by Jane Fallon
‘Don’t worry. Just so long as she’s OK and everything’s under control. How’s Kay fitting in?’
‘Great,’ I say with genuine enthusiasm, relieved the subject has changed. ‘She’s being a great help.’
Mary has got an audition. Someone called from Reddington Road to book in a time for her and I think they were a little taken aback by how excited I was. It’s only an audition, after all. I was probably the fiftieth person they’d called already about the same role. I don’t care that the chances of her getting the job are probably a hundred to one, she has an audition. I told her I’d get her one and I did. Mary is as delighted as I am – which is a relief because I suddenly realized I should have actually checked she would want to go up for a soap before I agreed that she would see them on Monday morning. Her time is eleven ten which makes me think they are seeing people every ten minutes, six people an hour. Mary has never been to a TV casting before so she asks me what to expect and, thankfully, I know because we have clients who go on them all the time.
‘They’ll probably put you on tape. They’ll give you a couple of scenes when you get there so make sure you arrive at least twenty minutes early to look over them. Someone will read with you and then they’ll chat to you a bit. Honestly, it’ll all be over before you know it.’
‘Thanks, Rebecca,’ Mary says, excited. ‘And thank Lorna for me, won’t you?’
‘Of course.’
I’m on the phone to Isabel. It’s hard to concentrate with Kay talking loudly in the background. (‘Lorna, pick up, pick up, pick up. I’m staying on here till you do.’) Izz is babbling, excited about her and Luke’s first whole night together.
‘We went to this amazing restaurant which must be about five hundred years old. The building, that is. And we had a bottle of champagne and oysters and all that clichéd romantic stuff, but it was romantic. And he’d bought me a book – The Count of Monte Cristo – because we were talking about it the other night and it’s his favourite but I’ve never read it. And then we went back to the hotel and it was just… anyway. I thought I’d never be able to sleep because I’d be uncomfortable being with someone new, but actually I felt so relaxed with him. Not that we slept that much…’
‘OK,’ I interrupt, ‘that’s enough of that. No details. I’m squeamish, remember.’
‘Well, I’ll just say it was fantastic, then. And then this morning we had breakfast together in the room before he had to go off to his meeting. And he’d asked for them to put flowers on the tray…’
‘How lovely.’
‘I’ve decided I really do like him. He’s kind and thoughtful and responsible. All the things that Alex isn’t.’
‘He sounds like a grown-up,’ I say. ‘And Alex is still a child.’
‘Exactly.’
‘So, what are you going to do today?’ She tells me about a few places she’s hoping to visit. It’s freezing, apparently, but the Christmas markets are in full swing so she’s going to brave the snow and wander around those to find some little gifts for the girls. I realize that I haven’t heard her sound this unreservedly happy for years.
‘Have a great time,’ I say. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Kay flapping her arms at me, panicky. ‘I’ve got to go.’
Isabel promises to call me once they get home tomorrow to give me the full low-down.
‘What?’ I say to Kay once I’ve hung up.
‘She’s not answering,’ she says. ‘Not even when I threatened to call the police and the fire brigade and to send Joshua round.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I say. ‘This is ridiculous. What do we do now?’
‘You know her better than me, but… I’m sure she’s fine. She probably just got sick of me phoning all the time.’
‘I don’t even know her address,’ I say. God, is that really the case? I’ve been working with Lorna for six years and all I know is that she lives in Maida Vale somewhere. I don’t even know the road, which given Lorna’s propensity for talking about herself all the time is pretty astounding.
‘It’ll be in a file somewhere,’ Kay says. ‘Or Melanie might have it. Tell her you’re sending flowers. What are you going to do, go round there?’
‘I don’t know. What do you think?’
‘Leave it a couple of hours and I’ll try her again. She’s probably nipped out to the shops. After all, she’s not really sick, is she?’
