by Jane Fallon
"How are you?" Kristin made as if to sit down.
"I'm great. Listen, someone's sitting there."
"Oh, I know," Kristin said, getting comfortable. "I'll move when she comes back. How's Global? Alan got any new slappers?"
Helen was watching over her shoulder; Sophie was chatting to the man behind the bar as he served her.
"I don't really know, to be honest."
"I know, by the way," Kristin leaned in conspiratorially, "about you and Matthew Shallcross. Jamie told me. He seemed to think it was a really big deal, but I said good on her, if that's what she wants. Shame about his wife and kids and all that, but…"
Helen could see Sophie moving back toward her with the drinks, looking puzzled to see someone sitting in her seat. She could see Kristin's mouth still opening and shutting, but the pressure buzzing in her ears was drowning out the words. She wanted to hit her with a spade to stop her talking. She wanted her to die.
"Kristin." She stopped the other woman in midsentence "Sorry. It's just, my friend, she's had some really bad news. She's ill, reallyill. Terminal. And she needs to talk to me, before she dies, you know, about what's going to happen to her kids and stuff, so…"
Sophie was about three feet away.
"Oh, God. I'm sorry." Kristin got up from the table. "I'll leave you to it. Ring me sometime, OK?"
Sophie put the drinks on the table.
"Hi." She smiled at Kristin. "Don't get up, I can find another stool. I'm Sophie, by the way."
Kristin looked at Sophie's outstretched hand as if it were covered in leprous sores. She took it weakly.
"Kristin. Erm…No, I'm with my friends. I have to go. You look great, by the way." She looked at Sophie with something that was meant to resemble admiration. "Really."
Sophie looked bemused. "Thank you."
Kristin looked to Helen. "Bye, then."
"I'll ring you."
"Who's she?" Sophie asked, as soon as she was gone.
Helen was just beginning to breathe again. "Oh…just someone I used to work with once. Years ago. I hardly know her, really."
* * *
Helen got home before Matthew and cleared up exactly half of the dirty dishes as quickly as she could and then got into bed and turned out the lights so she could pretend to be asleep. About ten minutes later, she heard the front door open and close and then Matthew clattering about, presumably finishing off the job she had started. She lay with her eyes closed, waiting for him to come in, but as the minutes went on, she realized that he was intending to spend the night on the sofa as she had last night. For some reason, that made her red with anger and she considered getting up again and having it out with him. She lay back down—what was the point, after all? The end was definitely in sight, she just had to wait it out.
The following morning, Matthew had left for work again by the time Helen got up at seven forty-five. The kitchen was clean, apart from one curry-stained bowl which he had left on the side like a challenge. She decided to ignore it.
27
BY THE TIME FRIDAY CAME AROUND Helen and Matthew had reached something approaching civility in their exchanges. He was still angry about Leo's launch and hadn't lost an opportunity to make what he thought was a subtle dig about it. She was feeling guilty and so countered every one of those digs with what she thought was a conciliatory but noncommittal mumble. It had been tense for a while, but in the cold light of day, neither one was prepared to go into all-out battle.
Helen was on a high at work—Sandra Hepburn had returned from Kos and some promising "candid" pictures had been leaked to the Sunday papers. Helen was confident that at least a couple would run the story on their gossip pages. Best of all, Laura had told her that she no longer had to keep her new job a secret so, at Friday night drinks, Helen had come up with a surefire way of letting the coven know without having to speak to them directly; she shared her good news with Helen-from-Accounts, in a low voice, who then squealed with excitement and said "Congratulations" so loudly that Jenny had been forced to ask her what she was going on about. The stony-faced lack of enthusiasm for her good fortune had given Helen a warm glow.
Matthew had decided to go straight to the restaurant after work, despite the fact that the launch didn't begin till eight, which meant Helen could go straight home and not have to pretend to be getting ready to go anywhere herself. Naturally, she had called Rachel and told her that if Matthew ever asked, they had spent the evening together.
