by Jane Fallon
‘I’ve lost count of the number of different languages I’ve had to learn the phrase “no, I really don’t want to go to a lap dancing club” in,’ he says, which makes us all laugh and reveals something rather sweet about him at the same time.
Now, he tells us, he’s hoping that whenever Izz can get the time off work, she’ll be able to go with him. ‘If she wants to, of course,’ he adds hastily.
‘Try and stop me,’ Isabel says, and she leans over and gives him a quick kiss.
It’s so strange seeing her so intimate with someone other than Alex that I almost gasp out loud. They have a really easy way with one another. Lots of little looks and touches. I glance over at Dan and he’s looking at me. We raise our eyebrows at each other in a way that I know means we both like Luke and we’re delighted to see Isabel so happy. It’s amazing what you can convey with one eyebrow raise when you’ve known someone for twenty years. I try to remember the last time he spontaneously put his hand on my knee or reached for it as we walked down the street. I can’t.
‘Where do you live?’ Rose is saying to Luke, and he explains about Teddington.
‘Oh,’ she says. ‘I’m sure I’ve seen you around… you’re really familiar.’
‘Probably when he’s picking Charlie up from school,’ Isabel says.
I’m worried that Luke might not want to get cornered into a whole conversation about Charlie and his ADD and the school’s decision to let him stay on, so I engineer a clumsy subject change by saying, ‘Rose is always having to travel for her job too,’ and making her tell Isabel and Luke all about her latest trip to Kenya.
‘How’s work?’ Rose asks later, and I fill her in on the latest and tell Luke an abridged version of the whole story.
‘My God,’ he says. ‘How are you going to carry that off?’
‘Um…’ I say. ‘I’m sure she’ll be back soon and then it’s just a question of making her see that it was all for her own good…’ I tail off. It doesn’t sound like much of a foolproof plan.
‘What if she doesn’t come back?’
I laugh nervously. ‘Oh, she will; she loves her job.’
‘I hope so. That’s one of the craziest stories I’ve ever heard,’ he says. ‘Good on you for trying to protect her. I’m not sure I could be so generous.’
I’m starting to clear the main-course plates and dishes from the table when Zoe appears and starts to help. As neither Rose nor Isabel are the parent of a teenager yet this maybe doesn’t strike them as so odd, but I know what she’s up to. She scrutinizes Luke and Simon as if she’s trying to work out which is which.
‘Hi, Auntie Isabel,’ she says, and gives Isabel a hug. Rose stands up and introduces herself and tells her that the (temporary) blue streak in her hair is really cool. Luke and Simon both sort of wave so I know I have to step in and do my bit.
‘This is my oldest, Zoe,’ I say. ‘And this is Rose’s husband, Simon.’ Zoe just about manages a hello to Simon although she can’t quite disguise her lack of interest in him.
‘And this is Auntie Izz’s friend Luke,’ I say, and poor Luke gets the whole force of thirteen-year-old-girl curiosity aimed in his direction.
‘Nice to meet you, Zoe,’ he says in his most charming voice.
‘Hi, Luke,’ she says, smiling, but then she doesn’t quite wait until he turns away before she gives Isabel a big two thumbs up. Luke, to give him credit, pretends not to have seen, and the rest of us manage to wait until Zoe has left for the kitchen with a pile of dishes and is out of earshot before we burst out laughing.
‘I think you passed,’ I say to him, and then I follow her out to the other room.
‘He’s well nice,’ she says. ‘At least compared to the other one,’ she adds, meaning Simon who has rather receding hair and an unfortunate pinky blond complexion.
‘Well, he’s making Auntie Isabel happy, that’s the main thing.’
‘And he’s nice looking,’ she says, not even joking. ‘He’s making her happy and he’s nice looking. There’d be no point in him making her happy if he was ugly, would there?’
I don’t even try to argue the point.
Five minutes later, once Zoe has returned to her room, William comes in.
