, Kate,’ said Deborah, ignoring the bait.

  John’s eyes blazed and he stared rigidly at Deborah rather than me.

  My role was longer needed. I got a thank you for my years and a pay-off.

  I’m pretty sure I only got the cash because I’d sat in on so many ‘no minutes taken’ sessions at similar meetings, and I knew what was often dished out to keep things simple. It wasn’t much. A few months’ salary. But it was more than they legally had to do, considering how I’d laid my own firing on a plate with my freak-out at lunch.

  I didn’t say goodbye to Paul in person. I didn’t want to taint him by association so I just left the office on shaking legs and got into the nearest taxi. As the black cab coughed off down the road for the last time, I texted Paul. ‘Just got sacked. See you at home.’

  He replied within seconds: ‘Shit. I’m so sorry, I’ll bring wine.’

  I got home at half-past four, took my antibiotics and half a sleeping pill and lay on the sofa under a throw taking long blinks and short naps while the TV burbled away in the background, the blinds closed. A decade later, it’s easy to diagnose that I was in a deep shock that would eventually break like a tidal wave, but at the time I just felt numb.

  Paul crept in around seven o’clock, peering around the door into the dark living room.

  ‘It’s okay, I’m awake,’ I said, swinging my knees around to sit up in the blue glare of the screen.

  ‘I brought wine,’ he said, waving two bottles but seeming awkward and embarrassed.

  ‘Thanks.’

  He stood and stared at me for a while until I stood up, shook the throw to the floor and cried, ‘What the fuck am I going to do, Paul?’

  He walked towards me, balanced the bottles on the sofa and pulled me into a hug. My arms dangled limply by my sides as I cried, the shoulder on his light-blue shirt staining with wet mascara.

  I should have left things well alone, of course I should. I should have taken a chunk of that ‘goodwill’ money and booked myself on a month-long holiday somewhere with white sand and free-flowing cocktails. But I didn’t. I didn’t know what to do because my whole adult life, I’d worked. I’d worked there.

  I made endless lists of things I needed to do. I made lists of agencies to approach, lists of which of my clients I might be able to bring over with me. Thought about starting my own agency. Nearly threw up at the thought of all that paperwork. I made best-case scenario lists, and worst-case scenario lists. While I listed, I drank coffee, grinding beans and changing filter paper throughout the day like that was my new job. And on optimistic days, I made plans for alternative careers, courses I would take, hobbies I’d be able to try. By morning, the previous day’s ideas looked cold and unappetising. I joined a gym but didn’t turn up for my induction, feeling knackered just pulling on the workout clothes I’d ordered.

  When Paul came home in the evenings, he’d bring back Marks and Spencer food from the Tottenham Court Road store near our – his – office. Or he cooked for us or ordered take-aways that I barely touched, knowing that I’d probably forgotten to eat that day despite having nothing else to do.

  Maybe I should have gone out and got hammered every night, danced until my heels shattered, just let my hair down and caught up on the fun I’d not had for years. But I didn’t know how any more.

  Instead, I just kept filling my old TMC notepads with lists but I couldn’t bring myself to act on them. I didn’t know what had been said about my departure to clients or to competitors, but I did remember hundreds of gossipy conversations I’d had at industry dos about burnouts, tantrums and embarrassing firings. I wasn’t an idiot, I knew that anyone who mattered must have known about my fall from grace.

  Paul stepped up to the plate, bat swinging for me. He had a new purpose and poise. I’d ask him questions about TMC and he’d say, ‘Don’t ask, you don’t want to know.’ His protection stung me.

  At night, we sat on the sofa and I watched television while he read. Sometimes he tried to read bits out to me, like he always had, but the endless lists running through my head meant I couldn’t take the words in.

  I finished my various courses of pills and didn’t go back for more. The pain of the infection seeped away, but I hurt in other ways. I felt exhausted and useless. Paul brought me a coffee when he left in the mornings, and then I lay in bed until noon.

  It amazes me, looking back, how I could spend the day doing absolutely nothing but feel so tired. It wasn’t even like I filled the day with chores; I did a cursory clean of the flat just before Paul came home and the rest of the time I watched TV and read magazines. I told myself that I needed a makeover, a new haircut, a new wardrobe, and then I would have the confidence to go out there and hit the recruitment agencies in person. But taking a first step to even book a haircut seemed too demanding, too fraught with risk.

  Every Saturday, Paul would go to the corner shop and get The Times, Telegraph and Guardian and then talk me out of applying for all the jobs I carefully circled. It didn’t take much for me to cross them out again. I was opting for roles that I was wildly overqualified for because I thought that meant I stood more of a chance.

  ‘They’ll be suspicious straight away because it doesn’t add up,’ he said. ‘What would you have done if a CV landed on your lap from an account director with nearly a decade of experience, and they were pleading to work as an account executive on a fraction of your old salary?’

