by Sam Holden
5.35 p.m.
It's gone to Nesbit for £285,000. Half of that is mine. Oh my God. For once, I am speechless. It's looking like a £300,000 year. And that's not counting a second series. This is almost too easy. No, not almost, it really is too easy. I have this idiot permagrin on my face, and I just don't want to tell Halet about it, because it seems vulgar. Heading to the off-licence in a jiffy to buy a lot of champagne.
Wednesday 10 September
Sally was more than a little happy. I needn't go into detail here, because I'm not likely to forget. Suffice to say, at one point we actually held hands and jumped up and down. And then I fell over and things got more champagney and amorous.
My feelings now are 'finally, finally'. I sort of feel, and I would only dare admit this to my diary, that I deserve all this, that I deserve lots of money and success. It's how I'm wired, how I've been brought up. And what's so nice about it is that I don't have to be some chippy bloke in my mid forties who watches all his friends get richer and buy big houses and cars, etc., because I'll be one of them. At this rate, I'll be the richest of the lot.
Friday 12 September
Sally and I had a long chat last night about her stopping work. I know this has been my refrain all year, but surely now is the time for her to stop torturing herself? Her response was just as I had feared.
'Now would not be a good time to give up,' she replied. 'I know that you are going to be earning tons and tons, but who knows how long it will last?'
'I have no idea,' I said. 'But even if it all fizzles out after a couple of years, I'll have made enough money for us to really think about what we want.'
'Maybe,' she said.
'We'll have the freedom to choose. We could pay off the mortgage and stay here, and sort of live the good life. Or we could push ourselves and buy a bigger house. Or we could sell up and move to the South of France where we could buy an enormous chateau with a pool.'
'Who do we know in the South of France?'
'Nobody. But who cares? It's mainly British anyway. We'd find friends, no problem.'
'But they'd all be retired.'
'Hmm . . . I gather quite a few young people are moving out there these days.'
'Rubbish,' she said.
'OK, you're probably right. But you get the gist. We're free to choose. All that's holding us up is your job.'
'But my job is secure, Sam.'
'It doesn't sound it. The last thing you told me was that it looked as though it was on the line.'
'Well, things are looking up in that department.'
'Oh?'
'I'm sorry, I just haven't had a chance to tell you in amongst all your good news. They think it may not be a mole, but possibly a hacker, or some sort of communication intercept. Whatever it is, it looks more likely to be something electronic at fault rather than some human.'
'Blame the IT department?'
'Exactly! Even in my world IT always takes the rap!'
'My point still stands, though,' I said. 'I wish you would give it up. Would you give it some serious thought?'
'Of course,' said Sally.
'You promise?'
'I promise,' she said. 'But don't forget, it wasn't that long ago that you agreed to be a househusband, and now look at you. You only did it for five minutes. And if you're asking me to give up work, you're asking me to become a housewife again.'
'Was it really that bad?'
'I don't find it as fulfilling as some women do.'
'Fair enough,' I said. 'But by next September the children will both be at school, and so you'll be able to do something part-time.'
'Maybe, but it never quite works out like that, does it?'
'Doesn't it?'
'Tons of women who say they're going to go back to work once the children are at school never do.'
'Yes, but you're different from them.'
'Perhaps, but with your vast income, maybe I won't have the imperative to work. That's probably why I'm sticking with the Ministry, because the imperative is not about money.'
'So what's it about then? Making the world a better place?'
Sally nodded.
'Yes, frankly.'
I couldn't really argue with that.
Anyway, I'd better stop writing now, because episode two is about to come on. It'll be cool to watch it air across the country, in amongst the adverts for soap powder and tampons.
Saturday 13 September
Lots and lots of phone calls today from people saying they loved part two. It was the one featuring Suzie and Maureen, and many people thought I was quite the action hero busting the door down. Luckily there was no footage of me bruising my shoulder at the first attempt. That would have taken the Wonder out of WonderHubby and somehow Hubby doesn't quite cut the mustard as a TV programme. Sounds like some interminable Israeli soap opera. Set on a kibbutz.