‘Are you Auntie Isabel’s new boyfriend?’ he says before I can even try to introduce him. Luckily he says it to the right man – Zoe must have described him – and the right man says, ‘Yes, I suppose I am. You must be William. Nice to meet you.’ He shakes William’s hand, which, I know, William will like.
‘Bed time,’ I say to him. He looks at me in disgust. ‘I know.’
While I’m out in the kitchen slicing up the cheesecake, Isabel comes in, ostensibly to get the wine to fill everyone’s glass, but I know that she really wants to get me on my own.
‘Well?’ she says, keeping an eye on the living-room door.
‘Well what?’ I carry on meticulously carving the dessert.
She laughs. ‘You know what.’
I put the knife down, wipe my hands on a tea towel, take my time.
‘Rebecca…’
‘I really like him,’ I say, smiling at her. ‘Dan does too, I can tell.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘And he’s having a good time, I know he is.’
‘Maybe we could get together at the weekend? The four of us?’
‘Maybe,’ she says. ‘I’ll ask him, but weekends are difficult. He has Charlie.’
‘He can get a sitter, can’t he?’
‘I don’t think he likes to. It’s the only time he really sees him, you know. And he doesn’t want his wife to think he’s not taking care of him properly…’
‘Does she know about you yet, the wife?’
‘No,’ Isabel says. ‘Luke wants to wait until the divorce is finalized.’
‘Makes sense,’ I say, and I hand her a couple of dishes to take in.
‘Bex…’ she says as I’m about to go through to the living room. ‘I heard from Alex again.’ I know she doesn’t mean that he was calling to ask what time to pick up the girls.
‘No, Isabel,’ I say. ‘Don’t let him get to you. Look at how happy you are now. Plus I’d put money on the fact that he’s only started doing this because you’ve found someone else.’
‘I know,’ she says. ‘But I can’t not talk to him because of the girls.’
‘Then you have to draw up some ground rules. Tell him you’re not going to answer his calls any more unless he promises to stop saying that stuff. That’ll soon stop him.’
‘I will,’ she says, and I hope she means it.
‘Don’t let him mess up things between you and Luke.’
‘Don’t worry,’ she says. ‘No one’s going to do that.’
I fall asleep thinking about what a fun evening we’ve had, how well it went. Everyone got on, no one was annoying or shy or wanting to be the centre of attention. Rose and Simon have invited us all round to theirs the week after next, and Luke left promising to try to come out at the weekend, although he doubted he’d be able to. He did offer up another evening next week, though, so it didn’t seem like he was making excuses. All in all it was a really good night. Better than I could have hoped for.
25
On Wednesday, despite a mini hangover, I manage a couple more tiny coups for my little band of surrogate clients. Following my ring round I have managed to secure Kathryn her first audition in I don’t know how many months. Daytime soap Nurses are looking for a new matron. They’d forgotten all about Kathryn, the casting assistant who calls me back tells me, till I reminded them. I take down the details, and call Kathryn at the florist’s. She’s ridiculously grateful and then I have to indulge her in her panic about what to wear and how to do her hair. Then Marlborough Murder Mysteries call to say that they’ve watched Mary’s little DVD and would she like to come in and read for the part of Effie, sister of the handsome but cold and frighteningly clever Detective Marlborough. The role is to be a semi-regular one, popping up
throughout the series. Kay and I dance a little jig of celebration around the office once I’ve delivered the news to Mary until Joshua sticks his head out of his office and shouts at us to shut the fuck up. Oh, and Samuel gets offered another couple of days on Nottingham General, this time playing a man who is suspected of assisting his terminally ill wife’s unsuccessful suicide bid. I don’t want to lose him the job, but I can’t help asking whether that won’t be strange him popping up again so soon?
‘Oh no, we do it all the time,’ the booker tells me. ‘Our audience doesn’t care. In fact, I think they like it.’
Samuel, I have come to realize, is always going to be OK. Solid and reliable. He’s a good actor and people like working with him. He’s never going to be a leading man, but he’ll tick away nicely doing two days here and three days there for the rest of his life, as long as we remind everyone of his existence every now and again. And he’s happy with that. Why shouldn’t he be? He gets very well paid when he does work and he still has ample time to potter around on his allotment. He’s never going to earn us a fortune, but looking after him takes almost no time or effort so everybody’s happy.
