Foursome

by Jane Fallon

  ‘And, just for your information, that happened months ago and was a complete one-off. Now they’ll think it happens all the time. Like I go out every night and drink myself stupid.’

  Lorna is looking at me like a puppy who has just been told off for chewing up the carpet. What? What have I done? I’m innocent!

  ‘I heard you,’ I say, as if that isn’t obvious. What am I, clairvoyant?

  ‘I just thought it was a funny story,’ she says, all big eyes.

  I’m terrified she’s going to cry on me. She has a habit of turning on the tears when it suits her. She does it all the time with Joshua in particular. It always works. It somehow seems to make him forget she’s a forty-two-year-old woman with a mortgage and an eating disorder, and he comes over all paternal and completely forgets whatever it was he was having a go at her for. I put it down to the fact that his only daughter left home last year to go to university and he’s feeling a bit unneeded. Anyway, I need to divert the tear train before it gets to the station because there’s no way I’m going to be getting on board.

  ‘Fine,’ I say. ‘I was just saying, maybe in future, you know…’

  ‘OK,’ she says in a pained voice. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I said it’s fine. Don’t worry about it, OK?’

  So she sits snivelling at her computer for a few minutes and then flounces off in the direction of the ladies,’ almost bumping into Joshua who is coming out of the kitchen, clearly having given up on waiting for one of us to offer him a cup of tea.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he says, all concerned.

  ‘Yes, I’m OK,’ Lorna says in a voice that manages to convey ‘no, I’m not, that nasty bitch upset me’. Joshua shoots me an accusatory look. Round one to Lorna.

  Lorna has been at Mortimer and Sheedy for ten years, since she was thirty-two. She had been drifting around in a variety of secretarial jobs and junior management positions ever since she left college, never finding anything that made her feel passionate, until she walked into the little attic rooms of Mortimer and Sheedy for an interview and fell in love. Now she had found her niche she was fiercely ambitious. She decided that she would stay there for three years or so, learning everything there was to learn about contracts and castings and how to keep clients happy as well as earning them money, then look for a position as an agent at one of the larger, better known, theatrical agencies. But before she knew it Mortimer and Sheedy felt like home, Joshua and Melanie like family. Now she couldn’t imagine working anywhere else, even if it meant that her career had stalled. How do I know this? She told me, breathlessly recounting the whole story of her life, in the first thirty seconds of meeting me, while I nervously sipped my bottle of water and waited for my interview. I was going back to work for the first time since Zoe was born, seven years before. I wanted to work two days a week from nine thirty till six, and I wanted my office to be on the Piccadilly line. Those were the only criteria. I would have walked the streets if the hours and location were right. William had just started school and I wanted a no-pressure job where a day taken off because a child had a temperature wouldn’t be viewed as a disaster.

  Like Lorna, I guess I never realized how much I would come to love what I do. I’ve been here six years. Six years of listening to her prattle on. Sometimes it feels like a lifetime.

  We sit in subtext-laden silence for most of the afternoon. Lorna in the wounded corner, me in the righteously indignant. As you know, I take no pleasure from upsetting her but it does, at least, shut her up. Which means that I can get all my calls and callbacks made and, by five thirty, I have cajoled all our boys into parting with their money and I’m heading out the door. Lorna has barely looked up from her work all day and I’m feeling bad so as I leave I smile and say, ‘I’m sorry if it came across like I was angry with you earlier. I really wasn’t having a go. See you tomorrow.’

  She looks up at me, Bambi eyes moist, poor-me smile, and says, ‘Oh, that’s fine. It’s forgotten. Bye, Rebecca,’ in the most insincere way possible.

