Bad Friends

by Seeber, Claire

  I shook my head miserably. ‘No, it’s fine. I’ll just finish getting dressed.’ Digby was hurling himself against the terrace doors. ‘Sorry – you couldn’t just let the dog in, could you?’

  Stefano Costana looked nervous. ‘Is he – you know? Dangerous?’

  ‘Hardly.’ I laughed. ‘Just a bit overenthusiastic.’

  ‘Found these on your doorstep, by the way.’ The estate agent looked around for somewhere to put the bouquet. ‘Beautiful, aren’t they? I do love a lily. So regal.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ My heart sank. ‘So they’re not yours?’

  ‘No, no.’ He plopped them cheerfully onto the kitchen table. ‘You obviously have an admirer, Ms Warren. Very nice.’

  ‘It’s not, though, actually.’ I trailed wearily up the stairs to finish dressing. ‘It’s not very nice at all.’

  I didn’t bother to check the card. I already knew what the message would say. The same as the last bunch had. ‘In Loving Memory of Maggie.’

  By the time I reached the office, two strong cups of coffee later, I was feeling revived enough to have punched Alex’s previously deleted number into my mobile with some considerable aggression. He didn’t answer, so I left a short sharp message about keys and estate agents and how being grossly inconsiderate was his absolute forte. I was pretty sure he hadn’t told me about the appointment.

  I’d shoved the lilies into the wheelie-bin outside the flat as I left and tried to forget about them, determined that today I’d explain to Charlie why I couldn’t work for him any more, whatever his threats. It was time to take charge.

  But in the foyer I couldn’t find my pass anywhere, and the new security guard refused to let me through. I rang up to the office to get someone to fetch me, and then I upended my bag on the floor. I was fumbling through the debris of a few months when I heard my name.

  ‘Maggie, isn’t it?’

  I peered up at the owner of the shoes hovering beside the pile of bus tickets, old ChapSticks, newspaper cuttings and bar bills that detailed my recent life.

  ‘Sebastian Rae.’ He was smiling down at me, that small scar very white above his lip, his dark hair tousled over his dark eyes. ‘We met at Bel’s party. Need a hand?’

  ‘Of course. I mean – no, sorry, I’m fine. Thanks.’ I pushed my own hair off my face, wishing desperately that I’d bothered to put make-up on this morning or had actually dried the stylish new cut which was no doubt sticking out at odd angles by now. ‘How come – what are you doing here?’

  ‘I just had a casting upstairs, with Granada. New detective series. Sure I can’t help?’

  ‘No, really, thanks.’ Shoving everything back into the bag, a solitary tampon rolled along the marble floor towards Sebastian’s foot. I scrambled to retrieve it, blushing as red as the Royal Mail van pulling up outside. ‘Just lost my pass, you know. I seem to lose everything these days!’ I stood up. ‘How did it go?’

  He looked puzzled.

  ‘The audition.’

  ‘Oh, fine, I think. It’s always hard to tell. The ones you think went brilliantly are never the ones you get.’

  ‘It must be so hard. I can’t think of anything worse.’

  ‘You get used to it. And you…?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I work here.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m – I work on Renee Reveals.’ I found I was actually ashamed to admit it, but he looked vaguely impressed.

  ‘Aha! The deadly Renee!’

  ‘Deadly? You got that right. Have you seen it?’ I was surprised.

  ‘I watched the show every day for a week once a long time ago when I was going up for a part as a talk-show compere. A Spike Jonze film – a kind of post-modern take on the evils of television. It’s kind of addictive, isn’t it? Your show, I mean.’

  ‘Is it?’ I said miserably.

  ‘Don’t look so sad.’ He smiled at me again. I flushed once more as he checked his watch. ‘God, is that the time? I’d better get going. It was nice seeing you.’ He held out his hand, then changed his mind, kissing me on the cheek at the exact moment Joseph Blake stepped out of the lift.

  ‘Maggie!’ Joseph’s voice was high-pitched and querulous. I turned, a little irritated.

  ‘Yeah, all right, Joseph, thanks. I’m just coming.’

  ‘So, take care, won’t you?’ Seb headed toward the doors and I swung my bag onto my shoulder. Joseph was beside me now, holding something in his hand.

