by Jane Fallon
A middle-aged woman with two big bags of groceries and a tired look of resignation on her face is standing at the bus stop a few metres away.
‘Are you famous or something?’ she calls over. I imagine if I thought I really was I’d be mortified.
‘No. It’s, um … not really.’
I turn on my heels and head inside before she can quiz me any more.
Jack swoops into reception, looking around impatiently to see who it is who’s dragged him from his desk. Luckily, the receptionist is new since I was last here, and she clearly isn’t a Murder in Manhattan aficionado because when I tell her I’m an old friend of his from uni and I want to surprise him, she doesn’t bat an eyelid.
His face when he spots that it’s me is a picture. Or more like a short film. Shock. Pleasure. Realization. Guilt. Terror. I’m actually touched that there was a moment in there when he was happy to see me.
‘What …?’ he says.
‘Surprise!’
‘I … what on earth are you doing here?’ I see him reach into his pocket for, I presume, his phone, and then stop himself. The main reason I didn’t announce my arrival was because I didn’t want to give him the chance to call Mel before I’ve said what I have to say.
‘I need to talk to you. It’s important.’
‘Is everything okay? When did you get here? Can I just …’ He indicates upstairs. ‘I should …’
‘Just get Reception to phone up and tell whoever you need to tell. I know you weren’t in a meeting. I got her to check.’
He flusters a bit, realizes he has no option. ‘They won’t miss me for a minute.’
‘Let’s go and sit in the park.’ I don’t wait for him to agree, just walk out, and he follows a few paces behind. Neither of us says anything until we reach Finsbury Square and I sit down on one of the benches.
‘I know about you and Mel,’ I say, once he’s sat down beside me. I look right at him and he colours up, looks away.
‘What? It’s not … I mean … it wasn’t meant to … we’re not …’
I decide to put him out of his misery. ‘I’ve known for months, so don’t even try and bullshit me. I know it’s been going on since way before Christmas. I know she’s been living at the flat.’
Jack looks like a toddler who’s been caught with his hand in the biscuit jar. I actually think he might cry. I almost feel sorry for him.
‘Shit, Ames … I don’t know what to say.’
‘How about “Sorry, I’ve behaved like an absolute bastard?” How about “I’m a despicable person?” ’
He nods, looks down at the ground. ‘It got out of hand.’
‘It never should have started in the first place.’
He looks right at me, his wolf-blue eyes watery. I have to make myself look away. ‘I don’t want her, though, that’s the thing. I never have. It was just that you went off and I was terrified you might never come back or you’d meet some flash director and that’d be it –’
Unbelievable. ‘So it’s all my fault?’
‘No! That’s not what I mean. It’s not an excuse –’
‘When did it actually start? Be truthful. You owe me that much.’
He puffs out his cheeks, exhales noisily. ‘About a week after you left –’
‘A week? Fuck’s sake, Jack.’
‘I told you, I was all over the place –’
‘So you fucked my best friend?’
‘No. Yes. But I didn’t set out to. It just happened.’
‘And then it happened again and again for – what? – nine, ten months now? Hold on, she was still married to Sam, then.’
He looks at the floor, always a giveaway with Jack. ‘You’re the reason Sam left her? It wasn’t him who went off with someone else?’
Jack swallows. ‘He didn’t know it was me. He just found out she’d been seeing someone.’
‘So all those hours I spent on the phone to her, comforting her about her marriage breaking up, I was actually making her feel better about sleeping with you? All those fucking times I told her she was worth more and she should just go out there and find someone fabulous, she was already shacked up with you? Jesus Christ.’
‘I told her she shouldn’t make up that stuff about Sam –’
‘You didn’t tell her the two of you shouldn’t be sleeping together in the first place, though, did you?’
‘I did, actually. Several times.’
‘Oh, spare me. If you’d felt bad about it, if you’d wanted it to end, you would have ended it.’
‘I’ll tell her now. I’ll call her and tell her that’s it for ever.’
