The Sunday Girl

by Pip Drysdale

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked.

  ‘I want you to really think about this before you answer,’ he said. ‘No reflex answers.’

  I knew what was coming and laughed. ‘Scrambled.’

  ‘Very good.’ He grinned as he turned and walked back through to the kitchen.

  ‘Thank you,’ I yelled after him as I went to my emails, opened up a new message, typed in Val’s email address and told her about the Eastbourne scheme. I suggested it might be the perfect opportunity for David. And as I typed his name an image of his eyes – navy and at close range – flashed before me. I pushed it aside, mentioned that we’d need to act fast. And then I pressed: send.

  Angus flicked on the light as we walked into his apartment. Its familiar smell filled my nostrils and my shoulders tensed. I felt wrong being there. Angus closed the door behind us, rolled my suitcase full of toiletries and the excess clothes I’d always kept at his place through to the bedroom, and then moved over to Ed. His cage was still sitting by the window. I glanced to my left at the kitchen, the site of the leak I’d created – there wasn’t any evidence of it now.

  Angus walked over to me, wove his arm around my shoulders and led me through to the bedroom.

  ‘Welcome home,’ he said, smiling.

  I smiled back and my eyes darted to the mahogany chest of drawers – his lucky socks were still in my flat. And Mrs Clifton would have found the cocaine I threw onto her balcony by now. I looked at the bed and flinched: had he slept with the prostitutes on it? A hot wave of anger washed over me at the thought. But then, who was I to judge? I was the one who’d ordered them. And I’d hardly been the poster girl for chastity in the time we were apart.

  He leaned down and cupped my face with his hands. Then he kissed me. And it occurred to me that he tasted of peppermint chewing gum instead of his habitual Scotch – he really was trying.

  ‘Get undressed, darling,’ he said as he moved to the wardrobe. ‘I have a surprise.’ My pulse sped up as I unzipped my dress and it fell to my feet.

  He looked back and smiled at me. ‘Underwear too.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked as I took off my bra and knickers.

  ‘Looking for something …’ he said. ‘Here we go.’ He walked over to me and I looked down at his hands: a big yellow ribbon was lying across his palms, its ends dangling down on either side.

  I looked at him with confusion, my breath catching.

  ‘Oh don’t worry, it’s just a game,’ he said as he reached down and tied it around my waist.

  My mind raced.

  Does he know?

  ‘Now, I’m going to lie in bed and I want you to walk through the bedroom door just like that,’ he said.

  I heard myself swallow. I was blinking fast. ‘I feel silly,’ I said, my throat tight.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘It’ll be fun. Trust me.’

  He went and lay down on the bed, reorganising the pillows behind his head, and I walked out of the room. I was shaking as I turned the corner and crossed the threshold. But he was lying there waiting for me like nothing was wrong. Why is he getting me to do this? Is it a test?

  ‘Come here,’ he said, patting the side of the bed. I walked around and stood beside him. The bedside light, a green metal lampshade over an amber globe, cast a strange shadow across the side of his face. And my pulse beat fast in my mouth.

  He reached up and gently tugged at the bow, and just like a Christmas present I unravelled. He took my hand and drew me to him, then down onto the bed. And then he was on top of me, his hands between my legs.

  Lying in bed afterwards, his arm around me, my head on his chest and his fingers stroking my shoulder, all suspicion had evaporated. He doesn’t know. I would have felt it.

  ‘Angus?’ I asked.

  ‘Hmm?’ he replied. His eyes were half-closed and he was breathing heavily, drifting in and out of sleep.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘That’s the great thing about bust-ups: they make a relationship stronger if they don’t destroy it. I want you to tell me and ask me absolutely anything and everything.’ His eyes had opened. They were focused on the ceiling. And he said it in such a way that made me think he wanted to ask me something too.

  Swallow.

  ‘What happened with Kim?’

  His breath got deeper and his chest raised high as he inhaled.

  ‘It was a mistake. A reflex. It was stupid,’ he said. Then he breathed out.

  ‘Was she why we broke up?’ I was looking at him, watching for a flicker of truth.