I spent this afternoon writing my column. (That's a nice sentence to have written.) Toby said it was great, although when he emailed it back to me an hour later it was unrecognisable.
'It was great,' he said again when I called him, as though great were the lowest form of praise. 'We've just got to get you to write in our house style, and then it'll be fine.'
'So is "fine" better than "great"?' I asked.
'Much better,' he said. 'If your piece is fine, then you've almost won a press award.'
'Is there anything better than fine?'
'I once told someone that their piece was really quite nice.'
'Wow, high praise indeed. Who was that?'
'Martin Amis.'
Monday 15 September
Oh fuck. I think I have a stalker. Just as I suspected, Emily's begun to go off, badly off. I now know that all those 'chance'meetings in the supermarket were entirely deliberate. How do I know this? Because I saw her in her car in the supermarket car park waiting for me.
I turned up at around 9.30 a.m., my usual time, and I noticed her just sitting in her green Peugeot estate. However, she hadn't seen me, and I parked a few spaces behind her and waited. And waited. And waited. In all, I waited for twenty minutes, and still she sat there. Then I decided to drive round in front of her car, and pretended not to see her as I got out and walked to the entrance. When I got there, I hid behind the Postman Pat kiddy ride-on van and watched her walk in.
I then followed her into the supermarket at as great a distance as I could manage. Sally would have been impressed by my sleuthing skills. Strangely, however, Emily wasn't putting anything into her trolley, and instead she seemed to be looking around. I knew what she was searching for: me. Was I being paranoid? I don't think so. Nobody sits in a supermarket car park for twenty minutes, and the fact that she got out only after she had seen me was suspicious as hell. And now, here she was, wandering around the store with an empty trolley, patently looking for something other than fruit and bog roll.
I followed her for a few minutes, and then decided to surprise her.
'Hello Emily,' I said, tapping her on the shoulder.
She jumped a little.
'Hi! Gosh, you gave me a fright there!'
'We always seem to be bumping into each other here,' I said. 'What a coincidence!'
'Quite! Well, I always find Monday morning a good time to go shopping.'
I looked down at her trolley.
'Nothing that takes your fancy?'
'What?'
She looked extremely distracted and somewhat frazzled. Not only that, her hair was greasy and unkempt, and she had bags under her eyes. In fact, she looked like a poster warning teenagers of the dangers of drugs.
'Your trolley, it's empty.'
'Yes, I've only just got here.'
I knew this was bullshit, and she must have known, because we were two-thirds of the way round the shop. I, on the other hand, had been cunning, and had put things in my trolley, into which Emily was now looking.
'I didn't know you had a dog,' she said.
'I don't.'
'So why have you got dog f
ood in there?'
I looked down, and there it was. Perhaps my cover was not so watertight after all. Sally would not be signing me up as a spook any time soon.
'It's for Rachel next door,' I said, after a probably not very convincing pause.
'Oh,' she went, because let's face it, there's only so much conversational mileage you can get out of discussing a neighbour's canine's dietary requirements.
'Did you see my programme on Friday?' I asked.
'No, I'm afraid I missed it,' she said. 'I was out.'
She was scratching the back of her neck, which we all know means that someone is lying. Why was she lying? Was she trying to make out that she wasn't interested? Answer: Yes. Why? Answer: Because she's trying to make me hungry for her, pay more attention to her. Will it work? Answer: No.
'Well, you can catch me on Joseph and Mary this afternoon,' I said.
'OK,' she said, trying to sound uninterested, but I could tell she was feeling the opposite.
The conversation petered out, and although we came across each other once or twice as we trundled round, that was pretty much the extent of the meeting. I was so distracted I actually bought the dog food in the end. I must go round and give it to Rachel.
