by Gayle, Mike
Seeing Other People
Mike Gayle
www.hodder.co.uk
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © Mike Gayle 2014
The right of Mike Gayle to be identified as the Author of the Work
has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be
otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that
in which it is published and without a similar condition being
imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance
to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 444 70865 3
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH
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Our greatest misfortunes come to us from ourselves.
Rousseau
Contents
A loud noise
One week earlier
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
One Year Later
Rosie, you move left a bit
Also by Mike Gayle
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A loud noise.
Like a door slamming followed by the scent of a heavy, sweet-smelling perfume. I opened my eyes but the darkness was impenetrable. Trying to make sense of it all I reached up with my right hand to the back of my head, clenching my teeth together in readiness for the moment my neurones would signal the full extent of my injuries. But there was nothing. No matter how hard I rubbed my scalp I couldn’t find so much as a spot of tenderness, let alone the blood and bruising that I was expecting. I had been hit hadn’t I? I’d been hit from behind. A blunt object. A stick or a club or something similar. So where was the damage?
I went over the little that I could remember. I’d been in East London. For the Divorced Dads’ Club shoot. I’d had a drink with Carl the art editor and his assistant. I’d been using my new phone. Bella had texted me. I’d texted Bella. A young kid had approached me dressed as if auditioning for a part on a gritty TV drama as ‘council estate youth#1’. He’d wanted a light for his cigarette. But he’d been wearing a Zippo around his neck. And then I’d been hit. Cigarette Boy must have been some kind of decoy, distracting me while his mate came up from behind. They must have been after my phone, laughing at me as I lay on the pavement.
The pavement.
I arched my back slightly. Whatever was underneath me was clearly not regulation paving stone. It felt soft. Like a bed. I fumbled around in the darkness. I had a duvet over me. I was in a bed, not lying on the pavement where I’d fallen. Who’d found me? Who’d picked me up? Was I in hospital? Nothing was making sense. Gingerly I touched my scalp again. Still no cuts or bruises. What was going on? Ridiculous thought: I’m not dead am I? I pinched my arm hard. The pain was very real. I attempted to collect my thoughts once more. I’d been mugged but I had no cuts. I’d been mugged but I was no longer on the street. I’d been mugged but someone had put me to bed. I touched my chest. I had no shirt on. I moved my hand downwards. I had no trousers or underwear on either. I was completely naked.
Now I really was panicked. An urban myth sprang to mind: the one about students getting drunk on a night out in Sheffield and then waking up in a Chinese hospital minus one of their kidneys. It couldn’t be true, could it? Disconcerted by this theory I reached across to feel the wall behind me. Maybe there was a light somewhere. My hands knocked against a glass object. I ran my fingers over it. It felt like a lamp. I traced a line down the base to the cord and then along to the switch. Click. And then there was light. The bulb was quite dim, barely bright enough to read a book by. I looked around the room. I wasn’t in hospital but I wasn’t at home either. It was a medium-sized bedroom. On the wall nearest to me was a chest of drawers with a star-shaped mirror on top. Draped across some of the star’s points were a number of necklaces and below that, lying flat on its side, a hairdryer. Against the far wall was an open clothes rail. The clothes were feminine, dresses, blouses and the like. There might even have been a fur coat on the end but it was hard to tell in the feeble light. On the wall partially obscured by the clothes rail was a Rothko print in a clip frame. I knew the print because Penny and I had bought one from the Museum of Modern Art on a trip to New York. It used to hang in the hallway of the last flat we rented before we bought our current house.
As I concluded that the regular inhabitant of this room was most likely a young woman I heard a gentle sigh emanating from the opposite side of the bed. I was not alone. I picked up the lamp and lifted it in the air a little so that I could get a better look. I almost dropped the lamp in shock. It was Bella. The intern. She was the person lying in the bed next to me. I carefully set the lamp back down on the bedside table and collated this new information together with what I already knew. I was naked in bed with a woman who was not my wife. The news hit me like a punch in the stomach. How could this have happened? The last thing I remembered was getting hit across the back of the head and now I was in bed with Bella. Was I dreaming? Was this part of some elaborate ruse? Maybe I’d just got the wrong end of the stick. I gently lifted the duvet up and took a peek underneath. She was naked too. I took a moment to digest this news. I was naked in bed with a naked intern who I’d met for the first time less than a week ago. My stomach lurched uncontrollably as again I tried to recall the night before. I’d been out for a drink after the shoot and had been heading home. Bella had texted me. She’d wanted me to meet her. I’d told her I couldn’t. She’d persisted and though sorely tempted I’d just about managed to say no. She’d promised me that I wouldn’t regret it then . . . what exactly? I hadn’t said yes to meeting her, I was sure of that, and yet here I was. And if I had said yes to meeting her then why couldn’t I remember anything – not even the taxi ride over to Soho – about my evening with Bella, let alone how we’d ended up in bed? There had to be some kind of rational explanation for what had happened. There just had to be. And whatever the explanation I was absolutely sure that it wouldn’t involve me having cheated on Penny.
