by Stella Duffy
And then she smiled a third time, launched in. “Hi.”
She saw his shoulders flinch, watched his eyes lift from his paper to hers, offer a reciprocated greeting and then back again to the page, quick as possible so as not to encourage the intrusive stranger.
But Saz had enjoyed her morning and wasn’t going to be put off that easily. She started again, London accent and antipodean tourist attitude.
“I was just wondering … ”
“Yes?” Still weary, still annoyed, but maybe slightly interested now.
Saz pointed to his paper. “The girl section?”
“The what?”
“G2. Girl section? Could I … just while I have my tea? If you’re not reading it right now … ?”
He wasn’t. Nor could he pretend he was. He was on the letters page of the main paper. Obviously.
“Yeah. Sure.” He handed it over. Relieved. A chunk of newspaper. This part was easy. She just wanted to read. Reading he could do, quietly, alone. She didn’t want to talk. Yes she did.
“Have you known Laurelle Cottillo long?”
“What?”
“Laurelle? Didn’t I see you leaving her house?”
“When?”
“Just now, wasn’t it you? I thought we came down the street together?” He stared at her, Saz pressed on, “She’s my neighbour, I’m over the road. I’m sure I’ve seen you going to their house before, Laurelle and Bart’s … haven’t I?”
Their house. She made it safe for him. Offered information. He wasn’t speaking out of turn.
“Yeah. Laurelle and Bart.”
“Right, and you’re their … gardener?”
Saz glanced over to the window. It was still pouring down outside, just as it had been all morning. He looked out the window and back at Saz. And then, very obviously, he looked her body up and down, smiled, lowered his voice.
“No. I’m not the gardener.”
“Oh?”
“I’m Mrs Cottillo’s personal trainer.” He stressed the Mrs, still smiling. “It’s my job to make her sweat. She’s American, you know. They prefer to sweat when they exercise, not like English girls, all yoga and no effort.”
“Right. So what do you do instead?”
“I work my clients.”
“Right.”
“Really hard. But then, I’m an osteopath too. I know how to take care of the body.”
He was flirting. She’d expected him to be closed or defensive. Angry maybe – she had asked for his paper after all, what he probably wanted was an easy post-shag coffee, she’d disturbed his routine. She’d anticipated pissed off at least – instead he was quite obviously flirting with her. Maybe business was slow, maybe she looked like she needed a work out. Saz wondered if perhaps she should get back to running, if the walks with Matilda weren’t making enough impact on her flesh.
By the time she’d finished her cup of tea, Saz had Damien’s business card, a run down of his costs – from a one-off personal assessment to his yearly rate for long-term bookings, and an offer for a free trial workout. She promised she’d get back to him. The prices seemed pretty high for a trainer, even for one who – according to Damien – brought all his own gear and would be happy to meet you seven days a week, anywhere at all, in the greater London area. His costs were maybe even high for sex, she wasn’t sure, but his manner was outstanding. And if she’d have been looking – and wealthy, and straight – Saz might well have taken him up on the free trial offer. As it was, she went back to the car with a spring in her step – flirting was flirting, wherever it came from. She called Claire to say that she’d fax over the price list as soon as she got home. No matter which of his services Damien was giving Laurelle Cottillo, even at the lowest rate for long-term clients, he certainly wasn’t cheap. Apparently very available, but not cheap. Saz drove slowly home through the school-run afternoon traffic feeling satisfied with herself. Blatantly obvious flirting from a very attractive young man who was maybe as much as a decade her junior had done the new mother no harm at all. And neither had a day’s dishonest work. She’d fax his price list to Claire, email the story she’d had from Maya, and expect a not insubstantial sum in her bank account in three days’ time. And it was only just four o’clock.
