“Just as well,” Gus said. “Because I don’t want to go to bed with you, either. And I shouldn’t have kissed you. I’m sorry about that. You belong to Charlie.”
“I do not!” I said.
“Whatevs,” Gus said. “I’ll leave it to you both to sort that one out.” He pulled the mask off his head, and now that I could see his whole face, I realised how stupid I’d been to believe, even with the booze, the darkness and my distress, that he was his twin. He was so entirely different – not just physically, but in some other way that mattered much, much more.
I said, “Okay, Gus, you think this is funny. Ha ha. You’ve made a fool of me. I don’t think that’s cool – you do. Fine. But this isn’t about you and me, it’s about Charlie. You’re meant to care about him more than about anyone else. And tonight, why I was crying – Raffy, the guy I was chatting to outside, he said…”
“Raphael Roden?” he said. “That fucker. He’s been sniffing around us for weeks. But it’s me he wants to bring down, not our Charles. Charles is pure as the driven snow.”
“Gus!” I said. His flippancy was infuriating – it was impenetrable. “What’s going on? What’s this all about?”
“Gemma,” he said. “Please don’t worry your pretty little head about it. Your work here is done. Thanks for being so obliging tonight. You might not think so, but it’s what Charlie would have wanted. And now I have my free pass.”
Out of the window, I could see the shuttered windows of Daily Grind, and the familiar trees lining the road where I lived. The taxi’s indicator flashed amber in the falling rain, and the driver said, “Manwood Close.”
I heard my voice saying automatically, “Anywhere here is fine, thanks. But, Gus…”
Gus said, “Out you get, Gemma. I’m going on to the Hoxton Hotel, please, mate.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Amy, Hannah and I spent Sunday mooching around the house, licking our wounds (and our fingers, because Hannah made the biggest ever batch of pancakes, which we ate with mountains of bacon and maple syrup). I was hungover and remorseful, bitterly ashamed of my behaviour the night before: the way I’d ranted at Raffy, snogged Gus and failed entirely to have the Talk I’d promised myself I would have with Charlie. Hannah was hungover and anxious, because Richard had been in contact through her solicitor to say that, while he deeply regretted the behaviour to which he had been driven by pressures of work and Hannah’s lack of understanding, he was not in a position to continue paying the mortgage on the house indefinitely and he awaited clarity on Hannah’s intentions going forward, to be received within fourteen days. Amy was hungover and feeling guilty, because while Hannah’s and my lives were such a mess, she and Kian were blissfully loved up and she’d played a pivotal, if small, role at work in smashing a particularly intractable skunk-dealing ring.
So the three of us were a pretty sorry sight. We lay around in our dressing gowns all day, drinking tea, stuffing our faces and painting our nails while binge-watching Gossip Girl and failing to do anything important or productive. I didn’t vlog at all – in fact, I avoided social media entirely, not wanting to see everyone’s ‘Look how fabulous Ripple Effect parties are’ videos, or Charlie and Gus’s reveal of their latest pranking triumph.
The next morning, as if it was just another Monday and nothing untoward had happened, I set off for work.
The first thing I saw when I approached my desk, clutching my coffee and almond croissant, was that the empty workstation at the end of our pod wasn’t empty any more. It was occupied by a guy with glasses and a wispy beard, who was clutching a bottle of water, staring at the company intranet, and looking every bit as lost and terrified as I’d felt on my first day, which felt like about a thousand years ago.
“Hi, new podmate,” I said. “I’m Gemma, officially no longer the newbie here, I guess.”
The guy jumped as if I’d poked him with something, spilled his water – narrowly missing his keyboard – and said his name was Harrison.
Trying not to sound pitying, I welcomed him, explained the drinks messaging system and made a round of teas and coffees, even though I didn’t need any myself.
Then Jim emerged from Sarah’s office, where the weekly management pow-wow was held at the masochistic hour of eight fifteen, and said, “Morning, gang. Team meeting time.”