I’m grateful for Kay’s calm presence. Rationally, I’m sure Lorna is fine. She’s probably listening to her answerphone messages and laughing at how she’s got us both running around. But a small part of me, the part that always gets out of control imagining tragedies and disasters, keeps offering up all kinds of less comforting explanations.
‘I wonder if she’s got any family,’ Kay says, and I realize I don’t really know that either.
‘She might have a sister somewhere,’ is all I can offer up although I can’t remember why I think that might be the case.
I decide I need to do something as a distraction so I call Phil Masterson and, when I say why I am calling, I get put straight through to him.
‘So,’ he says before I really have a chance to explain, ‘you must be psychic. One of our guests has just pulled out for tonight’s show and we were in the middle of making a list of who else might be available. I’d forgotten about Jasmine. She’d be perfect. Is she free? We’d have to get her picked up around four fifteen.’
I look at my watch. It’s half past two now. ‘Gosh, I don’t know. Let me check. What’s the topic?’
‘The use of mitochondrial DNA as evidence. Do you think Jasmine has strong opinions on the use of mitochondrial DNA as evidence?’
‘Jasmine has strong opinions on everything. Let me check that she’s available and I’ll call you straight back.’
‘Fantastic,’ Jasmine says when I call her to let her know they want to book her. I tell her what the topic is and she says, ‘What the fuck is that?’ That’s the trouble with Jasmine, she likes you to think she’s an intellectual but really she hasn’t got a clue. It seems immaterial to her, though; so long as she’s on TV, even if she’s making a fool of herself, she’s happy.
‘Isn’t it from your mother only? Something like that?’ I know this because I spend a lot of time watching trashy real-life crime documentaries on cable. I also know that you can find minute traces of blood on carpets and soft furnishings using something called Luminol, even when they’ve been cleaned over and over again. You never know, it might come in handy one day. ‘Look, if you still want to do it I can do an internet search and email you whatever I find.’
‘Great,’ she says, ‘will you?’
‘Check your email in half an hour.’
‘Oh, and, Rebecca,’ she says as I’m about to hang up, ‘what are they paying?’
‘I don’t know yet. What do you usually get?’
‘They’ll try and palm you off with three hundred and twenty-five, but don’t let them. I should be getting four hundred. I’m a name and who else are they going to get at this short notice?’
‘OK,’ I say a little nervously, although I’m careful not to show her that. Why is nothing ever straightforward? Why does no one ever make an offer that is acceptable in every detail? ‘I’ll try.’
I leave the obligatory message on Lorna’s answerphone. She has still never called me back about Samuel’s Nottingham General deal, so I don’t hold out much hope. Before I call Phil back I check Jasmine’s file and discover that the last time she did the show – a year ago – she only received £300.
‘All you can do is try,’ Kay says. ‘If they say no, then she can take it or leave it. It’ll be up to her.’
She’s right but my mouth still feels dry when I get Phil back on the phone. Suddenly it seems really important that I can do this. I want to be able to go back and tell Jasmine that I, Rebecca Morrison, have personally got her a £400 fee for a job for which she should really have been paid about £75 less.
Phil is delighted that
he has someone – anyone, I imagine – to fill the hole in his line-up.
‘So,’ he says, ‘the standard fee is three twenty-five now. I’ll arrange the –’
I interrupt. ‘The thing is, Phil, Jasmine is going to have to cancel another engagement to free herself up for this. We need to get her four hundred, really.’
Phil sounds taken aback. ‘No one gets four hundred.’
‘Well, that’s what she feels she needs to make it worthwhile.’ I have no idea how stroppy to get, how far I’m meant to push this.
Phil sighs. ‘Our top rate is three seventy-five. And I mean that’s our top rate. That’s what we’d pay Jonathan Miller or Stephen Hawking…’
‘Well, I could try her with that,’ I say. ‘She might be OK as it’s your ceiling.’
I’m sure Phil must want to tell Jasmine to go to hell but he’s a desperate man with a live show going out at six and no guest.
