One Step Too Far

by Tina Seskis

  The unfortunate compere makes another inappropriate ad-related remark as the next award-winner appears on stage in a voluminous orange dress, and people titter nervously. I’ve had enough. I look around the table and Simon is leaning into Angel, Tiger is looking bored and haughty, as if this is all beneath her, and I’m sure it is, and I long to get up and run across the room, to the safety of the ladies and the contents of my purse. And then I remember I flushed them down the toilets at work, and I don’t feel so smug about it now, so I lift my glass instead and sip my white wine, and it’s warm, but I sip again and again, I don’t know what else to do with my hands. The room feels like it’s moving away from me, like the floor is splitting in half and the stage is drifting off towards Park Lane and leaving me marooned here, on my advertising life raft in the ocean of my ruined life. I shake my head, and try to remember that this is meant to be a new day, a new start. No it’s not, it’s still the same day, and anyway what difference does it make. The brutality of the understanding that there is no neat finish, no end to the grieving, that I may have changed my whole life and let a full year go past but despair is part of me and always will be now, well that realisation exhausts me, and I close my eyes and lean forwards onto the table, my head turned neatly sideways, into the remains of my lemon tart.

  39

  Anthony had deleted all of Angel’s numbers from her mobile a while ago, so she couldn’t call any of her friends for help. He’d definitely track her down if she fled to one of her girlfriends’ houses, and he knew where her mother lived, so she couldn’t go there either. She just couldn’t think what to do, she seemed so weak and useless these days. In the end she remembered that one of the bouncers from work lived in a house that seemed to have loads of tenants, most of them mad apparently, and from what he used to say there was nearly always a room available. One sparkling April morning, when Anthony was off to a meeting in the City and the cheery breeziness of the day had put him in better humour for a change, Angel made her move. She felt ghost-like, invisible as she walked along the river, terrified she wasn’t meant to be there, worried that someone might report her. She told herself not to be silly and carried on, head down against the wind. She walked through the Galleria and then cut up to Tooley Street, where she found a phone box, one of those old-fashioned red ones people used to use. She hadn’t been in one for years, but the never-forgotten stink of old urine and dead saliva was so revolting it made her physically gag, and the cards on the windows were probably those of friends of hers. She called Directories and then the casino, and after nearly two minutes of ringing, one of the managers answered. When he asked who was calling, she said it was Angela and he put her through without comment, and she was lucky, Jerome was on shift. He'd been brilliant, she hadn't had to explain anything, and he told her to leave then, now, and so she’d rushed back to the flat and packed her favourite clothes and left everything else, and by the time she'd come out fifteen minutes later pale grey clouds were scuttering across the sun, and it felt colder, more ominous, and the quick-moving shadows were sharp, defined, landscape-changing. Angel flagged down a cab and it took her across the river, through the City towards Anthony, and then thankfully away from him again, along Upper Street towards Finsbury Park. She found when she got there that the house was a hovel, it had no river view or fancy porter to say, “Morning Miss Crawford,” but it was safe and she was free, and so to Angel it was a palace.

  40

  Angel is shaking me gently and I can hear laughter, and as I sit up sleepily I realise that people are laughing at me this time, that wanker of a compere has singled me out for abuse now. I recover my composure and sit straight, feeling better in myself, like I’ve had a power nap and am ready for action. I couldn’t care less what he’s said or why people are laughing, what does it matter today of all days? I toss my head like a pony, and a little piece of pie flicks off and my ear feels sticky, but I’m still pissed enough to simply sip my drink and look nonchalant, and the conversation turns to the next tedious award.

  “Are you all right, babe?” whispers Angel. “I think this is the last one, then we can go and sort you out.”

  “I’m fine,” I say, and although I’m drunk I'm much more lucid, I think the doctor’s drugs have worn off at last; it’s taken this long though, they must have been mind-blowing. I look at my watch – it’s still only 10.30. I smile beatifically around the table and they’re all looking at me, but not with condescension or disdain, just concern, and I think they might be a nice bunch, underneath.

