by Karen Swan
So this is Christmas, she thought wryly.
‘Hi, Daise,’ she mumbled, walking past with a wan smile as she shook snowflakes from her hair. It had begun snowing again overnight but still wasn’t settling in the city – although the Home Counties had had up to four inches, much to the dismay of London’s children, who wanted to build their first snowmen of the season. ‘How was your dinner party?’
‘Just tell me. You may as well spit it out,’ Daisy said, hurrying after her as Nettie unbuttoned her coat and hung it on the coat rack, her hair already picking up static from the carpet.
‘Tell you what?’
‘About Saturday! The concert!’
‘Oh.’ Nettie hesitated, unwanted memories, images and sensations flashing unbidden through her mind again. ‘It was fine.’
‘Fine?’
‘Great. It was great. He was—’
‘Amazing, right?’ Daisy perched one small buttock on her desk, her long legs wrapped round each other in a gangly spiral.
Nettie nodded and tried to smile as she slipped into her seat and booted up the computer. She could feel last night’s sense of communion beginning to desert her. She didn’t want to think about him.
‘That’s it? That’s all you’re giving me?’ Daisy demanded, arms outstretched.
Nettie racked her brain, trying not accidentally to spill any details about how Jamie had kissed her with his hands around her cheeks, or the groove along his stomach, or how he’d made her laugh with butterfly kisses on her inner thigh – all the usual thoughts that were occupying her every waking and sleeping moment. She held a finger in the air, pleased as she thought of something. ‘We went to the after-party at Bodo’s Schloss. I drank a cocktail from a ski boot.’
‘Who was there?’ Daisy’s eyes were on stalks, her palms flat on the table.
Damn, she’d barely noticed. She’d had eyes only for him. ‘Um, Tinie Tempah—’
She was saved by the sudden heavy thud of Jules’s bag being swung onto the desk – although judging by the look in Jules’s eyes, maybe ‘saved’ wasn’t quite the word.
‘Morning,’ Daisy said tartly, taking in Jules’s office warrior pose – her hands on her hips and eyes trained on Nettie like sniper rifles. ‘What’s up with y—’
‘Give us a minute, would you, Daise?’ Jules ordered, without looking at her.
Nettie swallowed as Daisy – for once – did as she was told first time, shooting Nettie an ‘oh crap’ look as she left.
Behind her, Nettie could hear the sound of the kettle boiling, a small clatter of cups being brought down from the cupboard, the sucker of the fridge door being opened. Daisy’s face appeared sporadically around the yucca plant.
‘I could be dead.’ Jules’s words were hard and metallic, glinting and cold.
Nettie opened her mouth to respond, but Jules was too quick, too angry for her to compete.
‘For all you know, I’ve been raped and murdered and dumped in a landfill in Solihull.’
Nettie’s mouth opened again. Solihull? ‘Jules, I’m sorry. You looked like you were having a great time. I didn’t think—’
‘No. You didn’t. Because not only did you not know if I was OK, none of us knew if you were OK either. Did you ever stop to think about that? No one knew where you were.’ Jules flicked her eyes up to check no one was standing too close. She leaned forward, her voice so low it was more of a rumble. ‘I rang him, you know. Gus gave me his number. He didn’t know where you were either.’
Nettie felt her cheeks stain at the rebuke, at the thought of them all discussing her. ‘I am not a child. I don’t have to account for my whereabouts to anyone.’
‘You just ran out, he said.’
She swallowed, humiliation like a rain that poured upon her. ‘Yesterday was just a bad day, OK?’
Jules shook her head. ‘No, it’s not OK. You would think that you, of all people, would understand—’
‘Don’t!’ Nettie was astonished to realize she was on her feet again, her finger jabbed towards Jules in warning, her own eyes blazing. ‘Don’t you dare!’
‘Ladies.’ They turned to find Mike standing by the desk, watching them both with concern. ‘Everything OK?’
Jules straightened up, tugging down irritably on the hem of her top. ‘Fine, Mike,’ she said through gritted teeth, shooting another fierce look towards Nettie and making it perfectly apparent that it wasn’t fine at all.
