Why the hell hasn’t she left yet?
She’s frowning at something on her computer, sucking on her little finger.
I hear a noise behind me and turn, expecting to see the cleaners. But it’s David, marching back from a meeting. He looks across at us, and I turn back to see Helena smiling up at him.
‘Working hard, ladies?’ he calls, but it’s a rhetorical question. He stops by my desk. ‘Don’t you have a home to go to, Ashley?’
It’s one of the first times he’s spoken to me directly since the meeting with the bigwigs.
‘I’m meeting a friend for dinner,’ I say. ‘Got a bit of time to kill.’ The last bit is a massive lie – I’m going to be so late – but I want him to think I’ve got some semblance of a social life, as well as being super keen. I overheard them discussing candidates for November’s Employee of the Month in the kitchen and was pleased that my name was the first mentioned, but they’re an American company and work–life balance is one of their favourite terms to chuck about.
‘Enjoy,’ he replies, non-committally.
I look back at Helena, and – thank God – she’s standing up finally, coat on, and reaching for her handbag. There’s no yoga mat tonight. I wonder why she’s not going to the gym. A special occasion? Is she having dinner with friends, too? Is it her time of the month? Maybe she has a date with her picture-perfect husband.
She walks towards me, heading for the lift, giving a fleeting glance at David’s back as he disappears into his glass cube. His routine is a little less predictable, but he’s usually out of the office before seven.
‘Night, Ashley,’ Helena says as she passes my desk. ‘Have a good evening.’
‘You too.’
Once I’m sure she’ll be safely out of the building, I grab my stuff and rush for the stairs. I text Lauren to say sorry – I’m never late for anything – but it turns out she’s been distracted in the massive Primark round the corner and is quite happy to browse while she waits for me to arrive.
*
It’s 7.15 p.m. by the time I finally meet Lauren. She’s dressed in a tartan miniskirt and huge high-heeled boots, and her hair is inexplicably pink.
‘Ash!’ she shouts, a little too loudly. She throws her arms around me and I smell her perfume, the same one she’s worn since she was a teenager.
‘Oh my God, you’ve gotta see what I bought. But wait, look at you! Are you wearing . . . a camel mac? And your hair! A bob!’
‘It’s taupe,’ I reply, echoing her sarcastic tone, and run my fingers through my hair. You look like a dark-haired Anna Wintour, Gary had said when I’d come home with it the week before my interview at KAMU. I was amazed he even noticed, let alone knew who she was. I still wasn’t sure the length suited me, but the black fringe set off my blue eyes and white skin quite nicely.
‘Is it Burberry?’
‘No, don’t be thick, it’s from Zara. Convincing, though, isn’t it? Let’s get a table. It’s great to see you.’
The restaurant is crowded and the skinny front of house boy tells us it’ll be a fifteen-minute wait for a table, but in the meantime we’re welcome to perch at the one free bar stool. I let Lauren sit on it, even though my feet are hurting, because she makes a big fuss about her blisters in her new boots. I stand alongside her, being pushed and bumped by the hordes of people who seem to be lost trying to find the toilet.
‘Fucking hell, Ash, twelve pounds for a few mushrooms? What’s a sweet potato, anyway? One that’s been cooked in honey or something?’
‘Seriously?’ I say, rolling my eyes at her. ‘You’ve never had a sweet potato?’
‘Of course I have. But man, these prices . . . They’d better be paying you well.’
‘I told you, dinner’s on me. This is the hottest new restaurant in Soho. My treat.’
Lauren has a job – receptionist at the swankiest hotel on our shitty bit of Hampshire coastline – but she always complains about the cost of her train ticket up here so, whenever we meet up, I pay.
‘Right, what are we drinking?’ she asks, turning the menu over.
‘I won’t be drinking,’ I say, firmly. ‘Early meeting in the morning. But feel free to go ahead.’
Lauren looks at me with concerned eyes, and I feel a rush of love for her. She’s my oldest friend, she’s been with me through everything. For all her faults, she knows me inside out. She’s the only one who really knows what happened with Mum, and she still likes me.
