by Sharn Hutton
He wanted the Caribbean holiday and the smiling wife. He wanted professional recognition and achievements to be proud of. Why shouldn’t he have it? This exhibition in Vegas could give him the extra clients he needed to get the promotion. This could be his moment.
Imagine not having to steel himself before opening the bank statement every month. A leg up to the next level and he could sort out his finances. A nice big house for his little family (no DIY required) and a ferocious lawyer to see off Isabell, that was the ticket. He was going to get this bloody job and build a career for himself—a proper one. He was going to take control.
THIRTY-FOUR
ADAM YANKED A COUPLE MORE METERS OF BRAMBLE FROM THE TANGLE OF SHRUBBERY. It jabbed its thorny protests into his palms, but Adam didn’t flinch. He was glad of the distraction.
He was trying to be the good friend: checking up on Rachel and Peanut, just as he’d promised, he told himself, determined to be strong. When he’d arrived, Rachel was rocking Peanut off to sleep. He’d tiptoed into the house under stony-faced instructions of silence and sat quietly at the table, watching her sway the somnolent infant to the rhythm of her improvised lullaby. Adam had been mesmerised by the tenderness. In that beautiful intimate moment he’d felt love manifest in his presence for the first time in more than half a decade, so tantalising and so close. Now he was out in the garden, waiting for the ache to leave his chest. It was safer out here. Just have a bit of a tidy up and catch his breath while Rachel finished up inside.
He yanked out another barbed vine and flicked his eyes toward the kitchen window, unable to resist. Inside, she was leaning her hip against the sink, sleeping baby cradled in her arms. How wonderful to be that baby, Adam mused: secure and adored in Rachel’s embrace. The hairs stood up on his arms. Jerry was a fool.
The sun picked out her fine profile and sparkled in tendrils that tumbled to her collarbone. The soft jersey of her shirt slipped down from her shoulder. Without meaning to, he’d edged a little closer.
She turned to walk away and Adam felt a pang of rejection that jolted him to his senses. “Get a grip, Fox,” he mumbled, and shaking the sentimental fluff from his head, turned his attention back to the border.
He tugged out a great clump of tangled stems that might have been weeds. More brambles over there. He strode over to tear them from the ground too. A glance over his shoulder. She was there again, at the window, her back to him this time.
She bowed her head forward, freed her hair from its clip and shook out shaggy curls. Adam worried at the neck of his sweatshirt. She drew her hair around to one side, exposing the soft sweep of skin from behind her ear and down, across her shoulder. The bramble slipped from Adam’s fingers and, dry mouthed, he moved a little closer still to see her better.
Jerry’s wife. Just looking.
So delicate and beautiful. So full of love. Adam let his imagination loose and in that unguarded moment invited in the pain to come. To kiss that neck, that shoulder. To run his finger across her breasts. To kiss her mouth, to find her tongue and she his. He ached to press his body against hers.
Both hands were at her face now so she wasn’t holding Peanut anymore. Her shoulders dipped and rose erratically. Odd movements. Unexpected. Adam realised that she was crying and a moment later, stood beside her, wide-eyed. Without thinking, he took her in his arms and she sank against him, dissolving into noisy sobs.
“Hey, hey. What’s all this? Don’t cry. Shhh.” Adam pulled her in a little tighter. Their cheeks pressed together and a salty tear rolled down to his mouth. The taste of her. Adam squeezed his eyes closed for a moment and tried to quiet the adrenalin.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Rachel blurted out, “I’m exhausted, utterly exhausted. It’s the final straw!” She hiccupped into his shoulder then pulled away to snatch a tissue from the box on the table.
“Hey, come on, you’ll be OK,” Adam soothed. Her words weren’t registering. His eyes lingered on her lips, her mouth rubbed red.
“I won’t! I can’t!” Rachel scrubbed wildly at her hair.
“It’s OK. It’s OK. What’s so bad?” He searched her face for clues.