‘Nettie?’ Mike asked, plainly able to see her rapid breathing and flushed cheeks.
She blinked and looked across at him. ‘Fine,’ she replied too after a moment.
‘Good,’ he said with evident scepticism. ‘Well, let’s get the meeting underway, then, shall we? Caro’s bringing the teas.’
Both women looked down at their desks in silence, shuffling papers aggressively and slamming drawers as they hunted for pens.
In the conference room, Nettie sat down in her usual seat, watching in disbelief as Jules pointedly walked to the other side of the table and sat with Daisy and Caro.
Both Daisy and Caro swapped looks.
Nettie sighed and placed her attention on Mike. Fine, let Jules be petty, then, she thought, sticking her nose in the air. If she wanted to involve the entire office in her tantrum, that was her business.
Mike looked out upon the unorthodox seating arrangement with a furrowed brow. ‘Right,’ he said slowly, twiddling his pen between his fingers. ‘Caro, if you could brief us on the latest figures, please.’
Caro opened her laptop. ‘Twitter – five hundred and fifty-eight thousand followers now – there was a spike after the batmanning, not so much with the owling that we posted the day before. The public is clearly liking the direct connection between Bunny and Jamie, the alliance seems to be going over well, so I think we should home in on that for the remainder of the campaign.’
‘Good, we’ll feed that back to White Tiger,’ Mike said, making a brief note. ‘What else?’
‘YouTube is at one point three million views now, if you combine the clips of the ice course, Ice Bucket Challenge and Shard all together, although Ice Crush is still the leader individually. Obviously that’s generating some serious income now, but as I think I’ve said before, it would be good if we could get more film footage up, and not focus quite so much on stills for the last few days. It gives the followers something to really keep sharing and coming back to. A photo is more disposable, more forgettable.’
‘Nice point. Duly noted,’ Mike said, again scribbling notes. ‘So the pot now stands at . . . ?’
Caro smiled and shook her head. ‘Donations to Tested via Nettie’s link now total £633,792.’
Mike whistled, dropping his pen to clap Nettie. Caro and Daisy joined in too and Nettie quickly clapped them back. ‘Team effort, everyone.’
‘Damned right – it was my idea,’ Jules muttered, her hands pointedly flat on the table. ‘All you are is the model.’
Nettie blinked at her, hurt by the viciousness in her tone.
‘Right, well, moving on,’ Mike said quickly. ‘I’ve had a call from Jamie Westlake’s manager this morning.’
Nettie’s head jerked up. Dave?
‘Yeah, where are they? At the meeting in the bar on Friday, they said they’d be here,’ Daisy said with evident disappointment. Nettie realized she was wearing lipstick.
‘Well, he’s emailed to say they can’t make the meeting.’
Nettie froze. He was supposed to be here? ‘Is this because of that melee in Topshop at the weekend?’ Caro asked.
‘What melee?’ Mike asked sharply.
‘You must have heard about it, Mike – it was all over the Interweb. Jamie sauntered into Topman on Oxford Street and there was practically a riot.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe nothing to do with it. Just saying.’
Nettie thought she was going to be sick.
‘Well, his no-show today doesn’t change the plans we’ve already got in place to coincide with the launch of his new single this Friday,’ Mike continued. �
�You may recall we were discussing ways we could tie in with the publicity for that, join forces if you will – obviously getting the bunny in the music video is one way of increasing exposure.’
‘Yes, but not necessarily donations. I still like the idea of a song vote,’ Jules said. ‘It’s dynamic, interactive, and Jamie seemed well up for it.’
‘Yes, the problem with that idea, Jules, as Dave clearly pointed out at the time, is that these decisions about what song’s going to be released from the album and when are made by the record company well in advance.’
‘I get that, but it’s not like there’d be any chance of our song beating his anyway. It’d just be a stunt to get the public involved.’
‘Sorry, can we rewind a bit, please?’ Nettie cut in. Exactly how much had she missed at the bar in the hotel? She had assumed they’d all just been flirting with the star, not actually working. ‘What’s this?’
Jules didn’t reply, prompting Mike to sigh impatiently, and Caro explained on her behalf.
