by Jane Fallon
22
Roz is in my office. I was sitting at my desk, concentrating on reading through some notes, and before I knew it she had come in and shut the door behind her. It’s two days since my lunch with Glen and I’ve avoided her successfully ever since. My mind is full of Ashley and the baby. Real life. I haven’t got the time or the energy for Roz’s games.
‘I need to talk to you,’ she says now. Her eyes are red-rimmed as if she’s been crying or up all night, or both. I’ve never seen her look like this. Despite everything my first thought is concern for her.
‘Is everything OK?’
‘Can we go somewhere? I don’t want everyone looking in and seeing me in a state.’
‘Um … sure. Glen’s gone home early; let’s head in there.’
I follow her out and down the corridor. Emma looks up at me as I pass and I shrug.
Glen’s office has proper walls, not glass, so when I shut the door we’re completely on our own. Just us and his wall full of photos from other shows he’s worked on. Him gurning matily with various TV stars. Beard in different stages of growth.
I’m about to say something, to ask what the hell is going on, when Roz flops down on to the sofa and puts her head in her hands.
‘I’m sorry I’ve been such a bitch,’ she says through tears.
I say nothing. Because I have no idea what to say. I have no idea what’s going on.
‘I know I’ve been awful and I did all those mean things and then I went and spoke to Glen about you but I’m having a terrible time, Holly. I don’t know what to do.’
I sit on the armchair opposite. I don’t feel as if I can say fine, let’s just forget about it all then, because the bottom line is she has jeopardized my job. Not to mention that I’m beyond curious to know what’s going on.
‘Right …’ I say.
She looks up, tears pouring down her face. In the three years I’ve known her I’ve never seen Roz cry. It’s so wrong. Like watching a sloth suddenly sprint. It shouldn’t be possible.
‘Hugh and I split up about three months ago,’ she says. That gets my attention.
‘What? That’s awful, I’m sorry.’
‘I’ve had to move into this shitty little flat in Shepherd’s Bush while we try and sell the house because he feels as if he has more right to live there than me. He paid for most of it after all.’ She makes quote marks with her hands as she says ‘paid for most of it’ so I gather this is a sentence Hugh has actually uttered.
I feel as if the rug’s been pulled out from under me. In some ways this explains so much. I’m still confused, though, to say the least.
‘But … what about the party you just had for him?’
She looks up at me. Manages a watery half-smile. ‘That’s the party I was planning before this all happened. Those people I was talking about would all have been there. We’d have invited them all, anyway. As it is I have no idea what he did for his birthday because he wouldn’t tell me. I don’t know if he thought I’d turn up and make a scene or what. I spent the evening at home, crying into a microwave meal for one. I feel like such an idiot, that I told everyone about it as if it had happened. I just couldn’t admit the truth; I don’t know why. Imagine how smug Juliet would be. And Lorraine knew when his birthday weekend was, and what I’d been planning originally, and you know what she’s like, she kept asking me about it …’
‘I’m sorry …’ I don’t know what else to say.
She looks at the floor. ‘I’ve done some really shitty things to you these past few weeks. All the stupid messages and that meeting that disappeared from your diary. All me. Oh God, and the story conference document …’
I realize I’ve been holding my breath and I let out a long exhalation. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t even know. I think I was just trying to make myself focus on something other than Hugh. Or I was having a breakdown. There’s no excuse. I’ve been an absolute bitch.’
‘I shouldn’t have retaliated …’
‘God, no. You should have. I deserved it. But I should never have gone running straight to Glen. That was unforgiveable. And then when he took you out for lunch on Monday, I knew that was why it was, and I felt good about it. I wanted him to bollock you for it … I’m really sorry, Holly.’
‘You knew that I blamed Juliet. You told me you were sure it was her.’
‘I know. And I’m so sorry. Don’t tell her the truth though, will you? I couldn’t bear to have her laughing at me behind my back.’
I shake my head. Of course I won’t. ‘I won’t. Why are you telling me all this now?’
‘It was that. Monday. Me getting off on the fact that you might be getting told off. Once the initial buzz had worn off I started to feel really shitty. Like I’d taken things to a whole other level and that just wasn’t right …’
‘Did you want my job?’ I look straight at her, willing her to look me in the eye, and she does. Then her gaze goes back down to the floor.
‘Yes. I applied. And I guess I felt a bit hard done by that I’d been here longer than you but you got it.’
‘If that was the criterion then it should just as well have been Juliet’s.’
Roz lets out a small laugh. ‘Right. I knew I was being ridiculous.’
‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘I mean, it’s been shitty, but I understand.’
‘I don’t really deserve that, so thank you. I’m not sure I’d be so forgiving.’
I sigh. Suddenly everything makes sense. ‘I appreciate you coming clean. It can’t have been easy.’
She drags a hand through her hair. ‘I feel like an absolute bitch. You were my friend …’
I wave the comment away. ‘Forget about it. Is there someone else? With Hugh, I mean?’
‘He won’t tell me. I assume so – isn’t there always?’
Her throat catches with a sob. I lean over, put a hand on her knee.
‘Shit. Do you need to take some time off to sort yourself out? Find yourself somewhere proper to live?’
