by Jane Fallon
‘I didn’t get any email,’ she says. ‘Otherwise I would have made sure Craig had all the details. I mean, we haven’t even discussed an offer for him. Why would I allow him to attend a story conference?’
It’s all coming back to me. ‘That’s what the message said. That someone had dropped out and they needed him to fill in at very short notice. They gave the date and time of the story conference and said his fee would be their lowest rate, the one for writers with no experience. They said you should call them if there was a problem with that or just to confirm that it would be OK. I wrote it all out.’
‘I told you,’ she says. ‘I didn’t get the message.’
‘Could I just have a look on your computer?’ I say. ‘I know it’s there.’
She puts her hand over her mouse protectively. ‘You must have forgotten to let me know and now I’m going to have to call Craig and explain and then try to persuade Reddington Road to give him another shot.’
‘I told them he was sick,’ I say. ‘And that his girlfriend didn’t let us know.’ There’s no point me trying to argue with her any more. She’s decided she’s not going to take responsibility and that’s that.
‘Fine,’ she says curtly. ‘I’ll see if I can salvage the situation.’
I turn on my heel to leave, but I can’t bear just to let her put all the blame on me without saying anything in my own defence. ‘I did email you,’ I say as I leave. ‘Oh, and, Lorna, it might help if you didn’t sit here with the phone off the hook for hours on end. That way you could actually speak to people rather than rely on messages.’
She ignores me. ‘Oh, hi, Craig,’ she says into the phone as I shut the door. ‘I am so sorry. Rebecca never gave me the message…’
And I know that when I check my sent emails there will be one from me to her detailing the whole thing, but that if I look at her in box next time she goes out there will be no trace of any message from me on the subject.
I have to admit that it’s unlike her, though. Craig getting this break is a big deal, the first real job any one of her clients has got under her patronage. I would have expected her to have dealt with it with great efficiency and then to have been unbearably smug around the office. The phone thing strikes me as a little weird too. How long had she been sitting there like that? I had tried to put at least three calls through to her in the past couple of hours and had got the engaged signal each time. Has she spent the whole morning sitting there with the phone off the hook, staring into space?
I spend the rest of the day waiting for some kind of ramifications. I’m hoping that even Lorna isn’t stupid enough to go to Joshua or Melanie with this one because, although I can’t prove that she ever received my email, I can show that I sent it. It seems that she’s worked that one out too because nothing more happens. Fine. She’s won her small victory; she’s saved face with her client and hopefully managed to retain the commission. She knows she’s in the wrong but, so long as she never tries to use it against me I can live with her rewriting of the truth. From Monday I can pass all messages for her over to Kay. There will be no reason for us to communicate at all.
Dan has told Alex that I am going out for the evening in order to entice him over to the house. In reality I’m worried about what is going to happen between them so I am going to be hiding out in the bedroom, finger poised over the 9 key on my mobile in case it all kicks off. The kids have been packed off to Auntie Isabel’s for the night in order to avoid seeing their father murder his best friend, their honorary uncle. Dan is on edge, hyped up with adrenalin and anger. He tells me that he could barely stop himself from calling Alex all day, screaming down the phone at him that he knows all about his betrayal. His fury worries me, but what actually bothers me more is what will replace it when it’s gone. When he realizes that he’s lost his buddy. The friend he’s spoken to several times a day every day for nearly thirty years. I can’t imagine Dan and Alex’s friendship surviving this or, if by some miracle it does, ever being the same again. And I don’t really know what Dan is going to do without it.
‘Don’t go crazy,’ I say to him just before I retreat to the bedroom with my glass of wine and bowl of pasta. ‘Just get it all off your chest and you’ll feel better.’
He’s pacing up and down the hallway like a circus tiger waiting for his chance to bite the face off his trainer.
‘Stay put,’ he says. ‘I don’t want you having to get caught up in this any more.’
‘I will,’ I say obediently. I have absolutely no desire to see Alex.
‘This is between me and him now,’ Dan says, pushing his hair back from his face. I notice he’s sweating. ‘I’ve known him since my first term at secondary school, can you believe that? And he does this to me.’