  The compere delivers his final punchline and we all applaud politely as he disappears off to his stalling TV career and night-time activities and I don’t resent him for insulting me, just feel a bit sorry for him, like Emily would have. Angel takes my hand and we make our way over to the toilets, and I still feel green and bulky next to her, conspicuously tall, lankily lemony. People are looking at me. The side of my face feels glutinous. She helps clean the pie off me and then ushers me into a cubicle and I don’t hesitate anymore, it feels like completely the right thing to do after all, our deserved treat after all those sodding awards. As we recross the ballroom I’m no longer gawky and bean-like, instead I’m verdant and lithe, like a long strand of seaweed swaying gracefully with the waves, rooted yet free. My dress feels dramatic and glamorous and my heels feel empowering instead of crippling and I’m sure that this time I’m turning heads for the right reasons. I sit back down at the table next to Simon and I beam a million dollar smile and he pours me a glass of the champagne he’s ordered to celebrate our Frank win.

  “Well done, my darling Cat. Are you feeling better now?”

  “I feel great,” I reply, and I do, Angel must have had some good gear.

  “I’ve been invited to a friend’s party later at the Groucho – do you feel up to it? I can only take you and Angel though, so please don’t say anything to the others.”

  “Sounds fab,” I say airily, and I take his hand and drag him to the dance floor where “I will survive” has just started playing. Surprisingly Simon doesn’t object, the floor is already crowded, and I fling my arms above my head and sing along to every word, feeling liberated, strong, invincible.

  41

  After she’d finally upped and left her husband following his performance at Emily’s wedding, Frances wondered why she hadn’t done it years and years before. She'd never stopped loving Andrew, despite all his betrayals and humiliations of her, but she'd belatedly realised his personality contained a flaw which meant he would never lose his penchant for a pretty face or a large pair of breasts – or indeed for anyone who would boost his ego and help him forget he was a married man with too many daughters, a lacklustre career, a receding hairline.

  Frances was well aware she couldn’t stay with Emily and Ben for long, they were newly weds after all (plus Caroline kept coming round being far too friendly to Ben for anyone’s liking) but the day after the wedding it had seemed like an instant solution to an overdue problem – the house was empty, she had the key in her purse, it would mean a clean break from Andrew – and she knew that Emily and Ben wouldn’t mind, under the circumstances.

  Emily had been as lovely as ever of course, and she’d helped her mother find a flat to rent and had even paid for it until the house sale went through. And now Frances had her own tiny cottage in the old town, and she liked it so much better than the house on the estate, with its square boring rooms and lethal glass doors. She joined a writing course and a yoga group, and found that people were friendly, and that some of them were also on their own. She made particular friends with a woman called Linda from the writing group, and Linda was a widow who’d made a fantastic new life for herself and was doing a charity climb of Mount Kenya, and when she said to Frances, “Why don’t you come too?” Frances had thought why not, and now here she was at Heathrow, almost a year to the day since she’d left her husband, and although she was worried sick about Caroline it was only for ten days, and she told herself that Caroline would be fine.


  42

  After one more song Simon shuffles me off the dance floor, and suggests we head off to his friend’s party. I know inside myself that I shouldn’t go, should go home to bed, it’s been such a long and traumatic day – but I’m over-stimulated, wired, and I’m enjoying dancing in my long emerald dress. I know it’s nuts, but I don’t feel ready for the evening to end, I want to get past midnight now, into May the 7th, where I’m sure things will feel even better still. I’ve been less paranoid about Simon and Angel since my little nap at the table, and I let my hand rest in Simon’s as we leave, and his hand feels warm and comforting. Angel is being as sweet as ever, and insists on holding my other arm, although I'm sure I don’t need her to, I'm not that drunk or giddy any more, have definitely sobered up. Simon’s driver is waiting outside the hotel and as we travel across central London the streets are clear and the car moves quickly, and the solidness of the big black limo, the heavy clunk of its doors feels reassuring, safe, and when we get to Dean Street I don’t want to get out. As we pull up outside the club I think for an instant of Caroline, of how young she was when she was caught in the bomb round the corner, how she lost her baby and her boyfriend, and I feel achingly sorry for her suddenly, and almost forgive her.

