You Had Me at Hello

by Mhairi McFarlane

  ‘To have a hope of a second date.’

  ‘Hah! That would extinguish all hope forever.’

  ‘There is some hope, then?’

  ‘Never say never.’

  ‘Friends, then? Can men and women be friends or does sex always get in the way, and other clichés?’

  A gang of blokes with untucked shirts in every shade of the Ted Baker rainbow pass by, giving an obligatory ‘you’re a woman!’ roar. I’m glad it prevents me from having to make an answer.

  ‘Have I disturbed your book group?’ Simon asks.

  ‘I’m walking back from the cinema.’

  ‘On your own? I’ll have to talk to you until you arrive home safely, then.’

  ‘Very kind.’

  ‘Can I check, has Ben been sticking his oar in, by any chance?’

  I swap the phone to my other ear. ‘Eh?’

  ‘I thought Ben might’ve talked to you about me. Maybe I’m wrong. If he has, though, I’d rather you judged me for yourself.’

  ‘Why would it be a problem if I had talked to him?’

  ‘He’s quite protective when it comes to you, remember.’

  ‘Ben’s not going to, erm, brief against you though?’ Except that’s what he has done, I guess.

  ‘When he asked how the date went, I felt like he was on the porch in his rocking chair, with a shotgun. You sure you two have never collided without clothes on?’

  This throws me and annoys me in equal measure. Dig, dig, dig. Ben seems to be looming far too large in our conversations, and I can’t work out why. I consider mentioning Simon’s continuing stirring to Ben. Only that would mean us both admitting there’s a pot to stir. No chance. Always question people separately. I can see why they’re going to make him a partner.

  ‘I’m sure, Simon, I think I’d remember. Why the obsession on this point when you’ve been given an answer?’

  ‘I’m a lawyer, Rachel. We keep going until we get an answer we believe.’

  ‘That’s funny, the lawyers I know take the answer they think will fly with the duty sergeant.’

  ‘You’re very good at the art of deflection yourself, aren’t you?’

  ‘Why are our conversations more like a battle of wits?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘Hah. Well … I’m home now, thanks for the company.’

  ‘Have a lovely evening,’ Simon replies, smoothly.

  I’m three streets away from my flat, but the talking had gone as far as I wanted it to.

  49

  I wake up groggy on Sunday morning, rays of feeble sunshine on my face. Rupa’s billowing voile magenta curtains that pool on the floor are incredible in every respect apart from the ‘keeping the light out’ bit.

  I spent a hectic Saturday night watching DVDs and drinking wine alone with no co-drinker to help hide how much I’ve had. I’ve slept so long my bones have gone floppy. I briefly imagine it’s dawn because of the birdsong, before gradually realising it’s the tweeting and chirruping of my phone, submerged under discarded clothing. I get out of bed, sweeping my hair out of my face and cursing whoever thinks it’s acceptable to disturb me.

  It stops as I pick it up. I check the missed call ID. Pete Gretton. What the hell does he want? I can’t remember why we ever exchanged mobile numbers but I’m sure it was on the tacit understanding he’d never use it. I notice he’s called four times already. No message. As I’m contemplating the size of the flea in the ear I’m going to give him tomorrow, he rings again. I answer it in a snap of annoyance.

  ‘What, Pete?’

  ‘Woken you up?’ he asks, uninterestedly.

  ‘Yes, you did.’

  ‘Have you seen the Sundays?’

  ‘Obviously not if I’m still in bed.’ Oh yuck, I mentioned being in bed to Gretton.

  ‘Go and get the Mail.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m not going to tell you. Go and get it and call me back.’

  ‘Listen, this is shitting me up. What are you on about, Pete?’

  ‘Go and get it.’

  Heart beating a little faster than I’ve told it to, I pull a jumper over my pyjama top and cast around for some shoes.

  I decide on the way to the newsagents that I won’t read it in the shop so I can absorb whatever blow this is in privacy. The person in front of me buys scratch cards and Benson & Hedges and spends an excruciating amount of time counting out their change. I almost run back to the flat, slam the door behind me, throw the paper on the floor and kneel over it. The pages stick together as I scrabble through them. Some grotesque latest twist in the lipo story, perhaps.

