Foursome

by Jane Fallon

  ‘To Lorna,’ he says, all smiles. ‘Congratulations and good luck. You’ll need it now you’re Rebecca’s boss.’

  He looks at me, victorious. Touché. Lorna laughs out of all proportion to how funny his remark was.

  ‘I’m sure we’re going to be fine,’ she says. ‘After all, I know all her tricks now. Ha ha ha.’

  Hilarious.

  Lorna’s new duties are effective immediately. Although we are still sharing a work space in the reception – waiting while Melanie negotiates with our landlord to acquire the office next door so that the new hot shot can have her own room – we both know that it is now out of the question that Lorna be expected to answer the phones. No one needs to say anything; it’s the New World Order. She’s now way too important. At least, in her own opinion. Without anyone to play Phone Wars with I expend far less energy just picking up the calls as and when they come than I did trying to avoid answering them.

  Lorna spends all day calling around everyone she has ever met and telling them that she is now ‘AN AGENT!’ Then, once she knows that Joshua has called the four least successful and therefore least likely to complain clients to tell them the good news that Lorna will be looking after them from here on in, she calls them too and says isn’t it great that she’s now ‘THEIR AGENT!’ She instructs me in all seriousness that I am to make sure to tell anyone who calls up enquiring after any of her four clients (I won’t hold my breath), that those clients are under new representation and that, if they wish to discuss those clients, they must speak to Lorna and Lorna alone. I resist saying that no one has called up about any of those four clients in living memory, except when one of them had failed to pay their rent and their landlord tried to track them down through us.

  In addition to her extensive client list Lorna will now be representing all of our boys and girls for voice-over work. In between phone calls she studies old contracts and badgers Melanie with questions, making copious notes in the brand-new notebook she is now using to keep track of her enormous empire.

  By lunchtime I am exhausted from watching the energy she uses up doing not much really. At a quarter to one I stand up and put on my coat.

  ‘I’m going to lunch,’ I say. ‘Are you OK to wait?’

  ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘No. I mean, I think you’re just going to have to pick up a sandwich and bring it back here from now on. I can’t be worrying about coordinating my lunch break with yours any more. Not now I’m AN AGENT!’

  ‘I can’t do that every day,’ I say. ‘What about when I need to go shopping?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she says haughtily. ‘You’ll have to speak to Josh or Melanie about it.’

  I’m momentarily knocked off course. Did she just call Joshua Josh? I’ve never even heard Melanie call him that. I force myself back on track.

  ‘What’s more, I’m sure I must have a statutory right to some fresh air or something,’ I say, rather hysterically, but I can’t help myself.

  ‘Like I say, talk to Josh or Melanie. All I know is that I need to be able to take people out to lunch as and when I want without consulting you.’

  ‘Who are you having lunch with today?’ I ask, somewhat aggressively.

  ‘That’s beside the point.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. It is the point. If you have a lunch meeting today, then I can understand why you might want me to stay in the office but, if you haven’t, then I don’t see what difference it makes to you if I go out first and you stay and answer the phones and then you go out when I get back.’

  ‘It’s not my job to answer the phones any more,’ she says.

  I breathe in slowly. ‘I know that. All I’m saying is that if someone needs to be here at all times to answer the phones then surely we need to work something out between us rather than you just telling me I can’t take a lunch break any more.’

  ‘I didn’t say you couldn’t have a lunch break, I just said that from now on you need to take it at your desk. There’s a big difference. So, you’ll have to get a sandwich and come straight back because I have to go out at one.’

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ I say, and I move towards the door. ‘You can’t tell me what to do.’

  ‘Actually,’ she says, ‘I think you’ll find I can.’

  I go out anyway and, even though today I don’t really have anything to do, I make sure that I stay out for a full hour, sitting in the grounds of St James’s church, trying to concentrate on reading Metro. I make sure I’m back several minutes before my hour is up; I don’t want to give her any ammunition. She is sitting there angrily, bent over some papers on her desk. I don’t even bother asking what happened to her lunch date because I know she never had one.

