by Jane Fallon
When the water stops running and the splashing starts I summon up every ounce of courage in my body and crawl out from under my hiding place. It’s almost comical to imagine what his reaction would be if he caught me. I doubt his brain would even know where to start. I creep to the door and risk peeping out. The bathroom door is pulled to. Not fully closed, but enough so that he won’t see me.
I know I have to deal with Mel’s laptop on the way out. I open it gingerly. The ‘Edit settings’ page is still up. My tentative status change still beckons enticingly. I go to exit Facebook and then I think, Fuck it.
I hit ‘Save changes’, exit back to the home screen and then, just for luck, I click on ‘Delete history’.
And then I get out of there.
‘Where’s my fucking passport?’
Jack’s eyes are wide, panic written all over his face.
‘What? In the box, isn’t it?’
‘No! It’s not there. Fuck.’
‘It must be there somewhere.
’The picture swings around as he flings everything out of the box. I strain to catch a glimpse of red hair cowering in the background.
‘Calm down. If it’s not in the box, it’ll be on the desk somewhere. It’ll be wherever you put it last time you used it.’
‘You didn’t see it when you were home?’
‘No. If I had, I would have put it in the box. Is there any news of Oscar, by the way? What if he comes home when you’re away?’
‘No. Bev and Julian’ll look out for him. Shit! I have to go.’
‘Let me know –’ I start to say, but he’s gone.
I try not to think about what might be happening with Jack and Mel as I get ready for my big date, because I’m finding it hard to get excited about having dinner with Simon when my mind keeps veering between fear of being caught, smug satisfaction and guilt (to be fair, the guilt pangs are few and far between). In the end, I break off from my preening and call Kat, who puts me on speakerphone so I can relay the whole exchange to both her and Greg.
‘Have I done a terrible thing?’ I say before I hang up.
‘Which one?’ she says, and she has a point. It’s been hours since I changed Mel’s status and my alteration is still there.
‘Jack’s passport.’
‘No! Well, and yes … it depends how you look at it.’
‘Oh God, I feel sick.’
‘Enjoy it,’ Greg pipes up. ‘Nothing you can do about it now, anyway. There’s no way Jack’s leaving the country today.’
‘I can’t worry about it now. I have to get ready.’
‘Have a nice date!’ Kat shouts out in the background.
‘It’s not a date. We’re just having dinner.’
‘Yeah, right. Tell him that.’
‘Bye, Kat. Bye, Greg.’
‘Ring me tomorrow. I want details.’
Simon is already sitting at the shiny black bar when I get to the restaurant. I’m glad. It gives me a moment to compose myself, but not so long that I work myself up into a panic about what I’m getting into. I watch him for a second through the glass door. He’s not as striking as Jack, whose face is all angles and drama, not by a long shot – Simon has fairish hair that has a habit of flopping into his eyes, muddy, blue-grey eyes, an undefined jaw that he’s made the most of by cultivating permastubble – but he’s still a good-looking bloke. Plus, he looks kind. And that’s a big bonus in my book.
The doorman sees me hovering and must think I’m standing there waiting for him to do the honours. Too posh to push. So he pulls as I shove and I sort of fall through the doorway like a drunk leaving a club. I manage to right myself by grabbing on to him, so the first thing Simon sees when he turns around is me in a clinch with a stranger. A big smile lights up his face.
‘I thought you said you’d never been here before,’ he says as he comes over. ‘Or are you always like this with people the first time you meet them?’
‘Entirely my fault, madam,’ the doorman says.
‘God, no, it was mine. Sorry. I haven’t even had a drink yet.’
