Just Between Us

by Cathy Kelly

  ‘You’d have to go to jail and we can’t do without you,’ said the story editor.

  ‘I could dump the body in the canal and nobody would know,’ Stephen replied.

  Everyone in the room had laughed. They’d already had a body in the canal in the Christmas episode three years ago. Two bodies in the canal would be pushing it.

  Tara was grinning at the thought as she left the set and walked slowly up to the control room for a few words with Aaron, the director. But Sherry got there before her and managed to accost Aaron just as he was nipping out of the room.

  ‘What did you think?’ Her bosom still heaving in full-on Theodora mode, Sherry stood in front of Aaron and blinked appealingly. A great bear of a man with a gruff manner and a gentle heart behind it, Aaron regarded the pretty girl who’d brought the show buckets of publicity. Tara had known directors whose savage sarcasm could strip paint and it was a joy to work with one who genuinely considered people’s feelings before he spoke. Standing behind Sherry, she smiled at Aaron and hoped he’d stay true to form and wouldn’t say anything awful. Sherry was sweet, after all.

  ‘Too much anger in your passion, darling,’ Aaron said finally.

  Sherry had to think about this for a moment. ‘Is that good or bad?’ she asked.

  When Sherry had gone, Aaron and Tara walked back to the National Hospital production offices.

  ‘I’ve heard your name mentioned in connection with the TV film of the Paton Smyth book,’ Aaron remarked.

  Tara was astonished. ‘Where did you hear that?’ she demanded. Mike Hammond had only phoned her two days previously. He’d told her the film was hush-hush.

  ‘I have my sources,’ said Aaron. ‘I don’t hear everything but when my best scriptwriter and top storyline editor is moving on to something bigger and better, I keep my ears to the ground.’

  Tara decided to be honest with Aaron. She owed him that. ‘I’d tell you if they asked me to do something big, Aaron. Mike called me. We met at the awards and he said he was interested in talking to me sometime. Now he’s rung and suggested I might be interested in polishing this script. It just needs tweaking, he says. It’s a low-budget flick and it might never get made because they haven’t got the financing sorted out yet. Writing a real film script is just a pipe dream,’ she added lamely.

  ‘Not for you, Tara,’ Aaron said seriously. ‘You’re good, better than good. You don’t need me to tell you that. And I’ve always known you’re ambitious, don’t forget.’

  They reached the tiny office kitchen and Aaron paused in front of the coffee machine. ‘I knew you wouldn’t end up with us forever, that you’d want to move on to something different. You high-fliers don’t sit still for long.’

  Tara patted Aaron’s arm affectionately. He’d been such a good mentor, always ready to listen to her ideas even when she’d been a novice scriptwriter and the most junior on the National Hospital team. He’d been the one who told her she could really write, the one who said that coaxing a performance out of the most wooden actor was much easier when Tara Miller had written the lines.

  ‘I’m not rushing off anywhere just yet, I promise. I’d tell you if I was, so don’t advertise my job. Deal?’ Tara added.

  ‘Deal,’ he agreed. ‘Look at this,’ he added in disgust, pouring a stream of pale muddy liquid into a mug. ‘What’s with this fake coffee stuff? Can’t we have real coffee round here?’

  Tara left him to it. Glancing at her watch, she wondered what the rush hour traffic would be like.

  ‘Hey Tara, coming to the pub?’

  It was a contingent of the show’s writers, all intent on their customary last-Tuesday-of-the-month trip to the pub. Not that this was the only trip to the pub every month by any means, but this was payday, the only firm date in their diaries. Other sessions were more spontaneous.

  ‘You haven’t been over to the pub for ages,’ complained Lisa, an avowed party animal.

  ‘Do we smell or something?’ demanded Ralph, the oldest writer in the team, who was just as mad for partying as Lisa and had a sharp tongue.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ralph,’ Tara said in mock distress, ‘but we thought it would be kinder to let you drink on your own instead of leave cans of deodorant around the office to give you the hint. BO is a terrible thing.’

