by Liam Brown
Or rather I saw him.
God.
He was wearing a shirt and tie and sat behind an enormous marble desk, his head bowed over a futuristic-looking laptop. I swallowed hard – or rather I would have if I hadn’t been an inanimate block of ice. This was it, I realised. The moment of judgement. The divine balancing of the books.
I was screwed.
Then something strange happened. God yawned. He actually opened his mouth and yawned. Could it be that the Supreme Being was knackered? I guessed being both creator of the universe and principle object of human faith could take it out of you.
Only God didn’t look tired – he looked bored.
At that moment he glanced up and, as if noticing me for the first time, he waved for me to come closer.
And that’s when I realised it wasn’t God at all.
It was my ex-manager, Dan.
*
Occasionally, another lifetime ago, I would sit in bars and listen to people moaning about their jobs. The hours of endless drudgery. The disrespect their superiors showed them. Their lack of career prospects. They would moan about it until they were too drunk to talk anymore, their misery and self-hatred spilling out over the sides and splashing over anyone sitting too close. They were like human vortexes, sucking the joy out of the room.
Whenever I heard somebody beginning one of these monologues I would reach for my beer and raise a silent toast to myself. Because I didn’t just enjoy my work. I was in love with it. It was a thing of beauty. And the best thing of all was that I’d got there all by myself. I hadn’t won the lottery or inherited it. No. I’d done this. The studying, the unpaid internships, the years of endless arse-kissing and networking, clawing my way over the desiccated piles of the weak and the old, until finally I reached a spot near the summit, my place in the sun. And once I got there I realised I’d found my calling. I wasn’t just good at it. I was great. Even that asshole Dan admitted as much – right before he held a gun to my face and pulled the trigger.
Account manager. It’s a dull job title to the uninitiated, as if perhaps I spent my day shuffling through dusty files or comparing spreadsheets. In truth, however, it’s one of the most envied – and least understood – roles in advertising. Essentially, my purpose was to make sure existing clients were happy with all aspects of our work. More importantly, I needed to ensure that the big fat cheques they made out to us once a quarter, kept coming, and if possible got even bigger and fatter. One of the best ways to do that was to make sure the clients had access to everything they desired.
And I do mean everything.
The number one mistake most account managers make is to believe it’s their job to sell the firm. They’re the ones who turn up at the airport with a briefcase full of statistics. The ones who bore the visiting CEOs half to death with their scripted pitches about the company’s core values. The ones whose idea of entertainment is a five-course dinner at a fancy restaurant while they rattle off half-baked Forbes quotes-of-the-day over seared foie gras and moules à la crème.
Those guys find they don’t last too long – their clients mysteriously decide to take their business to another agency at the first available opportunity. No, in reality the job of a good account manager is not to sell their company, but to sell themselves. Because the truth is, when El Presidente of some FTSE 100 company turns up in town with his merry band of corporate flunkies in tow, he’s not simply there to find an innovative way of selling yet more toothpaste or suspect financial products to the general public. No. He’s there with a legitimate alibi to spend a couple of days away from the shareholders, wife and kids. In other words, he’s on vacation. He’s there to party. As a result, the account manager’s job is to act as a sort of tour guide, or club rep. They need to be Mr Fun-Times; the 1,000-watt lamp every barfly in the room flutters to. The guy who can provide unlimited quantities of booze, blow and women – yet breathe not a word of it at the next morning’s meeting. To smile and nod and lie with professional impunity.
Like I said, I’d found my calling.
For almost a decade I’d been the best account manager in the business. Not one of my clients ever left me. How could they? I knew the precise colour and splatter of the stains that smeared their dirty laundry. I was too dangerous to risk cutting loose. So they would keep the nibs of their fountain pens dancing along every dotted line placed in front of them, ensuring both my bonus and their good names remained intact. It was the perfect arrangement.
And then the bomb went off.
