by Emma Curtis
‘Are you going to be OK?’
He’s scared of touching me now.
‘Yes,’ I manage. ‘I’ll be fine. This isn’t your fault. I’ve really enjoyed myself tonight. It’s just that I don’t think I’m ready.’
‘Did someone hurt you?’ he asks.
I draw in a deep breath. ‘You could say that.’
‘How?’
I shake my head. ‘Please don’t ask me.’
A tear dribbles down my cheek and I brush it away. He stands in front of me in a pair of pyjama trousers, not knowing what to do, confused and worried. Now that I’m dressed and feeling less exposed, I want him to hold me, to hug me tight against his bare chest, but that wouldn’t be fair, so I don’t ask it of him. If I don’t tell him the truth, I can hardly expect him to understand that someone else has scraped me out.
Jamie disentangles my bike pedal from his spokes, then brings the bike outside and waits while I clip on my helmet. I still want him to touch me, even if it’s only to nudge me fondly on the shoulder, like my brother does, just to know that it’s not all gone. He would like some sign that it’s going to be all right, but I can’t give it to him. I don’t want to make promises that I might not be able to keep.
35
Laura
DAVID IS STANDING inside his office, holding the door open, talking to someone. I get up to make myself a coffee and he stops talking when I walk by. It feels like war. What happened with Jamie last night was his fault. I wouldn’t have moved things along so fast if I hadn’t been thinking about him. And now I’m running out of time. Just one more week until I leave.
I sit down and my internal line buzzes. David’s name comes up on the display. I consider ignoring it then realize how stupid that would be. I don’t need a public dressing-down from him.
‘Can you come in, Laura?’
‘OK,’ I say.
I close my eyes for a second, resting my hands on my lap, and take a deep breath.
‘Been summoned?’ Graham says.
I don’t answer him. I push my chair back and walk away. He mutters something to my back. I don’t care. I need never see any of them again after next Friday.
Outside David’s door, I hesitate. Is this it? Is this where we have the conversation? If it is, I’ll call his bluff and threaten to go to the police. He isn’t to know that I washed away all trace of him from my flat and my bed. I’ll tell him that I’ve kept evidence.
He looks up from his paperwork as I push open the door, and points to a chair. I sit down, my back straight, scared but ready to unleash hell if he so much as mentions the note.
‘I’ve written you a reference,’ he says after a pause. His manner is stiff and unfriendly. ‘Have a read and see if there’s anything you’d like me to add.’ He hands me a sheet of paper.
It takes me a second or two to recalibrate, then I read what he’s written.
Much of it is composed of stock phrases, but there are parts that allude to things that are specific to me. It’s complimentary and surprisingly generous. This is probably to make sure I go and stay gone. I’ve sent off applications to other advertising agencies, snatching precious spare moments to work on them. I’d forgotten how time-consuming and demoralizing the process can be. I have enough money to pay my mortgage for three months, if I’m careful. After that, if I haven’t found a job, I’ll be in serious trouble. I need this reference.
‘Thank you. I appreciate it.’ I squeeze the words out between my teeth.
‘No more than you deserve.’ His tone echoes mine. We are both acting parts. ‘Don’t forget that I know everyone in this business, and I will know the people you’re applying to. Anyone who considers taking you on will want a conversation with me.’
‘What does that mean?’
But he stands up and crosses the room to open the door for me. I open my mouth to speak, and then close it again. Someone comes in, nods at me and I nod back, wondering if it might be Jamie, who I’ve been avoiding all morning. You’d think I’d be able to tell after getting so close to him, but I can’t. Jamie is another worry, another reason to spend the day in a cold sweat. Thank God organizing the campaign launch is taking up all my time.
‘Why don’t you come in? Phoebe’ll be glad to see you.’
I’ve bumped into Elliot parking Noah’s pram in the space under the stairs.
‘Well …’
I’m torn, longing to collapse on to the sofa and put the strains of the day behind me, but not that keen to be on my own. The good thing about Phoebe is that she has nothing to do with the other side of my life.
