Foursome

by Jane Fallon

  When Lorna arrives she is forced to come in to reception to say hello to Kay, so I make a big point of being really smiley and happy to see her. I know she thinks I will have had a weekend from hell after her visit to see Dan on Friday night, but I am not going to give her the satisfaction of looking miserable. The look of confusion that passes over her face when I cheerily ask how her weekend was is priceless. She wants to make a good impression on Kay, though, so she has to respond in an equally matey manner.

  It’s the first time I’ve been in a room with her for more than a couple of minutes since she and Alex split up, and I can’t help but notice that she’s looking even more skeletal than usual and that the dark circles round her eyes seem to have moved in permanently. She looks like she’s aged and it occurs to me that she’s really taking the end of the relationship hard. Loathsome as she is, Alex used her very unfairly. I have no doubt but that he accelerated the relationship cynically, and he made her genuinely believe he had fallen in love with her. Partly, no doubt, it was easy because she’s always been so desperate for someone to love her. Well, she’s better off without him whether she realizes it yet or not (not, I’d say from the red rims round her eyes). Once she gets a bit of distance from the relationship I’m sure she’ll be able to see it for what it is more clearly. And when that happens, I decide, I’ll try to talk to her about everything that’s gone on. I’ll see if we can clear the air and at least pretend to get along.

  There’s big excitement in the office today because we have a new client. And not just any old client. Lorna is the golden girl because she has somehow convinced the uncrowned but universally acknowledged queen of prime time Saturday night TV, Heather Barclay, to join Mortimer and Sheedy’s humble little stable.

  Supposedly – and I hear this from the skinny horse’s mouth itself because Lorna, while in no mood to share her good news with me, is revelling in showing off to Joshua in front of Kay – Lorna met her at a mutual friend’s short-film screening at BAFTA a few weeks ago. She (Lorna) introduced herself to Heather and flattered her that she was capable of far more worthy and challenging work than merely reading someone else’s words off an autocue. Heather confided that she felt she had been pigeonholed as the nation’s slightly bland sweetheart and that she didn’t believe her current agent knew how to help her broaden her horizons. She was with one of the bigger, flashier agencies and she didn’t feel like anybody there was hungry enough to really be prepared to work hard on her behalf. They were happy for her to just coast along doing the same old stuff so long as they could keep on taking fifteen per cent of her quite considerable earnings.

  ‘So I told her,’ Lorna says, seemingly loving having an attentive audience hanging on her every word (Kay and Joshua, I mean, obviously. I am pretending to get on with my work), ‘that I was an agent who was so hungry she was almost starving!’ She laughs at her own joke here although, of course, the irony is that she does actually look like she’s starving at the moment. Literally.

  ‘And I told her all about Mortimer and Sheedy. Then, to be honest, I forgot all about it until she phoned me over the weekend and she said she was going to tell Fisher Parsons Management today that she wants to leave. She’s coming in at three o’clock to talk about exactly what she wants to do next.’

  Actually, I feel like there’s something flat in the way Lorna is delivering her story, despite the jokes and the self-congratulation. Like she’s going through the motions, showing off because it’s expected of her rather than because she’s getting any pleasure from it.

  ‘Good girl,’ Joshua says, as if he was talking to his pet lurcher. ‘And obviously you’ll be looking after her?’ There’s a question mark in his voice that makes me think that he’s hoping Lorna will say, ‘No, she’s coming to be represented by you,’ but, of course, that doesn’t happen. I guess that even while he’s delighted on behalf of the company to have acquired a big fish, he’s a little jealous that he didn’t net her himself. Lorna, of course, has no intention of handing over the big prize.

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘She said she felt like we really clicked.’

