I felt a tightness in my chest, like a volcano about to erupt. ‘Why clear the house? Bit extreme, wasn’t it?’
‘I did it on impulse.’ Her voice at least sounded faintly sheepish. ‘I’ve put everything in storage, so you don’t have to worry – I’m not going to set fire to it. Anyway, by all accounts it’s a good job I did take everything, with that crowd of God-awful hippies you’ve allowed to move in. You realise we’ll have to get the place fumigated.’
‘They’re rather a nice bunch, actually,’ I said defensively, and remembered the smiling Dot and the mug she’d given me. Somewhere to go back to.
Susan looked directly at me for the first time, like the owner of a puppy which, if it performed as instructed, would get a suitable reward. ‘Well, you’ll just have to get them out again, won’t you, or I’ll call the police. Let’s hope the neighbourhood forgives you. In any case, now you no longer work for that horrid company, you won’t be travelling anywhere and we can put the place on the market. As for a job, I’m sure we can find you something suitable locally.’
I couldn’t believe it. One minute I was being hauled over razor blades and broken glass for being a callous, absent bastard, and the next she was saying everything could go back to the way it had been. With conditions.
‘You mean you’ll come back – and bring all the furniture?’
She nodded with the beginnings of a smile edging her very kissable lips. ‘Of course.’ I almost wavered, looking at those lips, and remembering when– Then I felt as if I was supposed to leap on my chair with my tongue hanging out ready to catch a biscuit.
‘And everything goes back to the way it was? Including letting me have access to some of the money I earn?’ I couldn’t help the last bit, which fizzed out like steam under pressure.
‘Why not?’ she said calmly. ‘Which reminds me, if you want to give me your redundancy cheque I’ll pay it in for you.’ She held out her hand.
It was the last straw. I wondered if she could see the steam coming from my ears. She’d got everything bar the clothes on my back and now she wanted my severance cheque? Did she really think I was that dumb? And that wasn’t all: she either didn’t know Hugo had told me about Dunckley… or she did know and was conveniently managing to overlook it while she fleeced me for everything I had.
Unless Hugo had been lying.
I decided to put it to the test, as painful as it might be to my pride and sanity.
‘So you’ll forget about all the time I spent away?’
‘Of course. We’ll start again… a new leaf. Lots of people do, you know. Perhaps we can have a long holiday to catch up on where we used to be, rekindle what we had. Thirty thousand, wasn’t it, the pay-off?’ The segue from future promise to hard-nosed business came without a break in her voice.
‘And the way I ignored you?’
‘All in the past.’ She smiled grandly, her forgiveness a prize I was supposed to appreciate and savour like a fine wine.
‘And you’ll forget all the time you’ve had to amuse yourself while I wasn’t around?’
A frown fluttered across her brow. It might have been the first suspicion she had that I was actually going somewhere with this. ‘Jake, I said yes. Please don’t be tiresome. Now, the cheque?’ The hand edged further across the table, the fingers beckoning, like a mother demanding a child hand over a forbidden toy.
‘Because you know, don’t you,’ I continued, somehow maintaining a calm tone of voice when I actually wanted to explode all over the fucking place, ‘that although I may have been too… wrapped up in my work, I’ve never been unfaithful? Ever.’
‘Of course I do, silly.’ She showed me her even, white teeth, and reached out to touch my arm with a painted fingertip, as if bestowing a blessing. The contact sent a ripple up my arm which wasn’t altogether unpleasant. ‘That’s the one thing I always could count on, Jake: you being faithful. It was that darned job that became your mistress. But that’s all done with now, isn’t it? It’s over. I want us to start again.’
Ruff. I experienced the good-doggy moment again, and felt a mixture of humiliation and anger. And sadness.
‘In that case,’ I said calmly, ‘since all you’ve got to forgive me for is working too hard, perhaps you’ll tell me how I’m supposed to forgive you.’
