by Emlyn Rees
Laurent looks at me and I’m aware of my lipstick and that I may have just been far too forward, but when he smiles slowly, relief rushes through me.
He is pleased to see me.
‘So?’ he repeats, teasing me.
I study the contours of his face – the way his eyebrow is arched and the cheekiness of the boyish dimples in his cheeks and, without thinking, I step awkwardly across the gap of patterned carpet between us and into his personal space.
‘I missed you,’ I whisper, reaching out to finger the cloth of his suit, remembering how snugly I fit under his arm.
‘Oh Helen,’ sighs Laurent. His accent is like a caress and I close my eyes, leaning towards him for a hug. But instead of catching me and holding me tight as I’m expecting him to, he grips me by my upper arms.
‘I don’t think you understand,’ he says, his eyes gentle as he looks down into my face.
‘Understand what?’
Laurent straightens up and lets go of me.
‘About your visit,’ he begins. ‘It was . . . how shall I say . . . ?’ He looks like he’s trying to describe a tricky wine, but in the end plumps for, ‘very special’.
I stand very still. Even with his heavy French accent, I can still hear the ‘but’ in his voice.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh dear.’ He looks amused as he clocks my expression. ‘I hope you have not got the wrong idea.’
‘Wrong idea?’
‘We cannot continue this . . .’ he waves his hand between us as if dispersing a nasty smell, ‘thing.’
‘Thing?’ I repeat.
Laurent comes towards me again, but I back away, nodding my head as the extent of my foolishness catches up with me.
‘You are a beautiful woman,’ he says, but I can’t bear to hear any more.
‘You used me,’ I interrupt, shakily.
‘I think we used each other,’ he smiles, ‘for a lot of pleasure.’
I stare at the carpet. I can feel my eyes smarting with anger and the bitter sting of foolishness.
‘Can’t we be friends?’ he asks, putting his finger under my chin and lifting my face to his, but I rip my head away and he lets his hand drop just as Will, our chief executive, bursts through the door, followed by Eddie.
‘Laurent, old chap!’ he says, his arms stacked with files and video. His cheeks are red as he dumps everything on the table and bounds over to us.
‘You’ve met Helen. Great, great,’ he gushes.
Eddie runs his hand through his hair and looks nervously at me as Will embraces Laurent. He always gets nervous in front of Will and I shouldn’t really be here. I pick up my file and shuffle the papers inside, feeling my eyes smarting.
‘Right. Smashing,’ says Will, putting his hands on his hips and nodding eagerly. ‘How are things back home?’ he gushes to Laurent. ‘Your wife?’
Wife?
‘And kids?’
I close my eyes. My knees are locked and every muscle in my body is tense.
‘They’re all fine, thank you,’ says Laurent, graciously.
‘Great. Smashing,’ says Will again, rubbing his hands together. ‘Shall we get on, then?’
I stare at Laurent, but my legs feel rooted to the carpet.
‘Helen?’ says Eddie, pointedly. ‘It’s nice that you’ve caught up with Laurent. Now perhaps we could have those schedules, please?’
‘Oh . . . right,’ I mumble, straightening up and flinging the file in front of Eddie as I stumble to the door.
Susie
Tuesday, 19.30
‘Come on, Sooze. Dirt, please,’ says Amy, looking over her shoulder at me. She’s by her kitchen sink, repotting a plant, and she’s the one that’s dirty, with soil up to her elbows and sprinkled around her feet.
‘You know everything, already. There’s nothing more to tell.’ I shrug, laying the table for us, admiring the trendy lilac placemats. I’ve invited myself round for dinner, since Jack’s out and Stringer has stood me up. Besides, if I spend one more minute pacing round my flat with only Pot Noodles for nourishment, I’ll go mad.
Amy presses down the soil around the plant and her newly cut hair swings above her shoulders.
‘That looks better,’ she says, as she puts the fern back in its saucer on the windowsill.
‘What’s going on?’ I ask, sitting down and looking round me. ‘It’s spotless.’
‘Jack,’ she laughs. ‘When he finally got over his hangover, he had a flip about the state of the place. He hates me being such a slob, so he went berserk with the Mr Muscle.’