  ‘No,’ he said, rolling on top of me and looking into my eyes. ‘Of course not. I am just an idiot. I was terrified. You know me, I’m forty-two years old and –’

  ‘Forty-three,’ I reminded him.

  ‘Forty-three then, smarty pants, and I have never been in anything as serious as us. I know it sounds clichéd but I really was scared.’

  ‘Of what?’ I asked. I could smell his skin, the spice of his cologne.

  ‘That I would disappoint you,’ he said and his voice cracked.

  ‘How would you disappoint me?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, look at some of the things I’ve done, they were terrible. I know that. I didn’t trust myself. So it seemed easier to just end it.’

  ‘And Kim?’ I didn’t want to labour the point, but I needed to know for sure.

  ‘Kim was just there. But I love you,’ he said, ‘and I’m not going anywhere ever again.’

  And I believed him.

  And then his lips – dry but soft – found mine, our fingers intertwined, and all the questions were gone.

  ‘Now it’s my turn,’ he said. He was lying on his back, my head on his shoulder. ‘Can I tell you something?’ It was around midnight and my eyes were almost closed. We’d made love again and the apartment was silent. All the neighbours were either out of town or had gone to bed. And it felt as though the light beside the bed was the only light still on in the entire hemisphere.

  ‘Of course,’ I said, my fingers stroking his chest.

  ‘Would you want me to tell you if something happened that would really upset you, or would you want me to keep it a secret?’

  ‘What?’ Suddenly I was thinking of David and Jamie and how Angus would feel if I told him about them. I could feel my heartbeat waking up. ‘Like what? What do you mean?’ I asked, severing our embrace so I could look at him.

  ‘Nothing that bad, really,’ he started and then trailed off.

  ‘No, Angus, I would want you to tell me,’ I said. Hypocrite.

  He looked at me, unsure. ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  He swallowed loudly and the open bedroom window rattled in the wind.

  ‘You know the thing we did earlier? The ribbon?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied in a small voice.

  ‘Well, I didn’t make that up.’

  ‘Huh?’ I said. Shit. Shit. Shit.

  ‘I didn’t think of that, someone else did,’ he said, looking away from me. ‘Please promise me you won’t get angry.’

  ‘I promise,’ I said. Fuck. ‘I want you to tell me everything.’

  He looked back at me cautiously. ‘Okay, well something happened on Friday.’ He shot me a pained look. ‘It was on my birthday.’ He took my hand. ‘These two women turned up to the flat dressed in overcoats and wearing just yellow bows around their waists.’

  As I stared at him, my mouth started to feel weird and paralysed, the way it always does when I lie. I willed it to relax.

  ‘I don’t know how to say this nicely, darling: they were hookers. Someone had sent me hookers for my birthday.’ He was looking me dead in the eye.

  ‘What? Who?’ I asked. Indignant. Liar.

  ‘I honestly don’t know, that’s a whole other story, but let me finish this part.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. I was watching him, trying to figure out whether he’d slept with them.

  ‘I just want yo
u to know, I didn’t let them stay, I didn’t have sex with them, I just sent them on their way. They were in here for about three minutes max. I thought they were lost or something at the beginning.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with the ribbon?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, they left. They were annoyed, but they left. Except one of them threw her ribbon at me in a strop.’

  ‘The yellow ribbon? This yellow ribbon?’ I said, reaching down to grab it where it had been discarded on the floor.

  ‘Yes, that yellow ribbon.’ He said, looking away.

  ‘Yuck, Angus, how could you have asked me to wear it?’

  ‘Because it was – God this sounds so bad, but it was a turn on. I couldn’t go through with it because I kept thinking of you. I knew that would be the end for good if I did that. But I wanted to.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

  ‘I still don’t know who sent them. At first I thought it was Harry,’ he said. Harry was his closest friend, but I’d never warmed to him. Mainly because sending prostitutes as a birthday present was precisely the kind of stunt he’d pull. ‘But then I got a call yesterday morning from Candice, who said the charge had come through on my work credit card. Must have been one of the jealous fucktards at work, right?’ he asked, glancing across at me. ‘It’s the only thing that makes sense. Or maybe Candice. Let’s face it, she’d love to catch me out. I told her it wasn’t me, but she said she’d already called the agency and they insisted I’d ordered them. That if I didn’t pay they’d press charges.’ He swallowed. ‘I mean, what the fuck is the world coming to? They won’t even take our calls now.’ Deep breath. ‘I should report them for running a brothel,’ he finished.

