by Jane Fallon
If she had to have sex with a woman, she'd choose Jenny ("Because you're so pretty," she slurred in what she thought was a coquettish but jokey way. "Isn't she, Geoff?").
By ten o'clock, as they left the pub to make their way home, Helen and Geoff could barely stand.
"Night, then." Geoff hugged Annie like they were old friends. When he'd gotten to Jenny, she'd clung onto his arms, and next thing Helen-from-Accounts knew, they were kissing. Not just kissing, but snogging properly, Geoff 's hands running up and down her back and, at one point, Helen-from-Accounts was sure, over her backside. Annie was watching, mouth open, the beginnings of a smirk appearing on her face. Helen-from-Accounts had grabbed her husband's arm and physically pulled him away from the other woman, who had wiped her hand over her mouth theatrically as if in distaste. As Helen-from-Accounts pulled Geoff down the street, she could hear the two girls start laughing. And laughing. And laughing.
To make the evening perfect, as Helen-from-Accounts stormed her way around the corner into Soho Square with Geoff following behind, bemused at the change in atmosphere ("What? What have I done?"), two men whom they had seen in the pub earlier came up behind them and relieved Geoff of his wallet and Helen-from-Accounts of her burgundy leather handbag, with threats of violence. Then, to top it all, Geoff was sick, mostly down himself. Helen-from-Accounts had just about managed to find enough change in both their pockets to get the bus, and they'd sat on the top deck, not speaking, with a fug of beery old vomit from Geoff's sweater rising up around them.
* * *
Helen managed to piece this story together from the many different versions that were being bandied about the office because, of course, almost no one was speaking to her. The most juicy bits she gathered from the screaming row which Helen-from-Accounts had with Jenny, about four feet away from her, at about ten fifteen. Helen had her head down, as usual, pretending to work, while counting down the minutes till she could retrieve the little business card, which she had surreptitiously transferred this morning from the pocket of her jeans to her bag, and make the call. Through the glass wall of the accounts department, she could see a conspicuously empty chair where Helen-from-Accounts should be. She'd never been known to be late before.
At a quarter past ten, a little fat whirlwind blew through the general office and stopped beside Jenny's desk. Annie followed in behind so as not to miss the excitement.
"How could you?" Helen-from-Accounts was shouting, tears already running down the two deep canyons in her cheeks that had grown over the weekend.
"Morning, Helen." Jenny smiled at her insincerely. "It was a great night Friday, wasn't it? Did Geoff enjoy himself? He certainly seemed to."
"You bitch. You bloody bitch."
And with that, Helen-from-Accounts launched herself, little dumpy arms and legs flailing, at the other woman. Jenny held her at arm's length, laughing, as Annie chipped in, "What, are you jealous, Helen? Do you wish she'd kissed you, instead?" Jenny, Annie, and a gathering of others who'd come in to see what all the fuss was about were laughing themselves silly as Helen-from-Accounts, a blur of arms, legs, snot, and tears, clearly a woman who had never had a fight before, continued with her pitiful attempt to make an impact.
Helen knew she should do something to intervene, but she was transfixed by the awful Jerry Springer–ness of it all. Any minute now, Geoff would come in and announce he was gay and that he was taking it up the arse from the vicar.
"You know, I'm sure I could feel Sergeant Sweeney standing to attention when Geoff was groping me," Jenny was saying, still fending off blows with one hand. Helen-from-Accounts suddenly crumpled. She stood motionless for a brief moment, taking in her enemies and the watching bystanders, some of whom had now at least had the good grace to start to look uncomfortable, then she turned and ran from the room toward the toilets. The crowd began to disperse, and Helen heard several of them muttering that things had gone a bit far.
Helen sat shrouded in guilt. Why had she just let that happen? Half the people who worked at Global were afraid of the coven—they didn't want to risk becoming the target of one of their hate campaigns—but what the fuck did she care? She was leaving soon, she should have gotten in there and broken it up. She had always liked to think that she would be the person on the tube who would apprehend the mugger, but now she felt like she'd hidden behind her newspaper while a crime had been committed in front of her. Annie and Jenny were still incapacitated with laughter. Helen got up and left the room.
