Bad Friends

by Seeber, Claire

  ‘Everyone’s wearing Blahnik,’ she chastised, forcing my feet into what seemed little more than a few skinny straps and another killer heel.

  ‘Sounds more like a space shuttle to me,’ I joked, but she didn’t laugh – and she only blanched a bit at the scar on my left foot.

  I wobbled out anxiously through the curtains to look in the full-length mirror, staring at myself for a silent moment. When I read the price-tag, though, I nearly fainted.

  ‘Thanks very much for your help, but I’m afraid –’

  The girl was deep in conversation with another skinny someone – a someone I recognised with a painful thud. Serena. I prepared myself to say hello, but she just gazed at me vacantly, immaculate in a long leather coat, then tightened the belt around her tiny waist and carried on her conversation. I thought I heard her mention a wedding as I slunk back into the changing-room, sinking down on the stool in the corner.

  When I eventually came out again, Serena was admiring her many reflections, all clad in a pair of vertiginous snakeskin boots. How appropriate and how very unethical, I thought sourly.

  I bought the dress just to prove I had as much panache as them, and then I let the door bang behind me as I strode purposefully out of the shop. Outside, the street was busy, the clamour of Covent Garden loud and vibrant – but I felt like I’d lost my mooring, like I was floating off to sea.

  Somehow it took some time to get back to work.

  In a show of power no doubt born from my afternoon flit, Charlie had ensured I had a stack of new stuff on my desk to sort out for Monday’s programme. I was just putting the phone down from briefing Renee when he wandered in, breathing brandy fumes at me.

  ‘Marvellous lunch with Alan Yentob,’ Charlie crowed, pulling a book on the Lost Gardens of Heligan from my shelf. ‘He’s wetting himself with excitement over my idea for a layman’s Panorama. Current affairs for the thicko.’

  ‘Really?’ I said politely. It was extremely hard to imagine Yentob in Charlie’s thrall.

  ‘Yes, darling.’ He perched on the edge of my desk. ‘The Easy View, I think we’ll call it. You know, I never see you as the country type.’ He flicked through the garden book indolently. ‘Cornwall’s deeply unfashionable these days, darling. So bloody far away, and always raining. Give me Dubai any time.’ Charlie shoved the book back, knocking three box-files off the other end that he didn’t bother to retrieve. ‘Going to Bel’s tonight?’

  ‘Um, I’m thinking about it.’ I doodled on my pad, holding my breath. ‘Are you?’

  ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world, darling.’

  I breathed out.

  ‘So sad to be losing one of our very best girls.’ Bel had long since progressed onto make-up for drama and film, but Charlie liked to think of himself as a great benefactor, responsible for everyone’s career, and Bel was always remembered fondly. ‘Don’t be late now, eh?’ He strolled off around the office to peer down some cleavages.

  I was so long at my desk that all the other girls left; they’d wait for me in the bar downstairs, they said, wired with Friday night anticipation. Eventually I headed to the loo with my dress. Mid tights-change, my mobile rang. ‘Private number’ flashed up on the display.

  ‘Hello?’

  Nothing.

  ‘Hello? Hello?’ I repeated irritably. ‘Is anyone there?’

  Just one long, slow breath – and then the line went dead.

  ‘For God’s sake.’ I considered the phone in my hand for a second, then I rang Alex’s number. It went straight to voicemail. I slammed the mobile down on the side of the sink, and stood for a minute. Then I fished out my eyeliner. ‘Bloody bollocks to you, too.’

  The frosted window rattled suddenly; one of the cubicle doors banged. I jumped, drawing a great kohl tick across my cheek. Immediately tense, I peered round. I was sure I’d been the last one in the office.

  ‘Hello?’ I hated the fact my voice wavered as I spoke.

  I thought I heard the shuffle of feet. A clammy sweat broke out on my top lip. I took a deep breath and crept down the row of cubicles to the one nearest the exit. It was shut.

  ‘Is anyone there?’

  I stared at it and then quickly pushed the door: it swung open and smacked hard against the wall. The cubicle was empty. Nervously I laughed at my overactive imagination, but I struggled into the dress as fast as I could, not caring that I couldn’t reach the zip myself. I wanted to get out of there. As I walked into the corridor, one of the fire-exit doors swung shut.

