“We felt it was time for some new blood.” I can hear the smile in his voice; he likes it when I’m direct. “And I think you and I will deal well together.”
“I do, too,” I say sincerely. “I’m looking forward to working with you.”
“On that note, I’ve had a contract drawn up. It’s fairly standard and has the terms we discussed previously. Shall I send it across now?”
“Perfect.” I pause, then add, “Though I should mention that we’ll require the retainer fee to be paid quarterly in advance.” If he agrees, Channing Associates is definitely solvent. If not, we have some creative accounting to do to get through the three months until the fee comes in. I find I’m holding my breath.
“I can’t see a problem with that. Just amend the draft.”
Yes! The fizzing has spread to my limbs now; my legs are literally jiggling with suppressed excitement. “I’ll do that, and we’ll get it back to you as soon as possible. We’re keen to start making progress for you.”
“Excellent. Speak again soon.”
“Absolutely. And thank you again. This is fantastic news.”
I put the phone down and put both palms to my flushed cheeks for a moment, feeling my cheeks bunch in a wondering smile. I look across at the empty desk. “Julie!”
“What?” she calls from the outer room.
“We got it!” I spin in my chair exultantly.
“Got what?”
“The contract!” I’m on my feet now, on my way to her room, but she’s moving, too; we meet in the doorway. “Haft & Weil. We got it!” I realize I’m actually bouncing.
“That’s fantastic!” Impulsively she grabs my hands and begins jumping with me. From the look of relief on her face, I wonder if I should have been paranoid about keeping her as well as Paul.
The external door opens, and Paul comes in, cursing at his disposable cup, which is dripping latte everywhere. He looks askance at Julie and me, still bouncing, our smiles as wide as our mouths can stretch. “What?” He dumps the leaking cup on Julie’s desk and looks from me to Julie and back again, nonplussed. “What?”
“We got it!” I croon. “We got it, we got it, we got it!”
“Haft & Weil?” he asks urgently. “Really?”
I nod, beaming at him. “Awesome!” he roars. “Haft & fucking Weil! Fucking awesome!” Then he’s slinging an arm round each of our shoulders and all three of us are jumping together and grinning inanely, and I think: I should remember times like this, remember perfectly. I should bottle them somehow. You don’t know how many of these moments you might have in your life.
CHAPTER SEVEN
By the time I reach the pub a few minutes after seven, I am drunk. Mostly drunk on excitement and drunk on relief, but the champagne Paul nipped out to buy and cracked open in the office has played its part, too. Paul, Julie and I sat on the floor and ate posh crisps whilst drinking the bubbly from mugs. Paul was still shaking his head and saying at regular intervals, “Haft & fucking Weil!” with a broad smile and looking at me with something akin to renewed respect; and Julie was flushed and decidedly unsteady when she eventually left to catch her train. I thought, if we succeed, we will be telling this story in years to come: the anecdote of how Channing Associates celebrated their first big win.
But here and now I’m mildly tipsy, standing just inside the door of the pub once again scanning for Tom. This time I spot him at a table; he’s been here long enough to be a third of the way through a pint, with what looks like a vodka tonic waiting for me on the table. His attention is on his phone, and he’s had a haircut. For a moment it throws me off balance: he looks sharper, older—other. But then he looks up and catches sight of me; he gets up to deliver his trademark hug, his face breaking into a welcoming grin, and I see he still has freckles on his nose—he’s Tom again.
“You look . . . suspiciously happy,” he says, releasing me and cocking his head in confusion.
I nod and slip into the chair opposite him. My smile needs very little encouragement this evening, already it’s spreading across my face. “That miracle I needed. It happened. We just landed a major contract.” I adopt a contrite expression. “I’m really sorry for not being miserable.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, that’s fantastic!” He waves away my apology, looking genuinely delighted for me. “I’d much rather toast your success than drown my sorrows. Who did you land?”
