by Caro Fraser
‘It was good,’ he said to Rachel on the flight back. ‘Only a day or so, but it was still good.’
‘You’ll go back there some day, won’t you?’ she asked.
‘God, yes. I’d really like to.’ He fingered the book lying in his lap. ‘Would you come with me?’
‘I don’t know,’ she answered. ‘Please don’t say things like that. I don’t want to – to disappoint you. Please let’s just be friends for now.’
‘Only for now,’ he replied, still looking at her. She felt a little cold at his words, at his look. That was what she had said, wasn’t it? It had been like some kind of promise, something she would have to fulfil sooner or later. That was how he saw it, at any rate. A little of the old apprehension touched her. ‘Anyway,’ he continued lightly, ‘strictly as a friend, will you come with me to this thing at the Guildhall tomorrow night?’
‘What thing?’ she asked, glad he had changed the subject.
‘It’s some enormous bash that Sinclair’s are holding to celebrate their jubilee. Just champagne and speeches and free food. Half the City will be there.’
‘Won’t I be regarded as a member of the opposition, coming from a rival firm?’
‘I doubt it. I’ll bet you find your senior partner’s going.’
‘All right,’ she said, and smiled. ‘I’ll go with you.’
‘Good. I’ll pick you up from work.’
It was left at that. Just a friendly invitation to a City do. But the more I go on seeing him, she thought, the more time goes by, the more he will expect … The thought made her panicky. But that is what I said, didn’t I? Give me time. How much time? She thought of what he had said as he looked at her. Only for now. And then – what then? It will all work itself out, she told herself. But she did not sleep at all during the flight, and by the time they got to London she felt tired, tired and cold.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
They shared a cab all the way back to West London, both too weary to face the struggle of the Tube.
‘See you tomorrow,’ called Anthony from the taxi as she got out. ‘Between six-thirty and seven.’
She raised her hand in acknowledgement as the taxi pulled away.
Her flat seemed very warm and peaceful after her long journey. She dumped her bag in the hall, kicked off her shoes, and went into the bathroom to splash her face with cold water. She glanced at her reflection in the mirror; it was white and strained. Sleep, she thought, oh, God, sleep. She padded through to her bedroom, drew her curtains against the cold, grey November morning, undressed to her underwear and slid gratefully beneath the duvet.
But sleep was not easy; brittle, jarring thoughts kept rising to the surface of her mind, in which aeroplane engines still throbbed and hummed. The skin of her hands and face felt taut and dried out. When at last she slept, she dreamt that Anthony was lying next to her, and she woke with a shivering start, every muscle of her body tense, ready to scramble away.
She switched on the radio and dozed a little to Radio 3, but she could not sleep properly. When the eleven o’clock news came on, she felt so out of joint, lying in bed at such an hour, conscious of the day outside, that she rose and had a bath. As she lay in the soothing hot water, staring at the taps, trying to assemble disparate thoughts in her mind, she was aware that her eyes felt hot and gritty. I’m too tired to sleep, she thought. I might as well go into work.
She left her car at home and took the Tube. Somehow, travelling outside the rush hour made her feel even more disorientated, among the little knots of foreign students and tourists. The pace of everything seemed all wrong. The feeling was heightened when she reached Nichols & Co at the beginning of the lunch hour. The second floor had a stranded air; a couple of the typists were eating sandwiches at their word processors, their eyes fastened on their magazines, and the chairs of the others stood empty; the offices of her fellow partners were silent and deserted. Somewhere a phone rang unanswered, then stopped.
Rachel made herself some coffee and went into her room. I must make a start on that letter of credit case, she thought, but her mind wilted at the prospect. Anything, she told herself, pulling the papers from the file, to stop the dragging, accusing thoughts that plagued her. Dr Michaels had been wrong. It would not just be a question of time. She had seen that; seen it the moment that Anthony had picked up on the promise which lay, implicit, in her words. So what do I do now? she wondered, as she began to separate the correspondence from the rest of the documents. Where do we go from here? Oh, this is ridiculous, she thought – I said, give me time, and I’m not even prepared to give the thing two days. Because I know. I know. There is not time enough in all eternity for things to get better.