‘Jamie had an idea for a song vote, a bit like a “battle of the bands” skit, although given that none of us can play any instruments, we can hardly perform . . .’ She shrugged. ‘So he said we could do it with a choice of songs instead, getting people to vote for which song he should release as his next single. The public get to choose by donating to either the one that we, or rather you, would endorse, or the real one which he’d endorse. We’d split into teams – “hashtag teamjamie” and “hashtag teambunny” – get everyone to vote, and whichever song raises most money, he’ll release. He was well up for it.’
Nettie blinked. ‘And what would our song be called?’
Daisy frowned. ‘“Ships In the Night”, was it?’
“Night Ships.” The song he’d told her he wanted to release all along. No wonder he was behind the idea. A sick feeling swilled in the pit of her stomach as a thought came to her – what if all this, them, was just a marketing ploy to boost his sales? They were assuming this campaign was benefiting from the link-up with him, but was he riding on her coat-tails? Had he really been chasing after her, or her profile? Hadn’t he told her that his label wanted a younger fanbase?
‘Well, Dave made his feelings on the matter very clear,’ Mike said.
‘So did Jamie. And he’s the star,’ Jules snapped testily. ‘Anyway, we all know there’s no way his song wouldn’t win. It’s got Coco Miller in it, and who can resist her?’
Nettie flinched at the barb. She couldn’t believe Jules could be so mean – or angry.
‘Not necessarily. Jamie doesn’t want to release the duet with Coco,’ Nettie said archly. ‘He wants to release “Night Ships”.’ She paused. ‘What if he’s using the campaign for his own ends?’
‘So what if he is?’ Jules batted back. ‘Even better – that makes it a win-win.’ The more he does to promote our profile, the better. She looked back at Mike. ‘Look, there’s no doubt this stunt would get a huge reaction and we can still feature in the video with him, just for our song.’
‘It’s not about who wins or which song he releases,’ Daisy said, bringing her support to the debate. ‘There’s no doubt it would get a huge reaction. Any new Jamie Westlake single is a big deal. He’s got massive reach and we could really build it up over the course of the week, bringing it to a climax on Friday, the last day of the campaign. Just think how much money we could raise! The promotional opportunities on this would be enormous, even outside of the Net – radio airplay, maybe some TV coverage . . .’
Mike sank back in his chair, outnumbered. ‘We would need to convince the record company there’s absolutely no chance of the wrong song being voted in . . .’ He slapped a hand across his forehead suddenly. ‘No, wait. It won’t work, and I’ll tell you why – the wheels are already in motion. Dave told me they’ve got the Jingle Bell Ball at the O2 tomorrow night. Jamie’s performing the new single with that American girl.’ He glanced at Nettie. ‘You need to go to that, by the way. Dave thought it would be an ideal location for whatever meme you had planned. Guaranteed blanket media coverage. Target audience.’
Nettie opened her mouth to protest – she had been hoping to see Dan tomorrow night; he and Stevie were always in the pub for the quiz and she wanted to make it up to him for running out on Saturday night – but Jules beat her to it.
‘No biggie,’ Jules said, nonplussed and refusing to give up. ‘Jamie and Coco could do their duet tomorrow night, as planned. Then he could debut “Night Ships” on Wednesday.’
‘Where, Jules?’ Mike demanded, growing exasperated. ‘Where can they do that with such short notice? This is what I mean. These things are decided and booked months in advance.’
She shrugged. ‘We’ll think of something; Daisy will know someone who can help out. We haven’t done too badly so far, have we? Besides, we’ll need that extra day to rehearse. It will give us time to get straight with it and record the video.’ She shrugged. ‘It really is very simple.’
Mike sighed, not so sure that it was, but worn down. ‘Fine, I’ll try sounding it out to Dave again.’
Jules gave a victorious smile as she twiddled with her pen, and Nettie felt a twinge of anxiety to see her friend’s talent and ambition so clearly laid out like this. As the mastermind of this campaign, she could walk into any job she wanted tomorrow.
