The Night That Changed Everything

by Laura Tait

  ‘But you’ve been together more than a year. You said it was serious.’

  I shrug, feeling the blood pound in my head. ‘I guess it wasn’t.’

  She looks into my eyes – presumably in search of red rims or puffiness. ‘But aren’t you upset?’

  ‘I’m not much of a crier.’

  I’m crying a frickin’ river on the inside, if the truth be told, but the truth doesn’t need to be told to someone I’ve known for a few weeks.

  ‘Well, I guess you’ve loads of time to meet someone else,’ Jemma figures, reaching for another biscuit.

  ‘Sure, but that’s not really what I’m—’

  ‘I mean, how old are you? Thirty? Thirty-two?’

  ‘I’m only twenty-seven,’ I point out, aghast.

  ‘You’re my age? I thought you were way older.’

  Well, this is cheering me up.

  ‘Oh, you don’t look old,’ she says quickly when she sees dismay in my face. ‘I figured you used some superfancy moisturizer to keep you looking so young. I just mean that you seem old. Not in a bad way – just really together, and sorted. You have a proper career and you have this really mature, dignified aura about you.’

  I force a smile. ‘Thanks. And really, I’m OK.’

  I’m only OK when I don’t think about it. Maybe I’ll stay late tonight and get ahead with my work. There’s more to distract me here than there is at home.

  ‘Ah, it was you that ended it?’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘That’s why you’re OK. You don’t need time to get over it if you have all the power.’

  ‘What power?’

  ‘The relationship power. Whoever does the dumping has it all. That’s why if you think you’re about to get dumped you should get in there first and dump them. Then you have the power. They’ll forget they were about to dump you and they’ll want you back.’

  ‘I don’t think Ben was about to dump me,’ I tell her, confused.

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Just know that because you dumped him, you’re in control. You can still have him if you want him.’

  Do I want him back? Yes. No? I don’t know. The only power I want is the power to make Ben and Danielle sleeping together a thing that never happened, but that’s impossible.

  ‘It must work,’ Jemma insists. ‘It can’t be a coincidence that I always get dumped, and they’re always over me like that.’ She clicks her fingers with a grin.

  That makes me laugh – a real, proper laugh, for the first time since I stepped off the cable car on Saturday – and as I wipe the tears from under my eyes I pray she thinks they’re all from the laughter.

  I work until 8 p.m., then leave the office feeling shitty. As I cycle away, I try to clear my head and concentrate on the journey, but there’s too much going on in there.

  Like what am I going to have for dinner? Ben used to have it ready for me when I got home. I can’t cook for toffee. And I still have to clean up. Then I remember the bins were meant to go out last night but before I can beat myself up too much about it a horn sounds loudly, and I realize I’ve just narrowly missed a collision with a white van. Thankfully he doesn’t get out or wind down his window. Not that he needs to – the expletives he’s mouthing are fairly unambiguous.

  I pull over to the pavement while I wait for my heart rate to return to normal. That really was Ben’s fault – my mind isn’t on the road. And I know why.

  There’s something I’ve been avoiding that suddenly can’t wait any longer. Someone I need to talk to. I jump down off my bike as I speed dial his number. It rings for ages and I’m just about to give up when I hear his voice.

  ‘Rebecca! Thank God you called, how are—’

  ‘Be honest, Jamie,’ I interrupt. ‘Did you know?’

  Chapter Nine

  BEN

  Tuesday, 4 November

  Benjamin Franklin once said that he who can have patience can have what they will. But then if Rebecca is my America, why the hell would I listen to someone who signed the Declaration of Independence?

  Also, did Benjamin Franklin ever have to spend three nights concertinaed between the rigid arms of Jamie’s leather couch? I don’t think so. Did he ever have to wait three days for Mrs Franklin to reply to one of his telegrams?

  Actually, they probably did take about that long, but even so, Benjamin Franklin can do one. I’m going round to the flat tonight. We can talk. That’s what normal people do.

  I’ve been waiting so long for any form of contact from Rebecca that I’ve started to develop survival techniques. That’s what it’s come to. For example, I put my phone out of reach at night. I slide it across the floor before switching off the light so I can’t check it every two minutes.