  I turn to a double page spread, headlined: ‘The Armed Robber, His Wife, His Lawyer – Her Lover.’

  There are some long lens shots of Natalie Shale in a fedora, pulled low like a pop star exiting a hotel, arriving at a house that isn’t her own. The door’s held open by a thin, rakish figure that I recognise as Jonathan Grant, the twenty-something solicitor who’s often swaggered around court full of self-consequence, flirting with female QCs. There’s Lucas Shale’s arrest mugshot, and a photo of Natalie stood demurely behind Grant as he addresses a gaggle of press outside the court.

  I can barely concentrate on the story long enough to do anything more than pick up the odd phrase. ‘Secret trysts at Grant’s £350,000 lovenest in Chorlton-cum-Hardy …’ ‘In public, Natalie Shale was a devoted wife and mother, who protested her husband’s innocence, in private, friends say she was “increasingly desperate” and Grant provided a shoulder to cry on …’ ‘The 27-year-old is regarded as a rising star at his firm …’

  Then I spot it. The fact that makes something this bad a hundred times worse. The first name on the story is a well-known Mail staffer. But there’s a second name in the byline.

  I spend longer than is respectable for someone with no formally recognised learning difficulties wondering if there’s another Zoe Clarke.

  At a loss for what else to do, I call Gretton back.

  ‘Seen it?’ he says.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I feel for you, Woodford, I really do. What she’s done to you is a fucking disgrace. I presume this is something you’ve been sitting on and she’s nicked it?’

  ‘No.’ I feel feverish and dizzy. Gretton’s not going to be the only one who thinks I’m involved. Not by a long way.

  ‘How’s she got this then?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, she’s certainly stolen your thunder and shat in your trifle.’

  ‘I can’t believe it … I don’t believe she’s done this. It could ruin Lucas Shale’s appeal … Jonathan Grant is going to lose his job …’

  ‘To give Clarke her dues, she had some brass balls to negotiate herself a job off the back of it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I hear she called in last thing on Friday saying she wouldn’t be back.’

  ‘She left on Friday? Why did no one tell me?’

  ‘I tried to call, you had your phone turned off. I left a message.’

  The film, with Caroline. After I finished talking to Simon, I noticed I had a voicemail and decided it could wait. Gah.

  ‘She didn’t say why she was going,’ Gretton continues, and I realise he’s enjoying himself hugely. ‘She told them she didn’t have to work notice according to her contract, gave them the old back-to-front victory sign. I expect you were going to get the bad news on Monday.’

  My phone starts beeping with another call. I have a good idea who it might be. I say goodbye to Gretton.

  ‘Have you seen the Mail?’ Ken asks.

  ‘Yes,’ I squeak. I wish I’d had longer to work out how to play this.

  ‘Then the explanation you’re about to give me better be nothing short of fucking miraculous.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s going on.’

  ‘Not going to fly!’ he bellows so loudly I have to move the phone away from my ear. ‘Not going to so much as taxi along the tarmac! Try again! You have the only interview wit
h this woman and your friend in court takes this line to the nationals! You’re seriously telling me this is a coincidence? Do you think I was delivered with this morning’s milk? Is it my fucking silver top that’s confused you?’

  When Ken starts delving into his rhetorical repertoire, you know you’re in deep shit.

  ‘I had nothing to do with this at all, I swear.’

  ‘Then how’d she get the story?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘If you value being in employment, try harder.’

  ‘There were rumours.’ I’m desperately trying to think three steps ahead, with blood pounding in my ears and the phone slippery. ‘Gossip round court a while back that Natalie and her lawyer seemed too close, and maybe that was why he was moved off the Shale case. That was all. Zoe took a chance and it paid off.’

  ‘I’d say it paid off, yeah. Based on nothing more than a hunch, she went to the Mail and never once mentioned what she was doing to you?’

  ‘I’m guessing she kept it from me because she knew it would ruin my story and I’d warn you.’ That’s better, that’s good, Rachel. No one knows about the text. Oh God, what if Zoe’s told people about what I did and Ken’s merely seeing whether I own up? Fuck, fuck.