It’s nice to know that my company is desired. Elliot’s manner has changed since the supper party and I get the sense that he’s warmed to me. He probably still thinks I’m odd, but not in a way that threatens his family dynamic. That pleases me enormously.
Phoebe has been cooking and the kitchen smells of meat juices and fried onions. It makes my mouth water, especially since all I’ve got to look forward to is a shop-bought lasagne.
Elliot pours me a glass of wine then slopes off into the sitting room with a beer.
‘Almost there,’ she says, referring to my imminent departure from Gunner Munro. ‘Are you going to have a leaving party?’
That would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
‘No. The GZ launch will be enough. I don’t want a fuss.’
‘Your colleagues may feel differently.’
‘Maybe.’ I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the number of people who’ve told me that they’re sad I’m leaving. But I won’t kid myself; I haven’t made lasting relationships. I would hope Eddie will keep in touch, maybe even Jamie and Rebecca, but the others will forget me as soon as I’m gone. ‘I’m glad to go actually. The atmosphere isn’t great. I’ve …’ I’m about to tell her about Jamie, but I realize that I don’t want to. Instead something else pops out of my mouth. ‘My bosses are having an affair.’
‘Really?’ She raises her eyebrows. ‘But why would that make any difference to you?’
‘It doesn’t, but it makes me less sad to leave. The atmosphere is so uncomfortable. He’s married.’ Now I sound like a prude and she’s watching me. My excuse is no excuse, it’s an embarrassing ramble. ‘I’m not being judgemental, it’s just that he’s a complete and utter dick and she’s … well, she’s someone I admire.’
I used to respect him, not mind the arrogance, feel it was his due. Now I have an overwhelming desire to make other people see him for what he is. But I find I can’t go further than this, I can’t tell this kind woman what he’s done to me.
‘Does his wife know?’ Phoebe asks.
‘I don’t think so. She and Rebecca are old friends, so it’s all a bit tacky.’ I change the subject, asking after her pregnant sister, but Phoebe is more interested in salacious gossip.
‘How did you find out?’
‘The intern has a nose for these things.’
She laughs and opens the oven, lifts out a casserole and places it on the hob. She takes off the lid, gives it a stir and then puts it back. It smells heavenly.
‘Perhaps you should tell the wife.’
‘It’s none of my business.’
Do I really mean that?
I want David Gunner’s marriage to implode; I want his wife to hate him as much as I do. The idea of David being brought down by the women he’s screwed seems so right. But I can’t tell Felicity: the idea makes me feel grubby.
36
Rebecca
REBECCA RISES FROM her dressing table, wanders over to the cheval mirror and takes a good long look at herself. She is almost two years older than David, but she’s fit, lithe and attractive and she takes care of herself. Her hair is glossy, catching the light and bouncing when she moves. David will be here soon.
This is the first evening in she doesn’t know how long that she has been home before eight p.m. and she should be happy, but she isn’t. Her karma is all wrong. The bad atmosphere at work is affecting her. It used to be such
a happy place, but first Guy’s death and then that business with Laura … They’ve taken their toll. She blames David for the Laura situation. If anyone could have persuaded Paige Adler to change her mind, it was him, but he had point-blank refused to talk about it, and when Rebecca had offered, he had turned on her.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ he had said. ‘The decision’s been made. She goes, and we move on. No one is indispensable.’
‘Fine.’ She walked out of his office and back into her own, pacing from door to window, furious. It was as if he was washing his hands of Laura. Job done. But these were people, not just staff, and Laura was her protégé, not his. She feels protective of her, invested in her. And now she’s going.
She has no complaints about Jamie. He’s good, excellent even, but it isn’t the same. The creative partnership between him and Eddie hasn’t had time to bed in, and Eddie naturally resents having someone thrust upon him. Eddie and Laura have a long-standing friendship and proven chemistry; a symbiotic relationship. They bicker like an old married couple, but they respect each other. She thinks they may lose Eddie and she told David that, only to have him shrug it off. Laura screwed up, but don’t they all, from time to time. Even David has had his moments. She remembers one client he pissed off so royally that lawyers became involved. She’d had to force him to grovel, which, to give him his due, he had done with a convincing amount of grace. Why can’t he grovel now?