‘I know,’ I say. ‘Calm down.’
‘I am calm,’ he says in a way that only someone who is most definitely not calm can. ‘I can handle it.’
The doorbell rings and I give Dan a quick kiss before he goes to answer it.
‘I love you,’ I say as I shut the bedroom door.
I hear Alex’s cheery, ‘All right, mate,’ and then the next thing I hear is a thud and a crash and I forget all about the fact that I was intending to hide, and run out into the hall to see Alex lying on the floor with blood pouring from his nose and Dan standing over him looking like he doesn’t quite know what just happened.
‘What the fuck…?’ Alex is saying, wiping the blood from his face. Then he sees me. ‘Oh.’
Dan, who clearly learned to fight in some kind of seventeenth-century school for polite combat, helps Alex to his feet before starting to hurl accusations at him. Alex, to give him some credit, takes it and waits for Dan to shout himself out before saying, ‘I’ve totally and utterly fucked everything up, OK. I know that.’
‘Just tell me this,’ Dan says. ‘If Rebecca had said yes, would you have gone through with it? Would you have broken up my marriage?’
Alex looks at the floor. ‘I guess so. I hadn’t really thought it through. I was never intending to actually do anything about it and then it all got too much for me and next thing I knew I’d left Izz and… well, it just came out. And once it had I couldn’t take it back. It was a mistake.’ He looks at me with complete and utter disdain. ‘I realize that now. A total and absolute mistake.’
Dan says nothing for a moment and then says, ‘So you might have broken up my marriage and then decided it had all been a big mistake. Does that make it any better?’
‘No. Of course not. I just mean… Well, I didn’t want you to worry that I still think I’m in love with her. Because I don’t. I’m not.’
‘Oh, that makes it OK, then,’ Dan says sarcastically. ‘Let’s all go back to normal. Hey, let’s book a holiday together.’
‘There’s nothing I can say except that I’m sorry. I can’t change what happened. I’m just saying if no one had told you about it then it would have blown over naturally, that’s all.’ He looks at me accusingly.
I say nothing.
‘Rebecca didn’t tell me,’ Dan says. ‘Lorna did.’
Alex looks taken aback for a moment. ‘When did you see Lorna?’
‘She came round here to tell me what a good friend you were. I take it this is the reason the two of you broke up?’
Alex throws a half glance my way. ‘Rebecca was the reason we broke up.’
‘You expect me to feel sorry for you?’ Dan says. ‘You’ve lost your girlfriend of five minutes. I nearly lost my twenty-year marriage.’
‘No,’ I say quickly. ‘You didn’t.’
‘But that’s what he hoped would happen. What he was trying to make happen. My best friend.’
‘Dan,’ Alex says. ‘I don’t know what to say to you. It was a mistake, a huge fucking great mistake and I’m going to regret it for the rest of my life. I just want – I need – to know that there’s a chance we can get past this. You’re my best mate. I…’ His voice cracks and for a second I almost feel sorry for him, but I have to say I g
et over it pretty quickly. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
He waits for Dan to say something and when he doesn’t Alex says, ‘Please, Dan. Can we talk about it? Something…?’
‘I told you I’ve got nothing to say to you. I don’t want to hear from you. I don’t want you to call me, OK? Now go. Fuck off. I mean it.’
‘Dan.’ Alex doesn’t move. He looks lost. Dan – who I have never seen this angry before in the whole time I’ve known him – is looking like he might be sick.
‘That’s it, Alex. If you really feel as bad as you say you do, then fuck off and leave me alone because that’s what I want.’
Alex still doesn’t move so Dan shouts, ‘Now!’ in such a loud voice that I momentarily find myself wondering what the neighbours must be thinking. Alex finally takes the hint and goes. He looks at me briefly as he leaves, but I look away because I just don’t know what else to do. This has all got so out of hand, so crazy.
Dan is shaking so I put my arms round him and try to tell him that it will all be OK although I don’t really believe it will be. How do you replace a thirty-year friendship just like that? I know how much Dan loves me, but I also know he needs more than just me in his life. I pull out of the hug and it hits me that Dan is crying, which floors me. I put my face against his and we stand like that for a while. Eventually I say, ‘I’m sorry.’
