You Had Me at Hello

by Mhairi McFarlane

  ‘I think I know what you’re referring to. If you mean his past that is. He mentioned it.’

  ‘Oh. What did he say?’

  ‘That he’d had a thing for a married woman and she’d gone back to her husband.’

  Ben nods. ‘He told me that too. He knows my views. Even if he had a grand passion for her, he shouldn’t have had a go.’

  See, Caroline, I think. This is Ben. He might’ve enjoyed success in the arena, but he does not condone, or emulate, skirt stoats.

  ‘But he’s your mate?’

  Ben shrugs. ‘He’s known Liv since uni and he’s been good to me at work. I don’t want to date him.’ He frowns. ‘I feel bad if I’ve put you off. Keep your wits about you, and you never know. You could be the making of him. I don’t quite see what’s in it for you, that’s all.’

  ‘Not dying old and alone?’

  Ben laughs. ‘As if. Can I ask your opinion about something in return?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Liv wants to move back to London in a year’s time.’

  ‘Oh.’ I’m not going to offer unbiased advice. This is a horse kick to the heart.

  ‘If I agree to it, our money won’t stretch to a house like the one we have here, down there. She wants me to let her parents buy us a giant place, near them. They’ve offered to get their little girl back down south, I think. I’ve refused. Am I being unreasonable?’

  ‘Your reasons are …?’

  ‘Aside from the fact they’re set on God-awful-ming in Surrey, it’s too much. I don’t want to be in hock to my in-laws for a fortune. Don’t get me wrong, they’re nice people. But I don’t want to be owned. I knew they were pretty formidable before we got married. This piece of incredibly well-timed generosity makes me think I underestimated them.’

  ‘The money isn’t available to you to buy up here?’

  ‘Oh no,’ Ben smiles, grimly. ‘Not that I’d take it, but no. That’s not the deal.’

  ‘And Olivia’s thoughts?’

  ‘She thinks I’m selfish. I’m endangering the happiness of my wife and security of our future children on an abstract whim. She says it’s money she’ll inherit eventually anyway. She’d be off tomorrow. She says she’s tried the north for me and doesn’t like it, experiment over, obligation fulfilled. Whereas this is the best I’ve felt in ages.’

  Pathetic, given I am irrelevant, but: this last remark makes me want to hug him.

  ‘Difficult.’

  I’m conscious that whatever I say may be repeated to Olivia, and this is none of my business. Only a few minutes ago, I was hearing how my judgement is better than Caroline’s, and yet this feels uncannily like the very thing Caroline warned me about. Ben has no one else to talk to up here, I reassure myself. This is fine. This is two old friends, chatting. Despite ‘friends’ not quite covering it.

  ‘I can see why you feel the way you do. There could be a compromise, where you pay them back in a certain number of years?’

  ‘We’re talking the kind of sum I could never fully pay back, Rachel. Repayment’s not the plan. Once we’re in there, it’ll be about filling the rooms …’

  He breaks off. The kids issue. I’m definitely not asking about that.

  ‘I think you’re right to want to keep your autonomy,’ I say. ‘As for security, it’s not as if Didsbury’s a Soweto shanty town, is it?’

  Ben shakes his head. ‘No.’

  ‘Olivia will come round, once Manchester improves on her,’ I add.

  Ben raises his eyebrows and looks off into the middle distance, makes an equivocal ‘Hmm’ noise.

  I sense there’s much more he could say but that he already feels disloyal.

  There’s a heavy pause.

  ‘What’re Simon’s family like?’ I ask, my turn to find something to say.

  ‘You don’t know about that?’

  ‘No?’

  ‘His parents died in a car accident when he was about seven or eight. His aunt and uncle were made his guardians but they weren’t exactly the nurturing types and packed him off to boarding school. I think it was paid for by the life insurance.’

  ‘Oh, no. That’s terrible.’ I’m terrible. I cringe at the memory of myself mouthing off about ‘Mummy’. ‘I’ve said things about him being a toff …’

  Ben shrugs.

  ‘You weren’t to know.’

  The sun’s gone behind a cloud. I stare over the flat, tarmac-like expanse of water, whipped into shallow ripples by the wind. ‘That’s why I shouldn’t have said it.’