She put down her glass and looked at me. This time there was a flash of the old steel I remembered, which was my signal for putting on my tin hat. ‘Forgive me? What on earth do I have to be forgiven for? For walking out because you were never there for me?’ She looked away with a sharp intake of breath; the picture of someone bravely holding back tears in the face of trying odds. I noticed Mr Sweaty was watching with close attention, and the barman was shifting towards the hatch as if expecting trouble. The vibes in the air must have been crackling with negative energy.
Too late, I felt like announcing. Trouble was already here.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Not that. What I mean is, how can I forgive you for screwing Niall Dunckley?’
Her mouth fell open and the colour drained from her face like a cistern emptying of water. In that instant, I knew Hugo hadn’t been lying. She sat back, evidently groping to find words, and snatched her hand away from my arm as if a cockroach had strolled out of my sleeve. Then she turned and glanced helplessly at Mr Sweaty, as if she realised this had gone as far as it could.
‘Who’s the big guy?’ I asked, as he rose from his table and lumbered towards us. I noticed he’d ordered a drink but hadn’t touched it. ‘Lawyer, bodyguard… or the next in line?’
‘Nothing. He’s–’ Susan stood up, knocking her glass over and drawing the attention of everyone in the room. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. How dare you accuse me of… of such a horrible thing!’ In case they misunderstood what was going on she stepped back from the table and glared at me, her beautiful eyes full of venom. ‘You sanctimonious prick!’ she spat loud enough for the people outside to hear. For good measure her lower lip wobbled like a half-set jelly and she dabbed at her eyes. ‘I’m going to sue you for desertion – and you’d better get that ghastly crowd of street riffraff out of the house, because from now on it’s going to be mine! I put money into it, too, remember.’
‘Really? Remind me.’
She went red instead. ‘Niall was right about you – you’re not worth it.’
In that instant, whatever feelings I might have had for her disappeared. Betrayal, I decided with a sick feeling, was the kindest word I could think of. And the most painful.
‘You knew!’ I said, in a moment of clear realisation. It was like a punch to the gut. ‘You knew I was going to lose my job!’ Dunckley must have told her everything, and I couldn’t help wondering if it had been while they were at it on the table in the HP&P computer room.
Susan tried to speak, but in the end she gave up and looked past me, unable to meet my eyes. It was just as well, because suddenly I’d gone past the point where I was prepared to believe anything she said. As well as the physical betrayal, she had watched as I’d had my job stripped from me, and without a hint of warning. God, they must have had a laugh at that one. Poor, stupid Jake. Doesn’t know what’s going to hit him.
‘Was that why you left on the same day?’ I said softly, cheating the crowd of nosey bastards of my response. ‘Was it the coup de grâce? Kick the dog while he’s down? Or was it your own guilt?’
She shrugged in a particularly childish way which made me want to rage at her, futile though it would have been. Then she turned away, leaving Mr Sweaty standing there with a business card in his hand. He dropped it on the table in front of me.
‘I think that confirms Mrs Foreman will be taking out divorce proceedings against you,’ he said. He leaned closer, bringing a wave of aftershave with him. ‘Look, Mr Foreman, just a friendly word: she’s got a watertight case and she will win, you know.’ He gave a shark-like grin, showing perfect teeth. ‘Just so you know, I never lose.’ Then he turned on his heel and lumbered out after his cli
ent.
‘Bollocks,’ I said to his departing back, and poured another glass of wine. I’d been put through the wringer and done over like a kipper, as an old engineer I’d once worked with used to say. Yeah, clichés, I know; but when you’re feeling wounded, you reach for something familiar.
All in all, as days went, I’d experienced better.
TEN
‘What you need to do, old son, is to review your options,’ suggested Hugo knowingly, like the sage and worldly soul that he was. Somehow I doubted that owning large chunks of the shire counties – which Hugo did – involved the need for reviewing options other than deciding how many more acres to buy and how many tenants to evict if things got tight. Still, he meant well, which after my meeting with Susan, came as a welcome relief.
