by Jane Fallon
By half past seven I’m really starting to worry. How long does it take to say ‘I know you have a wife. It’s all over’?
‘You don’t think he’s talked her round, do you?’ I say to Dan.
‘Who’s talked who round?’ William says, scraping the last bit of ice cream off his plate noisily.
‘No one,’ Dan says, and William rolls his eyes.
‘Yeah, right.’
‘No,’ says Dan, looking at me. ‘I don’t think so. Maybe she didn’t want to bring it up right away. Maybe she was trying to give him a chance to say it first.’
‘So there is something,’ William says. ‘Who’s she?’
‘Duh,’ Zoe says. ‘Thick boy.’
‘It’s grown-up stuff,’ I say. ‘Which means it’s none of your business.’
‘Then why are you talking about it in front of us?’
He has a point but luckily, at that moment, my phone rings and it’s Isabel so I take it into the kitchen to answer it.
‘Well?’ I say before she can even say hello. ‘Are you all right?’
According to Isabel she and Luke had met in the bar area of the little restaurant where they were supposed to be having dinner. She waited until she’d got a glass of wine because she wanted some Dutch courage. Meanwhile Luke had chatted about his day like nothing was wrong. He seemed so relaxed, she tells me, so unfazed by being out with her in public that for a moment she started to believe that we’d got it all wrong.
‘I mean,’ she says, ‘I thought, why would he have agreed to meet my friends?’
‘Because he thinks he’s invincible?’ I offer up. It has been bothering me a little that Luke was happy to be so indiscreet. The only way I have been able to rationalize it is to believe that he has supreme confidence – arrogance, actually – that has allowed him to believe he will never be caught. His family don’t live close by any more and Charlie will be leaving the school in the summer; he must have figured he might just get away with it. Or maybe his wife is one of those women who would just put up with it if she found out, rather than have to start a whole new life on her own. Perhaps he does this all the time and she sits in their house in Highgate waiting for him to come to his senses again.
Anyway, Isabel tells me, she knew that she couldn’t weaken so she waited until she’d had a few sips and she’d asked him how his weekend had been.
‘Great,’ Luke had said. ‘Me and Charlie went Christmas shopping in Richmond on Saturday and yesterday I took him to the little cinema up the road. They were showing a rerun of Willie Wonka. He loves that film.’
‘And then what? You take him to school on a Monday morning and then your wife picks him up in the afternoon? Is that how it works?’ Isabel asked, trying to sound casual and not like she was conducting an inquisition. Luke, she says, had the good grace to look a little nervous under questioning.
‘Yes,’ he said, and he tried a little laugh, ‘that way we don’t have to see each other more often than necessary.’
Isabel says that at this point, in the face of this blatant lie, she nearly lost it, but she decided to see how far she could push him, how easily he could look her in the eye and deceive her. She decided, she says, that if she could witness him behaving that badly then it might help her to get over him more quickly.
‘It must be hard,’ she’d said to Luke then, ‘disliking each other so much, but still having to deal with each other because of Charlie.’
‘Hard is an understatement,’ Luke had said. ‘Like I told you before, we can hardly bear to be in the same room together, let alone speaking.’
‘You never told me why you split up…’
I interrupt her telling me the story. ‘Good one, Izz.’
She carries on.
‘You never told me why you split up. Did you just fall out of love with each other or did one of you do something bad? I’m guessing something must have happened because of how much you seem to hate each other.’
Luke, she says, clearly has an answer prepared for the eventuality of this question ever being asked. And it’s one guaranteed to put him in a good light. Or, at least, to put his wife in a bad one. Although the irony is laughable.
‘She was seeing someone else,’ he’d said, assuming a martyred expression.
‘Oh God, how did you find out?’ Isabel had asked him, all concern.
‘I found messages… text messages from him, and I confronted her. She tried to deny it, but I knew that I was right and, eventually, she had to admit it was true. She chose him over me when it came down to it.’