‘In the meantime, regardless of whether the song vote comes off, we need to plan a gag to do onstage at the ball tomorrow when Jamie’s singing. We can start tweeting about it today and create extra hype for his performance tomorrow tonight. The ball is being televised live and is so high profile that I think we can put a real premium on minimum donations. I’m thinking fifty thousand?’
Nettie’s phone buzzed with a new text and she picked it up. It was from Gwen.
‘Urgent. Call me.’
She stiffened as suddenly as if her bones had been shot through with steel rods. Jules noticed, a quizzical look coming into her darkened eyes before she quickly and pointedly looked away again.
‘I have to take this,’ Nettie said hoarsely, pushing her chair out and standing up.
‘I don’t think so, Nettie,’ Mike said sarcastically. ‘This is important.’
‘So’s this.’
‘Sit down. You can sort out your social life later.’
She should have been angered by his facetious comment. As it was, she hadn’t heard it. Her eyes were glued to the words on her screen and she hurried from the room in silence.
‘Nettie!’ Mike shouted as she ran through the office to the fire escape and stood on the back stairs, the dial tone ringing in her ear as she gazed out into the alley behind them. It was a depressing sight. The London stock bricks, which would once have been a honeyed yellow, were now blackened with grime, and black bin bags bulged out of wheelie bins, large cardboard boxes stacked against the wall and sodden from the sleet and snow.
The line connected and she straightened up abruptly. ‘Gwen, hi. It’s Nettie.’
‘Hi, Nettie. You got my message?’
‘Yes,’ Nettie nodded, trying to read Gwen’s tone. It was placid, as ever. Gwen wasn’t given to extremes of emotions. Nettie supposed that was what made her so good at her job, given that ninety-eight per cent of the time she was having to mete out bad news. ‘What is it? Just tell me.’
There was a brief pause as Gwen took a deep breath. ‘We’ve found her, Nettie. We’ve found your mother.’
Chapter Nineteen
Nettie felt her legs buckle and she sank to the step, her face in her hand. ‘How? When?’ Her voice was a whisper.
‘This morning. She walked into one of our outreach centres.’
Just like that? She just walked into a centre, walked back into their lives? The nightmare was at an end? Nettie curled up, her body folded tight, one hand over her face as she tried to brace against the onslaught of emotions that always had to be so tightly packed away. But there was no holding them back now. It was over. She could relax, just let it all go. She felt the ice
that floated like flotsam in her veins begin to warm and thaw. Colours could regain their vividness, music its lyricism—
‘Nettie? Are you there?’
‘Yes,’ she said, her voice split. She raised her head again, staring at a hairline crack in the plaster on the wall opposite as she took a few deep breaths and tried to calm her mind. She had to be practical. Think.
She blinked. ‘Which one?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Which centre did she go to?’
‘Shirland Road. Listen, there’s—’
‘W-where’s that? I don’t know it.’ Panic shot through her limbs. She had covered most of London in the past four years. She should know it.
‘Maida Vale.’
Nettie sat straight. Maida Vale? She could be there in ten minutes if she caught a cab from here. ‘OK. I’m on my way.’
‘No, Nettie – wait.’ Gwen’s voice was jolted out of moderation.
‘What?’
‘She isn’t there now.’
Nettie felt the thaw halt, nature hold its breath. A false spring? ‘But . . . what do you mean? You just said—’
‘She’s gone again.’
Nettie blinked, white noise buzzing in her head. No. ‘Gone how?’
‘She didn’t want to stay.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘She just wanted to let you know she’s all right.’
‘But—’
‘She says she’s not ready to come back yet.’ Gwen’s voice tiptoed down the line. ‘I’m sorry, Nettie. I know this is upsetting to hear.’
Upsetting? Breaking a heel on her favourite pair of shoes was upsetting. Scratching the car was upsetting. This . . . this was . . . desolation. It was like living with no skin, a glass heart that couldn’t beat. This was surviving, not living. There was more life in her shadow.
‘But if she made contact, if she was the one coming to you, then . . .’
‘It means that she’s closer to coming home, yes. But not yet. She needs more time.’
‘More time? She’s had four years!’ she shouted, her hand gripping the phone so hard her knuckles glowed white. She pulled herself to standing, her hands clutching the sill.