Never Mind The Botox: Rachel

by Penny Avis

  ‘You aren’t seriously expecting me to give them to you?’ Rachel was incredulous.

  Harry came over and took both her hands. He looked at her, wide eyed, almost desperate. She could feel he was shaking too.

  ‘Rachel, I love you. I want to do this for both of us. If we make enough money you wouldn’t need to work so hard, maybe not at all, then we could spend more time together.’

  Rachel shook his hands off in anger. He was so full of it. ‘Love me! You love me, do you?’ Tears were flooding down her cheeks. ‘You selfish bastard! This has nothing to do with me. I have a job, a career ahead of me. But what does that matter to you? Nothing, nothing at all. You just do what you want and bugger the consequences for me.’

  ‘It’s not like that.’ Harry steadied himself and tried again. ‘Look, if we end up getting married and maybe have kids, you’d stop work then anyway. This would just mean you could stop a bit sooner. So you see, it wouldn’t really make that much difference.’

  Rachel couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It was going from bad to worse. Harry had never mentioned marriage before, let alone children. And now he’d raised them both, but in the worst possible circumstances.

  ‘Why would I stop work?’ She couldn’t quite believe she was actually going to engage with him in this farcical debate, but she needed to know the answer.

  ‘Everyone knows that children need their mothers at home and we’d be no different,’ said Harry.

  ‘Do they now?’ Rachel’s eyes flashed with anger. ‘So let me get this right: you thought you’d sell this story to papers, using evidence from my project, and get a load of cash that would never be traced to me. Then we get married, have kids, I give up work to stay at home to look after them and we live happily ever after?’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it exactly like that,’ said Harry. ‘I just wanted to explain why it would work for both of us, set us up for the future.’

  ‘You’re off your fucking rocker!’ Rachel shouted so loudly she made Harry jump.

  ‘Alright, calm down,’ he said.

  ‘I will not bloody well calm down!’

  ‘We wouldn’t be doing anything illegal, you know. Provided the story is true, there’s nothing to stop the papers paying for it.’

  ‘It would be against the rules for me, you idiot! I don’t seem to remember my ethical rules saying that it was okay to sell confidential client information to the papers.’ Rachel looked terrified. ‘Have you told anyone the company name?’

  ‘No,’ said Harry.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure. I needed proof before I could start giving them any details. I just gave them a general idea of the story.’

  ‘To both your mate and the paper you spoke to?’

  ‘Yes, both.’

  ‘Well, I guess that’s something.’

  Rachel paused.

  ‘Now get the fuck out of my flat.’

  Harry looked at her in shock. ‘What?’

  ‘You heard, get out of my flat.’ She walked towards him, her face streaked with make-up, struggling to contain her emotions. ‘And I mean now,’ she added in a low croaky whisper.

  ‘Shall I call you?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Get out!’

  Rachel didn’t stop screaming until Harry had run out of the flat and shut the door behind him. Then she fell to her knees on the floor with her head in her hands, struggling to catch her breath between sobs.

  How could he have done that to her?

  Chapter 14

  Rachel sat on the sofa in her flat feeling totally numb. Her face was red and blotchy and her head was pounding. She looked at the files around her and shook her head in disbelief for the hundredth time. What had he been thinking? She slowly got to her feet and started packing away the files as if she was on autopilot. AJ and Rosa would be expecting her back at Beau Street by now. She placed the briefcase by the front door and then went into the bathroom to attempt to repair her make-up. God, she looked a mess. She washed her face and gently reapplied her eye make-up, trying to disguise as much of the puffy redness as she could.

  I must stay calm, she kept saying to herself as she fought back the tears. She also felt light-headed and shaky, like she might faint. Maybe she should eat something. She opened the fridge and stared blankly into it, not able to face any of its contents. In the end she opted for a slice of bread and butter, the childlike comfort of it making her feel slightly steadier.

