by Jane Fallon
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. Where did you get all this so-called information anyway?’
I’ve lost her again. I ignore the question. ‘You need to find out what’s going on. And I don’t mean who she is. You need to find out if he’s up to anything else. You owe it to your girls.’
‘I’ll kill him.’
‘Information is power.’ I don’t know who said that first, but it sounds good at this point and I’ll take any weapon I can get. ‘Arm yourself with the facts before you say anything to him. Otherwise, he’ll just make sure you never find out what he’s doing. How much is the house worth?’
She looks at me blankly, but then again, she always looks fairly blank, so it’s hard to tell if it means anything. ‘I don’t know. Ten million? Eleven?’
‘You need to find out. My guess is that, once he’s gone, he’ll sell the house to pay off the flat. You need to know if there’ll be anything left that you and the girls can use to buy somewhere. He has a responsibility for them, obviously, but if there’s no money left …’
That’s got her attention back on track. ‘What do you mean, if there’s no money left?’
‘Theoretically. I have no idea, clearly. This might all be a drop in the ocean for him and he’s planning to pay the mortgage on the house for ever so that you and the girls can live there. But if that’s the case, it seems odd that he’d need to take out a short-term loan. Do you know how much is in your joint account?’
She shrugs. ‘No idea.’
‘Well, you’re the only one who can find out.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know. Hunt through stuff at home or on the computer. Ask him questions …’
She nods. as if I’ve just said the most insightful thing ever. ‘OK.’
‘Don’t let him realize you’re suspicious. Not yet. He’ll clam up. I mean, do if you want, but my advice would be not to. Not till you know exactly where you stand.’
‘OK.’
I wait for her to get up and leave. I’ve shown her everything I have. I’ve done my good deed for the day. Now I just want her to go so I can get on with some work, or do some chores, or just veg out on the sofa. On my own. But she sits there, looking at me, as if she’s waiting for me to tell her what to do.
‘I think you need to go and process it all. It’s a lot to take on.’
‘You really don’t know who she is?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘You’ll find out eventually. Just get yourself and the girls sorted first. That has to be the priority.’
‘OK,’ she says again. All the fight seems to have been knocked out of her. I’m sure not for long. I stand up, hoping she’ll take the hint and, thankfully, she does.
‘Send me those photos,’ she says, handing me her empty glass.
‘I can’t. I mean, I don’t think I should, just in case he sees them …’ I doubt Al is taking sneaky looks through the contents of her phone, but I don’t want to leave any kind of trail that could be traced back to me. ‘I won’t delete them, though. You can have another look any time.’
She gives the briefest of nods then sweeps through the door, slightly unsteady on her feet.
‘A thank-you would be nice,’ I say to her back, but I make sure I say it so quietly she doesn’t hear.
23
Angie and I are having lunch. When I invited her, she told me it would be nice to mark her last day of freedom before the Easter holidays begin. Even though Bobby and Louis are now sixteen and fourteen, I get the impression they still run her ragged when they get the chance.
‘Aren’t they just out with their mates?’ I asked her, and she laughed.
‘No. All their mates are round mine. They know I’m a soft touch. I spend all day feeding and watering them, ferrying them around everywhere. Some of them even get me to do their washing.’ I know from the way she says it that she loves it. Loves being needed. Loves knowing her kids are off the streets. She’s all bluff.
‘Lucky them,’ I said. ‘Do you want to do mine?’
We meet in the café by the boating lake in Regent’s Park, not too far from where she lives, near Lisson Grove. It’s where we always go – I say ‘always’; this is maybe the fifth time we’ve ever had a purely social out-of-hours meet-up, just the two of us. I’ve been for a handful of raucous birthday nights out with a bunch of my employees over the years, a couple of weddings, and I take them all out for a meal every Christmas, but I’ve always shied away from mixing business with pleasure too much. I once knew I needed to sack someone – Jackie, her name was – because she kept letting me down, and all the others told me she was lazy and didn’t pull her weight, and then I caught her out in an actual lie about being sick when she wasn’t – but I found it almost impossible because we’d become really friendly outside of work. She had a daughter the same age as Bets and we’d shared countless playdates and confidences. I knew she was taking the piss. Relying on the fact that our friendship would protect her. It was messy and awkward but, in the end, I did it. I would have lost the respect of all the others if I hadn’t. Of course, we haven’t spoken since. Betsy still asks when she can play with Maya sometimes.
