“Great,” she said, “I think we have enough now. You’ll be on at six and ten this evening provided nothing huge comes up.”
She thanked me, and Paul packed up all his wires and lights, and they both left, and I collapsed into my chair.
“How was I?” I said needily to Russell.
“Fab,” he assured me. “Brilliant. Like you did it every day.”
I couldn’t face watching the news that night, but my Twitter feed was full of friends saying kind things about how well I’d come across, and when I checked my email there was a message from Vanessa’s boss Barri.
“Saw you tonight on BBC1 – very impressive. You are a highly credible candidate and project the image we’re looking for at Black & White. I’d very much like to see you for an interview later in the week. My PA will be in touch to agree a convenient time.”
There was no message from Ben, nor Claire, nor Rose. But Oliver had written on my wall on Facebook. “Congratulations – just seen you on the box and you were brilliant. You were as dazzling as you were compelling. Hope to see you soon.” He’d finished the message with a couple of kisses, and – oh my God – invited me to his thirty-fifth birthday party in six weeks’ time, along with Rose and about forty other people whose names I didn’t recognise. His birthday was a week before Pers’s first, and I couldn’t help feeling that that must be some sort of omen, although of what I couldn’t say.
I don’t want to give you the idea that my work at YEESH was one long round of fabulousness, all being on the telly and getting to buy new lipstick on expenses – nothing could be further form the truth. In fact, just two days later, I was up at five in the morning to catch the first train into the office and there load up the minge bus with about a ton of information leaflets, posters, medical supplies, our rather festive ‘You’re the boss of your body’ bunting and a gross of condoms, and head off to a college in Enfield for one of our mobile clinics. Duncan was back from holiday (looking ridiculously tanned in contrast to everyone else’s February pallor) and Leda back from Scotland, so I’d offered to stand in for Ruth as meeter and greeter and let her hold the fort at the office and have a lie-in for once.
By the time we’d set ourselves up in two empty classrooms, arranged all the literature about the HPV vaccine and the contraceptive implant and ‘No means No’ and all the rest on a table and baited it with bowls of mini Mars bars, it was nine thirty. The punters were already beginning to loiter about, the boys kicking the floor and turning up the music on their MP3 players and trying to look like they knew it all already; the girls stood in little giggling groups, nudging one another and going, “You first, Kaylee.” “No, you first, Lily.” I sat down behind the table, ready to direct the boys one way to Duncan and the girls the other way to Leda, and braced myself for the onslaught.
After eight unrelenting hours of saying, “Hi, my name’s Ellie. Would you just like to grab some brochures or would you like to chat to someone?” and explaining that I was totally unqualified to answer any questions and they’d have to wait, and dealing with the odd smart arse trying to embarrass me by saying, “Miss, my mate’s bust his wrist. If he wanks with the other hand, will it feel like someone else doing it?” and smiling nicely and saying I was sure Duncan would be able to help, I felt like I never wanted to see a teenager again.
Alongside the brash, confident, sassy kids were so many sad, shy ones in shabby clothes who looked like they had no one at home to listen to their problems or give them advice, and who couldn’t meet my eye as they whispered why they were there. Such were Duncan and Leda’s tact and skill that they all walked out looking less frightened, bewildered and embarrassed than they had walking in, and it was honestly quite humbling to think that in the few minutes they spent with each boy or girl, they might be making a real difference to their lives.
At last five o’clock arrived and we drove in silence back to the office, where we performed the morning’s routine all over again in reverse – the bunting folded up, the much-depleted stocks of condoms and brochures returned to the stationery cupboard, the stocks of the Pill and the MAP and all the rest placed back under lock and key. Leda and Duncan headed wearily home, and I said I’d just send a few emails then lock up. But as soon as all was quiet, I sat at my desk, took out my mobile and called Ben.
“Oh, hi, it’s me,” I babbled as soon as he answered. “I’m sure you’re terribly busy but I’m passing through north London” – well, the minge bus had done so, about two hours before – “and I wondered if you fancied a drink?”