  She left the flat with the sole purpose of getting through the next few hours until she could get back home again. That was as far forward as she could think. She walked slowly round to the local corner shop and picked up sandwiches and snacks for lunch, just about mustering a half smile for the lady behind the counter, and then headed back to Beau Street.

  She could tell that AJ and Rosa knew something wasn’t right as soon she came into the room. She saw them exchange glances and AJ nodded at Rosa as if to indicate that she should be the one to say something, somehow sensing that it might be ‘girl talk’.

  ‘Coffees all round?’ AJ asked and escaped from the room, giving Rosa time alone with Rachel.

  ‘Are you okay, Rachel?’ Rosa asked after a few moments. ‘You look a bit peaky.’

  ‘Oh yes, fine, thanks. Just got a bit of a headache, that’s all. Think maybe it’s the humid weather.’

  Rachel stared hard at the papers in front of her as she spoke. The concern in Rosa’s voice had automatically made her close to tears and the tremble in her voice soon gave away that it was more than that.

  ‘Look, you’ve been rushing about quite enough today. Why don’t you go home on time? AJ and I can stay and burn the midnight oil, break the back of the presentation.’

  Rosa’s kind gesture was just about too much for Rachel. A few tears leaked out onto the desk underneath her. Rosa put her hand on Rachel’s arm.

  ‘That’s okay, I’ll be okay. I just need a minute.’ Rachel fanned her face with her hand and took a deep breath. She looked up and composed herself enough to manage a smile. ‘I’m fine, honestly.’

  AJ returned with the coffee. He looked at Rosa quizzically, but she just shrugged her shoulders and shook her head very slightly.

  It took Rachel every ounce of energy to keep her composure for the rest of the afternoon. Her computer screen kept swimming in front of her as the tears kept threatening to return. She managed to draft a few slides but mostly she just shuffled paper.

  ‘Maybe I will call it a day now, get an early night, try to kick this headache,’ Rachel said eventually. She really needed to go home.

  ‘I’m sure that’s a good idea,’ said Rosa straight away. ‘We can cope, can’t we, AJ?’

  ‘Er, yeah, sure,’ said AJ.

  ‘Thanks, guys. I’ll come in early tomorrow, make sure we don’t get behind.’ Rachel tried not to let the relief show on her face.

  As she was on her way out she bumped into Fred the security guard, who was carrying some boxes across reception.

  ‘Hello, Ms Altman. Have you had a good day?’

  Rachel looked at his cheery, wrinkled face, felt a rush of warmth towards him and immediately felt like crying again. God, she was totally vulnerable to decent, honest people being kind to her.

  ‘Clinging to the wreckage, Fred.’ Rachel tried to smile in an ironic ‘only joking’ sort of way.

  ‘Oh dear! Well, there are no storms forecast in this area, so you should be home and dry tomorrow,’ Fred replied, enjoying the nautical word play.

  ‘Thanks, Fred, let’s hope so.’

  Back at home, Rachel opened the fridge and looked at the bottle of white wine sitting in the door. She couldn’t decide whether it was a good idea to drink it or not. She needed to get her emotional tumble dryer of a head under control and somehow work out what she should do next. Maybe tea with sugar would be better.

  The list of things she needed to do kept whizzing through her head at such speed that somehow s
he couldn’t catch anything for long enough to actually deal with it. She was exhausted.

  She was sitting motionless on the sofa holding a rapidly cooling cup of tea when the doorbell rang, making her jump out of her skin and nearly throw the whole cup over herself.

  ‘Shit!’

  She put the cup on the coffee table and started towards the door. Then she froze. What if it was Harry? She wasn’t sure she had the strength to withstand the inevitable emotional onslaught. She looked nervously through the security peephole. It wasn’t Harry outside. It was Shali.

  She jumped back from the door in surprise. Shali heard her.

  ‘Rachel, it’s me, Shali. Please let me in. I know you’re cross with me but I really think we should talk. Rachel? Please?’

  Rachel stood for a moment, totally unable to decide what to do, and then opened the door.

