‘I’m going to bed.’
Jack looks up at me, hopeful.
‘Shall I join you?’
‘No,’ I say, and my voice is harsher than intended. ‘I’ve got a headache.’ I want to laugh at the cliché as I say it.
I take longer than usual in the bathroom, cleansing my face twice and leaving on a hydrating mask as I sit on the toilet. My stomach feels tight, pre-menstrual, but I haven’t had a period since I had the implant fitted. There’s a message from David, of course, asking if I received the flowers, and I reply quickly with my thanks, even though I’m desperate not to encourage him any more.
I end up scrolling through Twitter, killing time before returning to Jack. Ashley has been tweeting all evening, teasing with promises of big news from KAMU B! All to be revealed soon! She deleted her personal Twitter account today, asking if she could manage the business one instead, from now on, rather than letting Guy do it. She gave me a list of ten reasons why his perfectly engaging tweets weren’t up to scratch, and so I gave in – for an easy life – and handed it over. To be fair, Guy didn’t look too disappointed to have lost the responsibility.
Ashley seems given to momentary changes of direction; unexpected behaviour like this bubbles up out of nowhere. She’s hot-headed, and a starter not a finisher. I’ve also noticed there’s some tension between her and Toby. I’m not entirely sure what happened, but I need to keep more of a handle on her. After all, my job is to channel her talents, and help her be the best she can be. I wonder if this is how David felt about me, before . . . I throw the thought from my mind.
I click on our Twitter profile, reading through it, and stop at one of her more boastful outbursts, telling the world we now have sixty-eight exhibitors for the pop-up. She’s gone crazy with her hashtags: #onfire #nothingworksunlessyoudo #womenwhowork.
Not sure how Toby and Guy will feel about that last hashtag.
Scrolling back, it’s clear that all the tweets she’s posted relate to her event, rather than the site itself. She’s made the venue look incredible, and the engagement is fantastic, with an impressive number of shares from big-name beauty folk. Although it’s fine for her to focus on it for now, I must remind her to switch to promoting the actual site itself, once the event’s over.
It’s half an hour before I leave the bathroom, and the lights are off in the hallway. I push open the door to our bedroom. Jack is sitting on the bed in his boxer shorts and T-shirt, holding his toothbrush, texting someone.
‘You didn’t have to come to bed,’ I say, and he locks his phone screen. ‘I told you.’
‘I’m tired, anyway,’ he says, tossing his phone on to the bed before walking towards me. ‘And you were ages in the bathroom.’
‘Sorry,’ I reply. I don’t want to get undressed in front of him tonight – not that I think he’d try anything, but my stomach is really hurting now, and I feel possessive of my body, as though he hasn’t earned the right to see or touch it today. I linger by the wardrobe, waiting for him to go.
‘If you don’t want to leave London completely,’ he says, pausing with his hand on the door, ‘then perhaps we can consider moving a bit further out? Wouldn’t you like some more space?’
I stare around at our bedroom. My bedroom. I have lived here for eight years. It’s more than a home: it’s the backdrop to my adult life. There are memories in every inch of every room. It’s the only place I remember being happy. Why would I want to leave?
‘I love you,’ I say, because I can’t tell him what he wants to hear, but I don’t want to hurt him. I want to make him happy, but right now I’m not sure I can.
THEN
Ash
Two days since he followed me on Twitter. I deleted my account as soon as I got the notification, but I know it’s too bloody late.
I get off the train at the stop before mine. I was going to run home – I even got changed in the toilets at work, hoping to shut up all these voices in my head – but I can’t find the energy, so instead I walk, saying a silent prayer that Joel will be waiting for me when I get there. I need him. I need his admiration, his attention, his love. And right now, I need his support, too.
He’s back. Of course he is. I wonder if it’s Lauren, if she blabbed, gave the game away. Probably. Possibly. Who knows?
