He lapses into silence again and I’m thinking the only thing I can say now is goodbye, if I can even manage to push that out. But then he seems to rouse himself suddenly. ‘Hey, I’ve just remembered, I am coming over to Horizon the week after next to see Rupert. Maybe I’ll see you then?’
‘Oh, really?’ Slowly I drag myself up from the depths and open my eyes. ‘When exactly is that?’ I get up, walk fast into the kitchen and take the calendar down from its hook.
‘It’s the twenty-sixth. A week on Friday.’ And then he says, ‘Ten days,’ as he writes an ‘R’ on the calendar in his kitchen, and I say ‘Ten days,’ as I write an ‘H’ on mine.
Standing in his kitchen, Hector runs his hand over his face, shaking his head. He has to try and focus on other aspects of his life. Like speaking to Glenn, for example. He’s neglected so much lately and it’s got to the point where other people are starting to be affected by his lethargy. He picks up the car keys and goes immediately to his brother’s house to put that right at least.
Here are Glenn and Sarah, slumped in front of the telly together, their bodies not quite touching at the sides. The doorbell has just rung so Sarah is getting up. Glenn watches her as she stands, then goes back to the film.
Sarah lets Hector in and offers him a drink. ‘You look exhausted,’ he says to her kindly. ‘Let me make you one.’
‘Oh, thanks, Hec. Great.’
‘Glenn, come and show me where the cups are.’
Glenn looks up from the sofa. ‘You know where they are – they’re all in the cupboard next to the—’
‘Show me,’ Hector says meaningfully, so Glenn heaves himself up from the sofa and follows his brother into the kitchen.
Hector closes the door. ‘I need to speak to you.’
Glenn raises his eyebrows. He looks calm, unbothered. ‘Hec, can’t this wait? There’s a really good film on.’
Hector walks to him and says in a very low voice, ‘I know about your affair.’
Glenn’s face shows the smallest flicker. ‘What affair?’
‘And I want you to end it.’ Hector’s face is very close to Glenn’s, although being taller he’s bending slightly to look his brother in the eye.
‘You want what?’ Glenn spurts, finally losing his composure.
‘You are damaging your marriage and potentially harming my nephew. It is selfish and irresponsible and I will not allow you to cause pain to—’
‘You won’t allow? You won’t allow! Who the fuck do you think you are? You’re only my bloody brother, not God of everything. Je-sus.’
Hector remains calm. He needs Glenn to pay attention to what he’s about to say and if he gets angry, Glenn is likely to storm out of the room and out of the house.
‘You will contact this woman and end it immediately.’
‘I will not!’
Hector gets the cup out of the cupboard and starts making tea for Sarah to keep himself calm. ‘I’m telling you, Glenn, if you don’t do it—’
‘What? You’ll what, big brother? Beat me up? Give me a Chinese burn? Make me do the washing-up for four weeks? Go on, tell me, what punishment have you got lined up for your naughty little brother this time?’
‘I’ll call in the loan.’
Glenn’s smug expression falters. ‘You’ll . . .?’
‘You owe me money, Glenn. I want it back.’
‘B-But . . . you can’t.’
‘Of course I can. It’s mine.’
‘But I haven’t got it any more.’
‘Oh, now there’s a surprise. What did you spend it on? Holiday for Sarah? New dishwasher? Smart new car?’
Glenn is starting to look rather uncomfortable, his eyes darting around and settling eventually on the mug standing next to the kettle. ‘My . . . The . . . She’s . . . she’s got . . . expensive taste.’
Hector’s lip curls. ‘Five grand? You spent the whole five grand on your dick? Money that I lent you because you’re my brother and I thought it was to get you out of a spot. I thought I was helping you and Sarah and Jake to be more comfortable, maybe taking away some of your stress because that’s one thing I can do for you all. Christ, Glenn. You disgust me.’ He turns his back on his brother and makes Sarah’s tea. ‘If you don’t end this liaison immediately, I will take whatever steps are necessary to recoup my losses, do you understand?’