  Dan and I spend a blissful evening in front of the TV while William crawls around looking for baby spiders with an old magnifying glass he’s found, and Zoe sits on her bed, iPod on, oblivious to the world. I try to explain the frustration of my day to Dan but it’s hard without sounding petty and about ten years old. After all, what am I really saying? I had a go at Lorna because she was talking to Melanie about me and then she got upset. I can’t seem to get across the passive aggressiveness of her, the way that I know the whole situation is being manipulated to make her the victim and me the aggressor. That’s the whole point of Lorna. She’s good at what she does. You have to be there to really appreciate it, to take in all the nuances. To realize that although she’s not actually doing anything wrong she’s doing everything wrong because of the way in which she does it. I try to imitate her little girl voice, her watery-eyed half smile, her ever so subtle accusations, but I only succeed in making her sound like Little Nell and me like the hunchback bully chasing after her.

  ‘You know we’re going to have to see them at the weekend,’ Dan says eventually.

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘I’ll be good.’

  And I mean it. I do. I will try.

  I get to work before her in the morning and I’m pottering around making coffee, minding my own business, when Joshua sticks his head round the kitchen door and asks me if I have a moment. I think about saying no. Someone asking you if you have a moment is almost never a good thing. But clearly I am doing nothing much so I offer him a coffee, which he accepts and then I follow him into his office.

  Joshua has this avuncular thing going on. He’s only fifty-three but as soon as I’m in his presence I forget that he is a mere twelve years older than me and I revert to being six. I want him to tell me I’ve been good. I put it down to the fact that he has white hair and a kind, craggy face, prematurely aged from years of smoking twenty-odd Silk Cut a day. That and the fact that I have always been in awe of authority. If a policeman so much as says hello to me, I become grovelling and subservient despite the fact that (1) I have never done anything wrong and (2) he is probably young enough to be my son. With the doctor I’m even worse. She must only be my age but I always find myself apologizing for wasting her time, practically doffing my cap in deference to her greatness. Before I go in I always give myself a pep talk. Be confident. Be demanding. If she tries to brush off the importance of your symptoms, insist on your right to have tests. So she spent four more years at university than you. So what? It never works. I know without a doubt that one of these days I am going to die of some trivial ailment left untreated because I was too much of a wimp to question her judgement.

  ‘So, how’s things?’ Joshua asks, and I immediately feel nervous and put on the spot. What things?

  ‘Oh, fine,’ I say. ‘Good.’

  We sit there in silence for a moment while he tries to summon up the courage to say whatever it is he really wants to say to me. Joshua hates having to engage in the trivia, the office politics. I look at my hands and out of the window at the attic rooms above the shops across the road.

  ‘You know how much we value you, Melanie and I,’ he says, and my heart sinks. This doesn’t sound like he’s about to offer me a pay rise, which is a shame because I was intending to ask him for one, one of these days. Only after I’d spent a week on an assertiveness course obviously.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, although for what I don’t know.

  ‘You’re an integral part of this company. The clients all love you.’ OK, so maybe this is starting to sound a bit better. At least it doesn’t sound like he’s about to give me my P45 and then show me the door.

  Joshua’s still talking. ‘It’s just, well, sometimes you can be a little – how shall I put this? – abrupt.’

  ‘Abrupt?’ I have no idea what he’s going on about. He’s just said the clients all like me and I know that I have good relationships with the producers, directors and casting people I have to deal with. Some of them have
become more like friends – work friends, not real friends, of course – ones I’ll have a coffee or a quick drink after work with. Often I pick up good tip-offs about upcoming productions.

  ‘Not…’ he says, and then runs out of steam a bit. ‘Well, let’s put it this way. I think Lorna sometimes finds you a bit domineering…’

  I miss the rest of what he’s saying because all the blood has rushed from helping my ears to work and into my brain to try to calm it down before I explode. So that’s what this is about. Lorna must have gone crying to Joshua last night after I’d left. Boo hoo. Rebecca’s bullying me.

  I cut Joshua off. ‘So Lorna’s complained about me?’

  ‘No, no, of course not,’ Joshua lies, flustered now that he might have made the situation worse. ‘I just noticed that she seemed a bit upset yesterday, that’s all.’

  I resist the temptation to ask him why he would think that Lorna’s state of mind might have anything to do with me if she really hasn’t said anything. There’s no point. He’s clearly protecting her. I can’t win except to take my telling off and get back to work.