  ‘Why didn’t you take the rumour seriously?’

  ‘None of us did.’

  ‘Apart from the new girl?’

  ‘Seems so,’ I say, limply.

  ‘Here’s what I think. I think Natalie Shale confessed she was doing the lawyer in some girly confidential with you, and instead of bringing the story to us you gossiped to a junior reporter, who for all her backstabbing double-dealing has still behaved more like something resembling a fucking journalist.’

  ‘Why would Natalie Shale tell me? That interview I did with her was all about getting good PR. She wouldn’t want this in the papers.’

  ‘And this has well and truly shafted our exclusive, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I concede, miserably.

  As the initial shock recedes ever so slightly and the truth of this turn of events sets in, a significant degree of humiliation takes its place. To think I trusted Zoe. To think she play-acted agreeing with my decision to drop it. Zoe was probably contemptuous of me all along, while I played the experienced old hand.

  ‘I’m going to have to explain this to the editor and you’ve given me precisely fuck all to work with,’ Ken continues. ‘I’ve got plenty more to say to you and if you know what’s good for you, you’re going to find more to say to me. See me first thing tomorrow.’ He hangs up on me. At least that’s business as usual.

  I pace the length of the flat trying to get a grip, think straight. OK, OK. Breathe in, then out. ‘First thing tomorrow’ – I’m probably going to keep my job. If Ken was going to sack me he’d want longer to confer with the editor and check it was feasible without risk of tribunal. But if Zoe tells anyone about the text, all bets are off.

  Bottom line: what I did is illegal. I struggle to remember my long-ago training in journalism law. I think it goes, you’re allowed to look at the top page of a document left near you, but turn the pages to look inside and it constitutes trespass. Picking up a phone and opening a text would certainly qualify, should Natalie want to sue. Loads of reporters have crossed similar lines, I know some of them have pocketed photos. The difference is being caught doing it. Ken Baggaley would have no qualms about hanging me out to dry, I’m sure, as punishment for the real crime of giving the story away.

  Blurry with rage, I call Zoe, punching at her number in my address book, marching up and down as I wait for it to connect. This number is no longer in service. I recall she kept saying she was going to change it after the personal advert hassle, but hadn’t got round to it – what fortunate timing to get organised this weekend.

  Before I can talk myself out of it, I scroll through the numbers on my phone and call Simon.

  ‘Yes?’ he says. He sounds haughty and inscrutable, but then Simon generally does. He’s with someone, perhaps.

  ‘Simon, you need to see the Mail, the stuff about Natalie. I promise you that I had nothing to do with it—’

  ‘I’ve seen it.’

  ‘You have?’ Oh dear God, thank you, he’s seen it and it sounds like he’s not lost it. ‘Simon, I—’

  ‘I’ve talked about work enough this weekend. Meet me in St Ann’s Square, one p.m. tomorrow.’

  ‘Sure, I’ll be there.’

  I hear the beep-beep-beep that indicates he’s rung off. Definitely with someone from work, that’s why he was so abrupt. I hope.

  After some more pacing, hair-pulling and cursing, I call Caroline, which results in an unsatisfactory conversation taking place, at her end, on a golf course with Graeme’s parents. It might be distraction due to the game, but she doesn’t seem to understand why this makes me look – and feel – so bad.

  ‘If nobody can prove you told Zoe about it, then it’s on her, surely?’

  ‘They suspect I did.’

  ‘They can suspect all they want, Rach, they need proof and if you tough it out you’ll survive, I’m sure.’

  ‘What if I they already know and they’re testing me to see if I own up?’

  ‘Then you’re screwed either way, so still say nothing.’

  ‘I suppose.’ This thought isn’t remotely comforting.

  I hear Graeme in the background, calling ‘Cee, hurry up, we’re turning to stone here.’

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ she says. ‘Have you spoken to Simon?’

  ‘For about three seconds. He wants to meet up tomorrow to talk about it.’

  ‘Yes, alright Gray – I’ve got to go. Let me know how it goes with your boss.’

