by Mo Fanning
Andy has apparently also twisted his ankle. I allow him to lean on me and we shuffle into a waiting cab.
Four
The first working day of any New Year drips misery. It marks the end of the season to be jolly. Everyone loses the urge to party, kiss perfect strangers and force money into charity tins. January almost always starts the same. It’s dark and cold and people look fed up. There’s an unwritten rule that my bus must run late.
When the number twenty-six groans around the corner at a glacial pace, I heave a sigh of relief.
When I hold up my pass, the driver yawns and shakes his head.
‘That expired at the end of December, love, you’ll have to pay.’
I stare at the date and will it to change.
‘One pound eighty,’ he says.
A miserable looking balding man in a cheap suit pushes on behind. He’s out of breath from running and treats me to full-on early morning halitosis.
‘Are you going to be much longer?’ he whines. My purse, of course, lies at the bottom of my bag under my sandwiches, house keys, make-up and unopened Christmas cards. I clatter a handful of change into a machine and grab my ticket.
The bus smells of damp, tired people and there’s not a single free seat, so the journey passes with someone’s briefcase rammed up against my thigh and my face pushed into the armpit of a woman who seems very much of the opinion that deodorant, is for sissies.
I get off one stop early and take my place in the crowds rushing with heads down to reach warm desks and exchange stories about Christmas.
A sizeable crowd gathers at the crossing to wait for the lights to change. I spot Angela from accounts in a tracksuit and headband, she’s jogging red-faced on the spot. It can only mean one thing. New year, new diet.
The thing is, there’s barely anything to her. She eats like a bird and a strong breeze would carry her away. But she’s the sort who likes to share. It’ll be tiresome tales of a new way to cook cauliflower or round robin emails that detail special offers at local gyms. I arrive at the crossing as the lights change and am about to step off the kerb and into the road when someone puts their hands over my eyes. I stumble and my bag hits the floor scattering its contents.
‘Guess who?’ a familiar voice giggles.
I don’t need to guess. I’d know Dopey Penny anywhere.
‘Oh goodness me, clumsy clot,’ she says and bends down to help and I cringe as she hands me an unopened card bearing her handwriting.
‘How are you?’ she says. ‘Have you got over the other night?’
I shudder. I know today is the day I get to deal with the fallout of my impromptu performance at the staff party. I know people are counting on me to draw attention away from their own drunken antics, but I hoped I might have time to get a cup of coffee before being forced to read emails crammed with links to shameful on-line galleries.
‘I’m fine thanks,’ I say. ‘Did you enjoy the party?’
‘Not quite as much as you.’
Penny giggles again and I truly don’t know what stops me from slapping her. Maybe I am a good person. So why am I still single when even Helen McVeigh is poised to gallop down the aisle and off into the sunset?
Penny waves a hand in front of my face. ‘Are you OK?’
‘What? Sorry I was miles away.’
‘You look a bit peaky. Mind you, I bet you felt rough yesterday.’
‘Just a little,’ I say and do the all girls together shrug thing that most women understand. Not Penny.
‘You must have had a few. What was it you were singing again? Hey Big Spender?’
I shrug.
‘No idea, Penny, like you say, I must have had a few.’ Much as I want to tell her to just shut the fuck up, I can’t.
‘I’ve got some pictures on my phone.’
‘Somehow I knew you would.’
‘There’s a great one of you and Brian.’
‘Lovely, can’t wait.’
How much fun will today be? Everyone gets to snigger behind screens and look at pictures of me drunkenly pawing my manager. Up ahead, Angela is waiting to cross the street, power-walking on the spot, and when she sees us she waves.
‘I think I might nip and get myself some breakfast,’ I say, desperate to get away.
‘Oh good idea, I’ll come with you.’
‘I’m going to the sandwich bar in the station.’
‘The one where Sharon got food poisoning? You can’t be serious?’
‘You don’t know that’s where she got it from.’
‘I remember that day like yesterday. One minute she was sat there at her desk chatting away, the next she was throwing up like nine pins.’
My own stomach lurches. I’ve never been good with bodily emissions and recalling the day my second in command fell ill doesn’t sit well. She threw up in the bin between our desks, but turned out not to be the most accurate of shots - even now, six months later, whenever the radiators malfunction and turn our office into a sauna, there’s a tang of stale coronation chicken.
‘It was coming down her nose. She got it in her hair and all down her front. She was in a right state.’
Penny seems, as always, blissfully unaware her chosen topic of conversation is inappropriate. You don’t talk about projectile vomiting to someone who has announced they fancy breakfast.
‘I might skip it,’ I say.
‘Don’t blame you. I’ve gone off food myself now. All that over indulgence at Christmas. We could both do with losing a few pounds anyway eh?’
She pats her non-existent stomach and I count to ten.
Very. Slowly. Indeed.
After we say our farewells at the stage door, Penny bounds up a narrow wooden staircase and leaves me to take a shortcut through the empty auditorium.