  I took a deep breath. I had to retrieve my stuff from my office, which was in darkness now as I hurried across, just the ghostly flicker of light from the computer’s screensaver. As I grabbed my bag, I heard another noise.

  ‘Who’s there?’ I swung round, my voice sharp with fear.

  Silence fell again across the darkened room. Perhaps it was one of the cleaners. Perhaps I’d imagined it.

  I hurried towards the lift now – and then I heard a cough. A definite cough. I froze for a second behind the central pillar, my heart pounding. Silence fell again.

  I shook my head. I was being silly. Except, if I was being silly, why had no one answered when I’d called?

  And then a low voice, sullen, wheedling, slunk out across the darkness. Peering round the pillar, I noticed the crack of light under Charlie’s door. I took a deep breath and crept nearer. I could hear the mutter more clearly: a lone voice. It wasn’t Charlie – that much I knew for sure. Flattened against the wall outside the door, which was slightly ajar, I realised someone was using his phone.

  ‘But what’s in it for me? I need some sort of assurance,’ I heard. A pause. Then –

  ‘So if I do it, you’ll sort the …? Okay. And can you put that in writing?’ the voice said. Another pause. ‘No, I realise that.’

  I peered through the crack in the door now. There was Joseph Blake, his legs up on the desk, the phone cord wound around his stubby finger, smug even in the gloom. His shiny face was half-lit; his eyes narrowed as he listened. Fragments of lost memory suddenly floated through my throbbing head – a sudden image of Joseph in evening dress and …

  I shuddered violently. That night at the –

  His voice cut through my memories and they dissolved again.

  ‘Yeah, of course I’ll get you good ones. The most important. For the right –’

  Craning forward into the gloom I caught my dress on the edge of a desk and jarred my bad ankle. My sob of pain was audible. Joseph leapt up, crashing the receiver down immediately.

  ‘Who’s there?’ His voice was sharp as he stood behind the desk.

  ‘Oh God, Joseph. You really scared me.’ My heart was pounding through the thin material of my dress as I pushed the door fully open. ‘I nearly had a heart attack. What are you doing here? Does Charlie know you’re using his phone?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ His overly-red lips turned down in an unpleasant pout. ‘I just had a call to make.’

  ‘What kind of call?’

  He looked supremely guilty as we regarded one another silently for a second, his pale face striped with luminous colour from the beam of Charlie’s desk light.

  ‘It was work,’ he muttered eventually. ‘Just work. You know I don’t have my own desk any more. I just needed a phone.’

  ‘Well, as admirable as working late on a Friday might be, you shouldn’t be using private offices.’ I pushed down my irritation as he glared at me as if I was in the wrong. ‘There are plenty of phones out there. Come on,’ I gestured to him. ‘Zip me up and let’s get out of here.’

  As Joseph stood, he shoved something into his bag in a fluid movement.

  ‘What was that?’ I screwed up my eyes in the gloom.

  ‘What?’ Joseph followed my gaze to his bag. ‘Oh, nothing. Just my diary.’

  I headed towards the door, desperate to get out of there. Frankly I’d been dreading Bel’s party, but now I suddenly saw safety in numbers. As far away from creepy Joseph as possible.

  Cha
pter Eleven

  Old friends bobbed about the party like baubles on a Christmas tree, the women spilling out of silk and satin, the men preening peacock-like in their best clobber. The air was thick with smoke and music and expensive scent, and the Dutch courage I’d downed earlier meant I was almost starting to enjoy myself, once I realised Alex wasn’t there. I was shouting over the din to my chain-smoking friend Naz, admiring her slinky cream salwar kameez and hearing about the job the BBC had just offered her, when I felt a gentle tap on my back. Gentle, but insistent.

  ‘Nice dress.’ Fay looked up at me intently as I turned round. ‘Champagne?’ In a funky little black and white waitress number that somehow clung in all the right places, her violet eyes ringed with iridescent silver, her ringlets perfectly sausage-like, she looked stunning. I, on the other hand, was simply stunned.

  If Fay noticed that my face had fallen, it didn’t put her off. ‘That colour green really suits you. I’d love a dress like that.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I tried to collect my thoughts. ‘What are – I mean, I wasn’t expecting –’

  ‘I’m a Beautiful Bartender.’ She smiled proudly.