I think back to the last time I saw him at Gran’s house. Drunk, or worse. Outside in the rain, hurling her flowerpots at the windows. Begging at first, then crying. Finally, screaming. Rage – her rage, Grandad’s rage, so familiar to me – funnelled through him and then her and then him, handed down through the generations. What an inheritance. Grandad’s mates from the Legion coming in and holding him back as he tried to break down the door. Gran watching from the window, clutching her cheap beaded necklace as her fingers shook with fear.
The day has been a struggle. Some days are harder than others, and I still find it difficult from time to time. Self-pity is a dangerous swamp that will suck you under if you so much as dip a toe in. I know this, but there are still times when I just want to bury my head beneath the sand and slowly suffocate, surrounded by nothing but darkness.
What goes up must come down.
The universe is having a right old laugh at my expense, this time round. Throw everything at her! it seems to be saying. Go on! More shit and more shit! Let’s see how much she can take!
As my thoughts get more crazy, I pick up pace until I’m basically marching. Nearly home. I focus on my breathing as I walk towards my block. I have to get myself together, just in case Joel’s there. Helena took my work charger home with her yesterday – ‘So sorry, hun, thought it was mine!’ – and my phone has run out of battery. I knew I shouldn’t have let her use it, should have said something at the time when she yanked it out of my computer. It’s killing me that I can’t check whether Joel has been in touch.
Perhaps I should have gone over to his place, instead of blindly hoping he’ll show up here, but backing down would be catastrophic for our relationship. He has to make the first move, so I can keep the upper hand.
I’m a few steps away when I hear it. The dog. Round the back of the bins, I can see its owner chatting to someone on his phone. He’s clutching a joint, the smoke unfurling from his nostrils, the stubble on his face the only thing that defines him. I realize the reason I can’t stand him: he reminds me of Jason. He is shuffling his feet, kicking a stone about, trying to stay warm. The dog, meanwhile, is liberally pissing all over the walls. There’s a gash on its upper leg that I haven’t noticed before, and it’s oozing something green and unpleasant. After a few minutes, the pathetic creature just gives up, slumping to the ground, lying in a puddle of its own wee.
I stopped at the Co-op on the way home. I put my hand into my bag, squeezing the thick slab of meat, feeling it ooze underneath the pressure of my fingertips. It’s an offcut, going out of date tomorrow. Nice and cheap, but not a bad last meal for a dog, really.
The owner sees me as I climb the steps to the entrance. He gives me a brief nod, some kind of acknowledgement of my existence. He probably likes me; he can tell that, despite the posh second-hand clothes, I fit right in here. Probably wants to sleep with me, but can’t be bothered to do anything about it.
I smile back, broadly, resisting the temptation to wave. I even give the dog a smile.
I let myself into the building using the key fob, stepping carefully over the patch of warm piss staining the concrete. Even though it’s spring now, it’s always so cold inside the hall – there’s no heating, no carpet, no paint on the walls. No decoration except for a glass-fronted noticeboard, with reminders about bin days and our obligation to only allow entry to authorized persons. Like all council buildings, the stairwells are concrete, topped off with a rusting metal banister that makes your hands smell of blood if you use it. My legs are tired as I climb the first flight of steps to the studio.
As I turn on the first landing, I immediately spot a shadowy figure standing outside my door. My heart leaps. It’s him, af
ter all. He has come back. Thank God. Something of today can be salvaged.
I punch the white light switch with my knuckles, flooding the stairway with harsh strip lighting. The shadowy figure is a shadow no more. He turns to look at me, and then I see that it isn’t him.
It isn’t him, after all.
‘Hello,’ Jason says. ‘Long time no see.’
THEN
Helena
I am dreaming of my mother when a sharp, stabbing pain deep inside my abdomen wakes me. It feels like a needle is being inserted into my womb, and the sensation is so intense I almost gasp in shock. But just as quickly as it arrives, it’s gone.
I’ve fallen asleep on the sofa. I pull my phone out from where it’s wedged underneath me and check the time: 9.30 p.m. Jack is slumped in the armchair opposite me, fixated on some television programme. The pain returns, making me catch my breath. As quickly as I have felt it, it has gone again.
‘You all right, sleepyhead?’ he says, smiling at me. ‘You haven’t done that for years.’