“Haft & Weil,” I say proudly, taking the vodka tonic he slides across the table to me. “With a big enough retainer to tide us over for a little while. But I’m quietly confident we’ll nail the performance fee, and this big a contract is great publicity, I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a lot more interest after this—”
“Breathe,” he teases affectionately.
“I know, I know; only . . . I really thought we were fucked.” The last few days catch at me: the ever-present dread, the seemingly inevitable failure looming over me. I take a deep breath and try to rid myself of the memory, but an echo of it lingers.
“I know,” Tom says soberly. “I could hear it in your voice on the phone.”
“One contract does not a business make, but still . . .”
“You have to celebrate the wins,” Tom says, almost fiercely. “They’re important. Regardless of . . . well, regardless.” He looks away, almost as if he’s embarrassed by his own vehemence.
I take a sip of the vodka tonic. “Well, cheers. And thanks for this. Anyway, tell me about your dreadful day. How many did they let go?”
“Hundreds,” he says tiredly. “About fifteen percent all told, apparently. A massacre. The thing is, I’m head of the desk now, so . . .”
“Oh God.” My hand is at my mouth. No wonder he’s had such an awful day. “You had to do some of the firing.”
He nods bleakly. “Four guys. Well, three guys and a girl, actually. I barely knew them—Jesus, I’m fresh off the plane; I’ve barely had a chance to get to know anyone. At least I didn’t have to decide who; the list was already fixed.” He takes a swallow from his pint then stares gloomily at it for a moment, slumped in his chair with the pint at the end of his outstretched arms. “I knew there was some kind of restructuring afoot when I moved back here, but I wasn’t expecting this. I only heard the details two days ago.”
“Do you think it made it easier that you didn’t know them? Who you were, well, firing, I mean.” I wince a little on the key word.
He shrugs. “I don’t know. On the one hand, yes—it’s not like I know if they have families to support or anything. On the other hand . . . shouldn’t it be personal? I mean, you work all hours for a firm—granted you expect to be paid for it, but it’s an emotional thing, too; you work hard for your colleagues, you have a laugh with them, you have the odd drink with them . . . Don’t you deserve to have someone who actually knows you shake your hand and say—God, I don’t know what. Thank you? It’s been a pleasure? You’re really good, this is not the end for you . . .” He shakes his head and stares across the table at his pint again. “Something. I don’t know.”
“Oh, Tom.” There is nothing I can think of to say to that. I take a drink and am surprised to see my glass is almost empty. We sit in brooding silence for a moment. Around us the pub is getting busier and louder.
“You know, there’s a good chance at least one of them was really crap,” I say eventually, with mock seriousness. “Or had bad breath.”
The corner of his mouth tweaks upward a little. “One of the blokes was quite sweaty,” he concedes. “Unpleasantly so. And the girl dressed like she was still a student. Not jeans or anything, but ridiculous floaty skirts that were too short for a trading floor, of all places. And no tights.”
“There you go. Definitely best not to be personal, then.”
He nods, a ghost of a smile in place, then pulls himself a little more upright. “You know, I used to think that we’d get wherever
we got in life because of hard work, because we deserved it,” he muses, elbows on the table. “Don’t get me wrong: the hard work definitely counts. It’s just that luck seems to play a much bigger part than I ever figured.”
I think of Theo, of Severine. Luck, or lack thereof. It’s an uncomfortable thought. Blaming luck means it could have been any of us: there but for the grace of God . . .
He visibly shakes himself. “Anyway, another?”
“Let me get them.”
“Nope. You haven’t got the money in the door yet; this is still on me.” He flashes a quick grin. “When you float Channing Associates for millions, you can pay me back. With interest.”
I grin back, then watch him head toward the bar. As the bartender works his order, he checks his phone again, or perhaps it’s his work BlackBerry, and for a second the otherness is there again: Tom, but not Tom. Or a different Tom from the one I used to know.