  The club is full of fashionable people and a smattering of celebrities, and although I try not to I feel out of place again, an imposter, which of course I am. Angel looks like she was born to be here, despite her accent, and she mingles easily, chatting for ages to the host, who it seems is a fashion designer with a store in Covent Garden. Simon takes me to the bar and orders more champagne and as I take my first sip I realise that it's just gone midnight and I’m inwardly congratulating myself on having made it to the day after when someone taps me on the shoulder and I turn to see a flamboyant young man with peroxide hair and heavily kohled eyes who says, “Caz, daaaarling, it is you! How amazing to see you,” and he wraps me in a fragrantly light embrace, like I’m delicate, precious. I’m confused for a moment and then I get it – he must think I’m Caroline! I suppose it’s a surprise that it’s never happened before – and then I remember that awful day on Hampstead Heath and I can’t believe I hadn’t realised it then, that it wasn’t me the man had recognised, he too must have thought I was her. I’ve forgotten I’m a twin, that I look like my sister, and I don’t know what to say or do. Simon is looking at me but I think he’s misheard the name and so I go with it.

  “Hi,” I say and inside I feel giddy.

  “How are you? What are you up to these days?” asks the perfumed girl-man.

  “Oh, this and that,” I reply airily. “I’m based in Manchester now.” I hope Simon hasn’t heard this. “Sorry, must pop to the ladies, lovely to see you.” And I walk over to Angel, whisper to her furiously and she reluctantly gives me her tiny pink silk purse, although she says I’ve had enough.

  The second hit of the drug is more noxious, and I stagger in the cubicle, and decide that this time I really am going home, I cannot take any more for one day, Angel was right, I’ve had enough, what was I even thinking coming here? I’ll walk over to Simon, tell him I’m not feeling well, and he’ll order me a taxi while I wait outside in the air. Angel can stay if she wants, I don’t want to ruin her evening. I wonder who else here may know Caroline, it is a fashion designer’s party after all, and I kick myself for being so stupid. I look in the mirror and see a tall girl with flushed cheeks and glittering eyes, a red gash of lipstick above an emerald dress. I look pretty amazing, all things considered. I straighten my shoulders and turn to the door and as I open it my brain flips over, dumbstruck, as if it can’t work out what’s going on, can’t work out why I’m staring directly into the eyes of my husband.

  43

  Frances found the trip up Mount Kenya exhilarating, life-changing. She’d never even travelled outside Europe before, never slept in a tent, never been at altitude, never gone up a mountain with a live chicken and eaten it two days later in a watery stew. She’d never before looked down across the plains from a freezing summit at five in the morning, as the sun is coming up, and acknowledge that this is living, this is why she was put on the planet, for her heart to beat loud and fast and free. She found the contrast between the hotly colourful landscape at the foot of the mountain and the sub-zero temperatures and steep ice walls at the top exhilarating, compelling. Despite the absence of any facilities, the rawness of the experience, she was hooked, and knew that these kind of trips would be her thing from now on. No more bored weeks in Brittany or Cornwall with her philandering husband. There was another aspect of the trip that made her heart race, and that was one of the guides, and although he was twenty years her junior there was something about the set of his back and the way he commanded the group that made her achingly aware of where he was, all the time, and if he came near her or asked her how she was doing she blushed like a little girl. And following their descent, as the group drank local beer in front of the huts where they’d sleep before returning to Nairobi in the morning, she felt like she never wanted to leave this mountain, leave this moment. So when at the end of the night he'd whispered his hut number to her, Frances, she was shocked but Linda said go for it and so she did and she spent a night of such glorious exhausting animal sex with this black god of a man that she thought if she never had sex again at least she’d had this.