  ‘God,’ I said, guilt gnawing at me from inside, ‘what a nightmare. Can you just stop payment anyway? Then if they try to press charges just say you sent them away?’

  ‘We’ve already done that. But that’s not the point. Ordering hookers on a company card looks pretty bad – they’ll make an example of me if I can’t find a good excuse. I mean, it was my card.’ He let out a deep breath. ‘God, I’m dreading work tomorrow. It’s going to be so fucking tense. You know what Candice is like.’

  ‘Yep,’ I said.

  And I did. That was why I’d ordered them in the first place. I knew that she would flag them. She was far more officious and conscientious than her name sounded.

  ‘She’s such a bitch. Already emailed Henry about it and cc’ed me into the email!’ Henry was his boss.

  ‘How much was it for?’ I asked.

  ‘Over three-and-a-half grand.’

  ‘Hang on, so they were here for three minutes … that’s over a thousand pounds a minute …’ I improvised. ‘I’m in the wrong job.’ Smile.

  ‘You are,’ he said, rolling over to face me with a smile. He watched me, and his eyes flickered. ‘What would your prostitute name be?’ he asked. It seemed like a strange question but I was keen to get a break from the lies.

  ‘God, I don’t know, Candy Cane?’ I laughed.

  ‘No, you have to take your favourite pet as the first name and then the street you grew up on as your last name – you must have done this?’

  ‘Oh right,’ I said. ‘Fluffy Kramer.’

  ‘Hot,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks, Jenkins Leigh,’ I teased.

  ‘How do you remember absolutely everything about me?’ he asked, leaning forward to kiss me.

  ‘It’s easy,’ I said. ‘I love you. But what are you going to do?’ I asked. ‘About the credit-card charge?’

  ‘Baby, I actually have no idea. But I have to do something. I can’t afford to lose my job.’

  And in that moment it felt like we were as bad as each other: he’d uploaded a sex tape of me to the internet and I’d ordered two prostitutes on his work credit card.

  ‘Yes, I can see that,’ I said, eyes down. ‘Are you sure you didn’t order them, Angus? Maybe when you were high, before you gave up?’ Lies, lies, lies.

  ‘No, I’ve never paid for sex,’ he said. ‘I mean, I’ve looked at the websites, you know that, but I’ve never actually pulled the trigger.’

  And I thought back to the tone of that confirmation email: polite, yet familiar. It was equally fitting for both a returning client and a new big spender. What if Angus was telling the truth?

  Shit.

  ‘So, no, I promise I didn’t order them, darling,’ he said, his hand ceremoniously drawing a cross upon his heart, ‘but I need to find out who did.’

  monday

  Master Sun said: ‘Words of peace, but no treaty, are a sign of a plot.’

  13 FEBRUARY

  ‘Are you ready?’ Val asked and I swivelled my chair around to look at her. She was standing behind me holding a Starbucks cup on which was scrawled a smiley face and the word ‘Val’ in thick black magic marker. Under her arm was a grey plastic folder full of papers and she was wearing her jacket. That was a problem: a jacket meant a meeting.

  I looked at her blankly.

  It was Monday morning. A lot had happened since Friday afternoon. And my mind was too busy focusing on yellow ribbons and the idea of Felicia pulling red lace from a pink box to have even checked my diary yet.

  I hope to see you in these soon. Love, A xx

  Fuck.

  ‘The meeting with David,’ she said. ‘It’s in your diary … but we have to hurry, he’s only got fifteen minutes free, we’re lucky he could fit us in so quickly.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, eyes wide. Shit. Shit Shit. Shit.

  ‘He doesn’t need both of us, why don’t you go and I’ll keep working on it all,’ I offered, turning back to my computer.

  ‘No you don’t.’ She smiled. ‘You found this, you’ll be taking the credit, like it or not.’

  I clenched my teeth and smiled.

  Shit.

