30
Edie woke an hour before her alarm, in the way you did when you were anticipating a horrible day.
She stared at the blue ceiling, with its dampness tidemark of uric acid yellow, and wished herself into a thousand different realities that weren’t this one.
She could hear the hum of activity below. Her dad and Meg thought Edie having a day-long jolly to the capital was another example of her fabulous life.
‘Is the publisher paying for it?’ her dad had asked, last night.
‘Yes,’ Edie said, emptily.
‘How nice! You can do a bit of shopping or see a friend before you come back?’
‘Mmm, maybe,’ Edie had said.
‘Nottingham’s not proving too much of a punishment though? What with Hannah being around?’
‘Not at all, I’m enjoying it,’ Edie said, and Meg looked at her with her bullfrog expression – the one she wore when she was dying to say something sarcastic but didn’t quite dare voice it.
After Edie had dragged her leaden limbs from bed and through a shower, she went downstairs. Every single action brought her closer to Oh Fuck O’Clock, today. One of the hardest things to explain to a child is why adulthood involved doing so many things you knew you definitely didn’t want to do.
Edie’s dad was at the breakfast bar, absorbed by a copy of the Guardian. It would be days old, her dad always said it took him that long to read it.
On the kitchen counter there were three bananas cut into coins, a jar of Nutella, a jar of crunchy peanut butter, and an eight-strong stack of thick spongy slices of white Warburtons. The greasy old Breville sandwich toaster had been dragged out, its shell-like indentations still scabbed with the last cheese toastie that had been crushed inside it.
‘Meg’s mise en place for her breakfast,’ her dad said, looking up from his newspaper. ‘Disturb it at your peril.’
Edie frowned at the huge jar of Nutella. ‘Is that vegan?’ She picked it up and inspected the label. ‘Milk and whey?’
Her dad folded his paper: ‘Dearest elder daughter. Before going down this road, consider you may well be right. But do you want to tangle with the Megosaurus at this hour of the morning?’
‘The shit she gives me for making anything in here that isn’t vegan, Dad!’
‘I know, I know. Perhaps raise the … inconsistency at another time. Neither of my children could ever be accused of being morning people.’
Edie plonked the jar back on the counter and poured Alpen into a bowl, resentfully, hoiking herself up at the Formica shelf breakfast bar next to her dad. She sploshed the Meg-sanctioned vanilla flavour oily soy milk on it, and glowered.
Meg came in, still in her New Model Army bed T-shirt and tartan pyjama trousers, head a dreadlocked bird’s nest. Edie could remember her childhood sheet of perfect shiny Dairy Milk hair, she used to plait it for her. Meg grunted and set about making her choco-nutty-nana hypocrite’s repast while Edie stared, resentfully.
Her dad made polite chat about the train times and Edie reminded herself, for the umpteenth time, not to come across as if she hated her home.
‘Do you want me to bring you anything back from London?’ Edie said, to the room.
Meg snorted. ‘Penicillin? Culture?’
‘Sorry?’ Edie said, sharply, dropping her spoon back into her Alpen.
‘You make it sound like you’re journeying into civilisation or something. Like an opposite Heart of Darkness.’
‘No, Meg, I was being thoughtful and considerate. An alien concept to you.’
Their dad was stirring his coffee very vigorously and clearing his throat.
‘Well what could we want in London we can’t get here? Uhm yes, a Big Ben keyring please.’
Edie opened her mouth and realised she didn’t actually know. The point was, she was being generous and nice and once again, Meg was turning it into an attack on her supposed airs and graces.
‘Why are you such a thunderous bitch to me, Meg? “Would you like a present” translates as me being some stuck-up Southern princess wannabe?’
‘You always run Nottingham down, you know you do. I’ve heard you do it with your snob friends.’
This dated back to a flippant conversation that Meg had unfortunately overheard many years ago. With hindsight, Edie wasn’t particularly proud of it and had been playing to the gallery with some posh colleagues who visited for the cricket. She’d said something about it only coming first in a competition with Derby. Edie should never have let them call for her at the house, or let them discuss their views on the city, stood in her hallway. Or played to their gallery. You live, you learn. Or you don’t, as Elliot said.
