Tubing

by K. A. McKeagney

  She looked over at Oliver’s laptop on the dining table. Should she? Did she have any choice? She turned it on and went straight to Google. She typed in ‘Sebastian Black’.

  Several articles came up about the media corporation Black Inc. They all name-checked Sebastian as a possible successor to his father’s empire. His father’s name was Robert Black. There was also mention of an older brother, called Ed, who was also in the running as successor. She clicked on a link to an article in Time magazine. The cover photo was of an old, balding, saggy-faced man in a sharp suit and glasses. He was looking directly at the camera, the background blurred and brooding. The headline read: How this one man took over the world’s media. The article gave a run-down of Robert Black’s career, starting as an East End barrow boy and ending with him as the most powerful media mogul in the world, owning forty-four per cent of the world’s media outlets, from newspapers to TV networks to social media channels. Polly had heard of Black Inc. before, but not realised the extent of the corporation. They had businesses all over the globe, with the focus on Europe and America.

  It was all getting a bit heavy, so she clicked on to a link for one of the glossy magazines. It was an exclusive at home, with Robert Black’s new wife. Robert only appeared in one photo with his Thai bride, a stock photo taken at some charity event. The rest were pictures of her in various outfits in their Monaco mansion. The lavishness portrayed in each photo was eye-popping – crystal chandeliers in every room, Regency furniture, gold and marble fixtures, a Picasso or Renoir on practically every wall. Further down the page was a picture of Robert as a much younger man, with a beautiful Italian model. Polly recognised her eyes immediately. She had the same brooding black eyes that had caught her that first night. The caption below stated that the picture was of Robert and his first wife Lucia. They had two children together.

  She went back to Google and searched Ed Black. Again it just brought up articles about Black Inc. She tried to find some articles or photos specifically about his sons, but there was nothing. It made sense: if he really had that much power over the media, he could easily quash any stories or information that came out about them.

  She clicked through to another couple of articles. It seemed that not everyone was happy about Robert Black owning almost half the world’s media. Several groups were up in arms about how much control he’d been able to accumulate. There were a number of impassioned pleas to governments to step in and do something about it. But, from what she could gather, Robert had built an impenetrable fortress around his family and his empire; nobody could touch them.

  Polly sat back, letting out a long sigh. What the fuck had she got herself involved in? Alex was right: the normal rules and laws of the land didn’t apply to these people. She quickly shut the lid of the laptop. She didn’t want to know any more.

  The thing she couldn’t understand was how all their lives – hers, Sebastian’s, Oliver’s, Charlotte’s, Ed’s – were intertwined, seemingly by chance. He was a stranger on the tube; it defied belief that he’d picked her out at random on the train that first night. She often wondered why he’d chosen her, she had hardly been looking her best – she had been drunk, with smudged make-up and a head full of frizz. No, it just wasn’t right – there were too many coincidences. The start of a line of thought was banging round in her brain, but it wouldn’t stay still long enough for her to catch it.

  She found herself a pen and piece of paper and started writing a chronological list of everything that had happened involving him. She had just got to the second meeting, when she’d thought she was with him but had actually been with the old guy, when she stopped and screwed up the piece of paper. It made her feel horrible; writing a list was a stupid idea. She threw the ball of paper on the floor and curled herself up on the sofa.

  She woke up several hours later with a start. She could hear a set of keys in the front door. She was immediately up off the sofa and looking for somewhere to hide.

  There was a thud at the door, as if someone was trying to force it open.

  ‘Pol?’ Oliver’s voice came from the other side.

  She’d put the bolt on the door right after he left that morning.

  ‘Oliver?’ she replied. The sound of her own voice made her jump.

  ‘Pol, can you open the door for me? I can’t get my damn key to work.’

  She went to the door to open it, but stopped as she reached up for the bolt. None of this was right. What was Oliver’s connection? Was he somehow involved?

  ‘Pol? Are you there?’

  Oliver had said it himself, that he and Sebastian were good mates at medical school. He must know what Sebastian had been up to – about the whole tubing thing.

  She started backing away from the door.

  ‘Pol, can you please open the door?’

  She suddenly flashed back to when Oliver had appeared the night she’d met him on the tube at Shepherd’s Bush. She remembered the way Oliver had appeared in the middle of her striptease. Had it been a set-up? Was Oliver supposed to be going to a meeting, or watching? She knew there’d been something weird going on – he was supposed to be watching the rugby, not running around on the Underground on a Sunday evening.

  ‘Polly,’ he suddenly shouted from behind the door.

  She felt her back come into contact with the wall on the other side of the hallway.

  ‘No,’ she replied in a very small voice.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said “no”.’ Louder this time.

  Oliver, tubing? The thought was beyond ridiculous. He was one of the least sexually motivated men she’d ever met. But maybe that was why. Maybe he was getting his kicks on the Underground and didn’t need anything from Polly.

  ‘Polly, what the hell are you doing? Just open the bloody door.’

  ‘No, what the hell have you been doing? You fucking perve,’ she screamed.

  Suddenly she was hyperventilating. It wasn’t long before pins and needles were clawing up her legs and into her guts again. She groped the side of the door to try and steady herself. She hit the ground just as Oliver broke through the front door.