Kay and I have a celebratory drink in the pub over the road at the end of the day and Kay toasts my ‘new-found agenting skills’. I make my way home feeling ridiculously proud of myself, not to mention stretched and fulfilled and engaged and a host of other positive adjectives.
I wake up in a cold sweat. It’s Thursday tomorrow. What if Luke’s right and Lorna doesn’t ever come back? Lorna’s lunch with Heather and Niall Johnson is on Monday and she still knows nothing about it. I know that I have been blocking out the real implications of Lorna’s absence. I allowed myself to think that I could coast along until she returned and then we could all go back to how we were. Recently I’ve been having too much of a good time at work to even be thinking about it at all. In fact, I don’t know what I’ve been thinking really. I guess I haven’t. And it’s all about to come crashing down around my ears unless I can get Lorna back to work and doing an impression of a sane person by Monday.
I try to stop myself but I can’t help waking Dan up.
‘What?’ he says. ‘What?’
I tell him what’s bothering me and all he says is, ‘I thought you were enjoying doing her job.’
‘I am,’ I say. ‘I was.’
‘Then what’s the problem?’
I decide he’s being deliberately dense. Isn’t it obvious what the problem is?
‘They’re expecting Lorna to be at that lunch.’
‘Tell them she’s still sick. It seems to have worked so far.’
‘There’s no way anyone’s going to believe she’s still just suffering from some little virus after more than two weeks. Besides, both Niall and Heather want her to be there.’
‘You go in her place,’ Dan says, and rolls over, pulling the duvet up round his shoulders.
‘You’re being stupid now,’ I say, getting annoyed. ‘Of course I can’t go in her place. They’ll cancel if I tell them she’s not around and then where does that leave Heather with Mortimer and Sheedy? She’s getting frustrated already.’
‘Tell me what you want me to say, then we can go back to sleep,’ Dan says.
‘Oh, forget it. You don’t understand,’ I say grumpily, and then I feel bad. It’s hardly Dan’s fault I’ve got myself in this mess. I rub the arm that is flopped over the duvet.
‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have woken you up.’
He turns over and cuddles into me. ‘It’s OK. You’ll feel better about it in the morning,’ he says.
I don’t. I feel panicky, like I’ve suddenly discovered I’m on a roller coaster, teetering on top of a huge drop and I don’t know how to get off. I can’t wait to get into work to talk to Kay. She’s the only person who can really understand the predicament I’m in. Consequently I’m at the office by quarter past nine and I have to sit and wait for her to arrive, counting down the minutes. The second she’s through the door I start.
‘Oh my God, we have to get Lorna to come back before Monday because it’s Heather’s lunch and Lorna has to be there because I told them she was going to be, in fact, if you remember, they thought I was her and…’
Kay interrupts. ‘Slow down. Go back to the beginning. What’s the matter?’
So, I start again only this time I try to leave the odd gap between words so that she can understand what I’m on about.
‘Yes,’ she says helpfully when I pause for breath. ‘I was wondering how you were going to get out of this one.’
‘I thought she’d be back by now,’ I wail. ‘How was I to know she’d just take to her bed and stay there?’
‘OK,’ Kay says calmly. ‘Let’s look at the options.’ She counts off on her fingers. ‘One: Lorna comes back in the next couple of days and she’s fine and she’s happy to go to the lunch and grateful for the way you’ve saved her job and we all live happily ever after.’
‘I don’t think that’s going to happen.’
‘Neither do I. Two: Lorna doesn’t come back, you tell Heather and Niall they’ll have to go ahead with lunch without her there. Heather is pissed off that she’s not being treated with the respect she deserves, she moves agencies again and word gets out that Lorna is suffering from some kind of long-term debilitating condition and may never return to work so all her other clients leave too.’
‘Oh God,’ I say.
