by Lisa Jewell
He stared dismally at his reflection in the mirror above the sink. He looked appalling. He felt appalling. He had to write that proposal. He felt like storming into James’s office, slamming his fists on the desk and saying, ‘I’m sorry, James, but I have a life, and I don’t give a shit about Quirk & Quirk’s long-established reputation. Write it yourself, you manic old bastard – I’m going home.’ But he wouldn’t, of course. He took a deep breath and walked back into the claustrophobic mayhem of the office. James was frantically pressing buttons on the fax machine.
‘Diana, Diana, what the hell is the matter with this stupid machine?’ he was muttering, his upright hair making him look like some kind of ageing budgerigar.
‘Have you pressed Send, Mr Quirk?’ she asked with weary impatience.
‘Of course, I pressed Send. Look, can someone else please do this, I really don’t have the time.’
Diana made a face at James’s retreating back and headed towards the fax machine. She noticed that Smith was back.
‘Someone called for you while you were out, a girl. There’s a message on your desk.’ She raised her eyebrows.
Smith peeled the yellow note from his computer screen. ‘Gem called – thanks for last night and fancy going for a drink tonight? Please call back.’ His heart lurched in his chest, and he felt a hot flush rise up from his neck.
Oh, shit. Now what?
Chapter Seven
‘Morning, Stella’ Jem was exhausted and hungover and could feel the bags beneath her eyes pulling at her eyelids.
‘Morning, Jem, you look well today. Is that a new lipstick you’re wearing? It suits you.’
‘Thanks, Stella.’
Ridiculous. Jem knew she looked like shit. Jem and Stella had been working together at the theatrical agency for over three years now, and every single morning without fail Stella would furnish Jem with a compliment and every single morning it would be one that she had never heard before. Taking account of holidays, Jem had calculated that five compliments a week equalled two hundred and forty compliments a year and a grand total of seven hundred and twenty compliments in all, all of them different.
‘How did it go last night?’ Stella enquired, in her usual ingratiating manner. She was hovering over Jem’s desk with that desperate look on her face, like she’d been waiting since six o’clock that morning for Jem to get into work so she could ask her just that question.
Stella was thirty-three years old, six foot two, and still a virgin. She had hair the colour of yellowing newspaper, the remains of a perm at the ends, which never seemed to grow or change. She wore the same pale-blue eyeliner every day, which only succeeded in making her round eyes look even more damp and watery than they were. As far as Jem could tell she had no life whatsoever, and chewed gratefully on whatever scraps of Jem’s not particularly exciting life she chose to throw her. ‘How did your sister’s eye test go?’ she’d ask concernedly. ‘How’s your friend Lily getting on with her new boyfriend?’ (She’d never met Lily.) ‘What colour wallpaper did your mother choose in the end?’ (She didn’t know Jem’s mother.) ‘Oh, the duck-egg … lovely.’
Jem wished she could say she was fond of Stella, that she had a soft spot for her, that she’d miss her if she wasn’t around, but it wasn’t true. She was a huge galumphing giant of a pain in the arse, and on a morning like this morning, with a thumping dehydrated headache and a lot on her mind, she found it took all the patience and civility she could muster to form even the curtest of replies.
‘Oh, fine, fine. It went fine, thank you.’ Jem smiled tightly and tried to look busy.
‘Good,’ trilled Stella, thrilled that Jem had had a Monday night good enough to be described as fine. ‘Still enjoying the new flat?’
‘Oh, yes, lovely – super. Very much, thank you.’ Jem was running out of fake enthusiasm.
Stella’s phone rang at that moment and Jem breathed a sigh of relief. She felt a small blush of coy embarrassment and excitement spread across her face and towards her chest as snapshot images of last night’s events flashed unbidden through her mind. Smith had bought her peonies – he’d actually bought her peonies, her favourite flowers in the whole world. The minute he walked in and shyly handed them to her muttering, ‘Just to say thanks for the meal,’ she’d known without the slightest doubt that it was him. She’d stood in the kitchen and looked at the two men last night, and it was blindingly obvious in an instant. On one side was Smith looking handsomely careworn in a nice grey suit and a pale lilac shirt and tie, and on the other was Ralph wearing a foul baggy grey jumper that he appeared to wear every day and a most unbecoming pair of vaguely obscene-looking longjohns.