  Shali looked very relieved. ‘Oh, Rachel, I just had to come round. I can’t bear it that you’re so upset with me. I’m so sorry. I never really thought you’d be so hurt. Well, to be honest, I never really thought at all. It was all so spur of the moment. I want to make things right but I’m not sure how.’

  Rachel couldn’t say anything. She reached out both arms towards Shali and as she did so tears began rushing down her face. Shali ran towards her and held her tightly as huge sobs racked Rachel’s chest.

  ‘Shit, I had no idea you felt this bad,’ said Shali, totally overcome by Rachel’s reaction.

  Rachel shook her head. ‘It’s… it’s… not… that,’ she said, the words coming out one at a time between jerky, tearful breaths.

  Shali looked at Rachel’s broken face. ‘Oh my God, what’s happened?’

  ‘It’s… Harry,’ Rachel said through the tears, still not really able to talk properly.

  ‘What, is he hurt, has there been an accident?’

  Rachel shook her head.

  ‘Look, come on, let’s go and sit down so you can catch your breath,’ said Shali.

  They went into the sitting room and sat down on the sofa. Shali got Rachel a glass of water and, after a few minutes, Rachel had composed herself enough to talk.

  ‘I came home unexpectedly at lunchtime today to get some Beau Street files that I’d left behind. When I got here I found Harry going through my things, my work things.’

  ‘What? Harry? Why on the earth would he do that? He doesn’t give a stuff about your work,’ said Shali, and then quickly added, ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to be quite so blunt.’

  Rachel hesitated. She hadn’t meant to tell anyone about what she’d found but it was becoming clear to her that it had been a pretty stupid decision. She’d told Harry already, which was why she was in this mess, and she needed help.

  ‘While I was working on the Beau Street job I found out that one of the doctors has been charging celebrities way over the odds for cosmetic surgery and booking them in under false names so they can totally hide the fact that they’ve had anything done.’

  It sounded pretty bad when she said it like that.

  Shali clearly thought so too. ‘Really? Wow, that’s well dodgy.’

  ‘Well, the thing is, I mentioned it to Harry and he seemed really interested, so I told him a bit more about it. I was so pleased that he wanted to talk to me about my work − normally he’s so standoffish about it − and I didn’t think for a minute it would matter. God, I was such an idiot!’

  Rachel began to cry again. Shali handed her a tissue.

  ‘Well then, and you won’t believe this, Harry decided that he could sell the story to the papers and make a load of cash out of it.’

  ‘What? No!’ Shali looked shell-shocked.

  Rachel nodded. ‘He’d wanted to come round last night but I told him I had to work and mentioned that I had all my files here. So he came round today when he thought I’d be out and went through them, looking for proof of the story.’

  ‘Oh my God, Rachel, that’s awful! I can’t believe he would do that.’

  ‘And then he tried to get me to go along with it by saying the money would set us up for the future. He even mentioned getting married and having kids. I’m sure that was just a ploy to try to win me over, the slimy bastard. And even if he meant it, what a totally fucked up way of bringing it up!’

  Rachel became furious all over again as she recalled Harry’s assumption that she would automatically give up work. She had the better job! If anyone was going to be giving up it should be him. Rachel sighed heavily. It was hardly a debate that they were now likely to be having.

  ‘Did he find any proof? Shit, is he off trying to sell the story right now?’ Shali looked alarmed and sat forward in her chair like she was about to sprint out the door and chase Harry down.

  ‘No, thank God. The bits of paper he needed weren’t here. They’re locked in my desk. All that was here were the normal sales records and of course they don’t mention any of the real names,’ Rachel explained.

  ‘How did you find out then?’ Shali asked.

  Rachel told Shali about seeing Lloyd Cassidy and Audrey Fox having a late night meeting with Francesca Hart and the black appointments book that she’d copied pages from.

  Shali sat open-mouthed and spellbound as Rachel spoke, trying not to enjoy the drama and scandal too much. She’d never heard a story like it.

  ‘Blimey, Carl Stephens must be doing his nut! Will it kill the deal?’ Shali asked.