  ‘Funny ha ha,’ said Ralph. ‘So, are you coming for a drink or not?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll meet you over there; save me a bar stool,’ Tara said, wishing she’d managed to avoid them because she genuinely didn’t want to spend any time in the pub. Her weekends with Finn revolved around pubs. Still, she hadn’t been out with the team for weeks and a lame excuse would not do.

  ‘And you can tell us all about this hot new script you’re working on,’ said Lisa coyly. ‘Is it Spielberg or Coppola who’s interested?’

  Tara laughed outright at that. ‘Is nothing a secret in this damn place?’

  ‘No,’ said Tommy, who was an inveterate gossip with a nose like Lassie when it came to scandal. ‘We know who’s been sleeping with Dr Jack while the real Mrs Jack is away having her eyes de-bagged in a clinic in London, and we know which nymphet from publicity is having after-hours trysts with her female boss.’

  ‘Tommy, are you sure that you sent your CV to the right place?’ inquired Tara. ‘This is National Hospital, not the National Enquirer.’

  The other three were laughing as they departed, with Ralph threatening dire repercussions if Tara did not arrive at the pub in ten minutes.

  Still smiling from the encounter, Tara went to her partitioned cube in the writers’ office and phoned home, hanging up when she got the answering machine. Of course Finn wouldn’t be back yet. Then she phoned his mobile. Another machine.

  ‘Hi, I’m going for a quick drink with Aaron and the team. I won’t be long. Bye.’

  As she hung up, Tara thought back to the days before she’d met Finn; when going out with the team was the focal point of her social life. They’d had some wild nights back then when anyone going home before one in the morning was considered a party pooper. Clearly, the gang thought that love and marriage had turned Tara into the ultimate party pooper. She, the girl who’d taught them the tequila forfeit game; who could clear a dance floor with her hysterical River Dance impersonation. After nine months of marriage, she still hadn’t made it back to the tequila game. Finn, as they all guessed, was the answer. Ralph regularly teased her about Finn’s resemblance to Brad Pitt and never lost an opportunity to enquire about what he called ‘the love of the century’.

  Tara, used to constant ribbing and aware that Ralph’s bark was worse than his bite, rarely bothered replying. She was intuitive enough to realise that Ralph’s remarks stemmed from jealousy: to him, she and Finn must have looked like a sickeningly perfect couple.

  But…well…it wasn’t perfect, not quite perfect.

  Determined not to give in to introspection, she applied her signature bright scarlet lipstick without needing a mirror. Tara knew the contours of her mouth well enough without having to actually look at it. Bright lipstick was the ultimate mask: enough Ruby Woo and she looked sparky and happy. She dumped her briefcase in her car and walked across the carpark and over the road to Browns, the National Hospital local. In the pub, the TV people had divided into two very separate teams. Near the door sat a group of actors, all looking different from their soap personas. Even though she’d worked in TV for years, Tara was still astonished at how actors could transform themselves. The woman who played Staff Nurse Mo was virtually unrecognisable in real life. Mo wore buttoned-up-to-the-neck uniforms and looked permanently stern, while the actress floated around with rippling blonde hair, a rosebud pout and flowing skirts.

  The actors nodded at Tara and she smiled back as she walked towards the group of writers who were plonked in the darkest section of the pub.

  ‘We’re going for the body in the canal,’ yelled Tommy.

  Tara grinned ruefully. ‘As long as I don’t have to write it.’

  ‘Drink?’
asked Lisa.

  ‘Mineral water,’ Tara said tightly.

  ‘Have a real drink and get a taxi home,’ urged Tommy. ‘Let your hair down.’

  Tara shook her head and took her water.

  ‘Right, now spill the beans,’ said Lisa, pulling her stool up beside Tara’s so they could have a quiet conversation. ‘What’s the exact story with this film script?’

  ‘It’s supposed to be confidential for a start,’ Tara pointed out with a grin, ‘so don’t tell everyone. Basically, I’ve been asked to look at this script with a view to polishing it, that’s all. And I want to know where you found out about it?’

  Lisa grinned. ‘Now that would be telling.’

  The apartment was silent when Tara got home at nine, carrying her briefcase and the bag of groceries she’d picked up at the supermarket on the corner.