I thought hard. Maybe I’d met up with Bella and we’d started drinking and had ended up so drunk that she’d taken me home and put me to bed. That made sense, surely? And maybe I didn’t have any clothes on
because . . . I don’t know, maybe I’d been sick over myself and she’d put them in the machine to be ready for the morning. That sounded plausible. I never could hold my drink. Relieved to have conjured up a life-saving narrative I concluded the best thing I could do was grab my clothes and get out of there.
Easing aside the duvet I edged my legs out of the bed and stood up. The laminated floor beneath my feet felt cool but there was something rough stuck to the underside of my right heel. I reached down and plucked the offending object from my foot and studied it in the light of the lamp. It was an empty condom wrapper.
I felt sick.
I couldn’t have, could I?
I looked over at Bella’s sleeping form.
If I’d slept with Bella surely I’d remember it. I’d been faithful to Penny our entire relationship. Twenty whole years! If I’d cheated surely it would have made some sort of impact? This made no sense at all. I had to get out of here.
I scanned the floor and lying at my feet as though they had been abandoned in the heat of the moment were my clothes. I put them on as quickly as I could: underwear, socks, jeans, shirt and then my jacket which felt oddly weighted as though there was something in one of the pockets. I put my hand in the inside pocket and pulled out the object. It was my phone. But how could that be? What kind of attacker mugs someone but doesn’t steal a phone when there’s one there? I took it out and checked the screen. It was five twenty-five. This too confused me as I knew for a fact that Jack had been waking early all week because it was too light in his bedroom. I walked over to the window and pulled back a corner of the curtain to see a blackout blind beneath. I tugged that too and sure enough it was getting light outside. At least that was one mystery solved.
I wondered if my phone might be able to shed any light on my activities the night before but after checking it I was left even more confused. The last text I remembered making was at 21.18 and read: Really I can’t in response to Bella’s promise not to keep me out too late. But then at 21.24 I’d apparently sent one saying: I’m just looking for a taxi. I’ll be there as soon as I can. At 23.55 I’d sent a text to Penny: Had a bit too much to drink. Will crash at Carl’s place so as not to wake you+kids. Will call in morning. J xxx. My brain throbbed under the weight of this revelation as I finally joined all the dots together. The mugging had been a dream. I’d obviously sent the texts, met up with Bella and having most likely dulled my conscience beyond all recognition had reached a point where I’d agreed to go home with Bella, covering my tracks with a text to Penny. With the exception of my lack of a hangover – how could I have drunk so much that I’d forgotten the whole night and yet didn’t have so much as a headache? – it all made sense. After the best part of twenty years of faithfulness I’d done the one thing I’d never dreamed I’d do: I’d cheated on my wife.
I started to panic. All I wanted was to go back in time and erase the last twelve hours of my life; maybe even the last twenty-four so I could undo ever meeting up with Bella. Why had I made such a fool of myself that I’d had to take her out for coffee to apologise? Why had I acknowledged her texts instead of ignoring them and going home to my wife? Penny would never forgive me if she found out. Her dad had cheated on her mum half a dozen times before he finally ran off to Canada with one of her mum’s best friends when Penny was fifteen and so she knew first hand how much destruction cheating caused. ‘I’d never forgive you if you did that to me,’ she’d said to me on the night she told me about her dad back when we were students, ‘If you ever cheated that would be it.’ And even now after kids and the whole of our adult lives together I had my doubts whether her opinion had changed. As emotional as Penny was sometimes there was a steely pragmatism about her – a legacy of her teenage years – that made me seriously wonder whether in fact she might be capable of calling quits on us if she thought that there might be any chance of history repeating itself.
This was all too much. My head was spinning. I needed to get out of there, to put distance between me and the scene of the crime. I checked the room one last time to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything and realised that my watch was missing. I must have taken it off at some point but it was nowhere to be seen. It had been a thirtieth birthday present from Penny and losing it would take some explaining; still, I knew I’d have no choice but to mark it down as a casualty of war. Watches could be replaced; the kind of scorn I’d receive for getting caught in the process of sneaking out of Bella’s bedroom would not be easily forgotten. After all other than sleeping with someone who wasn’t my wife, leaving Bella like this was the worst thing I’d done to date in my career as a human being. Aside from her obvious lack of judgement when it came to men, from the little I knew of her she seemed like a decent person and certainly didn’t deserve being made to feel cheap. She’d hate me forever. But given the damage I’d wreaked in less than twenty-four hours she’d be better off hating me than having anything more to do with me ever again.