Meg shrugged and went back to sandwich assembly. Edie couldn’t let it go, her blood pumping. She was the only hypocrite around here, was she?
‘Oh and by the way, I assume you’re not vegan any more, what with having Nutella. So I’ll be having my bacon and sausages now, thank you.’
Meg turned, doing her toddler puffed-cheeks fury face.
‘I have ONE TREAT and you think you can use it against me!’
‘As ever, it’s one rule for Meg, another for ordinary hardworking families.’
‘Oh my God what do you ever do for other people! Or the environment!’
‘SAUSAGE!’ Edie shouted, thinking this wasn’t her finest hour as an adult.
‘DAD, TELL HER!’ Meg screamed. She threw down her fudged-up knife and ran out, breaking into noisy sobbing as she thundered up the stairs.
In the silence of the kitchen, her dad tapped his spoon against his cup.
‘I did suggest that might go badly.’
Edie didn’t often lose her temper with her dad and she knew, today of all days, she wasn’t in a position to keep things in perspective. However. She couldn’t take this.
‘Dad! You heard what she said about London, she kicked off at me! She’s in the wrong. And she’s always getting at me. She can’t complain when she gets some back.’
‘No, she can’t.’
‘Don’t make excuses for her constantly. That isn’t going to help. Her, most of all.’
Her dad said, quietly: ‘It’s a shame. Meg had suggested we might want Nutella sandwiches too. She said it might set you up for your day trip. She was on the verge of being conciliatory there and it went awry.’
‘What?’ Edie’s face fell. ‘Why didn’t you say so?’
‘I thought it’d be nice if it came from her. As a peace offering.’
Edie put her bowl in the sink, got her things and left the house quietly, Meg’s blazing outrage radiating from behind her closed bedroom door.
She didn’t want it to be this way. She wanted to find her way back to the times they’d put the old hairy blanket known as ‘The Wolf’ across their knees on a Sunday afternoon and watch Ghostbusters.
It was only once she was on the train, staring out of the window, morose, Edie realised what she had been doing. Having a barney with Meg wasn’t just pressure-valve release on this tension. Edie was fouling the nest, so it would make it seem less awful to go to London.
It hadn’t worked.
31
Edie could remember when St Pancras was a fairly dark and forbidding train shed, not the glittering temple to consumerism, continental mini breaks, flat whites and getting nicely spangled on champagne that it was now.
She tested her feelings, as she queued for the ticket barriers, on whether it still felt like coming home. She couldn’t sense much beyond the numb hum of what awaited her in the distance.
A bleep on her phone:
Edie baby are you in today? Heard you were? Good luck. I’m at a client meeting so will miss you. Hugs. L X
Edie wondered if Louis had deliberately arranged to be out, to avoid having to pick a side, in public. She didn’t know, that could be paranoia talking. She texted back her thanks.
The publishers of Elliot’s book were in bright offices in Bloomsbury. Usually a meeting this size would be cause for apprehension
; she’d never pitched a rejigged celebrity autobiography before, after all. Or written one for that matter, although it seemed pretty straightforward. She felt some nerves, but they struggled in comparison to the much worse nerves about the following meeting.
Once she was in the room, Edie smiled and lot and nodded a lot and said plausible things about making it distinctive in the market and staying true to Elliot’s voice and they nodded back and said, in not so many words, OK do it, but don’t scare the tween horses with too much miserablism. It helped she was riding in on the wave of acclaim of having persuaded Elliot back on board.
She couldn’t be sure, but she got the feeling Elliot had given her full credit for talking him round.
After the publishing meeting, the terrible hour of three p.m. approached. Edie nursed a lonely glass of Pinot Grigio after lunch, to give her Dutch courage. It was pointless really; the amount of alcohol required to make what she faced tolerable would also make her legless.