‘You poor thing. I can’t imagine how awful that must feel. Thinking you know someone, that you love them, and then finding out they’ve been deceiving you all along.’ At this point, she tells me, she looked him right in the eye but he didn’t even have the decency to flinch.
‘It was,’ he’d said instead. ‘But then, if it hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have met you…’
Isabel wasn’t finished. ‘It must have been soul destroying. It would be like… oh, I don’t know… me finding out that you weren’t really separated or something. That you’d been telling me all this time that your marriage was over but it wasn’t…’
She’d nearly laughed at this point, she says, not because she felt happy, far from it, but because the whole situation was so ludicrous. Luke’s confident front had dissolved somewhat after this and apparently he had tried to change the subject and brought up something banal about work. Isabel had had no intention of letting him off the hook, though.
‘I mean, I can’t really think of anything worse, can you? Than being deceived by someone like that. Being forced to become something you would never knowingly become. Like a mistress. Because I would never – not in a million years – agree to be anyone’s mistress.’
She’d paused here, having laid her cards squarely on the table, to give him one final chance to confess, but he’d chosen not to take it, asking her if she’d like another drink instead, getting up from the table and picking up their glasses. This had made her really angry. It was as if he thought that if he could distract her for a minute then she would forget all about what she had been saying. Clearly Luke had no intention of ever doing the honorable thing. In fact, she suspected that he might go up to the bar and just keep walking. Run away rather than face the music. She’d decided to go in for the kill.
‘Because that’s what I am, aren’t I? Your bit on the side?’
Luke had sat back down very quickly. He had tried to tell her that he’d never meant for it to turn out this way. He’d been feeling unhappy, he and his wife were going through a bad patch, it was the first time he’d ever done anything like this (yeah, right, she says). He’d told her that he’d meant to break it off ages ago, but he had found that he really liked her. In fact, he had realized he was falling in love with her and he hadn’t been able to. He told her all this like it was meant to make her feel better. There were tears on both sides. Then he said to her that he really had been thinking about leaving his wife since he fell for Isabel and she decided that she had to leave, quickly, before she got taken in again by his, very convincing, bullshit.
‘It was awful,’ she says. ‘It’s scary how easy it would have been to just carry on, to ask him to really leave his wife.’
‘You’ve done the right thing,’ I say.
‘I know. But that doesn’t mean I’m happy about it. I’m on my own again. I’ve been completely taken for a ride by someone I genuinely cared about. I mean, I thought he was my gateway to a new life. God, I’ve been stupid…’
‘Come round. We’re not planning on doing anything, just watching TV…’
‘I think I will,’ she says. ‘I don’t feel like being on my own at the moment.’
So, Isabel, Dan and I spend the rest of the evening lounging around on the sofas in our living room. Every now and then she gets a bit tearful and one of us will give her a pep talk and bring her tissues to mop up her tears. I haven’t yet told her about Alex’s plea to
me and I’m not sure what to do. The last thing I want would be for her to take Alex back. Not just for my own selfish reasons, although I know it must seem like that. I just don’t believe that it’s what he really wants or that, even if he does, their marriage would be any better this time round.
On the other hand, I’ve learned my lesson. It’s nothing to do with me. Isabel will have to decide for herself what she wants and in order to be able to do that she needs all the facts. And by that I mean all the facts. So, if I tell her that Alex wants her to know that he genuinely feels he’s made a mistake and that he’s desperate to give their relationship another try, then I have to also tell her the full truth about his declaration of love to me and even about all the other women. Give her both sides of the story and absolutely no advice, no trying to sway her in either direction. And I’m not sure I’m capable of that even if I did decide it was the right thing to do.
I decide to wait, talk it over with Dan later. There’s no rush. Isabel isn’t in the right state of mind to make such a big decision yet anyway and I can’t imagine that Alex is going anywhere.