Suddenly, unbidden and unexpected, tears welled up. She watched them spill onto the documents that lay before her, feeling her body shake uncontrollably with sobs.
Come on! This won’t do! she told herself angrily. It’s just jet lag, pressure of work. She wiped away her tears with the back of her hand, rummaging in the pocket of her jacket for a tissue. I do so want to be whole, she thought, snuffling into the tissue; I do so want to find some peace, be able to give myself to someone. And if Anthony cannot be the one, then there can’t be anyone. Anyone. What would Dr Michaels say to all this self-pity? She would say, don’t force these issues, don’t think ahead. Just let things occur, moment by moment. That is right, she told herself, sniffing and ramming her tissue back into her pocket. She took a deep breath, pushed her black hair back from her face with trembling hands, and began in earnest to read Mr Lai Kew’s letter of 2nd April 1986 to Bank Negara, Indonesia, concerning the opening of a transferrable irrevocable sight letter of credit, as payment for 5,000 tonnes of crude palm oil in bulk.
Felicity was not expecting Rachel to come into the office that day, and had taken the opportunity to extend her lunch hour in celebration of Nora’s thirty-third birthday at the King’s Head. She returned to the office at two-thirty, four vodka and tonics (one of them large) the worse for wear, and gave an apprehensive grimace when she saw Rachel hunched over some papers in her office. Crumbs, she thought, I’d better get those Valeo Trader charts photocopied. Felicity’s natural difficulties with machines were not helped by her condition, nor by the sardonic and flirtatious attentions of the new office boy, who, although only seventeen, rather fancied his chances with Felicity. But Rachel was too tired and depressed to notice that Felicity had copied all the charts at the wrong size. Or if she did, she didn’t care. Felicity, as she laid the copies on Rachel’s desk before popping off to the loo for a quick fag, thought that Rachel didn’t look her usual self, but said nothing. She wasn’t confident of being tremendously coherent, anyway.
By the time five-thirty arrived, however, Felicity was feeling a good deal less tipsy, and her concern at Rachel’s depressed and withdrawn appearance returned. She went into Rachel’s room.
‘If you don’t mind my saying so, Rachel, you oughtn’t to have come in today. You look like you could do with a good long sleep.’
Rachel raised her tired eyes to Felicity’s pretty, anxious face and tried to smile. ‘I’ve tried that. I never was much good at air travel. Probably best for me to keep going until it’s my usual bedtime.’ Something in Felicity’s worried, kindly expression made Rachel feel suddenly frail, longing for confidences, for comfort. ‘I’ve got things on my mind, too. Just worries, you know. Stupid preoccupations that won’t leave me alone,’ she added, then abruptly returned her gaze to her papers.
Felicity regarded her thoughtfully for a moment. ‘What you need,’ she said, ‘is to be taken out of yourself for a bit.’
Rachel smiled and looked back up. ‘I’ve always wondered what that expression meant, exactly.’
‘Look, Mr Rothwell’s secretary, Isobel, is having a do in City Limits this evening. She’s off on maternity leave. Why don’t you come and have a glass of wine or two, cheer yourself up?’
Rachel hesitated. The prospect of going back to her empty flat, back to her usua
l routine – routine which struck her forcefully, at that moment, as sterile and sad – had been looming before her all afternoon. It would only mean more thinking, more screwing up her mind, more useless introspection. Anything but that.
Seeing her hesitation, Felicity stepped over to Rachel’s desk and took the pen she was holding gently from her fingers. Then she flipped closed the file of correspondence. ‘Come on. You work too hard. You can’t just go shooting off to India and back again and then bury yourself in work. I’m taking you for a drink.’
Rachel sighed and then smiled. ‘You’re right,’ she said and stood up, fetching her coat from the peg on the back of the door.
In the crowded wine bar, gossiping and chatting with the other women from Nichols & Co, Rachel was glad that Felicity had suggested this. After the first two glasses of wine, the edges of anxiety melted away and her preoccupations were forgotten. Her glass was refilled several times without her really noticing.