A theatre without an audience is a strange place to be. People talk about ghosts and it’s easy to see why. There’s a strange musty smell, the dead air feels cold and clammy even on a summer’s day. The stalls of the Empire Theatre exude an air of faded elegance, like a badly made-up old lady clad in charity shop clothes.
I hurry through double doors that lead into fluorescent light and over-heated air and run into Paul, the stage door manager.
‘Morning chucky egg,’ he laughs. ‘Where are you going in such a rush?’
Paul is a real darling and reminds me of Dad with his twinkly eyes and wicked sense of humour.
‘How was your Christmas?’ he says.
‘Quiet. What about you?’
‘Maureen talked me into a week in Tenerife. It was bloody awful. You don’t want to be eating turkey in flip flops .’ He puts down the box he’s been carrying. ‘So what’s all this about the party. Everyone’s talking about it.’
‘By it do you mean me?’
Paul nods and I feel my face glow.
‘You let them have their fun,’ he says. ‘They’ll soon forget about it. I’m sure Mr. Hawkins enjoyed it. Not sure about Mrs. Hawkins, though.’
He’s the second person to mention Audrey Hawkins. What does he know that I don’t?
When I manage to log onto my computer, crank up email and click on the first inevitable link to party photos, I see what both Paul and Penny mean. There I am, sat on Brian’s knee, skirt hitched up to my thighs, laughing like a fishwife and holding what looks like a pint of vodka. Someone - I assume it was me - has covered Brian in lipstick and I’m wearing his tie. My other hand has found its way into his shirt. Behind him, giving me the look of death stands Audrey.
I am so fired.
Audrey doesn’t work at the Empire, but it is widely accepted Brian never promotes hires or fires anyone without her say so. He’s a lovely guy. In his mid forties and still good looking - tall, lean, built like a footballer who shunned the
party life to spend match-day evenings doing press-ups. He’s still got a full head of hair, greying slightly at the temples, which makes him look distinguished rather than old.
Unfortunately, Brian is very much under the thumb. At any after show party, it’s Audrey who polices the door and the open bar. When there are interviews, it’s an open secret that Audrey first scans and rejects CVs. Women under 25 with long legs and blonde hair tend not to get past the first stages.
My phone rings - Brian’s secretary Nina.
‘Brian wonders if you could pop by and discuss the sales figures for the panto. He’s a bit concerned about the mid week matinées from week three onwards. Are you free now?’
‘I suppose so,’ I say and glance at the time, barely ten o’clock. He isn’t hanging around. I print off advance sales figures; if nothing else it’ll make me look prepared. My colleagues avoid eye contact as I make my way across the office.
Nina is away from her desk, so I announce myself at Brian’s open door. He’s on the phone, but puts his hand over the receiver and beckons me in.
‘Sit yourself down.’ He doesn’t smile. ‘Shut the door behind you. I don’t want to be disturbed.’
This is it. I’m for the chop. Why did I let Andy ply me with drink? Where the hell did my will power go? I come from a long line of people famous for their inability to handle drink. When Mam retired, after spending twenty-six years cleaning the vicarage, there was a little reception. Nothing too fancy; a few sandwiches and slices of angel cake, fruit punch. It was all terribly civilised.
And yet my older sister ended up in hospital having her stomach pumped. My other sister, Mam and Auntie Rose narrowly escaped arrest for public order offences in the waiting room. A shamed confession revealed the punch had been spiked with cheap Estonian vodka. Mam goes to another church these days.
Brian puts down the phone.
‘Sorry to drag you away like this,’ he says. ‘But I’ve had head office on the phone.’
‘I printed these off,’ I say and hand him the figures.
His eyes travel up and down the columns. Deep dark brown eyes. Laughing eyes. The sort of eyes that would know what happened the other night was a bit of a giggle. Surely.
‘Crikey, they’re right,’ he says ‘Wednesday afternoons from the middle of January. We’re under 50% full. Mostly concessions. Don’t suppose you know any miracle workers?’
Can it be Brian has called me here to actually talk sales figures?
‘We could always try a two for one,’ I say.
He shakes his head. ‘Everyone’s doing them. It might bring a few extra punters in, but we need something bigger.’
‘Freebies for kids?’
‘Nice idea, but the audience we get mid January is one parent families. Head office is looking for something to boost bar takings.’
A thought hits.
‘How about we tie something in with the Easter show?’ I say. ‘Half price tickets for all panto matinées provided you book at least one ticket for ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’?’
There’s a moment of silence and Brian stares, appearing to consider my suggestion. He looks impressed. I’m impressed. I have no idea where the idea came from.
‘That’s brilliant,’ he says. ‘Get onto groups, and have graphics draw something up. Make sure I get final approval on the copy and artwork. I want this settled by the end of the day.’
Our meeting feels to be over.
‘Was that all?’ I say.
‘All? Well yes, unless there’s anything else you wanted to talk about? Any more brilliant marketing plans up your sleeve?’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ I say and decide for some unknown reason to bag out the sleeve of my cardigan and invite him to stare up it.
‘See nothing there,’ I say and instantly want the ground to swallow me whole. It’s possibly the worst, lamest joke ever made. I really am going all out for making a holy show of myself in front of the theatre manager, as if my performance the other night wasn’t enough.
