by Jane Fallon
In the end, Friday is a beautiful, warm, cloud-free day. I try to control the nerves that are threatening to overwhelm me. I call Josh on my walk to work, and he answers, so I know Saskia is nowhere near.
‘Everything OK?’ he says. We’re both worried the other might bottle out at the last moment.
‘Yes. Well, no, I feel sick, and I’m terrified, and I’m thinking about running away and never coming back, but I’ll get over it. You?’
‘Same. With added exhilaration.’
He runs through the plan one last time – you can tell he’s a producer – and we try to pre-empt any possible curve balls and work out what we would do in each case – random interruptions, either Saskia or Robert refusing to be corralled into the room in the first place, our chosen room (Josh’s study, on the ground floor, two sofas, but far enough from the living room/ kitchen party fulcrum to mean we’re not overheard) being occupied by some random party guest. My head is swimming with the possibilities.
Obviously, there are certain scenarios we can’t legislate for – like one of them falling ill and demanding either to go home or go to bed – which would mean we had to abort. That feels like the worst eventuality of all. Now we’ve decided to do it, I just want it over with. I want to move on with my life.
Before I left this morning I had breakfast with George, who is off today for her last hurrah before Eliza leaves for uni next weekend (she went through clearing, has ended up doing Speech Sciences at Cardiff) and she starts her new college the week after. Hence the reason she was up so early, because they are travelling up to Leeds by coach. No working for them this weekend, just pure hedonism. I have to stop myself thinking hysterical thoughts like, ‘This might be the last weekend of her innocence.’ She’s not due back till Monday night and, whatever happens tonight, I’m sure, by then, Robert and I will have worked out how best to break it to her when she returns. He’ll know that the me-and-Josh thing was a lie and that we’ve known about him and Saskia for months now. He won’t have any reason to cause a scene.
I over-compensated by cooking her a huge breakfast of eggs and beans and toast.
‘Oh my God, Mum, that’s lovely but, no way,’ she said, as she shuffled in and flopped down at the table.
‘It’ll keep you going in case there’s no food on the coach.’
‘There’s not going to be any food on our coach. It’s a ten-pound return – they’re hardly likely to provide food. We’ll be lucky if there’s even a loo that works. We’re making sandwiches to take, remember?’
‘Even better then. Eat this and then you won’t be tempted to eat all your sandwiches in the first half-hour.’
‘I’ll eat the eggs,’ she said, and then proceeded to wolf the whole lot down. I watched as proudly as if I were watching her walk on stage to collect an award.
‘See,’ I said as she clattered her fork down on her empty plate.
Georgia groaned. ‘It’ll be your fault if I’m sick on the coach now.’
I leant over her and gave her a big hug, and she was too full of food to fight me off.
‘Have a good time. Don’t do anything … well, you know.’
‘I will. Or I won’t. Whatever the right answer is. When’s Dad getting up?’
‘No idea. But wake him before you go. He’d hate it if he didn’t get to say goodbye.’
‘I’m back on Monday,’ she said in a tone that screamed, ‘Stop fussing!’
‘I know. Ring us at some point. Just so we know you got there OK.’
Myra gives me a pep talk before I leave work, which is basically her saying everyone else is a lying, manipulative bastard and I need to remember that and protect myself. Apart from Josh, of course, who seems OK, and who she would happily take off my hands if I decide I don’t want him.
‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘I’ll remember that.’
When I get home from work I change clothes, put my trainers back on and head out for a run. The walk from the café – the walk I couldn’t do all in one go for several weeks when I first started, months ago – now feels like a warm-up to the main event. I run down towards the park, trying to clear my head, trying to concentrate on the sound of my feet hitting the pavement, on the rhythm of my breathing in and out. It’s hopeless. My brain feels scrambled, a mixture of fear and excitement.
At one point, I get into a major panic and decide I’m going to phone Josh and call the whole thing off. I even get as far as stopping at a bench and pulling my mobile from my pocket. What stops me is a text from Saskia, which sits there looking at me as the phone springs to life.
