‘Oh, me too,’ I agreed eagerly, hoping he’d never discover quite how old-fashioned and trying not to imagine him in the bath. Very bubbly, of course, so nothing showing, script propped up on tanned knees. A cigarette going maybe, in an ashtray on the side. Bathroom chaotic, towels everywhere, papers all over the floor, needing a woman’s touch to sort it out. Not that I’d be clearing up around him in the bathroom, stooping round the tub as he read and puffed away, but in here perhaps? Would this have been Emmanuelle’s domain? My fingers itched to plump those cushions.
‘Great,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Right – I’ll shoot off now if you don’t mind. Oh, and work where you like, by the way. Emmanuelle preferred that little room, but this is all set up for you, too.’ He indicated the desk in the window I’d originally imagined was mine. ‘It’s got a better view, but it is less priva–’
‘Oh, I think I’ll stay here.’ I scurried eagerly across, dumping my bag firmly on the chair like a German bagging a sunbed.
As I wriggled out of my jacket I felt him look at my tight black shirt approvingly. I pulled in my tummy, thinking that at least my waist wasn’t too bad, even if my bottom was a bit big. God, he didn’t mess about, did he? I smoothed down my shirt as his eyes frazzled me.
‘And what I thought was,’ he went on, breaking the moment and reaching suddenly for his coat, ‘tomorrow, since I’ve got a slightly clearer schedule, we could have lunch together and I could run you through a normal day.’ He shrugged on his coat and gave me a wide smile. ‘How does that sound?’
‘Wonderful,’ I glowed, hopefully not too pinkly. Golly, lunch with my boss already. Couldn’t wait to tell Penny.
‘Now if you want to type in peace, just switch the answer machine on and ring everyone back when you’ve finished. Oh, and if someone called Jessica rings, could you tell her I’m …um …away. For a bit.’
‘Away from your desk, or away away?’
‘Er …away away would be great.’ He smiled sheepishly. ‘If you don’t mind telling a tiny white lie.’ He held his thumb and forefinger a fraction apart.
I didn’t mind in the slightest, and assured him as much. I also had a feeling it might be the first of many. Poor Jessica. I smiled. Oh well.
When he’d gone I sauntered around the room for a bit. I ran my hand lightly over the bronze on the mantelpiece, a dancer in the dying swan position, and peered at the abstract picture above her. Great splurges of colour on a huge canvas. Quite jolly, but I was pretty sure I could have done it. I could already hear Marcus snorting at it in derision. I scanned the bookshelves, head on one side, but the titles meant nothing to me, so I went to the window and gazed down at the scene below, my forehead pressed to the glass. It was quieter now, the working day well under way, but occasionally a suited executive would scurry into a building along the street, barking into a mobile, or a motorcycle messenger would draw up and leap off his bike with a package. Business as usual, and I was part of it. I wasn’t a housewife up from the sticks on a shopping spree, or a tourist seeking diversions in the Piazza, gawping aimlessly at the juggler on stilts, I was part of the make-up of the city; a cog in this huge metropolitan wheel, a worker ant. I sat down happily at my desk, my heart racing. Oh, I’d been so lucky to find this job. So lucky.
Tentatively, I put on the headphones and snapped a tape into the machine. I hadn’t done this for years. Used to loathe it, actually, at the agency – all us secretaries did. We’d groan with dismay if anyone waved a tape at us, hating to be shut off from the world and preferring to take dictation in person so we could chat and make phone calls, but actually, I was alone here so it didn’t matter. Also, I knew I could do it. I snapped the answer machine on and typed away, listening to Laurence’s incredibly deep, sexy tones.
And it was rather informative, actually. I didn’t know much about Eleanor of Aquítaine, but she was clearly a bit of a goer. Had firm views on warfare and plenty of firm young lovers too, judging by …ooh, I say. As another knight’s garter twanged and her wimple bit the dust, I decided Laurence was obviously of the opinion that combative history was psycho-sexual, and that the outcome of most battles boiled down to whether or not one General was better in bed than the other. I rattled away furiously, keen to keep up with the plot, delighted I could still go at breakneck speed, and paused, only at twelve o’clock, to ring Penny.