‘Well let’s get to it then, you’ve enough to keep you busy.’
I get up and reach for the handle to let me out from the little inner office when Nina appears.
‘Oh! Hi Lisa, how are you?’ she says in a voice that suggests heavy smoker. ‘Have you finished with the boss?’
‘I guess...’
Brian nods. ‘We’re all done making millions.’
‘Hope you didn’t tire him out.’
Nina slinks past me and stops next to his desk, one hand resting on his shoulder.
‘You’ll have to share those millions with me,’ she says with a filthy laugh - more Sid James than middle-aged vamp. Brian looks terrified, but can’t take his eyes off her. Despite having recently celebrated her 50th, Nina’s still pretty in a plastic Jessica Rabbit sort of way. Like me, she has red hair, but that’s where the similarity ends. She’s all legs and lashes, lipstick and fake tan. Rumour has it her rich husband pays for the maintenance work that such a face demands.
‘Right then, ‘ I say. ‘That’s me.’
‘Oh there was one more thing, Lisa,’ Brian says. ‘I’d forget my own head if it wasn’t screwed on. What are you doing on Saturday?’
‘Nothing,’ I say, without thinking. Then remember Sharon’s big night out. ‘Well nothing that can’t be put off.’
‘Audrey and I would love to invite you round to supper.’
‘Supper?’
‘Well I call it dinner, but you know Audrey.’ He does this sort of goofy grin.
I do indeed know Audrey. She looks like she could chew off my leg if the mood so took her. What reason can she have for a dinner invitation?
‘Why me?’ I say and Brian looks surprised.
‘She thinks it’s about time I spent more time with my key staff. Get to know what makes them tick. And after hearing your ideas, I think she’s right. So eight for eight-thirty is what I think they say in polite company, isn’t it?’
I nod, having used up all of my quick thinking for one day.
‘Bring a friend by all means, but don’t bring wine. We’ve got a cellar full. Well, it’s more of a shed, but you know what I mean.’
For some reason, Brian sounds nervous.
‘Audrey will be happy with flowers. She likes white lilies.’
‘You have them at funerals,’ I say in a colourless voice as the walls close in.
The phone on his desk rings, removing any lingering chance of my making an excuse.
I let the door close and walk down the stairs, along the corridors and back to my desk without speaking to anyone.
Five
‘This must be the one,’ I say and squint through the windscreen of my little Fiat, as the wipers fight a losing battle against torrential rain. Were I to be a fan of symbolism, I’d say something about the awful weather offering a warning of the night ahead.
Andy sighs.
‘These houses all look the bloody same, little suburban boxes stuffed with little suburban minds.’
‘Just how many Pinter tablets did you take before we came out?’
‘I’ve got a hundred better things I could be doing tonight.’
‘It wouldn’t be my first choice of how to spend the first weekend of the New Year. I should be on Deansgate drinking cocktails and making young boys feel uncomfortable, but we’re here now, so let’s try and make the best of it.’
‘Hmm,’ Andy grunts. Although he’s agreed to be my plus one for the evening, he’s going all out to make it clear it’s under sufferance and only as pay-back for my spending a night in casualty after his sexual shenanigans.
I park up and turn off the engine.
‘Don’t leave me alone with her will you?’ I say.
‘With who
?’
‘Don’t leave me alone with Audrey.’
‘I don’t know why you think she’s out to get you. All you did was throw yourself at her husband.’
‘I was drunk.’
‘Exactly! She’s not stupid. She’ll understand. Chances are you’ll escape with a flesh wound. I’ve heard she rarely leaves lasting scars.’
I glare at Andy. Why can’t he say something a bit more supportive? Why is everything one big joke?
‘Get your coat,’ he says. ‘This rain isn’t looking like it plans to stop any time soon. We’ll make a dash for it.’
We run up the path and ring the doorbell. A light flicks on inside and even through frosted glass I can tell Audrey and not Brian is on the way to welcome us. My heart sinks.
‘Lisa! How lovely to see you again.’ She kisses the air behind my ears and I inhale heady perfume. Her honey blonde hair is immaculate, every single strand lacquered into place, not daring to move. Her mouth twists into a smile, but her eyes remain cold, beneath arched grey eyebrows.
‘Come on through, you must be freezing.’
She shakes hands with Andy and turns to lead us down the hallway, a pale pink silk caftan fluttering in her wake. I can’t move. It’s as if I’m nailed to the spot. Andy gives a tiny shove in the small of my back and I stumble. Audrey stops and turns to look me up and down, as if seeing me for the first time.
‘You’re soaked,’ she says. ‘Hand me your coats, I’ll put them in the downstairs cloakroom. I presume they’re drip dry.’
Both Andy and I nod and mutely hand them over.
‘We probably should have left them in the car,’ I say and both Andy and Audrey stare at me as if I’m mad. The silence that follows feels as if it lasts forever.
‘Perhaps you could pop your shoes in the hallway, it’s back where we came from,’ Audrey says before walking away, our coats held at arms’ length.