  When my phone rings an hour later, I practically sprout wings and flap across the room to answer it, hoping Ben’s going to give me the inside track on what’s gone on. It’s Rhys. For the first time since I left, the thought of him provokes annoyance rather than guilt. I haven’t got the strength to be made to feel bad about anything else right now. I’m guessing this is more logistics and unfinished house clearance.

  ‘Hi. What’s up?’

  ‘I wanted to talk to you,’ Rhys says.

  ‘OK, if it’s a kicking, I should warn you you’re going to have to take a ticket and wait till your number’s called.’

  ‘Jeez, what’s up with you? You sound like you’re on the brink.’

  ‘I am.’

  A pause while Rhys sounds like he’s weighing things up. When he speaks again, his tone is the most conciliatory I’ve heard in a long time. ‘Actually, I was ringing to see if you’d be up for going for a drink. I’ve got a gig in town next week, thought we could meet up first. Draw a line under a lot of aggro. Sounds like you’re too busy though.’

  ‘No,’ I say, weary. ‘No. I’d like to. I’ve got to sort a few work things out. Let me know, OK?’

  ‘Sure. Er … take care of yourself.’

  ‘I will. Thanks.’

  After our goodbyes I find myself missing Rhys, badly. I miss how he would’ve sworn like a plasterer with a stubbed toe about this, given me a hug and made a crack about how I wouldn’t need their poxy job if I fired out babies instead.

  He sounded different. Less angry. That was the first exchange where it seemed like he might want to talk like civilised adults rather than entrenched opponents in a never-ending civil war. I’m happy to hear him sounding happier and I’d like very much to be friends, as much as that’s realistic. Only I feel like a fraud at the arrangement, as ‘some time next week’, when I’ve weathered the storm tomorrow, only exists as some fantasy CS-Lewis-like land right now, where I may have the legs of a magical goat.

  50

  I attempt to stride purposefully through the early morning buzz of the open-plan office, internally repeating the mantra ‘no one’s bothered, yesterday’s news’. Only ‘yesterday’s news’ doesn’t count when it broke on a Sunday and today is Monday, the first opportunity to discuss it, and it’s this juicy.

  Ever
yone looks over, and I could swear an expectant hush falls as I approach Ken, who’s busy hectoring a colleague on news desk. I stand and wait, before Vicky nods her head at me and he turns, fixing me with a cockatrice stare.

  He heaves himself out of the swivel chair and stalks over to his office as I slope behind him, feeling multiple pairs of eyes bore into my back as I go.

  ‘Shut the door,’ he says, dropping into the chair behind his desk. I push it closed and stay standing.

  ‘I’m going to allow for having caught you on the hop yesterday. Today, I’d like the truth.’

  I open my mouth to reply, and Ken cuts me off: ‘And I strongly advise you think before you speak, if you don’t want to see out your journalistic career spellchecking the letters page of Oxfordshire’s Banbury Cake.’

  I teeter on a ledge. On the edge of a ledge. Caroline’s words about holding fast ring in my ears. I lick dry lips.

  ‘Natalie Shale never discussed any affair with me when I interviewed her. The name of that solicitor never even came up and he wasn’t my contact. Zoe’s worked off her own back and messed my story up. That’s all I know and I can’t defend or explain something I knew nothing about, even if it looks dodgy because Zoe and I worked together and I interviewed Natalie.’

  I expect Ken to start screaming and shouting. Instead he simply nods.

  ‘That’s no more than I expected, unfortunately.’

  ‘It’s the truth.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All right, let me give you some home truths. There are two reasons you’ve still got a job, Rachel Woodford. One, I can’t sack you without proof you’re lying. Believe me, I’ve looked into it, because I can’t stand liars, or reporters who don’t have any loyalty to their paper, and you qualify on both fronts from what I can tell. Should I get any proof, things will change. Two, I haven’t got anyone to stick in court in your place. For now. In the meantime, you can send me a list at the end of every week telling me what stories you’re working on, and that includes ones you can’t stand up. So if there’s a fanciful rumour doing the rounds that a defendant’s wife is shagging her husband’s lawyer, I strongly advise you include it. I’ll decide what’s worth pursuing. And if I see a line like that turn up elsewhere and someone we have in court full time hasn’t fucking brought it to us, I’ll want to know what we’re paying you for.’