We were back at the drinker’s pub, where I was once more under the cold scrutiny of the landlady. She evidently hadn’t made up her mind whether or not my money was good enough to make up for my crimes against womankind, or perhaps she was considering gathering some of the locals together to tar and feather me and roll me down the nearest hill in a barrel.
‘What options? No wife, no house, no money, friends blanking me in public and now she’s going to sue for divorce.’ I’d given him the bare bones of Susan’s response after our meeting, and how the door to matrimonial harmony had been slammed shut unless I was prepared to prostrate myself before her and become her whipping-boy for past hurts.
‘Put like that, no,’ he agreed calmly. ‘But what’s the point wallowing in self-pity? It’s not your usual trait, is it?’
He had a point there. God, I hate arguing with Hugo. He knows me too well.
‘Okay, so what would you do?’ I challenged him. A management trick: turn the question back on the questioner.
‘Simple. Find yourself a girl with the sexual instincts and appetite of a starved mongoose and go for it. Everything will seem unimportant after that.’
I stared at him, hardly recognising my friend of several years. This wasn’t the boring old logical Hugo: of the home counties cardigans and the traditional values, anxious to gallop home to Juliette in case he was cast into the outer darkness. This was a monster I hardly recognised, peeling back his outer layer like a snake shedding its skin.
‘Apart from the sex bit,’ I finally managed to tell him, ‘you make this whole getting back on your feet bit sound like an exercise in better management. Is that all you’ve got to offer? Thanks a lot!’
‘Maybe it is.’ If he was offended by my ingratitude, he didn’t show it. He finished his pint and signalled for a refill. The landlady smiled at him and ignored me. ‘Thank Christ for all those boring sessions at the MBA classes I went to. Learned bugger all about business management, but I’ve never been so expertly shagged in all my life. You remember Lorraine from Executive Accounts?’
How could I forget Lorraine? I’d have to have been blind to forget HP&P’s resident beauty. She had looks, brains, ambition and an earthy sense of humour, and Daddy was well connected in the city. She had, as I also recalled, been sent on the same MBA course as Hugo.
I felt my jaw drop as if on hinges. ‘What? You mean you?’ I couldn’t believe it. Rumour had it that no-one had ever got to first base with Lorraine because she was so stand-offish and wrapped up in her career. Not that I’d ever ventured to try; but I knew the names of some of the fallen who were whispered about in the corridors. And now this paragon of virtue was admitting to having been there.
‘Three times, actually,’ confirmed Hugo happily, before I could ask. ‘All in one night. Couldn’t keep up in the end, literally or otherwise. Jesus, I dunno what she was on, but she could go like a train and still have enough energy for an early-morning swim. I was so buggered I overslept on the third morning and missed two sessions. Pruitt was furious. Still,’ he stared dreamily into his glass like an old soldier remembering past campaigns, ‘it was worth the bollocking just to see the look on his face when he realised what we’d been up to. Letchy old bastard had been trying to get into her knickers since day one.’
I was staggered. Pruitt was HP&P’s Finance Director and someone more seemingly straitlaced you couldn’t get. He probably had the Institute of Chartered Accountants logo embroidered on his underpants. I wondered how much he knew about the less salubrious side of the business. As FD, surely he’d have seen any wrongdoings first-hand in the figures. Although it was possible that, as with Hugo, they had taken care to ensure there were several faces around the place who could present an outwardly law-abiding image to the general public, just for show. And that meant making sure the public saw only what they wanted them to see.
As for Lorraine, all I could picture was an image of starched blouses, power suits and the kind of ‘invade-my-space-and-I’ll-kick-you-in-the-balls’ look which stopped most chat-up lines dead in their tracks.
‘But she was always so forbidding.’ I was desperate to believe he was kidding me.