She was in a meeting. Ah. Yes. Hadn’t been to one of those yet. Oh well, Laura then. Probably picking her toddler up from nursery school. She was, and nearly drove into a ditch.
‘Laurence De Havilland!’ she squealed. ‘Hang on, I’ve got to stop. But Henny, he’s gorgeous! D’you mean the one I mean? The one on the telly? With the twinkly eyes and the billowing corduroys, striding around ruined castles looking moody?’
‘The very same,’ I agreed happily. ‘Although he’s in tight jeans today, but still, heaven. He’s taking me to lunch tomorrow.’
‘No! God, and all I’ve got is a meeting with stuffy old Marjorie Clarkeson who’s messing me about with her Colefax fabric. Says it’s too blue, silly tart. What does she expect when it’s called Blue Floribunda? So what does Marcus think about all this?’
‘Marcus? Oh, he’s dead relaxed.’
‘Really? I always thought he was the jealous type. I remember Hugo Sergeant chatting you up like nobody’s business at Sally Thwaite’s fortieth – you were wearing that tight red number and he dragged you onto the dance floor, remember – and Marcus was fuming! I thought he was going to take him outside.’
It was true, Marcus was quite protective. But I’d always rather liked that. Liked the fact that he was still as besotted with me as ever. I felt the need to defend him.
‘Yes, but Hugo’s such a groper, everyone knows that.
Marcus is quite happy for me to be chatted up at a dinner-party but he does draw the line at me being pawed.’
Perhaps though, I thought privately as I put the phone down, I wouldn’t introduce him to Laurence immediately. Laurence was decidedly tactile – I remembered him touching my shoulder as he’d said goodbye at my interview – and had a roving eye which Marcus would spot immediately. Of course, it was just his cosmopolitan, luvvie way, but Marcus was neither of those things. Found them rather contemptible, in fact. I stared out of the window and wondered how many girlfriends he had. Laurence, not Marcus. Loads, probably. Well, Jessica, for starters.
I sighed and picked up the headphones again. Still, no harm in a little light fantasizing, was there? Or even a bit of harmless flirtation. After all, I was married, so perfectly safe. I snapped in my next tape, hoping that lunch tomorrow would be somewhere small and cosy, somewhere dimly lit – so flattering for the over-thirties – and not one of those fashionable eateries with chrome seats and overhead lighting that Marcus had mistakenly booked for our wedding anniversary: we’d taken one look at it, shuddered, then dived into a taxi back to the candle-lit gloom of our usual haunt, the deep-buttoned Italian near the flat in Kensington. Yes, with luck we’d be somewhere very dim indeed tomorrow, and I’d listen intently as he told me all about Anne of Cleves or Catherine of Aragon or – I narrowed my eyes out of the window – yes, I probably could name all of Henry VIII’s wives, if I had to. I ran through them in my head. Divorced beheaded died, divorced beheaded survived. It was all coming back to me. Perhaps I could offer to do some research? I’d have my head cocked to one side – in the restaurant, this is – in an alert but not too agog manner, wearing that pink top I’d bought in the Ralph Lauren sale at Bluewater. The lacy one. It was very fitted and I had thought it too low-cut for work, but I didn’t now. Oh no. Not at all.
I typed away joyfully, but after a while even my nimble fingers ran out of steam, and I turned off the tape, exhausted. I played back the answer machine and began ringing all the people who’d called, introducing myself as Laurence’s new assistant and apologising for his unavailability, but promising the man at the Guardian that I would indeed get Laurence to ring back in person, since he assured me he intended
to write a very flattering profile which would give him great publicity for his new series. This was where my talents really lay, I thought excitedly, as I scribbled the journalist’s name and number down on a pad. Sorting the wheat from the chaff. Having the nous to know which calls Laurence would want to take and which he wouldn’t, and of course a lot more would come with practice. But even after one morning I felt I could tell who the time-wasters were.
I was just about to ring back one such opportunist from Chat Up magazine who’d rung twice already and wanted to know if Laurence would pose naked but for a fig leaf with Cheryl from Big Brother in a feature on breasts through the ages – I was pretty sure he wouldn’t and intended to tell the journalist as much – when the phone rang again.
