Perfect on Paper

by Gillian Harvey

  Clare felt laughter bubble up inside. It was bad. Embarrassing. She hated to imagine what Camberwaddle would have made of it. But, well. It was pretty funny. And Ann’s laughter was infectious.

  ‘Oh, Ann,’ she said. ‘I’m really sorry you had to go through that.’

  ‘Oh, it’s OK,’ Ann replied. ‘Nothing that a couple of glasses of wine won’t wipe from my memory … or at least I hope so.’

  ‘I’ll buy you a bottle to make up for it.’

  ‘I’ll hold you to that!’

  Once Clare had ended the call with Ann, and sent another apologetic email to Camberwaddle, she finally allowed herself to walk through to the kitchen. There to greet her was all the mess from breakfast. In her rush for the bus this morning she hadn’t even made it to the kitchen, but evidently everyone had assumed that she’d be there to clear up their post-breakfast debris.

  There was a pint of milk on the side, its lid sitting next to it, slowly going off with the warmth of the central heating. A teabag lay on the floor next to the bin where someone had obviously missed their shot but hadn’t considered picking it up and trying again. The sink was full of cereal bowls, and as she stepped across the room, there was the unmistakable crunch of cornflakes under her shoe.

  Even Toby had left his cup on the table, half-filled with coffee he’d not thought fit to share. His glasses lay on top of the newspaper he’d abandoned on the side and it was all she could do to stop herself dropping them on the floor and crunching them beneath her heel.

  Maybe he’d find her more attractive if she was in soft focus anyway.

  It was 3 p.m., an hour and a half before the kids would arrive home and at least another two before Toby would appear. But why should she spend her time cleaning up their mess? Seeing it, spread in front of her, was like a slap in the face.

  Her phone pinged as the kettle boiled.

  TOBY: Going to be late this evening. They’ve given me a segment on street lights to do. I couldn’t say no. And obviously there needs to be some night-time shots.

  CLARE: Oh. But I didn’t even see you this morning!

  TOBY: I know. I’m really sorry – Hatty’s been trying to get me some extra filming and I couldn’t say no.

  CLARE: Hayley?

  Clare’s mind latched on to the idea of Toby staying late with his PA.

  TOBY: No, Hatty. Hatty Bluebottle. She’s one of the producers.

  Now Toby mentioned the name, she remembered Hatty from her days as a presenter. A decade or so ago, Hatty had been the person who’d read Clare the news as she’d sipped her morning tea in bed, and the face who’d greeted her when she’d browsed the trashy magazines on the news-stand. A firmly fixed anchor in the news cycle, she’d covered everything from elections to the Golden Globes.

  Then she’d fallen from grace – got on the wrong side of the kind of magazines that Clare sometimes picked up – a little guiltily – at the petrol station. The kind that plastered pictures of celebrity couples when they were loved up but even more when they were breaking up, celebrated both weight loss and the ‘flaunting of curves’ that came with wearing a swimming costume and not being a size zero, and ripped into any well-known woman who dared to venture out for milk without her lippy on.

  When Hatty had had her infamous breakdown – she’d burst into tears during a news broadcast and had to rush off the set – memes had started popping up almost instantly online; and the gossip rags and websites had been full of it.

  Each mag had chosen a different picture of Hatty looking awful, and chosen headlines like ‘Tears for Careers’ and ‘Batty Hatty’. Now, thinking of Hatty as a real person, Clare felt suddenly guilty as if she’d been part of the character assassination herself.

  She knew that Hatty still worked behind the scenes at ITV but hadn’t realised Toby was now on first-name terms with her.

  To save her aching thumb from further texting, she dialled his number quickly.

  ‘Toby?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I wanted to say—’

  ‘Just a minute,’ he said. ‘Yeah, of course, Sebastian – won’t be a sec. Yeah, just the wife …’ Then, to her: ‘Sorry Clare, I’m a bit busy.’