Rebecca and Daniel. And Isabel. It’s not so bad.
Lorna is looking good. It’s like she somehow had a makeover in the middle of the night. Her clothes are ironed, her nails are polished, her hair while still a bit of a mess is at least washed. When I walk past her office at twenty past nine, on my way to my reception area, she seems to be tidying up, throwing piles of old papers on to a heap in the middle of the floor. I can’t be sure if this is a good sign or if she’s actually become manic so I sneak past without saying hello.
There’s a big bunch of flowers on my desk with my name on. I open the card and flush with pride as I read the message which says ‘I can’t thank you enough. Love Kathryn.’ I arrange them in an old vase and sit and admire them. No one has ever sent me flowers at work before. Or, at least, for not-work-related reasons.
A little later Lorna phones through to me and asks me to go into her office. Although this is the second time this has happened in the past two days it is not a normal occurrence. Lorna knows that as far as I’m concerned I don’t work for her and she’s hardly going to want to see me for a girly chat. I mutter about being in the middle of something and tell her I’ll come through in a minute. I take my time, making myself a tea, and then I say to Kay, ‘If I’m not out in ten minutes, send help.’ She laughs and wishes me luck.
Lorna’s office is now looking as scrubbed up as she is. She sits behind her desk and motions for me to sit on the other side.
‘Rebecca,’ she says. ‘I think I should say thank you for the way you’ve been covering for me.’
I sit there open-mouthed. Did she just thank me?
‘That’s OK,’ I manage to say.
‘You did a good job,’ she says.
I make as if to get up. ‘Well, you’re back now…’
She’s not finished. ‘And for yesterday. If you hadn’t been there, that lunch would have been a disaster. I just want you to know that I appreciate it.’
‘Right… thanks.’
‘Anyway,’ she says, ‘like you said, I’m back now and I’m feeling much better.’
‘Good,’ I say. ‘I’m glad to hear it.’ She does actually look much better although, of course, we both know that this time yesterday she was a basket case, but it seems neither of us is going to mention that. I try to make a move again. Lorna coughs, which makes me jump. This whole conversation is making me feel very uneasy.
‘I spoke to Alex last night,’ she says, and this time I don’t mind sitting down again because I want to hear what she has to say.
‘And…?’
‘I went round to his flat and waited outside till he got home so he had to talk to me. And you were right. He wasn’t ever in love with me. He was in love with you, just like you said.’
‘I’m sorry, Lorna.’ I mean it, I do feel bad for her.
‘Actually, you know, now he’s finally admitted it, it’s OK. I can move on. I just have to get over feeling stupid…’ Her voice cracks. I seem to be destined to be surrounded by disappointed crying women at the moment. I don’t know what to do. Comforting her would feel like an intrusion so I just sit there.
‘I’m going to concentrate on work,’ she says, once she’s composed herself. ‘And I’m very grateful that I still have that work to concentrate on. So that’s why I asked you to come in really. To tell you that.’
‘Well, if it makes you feel any better, I enjoyed doing it. I really did.’
‘It seems you’re good at it,’ she says, and smiles. At least, I think it’s a smile. It’s hard to tell with Lorna, she does it so rarely. She could just have wind.
29
I’ve had an epiphany.
I couldn’t sleep in the night, thinking about Isabel and Luke and Lorna and Alex and the big old mess that is our lives. Then I started feeling sorry for myself. I’m finding work mind-numbingly boring now I’m back to my old routine. Don’t get me wrong, I still love Mortimer and Sheedy, but I feel like I’ve lost something. Like I’m capable of so much more. I was thinking over the buzz I got while Lorna was away, trying not to feel resentful about the fact that I am not going to be given any credit for anything I achieved – my own decision, I know, but it still bothers me, nonetheless – when I suddenly realized that I don’t have to answer phones and type letters for the rest of my life.
