by C. L. Taylor
“What a lovely idea.” Keisha’s face lights up. “No one’s ever thrown a surprise party for me. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I had a birthday party. I must have been little. Eight, maybe nine.” She looks wistful for a second, then smiles again. “Are you going to hold it at Breeze then, Oli’s party?”
“Actually, I was considering Grey’s nightclub in London. I wanted Danny’s opinion.”
She raises her eyebrows. “I’ve been there. It’s the shit. Expensive though. Seven pounds fifty for a rum and coke!”
“I know, but Oli’s been through a lot recently and we wanted it to be special.” I puff on my cigarette, hold the smoke in my lungs for a couple of seconds, and then exhale. “Charlotte was the one who recommended Grey’s. Before her accident,” I add quickly when Keisha’s eyes widen in surprise. “She said it was amazing, that she went there with you and Danny.”
“It was.” She flicks her cigarette into the gutter. The tip glows for a second then turns gray and goes out. “Poshest club I’ve ever been to. There’s a woman in the toilets who’ll rub hand cream into your hands if you pay her a pound. She’ll squirt you with perfume too if you want. She’s got loads of different types.”
“Really?” I smile encouragingly. I have to play this carefully. If I spook her, she’ll clam up. “Charlotte said a lot of famous types hang out there too.”
“They do.” She wraps her slender arms around her knees and pulls them close to her chest. The sun is starting to go down and there’s a chill in the air. “Pop stars, soap stars, footballers. You don’t really get to mingle with them though because they sit in the roped-off VIP bit.”
I drop my cigarette onto the pavement and grind it out with the heel of my boot. “So how did Charlotte get to meet her footballer then, if the famous people are kept separate from everyone else?”
Keisha looks at me in surprise. “She told you about him?”
“Of course. We’re very close. We tell each other everything.”
“Wow.” She raises an eyebrow. “So Charlotte told you some of what happened that night then?”
I nod. I don’t trust what will happen if I open my mouth to lie.
She searches my face. “And you didn’t go mental?”
“No.” I try and keep my breathing slow and measured, but my heart is racing from the cigarette. This could be it. This could be the moment I find out what caused Charlotte to step in front of the bus. “Why would I?”
An empty Coke can clatters against the pavement at the far end of the alley. Keisha and I both jump, but there’s no one there.
“I’ve got to go.” She leaps up, reaches for the door handle, her eyes still fixed on the entrance to the alley. “Danny’s expecting me and I’ve said too much already.”
“Please.” I reach for her hand. “Please. You need to tell me what happened that night.”
“I thought you already knew.”
“I know she met a footballer but that’s it. Please, Keisha. Please tell me what happened.”
She shakes her head, opens the door, slips one shoulder into the gap. “If I tell you, he’ll kill me.”
“And if you don’t tell me, Charlotte might die.”
It’s a low blow but it’s enough to make her pause, step back into the alley, and close the door. I wait as she shakes her empty cigarette packet, crumples it in her fist, then tosses it into the gutter and roots around in her handbag for a new pack. She peels off the cellophane, flips back the lid, pulls off the foil, and tweezes out a cigarette. It takes forever, and when she roots around in her bag for her lighter, I want to scream. Finally she puts a cigarette in her mouth, lights it, and inhales deeply. She exhales through her nose and looks at me from under her lashes. “She had sex with the footballer in the club toilet.”
I stare at the lit end of her cigarette, at the plume of smoke that curls upward, at the length of ash that grows longer and longer and then falls through the air and disintegrates before it hits the floor.
“Who was he?” I tear my eyes away from the cigarette. “What was his name?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. His first name was Alex. I don’t know his surname. He was foreign, French I think. Black. Plays for Chelsea someone said. Or Man U. One of the top clubs anyway, I forget which.”
“This premiership footballer she slept with, this Alex.” The words feel like they’re coming out of someone else’s mouth. “How can I get hold of him?”