Wednesday 17 September
Woken up at 2 in the morning by a silent caller. It had to be Emily, although the number was withheld, so I couldn't be sure. Then I couldn't get back to sleep, not until five o'clock, by which time it was broad daylight. I slept badly for about half an hour and finally gave in and got up to go for a walk. It was a beautiful morning, but I was too tired to enjoy it properly.
'Who was that last night?' asked Sally.
'Must have been a wrong number.'
'Bloody odd time for a wrong number.'
Thursday 18 September
This time the call came at 3.
'Look,' I said, 'who the hell is this?'
I clamped my ear to the phone, trying to pick up any sort of clue. I thought I could make out a slight sobbing noise, like a small child in pain. In the middle of the night, it sounded positively creepy.
'Whoever you are, please stop it.'
I didn't want to say the word 'Emily', because as far as Sally is concerned, there is no Emily situation. I listened hard, but still that faint sobbing sound.
'Can I listen?' asked Sally.
I passed her the phone. I could just about discern her troubled expression as she held it to her ear.
'The person's hung up,' she said.
It had to be Emily, I thought.
'I'm going to call the phone company first thing,' said Sally.
'Don't worry,' I said. 'I'll do it.'
This was a little pork pie. The last thing I wanted Sally to discover was the identity of our midnight telephonic stalker.
'They should be able to tell us who it is,' she said.
'It's probably some nut who's seen me on TV. I bet this happens a lot.'
'It could be,' she said. 'But we're ex-directory, so how would they have got the number?'
'Maybe it's Nick,' I said.
'Stop that! It's not funny.'
'Sorry.'
'If the phone company don't tell us,' said Sally, 'then I'll just have to do it the naughty way.'
'Via work?'
'Yup. One of the intercept guys owes me a favour.'
'Sometimes your job has its advantages,' I said.
'I know,' said Sally. 'You see, I would be mad to chuck it in.'
We both lay awake for a few minutes, and then thought that if we were awake, we might as well be frisky. We started off well, but my equipment was not interested. I was too preoccupied by that strange sobbing noise, and it had a remarkably detumescent effect, although I hadn't really tumesced in the first place.
I didn't call the phone company, because I knew there was no point. Instead, after the school/playgroup drop-off, I went straight round to Emily's. When she answered the door, she looked startled.
'Hi!' she said. 'What a surprise!'
She looked wraithlike, a shadow of her former self. In fact she looked as though she had been up all night crying, and making crank calls. Very Princess Diana.
'Do you mind if I come in?' I asked.
'Not at all.'
The house was a mess. It was never clean, but it was now sluttishly dirty, too dirty even for a bachelor Sam Holden.
'Jesus,' I said. 'Have you given up tidying?'
She tried to laugh.
'Sorry, it's a bit of a tip. I was about to give it a good going-over.'
She lit a cigarette and then stood there, picking the scab on her arm as she had done when she made her 'declaration'. The scab looked kind of bad, the type of scab that your mum tells you to stop picking.
'Would you like one?' she asked.
'No thanks.'
We stood in silence. I decided I would get straight to the point.
'Listen, Emily, I know it's you.'
She made a great play of furrowing her brow.
'What are you talking about?'
'You know full well.'
She shook her head. So far, so theatrical.
'What?' she asked. 'What?'
'Emily! Please don't do this!'
'Do what for fuck's sake?'
It was rare for Emily to swear, and the word jolted me a little.
'The phone calls, Emily.'
'What phone calls?'
'The ones in the middle of the night.'
She took a drag of her cigarette.
'Hang on,' she said. 'Sorry if I'm being a bit slow here, but what exactly are you accusing me of?'
'Calling me up in the middle of the night two nights in a row.'
'Er . . . no.'
She seemed convincing. In fact, she was such a good actress, I began to feel small shards of doubt lancing me. I had to take a punt and call her bluff.
'Emily, please don't deny it. The phone company have told me it was your number.'