‘Laurence De Havilland’s office,’ I purred professionally.
‘Could I speak to Laurie, please?’
I went cold. In fact, my heart all but stopped. Then it beat on again, unnaturally fast. Quick as a flash, I pitched my voice an octave higher.
‘I’m afraid Laurie isn’t here at the moment. Can I get him to ring you?’
‘No, it’s OK, I’m moving about a bit. I’ll ring him later. Will he be back this evening?’
‘Yes, should be.’
‘OK, thanks. Bye.’
I put the phone down. My heart was hammering now, against my ribs. I’d know that voice anywhere. I looked at my hand, still clutching the telephone. Drew it back quickly, as if the receiver were molten lava. I knew it after fifteen years and I dare say I’d know it in another fifteen. I pressed my fingers to my lips, which, unaccountably, were trembling slightly. What I didn’t know was the effect it would have on me after all this time.
Chapter Seven
After a few minutes of sitting stock-still in my chair, I lowered my hand from my mouth. Stupid of me not to consider it, I thought, my mind racing. Not to consider Rupert ringing here. After all, Laurie had told me at the interview he knew him, why didn’t I imagine he’d be on the phone? Why didn’t I think?
But I had, I reasoned as I pushed my chair back and got up to pace the room. That night, after my interview, after I’d hugged a lamp-post in the street, I’d gone home and sat on the end of my bed, gazed out of the window at the sheep-flecked fields, and thought through the implications of working for a man who knew Rupert, but decided I was overreacting. After all, it was years ago, in the Army, and that connection was long gone. And anyway, I was happily married to Marcus, what difference would it make? What difference could it make, working for a man who once knew Rupert?
But I hadn’t actually considered speaking to him, had I? Hadn’t envisaged that little scenario. Hadn’t asked myself how it would feel to hear his voice on the end of the phone. I stopped pacing and gripped the tops of my arms hard. I certainly hadn’t anticipated the rush of blood through my body, nor the bucketful of adrenaline that had shot precipitously up the back of my legs.
I swallowed and sat down again, staring at the phone.
Right. Well, I could deal with this now, now it had happened, and thank heavens it had happened while I was alone, without Laurie glancing across from his desk, watching my face go white, seeing my hands tremble. I looked down at them in my lap. Clenched them hard.
After a moment, I picked up my headphones and clamped them to my head. Without stopping for lunch – I couldn’t eat – I worked solidly. I transcribed piles of tapes, printed them out on reams of paper, and stacked them high in neat piles. I knew Laurie would be delighted, but that wasn’t my motivation. I wanted to keep those keys tapping relentlessly, wanted to lose myself in the monotony of the task, to have to think just enough to forget myself, but not enough to really use my brain. To wipe it clean to a blank sheet, just as I had fifteen years ago, on the third floor of an advertising agency, in a little cubby-hole, surrounded by spider plants and pictures of the office party: turning my back on the busy corridor behind me, the outside world.
When the street outside began to fill up, I looked at my watch. Five o’clock, and the homeward rush had started. I pushed back my chair and wondered what to do. Did I stay and wait for Laurie? Or simply shut up shop and go home? Hours hadn’t exactly been discussed, but he knew I had a family and wouldn’t want to stay late. In the event, just as I was putting on my jacket, he rang.
‘Oh God, yes – go! Sorry, I meant to say, do leave before the rush, and just shut the front door behind you. I’m sorry I haven’t made it back, I got completely tied up – but go.’
I did, and walked to the station along with a sea of people, all stony-faced and focused. Feeling numb, I found my own features setting accordingly. Charing Cross was heaving, and naturally someone trod on my heel and broke my sling-back, and since it’s virtually impossible to walk in a sling-back minus its sling, I had to sort of drag it, like the medieval village idiot with a club foot, all the way to the crowded terminus, one hand pulling Lily’s shirt down as it rode up with the exertion, the other clenched in battle. I arrived cursing under my breath, just as the top button of Lily’s shirt, unable to take the strain any longer, popped off.
Squinting up at the board, I discovered my train was in, and shuffled to the gate, letting go of the shirt to wave frantically at the guard and thereby losing my modesty and my shoe, and by the time I’d retrieved it – the shoe, not my modesty – the whistle had gone and the doors had shut.