Keisha sucks on her cigarette and opens the side door, her eyes never once meeting mine. “I don’t know, I’m sorry.”
“Okay,” I say and smile, even though I’m pretty sure she’s lying to me. They’re all lying about something—Brian, Danny, Ella, Liam—and they think I’m too emotionally unstable to see through it.
They’re wrong.
***
I wait for Brian to go to bed and then I creep into his study and turn on his laptop.
Alex famous footballer, I type and press Enter.
The first entry is for a Brazilian footballer who plays for Paris Saint-Germain. Is that who Keisha meant? Maybe she got confused about whether he was French or lived in France? I look at the next entry, another French footballer. This time he’s called Alexandre Degas, but there’s no mention of him playing for a British club. Alexandre Laurent then? Or Alex Sauvage? There’s an Olivier Alexandre who plays for Tottenham Hotspur, but it can’t be him, can it?
I push the chair back from the desk. I don’t know what I was thinking, expecting that I’d find contact details for this Alex person when I haven’t got the slightest idea who he is. I twist from left to right in the chair, scanning the room for solutions, but none come, so I stand up and wander into Charlotte’s room. I should have pushed Keisha for more details. I should have asked her how she knew Charlotte had sex in the club toilet. It’s so out of character. She was besotted with Liam, absolutely obsessed with him. She’d never have cheated on him. It was one thing she felt strongly about because of the fallout of her own father’s infidelity. I just can’t imagine her doing something sexual with someone she’d only just met, even if she was drunk and he was a famous footballer and astonishingly good looking and—
I smooth out her duvet then straighten up to get a better look at the posters above the headboard. They’re pages she’s ripped out of Heat magazine’s “Torso of the week,” and the wall is crowded with an array of good-looking topless men—soap stars, film stars, TV presenters, and…footballers. There’s David Beckham, Ashley Cole, Ronaldo, and…someone I don’t recognize, a tall, handsome, mixed-race man with pale brown eyes, high cheekbones, and full lips. Alex Henri, the caption at the bottom says, striker, Chelsea FC.
I rush back to Brian’s study.
Alex Henri Agent, I enter into Google.
Details appear on screen for Steve Torrance, “international sports agent.” I click on his website and an image of a balding, middle-aged man appears, his top lip curled into a half smile, half sneer. I skim-read his biography, glance over his list of clients, and then click on the Contact link. An email address, post office box, and London telephone number pop up on the screen, and I scribble them down. It’s too late to call now, so I tuck the piece of paper into my purse, leave it on the hall table, and then pad into the bedroom. I change into my nightdress in the dark and slip into bed. It’s a very long time until I fall asleep.
***
“Could you tell him it’s urgent?”
The woman on the other end of the line sighs. “Mrs. Jackson, this is the third day you’ve called. I know it’s urgent. You tell me every time you call. I’ve passed on your messages, and if Mr. Torrance hasn’t called you back yet, then…” I can practically hear her shrug. “He is a very busy man.”
“Please,” I beg. “It’s vital I get a message through to Alex Henri. My daughter’s in a coma and he might be able to help.”
; The assistant makes a little ooh sound. “How terrible for you. I’ve got a daughter myself. She had to spend some time in Great Ormond Street when she was seven and I was beside myself. Made her day when one of the actors from Glee visited the ward. How old’s your girl?”
“She’s seven too.” It’s scary how easy the lie comes out. “And such a tomboy. Football’s her life, her dad’s too; they’re massive Chelsea fans, never miss a game. Alex Henri’s her favorite player. He’s on her bedroom wall in pride of place.”
“She wouldn’t be the first.” She laughs. “Look, Sue, can I call you Sue?”
“Of course.”
“Well, Sue, I probably shouldn’t say this, but the truth is Steve isn’t such a big fan of charity requests. They’re good for PR, but PR doesn’t pay the bills, so he only allows his clients to do high-profile gigs—cancer charities, Sport’s Relief, Children in Need, that sort of thing. You need to approach Alex independently.”