I’m reminded of her face, chubbier back then, when she caught me round the back of the science block, grinding a lit cigarette into my wrist, watching the skin buckle and melt, which was strangely satisfying. I only felt the pain when I looked into her eyes. They filled with tears as she screamed at me and pulled the cigarette away, hugging me and telling me it wasn’t my fault. That my mum was a drunken bitch, that she brought it all on herself, and that she’d stand up for me in court, if ever it came to that.
But her belief in me didn’t help. Not really. Not when every day I saw the way my brother looked at me, suddenly frightened of the only person he had ever trusted.
I blink hard and focus on the menu again. Don’t let your past steal your present.
‘You haven’t been . . . obsessing about your mum again?’ she says, as though she can read my guilty mind. ‘Surely a vodka and Coke will help you chill out?’
Before I have time to reply, the skinny boy marches over and informs us that there’s a table free. As I follow him towards it, I am filled with a strange urge to turn and run. What was I thinking, inviting Lauren here, into my new life, when she knows far too much about the old one? So stupid.
The table is right underneath a speaker that’s blasting out music. There’s no escaping this dinner now, but at least it’s a relief to get off my feet. When I realized Helena wore heels most days to work, and no one else did, I knew that I’d have to up my game, but I’m paying the price for it now. Not for the first time, I wish I’d been born the other gender.
‘So anyway, I told him to fuck off, and he said fine, and that’s where we’re at now . . . I was kinda gutted about it but, to be honest, I’ve got a bit of a crush on Mike from work . . . remember Mike? He was in Jason’s year . . .’ There’s a pause while she waits for my reaction. I’ve completely missed the beginning of this story. ‘He’s working in the kitchens, wants to train up to become a chef.’
‘Mike, uh, yeah,’ I say, staring down at the menu. ‘Ginger, wasn’t he?’
‘No!’ she shrieks, batting at my hand in mock indignation. ‘As if I’d go there. Anyway, he’s got a skinhead now. Reckon he started receding when he was like nineteen, so he’s shaved it all off in case people notice. He looks good, though, goes to the gym a lot . . . you’d be impressed . . .’ She pauses again. ‘Dunno if he hangs out with Jase any more, though.’
‘What are you going to order?’ I ask. If she thinks I’m going to talk about my brother, then she’s mistaken. Sometimes it feels as though, whenever I see Lauren, she only wants to talk about him, as though she’s trying to drag me back there, keep my feet on the ground, clip my wings. I suppose it’s her way of keeping some control over me – which is what all relationships are about, when you boil them right down to their bare bones.
Well, I’m not going to play that game.
‘I think I’ll go for the warm duck salad with walnuts.’
A waiter appears and starts pouring water into two thimble-sized glasses.
‘Have you heard from him?’ she asks, persistent, but I keep my head down.
‘Ready to order, ladies?’
‘Er, yes, I think so,’ I reply, looking up at Lauren. ‘Are you ready?’
‘You order for me,’ she says, snapping her menu shut and looking up at the waiter. ‘I’m not really into this fancy stuff. Give me a burger any day. Between you and me,’ she continues, twisting one side of her mouth as she looks up at the waiter, ‘I might be stopping for a Maccy D’s before getting on the train home.’
&nbs
p; The waiter smiles in a kind of ‘Oh God, I have to be nice to you’ way. Irritated by her lack of gratitude – you can take the girl out of Paulsgrove but you can’t take Paulsgrove out of the girl – I order us both the duck salad. It’s time for her to broaden her horizons. She then orders herself a double vodka and Coke, as if to spite me back.
‘So,’ she says, and there’s a glimmer in her eyes that tells me she’s enjoying winding me up, that she thinks I’ve got above myself, ideas above my station. Despite everything I’ve achieved, Lauren doesn’t do jealousy. She’s never thought further than leaving Paulsgrove for Southsea – and she achieved that last year, so she might as well retire tomorrow. ‘Tell me about the new job. Is it like The Apprentice? Your gran’s been going on to everyone at the Regent, saying how your office is so posh they use it as a location for filming telly shows at the weekend.’