Here we go again, she thought, as she entered the ladies' and stood by the cubicle door with the familiar sob/sniff concerto going on behind it. She took a deep breath.
"Helen, it's Helen. Open the door."
Sniff. "Go away."
"No, not till I know you're OK." How sad is it, she thought, that I'm the only person who's bothered to come in and check up on her and I can't even stand the woman.
"Do you want me to get anyone? Do you want me to call Geoff?"
Sob, sniff, sniff. "Geoff's staying with his mother."
"Oh, Helen. You haven't thrown him out. Not for that. He was slaughtered, they set him up, you've got to give him the benefit of the doubt."
"What do you know about it? You did the same yourself, taking some poor bloody woman's husband away from her."
Helen thought about giving up, but there was something about the other Helen's pathetic attempt at swearing that made her want to cry. She wanted to say "At least say 'fucking,' no one says 'bloody' anymore except on EastEnders." She sat down on the floor by the sink, in for the long haul.
* * *
By the time they got back to the office, Helen was exhausted. I could never be a hostage negotiator, she thought, I'd just want to tell them to get on and kill everyone and let me go home. Have the helicopter, just shut the fuck up. Helen-from-Accounts made her way back to her desk and seemed to be pulling herself together, at least enough to get on with her work. Helen had no idea whether she was intending to call Geoff or not. She was past caring, to be honest. But the atmosphere seemed to have calmed down, and Annie and Jenny were, Helen thought hopefully, looking a little bit subdued, as though someone had told them they had gone too far.
At twelve o'clock, Laura did something she had never done before—she asked Helen to write a release to go out to reviewers with copies of a new autobiography one of the D-Listers had written. Shaun Dickinson, a twenty-eight-year-old…what was it he did, again? He was in the papers a lot, but not for actually doing anything, mostly for being places (and then only when someone from Global had called ahead to make sure the press would be there). He went out with a glamour girl and together they had earned a lot of money by sharing all the intimate events in their private lives with a weekly magazine (WHY WE'LL NEVER GET MARRIED! WE'RE GETTING MARRIED! OUR BABY HELL! His gambling addiction, her sex addiction, his drug-dealing past, her polycystic ovaries, and most recently, OUR BEAUTIFUL NEW LIFE!, featuring their recently acquired home, accessorized by the magazine's design department, her new double-D breasts, and their unhappy-looking adopted Chinese baby).
It was a straightforward, part-biog, part-hype document of the kind Matthew had regularly had her write for him, but it made Helen feel slightly panicky. She couldn't think where to start, and wrote the first sentence over and over again in ever more flowery language. What if she couldn't do this anymore? What if she wrote it and it was rubbish and Laura had to rewrite it herself? She tried to pull herself together—this was basic stuff, an intern could knock up something passable in five minutes. If she couldn't do this, then how the fuck was she going to promote the restaurant? Oh, God, the restaurant. It was twenty-five past twelve, she hadn't yet called Sonny, and she'd promised him she'd be in touch before lunch to finalize the date for the launch and go over her ideas (what ideas?) for the guest list.
She spent five minutes making a list of eleven celebrities she thought were dead certs to want to go to the opening of Verano (desperate, new single out, TV show to promote, split up from hu
sband and wants to be seen out having a good time, record deal just canceled, trying to get a book deal, lost sports career through drugs). Then she put her coat on and picked up her mobile—no way was she going to call from the office, she'd have to go and sit in the park. She scrabbled around in her bag for her wallet and Sonny's card. Stuffing her money in her coat pocket, she turned the card over in her fingers, looking at it for the first time. She didn't even know his full name, she thought, screwing up her face as she read the writing on it. She turned it over again, looking at the blank side, confused, then rummaged in her bag again, looking to see if there was another, alternative, card in there. Nothing. She looked at the words on the card in her hand again and experienced that feeling as if she were going backward on a swing—nausea, disorientation, light-headedness. She closed her eyes and then looked again, as if that might make a difference. It was no good, the name on the card still read the same:
Leo Shallcross.
