Chasing Charlie

by Linda McLaughlan

  ‘It’s Claudia.’

  David paused although why he had to I had no idea. My name would have come up on his phone anyway. Unless he’d deleted my contact details of course. Pity he was hearing from me with such bad news.

  ‘Claudia.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry to bother you—’

  ‘Yes, I am rather busy.’

  I could hear the sounds of a restaurant in the background. He was out for supper. He was probably with a woman. Not the best environment to hear you needed to go and get tested for an STI. But you shouldn’t have answered your phone during supper, you rude man. I remembered his air of self-importance – I was momentarily attracted to it until I realised (unfortunately post-coitally) that he didn’t possess a smidgen of warmth to coax his confidence into charm. He was a cold, calculating, vain bore. Which was why he would have answered his phone. If my name hadn’t come up, he would have answered it in case it was someone important. If my name had shown it would demonstrate to whomever he was dining with how important he was, receiving calls even during supper.

  Plonker.

  ‘I won’t keep you for long. It’s just that I’ve had a bit of bad news, which may impact on you.’

  David was silent, waiting for me to go on.

  ‘Um, I, um, I’ve just found out I have an STI – chlamydia – and that means that you’ll need to go and get tested too.’

  Again, David was silent.

  Oh this is fun, I thought grimly.

  ‘Are you there?’ I asked him.

  ‘Yes, one moment.’

  I heard muffled voices and the sound of clothes rustling, and then the sounds of the street.

  ‘Are you there, David?’

  ‘Can you repeat that for me please?’ His voice had become decidedly less confident.

  ‘Do I have to?’

  ‘Yes!’ he said crossly. ‘I’m a little shocked.’

  I sighed. ‘You need to get tested for chlamydia,’ I repeated, ‘either at your GP or a sexual-health clinic. The results come back quite quickly.’

  ‘Is it curable?’

  ‘Yes, usually very easily with antibiotics.’ My head was clearing a little as the conversation went on. I knew the script so well by now though I could have been asleep, if it didn’t make me feel so churned up inside.

  ‘It better be,’ he said, with a menacing edge to his voice.

  ‘If you have it, David, I’d really like to know. I’m trying to trace it back to the source.’

  ‘It won’t be me!’ he said, defensive.

  ‘I hope it isn’t. If you don’t have it, it narrows my search considerably. If you do have it, that means I need to talk to men before you.’ The conversation was sobering me up quickly.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I hope you don’t have it, David, I really do, but if you do, you’ll need to tell the partners you’ve had since me.’

  ‘My fiancée.’

  ‘Oh! Congratulations, that’s great news!’

  ‘Not the engagement gift I was planning.’

  ‘No.’

  There was a pause while a siren passed David by in the background.

  ‘So let me know the result will you? And, David, I’m really sorry.’

  ‘Sure you are, Claudia.’

  ‘Bye!’ I attempted brightly but the phone was dead.

  *

  I wasn’t expecting to see John back in the office until Thursday, as he was away in Brussels for the first part of the week. So when I heard a soft knock on my door on late Wednesday afternoon, I didn’t look up to see who was coming through the door straightaway.

  ‘Claudia?’

  I whipped my head up from my computer in shock.

  ‘Oh, it’s you!’

  ‘Don’t sound too glad to see me.’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t expect you,’ I said, flustered.

  ‘No, we finished earlier than expected. I caught an earlier train back.’

  ‘Oh good, how was the meeting?’

  ‘Productive.’

  I waited for more. I didn’t want to speak to him but if I had to I wanted to talk about work. Anything but the thing lurking in the background. But John just stood there, his hands in his pockets. Refusing to talk about work at all. I tried again.

  ‘Simon was expecting the MD to put up a lot of opposition to our proposal.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ he mumbled, almost as if he wasn’t hearing me. He had crossed the room, his feet quiet and quick on the oatmeal carpet, to stand at the window. I felt like a junior secretary who wasn’t being included in the big boys’ club. I would normally get bolshy when I felt excluded from information sharing but right then I just felt small and useless. I looked at my screen. An email from Jill had just come in:

  I know you’re in here somewhere, lovely. What’s up?