There was a pause, then Ben said, “I’m sorry, Ellie, but I don’t think I can.”
I waited for him to say, “Until later…” or “Tonight, because…” or suggest meeting up another time, but he didn’t. He stayed quiet. And the next thing I knew, I was blurting out, “Ben. Is this about you and Claire?”
There was another long pause, before Ben said, “Ellie, I’m not free to meet you tonight.”
I felt almost as if I’d been hit. Tears pricked my eyes and I struggled to catch my breath, and when I did my voice sounded all croaky. “Okay,” I said. “I guess we’ll talk sometime. Bye.” I ended the call and stared for a few seconds at the blank, unhelpful screen of my phone. I looked around the shabby, cluttered office of YEESH, and thought of the job offer from Black & White that had arrived in my inbox that afternoon, and I found I had made a decision. I needed to move on – from my job, from Ben, towards a future that held different things and perhaps even a different me. You know what it’s like when you get a new job. For about the first week you’re figuring out where the loo is and where to get decent coffee, and eating your lunch at your desk like Billy No-mates, and not saying much in meetings because you don’t want to say the wrong thing, and mixing up Jackie from accounts with Lauren from HR, and all that stuff. Then all of a sudden you start feeling like part of the furniture and you can start doing some proper work. That’s what it was like for me when I started at Black & White, anyway.
It felt really weird on my first day, getting the train into Victoria instead of Waterloo, making my way through Mayfair to the splendid Regency building and going round the back to the staff entrance instead of pushing through the imposing glass doors. I had to sign in and be given a temporary pass, then wait at security watching various motorbike couriers dropping off and collecting important-looking parcels, waiting for Barri to turn up. When eventually he did, he was even shorter, camper and more Australian than I remembered. Ever since I was old enough to devote much thought to important, abstract things, I’ve known that prejudice is bad and wrong, but I’m sure we all have little corners of our minds where ideas and assumptions that really don’t belong there lurk in little dust-covered heaps, and every now and then something happens to make you realise they are there, and meeting Barri made me realise I had stereotyped Antipodeans in my head as being macho and tall.
Instead, Barri was a plump little man of about five foot three, with expensively cut hair and expensively cut suits that he wore just a bit too padded about the shoulders, and his hand when I shook it was as soft as a child’s. He ushered me up to the marketing department’s sumptuous office, which had a deep dove- grey carpet on the floor and was lit by huge black chandeliers, and showed me to a sleek white desk in the middle of a row of other, identical sleek white desks.
Nine thirty came and the other people in the department started to drift into the office, and honestly it was like watching a fashion show. One after another they pushed open the door, paused to make an entrance, then sashayed towards their desks, carefully putting one foot directly in front of the other as they walked, so their hips swayed elegantly and their legs looked very, very thin. One after another they came up to me and offered cool, soft hands for me to shake, and introduced themselves.
“Isla, creative services.”
“Odette, e-commerce.”
“Daisy, events management.”
“Piper, copywriter.”
And so on and on, a see
mingly endless parade of posh, groomed girls. In my head I nicknamed them the Barriettes. Finally in bustled one boy, who looked plump and harassed and barely old enough to be out of school, and he was, “Torquil, admin bitch.” And so my first day began with me feeling lumpy and out of place – although not badly dressed, thanks to Vanessa. But as the days went by I realised that Piper was actually quite a good laugh, and that no one liked Daisy so it didn’t really matter that I thought she was totally up herself, and, as I say, gradually I stopped feeling quite so much like the new girl. I even managed to push to the back of my mind the horrible guilt I felt about letting Ruth, Duncan and my friends at YEESH down, especially as Barri had wanted me to start ASAP, so I’d taken some of my outstanding holiday in lieu of part of my notice period. But what with all the settling in, and a few evening functions I had to go to, I didn’t have much time to think about anything but the new job for a while.