At first it looked like the advertising industry might escape unscathed. If anything I assumed the downturn might actually boost business. Surely if profits had dropped then the best way to resuscitate them was to scream a little louder? To come out guns blazing. And for a while that seemed to be the case. The whole world might have been under attack, but within my private principality the flags kept flying. The booze kept flowing. But slowly things were changing. A couple of our major clients folded overnight. Huge, centuries-old institutions. We woke up one morning and they were gone. Just like that. And with their deaths came fear. The newspapers – who of course were as up to their necks as the rest of us – started to point fingers. Austerity was the new buzzword and any show of excess was to result in extreme and sustained public humiliation. God forbid someone saw the size of your bonus, let alone found out about the harem of hookers you had charged to your company credit card.
It was at this point chief executives started jumping. Or were shoved. Overnight around half the pages in my contact book were irrelevant. And the new people who came in to replace them. Jesus. They were like monks. They’d turn up to business lunches and order tap water. They’d ask for a breakdown of every expense sheet. Every minute, every penny had to be accounted for. It was unworkable – something had to give.
And in the end that something was me.
Around ten months after the government announced that the UK was officially in recession, I was made redundant. Or rather, ‘my position’ was made redundant, as Dan was at pains to put it. It was nothing personal. My firm had decided they no longer needed account managers. Dan had decided.
‘The world’s twisted on a notch, Ad,’ he said, flashing a smile from behind the security of his desk. ‘We’re in evolutionary mode now. Adapt or die. It really is nothing personal.’
And with the slash of a ballpoint pen it was over.
I was obsolete.
*
‘Daddy?’
I opened my eyes.
I was lying face down on the kitchen floor. Next to me were two small feet, ten pink toes wriggling against the chill of the tiles.
‘I’m thirsty,’ said the toes. ‘I want a drink.’
I sat up, swallowed hard. My mouth was an open sewer, a dank cave full of sludge and broken glass. I tried to speak. ‘Ugh.’
Flynn gave a sleepy smile. He wasn’t really awake. ‘Silly Daddy. Did you fall asleep on the floor?’
I nodded. Silly Daddy. Staggering to my feet, I headed over to the tap, cupped my hands and took a long draft before pouring Flynn a glass.
‘Time for bed, buddy,’ I croaked once he’d finished.
He came without a struggle. I hoisted him up into the crook of my arm, his head nestling into my chest. He was asleep before we reached the bottom of the stairs. I crept up quietly, wary of waking Lydia. My muscles felt hot and tingly under my skin, my back teeth clamped tightly together. I vaguely wondered if the coke might be cut with something. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d ended up in a K-hole after buying a bad wrap. Whatever it was, it seemed to have mostly worn off. Despite the jitters, my mind felt sharp. In fact, things were a little too clear; dangerous, half-formed thoughts lurked at the periphery of my consciousness. I licked my lips. I needed another vodka.
As I reached the top step, Flynn shifted his weight in my arms, pushing his face into me, as if attempting to burrow into my chest. I planted a kiss in the mop of his hair, his scent sweet and buttery. I eased open hi
s bedroom door and paused at the threshold. In the dark the room looked strange and unfamiliar. I scanned the walls, taking in the blotchy pictures he’d brought home from nursery, his shelves stacked with books and toys I hardly recognised. Like the rest of the house, his room was all down to Lydia. I’d input nothing but money. Now that had stopped I felt like an extra, wondering through the set of my own life.
Flynn stirred again, a bad dream playing on his lips. ‘No…’
‘Shhhh,’ I said as I lowered him into his bed, drawing the duvet up around his tiny shoulders. I stooped to kiss him goodnight again.
‘Goodbye,’ I said.
I froze. I’d meant to say goodnight. Now, however, the truth that had been hovering in the shadows for the last few weeks came hurtling out into the light. Goodbye. At that moment I realised I was going to leave. I was going to leave tonight.