  What’s up? What’s up indeed, I thought. What am I meant to say to John? Think of something. Anything.

  He strode over to my desk and laid his hands on top of it, leaning in and then pulling back from me, as if he was stretching his wrists or something. His big torso so close to me wasn’t helping my brain function any better.

  ‘Claudia?’

  ‘Yes?’ I answered in a small voice.

  ‘Are you busy tonight?’ He stared at me.

  ‘No,’ I answered, completely forgetting my week-long pact with my television.

  ‘Good,’ he replied. ‘Why don’t we go for a drink straight from work?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I’ll come past you,’ he said. He stopped his strange moving back and forth, and looked as if he wanted to say something more but stopped himself, and abruptly left the room.

  I let out a huge sigh of relief, as if I’d been holding my breath, and my shoulders dropped about a mile from my ears. Oh dear, I thought. What am I doing? I looked stupidly at Jill’s email that sat there, demanding an answer.

  Hiya,

  I tapped out, trying to sound breezy.

  Hiya, hon, I’m here somewhere.

  Now what? How much of the truth can I bear to share.

  Hiya, hon, I’m here somewhere. Buried in work, a bit self-inflicted. I’ll come up for air one day soon and tell you all about it. Thanks for asking. Claudia x

  That felt a little better. I’d felt awful shutting Jill out all week.

  I was waiting for John from about half past five. And I waited, and waited, and waited. I knew he had a difficult meeting last thing and assumed it was running over but it didn’t stop me putting on my coat three times and almost leaving. By the time he arrived at my door, full of apologies at seven, I felt almost sick with nerves.

  ‘It’ll have to be dinner instead now it’s so late. I’m starving,’ he said curtly as he ushered me into a cab. We sat in silence as the cab wended its way through the city, each of us lost in our own thoughts. I felt like I was on my way to be told off by the headmaster and John . . . well, who knew what was going on in his head. I was certain it wasn’t generous thoughts about me, that was for sure.

  The silence was broken when we pulled up outside a Japanese restaurant I’d been meaning to try for ages and I gasped, suddenly feeling enormously grateful and even more emotional than before. I didn’t feel like I deserved to be brought to such a lovely place.

  ‘Everything OK?’

  ‘Yes. It’s just . . .’ I put a tentative hand on his offered arm as I came out of the cab. ‘Thank you for bringing me here.’

  He looked at me, puzzled, then took me inside and shepherded me into my seat. From the start, I desperately started searching for something to talk about, deciding on work again as the easiest subject, but John gave me one-word answers. We lapsed into uncomfortable silence too quickly. I looked around us at the tables of couples or groups of friends speaking effortlessly, laughing together as they tried different pieces of the exquisitely presented sashimi and sushi in front of them. I felt we were marooned at our silent table and I was trying desperately not to care, to nonchalantly study the wood panelling that divided
the room into several little areas, the plants placed just so. I even twisted around to study the water feature behind me, its perpetual gurgling as peaceful as the traditional music being piped out to diners discreetly from well-positioned speakers.

  ‘You can’t beat the Japanese for excellent design,’ I offered, a last-ditch attempt at generating much-needed conversation. But John just looked blankly at me like he hadn’t heard anything I was saying.

  ‘Claudia.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’ve had my results back and I’ve tested positive.’

  ‘Ah,’ I replied, the colour draining from my face, then flooding it again with an unwelcome blush.

  ‘I, ah . . .’ I took a deep drink of water, overcome with thirst. ‘I didn’t expect you to know so quickly.’

  Of course it couldn’t have been any other outcome – John had to have it. I hadn’t slept with anyone since him – but I was still shocked to hear it.

  ‘I was tested in Brussels and they turned it around quickly. I found out on the train on the way back today.’

  I nodded, looking at my fingers. I wished I could wave a magic wand and make this all better. What he must think of me now he knew he was infected. I felt tears of self-loathing and pity well up and excused myself, walking quickly to the bathroom.