Anyway, I want to say thank you to Angie for being my partner in crime the past few weeks, but also she’s the only person I can tell about my conversation with Stella, and I really need to get another perspective. Have someone tell me I’m not crazy to have told her (almost) everything.
‘I’ll be honest, I think you’re crazy,’ she says as soon as I mention going over there.
‘Don’t. I haven’t told you the half of it yet.’
She listens in silence as I fill her in on the rest. ‘You really think she’s not going to go straight to Al?’
I put my head in my hands, elbows on the table. I’ve hardly eaten any of my cheese-and-onion panini. ‘I don’t know any more. Anyway, it’s done now, so there’s nothing I can do about it. Let’s talk about something else.’
Angie fixes her dark eyes on me. ‘Oh no you don’t.’
She makes me take her through the whole thing again. ‘She’ll still be able to claim half the house, though, won’t she? They have kids.’
‘Half a huge mortgage, by the sound of it. I mean, I’m sure he’ll provide for them, but he’s got to pay that three and a half million back somehow.’
‘I imagine they’ll still have a way flasher lifestyle than you and me,’ she says, wafting a salt-and-vinegar crisp at me. She doesn’t say it with malice. Angie is never mean. That’s one of the reasons I like her so much.
‘I know,’ I say. ‘Oh well, I’ve done my duty. It’s up to her what she does with the information. Now can we talk about something else?’
Saturday and Sunday, it’s the first of our office spring cleans. The finance company on St John’s Wood High Street. I pitch in, happy to have the distraction. They’re long days – we start at half seven and end about the same time in the evening – and only Tomas, Paul and I do the whole stint, the others doing a day or half a day in a carefully coordinated rota. We start off on Saturday morning, chatting and laughing as we methodically clear then refill small sections. I’ve taken countless ‘pre’ photos just in case we forget where something came from. By mid-morning we’re all silently getting on with our own patch. Some of these areas – the inside of cupboards, the floor underneath the photocopier – probably haven’t been cleaned since this time last year. It’s therapeutic. Almost a weird form of meditation. Repetitive movements. Wax on, wax off.
I’d forgotten how exhausting cleaning can be. By mid-afternoon, parts of my body I didn’t even know I had are aching. By home time – a whole fifteen minutes earlier than I had anticipated, because we made such good progress – I can hardly move my back and my right arm is throbbing. It’s a righteous feeling, though. A feeling of having actually achieved something. For the last hour, I fantasize about a deep, hot bath and a glass of wine, until I remember I’ve only got a shower and Stella polished off most of the only bottle I had.
I don’t have the energy to stop to buy some. I have a Pizza Express bake-at-home pizza waiting to go in the oven, so I fixate on that. I’ll scoff it and then get into bed as early as I can – I have to do this all again tomorrow. Maybe I’ll get in bed first. Eat under the duvet then go straight to sleep without even stopping to brush my teeth. By the time I pull into The Close, I’m practically drooling at the thought of both eating and sleeping. Maybe at the same time.
I turn the oven on to heat up as soon as I walk through the door, pour what’s left of the wine into a glass and knock it back in one, then head for the shower, pulling off my grubby T-shirt as I go. I turn the water temperature up to high and wait for it to start steaming, dropping the rest of my clothes on the floor. I can pick them up tomorrow. Or never. I don’t care at the moment. I’m just poking a tentative toe in to test the temperature when there’s a rap on the door. I freeze. Maybe I misheard. Moments later, there’s another. I decide to ignore it. I’m not expecting anyone, and everyone I care about has my mobile number if there’s an emergency. I look down at it, next to my pile of discarded clothing. No messages. No missed calls. I’m about to step under the blissfully scalding water when there’s another, louder knock. I peer round the bathroom door, trying to listen for clues, but the shower all but drowns everything out.