My heart leaps. “But how? I’ve searched the Internet and the only phone number I’ve been able to find is Steve’s.”
“Now listen.” The assistant lowers her voice. “I could lose my job if what I’m about to tell you gets out.”
“I won’t say a word,” I say. “I swear.”
“I would never, never normally do this but I’m in a good mood today—my Sean got back from Afghanistan yesterday—and with your daughter being the way she is, well… Anyway, if you want to catch Alex, I suggest you get yourself along to Grey’s nightclub in Chelsea tonight. He normally goes on a Friday. I’m not promising he’ll agree to visit your little girl, but he might agree to a signed shirt or a message on your mobile or something. You could play it to her.”
“I could!” I can’t keep the excitement out of my voice, but not for the reason she might think. “What a wonderful idea. Thank you so much.”
“There’s nothing to thank me for. Just promise me one thing, no, two things, Sue.”
“Of course.”
“Never mention this to anyone and never call this office again.”
“I won’t. I promise. Thank you so much…sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
She laughs. “There’s a reason for that. Good-bye, Sue.”
The disconnect tone buzzes in my ear for a good thirty seconds before I place the phone back in its cradle. If she’s right and Alex Henri is in the club tonight, how am I going to get to speak to him if he’s in a cordoned-off VIP area? A beautiful fifteen-year-old might be able to bat her eyelashes past security, but what about me? What’s a dumpy forty-three-year-old who hasn’t been to a club in over twenty years supposed to do? And, more pressing than that, if I can’t pop out of the house in the afternoon to buy “magazines” without Brian checking up on me, how on earth am I going to convince him that it’s a good idea for me to go out until the early hours of the morning in London?
Wednesday, June 26, 1991
James and I are living together. Well, James, his mother, and I. I moved in just over a week ago. Jess from work cut my hours again (I’m only doing fifteen a week now), and I couldn’t afford the rent on my flat anymore. I told James I was going to try to get my teaching job back to make up the shortfall, but he insisted I move in with him instead.
“Think of it as a new start,” he said. “Screw Maggie and her tin pot company. You deserve to be paid for what you do. The spare room’s big enough for your sewing machine table, so get set up, get making some sample pieces so you can apply for a proper wardrobe job or set up your own business, and I’ll pay the rent and get the food in. Don’t worry about that.”
It was almost too perfect a solution, the only fly in the ointment being his mum. She didn’t come down from her room the whole of the first evening I was there, and the next morning, when I came down to breakfast with James at 7:30 a.m., there was a list of “jobs” for me to do on the kitchen table. They included grocery shopping, vacuuming, toilet scrubbing, and weeding and were written in a handwriting I didn’t recognize.
“You don’t mind, do you?” James said when he saw my raised eyebrows. “But her caregiver’s gone on holiday for a week, and you know what she’s like with her arthritis and agoraphobia.”
Arthritis? She’d seemed sprightly enough when she’d stormed out of the room when James and I arrived late for that now infamous lunch.
“Besides,” he added, “you’ve got a lot of time on your hands now your hours have been cut, haven’t you?”
I wanted to remind him that he’d suggested I set up a sewing business in our bedroom but bit my tongue. Helping out was the least I could do considering the fight he’d undoubtedly had to put up to persuade his mother to let me move in, and besides, it was only for a week. I could start setting up my business when the caregiver got back.
By the time James got home from work nine hours later, my hands were raw and my forearms were a mess of nettle stings but I’d ticked off every single item on the list and had a pot roast happily bubbling away in the oven. He looked delighted and said he knew that Mummy and I would get on like a dream if we just gave each other a chance. The truth was I hadn’t seen her all day. I’d heard the landing floor creak at about 9 a.m. as she made her way to the bathroom, but other than that, I hadn’t caught a glimpse of her. By lunchtime I was worried that she might be ill, and I knocked on her door to ask if she was okay and whether she’d like some homemade tomato soup and a cheese sandwich. She replied that she was “in perfect health, thank you” and told me to leave the food on a tray outside the door. I did as I was told then went back down the stairs and waited silently in the hall. Five minutes later, the bedroom door opened, a pair of slippered feet appeared, and the tray was dragged into her room.
