“Hello, people.” Kisses all round. They seemed ill at ease, as if I had just interrupted an argument. I started talking breathlessly to diffuse whatever tension I had inadvertently stumbled upon, making a mental note to talk to Maggie about Frank’s odd conversation with me at lunch on Monday. “Look at all these people. Maggie’s obviously really popular at work. I’d hate to have a party with all my work colleagues and my real friends, would be such a strange mix. Don’t think it would be good at all. What do you think?”
They were both staring intently at me, not even exchanging the briefest of glances with each other. I thought I saw Frank grimace.
“Izobel, what would you like to drink?” I turned to the voice at my shoulder.
“You remember Molly, don’t you?” said Frank. “Another from the old alma mater.”
“Of course, hello, Molly, I didn’t know you knew Maggie.” Frank muttered something under his breath. “I’ll have a gin and tonic, thanks. What’s that, Frank?”
“Nothing.”
We were soon joined by Alice and Becksy, who, with Molly, formed a little trinity of blonde cloning clustered around Camilla. Frank and I moved closer together, propelled by the Stepford unity that confronted us. Camilla took a small step in our direction and I could feel that a social evolutionary scale was forming at the bar with Molly, Becksy and Alice forming the prehistoric amoebas of our lineup. Nobody was talking so it was up to me to burble.
“What are your work colleagues like, Frank? Well, there’s that Robert who had his thirtieth for starters, I know him.” Frank and Camilla did at last look at each other and almost smiled at the mention of his name.
“I hear you know him by a different name,” said Frank. “He’s Hot Bob to you, isn’t he, Izobel?”
I ignored the superiority of the coupled man. “And Camilla, you’re still with the management consultancy, aren’t you?”
“Part-time,” she said. “They’re fabulous people. So dynamic. I love them.”
“You’ll miss them if OnLove takes off. Still, you’ll have colleagues there, I suppose. I wonder whether you’ll socialize with them?”
“I’m sure you won’t be able to escape them,” said Frank.
“Frank, please.” Camilla forced a smile.
“It’s true.”
“We’ll talk about it later.”
“I love my workies,” said Molly.
“I love my old ones and my new ones even more,” said Becky. “It’s so cool working and playing with a big gang.”
“We should go and pay our tributes to Maggie,” I said and off we shuffled like conjoined contestants in a twelve-legged race. We loitered around Maggie, who was being feted by a succession of colleagues.
“When’s it due, exactly?” asked one.
“Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”
“What names have you thought of?
“When’s it due?”
“I like Cormac for a boy and Iris for a girl, like the writers. Have you thought of those names?”
“What about Alfie, that’s a sweet name for a boy.”
“Or for a girl.”
“Short for what? Alfreda?”
“What’s your due date?”
Maggie caught my eye and announced, “It’s due in a month’s time, we don’t know the sex and we’re waiting to see what he or she looks like before thinking up names.” She then whispered to me, “I feel like I should get a T-shirt printed.”
“Is it weird to be stopping work for six months?” I asked, mindful not to ask anything about the now-unmentionable baby.
“Very. And very wonderful too. Isn’t that awful of me.”
“Not at all. I swear we get broody not because we want a baby but because we want time off work.”
“Probably not time off though, is it, but at least I have got a whole five weeks of daytime TV and sitting on my fat arse allowing myself to bloom.”
“Why are you leaving so early?”
“I couldn’t go on; I can’t sleep and I’m so tired. And everyone keeps saying how sad that if I go on maternity leave this long before due date I’ll have over a month less with the baby, or ‘baby’ as the health workers rather yukkily call it, but I’m rather thrilled by that prospect.”
“Bliss.”
“I will go back to work though. I’m not going to be, what’s it called now, a full-time homemaker.”
“A stay-at-home mum. Ouch, Frank, that’s my foot you’re stamping on.”
“Is it? Sorry,” he said without apology. “I wanted to talk to Maggie too, you’re monopolizing her. When did you say it was due?”
