The messages during office hours were now spent planning sex. They met outside of work, when Adam could make excuses. They fucked in toilets in Bethnal Green pubs and after-hours bars in Hackney, and in a more upmarket bathroom in an expensive restaurant.
And before long, something else had crept into their messages, too. Something more sinister, and far more dangerous. Isa didn’t just want sex. She wanted him to love her, too.
What do you think about me? she’d ask. Why do you like me?
It was clever of her, because of course he had to think of the answers.
She continued to flirt with other men in the office. Adam had come to possess her, as he’d wished, but only in part. He became jealous, and confused this with love on his part, too. And so he started telling her what she wanted to hear.
He convinced himself that all of this did in fact amount to love. That this sort of sex was exciting, rather than empty and regretful. That it meant he was more compatible with Isa than he was with Sofia. He thought that maybe Isa was what he needed, because he wasn’t ready for the life he’d been preparing for with Sofia. He was too wild, needed to carry on being so for a while longer yet.
One day, Sofia told him that her mother had said he was slow. What was he waiting for, she’d asked, before marrying her?
Somehow, most of the time, he hid away inside himself all the darkness he’d created. When he lay awake at night, though – something that happened more and more often – the full consequence of what he was doing would settle over him like a shroud.
He lay frozen beside Sofia, watching her, wondering what was wrong with him, fearful that the horrors in his head would somehow escape for her to see. How could she not know? he wondered. How could all this be happening within a skull beside hers, buzzing around like a swarm of trapped, repellent flies, and she have no idea? Why could she not see him for what he really was? He was vile, and he knew it.
He tried several times to break it off with Isa. He left her weeping at a bar, and again in the office one night. She was very clever though, and she loved him. The combination made her persuasive. And he was weak. Each time he tried to give her up, he feared he was making a mistake. He was addicted to the dose of self-worth she gave him every time she offered herself.
And so he carried on the affair.
21
Monday ticked towards its inevitable end. Adam had planned to leave the office early, to pack for Denver and take some time for himself. Before he could, he was due on a conference call for one of Kristen’s projects.
They walked down to the meeting room together and sat opposite one another.
Kristen tapped the number into the conference phone, and before long, each of the thirteen participants began announcing themselves.
These phone calls had measured the passage of Adam’s professional life for the last fifteen years. He was on at least ten of them each week, and they rarely deviated from the same template: running through every aspect of a campaign, listening to updates from PR, digital marketing, booking agents and artist managers. Usually, someone would talk for too long. Another person would sound shamelessly bored and disengaged, and everyone else would wonder how they got away with it. Without fail, someone would be caught out not listening and stutter an excuse when their name was called.
Fifteen minutes into the call, it became clear that the PR team in New York had no idea about the very expensive radio campaign the label had invested in. Thus, a core element of the record company’s duty – ensuring everyone had lots of ammunition and no excuses – had gone unfulfilled.
Kristen flushed. ‘I’m pretty sure I sent you an update,’ she said, frowning and tapping at her laptop.
There was an awkward silence. ‘Um, we didn’t get anything,’ one of the PR team said.
‘Maybe it went into junk?’ one of his colleagues suggested.
‘… Yeah,’ Kristen said. ‘I’ll make sure I get it over to you ASAP.’
When the call was over, Adam attempted to carry out his own duty.
‘It’s fine obviously,’ he said, ‘but when we’re spending this much money it’s really important to make sure everyone has the news about it early on. They’ll already have been making their pitches…’
Kristen glared at him. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I know how to run a fucking campaign. I am just full to capacity right now and some things are gonna get missed.’
Kristen worked a rigid 9–5 day, and spent at least one hour of each of them on Facebook. Adam took a deep breath, and reminded himself that it simply wasn’t worth arguing with her. Apparently satisfied with her performance, Kristen left the room.