"Fine," Rachel had replied and then immediately followed it with, "Do you think solid silver or antique bone handles for the cutlery?"
"I have to go," Helen had said, quickly putting the phone down. Bone handles? What had happened to her friend? She'd turned into some kind of mimsy Victorian lady since announcing she was getting married. She found napkins fascinating and could spend an hour weighing up the virtues of different kinds of name cards to go on the table settings. Pictures of veils could cause her to faint with excitement. Helen picked the phone up and dialed Rachel's number again.
"Didn't they have to kill animals to make the bone handles?"
"Or people, I'm not sure. But it was years ago. No one's killing anything to make cutlery out of now, don't worry."
"Go for solid silver," Helen told her. "Bye."
She dug out her copy of the "Women We Hate" list and added "Women who have a personality transplant/bypass when they get engaged." After it, she added "(Rachel)."
* * *
Sophie, Claudia, and Suzanne arrived at Percy Street at ten to eight, and the first things they saw when they rounded the corner from Rathbone Place were the strings of lights from the windows to the tops of the trees, and the glow of the space heaters on the front patio. Verano looked stunning. The deep-red walls and rows of flickering candles in colored jars threw a warm glow out into the street and made it almost impossible to walk past on a bitterly cold February evening like this. Inside, Leo and Matthew—who seemed to be on civil, almost amiable terms—were busy seeing to the finishing touches; in fact, Matthew seemed to have a paintbrush in his hand. Laura was running through the final guest list with a man they'd hired for the night to stand at the door. They were expecting fifty guests, eighteen of them "celebrities," although they were notoriously unreliable. The chef had prepared tapas, which the waiters were going to circulate on trays, and there was a fridge full of high-quality champagne (and some cheaper stuff to open later, when people's taste buds had gotten a little less discerning). Leo had managed to persuade a few friends and family to arrive on the dot of eight, so that if any of the promised D-listers did turn up, they wouldn't take one look and keep moving. He looked pathetically grateful when he saw his ex-stepmother-to-be and his half-sisters there so early.
Matthew handed Sophie a glass of champagne and the girls an orange juice each and pronounced a toast to Leo and the restaurant, and they all raised their glasses. Sophie looked around the group; this was a real twenty-first-century dysfunctional happy family—a separated couple, stepchild, half-brother, and sisters. All it needed now was for Hannah and Helen to show up to complete the picture, but Hannah was away diving—her latest in a series of new passions since her husband abandoned her all those years ago—and Helen, of course, had refused to come.
By twenty past eight, the restaurant was filling up and, despite the fact that none of the promised celebrities had yet shown up, Leo instructed the waiters to begin circulating with the first of the tapas—tiny, bite-sized portions of Verano's starter menu, delicious anchovies and chorizo and tiny rings of chili-fried squid. A couple of paparazzi had arrived and were mooching about outside rubbing their hands together to keep warm. At eight thirty there was a sudden flash of bulbs and Shaun Dickinson burst through the doors with a large-breasted blond following close behind. By ten o'clock, a couple of soap stars, a reality-game-show loser, Sandra Hepburn, and Shaun's ex, complete with a new footballer boyfriend, had also come through the doors. Most only stayed for half an hour, sampled the food and declared it
delicious, knocked back three or four glasses of champagne, and then moved on to try to be photographed somewhere else, but the paparazzi got what they wanted. Suzanne and Claudia collected autographs they could show off to their friends on Monday and Leo took advance bookings for the next week.
Matthew, Sophie, and the girls had gravitated toward one another early in the evening and stayed that way, sitting at a table in the corner, watching the evening unfold and bursting with pride for Leo. Sophie knew she was getting curious looks from the representatives from Global, Laura included, but she decided that the only thing she could do was to keep her dignity and her distance and not let it ruin her evening. The girls, watching their parents sitting together drinking and chatting, were almost hysterical with happiness.
"How are things with Helen?" Sophie managed to ask after a couple of glasses.
"Better, thanks. At least I think so—I still couldn't persuade her to come."