At my request, we’re at The Cardinal. Somewhere Jack and I always wanted to try but the waiting list is about a century long. I figured that if he can take Mel to the city we always intended to visit together (or actually not. I got another hysterical call from him just before I left the house, saying he had had to cancel the trip because his ‘stupid fucking passport’ had still not materialized. He’d even tried phoning Iceland Air to ask if there was any way he might be able to board without it and, unsurprisingly, they’d said a flat-out no. I was dying to know where Mel was, whether she’d stormed off, furious at his lack of organization, or whether she was waiting at the check-in desk, wondering why he hadn’t showed up. I wondered if she’d go ahead without him. I couldn’t imagine she would. It might be a bit awkward explaining to Jack’s replacement what she was doing in his hotel room), then the least I can do is meet another man at our dream dinner destination. It turned out Simon has some kind of connection through a house he did up once, so getting a table wasn’t a problem. Paying for the meal might be, though, because I’m insisting we go half each in an effort to pretend to myself that this really isn’t a date and a quick look on the website menu before I left home put me in a cold sweat of financial angst.
The waiter comes over to tell us our table is ready and we’re led to a little booth by the window. We sit there in silence for a moment, suddenly awkward in each other’s company, all the easy back and forth from the day of the picnic evaporated.
‘So …’ he says, while I’m still scraping the edges of my brain for an interesting anecdote. ‘How’s the rug?’
‘Good. It sends its love.’
‘That was a terrible conversation opener, right? I’m a bit nervous. Is that ridiculous?’
‘No! So am I. I’ve got out of the habit of … you know … whatever this is …’
His mouth curls up at the edges, a cute half-smile. ‘Talking?’
‘No. You know …’
‘Eating?’
‘Don’t make me say it! Going on dates … if that’s … I mean …’
‘Are we on a date? I hope so. I had a shower specially.’
‘Me, too. I put on make-up and everything.’
He waits while our drinks arrive – vodka and tonic for me, a Manhattan for him.
‘If it makes you feel more at ease, I don’t do this very often either.’
He tells me that, since he and his wife split up four years ago, he’s only had one real relationship and that lasted about eight months. He’s been on a few dates here and there, but it doesn’t come naturally.
‘Well, put me down as zero. This is my first first date for over five years. I have literally no skills to call on.’
He sighs theatrically. ‘Well, this is going to be a long evening.’
‘Ha! I thought you said you were no good at jokes?’
He grins, bearing even, white teeth. ‘Who said I was joking?’
I ask about his daughter, and the way his expression softens when he talks about her speaks volumes about what he’s like as a person. It’s obvious he’s cut up about her staying with him only at the weekends but, from the sound of it, he attends every school event, every sports day and end-of-term play.
‘She’d love you,’ he tells me. ‘She wants to be an actress. Well, this week, anyway.’
‘Oh God, try and put her off,’ I say with a fake grimace. ‘Or at least tell her to learn another skill as well. My life would be so much easier if I could do something else on the side.’
‘You never wanted kids?’ he says later, as our main courses arrive – sea bream with a tomato and caper sauce for me and an elaborate-looking beef dish for him. I have to admit I always find it odd that people just ask this outright. They have no idea of what personal tragedies might lie behind the truth. Thankfully, in my case, there are none. Just that life got in the way and, now, suddenly, I’m single and nearly forty.
�
�Yes. I mean, in theory. Jack and I talked about it and we always said we would one day but then neither of us ever came out and said the time was right. That must say something about our relationship, right?’
‘Sorry. That was an insensitive question.’
‘No … not at all … it’s something I’ll probably regret, but it’s not as if it’s blighted my life –’
‘I do have a tendency to ask the wrong things. My wife used to say I had a skill for sniffing out awkwardness and drawing everyone’s attention to it. Accidentally, I think she meant. I hope so, anyway.’
‘Honestly, it’s not a big deal. My friend Mel used to say that if I really wanted them it would have just happened and sod the consequences …’ I tail off, realizing this is the first time I’ve mentioned Mel since her party and not been overwhelmed by a feeling of nausea. ‘She’s the one … you know …’
He reaches over and plucks the wine bottle out of the ice bucket next to our table. Two waiters both jolt into action, as if he’s about to pull the pin from a hand grenade. He gestures to them that he’s happy pouring for himself and they back off sulkily.