  He was right and this was advice I’d have given. But I wanted to slip under the radar. I hoped that for a lower-level job they might not bother to call for references, they’d just snap me up and hope the gamble paid off. Paul talked me out of testing the theory. It was a pretty shitty theory.

  Two months to the day that I left TMC’s shiny glass-front for good, I decided that to have any hope of moving on, of risking a call to a prospective new employer, I needed to know what had been said about me. To clients, to competitors and to my own staff. I needed to know what would be said in a reference, if I’d even get one, because I sure as hell needed to get another job. Paul had started to give me rent money. I hated it but I needed it. My pay-off money was dwindling by then, I tried not to draw on it but I hadn’t really noticed until then how much just got whisked out of my account each month for utilities and ground rent, for subscriptions to things I’d forgotten. Wine boxes and magazines. The unused gym.

  After writing, deleting and rewriting numerous versions, I sent John a text message asking to meet at the hotel next to Paddington station. I knew the staff there were discreet and I needed to speak to him in person, to know for sure how badly my reputation had been damaged. Before we’d stupidly got intimate, he’d always been a mentor, and
a fair boss. I hoped he still had reserves of that fairness to draw upon. God knows, I clearly needed some help.

  I was surprised when he agreed to meet without an arm twist, surprised even further when he actually showed up, albeit late, rather than cancelling at the last moment. I was already in the dated bar when he arrived, perching on a bar stool and sipping my third gin and tonic as slowly as I could. I saw his stride falter just briefly when he saw me. I knew why. My thighs sat like sticks on the stool and my sweater, even though it was loose and expensive, couldn’t hide my sharp collarbones. I’d worn a V-neck and hoiked my breasts up to try to draw eyes away from how angular I’d become.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ I said. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  ‘Just a still water, thanks,’ he said to the bartender instead of me. ‘I don’t have long, Kate, but I’m glad you called.’

  ‘How are things at TMC?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, going well, you’re missed. How is life post-TMC?’ he asked.

  I stared at him. Did he really think that he could rewrite history, stamp a new version of events where I’d simply moved on? Despite my best intentions, I found it hard not to snap.

  ‘It’s not great, actually, John,’ I said.

  ‘Kate—’

  ‘It’s shit, to be honest. I miss the work, I miss the clients and I wish you hadn’t sacked me because I think I could have carried on doing a good job.’

  ‘You weren’t sacked, it was a strategic realignment of team resources.’ He sipped his water.

  ‘Well, I’m pleased if you’re telling people that, even if that’s not how it felt.’

  ‘Kate, if it’s going to be like this then I need to go.’

  ‘John, look, no. Please. I miss it. I need to work. There’s no home for me at TMC, I get it. Maybe I should have left when Stephen Miller asked me years ago, but—’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, TMC were good to you. You’d never have got as far as you did at Elliot & Finch, they don’t have the clients. You fucked this up, babe, it wasn’t fucked up for you. Have some class about that.’

  ‘So it wasn’t a realignment of resources then, I was sacked.’ I gulped the last of my drink. ‘Another G&T here, please. Make it a double,’ I called to the bartender, who was cutting up lemons and pretending not to listen to our conversation.

  ‘What do you want me to say, Kate? You were good but you burned out, you got cocky. You thought you were bigger than the agency and then you shot yourself in the foot in front of clients and your team. What would you have done in my position?’

  ‘I’d have remembered all the years of not putting a foot wrong. I made one mistake, John.’ I said. ‘One. After years of working my arse off.’ I drained my drink and slammed the glass down harder than I intended. ‘Another please,’ I gestured. ‘One for you? A proper drink?’

  John frowned, I saw him look at the door, considering his options. He leaned on the bar and his shoulders fell a bit. ‘Yeah, go on. I’ll have a Michelob.’

  He turned to face me. ‘Kate, wind your neck in. It wasn’t just one mistake. Your hissy fit in front of clients was part of a bigger problem. You hadn’t been firing on all cylinders for ages, you were knackered. You had too many clients, you weren’t giving them all what they needed and you wouldn’t let anyone else handle them so they all suffered.’

  ‘That’s not true and you know it. Look, I need another job. I’m not asking to come back, I just need to know what’s been said. I need to know what a reference from you would look like.’ I lowered my voice. ‘How badly damaged is my reputation?’

  He thought for a moment and then put his hand on my knee which, without me realising until then, had been jiggling up and down. ‘Kate,’ he said, ‘it wasn’t my decision, I wanted to keep you close.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘I really did,’ he said. ‘I thought there was life in the old dog yet but I couldn’t be seen to fight unduly, you know that. Look, you won’t get a bad reference from me, and no-one’s been bad mouthing you, okay?’

  ‘John, I need more than that. I need a good reference and I need some help. Please? For old times’ sake?’

  ‘Old times’ sake,’ he said, raising an eyebrow.