‘D’you need any help?’ Smith had asked, as Ralph wandered back into the living room and back on to the sofa to watch EastEnders. Smith – two; Ralph – nil.
Finally they sat down to eat. The entire flat was infused with the aroma of coconut, garlic and coriander and the almost heavenly scent of Thai fragrant rice. Ralph and Smith were in raptures.
‘This is the most delicious thing I have ever eaten in my whole life!’ declared Ralph.
‘Better than anything I’ve had in a restaurant,’ agreed Smith.
It had taken a few of cans of lager to lubricate the evening, after the seam of compliments on the quality of the food had run dry, and Jem had found herself doing most of the work to start with, asking the two men about themselves.
Smith worked in the City, she discovered, for a PR company dealing largely with financial institutions. He’d worked as a City dealer before that but had been in danger of burning himself out so had taken a fairly substantial cut in salary to change career. But, reading between the lines, he was still earning somewhere in the region of four times Jem’s modest salary. He’d lived in Almanac Road for eight years – he’d saved vast amounts of money working in the City during the boom and living with his parents in Croydon after he left university and paid cash for the flat when Battersea was still relatively good value. Ralph had moved in shortly afterwards.
To her surprise she’d learned that Ralph was an artist. She had a clichéd idea of what an artist looked like and it wasn’t Ralph. She’d been wondering what he did for a living and had noticed that he never seemed to leave the house. He hadn’t painted for a few months, he’d been doing sporadic freelance graphic design on his Apple Mac, but it seemed that his income was chicken-feed, just enough to cover living expenses, beer, cigarettes and drugs and the odd cab home. He seemed uncomfortable talking about his lack of direction and stalled career. He’d been the star of his year at the Royal College of Art, and his degree show had been met with much overexcitement from critics and buyers. He showed Jem a small book of press cuttings from the time, moody black-and-white photographs of ‘the artist’ accompanying glowing articles full of phrases like ‘formidable talent’, ‘genius’, ‘exciting new star of his generation’. He’d had a few successful exhibitions, sold some paintings for what had felt at the time like extraordinary amounts of money and then everything had gone quiet. New ‘exciting stars of their generation’ had displaced him and for the last few years he’d been relegated to exhibiting his work in City wine bars and hotel foyers.
‘I’d love to see some of your work,’ Jem had said. ‘Have you got any of it here?’
‘Yeah, Ralph, I’d love to see some of your work too,’ said Smith, turning to Jem. ‘I’ve lived with this bloke for eight years and I’ve never seen anything he’s done at the studio. Not a Polaroid, nothing. Show her your degree-show book, Ralphie.’
Ralph grunted but loped off to find it.
He’d returned with a large hardback book which fell open easily to a double-page spread headed ‘Ralph McLeary’ and a picture entitled ‘Dangerous Sands Shifting 1985.’ Jem didn’t understand or care much for modern art but the picture made an instantaneous impact, and she turned the page with interest, to ‘Noxious Gases and Ultraviolet 1985’ and a smaller picture entitled ‘Violent Electrical Storms 1985’.
; The paintings were abstract but rich in colour and although seemingly flat and one-dimensional, Jem felt surges of energy bursting from them.
‘Ralph, these are great, really … ‘She searched for a word that wouldn’t sound ignorant, ’ … ‘dramatic, energetic, scary almost. And I don’t usually like modern stuff. These are brilliant!’
‘Thanks.’ Ralph had looked pleased despite himself and closed the book. ‘Anyway, you’ve had to ask enough questions tonight. Tell us about yourself.’