  ‘A what?’ I managed to suppress a deep sigh.

  ‘It’s great, isn’t it? It’s my other job when I’m not on TV. How funny they wanted me to work tonight, don’t you think? Oh look, there’s Charlie.’ Fay waved merrily at where he lounged against the bar. ‘I’ll be straight back,’ she promised me.

  ‘There’s no rush,’ I muttered as she floated off, ‘really.’

  ‘Old friend?’ asked Naz cheerfully, offering me a cigarette. ‘You don’t look too pleased to see her, I must say.’

  ‘Don’t I?’ I took a drag so deep the acrid smoke made me cough.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘I just don’t quite understand why she keeps turning up everywhere.’

  In the middle of the dance floor, Bel and Johnno were kissing, oblivious to their pogo-ing neighbours, oblivious to everyone around them. I wasn’t envious. I really wasn’t. Taking a slug of my cocktail, I was surprised to find my glass was empty. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I’m not sure if I’m just being paranoid.’

  ‘Why? Who is she?’

  ‘She was on the coach when it crashed, and now – well, she just keeps turning up all over the place.’

  ‘Like a bad penny.’

  ‘Something like that, yes.’

  ‘I know what’ll cheer you up.’ Naz grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the Ladies. ‘Come on.’

  ‘I’m fine, Naz, honestly.’

  She was determined. ‘Oh, come on. Don’t be a spoilsport.’

  ‘I’m not. I’d rather have a drink, that’s all. You go. I’ll be at the bar.’

  Fay sidled up to me as I waited to get served. My foot was throbbing painfully from bashing it outside Charlie’s office door.

  ‘I’m off now, Maggie. I was only booked for the first two hours. Got a party of my own to go to now.’

  I felt inordinately relieved.

  ‘My new agency – their party.’ Fay said the first words with great pride.

  ‘Oh right. Well, have a good time.’ I resisted the temptation to slide my finger through the middle of her perfect ringlet.

  ‘I always do.’ Fay took both my hands in hers and squeezed them rather like a vicar might. ‘I’ll see you soon.’

  ‘Champagne, darling?’ Charlie’s hot breath caressed my naked back and I shuddered, watching Fay skip towards the stairs.

  There followed an hour of polite-if-rather-dazed listening to Naz’s friends from one of the big channels. They were all wired, admiring themselves in the mirrored walls with the complete assurance that they had never looked better, slimmer or taller than right now. Frantically they jostled for air-time, each absolutely convinced that what they had to say was far more fascinating than the next person’s offering. I stifled a yawn. The only thing more boring than taking coke was listening to people bang on about it.

  ‘Let me talk,’ one heavy girl with a thick black fringe kept insisting, scowling if anyone interrupted her. I felt like the needle in the middle of a badly tuned radio, voices vying for attention. ‘No, no, listen,’ the girl was saying now. I realised hazily that she was talking to me. ‘Naz told me you’re doing the Renee Owens show. I don’t know how you can work on that rubbish, I really don’t. It’s so bloody rigged.’

  ‘Rigged?’ I really couldn’t be bothered to defend myself. ‘And what do you do?’

  ‘I’m series producing this year’s X Factor,’ she announced proudly. ‘It’s a corker – beating Strictly hands down.’

  ‘What, and X Factor’s all about the talent?’ Naz scoffed. ‘Come on, Nat! Pull the other one.’

  ‘It is based on talent!’ Natalie was outraged. ‘Absolutely. And, God, Simon’s such a scream to work with.’

  ‘Whose talent?’ I raised an eyebrow. ‘Sharon Osbourne’s? You’re shoving the walking wounded straight into the cannon’s mouth.’

  ‘We only –’

  I zoned out. The couple next to me couldn’t keep their hands off one another; the bloke kept thrusting his hand down the back of her jeans. Mournfully I thought of Alex and looked away.

  ‘You do look fab, Maggie – just like a Christmas present,’ Naz said kindly. ‘Someone’s bound to tear you open soon!’ Only her streaming nose rather ruined the sentiment. As her boyfriend snaked a lascivious arm around her, I fled to join Bel on the dance floor.