  As we rode the mirrored elevator downstairs to the meeting rooms I stared at my reflection – burgundy dress, navy cardigan, pink cheeks – and tried to calm my breath. My pulse. But I couldn’t.

  The elevator doors opened and we walked in silence down that grey hallway towards the door at the end. Val opened it and we walked inside. David was already there, seated at the big table and staring out the window at a sky the colour of steel. Dark grey suit, navy tie and a white shirt. There was a white china coffee cup in front of him. No papers, no pen: the true mark of importance.

  ‘Hello David,’ said Val as we walked in.

  He turned his head to greet us and I immediately looked down: it was worse than I’d expected. I felt naked.

  ‘Hello,’ I said. My eyes refused to meet his.

  ‘Morning,’ he replied with warmth.

  ‘So,’ said Val, as we both sat down, ‘we have some good news.’

  I could feel him watching me.

  ‘Now, I can’t take credit for this –’ she started.

  I sensed what was coming and counter-attacked: ‘It was a joint effort,’ I offered, looking at her, not him, ‘but I’m too close to it, too ensconced in the details – Val, why don’t you explain it? You’ll do it more concisely.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ she said, looking back at me expectantly. Her look said: Please take the stage. I so want to be able to promote you. I so want you to have a valid answer when I am forced to ask you in your promotion interview that dreaded question: ‘Can you give an example of a time you have shown initiative?’ Then she handed me the grey folder. I opened it and inside lay a few sheets of paper: an A3 blueprint of Eastbourne as it currently stood, the town’s current house price information, a series of figures illustrating the impact of The Town Square – Stepanovich’s scheme in Oxford – on both residential and commercial prices, and a short list of contacts at Citexel. That was Stepanovich’s company. But as I laid them out on the table, all I could think about was the warmth of David’s chest, his cigarette lips and the low rumble of his voice as he said: I just want to stay in bed with you forever.

  I looked up and went to speak – he was scanning through a set of figure
s on the table – but my tongue was thick. ‘You’ve probably heard of Nicolai Stepanovich,’ I started, trying to control the pitch of my voice. ‘And The Town Square in Oxfordshire.’ I felt stupid. Childlike. I needed to pull it together.

  David looked up at me, nodded, and his eyes met mine: a shot of adrenaline to the heart. I’m married. We have an understanding.

  ‘Well, he has a new scheme ready to start construction down in Eastbourne,’ I said, swallowing hard and trying to focus. ‘It’s another place-making scheme, but this one is aimed at the over sixty-fives.’

  ‘Built-to-rent blocks,’ Val interjected. ‘A hospital. Shopping.’

  ‘Yes.’ I smiled at Val as I gained confidence. ‘And one of the key investors is rumoured to have just pulled out.’

  ‘Really?’ he asked, glancing briefly back down at the papers then back up at me. ‘That’s great. Stepanovich is impossible to get in with. How did you find out?’

  ‘A trustworthy source,’ I said. Angus’s face hung before me and I tried to focus on him instead. The man I loved.

  ‘Right,’ said David. His eyes returned to the steel-coloured sky, his expression turned pensive, and his stubble glimmered red and gold beneath the warmth of the light that hung above us.

  ‘Well it would be phenomenal if we could pull this off,’ he said. ‘This is exactly the sort of opportunity I’m looking for.’ Then he looked straight at me. ‘Well done,’ he said, taking a sip of what had to be lukewarm coffee.

  My throat tightened and I tried to control the expression on my face. Because Val was watching the interaction between us, I needed to feign okay-ness; I needed to pretend I didn’t know what he looked like naked. What his chest hair felt like as it pressed into my cheek. His warmth behind me. His eyes staring into me before I’d truly woken up – not into my eyes, into me. But how could I, when that’s what they were doing at that very moment?

  ‘Construction is scheduled to start in May, so they’re already looking for a replacement – should we set up a meeting asap or do you want to run it past the board first?’ Val asked, all business.

  ‘I can meet with the board this afternoon, so I’ll let you know for sure after that, but I’d say let’s get something in with them as soon as possible.’ Then he turned to me. ‘Is there any way I could take you out for a business dinner to say thank you?’ he offered. Smile.