* * *
—
The evening wears on, and we move to a pizza place nearby, where Lara joins us, she and I facing Tom across the table meant for four. We are celebrating, but not; we are commiserating, but not—it was a delicate balance in the pub, but Tom and I were managing it; now Lara’s presence is thoroughly destroying the equilibrium. Tom has become more taciturn, Lara is twitchy, and I’m too watchful, though not sober enough to interpret anything I see. And all the while Severine sits at the table too, coolly offhand as if utterly uninterested, although I suspect she’s taking in every nuance with those black eyes.
“At least we’re done with Modan,” Tom says, out of the blue, unless I missed the segue—or perhaps I’m not the only one who cannot ignore Severine. Lara is peeling the label from a bottle of San Pellegrino. For a moment her hands still, then she takes up the task again.
“You are done with him, right?” Tom persists, looking at me.
I don’t look at Lara. “I think so.”
“Did he interview Seb?” Lara asks; now it’s her turn to avoid looking sideways. She sounds brittle and self-conscious; I wonder if she already knows the answer.
Tom looks at me carefully, if a little blearily. “Yep, today,” he says mildly.
Lara is looking at me warily too. “It’s okay,” I say testily. “You’re allowed to mention Seb’s name around me. I’m not going to freak out.” They’re still looking at me. “Seriously, guys,” I say in exasperation. “It was a long time ago. And we’ll be living in the same city, so . . .” I shrug, unwilling to complete the sentence. So . . . what? So . . . we’re bound to run into each other? So . . . we’ll have to be civil? So . . . we’ve both moved on? Severine turns her black eyes on mine, and for once the expression within them is entirely clear: scorn. It jolts me.
“In that case, how is Seb?” Lara asks Tom.
“Traitorous cow,” I say, tongue in cheek. Tom gives a short bark of laughter, then frowns a little and peers at the red wine in his glass, as if uncertain what it might be. Beer before wine, makes you feel fine . . .
“I don’t know, actually,” he admits. “I saw him the other night, but only briefly, and Alina was with him and we couldn’t really talk.” He frowns again, slumping down even farther in his chair. “There’s something . . . You know, he’s not in great shape. Physically, I mean, which is unlike him; you know how he likes to work out. I don’t know . . .”
I see Seb, what used to be my favorite image of Seb, wearing jeans but his chest still bare—the classic Levi’s model look. His beauty is heartbreaking; it’s too much, he’s too vital, it’s impossible to look at him without an awareness that it cannot last. An awareness of mortality.
Tom is still musing. “Caro’s seen him, too, a couple of times I think. I should ask her what she thinks.”
Caro has seen him a couple of times. Severine looks at me deliberately, a secretive smirk lurking near her mouth. I search for something to say to keep up my end of the conversation. “So you haven’t managed to show off your car to him yet.” Tom smiles and shakes his head. “He’ll be envious.”
“I don’t know why,” says Lara, still busy with the bottle. “It’s not like he would ever have bought it himself. He wouldn’t be that original.” I look at Tom and see my own surprise registering on his face. Lara lifts her head on our silence. “What? He’s not. He likes to follow the trend, not set it.”
“That’s not entirely fair,” begins Tom, then stops.
I’m still gazing at Lara. She’s right, it’s entirely fair, but I would never have seen it that way myself. Lara is a very smart girl, academically speaking, but she’s not usually overly given to psychological analysis. “When did you get so insightful?” I murmur.
She ducks her head and turns her attention to shredding a napkin. Alarm bells ring in my mind, and I feel the reverberations in my stomach. “Have you been talking about us again?” I ask urgently.
She turns her head and gives me an accusatory look; I wince internally as I belatedly remember our audience. It’s too late now: Tom sits up a little, aware he’s missed something.
“What?” he says, when neither of us speak or break our shared eye contact.
After a beat or two she concedes, rolling her eyes. “Go on then,” she says, turning back to her napkin.
I turn to Tom. There is no easy way to say this, but I try to find one. “Lara has become . . . friendly . . . with our favorite French detective.”