  ‘Finn!’ she called, dropping her briefcase beside the spindly-legged hall table. Her voice echoed in the silence of the wooden-floored hall. Tara liked the idea of wooden floors but they certainly magnified noise.

  Tara didn’t bother calling out to her husband twice. He must still be out. So much for her cosy chat over a Chinese takeaway. She was too hungry to wait for Finn, so she put some fresh pasta on to cook and went into the bedroom to strip off her work clothes.

  Within two minutes, she was back in the kitchen, barefoot and dressed in a sloppy black sweater and jeans.

  She stirred some supermarket sauce onto the pasta, took half from the saucepan, and went into the living room with her plate.

  The late-night news was almost over when she heard Finn at the door. He never fumbled with his key, no matter what time he got home. Tara couldn’t understand it. She wondered did he practise when she wasn’t there: eyes closed or even eyes crossed as he slid the key in the lock, again and again to make sure he was perfect at it.

  ‘Hiya, honey,’ he called. ‘How’s my baby?’

  To the untrained ear, Finn’s voice sounded light-hearted and perhaps a bit tired. A normal ‘I’ve-had-a-hard-day-at-the-office’ sort of voice.

  But Tara knew exactly what her husband’s precise tone of voice signified: drunk. Honestly, she thought angrily. That job was killing him. He’d have a liver like a prune soon. This had to stop.

  ‘Hello.’ Finn appeared, still immaculate, his tie as perfectly tied as it had been that morning. Tara wondered how he did that, too. When she drank too much, she ended up looking dishevelled, with her hair in that dragged-through-a-bush-backwards state.

  ‘Sorry I’m late. Work. Have you eaten?’ Finn leaned over to brush his lips against her cheek and Tara caught the familiar sweet smell of alcohol. ‘I shared chicken wings and chips with the guys,’ Finn continued.

  ‘Finn, why didn’t you tell me if you had to go out tonight?’

  Finn’s face slipped into its beguiling hangdog look. ‘Sorry babe, I couldn’t get out of it and when I got your message on my phone, I knew you’d be out late and it was all right.’

  ‘It wasn’t all right,’ she protested. ‘I came home early and had to spend another bloody evening alone. You’re married to your damn job.’

  ‘Oh, honey.’ He flopped onto the seat beside her and rested his head on her shoulder, almost childlike. ‘Don’t be cross,’ he wheedled. ‘You know how tough things are for the company right now. We’re way off target for this quarter; we’re in serious trouble. You know I didn’t want to go out but I’ve got to back up Derry. As the boss, he carries the can. I just couldn’t let him down.’

  Tara sighed. ‘You’re lucky that I’m such a softie,’ she said. ‘I bet the other guys’ wives don’t let them off as easily.’

  ‘No, but you’re a wonderful, understanding person,’ said Finn, burrowing in close to her. He kissed her neck softly.

  ‘Go away you big boozy pig,’ said Tara, but he knew she was joking.

  ‘I think I’ll get some milk, might settle my stomach,’ Finn said off-handedly.

  ‘OK,’ said Tara, ‘get me some too. And then bed, right?’

  ‘Yes, mistress,’ he teased.

  In the kitchen, Finn went about his regular routine. He noisily opened the fridge and took out a carton of milk. Pouring half a glass, he listened carefully in case Tara decided to come into the kitchen. The wooden floors were wonderful for hearing her approach. When he was satisfied that she was still watching the television, he opened the drinks cupboard quietly and reached carefully into the back. Hidden behind a half-empty gin bottle, the usual selection of mixers and two boxes of unopened brandy (Finn felt that having unopened drink fooled everyone), was the bottle of diet tonic water. Or at least, the label said it was diet tonic. It was vodka, topped up by Finn every few days with a bottle bought specially. The vodka bottle was then hidden in his briefcase ready to be dumped somewhere else. The moment his fingers touched the tonic bottle, he felt a sudden giddy relief. He snatched it quickly and poured a shot into the trendy chrome measure someone had bought them as part of a chrome cocktail shaker set. In one swift move, he downed the spirit, not even gagging as the raw liquid hit his throat. One more, for the road, he decided. He downed another shot. Maybe he could do with some more in his milk. Just in case. He didn’t want to get into bed and suddenly need another drink when he couldn’t nip out and get one. Finn didn’t like going to bed without a decent hit inside him. At night, he really wanted to be someplace else, somewhere there were no feelings. He wanted to be perfectly numb. Only then, when his brain was nicely fuzzy, did he actually like himself. Not that anyone else ever guessed about the howling loneliness inside. He hid it too well. The real Finn was useless, ineffectual, unlovable. If Tara ever knew what sort of a person he really was, she couldn’t love him.