We all shuffled off to the breakout room clutching our spiral-bound notebooks and pens and looking somehow naked and incomplete without our phones and tablets. Team meetings at Clickfrenzy were tech-free zones, supposedly to stimulate creative thought. Actually, all it meant was that people displayed an alarming variety of nervous tics.
Jim introduced Harrison, who froze with fear at the prospect of having to say a few words about himself, then melted with relief when he wasn’t asked to, just as I’d done.
“Right,” Jim said. “What are we up to this week?”
“I’m thinking about starting a campaign,” Tom said. “About plates.”
“Plates?” Jim said. “What’s wrong with plates?”
“Nothing, obviously,” Tom said. “But restaurants and pubs don’t seem to realise that. You know how everywhere you go at the moment food’s being served in these ridiculous containers? Like, back in the day when chips in miniature frying baskets were a thing, that was cool, but there’s been some serious mission-creep going on.”
“Oh my God,” Emily said. “The other day, right, I went out for lunch with my friend and my salad came in a flower pot. Seriously, a flower pot.”
“Someone tweeted a picture the other day of a full English breakfast served on a spade,” Ruby said.
“I got a bit of black cod in miso served on a roof tile last week,” Callista said. “The fucking sauce ran right off it and over my lap. I was wearing my new turquoise suede skirt, too. I was, like, this close to sending them the dry-cleaning bill.”
“You see?” Tom said. “I’m sure I’ve heard about somewhere that serves bread in a cloth cap, but it might just be urban myth. Anyway, everywhere’s doing it. Wetherspoons are doing it, and that means it’s long past its sell-by date. So #saveourplates is go.”
“It’s go,” Jim agreed. “Right. Emily?”
Emily glanced down at her notebook. The page was blank. She always did this at meetings, I’d come to realise – arrived apparently unprepared, then nailed some genius idea that everyone loved. Either she had it all sorted in her head, or she was just really good at making stuff up as she went along.
“Yeah, I was thinking London property,” she said. “Not the super-prime market, obviously – that’s tanked since Brexit. But the rental market. You know – beds in sheds, people renting out the cupboard under the stairs, poor doors, no DSS – that kind of thing. I was going to have a look online and find the most barking mad ones and do spoof estate agent descriptions for them. Or even use the real descriptions and do a match the words to the pic thing, like an interactive quiz.”
“Nice one,” Jim said. “Everyone loves a good whinge about London property prices, right?”
I thought about mentioning Alethea Ayoola, and the campaign to save the Garforth estate from demolition, and its residents from losing their homes. But it didn’t seem right, somehow – it would mean breaking the barrier I’d carefully maintained between my life at Clickfrenzy, my life on YouTube, and my real life – whatever that was. So I said nothing.
“God, yeah,” Tom said. “My girlfriend I went to look at a place last weekend. The ad said it was a highly desirable North London location, but actually it was a twenty-minute walk through this fucking dodgy industrial estate. I thought we were going to get knifed on the way. And then the place was…”
“Why not send Emily the link?” Jim said. “Ruby, anything exciting in the world of wellbeing?”
“Barre fit,” Ruby said gloomily. “I thought it was going to be all tutus and dancing bits out of Swan Lake with hot guys, but no. It fucking kills. I went yesterday and the instructor legit shouted at me. She was really scary.
Worse than Sarah. So I’m thinking about doing something about wellness tourism. You know – retreats, and shit. Beaches. Coconuts. Stuff like that.”
“I know someone who did a silent retreat at an old monastery,” Callista said. “They weren’t allowed to talk at all, not even during meals, which were all raw and vegan. She said it was life-changing. She doesn’t even use a mobile any more, and she’s gone zero-consumption: no buying anything new, ever. I really admire her commitment.”
“Perhaps I could interview her?” Ruby said, surreptitiously tugging the price tag off her pearl-grey cashmere jumper.