  She’d wanted to share the adventure she’d had that morning – the moment of fun she’d injected into her week. Even though it was a bit embarrassing. Even though she hadn’t got through. Maybe it could lead to a bigger conversation – she could talk about how she felt. Really talk. Really get listened to.

  But it clearly wasn’t the right time.

  ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Oh, OK. See you later?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Taking a deep breath, she poured herself a cup of instant coffee – choosing haste over taste – and pushed open the door to the living room. There, too, plenty of work had been left for her to do. A pile of dirty washing sitting layered like some sort of inedible trifle where Alfie had tipped out his gym bag. Crisp crumbs on the arm of the sofa. Something sticky seeped against her trousers as she sat down.

  Bastards.

  An hour later, she was still sitting there, ignoring the mess and taking a moment to watch the news. She’d struggled to resist the urge to clear up; sitting with debris scattered everywhere made her feel twitchy. She wasn’t Marie Kondo, but she did like a well-hoovered carpet.

  A key scraped in the door and suddenly her two children entered the house. ‘Mum?’ Alfie called almost straightaway.

  ‘In here.’

  ‘Hi,’ he looked around the door, his face frowning as he took in the mess still scattered around the room. ‘Everything all right, Mum? You’re home early.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Didn’t you … didn’t you get a chance to clear up before work?’ he said, with the innocence of someone who doesn’t realise that the lion they are approaching hasn’t eaten for several days.

  ‘Funnily enough, no,’ she smiled. ‘Fancy helping me do it now?’ She looked at him, trying to feign an innocent expression.

  ‘Oh.’ The question stopped him in his tracks. Did he fancy clearing up? He seemed to ponder for a minute. ‘Do you know what,’ he said carefully. ‘I would, but I’ve got so much homework … maybe Katie …’ Already his head had disappeared from view.

  ‘Katie?’ called Clare.

  ‘Down in a bit!’ called her daughter, from halfway up the stairs – already savvy enough to have read the situation before approaching her mother.

  Both of them expected, of course, that by the time they did emerge from their important ‘homework’ (for which, without doubt, they would need their laptops, phones and use of the internet) she’d probably have cleared up much of the mess and got their dinner on the table.

  Because she was the kind of person who couldn’t leave things.

  And they were the kind of people who’d become used to leaving things for someone else to do.

  It was a killer combination.

  Chapter Nine

  Clare was still sitting up sipping a much-needed glass of red when Toby’s car purred into the drive that night. The front door lock clicked and her husband slithered into the hallway, trying to make as little noise as possible. As well he might: it was past midnight.

  ‘It’s all right, I’m up,’ she said.

  ‘Oh.’ He poked a tousled head around the door and grinned sheepishly. ‘Sorry. Another late one.’

  ‘Yep.’ She looked at her dishevelled husband and wondered how, despite the blob of yellow on his tie, despite the fact he had clearly been chewing a pen and given himself a kind of blue lip liner effect; despite even the fact that his hair was sticking up in the style of a plastic troll, he still managed to look cute and rumpled rather than scruffy and revolting.

  Damn that handsome face.

  ‘Come and sit?’ she said, patting the crumpled mess next to her on the so
fa invitingly.

  ‘It went well,’ he said, ignoring her, his eyes wide; face animated. ‘Apparently hundreds of residential street lights across London have been broken, and the Government’s renewal initiative isn’t responding quickly enough – but I’m pretty sure my report will get the mayor’s attention,’ he added, importantly.

  ‘That’s great. Look, Toby … today—’

  ‘And, well …’ her husband sat down beside her heavily, not seeming to realise he was interrupting her. ‘I wasn’t going to say anything tonight, but … well, Hatty has asked if you and I … could pop over for dinner this Friday?’

  ‘Us?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘To Hatty Bluebottle’s house?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You and me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She imagined herself sitting at a table with Hatty. It would feel like being interviewed on live TV.

  ‘Maybe.’ Another sip of wine. ‘I’m just not sure …’

  ‘She’s not as fearsome as they say, you know. And her husband, Bill, he’s got a normal job – I think she said he’s in plastics. Plastic surgeon I think.’