  There’s no denying that poaching Heather is, indeed, great news for Mortimer and Sheedy. The more money the company brings in the better for all of us. Very few of our clients earn the big bucks. We rely more on the slow but steady. Heather’s arrival will not bring about an immediate change in our fortunes, though. In fact, there’s no guarantee that it ever will. The way it works is that Heather will continue to pay commission to her previous agents, Fisher Parsons Management, for all jobs which predated her defection to us. So, if she spends the next five years hosting her hit game show, High Speed Dating, we’ll earn nothing. Ditto if she continues to front Celebrity Karaoke. Lorna’s job is to find her new projects, to negotiate brand-new deals. And that may not be as easy as it sounds, especially since Heather has delusions of gravitas. Still, even if she never earns a penny for us, she will still be a great poster girl for the company. And, because celebrities attract other celebrities like moths round a candle, the chances are that we will acquire a few more A-list clients in the next few months.

  Kay is understandably impressed with her new boss’s brilliance.

  ‘Wow,’ she says, once Lorna and Joshua have left the room. ‘Heather Barclay.’

  ‘Yep,’ I say, not quite trusting myself with any more. The truth is that Lorna has pulled off quite a coup and I’m finding that a little irritating.

  ‘She just went up and talked to her at a party,’ Kay continues. ‘That’s so cool.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Isn’t it?’

  I take Kay round to the Red Lion for lunch and I ask her if she has any questions so far. She does and they’re all quite insightful and the kind of thing you ought to ask, so I’m feeling good that I backed the right horse. I’m enjoying the fact that I can mould her into my ideal co-worker. (‘Don’t ever let the phone ring more than three times. In fact, while you’re still learning the ropes the most useful thing you can do is answer as many calls as you can, get a feel for who’s calling and why.’) Kay is so happy to be back at work, so grateful for the opportunity, so keen to do well that she absorbs everything I throw at her, like a Vileda super mop. I’m careful to be fair. I make it clear to her that we share the chores and the responsibilities. I’m not trying to dump the jobs I don’t like on her just because I probably could. She already gets the rough end of the deal by having to work for Lorna.

  Lorna is poking about in reception when we get back, which always makes me nervous. She looks at her watch.

  ‘You need to stagger your lunch breaks in future,’ she says, looking at Kay. ‘You can’t both be going out together; someone needs to be here at all times to man the phones.’

  ‘Oh,’ Kay says, and looks worried.

  ‘My fault,’ I say cheerily. ‘I checked with Melanie and she said it was fine because she wasn’t going to be going anywhere.’

  ‘Well, you should have let me know,’ she says grumpily.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I should,’ I say, refusing to rise to the bait. ‘Oh well, never mind. No harm done.’

  If Kay wasn’t there, we would probably have a row about now. Her accusing me of being insubordinate, me hurling accusations at her that would include being patronizing and high handed. As it is she merely mutters under her breath and retreats to her office to prepare for the big meeting.

  Heather seems nice enough when she comes in, although she does that thing where she’s very friendly until she realizes I am only a humble assistant and then she switches to polite but disinterested. I make her a cup of tea while she is waiting for Lorna to get off the phone and I hope that she isn’t put off by the wall of photos of people she probably doesn’t even recognize who make up our clients.

  The meeting clearly goes to plan. Heather reiterates her decision to sack her current representation and join us. Once she has left, Joshua produces a bottle of champagne from somewhere and insists that we all sit in his office and have a glass to cele
brate.

  ‘Don’t get ideas,’ I say to Kay, smiling. ‘This doesn’t happen every day.’

  She laughs and Melanie asks her how she’s enjoying it so far.

  ‘It’s great,’ Kay says. ‘I think I’m going to love it here.’

  Silently I hope she’s right.

  18

  It’s a relief to have Nicola and Natalie already causing havoc in the flat when I get home. It will give Dan something to focus on other than his fight with Alex. He was very down all weekend, preoccupied. Tonight he won’t have the luxury of being able to brood because he’ll be forced into playing Mousetrap or boxing on Zoe’s Wii Fit.

  Isabel has already been and gone, dropping the girls off into Zoe’s dubious care and racing back round to Liverpool Road to prepare for her date. Luke is taking her to Nobu and then – I am in no doubt that Isabel is hoping at least – back to hers for the big moment.