  I almost threw myself into a cubicle and sat down on top of the toilet, suddenly completely overcome with emotion, balling my eyes out, the tears hot and ferocious, full of all the sadness and frustration I’d been feeling for days, for weeks, forever. Fuck you, Claudia with chlamydia, fuck your choices, my head screamed at me, the snot running over my fingers, which were trying to muffle the raw sound coming out of my mouth, my heart. It’s so unfair, I raged. I had no idea how long I was in there. It could have been three minutes or thirty. When the tears finally stopped I took several deep breaths, trying desperately to compose myself. I fished around at my legs for my bag and realised, with a sinking heart, that I’d left my handbag at the table. Never in my life had I committed such a heinous crime against my appearance. How the hell was I meant to make myself look presentable now?

  I took a long length of toilet paper and opened the door, then let out a short scream. A woman stood there, looking as if she’d been waiting for me.

  ‘Sorry, sorry, I didn’t know you were there,’ I flustered.

  The woman didn’t flinch but looked at me calmly. She obviously worked at the restaurant but I didn’t remember seeing her in there earlier. She was dressed in a dark blue kimono, her hair up in a classical bun with ornamental chopsticks poked through. She was so peaceful it was almost as if she was floating next to the hand basin.

  I avoided eye contact with her as I dabbed away at my face with the toilet paper, making very little progress with the black rivulets staining my cheeks. After a little bit, I felt a light tap on my shoulder and turned to find the woman passing me a cotton pad and a bottle of Clarins cleanser, a small smile on her lips that was somehow insistent and unobtrusive at the same time. I looked at them for a moment and then took them, whispering my thanks.

  The cleanser made quick work of my recalcitrant make-up and I very quickly looked a lot less like Alice Cooper, though still a lot more like my mother than I was comfortable with. I sighed and looked at the woman again. Her hands were inside the folds of her kimono. She withdrew them, miraculously flourishing a Chanel compact, the exact shade that I used. I couldn’t believe it. I took the compact from the woman, murmuring a heartfelt thanks. Strangely, I didn’t feel the need to make idle chatter with her. There. I was finished. Now I could face John again. I gave the compact back to the woman, who smiled at me and opened the door.

  John’s face was full of concern as I crossed the room. His tender gaze was almost more than I could cope with. I didn’t need pity right then – I was trying to hold it together. I held the menu up over my face and pretended to study it.

  ‘I ordered for us, I hope you don’t mind. You were in there a while,’ he said. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Oh, right. Thanks.’ My eyes focussed on the writing in front of me. It appeared that I was holding the now redundant wine list. I set it down with as much dignity as I could muster. I cleared my throat. ‘There was a woman in there. We got . . . chatting,’ I answered, aware of how unconvincing I sounded. I knew too that as patched together as my face was, my puffy eyes would be giving me away.

  ‘Claudia, I’m really sorry,’ he started to say.

  ‘You’re sorry?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  He sounded so sincere but still I didn’t dare look at him. I wanted to be able to talk about and really engage about the whole sorryness but thinking about it all was too hard. I felt so fragile, as if at any moment I would dissolve into a tragic, Claudia-sized puddle. Which would be a real shame for my lovely shoes, not to mention the upholstery. I was saved by the arrival of food. It was her, the woman from the bathroom, hovering next to the table with an array of tiny pieces of seafood. Very quietly she placed each dish onto the table, her head bent. As she turned to go, she caught my eye. Don’t fret, she seemed to be saying. Just breathe.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ I turned to John, suddenly feeling a little freaked out.

  ‘Hear what?’

  ‘That woman, the one that served us.’

  ‘Not a thing, she was as quiet as a mouse.’