  ‘Right. You don’t think … maybe we could go to a restaurant or something? Might be a bit less, well, pressured.’

  ‘Yeah, but Hatty can’t really. She gets too much attention.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Of course; even though her breakdown had been years ago, the celeb mags loved to dig out pictures of some of their favourite targets looking ropey. No doubt she couldn’t enter a room without everyone getting their phone out. Poor Hatty, Clare thought, resolving never to pick up another of the celeb mags. The opposite of being invisible didn’t sound too appealing either.

  ‘And, you know … I think … I think I might be being groomed, Clare.’

  ‘Groomed?’ Her mind went to Hayley again.

  ‘Yes!’ he said, excitedly. ‘I mean I’ve been trying my damnedest to fit in. The suits? And, you know, going to the bar and stuff after work. And Hatty and I … well, we’ve – we’ve kind of become friends.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘I know, I know,’ he rolled his eyes. ‘Rumours and that. The mad lady of ITV. But the breakdown, that bit in the papers. It was all overblown. She’s a good advocate to have. And, well, a lot of people avoid her but … She … well, she has quite a lot of say in how the programmes are run.’

  ‘She does?’ Clare thought of the dishevelled woman who graced the cover of gossip mags, underneath headlines such as: ‘Has Hatty Had it?’ and ‘Out of Control: Hatty arrested for D & D’.

  ‘Thank you!’ He patted her knee happily. ‘Thank you, Clare.’

  Had she agreed? She looked at his pleading face. Damn those puppy dog eyes. ‘It’s OK,’ she said. She could hardly say no, after all. Plus, she was all about saying yes these days – embracing difficult situations. It would be terrifying to meet with Hatty and Bill in the flesh, but kind of exciting too.

  ‘So, how was your day?’ he said at last, leaning forward and grabbing half a bottle of red and his stained glass from the previous evening.

  ‘Oh, you know. Blew off work. Went on an adventure.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ he said, patting her knee affectionately. ‘Sure you did.’ He chuckled, shaking his head at her humour.

  She looked back; she simply didn’t have the energy to tell him now. And he didn’t seem to be in the frame of mind to listen.

  She tried a different tack: ‘I am thinking, though,’ she took a breath. ‘I am thinking about maybe doing something with my poems?’

  ‘Your poems?’

  ‘You know, ah, my … the poems I write. Maybe getting them bound up or something? Or, I don’t know, maybe published.’

  ‘Uh huh,’ he replied, eyes on the TV. ‘Great. And did the kids leave any shepherd’s pie at all?’

  ‘It’s in the fridge,’ she said, feeling herself tense up. ‘So you think it’s a good idea?’

  ‘Yeah, always loved shepherd’s pie.’

  ‘No, the …’ but she stopped.

  ‘And how do I heat it?’ He looked at her imploringly.

  ‘Useless!’ she said, half-joking half-infuriated. She stood up, plonking down her glass of wine and made her way to the kitchen. It was easier to heat up his food herself than witness him fiddling with the microwave, and either burning it to a crisp or undercooking it and spending the rest of the week on the toilet.

  In the kitchen, she thought back to that moment in front of the two judges. How they’d nodded and said afterwards they might be in touch. How she knew, really, that it was a rejection. But how she’d stepped out of her comfort zone today – and, like Toby’s shepherd’s pie on the microwave plate – her world was still turning.

  Chapter Ten

  Clare had set her alarm for 6 a.m., keen to go in and sort out any backlog from her day off yesterday, but her body had other ideas and instead had woken her up before it at 5 a.m., her heart racing. Still, she thought as she climbed out of bed and crept past the snoring lump of husband next to her, she might as well get a head start.

  The bus ride to town was amazingly quick and Clare wondered whether she ought to go in early all the time. According to the last report from the local garage, her car wasn’t ‘viable’ – meaning the repairs would cost more than the cost of replacing her vehicle entirely. So unless she dipped into their ever-decreasing savings or drained their emergency credit card it looked as though she’d be a frequent traveller for the foreseeable.