'But they wouldn't have done that.'
'That sounds like an admission,' I said.
Emily said nothing, but instead walked to the kitchen and went to the fridge. She scrabbled around inside it, and then slammed it shut.
'Fuck!' she exclaimed.
'What?'
'I thought I had some wine left.'
'It's a bit early for wine, isn't it?'
'Never too early,' she said, and then she cackled, in a slightly unhinged way I thought.
'Come on Emily,' I said. 'You've got to stop this. I know what else you've been doing as well.'
'Go on then, I'm all ears. What else can you accuse me of this fine morning?'
As she was talking, she was rummaging through the cupboards, no doubt on the hunt for some booze. She was in a bad bad way, and I didn't want to break a butterfly upon a wheel.
'Well, I know that you follow me to the supermarket.'
This was met by an OTT snorting sound.
'Now why, Mr Holden, would I do something like that?'
I didn't want to respond to that, because we both knew the answer. There was also something pathetic about her continued denial, and I didn't want to play her game.
'I saw you waiting in the car,' I said.
'When?'
'On Monday.'
'I was making a call.'
'No you weren't.'
'How do you know?'
'Because I could see you.'
'I have a hands-free.'
'No you don't.'
'How do you know?'
'Because it's just not something you would have. Shall I go outside and check?'
Emily slumped down on a kitchen chair. I thought she was going to collapse, pass out, but instead she just sat there, looking emptily at the bottom of the fridge, the fridge that had so cruelly cheated her of alcohol.
'My life is fucked,' she declared.
'No it's not.'
'Yes it is.'
'Why is it fucked? You have three lovely children, you have a nice house, you look
good, I don't see the problem. All right, I know that you are still upset about me, but surely not enough to say that your life is fucked.'
'Externals, Sam. Is that all you're interested in?'
'No, but . . .'
'Because you don't know what happens up here, do you?'
She tapped the side of her head.
'No, of course not. But I can guess. I can guess that you're upset because you've got divorced. You're stuck in the middle of the countryside with three children and you're on your own. Your last lover was a shit-loving-nappy-wearing pervert, and the man I think you still love doesn't love you back, and does in fact live in a state of marital bliss, which makes your own situation feel worse. I can guess that you are desperately worried about the future, about whether you'll ever find another husband, or at the very least a decent boyfriend who can be a father to your children, and you're worried that if you don't, you're going to end up lonely. And I can guess that the more you think about these things, the more they eat you up, and you become more and more preoccupied, until you realise that you are not doing your job as a mother. And I guess that in turn eats you up, and from then on it's a vicious circle of self-doubt and self-loathing. And then, one final guess, the great healer is of course the bottle. Except it's not really, is it? When you wake up, you hate yourself for doing it, and so the loathing gets worse. And so on.'
Emily started clapping, the type of sarcastic clap that crap playwrights insist on putting in their plays, and the kind of clap that nobody does in real life.
'Well done, Dr Freud,' she said.
I didn't reply. I slightly regretted putting on such a long spiel.
'Be as sarcastic as you like Emily, I still think you need help.'
'No I don't,' she said. 'I'm fine. It'll be fine, you'll see.'
'How can it be?'
'Because I'll get over you, that's how. It shouldn't take too long. You're not that special.'
I laughed.
'That's the attitude,' I said.
'But you think you're special, don't you?'
Uh-oh, I thought. Here comes the sourness.
'No,' I lied.
'Yes, you do. Oooh. Did you see me on Friday night? No? OK then, well you can catch me on Joseph and Mary. Oh yah, the party in London was such fun. So sorry I couldn't invite you. Numbers, eh? Wretched PR girl, you know what it's like. By the way, sorry that we had to sack you from the programme. Wife too jealous. Oooh. Did I tell you I'm now a columnist for the Advertiser? Make sure you get it! Looks like there'll be a book as well. Should be fun, don't you think?'