“Next month, though they say first babies are often late,” replied Maggie.
“Is it a boy or a girl?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think it’s a girl,” said Camilla. “Because of the way you’re carrying it.”
“That’s tantamount to calling me a big, fat cow who’s bloated all over my body, Camilla. You’re always supposed to guess it’s a boy.” Maggie sighed. “Where’s Hot Bob? I asked you to bring him, Frank. I thought that would cheer you up, Iz.”
Frank sniggered.
“No way. I’m not out there yet. Please God, tell me you haven’t really invited him.” I turned. “Oh, hello Robert, how are you?” I looked down with embarrassment.
“Blinging.” Above his feet clad in old-school trainers were hairy shins and combat shorts, topped with a chain around his neck and a joint in his hand. And, I noticed, a hooded top. It was hot out, but really there was no excuse for shorts in an urban area. Frank was dressed similarly. In the same way that primary school-teachers and childminders get infantilized by their charges, so university lecturers are made studentlike by theirs. It was embarrassing how down with the kids they tried to be, with violent rap on their CD players and trainers on their feet.
“I know your cousin Ivan. He works with me.” They did look alike, but Robert was Ivan gone wrong, like when you see siblings of film stars or supermodels and they always just seem to be compiled from all the leftover imperfections. Ivan’s voice may have been too high, but Robert’s was positively squeaky. Ivan’s nose was straight and his hair thick; his cousin’s nose was slightly snub and his hair coiffed and gelled into a silly but fashionable mullet. Ivan’s body was slim but slightly squidgy, so not to look like he was boring enough to do all the stomach crunches necessary for a six-pack, while Robert had muscles bursting out of a tight cap-sleeved T-shirt.
“You’re kidding me. For real?” he replied.
“Yes, really. He’s the systems administrator for the company where I work.”
“Ivan’s all that.”
“Yes, he seems really competent. Very efficient, knows his stuff.”
Hot Bob was jigging to the imaginary rap track in his head. “Do you want some bone?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Do I what?”
Hot Bob giggled and pointed to the joint in his hand, before toking deeply on it.
“No, I’m all right thanks.”
“You chilling.”
“Yes, I suppose so. Excuse me, just going to the…” I gestured toward the loos and Hot Bob gave me a wink, which either suggested that he thought that I was going in there to take something stronger than a joint, or that I might be inviting him in there with me. I scooted fast across the room and locked myself into the ladies.’ I was not ready for bad conversations with faked-up interest, especially not with Robert. I think we only thought him hot from the safety of our own relationships. The only thing smoking about him were the embers of his poorly rolled joint.
I found it difficult to believe that he shared genes with Ivan.
“Maggie.” I grabbed her on my way out. “Sorry to talk about myself for a change, but how could you have invited Hot Bob for me? He’s a prat. Thinks he’s in South Central LA rather than West Central London.”
She giggled. “Is he awful? I am sorry. I think he’s rather handsome, in a boy band kind of a way.”
“Not a patch on his cousin Ivan, the bastard. Thanks anyway, but I don’t think I’m quite ready to be Hot Bob’s honey. Speaking of stickiness, what’s with Frank and Camilla? They seemed a bit weird with one another.”
“They did, like they’d been discussing something and then I saw Frank rather hilariously visibly groan at the invasion of the schoolgirl hordes.”
“Those girls are ubiquitous, aren’t they?”
“I heard him say something like ‘I’m going out with you, not your schoolmates.’”
“Really? Juicy. I wonder if he means any one of them in particular.”
“Or he could mean you, you were at that school too, weren’t you? That’s it, he’s still in love with you.”
“Yeah, right. Though we did have a weird lunch together. He was a bit funny and kept on wanting to talk about what would have happened if we’d stayed together and hinting that things weren’t perfect between Camilla and him.”