  ‘I haven’t told him about it,’ Rachel said quietly and suddenly felt very ashamed. How could she have thought that saying nothing was the right option? She knew deep down that she’d taken the easy way out. What a coward.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Shali. ‘Why not?’

  Rachel put her head in her hands. What a bloody mess.

  ‘Carl’s having an affair with someone who’s involved − Audrey Fox, the nurse I saw.’

  ‘You’re kidding me! Are you sure? Fuck, I need a drink.’

  Shali went to the kitchen and hunted out the bottle of white wine in the fridge. She then took two more bottles off the wine rack and put them in the freezer. It was going to be a long evening.

  As they drank, Rachel told Shali about seeing Carl meet Audrey at the hotel and how he’d brushed her off when she raised her initial concerns with him.

  ‘So you see, if I raise it with him, I’ll have to ask him if he’s having an affair. If he is then he needs to step down off the project,’ said Rachel. ‘Then we’ll need to tell the buyers and, quite frankly, all hell will break loose. And on top of that, I’ll have to explain that I was creeping around in client offices breaking into locked drawers. Hardly great for my promotion prospects.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound the best,’ Shali agreed. ‘But I don’t think you have any choice. You can’t let the deal go ahead without telling the buyers what you know, however hard it is to deal with. That’s the whole point of your review. The Americans will sue the arses off us if they buy the business and then find out afterwards.’

  Rachel knew Shali was right but she was already an emotional car crash. The thought of opening such a massive can of worms was just a crisis too far right now.

  ‘I can’t cope with it all, Shali, not on top of breaking up with Harry.’ Rachel was shaking so badly she could hardly hold her wine glass.

  ‘Is that what you’re doing?’ Shali asked.

  ‘Well, I told him to get the fuck out of my flat.’

  ‘Did you? Good girl.’ Shali grinned at Rachel, who managed a smile for the first time that evening.

  ‘Yeah, I did. And I’m pretty sure there’s no way back from this. I’m sure he’ll beg and plead and try every trick in the book to make me take him back, but what he’s done is despicable, a total betrayal,’ said Rachel.

  ‘Harry’s always been a bit wide but I never thought he’d stoop that low.’

  Rachel winced at Harry being referred to as wide. Why was it that your friends only ever told you what they really thought about your boyfriends
once you split up?

  ‘I really don’t think he saw it as such a big deal. You know, that’s his business as a sports journalist − getting a good story and then selling it. As he said, it’s not illegal or anything providing the story is true − well, not for him anyway. He just didn’t think about the consequences for me. When I told him I could be struck off for breaching client confidentiality he looked genuinely surprised. What I can’t bear was that he was going to try to do it without telling me. Imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t come back?’

  ‘I don’t think I dare,’ said Shali. ‘Scandal about your client splashed across the front pages right in the middle of the deal? What a total nightmare. There would’ve been a huge witch hunt for whoever’d leaked the information. Even if they couldn’t trace it to you, imagine how stressed you would have been!’

  ‘I guess that Harry’s plan must have been to tell me about it at some point, otherwise that story he gave me about doing it to plan for our future together was total bollocks.’

  Rachel could tell from the look on Shali’s face which she thought was more likely.

  ‘Well, never mind all that. He didn’t get anything, and as he’s now the fuck out of your flat you can focus on how to deal with this unholy mess on your project,’ said Shali.

  ‘I don’t know where to start,’ said Rachel, feeling utterly exhausted.

  ‘Well, we need a plan, and a damn good one. For that we need more wine and definitely some chips. I’m starving.’

  Rachel lay back on the sofa and shut her eyes for ten minutes while Shali ran out to the fish and chip shop for two large bags of chips smothered with salt and vinegar. The smell of them as she came back into the flat made Rachel realise how hungry she was too. She was practically dribbling by the time Shali had set them out on the coffee table with a second bottle of very cold wine and a pad of paper.

  ‘Right, let’s make a list of who you need to talk to and in what order. Then we can go through your diary for this week and work out when you do what.’