On my second Friday there I was surreptitiously looking at my phone, wondering whether I should text Rose to find out what she was up to and guiltily noticing a missed call from Dad from three days before that I hadn’t returned, when it rang, and Ben’s brother Alex’s name flashed up on the screen. That’s literally how I have him saved on my phone – “Alex (B’s bro)”. Although I’ve known Alex for ages, almost as long as I’ve known Ben, we’ve never made a habit of ringing each other, because we’ve always been in touch via Ben, so I knew he must have vital intelligence to impart.
After we’d exchanged a few random pleasantries, Alex said, “Ellie, I fear the phantom menace has returned.” He’s a bit of a sci-fi nut, is Alex – I’ve sometimes thought this may be why he doesn’t have a girlfriend. I knew straight away what he meant, though.
I said, “Nina?”
Alex said, “Yes.”
I said, “How?”
He said, “Facebook.”
I said, “Shit.”
My first thought was of Claire. I had no idea how her relationship with Ben was panning out, not having spoken to either of them for almost a month. Well, I’d spoken to Claire once, but told her I was terribly busy in my new job and would call her back, but I hadn’t. Thinking about that made me feel as sick with guilt as remembering Dad’s missed call did, so I was trying not to. But if Nina was back on the scene, Claire was going to need my friendship like she never had before. She stood no chance against Nina, who would suck Ben into herself like some sort of dark matter, consuming him just like she did six years before.
When Ben and Nina got together, Ben and I had been in a routine of seeing each other two or three times a week. We’d meet up for drinks or go and see a film or I’d go round to his and scrounge dinner – even back then, he was a much better cook that I’ve ever been. Occasionally we’d sleep together, but I told myself I wasn’t in the market for a relationship, I was young and free and had no intention of settling down, and we were friends, companions, partners in crime. But then Nina came along, and all that stopped.
After that first evening at the Latchmere, there had been no convivial nights out with Ben and Nina. There was a night in at Nina’s flat, but that proved to be anything but convivial. I was invited, and Alex, and a couple whose names I can’t remember, although the rest of the evening is branded on my memory. They were musician friends of Nina’s, and they both wore trailing back clothes and sat silently together the whole night holding hands. She smoked Sobranie cigarettes in a long silver holder and he wore an outsize velvet beret thing that flopped down over his forehead, and a more pretentious pair you couldn’t hope to find. So I wasn’t too put out by their silence, as I’m sure it was preferable to whatever wanky and annoying things they might have had to say for themselves.
The evening began awkwardly, with all of us standing around in Nina’s basement flat in Camden, which smelled of incense and sex and was dimly lit and rather grubby. Nina handed round little glasses of absinthe mixed with water – of all the vile things – and we all pretended to drink it (I ended up tipping mine into an unfortunate pot-plant, and thirsting for a G&T). There was a CD of some sort of plinky music playing, and when I asked Nina what it was she said it was an Alpine zither player. I kid you not. I kept catching Alex’s eye and trying not to collapse in a giggling heap, so after a bit I went through to the kitchen to find Ben slaving away over a vat of consommé, which he was trying unsuccessfully to clarify with beaten egg.
“I don’t want to let her down,” he said frantically. I suggested that giving everyone drinks they could actually drink and relying on the subterranean gloom was probably the most sensible way to deal with not-quite-clear soup, and Ben agreed and eventually we all sat down, perched around a table with a lace cloth on it, and Nina produced a bottle of sherry and poured tiny glasses of it. I watched Nina taste her soup, then put the spoon down with a little clink that I can only describe as meaningful. She didn’t eat any more and when she and Ben cleared away the plates I heard her in the kitchen, hissing, “It wasn’t clear! It wasn’t properly clarified, Benedict!” and Ben murmuring something soothing back. Then there was an absolutely sickening crash and Nina screamed, “It wasn’t clear!” and there was another crash. Alex and I leaped up and went to see what was going on, and there was Ben dripping with soup and Nina twatting the bowls, one by one, against the wall. It should have been funny but it wasn’t, it was actually quite frightening, and even now looking back I can’t seem to laugh, I just remember Ben looking baffled and shocked, and Nina’s rage, which almost immediately dissolved into hysterical tears. Pretty soon after that Ben suggested we all leave, and we didn’t need telling twice.