  I send her a text – ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do’ – and she calls me almost immediately and says, ‘I’m terrified.’

  ‘Just lie back and think of England,’ I say, and she laughs.

  ‘I haven’t been naked in front of anyone other than Alex since I was, what? Twenty?’

  ‘I’ve seen you naked.’

  ‘You know what I mean. I don’t look like that any more. I look like a forty-year-old woman who’s had twins.’

  ‘That’s because that’s what you are. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘It’s just… it doesn’t all look as good as it used to.’

  ‘Luke has kids, doesn’t he? Presumably he coped with having to see his wife with no clothes on after she had them.’

  ‘They’re separated, remember?’

  ‘Isabel. If you are going to tell me that Luke left his wife because he didn’t fancy her any more once she had children, then I am going to forbid you from ever seeing him again.’

  ‘No! Of course not. I don’t know what I mean. I’m just nervous about… you know… doing it.’

  ‘Listen to yourself. You’re a beautiful, funny, intelligent, successful woman. He should be so lucky.’

  ‘I know, I know. I’m pathetic.’

  I’m not letting her off that easily. ‘Don’t you think he’s feeling nervous too? I doubt he’s in the same shape he was when he was at college, but do you care? No. And neither does he about you. And if he’s that shallow that he’s put off by the odd stretch mark then he’s not worth knowing. OK?’

  ‘Yes. OK.’

  ‘Try to enjoy it. It’s meant to be fun, remember.’

  ‘Fun. Yes. I’ll try to keep that in mind.’

  ‘Go and have a glass of wine before you go out. And call me as soon as he’s left in the morning. The minute he leaves, OK?’

  I find myself thinking about it a lot later on. Not Isabel and Luke having sex. That would be weird. Not to mention that I have no idea what Luke looks like so I would have to make up my own image, avatar-like, to project into the picture. No, I can’t stop myself from wondering what it would be like to be with someone other than Dan. Now, at my age. I know exactly what Isabel meant when she said she was nervous, despite my giving her a hard time about it. It would be so exposing, so much more revealing and potentially humiliating than when we were young and confident. But also thrilling and daring and invigorating. Not to mention the ego boost, that someone had looked at you now, exactly as you are with all your wobbly bits and lines round your eyes, and thought, Phwoar.

  A part of me, a part I’d rather not acknowledge, is envious. But I know that if I were her there’s no way I would be taking my own advice. I would be crawling back into my safe shell and not risking the rejection. And, by the way, I am not looking for any kind of a change. I am very happy with the way my life is. I just find it a bit unnerving, being surrounded by all this rampant lust all of a sudden, that’s all. It’s not what I’m used to in my friends. It’s making me feel, what? Inadequate? Boring? Left out?

  It suddenly occurs to me that when I met Dan I was so self-assured. Of course, I was also about nine stone. I have a horrible moment of insecurity when I wonder what he thinks about the way I look now, whether he notices that I’ve let myself go a bit or whether he just sees the woman he loves, and embraces all the changes. Whether underneath it all he’s watching Alex and Isabel and wishing he could run off and have wild abandoned passionate sex with someone new. No, I tell myself. Not Dan. He’s probably thinking about how awful it must be to have to remember to hold your stomach in and not to breath through your mouth because you’ve been eating garlic. And I feel the same. I do.

  As soon as I have dispatched the kids off to school the next morning – giving Zoe strict instructions to walk the girls right up to the front door ‘and make sure they go through it’ before getting on the bus with William – I call Isabel. I know I should be waiting for her to ring me and I’m taking a chance that Luke might still be there. I’m guessing that she won’t answer if he is. But she picks up on the third ring and it doesn’t sound like she’s in the throes of passion.

  ‘So,’ I say as soon as she says hello. ‘How was it?’

  ‘Oh,’ she says, not sounding at all like the earth has recently been moving. ‘It was great. I think. It was all over quite quickly.’