‘Laura! I know you’re in there. I saw your car outside.’
Shit. It’s Stella. I could ignore her. Get into the shower and sing loudly so she might think I hadn’t heard her. But then what? She lives opposite me; I can hardly avoid her forever. Fuck.
‘Hang on!’ I shout. I turn off the water and wrap myself in a towel, stomp over to the door and fling it open.
‘Oh,’ she says, looking me up and down.
‘Hi,’ I say, trying to manage my irritation. ‘I was just getting ready for bed.’
Stella comes on in anyway. ‘I’ve been watching for you to come home.’
‘Right. Where’s Al?’ I peer down the stairs behind her, just in case he’s going to rush me with an axe.
‘At a gig. Work, apparently. I need to talk to you.’
My visions of sleep/eating crumble. ‘I’m just going to …’ I indicate the bathroom. ‘I’ll be five minutes. Do me a favour and stick that pizza in the oven, will you? It should be hot enough by now.’
She looks at me as if I’ve asked her to clean out my toilet, but then she gives the smallest of nods.
‘Five minutes,’ I say again.
There’s a strange smell when I emerge from the bathroom, pink-skinned from the blistering water and dressed in my favourite pjs. Betsy chose them for me at Next and they have leaping cats on the soft, grey, baggy bottoms and one big glittery cat face on the short-sleeved top. I don’t imagine they designed them with forty-something women in mind, but I love them. Stella is standing in the middle of the room with a pained look on her face.
‘Is something burning?’ I walk over to the oven and throw it open. No way has my American Hot overcooked in the time it took me to have the world’s fastest wash. Pungent black smoke rushes out. I shut it again quickly, turn it off before gingerly opening it again. Grab an oven glove and pull out the tragic remains of my beautiful pizza, plastic melted on to its delicious cheesy top and the cardboard underneath smouldering. I fling it into the sink, throw open the window. ‘You didn’t take it out of the packaging?’
She narrows her eyes at me. ‘I’m not used to people asking me to cook their dinner.’
‘You have two kids …’ I say before I can help myself. I want to cry.
‘I’m sorry. You can order one, can’t you?’
‘I can’t afford to order one,’ I say, holding back tears. I’m so tired, so hungry. ‘And even if I could, they take ages. I’ve just worked a twelve-hour day, Stella. I want to eat something now and go to bed.’ I know I sound like a child, but I can’t help it.
She takes her mobile out of the pocket of her beautifully tailored jacket. For a moment I think she’s going to call Dominos and order something for me but then she says, ‘Pilar, put whatever’s left from dinner on a plate and bring it over to number 6, please. Put … what … left … from … put … what … oh, for god’s sake, put Taylor on. Taylor! God, that woman really needs to learn English,’ she says to me while she waits. I bite my tongue to stop myself from saying she could try learning a few basic courtesies in Spanish. I busy myself with opening the door and flapping it back and forth to let some clean air in.
‘Sweetheart. Can you explain to Pilar that I want her to put the leftovers from dinner on a plate and bring them over to number 6? Not the main house, the servants’ bit above the garage.’ I swear she doesn’t even flinch as she says that. ‘Just because. And don’t mention it to Dad when he gets back. I’ll take you to Spielburgers …’
‘Really, she doesn’t have to bother,’ I say, although I have no other food in the house that doesn’t need assembling from scratch and I don’t really feel like baking just now. Stella dismisses me with a hand. Negotiation over, she ends the call.
‘We had a very nice filet de bœuf,’ she says, pronouncing it filay.
‘Right. Well, thanks.’ I look longingly at the melted-plastic-crusted remains in the sink. ‘Stella, why are you here? Only I really do want an early night. I’m working again first thing.’
She looks around. ‘Could I please get a glass of something?’
‘Water?’ I say. ‘Or I could make tea?’
‘No alcohol?’
I shake my head. ‘Sorry.’