  I look at it now, strewn on the Formica, and if I hadn’t been staring at it relentlessly for days, I’d write to David Blaine and Paul Daniels and apologize for ever doubting them, and admit that magic really does exist, because it buzzes, right before my eyes. But I have been staring at it relentlessly for days, so David Blaine and Paul Daniels can do one too.

  With most of my body still planted in a sleeping bag, I make a dive for it, keeping my feet on the couch so that I resemble a participant in a wheelbarrow race. Balancing on one hand and stretching with the other, I manage to snatch the phone without falling flat on my face.

  My heart is thumping a techno beat.

  Put the kettle on, Jamie has written.

  ‘Tit,’ I say out loud.

  I allow myself to collapse on to the floor, where I sweep away the phone with my arm and watch it slide over the veneer towards the kitchen before ricocheting off the foosball table towards Jamie’s bedroom, right at the moment his door opens. He stops and inspects the phone, which lands near his bare toes, and then me, a wounded Y on his floor, and he doesn’t look as confused as you might expect.

  ‘I’m not even going to ask.’

  He heads to the kitchen and places a hand on the still-cold kettle.

  ‘I think there may be something wrong with your phone, mate.’

  I return to the couch. ‘I thought it might be Rebecca.’

  He stands by the kettle, not saying anything, as it starts to boil.

  ‘I spoke to her last night,’ he finally says. ‘She said you texted her seven times yesterday.’

  ‘You spoke to her? How is she?’

  ‘On the verge of getting a restraining order, I expect.’ He shakes his head. ‘She wanted to know whether I’d known all along.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘The truth – that I was as shocked as her. How could you and Danielle have done it without me finding out?’ I sense him looking at me for an answer. ‘How come neither of you told me?’

  ‘We’ve been through this,’ I say wearily, and then to change the subject: ‘I’m going around there tonight.’

  ‘I don’t think she’s ready yet, mate. Just give her a few more days.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake – I can’t keep borrowing your clothes for ever.’

  He pours the tea, adding half a sugar to mine, just how I like it.

  ‘It wasn’t seven.’ I reach for my phone and go over to show him the messages, vindicated.

  He takes the device from me. ‘Mate, there are one, two, three . . . seven messages here without reply, and that’s just yesterday.’

  ‘Look at the times, though.’ I point to the screen. ‘Five of them were sent within three minutes of each other. Anything sent within a three-minute window only counts as one message, everyone knows that.’ I return to the couch with my tea. ‘Plus, rules go out the window in an argument – that’s what we told Danielle when she was texting Shane.’

  ‘I’ve got to get ready for a delivery at the bar,’ he says, carrying his mug into his bedroom. ‘Stop being a loon.’

  Russ is scribbling on a notepad when I get to my desk, his tongue jabbed into the side of his cheek like a kid who’s concentrating really hard on algebra.

  ‘Morning,’ I
say to him and Tom.

  Russ looks me up and down. ‘Don’t people usually let themselves go when they get dumped? How come you’re dressing better?’

  ‘I haven’t been dumped,’ I say. ‘Yet.’

  Tom bows his head guiltily so that his floppy hair resembles a lampshade. ‘Avril really couldn’t be sorrier,’ he says.

  Russ harrumphs, and I find that hard to believe myself, but I don’t want to take it out on Tom. ‘It’s not your fault, mate.’

  ‘You could have stayed in your old room, buddy,’ says Russ.

  I smile, grateful, but we both know it wasn’t an option. Avril’s always there, and I’d end up shoving the beret down her throat.

  ‘I deliberately drank all her organic soy milk yesterday, if that makes you feel any better?’ says Russ.

  ‘That was my organic soy milk,’ says Tom, but it’s a quiet clarification rather than a protest.

  Russ shakes his head as though he pities Tom. A few minutes later, once Russ is distracted by whatever he’s writing on the notepad, Tom deposits a present on my desk.

  ‘I didn’t get a chance to give you it on your birthday.’

  I open the present.

  ‘Is this the book you were telling me about?’ I say, examining the sleeve with a grin.