‘Oh God,’ I say, happy that she’s dropped the subject of Jason, finally. ‘That happened once. Yeah, it’s good, I’m enjoying it. Here . . .’ I reach down and pull out a small paper bag, pushing it towards her. ‘This is for you.’
Her eyes light up.
‘It’s not my birthday!’
‘I know, but we get a lot of free stuff – you know, samples and that kind of thing – and you’ve always loved your make-up more than me.’ I look at her now, her candyfloss-pink hair scraped back into a high ponytail, her eyebrows almost black and thick with definition, her face contoured beyond all recognition. A small stud sparkles on one side of her nose. She’s pretty, in her own way. But she always goes too far with the slap, and she has no grace, no poise – her posture is terrible – and she teeters about in short skirts and high heels like she’s trying to find her sea legs.
She rummages through the bag, her face locked in concentration. Every now and then she gives a little murmur of recognition.
‘I haven’t heard of half these brands,’ she says, pulling each piece out one by one.
‘Most of them are new launches,’ I say, taking a sip of water. Unmistakably tap. When the waiter comes back, I’ll ask him for a slice of lemon. ‘They’re all luxury, though. Nothing drugstore.’
‘Drugstore?’
‘Sorry, it’s the American word for chemist. Stupid beauty jargon. It means cheap. So, nothing you’d get in Superdrug.’
‘Well, thanks. Ash, you’re a mate.’ She pushes the bag under the table and there’s a silence. I try to will the waiter towards us with my eyeballs, but it’s as though he’s deliberately ignoring me. Have we run out of conversation already?
‘So, how’s . . . whatshisname?’ she asks, glugging at her vodka and Coke.
‘Gary? We broke up,’ I say.
‘Oh, that’s crap. ’
‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘It was for the best. He was dragging me down. You know how giving I am in relationships . . . I just kept trying to make things work, trying to help him help himself . . . but you can’t make it work if only one of you is putting in the effort.’
She gives a small nod of understanding and pulls out her phone.
‘So, Mike, right, he sent me this text yesterday. What do you reckon it means? I can’t tell if he’s flirting with me, or what . . . I mean, we had a bit of a snog last year at the Christmas do, but afterwards nothing came of it . . . but since then, he’s been super friendly, but maybe it’s all a bit too narky, kind of teasing me, like I’m his little sister or something . . . even though he’s younger than me. I don’t know what to make of it.’
I stare down at the text. It might as well be written in a foreign language. The ability to deduce what the great men of Portsmouth are thinking about their women is not a skill I have, nor particularly want to acquire.
‘Well,’ I say, after a pause. ‘He’d be mad not to be interested in you, right? He’s just scared you’ll reject him, so he’s playing it cool.’
I’ve said the right thing.
‘Do you think?’ she says, beaming. ‘Maybe I should text him back . . . maybe in a bit. After our dinner. Maybe on the train home. Don’t want to look too keen.’
I give her a short smile and turn my attention to the bowls that have just arrived. I think the restaurant does a cookbook; I must remember to ask about it on the way out.
‘So,’ Lauren says, pushing the salad around her plate suspiciously. ‘Have you been in touch with Jase lately?’
The question is so direct that there’s no way out this time.
‘No.’
‘So you haven’t heard, then?’ she says, and there’s a flash of glee in her eyes. She’s going to tell me something she knows will upset me. Even though she cares about me, there’s nothing like that thrill. This is the problem, this has always been my problem; the price of being successful. There are too many people in my life who pretend to love me but can’t wait to see me cry.
‘No. What?’ I ask. Whatever it is, I will choose not to care.
‘Oh God, Ash. I thought your gran would have said something. It was proper awful. There was a fight . . . Lisa, well, she ended up in hospital. He made a run for it but they caught him trying to get on a boat at Southampton. ABH in the end, I think. But, well, he’s back . . . he’s back inside.’