“I’m right, he is still into you. That would make him site man, wouldn’t it? That would be so great, you two going out with one another again. The childhood sweethearts who grew up enough to realize that they’d never find anyone sweeter. I love it. University didn’t teach them that they were in love with each other…”
“Never going to happen.”
“Hello,” said Alice or Becksy, appearing from nowhere once more. It was Alice, I divined, the smaller one. Maggie escaped to talk to more of her public and I suddenly felt very tired.
“How are you?”
“Really well, thanks.”
“And the Internet dating thingie?”
“Really brilliant.”
“Great. I’ve got to go,” I told her. “I was ill last week.”
“Yes, Camilla told me.”
“You seem to hang out with each other a lot.”
“Sort of.”
“Have you been friends since school then? I only have one friend from school.”
“No, we haven’t, not really. I had to go to a different place at sixth form, so we hadn’t seen each other in ages.”
“I see.”
“Then I read on Friends Reunited that she was a management consultant so I got in touch with her about OnLove.”
“So you really do believe that important partnerships can be created through the Internet?”
“Oh yes. And though this started out as a business partnership, I suppose we’re friends now too.”
I saw that I could be there for a long time. “Like I say I was ill, so can’t really stay,” I said, knocking back the gin and tonic. “Nice to see you again.”
“Thanks.” I saw her melt back and disappear into the crowd, while I escaped with an apology to Maggie and a quick “when’s it due and have you thought about names” conversation with Mick.
*
Thursday: same site, same sort of day at the office. No hangover from Maggie’s party, that was the advantage of having had such an awful time. I didn’t want to be out there, back in the place where parties were significant, especially if out there involved men like Hot Bob.
I had expected photos from the party or me emerging from the party but there were none to distract me from another busy day of PR. I already felt the loss of Maggie the e-mailing friend, as she settled into her new life of daytime television. I didn’t want a baby, not yet, but how I envied her the six months of maternity leave. Maybe I should just have a baby for that reason alone, though it didn’t seem a very good reason to bring a child into the world. Couldn’t be any worse than Maggie’s argument that she’d needed to get pregnant in order to finally give up smoking.
It had sunk to this level. Contemplating having a baby just to get out of coming to work for a few months. There must be easier ways of leaving PR O’Create. I could leave right now if I wanted to. I had a high-interest account that I’d kept secret from George, even when he was about to get sued by his divorce lawyers for not having paid his fees. I could use that money to retrain or live off. And hadn’t Tracy hinted that there would be redundancies in the company? Please, please make me redundant with my six years of service.
Even if I didn’t get made redundant, I didn’t need to stay there, did I? I mean, I was Izobel Brannigan who rocks her world. I wasn’t even causing this office to tremble. Every educated office worker has a fantasy about the manual job they wish they were doing. I quite wanted to be a hairdresser, or if not that a waitress. All the women I knew daydreamed about chucking in their office jobs and becoming a waitress, while most men I knew seemed to want to become cycle couriers. Both would free the mind and slim the thighs.
I looked toward Tracy’s office and fantasized about sticking her stupid job. Now that I no longer had to support George, I’d need less money. And I could always sort out the spare room in my flat and let it out. That would cover the mortgage.
I began to plan my very own publicity campaign. What were my strengths and qualities? What interested me? What was I good at? What did I want out of a career? I began to whittle away and scribble and type and Google prospective courses on the Internet. Ideas were beginning to form for the first time in months or even years. I could see a different future.
Chapter Seventeen
Friday: different. The site was different and therefore so was my life. That was the order of things these days.
I had waited until 10 in the morning before taking a peek at my virtual reflection. The array of pap shots was the same as was the old text about me “cutting a swath” that had replaced the vanished death dates. It didn’t know that I’d soon be cutting out the PR industry from my life. It didn’t know everything about me. I was in control.
But the ticker was different. I almost didn’t notice at first amid the usual bumf about much-vaunted but never-delivered new sections of the site, the promised message boards and e-mail alerts. The words leaned limply across my screen like items on an ancient conveyor belt.
