Faking Friends

by Jane Fallon

  ‘Shall I?’ he says, finger poised over the enter button.

  ‘Hold on,’ I say. I want to make sure this is what I want to do before it’s too late. It’s probably the meanest thing I’ve ever done (well, with the exception of losing Jack the Colby Sachs job but, this time, I think mean is called for. I need to hit Mel in a place where I know it will hurt).

  I take a deep, slow breath.

  ‘Go on.’

  55

  Mel

  I’m completely torn between wanting to watch it again and insisting that Shaz delete it. Now! But I need to relive the horror. To take in every last detail. To know what’s come back to haunt me.

  I lean over and click on the icon and the music – ‘Fake’ by Alexander O’Neill – even I have to admit that is inspired – starts up again.

  ‘Melissa Moynahan, This is your life …’

  The words fade in over black.

  ‘Remember how Mel told you she used to be an actress? How she once starred in a regional stage production of My Fair Lady?’

  A photo pops up. Me on stage, face covered in soot, arm full of flowers to sell.

  ‘Well, what she didn’t tell you is that she was TWELVE and the production was at the Flackwell Heath Girl Guides hut. There were two performances. Sixteen people watched the matinee and a whole nineteen saw the evening show.’

  I give a sidelong glance at Shaz to see if there’s even the hint of a smirk, but I’m relieved to see she has her serious face on.

  A new black card pops up bearing the words:

  ‘Remember how Mel told you she used to be a model?’

  This time, there’s a newspaper cutting. You can tell it’s old and yellowing even in the picture. At the top, you can clearly read that it’s an edition of the Bucks Free Press. The headline screams out: ‘New girls’ fashion at Spicer’s!’

  It leaves the screen for a merciful second while the words, ‘This is the sum total of her modelling experience. Aged thirteen. Unpaid. Posing with half of the rest of the girls in her class at a show for mums at the village hall, put on by Spicer’s, the local children’s clothing store.’

  The cutting is back. This time, zoomed in on the photo. My blurred face is ringed at the back of the group.

  ‘She didn’t even get a name check ☹’

  ‘Everyone exaggerates stuff,’ Shaz says kindly. I ignore her.

  ‘Or a pay cheque. In fact, Mel has never been paid for any acting or modelling work. Ever.’

  If that was bad, I know there’s worse to come.

  ‘In 2008, Mel married Sam …’

  Up jumps an email exchange between Sam and me.

  Are you telling me you only married me because I had money?

  Too fucking right I did. It was hardly because you were Man of the Year. LOL.

  ‘But in 2016 he left her. Not for someone else, as Mel likes to tell people. But because she was having an affair with her best friend’s fiancé.’

  There’s a montage of pictures of Amy and me together, starting with one of the two of us aged eleven, arms around each other, grinning. It ends with a snap of Amy and Jack.

  I have to look away as a screengrab of the Twitter DMs between me and Jack flashes up on the screen. Not quickly enough that I don’t see the word ‘minky’ in all its glory.

  ‘Oh God,’ I say, and rub my hand over my eyes.

  ‘Never one to worry about the emotional wellbeing of her sisters, Mel has also been sleeping with her married boss, John. (Sorry, John, you’re busted!!)’

  I know this is the one that will sink me with my colleagues. I can see from the email that it seems to have gone to everyone in the company. After the Facebook incident, I went into denial mode, backed up by Shaz and – probably because the truth was so unthinkable, that ex-model, ex-shining star Mel would stoop so low as to have sex with the overweight, vertically challenged bully-boy boss – had basically got away with it. Now an email exchange between me and Shaz, rearranged into chronological order, is there on the screen for all to see.

  It just happened! Me and John!! Shit, what have I done?? Goes without saying, don’t tell ANYONE!!!

  Whoa! That came out of nowhere (no pun intended!!!). John as in … JOHN WELLER??? You fucked him???? I need you to tell me all. Ring me NOW!!!

  ‘Where did she even get those from?’ I groan, turning to Shaz.

