The Other Side of the Story

by Marian Keyes

  ‘I’m sure.’

  TO: Jojo.harvey@LIPMAN HAIGH.co

  FROM: Mark.avery@LIPMAN HAIGH.co

  SUBJECT: I meant what I said

  Not just a ploy to get you into bed.

  M xx

  ‘He used those exact words?’ Becky said. ‘My God, he’s clever.’

  ‘Yes. I keep telling you he is.’

  Becky looked surprised at Jojo’s evident irritation. ‘Easy, girl.’

  For the next nine days, Jojo and Mark tiptoed around each other, blushing and dropping things whenever they came into contact. Jojo reported every little encounter to Becky, who remained concerned but reluctantly fascinated. She’d never slept with a Managing Partner – a Head of Sales had been her most senior post.

  On day ten Mark asked Jojo out for dinner; he wanted to ‘have a talk’.

  ‘A talk about getting into your knickers,’ Becky sighed.

  Good, Jojo thought.

  ‘Here’s how it is,’ Mark said, between the starter and the main course. ‘I’m not going to tell you that my wife doesn’t understand me. I won’t tell you that we never have sex because, very occasionally, we still do. And I love my two children, I don’t want to do anything to hurt them.’

  ‘Like leave?’

  ‘Yes. So now it’s up to you. You deserve a hell of a lot more than I’m offering, but what I can say is that I’ve never felt about anyone else the way I feel about you.’

  ‘And you don’t make a habit of this sort of thing?’

  He looked shocked. ‘Absolutely not.’

  As soon as Jojo got home she rang Becky and relayed the conversation.

  ‘He’s moving fast,’ Becky observed. ‘You don’t want him to leave his kids. You just want to sleep with him.’

  ‘Do I? That’s OK then.’

  At work the next morning an email was waiting.

  TO: Jojo.harvey@LIPMAN HAIGH.co

  FROM: Mark.avery@LIPMAN HAIGH.co

  SUBJECT: Please

  Please. (Interrogative form of) to beg, beseech, plead, implore, supplicate or entreat.

  M xx

  To her surprise, her eyes were suddenly swimming with tears. It was too much, all of it – his wife and children, his tender humility. We have to do something.

  It was Becky who came up with the idea of them Getting it Out of Their Systems. ‘He might be atrocious in bed,’ she said hopefully. ‘He might turn your stomach.’

  Jojo doubted it but, in jokey embarrassment, ran it by Mark. ‘And with a bit of luck you’ll go right off me.’

  The look he gave signalled how unlikely that was. ‘Well, if you’re sure…’

  She nodded.

  ‘So where shall we…? I mean, I could…’

  ‘Come to my place. I’ll make dinner. No,’ she amended. ‘I won’t. If I cook for you, I’ll never get rid of you.’

  He approached sex with her like he approached everything else: with determination, confidence, attention to detail, and he removed her clothes as if he was unwrapping a gift.

  Afterwards she asked, ‘How was it for you?’

  ‘Disastrous.’ He stared at the ceiling. ‘I haven’t gone off you at all. You?’

  ‘Even worse than I expected.’

  ‘Well? Was he fabulous?’ Becky asked the following day. ‘Or a bit crap? Sometimes those old guys can be terrible.’ Becky had once slept with a drunken thirty-seven-year-old and regarded herself as an authority.

  ‘It’s not like that,’ Jojo said irritably. ‘It’s much more than sex, Mark’s my favourite person.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Becky said, shocked.

  ‘No, I’m sorry.’ Jojo was also shocked.

  ‘So what happens now? Now that you’ve got it all out of your systems?’

  ‘Only a fool would start a relationship with a married man.’

  ‘And you, Jojo, are no fool.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So when do you see him again?’

  ‘Tonight.’

  That night Mark asked Jojo about her first boyfriend and she laughed and said, ‘I can’t tell you, the jealousy will kill you.’

  ‘I can handle it.’

  ‘OK, he was a proby from my pop’s firehouse.’

  ‘Proby?’

  ‘New guy. Rookie.’

  ‘You mean he was a firefighter? Oh fuck, how sorry am I, I asked. But keep talking, I have to know now. Huge, was he?’