Matthew's son.
20
HELEN HAD STAYED at her desk, turning the small white card over and over in her fingers for several minutes. She simply couldn't compute what she was seeing; she must have picked up the wrong piece of paper at home somehow and Sonny's number was…where? She knew she had transferred it from the pocket of her jeans to her bag in one sneaky movement, making sure that Matthew didn't see and ask her what it was. There was no way it could have gotten mixed up with anything else. Which could only mean one thing. Sonny was Leo and Leo was Matthew's son by his first wife, Hannah. The one he seemed to have next to no contact with. She went out into the stairwell and called Sophie.
"How's it going with Sonny?" Sophie asked, after they'd exchanged pleasantries. "He said you thought you might be able to help him out."
"Why do you call him Sonny?" Helen asked, trying to sound casual. "It says on his business card that his name's…Leo Shall-cross." She tried to make it sound as if she were reading it for the first time.
"Oh…" Sophie laughed. "It is. I just call him Sonny because he's my stepson. He's Matthew's oldest, didn't I tell you about him? And when I first met him, there was this grown man who I was suddenly supposed to be stepmother to, so I called him it as a joke, to wind him up, and it just sort of stuck. I can't imagine calling him Leo now. Sorry, I should have told you."
Oh, fuck, thought Helen. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.
Sophie was still talking. "So…he said you got on really well, and you might have time to do some stuff for him…"
"I'm not sure," Helen said, desperate to get off the phone. "Maybe. I've got a lot on at the moment, is all. Anyway, didn't you say Matthew worked in PR himself, so wouldn't it make more sense if he took on the account for the restaurant? You know, discount for family and all that."
"Stop trying to do yourself out of a job…"
Helen cut her off. "Listen, Sophie, I have to go, I've got a deadline."
"Are we still on for Wednesday night?" Sophie was saying.
"Yes, fine. I'll see you there." Helen punched the phone off before Sophie could say good-bye.
Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.
She tried to picture Matthew as he would have been at thirty-eight. Would he have looked like Leo? They had those same fucking bright-blue eyes; why hadn't she noticed? But then Leo was darker—of course he was darker, Matthew had gone gray already—and Leo didn't have the Shallcross nose. His was narrower, straighter, Paul Newman to Matthew's Dustin Hoffman.
Oh, God, I've kissed my boyfriend's son, she thought and, forgetting that Leo was way closer in age to her than Matthew was, she decided that that made her a child molester or some kind of pervert, anyway. There was bound to be a name for it. Matthew had changed his nappies (well probably not, knowing Matthew, but anyway) and now she was practically having sex with him. There was no one in the world it would have been worse for her to have kissed—well Suzanne or Claudia maybe, or his mother. Oh, God, she was like one of those teachers you saw on the news who ended up in prison, pregnant by a fifteen-year-old boy in her English class that she'd forced herself on at break time.
She sat down on the top step, trying to figure out what to do. In fact, she thought, there isn't even anything to figure out. I can't do the job, I can't see him again, end of story. I have to ring him now and tell him that I'm too busy. That's the end of it and that's the end of my shot at getting something on my CV. She walked back through to her desk to find his number, but Laura was there, rooting through the piles of paper.
"This is good," she said, holding up the half-written release.
"I haven't finished it yet," Helen answered defensively.
"I know, I'm just saying, what you've done so far is good. I'll need it in the next ten minutes or so, though."
"No problem." Helen took the early draft back from her and sat down at her computer. She'd just finish this before she made the call.
Ten minutes later she was in Laura's office, waiting as her boss read over the final version of the press release.
"Great," Laura said. "I don't need to change anything."
"No problem," said Helen, turning to go.