  Shaz grimaces. ‘Nothing to do with me, I swear.’

  The final card is up, fixed in place as the music fades.

  ‘Melissa Moynahan: Model (this has a line through it), Actress (ditto), Friend (and again), Absolute bitch.’

  56

  ‘Who cares?’ Shaz says. ‘Fuck ’em all.’

  We’re still sitting in her office but I can see Shaz’s two roommates looking anxiously through the little square window in the door every now and then, clearly wondering when they can get on with their work. Shaz shakes her head at them every time they come near, but it’s been an hour now and I imagine she’s not sure how much longer she can keep them at bay. At one point, one of them, Hayley, manages to keep Shaz’s attention for long enough to indicate frantically that she needs her mobile phone and Shaz opens the door just wide enough to hand it to her.

  ‘Can you work at Mel’s desk?’ she says in a stage whisper. I can distinctly hear the strains of Alexander O’Neill coming from somewhere in the building.

  ‘Not for long,’ Hayley says. ‘I need my computer.’

  Shaz comes back to her spot sitting beside me. ‘Why don’t you take the afternoon off?’

  ‘I can’t work here any more,’ I say, for at least the third time.

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’ Shaz rubs my back in what she hopes is a comforting manner. ‘It’ll all blow over.’

  ‘It won’t, though, will it?’ I snap. ‘How can it?’

  I don’t know which is worse, the fact that they all now know for certain about me and John or the fact that they all now think I’m some kind of fantasist who made up all the past glories that, in my eyes, make me who I am. So, I may have exaggerated them a little, left out key details like the fact that I have never had a paid job in the fields of either acting or modelling in my life, but the essence was still true. Without that, who am I? An ordinary woman with a failed marriage behind me, a boyfriend who cost me the closest friendship I’ve ever had and a married lover who I wouldn’t find attractive if he was the last man left on earth but whose wife probably loves him and doesn’t deserve to have me steal him away from her when I don’t even want him. I’m sad. Pathetic.

  I stand up. Stretch. I check the email on my phone. There are three from John, building up from ‘What the fuck?’ to ‘I need to see you NOW!!!!’, and one from the big boss, suggesting I come in for a chat. Soon.

  ‘Do me a favour,’ I say, turning to Shaz. ‘Go and get my bag from my desk.’

  ‘Of course,’ Shaz says, although I imagine she’s not really looking forward to the barrage of questions she’ll face either about why she kept the fact that I’ve been screwing one of the bosses – the most hated one at that – a secret. ‘Are you going home, then?’

  I sniff, nod my head. What I don’t say is that I have no intention of ever coming back.

  57

  Amy

  I thought guilt might kick in once I knew the email had found its way to its forty-four destinations. At least, I could only assume it had. There was no way of knowing unless Mel tracked me down, and I somehow didn’t think she would bother. But all I feel is a sense of relief. I’ve fired the biggest shot I have. I have nothing left.

  I sent a long text to Georgie Rigby confirming that everything between me and Simon was over – completely and for ever – and reiterating again that it never would have started if I’d known he had a wife at home. ‘I can only apologize again, but never enough,’ I said. ‘I really am sorry and I hope you can be happy, whatever you decide to do.’ I don’t tell her that I’ve already had three begging messages from Simon and a host of other missed calls. I h
ave no intention of calling him back.

  Later, she sends back, ‘Thank you,’ so I’m none the wiser about what she might do but at least I feel as if I’ve done everything I can to make amends. I think about putting a block on Simon’s number so he can’t leave me any more messages, but there’s no point. It’s not as if he doesn’t know where I live.

  I spend the rest of the day furiously sanding down the windowsills of my flat, having decided that physical activity was the only way to keep my mind from wandering. I might as well finally paint the woodwork. I turn the radio up loud and sing along to eighties hits. Of course, I regret the whole thing as soon as I start, because it’s way harder than it should be to scratch away the old gloss evenly, but I try to do that thing where I imagine I’m trying to scrub away the remnants of my relationship with Simon (I read about this in a magazine once) and, when that doesn’t work, I imagine it’s his face and that makes me laugh, which doesn’t make the job any easier but does make it more fun.