She shakes her head. ‘No, God, thanks, but the last thing I need now is to be flopping around on my own.’
‘Well, if you do, just say.’
‘I will. Thank you. Listen, don’t tell any of the others, will you, not just Juliet? I couldn’t bear all the sympathy. Not yet.’
I agree that I won’t. I can understand why she feels that way, although I do wonder if it’s sympathy or Schadenfreude she’s afraid of. ‘Of course.’
There’s silence for a moment, and then she says, ‘Can we be friends again? I’ll understand if you say no.’
She looks so pathetic. So desperate for me to say yes. My heart goes out to her. I’ve never been one to bear a grudge. I can’t stand knowing I have bad blood with someone.
‘Of course,’ I say, relieved that it’s all over. ‘Of course we can.’
Part Two
* * *
23
Ashley has been home for a week. I’m so grateful to have her here to look after but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a bit difficult, having a third person in the flat all the time. My back is aching from sleeping on the sofa. I find myself apologizing to Hattie over and over again, that she has to wait longer for the bathroom, or because the kitchen is a mess or a stray packet of cereal has found its way into her one cupboard. Not that she’s complained. Not yet.
They seem to be getting on well. I hear them chatting in the kitchen late one night, when I’ve gone to bed, the living-room door slightly open so that Smokey can come and go between me and Ashley during the night.
‘The thing is …’ Ashley says, ‘it felt more like hard work trying to manage his lack of enthusiasm rather than just getting on with things on my own.’
‘Exactly,’ Hattie says. ‘Sometimes it’s better to take control.’
‘I hope so. Shit.’
‘Do you have a relationship with your dad?’ I hear Hattie ask, and I hold my breath, waiting for Ashley’s answer.
‘No. I’ve never
met him,’ she says, and leaves it at that.
Ashley has only asked me about her dad once in her whole twenty-two-year life. When she was small I waited for the questions, I spent hours trying to compose the perfect answer. Truthful but not too truthful. The fact that I didn’t even know his surname could wait until she was older. And then, when they didn’t come, I worried that maybe she thought it would upset me if she asked, that she was censoring herself for my sake. Eventually I realized that almost none of her friends at school had two parents. And if they did they were just as likely to have two mums or two dads. I loved that she was growing up understanding that families came in all shapes and sizes, without ever questioning it.
Then, one day when she was about fourteen, already taller than me but blighted with a self-consciousness that made her stoop, we were sitting eating in the kitchen and, out of nowhere she said, ‘Have I got a dad?’
I was so surprised I shovelled in a huge mouthful of food to give me time to think. Ashley just sat there, looking at the table, waiting for me to swallow it and answer her.
‘Of course,’ I said eventually. ‘He … um … he was a boy I was at college with … Lawrence. Lol.’
‘Have I ever met him?’
I reached across the table and took hold of her hand. ‘No. We were very young. Way too young really. He didn’t feel ready.’
She nodded as if that made sense. ‘Were you in love with him?’
I couldn’t lie to her. Not now. ‘We didn’t know each other for very long, so no. If you … um … ever want to try and track him down, though, I could help you …’
She shrugged. ‘No thanks. I just wondered, that’s all.’
‘Right,’ I said. I waited to see if she had any more questions.
‘He’s not my dad though, really, is he? Not in the real sense. I mean, he was more like a sperm donor.’
‘Ashley!’ I said, and then I laughed because I couldn’t help myself. And so did she, the pair of us giggling till we had tears in our eyes.
After that I waited for her to ask again, wondering if now she had the bare facts she’d want to know more. But she never did.
I have no idea what she’s going to do now. She veers daily between making plans for the baby and thinking about getting rid of it while she still can, between going back to Bristol or staying in London, between returning to her job or returning to college. I know that her work have been phoning, trying to establish when she’ll be back, and I imagine there’s only so long they’ll wait, but when I try to bring up the time pressure on all of her decisions it sends her into a panic. So I’m tiptoeing round the subject and just trying to be there to listen. I remember well enough what it was like to be pregnant so young. That feeling that whatever decisions you made were going to impact the whole of the rest of your life so maybe it was easier not to make any decisions at all. I have to let her come to her own conclusions.
Work, on the other hand, has been much better. For the first time since my promotion I feel as if I can focus on doing a good job. I go all out to prove to Glen that he was right to have faith in me. Roz is quieter than usual, but we’re on good terms and she’s getting on with her work. Despite everything I worry about her.
I have just four weeks left of my probation period. I report back to Glen that everything has calmed down, that Roz and I have sorted out our differences – without telling him the details – and he congratulates me for having handled it well. I glow inside like I just got top marks from the teacher.
In the evenings I try to encourage Ashley to talk about the future without making her feel as if I’m cornering her. I tell her that when the baby’s born she can come and stay with me until she gets on her feet, even though I haven’t even begun to think about the practicalities of how that might work. Hattie, to give her credit, never asks when she might get her peace and quiet back, or if she can have a rent discount because she’s having to share the facilities with more people than she signed up for, one of whom seems happy to lie in the bath for a good hour every evening, talking to her friends on the phone. I write myself a mental note to make it up to her somehow.