  I wish I could say that he pleaded with me to go upstairs, that it was him who went to see the receptionist en route to the loo, slammed a credit card down and asked for a room. I wish I could say that I’d just stormed out of the hotel, reminding him loudly that he was married and that I was worth more than that.

  But it wasn’t him.

  It was me who suggested we ‘take the discussion somewhere more private’. Maybe out of habit, residual desire or the need to feel that I still had a semblance of my old life. Whatever the reason, it was me who asked the bartender for the wine and the glasses. It was me who chose to ignore the ‘old dog’ remark, chose not to remind John that he said he couldn’t stay long. Or that he’d already ended this once and then let TMC dismantle me.

  Instead, it was him that balked at my flat chest and hollow stomach, struggled to keep his erection and threw back neat bourbon afterwards. By then, I was already drunk from the wine on top of the gin, but I unscrewed a tiny vodka bottle and sloshed the contents into a plastic beaker with a doll-sized can of Coke.

  ‘Answer me one thing,’ I said, unsure whether I should say it but buoyed on by drunken bravado. ‘Did you want me to go because of what happened between us?’

  ‘Don’t do this, Kate.’

  ‘I had as much to lose as you and no reason to tell anyone. So if you did get rid of me because of that, it was all for nothing.’

  He laughed briefly and furrowed his eyebrows, pulling his boxer shorts up and sitting back on the bed. ‘I’m a married father, and I was your boss. How did you have as much to lose as me?’

  ‘Because all I had was my job,’ I said, surprised by a sudden rush of tears. ‘So I had everything to lose and I lost it.’

  He stared at me for a moment, squinting. ‘So if you had so much to lose, why weren’t you more discreet?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, struggling to focus. ‘I didn’t tell a soul.’ I sat up and pulled the duvet around me.

  ‘You did though, didn’t you?’ He had a new edge to his voice. I couldn’t think clearly and failed to form the words. The extra vodka had punched me unexpectedly. ‘It was all around the office, Kate,’ he said. ‘If you’d just kept your mouth shut, we could have overlooked your tantrums.’

  ‘That’s not true and that’s not fair.’

  ‘Maybe all women go Fatal Attraction in the end, but I really thought you were different.’ He sat heavily on the bed to pull his socks on. ‘I really did.’

  ‘I didn’t breathe a word to anyone,’ I said. ‘I kept all your secrets, but you just binned me without giving me the benefit of the doubt.’ I reached for his shirt to throw on like I always used to but he grabbed it. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I need that.

  ‘Kate, I’m not pissing about here. Jill had just had the baby and the stakes were too high. I don’t expect you to understand yet because, like you said, all you had is your job so you don’t have the first clue what it means to actually have a family to protect, a kid to think about.’

  I opened my mouth but snapped it shut again.

  He continued talking while he dressed himself, almost conversational like he was considering what to have for dinner.

  ‘Look, I thought you were on a level but you started to act unhinged, didn’t you?’ He looked at me as if I was going to agree, raised an eyebrow when I didn’t.

  ‘I couldn’t have you shooting your mouth off. This—’ he pointed to the crumpled bed sheets ‘—was only supposed to be a bit of fun. The real deal was back at home and I wasn’t going to let you risk all that.’

  I dragged the sheets into my palms as I clenched my fists and stood up suddenly, pulling the bedding with me. ‘You total bastard!’ I seethed.

  He marched to me, pointed at my chest and said, ‘Unhinged. Like I said.’

  I was so frus
trated and drunk by then that instead of pulling together some actual words, I just made a kind of howling sound. Blind, drunken fury. He pointedly ignored me and fiddled with his watch. I pulled a towel around me and wobbled over to the minibar for another vodka, wincing as it hit my throat.

  He was fully dressed by then. ‘I didn’t tell a soul,’ I sobbed. ‘I kept all your secrets, even when they hurt me. Even when they ripped me apart.’ I think I was shouting then, tears falling hard.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I got pregnant, John. You got me pregnant and I didn’t know until it ruptured in my tube.’

  ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘I’m telling you the fucking truth, just like I always have. Just like I asked you to tell me.’ I thumped my own chest and threw back the rest of the vodka, throwing the bottle at the wall which it bounced off and slid pathetically down to the floor.

  ‘No doubt you heard about my stomach bleeding in the boardroom?’ I shouted. I could see his expression change.

  ‘Seriously?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, and this is the thanks I get for it,’ I shouted back. ‘I dragged myself into work, drugged up and in pain, I showed my dedication and I got royally fucked over. You took everything from me.’

  After thinking for a moment, he turned towards the door and kept his back to me, speaking flatly. ‘You should have told me at the time, I wasn’t a mind reader.’

  ‘Is that it?’ I said. ‘No “Sorry Kate, turns out you were trustworthy and I just ruined your life for nothing?” No “Thanks for not telling my wife, thanks for nearly bleeding to death because of me?”’