‘Three: we go round to Lorna’s place on Monday, drag her out of the door and deliver her to the lunch where she sits like a drooling idiot but at least she’s there.’
‘That’s just as bad,’ I say.
Kay is still going. ‘Four: we tell Joshua and Melanie exactly what’s been going on and one of them takes over looking after Heather.’
‘And I lose my job.’
‘Really? Even though all you’ve been trying to do is help out?’
‘Definitely. I’ve been lying to them, pretending to be Lorna, misleading the clients… Oh God, it doesn’t bear thinking about.’
‘Well then,’ she says, ‘I think we are only left with option five.’
‘Run away?’
Kay laughs. ‘No. We… when I say we, really I mean you… get Lorna up and back to work, convince her that everything was done for her own good and that she should never tell Joshua, Melanie or any of the clients about it and somehow turn her back into her old dynamic self in time for lunch on Monday.’
She looks at me triumphantly. ‘And how do I do that?’ I say.
‘I have no idea.’
She’s right, of course. The only thing that can save me now is to put the world back together without anyone even noticing that it had fallen apart in the first place, but I just don’t know if that’s possible.
Kay, practical as ever, says, ‘The sooner you speak to her the more time she has to get herself back together before Monday.’
‘What shall I do? Go round there again? I can’t believe she’ll open the door to me a second time.’
We decide that Kay will tell Joshua and Melanie that Lorna has asked me to go round to hers to go over a few work-related things. Apparently Joshua’s response to this is to say, ‘Oh good, I was going to call Lorna today to find out when she thought she might be well enough to come back,’ to which Kay says, ‘Well, Rebecca will be able to report back now,’ in a way that she hopes will make him think he needn’t bother.
Meanwhile I head over to Lorna’s to do I don’t know what. On my way to the tube I answer a call from Phil who says he has decided that having Jasmine as a regular, every Thursday night, is actually a great idea. Although I know that I should wait until I see Lorna, given that I am on my way there right now, I tell him that Jasmine would require a fee considerably higher than her ad hoc rate as she will be keeping every Thursday night free for him from now on. To my surprise he says fine, it makes sense that a regular guest be paid more than people who just pop in. I hang up, wondering if I should have asked for even more but when I tell Jasmine
she’s delighted.
‘Thank you. And say thanks to Lorna too,’ she says.
‘Of course,’ I say. ‘I’m seeing her in a few minutes.’
I do the ‘hanging around the front door’ trick again but nobody goes in or out so, in the end, I ring a few random doorbells and, when someone eventually answers, I say, ‘I’m reading the meters,’ and they don’t even ask me which meters I mean – they just buzz me in.
I knock on Lorna’s door and wait. I can hear her moving around inside so I know she’s in, but there’s no sign of her opening up and letting me in.
‘Lorna,’ I say loudly. ‘It’s Rebecca. I know you don’t want to see me, but this is about work. It’s important and I’m not going to go away. I know you think you don’t care, but if I don’t report back that I’ve seen you then Joshua is going to start trying to get in touch himself…’
The next door along opens and a middle-aged woman peers out at me, clearly wondering what’s going on. I smile at her and try to look unthreatening and friendly and she glares at me and goes back inside without saying anything. I know that Lorna cares an awful lot about her image, her persona as a successful put-together business woman, so I think what the hell? I raise my voice even more.
‘… And you know that he has a thing for you. He pretends it’s all about work but it’s not, he’s gagging for it. He basically just wants to get into your –’
I don’t finish because Lorna’s door, which I am now leaning on, opens and I half fall into her hallway.
‘For God’s sake, shut up, will you?’ she says. ‘What are my neighbours going to think?’
‘I just met one of them,’ I say, trying to stand up in a dignified way. ‘She seemed very nice.’
Lorna watches me as I go through from the hall into her living room. It’s a nice flat, a bit makeover show by numbers but more tasteful than I would have imagined, all cream and brown and cosy fake fur. I wouldn’t want to spend two whole weeks shut in here, though.