NOW
Helena
I blame the boredom.
It takes a split second to arrange – just a quick text and he replies instantly, as though he’s been sitting next to his phone ever since he sent the email, waiting for me to get back to him.
Great stuff. This afternoon at 3? At the club?
It’s 11 a.m. Even though 3 p.m. is hours away, I am filled with panic. The effort of it all: getting ready, driving to the station, buying a ticket, getting on the train, then the Tube, then walking into the club . . . the thought of talking about her with someone who doesn’t understand, who can never understand . . . it fills me with a fear I haven’t felt since I was a teenager going on a first date. But somehow, I feel I have to prove to myself that I can do it. And the alternative – sitting at home, blanking out in front of daytime television for yet another day – is unbearable.
I text back, before I have the chance to change my mind.
Perfect.
I pace up and down the hallway for a few minutes, trying to decide what to tell Jack. He’s ‘popped out’ somewhere – I think to the gym, but he didn’t confirm – but promised to be back for lunch. Again, if I had the energy I’d wonder why he wasn’t working today. Perhaps his new furniture business is failing already, and he’s too scared to tell me, worried it’ll push me off the cliff completely. But if anything, he’s been more cheerful recently, so it seems unlikely to be that.
Would Jack mind me going to see David? Probably not; he’d see it as evidence of my recovery, a small price to pay. But to save all the questions, I decide to lie.
I call him. It takes several rings before he picks up.
‘Hi,’ he says, sounding out of breath. So he’s at the gym, after all. ‘Everything OK?’
‘Yes,’ I reply, feeling stupid suddenly. This could have waited until he got home. I don’t need to ask his permission. ‘It’s just . . . Kate – you know, from uni – texted me. She asked if I fancied meeting up with her. This afternoon. You know she moved out of town a while ago . . . she, er, had a meeting there today, randomly asked if I fancied a catch-up. Thought I’d . . . well, thought I’d check you thought it was a good idea.’
There’s a noise in the background, a slight screech and a thump as something drops to the floor.
‘Hang on,’ Jack says, but I can’t tell if it’s to me or someone else. ‘Wait a second.’
The phone line is muffled, as though he’s pulled a sleeve over the mouthpiece. Seconds later he’s back, but his voice is clearer now, and the background noise has gone.
‘Sorry, it was noisy in there, I’m outside now.’
‘Noisy in where?’
‘So where are you going?’ he asks, ignoring me.
‘Um, not sure yet . . . I’m meeting her at Oxford Circus. She
’s got the afternoon off work. I guess she just fancied catching up and . . . I don’t know . . . I feel OK today . . . I feel it’d be good to get out, to see people. While I feel up to it.’
‘Of course!’ His voice lifts. ‘Darling, that’s brilliant.’ I can picture his wide smile and I feel terrible for lying to him, and even more terrible for being able to make him happy with something as simple as going to see a friend. It must be such a relief for him to think of me leaning on someone else for a change. It’s been so long since I’ve seen my friends. So long with just the two of us, stuck in our isolated little bubble of unhappiness. ‘What time will you be back?’
‘I don’t know. I’m not leaving till 1 p.m., though.’
‘Great. Enjoy yourself. Spend some money while you’re there! Oh and listen . . . I’ve got a dinner thing after work – do you remember? I told you about it. With Mark and John Hamilton. They might want to invest. I’m afraid it’ll probably be a late one.’
‘It’s fine,’ I say, because even though I didn’t know he needed investment, it’s a relief, really. The loneliness might be grating at times, but it’s easier than keeping up the pretence. ‘Hope you have a good day, too.’
*
The train is delayed as it crawls towards London, and I feel that familiar anxiety welling up in me. I’m out of my comfort zone, raw and vulnerable away from the cocoon that I’ve been hiding in. I wonder what the doctors would say, what my therapist would make of this little expedition. As we pull into King’s Cross station I find myself glued to my seat. It’s warm inside the train and the carriage is nearly empty. I don’t want to get off.
The Rival Page 4