  The following morning, Finn lay in bed, willing the fog in his head to disappear and hoping that the nausea wouldn’t be too bad when he sat up. Some mornings, he was unable to get up for ages because one wrong move, and he’d have to rush for the toilet bowl and heave his guts up. This morning, he lay quietly, listening to the sounds of Tara in the ensuite shower. He could tell exactly where she was in her morning routine just by listening carefully. Once she was out of the shower, he had perhaps ten minutes’ grace before she’d open the bathroom door, made up and still in her dressing gown, ready to run the hairdryer over her short hair before she got dressed That precious ten minutes meant he could rush into the other bathroom and puke, if necessary, without her knowing. He could also have his first painkiller cocktail of the day, two painkillers fizzing in a glass of orange juice to slake the murderous hangover.

  Finn knew other people who liked a drink and who didn’t get hangovers, but he wasn’t one of them.

  Today, he tested himself by sitting gingerly up in the bed. Not too bad. Not puking time, definitely. Hey, it was almost like not having a hangover at all, he congratulated himself. He must have been very restrained the night before.

  He made it to the kitchen, popped his painkillers in a glass and put the coffee on, which was his sole gesture towards breakfast. By the time he got back to the bedroom, Tara was drying her hair in front of the mirror so conversation wasn’t required. Great.

  Finn leapt in the shower and did his best to scrub away the scent of last night’s bender. One of the lads in work insisted that people could smell the drink off a person when they’d been drinking heavily the night before, but Finn was convinced that this notion was wrong. With enough Eternity for Men, he smelled irresistible, he was sure of it.

  Tara was finishing both the paper and her toast and coffee when Finn finally emerged, shaved, sweet-smelling and clad in a very sharp grey suit. Despite her uneasy feeling that something was going badly wrong, Tara smiled in appreciation of her handsome husband. He had that effect on her. She loved his strong face with the boyish smile, she adored running her fingers through the fair hair that he tried to keep cut short to stop it flopping over his forehead. She liked the way his eyes appeared intensely blue when his skin was faintly tanned. He still had the last vestiges of
his skiing tan and it suited him.

  Tara thought of all the things she’d planned to say the night before, and decided that now wasn’t the time or the place. ‘Hi, lazybones,’ she said. ‘I am going to buy you the loudest alarm clock I can find; you are hopeless at getting out of bed.’

  ‘Lucky you’re such a hard worker,’ Finn teased in return. He felt relief flood through him. In the mornings, he always wondered how drunk he’d appeared the night before. He didn’t want Tara to know, he didn’t want to hurt her. She mightn’t understand that he just liked a drink now and then. Not everyone did but he did. It didn’t mean anything. So he watched carefully for any sign that she was worried about his drinking. Today, things were fine. Phew. They were out to a party tonight and he decided he’d go easy on the booze. He wouldn’t drink, not a single glass. That would impress her.

  Tara shut the dishwasher door and it slammed.

  Finn winced. The tablets didn’t work as well as they used to.

  She leaned over and kissed him goodbye. ‘Watch out for strange women,’ she said, as she always did.

  ‘I’m married to the strangest one around,’ he replied happily.

  When she was gone, Finn relaxed. He finished his coffee and poured another one. With another cup, he’d be able to face the day.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Snow White. Now there was a stepmother from hell, thought Stella idly that same morning as she switched on her computer. It was ten to eight, and the office was mercifully quiet. That was the way Stella liked it, the time when she could work without the phone ringing off the hook.