"Good," Claudia chipped in.
Jenny breezed over, all smiles.
"Going well, isn't it?" She sat down and turned to Sophie, faux-innocent smile on her face.
"Hi, you must be Sophie, we've spoken on the phone before. I'm Jenny, Matthew's assistant."
Sophie tried to smile at her, feeling humiliated that this young girl must know all her personal business.
"I've been helping Laura organize this," Jenny was saying disingenuously, "because, you know, it was Helen's job, really, but she didn't want to have anything to do with it. Sad, isn't it, you'd think she'd want to get to know Matthew's family. Still…" she said, conspiratorially lowering her voice so Matthew couldn't hear, "…she's a bitch, but I'm sure you know that. We all hate her in the office for what she's done."
Sophie had no idea how to respond. She ought to have taken some comfort from the knowledge that her rival was not liked, but she wanted this girl to go away and leave her alone. She looked pleadingly at Matthew, who thankfully hadn't forgotten how to pick up her secret signals.
"Jenny, I think you should go and help Laura keep the guests happy. We don't want them leaving too quickly, it won't look good."
Jenny reluctantly dragged herself out of her chair.
"Bye, Sophie. Great to meet you at last."
"Sorry about her, she's a bit of a cow," Matthew said, once Jenny had gone.
"You've got great taste in assistants." Sophie managed a smile, which he reciprocated gratefully.
* * *
By eleven, the evening was beginning to wind down. Sandra, the last of the D-listers to leave, rather the worse for free booze and on the arm of a man she hadn't arrived with but who might have been one of the waiters, set off a final round of flashbulbs as she left. Laura had come over to Matthew and declared the evening a major success. Sophie had felt that Laura was avoiding her, probably embarrassed that it was her P.A. who had stolen Sophie's husband, so she made a big effort to smile expansively in her direction and Laura returned the gesture with a look of relief but also, Sophie felt, guilt. Oh, God, she thought, please don't let her be another one of Matthew's conquests. A cloud briefly settled over their table, but Leo swept it away when, having seen off the rest of the guests, he strode over with a fresh bottle of champagne and began a victorious debrief of the evening.
* * *
Helen heard Matthew bumping into the hall table at about one a.m., at least she assumed it was him and not a burglar, but she was too tired to check. Let him steal Matthew's toy cars, what did she care? Then she heard another crash and an "Oh, fuck," and knew it was definitely Matthew, a bit the worse for wear.
"How'd it go?" she asked sleepily when he eventually stumbled into the bedroom and turned on the overhead light, half causing her to squint.
"Fantastic," he slurred. "A triumph. You should have been there."
She ignored the sarcasm. "Was Leo pleased? Did he think it went well? Did he enjoy it?" OK, stop asking him questions about Leo. Next it would be, "Did he look nice" or "Did he look like he was pining for someone called Eleanor?" She changed tack.
"Did any of the celebs turn up?"
"Great turnout. Shaun, Janice, Sandra…"
"Sandra was there?" For some reason, this made Helen nervous. "She did behave, didn't she? Did you keep an eye on her?"
"Hardly my job."
He managed to register her disapproving expression. "Don't worry, she was fine."
He flopped into bed, socks still on, and turned onto his side, breathing heavily almost immediately, asleep within seconds. Helen sighed and got out of bed to turn off the light.
* * *
On Saturday morning, Helen was up early and out to the shop to get the tabloids. She was looking for Sandra's modeling story, but just as eager to see if Leo's launch had gotten any coverage. She knew there was no chance he would be in any of the pictures, if there were indeed any, but in that way that, when you're fourteen, you want to keep walking past the house of the boy you fancy even though you know he's away on holiday with his mum and dad, she just wanted to catch a glimpse of something that was connected to him. She started flicking impatiently through one of the papers in the street as she walked along. Nothing. Letting herself into the flat, she sat down on the sofa and began hastily skimming the next one. On page five there was a picture of Sandra. But it wasn't the picture she'd been hoping for. The shot was taken outside Verano; she recognized the laurel bush in its pot by the door and the wrought-iron table and chairs. There was no mention of the restaurant by name, or of Leo, because the focus of the piece was on Sandra: Sandra, who was hanging on to the arm of an unnamed man Helen had never seen before; Sandra who had a food stain on her see-through white top; Sandra who was cocking her leg at the paparazzi like a publicity-hungry spaniel to show them she was wearing no underwear. The paper had pixillated the offending area to protect her modesty. The headline read: PUT IT AWAY, LOVE.