  As soon as Melanie gets back, I ask her if I can see her for a few minutes. While Lorna has Joshua wrapped around her little finger I still have hope that I can appeal to Melanie’s more rational personality.

  ‘I was wondering,’ I say, once she has closed the door, although I have no doubt that Lorna will be listening, ‘what was going to happen now about things like who’s going to answer the phones at lunchtime?’ I have already decided that I am not going to stoop to Lorna’s level of tale telling. No ‘she said this’ or ‘she did that’.

  ‘Well, why can’t you just carry on as normal?’ Melanie says, clearly not very interested in having this conversation.

  ‘Erm…’ I say. ‘Great, OK, if you think that’s what we should do.’

  ‘Good,’ she says, riffling through papers on her desk.

  ‘Do you think… well, could you mention that to Lorna if you get a chance? Just so that we all know where we are.’

  ‘Fine,’ she says, and I don’t want to push it so I leave it at that.

  Dan is meeting Alex and Lorna in the pub, but I have the perfect excuse in that I promised to take William and Zoe over to Isabel’s and, of course, there’s no question that we could all join up. Isabel doesn’t seem to be home so I let myself in and I get the kids a drink from the kitchen. It’s a beautiful house, a Victorian terrace with as many original features as you could wish for, bought, of course, with a mortgage based on Isabel’s income because Alex doesn’t have one, although I’m sure he stumped up the deposit saved from one of his not inconsiderable City bonuses. It’s feeling a bit unloved at the moment, though, not so much like a home. It’s amazing how one person’s absence can do that, take some of the life out of a place. Usually it smells of freshly baked bread and Diptyque candles and all the other little touches Isabel used to do to make it feel homely. I guess she doesn’t feel like bothering at the moment.

  I hear her key in the lock. The twins bowl in before she does and they don’t even raise an eyebrow at the sight of us already making ourselves at home in their kitchen. It has always been such a common occurrence.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she says once the kids have all gone off to the twins’ room. ‘He’d taken them swimming.’

  ‘Without telling you?’ She nods. ‘He can’t do that.’

  ‘I’m scared to make too much fuss,’ she says. ‘In case he starts demanding that the girls go and live with him. After all, he has been their primary carer for most of their lives.’

  ‘Only till they were old enough to go to school,’ I say. ‘He wouldn’t do that, surely?’ I’m not sure I have a firm grasp on just exactly what Alex would or wouldn’t do these days, actually. He seems to be capable of just about anything. ‘And anyway I can’t believe any court would put two kids with their father rather than their mother.’

  ‘It happens all the time,’ she says. ‘And why not? Sometimes the father can look after them better.’

  ‘Not this time,’ I say. It worries me, though, this talk of who will get the children.

  ‘Are you going to get a divorce, then?’

  ‘He wants to,’ she says. ‘He says it’d be better for everyone, a clean break.’

  ‘Gosh,’ I say. Gosh seems to have become my new favourite word in my self-imposed swearing embargo. Golly! Jeeps! Crikey! ‘That
seems so final.’

  Isabel laughs unconvincingly. ‘I think that’s the idea.’

  So that’s it. Just like that all hope for the future is lost. I’m not so pessimistic that I think Alex asking for a divorce is going to mean that Lorna is in my social life forever. I have no doubt that he’ll get bored soon enough, once he’s made his point, but it’s definitely the end of an era. The end of ‘life as we know it’. Alex and Isabel are finished and there’s no going back. Deep down – well, not even that deep, to be really honest – I was sure that Alex would come to his senses and go home. It just never really occurred to me that he wouldn’t. And I think that Isabel thought it too. Rebecca and Daniel, Alex and Isabel, that’s just how it is.

  I’m feeling depressed by the time I get home.

  ‘Alex is going to ask Isabel for a divorce,’ I say to Dan, thinking he might understand.

  ‘I had a feeling he would,’ he says. ‘I suppose it makes sense. A clean break.’