I backed out of Flynn’s room quickly, knowing that if I stayed any longer I’d change my mind. I crossed the landing, reaching for Olivia’s door, pushing it open and slipping inside. Again I waited in the doorway, scared I’d wake her if I got any closer. Even in the darkness I could make out the features of my eldest child. She looked younger when she slept, the pre-teenage angst drained away to leave a softer expression. She looked happy. I studied her – the dainty curve of her mouth, the way her hair folded over her cheeks – trying to drink in the details of her form, storing them away deep inside me, as if they might sustain me later somehow. ‘Goodbye,’ I whispered, before I closed her door behind me.
I paused on the landing. Directly in front of me was Lydia’s bedroom. Our bedroom. I pictured her fast asleep, oblivious under layers of duck feather duvet. She’d be frantic when she awoke to find me gone. But that was nothing compared to the fury she’d unleash when she finally discovered the truth. I couldn’t win. Either way, I decided she deserved one last good night’s sleep before her world fell apart.
I turned around and crept back down the stairs. I didn’t take anything; no coat, no phone, no keys, no money.
And, just like that, I opened the front door and walked out on my life.
FOUR
Everything was under control. Yes I’d been laid off, but it was a temporary measure. A snag in life’s rich tapestry. A speed bump on the road to riches. There were plenty of other agencies out there. I’d interview for a new job and be snapped up by a rival company within a fortnight. Dan’s loss would be someone else’s gain. Meanwhile, I was on full pay for the next three months, and it seemed a shame to waste the chance to kick back a little. To relax and recuperate. To recharge my batteries.
Concerned husband that I was, I decided it would be cruel to burden Lydia with the details. Not when everything was definitely, positively, one hundred per cent under control. No, I decided I’d carry on as I always had. I’d leave the house at eight and be home for six. It was business as usual. Only with a little more free time on my hands.
Within a week things began to unravel.
As I’ve mentioned before, the problem with free time is working out how to fill it. Of course, this isn’t such an issue when you still have access to a steady supply of hard currency to fund your secret all-day visits to the race course or casino. And when that runs out, you can always dip into your joint savings accounts and your children’s ISAs while you wait patiently for the right hand or the right race to catapult you back into the black. You know your wife’s PIN, you can pawn your wristwatch, borrow against your house and car, all the while chasing that one big win that will turn you around, that will make everything okay again.
By the time my losses were tallied up I owed more than the sum total of all of my assets. More than ten times the total. I began calling around the agencies, but by then it was too late. Dan was right – the world had moved on. Nobody was hiring. Or at least they weren’t hiring me. They were like dogs; they could smell the fear. The desperation. I couldn’t even get an interview. Of course I thought about confiding in Lydia. But where would I begin? And more to the point, where would I stop? A lifetime of little lies had snowballed and become an avalanche. There was no way of pulling out one or two details without the whole thing roaring into the open and burying me.
No, my only choice was to keep on running, hoping that my luck would change.
*
I was so cold when I reached Tamara’s house that I couldn’t feel my knuckles against her door. There was no answer. I kept knocking. Eventually I heard muffled footsteps from somewhere deep inside the building. I knocked again. This time the hall light came on. I dropped to my knees and hissed through the letterbox.
‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘Open up.’
The footsteps got closer, followed by the pips of a burglar alarm. The rattling of chains and locks. I straightened up and took a step back as the door opened to reveal a slither of black hair and one furious eye.
‘Adam? For fuck’s sake. It’s two in the morning. You don’t text? You don’t call? I’ve got a housemate you know. She nearly called the police…’ She trailed off as she caught sight of my face. ‘Jesus. Are you alright? You look terrible. Where’s your coat?’
I shrugged. ‘I’ve done it,’ I said. ‘It’s over. I’ve left Lydia.’
Tamara didn’t move for a moment. Eventually she took a deep breath, her whole body sagging as she opened the door a little wider. ‘I suppose you’d better come in then,’ she said.
And so I did.