Helen broke into a cold sweat. She checked the other two papers—both had gone with the same picture and the captions THONG GONE and SANDRA'S NO COVER GIRL. There was no mention of Verano anywhere, no one had gone with the pictures of the other D-listers arriving or leaving, and of course why would anyone use the "candid" modeling shots when they had these? She tried to tell herself that the Sundays might pick up her Vogue story, but she knew there was now no chance.
* * *
Matthew flinched when she dropped the papers on the end of the bed.
"It's a fucking disaster."
She showed him one article after another, holding them up to his face as he lay there.
"You know this wouldn't have happened if you'd have come," he said helpfully.
She lay down on the bed, defeated. "I know, I know."
But Matthew wasn't done. "So now Leo will think I couldn't handle his campaign. Great."
"I'm sorry. But it wasn't me who invited Sandra. I didn't know she was going to be there."
"True. But let's face it, Helen, if you hadn't refused to have anything to do with Leo's PR you could have checked who was on the guest list and, failing that, if you hadn't refused to come last night you could have kept an eye on Sandra when she did turn up. Stopped her drinking, sent her home."
Defensiveness was getting the better of Helen. "Laura was there, she should have sorted Sandra out."
"True, but Laura was in charge last night, she had enough on her plate. And anyway, she'd given the responsibility for Sandra's story to you."
"Fucking Jenny must've invited her. She knew I was expecting the story to go in this weekend. She must've done it, hoping to stitch me up."
Matthew lay back on the pillow. "Don't be so melodramatic. And do you know what? I can't be bothered to worry about Sandra. It's far more important to me that we've let Leo down. Shit, I'd better ring him."
* * *
Leo, as it turned out, was not overly concerned by the lack of coverage because bookings were stacking up and he knew the word of mouth would be positive. He was actually relieved that the restaurant had not been named in conjunction with Sa
ndra's flashing, and couldn't quite understand why his father was being so overly apologetic.
Laura, on the other hand, was spitting. Helen's phone practically exploded when she answered her boss's call.
"You've seen the papers, I take it?" Laura sounded like Helen had never heard her before, both icy and boiling with anger at the same time, if such a thing were possible. Helen took a deep breath and waited for the worst.
"There's no chance she'll get her nomination now. Absolutely no fucking chance. Jesus, what a disaster."
There was a brief pause and Helen, feeling like she was obliged to say something, offered up, "I'm sorry."
Laura wasn't listening.
"I mean, being drunk, falling over, that would have been bad enough, but we might have overcome it. But showing her bits. Oh, God."
It crossed Helen's mind to say, "Look, you can take back your offer of a job. I'll understand." But all she could manage was "I'm sorry" again, followed by "I'm really sorry."
Laura had finally taken a breath.
"What are you sorry for? It's not your fault."
"It is, of course it is. If I hadn't refused to work on Leo's account, or even if I'd have come last night…"
Laura interrupted her.
"But you weren't working on it, that's the point. Maybe you should have been, but you weren't, and I accepted that. No…" she paused for dramatic effect "…it's that bitch Jenny. Sandra's name wasn't on the list last time I checked it, so she must have invited her herself, knowing that every time she goes near free booze she makes a fool of herself. I didn't even realize Sandra was there until about ten o'clock, by which time she was already half cut. I told Jenny to keep an eye on her, take her out the back door, put her in a taxi home. Fucking hell, I should've done it myself."