Adam walked down to the garage and gratefully sealed himself within the car. The day’s travails were over, and he was determined not to let the evening be poisoned by them. As he turned onto Sunset, he caught a glance of Strawberry Peak’s summit rearing above the city. A sharp thrill lit through him. He saw the mountain every day, haze permitting, but now its meaning had been transformed for him.
It was no longer just the top of a mountain that had beaten him, that he had wanted to go back to and conquer. It was somewhere he could see from his daily existence in LA, on which he’d had one of the happiest experiences of his new life. He had kissed a beautiful woman on top of a mountain – something he’d never done before. He’d thought the chances of such things had vanished along with his youth. Now, each time he glanced at it, it showed him there was still hope.
Traffic was already bad on Sunset, and he tuned the radio to a current affairs station, thinking of the first glass of wine, of the evening he had to himself before his trip. After a while his thoughts turned to Erica. Images of her, but things she’d said, the way she was, too. The afterglow of being close to her.
His phone rang as he turned into his street, cutting off the radio and shattering his reverie. The Autodidact’s name popped up on the car’s screen. It was late in the UK. Jason’s dark shadow could apparently menace him at any time of day.
Adam clicked to accept.
‘Hello,’ he said into the still air of the car.
‘Hi, man. How you doing?’
‘Good, thanks. You?’
‘Not bad, mate, yeah. Wanted to catch up with you about a few staff bits.’
‘OK. Anything urgent? It’s late there, isn’t it?’
‘Tell me about it. Loads going on, man.’
‘Right.’
‘So,’ the Autodidact said. ‘Wanted to let you know that we’ve let Heather go.’
Adam wracked his brain. ‘Heather?’
‘Brummie woman we had doing reception,’ Jason said. ‘She’s transgender.’
‘Ah yes, I remember her. What happened?’
‘She was setting up her own label with some friends. They approached two of our smaller dudes and told them not to tell me.’
‘Artists?’ Adam asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘Wow,’ Adam said. ‘How stupid of her.’ There was no way Jason had called him at midnight to tell him this.
‘Exactly.’
‘How did she take it?’
‘Dunno. I got Serena to do it. I’ve got too much else on currently.’
‘Right,’ Adam said.
‘What about your office, everything alright there? Got to be so careful these days.’
‘Everything seems fine.’ Adam paused. ‘Though it would have been nice if you’d spoken to me after you talked to Meg. I found out when I rang the radio station to complain.’
‘Dunno what you expect, mate,’ the Autodidact said. ‘It’s absolutely mental here, and then I hear from Scott that you’re telling people to go public with complaints against radio stations, before we’ve even heard about it.’
Adam’s heart began pounding. ‘That’s not what happened,’ he said.
‘Whatever. I’ve just had to take another call from a member of your staff because they’re upset over something. It’s starting to worry me.’
‘What do you mean?’
Adam asked.
‘I just had Kristen on the phone.’
‘Kristen?’
‘She was quite emotional. She says you’ve been harassing her over a radio campaign or something?’
Adam thought for a moment. ‘Words fail me,’ he said.
‘And that you pulled a face when she asked if we could get medical kombucha for the office there?’
Something broke open inside Adam. A little mental flood-gate, from which poured white hot psychic liquid.
‘And you believe all that?’ he said.
‘… Well,’ the Autodidact said.
‘Anything else?’
There was a long pause, the gentle hum of static. Adam pulled his car over outside the apartment.
‘Just make it happen with Falconz tomorrow,’ the Autodidact said eventually, his voice brittle. And with that, he rang off.
* * *
‘You look like I feel,’ Stef said as Adam climbed the steps.
She was sitting at the little table on her balcony, smoking a cigarette.
‘I’m fucking livid,’ Adam said.
‘Bad day at work?’
‘Yes,’ Adam said. He stood on the landing between their two apartments. He was short of breath, and he paused, leaning on the wooden banister.
‘Come and sit down.’ Stef nudged the chair opposite hers with her foot. She, too, looked unusually glum.