  ‘Huge. Six four, arms like tree trunks, he worked out with weights. He had, like, this chest that he used to crush me against and I couldn’t break free until he said so.’

  ‘Aaaagh.’

  Jojo laughed. ‘You did ask. But you know what? Anyone can be a gorilla with a big chest. Takes more’n that to keep me interested.’

  The funny thing was that after she’d fallen for Mark, she discovered that everyone else fancied him – Louisa, Pam etc.

  She was surprised that she hadn’t realized. ‘I thought Jim was the man?’ she asked Louisa. ‘No?’

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, Jim is beautiful, but Mark… Mark is pure sex. I would give… let me see… OK! This is how bad it is – I would never buy shoes again if I could have just one hour in bed with Mark Avery.’ She shivered dramatically. ‘I bet he’s an ABSOLUTE animal.’

  Sunday morning

  Jojo woke up and reached for a P.G. Wodehouse from the pile of comfort reads beside her bed. She loved him and Agatha Christie, all the stuff she used to read growing up in New York and fantasizing about the British part of her heritage. Even now she knew the books were nothing like the real world, she still derived great pleasure from them.

  Then she got up and did her ironing while she waited for it to be late enough to ring her parents in Queens; she called them every Sunday and they had pretty much the same conversation every week.

  ‘Hey, Pops!’

  ‘When’re you coming home?’

  ‘You just saw me! Remember Christmas? Like, a month ago?’

  ‘Nah, when’re you coming back for good? Your mother worries about you. You know the precinct would have you back in a heartbeat.’ Noises in the background. ‘Waidaminnit, I’m talking to her! She’s my daughter too. Aw, here, your mother wants to talk to you.’

  A staticy rustle as Charlie relinquished the phone.

  ‘Hello, my darling girl, how are you?’

  ‘Fine, Mom, great. Everyone OK?’

  ‘Fine. Don’t listen to that old fool. It’s just that he worries about you. Is there any chance –’

  ‘I’ll try to come in the summer, yeah?’

  When she hung up ten minutes later, she felt vaguely guilty but as she explained to her wallet, ‘I live here now, see? This is home.’ She loved her wallet. It was great company and much more convenient than having a dog.

  Then she left to get the bus to Becky and Andy’s cosy West Hampstead flat. The tube would have been faster but she preferred the bus because you got to see things; after living there for ten years, she still loved London, even though it had a lot of catching up on New York to do, especially in the area of nail-care.

  ‘Oh good,’ Andy said, when he opened the door to her. ‘We’re going to Sainsbury’s. You can help carry the bags.’

  After the weekly shop was done, she traipsed after them to the garden centre.

  ‘Do you mind me always playing third wheel?’

  ‘No,’ Andy said. ‘Livens things up a bit, gives me and Becks something to talk about.’

  Andy and Becky had been together for eighteen months and they liked to make it sound as if they never had sex and were bored rigid with each other, a sure sign, Jojo knew, that they were crazy about each other. No one made those kinds of jokes unless they felt very secure. As a result Becky wanted everyone to be settled down and happy, especially Jojo.

  ‘The Wyatt girls are having a party,’ Becky announced, back at home, when they’d lugged the shopping bags into the kitchen.

  The Wyatt sisters, Magda, Marina, and Mazie, were friends of Becky’s since they�
��d shared a house for a six-month period before Becky moved in with Andy. They were blonde, posh, beautiful, rich and astonishingly kind and warm. They moved in more high-octane circles than Becky’s but were so nice that they stayed in touch and always invited her and Jojo to their parties.

  Becky had a crush on all three of them, all three had a crush on Jojo, and even Jojo had a slight pash for Magda, the eldest, the one with the best organizational skills. ‘But NOT in a sexual way,’ she kept telling Andy.

  ‘Whatever,’ he said. ‘I’m terrified of them. They’re so… fabulous.’

  ‘It’s Mazie’s thirtieth. She’s having a bash in the parents’ Hampstead mansion. Not until June but they want to make sure you’re available.’

  ‘June?’ Jojo exclaimed.

  ‘Is that a posh thing?’ Andy wondered. ‘Giving several months’ notice?’

  ‘How would I know? Just one thing. It’s fancy dress.’