‘You’re dead right, mate. Kept forbidding me to slow down and forbidding me to stop.’ He laughed wickedly, pleased by his own coarse wit.
‘Very funny. And since then?’
‘Not a look.’ He frowned. ‘I’ve dropped the odd hint, you know, suggested drinkies and so forth. But she’s blanked me every time. Must have been the mood of the moment, I suppose. Still, can’t say I’m sorry, to be honest; it’d be hell on wheels if she decided she wanted a re-match. You can only keep up that sort of pretence for a while. Juliette would skin my balls and feed ’em to the dogs if she ever found out. Not that they’re much use to me these days, anyway.’
‘Bloody cheek,’ I muttered heavily, and sank some more beer. Hugo was sounding as if Lorraine hadn’t been his first away match.
He looked surprised. ‘Well, I dunno about that. She’d have a point I suppose.’
‘Not her, you pious, double-dealing arse,’ I said angrily. ‘You rattle on about me not being around enough to give Susan more time, but at least I haven’t slept with anyone else. God, I’ve a good mind to tell Juliette.’
Hugo stared at me, the blood draining from his face. ‘I say, that’s low, old boy. You won’t, will you?’ He grabbed hold of my arm, suddenly the one on the defensive. ‘Christ on a broomstick, Jake – come on. I was only telling you by way of trying to help lighten the atmosphere.’
I grinned, enjoying his discomfort. Served him right. ‘Actually, I wouldn’t. But just remember: now I know who and I know when.’
We drank some more, with him shooting me nervous glances. Then I said, ‘Actually, you’re right. It’s about time I got back on the bike and started riding again. I suppose I have been wallowing a bit. It all came as such a shock, though. I let it get to me. Sorry.’ Christ, I almost sounded as if I meant it, even to myself. Maybe I was getting there after all.
‘Good for you, old boy.’ A look of relief passed across his brow now I wasn’t going to drop him in it. ‘You need to get away for a while. Let the atmosphere settle. As for the girl thing, well, you’re not past it, are you?’
‘After the last couple of days I bloody well feel past it. First thing is to get a job.’
‘D’you have any ideas in the pot?’
‘Not really. I was hoping you might be able to help.’ I’d had a quick trawl online for jobs, but unless I fancied teaching English to school kids in New Guinea, packing rubber boots in a factory in Park Royal or wearing a dark uniform and making sure no-one ran off with bottles of sherry from the local supermarket, there wasn’t much about.
‘I might.’ He gave it some thought for a moment, then finished off his pint. ‘Tell you what, I’ll ring a couple of pals and see what’s about. That do you? I suppose you’re not too fussed about what, are you?’
‘Anything,’ I said gamely, remembering Hugo had friends in some very exotic places. ‘Just something to get me back on my feet and keep me solvent. I need to get away from here for a while. Overseas would be nice. Somewhere sunny, perhaps – but not the Foreign Legion; I’ve developed a sudd
en aversion to sand and camels. And if you can think of a way of cashing my severance cheque without using my bank account, that would help. Susan’s got her sights on it already.’
He nodded. ‘Okay. But, umm… one thing, old boy: did you mean it earlier on, about never having strayed? I mean, not even once? Hell, I mean, it’s not as if anyone – Susan – would have found out, is it?’
‘Never.’ I repeated firmly. ‘I told you. Maybe I should have put in for the MBA course you were on.’
‘Come off it, Jake.’ He gave a wry snicker. ‘You’d have got nowhere, I promise you.’
‘Maybe not with Lorraine,’ I said. ‘But I might have got an MBA certificate.’
Marcus’s electronic product tester mates were slouched in the living-room when I got back, wearing what looked like over-sized crash helmets and visors, with the sounds of pitched battle coming from the earpieces. If they were aware of me from within their virtual reality zones, they made no signs, and I guessed I could have stripped naked and done the conga and they wouldn’t have turned a hair.
Smart Moves Page 7