‘Can’t wait to see you tonight!! Lots to tell about R and S!! We need to find a sneaky five minutes and I’ll fill you in!!! xx’
I shove the mobile back in my zip pocket, start running again.
Robert is making coffee when I get in, back from a wander to the shops.
‘Want one?’ he says, as I appear red-faced and sweating in the kitchen doorway.
‘In a minute. Shower first.’
‘How far did you go?’ he asks when I re-emerge, hair wrapped up in a towel. He fires up the machine again and it growls as it churns out a coffee. Robert has never been able to get his head around the fact that I prefer instant. I think he thinks it’s an affectation.
‘Just down to the bottom of Regent’s Park and back.’
‘ “Just”?’ He laughs. I know what he’s getting at. I have always had a habit of undercutting any personal achievement by qualifying it.
‘OK, not “just”. Down to the bottom of Regent’s Park and back.’
‘Better.’ He raises an eyebrow to show he’s teasing me, not being patronizing, just so you know. It’s an old routine we have, and it started because he thought I always undervalued whatever I did. And he was right.
It’s good that we’re getting on, that we’re going to go to the party as happy a couple as we can seem to be these days.
I take my time getting ready. I want to feel at my best. In the end, I wear my summery knee-length dress with its fitted top and flared skirt. I know I need to take a cardigan because it might get chilly later but, for as long as I can, I intend to show off my toned bare arms to anyone who cares. I blow-dry my hair, brush it till it shines. Add a second coat of mascara. Slip into the nude open-toed heels I’ve bought specially for the occasion.
When I’m done, I look at myself in the full-length mirror. The same mirror I stripped off and looked in the night Alice was here. I actually well up at the transformation but, luckily, I realize that if I allow myself to cry I’ll have to redo all my make-up, and I don’t have time for that, so I pull myself together just in time. I’m going to allow myself to feel proud, though. I deserve to.
‘You look great,’ Robert says when I emerge. He’s only just out of the shower, but I know he’ll be ready in ten minutes. He just needs time to dry his hair and fluff the dark brown powder in to thicken it up. I wonder if it ever comes out on Saskia’s hands in the throes of passion. I have to suppress a laugh.
‘Thanks.’
I’m dying for a glass of wine. I need whatever courage I can muster. I stop myself, though. It’s imperative that, tonight of all nights, I keep a clear head.
Josh has put fairy lights up in the tree outside the house. Or, at least, I assume it was Josh. I can’t imagine Saskia up a ladder. The place looks magical as we pull up. I can tell there are a few people there already from the cars outside. We find a space along the road and walk back. I can still smell the honeysuckle, even though it’s nearly autumn. My heart is beating like a hammer on a very stubborn nail. I feel as if, if I looked down, I would be able to see it pounding out of my chest, trying to escape. I breathe in and out slowly, try to calm myself down.
Josh and Saskia are at the front door, like a pair of club hostesses. Of course, I have to remember that Robert has no idea Saskia and I are friends and that she believes Josh is clueless about this too. She and I discussed it last time we met. We’re friendly, we went for coffee once, but we’re no
t friends. We haven’t seen each other since.
Josh, I am only meant to have met the one time, at the previous party. I go for polite but friendly all round. Not big, effusive gestures or OTT hugs. Just ‘Thank you for inviting me, I’m very happy to be here.’ We all seem to get away with whatever particular version we are supposed to be getting away with. It occurs to me that only Robert is completely in the dark. In his own naïve way, he just believes he is having an affair with the woman in the red strappy dress and that he is getting away with it faultlessly. I almost feel sorry for him.
Saskia winks at me as I move further into the hall. A waiter – actually, he’s at pains to tell me, one of the runners on the show topping up his pitiful wage with a bit of work on the side – hands me a glass of something fizzy and I accept before it even occurs to me that I should say no. I remember that Josh said he was going to get caterers in and people to serve, ostensibly so that he could persuade Saskia that a party would be no trouble, but really so he could give his full attention to what we are about to do and his guests would still be well catered for.