Then not words, characters: Chinese characters. My head leaned forward in interest.
They danced where the Latin alphabet had merely moved, but were soon replaced by an English translation.
That means “good morning and good wishes, people” in Chinese script. Izobel is an enthusiastic student of Mandarin, though she’s not been attending her classes lately!
True, I hadn’t been to a class for ages. What? I’m not learning Chinese and I don’t have six toes on one foot and I don’t breed chinchillas. I looked at the frowning girl in myriad photos on the site. That woman doesn’t know how to speak Chinese, but somebody thinks she does: Frank.
I had told Frank on the phone when I’d tried to investigate the possibility that he might be the site perp. It was a month or so ago, the day that I went into George’s office and rummaged through his e-mail in-box. It was a rubbish lie, but it was definitely Frank to whom I had told it. I knew that because he’d brought it up again when we’d been out in the pub, that time after seeing Elliot; he’d said I’d be able to order our food at the Chinese restaurant and I’d had to make some excuse about it being Sichuan.
Frank. All that “how would our life have been together,” those strange looks, those sentences half started. Surely not him. Frank, who had been so indignant and yet so incurious when I had told him there were things about me on the Internet. He never even inquired what site I meant when I had asked him if he’d been writing the things himself.
Frank. Let it please not be my first love, my first serious boyfriend and the only one who’s remained my friend. Frank, not Ivan, let it please be Frank. Let it please be neither.
Ivan. Did I tell him about the Chinese lessons? No, when would I have done, it’s not true. Could he have overheard a conversation with Maggie? He can tell Tracy about my Internet usage; can he read my e-mails? Yes, of course he can.
I did a search on my e-mail in- and out-boxes. “Chinese.” Nothing. Not that way, Ivan did not find out that way. Perhaps he never knew about my nonexistent Chinese lessons. Frank knew.
B
ut Frank was in two of the pictures on the site. How had he taken the one of him and me having lunch? He had an accomplice. He must have paid someone to make the site so he’d pay someone to take photos too. That would explain why I never recognized the photographer. Poor Camilla, if she knew what her boyfriend was up to. Perhaps she’d need the services of her OnLove Internet dating after all.
It wasn’t Ivan. I felt a sensation that I had not experienced in over a week. I bubbled with that intangible, often frustrated, blurred emotion of having something to look forward to: a party, a hot date, a financial windfall, a delicious meal.
It couldn’t be Ivan. He was not behind the site, surely? Ivan was innocent. I looked around, expecting, hoping to see him arrive in the office at that moment. All I saw was Tracy, who glanced at my screen as she walked past.
Frank—it couldn’t be Frank, could it? He seemed so normal. Though he had not looked entirely happy with Camilla when we had lunched. And hadn’t he said something about her being a bully? Not a comment you’d make about your girlfriend if you were truly contented. Of course, the arguments at Maggie’s party on Wednesday night, the “I’m not in love with someone from your school.” Me and I didn’t know it. Maybe Camilla does know.
I had always had a soft spot for Frank, we’d stayed close, but I had no idea that he felt this way about me. Frank is in love with me. I would never have thought it, but he is. He’s besotted with me. I rock his world. Poor Frank, how awful that he is trying to get his academic treatises published and yet has such a terrible prose style. I’d never have thought that.
And I never would have guessed that he wanted us to be together. That would explain why he was so furious when I defined him as an ex-boyfriend of mine. Frank wishes we had never split up and he hates his bullying and bullish girlfriend. He was always ruder than he needed to have been about George. Something about his vitriol went beyond a platonic friend’s concern. Frank had been in love with me, that I had known all those years as we had spent whole weekends in bed together, pinging condoms at each other and plotting our future, but Frank still in love with me? I supposed you never got over your teenage loves, nor, it seemed, your teenage prose style.
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