‘Oh, thanks very much!’ I stormed, furious.
‘Sorry, luv, but if I held it up for everyone, I’d be here all day. Yer shoe’s broke, by the way.’
Half an hour later, squashed in the gangway of a crowded train, my toes pinched, a briefcase jammed into my back, my nose buried in someone’s armpit, an Evening Standard slowly lowered in front of me.
‘Good evening!’ beamed its owner, giving me an unnaturally bright and knowing smile. It took me a moment to recognize my neighbour from this morning’s commute. Ah. Point taken.
Marcus was at the kitchen table when I hobbled in through the back door; he had a can of beer in one hand, and a fork spearing a pickled onion straight from the jar in the other. His own copy of the Standard was propped up on a Rice Krispies packet, and cereal bowls and milk bottles decorated the table.
I regarded the scene in horror. Through the playroom door I could see Lily, prone on the floor on her tummy watching The Simpsons, surrounded by plates and mugs from breakfast, her pyjamas and dressing-gown still on the floor where she’d let them fall. It took a moment to find my voice.
‘Oh God!’ I gripped the doorframe. ‘Didn’t Linda come?’
Marcus glanced up absently. ‘Hm? Oh hello, love.’ He went back to his paper. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Lily!’ I hastened to the playroom. Came between her and the screen. ‘Didn’t Linda come?’
‘Oh. Yeah.’ She raised her eyes briefly up my legs, then peered around them to see Bart again. ‘But her mum was ill, so she only got as far as the stables.’
‘Hope she mucked Fabrice out,’ muttered Marcus from the kitchen.
‘Yeah, she did.’
‘Never mind the bloody horses, what about my house!’ I shot back to the kitchen and, still in my coat, grabbed cereal packets and threw them in the larder. Hurled bowls at the dishwasher.
‘God, look at this place – and oh! Lily darling, did you have any lunch? Lily?’ There was a terrible thumping noise coming from upstairs, from Angus’s bedroom. ‘LILY!’
‘Wha’?’ She turned, annoyed.
‘Did you have any lunch?’
‘Yeah, I had some peanut butter.’
‘Peanut butter! Were you here on your own all day?’
‘Um,’ she rolled over to face me, to consider this. Her brow wrinkled with the effort of concentration. ‘No, not all day. Angus and Tom were here a bit.’ She grinned. ‘Raiding the drinks cupboard, mainly. How was your day, Mum?’
‘Raiding the – oh God, were they drinking? Angus!’ I ran to the bottom of the stairs. ‘ANGUS! HAVE YOU BEEN DRINKING?’
The m
usic was deafening. I ran to the cupboard, seized a broom and thumped the handle on the ceiling. After a moment he came to the top of the stairs.
‘What?’ Like his sister, annoyed.
‘Have you been drinking?’ I yelled.
‘Oh God, Mum, just a couple of Bacardi Breezers. Chill. Bloody Lily, stirring as usual, just ’cos we wouldn’t let her have one. I was being responsible.’
‘Responsible!’ I shot my hands through my hair and swung around to survey my kitchen; my children wallowing in squalor, my husband in the midst of it, eating pickled onions from a jar. He glanced up.
‘What’s for supper?’
‘Oh God,’ I breathed, sinking into a chair. ‘This isn’t going to work.’
‘It’ll be fine,’ Marcus yawned later, beside me in bed.
‘It won’t be fine.’ I moaned, eyes wide to the ceiling in the dark. ‘The children clearly aren’t old enough to be left, they behave like savages when I’m not around. The whole thing’s a disaster!’
‘Not a disaster,’ he mumbled sleepily. ‘And shush. I’m dropping off. Under Karen’s orders. Seems to be working.’
‘Karen?’
‘My sleep therapist. Hypnotherapist, actually. I’m supposed to imagine a pleasant scenario, then work with it. I’m imagining her firm young breasts at the moment, do you mind?’
‘Not in the slightest,’ I muttered. Oh God, my babies! I was deserting them, and they still needed me.
‘And then work with it?’
‘What?’
‘Well, obviously I’ll have to fondle them?’
Not That Kind of Girl Page 10