‘You are kidding me? You think we’re going to carry on, me and you? That – what? – we’re going to go ahead and set a date for the wedding?’
He wipes his eyes. I have no idea whether he’s actually shedding a tear or not. I don’t care. ‘Please, Amy –’
‘Why would you even want to? We barely talk to each other these days.’
‘Because you’re always too busy with your new life –’
‘Oh, do me a favour, Jack. We could both have made more of an effort if we’d wanted to. It’s finished, by the way, the job. I’ve moved back.’
To say he looks confused would be like saying Hitler looked a little bit miffed sometimes. He can’t compute. ‘You’ve … already? Where are you living?’
‘A few months ago, actually. I’ve got a flat.’
Jack opens and shuts his mouth like a beached goldfish. ‘But …’
I take him through the basics. The weekend of the party. The fact that Mel knows I know. I don’t, obviously, mention the fact that I lost him the job at Colby Sachs. That’s probably the one thing I really regret in this whole saga.
‘Mel’s known you were back all this time?’
‘For a while, definitely.’ I’m not going to tell him about Blood Ties. There’s no point. I don’t want his sympathy. Or his help. I just want to let him know he’s free to run off into the sunset with Mel, if that’s what he decides to do.
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘And I’m seeing someone. It’s only fair that you know. It started way after I found out about the two of you.’
He looks crestfallen, which almost makes me laugh. Did he think we were somehow all going to go back to the way we were?
‘Who … I mean … I guess I don’t have the right to ask –’
‘You don’t. Just be happy for me. What you and Mel did could have crushed me. I just want to move on.’
I reach into my pocket and pull out the engagement ring he bought me what seems like a lifetime ago. I haven’t worn it since I returned and, in fact, I rarely wore it while I was away because I was so scared I would leave it in the costume trailer (my character had her own bling). I just used to leave it in its box in my apartment. Maybe that was symbolic.
‘Here …’
He takes it, turns it over in his hand. ‘I don’t want it back. What am I meant to do with it?’
‘I have no idea. I’m going to withdraw exactly half of what’s in our joint account this afternoon, okay?’
He nods. ‘Sure.’
‘And I’m going to the flat now to take whatever’s mine. Do me a favour and don’t tell Mel you’ve seen me until later. I don’t want her coming there to try and talk to me. I just want to get my stuff and go.’
‘I won’t,’ he says. ‘I won’t tell her until tonight. Are you sure this is what you want?’
‘I’m sure.’ I stand up to leave.
‘I’m really sorry, Ames,’ he says, and he reaches for my hand. ‘It all got out of control.’
I take it back gently. ‘Let’s just move on. For the record, though, remember that Mel is Mel. She’s never going to change.’
He breathes out noisily. ‘I know.’
And I think, No, you don’t know the half of it, but it’s not up to me to tell you.
‘Bye, Jack.’ I start to walk off, remember something and turn back. ‘Oh. I have Oscar, by the way. He’s fine.’<
br />
‘You …?’ He looks more confused than ever.
‘Long story,’ I say.
‘I have no idea what’s going on, but that’s the best news I’ve had in ages.’
He looks as if he’s going to cry again, and then he does, but he’s smiling, too, and laughing. I resist the knee-jerk, hard-wired, comfort-a-crying-child urge to hug him.
‘Mel always hated him,’ I say.
He wipes his eyes with the cuff of his shirt. ‘She did. I’m glad you’ve got him.’
At the flat – Jack’s and mine – Kat and Greg are waiting for me with the car. I spot them almost from the Tube station, leaning on the bonnet. Her with a mouse-ear polka-dot bow in her black bob, him a foot taller in a mustard-yellow polo shirt, quiff adding another three inches to his height. A couple of people look back as they pass, probably wondering where the fancy-dress party is. Kat and Greg are oblivious. I adore them.
‘How did it go?’ Kat spots me first.
‘Grim,’ I say. ‘But not as bad as it could have been.’