After what happened at David’s house the other morning, her worries have taken on a new urgency. And there’s something else that’s been bothering her, the tension between him and Laura, that she can feel in the small knot tucked tight and hot under her breastbone. Has something happened? Has David made a pass at her, or has it gone further than that? That would explain the toxic atmosphere between them. The other evening, she left before both of them, when the building was almost empty … but she mustn’t think that way, or she’ll go mad. It hurts so much. It’s as though all of the stuff that she’s been keeping at a distance is gathering, pushing and shoving to get to her, clambering up her body.
She chooses some music; something to rebalance her mind. David likes Elgar, so she puts on the Enigma Variations. As soon as those haunting chords begin to rise and dip, she wants to stop time and dance. It’s so romantic, so sorrowful and it makes her feel better, more open to receiving him. She restricts herself to stretching her muscles in front of the mirror. Her make-up is minimal: a light foundation to perk her up, eyeliner, mascara and blusher. Her dress is black, sleeveless and fitted on top with a low bust, and a flared skirt; she chose it because it flatters her curves. She puts on stockings and an ivory-lace suspender belt and is buckling the delicate diamanté straps of her shoes around her ankles when the doorbell rings.
David closes the curtains. Rebecca watches him closely. She’s seen him at work every day, of course, but it’s been so frenetic that she hasn’t had time to itemize the physical changes in him. He’s lost weight and, even in the soft light of her drawing room, his face looks gaunt. She passes him a glass of champagne. He moves away and sits down on the sofa. Rebecca tries to pretend that there’s nothing wrong, but she’s terrified. Is he here to tell her that she is the problem? He has been her friend, business partner and lover for so many years that the idea of an existence without him is hard to contemplate without panic. She will not give him back to Felicity.
Rebecca has booked supper to be delivered in half an hour. The minutes seem to stretch and hollow out like blown glass.
‘Did you have trouble getting away?’ she asks.
He brings himself back from wherever he’s been. ‘I could have stayed for another hour, but I thought, bollocks to that, I’m going. I left Eddie and Jamie there. Bettina stayed as well.’
‘She’s showing real commitment.’
She sinks into the armchair and crosses her legs, letting her dress fall back along her thigh. David gives no sign that he’s noticed. The silence between them fills with piano music, as forlorn and lonely as the last autumn leaf.
After a moment, she moves across the room, arranging herself on his knee and caressing his face, smoothing the worry lines from his brow.
‘David, relax.’
She tilts her head so that her hair flows to one side and kisses him. He pushes his hand into her scalp and, with the other, crumples the skirt of her dress. She laughs into the kiss, and he rolls her on to the sofa.
‘Are you wearing anything under this?’
She puts her finger in his mouth. ‘I can’t remember. Why don’t you check?’
The doorbell rings.
‘Supper,’ Rebecca says, reluctantly peeling herself off him.
David has started laying the table by the time she comes back with the delivery in her arms. It is as warm as a baby. She watches him before he sees her and imagines him, like she often does, living here, part of the furniture. She blinks the image away. If she wants it, she’ll have to fight for it. She’ll have to be ruthless.
They discuss work while they eat. This is perfectly normal; the company obsesses them both; it is their child in a way, but tonight it feels as though he’s avoiding talking about anything personal. After supper, they clear up together then she pours them both a brandy and they take their glasses back to the drawing room.
They haven’t discussed his meltdown at home even though she’s tried. Being David, he’s pretending it didn’t happen, but she can’t forget what she saw; how crushed he looked; how drained of his essential ‘Davidness’. It frightened her.
‘We need to talk.’
He looks up, his glass in his hand. ‘About what?’