  ‘Maggie –’ he started to say as Seb turned back.

  ‘Look, Maggie, I don’t suppose you –’ His shirt was very white against his tanned skin, unbuttoned to exactly the right point, his dark eyes bright. He really was stunning. ‘Do you fancy dinner one night?’

  I smiled shyly, surprised. ‘Oh!’ Oh God – a date. I took a deep breath before I could think any more. ‘Yes, thank you. That’d be nice.’

  Seb gave me a card. ‘Here’s my number. Give me a call when you’re free.’

  I was always free these days. ‘I will. Thanks, Seb.’

  And then he was gone, outside, whistling for a taxi. I turned to Joseph, who looked even more sullen than usual.

  ‘Let’s go, shall we?’ I said, glancing down. Joseph was clutching a shiny white oblong: my missing pass. The pass I was sure I’d pocketed last thing on Friday.

  Joseph swore blind that he’d just found my security pass on my desk after I’d rung from downstairs – but I had an uneasy feeling. In fact, I felt constantly uneasy about Joseph these days. The truth was that things just weren’t working out – there was only so long I could keep him on, doing a not very good job. The girls were still frosty with him; he’d made little effort to fit in despite our best efforts. Worst of all, his research was slapdash and poor, his work not up to standard in an industry where people were queuing round the block for jobs.

  ‘They still don’t trust Joseph,’ Sally said that afternoon, handing me the guest-list for tomorrow’s show like the efficient head-girl that she was, ‘though I’m not exactly sure why. Goodness, what’s this?’

  She picked up a cutting on the children of war-torn Congo: a picture of a little boy covered in weeping sores, a grave-faced girl a little older standing behind him holding a machete, stared out at us.

  ‘Poor little mite.’ Sally looked appalled, her jolly face falling.

  ‘It’s leprosy. It’s just – it’s something I discussed with Charlie once. You haven’t seen my Filofax, have you, Sal? I can’t think where I’ve put it. God, everything keeps disappearing at the moment.’

  ‘No, sorry. Speak of the devil – mein Führer is back.’

  Charlie strolled across the office with Double-decker’s MD, Philip Lyons, and that dreadful snooty researcher Daisy whom I’d met when I was on the trauma show.

  ‘Poor little sods.’ Sally sifted through my pile of cuttings. ‘Can’t see Renee agreeing to any of this, though.’ She unearthed one that screamed ‘BABY MARKET’, an investigation into foreign adoption in Britain. ‘Far too worthy.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with bloody Renee. God, Sal, we all know if she had her way she’d spend the entire season doing DNA tests and breaking some poor bugger’s heart every day. Let’s just get on with your list, shall we?’

  But I was distracted by Charlie’s arrival. I’d spent the morning planning how best to deliver my ultimatum to him, so I was relieved to see that both men looked – unsurprisingly – well-oiled. The time was probably as ripe as any. My stomach rolled nervously as the smug pair stopped outside Charlie’s office, Lyons’s bald head gleaming under the lights, his frill of hair setting off the shine beautifully. They shared a joke with Donna, who was by now flashing her most wicked smile, thrusting her pert chest out just a little further than necessary, giving Daisy a run for her money.

  ‘What’s that girl doing here?’

  ‘Daisy? Lyons is placing her in the LA office. Can’t think why, can you?’ Sally raised a scept
ical eyebrow. ‘She’s almost as bad as Joseph.’

  I flicked through her list. ‘Blimey, not this bloody footballer again. Honestly, Sal, does he really not have anything better to do than appear on our crappy show?’

  ‘Apparently not. It is about ageing lotharios, though. So what shall we do about him?’

  ‘The footballer?’

  She laughed. ‘No, silly. Joseph.’

  I stared disconsolately out of the window. ‘I don’t understand why Charlie keeps Joseph on. It’s just prolonging everybody’s agony.’ I sighed hard. ‘I suppose I’d better talk to Charlie again about him.’ I passed back the guest-list. ‘And listen, don’t book this guy again for at least a month or two, okay? It’s lazy. He’s just too – obvious. I don’t want anyone else from Man U either. Try to get Calum Best instead.’