  ‘Fancy dress,’ Jojo moaned softly. ‘Why does it have to be fancy dress?’

  She hated fancy dress – normal dress was difficult enough – and she always went as a red devil: neck-to-toe tight-fitting black with red horns in her hair and a red tail on her butt.

  ‘But it’ll be a great party and you might meet someone. Like –’ Becky stopped, embarrassed – ‘available.’

  ‘Not everyone is as lucky as you,’ Jojo said.

  ‘No, there’s only one of me to go round,’ Andy said.

  ‘No one else would have you,’ Becky said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Jojo agreed, although she figured Andy was quite good-looking for a faithful man.

  ‘Work tomorrow,’ Becky said sadly, looking up from a sea of newspaper. ‘Last night I dreamt I gave the wrong figures to British Airways and over-refunded hundreds of people, and they’re not even my client. Although they will be soon,’ she added gloomily, ‘the way things are going. Every bloody company in the whole bloody world will be my client. It was a nightmare, I woke up shaking.’

  ‘This is turning into an obsession,’ Andy said. ‘You’ve got to confront Elise.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Calmly. Just say what you say to me.’

  ‘What if it turns nasty?’

  ‘Nasty? It’s just business, stop being so emotional about it. Be like Jojo. If someone was messing her about at work, she’d tell it to them straight.’ Andy stopped. ‘Mind you, she’s sleeping with her boss, which could turn extremely nasty.’

  ‘Enough already,’ Jojo said.

  ‘How is your adulterous liaison?’ Andy asked. ‘What’s going to happen?’

  Jojo squirmed. ‘Ask Becky. She’s director of emotional affairs.’

  ‘Well?’

  Becky considered. ‘There are several possible outcomes. I’ll make a list.’ She scribbled for a few minutes on the ‘Style’ section of the Sunday Times then announced, ‘OK. Possibilities.’

  Mark leaves his wife

  His wife is also having an affair with, let’s say, their son’s teacher and she leaves mark

  Jojo and Mark gradully go off each other and end up being friends

  The wife dies tragically from – what do people die of? Scarlet fever. Jojo enters mark’s household as governess to his children and after a respectable time has elapsed, he can go public that he’s fallen for her

  ‘Which one do you like the most?’

  ‘None. I don’t want him and his wife to break up.’

  ‘So you just want to carry on being a sidecar in the motorbike of his life?’ Andy asked.

  ‘No, but…’ She didn’t want to break up anyone’s marriage. Part of the moral code she’d been brought up with was that family was paramount. If ever any of the firefighters in her father’s firehouse was fooling around with a woman who wasn’t his wife, the other guys on the rig got involved. They urged and counselled the renegade husband to return to the wife: he usually did. And on the rare occasions when he didn’t, ranks closed around the wife and the man found himself out in the cold.

  ‘And what about his kids? They’ll hate me.’

  ‘They’ll live with their mother.’

  ‘But they’ll come to us and ruin our weekends. Sorry,’ she said a mite defensively. ‘I’m just being honest.’

  ‘But you’re so good with kids,’ Becky said. ‘Shayna’s two love you.’

  ‘I want kids but I want them to be babies first. Not a teenager who’s already showing signs of delinquency and a goofy girl who falls off ponies. I’d spend all my down time at the Emergency Room.’

  ‘Isn’t George Clooney a hunk of a man?’ This came from Andy.

  ‘I prefer Mark.’

  ‘Bloody hell. So what do you want?’

  ‘I want him never to have been married and for there to be no children.’

  Becky consulted her list. ‘Sorry. That option isn’t on it.’

  ‘What a bummer,’ Jojo sighed.

  ‘How bad actually is it?’ Becky asked. ‘How strongly do you feel about him? On a scale of one to Dominic?’

  ‘Who’s Dominic?’ Andy asked.

  ‘Before your time,’ Becky explained. ‘The Big One.’

  ‘See, when I first came to Britain ten years ago, I didn’t realize that some of the guys I met were assholes,’ Jojo said. ‘I just thought they were being British. And even when I knew they were assholes, they were British assholes, so it didn’t seem so bad. It took a little time before I became discriminating in my choices.’

  ‘The idiots she went out with…’

  ‘Then I met Dominic.’