So after that night I wasn’t in a hurry to make Nina my new best friend, and it soon transpired that not seeing Nina meant not seeing Ben either. He and I made arrangements to meet up several times, but each time he cancelled. Nina was ill. Nina had a recital the next day and she needed Ben there to calm her nerves. Nina’s grandmother had died. Nina’s other grandmother had died. Nina’s pet snake was shedding its skin and couldn’t be left. I’m not making this up.
Anyway, after a few months of this Alex rang me and said he needed to see me, and I knew that it was about Nina and Ben, so I cancelled my Pilates class (I’d only been to about three and, come to think of it, I never went again, which is pretty typical of my track record with exercise classes) and met him at a bar in the City near his work. When I arrived he was already there, halfway down a pint of Guinness and looking depressed.
“We’ve got to get Ben out of that relationship,” he said, before I’d even sat down.
“I know she’s a bit bonkers,” I said, “But don’t you think Ben will realise it eventually for himself?”
Alex shook his head. “Ellie, she’s more than a bit bonkers. I’m worried. They had a huge row the other night and Ben turned up at my flat and he had massive scratches down his face. She went for him with her nails.”
I thought of Nina’s blood-red talons and winced. “Jesus,” I said. “What happened?”
“Apparently she thought he’d been looking at some other woman on the bus, and she went ballistic.”
“Jesus,” I said again. “Why did he go back to her then?”
Alex rolled his eyes. “He’s in love with her. Sometimes when I see them together they seem really happy. Her music’s a massive thing for her, and she’s really good at it, apparently, really talented. I think Ben likes all that – you know him, he’s always been more into watching the footie on the box than anything cultural and he probably thinks she’s broadening his mind. Plus of course she’s dead hot.”
“Really?” I felt a stab of jealousy. “She’s all skinny and ginger and annoying.”
“Girls never know when other girls are hot,” Alex said. “Take Keira Knightly, for example. Girls are like, ‘Oh my god, she is so annoying,’ but blokes know bloody well that she is the sexiest thing ever. If we got the chance we totally would.”
“Nina’s nothing like Keira Knightley,” I said. “Apart from the annoying part.”
“See? That proves my point.” Alex took another gulp of his drink. “Besides, she’s all fragile and vulnerable. Ben thinks she needs him.”
From what I’d seen, Nina was about as fragile and vulnerable as a malaria-carrying mosquito. “Really?” I said again.
“She was one of those child prodigies,” Alex explained. “Been playing the violin since she was four. Loads of pressure. Going to be the next Vanessa-Mae, apparently. When she goes off on one, it’s normally when she’s stressed. She’s got Ben convinced that she needs him to keep her calm and help her achieve her potential.”
“What other times has she gone off on one?” I asked, horrified but fascinated.
“Once when she wanted Ben to listen to her play and he was checking emails, and she threw his work laptop at the wall and totalled it,” Alex said. “And she disappears. Goes AWOL for days at a time, doesn’t answer her phone, ignores his texts. And then when he’s decided she isn’t coming back she turns up again and it’s all emotional reunions and shagging each other senseless.”
“Stop!” I said, covering my ears. “I don’t want to hear any more.”
“So, yeah,” Alex said. “Treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen. Looks like it works, because he’s still completely nuts about her.”
We talked around the issue for a while, but we couldn’t decide what to do for the best, so we just had a few more drinks and felt helpless, and in the end Nina kind of resolved the situation on her own. Ben rang me up on a Sunday afternoon a few weeks into the new year, totally unexpectedly.
“Want to come round?” he said. “I’ve got something to show you.”
It Would Be Wrong to Steal My Sister's Boyfriend Page 13