  Sally looked excited, her splendid bosom almost heaving with anticipation. ‘You don’t think – Joseph and Charlie –’

  ‘Don’t be so ridiculous. Charlie might be a letch,’ I watched Donna throw her head back and laugh throatily as my phone began to ring, ‘but he’s definitely not into boys. Not unless I’m losing my instinct as well as my marbles.’ I eyed the phone warily. ‘Can you get that please, Sal?’

  ‘Sure.’ Sally’s dimples deepened. ‘Trying to impress someone?’

  ‘Hardly,’ I muttered, keeping one eye on Charlie.

  ‘Oh, right,’ she said knowingly. ‘Avoiding someone?’ Her hand hovered over the receiver with great nonchalance. ‘Alex, perhaps?’

  ‘It won’t be Alex.’

  Perhaps I was losing my marbles, though, I thought. I certainly felt pretty odd at the moment, cornered by life and circumstance. My phone was still ringing at all hours in the last few weeks – at home, at work, the mobile going day and night. Too often there was silence on the other end: too often to be a coincidence. It was starting to seriously scare me.

  ‘I’ll just see if she’s here.’ Sally clapped her hand over the mouthpiece dramatically. ‘Someone called Seb,’ she stage-whispered. ‘Nice voice.’

  I felt my skin go hot as I flapped my hands at her, shaking my head fervently.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Seb, she’s in a meeting. Can I take a message? Okay, sure. I expect she’d love to. Eight o’clock. Bye.’ She hung up with a triumphant look. ‘Now let me see. He said it was nice to see you this morning. And, more importantly, he said he’s got two tickets for a screening of Love All at the BAFTA cinema tonight, the one on Piccadilly. He’d love you to come, he said. How exciting – a film star!’

  I frowned. ‘I can’t go tonight. I’m cooking dinner for Bel.’

  ‘Bel’ll understand, won’t she?’

  ‘She might, but she’s leaving next week.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So I want to spend as much time as possible with her. God knows when I’ll see her again.’

  ‘How very honourable, Maggie – and how very dull.’

  ‘It’s not dull to put your mates before men.’ I was indignant. ‘Is it?’

  ‘No comment. And what exactly were you up to this morning with the lovely Seb anyway, you saucy minx?’ Sally’s round face was beaming with complicity.

  ‘Sally, for God’s sake! I just bumped into him downstairs. It’s hardly Cathy and Heathcliff. I don’t even know him.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You know what, Maggie, it may be none of my business, but you can’t keep hankering after Alex forever you know.’

  ‘Hankering?’ I felt my brows knit. ‘That’s hardly fair.’

  The MD was taking his leave with Daisy now, clapping Charlie on the back with great effusion, the two men looking not so much like the cats that had got the cream as the cats who’d gorged themselves until they were fit to burst. I sprang up from my desk just as my phone rang again. Sally swept up the receiver.

  ‘Maggie Warren’s office,’ she winked at me. But her face quickly fell again, the torrent of abuse audible even from my position by the door. ‘It’s Alex, I think.’ She thrust the phone at me like it was too hot to hold.

  I considered the lesser of two evils and made a run for it. ‘I’ll call him back, thanks.’ I pulled my door open. ‘Charlie? I need a word.’

  Charlie rolled his unlit cigar between two fingers and considered me carefully. Then he checked his Rolex. ‘You’ve got five minutes before my conference call with HBO.’

  ‘That’s ample.’ I followed him into his den. He’d stopped short of writhing women on the walls here but still it was all leather, dark wood and a furry rug that screamed ‘lie naked on me’.

  ‘There are a couple of things actually.’ I cleared my throat bravely.

  Charlie poured two glasses of whisky from the crystal decanter on the desk. ‘I know what you’re going to say, Maggie. You can’t do this any more, ya da ya da ya.’ He yawned widely – so widely I saw all the gold in his mouth. ‘Well, I’m here to tell you, you can. One more month, darling, just while we get the ratings back up there – and then I’ll keep my end of the bargain.’ He picked up the bronze desk-lighter, so heavy it looked like it was an effort to lift, and lit his horrible cigar.

  ‘But, Charlie –’

  ‘One more month, just to the end of the season – and one more show from you.’