Then Roger Williams, who had been drinking with friends at the other end of the wine bar, sauntered over, smirking.
‘Girls’ night out, eh?’ he said, his gaze warm and intrusive as he ran his eyes over Rachel. ‘Just let us boys know if you want any company, all right?’
‘Drop dead, Roger,’ replied Rachel, and took another swig of her wine.
The remark was made in a smiling, offhand manner, but that the cool and lovely Rachel should speak to him in so dismissive a fashion galled Roger. She was only twenty-seven, after all, and he was her senior in the firm. He felt he should be permitted the odd sexual innuendo towards the female juniors; it was what power and the pecking order existed for.
‘You should be careful who you’re seen drinking with, Rachel,’ he replied unpleasantly, glancing at Felicity. ‘People might get the wrong idea about you.’ And he headed for the Gents before either girl could say anything.
But Felicity merely broke into a splutter of laughter. ‘He really fancies you, you know! He didn’t much like being told to drop dead.’ She took an appreciative drink.
‘If he fancies anyone, it’s himself,’ remarked Rachel. Suddenly she realised that she must have drunk more than she had intended to. She put down her glass. ‘I think I’d best be going,’ she said.
‘I’ll come with you,’ said Felicity, getting their coats. She glanced at Rachel, whose eyes were very brilliant from the wine; two faint spots of colour stood on her cheeks and her dark hair fell across her face. She pushed it back with one hand as she took her coat from Felicity, murmuring, ‘Thanks.’ I wish I looked that good getting pissed, thought Felicity.
Outside, they stood together on the cold pavement. Rachel shivered inside her coat. ‘Maybe I should be getting home,’ she said doubtfully; she didn’t feel like going home. She wanted to escape somewhere, anywhere.
‘No way,’ said Felicity, taking her elbow. ‘We’ve only just started! Come on!’ And they trotted together down to the traffic lights and hailed a cab.
‘Where are we going?’ asked Rachel, as Felicity leant forward to give some instructions to the driver, then settled back in her seat. It was wonderful to surrender the evening to someone, let them take your life over for a few hours. She felt distinctly drunk, and she didn’t care.
‘Just somewhere,’ replied Felicity mysteriously. They gossiped throughout the journey, dissecting the various personalities in the office, Rachel picking up fascinating scraps of history and little-known information about certain of her fellow partners which she felt sure would horrify them to hear repeated. All this was probably very indiscreet and unprofessional, Rachel supposed, talking to one’s secretary like this, but she didn’t care. She liked Felicity, she liked feeling a little drunk and out of control for a change. It helped her not to have to think about things.
The cab took them all the way to Brixton and stopped outside a shabby, brightly lit café.
‘I’ll get this,’ said Rachel, eyeing the meter. She knew she could afford it, and that Felicity probably couldn’t.
‘I’m buying dinner, then,’ said Felicity. She led Rachel into the café, a steamy, snug place with a scattering of chairs and tables and a handful of customers, mostly black, sitting around, some talking, some reading over their food. Felicity and Rachel sat at a corner table. The chairs were rickety and the walls splashed with posters for plays and concerts and local events, all of them West Indian. Sounds of Yellowman came from a speaker somewhere.
‘There’s the menu,’ said Felicity, pointing to a blackboard above the counter, where a large West Indian woman was calling orders into the back kitchen. ‘I’m having the brown chicken and rice and peas. It’s really good.’
‘What kind of food is it?’ asked Rachel, gazing around. She had never been in a place like it before, never smelt smells such as the spicy, exotic, faintly sweet aromas emanating from the kitchen.
‘Caribbean. It’s brilliant and it’s really cheap. Sandy and I come here a lot.’
Rachel decided that goat curry didn’t sound too promising, and she didn’t know what callaloo or ackee were. ‘I’ll have what you’re having,’ she said to Felicity. ‘Who’s Sandy?’ she asked, after they had given their order.
‘My brother,’ said Felicity. She paused. ‘Did you think he was my bloke?’
‘I thought he might be.’