They’ve brought a couple of big suitcases that we fill with all my clothes and books, papers and bits and pieces. I’m scrupulously fair, taking nothing that doesn’t belong at least fifty-one per cent to me. Then I retrieve Mel’s gold necklace from my pocket and leave it on the bedside table I assume is now hers.
‘Oh, Sam left her because of Jack,’ I say, as we start to bump the cases down the communal stairs. I watch as both their mouths fall open. ‘So that was nice. All those times Sam tried to call me and I rejected the calls. I even sent him a text telling him to fuck off.’
Once we’re done, I push the keys back through the door. I don’t even look around as we drive away.
On the way back, I scroll through the contacts on my phone and find Sam’s mobile. I don’t even know what I’m going to say, so it’s a shock when he answers, my name a question.
‘Amy?’
I launch straight in.
‘Hi. Sam, listen, I’m sure I’m the last person you want to hear from. Well, one of them. I just wanted to say it was Jack Mel was seeing. I only just found out. And that I had no idea she was cheating on you with anyone. I wouldn’t want you to think … she told me you’d left her for someone else …’
‘Shit,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry, Amy.’
‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘I’m over it. But I’m sorry I wasn’t supportive when the two of you split up. I’m sorry I just believed her version of things.’
‘I appreciate it. I do,’ he says. ‘But I never held it against you. You’re her mate …’
‘Was,’ I say. ‘No more. Be happy, Sam. I intend to be.’
‘Well done,’ Greg says when I end the call. ‘That was a nice thing to do.’
Mel, I have decided, does not deserve a confrontation. She’d probably relish the drama. And besides, we both know exactly where we stand already. Mel’s worst nightmare is to be ignored, so back at home, I block her on Facebook and Twitter and change my email address, making sure to let anyone I might ever want to hear from know the new one. Then I head down to the Vodafone shop along the street and sign myself up for a brand-new account with a brand-new phone number even though I can’t really afford it. I get them to transfer all my contacts from my American mobile and then I delete Mel’s numbers. I make one last call on my old phone – to the US, to cancel the contract – and then I take the battery out and throw the whole lot in the back of a drawer.
And that’s it. Mel is ghosted and I’m moving on with my life.
46
Mel
I can’t decide which is worse. Or, should I say, better? Let Amy know that her new boyfriend has a wife at home, who, I assume, knows nothing about his bit on the side, or leave it for her to discover the awful truth herself?
Both options have their plusses. But, ultimately, I decide there’s no fun for me in just leaving things to fate. It could be months, or even years, before she finds out. Or worse, it could just fizzle out naturally (or he could get cold feet) and she would never know. She’d just be left with a bittersweet memory of the transitional relationship that helped her get over Jack.
And speaking of Jack, she’s been to see him. Told him the truth, in so far as I can work out. I arrived home from work to find him slumped on the sofa. He feels terrible, he said. It all went too far, he said. Bit late for that now.
Anyway, her stuff has gone. All trace of her eliminated, leaving me and Jack to get on with our lives. Separately or together, I have no idea. I never even considered that, one day, it might just be me and him and, clearly, neither did he, because he can’t stop telling me how it wasn’t supposed to end like this.
‘Too fucking right!’ I shout at him. He’s doing my head in, lying there, feeling sorry for himself, as if none of this was his fault. Okay, so she was my best friend but she was his girlfriend, too. Fiancée. We’re as bad as each other.
I’m actually furious that Amy’s just moved on. That she’s found herself a whole new life and she can’t even be bothered to fight for the one she had. As if it was never important to her anyway.
There are so many ways to do it, though, how’s a girl to choose? Do I send Amy a note ‘from a concerned friend’? Do I let Simon know I know so he has no choice but to tell her? Or is there another more drastic – for which read “more fun” – way? One that would cause maximum carnage?
47
Amy
I’m not back at Huntley Media Marketing until tomorrow, so I take my time trying to work out what to do with my day. Making a cup of tea and reading the papers online seems like as good an idea as any so, even though I know I should be trying to be more proactive about my flailing career, that’s what I do.
I’m still browsing idly when an email pops up from Sara.