  I couldn’t stop raving about the Sistine Chapel when Rebecca and I got back from our trip to Rome, and Tom said he knew a great book on how it came to be. He nods now to confirm that’s what it is.

  ‘Ta, mate,’ I say, touched.

  Russ loops his eyes into their sockets. ‘I’d have got you a present if it was a proper birthday, like twenty-one or thirty. Did I mention it was my thirtieth in a few weeks?’

  I still can’t believe Russ is almost thirty. He looks twelve.

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ I say.

  ‘Er, yes, yes I did – end of Nov—’

  ‘I’m pulling your leg, Russ. You’ve mentioned it about fifty-eight times.’ I look at his notepad. ‘What are you writing?’

  ‘Diane from Match.com says she won’t go on a date until we’ve spoken on the phone.’ He tries balancing the Biro between his top lip and nose, but it falls into his lap. ‘I’m making a list of things to talk about.’

  ‘What’ve you got so far?’ I ask, happy to be having my mind taken off things.

  ‘OK, so . . . If she could be any animal what would she be?’ He looks at me and I nod encouragingly. ‘Top five superheroes? And why is she single?’

  ‘Can I be there when you make the call?’ I say.

  Russ slaps his notepad shut with a grunt. ‘At least my pathetic excuse for a life is good for something,’ he says. ‘That’s the first time I’ve seen you smile all week.’

  I switch on my PC, hoping there’ll be an email from Rebecca waiting for me.

  ‘I’m going to tell her my battery’s low,’ says Russ. ‘Then if it gets awkward I can just hang up and pretend my battery died.’

  I’m vaguely aware of Tom attempting a joke, and Russ calling Avril something rude in retaliation, but I’ve zoned out, because my dodgy monitor has finally stopped flickering and my screensaver has appeared. It’s a photo of me and Rebecca outside the Colosseum, the day before our visit to the Sistine Chapel. Rebecca took it with an outstretched arm, sacrificing our chins for the iconic arches that she couldn’t stop staring at. Suddenly I feel like a troop of Cub Scouts are practising knots in my stomach, and it’s almost a relief when I feel a hand on the back of my chair.

  ‘Can I have a word, please, Ben?’ says our MD, using both hands to mime talking.

  Nigel Richardson has a habit of illustrating everything he says in mime, as though everyone around him is deaf. When we get to his office and he tells me about a proposal to kill off all of London’s ticket offices, he uses a pretend knife to slash his throat.

  ‘What about all the staff?’ I say, trying not to cough at the Brut fumes that follow Richardson everywhere.

  ‘It’s just a proposal from the directors at this stage. I wanted to bring in HR to bounce around,’ he bounces his hand here, ‘some ideas.’

  People are always surprised I work in HR, but that’s because they think it’s all about disciplinaries and sacking people. Actually, most of the time it’s about giving people jobs, or helping them get on in their careers, and when shit does go down, I see it as my role to make it as difficult as possible for the bosses to get rid of people.

  ‘For a start you’d have to create a watertight business case,’ I say, crossing my arms.

  ‘Well, it’s the twenty-first century.’

  He points to the calendar and I frown, not following.

  ‘If you want to know how to get from South Ealing to Angel,’ Richardson explains, ‘you don’t waste your time going to the ticket office – you look on your smartphone.’

  I pat my pocket and I realize I left my phone at my desk.

  ‘Oyster cards, debit cards – the world is going contactless.’

  That’s true enough: Rebecca has been completely contactless since Saturday night.

  ‘But seriously, what happens to the staff?’ I say. ‘I mean, you have to look into whether they can be reposted, and you’ll need to go through consultation, possibly with Acas, and because the numbers of redundancies might be quite high we’ll probably have to inform the relevant government departments, and obviously there’s industrial action to think about, and—’

  ‘The directors are coming in on Friday – do you think you’d be able to come up with a document on all this for then?’

  ‘Friday?’

  It’s doubtful I’ll be able to get anything comprehensive down on paper by then, especially with my head as it is, but I badly want to get back to my phone, so I nod and tell him Yeah, no problem.