When she let herself into the flat she was surprised to hear Carrie talking, not in the baby-talk high pitch she usually employed to keep Matilda amused, but the lower, more serious tone she generally reserved for sexual conquests. Saz’s immediate thought was that Carrie had asked the new lover to visit and she sincerely hoped that she was not about to walk in on her ex in anything but a compromise-free position. She’d had more than enough of Carrie flaunting her desirability at any given moment. She called out hello to give them a chance to rearrange themselves and just as she had her hand on the door handle she heard Matilda’s giggle – and another, far more disturbing thought came to her – what if Molly had come home early after all? And, if that were the case, which particular lie had Carrie been entertaining her partner with, and would she be able to pick up on the clues in time?
Saz pushed open the door, took in Carrie on the sofa holding a cup of coffee, another half-finished cup on the coffee table in front of her and a man sitting beside her. Both fully dressed. Both clearly pleased to see her, both smiling up at the horrified woman in the doorway. Will Gallagher was holding Matilda, bouncing her on his lap. Matilda was holding tight to his thumbs, clapping her hands as he clapped his.
He spoke over her daughter’s curls, softly spoken word kisses ruffling the baby’s hair. “Finally! I thought I’d have to go before I got a chance to see you.”
And Carrie added an accusatory, “How could you have known Ross Gallagher all this time and never told me?”
“His real name’s Will.”
“Now you tell me, I’ve told you all about my famous friends. Well, all the ones I’ve shagged anyway!”
She and Will laughed together, giggling, knowing. Clearly their coffee cup bonding had been very successful.
Will ruffled Matilda’s curls, mouth smiling, eyes sharp, daring Saz to contradict him, “Yes, but we go so far back I expect you’ve forgotten she ever knew me so well. Am I right, Sally?”
FIFTEEN
Sally was sobbing. Wanted to be out of here, out of this. Anywhere but this. That thing she’d seen on TV, the documentary about those fucked-up anorexic girls, most of them her age, that thing one of them said, about how she cut herself. The voiceover lady called it self-harm, the expert talked all about it, made sense of it. She wondered if that might do it for her, like the woman in the prison film on TV, make it better. Make it go away. Make them go away. And she’d been here so many times before, felt like this – this useless, this hopeless, this misunderstood. This fucking stupid. God, she felt so fucking stupid. Her sister said she was being stupid. Only her sister meant it differently. Nothing was that bad. Except that Sally thought it was. This was that bad, this was as bad as it got. Looking round her bedroom, wondering if now was the time to get on with it. Get on with leaving.
Anyway, she hadn’t really told her sister everything. Just that it was getting worse at school. There were some other kids, you know how it is. This group, a couple of boys, some girls. She let her sister picture the rest, let her practised schoolground imagination build up what she wasn’t saying. Anyone could imagine, everyone’s been to school, goes to school. Everyone knows what it feels like. It feels like shit. Every fucking day. Day after day. Five days out of every seven. But Sally wasn’t telling her sister the whole truth. Couldn’t tell her the whole truth. Not ever. Could barely stand to admit the truth to herself. She’d told her sister there was this bunch of kids, giving people a hard time, even hassling one of the new teachers too, new teachers always so easy to give a hard time, always so easy to scare. This bunch of kids that everyone knew about and no one did anything. No one ever did anything, that was what she found so amazing. No change.
They’d talked about it the night before and her sis
ter had been sympathetic for a bit, but only a while. Said all the right things, the things big sisters were supposed to say. But Sally knew her sister was bored too, wanted to get on with her own stuff, homework, tea, TV, diary, telephone. Every night the same routine. The sister had calls to make, friends to talk to, a boyfriend she really needed to be talking to. Some shit going on there, something the sister didn’t yet understand and wondered if he was going to tell her the truth or talk around the problem again like he had yesterday. Whatever the problem was – and she still wasn’t sure she wanted to know, not if the problem was her. She really liked this one. Properly liked him. Not just a boyfriend so she could say she had one, but a proper boyfriend. Anyway, truth was she couldn’t exactly be bothered, not that much, not with her little sister’s shit. Fuck, everyone has their problems, deal with it.