‘Call me back as soon as you can,’ he says, not quite so matey now.
‘God, that’s great,’ Jasmine says when I tentatively break the news. ‘That’s their top rate.’ I stop myself from saying, ‘Why did you tell me to ask for more than that, then?’
‘Don’t forget to find that stuff for me will you,’ she says. ‘I want to look like I know what I’m talking about.’
That would be a first. I finalize things with Phil, and then Kay and I spend twenty minutes researching mitochondrial DNA on the internet. I email Jasmine the salient points and then I realize that half an hour has gone past and I haven’t even had a moment to worry about Lorna. Kay goes through the whole routine on Lorna’s answerphone again, pleading, cajoling, begging Lorna to come to the phone to no avail.
By four o’clock I have decided to leave early and go round to Lorna’s flat to try to find out what’s going on, if we can find her address, that is. No business ever happens on a Friday afternoon, most people seem to go off early to their homes in the country or wherever it is they go. I have my mobile; I’m not going to miss anything. I decide that I need to get Melanie on side, though.
‘I was hoping I might pop round to Lorna’s,’ I say. ‘Take her a few things so she doesn’t feel too out of the loop.’
‘Good idea,’ Melanie says.
‘Only I forgot that I didn’t have her address and rather than call her back and disturb her again I thought maybe you had it.’
She does and she writes it down for me and says of course it’s fine for me to go now – it’s work after all. And, in fact, I should take a taxi on expenses because I must have stuff to carry. I thank her and once again I feel shitty that I am keeping so much from her. I take up her offer of the taxi, though. Having to go and see Lorna is bad enough – I’m not having it encroaching on my Friday evening.
23
Lorna’s flat is in one of those redbrick Victorian mansion blocks that line the streets near Maida Vale tube station. There’s an intercom at the front door, but I’m pretty confident that if I ring the bell and announce myself when she answers then she simply won’t buzz me in. There’s a part of me – quite a big part of me, actually – which is thinking that if she does answer then I could just run away without saying anything. I would have achieved what I came for, which is to find out if she is still in one piece and she would be none the wiser. Tempting as it is, I know that’s the coward’s way out, though.
I wait for someone else to come along and then make apologetic noises about having lost my keys. They let me follow them in without any questions and I walk on up to the first floor and flat number 132. I can hear the TV on inside. I knock loudly and then stand to one side so that she can’t see me if she looks through the spy hole. I haven’t even worked out what I’m going to say to her if she does answer – oh good, you’re alive, well, bye, then – maybe.
It has obviously never occurred to Lorna that I might know where she lives let alone turn up on her doorstep because she answers almost immediately. She’s probably hoping it’s Alex, here to declare that he’s changed his mind and that he’s loved her all along. She looks a fright. She’s still in her dressing gown for a start, never a good sign at a quarter to five in the afternoon. She looks gaunt and her hair is uncombed and sticking out in odd directions as if she’s just got out of bed. There’s a musty smell coming from inside her flat like no one has opened any windows or taken the rubbish out in days. She doesn’t even bother to hide her disappointment, not to mention her disgust, when she sees me standing there.
‘What do you want?’ she says in a flat voice, and I say, ‘I just wanted to check you were all right. You didn’t return Kay’s calls.’
‘Well, now you know. What? Did you think poor pathetic Lorna’s probably topped herself because she has no life? Sorry to disappoint you.’
‘I’ve told everyone you have a virus,’ I say. ‘Everything’s under control. All your clients are fine – in fact Jasmine’s on London at Six tonight – but you might want to think about coming back to work after the weekend, because otherwise it’s going to get hard to explain where you are, OK?’ I think about telling her what is going on with Heather and Mary but it would require too much explanation and she doesn’t look like she would start showering me with gratitude.
I’m backing off. It’s obvious she doesn’t want me here and I don’t want to be here so the best thing I can do is leave.
‘Let me or Kay know if there’s anything that needs doing.’ I turn to go.