  I eventually finish one whole window, and my right arm feels as if it’s gone ten rounds with Floyd Mayweather. So I decide to take a break, make myself a cup of tea and then manoeuvre the ladder into position (this is Simon’s ladder, I realize. Do I need to offer to give it back? I decide that he’ll ask me if he wants it. That ladders are ten a penny in his line of work) and climb up, placing my mug and an old bottle of water I’ve filled from the tap one step higher as I go. Oscar sits at the bottom, watching me. I imagine, if he could roll his eyes, he would. I push the hatch open and the sun streams in. Outside, the heat bounces off the concrete and there’s a melted-tarry smell coming off the repair that Simon did to the small crack he found that was causing my leaky roof, but my little plants are flourishing, so I empty the water on to them, then go back down the ladder twice more and refill the bottle.

  I sit down in one of the steamer chairs, face in the sun. Remember I don’t have any suncream on and turn around the other way. Remember I left my phone downstairs and decide I can’t be bothered to go and get it. Ditto my sunglasses. I force myself to close my eyes. Relax.

  A few minutes later – at least, I assume it’s only a few because my tea is still hot when I spill it all over myself – I jerk awake when I hear the distant sound of my phone ringing in a break between songs. Despite the fact that I know I have no chance of getting to it before whoever it is is put through to voicemail, I decide to give it a go and half throw myself back down the ladder, landing with a thud just as the ringing stops. I snatch up the phone, cursing whoever is calling as if it’s somehow their fault, and then see I have three missed calls from Sara, all in the past hour.

  I try not to think what it might be about as I hit the number to call her back. Maybe Georgie has called again to tell her the whole sordid story. Or Mel has sent her the video. It doesn’t even occur to me that it might actually be work-related until I’m put through to her and the first thing she says is:

  ‘You got it.’

  So it takes me a second to work out what she means, which she must realize because, just as it’s starting to sink in, she says, ‘Sisters. You got the part.’

  ‘Woman with Dog?’ I say, and I can’t keep the relief and happiness out of my voice.

  ‘No. Catherine. The friend.’

  I scream so loudly that Oscar leaps about a foot in the air and then races off, knocking over a stack of books as he goes.

  ‘No! Really?’

  ‘It’s a hundred per cent real. Ten days of rehearsals starting the week after next – they’ll only need you for a couple of them. You’re in all ten episodes, so it’s a twenty-week shoot with a production break over Christmas. Option on series two and three, if you’re okay with that. I’ll make sure they build in a pay hike –’

  ‘Definitely. Don’t ask for too much. Don’t put them off me.’

  She laughs. ‘I will definitely ask for too much, because that’s my job. And when they say no, it won’t affect how they feel about you at all. It’s ITV. It’ll be good money. The bad news is they’re filming most of it down in Tooting so you probably couldn’t be further away and still be in London, but I’ll make sure they get you cars.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ I say. ‘I don’t care if I have to leave home at four in the morning and get the bus –’

  ‘Yes, well, hopefully, it won’t come to that. The finished scripts aren’t available yet, but I imagine that’s not a deal breaker?’

  She doesn’t even wait for me to answer because she knows exactly what my response will be.

  ‘Costume fittings will be during the rehearsal period. I think that’s everything. I’ll let you know what the deal is, but I’m assuming you’re happy with whatever I think their best offer is?’

  ‘You know me so well,’ I say through my huge smile.

  ‘It’s fantastic news, it really is. I couldn’t be happier.’

  ‘And I can tell people?’

  ‘They didn’t say you couldn’t.’

  ‘I’m telling everyone,’ I say. ‘I’m taking an ad out in the paper.’

  I head back up to the roof and phone Kat and Greg, Chris and Lew, and my mum and dad, in quick succession. Each time I say the words, their genuine happiness and excitement for me boosts my own until I’m practically in a state of hysteria. I ignore the tug on my insides that’s reminding me how much Simon would have loved to have heard my news. His loss.