‘Why is your phone dead? Trying to call you. Don’t get too excited.’
I still haven’t got round to doing the big group text message telling everyone my mobile number has changed. I’ve been finding it quite peaceful, to be honest, knowing that, if anyone calls, it’s either going to be Kat, Greg or Simon. No nasty surprises. If anyone needs me, they can email. Although I probably should let Huntley Media Marketing know, in case they decide to cancel my shift for any reason. And Chris and Lew, in case they start to worry about me. And everyone else. Eventually.
I call Sara back, aware she probably just wants to check I haven’t topped myself after her bombshell on Friday night.
‘Amy!’ she shouts, almost rupturing my eardrum. ‘Where have you been? I’ve been worried about you.’
Ah, so I was right. My heart sinks just a little bit, as it always does when there’s no prospect of any acting work on the horizon.
‘I’m fine. I got a new phone.’ I give her the number.
‘Right. Good. And I can’t say sorry enough again for what happened. Still’ – she carries on, not waiting for a response – ‘do you want some better news?’
‘Definitely.’
‘Murder in Manhattan is obviously selling well, because we got a big fat royalty cheque for you this morning. It’ll take a few days to process but I thought you’d want to know.’
I’d forgotten all about royalties. One of the reasons why a part in a series is the Holy Grail is because of the royalty cheques. If it’s popular and sells well around the world, it can practically be a pension fund. Actors who appear in seven or eight seasons of twenty-odd episodes can more or less live off that for a good few years after it’s all ended, depending, of course, on how high their fee was in the first place and how many other countries want to snap it up. Obviously, I only appear in twelve episodes and my fee was a pittance compared to everyone else’s and already included a UK showing, but, still, the sum Sara tells me is on its way, along with my share of Jack’s and my savings, will soften the blow of my lost two weeks’ rent.
‘That’s amazing,’ I say. ‘Thanks for letting me know.’
‘And there might well be more in the future. The more seasons
they end up doing, the more sellable the whole thing becomes, but don’t, you know, rely on it.’
‘I won’t go straight out and spend it all on sweeties, if that’s what you mean.’
She laughs. Or should I say she brays. ‘Exactly. Well, that’s it. Putting you up for everything.’
‘Thanks, Sara,’ I say, but she’s already hung up, on to the next.
I think about celebrating by going out and buying myself a vacuum cleaner from Argos (£59) and paying for a taxi to lug it home. I know how to live large. But then I think maybe I should see if Tom is free for lunch. He’s texted me a couple of times suggesting dates that never worked out for one reason or another, so it feels as if it would be the polite thing to do to return the favour.
Simon has a theory that trying to connect with my old friends might help expunge the ghost of Mel. So I’ve already tried, and failed to track down Pia. I’ve had no contact with her in nearly twenty years; I’ve never even searched for her because I always thought, What’s the point? To throw myself back into my friendship with Mel, I had to pretty much put all thoughts of my old gang out of my head. It was too painful thinking about what she did to them, to Pia and Alistair. Easier just to move on.
Googling Pia threw up nothing so I spend a couple of hours going into the wormhole that is Facebook. Pia Daribar is an unusual enough name, although I have no idea, of course, if she still uses her own surname. There were a few Pia Daribars on there (is there any name in the world so unique that there’s only one owner? I wonder) so I worked my way through them, but none of them looked promising, mostly for no other reason than that I couldn’t imagine her ending up looking like any of these women. I couldn’t see her elfin sweetness in any of their faces.
So I decide Tom is next best. I text him, asking if by any chance he’s free today, and he answers almost straightaway, in typical Tom fashion, saying he is but is it really bad to expect me to travel all the way into the West End to meet him at his office, because he can’t get away until one and then he has another meeting at two thirty and, if not, let’s do another day, when he could maybe meet me halfway, although it would be lovely to see me. I laugh as I read it because it’s just like having a conversation with him. I text him back saying it’ll do me good to drag myself into town for once and that I’ll meet him in reception.