  ‘That’s what she said. Aren’t you sad about it, though?’ I ask accusingly.

  ‘Of course,’ he says, putting an arm round my shoulders. ‘But things have to change.’

  ‘I don’t see why,’ I say.

  ‘Because that’s how life is. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like it.’

  ‘Not everything. Not us,’ I say, feeling suddenly needy.

  ‘No stupid,’ he laughs. ‘Not us.’

  Oh God. Any minute now I’m going to start asking him if he still loves me and making him promise he’ll never leave me. I get a grip quickly. There’s nothing more guaranteed to frighten even the most loyal partner off than asking for reassurance that they’re not going anywhere.

  It’s like he can sense my insecurity (which hardly makes him telepathic; it’s oozing out of me, all over the nice smoked-oak floor) and, being Dan, he adds, ‘You’re stuck with me, I’m afraid,’ so that I don’t have to ’fess up what a pitiful wimp I am.

  ‘I know,’ I say, a well-rehearsed routine. ‘If only we hadn’t had the kids, I could still be young, free and single.’

  ‘Well, free and single at any rate,’ he says, and we laugh like we always do, safe in the knowledge that everything’s OK in our little world.

  Dan never suffers from insecurities. Or, if he does, he keeps them to himself. He knows that I love him and that’s good enough. He doesn’t need me to keep reassuring him that I haven’t changed my mind. He’ll take it as read that it’s still true until I tell him it isn’t. I envy him his certainty.

  11

  Lorna is on a mission to find new clients. To justify her position as AN AGENT! She comes in a few more minutes late every day, rolling her eyes and waiting for me to ask what she was up to the night before that made her late getting up this morning. In the spirit of trying to pretend I’m being supportive I oblige for a few days and I listen to her breathless descriptions of the amazing new acting or writing talent she has unearthed. Nothing much ever seems to come of it. It usually turns out that her discoveries have already been discovered by somebody else months ago and they already have representation, but she still makes sure we all know about her dedication and her commitment to the cause. After a couple of weeks she does find an actress fresh out of drama school who seems to have some promise and a young would-be TV writer who has written, as she says, ‘a lovely short film,’ and she signs them up proudly and sets about making them superstars. At great expense she has cards made that say ‘Lorna Whittaker. Artist and Writer representation. Mortimer and Sheedy’ with the office address and phone number and she hands them out like Maundy money to anyone who so much as looks in her direction. I’m a little disappointed that her cards don’t simply say ‘I’m AN AGENT!!’ although I guess written down it wouldn’t have quite the same impact as it does when she says it out loud.

  Her new clients – Mary the actress (actually her name is Mhari but Lorna has persuaded her to change it, telling her that no one will be able to pronounce it and therefore will never ask her to audition for anything for fear of making themselves look foolish. Mhari, being new to the profession and filled with gratitude for having been given the chance to be represented by the great Ms Whittaker herself, readily agreed and consigned her cultural heritage to the dustbin without a second thought) and Craig the writer – seem sweet and naive enough to believe they have made an astute career move by signing their lives – and fifteen per cent of their future earnings – over to her. To be fair, though, Mortimer and Sheedy, despite being small, does have a good name and if it’s known for anything then it’s known for bringing on new talent. Melanie and Joshua are well respected. The name will look good on their CVs.

  I read Craig’s short film script when Lorna is out at lunch one day and it’s really not bad. Plus Lorna, it has to be acknowledged, is like a dog with a bone on the line to one of the script editors at Reddington Road, trying to persuade them that Craig is just the kind of fresh young talent they need to nurture through their new-writers scheme. It pays off. They commission him to write a dummy episode – shadowing a real storyline – for no money, but with all the care and attention given to it as if it was the real thing. If he does well, they might give him a real script to write, one that will actually go on air, that he will be paid real money for – no promises. I have to grudgingly admit that Lorna’s pulled it off on this occasion. It’s the kind of break every inexperienced writer dreams about. I suspect that Alex, though he pretends to turn up his nose at soaps, indeed at TV in general – heaven forbid you actually get paid good money for writing something that will reach five million people – would kill to be given the chance.