"Oh," said Laura, "one other thing. Sandra Hepburn wants us to come up with a stunt—something to get her maximum coverage on the weekend before the Ace Awards nominations are announced. You know the kind of thing, think Gail Porter on the side of Big Ben. I'm struggling, so if you have any ideas…"
"Why are you asking me?" Helen said suspiciously. What was it with Laura all of a sudden?
"I'm asking everybody," Laura said calmly.
"I'll have a think," said Helen, backing out. It was one o'clock; she really must phone Sonny. Leo. She must phone Leo.
Back at her desk, she could see that her in-box had one new message. Ignore it, she told herself. Ring Leo and then look at it. But it was an irresistible potential way to avoid making the call for another five minutes. I'll just see who it's from, she thought, then I'll call. She clicked on the message, which was under the unfamiliar name Helen Sweeney. Helen-from-Accounts, of course it was. Truthfully, she couldn't really care less what the message had to say, but she read it anyway to kill a bit more time.
Dear Helen, it said, I wanted to say thank you for being so nice to me this morning. I know we haven't always been the best of friends (we're still not, Helen thought to herself, don't kid yourself ), and I want to apologize if I've ever been anything other than generous towards you. I've been thinking about what you said about me and Geoff and I've decided I'm going to ring him this evening and sort everything out. Thanks again.
Helen peered over the top of her computer and could see the other Helen smiling at her. She smiled back, baring her teeth, then looked at her watch—five past one. OK, hopefully Leo would be having some kind of business lunch with his phone turned off and she could just leave a message—"Sorry, something's come up" or "There's been a death in my family." No, too drastic. How about "One of my regular clients has got in a bit of trouble and I need to try and keep it out of the papers, so I've promised him I'll concentrate on him, and nothing but him, for a few days. His life…no…his marriage depends on it." Yes, that'd do. Throw in a few hints that the fictional client was someone very important. Promise to call Leo in a week or so's time, when it was all sorted, to see how he was getting on, and then forget she'd ever met him. Perfect. It was a shame, but it was so, so much better that she distanced herself from him now rather than further down the line, when who knew what might have happened. She thought briefly of his hand on top of hers across the restaurant table, and then pushed that thought from her mind.
Back out in the stairwell she dialed his number and then crossed her fingers, waiting for the answerphone to kick in. Shit, it was ringing. She was about to hang up—he'd get a missed call, he'd know she'd tried him, then she'd just keep her phone switched off for the rest of the day, and the evening, and tomorrow—when he answered breathlessly.
"Eleanor! I was just thinking about you. How's it going?"
"Er…OK…but…
"
She tried to remember her prepared script.
"Erm…"
"In fact," Leo was saying, "I've been thinking about you all weekend. I know I shouldn't say that, I mean, I know we're not going to talk about stuff like that until your situation's different, if it ever is, I mean, I'm not assuming. God, I'm rambling. Sorry."
"It's OK. Listen, Sonny…I mean Leo. Should I call you Leo, now? Anyway, something's come up."
And she told him the excuse she had concocted, although, she thought later, she'd elaborated too much, adding in class-A drugs and illegal payments and rumors of homosexuality.
Leo sounded devastated. She knew it was as much for the fact that he wouldn't be seeing her on a regular basis as that she wouldn't be doing his PR for him. He could get another PR person.
"I'm really sorry, I know I've wasted your time and everything…"
"No, Eleanor, listen, it's OK, I understand. I'm just disappointed, that's all. I thought you'd do a great job and we'd get to see more of each other…"
"Sorry, Leo, really I am. I hope you get someone good. And I hope the restaurant's a huge success, I'm sure it will be."
"Maybe we could go for a drink…sometime…" he was saying.
"No. I don't think so. It's just…it's difficult at the moment. I'm a bit, you know, a bit busy. Oh, God, I have to go, the News of the World are on the other line."
"How do you know?"
"How do I know what?"
"How d'you know it's the News of the World if you haven't answered it yet?"