‘Well, she’s probably right, not that I’m inclined to agree with anything she says, given what you’ve told me.’
‘Yes, I’m kind of revisiting all the advice she gave me over the years and trying to work out what was in it for her each time. It’s weird not knowing if she ever really cared about me or not.’
‘She must have done. That, or she’s just too phenomenally lazy to have bothered to try and find a new best friend.’
I shrug. I don’t want to let Mel spoil this experience. ‘Anyway, let’s not talk about her.’
‘You know what they say. The best revenge is living well.’
‘Let me see: tiny, rented – not to mention damp and mouldy – flat in the back of beyond; unemployed; single. Yes, I’m doing well.’
‘You know what I mean,’ he says. ‘At the risk of sounding like some kind of new-age idiot, just concentrate on you.’
He reaches over and puts his hand over mine. I actually jump, it’s such a surprise, and I nearly pull my own away before relaxing into it. ‘It sounds like Kat is right. It sounds like she’s eaten up with jealousy. She just wants what you have. I imagine she’s the kind of person who couldn’t bear it if no one was talking about her, so I agree, let’s not.’
We stay like that for a moment, his hand on top of mine, and then I turn mine over and intertwine my fingers with his.
22
When it became obvious there were no other options left, Mel’s mum and dad had stumped up the money for her to do a three-year course at a drama school in Maidenhead that didn’t seem to require auditions, just cash.
I could tell she was a bit battered by the whole experience but, in typical Mel fashion, she added a tubload of gloss on top and made it sound to anyone who’d listen like she’d been shortlisted for an Oscar. Even me.
‘It’s so much better than going to one of those snobby London ones where they all sit around contemplating their motivation,’ she said, as we sat in deckchairs on her parents’ manicured lawn.
I had come home for the summer holidays after my first year and I had no plans beyond getting both a tan and a part-time job so I could pay my way. I’d agreed to share a house with Pia, Kieron, Alistair and Tom in year two, when halls weren’t available, and we had already agreed to take over the place some friends of Kieron’s from the year above me were vacating at the end of August. It had all been surprisingly smooth, given the horror stories that were always bandied around about the lack of affordable rentals in London. Yes, we knew there was mould and a mouse problem and you had to run from the night-bus stop after dark to avoid getting into a fight, but we’d all reasoned that we could travel in a pack for safety.
‘That’s brilliant!’ I said. I was genuinely pleased for her. Even though everything she said about the place sounded worse than the thing before, I just wanted her to be happy, not to feel as if all her ambitions had been crushed. I had bought into the myth of Mel the star as much as anyone else, and I couldn’t imagine what else she would do with her life if it was taken away from her.
‘It’s all practical,’ she said now, taking a long draw on the straw in her Diet Coke. She was sitting in the shade of an umbrella, her fair skin luminous in her tiny red bikini. Mel has always worn bright colours, preferably those that know-it-alls would like to tell her clashed with her hair. Sometimes it’s like going out with a traffic light. ‘There are classes all day – singing, tap, acting. They make sure you’re good all round so you can go anywhere, you know?’
It was all sounding more like an old-fashioned stage school than somewhere where you might pick up some serious acting skills. And it turned out it was run by a friend of Sylvia’s so I couldn’t help imagining rows of ringleted girls in blue eyeshadow gurning away. Overgrown Violet Elizabeth Botts.
‘And you can still live here? That’s a bonus.’ It wasn’t in my book. Even though she’d save a shedload of money because, of course, her parents wouldn’t even consider charging her for her keep, that didn’t compensate for the lack of freedom that living in halls or a shared flat would have given her. But she had no choice. There was no chance of her getting a grant for her fee-paying, non-accredited college.
‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘And it means I’ll be able to dedicate myself to training and not have to worry about getting a part-time job.’ She knew that I already had two in London – shifts in a local café (although it was debatable whether this would still be available to me in September, I knew they would definitely take me back if and when they needed anyone) and a couple of lunchtime stints in one of the college cafeterias. I didn’t care. It was just what you had to do to get by.