  She was extremely drunk. After some rather terrifying disco-squats she ricocheted round the dancers surrounding her, finally cannoning into me so that I fell against a group standing on the edge of the dance floor. An arm shot out to steady me.

  ‘Sorry.’ I staggered in the heels I wasn’t used to, my bad foot sore again where I’d awkwardly righted myself. ‘Ouch.’

  ‘Do you want to sit down for a second?’ The dark-haired man who’d just caught me led me to a seat tucked in the corner, where I plonked myself down inelegantly and slid my shoe off. ‘Oh God, that hurts.’ I rubbed my toes. ‘Thanks for saving me.’

  ‘No problem.’ He offered me a hand. ‘Sebastian Rae. Seb.’

  ‘Maggie. Maggie Warren.’ And then I looked up at him directly as I took the proffered hand, and for the first time since Alex, the first time in such a very long time, I felt a surge of something, something like life, and it almost winded me. I looked up at this man again, and afterwards I had the horrible feeling I might have been mouthing stupidly, sort of fish-like, saying nothing.

  He was studying me intently, his dark eyes inscrutable. So intently. I looked away again very quickly and prayed I hadn’t just blushed like a schoolgirl.

  ‘You all right now, then, Maggie Warren?’

  ‘Oh yes, I’m fine.’ He was going to walk away. Please don’t walk away. But he moved off – and then he turned and looked at me again.

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  Oh God, absolutely. ‘Oh, thanks – if you’re sure,’ I mumbled.

  I liked his suit. It would have looked rather odd and out of place on anyone else amid this mayhem, but something about his leanness, about his stance, meant he pulled it off. I’d quite like to pull it off, I decided. I looked at my feet, and back up again. He was still waiting.

  ‘What’ll it be then?’

  ‘Oh, sorry! I’ll have a – a glass of red wine please.’

  By the time Seb had battled to the bar and back I’d had time to come to my senses. I definitely wasn’t ready for this again. And he – well, he wasn’t Alex. He sat beside me, his dark hair tousled, his shirt very white, and I stared at the razor-sharp creases in his grey trousers and tried desperately to think of something interesting to say.

  ‘What do you do?’ I’d failed. The flashing lights and the banging music were beginning to confuse me; I breathed deep and tried not to succumb to his crooked smile. Trust in myself and any ability I had to choose a man well – a good man – was long gone. My heart was still lumpen in my chest, still jagged and tor
n. I couldn’t imagine a time when it would be whole again.

  ‘I’m an actor, actually.’ He raised his glass to me. I had the uncomfortable feeling he was sizing me up.

  ‘How exciting.’ Did I sound star-struck? I’d met so many celebrities in my job, but he seemed a little different; somehow aloof from it all. ‘I thought you looked a bit familiar.’

  He had a very small scar running vertically above his upper lip, the skin there paler than the rest. I sat firmly on my hands, resisting the temptation to reach out and touch it. ‘Have you been in anything I’d have seen?’

  ‘Oh, you know. EastEnders, The Bill. The usual crap.’ He smiled, and I smiled back. I liked the way the corner of his mouth twisted as he grinned. I liked the fact he had a sense of humour about himself, which most actors I’d met lacked, and most of all I liked his dark eyes, eyes that were almost black in this dim light. Like melting tar on summer roads. I looked away.

  ‘I’m about to do some Shakespeare actually.’

  ‘Oh really? Personally I never really got to grips with the great Bard. Too much flouncy language, not enough sex.’ Where had that come from? I winced at myself. Quit while you’re ahead, Maggie, a little voice muttered.

  ‘No, well, he’s not everybody’s cup of tea. But, actually, there’s quite a lot of sex, I’d say. A lot of people ruined by broken hearts and jealous lovers.’

  Me too, I nearly said. I am utterly ruined by my last love. My lost love. I caught myself: drunk and maudlin, a fatal combination. I tried to focus; to place his accent. Very faint. A burr, maybe Midlands, West Country perhaps. I felt a pang for Pendarlin again.

  ‘Which play are you doing?’

  ‘Twelfth Night.’

  I vaguely remembered it from A-level English. I could just see him as the handsome angry prince who bangs on about music being the food of love, fighting desperately for the girl he wants. How romantic. I found I’d drained my wine.