  ‘And he wasn’t an idiot. He was a six-foot-three hunk, a journalist. He deserved her. She nearly married him, they got engaged, a ring and everything. But he got cold feet. Well, not exactly cold feet, he thought he might have cold feet…’

  ‘He decided he “wasn’t sure”,’ Jojo said. ‘The week before we were supposed to move in together. I could keep the ring but we were no longer engaged. We weren’t ruling out getting married but not at any definite time. Then he thought we should take a break from each other –’

  ‘– but he kept showing up pissed, keen to play hide the sausage –’

  ‘– salami –’

  ‘Sorry, I forgot he was The Big One in more ways than one.’

  ‘He broke my heart,’ Jojo said simply. ‘But luckily I’m one of the world’s stronger women and I wouldn’t take that kind of crap from him. From any man.’

  ‘Ah, you did a bit,’ Becky said. ‘Remember the time you lied to me and swore he just needed a bed for the night and then I walked in and caught you at it –’

  ‘OK, OK, I might have succumbed once or twice –’

  ‘– or twenty times.’

  ‘But I finished it. And I got over it.’

  ‘If it was me, I’d still be hanging on, hoping he’d finally make his mind up,’ Becky said. ‘I’d be a wreck. Five and a half stone, nails bitten to the knuckle and my hobby would be sucking the ends of my hair. I’d be on Prozac and Valium and I’d sleep on the floor by the phone. I’d eat baby food out of the jar and –’

  ‘How long ago was this?’ Andy interrupted.

  Jojo had to think. ‘Six years?’ She consulted Becky who looked as though she’d just come out of a trance. ‘Six and a half?’

  ‘What’s he doing now?’ Andy asked. ‘Did he meet someone else?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue. And I couldn’t care less.’

  ‘Do you still have the ring?’

  ‘Nah. I sold it and me and Becky went to Thailand for two weeks.’

  ‘Do you love Mark as much as you loved Dominic?’ Becky asked.

  Jojo thought about it for a long time and concluded, ‘Probably more. But he’s married.’

  The thing was, though, that lately Mark had begun half hinting at the possibility of leaving Cassie. Unprompted half hinting. Jojo would never instigate it. Perhaps eventually all the cloak and dagger stuff would become unbearable, instead of being merely irritating, and maybe then she’d press for more. But
at the moment the speculation about their happy future –such as it was – was all coming from him.

  24

  8.30 Monday morning

  On her way into Lipman Haigh Jojo passed a man loitering in the street outside. He was combing his hair in someone’s wing mirror and his face was the colour of keylime pie. She was almost certain that it was Nathan Frey, horribly, nervously early for his nine o’clock appointment.

  9.00 and ten seconds, Monday morning

  Manoj announced Nathan and it was indeed the same man, keylime-pie face all present and correct.

  He was a wreck. He’d spent three years writing the book; he’d taken out a second mortgage on his house, left his wife and family for six months and, disguised as a woman, lived in Afghanistan. He’d already been turned down by a couple of agents – ‘More fool them,’ said Jojo – and now that he was this close to a real live agent, a person who had the power to realize his dream of getting published, he fell to pieces a little.

  But when Jojo congratulated him on his wonderful book and explained how she thought it could be sold worldwide, his keylime pallor receded and gradually he took on a healthier colour, more like a Bailey’s cheesecake.

  ‘Is the manuscript with anyone else at the moment? Any other agents?’ Jojo asked. It wouldn’t be the first time that an author had done a mass mailing and ended up with several agents claiming the author as their own.

  ‘No, I’ve been doing them one at a time.’

  Good. At least she wouldn’t have to pitch against any other agents.

  ‘I couldn’t believe it when you rang. I want an agent like you wouldn’t believe…’

  ‘Well, you’ve got one,’ Jojo said and immediately two bright spots of raspberry coulis burst onto his cheeks.

  ‘Wow,’ he said quietly, and clenched his fists. ‘Christ.’ He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. ‘I can’t believe this.’ His entire face had pinkened into a pretty strawberry mousse glow. ‘So what happens now?’

  ‘I get you a deal.’

  ‘Really?’ He seemed startled. ‘Just like that?’

  ‘It’s a great book. Lots of publishers will want to buy it.’