  The mood has dipped. I tear a bit of leftover bread off.

  ‘Can I share this with the ducks?’

  ‘Be my guest.’

  There’s a flurry of bottle-green, cream, black and yellow as the birds descend on fragments of soggy ciabatta.

  ‘What about the weedy one who keeps getting missed out?’ Ben asks.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘There! At the back. Poor beggar.’

  I hand Ben a large lump of ciabatta and he smiles at me – not any old smile, a slightly poignant, Sunday afternoon matinee, yellow-filter-on-the-lens would you look at the pair of us soppy-inducing smile. He starts lobbing bread chunks with more over-arm throw vigour than me.

  ‘Got him! There you are, mate. Life isn’t as unfair as you thought.’

  ‘Hoo hoo, yeah it is,’ I say.

  Ben gives me a sideways glance. I feel ‘A Moment’ developing.

  ‘Course what we’re actually doing is killing fish,’ I say. ‘Apparently the leftover bread rots and then there’s too much nitrogen in the water, or somesuch.’

  ‘Oh, Captain Bringdown,’ Ben says. ‘And there I was, thinking this was nice.’

  44

  As I hang on a ceiling strap on the bus, I’m lost in thought about orphan Simon, newly worthy of tenderness and sympathy, despite the shenanigans with the married woman. Although I trust Ben implicitly, I can’t help wonder about Simon’s version of events. I think about the pass I’ve given Natalie Shale and my debate with Caroline, and suspect I ought to toughen up and take a line on things, as Rhys would say.

  My mobile chirps with muffled birdsong in the recesses of my bag. I balance it on my hip and hastily dig the phone out. It’s Ken. Not a good sign.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Woodford?’

  ‘How are you finding Zoe Clarke?’

  ‘Finding her? To work with?’

  ‘No, by candle light. YES TO WORK WITH.’

  ‘Erm, she’s …’ I block out the traffic and chatter around me with an index finger jabbed in my free ear ‘… she’s excellent. She’s a great reporter and she hasn’t needed any hand-holding. She’s backed me up and I know if I trust her to cover something she’ll always come back with the story.’

  ‘Right. I’ve had a word with the editor and we like her strike rate in court.’

  Uh oh … have I talked myself out of my job?

  ‘So, we want to try a new arrangement, as an experiment …’

  My muscles start to bunch. Argument will be futile. Once Ken has made up his mind, especially when he’s rushed the legislation past the editor, he’s unstoppable. You’d have a better chance of knocking a hurtling oil tanker off its path by sticking your leg out.

  ‘We’re going to put her in court full time …’

  This isn’t happening. I’m not about to find out that I’m going back to the office as a general reporter, with council meetings and death knocks and late shifts. No. I refuse. I’ll leave. Oh yeah … and then who’ll pay for that stupid fancy flat that’s overstretching you as it is?

  ‘… As your deputy. Free you up to spend more time on backgrounders like the Natalie Shale piece. We liked that a lot too. Good straight piece. Didn’t ladle it on.’

  I stutter: ‘Oh, right, thanks …’

  ‘Starting next week?’ Ken asks.

  ‘No problem.’

  He hangs up without saying goodbye, Ken Baggaley being the only person outside movies to actually do this. />
  The bus doors open with a hydraulic hiss and I step out, taking deep lungfuls of carbon monoxide-laden Manchester city centre air and letting the panicky despair of moments ago start to dissipate.

  A deputy. I’d have the time to get my teeth into the bigger stories, possibly rediscover a passion for the job. I knew the Natalie Shale exclusive was a feather in my cap. I didn’t anticipate getting an effective promotion out of it. I smile to myself as I start walking towards work.

  Caroline implied getting friendly with Ben again could bring bad things to my door. So far, it’s brought only good.

  I’d like to go somewhere upmarket to celebrate our joint promotion, but my rent’s really biting. Even with a pay hike, I doubt Zoe’s high rolling, so we end up in The Castle, cursing our predictability. Zoe goes to get the drinks while I inspect a pun-laden leaflet about Thursday’s Curry Club: ‘Tikka The Night Off Cooking!’ She returns with two fishbowl-sized glasses of white wine and I propose a toast to collaborating in court.

