‘It’s amazing what crying can do, isn’t it? Anyway, no more talk about husbands, babies or adults. How are you?’
‘I like how you don’t class me as an adult,’ I said, half smiling.
‘You know what I mean, Jess. Any news?’
‘Not really. I had the worst interview this morning. To be honest, I wish I could just work for Cathy forever. God, Mars, you’d love her. She was actually backstage at Woodstock, can you believe that?’
‘So what exactly are you doing for her?’
‘Just retouching and archiving. I’m sorting her work from the Seventies at the moment. She travelled the coast from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Can you imagine being a woman at that time? I bet it was incredible…’
I looked over at Marlowe but she was lost in another world.
‘Great choice of café,’ I said.
We were in a courtyard in Marylebone – outside, so that Marlowe could smoke underneath an orange canopy, the colour of a tangerine, which fooled us into thinking it was sunny. It was not. Instead, Marlowe was staring into space, playing with her lighter.
‘What is it, Mars… come on, you can tell me?’
‘Do you think I’m a bad mum?’ she said, matter-of-fact and without hesitation.
‘Not at all, why would I think that?’
‘Because I want a life outside of Elsa…’
‘Marlowe, no one thinks that. Where did this come from?’
‘My parents do. They think I should just be happy to be married and paid for…’
‘But you’re not though, are you?’
‘Not what?’
‘Happy.’
She took a breath as if to speak. ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘I’m here now, may as well enjoy it. What else have you done this week?’
‘Oh, I know what I need to tell you!’ I said, suddenly remembering my run-in with Carla Walker. ‘Remember Carla from the student union, the one who used to date the lanky guy Greg who… ‘
‘Shaved his armpits.’
‘I was going to say now lives in Leeds, but yeah, that one. Well, I bumped into her at Borough Market and she’s having twins.’
‘Bully for her,’ Marlowe said. ‘Sorry, that was awful of me. Good news. No, it’s great news. Is Greg the father?’
‘No, Mars,’ I said, smiling. ‘She has actually dated other people in the past ten years…’
‘Ha!’ she laughed. ‘I don’t know, I guess those people from university are all frozen in that time in my head. It’s weird to think of her with someone else, though.’
‘You weren’t even friends!’
‘I know,’ she said, protesting. ‘But it would be nice if they were still together. It may have been young love but it was real. I can tell!’
I watched Marlowe bite her fingernails, which always meant she wanted another cigarette.
‘Have you eaten?’ she said, grabbing her keys and purse.
‘Nope, you?’
‘To tell you the truth I haven’t had much of an appetite lately. All of a sudden I’m starving. Fancy a spot of lunch somewhere in town? My treat.’
I nodded, downing the rest of my coffee.
‘But it has to be a quick one, Jess, George is watching me like a hawk at the minute – thinks I’m going to defect or something.’
‘It’s lunch, Mars, what does he think is going to happen?’
Two hours into lunch and a bottle of white wine later, Marlowe was conserving juices like a cactus.
‘I’m fine, really,’ she said, only slightly slurring.
‘Well, you don’t look fine. You’re all fidgety and haven’t sat still since I met you earlier today.’ I was being the kind of honest you are with someone after three glasses of Chablis.
She paused and pretended to read the dessert menu before discarding it back onto the table.
‘Can I tell you something?’ she said, leaning forward. ‘And you’ll keep it to yourself?’
‘Of course.’
‘I wish…’
‘What?!’ I said. ‘Say it…’
‘I wish I could be more like you.’
‘Me! Have you completely lost your mind?’
‘I mean it,’ she said, adamant now.
‘Mars, I’m a waitress who is also working for free as a photographer’s assistant. Did you not hear me? I’m actually working for free.’
‘No. You’re following your heart.’ She placed her forefinger down on the table adamantly, and left it there.
‘Stop being so cheesy,’ I said, ‘especially when it’s the wine talking.’ I threw a serviette across the table, narrowly missing the end of her nose.