‘I’m so glad it’s all worked out.’
Actually – if I’m being completely truthful – I had begun to get a bit nervous about the prospect of Mel moving to London. I knew she would expect we’d move in together – and, a year before, that would have been a no-brainer for me. But I had a gang now. I belonged. Okay, none of them was ever going to be as close to me individually as Mel was – although Pia and I were almost inseparable now, so much so that we were phoning each other most evenings during the holiday to catch up – but I didn’t need that. And I knew that Mel would never have consented to sharing a place with my Dram Soc friends. She’d made that very clear. So a small part of me had felt relieved when her plans had had to change. I wasn’t proud of that fact. But it was true.
She peered at me over her sunglasses. ‘You will come and see me in stuff, won’t you?’
‘God, yes. Of course.’
After the night she’d watched me in The Deep Blue Sea, Mel had never mentioned it again, or even alluded to the fact that I might ever want to repeat the experience. Even when I’d mentioned my soon-to-be housemates she’d just screwed her face up and said nothing. So I hadn’t felt I could talk about it either. And the more the days went on, the less likely it became that I would feel I could just drop it into our conversations. She had effectively built a barrier and she had no intention of taking it down.
23
From Jack, I hear that, when his trip to Reykjavik had to be cancelled, one of his colleagues had had to step in and go in his place, totally unprepared for the pitch. That Jack is in the doghouse at work and the account has almost certainly been lost.
‘They’re never going to fucking trust me again. I mean, for fuck’s sake.’
‘They must understand it was an honest mistake …’
He groans. ‘What idiot of a grown man can’t find his own passport?’
‘It must be there somewhere. You shouldn’t have left it to the last minute.’
‘I know that. Jesus. That’s not helping, Amy.’
‘Sorry, I know. I didn’t mean it like that –’
‘I mean, where the fuck is it? It’s always in the box, right?’
‘I thought so. I definitely wouldn’t have put it anywher
e else.’
‘I’m going to lose my job.’ This comes out as almost a howl. I reach inside me for the Schadenfreude I was so looking forward to feeling. Can’t locate it.
‘You’re not going to lose your job,’ I say, as convincingly as I can. But maybe he will. Stranger things have happened.
‘Even if I don’t, I’ll never get promoted now. Shit. Why couldn’t I have got Colby Sachs?’
‘There’ll be other jobs to apply for.’
‘You know this story’s gone round like wildfire, don’t you? What a fuckwit Jack Carmichael is because he lost an account because he couldn’t find his own passport. I’m a fucking joke. No one’s going to take me seriously.’
‘They’ll forget about it in a few days.’
‘This was a big contract, Amy. Don’t you get it?’
I do. I’m actually feeling a bit bad. A bit grubby. It’s as if I don’t care enough about Jack any more to take any pleasure in hurting him.
‘I know,’ I say. ‘It sucks.’
From Mel, a couple of days later, I hear that Chewton Glen was ‘fine’ and ‘uneventful’.
‘You sound fed up,’ I say. Actually, what she sounds is angry, although of course she would have no way of telling me the reason why.
‘Oh, and guess what?’ she says, her voice going up at the end, as it always does when she’s getting worked up. ‘Someone hacked my fucking Facebook page.’
‘Really? How?’
‘Fuck knows. They must have guessed my password. They changed my relationship status.’ She tells me what it said. ‘And I only know because Bella from work saw it and realized that, obviously, I would never have put that up myself.’
‘But …’ I say, summoning my best thespian skills. ‘How … I mean … is it true?’
‘That I’m sleeping with John? Yes. Well, I have a couple of times. Anyway, that’s not the point –’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Amy! Are you not listening to what I’m telling you? Someone went into my Facebook account and changed my status so everyone knows about it. I mean, who …?’