She gets off his knee and paces across the room, looks out beyond the pitch-dark gardens to the lit windows beyond. ‘You know. I find you crashing round your kitchen, with Felicity and the children in pieces. If you can’t talk to me or Felicity, at least see a psychiatrist.’
The brandy comes alive in the candlelight, the amber dancing because he is shaking. He looks so unhappy. She wishes she hadn’t said anything.
‘Would you still love me if I’d done something wrong?’
Her stomach turns over. She laughs it off. ‘As long as it doesn’t involve rape, murder or incest.’
Her flippancy is lost on him. She watches in horror as tears well in his eyes. He rubs them away angrily. This is worse than the last time.
‘What is it, darling? You’re scaring me. Is it Felicity? Have you done something to her? Is it Tony and Georgie?’
‘It’s nothing to do with any of them.’
‘What then? Have you taken money from Gunner Munro?’ That would be bad. If he was in debt, he should have told her, but she’ll forgive him. She just needs honesty.
‘No.’ His tone is abrupt and impatient.
‘Is it about Laura?’
His head snaps up. ‘No. Why would it be?’
She raises her eyebrows. ‘Are you having a thing with her?’
‘Don’t be so fucking ridiculous.’
He sets his mug down on the coffee table and leans back into the sofa. He closes his eyes and she waits and after a while she thinks he might have gone to sleep but then he suddenly opens them and looks straight at her. She feels a jolt of shock, desire too.
‘I need you to punish me, Rebecca.’
This is a game that they often play, but after what’s been said, there’s added piquancy. Her body goes still. She is intensely aware of every part of her, of every atom. She has woken up. Her breath catches. She sits on the armchair, her back straight, and gathers the skirt of her dress in her fingers, until the tops of her stockings show. ‘Say. Please.’
‘Fuck you.’
‘I’m not touching you unless you say please.’
He glares at her. ‘Please.’
Rebecca uncrosses her legs. ‘Come here.’
David slides off the couch and gets down on his hands and knees. He crawls over and sits back on his heels and Rebecca slaps him hard across the face. His head jerks to
the side and she hits him again. Twin welts bloom on his cheeks. He reaches for her, tries to grab her thighs, but she catches his wrists and holds them, straining against his greater strength.
‘What have you done, David?’
He breaks down, his face rumpling as his tears mingle with snot. It’s unbearable; loud and ugly. Stricken, Rebecca throws herself down beside him. She can feel the tremors going through his body. She can’t bear his torment, she can’t bear to see him like this. Whatever has gone wrong for him, it feels like he’s desperately trying to stop it getting out of hand. She wonders how it affects her.
She pulls her dress up over her head. Their lovemaking is angry and over too soon. It feels like they are fighting, not making love. Rebecca climbs on top, so that it’s her who ends up with bruising on her knees. She keeps her eyes open throughout, watching his face and the expressions that move across it like the shadows of moths. Exhaustion, pain and fear all register, fleeting and shocking.
Afterwards, she strokes his hair and murmurs words of comfort and gradually his body stills, and he sighs.
‘I’m sorry I worried you,’ he says.
She reaches for the armchair and pulls herself up, trying to do it elegantly, but stumbling on her heels. David grasps her elbow. Even in this moment of emotion, as she feels the trickle of semen on the inside of her thighs, she wonders whether she has already conceived their child. She is three days late.
‘It’s the stress of work,’ he adds. ‘It’s been getting to me lately.’
He’s holding something back, if not actively lying. She feels better after the sex, but not triumphant. There’s part of her that feels lost and alone. If she’s going to keep him, it’ll take more than that.
Rebecca forces herself to sound calm and reasonable, as if nothing out of the ordinary has occurred. ‘Take a break after GZ.’
He laughs. ‘You know it doesn’t work like that.’ He kisses her on the lips and pats her bottom. ‘I should probably get off home. I told Lissy I’d be back by ten.’ He kisses her slowly and she clings to him. ‘I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you. You keep me sane.’