Glenn tries to look smug again. ‘You wouldn’t do it—’
Hector swings round, his face distorted with fury. ‘Do you want to try me, Glenn?’ he snarls, lunging towards him so fast, Glenn steps back worriedly. ‘Do you want to see what I would do? Well do you?’
Glenn is seriously discomfited now. He shakes his head.
‘Good.’ Hector hands the tea to Glenn. ‘Now you take this in there and you start appreciating your wife and your son and your home because believe me, you shit, you have got everything. And first thing tomorrow, you ring this woman and you let her down. Right?’
Glenn nods and they return in silence to the living room. As they enter, Sarah is sitting down rather hurriedly and does not look at either of them. Glenn sits down next to his wife and this time sits close enough for their shoulders to touch.
Look at Hector outside the front door a minute later. He’s leaning back against the door, palms pressed flat against the wood, breathing heavily, eyes closed. His face shows amazement, I think. And he’s shaking a bit. Do you know what? I think he was bluffing. But he’s managed to convince Glenn, apparently, and that’s what counts. He rolls his eyes, smiles a little, then pushes off from the door and heads towards his car.
Chapter Seventeen
I’M NEARLY LATE for work the next day. I get up at the right time, get ready in the right amount of time, get my shoes on and reach for the car keys on the hook by the door . . . But they’re not there.
They’re always, always, on their hook. That’s why there’s a hook there. Dad put it up at Mum’s suggestion, so that I wouldn’t make myself late for stupid work looking for the stupid car keys. I hang them up, every day, the very second I come in through the door.
I spend several minutes flinging things around and slamming doors, but it doesn’t help. Eventually, after some calming screaming and head pounding, I locate the keys in my tooth mug, looking a bit minty. I have a few seconds to wonder – and dread – where the hell my toothbrush is, before charging out of the door.
It’s gone five past nine when I arrive and everyone is already working. There’s no sudden rush of movement this time, so obviously no one was gossiping about me. Well, they wouldn’t be, would they, not after nine.
There’s a steaming mug of hot chocolate on my desk, and I give Val a grateful smile as I sit down. She’s had her hair done – looks like a perm and some colour. It really suits her – she looks younger. On the other side of the partition, Chrissie is already engrossed in a call, head down, flicking those pages, saying ‘OK, OK.’ Jean and Graham do not seem to have spotted that I’m late so after a brief hunt for my pen, which I eventually find in yesterday’s coffee cup, I switch to ‘F’ and take my first call.
The only interesting thing this morning is a visit to Telesales from Vivien Attwood, the head of Planning. She announces that there will be a staff meeting on Friday, 26 January, in the canteen at five thirty. And as it’s after hours there will be a full buffet laid on by Mr de Witter. Everyone has got to attend. I want to know if we’re all going to be paid overtime for the extra hours. Vivien says no, that’s why they’re feeding us instead. What we save on food that evening is our overtime.
‘Wonder what that’s all about?’ Val says, after Vivien has gone back up to the sixth floor. ‘It must be really important if they’re feeding us.’
‘They’re probably going to make us all redundant,’ Marion says. We all stare at her. Could that be it? With free food as a sweetener. Better fill a few carrier bags while we’re there.
‘I wonder what the line is about not going,’ I say. ‘If we’re not being paid, surely they can’
t make us go?’
‘I shouldn’t think so,’ Val says.
‘But you’ve got to go, Rachel,’ Chrissie says, grinning. ‘You’ll hear it from the horse himself what colour the new tiles in the Ladies are going to be.’
‘Hey, Chrissie!’ It’s Creepy Steve, from station eighteen. ‘Can you get back to your desk, please? I’ve got a call for you.’
Our impromptu break is over and we all go back to our desks.
A few minutes later, I’m suddenly aware that there’s no noise coming from Chrissie’s desk. I stand up to look over the partition that separates us and find her holding her head in her hands, elbows on the desk, her turret switched to ‘B’.
I’m in the middle of a call and can’t speak to her, so I tap the partition with my hand to attract her attention. She looks up and I am shocked to see that her eyes are swollen and tearful.