  It strikes me that maybe Tom would be pleased for me. I check myself to see if I’m just looking for a boasting opportunity and I think I probably am but, on balance, I’m allowed, just this once. It’s not every day you land a shiny new job, particularly when things have been going so spectacularly badly. So I call him on his mobile, expecting him not to answer, but he does, almost straight away.

  ‘Amy, hi!’

  ‘I’m not disturbing you, am I? Are you at work?’

  ‘Walking between appointments,’ he says. ‘How’s things?’

  ‘I got a part,’ I tell him, and then I worry that perhaps I’m not just being boastful, I’m being insensitive, given his youthful ambitions. Although I hardly think the Tom I’ve been back in touch with lately has any regrets about giving up.

  ‘Marvellous,’ he says, and I can hear his old puppyish self in there. ‘Tell me all about it.’

  I give him the lowdown and he laughs when I get to the bit about Catherine and Miranda’s toxic friendship.

  ‘You’d know all about that.’

  ‘You don’t know the half of it,’ I say. I’m pacing up and down, looking over the rooftops.

  ‘Want to have lunch before you start?’

  ‘Lovely,’ I say. ‘I’m basically free. That’s how sad I am.’

  Later, Kat and Greg join me up on the rooftop – me on a third steamer chair, one of a pair they brought with them as a present to celebrate my new job and also because they didn’t want one of us to have to sit on the wall all evening. I’ve stopped asking why everyone feels the need to bring me furniture whenever they come over – with glasses of wine and a pizza. I’ve dotted some more candles around because it’s such a still evening and, even though they’ll probably all burn out before it gets dark, the effect is still good.

  ‘Have you heard from Simon?’ Kat asks, picking a dead leaf off one of the geraniums.

  ‘Not for a few days. And I don’t want to.’

  ‘I wonder if he and Georgie will stay together.’

  I can’t decide what I feel about this. On the one hand, I don’t want to think I was responsible for the break-up of Georgie’s marriage. On the other, I don’t want her just to lie down and let him get away with it.

  ‘I don’t care.’

  I had a slight dilemma earlier, where I thought maybe I should throw out all the things in my flat that came from him. Weren’t you supposed to throw people’s gifts back in their faces when something like this happened? And then I looked around at how nice the flat was starting to look and thought, Sod it.

  ‘And, obviously, nothing from Ma
dam?’ Greg says, leaning back, legs dangling over the end of his seat.

  ‘Nothing. At least, not yet.’

  ‘It’s over,’ Kat says. ‘We found her kryptonite.’

  Three Months Later

  * * *

  58

  I got picked up at just before six this morning, sat in the car for an hour going over my lines, arrived at the unit base half an hour early for my call, as I almost always do, such is the second assistant’s paranoia that there will be some kind of early-morning bottleneck on my cross-London journey. I’m exhausted, but I don’t care. I’ve never been happier.

  Not-so-nice Fiona called me to tell me that Mrs Lam’s family had decided not to sell the shop. She was going to retire and the younger generation were thinking about taking it in a different direction, aiming less at trade and more at the home market who might have been inspired to make their own clothes by The Great British Sewing Bee. One of her daughters-in-law was hoping to run classes teaching people how to put in zips or do darts. So my lease was up for renewal, if I wanted it. This time, for a year. At a ten per cent rent hike as, she said, was usual.

  I told her I was in the middle of something and then called Kat.

  ‘I might stay. What do you think? I can’t face moving again.’

  ‘Are you happy staying up there? I mean, you could afford to move a bit further in now.’

  I thought about it. ‘I think I am. I’ve got to like it. And you know what it’s like, Catherine might die in series two and at least I know I can stay afloat here.’

  ‘And that roof terrace is worth another – what? – a hundred, hundred and fifty a week, easily. I mean, if they knew about it and included it in the price.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Put it this way, I would never take you to see a flat with a roof terrace like that, because they would charge too much. Just don’t mention it to her. Or let her see the ladder, if she ever comes round.’