Jem always hated talking about herself, but she told them in as few words as possible about Smallhead Management, the theatrical agency where she’d worked for three years, how she’d recently been promoted from secretary to Junior Talent Manager and was learning the ropes from Jarvis Smallhead (they’d laughed at his name), the outrageously camp agency boss who had high hopes for her. She recounted the almost neverending series of mini-dramas and crises she had to deal with every day involving a bizarre collection of aged luvvies and prima donnas. She told them about the painful Stella and her obsession with Jem’s life, about her eccentric mother and her long-suffering father and her idyllic childhood growing up in a cottage in Devon. She explained that her name was short for Jemima and that before she moved into Almanac Road she’d been living with her sister Lulu in a vast, partially furnished flat off Queenstown Road. Lulu was moving her boyfriend in, and his three children from a previous marriage, and although she’d been welcome to stay, Jem had decided to move on.
They’d carried on chatting as Smith and Jem cleared the table (Smith – three; Ralph – nil), and the more Jem watched Smith the more she felt sure. He was definitely the quieter of the two, the more restrained. He sat straighter at the table, his table manners were more precise, his laugh more controlled than Ralph’s, and there was something vulnerable about him that appealed to her, a certain sadness, a loneliness. Ralph was good fun and probably more similar to Jem in a lot of ways, but although Smith seemed more uptight, she felt a closeness to him.
Once she’d decided she knew it wouldn’t take much to set the ball rolling, to lead Smith gently by the hand into a relationship. She just hadn’t expected the ball to start rolling quite so soon, or quite so fast.
Ralph had got up from the table at about eleven, kissed Jem unsteadily on the hand, thanked her profusely for the meal, proclaimed it a milestone in his gastronomic life and gone to bed, leaving Jem and Smith alone.
Jem hadn’t wasted any time. ‘Do you believe in fate?’ she’d asked, rolling a spliff on the pine surface of the kitchen table.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know, everything happening for a reason, events and moments being preordained. Like me being here tonight. If I’d seen a double room I liked last week I wouldn’t have come to see your room. I would be sitting in someone else’s kitchen now, talking to someone completely different, and I wouldn’t even know you and your lovely flat existed.’ She paused briefly. ‘Except, that’s not quite true.’ She stopped to search for a Tube ticket in her handbag to use for a roach. She wondered how much she could say to Smith.
Smith wondered what on earth she was going on about and wished he could focus on her a bit more clearly.
This is going to sound weird – do you promise you won’t think I’m a nutcase?’ she asked, tearing off a small piece of cardboard.
Smith reached for a bottle of tequila. ‘Promise,’ he said.
‘Well, ever since I was a teenager, I’ve had a recurring dream.’
‘Ye-es,’ Smith slid the shot glass in front of her. God, she really was cute.
‘Just a really nice image of a tall house on a curved road with a basement and little trees outside. I’m walking down the road and I look into one of the flats and there’s a man sitting on the sofa with his back to the window. He’s smoking and talking to someone I can’t see and he’s smiling and happy and relaxed and I really, really want to go in. The flat looks warm and welcoming and I just have this very strong feeling I’m supposed to be living there – it doesn’t feel right that I don’t, that I have to walk past and never get to know the man inside, never be part of his life. And that’s it, that’s the dream. And then, that night I came to see the flat, I just knew it was the same flat – I felt it. It was so familiar, so safe, just the way it felt in the dream. And I looked down, just like in the dream, and I saw a man sitting on the sofa and talking to someone out of view.’ She paused. ‘Do you think I’m mad? Are you going to kick me out?’ Jem laughed nervously.
Smith fought the smile that was twitching at the corners of his mouth. He didn’t know where this weird conversation was going, but for some reason, he felt compelled to keep it going. He arranged his features into an expression of serious consideration. ‘No, I don’t think you’re mad at all. I think that’s really rather amazing.’
‘But that’s not all. I hope you don’t think this is really heavy or anything … Oh, I don’t know whether to say this ordramatic, energetic not …’
Smith looked at her intently and rested his head on his hands. ‘Please – go on. This is fascinating – I promise you.’
‘Well, it’s not just the flat. It’s the man. I know in my dream that I’m supposed to be with the man on the sofa – he’s my destiny. Do you realize what I’m saying?’