James couldn’t keep his hands off me, and as soon as we’d finished dinner (which his mother had in her room again), he dragged me into the bedroom and threw me onto the bed. I squealed as he pulled off my clothes and buried his face in my breasts but was promptly silenced when he slapped a hand over my mouth and held it there.
“Shhh,” he whispered. “We don’t want Mummy to hear us.”
I was just about to reply when he yanked off my underwear and entered me, thrusting so hard I hit my head on the headboard. I gasped in shock and pleasure.
James took his hand off my mouth. “Or do we?” And slammed into me again.
Afterward, as we lay in each other’s arms, sweat sticking us together, he stroked my hair back from my face.
“You’ve got no idea how much I missed you, how much I missed having sex with you, when we were apart.”
“Me too.” I ran a hand over his broad chest and raked my fingers through the hair.
“It was torture.” He kissed the top of my head. “Lying in bed alone, imagining you naked in your bed and not being able to touch you.”
“I know.”
“Did you sleep with anyone else while we were apart?”
I looked him in the eye. To look anywhere else would be dangerous. “No.”
“Really? You didn’t mess around with someone because you were lonely?”
“No.” I blocked the image of Steve’s face on my pillow out of my head. “Of course not.”
James narrowed his eyes. “Kiss someone when you were drunk?”
“No.”
“It’s okay.” He smiled tightly. “You can tell me if you did. I won’t be angry. I fucked a couple of people.”
“What?” My chest spasmed with pain. I’d never considered that he might sleep with someone else. Not once.
“I fucked a couple of women.” He shrugged. “No big deal. We weren’t together. Did you?”
Did he mean it? Did he really not care? I looked into his eyes, at the pinprick pupils and the gray iris, flecked with blue. I’d never been able to read him. His eyes were impenetrable.
“No,” I lied. “I didn’t do anything, not even a kiss. I missed you t
oo much to even think about touching another man.”
His shoulders slumped with relief.
“I knew it.” He gathered me into his arms. “I knew you were special. I knew Mother was wrong.” He pulled away and looked at me. “I didn’t sleep with anyone either. I was just having a laugh.”
A laugh? I nestled my head into his chest and swallowed back the tears that had sprung up in my eyes. It didn’t feel very funny to me.
Chapter
Twenty-One
“A musical?” Brian raises an eyebrow. “I thought you hated musicals. Opera is for stupid people, you said.”
“I did not! Those are your words. And I don’t hate musicals; I just prefer plays. Anyway, this isn’t about me. It’s Jane’s birthday.”
“And Eric’s got the flu? In May?”
I’m about to protest that there’s an unusual amount of it around at the moment and how Jane’s husband does work in a school where germs are rife, but there’s no need because Brian laughs and says, “Sounds like he’s throwing a sickie to me, and who can blame him? I’d rather take to my deathbed than go to a musical too.”
“Jane’s wanted to see the Billy Elliot musical forever,” I say. “It’s one of her favorite films.”
“There’s a DVD shop down the road, tell her. She can save herself thirty-odd quid a ticket or whatever rip-off prices they charge in the West End these days.”
“Brian!” I pretend to chastise him, but I can tell by the smile on his face that he’s not going to object to me going to London. It’s incredible how easily he’s bought into my lie. I could be going anywhere, with anyone, and I could go with his blessing.
“Bit late though, isn’t it?” He glances at the grandfather clock. “This show? It’s seven o’clock already and by the time you get to Victoria, even if you leave now, you won’t be there until 8:30 at the earliest.”
“I know,” I say. “I was surprised too. We’re going to have to fly across London in a taxi to make it to the West End for nine o’clock. The show’s on later than normal because one of the cast is appearing on the Jonathan Ross chat show later.”