The plan, such as it is, is this. We allow the party to get going, and Saskia and Robert to have a couple of drinks. We decided it would help if their judgement was a little off. Once everyone is having a good time and Josh has done a round of saying hello to all the guests, we – separately – somehow get our partners to accompany us to Josh’s study. He has described in detail to me where it is – I have a terror of not being able to locate the right room and blowing the whole thing that way – but he’s also promised to try and show me if we get a moment away from the others beforehand.
Josh thinks that it will be easy to lure Saskia with the promise of a birthday surprise. I am not so confident about Robert. If he’s midway through a story to a captivated audience when I get Josh’s signal (a very sophisticated poke in the back) that the time is now, then I have no idea how I’m going to persuade him to leave the limelight and come with me. I think I’ll have to feign an emergency. Make it seem to him as if I’m going to cause some kind of a scene if he doesn’t. Embarrass him somehow.
Once we have them in the room (the potential for so many things to have gone wrong already by this stage is almost infinite), Josh and I will sit next to each other on one of the little sofas, take each other’s hands and he (thankfully, I’m not sure I could carry it off personally) is going to say, ‘Sit down, Paula and I have something to tell you …’
We have no idea, of course, how they will react. Whether one of them will say, ‘Actually, the two of us are a couple too, how do you like that?’ or – and, in Robert’s case, I think much more likely – ‘How could you? I’m devastated.’ We’ve tossed around the possibility that one of them might storm straight out and announce it to the gathered guests but, on balance, we both feel that they are way too proud and would never want to be seen as the cheatee rather than the cheater. They’d both want people to think they’re the desired one, not the one who’s been discarded for a hotter model.
If they admit their own affair, then our plan is to say, ‘Gotcha! We knew all along and we just pretended to be an item to force you to tell us.’ If they deny it, it gets a bit more complicated. We’ll still have burst their bubble, but we won’t have outed them. What we have decided to do in that case it to give them a night to stew on it (and to possibly feel a little the way they have made us feel; not that we think they will care about losing us, it’s way too late for that, but they might feel foolish, laughed at, belittled) and then, next day, if neither of them has come clean, tell them it was a performance. That we know. That we’ve known for ages. Job done.
Either way, by the time they go back to work on Monday and Georgia is home, we will have killed any idea that we – Josh and I – are the ones who have strayed, and Robert and Saskia will have been forced to come clean. How they handle it after that is up to them.
We’ve only been there five minutes – I’m chatting to a woman called Clare, who works in the costume department, Saskia and Robert are in a big group nearby, mostly made up of cast members, from what I can tell – when Samantha walks in. I look at Saskia, and she looks right back at me, raising her eyebrows. Samantha greets everyone – including Robert, because why wouldn’t she? – with an enthusiastic kiss on the cheek. And they’re all – Robert included – clearly happy to see her. She’s obviously well liked. I remember that Saskia claimed to have more gossip and I determine to try and get it out of her before our big revelation. I want to see how far she’s prepared to go. I want her to dig herself a bigger hole.
She’s looking over again so I make a tiny head gesture that means ‘Let’s go over here.’ I tell Clare I’m off to the loo and I go, hoping Saskia will follow immediately. When I get to the bathroom door she’s right behind me.
‘Let’s go into the garden,’ she says. ‘It’ll look weird if people see us coming out of here together.’
She’s right. I follow her through the kitchen to the back door. It’s still warm enough that a few people are milling about the beautiful courtyard. There are fairy lights here too, and small speakers pumping out tasteful music at a low volume.
‘Oh my God!’ she squeals, when we’re far enough away not to be overheard. ‘Did you see the way she kissed him?’
‘To be fair, she kissed everyone.’
‘I know,’ Saskia says, waving over a boy with a tray of drinks who has just ventured outside. It’s not the same one I spoke to earlier, but I assume he’s another runner. We both take a glass, replacing our empties on the tray.
‘Thanks,’ I say. Saskia doesn’t even look at him.