‘Have you thought about Fuengirola?’ I say, raising my hands in a ‘What’s up?’ gesture. She shakes her head. ‘Well, are you dead set on Europe?’ I say, gesticulating at her, but she waves me away, frowning, and switches to ‘F’ to get rid of me, it seems.
A few minutes later and it’s this side of the room’s turn to go for lunch. You can see on my face that I’ve made up my mind about something, and I’m looking around me for Chrissie, determined to speak to her during our break.
Wow, did you see that? I didn’t even know Chrissie could move that fast, especially in a skirt that tight. She’s out the door to the lifts before you could say split stitches.
Which leaves me going down to the canteen with Val again. I’m nodding politely and smiling while she’s telling me about the gym she’s just joined, and Finn, her twenty-eight-year-old, blond personal trainer, who was on the New Zealand Commonwealth Games swim team four years ago, but I barely hear her, I’m so focused on what’s happened to Chrissie. She was obviously upset about something, but what could . . .
‘. . . huge arms, the size of a small child . . .’
Once or twice, the odd word breaks through.
When I get back to my station, Chrissie is again already engrossed in a call so I don’t have a chance to speak to her. I’m standing up watching her as I switch to ‘F’, just in case she gets off the call and has a chance to speak.
Some of our clients have no intention of booking anything, they just ring up for a chat. There’s a few regulars – a Mrs Holley from somewhere in Scotland calls about once a week to deliberate over the Isle of Man; there’s a Miss Hatton, with a daughter in Australia that she’s never been to visit; Mrs Harkness who wants to do a watercolour painting activity break in Crete, and Mr Silverside who just shouts. Their names and addresses are on the walls all round the office – Horizon Holidays’ Least Wanted – to help us identify them quickly so that we don’t waste any time on them. I’ve had Mr Silverside once and he was so unpleasant I just cut him off straight away. Right now, I suspect I’ve got one of the others because she’s been wittering on about her daughter in Australia for so long but has made no mention of when she wants to go.
‘What part of Australia are you thinking about visiting?’ I ask half-heartedly, to remind her why she called. I’ll give her two more minutes.
Siân at station nine shouts over to me suddenly that she’s got a call for me, which makes up my mind. ‘Well, what we could offer is a pack—’ See that? I cut her off in the middle of a word. It’s less suspicious if you do that. ‘Stick it through, Siân!’ I call back. My phone beeps to let me know the call has arrived.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi, Rachel. Hector.’
There’s that plunging sensation again. Suddenly the day has become special and exciting; the other noises in the sales room fade away and there’s only me on this end and him on the other end. I press the headset close to my face. ‘Hi, Hector. How are you today?’
‘I’m fine. How are you?’
‘Fine thanks.’
‘Good. I just rang to tell you that I spoke to my brother yesterday.’
‘Yesterday? Bloody hell, that was quick. What did he say?’
‘Well, he denied it.’
‘Oh.’ Quick flashback to Sainsbury’s car park last year, me standing by the car watching someone in a red vest embracing a woman. Oh my God, was it definitely Glenn? I didn’t see him close up, not really. Is it possible I made a mistake? Is Glenn innocent?
‘And then he caved and reverted to being a snivelling little shit.’
‘Oh, thank God.’
‘What?’
‘No, right, what I mean is, you know, thank God he owned up. Because then you told him to end it. Right?’
‘Oh, I see. Well, yes, I did my best.’
‘Do you think he will? End it, I mean.’
He sighs. ‘I don’t know. And if he doesn’t, there’s really nothing else I can do. I threatened him a bit, you know, to get him to promise . . .’
‘Threatened him? Blimey.’
‘Well, there’s no need to sound so . . . impressed about that. It wasn’t easy. I had to watch all three Godfather films before I went round there.’
‘All three?’
‘Well, I got in the car after One and Two, but then I had to go back indoors and watch the last one. For closure, you know.’
We laugh together, the headset still pressed so close to my ear I can hear him breathing. After a moment, abruptly he stops chuckling, as if he’s suddenly remembered that what he rang me up for was a serious matter.
‘Look, Rachel, if Sarah says anything to you, or you get the idea that she might . . . you know, know, or if you’re worried about her,’ there’s an almost imperceptible pause, ‘or about anything, anything at all, you will call me, won’t you?’