  ‘Well, if I have upset her I can’t imagine why,’ I say. And then I add, ‘I mean, I certainly didn’t intend to.’

  ‘I’m sure you didn’t. It’s just… you know what she’s like…’

  Yes I do. Conniving, manipulative, lazy, need I say more?

  ‘… She’s very sensitive. I’m only saying this to you and not to her because I know you won’t get upset. I just think you should make more of an effort to get along.’

  He must be able to see that my face is going purple because he adds, ‘Both of you, I mean. Not just you. I hate to have an atmosphere in the office. It’s not good for business.’

  I take a deep breath. This is so unjust. But I know I have nothing to gain by snapping at Joshua.

  ‘Of course,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry you think there’s been a problem. There really hasn’t.’

  He smiles his Uncle Josh smile. ‘I expect she was just overreacting,’ he says, thus giving away that Lorna did indeed lodge a complaint.

  ‘How are you getting on with Spotlight?’ he asks, subject well and truly changed.

  ‘All done,’ I say, and I manage a smile. ‘No problems.’

  ‘Nice work,’ he says, and looks down at some papers on his desk. I take my cue to leave.

  Back in reception Lorna is taking off her coat. She’s five minutes late as usual. She gives me a big innocent smile.

  ‘Morning,’ she says breezily.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ I say in a manner that I hope is slightly menacing but not so much so that it would stand up in court.

  7

  It’s Friday evening. Fabulous, wonderful, no work for two whole days, I-can-do-anything Friday evening. Even though these days I rarely do anything on a Friday evening other than cook and watch TV with Dan and the kids I still always feel that rush of excitement as I leave work. The world’s my oyster. Anything is possible. I have all the time in the world and no one to tell me what to do with it. You know, of course, what I’m about to say: except for this weekend. This Friday evening has been hijacked by the enemy. We are going to a restaurant with Alex and Lorna. I am entering my own personal hell.

  The table is booked for seven thirty and Lorna has been fussing all day about what am I wearing and what time should we get there or should we meet up somewhere else first for a drink (no). You’d think she’d never been to a restaurant before.

  The kids are going to spend the night at Isabel’s. Zoe is furious. At thirteen she thinks she is old enough to stay home on her own and I have to explain to her for the hundredth time that she is (I’m lying), but what she is not is old enough to look after her brother. William, in typical mad-inventor fashion, has a tendency to get absorbed in things. Tiny details that most mere mortals would brush past without a second thought – trying to discover why an ant took a particular route along the kitchen windowsill, for example, or why the light coming through the window is refracting in a certain way, fascinating stuff like that – and he will forget that he has left the bath running or some baked beans frazzling in a saucepan. He’s a walking hazard.

  William, unlike his sister, is happy to go and see the twins. He’s alternately besotted in a quiet, hopeless way with each of them. I always know when his allegiance changes because he will start saying, ‘Natalie/Nicola is much cleverer than Nicola/Natalie,’ or, ‘Nicola/Natalie has much nicer hair than Natalie/Nicola.’ He mooches about after his current chosen one with a lovesick expression on his face, and tries to engage with them by showing them frog spawn or, once, some hedgehog droppings (‘See those shiny bits? That’s where it’s been eating beetles.’) and the girls tend to just scream and say, ‘You’re gross,’ and run away.

  They never fall out, though, because William never takes offence, he just keeps plodding along his devoted path with the dogged, slow persistence of a zombie after its human prey. And the girls love the fact that he will always do their bidding in any way they want – fetching them drinks, doing their chores and, on more than one occasion, allowing them to play ‘dress up’ with him, which means he comes home in full make-up and wearing their clothes. Isabel and I have wondered before whether we should put a stop to it, whether the girls are bullying him, but we’ve come to the conclusion that they’re not. They’re always sweet to him; they always say please. If he ever refused one of their requests, I think they’d be fine, it’s just that he never does. He doesn’t seem to mind. He’ll make some dominatrix a lovely husband one day.