‘What’s up in your world?’ he asked her as he sat.
‘Everyone hates my movie,’ she said, breathing out smoke. ‘I thought maybe this one was a winner.’
‘I did too,’ Adam said. Stef had been working on her own script, a dystopian tech thriller about smart homes. It had seemed a good idea, but what did he know?
‘Thanks,’ Stef said. ‘You got any wine?’
‘Yes. White or red?’
‘Let’s start with white.’
Adam went and fetched a bottle from his fridge, along with two glasses. He didn’t trust hers to be clean and free of cat emissions.
‘Don’t give up on it,’ he said when he’d poured the drinks. ‘Don’t they say it takes dozens of rejections to get the acceptance?’
‘My manager hates it,’ Stef said, and smiled ruefully. ‘That’s a pretty bad sign.’
‘Right.’
‘Do you wanna talk about your work?’
‘Not really,’ he said. Stef’s cigarettes were lying on the table between them. For the first time in years, he wanted one. But that was the last problem he needed to lumber himself with again.
‘Gimme the outline,’ she said. ‘An elevator pitch. It’ll do you good.’
‘My job just seems to have become endless bullshit,’ he told her. ‘I’m caught between the difficult little fuckers I have to manage, and the megalomaniac I report to in London. And the music isn’t as good any more.’
‘Yet you’re doing something most people would kill for,’ Stef said, lighting a cigarette. ‘And getting rewarded for it pretty well.’ She nodded at his car.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘And believe me, kid,’ she continued, ‘the music isn’t as good any more for any of us. If you think this is bad, wait until you’re really middle-aged.’
Adam laughed, sipping his wine. ‘The problem is that I know it’s my fault. I have a dream job I worked very hard for, and I don’t understand why I’m so pissed off with it.’
Stef drew on her cigarette and watched him.
‘I am the problem,’ he said, ‘and so I don’t really know how to fix it.’
‘This is where we get into clichés,’ Stef said. ‘But maybe just try and remind yourself that things aren’t so bad. Shit, they could certainly be worse. Have you looked at the jobs most people have?’
Adam nodded.
‘I did therapy for a while,’ Stef said. ‘Hated it. Didn’t do any good. The one useful thing the woman told me was “don’t take anything personally”. I find that works if you can stick to it – which is easier said than done.’
‘Yes, right,’ Adam said. He was trembling a little, and hoped she hadn’t noticed. ‘Thanks. That did do some good.’
‘I’m glad,’ she said. ‘The wine is doing me some good.’
For a moment, they sat in silence. Stef stubbed out her cigarette and pointed down to the road.
‘You didn’t see the fence,’ she said.
Adam glanced down to the bottom of the sloping garden. Stef’s sun-bleached, decrepit fence was hanging towards the sidewalk at a forty-five-degree angle.
‘What happened?’ he asked, smiling.
‘It’s not funny,’ she said, smiling back and blowing smoke at him. ‘A little Mexican skater kid was walking along having a fight with his girlfriend on his cell phone. It finished just as he reached my fence, so he punched it.’
‘Must’ve been some punch,’ Adam said, taking a deep swig of his wine. ‘Did he stop?’
‘He tried to run away, but two guys in a pick-up got out and cornered him.’
‘So you’ll get him to pay for it?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Poor little fucker was terrified. He was, like, sixteen, and I felt bad for him. He was already in the middle of a very bad day. He said sorry and I told the guys to let him go.’
‘Good on you.’
‘Yeah. Then I went inside and got the script news. Also, I don’t have any money to fix the fence.’
‘It can’t be that hard to mend, can it?’
‘It’s all rotten, I think. The two guys from the pick-up said it’d be expensive. But I think they were kind of annoyed I made them let the kid go.’
Adam looked at his watch. ‘It won’t get dark for two hours,’ he said. ‘We can mend it, can’t we? We might as well try.’