*
I didn’t set out to have an affair. I’m sure a lot of married middle-aged men say that sort of thing – especially when backed against a wall by an apoplectic spouse brandishing divorce papers. But in my case it was true. Tamara had been my secretary for a full two years before anything happened between us, and even then it was she who’d chased me. Well, maybe we’d chased each other. But however it began, it was never a conscious decision on my part to cheat on Lydia. It’s important you know that.
Of course I’d noticed Tamara. Everyone noticed Tamara. Yet the possibility that I might end up sleeping with her never crossed my mind. I was in my early twenties when I first started seeing Lydia and despite the money and relative power I’d accrued in the intervening decades, at heart I still thought of myself as this awkward, stuttering child. And so, when a late evening at work turned into an early, booze-fuelled morning and we found ourselves alone in the office together, I was shocked. Not only by the force of my own lust, but to find that longing reflected in her enormous green eyes. She wanted me. And not just physically either. Unlike the other women in my life she seemed genuinely excited by what I had to say. She was charmed by my bad jokes. She listened to my reheated anecdotes and ancient chat-up lines with the earnest reverence of a student, as if worried she might miss some small detail she would later be required to recall. As if she actually thought she could learn something from me. Me! Of course I was flattered.
And so, as my hands reached up and around to explore the taut angles of her young body, I knew that this would not be a one-off, a moment of drunken weakness. It would happen time and time again. I would devour her, until adultery became just another means of getting high, of escaping. And, just like every other drug in my life, I used it to excess, until it stopped being fun and became just another addiction to service.
And even then I couldn’t get enough.
*
‘Excuse the mess. I wasn’t exactly planning on visitors.’
I trailed Tamara through the squat chaos of her house. Though the majority of our time together had been spent in hotels around the city, I had still been here at least a dozen times before, and as I walked, the ghosts of our affair reared up around me, smearing like streaks of neon in the dark hallway. The places we’d fucked. The positions we’d folded each other into. The lies we’d told with our bodies. And later the arguments. I saw it all replayed in slow motion and from multiple angles, like the trailer for some low-budget erotic thriller.
‘What the fuck do you want, Adam?’
Tamara stood fac
ing me as I entered the kitchen. She looked tired. Older. I realised it was the first time I’d ever seen her without makeup.
‘I thought we could start with a coffee?’ I said, smiling weakly. ‘Or a beer if you’ve got one.’
Tamara didn’t move. ‘That isn’t funny. You can’t do this. I haven’t seen you for two months and then you turn up stinking of drink, saying you’ve left your wife? I’ve got work in the morning.’
‘I know. I just… I needed to see you.’
‘Really? You needed to see me now? It couldn’t have waited until tomorrow? You couldn’t have called me first?’
‘Jesus, Tammy! Didn’t you hear what I said? I’ve left my wife. This is what we talked about.’ I took a step towards her, my arms encircling her waist. She tensed, but didn’t push me away. ‘We can be together now,’ I continued. ‘Just the two of us. Like you always wanted.’ My lips reached her neck, the honeyed musk of her bringing me back to a hundred hotel rooms. I slid my hands lower.
‘Stop,’ she said, gripping my wrists. ‘Ella’s upstairs. It’s not fair.’ She turned her back on me, filling the kettle, fumbling with cups and milk. Avoiding my eye. ‘So, how are you?’ she eventually asked. Her tone was measured, unnaturally breezy. ‘How’s work?’
She might as well have pulled a knife on me.
*
I’d only seen Tamara a handful of times since the afternoon I’d left the office; a shuffling cliché with a box file wedged under each arm and a string of incoherent threats on my tongue, all of them aimed at Dan. Each occasion had been more depressing than the one before, the memories of Michelin-starred restaurants fading in favour of frazzled liaisons in Holiday Inn car parks. After a while we’d stopped contacting each other altogether, the embarrassment and disappointment too much for either of us to stomach.