He’s gearing up for the end of the call but I don’t want it to end.
‘I’m wearing the earrings.’
There’s a surprised silence. Then he says, ‘You are? I bet they look fantastic on you.’
‘They do. They’re so gorgeous. Actually, I haven’t taken them off since Christmas. I love them. Thank you so much.’
‘I’m really glad you like them. I spent ages . . . Anyway, I’m sorry if it seemed a bit inappropriate, but I’d sent them before I knew about . . .’
‘About what?’
‘Well, about you and Nick, you know, at the office party.’ He sounds uncomfortable, disgruntled.
‘The office party? I don’t understand – what on earth does that have to do with you getting me a present?’
‘No, you’re right, it doesn’t have anything to do with that. It shouldn’t matter but I’m afraid I find that it does. Just me I suppose – old-fashioned.’
I’m frowning now. He’s not making any sense. ‘What are you—’
‘See, the thing is, Rachel, I’m an all-or-nothing kind of guy. Some people in my position might decide that they’d be happy with friendship, if it’s all they could get. But for me that’s like torture. Seeing someone, talking, spending time . . . knowing that it’ll never be more . . . Well, it’s too hard. I prefer to . . . cut myself off, lie low, wait it out on my own until the agony stops. And it will stop, in the end. It always does.’
Is he trying to tell me something about Miranda and the pain she caused him? The idea that he’s talking about me is out there, but I don’t grasp it. Not quite.
‘Hector, what—’
‘No, please, don’t ask me, Rachel. I want so much to tell you, but I can’t. You said last time that it’s not me, and you were right, it’s not. It seems I am destined always to want people who don’t want me. Well then, if that’s my fate, I’ll face up to it, welcome it, embrace it, because I, as you said, am a good guy.’
‘Yes, you are, but you’re not—’
‘It’s been a pleasure, Rachel. Take really good care of yourself. Bye.’ And he’s gone. Again.
The rest of the day at Horizon is really dull, just boring holidays, holidays, holidays. Chrissie races off at five, faster, if it’s possible, than when she sped off a
t lunch, so I’ve decided to leave it until tomorrow. If she wanted to talk to me about something, she would have. So let’s go to me, at home later, lying on the bed with a bag of salt-and-vinegar chipsticks at my elbow. Don’t look too closely at the floor – you might spot three or four more empty chipstick bags down there.
I’m trying to remember what Hector had almost said today, but all that comes into my mind is him mentioning me and Nick at the office party. Why would me stumbling in on Nick and Paris have any effect on him? No matter how many times and in how many different ways I think about it, it always makes no sense.
And another thing. How did he even know that I had bumped into Nick at the party? I told Chrissie about it – no doubt Chrissie has told others, including Sarah most likely, and she will have told Glenn, of course; but will he have passed it back to Hector? I try to picture Glenn breaking this devastating news: ‘Hec, I’m sorry to have to tell you but a random girl you don’t know walked in on her ex and his new girlfriend having sex at some Christmas party or other. You’re going to have to be brave, big guy.’
No, it’s ridiculous. No one knows that Hector and I even know each other, so nothing I did would be gossiped back to him. I can’t fathom it out.
Mum always says if looks were brains, I’d be a genius. Which I guess is a polite way of saying that I’m not one.
Just as I’m opening another bag of crisps the phone rings. Plum’s fast asleep, but when I roll over to get up, he stretches and pushes in four different directions at once, one of which goes straight into my bladder. God.
‘Rachel, it’s Sarah.’
‘My God, Sarah, what’s happened?’ Sarah’s voice is thick and heavy, full of tears and distress. ‘God, is it Jake?’
There’s a series of sniffs, then, ‘No, no, Jakey’s fine. It’s Glenn.’
‘Oh no.’
‘You remember what I was telling you, about how some times when he comes in, it seems like he’s . . . been . . .’
‘Yes, yes, I remember.’ Cold dread is coagulating in the pit of my belly. I know what she’s going to say and I don’t want her to say it, but I hurry her anyway.
Thanks For Nothing, Nick Maxwell Page 26