At the front door I caught my reflection in the mirror. I looked old, drawn and haggard. Just as I was about to look away out of the corner of my eye I could have sworn for a moment that I saw Fiona Briggs standing behind me. Not the adult Fiona whose photo had been displayed in the church vestibule on the day of her funeral but rather the eighteen-year-old one complete with the spiral perm she thought made her look like eighties teen pop sensation Debbie Gibson. She was wearing a snow-washed denim jacket covered in pin badges, white T-shirt featuring the cover of The Cure’s Boys Don’t Cry album, black leggings and brown monkey boots, the exact outfit that she’d been wearing on the day in the student union when I’d told her I was with Penny. I rubbed my temples and blinked hard. The image was gone. All I could see was my own reflection. I hurried out of the door, closing it quietly behind me. This was ridiculous. I was so tired and my mind was undergoing so much turmoil that now on top of everything else I was seeing images of my dead ex-girlfriend. I needed sleep. Preferably in my own bed in my own home so that I could forget that this day had ever happened. I couldn’t do that of course, not without Penny wondering why I was coming home at six in the morning and taking the day off work just because of a hangover. No, if I wasn’t going to raise alarm bells unnecessarily there was only one option: I’d have to find out where I was, wait for the tube to start up again and then wander the streets until it was late enough for me to roll into work for the day. My heart sank. I had meetings to attend, features to write and a working lunch with a high-profile PR. How would I manage to get through any of that when I’d be thinking about what I’d done to Penny and the kids? I’d blown my life into smithereens for something that I couldn’t even remember doing and I hadn’t a clue how I was ever going to begin to put it back together. How on earth had I got here?
One week earlier
1
I suppose in a way it all started with the news of Fiona Briggs’s death.
My wife Penny, a senior social worker, had just arrived home from work. A problem had come up at the last minute which was why, once again, she was late.
‘Bad day?’ I asked as she came into the living room and slumped down into the armchair without taking off her coat.
‘The worst,’ she replied, kicking off her shoes. ‘Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. I got shouted at by Martin, learned that I have got half a dozen staff reviews to do before the end of the month, and then a case that I thought would need an hour to close ended up taking all afternoon. To top it all the new junior had a meltdown and it took me two hours to calm her down and persuade her not to leave.’ She rubbed her feet. ‘Everything OK here?’
I thought about filling her in on my day as that had been no walk in the park. I worked as deputy editor of The Weekend, the Saturday magazine supplement of the Correspondent, a mix of culture, fashion, celebrity interviews and lifestyle features, and today it had been announced that due to budget cuts we’d all have to reapply for our own jobs.
‘Everything’s good, nothing to report. Haven’t heard a thing out of
the kids since they went up at eight. Do you want me to heat up your tea in the microwave? I made my signature rice and chilli.’
‘Thanks, that sounds lovely, but do you mind if I give it a miss? It was Mary’s last day at work today and I’ve done nothing but pick at cake all afternoon. I think I’ll just get off to bed if that’s OK.’
‘Yeah that’s fine,’ I replied even though it wasn’t. Since she’d gone back to work after a seven-year career break to bring up our kids Rosie, aged ten, and Jack, aged six, things had been tough. It was the need for money that had forced her back to work rather than a desire to fulfil herself through her career. The truth was we’d eaten through every last bit of our savings making sure she could be there for the kids when they were very young and now the money had run out.
Back when it had been just the two of us we could easily cope with the stresses and strains of a household where two people worked but now with two primary-school-aged kids added into the mix it was a struggle to keep all the balls in the air. Every day required military-style planning: who was dropping off at school, who was picking up, who was cooking tea, who was helping with homework, and it only took one thing – like Penny being called into an impromptu meeting five minutes before she was due to collect the kids – for all of our lives to be thrown into disarray. And as much as I tried to pick up the slack, with a sprawling seemingly never-ending job like mine it was virtually impossible. The truth was that the pressure was all on Penny, and while she never forgot anything to do with the kids – the lunches, the homework, the parties and playdates – she occasionally forgot us as a couple. And while I understood everything, from her missing specially prepared meals because of late-running meetings through to the evenings I spent alone on the sofa while she caught up with paperwork at the kitchen table, it was hard not to feel just a little bit neglected. I couldn’t say anything though because it wasn’t her fault. She was working really hard for all of us and I was a big boy, I could handle it, besides which I had a plan. A month earlier I’d applied for the editorship of Sunday, the Correspondent on Sunday’s magazine supplement, and in terms of pay and prestige it was about as good it could possibly get for someone like me. If I got the job it would be the answer to all my and Penny’s problems: I’d get a rise and we could afford for her to go part-time or even give up work altogether.