“I’ll let you know,” Callista said. “It could be tricky, because she’s living off-grid in a bothy in Stornoway. But I’m sure she’d love to have you to stay for a weekend.”
“That sounds great!” Ruby said. “Really great! I’ll… er… write to her. With a stamp. But the post there might be a bit unreliable, so maybe I should plan in something about athleisure fashion first.”
There was a tiny ripple of laughter around the table. Jim said, “Right, Hermione, what’s up in world affairs?”
Hermione flicked back through the pages of her notebook. The way her finger moved, it almost looked like she was trying to swipe left.
“So, I was thinking we need to do something about domestic violence,” she said. “I mean, it was massive news earlier in the year with the whole Rob and Helen thing...”
“Who?” Tom said.
Jim raised an eyebrow. “As everyone knows, except Tom, who recently joined us from the cave where he’s spent the past two years, The Archers had a long-running storyline about domestic abuse. It raised a huge amount of awareness, and money, too, for victims’ shelters.”
“Which is much needed,” Hermione said. “Because there have been huge cuts to funding.”
“And it’s going to get worse,” Emily said. “Here, because funding for everything’s being cut all the time, but in the US...”
“Because the president-elect basically fucking hates women,” said Ruby.
“I read somewhere that one woman in four will be a victim of domestic abuse in her lifetime,” Callista said. “One in four. Think about it.”
I thought. I looked around the table at Hermione, Ruby, Emily and Callista. One in four. I’d thought of what Richard had done to Hannah as an aberration – a sort of freak event, like being struck by lightning or something. But maybe it wasn’t.
The atmosphere in the room had changed. Before, it had been energetic, light-hearted – everyone having fun with what were ultimately silly ideas for wasting people’s time when they were meant to be working, or doing housework or whatever. Now, the faces around the table were all still and serious.
“What kind of story did you have in mind, Hermione?” Jim said.
“I think it’s bigger than that,” Hermione said. “I don’t think it’s just one story. I think we should do some video, talk to survivors, talk to the people working on the coalface, so to speak – refuges, police officers and so on. Maybe link it to a fundraising campaign.”
“Okay,” Jim said. “I’m down with that. I’ll have to talk to Sarah and see if we can get the other teams involved. Marketing will need to have a say, and the ad guys. It’s a bit of a shift from our usual content. But we could all get involved – make it a team effort.”
“I’m running the London marathon next year,” Harrison said, blushing furiously. “I got a ballot place, but I’m well up for raising money anyway.”
“We could auction cakes in the office,” Tom said.
I blushed almost as much as Harrison, and said, “I did a thing on my vlog, a couple of weeks back. It really seemed to hit a nerve. My housemate – well, my landlady, really, was in an abusive relationship. I didn’t realise, even though it was happening right under my nose. I guess it’s happening everywhere, right under lots of people’s noses, and they don’t realise either.”
That was it. The barrier was down, and I didn’t care.
“And that brings us to you, Gemma,” Jim said. “What are you working on right now?”
“Um, epic cat fails,” I said humbly. “You know, like being sat on by the dog and getting bits of kitty litter stuck in their whiskers and missing when they jump and stuff. I know, right?”
There was a moment’s silence around the table, and then everyone started laughing, even Hermione.
“Think you might have a bit of spare time to give Hermione a hand with some research if this domestic violence campaign gets going?” Jim said. “We’ll need to get a cameraman and a sound person on board – I’ll have a word with the art department.”
“Of course. I’d love to.”
“Right. Harrison,” Jim said, “you’re on cats. Gemma will tell you all about them.”
“Miaow,” Tom said, doing the whisker thing again. I wondered how many times he’d done it before, and whether someone had done it to him on his first day.
“I’ll send you the links I normally use,” I said. “Cats are great, Harrison. You’ll love doing cat content. It’s really fun.”
“Great. I think that’s it then. Thanks, everyone.”
I stood up, and it was the strangest thing – I felt as if I was almost levitating, such was the relief of knowing that the cat brief wasn’t going to be my job any more.