  This early start was a way of making up for her lack of professionalism yesterday, she thought. She’d had her moment of madness, and now it was time to knuckle down and appreciate the fact that she did actually have it pretty good. Well, fairly good. Or not too bad, anyway.

  The office was dark when she came in, keying in the alarm code and putting on the lights in all the rooms to make it seem less forbidding. Like many small offices close to the town centre, the Mann Company was based in a Victorian bay windowed building that had once been a house. Once the computers were turned off and the phones went silent, it retreated into itself – there was a different atmosphere, a different smell first thing in the morning. ‘Do you think it’s haunted?’ Ann had asked her once. Clare had laughed, but on the rare times she was alone in the office, she didn’t feel quite so amused.

  There would be someone else here in a minute, she told herself firmly, and marched up to her office, clutching her latte (a safer bet than cappuccino these days).

  Camberwaddle had already replied to her apologetic email.

  Dear Clare,

  Thank you for your email.

  I do understand that yesterday couldn’t be helped. My concern is not knowing whether I will have the support I need, going forward.

  I can’t make a meeting today, but am able to come into the offices tomorrow to discuss what the Mann Company can do for me.

  Best,

  Stefan

  It wasn’t particularly warm; it wasn’t particularly promising. But he was coming in tomorrow – she’d have the chance for a proper hearing to convince him.

  Nigel stuck his head around the door at about 8.30 a.m., making her jump. ‘Feeling better, Carol?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s Clare.’

  ‘Glad to hear it, glad to hear it,’ he said. ‘Um, any news from Mr Camberwaddle?’

  ‘Yes, he’s going to come in tomorrow to discuss everything.’

  ‘Good, good. Um …’ he paused, his cheeks reddening slightly. ‘Er, I don’t suppose. I mean, he didn’t mention any specifics about yesterday, at all?’

  ‘No, sir,’ she said, innocently. ‘Like what?’

  ‘Oh, nothing, nothing. I mean … well, he may have been privy to a rather … an intimate team building exercise between Will and I.’

  ‘No, he didn’t mention it,’ she replied, tr
uthfully – deciding not to tell him that Ann had filled her in on the details, or ask him what type of boxers he had on today out of interest.

  Nigel’s shoulders visibly relaxed. ‘Right. Well, onwards and upwards, as they say!’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Last day in the old office, eh!’ he added.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘You know … new carpet today – moving into your corner office tomorrow!’ he said, with a gesture that looked as if he’d aimed for a thumbs up but thought better of it.

  She felt her stomach sink. ‘I—’ she said, but he’d already disappeared from view.

  She looked around the office that had been her home-from-home for four years. Her certificates on the wall, the blinds she’d chosen herself, her beloved leather chair, purchased after she’d had a brilliant quarter and netted herself a sizeable bonus.

  She’d hoped that the whole ‘corner office’ thing would fizzle out. Nigel had ideas from time to time but didn’t always follow them through. And she’d meant to talk to him about it, to tell him it just wasn’t acceptable. But Nigel’s plans were moving at uncharacteristic speed and it looked as if she’d left it too late.

  She’d just thought that when Nigel had seen the office/cupboard properly, when he’d tried to have it renovated, attempted to have her things moved, he would realise that it wasn’t fair to do this to her. That there must be another solution.

  Should she have pointed it out to him? She worked so, so hard. In spite of herself, she felt the tears come and tried to bury herself in work to get back on an even keel.

  Ann was in shortly afterwards. ‘Are you all right?’ she said, noticing Clare’s slightly red eyes.

  ‘Oh, just ignore me.’

  ‘No – seriously, what’s up?’ Ann put the files down and walked to Clare’s side of the desk, slinging a friendly arm around her shoulder.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I might have lost my best client … and I’m being moved into a coat cupboard.’ Clare smiled at the ridiculousness of it, despite feeling tears well up again. Perhaps if she tried hard enough, she could make a rainbow.