  By seven we’re ready to go out. Alex has taken the kids over to Isabel’s for us so he can have a quick visit with the twins before he has to pick Lorna up. I sit at the kitchen table trying to summon up the energy to move.

  ‘You look nice,’ Dan says as he comes in, although he makes the mistake of starting to say it before he’s put one foot through the door so he can’t possibly have seen what I’m looking like. I decide to let him off.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘Yep,’ I say, not moving.

  ‘Taxi’s here,’ he says, and I reluctantly drag myself off my chair. Dan kisses the top of my head.

  ‘Cheer up,’ he says. ‘It could be worse.’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘It couldn’t.’

  I can hear her talking as soon as I walk in.

  ‘… and the thing is that I don’t know whether you just think it tastes better because you know how expensive it is or whether it actually does I mean someone could give you the really cheap nasty version if there is such a thing I’m not sure there is and you’d still probably say it was great…’

  I assume she’s talking about the glass of champagne she’s waving around in her right hand. We make our way over.

  ‘… I mean would you really know the difference… oh, hello.’

  She and Alex stand up and we all do that half-hearted kissing thing. I’m struck by the fear that Lorna might start expecting me to kiss her on the cheek when I see her at work first thing every morning.

  ‘That’s an interesting dress you have on,’ she’s saying. ‘I didn’t know what to wear so I just dug out this thing I haven’t put on for about a year but I’m not sure about it now…’

  Interesting? When was interesting ever a compliment when it came to clothing? I tune out. Butting in on Dan and Alex’s conversation about Arsenal is neither possible nor desirable so I amuse myself by giving Lorna a critical once over. Actually, she’s looking pretty good in the dress, which is very fitted and unforgiving in a way I could never carry off. I always forget that Lorna is, in fact, rather pretty. When her face is still, which is never, you notice her big eyes, which are dark brown and doeish and the fact that her mouth is wide and quite full (she has a big mouth, no kidding). Mind you, if I ate nothing but bird seed I’m sure my features would start to seem larger as my face got smaller. She has a bit of a crooked nose but not in a bad way, in a way that stops her face from seeming too bland, too regular.
Her hair is a disaster, thin and wispy and unloved but all in all she’s in the top, what, thirtieth centile of looks.

  I like to do this with people, rate them out of a hundred. I don’t know why. Most of the people I know, I have decided, score between seventy and eighty, which means there must be some seriously unattractive people around that I haven’t come across yet. I have put myself in the bottom of the sixties but with the potential to improve. Alex is in the seventies but I have placed Dan right up in the eighties, bordering on the nineties. It’s subjective, of course. I once decided Angelina Jolie was only just in the top fifty per cent but that was right after she started collecting babies and I was finding her self-righteousness really annoying.

  The waiter comes to usher us through to our table. I have already decided that the best way to get through the evening is to let Lorna talk and only answer when necessary. I have warned Dan of the perils of telling her any funny anecdotes about me and my misbehaviour for fear they will be broadcast round the office, so now he’s scared to say anything. But that’s OK, because Lorna is in full flow, telling us about the time she went on a cookery course and Aldo Zilli was running it and he kept singling her out and wasn’t that just typical? Lorna is one of those people who always thinks she is the most important person in any room. Of course Aldo would pick her to slice the aubergines because she’s so amazing and hilarious. The more prosaic explanation that maybe she just happened to be the person standing closest to him would never occur to her. Dan, trying to be polite, is making things worse by saying ‘wow’ and ‘really?’ and sounding like he’s impressed, but I just let them get on with it and eat my food, which is fantastic by the way. Halfway through the meal he asks me if I’m feeling all right.

  ‘You’re very quiet,’ he says, concerned.

  ‘I’m fine. Just enjoying my Dover sole,’ I say, and thankfully Dan leaves it at that. But then the meal takes an altogether more stressful turn. Alex, I am convinced, has been looking to make mischief ever since we arrived and, finding that it’s all going fairly smoothly, can’t resist throwing a spanner in the works.