The thing that was always holding me back was my own perception of myself. I never believed I was confident enough or capable enough to do more. I hid behind protestations of wanting an easy life and no responsibility when really, underneath all my front, it was fear that held me back. But it’s different now. Now I know I can do it. I just have to figure out who’s going to give me the chance. On paper I have no experience, just six years of admin.
I can’t help myself – I have to talk it over with Dan. I shake him awake and he groans and tries to roll over away from me.
‘Dan,’ I hiss. ‘Are you awake?’ I know that’s the one thing I can say that will guarantee he’ll wake up enough to talk to me.
He rolls back. ‘Well, I am now,’ he says testily.
‘I think I want to have a career. Not just a job. Not just filing and typing and calling people to tell them other people want to speak to them.’
‘Good for you,’ he says. ‘Night.’
‘What do I do? If I apply to other agencies, they’ll just see me as someone who’s been an assistant forever. Why on earth would they trust me with any of their clients?’
‘Sweetheart,’ he says. ‘I have no idea. Talk to Melanie about it. I’m sure she’ll be able to give you some advice.’
‘Am I being stupid?’ I say. ‘Should I just shut up and get on with what I’m doing?’
‘Definitely not,’ Dan says, suddenly wide awake. ‘You’d be brilliant and, if it’s what you want, then you have to go for it. We just have to figure out the practicalities. Maybe there’s an agents’ training school you could go to.’
I laugh. ‘With modules in inflating CVs and schmoozing.’
‘I think you’re a natural,’ he says. ‘You’re bossy and you like telling people what to do. I’d give you a chance.’
We talk about it for a little while more before I realize that I really should let him get back to sleep. There’s no way I’m dropping off any time soon. I feel elated. Nervous and excited at the same time. I have no idea if I’m going to be doing the right thing, putting myself out there, leaving my cosy work set-up, but at least I’m doing something.
I take my time trying to get up the courage to talk to Melanie in the morning. I’m worried it will sound like I’m resigning, which I am in a way although not quite yet. I want to test the water first, see what might be out there. I don’t want to try to run before I can walk. I might have dredged up some courage from somewhere, but I’m still not that brave. I confide in Kay and she hugs me and says it’s a brilliant idea and, even though no one else knows it, she knows that I’ll make
a great agent because she’s seen me in action.
‘Most of Lorna’s clients would probably leave and go with you if they knew the truth,’ she says.
‘That’s not how I want to do it, though,’ I say.
Lorna is beavering away in her office, back to her old efficient self. She phones through to Kay every few minutes with another piece of business and, from what Kay divulges to me, it seems like she’s gone into overdrive to prove she’s back on track. I’m glad for her. Although a big part of me thinks that my life would be much simpler if she could just get back with Alex and keep him away from Isabel. I shouldn’t wish him on her, though. Slightly alarmingly she seems to be checking up on the work I did while she was away, having Kay set up calls with first Phil Masterson then Marilyn Carson and then Jasmine, Mary, Samuel, Craig, Joy and Kathryn in quick succession. Could she still be plotting my downfall even as she seems to be trying to be a bit more gracious? I wouldn’t put it past her. I’m tempted to listen in on her calls, but I decide my new professional self wouldn’t stoop that low. Oh well, let her try. I’m out of here anyway. Fretting about what Lorna is up to focuses my thoughts and I finally get up the courage to go and knock on Melanie’s door
‘Have you got a minute?’ I say, when she looks up. I know she’ll say yes, she always does, even when she’s snowed under.
‘Sure. Come in.’
I go in and shut the door behind me, which at Mortimer and Sheedy always signifies that something serious is going on.
‘What’s up?’
I sit down. ‘I… you know I love working here…’
‘That doesn’t sound good,’ Melanie says. She puts her pen down as if to prove to me that she’s concentrating on me and nothing else.
‘I’ve never wanted to work anywhere else. You and Joshua are like family to me.’
‘Are you telling me you want to leave now?’ She looks worried.