The big sister assumed the little sister must have been getting a hard time too. Said it happened to everyone. Because it did. Everyone knew it did. Everyone’s life had some bastard bully in it at some point, all you could do was ride it out, hang on and wait for it to pass, for them to pass, the cloud of them, crowd of them passing on and over to another unwilling victim. Big sister checked the time, something to watch on TV, phone call to make, bored now. Left the bedroom and pointed out that if the little sister really was going to top herself, or do something fucking stupid like cut herself, then best not to do it in her bedroom. All those clothes on the floor, the ones she hadn’t bothered to put away for days, they might get dirty. And some of them weren’t Sally’s actually, some of them had been borrowed from the big sister’s room and not returned. That top’s mine for a start. There are worse things in the world, Sally. War, famine, flood, drought. Way worse. And at least you’re not fat.
Sally watched the big sister go and was relieved she hadn’t told her everything, lay back and waited and listened to the nervous twisting of her stomach and found she was pleased to have told her almost nothing. Sally was glad she hadn’t told her sister exactly how badly she wanted to get away from these other kids at the school, how much she needed to get as far away as possible from this thing that was happening to her. She kicked her foot through a pile of clothes on the bed, watched as they fell to the floor in a slow-motion spray.
Glad she hadn’t told her how really fucking hard it was to be one of the bad guys.
SIXTEEN
Saz felt a wave of shock run through her, a deep lurch at the pit of her stomach, cold chill tumbling down her spine. She held out her arms, waited for voice to follow the action. Eventually the words came, “Give me my baby.”
“Saz?”
Carrie was confused, didn’t understand her friend, looked from Saz to the famous man sitting beside her, the recognition running between them, his ease with Matilda, Saz’s repetition.
“Fucking well give me my baby.”
“Saz, what’s going on?”
“Go home, Carrie.”
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Just go home. I’ll call you later. And you,” directing her voice but not her eyes at the bemused man, “you wait there. I won’t be long.”
She snatched Matilda from his hands and practically ran from the room, her daughter screaming at the speed and fury with which she’d been wrenched from the warm arms of the nice bouncing man.
Over the strident screams of her daughter she heard them saying goodbye, Carrie telling the visitor how nice it had been to meet him, how sorry she was to leave so quickly. Carrie came down the hallway to Matilda’s room, Saz standing holding Matilda tight to her, the wailing baby refusing to be pacified.
“Saz?”
“Carrie, go home.”
Carrie’s confusion came out in her sharp tone, “I didn’t know I’d done anything wrong. He said he was an old friend of yours, he said you went to school together.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, he can’t have been lying. He knows loads of things about you, told me about your mum and dad. He knows Cassie.”
“Yes, he does. He did.”
“So he is an old friend?”
“No. He is not an old friend.”
“Oh. Oh well. Shit.” Deflation of tone, “I’m sorry. I thought it would be OK. He said you were expecting him, and I figured maybe you’d just forgotten, he did know all of you. I’m really sorry … ”
“It doesn’t matter. I just don’t want to see him.”
“Is it a bad time? Shall I tell him to go?”
“Look, I’ll sort it. I just don’t want him in my house. Our house.”
Carrie, thinking she understood what this was all about, said, “Oh. Right … so is he … ?”
Saz laughed then, Carrie’s typical assumption bringing her back to a safer place, a usual place, “No, he is not an ex I forgot to tell you about, definitely not that. Go home. I’ll call you later. And thanks for taking care of Matilda.”
“How did the job go?”
“Fine, all done.”
“Good. Well, we had a nice day. Matilda loves Oprah. And those makeover programmes. We watched three in a row. Oh, and I taught her to say ‘I love you Auntie Carrie’. She’ll do it for you if you ask really nicely.”
“She’s too young for that, Carrie.”