  ‘One more thing,’ says Richardson, standing to accompany me from his office. ‘You’re looking very smart again today, I like it.’

  I always thought Jamie and I dressed pretty similarly but apparently not.

  ‘Ta.’

  There are no texts and no emails waiting for me when I go back to my desk. I check the time. One hour and forty-seven minutes of the working day without making contact. Benjamin Franklin would be proud, I think to myself as I walk towards the door, sensing Russ and Tom following me with concerned eyes.

  Once outside, I press my thumb on Rebecca’s name in my phone and smile politely at Michelle from Accounts, who is standing by the revolving doors smoking a cigarette. I walk down the street for privacy.

  You’ve reached the voicemail of Rebecca Giamboni. Leave your name and number and I’ll get back to you.

  I close my eyes at the sound of her voice, remembering the conversation we had after the first time I heard her voicemail. I told her Voicemail Rebecca was a bit curt, and she joked that she couldn’t speak right now and I should leave a message after the tone. Then when I started talking again she cut me off with a beeeep, just like the one I’m listening to now.

  ‘Becs, it’s me. I love you, I miss you. Call me back.’

  I’m lolled on the couch, music drifting from my phone, which hasn’t buzzed all afternoon, when I hear a key in the door.

  ‘I thought you were working tonight?’ I say.

  ‘Thought you might appreciate the company.’ Jamie puts down a plastic bag and starts leafing through his post. ‘You heard from her yet?’

  I shake my head. ‘I feel like my life is on hold.’

  ‘In which case . . .’ He discards some junk mail into the bin and points an accusatory finger towards my phone. ‘. . . can we change the hold music? This is fucking depressing.’

  ‘It’s Damien Rice – one of the best—’

  ‘It’s wank, is what it is.’

  Jamie comes over and snatches my phone.

  ‘This from the fella who has a signed Chas ’n’ Dave disc on his living-room wall,’ I say.

  He returns to the worktop, picks up the plastic bag and dangles it in the air. ‘Thought we could have a beer by the rive
r?’

  I’d wanted to keep a clear head in case Rebecca calls back, and it’s getting dark, but he has taken the night off, and got beers.

  We take up a position on the concrete bank just outside his apartment, legs dangling half a metre above the water. Jamie pulls two cans from the plastic bag, tossing one into my waiting hands.

  ‘Where’d you get to last night?’ I ask.

  It was past three a.m. when I heard the door.

  ‘Lock-in.’ He pulls the tab and takes a long first sip. ‘With Tidy Tania.’

  ‘While her boyfriend was . . . ?’

  ‘They’ve split up,’ he says neutrally. ‘She wanted to come back here.’

  ‘And you didn’t because . . . ?’

  He regards me, still in the trousers and shirt I borrowed for work, a triangle of shirt untucked at the side. ‘With you on the couch?’

  Jamie hunches his shoulders like he’s not that bothered anyway.

  ‘I was too tired,’ he says. ‘It’s been a strange week.’

  His smile is lopsided, but after a few seconds his lips even out into a full-on grin. ‘I like to be on top of my game the first time I sleep with someone. I want to do everything I can to ensure they’ve got something to tell their mates about.’

  ‘I try to do everything to ensure they’ve got nothing to tell their mates about.’

  Jamie takes another glug. ‘I’m not sure you need to worry about Rebecca and Danielle exchanging notes.’

  ‘Too soon, Jamie.’

  He laughs ruefully.

  ‘So it’s weird,’ he says, straightening his legs so they’re parallel with the water. ‘You normally want to endlessly talk things through, but we haven’t spoken properly since you got here.’

  ‘What’s the point?’

  Jamie allows his legs to drop against the concrete and looks at me questioningly. ‘It’s just not like you, is all.’

  I pause, contemplating what to say, how much to reveal. ‘I’ve spent the past year with Rebecca pretending that Danielle and I never happened, and it’s been easy, because it was just one night, it meant nothing, and I don’t really see the point in dragging it all up now, especially when things have been going so well between me and Rebecca.’

  Jamie nods into his can. ‘I’ve never seen her happier.’