  ‘I don’t understand –’

  ‘The crash show was a huge success – you know that. You and Fay being reunited – it melted hearts nationwide! Lyons is over the moon. It’s even been nominated for a Viewers’ Weepie Award. If we can net one more hit like that, then he secures the American series, and all our dreams come true. You produce the You’re Dumped show, plus a Survivors’ Reunion with your pretty little friend Fay et al, and then you’re free to do your doco. That’s a promise, my darling.’

  ‘I can’t, Charlie. I’m never appearing on TV again. It was hideous.’

  ‘Don’t be so wet.’ He puffed smoke at me like an old dragon. ‘I mean, granted, you were hardly an on-screen natural, but I don’t know – there was something about you. The viewers love all that doe-eyed vulnerability.’

  ‘I’m not being wet. It just confirmed to me all the reasons I hate the programme so much now. And that Dumped show is completely immoral, you must know that.’

  ‘Since when did you grow a conscience, darling? You never complained before.’

  I flushed angrily. ‘Yeah, well, people change. I’ve had my eyes opened.’

  He laughed without humour. ‘What – by that loser boyfriend of yours?’

  ‘Who?’ I shook my head in confusion. ‘Alex? He’s not my boyfriend any more, and it’s nothing to do with him. Can we not bring him into it, please.’ With a sinking feeling, I remembered pushing Charlie away the other night after Bel’s party. I realised I was about to pay for denting his pride. I took a deep breath.

  ‘Look, the point is, I can’t do it, Charlie. I won’t. Let me do something I believe in – or let me go.’

  He looked bored. ‘Maggie, you fucked up so badly in the summer, darling, you’re hardly in a position to negotiate.’

  ‘That’s not fair, Charlie.’ My skin was scalding. But God, I wished I had better recall of the events. However hard I racked my brain, the episode in question escaped me in its entirety. Each time I imagined my apparent ignominy I winced inside. Harder still was accepting my memory was so impaired; it made me feel incomplete and broken.

  ‘Isn’t it? I’d say it was. I’d say it was extremely fair.’

  ‘I still can’t remember it properly.’ Which wasn’t absolutely true any more.

  ‘How convenient. I’m more than happy to remind you if it helps. And remember this, darling. You blew it – and then you left me in the shit. So you owe me.’

  ‘It just – it got a bit out of control, that’s all.’

  ‘I thought you couldn’t remember?’ He smiled malevolently. ‘Listen, darling.’ He leaned forward and blew smoke directly into my eyes, speaking very quietly and levelly. ‘You’d be nothing without m
e in the first place. Lyons would have had you out on your ear in June if he’d got a whiff of any of it. Your domestics should not affect your work, you know that, Maggie. Now it’s payback time.’

  ‘And if I refuse?’ I whispered.

  ‘If you don’t do my show, I won’t hesitate to use everything I know. And you wouldn’t want that now, Maggie baby, would you?’

  I stared at him, appalled. ‘But I didn’t do anything really bad. I’m sure I didn’t.’

  ‘Didn’t you?’

  ‘They didn’t charge me in the end, I know that much,’ I said stoutly. The cigar smoke in this airless little box was making me feel ill.

  ‘So what? The industry loves a victim of their own kind – you must realise that. They’ll bring you down quite happily – if they find out.’ He studied the end of his cigar with great interest. ‘And you’ll never work again if they knew what came next.’

  I gazed at him in disbelief. ‘Christ, Charlie, what’s this all about?’

  But I knew the answer really. Charlie had created me – so he’d only let me go on his own terms. The closeness that we’d built as colleagues stood for nothing, I realised now, if it wasn’t all up to him. And if it wasn’t, he’d rather destroy me first: he was that power-hungry.

  I thought miserably of Gillian Router, the series producer before me. She’d fallen out with Charlie so badly there’d been talk of legal action at one point when she left Renee Reveals. With some considerable guilt I remembered that I’d simply seen the debacle as a weakness in her, and a great opening for me.

  ‘Can’t do without you, Maggie darling. Straightforward as that.’

  There was a knock on the door.

  ‘Maggie Warren?’

  I swung round as a familiar smell pervaded the small room, fighting with the pungent smoke that swirled visibly in the air. The post-room boy stood in the doorway brandishing a huge bouquet of flowers – of gloriously reeking lilies. My heart hit the floor.