“Night after night. Day after day. It never stops. On and on. And Jerry’s never here. Never!” She flicked her eyes to his. Sharp tortured eyes that seized his attention.
“I can’t do it on my own. Peanut cries and cries. I don’t know how to do it, can’t get it right. How can it be this hard?” She turned away from him and paced around the table, trying to hold back sobs. “He’s not telling me the truth. I’ve found it, he doesn’t know yet but I bloody have. He’s having an affair with her, isn’t he? Tell me! He’s having an affair with Isabell, I know it!”
Rachel was suffering, in torment even. He’d had no idea. What was Jerry playing at? Messing about with Isabell and playing house.
As much as he’d have liked it to be that simple, he couldn’t let her suffer like this for no reason and shook the devil from his shoulder “No. Really, he’s not. Look, Rach, Jerry’s got a lot on at work at the moment, hasn’t he? You know he’s got to put in the hours.” He circled the table after her.
“Oh yeah. Jerry’s got such a hard life. He’s swanning off to Las Vegas, Adam, but I suppose you know that already.”
“Las Vegas?” How was Jerry going to find the time to go there?
“Oh yes. It’s not enough to not help, to not bother coming home, to give it all away, now he’s leaving the country!”
“What?” Adam stopped dead. “I, I had no idea. Vegas?” He rummaged around his brain for a comeback, a logical reason that his time-pressured friend could be going holiday, a reason to remain a loyal friend.
“Treacherous bastard,” Rachel sobbed.
Las Vegas? As jollies went, that was pushing the boat out a bit. Pretty unreasonable to swan off whooping it up and leave Adam at home, standing in, without saying a word. What a shyster. Adam met her eyes, still processing Jerry’s dishonesty. “What will you do?”
Rachel’s head shook. “It’s death by a thousand cuts. A late night here, an unpaid bill there, money disappearing. Little things that only a neurotic maniac would make a massive fuss about.” She laughed out loud then. “Although now I’ve an idea where some of it’s going.” Her expression was wild, torn between fury and destruction. “Sometimes I wish he’d just do something so unbearable that I’d have no choice. Something so destructive that there could be no going back. At least then it would just be over.”
Adam understood that sentiment all too well. Without McGinty, his life would be very different indeed. McGinty had lifted the veil on Adam’s transformation into a man he despised, an insight that had changed the path of his life forever.
Isabell had Jerry wrapped around her little finger, but it wasn’t the affair that Rachel suspected. Jerry was weak-willed and easily manipulated and Rachel might not be admitting it, but she knew it deep down. Him being pushed about by Isabell wasn’t enough to finish their relationship, but she’d shown him what was. Infidelity was the unbearable act, too destructive. From that there was no going back.
THIRTY-FIVE
REMI TOOK A SIP OF COOL CHAMPAGNE and settled back in his seat. Excitable chatter bubbled around the table from his fellow diners. This was the category they’d all been waiting for.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the compere boomed over rising music. “Please welcome to the stage, an inspiration to us all, Lord Locksley!”
Remi’s table, and indeed the whole room, erupted into enthusiastic applause, some whooping and cheering. The spotlight swung across the stage to find the man himself, smiling in an elegant tuxedo and nodding to the crowd. The compere welcomed him to the podium with an energetic handshake, before stepping back a reverential distance, grinning like the cat who’d got the cream.
Lord Locksley took his place at the podium with confidence, gently set down an engraved crystal trophy and waited for the room to quiet.
“Good evening, everybody. What a marvellous welcom
e. You are an excitable bunch, aren’t you?” A chuckle rippled through the room. “Anyone would think you wanted to know who was going to get this rather prestigious award.” He cocked an eyebrow and the crowd rumbled their assent.
Remi grinned along with the rest of the audience. He could be himself tonight, no need to watch his back. With Maximus Pink’s precious flash drive now safely in the hands of MI5, he was due some downtime. His face would be far too recognisable to get inside the Crusaders of Justice any time soon and besides, he had other matters to attend to. He cast his eyes around the others sitting at his table. Company directors, senior management and data gurus: they were the loyal backbone of his business, of Remi’s life on Civvy Street, away from MI5.