‘But it’s slightly different doing it to Robert, don’t you think?’
‘I suppose she could hardly have kissed everyone else and missed him out. That would really have looked odd.’
I can see Saskia is getting frustrated with me. She wants me to buy into her gossip. ‘Well, anyway …’ she says, slightly huffily.
I try to match her mood. ‘So, go on, what did you have to tell me?’
‘Oh, that,’ she says, not playing now. ‘It was probably nothing.’
‘Oh, come on, you can’t leave me hanging like that. Tell me!’
She relents. ‘She’s asked to move dressing rooms. To the first floor. Which is where Robert is, as you know.’
I know from years of production tittle-tattle that the first-floor dressing rooms are considered far superior to those on the ground. They’re bigger, and more private, because they don’t have windows that everyone can gawp through as they walk past. Sooner or later, according to Robert, every new cast member throws a fit and asks to be moved upstairs. I don’t need to let on to Saskia how clued up I am, though.
‘Wow.’
‘I know! And so, of course, I planted the seed in Robert’s ear that it was because she knew I’d seen her with Jez and she wanted more privacy. You can imagine his reaction.’
I pull my best ‘amazed’ face. ‘Brilliant. Now he’ll be really unsettled.’
‘I think he’s getting tired of her anyway. Between you and me. Well, obviously between you and me, haha! Because no one else knows, do they?’
‘Really, why?’
‘I get the impression she’s quite demanding. Bit of a diva.’
I think of the open, friendly-looking woman greeting everyone like she was happy to see them.
‘I can imagine.’
‘And because she’s so young, you know … I think he’s starting to find her annoying.’
‘Has he told you this?’
‘Not in so many words. But you can see it in his face when he talks about her.’
‘So maybe this Jez thing will push him over the edge.’
‘Exactly. I reckon he’ll dump her within a week. And then you can make your grand gesture, and out into the street he goes. You are still going to go through with it, aren’t you? Even though Georgia’s still at home?’
I’m not sure I’ve ever told her about Georgia’s results, b
ut I let it pass. ‘Definitely. She’s eighteen. She’s got months till her retakes. She’ll be able to deal with it. Especially if he’s not running straight into the arms of someone else.’
‘Good for you. Girl power, haha!’
‘Haha!’ I say. Haha, indeed. Hahaha, in fact. Hahahaha!
43
Saskia
What a minefield this party is. Joshie has no idea! Well, obviously!
I’m trying to remember what I’ve said to who (to whom??) about what. Who I’m friends with. (Whom I’m friends with? No, Saskia, that’s not right). Best thing I can do is keep smiling and talk about the weather.
Joshie has done a fabulous job, I have to give him that. The house looks beautiful. I’m going to miss it – I can’t even tell you. I’ve put so much love into this place. He hired a firm of caterers, and they have made nibbles to die for. In our kitchen! Apparently, they just show up with their ingredients, make all this fabulous food, clear up after themselves. I’m sure it cost a fortune.
He has the three latest Farmer Giles runners – I forget their names, two boys and a girl. All way too drippy to make an impact in the industry IMO – acting as waiters, hovering with trays of champagne and glasses of fizzy water. Not that anyone is drinking the water, haha! Our parties are notoriously boozy. The day after is always one long parade of people coming to collect their cars because they got too drunk to drive home. Usually, I just hide upstairs and pretend I don’t see them because I’m never at my sparkly best with a hangover.
And hangovers become far worse when you’re forty blah blah, let me tell you that. God, what am I really now? Forty-three? Forty-four in a few days. It doesn’t bear thinking about. And I try not to think about it, in case I accidentally give myself away. Joshie knows, of course. Robbie has never asked, so I’m keeping quiet. You’re as old as you feel. Or, at least, as old as other people think you are. Although I have started to wish lately that I’d only knocked off two years instead of five all those decades ago. I’d much rather people thought I looked good for my age than that I was a bit ropey for thirty-eight. Still, nothing I can do about it now. Imagine the field day if I came clean!