I laugh at the thought of Jack with a pair of Marigolds on.
‘Guilt, probably,’ chuckles Amy. ‘I left him to it. Anyway, this domestic splurge won’t last. He’s getting the final load of his stuff from Matt’s, so no doubt we’ll be overrun with his bachelor bygones,’ she says, screwing up the newspaper from the draining board.
‘Eeeeuk! Porn mags, other girls’ knickers, cheesy love letters, bad compilation tapes, I know the stuff,’ I nod. ‘How rank.’
Amy looks me up and down. ‘Jack? No no no. It’ll only be old teddies and childhood photographs,’ she says sweetly, as she stuffs the newspaper in the swing bin.
‘You wish,’ I laugh.
She gives me one of her best prison-warden looks. ‘We shall exterminate all traces of the past,’ she warns.
‘Ouch! Quite the tough wife you are, aren’t you?’ I tease.
‘As if!’ she laughs, as she comes over to me, wiping her hands on a tea-towel, before throwing it at me.
‘Now you,’ she cautions, ‘stop changing the subject. I want to hear all about Stringer.’
‘What?’ I ask cagily.
Amy puts her feet up on the chair, picks up a fork and starts picking out the dirt from under her fingernails.
‘Well, for starters, does he justify being called “Horse”?’ She looks up at me with her wicked grin.
And for the first time ever, I lie to her. ‘Absolutely,’ I say. ‘Mind you, I’d call him more of a donkey.’
Amy squeals with delight. ‘I knew it! You can just tell with blokes like Stringer. I knew he had a big nob.’
I smile uneasily, taking a sip of wine.
‘So?’ she continues. ‘What was the sex like?’
And instead of telling her that I felt like the madam of a wild-west whorehouse, taking the cherry of the best-looking cowboy in town; and instead of admitting that it was drunken and clumsy and not the abandoned sex marathon I’d been expecting, without pausing for an instant, I lean on the table and fold my arms.
‘Lovely,’ I say, simply. ‘It was lovely.’
‘Lovely?’ says Amy, screwing up her nose in disappointment. She puts down the fork and her feet. ‘Is that it?’
She gets up and goes and checks the pan on the stove, lifting up the lid. She’s installed one of those trendy racks full of shiny metal cooking implements above her cooker and she pulls down a spiky spoon to stir the spaghetti. What’s happened to her? The only thing she used to be able to cook was toast, and now she looks like she lives in a Sunday colour supplement.
‘There’s nothing wrong with lovely,’ I say, defensively, but probably with too much emphasis, because Amy turns and looks at me.
‘No. Of course there isn’t,’ she says and I know that she’s accepted me into her club. The club of people who don’t have to talk about their partners because it’s private and special and lovely. Because they’re in love. And there’s nothing more to say.
And I’ve longed to be in Amy’s club, for ages. Ever since she moved in with Jack and built her domestic heaven. But I’m not ready to join yet. And whilst, by the look on her face, I can tell that she’s thrilled about the prospect of me and Stringer, I’m not.
Amy lifts down two plates from the rack and serves out the pasta.
‘What is it?’ she asks as she sits down, pushing my plate towards me.
‘It’s not like that. Me and Stringer, I mean.’ I look
at the steaming plate, breathing in the aroma of Amy’s carbonara, but my appetite for once has deserted me.
‘Sooze?’ she asks.
I blowout a slow breath. ‘I’m going away,’ I say, bluntly.
‘What?’
‘To California. I’m going to travel with Maude and Zip.’
Amy sits back in her chair. ‘Blimey! When did all this happen?’
‘Maude rang me when she got there and again last night. It’s a huge opportunity.’
‘Oh,’ she says, dumbfounded. ‘So how do you feel about it?’ she asks.
This is the six-million-dollar question and the reason that I’m here. Because although I’m excited, I’m also scared and Amy will know what’s right. She’s the one person I know who’s qualified to take me through the pros and cons of such a huge decision, and to tell me that I’m making the right one. But I’m just about to ask for her advice, when the phone rings. She reaches over to the side and picks up the cordless phone.