I pull a face at the television.
‘It’s Top Gear, what do you expect?’
‘Yeah, right. I think it’s more likely you’ve been working too hard. Go to bed, darling, I won’t be much longer.’
I haul myself off the sofa.
‘Yes, I will in a bit. Just going to the loo.’
In the bedroom, I grab a clean pair of knickers from my drawer and tiptoe down the hall to the bathroom.
It’s been so long since I’ve had a period, I’m not sure I even have anything to use. I wrench open the bathroom cabinet door, forgetting that the hinge broke a few months ago, and it complains with a metallic crunch as the door breaks away at the bottom.
‘Shit,’ I say, to no one, as the contents of the cabinet start to spill out into the basin. There’s plenty here, but not what I’m looking for, although I do find a packet of paracetamol, and quickly swallow two with water.
There’s no way around it, I’ll have to improvise. I sit on the toilet and pull down my knickers, ready for the carnage that awaits, but there’s nothing there. Not a speck of blood – nor anything else, for that matter. What a relief. I’ve forgotten that the cramps sometimes start before the bleeding.
When I wipe myself, there’s a tiny spot of pink, but it’s so faint I wonder if it’s just a mark on the tissue paper, a scrap of something that got churned up with the paper in the machinery. Just to be safe, I fold up some toilet roll and stuff it into my pants, putting the second pair over the top to keep my makeshift nappy in place. I vaguely remember the doctor saying that when my periods returned, it would mean it was time to have my implant replaced with a new one. I think of Jack’s obsession with us having a baby this year, and wonder if the fates are on his side. How can I buy more time? There must be something I can do, some way I can put him off. It’s not that I don’t want kids at all, just not now.
Admittedly, it’s been ‘not now’ for the last five years, but surely that’s normal? This is the twenty-first century, after all. And there’s so much to get done before you have children. To interrupt my career now, when it’s in full flow and I’m at my peak . . . Women pretend we can have it all, if only we’re organized enough, but it’s not true. I remember Nicky, one of the account managers at KAMU, the way she always left at 4.30 p.m. on the dot to collect her son from nursery, leaving the rest of us to deal with any problems that came in after she’d left. I had to do so many US conference calls for her. I once mentioned it to Ash, who said she hoped Nicky’s shorter hours were reflected in her wages. Nicky herself told me most of her salary went on nursery fees, and I wondered why she bothered working at all.
Back in the living room, I feel more awake than I do first thing in the morning. My stomach is no longer aching, but my mind is animated, desperately trying to recall the details of the dream that the strange pain interrupted. But all I can remember is that my mother was unhappy, and young and alone.
Perhaps it’s my guilt that is taunting me. It’s been at least four months since I last saw her, about a month since we spoke. I owe her another visit, but I know she’s keen to become a grandmother, and she’ll just pile the pressure on, and I won’t be able to handle it. Ironic, really, that my mother is so desperate for grandchildren, when she once told me her first and only pregnancy ruined her life, professionally and personally. She seems to have forgotten that; forgotten that she told me getting pregnant was the worst thing to have happened to her. ‘Not having you, of course, my darling. Not becoming a parent. You were a blessing. But getting pregnant, that was the worst thing. The two things are quite separate. After all, a man becomes a parent but doesn’t have to get pregnant to do so. And I was just too young. My modelling career was over before it had properly begun.’
It’s a convenient excuse, but it doesn’t explain the fact she never went on to have any more children, that she stopped at me, and that she was a half-hearted mother at the best of times. It’s only now that she’s an altogether calmer and more content woman that she seems to find any appeal in children at all.
‘Don’t put it off for too long. You don’t want to be one of those women who turns around at forty-five, with only a cat for company, and wonders which friend they can impose on at Christmas this year. And I don’t want to be an old granny!’
The unjust irony of our last conversation. One rule for you, one rule for me, eh, Mum? But still, her words have affected me more deeply than she, or anyone else, realizes.