‘No. I’m proud of you.’ She looked at me for longer than was normally acceptable. For a brief second I saw something in her that I’d never seen before. Defeat. ‘I don’t want it to be like this for ever,’ she said, holding my hand.
‘I don’t want it to be like this for ever, either!’ I said, squeezing it. ‘So cheers to that!’
She clinked my wine glass and a look of relief washed over her.
‘Fancy going on to somewhere with music for a quick cocktail?’ I said. ‘Just a quick one to blow the cobwebs off.’
‘Yeah,’ she said, standing up. ‘Just a quick one though, Jess. I don’t want to be back late.’
We both left the restaurant insulting each other with the belief that this would be a quick drink; reassuring each other separately that we absolutely needed to get home.
‘I’ll have a gin and tonic,’ I said, sitting down in the type of bar that Marlowe and George frequented. ‘Order me one while I nip to the loo, would you?’
I walked up the white, shiny staircase that was all a haze and felt like a dream, hovering cautiously over the toilet pan. ‘Just one drink,’ I uttered to myself as I washed my hands at the basin. I considered my reflection and could see a smudge of red lipstick on the side of my face. I licked my finger and rubbed it gently to remove the stain. I thought very briefly about my interview earlier that day. And how far away it actually seemed. ‘What a total bastard,’ I whispered to myself as I rubbed my hand through my hair to ruffle out the layers.
Back at the table my drink sat waiting for me: a bitter tonic to a tiring day, a precursor to hours of stories, secrets and familiar jokes. In the gap between gin and tonic and tequila, we had caught the eye of a group of businessmen: four suits out for a good time. In their defence, our ability to laugh heartily without the usual amount of effort may have been a turn on. The fact that we danced to and from the bar may have appeared to them in some way attractive. But with what would be a thunderstorm of rain on their parade, we were actually not looking beyond ourselves for a good time.
‘Marlowe,’ I shouted above the sound of German tronic music. ‘Do you fancy going somewhere else?’
‘I can’t!’ she shouted, before turning on her heel. ‘Actually, yes, let’s go dancing!’
And then, somewhere between a good nightmare and a bad dream, the taxi took us across London to the nearest club that would accept us – six drinks in. It was a small, squalid nightclub in an unknown part of London. My head was already swaying – my feet sticking to the floor.
‘Perfect,’ I said as I pulled out my purse and paid for both our entry. ‘Just get me a drink later,’ I said to Marlowe who had already made her way inside. I positioned my heel at the foot of the stairs, which I believed at the time to be swaying, as I slowly attempted to let go of the handrail. I placed my foot down with trepidation as if stepping onto a roundabout that was already spinning.
‘Do you need a hand there, love?’ a blond man shouted, towering over me, trying to assist with my descent.
‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘I really don’t need any help from a man, right now.’
Once inside, I set off to find Marlowe. I could vaguely make her out in the blurred crowds. But I knew that she was walking towards me and carrying two drinks.
‘What took you so long?’ she said. ‘Here, drink this…’
>
I stood up straight and sipped my drink down. It was vodka. It burned. After the slow shudder of initial pain I put my arm around Marlowe and kissed her on the cheek.
‘I love you,’ I said, loudly and clearly.
‘I love you too, Jessica Rabbit,’ she replied, before dragging me back onto the dance floor.
The sound of the music coursed through my veins, the smell of sweat and cheap perfume lined my nose and grew intoxicating. I looked around at the crowds of people dancing by my side. We had descended into darkness and I was in the midst of a movement: a whirlwind of life and lights and love, a heady mix of passion and carnage. It was raw and terrifying and brutal. I danced until my feet stung and could feel the droplets of sweat down my back, in an attack of salty dew. I closed my eyes and drifted into the darkness of my consciousness. The colourful lights seeped through my eyelids, making light shows in the sky. The sway of the crowds took control of my body as I delved deeper into the sea of people and into the abyss of carefree abandon. In a vast haze of shots, dancing and dallying in the girls’ toilets, we had been transported as two women who were once responsible, but had now been reduced to messy, beautiful creatures, clinging onto each other in the vain hope that one day, things would be slightly different. Better. Because it’s not easy to be a girl: to have exactly the right amount of ambition, not too much, not too little, to be loving and sensitive and kind. To not wear too much make-up or dare go out bare-faced. To be just the right amount of female.