Smith had no idea what she was saying, but she was getting cuter and more attainable by the minute. All of a sudden he could imagine taking her face in his hands and kissing her sweet little red mouth, and then he thought about Cheri, imagined her upstairs now, while they spoke, elegantly tucked up between her ivory silk sheets (he’d never actually seen them, of course, but they had to be, didn’t they?), her lithe, supple body encased in a tiny slip of satin and lace, her perfect head ever so slightly denting her pillow while she slept. He imagined her lace-clad chest rising gently up and down as she breathed, pictured her turning in her sleep, stretching and writhing slightly, the slippery sheet sliding off her body for a second and revealing one long, brown perfectly formed leg. She would sigh as she turned, a long, deep, sensual sigh, and then drift back into sleep …
‘You do think I’m mad, don’t you? Shit. I knew it. I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.’ Jem was staring at the floor and wringing her hands.
‘What? No! No. God, I’m sorry – I was just thinking, that’s all.’ Smith smiled modestly and sincerely at her. He still wanted to kiss her, and all of a sudden it didn’t seem like too much of a challenge. He lifted his shot glass and nodded towards hers.
‘Cheers, then,’ he said, watching her as they downed the repulsive liquid and grimaced.
‘Yeek,’ scowled Jem.
‘Bleugh,’ shuddered Smith.
They fell silent for a moment, looking into their glasses and glancing at each other every now and then, both waiting for something to happen.
‘Smith,’ said Jem eventually, ‘I hope you don’t think I’m being unbelievably forward, but – I’ve just had this overwhelming compulsion to hug you. What do you think?’ She grinned nervously and put out her arms.
It had been a monumental hug, a coming-home hug. Jem had almost felt the energy flowing between them as she pushed her head into his chest and breathed him in deeply, his smell enveloping her in the same feeling of rightness and safety and destiny as her dream, but better, because this was real.
Smith had gripped her tightly, unexpectedly enjoying the sensation of shared physicality; it had been so long, so bloody long since he’d had any kind of decent human contact. He’d forgotten what it felt like to put your arms around another human being, without embarrassment, and share their warmth and their body. He’d always thought this moment would’ve happened to him and Cheri, but this was good, this was nice. Jem was nice.
They had stood like that for what felt like hours, their arms around each other, Jem’s head in Smith’s chest, Smith’s chin on her head, breathing deeply, sighing, allowing unspoken feelings to flow through them, a silent communication between two people looking for entirely di
fferent things and finding them in exactly the same place.
Chapter Eight
Ralph could not believe it. He really could not believe it. It was beyond the pale, it defied belief, it was rude and … and … and … unbelievable. He could not believe it. The girl had only been here two minutes and already Smith was … was … fucking her. He was fucking her. He was fucking well fucking her. Unbelievable!
He could not understand how it had happened. One minute they’d all been sitting together having a nice chat and a laugh and breaking the ice very nicely, thank you, and they were all friends, all equals and then Ralph had taken himself off to bed and then – then what? What the hell had old Smithie said or done to that girl to get her into the sack so fucking quickly? Maybe she was some kind of nymphomaniac who moved from flat to flat shagging her flatmates – saved getting cabs home, he supposed. Jesus.
Ralph had lain in bed all morning with an achingly full bladder, waiting for the other two to leave the flat so that he wouldn’t have to bump into either one of them on his way to the bathroom. Smith was gone by eight o’clock and then Jem had got up and left at nine. He was standing over the bowl now, watching the colourless jet of piss escaping gratefully into the water below, and breathing a pleasurable sigh of relief.
Jem just didn’t seem the type. A nice girl, a decent girl. He’d found her completely charming over dinner the previous night and had been thinking how refreshing it was to meet a girl who was intelligent and funny and pretty, and drank lager from the can, and loved curry as much as he did, and who was a good talker as well as a good listener. He’d been delighted and flattered by her reaction when he’d shown her some of his paintings. He’d been overwhelmed by her culinary ability and her highly impressive capacity for searingly hot food. He’d been entranced by her stories about her family and the strange characters she worked with at the theatrical agency. He’d found her Italianate hand gestures and scrunchy facial expressions beguiling and endearing. She wasn’t like any of the girls he normally met. She was special.