Ad Hoc was located in Smithfield, between Soho and the City. The office was on the top floor of a high-windowed 1920s workshop block, sandwiched between a Victorian pub straight out of a Dickens novel, and what used to be a family-run Italian coffee shop, which was now yet another Itsu.
At ten to three, Edie left the nearby bar – she’d avoided the after-work favourite haunt – and trudged to the office like it was the gallows.
She headed up the stairs, feeling her heart punching against her ribs, considering the hundreds of times she’d walked up these stairs and into that room and not been thinking about anything more troubling than what she’d have for dinner.
Edie felt a rush of blood in her ears, and pushed through the door to see a small sea of staring faces. They’d obviously been clock-watching with bated breath for the appointed hour.
‘Hi,’ Edie said to the room, in embarrassment, feeling her face flare.
There was a murmured response, so faint she might have imagined it. It was agonising.
She glanced around. Edie didn’t want to risk asking anyone anything, for fear of silence in reply, and headed instead to Richard’s office.
Edie knocked, with a rapid pulse in her neck and her palms slippery with sweat.
‘Enter!’
Richard was at his desk. Charlotte was seated in front of him, to the left. Her narrow shoulders, draped in a red cardigan, were rigid. She stared determinedly ahead, barely moving her head an inch to acknowledge Edie’s presence. Edie remembered the sight of her bare shoulders in the wedding dress, and winced.
‘Thank you for coming, Edie, take a seat. And thank you for being here, Charlotte.’
Edie lowered herself into the chair on the right.
Richard sat back in his seat and surveyed them both. He was wearing an immaculate dark tweed suit, perfectly cut, with an Oxford blue shirt. He looked, as per, as if he’d tumbled out of the pages of a Turnbull & Asser catalogue through the credit sequence of Mad Men.
‘Now, I won’t belabour this. We all have private lives. Sometimes our private lives intersect with our professional lives. Whatever our personal feelings towards each other, we still need our livelihoods. We can’t change what has happened. We can stop it affecting more than it already has, if we are pragmatic.’
Edie breathed in and out, heavily, and hoped her voice worked.
Richard twiddled a solid silver ballpoint, clicked the nib in and out.
‘Charlotte, can you see a way to work effectively alongside Edie, putting aside any rancour and keeping things strictly business?’
‘Yes,’ Charlotte said, slightly hoarse. She was nervous too. Edie felt for her. Neither of them wanted to be in this position. Was it possible, remotely possible, they could both sob in the loos after this, Charlotte tearfully ranting, Edie tearfully apologising, and eventually agree to let this lie?
Richard turned to Edie.
‘And Edie. Do you think it’s possible to park the politics at the door, and continue to work here, conducting yourself in a way that is respectful of Charlotte as a colleague?’
‘Yes. Definitely,’ Edie said, listening to how small and tight her voice sounded. She sounded like she hated herself, which she did.
Richard looked from one to the other.
‘I’m not being Pollyanna here, and asking you to kiss and be friends—’
Richard paused for a fraction of a second as he realised the poor choice of words, but recovered as seamlessly as if it was a difficult client meeting.
‘—and book spa breaks together. I will not put you on any joint project if I can help it. But let’s proceed on the basis that we’re all adults, you’ve assured me that I will not have either or both of you back in this office at any point, due to controversy stemming from that unfortunate incident. We are drawing a line, right here, right now.’
At the word incident, from the corner of her eye, Edie saw Charlotte flinch.
They both nodded and murmured agreement.
‘OK, Charlotte, thanks for your time and understanding. I’ll have a word with Edie now, if you’ll shut the door after you.’
Charlotte got up, making no eye contact with Edie, though Edie was desperate to exchange a glance. The hairs on Edie’s skin prickled.
A tense pause after the door closed and Richard said:
‘Thank you for coming today. I wasn’t entirely sure if you would.’
‘Ah … thanks,’ Edie said, half-wishing she’d made good on that doubt. The tidal wave of adrenaline had subsided a little, to be replaced by a dull ache of humiliation and regret at her reality.