He looks at me. ‘None of this is your fault,’ he says for the second time. ‘It’s all down to him.’
17
I have to decide how much I’m going to tell Isabel about what has been going on. Although obviously we’re never all together any more she’s bound to pick up that Alex and Dan have had a big bust-up somewhere. We have other mutual acquaintances who will realize something is wrong soon enough and report back. Alex and Lorna are both loose cannons careening around out of control. After what has happened with Dan I’m not in the mood for keeping secrets any more, but I’m also not prepared to steam in and tell her that her marriage was a sham for the most part. Dan and I talk it over before I leave to pick up the kids on Saturday morning. I want his approval for whatever I do next. We decide on a slightly rewritten and altogether more palatable version of the truth and I steel myself to try and crowbar it into the conversation in as natural a way as I can.
Isabel has always been the mother of the group, despite the fact that she’s also its only career woman. She’s the kind of woman who has always seemed to have it all – the job, the house, the beautiful twins, the doting husband (OK, so we were all wrong about that one) – but you couldn’t begrudge her that because she was so sweet and kind and thoughtful. Even her good looks are forgivable because she’s blonde and soft and pretty in a way that it’s impossible to find threatening. She always thinks the best of everyone until she’s proved wrong – the polar opposite of me. And she’s propped me up so many times I can’t even remember. I just always know she’s there when I need her. She would do anything for anybody, never forgets a birthday or an anniversary, is both a good mother and daughter and for twenty years was a devoted and supportive wife. To say she doesn’t deserve what has happened to her is like saying that having your puppy put down because he sneezed once was a bit harsh. Which is to say it’s an understatement. I’d do anything to prevent her being hurt even more.
William is sitting on a pile of cushions on one of the kitchen chairs when I let myself in, napkin tied round his neck like a bib. Nicola and Natalie are taking it in turns to ‘feed the baby’ and spooning some kind of porridgy breakfast cereal into his mouth.
‘Hi, girls,’ I say, and I kiss my youngest on the top of his head. ‘Having a good time?’
‘He’s being a very good baby,’ Natalie says, and she pats him on the head and then kisses him too, which explains why he seems to be going along with it so happily.
‘I think the baby’s got wind,’ Nicola is saying as I head out of the kitchen looking for Isabel. ‘Let’s burp him.’
Zoe is lying on the sofa in the living room texting as usual. ‘Hi, Mum,’ she says without looking up.
‘I’m going to chat to Auntie Isabel for a bit before we go,’ I say. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Great,’ she says. ‘Will you drop me off at Kerrie’s on the way home? She wants to go shopping.’
‘Sure.’ I wait for her to say, ‘You and Auntie Isabel can come in here and talk and I’ll go in the other room,’ but she’s thirteen so she doesn’t. I retreat.
‘Where is Auntie Isabel by the way?’ I say as I leave and Zoe shrugs. ‘Dunno.’
Eventually I find her upstairs making one of the beds so I pitch in and help, looking for a way to casually bring up the subject of Alex.
‘Oh, did I tell you Alex left you because he’s in love with me?’
‘Guess what? Dan punched Alex in the face last night and then told him to fuck off out of our lives forever. And all because of me!’
Maybe not.
Izz is telling me about how Zoe spent the evening teaching the girls all the lyrics to the whole of Lily Allen’s back catalogue. On the one hand I’m delighted that my surly teenager bothered to spend time taking notice of her two young non-blood-related cousins. I remind myself that Lily Allen is a good role model: a strong, independent, successful young woman who is actually famous for something other than taking her clothes off. On the other hand, though, the idea of my two adorable little surrogate nieces running around the playground singing ‘I want loads of clothes and fuck loads of diamonds’ but without the irony doesn’t seem like such a great idea. Still, Isabel seems to think it’s funny so I guess that’s all that matters.