I can only imagine how much it irks her, but as I’m walking away, she says, ‘Rebecca.’
I stop and turn round.
‘How’s Alex? Have you seen him?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘I haven’t. Look, Lorna, you need to forget about Alex. He’s not going to have a sudden change of heart and he’s not worth all this. Like I said…’
She bangs the door shut in my face. Good, I think. That went well. I flag down a taxi outside and, once we’re on our way, I call Kay.
‘She’s fine,’ I say. ‘If you call being anorexic, mean and crazy fine.’
Kay laughs. ‘She’s her usual self, then?’
‘Basically.’
‘Do you think she’s going to come back any time soon?’
‘I have no idea,’ I say, and I don’t.
Dan and I are spending our fabulous Friday evening having dinner with Rose and Simon. I have finally persuaded him that we need to interact with other people at some point if we want to stand any chance of having a conversation with anyone other than Isabel and the kids in the next fifty years. To be honest, I’m dreading it myself. They’ve seemed like nice enough people the few times we’ve met them. They’re the best possible new-best-friend candidates of all the people we know. It’s just that we don’t know them that well so the evening will probably be awkward. We’ll tiptoe around each other trying to discover our common ground and maybe, just maybe, we’ll find enough to make all four of us want to meet up again. It’s important that we like both of them equally. We don’t want to get into one of those relationships where we feel duty bound to see someone, but every time we do we’re going, ‘She’s so lovely; it’s a shame he’s such an arse.’ There also needs to be absolutely no hint of any attraction between any of the parties involved. If Rose gets flirty with Dan once she’s had a few drinks, or if Simon tries to hold my gaze across the table for too long, then they’re not the kind of people we want to invite into our lives. It’s complicated, this couples-friendship thing. At least, it is for us at the moment because it feels like there’s so much riding on it. For Rose and Simon it’s probably just an excuse for a night out and some nice food. They have no idea they’re being auditioned for Best New Friend Couple 2010.
It takes me ages to get ready. I want to look nice but not like I’m trying too hard. I change my outfit twice and, at one point, take off all of my make-up and start again. I try to remember what Rose and Simon do for a living. He’s in recruitment, I think, something a bit dull but very well paid. Rose works for a charity, but I can’t remember w
hich one. Some obscure illness maybe. She’ll probably think that what I do is absurdly trivial. They have a daughter in William’s class, Lily, who seems like a nice girl. She came up from the same junior school as him, in fact; that’s how we first met them. At the beginning of the summer all of the kids in William’s year who were going on to Barnsbury Road spent a day familiarizing themselves with the big school and the parents were invited along for the first hour. Rose and I clicked immediately, I remember, both anxious about whether our children would cope. Lily isn’t eccentric like William, but she’s a quiet and nervous little thing and Rose was worried she’d be overwhelmed.
‘How’s Lily Freshney settled in at school?’ I ask William when I go into his room to say goodbye, having given the babysitter strict instructions not to let him turn on any kitchen appliances unless she’s going to be in the room with him.
‘She got an A plus in the maths test,’ he says, and that’s it, that’s as much intel as he can give me, despite the fact that he has spent the best part of the last five years sitting in the same classroom as her for six and a half hours a day.
‘She’s clever, then?’ I ask, and he shrugs. For him, getting an A plus in maths just means you’re normal.
I think they have two younger children too. Harry and Fabia, something like that. A boy and a girl, anyway.
I force myself to resist the urge to say to Dan, ‘Let’s call and tell them one of us is sick and we can get a take-away and cuddle up on the sofa, just the two of us.’ I have to remember why I am doing this. Dan has been moping around the house for weeks now. Although Simon can’t be expected to replace Alex overnight I at least want to find him someone he can pop out for a quick beer with or phone up to talk about the football – something which I’m ill equipped, not to mention unwilling, to do.
‘Come on, then,’ Dan says as we’re on our way out. ‘Let’s get it over with.’ And then, thankfully, he laughs.