He’s already sitting still, but on hearing my words it seems as if even the blood in his veins has stopped moving. After a moment he says, “I see,” his face blank and his voice emotionless.
“No, you don’t see,” says Lara, suddenly close to tears. “Nothing is happening, nothing will happen, until this bloody investigation is cleared up, and now that’s going to take even longer—” She stops abruptly, then balls up the napkin and pushes it away from her, not looking at either of us.
“Why is it going to take even longer?” I ask uneasily. She doesn’t answer. “Lara, why?” I demand more urgently.
She shakes her head, but she’s still Lara, she’s still the sunshine girl and she can’t keep a secret, either from us or from Modan. “Because they managed to speak with the brother,” she says miserably. “The builder brother, I mean. He said he filled in the well on the Saturday. The day we left.”
“But—” I’m abruptly cut off by the appearance of the waitress with our long overdue pizzas. I look at Tom in consternation as she busies herself laying them in front of us. His face is still blank, shuttered tight, presumably against revealing his feelings about Lara and Modan. Still, it crosses my mind that he doesn’t seem surprised about the well; that he hasn’t seemed surprised about anything, right from when he first called me.
“But—” I say again. This time I’m stopped by an infinitesimal shake of Tom’s head. He cuts his eyes deliberately to Lara, whose head is down as she recovers her composure, the high spots in her cheeks gradually fading. Then he looks back, and the tiny headshake comes again. The message is clear: not in front of Lara.
Lara lifts her head, and her China blue eyes are full of anxiety. “I shouldn’t have told you that,” she frets, her gaze jumping from me to Tom and back again. “Please don’t tell anyone I told you that.”
“Lara, it’s us,” I reassure soothingly. “Of course we won’t tell.” Tom nods in agreement, while I wonder, who would we tell? And why would Modan mind?
“Okay,” she says, only slightly mollified. “It’s just that, well, he was so disappointed not to be able to rule us all out. We were planning to meet up in Paris next weekend, and now . . .” She looks down at her pizza, tears hovering.
In a moment of alcohol-fueled clarity I see what Lara feels like she’s lost. Not just a weekend away, with all the anticipation and intoxication of clothes-tearing-off sex with someone new. Lara sees it as possibly the first weekend of the rest of her life. I can’t remember if I felt like that w
ith Seb. The clothes-tearing-off phase I remember. But nobody gets married at university these days, or anytime soon after. I always thought we were playing a long game. In France I realized he’d stopped playing altogether.
“In that case, you’ll just have to spend the weekend with us instead,” I say, putting my hand on hers. “I foresee two days of epic frivolity. Shopping on the King’s Road. Maybe some romcom watching in there, too. Certainly a lot of decadent eating out and absolutely too much white wine.” I’m rewarded by a heartfelt, if tearful, smile from Lara.
“I can cope with the romcom, but can I skip the shopping?” asks Tom dryly.
“Nope,” says Lara, gamely trying to recover her equilibrium. “You look like an American. You definitely need to update your wardrobe if you want to be a passably metrosexual male in London.”
“Do I want to be a metrosexual male? What exactly is a metrosexual male?”
I eat my pizza and watch them bat back and forth, the same as they’ve always done. Except I don’t know if it’s the same. They were like this before that week in France, and they were like this when they were sleeping together—but surely there must have been differences, some nuances I missed. And now, Tom has realized that Lara is in love, or at least infatuated, with someone other than himself. How can they behave just the same? Perhaps it’s a pattern, a learned behavior that one drops into by rote. Perhaps I’ll learn something similar with Seb and we’ll skate lightly over the surface together whenever we meet in London. How very British. Everything’s fine, just don’t mention the war . . .
As we’re finishing up, Lara slips off to the bathroom. Tom watches her go, his face unreadable. I dither on whether to attack the situation head-on. He’s never spoken to me directly about her—in the same way that he and I don’t discuss Seb—but maybe in this instance I should extend an invitation.
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