‘Hello?’ she says, putting up her finger to tell me she’ll only be a moment. But it’s H on the other end and Amy pulls a grimace to me.
‘What happened?’ she asks, sympathetically, picking up her fork and urging me to start on my pasta.
Typical. This is the most important decision of my life and H has to go and interrupt it.
I stab my fork into my spaghetti, feeling absurdly cross.
This is my moment and H has no right to intrude, but then I hear Amy taking a deep breath and sighing and I carryon chewing my pasta in silence.
A drama queen, that’s what H is. If she had one ounce of self-awareness, she could sort out her own problems without leaning on Amy every two seconds. I mean, it’s not as if Amy hasn’t got her own worries.
But as I sit radiating bad vibes towards H, it hits me that I’m no better. I’m just jealous because I want Amy all to myself and for her to soothe all my worries away. The difference is, I don’t need her to tell me what to do, because I already know. I’ve known it ever since Maude rang.
All day I’ve been wrapped in fear, worrying about Stringer, but now as I hear Amy telling H to be honest to whoever she’s having a flap about, I apply a little honesty myself.
The truth is that even if Stringer thinks he really likes me and I really like him, it’s just that: like. I’m not in love with him. I may fancy the pants off him, but so will loads of other girls and now he’s got his sexual confidence, who am I to stand in his way?
And if I’m really, really honest, his innocence puts me off. I’ve got a juggernaut of baggage and he’s got a completely clean slate and I know that, even if I tried really hard to be a loyal girlfriend, I’d find a way to sabotage it. Because that’s what I always do and Stringer won’t be any different. I don’t want another man I feel I have to look after. I want to be loved and protected, like Jack loves Amy.
But that’s a mistake too. Jack doesn’t protect Amy. We’re not living in the 1940s. I look round their kitchen in the warm glow of the new lights they’ve installed and it’s so cosy. And it dawns on me that that is what love is. When you find the person you’ll compromise for and build a life with. When you meet the person whose junk you’ll put up with and bad habits you’ll live with, because they’re your equal.
And I’m not even close to it. Not with Stringer, not with anyone. So in the meantime, I guess I’ll just have to stand on my own two feet.
‘Sorry,’ says Amy, coming off the phone.
‘Everything all right?’ I say, sucking up a mouthful of spaghetti, but I’m not really interested in H and Amy knows it.
‘Having a bit of a double-whammy work and bloke crisis,’ she explains.
I don’t say anything. There’s a pause as we both eat.
‘Sorry,’ says Amy again, reaching over to touch my arm. ‘I didn’t mean for you to get interrupted. It’s just that she was upset and I couldn’t tell her to put it on hold.’
‘It’s OK,’ I smile. ‘Bad timing. You can’t help it if everyone wants your advice. I wonder what we’ll all do when you get married.’
‘Don’t say that! I’m not dying. I’ll still be here.’
‘I know, I know,’ I say. ‘It’s just that everything seems to be changing all of a sudden.’
‘But change is a good thing.’
I nod. ‘Scary sometimes.’
‘Tell me about it!’ she laughs. ‘I’m going down the aisle next week. How scary is that!’
‘It’ll be a doddle,’ I say. ‘It’s meant to be.’
‘And how about this trip of yours? Is that meant to be, too?’
‘I think so. I feel all nervous and excited, but at least I’m not feeling bored. It’s going to take quite a bit to get the money together.’
‘Have you told Stringer yet?’ she asks.
I shake my head.
‘You’re worried about how he’ll take it?’ she says and as usual she’s hit the nail right on the head. Because that is what’s worrying me. I don’t want to damage Stringer’s confidence, or for him to think I’m running away from him. I know how deep his paranoia has been and the last thing I want to do is rekindle it. I don’t want him to think I’m rejecting him. But I can’t tell Amy this.
‘I’m worried he thinks there’s a boyfriend-girlfriend thing going on,’ I explain.
‘And there isn’t?’
‘Not really. I suppose there might be, in time. But I don’t want it. I want to travel and see the world. I want this just for me. Does that sound horribly selfish?’
Amy smiles. ‘Yes, but I’m delighted to hear you say it at last. You always put other people first.’