  ‘The first one always is,’ I say as if I have any idea. ‘You just have to get it out of the way and then, once all the awkwardness about taking your clothes off is over, you can really take it slowly the next time. Right?’

  ‘That’s just it,’ she says. ‘There wasn’t a next time.’

  ‘Not even this morning?’

  ‘He didn’t stay the night. He came back and it was all going really well and then he said that he had to get home. He said he had a meeting early this morning and he needed a change of clothes.’

  ‘Oh. Right. Well, that’s understandable, I suppose. It would have looked a bit presumptuous if he had turned up for your date clutching a clean suit.’

  ‘I know. I guess I just felt a little disappointed. I’d built up this whole scenario in my head of me cooking breakfast for him and it really being a chance for us to get to know each other better…’

  ‘Did you ever actually ask him if he wanted to stay the night? Before you got home, I mean?’

  ‘No. I suppose I didn’t. I just assumed…’

  ‘You know what? Maybe it’s a good thing. I can’t imagine facing someone I hardly know over cornflakes and toast in the morning. Especially after…’

  She laughs. ‘You’re right. The reality probably wouldn’t have been that romantic. Anyway, he’s asked me if I want to go out again later in the week so I guess it must have been OK.’

  ‘Only OK?’

  ‘No. It was better than OK. And next time it’ll be fantastic.’

  ‘So he didn’t take one look at you with your clothes off and run a mile, then?’

  ‘No,’ she says coyly. ‘He didn’t.’

  ‘Do you need me to have the girls again? I’m happy to.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ she says. ‘Alex wants them to stay at his.’

  ‘You’ve talked to him?’

  ‘Of course. Only about logistics. He didn’t mention anything about falling out with Dan. And I wasn’t about to bring it up.’

  ‘How did he sound?’ I say. Despite all of my angry feelings towards Alex I don’t like to think of him cut adrift.

  ‘A bit miserable to be honest. Flat.’

  ‘Well, it’s his own fault,’ I say.

  ‘Some of it,’ she says. ‘Not everything.’

  When we say goodbye I start to feel incredibly sad. How have we got to this stage where Isabel is sleeping with someone new and Alex has had a whole other relationship start and finish? Where Dan couldn’t care less about whether Alex is OK or not? It feels bizarre that all of our shared history, that bond that was so important to all of us, has come to count for nothing.

  Despite Lorna work feels like a welcome distraction to real life at the moment and I feel my mood lighten a
s I go up in the rickety old lift towards our attic rooms.

  Kay is already there, kettle on, and we chatter amiably while we wait for the day to pick up speed. She takes a message from Craig who is calling to say he is safely on his way to his script meeting and then I pass Heather over to her so that she can leave a message for Lorna too.

  ‘What did she want?’ I ask when Kay has put the phone back down.

  ‘To find out if Lorna has called the BBC to set up a meeting yet.’

  ‘Blimey. She’s keen.’ Strictly speaking, Heather has to give Fisher Parsons Management three months’ notice and we would have to share commission with them on any new jobs, which we set up for her in that period. In reality it’s a grey area and one that’s notoriously hard to police. Everything takes so long that even if Heather met with the Head of Light Entertainment at the BBC tomorrow (or the Controller of Entertainment Commissioning as I think they are calling themselves these days. I try not to get distracted by wondering how much it cost to replace all the headed notepaper when that change came in) and they offered her her own series on the spot, it would still be months before contracts were signed and production begun. And by that stage who’s to say when that original meeting actually happened? Besides, Heather is under contract to ITV for the next year and a half so it all feels a little irrelevant.

  ‘So just email Lorna all the details you have, including the time of the call. And then file the email somewhere. Don’t delete it.’

  Kay nods, taking it in.

  ‘And, if it’s important, deliver it verbally when you get a chance too.’

  If she wonders why I am hammering the point home so violently, she doesn’t say. I just want to make sure she’s covered herself.