  ‘To teamwork,’ I say, raising my glass for Zoe to clink. ‘And to Pete Gretton, who gave us something in common from day one – an enemy.’

  We slurp.

  ‘You know all this is thanks to you, Rachel.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, it’s thanks to you being shit hot at a tender age.’

  ‘Seriously, though. I remember that first day when I didn’t know what I was doing. I appreciate you having the patience.’

  We sink into gossipy shop talk and when we’re on the second round, I decide I can afford to unburden myself a little bit.

  ‘Zoe, can you keep a secret?’

  ‘Ooh, I love secrets. Course.’

  ‘When I was interviewing Natalie, I read a text on her phone. I thought it might be about me. I went on a date with her solicitor. Not that it’s an excuse.’

  ‘And?’ Zoe’s slate-grey eyes widen.

  ‘And it was from a … lover. I think.’

  ‘Shiiiiit. Her husband’s in prison and she’s getting up to stuff. Winnie Mandela badness.’

  ‘I wondered if it was the bloke I was seeing. It wasn’t his number.’

  ‘You took down the number?’

  I squirm. ‘Yeah. Only to check it against Simon’s.’

  ‘Didn’t you call it?’

  ‘Not like I’m going to learn much from a random voice.’

  ‘Got the number?’

  ‘Why, what’re you going to do?’

  ‘Basically, call him without saying who I am.’

  ‘And ask what – “Are you the man who’s having it off with Natalie?”’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘A call where you don’t tell him anything or ask him anything? Sounds like an exercise in futility.’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘You promise me this is no risk?’

  ‘No risk at all. Trust me.’

  I fumble my notebook out of my bag, flip it open. A fairly loud internal voice tells me I’d be thinking better of this if I hadn’t had the best part of a bottle of wine on an empty stomach. There’s the number, scribbled on the inside of the cardboard cover, next to the words ‘GOOD PLUMBER’, in case Gretton started copying anonymous numbers over my shoulder on the off-chance they were Natalie’s.

  ‘Read it out,’ Zoe says, biro poised above the back of her hand. I dictate the numbers and she scrawls them down, dragging her skin with smudgy blue ink.

  ‘Right, follow me.’ Zoe slides off her stool, scanning the pub for a payphone. I drape my coat over my seat, shoulder my bag and follow her. She feeds in coins and dials the number while I act as lookout, though I’m not sure for what.

  Zoe makes a ‘mad excitement’ face while it rings through, as if she’s desperate for the loo. The manageress casts a suspicious glance in our direction. I haven’t felt like this since I was fifteen and playing truant in HMV.

  ‘Hello, is that Liz?’ Zoe asks the receiver. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Wrong number.’

  She hangs up. ‘It’s a man.’

  ‘I don’t think this qualifies us for the Woodward and Bernstein investigative medal.’

  ‘Patience,’ she chides, and I wonder when Zoe became my mentor.

  She dials the number again.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I mouth, and she puts her finger to her lips.

  This time she doesn’t speak, and hangs up. ‘Bingo.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Not many people answer a wrong number a second time. I got his answerphone.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And, Natalie Shale is bonking someone called Jonathan Grant, who can’t get to his phone right now, the lying sod. All we have to do is find out who this Jonathan is,’ Zoe chatters. ‘Electoral roll might help. I tell you what, he sounded posh, not like some gangland hardnut … you OK?’

  ‘Zoe, I think I know who he is,’ I say.

  ‘Fuck. Who?’

  ‘He’s Lucas Shale’s last solicitor.’

  We stare at each other, Zoe agape.

  ‘Fuckin’ aye!’ shouts a lad nearby, as a fruit machine spits out pound coins like gunfire.

  45

  ‘I need to think clearly,’ I say, reinforcing this statement by lifting a third full wine glass to my lips, and Zoe nods gravely.

  ‘On the one hand, this is clearly a story,’ I announce, needlessly.

  Zoe holds her inked skin up. ‘On this hand. It’s a cracking story.’ Her eyes sparkle, suddenly much brighter and clearer. ‘You are a flipping legend.’

  Despite the sensation of having peered under a rock and found a creepy-crawly, I feel my head swell slightly. At least I’m showing Zoe a good time.

  ‘Not down to any journalistic nous. But thanks.’

  ‘On the other hand …?’