‘Despite what the BMW driver who shunted my car earlier this week said, I’m not an idiot. I know the nature of what happened means any trouble is unlikely to come from you. If you have any difficulty, I ask you to keep a cool head, bring it to me. And perhaps avoid team nights out when the hooch is flowing, for the time being.’
Edie nodded, miserably. As if she was going to be first at the bar on a Friday. She’d be slow-clapped and hissed. Richard tapped his pen on his mouse mat.
‘All good otherwise? How was the book summit?’
Edie croaked out a few assurances and Richard told her she was doing well.
‘See you back here very soon, then,’ Richard said, and Edie wanted to cry. She nodded, gathered her things and stood up.
‘Edie,’ Richard said, abruptly. ‘As a friend, not a boss: ride out the storm here. Decency will prevail. Treat those two imposters of popularity and infamy just the same.’
Edie nodded vigorously because if she’d tried to speak, she’d weep. Infamy.
She opened the door, set her sights on nothing but the exit and bolted for it, once again feeling every pair of eyes in the room lock onto her as she scuttled out.
‘Edie,’ Charlotte said, catching up with her at the door.
Edie turned in surprise.
‘Yes?’ she spoke the word in a nervous gush.
This was it, this was where Charlotte buried the hatchet? If everyone saw Charlotte didn’t hate her any more, they’d have to forgive her too. Wouldn’t they? Edie’s blood pumped fiery-chilli hot in her veins.
‘This came for you,’ Charlotte said, and passed her a plain brown A4 envelope with her name scrawled on it. Charlotte did the smallest smile. In truth, it couldn’t truly be called a smile, more a twitch of the lips, but it broke the poker face she’d worn in Richard’s office.
‘Thank you,’ Edie said, trying to inject as much sincerity into those syllables as possible, in a pin-drop silence. ‘Thank you for coming in today.’
‘I was here anyway,’ Charlotte said, evenly.
‘I mean, the meeting.’
‘Have a safe trip home,’ Charlotte said, impassive.
‘Thank you,’ Edie faltered over whether to say more.
She couldn’t judge the hostility of the interaction at all. It felt, cautiously, like they were on speaking terms, that they’d taken the first and most difficult step.
Charlotte returned briskly to her seat.
She’d always been slim but Edie noticed her clothes were hanging from her; she’d clearly lost at least a stone in weight. Edie knew she didn’t look her best either.
Outside, with shaky hands, Edie tore into the envelope and pulled out two stapled sheets of paper. At the top were the words.
Petition To Get Edie Thompson To Go.
We’re asking you to have the basic decency to LEAVE. No one wants you here. If you tell Richard about this, we will get IT to pull your emails and go through them for anything and everything we can use to show him you’re a treacherous bitch. Which, let’s face it, you are
Below were signatures. Edie scanned the list. Every single colleague had signed it, except for Louis. Edie read and re-read, then pulled open the drawer in a nearby bin and shoved it all in, letting it slam with a bang.
That was that, then. She looked up at the building and knew without question that had been the last time she’d ever step inside. She just had to work out what the hell to tell Richard. He’d said to bring him any problems, but as Edie knew all too well, some were simply beyond fixing.
32
Edie lay in bed and couldn’t think of a single reason to get up. Was depression still depression when it was a natural consequence, given the state of your life? Who’d be happy in her current circumstances?
Her phone, plugged into the charger in the wall, went zzzz-zzzz like an angry bee in a glass. She rolled over and checked her messages.
Don’t keep me in suspenders! HOW DID IT GO? L Dog X
Edie hauled herself upright and texted back:
OK I thought, and then Charlotte handed me the petition as I left. Thanks for not signing it. Ex
Beep.
<3 She stood over everyone and made them do it, E. Seriously. Ignore it.
Easier said than done. If it happened to Louis, the result would be a meltdown and a massacre.
Thanks you know what though, I’ve had enough of this nasty vindictive crap over something JACK DID. Someone Charlotte’s still happy to spend her life with. Fuck all this bullying, Louis. They might not like what happened – neither do I – but bullying is still bullying. And I don’t see Jack getting any of it. x
Who's That Girl? Page 17