‘Really?’ she said.
‘Yeah. You’ve got that massive toolbox. Let’s get it out and see what we can do.’
‘OK,’ Stef said, grinning at him. ‘You’re on.’
The fence posts were indeed rotten. They found that by using a great deal of very long nails, however, they could reattach the posts and boards in a sturdy enough fashion. By the time they’d finished, it was upright at least. After Adam had used some garden twine to strengthen their bodge job, it actually felt fairly strong. They’d finished the white wine, and were both much happier.
‘Good job,’ Adam said in his best American accent. They high-fived.
‘I’ll help you varnish it one weekend,’ he told her.
‘You’re the best,’ she said, lighting another cigarette. ‘Let’s open the red.’
* * *
When they said goodnight, Stef stumbled into her apartment, leaving her cigarettes outside on the table. After Adam heard her locking up, he crept back and slipped one of them from the pack. There were two left, he noted – he wouldn’t have liked to steal her last.
There was a box of matches somewhere in the kitchen, and after he’d rifled around in a few drawers and found it, he carried them through to his bedroom. Lying on the bed, he lit up. The smoke tasted odd at first, and he struggled not to splutter when it kicked the back of his throat. No way, he told himself, as though even alone it would be embarrassing to do so.
And then suddenly he was exquisitely, shockingly light-headed. He sank back into the pillow, flicking ash onto the floor and watching the smoke curl liquidly into the air above him, slowly flattening out into the old, familiar blanket.
The head rush was delicious. High, he thought, marvelling at the power of the drug, all drugs. A choice that was made, the consequence of which sucked one into escape with the irresistible force of a vacuum.
He recalled the last time a cigarette had affected him so profoundly, when he was fourteen, and at a richer boy’s house; among a little group he wasn’t quite popular with. They’d smoked in the sparse wood between the big house and the fields that ran from it to the horizon.
The cigarette – only a Silk Cut, he seemed to remember now – had felt fat and taut and clean in his hand, then his mouth. A marvel. And as
they’d climbed back over the fence into the garden, the head rush had kicked in. He remembered giggling, holding on tight so as not to fall, all the awkwardness and nerves suddenly, fleetingly vanishing from him.
Now, he smoked the cigarette as slowly as he could, softening the room around him into a cocoon, allowing his mind to flicker back into a former, long-gone self.
22
He slept heavily. When his alarm jolted him awake at seven o’clock, he flipped it over to turn it off, and saw he’d received a text from Erica. The thrill woke him fully, and he sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes to read it.
Hey! What time’s your flight?
Noon, he replied. Why?
He wondered if he should get up and into the shower, but she began typing almost as soon as his own message had gone.
I have the day off, her reply said. How about you buy me breakfast and I give you a ride to the airport?
I would love that, he replied.
I’ll pick you up at eight? Send me your address.
Adam did so, and showered and dressed in a whirl of nervous excitement.
* * *
She arrived on time, waving and smiling from her car. Adam put his duffel bag on the back seat and got in beside her.
‘Hey,’ she said, smiling. She wore red heels, slim black trousers that showed her ankles, and a little black blazer over a grey silk shirt. Her hair was up in a ponytail, and her expression was mischievous.
‘This was an excellent idea of yours,’ he said.
‘I’m glad you think so. I hope I didn’t mess up your schedule.’
‘Not at all,’ he assured her. ‘You’ve made my morning.’
She pulled out, glancing at her mirrors. The inside of her car smelled good. A strong desire came over him to sit in it with her all day, driving around the city and seeing what they could see.
‘You look very smart,’ Adam told her.
‘Well, it’s a doctor’s day off,’ she said. ‘Which means I still have to go to a meeting later.’
‘I’m sorry.’
She shrugged, turning the wheel to guide them smoothly onto Sunset.
‘Are you excited?’ she asked. ‘About Denver?’
The Edge Page 20