Carrie looked at her, frowning, “Yes, I’m joking, Saz.”
“Oh. Right. Sorry.”
“Sense of humour deficit?”
“Something like that.”
“OK then, right … ’bye.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Carrie left the room and Saz stood with her daughter in her arms, slowly rocking the fury out of her child, balling up her own anger into a more manageable state. She checked the Bambi clock on the wall, the same one she and Cassie had had in their shared bedroom when they were really small, second hand permanently pointing to the tip of Bambi’s curled tail, hour hand making its way past five o’clock. Molly wouldn’t be home for another couple of hours. She had time to deal with this. Now was the time to deal with this. He was here, in her lounge, waiting. Saz put her daughter down in her cot, covered her with the blanket and placed Wool Bunny within arm’s reach. Saz studied the toys around her, she realised she knew the provenance of each one. Toys put away and kept in hope, others hurriedly grabbed on the way to visit the new-born, given with love by fathers and family and friends. And the only one Matilda was even slightly interested in turned out to be the misshapen rabbit made by Cassie’s youngest daughter. And Will Gallagher was still in her lounge. Bambi said five-fifteen. It was time to face him.
He was sitting on the sofa, reading a book. He looked up and smiled at her. “I thought I might have to wait, brought a book for the car. I didn’t expect to be let in so easily. Or to have such a nice chat with the delightful Carrie. You really shouldn’t have let that one get away.”
Saz knew what he was saying. That Carrie had outed her. Unwittingly no doubt, without even considering what she was doing, without thinking it mattered at all. Saz wouldn’t normally have thought so either, though she preferred to out herself in general, but it unnerved her, what he seemed to know about her life already, what else he might know.
“I didn’t let Carrie get away, she dumped me.”
“Ouch. Lost the babe. That must have hurt.”
“It did for a time, though I don’t imagine she’d thank you for that description.”
“Oh, I don’t know, I think your little friend knows exactly the effect her clothes and style have on men. And women. Teenage boys and blind men I imagine. Can’t think why she’d dress like that if she didn’t.”
“Whatever. I don’t expect you’re here to talk about my ex-relationship with Carrie. Or your reading habits.”
“Ah yes, but I’m a very intelligent man these days. The thinking woman’s crumpet. At least that’s what the Mail on Sunday said last weekend.”
“Never buy it. What’s the book?”
“Gogol.”
“Really?” Saz couldn’t hide her surprise. “Which? There are mor
e than one, right?”
“I believe so. Dead Souls.” He held up the cover for her to see. “There’s talk of an adaptation.”
“Yeah, well, I can’t imagine even you would pick up something like that for light reading. Though you always did have incredibly pretentious taste.”
“Anything to take me away from that suburban hole … ”
“And will you be playing the dead soul or the other guy?”
“Whichever pays the most, darling.”
“Yes, I’ve seen some of your work.”
“Thank you.”
Saz cut his smile, “I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”
Gallagher took her denial with a complacent nod. She continued, “Why Ross?”
“The other Will Gallagher was a variety performer, so I needed another name. Out-named by a bloody juggler. Ross was my nan’s maiden name. You know, Nana Tilly?”
Saz looked at the man in front of her. Thrown by the memories. “I don’t really care, I long ago stopped connecting the man on the screen with the boy I knew at fifteen.”
“And sixteen. Seventeen too, weren’t you?”
“Not quite, I turned seventeen a few months after I left school. You were one of the reasons I left so early.”
“So your lack of further education is my fault?”
Saz spat back, “What the hell do you know about my education?”
“My nan talking to your mum, they always liked a good gossip.”
“That was years ago.”
“I didn’t forget.”
“Well, I’ve done my best to forget you were ever in my past. We’re all different people now. And you’re on TV so much I’d never be able to sit in and watch a night of boring dross if I was worried about seeing you all the time, would I? I choose not to connect the bloke in fancy dress with the one I knew then.”