At the end of our night, we ran across to Victoria Station, the sight of daylight stinging my eyes. I looked over to see Marlowe laughing, her denim jacket caught around her elbows, her ice-white blonde hair resting over her mouth, straggling from an unruly ponytail. It was 2010 again and we were free.
WINTER
Chapter Fourteen – Trying to Catch Water: Part One
Winter provides the city with a tricky path to negotiate: sleet, cold winds, slippery roads and painted windowpanes sealed shut with frost against the howling winds. It’s a time when people gravitate towards one another in the chill of the cold nights, anticipating Christmas and New Year, celebrating a new beginning, reflecting on the one left behind. In this decadent time of merriment and overindulging, we were free to indulge in a few weeks of novelty and frivolous fun, when the coldness of the world outside counter-balances the warmness of the human spirit inside.
Amber awoke to a string of text messages from her boss, claiming, rather desperately, that he needed to talk to her. She looked at them: his last-ditch attempt for her had proved too little, too late. What was once an innocent flirt in the office had somehow developed into a regret on his part and judging by the subsequent messages and their content this was something that now bordered for him on embarrassment. She put the phone on her bedside table and rested her head back down on the pillow. It was funny how the one thing she feared most in the beginning, the possibility that he would leave his wife, had now ironically become the opposite. An impossibility. She knew she needed to draw some sort of conclusion to this mess herself. A decision originally fuelled by passion and anger had now been replaced by retribution and guilt. Those original fears had not come to fruition, which hurt her more than she had thought it would. Deep down she knew she had done the right thing, for him and for his marriage. But there were some things that she couldn’t make any less painful for herself to bear. No matter how hard she tried.
That morning, she walked into work like any other day. The only obvious indication that separated this day from any normal day was that she was an hour early. It was 7.30 a.m. and she wanted to give herself enough time to pack some of her desk away should he, as she had expected, do the cowardly thing and ask her to leave. As ever, she had covered all possible outcomes with logic. But as she sat down at her computer she couldn’t help but feel the practicality of it all was a cover-up for emotions that she felt stabbing inside.
There was a squeak as June, the lady who cleaned the office, wheeled her plastic mop bucket through the corridor. ‘Good morning Amber,’ she said, breezily.
‘Morning June,’ Amber replied, smiling for a brief moment.
She strode on towards her desk and opened her top drawer, pulling out a memory stick in preparation of transfering her client list. If things did get nasty between them, although her heart was crushed, she wanted to at least give her career a fighting chance. After all, she had spent over two years cultivating it. She clicked ‘transfer’ and waited for the file to copy. As she watched the turning wheel on the screen, her childish expectation that things were going to work out made her feel nothing less than a fool.
At 8.50 a.m. he came into the office. As planned, Amber sat and waited, her fingers twitching on her desk as she prepared herself for the inevitable.
‘Amber,’ he called from his office, ‘got a minute?’
She nodded and made her way over to him, a strange sense of relief washing over her now that events were underway. He closed the door behind her and rested his hand on her shoulder.
‘Don’t,’ she said, stopping him. ‘People are already starting to talk so I’d rather we didn’t add fuel to the fire.’
‘Of course,’ he said, complying. ‘I sent quite a few messages yesterday but you didn’t reply.’
Amber looked up at him from her chair. He was standing by the bookcase in a move that only further demonstrated his authority. Sit down and tell me to my face, she thought to herself. At least give me the benefit of seeing your eyes when you do it.