Fluent in seven languages, he’d travelled the world in Her Majesty’s service and assimilated inevitable knowledge along the way, knowledge that had helped him to become the president of his own empire. After all, he couldn’t chase villains forever.
Lord Locksley picked up the award and weighed it in his hands. “You don’t want this,” he said. “It’s just a chunk of glass. Might even be plastic. You don’t want to have come up here to get it. It’s worthless. What do you need it for?” He paused, scanning the bemused faces with a cocky grin. “You don’t need it. You’ve already got everything you need: enthusiasm, skill, energy, drive. Everyone in this room is here because they’ve got something special. Everyone in this room is responsible for building a business admired in their industry. Everyone here is already a winner.” A ripple of applause broke out at the back, encouraged by cheers and laughter.
“I suppose you want to know who’s the best of the best?” The crowd most definitely did. “Alright then, let’s see.” The lights on the stage dimmed, purple down-lighters subtly highlighting the spot where Lord Locksley stood. Star cloth sparkled around the room and the screen at the rear of the stage changed from the static logo of the Institute of British Industry to a mostly blank screen, but for the words at the top ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’.
“The nominees for ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ are,” said a disembodied female voice, breathy and deep. “Black Fire—John Timult.” Their name appeared on the screen and a table close by erupted into applause. “Thinking Tree—Samantha Rolf.” A table further away this time cheered and clapped “And Adler Enterprises—Remi Adler.” Remi’s team whooped and banged on the table, rattling cutlery and chinking glasses together. Remi smiled and shook his head. Their enthusiasm filled him with pride and his heart purred with anticipation.
The light on Locksley grew more intense and he pulled a golden envelope from his pocket to tear it open at an agonizing crawl. He noted the winner to himself with an appreciative nod. “And the winner is…” he held the audience in his palm, “Remi Adler for Adler Enterprises.”
The table exploded in a joyous rush of cheering and hugging and Remi stood as the roving spotlight found him. Simply the Best blared from the speakers and thunderous applause filled the room as he made his way to the stage, weaving through people standing at their tables, accepting congratulations and shaking hands.
He stalked up the steps at the front of the stage and over to the podium where he took Lord Locksley’s outstretched hand and accepted from him the crystal trophy. Light sparkled in its facets and Remi grasped its weight with joy, turning to face the crowd. His employees were still jumping up and down and whooping. Chandeliers glittered and teary eyes shone. Remi was certain he could never feel happier than he did in that moment.
The phone on Jerry’s desk let out a shrill ring and he snatched it up, wrenched from his fantasy.
“Accounts system has crashed,” Phyllis whined. “Can’t get expenses out until tomorrow. Sorry.”
Jerry sighed and rubbed at his forehead. “OK, Phyllis, fine.”
The grand setting of his daydream blew away into draughty reality. He huffed and kicked the petulant heater. No awards for him today, instead, the absence of a cheque.
THIRTY-SIX
“COUNTING DOWN FROM TEN. Keep it going. Ten. Nine.”
As he pedalled for all he was worth, Jerry’s cheeks flamed beneath a sheen of sweat that rolled sporadically in fat beads to his soggy grey T-shirt. If he could have spoken, he’d have told Adam he was having a heart attack—the single thing he could think of that might make him stop, but breathless and mute, he couldn’t escape.
“Nine. Eight. Come on, loser!”
Jerry screwed his face up for the final push.
“Nine. Eight.”
They’d just done ‘nine’ and ‘eight’. Jerry glared his objection.
“Seven. Six. Push it, lard arse!”
His thighs burned and his knees wobbled and Adam bullied him on.
“Six, five, four,” Adam barked.
Lactic acid numbed Jerry’s quadriceps and he pushed at the pedals with ever decreasing impact. Dots danced before his eyes. He closed them, but they didn’t go away.