‘They idolize Zoe,’ she says, and I find myself apologizing. I’m sure Isabel doesn’t want them acting like sulky adolescents any sooner than is going to happen naturally.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ she laughs. ‘They’re a nightmare already. Look at what they’re doing to William.’
I take a deep breath. ‘Izz,’ I say, ‘you know Alex and Lorna broke up?’
She nods.
‘Well, there’s a bit more to it than I told you before.’ She looks at me, curious. ‘Nothing bad,’ I say. ‘At least not really.’
And I tell her the whole story, leaving out the part about Alex telling me he’d been in love with me for years and that that was the reason he couldn’t stay with her any more pretty much. I manage to make it sound like a ridiculous drunken pass, a one-time thing. An embarrassing but not devastating revelation.
She laughs nervously. ‘God, do you think he’s been having some kind of mid-life crisis?’
‘Definitely,’ I say. A mid-life crisis that has apparently been going on since he was in his twenties. I have to make it sound like what I said to Lorna was wildly exaggerated, which luckily Isabel thinks is funny.
It’s a little more difficult to make Dan’s reaction sound reasonable when I am downplaying Alex’s bad behaviour so radically. Isabel knows that Dan is not, by nature, jealous or irrational. He’s never hit anyone before. He’s barely ever raised his voice.
‘I think it’s a bloke thing,’ I say, clutching at straws. ‘They take loyalty between mates so seriously. You’ve seen all those war films where they take bullets for each other. I’m sure he’ll calm down.’
I’m not sure about this last statement at all, but, anyway, it seems like the only way to get off the subject of Dan’s seemingly out of proportion aggression. Thankfully she buys it.
‘Poor you and Dan,’ she says, rubbing my arm. ‘Getting mixed up in our mess.’
‘We’ll live,’ I say. ‘Have you spoken to Luke?’ I ask after a few moments, once I think it’s safe to change course.
‘I have,’ she says, and she looks like an excited adolescent. ‘He called me from Zurich yesterday. Are you still OK to have the girls on Monday night?’
‘Of course. Me and Zoe are going to teach them how to smoke crack.’
‘Don’t even joke about it.’
‘So, what did he say? Switzerland is a barren wa
steland without you?’
‘Something like that. No, he just told me what he’s been doing and then we chatted about all sorts of stuff. He’s really easy to talk to. He was at some function or other but he stood outside in the snow and we talked for about an hour.’
I can’t help envying her the excitement of it all. Not that I’d trade Dan in for anyone, but there’s that feeling of being alive when you first meet someone, of being young and a little bit out of control, that’s pretty overwhelming. Isabel even looks different. She’s lost a couple of pounds, not that she needed to. Her skin’s glowing. She’s animated. As much as anything – nice as I’m sure Luke is – I assume it’s from the validation that she’s still an attractive woman, the possibility that there are men out there who will be interested in her. Smart, intelligent, good-looking men at that. At least I assume he’s good looking. Who cares anyway so long as he’s nice to her and she has fun.
‘Well, he’d better appreciate how lucky he is,’ I say, and I give her a hug.
I wake up on Monday morning feeling that at least the world can move on now. It couldn’t really have turned out worse than that Dan ended up the major casualty in all this, but at least now everything is out in the open and we can all start picking up the pieces.
When I arrive at the office ten minutes early Kay is standing on the doorstep looking smart and scrubbed up in that ‘first day on a new job’ way.
‘Hi,’ I say. ‘You’re keen.’
‘I always was a swot,’ she says, smiling.
We go upstairs and I show her round the little suite of rooms and where to put her coat. I make her a coffee in the tiny kitchen and talk her through how Joshua and Melanie like theirs.
‘What about Lorna?’ she says. I have already decided that I have to be grown-up about Lorna as far as Kay’s concerned, so I just say, ‘Black, no sugar,’ and leave it at that. I even manage not to roll my eyes as I say it. I show her which is her desk and then talk her through the phone system. I don’t want to overload her so I give her a file with all our clients’ CVs in so that she can familiarize herself with who’s who – given that she won’t have heard of ninety per cent of them before – and I tell her that I’ll answer all the calls this morning, but that she should listen in to get more of an idea of what goes on.