‘So what shall I do about Stringer?’
‘You’ve just got to be brave and tell him straight away, before he gets the wrong idea. And no offence, but Stringer’s had loads of women. I’m sure he’ll get over it in time.’
‘True,’ I laugh, even though it isn’t.
‘I think it’ll do him good to have his ego knocked into shape for once.’
‘Maybe,’ I say.
Amy fills up my wine glass.
‘Well here’s to you, my lovely Sooze,’ she says. ‘I won’t half miss you.’
And I smile, sad and happy all at once, because she has no idea how much I miss her already.
H
Wednesday, 11.00
Craning my neck to see the street name through the windscreen, I fling my A-Z on the dashboard as the car cigarette lighter pops out. As I cruise slowly along the row of parked cars, I negotiate the speed bumps whilst lighting my cigarette and squint through the window, trying to find the house numbers on the broken gates and shabby front doors of Barlby Road. It’s a typical London street, including the bin men, whom I fail to notice, until one of them thumps my bonnet and I nearly jump out of my skin.
‘Oi! Posh,’ he yells, the huge rubbish lorry looming behind him as he waves a gloved hand at me.
Blushing, I push the button in on the side of the gears tick and hastily back up, until I find a space behind a battered white transit van and reverse in to it. I suppose the car is posh for round here, but I still feel like telling him the BMW isn’t mine and that I’m not really a posh person at all: I’m a small person.
At least, I feel very small today.
I turn off the ignition and the electric aerial whirrs down into the boot and then all I’m left with is the bleeping sound of the bin lorry, a police siren in the distance and the overlapping shouts of the children in the school playground up the road. The sound of a Wednesday morning in the real world.
Real to me, at least.
Feeling shaky, I reach over and pick up Brat’s letter from the passenger seat and read the address again. I found it on my desk this morning, just after I’d walked past his empty desk and a stony-faced Olive, who refused to talk to me.
The letter was perfunctory and polite, considering what had happened. In unusually flawless grammar, Brat explained that he was writing to inform me of his resignation, due to the irre
concilable breakdown of our working relationship.
Breakdown of our working relationship. I suppose that’s one way of putting it.
It’s the irreconcilable I’ve got a problem with. That’s why I’m here. But I can’t think about it too much, or I’ll change my mind.
Tucking the letter in my pocket, I get out of the car, flick on the alarm and look around me and down the street. Through the gap between the gas cylinders and the council towerblocks, I can see the city skyline rising hazily in the London smog and it occurs to me that it must have been a nightmare for Brat to get from here to the office every day. No wonder he was late half the time.
Brat’s house is at the end of the street next to a boarded-up dry cleaners. I push open the squeaky gate, a long shoot from the overgrown privet hedge tickling my face as I walk the few steps to the front door and scan the three doorbells by the pane of ribbed glass. I push the second bell, assuming that it must be for Flat 2, and wait, watching hot, soapy water trickle from a cracked pipe into the drain by my feet.
I tap my foot, feeling butterflies in my stomach as I look through the glass and try to make out the shadowy hallway on the other side.
I was in such a state after seeing Laurent yesterday that I didn’t know where to put myself. I went to the ladies’ 100 on the second floor and paced like a caged loony hyperventilating with anguish. I couldn’t cry, because I felt so foolish, couldn’t scream because I was in the office, and couldn’t berate Laurent, because he was in a meeting with my boss.
I don’t know whether I was more cross with Laurent or me. He should have told me he was married, but then, I should have asked. All I wished was that I could open myself up and remove the Laurent experience altogether. But most of all I just wanted to hit something or someone because I felt so stupid. Unfortunately, my silent rant was interrupted by someone coming in to the toilet so I had no choice but to go back to my office with so much pent-up emotion in me that I was a walking bomb waiting to explode.
And eventually I did.
In Brat’s face.
It had taken him ages to do the script revisions I’d asked for and as I sat, festering in my office, composing a vitriolic, aggrieved email to Laurent, I watched Brat through the glass, seething a little bit more each time he went off for a cigarette or made a phone call. By four o’clock I’d seethed myself into a full-scale fury.