  Thirty-three

  When she came to, she was lying on the sofa in the lounge. Oliver was in the kitchen. He turned and looked at her.

  ‘Hey, you’re awake,’ he said coming towards her.

  She was immediately on high alert, pulling herself up into the corner of the sofa, bracing herself.

  Seemingly unaware, he sat down next to her.

  ‘What’s this?’ he said, leaning forward to pick up the list she’d screwed up and thrown on the floor.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said snatching it out of his hand and stuffing it up her sleeve.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked gently.

  She didn’t answer.

  Suddenly he didn’t look like Oliver any more. He was a stranger to her. She’d always thought he was such an honest, genuine guy, but now it seemed that everything about him was a lie, right down to the fact that he never lied.

  ‘What are you doing to yourself, Polly?’ he said shaking his head.

  ‘What?’ she replied, taken off guard.

  ‘I know what you’ve been up to.’ He paused, taking a deep breath, readying himself for what he was about to say next. ‘It’s time for us to start being honest with one another.’

  She just stared at him.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he said moving in a bit closer.

  She immediately flinched.

  ‘I’ve been there myself.’

  She was struggling to follow what he was saying. Was he admitting to it?

  ‘Well, not in the same way as you have, of course. In fact, that’s a stupid thing to say – very different for a man, much, much harder for a woman, I think.’

  She couldn’t believe they were having this conversation. She looked over at the window. The thought occurred to her that, if she ran fast enough, she could dive through the open window before he caught her.

  ‘I understand
why you’ve been doing it. It’s totally understandable considering what you’ve been through.’

  She stared at him, mouth agape. Was he forgiving her? Was he expecting her to do the same?

  ‘Your mum warned me something like this might happen.’

  Polly shook her head. ‘Wait … What? My mum?’ What the hell did her mum have to do with this?

  ‘A relapse.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘When I spoke to your mum, she told me how this happened when you were a teenager, suddenly disappearing, getting really paranoid, not eating.’

  Polly closed her eyes and put her head in her hands. Right, she got it now: he thought she was having some kind of breakdown.

  He carried on talking. ‘Polly, don’t worry, I’m going to make everything right. I’m going to make sure you get better.’

  She looked up at him in disbelief. ‘And what about you, Oliver?’ She suddenly felt enraged. ‘What about all your lying and cheating?’

  ‘What?’ he replied, sounding genuinely shocked.

  ‘Are you having sex with other people behind my back, Oliver?’

  The words were out of her mouth before she even knew they were coming.

  ‘I beg your pardon.’

  She had no plan as to how this would go. Best just carry on.

  ‘Are you fucking other people?’

  ‘What?’ he exclaimed, then shook his head as if it was some kind of a joke.

  ‘You heard,’ continued Polly, deadly serious.

  ‘I don’t even know … What are you talking about?’

  ‘Just answer the question.’

  ‘Polly … ’ he said confused, all the features on his face crumpled into the centre.

  ‘Why won’t you answer the question? Am I right?’

  He didn’t say anything, just stared at her.

  ‘Yes or no?’ she said raising her voice. Why wouldn’t he just give her an answer? As far as she was concerned it could only mean one thing: he was guilty and trying to evade the question.

  He reached out to touch her. She flinched, yanking her arm away. ‘Why won’t you answer me?’ she erupted, screaming the words in his face.

  Oliver physically jumped back. He looked really hurt.

  ‘Why?’ she shouted.

  ‘Because it’s such a ridiculous question to ask,’ he replied, shrinking away from her.

  ‘Not good enough,’ she continued. ‘We barely have sex, so you must be getting it from somewhere else.’

  ‘Polly, calm down, just calm down and — ’

  ‘Don’t tell me to calm down, you patronising twat,’ she snapped.

  He was looking at her as if he’d never seen her before. He started to get up and move away from her very slowly, as if making any sudden movements might unhinge the beast and bring on an attack.

  ‘You never want to have sex with me,’ she continued, her anger defending her against the embarrassment of her words. She got up to follow him. ‘Always pushing me away whenever I try to instigate anything. Why is that, Oliver? Is it because you’re a dirty perv who gets his sexual kicks elsewhere?’

  He’d turned his back on her now and was shaking his head in – what? Disbelief? Or maybe he was mad at being found out? Polly couldn’t tell. She was right up behind him now. She reached out both hands and pushed him hard. ‘Why do you do it, you bastard?’ she shouted.

  The push was a step too far. He swung round and pinned her up against the lounge wall. His face was bright red and he was shaking with rage. I’m right, she thought, this is Oliver, this is the real Oliver.

  ‘Just admit it,’ she said.

  But suddenly his grip loosened and his face softened. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Polly. You’re the one always pushing me away. I can’t think of a single time I’ve refused.’

  ‘I can,’ she replied defiantly, ‘The morning after I … ’

  She stopped herself. She was thinking of the morning after she’d met Sebastian. She couldn’t believe she’d nearly said it.

  She pulled away from him. Everything was so muddled in her brain, she couldn’t quite get a grip on what was Oliver and what was tubing.