She digs out her mobile again. Presses another number. ‘Tayls. Give Pilar a bottle of white from the fridge to bring over too. That nice Gavi di Gavi. You’re a sweetheart.’ She ends the call. ‘I know you like wine,’ she says to me, as if she herself is about to make a great sacrifice by drinking something that contains calories just to please me.
I want to tell her to get to the point, but it’s just occurred to me that she’s being nice to me and I don’t want to break that particular spell. I get another glass out of the cupboard in anticipation then flop down on the sofa, exhaustion making my eyelids heavy. ‘So … um … what can I do for you?’
‘I’d like to see those pictures again, please.’ I’ve noticed that whenever Stella speaks, it’s weirdly formal, as if she’s an alien who’s recently learned to mimic humans.
‘Of course,’ I say, looking round for my phone. It’s still on the bathroom floor, so I drag myself in there to get it. Line them up. ‘Here.’
We sit there in silence while she studies them. After a couple of minutes I hear footsteps on the stairs outside and Pilar appears at the door with a foil-covered plate and the bottle of wine. Stella ignores her, keeps her eyes fixed on the phone. Pilar looks back and forth between us nervously. Last time she saw me, Stella was throwing me out of their house like a bag of trash, and she probably got a telling-off. I get up and take the plate from her.
‘Gracias. Cómo estás?’ I say, dredging up some schoolgirl Spanish from my teenage holidays. She gives me a nervous smile and I realize she’s probably ten years younger than I first thought, she’s just worn out. She rattles off something I don’t understand and I smile and nod and say gracias a few more times.
‘Does Pilar cook for you every night?’ I say after she’s gone. I’m trying to locate a corkscrew. I’m strictly screw-top in this house.
‘Mmm-hmm,’ Stella says, engrossed. I find one, pour us each a glass, then peel the warm foil from the plate. There’s the promised beef, in a rich, red, divine-smelling sauce, asparagus, some kind of creamy-cheesy potatoes. I find it hard to imagine either Stella or the Mini Mes actually eating any of this, except, maybe, the asparagus. I wonder if Pilar spends hours cooking Michelin-star-worthy meals every night only to throw most of it in the bin. I dig in, standing at the countertop. ‘This is amazing,’ I say, mouth full. It is. I may have to spend my evenings fighting with the foxes for scraps outside number 3 from now on.
Eventually, Stella drops my mobile on the seat b
eside her. ‘I don’t understand any of this.’
‘I don’t really either. But the fact that he’s doing it all behind your back seems dodgy, don’t you think?’
She nods. Holds her glass out for more wine. Now I have food and alcohol inside me, I’m in danger of falling asleep where I stand. I daren’t sit down. ‘Did you find anything at home? Did you look?’
She takes a sip. ‘I’ve been through his study. Nothing. I told him I’d found a string quartet for the wedding and that I needed to pay them a five-thousand-pound deposit, and he just told me to give him all the details and he’d do it.’
I stop myself asking what kind of string quartet you get if the deposit is five grand. Gold-plated instruments? Caviar-encrusted bows? ‘Can you check up with them to see if it’s been paid?’
‘That’s a good idea,’ she says, as if I’ve said something inspired as opposed to just common sense. ‘But what if it hasn’t, what do I do?’
‘Nothing,’ I say, stifling a yawn. ‘But you’ll know.’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I’ll do that tomorrow. You’re working on a Sunday?’
‘No rest for the wicked,’ I say, then I try to suppress another yawn, but it escapes with a vengeance.
‘I should leave you to get some sleep.’ She stands up and I almost burst into tears with gratitude. I smooth the foil back over my now-empty plate, resisting the temptation to lick it clean, and hold it out to her. I don’t feel bad about not having washed it up because there’s no way in hell she’ll end up doing it.
‘Oh …’ she says. ‘No. I’ll ask Pilar to come and collect it tomorrow.’
Really, though, you couldn’t make it up. ‘I’m at work tomorrow. Don’t worry about it. I’ll drop it over when I can.’ I peel the foil off and put it in the bin, dropping the plate in the sink. ‘Thanks for the food and wine.’
‘You’re welcome,’ she says stiffly. ‘Good night.’