“Five, four.”
Was he actually losing consciousness? He could swear that Adam was repeating the numbers.
“Nearly there, fat boy. Last ten.”
Right, that was it. Jerry collapsed across the handlebars, gasping for oxygen. The pedals whirled his feet around to a gradual stop. Adam, a mere berating blur.
“All too much eh? Well, what can we expect?” the blur taunted. Jerry opened one eye. Adam was definitely enjoying this.
“Gotta work hard, Jerry. Never mind the office and Dinky. Never mind Isabell and her fantasies and never mind the wife and kid. In the gym your arse is mine.” Adam was a teeny bit too enthusiastic.
“You need a job,” Jerry wheezed.
“I’ve got a job, remember? Saving the universe.”
Jerry grimaced. “A proper job. One that doesn’t involve killing me.”
Adam ignored him. “I also do a nice little side line in baby-sitting.”
Jerry would have laughed, if he’d had spare breath.
Adam pushed him off the bike and steered him toward the rowing machine. Jerry raised a weak hand and flopped to the floor.
“Time is money, Jerry.” Adam tapped his foot.
What was with him today? On their previous Wednesday evening sessions, they’d made slow and reasonable progress around the gym, as befitted a man of Jerry’s unfitness. Today he was a madman.
“Are you on something?” Jerry wheezed into his knees. Adam was quiet for a moment, as if considering the possibility. “No. Just helping. Just keeping you going. Old buddy. Old pal.” He punched him on the shoulder.
“Ow!”
Jerry crawled over to the bench and Adam followed. He sat and gasped for a bit then slumped back against the wall, waiting for the hammering in his head to subside. After a minute Adam cleared his throat. “So, how is everything? Still in demand?” A whiff of insincerity escaped the tone.
Jerry rolled his head to one side to look at him. He had recovered enough to speak. “Crown Princess Pain-in-the-arse continues to reign, if that’s what you mean.” He took a slug of water. “But I’m getting away with putting in some late nights at the office so I don’t have to spend too much time with ‘Mum and Dad’.”
“And Rach?” Adam was staring at him from beneath raised eyebrows.
“Yeah, well, she’s all right. Doing the mummy thing. I’m no good at it anyway.”
“U-huh.”
“Spink’s taken it to a new level of weird. After all that account stealing bullshit he’s gone all quiet. Actually, I haven’t told you, the firm’s sending us to Vegas.” He leant onto his knees and took another drink.
“The firm?”
“Some big industry hoo-hah. Huge business opportunities. I’m going to make Director.”
Adam was frowning at him.
“Positive visualisation,” Jerry explained.
Adam’s eyes narrowed.
“I’m coming back from Vegas the winner. You’ll see.” Jerry’s determination to turn things around had strengthened since the sales meeting. Creakin
g home from work in the Fiat, Jerry could see that he needed to up his game. Isabell or no Isabell, he ought to be doing better than this by now.
Adam shifted in his seat and leaned forward, elbow to knee, chin resting on his palm. He looked at Jerry with steady eyes. “You’re sounding confident.”
“I’ve decided—enough already. I’m forty-two, Adam. I’ve got a crumbly little house and a bean tin car. Spink thinks I’m his whipping boy and Isabell treats me like her slave. I was in Locksley’s office the other day and I took a look around and I thought, yeah, I want this too. I want the Caribbean holidays and the big pay cheques. I want to be the powerful business man. Why shouldn’t I be?”
Adam’s lips pressed together as he folded his arms across his chest.
“It’s my time now, Adam. I’m going on this trip and I’m going to come back top dog.” He wasn’t sure that he believed that a hundred per cent, but in for a penny. It was time to turn things around.
Adam was staring at him. Processing. “I should come too,” he said finally, a gleam in his eye.
“What? No, it’s a business trip.”
“No problem. I’ll tag along. You know what they say: all work and no play makes Jerry a boring bastard.” Adam punched him on the arm again.