  She turned and faced the wall. Maybe if she focused solely on the white space in front of her she could get some perspective. It was no good. After a few seconds tears began rolling down her cheeks. She slowly started tapping her forehead against the hard, cold brick.

  ‘Stop that,’ said Oliver gently.

  She ignored him and started hitting her head harder.

  ‘Stop it,’ he said, pulling her away and guiding her back to the sofa. Once she’d sat down, he knelt before her and took both her hands. ‘We’ll get through this.’

  He looked at her with nothing but love. But she’d seen that look before. Sebastian had looked at her the same way, right after he’d asked her to run away with him, just before he’d tried to strangle her.

  She pulled away from him and got up. ‘I’m going to bed,’ she said.

  ‘But it’s not even six-thirty,’ she heard Oliver say as she slammed the bedroom door.

  Thirty-four

  Polly called into work sick again the next day.

  She had a brainwave in the middle of the night and the next morning got on to Oliver’s laptop as soon as he left for work. She went straight to his Facebook page. She hadn’t looked at it in a while. His profile picture was the same: Oliver playing the fool, his stethoscope in one hand and a pint of bitter in the other. When they’d first met, Polly had trawled through his page, reading every comment, looking at all his photos. At the time, none of the people had meant very much to her, she hadn’t recognised any of them, but she did now.

  There were several photos of Sebastian. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t remembered seeing him before. Charlotte also featured heavily. Ed appeared in a couple of them. As soon as she saw his face, her heart sank and her head dropped to the table. She recognised him immediately. He was the last guy she’d been tubing with. She slowly lifted her head up to look at him again. He looked nothing like his brother, much more like his father. He had the same close-cropped blond hair and wore glasses.

  She’d just been a piece of meat for Sebastian to pass round to everyone he knew, for them to fuck.

  She scrolled down Oliver’s list of friends. He was there. She clicked on to his page, but it was closed access so she couldn’t see anything other than his profile picture. It was a self-portrait, probably taken using his mobile. His black eyes glared at her down the lens. She would do anything to get into his page.

  Then she had a thought. She logged out of her Facebook account and put in Oliver’s username instead. Password, she thought, what would he use as his password? She typed in ‘password’, clicked OK and was in.

  She went straight to Sebastian’s page. There was hardly anything in it. There was the odd comment from other people and a couple of photos that had been tagged to him, but nothing else.

  She went back to Oliver’s page. He was also friends with Ed. She clicked on his name. There was very little content there either. She scrolled down a bit and was about to give up when she noticed several messages of congratulations on 12th March five years ago. She couldn’t work it out at first; they weren’t birthday wishes. Then it dawned on her. She clicked back to Oliver’s page to look for Charlotte. She found her and went straight to her page. The same messages of congratulations appeared. It was the date they’d announced their engagement. Charlotte had updated her Facebook status from ‘in a relationship’ to ‘engaged’.

  From then on there were endless comments on Charlotte’s page; it was a public diary of her wedding plans. Polly couldn’t help wincing as she read each post. There were pictures of various styles of wedding dress she liked, as well as details of the venue, the menu for the wedding breakfast, a YouTube video of the band who’d be playing at the reception. The last few posts were a running commentary of her feelings as she counted down to the big day. The last one read, ‘Tomorrow I becom
e Mrs Black’. Two hundred and thirty people had liked the comment and there were loads of messages wishing her luck. After that, there was nothing; the page had been totally abandoned.

  Polly sat back, letting out a long breath. What happened between them? She got up and made herself a cup of tea, unable to look any more at the mausoleum that was Charlotte’s Facebook page.

  Her phone suddenly vibrated into life on the dining room table where she’d left it next to the laptop. She let out a little yelp in surprise. She went over to get it, hand over heart, trying to stop it racing. She looked to see who it was before answering. It was James. ‘Shit,’ she said aloud. She immediately put it back down on the table and paced around until it stopped ringing. Once it was quiet again, she returned to the kitchen to finish making her tea. She heard a loud electronic chime to signal that James had left a voicemail. She chose to ignore it.

  She went back to the laptop and straight to Gmail. She didn’t have an account there, but Oliver did. She typed in his email address and ‘password’.

  His email account was very neat. He only kept messages that were strictly relevant. Polly’s email account was bulging with bits of spam and junk; she could never be bothered to delete anything. She scrolled down his list of messages. Lionel was right: he had applied for a couple of paediatric positions. There was nothing else of much interest. The odd email from Crispin arranging his birthday bash, a couple of viral messages and several from online bookshops – he’d bought a lot of medical books over the last few months.

  She was scrolling further down his list of messages when one in particular caught her eye. The email address was reservations@oxo.co.uk. It was a table booking for the OXO tower restaurant. Oliver had taken Polly there on their first date. They had a table right by the window with views over the South Bank across the Thames and into central London. Polly was impressed beyond words. The email confirmed a booking for two people on 14th June. He left instructions with the booking: ‘We’ll be celebrating a very special occasion, so if possible can we have a table by the window and champagne ready for when we arrive? Thanks in advance. Oliver.’ She knew the date – their anniversary. ‘What the … ?’ Polly said aloud.