We all went back to our desks – I almost skipped – and I spend a few minutes showing Harrison the various cat motherlodes of the internet.
Then I sent Emily a message, saying, Hey – if you need someone to talk to for your London housing story, I know a woman who might be able to help.
I stood in front of the orange door of Charlie and Gus’s apartment, feeling at least as nervous as I’d done the first time I’d turned up there on my own. Tonight, though, there was no violin music pouring through from the flat. There was only silence. I strained my ears, but I couldn’t hear anything at all. The door fitted too tightly in its frame for me to see if any lights were on. I took my phone out of my bag, but I already knew there would be no message from Charlie – the flood of texts, missed calls and WhatsApps had stopped on the morning of the Halloween party, and not started again. I scrolled to his number and looked at it for a bit, then told myself not to be ridiculous – I was standing outside his door, it would be daft to call him. I was going to do the analogue thing.
I raised my hand, knocked, and waited. There was no response. I listened harder, waiting to hear the scrabble of Taylor’s claws as she dashed to meet me, but she didn’t come. No one did. I knocked again, but I knew there wouldn’t be any answer.
For the first time, I started to feel worried. Not about the difficult conversation I’d come there to have, but about Charlie himself. Charlie and Gus. I remembered how Gus had been on Saturday night – cool and off-hand as usual, but also… I tried to remember. I’d been so drunk, so bewildered by the events of the night. He’d been different, somehow. His normal insouciance seemed to be hiding something deeper – he wasn’t pretending not to care, I thought, he genuinely didn’t care. There had been a recklessness about him I’d never seen before.
And what was it that he’d said about Raffy – that Raffy wanted to bring him down? At the time, I’d thought it was just Gus being Gus, the starring actor in the drama of his own life. But now I thought, What if it was real? He’d called Raffy by his full name, Raphael something, but I couldn’t remember what it was. What if Raffy – Raphael – had done something to harm Gus, or Charlie, or both the Berry Boys? Or, even worse, done something that had made them hurt themselves? If he had, I thought, I’d never, ever forgive him. And I’d find a way to hurt him, too.
I put my phone back in my bag and took out my keys. I’d never used the key Charlie had given me – I’d never needed to, because one them was always there – mostly, they both were. They didn’t do normal things like pop out to Sainsbury’s or go to work. If they had a book signing or a meet-and-greet, it was planned ages in advance. When they went out, it was late at night, when their l
egions of teenage fans were safe at home.
Something was wrong. I needed to know what it was, and fix it if I could.
I fitted the key in the lock. It was a fancy, high-security lock, and I could feel heavy metal bars turning and releasing as I twisted it. The door swung open, and I stepped into the dark, silent apartment.
“Charlie?” I said, but my voice wasn’t working properly and only a whisper came out. I tried again. “Charlie? Gus?”
But there was no response. I wasn’t really expecting there to be.
I stepped inside, my heels loud on the hard floor. The lights from the canal towpath outside illuminated the room; no one had closed the blinds leading out on to the balcony and it was bright enough for me to see quite easily. I walked towards the kitchen where I’d prepared so many unwanted healthy meals, the glass dining table that was never used, and the sofa where Charlie and I had first made love – or its identical successor. As always, it felt like a very long way.
But something was different. It was only when I got to the end of the room that I realised what it was: all the lights, computers and camera equipment were gone. No trailing wires threatened to catch my heels as I walked. No LEDs blinked; no fans whirred.
I opened the door to the balcony and shivered as the night air rushed into the warm room. The hot tub was tightly covered by its grey vinyl lid. The water glinted darkly below; there was no sign of the family of swans Charlie and Gus had watched grow up.
Then, with no warning at all, the lights came on. I couldn’t help it – I screamed. A high-pitched, girly shriek – and it was immediately echoed by another high-pitched, girly shriek.
The Truth About Gemma Grey: A feel-good, romantic comedy you won't be able to put down Page 28