  44

  The man stood in front of me is the Ben from years ago, the one I first met, not the sad broken Ben of now. I’m so confused from the drugs and the drink and the events of this never-ending day, from having just been mistaken for Caroline, that I can’t work out what he’s doing here, transported in place and time. I seem to have lost all sense of reality and I just stare at him and he stares at me, at my brittle eyes and red gashed mouth. The electricity I feel is as fierce as the moment I fell in love with my husband, just before that disastrous parachute jump, as he strapped me in to my harness and sent firecrackers up my thighs. I try to recover myself and wrench my gaze away, look down at my feet, at my silver stilettos that will transport me away from this crazy crazy day. I feel like I must get out of here, I mustn’t bump into anyone else who might know me or my twin, who occupies my darkling inner world. I take a step forward and stumble in my heels, and he catches my arm and says, “Are you OK?”

  “Yes,” I reply. “I just feel a bit faint, I think I need some air.” And this beautiful past-haunting boy takes me by the arm and guides me ever so gently through the crowds, past the bar, past Simon and Angel, and out into the coolness of the midnight street.

  “I think I need to go home,” I say. “Would you mind calling me a taxi?”

  “Of course,” he replies. “But it might take a while, are you OK to stand?” I nod but I’m leaning on him heavily, drooping. “Maybe it’s easier if we flag one down. Do you think you can walk a little? We’ll find more cabs out on the Charing Cross Road.” So we walk slowly along Old Compton Street, past the rebuilt Admiral Duncan, and people are staring but I don’t know why, I think I’m walking OK now we’ve got going, I’m no longer faint or staggering. When we get to the main road, there are no black cabs, and so my new friend flags down a mini-cab, one of those dodgy ones that charges a fortune, and as I go to get in he stops me and says, “Look, I’m worried about leaving you like this. My place is only round the corner. D’you want to go there, just until you feel a bit better? I can make you a cup of tea if you’d like.”

  I still don’t know his name but the day has been so long and surreal that I find myself saying yes, he doesn’t seem like an axe murderer, and so he asks the cab driver to take us to Marylebone, and when we get there his flat is above a shop of some kind and it’s amazing – huge and stylish and beautifully furnished. I sit on the couch and feel safe at last, as though I’m finally where I’m meant to be today, and all I want to do is curl up and go to sleep.

  “Sorry, I don’t even know your name,” I say, and he looks at me oddly and says, “I don’t know yours either.”

  “I
’m Cat,” I say.

  “And I’m Robbie,” he replies.

  “Pleased to meet you, Robbie,” I murmur, and I smile shyly and shut my eyes.

  45

  When Frances got back to the hotel in Nairobi, there was a message waiting for her. “Hi Mum, call me asap, love Ems.” Frances felt sore and slightly embarrassed, as if her daughter would guess down the phone line what she’d been doing all night with her olympian tour guide. She felt that familiar feeling of dread as she dialled and knew it would be about Caroline, and she didn’t want to be transported back to drama and turmoil, she wanted to stay out under the African sun forever.

  The line took ages to connect, and then Emily took ages to answer. Frances had been right, it was about Caroline. She’d been arrested for drink driving, had been two and a half times the limit, and then she’d kicked up a huge fuss at the station and they’d kept her in a cell overnight until she’d sobered up and calmed down.

  “I didn’t know whether to ring, Mum, but Caroline says she wants to go straight to rehab this time which I think’s a really good thing, and, um, well, she says she hasn’t got any money. Me and Ben can manage some of it, but it’s quite expensive.”

  “Tell her to go, and don’t you worry, I’ll sort the bill out,” said Frances, although she didn’t know where the money would come from. But it was the least she could do for her daughter – after all, how Caroline had turned out was her fault. At least they were closer these days, thank God. She wondered whether the treatment would work this time, whether Caroline would ever be better, or whether there would always be some illness or addiction for her to have to fight. The thought saddened Frances as she walked from the lobby and sank down into her sun-lounger. She was so far from her child, her child who needed her, a forever useless mother laying by a pool in Africa, with aching insides and the sweet smell of sex still lingering in her nostrils.