  Mary is a harder prospect. There is nothing tangible to show a casting director. She has never done anything on tape. Still Lorna pulls favours and gets her an audition for a one-line part in a new fringe play. Nothing comes of it except that Marilyn Carson, the casting director, sends back word that Mary reads well and that she’d certainly see her again for something or other in the future. Meanwhile Lorna advises her to take any old job she can find in any tiny above-a-pub theatre so that people can come and watch her in action. I find myself thinking that’s exactly the advice I would have given her, which is rather disconcerting. Maybe Lorna has found her calling after all. Although what do I know about the way to get a young actress noticed?

  Meanwhile, I am struggling to keep up, doing both my own job and the one Lorna so recently abdicated. She can see I’m overworked. We’re still sharing the reception space while she waits for her new office to be painted (baby blue), so there’s no way for her to miss the fact that I have too much to do. Still she sticks to her guns. If I am on a call and one of the other lines rings, she will sit there ignoring it, staring at me as if to say, ‘Well, go on, answer it; that’s your job.’ We desperately need to bring in someone to replace the old Lorna, but no one seems to be mentioning it. I resolve to have a word with Melanie as soon as I get a moment. Of course, I am terrified they’ll bring in someone even worse, although that’s hard to imagine, but I’m going through my usual ‘maybe it’s better to stick with the devil I know’ routine even though the devil I know is no longer doing the job.

  We pass the day sitting at our desks, me resentful and sulky, her perky, feet up on the desk, reading. I am juggling two phone calls and conscious of the fact that Joshua asked me to make him a coffee fifteen minutes ago when Lorna gets up and sashays across the room to me, dropping a piece of paper on my desk. The paper is covered with a handwritten scrawl and across the top in capitals the words ‘PLEASE TYPE’ scream out at me. I look up questioningly, but she’s halfway out the door with her coat on.

  By the time I have dispatched the two callers (courier company – ‘why haven’t you paid your bill,’ and actor client – ‘I’m lost on my way to an audition’) she’s long gone. I look at the sheet of paper. I turn it over. Maybe what Lorna really meant to give me is on the other side. It’s blank. I scan the words for further clues. It seems to be a CV for Mary. Age, height, attended th
e Central School of Speech and Drama from September 2006 to June 2009, two small-time productions in profit-share theatre as well as a couple of months doing Theatre In Education since. It would take about three minutes to input it on to my computer. That’s not the point. The point is that it would have taken Lorna about three minutes to input it on to her computer too. Now I’m sure she’s taking the piss. I consider going in and talking to Melanie about it, but I feel like all I do is moan and complain these days. I decide to put the paper back on Lorna’s desk. If she wants me to type something for her, she can damn well look me in the eye and ask me to do it face to face. I prop it up on her keyboard where she can’t miss it and settle back down to work.

  ‘How are you getting on?’ Joshua asks me as he walks through reception on his way out to lunch. ‘Not too over worked?’

  ‘Erm…’ I say. ‘Well…’

  He’s gone before I can say anything even if I had decided to. Joshua never really wants to hear the answers to questions like, ‘How are you?’ or, ‘Any problems?’ He likes to be able to tell himself that everything in his kingdom is in order.

  Sixty-seven minutes later Lorna breezes back in. I have my coat on, ready to go out. I look at my watch as she walks straight through to the kitchen to make herself a coffee. At least she didn’t ask me to make it for her, that’s something. I wait until I hear her coming back and then I call out, ‘I’m going for lunch.’

  I’m nearly through the door when I hear her say, ‘Oh, Rebecca?’

  I force myself to stop. ‘I’m going to be late,’ I say, although I have no plans beyond a sandwich in St James’s Square.

  ‘I left something for you,’ she says, not even apologetically. ‘Did you see it?’

  ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Yes. I put it back on your desk.’ I’m not going to offer up the fact that I haven’t typed it up as her note asked. If she wants a fight, then she can start it.