Felicity looked morose. ‘I haven’t got one at the moment. Want a fag?’ She offered Rachel her packet of Silk Cut Mild. Rachel shook her head. ‘Anyway,’ went on Felicity, lighting her cigarette, ‘I did have one until not long ago. Vince. But he went back to his old girlfriend.’ And she told Rachel all about Vince and how lovely he had been, and some of the good times they’d had together. ‘I mean, we hadn’t been together long, like, and it was nothing really heavy or anything, but I did – well, I did think it was a bit special. You know.’ She blew out some smoke, glancing past Rachel’s head at a poster for the Brixton Academy. How soothing it was, thought Rachel, just to lean back and listen to someone else’s problems, everyday problems, women’s-page problems, blokes leaving you, heartache, lonely nights. ‘Thing is,’ went on Felicity, ‘he’s a mate of my brother’s, and I keep thinking, like, that I’ll see him around. That we could get back together. Know what I mean?’ There was a pause. ‘Daft, really, I suppose.’
‘Maybe you’ll meet someone else,’ suggested Rachel.
‘Oh, yeah. Plenty of blokes around,’ replied Felicity lightly, leaning back and tipping the ash from her cigarette into the little foil dish that served as an ashtray. ‘No problem there. It’s just,’ she smiled ruefully at Rachel, ‘that I don’t want anyone but Vince. You know how it is.’
Do I? thought Rachel. Oh, how wrong you are. I just wish there was someone, anyone, that I wanted the way you want your Vince. ‘All you need is a little time,’ she told Felicity. And there’s another lie, she thought. One that I keep telling.
‘Yeah, well,’ murmured Felicity, unconvinced.
Their food arrived, steaming and appetising. Rachel found it surprisingly good, and said so.
‘Great, isn’t it?’ agreed Felicity. ‘Want a beer?’
‘Do they sell beer?’ asked Rachel, glancing around. It didn’t look like the kind of place to have a liquor licence.
‘Not exactly,’ replied Felicity. Then she turned to the large West Indian woman at the counter. ‘Leila?’
‘What you want, mi darlin’?’ called Leila, counting change into the till.
‘Any chance of a beer?’
‘Jes’ you wait, now,’ replied Leila and vanished into the kitchen. She returned with two bottles and glasses and set them down. ‘Straight from mi own fridge, nah,’ she said with a smile. ‘I don’ sell this. Mi hospitality.’ And she went off chuckling.
‘It’s true,’ said Felicity, grinning at Rachel. ‘She doesn’t sell them. She keeps them in her own fridge upstairs and gives them away. Just tops up the cost of the meal, that’s all.’
The beer was warm and strong, and gave another little lift to Rachel�
��s mood. She had needed the food, she realised. She felt warm and expansive, and watched, sipping her beer, as Felicity went over to speak to Leila.
‘Benjy in?’ she asked. Leila nodded, wiping the counter with a cloth and not looking at Felicity. ‘Can I go up?’
‘You can, darlin’. Only I never see you.’
Felicity disappeared into the kitchen and came back a few moments later.
‘What was that all about?’ asked Rachel as Felicity sat down, slipping a glance at Leila as she did so.
‘Oh, just a little something to round off a good evening,’ said Felicity, and gave Rachel a wide-eyed, guileless look.
After they left the café, Rachel allowed herself to be taken to Felicity’s local. There she had two gin and tonics, and then decided she’d better not have any more. She was already feeling extremely heady, losing all sense of her customary fastidiousness in her new surroundings, closing her eyes to the music, opening them to smile around at the chattering, clinking pub. What an easy, untroubled life Felicity has, she thought. Even her problems are easy.
‘Oh, my God!’ uttered Felicity suddenly, and dropped her glance to the table.
‘What?’ said Rachel.
‘It’s Vince,’ said Felicity, casting little sideways glances up from the table without moving her head.
Rachel looked up with interest at the man approaching their table. She could see, she supposed, why Felicity was stuck on him. He was big and cheerful-looking and very attractive, in an unkempt way. He stood over their table for a moment, looking down at the top of Felicity’s curly head. She was staring into her drink, her mouth pursed tight.
‘’Allo, Fliss,’ he said tentatively.