‘I assume you’ve… taken care of things,’ he said without looking at her.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I was going to ring you, after. But then I just thought… well, what was the point. It wasn’t going to change anything.’
He sat down in front of her and leaned back in his leather office chair. She watched as he ran his hands through his long grey hair. ‘Christ, I feel like such a bastard.’
‘Stop it,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t matter… I mean… It does matter. But it’s no one’s fault.’
‘I just wish I could’ve gone with you, Amber, but it was just…impossible.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, feeling the repetition trip off her tongue like the habit she’d developed over the past few weeks.
‘And financially…’ he said, leaning forward.
‘I don’t need your money,’ she said, taking a deep breath. ‘I’ve handled it. Just go back to your wife. We’ve both made a mess of things here. At least one of us should be able to salvage something from it.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means that I am asking you to accept my resignation,’ she said, looking at him defiantly. The move was spontaneous. None of this was planned but she had enough to heal without seeing the look of regret on his face every morning.
‘Amber, don’t do this,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘Let me look after you.’
‘I don’t need looking after.’
She paused as she reached the door of his office.
‘It just wasn’t worth it, in the end, was it?’ she said, a lump forming in the back of her throat. She left before he could witness any more. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
I pulled the empty bottles of wine from the large silver ice bucket and dropped them heavy-handedly into the bottle bin. After spending the past three hours buttering him up, laying the foundations for a favour, I asked Guido if I could stay behind at the restaurant that night. I had just finished the dinner shift and had received a message from Amber saying that she needed to talk. I hadn’t heard from her since Marlowe’s dinner party so I was anxious to hear what she had to say. I had promised him, with utmost certainty, that I would lock up properly and post the keys through their letterbox on my way out.
‘Is this for a date?’ Guido enquired.
‘I’m afraid not.’
I could see him mulling things over as he stroked his black moustache. ‘I just don’t think it’s possible, Jess
. What if you leave the grill on?’
‘I won’t be using the grill,’ I said. ‘I promise I won’t create any potential fire hazard.’
‘Let her,’ Maria said, walking over with a cup of tea. Guido looked at her and then at me, sandwiched between two pairs of expectant eyes.
‘Fine,’ he relented. ‘But you post the keys immediately after and any damages, you pay for.’
I leaned over and gave him a hug, which of course was shrugged off immediately.
On his way out, Guido had given me strict instructions on how to leave the restaurant in preparation for the next morning and as Maria tentatively led him upstairs to the private flat where they lived, I began lifting the chairs onto the tables before doing a final sweep of the floor. Before I could fetch the sweeping brush, Amber walked through the door, pushing it shut behind her. She still had her work clothes on and her cheeks seemed flushed.
‘What’s this?’ she said, looking around.
‘Private hire,’ I said, smiling. ‘Sit down; I’ve made us some coffee. Obviously I don’t know what’s wrong and I don’t have anything stronger to hand so here we are, this’ll have to do.’
I handed her a mug filled with freshly brewed coffee and placed a sugar bowl on the table between us.
‘Thank you,’ she said, taking off her scarf.
‘I don’t know who’s supposed to talk first,’ I said. ‘Biscuit?’ I’d maneuvered four clumps of freshly baked biscotti from a glass jar onto a plate, and hoped that Guido hadn’t counted them before he left.
‘Jess, I did have an affair with my boss,’ Amber said. ‘But it’s over now. He’s still with his wife, as he should be, and it’s over. The only damage appears to have been done to myself. I just wanted to apologise for how I handled things.’
‘Right,’ I said, sipping my coffee. I wasn’t there to judge. You’d have to be sat on a pretty high horse at this stage to be dishing out morality.
‘I know I haven’t been coping with things too well and I thought you deserved an explanation.’
‘Don’t worry, the other night at Marlowe’s was actually vaguely amusing.’
Love, and Other Things to Live For Page 15