  ‘On the other hand, Natalie Shale will be hounded. Lucas’s appeal could be jeopardised by all the publicity. Imagine being locked up for something you didn’t do, and finding out something like this? Jonathan Grant will most likely lose his job. I don’t know exactly how it works in law. I think once you’ve done something this unprofessional, you get struck off.’

  ‘True. She decided to start shagging her husband’s brief, and vice versa. That’s not your responsibility.’

  ‘I know, but I wouldn’t have found out about it if I hadn’t snooped while I was a guest in her house.’

  ‘Where was she when you were looking at her phone?’

  ‘Outside talking to a neighbour.’

  ‘But you’ve got to remember, this is massive,’ Zoe says. ‘This is the story they’d talk about in your leaving speech. You could always call Natalie and see if she’ll talk to you about it.’

  ‘Somehow I don’t think that’s even slightly likely, and I can’t test the water without creating a big fuss. I’m friends with her husband’s current solicitor.’ More than friends, perhaps. ‘It’d end up with them freaking out and demanding I spike my interview, I guarantee it.’

  Zoe gnaws her lip.

  ‘If I hadn’t called that number, you wouldn’t have to worry about this.’

  ‘S’alright,’ I say, tipsily. ‘I’m gonna go to the loo, and by the time I come back, I’ll know the answer.’

  As I yank paper towels out of the dispenser with excessive force, a drunken thought worms its way into my mind, a worm in the rotten apple I have for a head. Leave Natalie to her affair, leave them all alone, because who am I to say how she’s found happiness, anyway? Lucas could’ve been a tyrant of a husband, for all I know. Jonathan may have swept her off her size three feet. It could all be over by the time Lucas is released. It might’ve been a ‘moment of madness’ she regrets, as politicians have it. What truly matters to me isn’t the morality of what they’re doing, or a front page splash. It’s a man in south Manchester. I want to do whatever would make him proud, even if he’ll never know a thing about it. Is there a way to break this story and not anger Simon or alienate Ben? Would I take it if there was, turn Natalie over and head off into the sunset? I ball the paper towels, aim
a throw for the bin, and miss.

  I rejoin an expectant Zoe at the table.

  ‘Well?’ she says.

  ‘Well, there was no thunderbolt. Which is frustrating as I usually have all my epiphanies in the bogs at The Castle.’

  Zoe laughs. I feel pissed.

  It’s time to stop pretending when I know what I’m going to do. ‘No, I’m going to leave it be, Zoe,’ I say. ‘Not the boldest decision I ever made, but I’ll be able to sleep at night.’

  ‘Really?’ Zoe says.

  ‘Really. Nothing good can come of what I did. It was wrong. Every instinct I have is telling me to steer clear.’

  ‘I think you’ve probably made the right decision.’

  ‘Do you know what, I’m absolutely sure it’s the right one. I can feel it.’

  ‘God, can you imagine what Gretton would do if he had this in his sticky mitts?’ Zoe giggles. ‘He’d die and go to heaven.’

  ‘Gretton’s not going to heaven, he’s off to the hot place,’ I say. ‘Speaking of hot, fancy soaking all of this up with a curry?’

  46

  I marked my twenty-first with an Indian meal at a restaurant in Rusholme. It was our favourite on the curry mile: the waiters recognised us, made a fuss of us and brought us free kulfi along with mints and the platter of plastic-sheathed tubes of hot, artificial lemon-scented flannels.

  When I booked I explained the occasion, and on arrival we saw they’d kindly draped the table with streamers that ended up getting dragged through the mango chutney. It wasn’t much of a celebration, as twenty-firsts go, but we were on the verge of our finals and everyone was a little weary, tense and spent up.

  As Ben didn’t know my friends all that well he brought his latest girlfriend, Pippa, who I’d been told had nursed a thing for him for a long time before they got together. I wondered if he was in love too. I’d heard a male friend of Ben’s admiringly describe her as ‘the whole package’. He pinned down exactly what made me uncomfortable about petite Pippa. Ben had been with many honeys but never such a nice one. River of Caramac-coloured hair, proportions like a porn Thumbelina and worst of all, the inner to go with the outer.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ she said to me earnestly, in her soft Dublin lilt, which made it sound even more earnest.