Ashley, it turns out, is her mother’s daughter. When I get home from work on the Friday she announces that she’s made a decision. Several decisions, actually. She’s having the baby. She’s going to move in with her best uni friend Brooke whose flatmate has recently moved out. She’s spoken to her work and they’re happy to have her back from Sunday, day shifts only. She put her foot down. No more drunken stag parties or walking home at 1 a.m. I pull her into a tearful hug.
‘I’m so proud of you,’ I say into her hair.
I breathe a sigh of relief. Everything is going to be OK.
Of course, as soon as you think that you’re doomed. It’s the equivalent of the teenage girl confidently telling her terrified friends that she’s killed the monster in the basement. As soon as she says it out loud you just know he’s going to burst through the door with an axe.
Dee, of course, can’t leave things alone. Why that woman has never found work as a private detective I’ll never know. I haven’t seen her all week because I’ve been coming straight home and cooking healthy balanced meals for my daughter. Sometimes, as a mother, that’s all you know how to do. As if eating vegetables for seven days might fix the problems in your offspring’s life.
But Dee has been busy.
‘Have I got news for you,’ she says, wide-eyed, as soon as I let her in on Saturday evening. Ashley left for Bristol this afternoon, both of us teary-eyed. Hattie has gone to her mum’s, probably to get away from the drama and hormones. Gavin, so Dee told me when we texted to arrange to meet up, is watching some World Cup warm-up on the big screen at a pub up the road with a couple of his mates.
‘What?’ I say impatiently. It doesn’t even cross my mind that it might be to do with Roz, that’s how much progress we’ve made in the last couple of weeks.
‘I need a drink first.’ She hands me a bottle of white, and I put it in the fridge, taking out the cold one I put in there earlier.
‘Oh God, Dee. What have you done?’ I pour the wine. Put the bottle back. Get it out again. Top up our glasses some more.
Dee flops down at the kitchen table and I join her. ‘Don’t be cross with me,’ she says. Words no one ever wants to hear.
‘OK. Spit it out.’ I don’t know what I’m expecting her to say but it certainly isn’t what comes next.
She exhales theatrically. ‘Well. I know you sorted everything out with Roz …’
I’d called Dee and told her about Roz’s apology straight after it happened. ‘It explains everything,’ I’d said. ‘I mean, it doesn’t wipe out the things she’s done but at least I understand now. I feel bad for her …’
Now, though, my heart sinks. ‘I did.’
‘It just didn’t feel quite right …’
‘Nothing ever does with you,’ I snap. ‘Why can’t you ever accept anything at face value?’
She looks taken aback and I immediately feel bad. ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I just thought all this had gone away.’
‘I won’t tell you if you don’t want me to,’ she says petulantly.
‘No. Go on. I have to know now.’
She carries on, but I can tell I’ve taken the wind out of her sails a bit. ‘So, anyway, something didn’t seem right. I mean, I felt bad that Hugh had walked out on her but didn’t you think it was odd that she kept on making up all that stuff about the party and the dinners and whatever else she’d been telling you all. And it still didn’t really explain why she’d been so horrible to you. Or why she lied about applying for the job in the first place …’
I want to tell her to get to the point but at the same time I’m not entirely sure I want to hear what she has to say. Life has been so much easier since Roz and I called a ceasefire.
‘And …’ Dee continues, ‘I was telling Gav about it and he agreed. There was something off. Even if Hugh did have a bee in his bonnet about him earning much more
than her it still seems unlikely that he’d kick her out and let her move into that shithole when he’s the one in the wrong here. Unless he’s just an out-and-out bastard, which, of course, it’s possible he is. Anyway … it was driving me mad trying to work out what was going on. I just didn’t want her taking you for a ride, that’s all …’
‘I appreciate that,’ I say, feeling guilty about my earlier outburst. ‘I do.’
‘I’m just going to say this next bit quickly and get it over with. Don’t kill me …’ She looks at me pleadingly. Sweeps her fringe to one side and then smooths it down again.
‘Get on with it. Jesus …’
‘OK. So, Gav said why didn’t I check Hugh out. See if there was more to the story. He said why don’t you phone up Fitzrovia PR and say you represent someone famous and they need a new press person. You could set up a meeting with him. See if you could get him talking about anything personal.’
‘You didn’t?’
She looks at the table ‘I did. This afternoon.’
‘No, Dee …’
‘I asked for Hugh Whitehall. They said that he’d popped out but then they asked me what it was about …’ She breaks off to pour more wine into her glass.
‘Oh my God. Just tell me.’
‘I told them I was Eddie Redmayne’s manager – I thought I’d better go high-end because most of their clients seem quite knobby – and that he needed new PR and quickly because something had happened. I didn’t say what, obviously, because that would have been slandering him and you know how rumours start …’
I resist the urge to interrupt and ask her to get to the point. I know how much Dee loves giving a story a full airing. I feel sick.
‘And I said that I’d heard Hugh was the best and that he was the only person I wanted to talk to. Anyway …’ Here she takes a long pause for dramatic effect. ‘… guess what they said?’