  ‘Right.’ I turned and looked across the restaurant uncertainly. No sign of her. I turned back to John and found myself inhaling a massive lungful of air and then letting it out slowly. Some of my tension left with it. I may have blown any chance of having a relationship with John but he still cared – you could tell by the look on his face. That kind woman in the kimono cared too. And of course the girls, the Queen’s Park girls, and Jill at work, they all wanted me to be happy. I realised, with a pang, I’d been feeling wretchedly lonely through all of this. No one but John knew – not the girls, not my family.

  Finally, the food in front of me could be ignored no longer. I crammed in rice, wasabi, tuna, salmon. All the crying and deep breathing had left a massive, hungry hole. As I ate I finally felt happy to be there. John grabbed two pieces of sashimi and stuffed them into his mouth, mimicking my squirrel cheeks, and I laughed so much I almost choked. It all felt so much easier after that. We giggled about people at work, talked more seriously about the direction of the company and dissected the Brussels meeting comprehensively. By the end of the meal I felt that perhaps we’d work out as friends, and be able to hang out like this from time to time. I’d like that.

  I was chortling away about a particularly suave operator from the HR team when I burst out with, ‘Oh, that reminds me, I’ve been in touch with a couple of the men before you about this thing,’ smiling away as if I didn’t have a care in the world.

  ‘Speaking of Casanovas?’

  ‘Well yes, one of them is a darker version of Randy Steve in the office. His name is Marrrrco,’ I giggled.

  ‘I was meaning you.’ He raised his eyebrows at me.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Don’t feign innocence at me, you slapper,’ he said, grinning mischievously.

  ‘Moi? I don’t know what you’re talking about!’

  ‘It takes one to know one, Claudia,’ he said, looking at me steadily.

  I didn’t reply, just leant back in my chair and stared back at him. I could do this talk, this easy flirting banter. I felt at home with it, leaning in my chair the same way I had leant a thousand times before, with dozens of men. Foreplay given with glinting eyes, falling lashes. I set my glass down in front of me.

  ‘I think Marco may have done this before. He was quite happy to go off and get tested. Straight old David was unimpressed and not relishing telling his fiancée either.’

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘Indeed. He was such a bore about it I almost hope he’s got it.’

  ‘I didn’t take you to be vindictive, Claudia,’ he said, laying his fingertips together. ‘You’re many things but you’re n
ot a bitch.’

  ‘You’re right.’ I looked up at him and because I’d had two wines said, ‘You’re quite perceptive, aren’t you?’

  ‘I am?’

  ‘Definitely.’ And before I could self-censor said, ‘I’ve been quite disarmed at times with how you seem to understand me.’

  ‘I think we’re quite similar, you and me. We’re ambitious with our work, without being grasping. We relish using our senses in our playtime – all of our senses,’ he added.

  ‘You mean we’re a couple of lushes who eat too much and sleep around?’ I said.

  John shrugged. ‘If you want to look at it that way. I was choosing words more fitting to this classy restaurant – and the company of course.’

  ‘He adds hastily.’

  ‘No, I mean it, you’re a classy bird, Claudia.’

  ‘Not so classy I can’t pick up an STI,’ I said.

  ‘Bugs don’t care how refined you are. They can’t see how much you have in your bank account. They don’t care if you wear Prada or Primark.’

  I sipped my drink thoughtfully. We didn’t speak for a moment or two. I looked around me and was surprised to see the restaurant almost empty.

  ‘We should get going and let these people go home,’ I said.

  But John didn’t make any effort to move.

  ‘Why haven’t you settled down with one man?’ he said.

  ‘You’re the perceptive one, you tell me.’

  ‘My mother has always said that about me.’

  ‘What, being a mind reader?’

  ‘Yes, she also said I wouldn’t find someone to settle down with until quite late. Which is nice, because she’s never bothered me about it. Do your parents bug you about your love life?’

  I looked at my nails. ‘It’s complicated. They don’t bug me as such – at least Papa doesn’t, because he’s so proud of my career. But Mother, I think she’d like to see me with someone but she’s too well mannered to pry into my private life. She prods for information indirectly, almost without me knowing she’s doing it.’

  ‘Sounds like a clever woman.’

  ‘She is. They’re both clever.’