I grab my phone, unwilling to follow this train of thought. As I press the main button, the screen lights up, telling me I have a new message, and I know who it’s from even before I read it. Sent only ten minutes ago. David’s just lonely, I suppose. And still hopeful.
Jack is still glued to the television. I have a strange urge to cry. I have to sort this situation out, once and for all, but I don’t know how to.
THEN
Ash
The first thing I notice is that he’s holding a huge black holdall and that under his zip-up hoodie, his T-shirt is too tight for him, showing off the muscles across his chest.
Oh, and there’s a new scar running down one of his cheeks.
‘They let you out, then,’ I say.
‘Yeah,’ he replies. ‘Why don’t you invite me in for a cup of tea and I’ll tell you all about it?’
I can’t help thinking about the steak in my handbag and my plan for the dog. I need to get rid of Jason. He probably wants money; it’s usually about money.
‘Fine,’ I say through my teeth as I open the door with my key. ‘But I only have decaf – and I’m knackered, so you can’t stay long.’
‘Always a pleasure seeing you, too,’ he says.
Once inside, I take my coat off, plug my phone in to charge it, and he helps himself to a spot on the sofa, dumping his bag on the floor as he checks out the studio. Of course, everything’s immaculate, as it always is. Immaculate and . . . sterile. Thank God I put the vision board away last night. Aside from my purple-painted wall and the cheap Escher print hanging on it, there’s nothing personal here. That’s how I like it. It gives him nothing to use against me.
‘How did you find out where I live?’ I ask.
‘Followed you back from the office last night,’ he says.
I sigh. ‘Of course you did.’
I fill the kettle and switch it on with a fierce click. Then I unpack my bag, taking out some beetroot and salad I bought for my tea, along with the steak. He notices that, of course.
‘What’s that?’ he says.
‘Nothing,’ I reply.
‘I haven’t had a decent meal in days now.’
‘Poor you.’
‘So. Can I have it?’
I think about it, I genuinely do. Just for a few seconds. I think about the bottle under the sink, imagine how easy it would be to slip a few drops on to the steak as he watches me cook it. But of course, the idea is ridiculous. Not the sort of thing you can get away with – not like with a do
g. And I don’t want him dead, after all. Do I?
‘Trust me, I don’t think you’d like it,’ I say, turning and handing him his cup of tea. ‘Here.’
‘Ta,’ he says, taking it from me and cupping his hands round it. His fingernails are dirty and uneven, as though he’s scraped them along the side of a building. He pulls off his beanie, revealing a very recently shaved head. He looks like the thug I remember; the sort of person people cross the road to avoid. He smells, too; not of alcohol, thank God, but of sweat and laziness.
‘Fuck, it’s cold out there,’ he says, blowing on the tea. The steam settles on his nose.
I pour myself a cup of water from the jug in the fridge and sit opposite him on my tiny footstool. How can I get rid of him?
‘I’ve been waiting for hours. I thought you were never coming home. Still a workaholic, then? I guess that’s how you’ve done so well for yourself.’
‘What’s in the bag?’ I say. It’s huge. I hope he doesn’t think he’s coming to stay.
‘Got a new job, didn’t I?’ he says, kicking the bag with his foot. He rests his tea on the arm of the sofa bed. ‘While I’m at it, can I interest you in . . .?’
He unzips the bag and pulls out a bright orange duster on a plastic handle.
‘It’s flexible,’ he says, bending it. ‘For cleaning behind radiators.’
‘I think that’s known as a solution that’s looking for a problem. How much?’
‘Twelve pounds.’
‘Twelve pounds? You’re having a laugh. That’d be a pound in the local shop.’
‘Tea towels?’ he says, yanking some out from underneath the dusters and handing them to me. ‘Or how about a hazard warning triangle for your car?’
‘I don’t have a car,’ I reply, handing them back over. ‘And I have enough tea towels. Thank you.’
He chucks them down in a heap by his foot and picks up his tea again.
‘You’re just like the rest of them,’ he replies. ‘All those posh bitches in Balham. Looking at me like I’m dirt, desperate to get rid of me, calling their pathetic husbands to try to scare me off.’
The Rival Page 13