by Polly James
I give up on him, and open the door.
Bloody hell. Even with Greg’s half-arsed warning, I am really not expecting this. Someone is sitting in my chair, and flicking through the pages of my day book. It’s like finding a brunette Goldilocks in your bed. One who’s never read the Data Protection Act.
‘Can I help you?’ I say, in my best frosty voice.
The woman starts, then turns to face me. ‘Molly,’ she says. ‘I see nothing changes here – except you!’
‘How have I changed?’ I say, before I can stop myself.
‘Oh, nothing. Just age, you know – it’ll happen to us all. Eventually. And what are those strange blotches on your face?’
‘Nice to see you, too, Vicky,’ I say, through gritted teeth. ‘And what are you doing here?’
‘I’m your replacement diary secretary,’ she says. ‘Didn’t Andy tell you I was coming?’
There it is, the bloody hair flick. Vicky’s right – some things never change. Unfortunately. And what’s with the ‘Andy’ business? I doubt The Boss has ever been called Andy before, not even by his mum. He hasn’t got the face for nicknames.
‘Oh, Andrew probably overlooked it,’ says Greg, coming up behind me, and jabbing me in the ribs. ‘Minor details were never his thing.’
‘Oh, I hardly think he sees me as a minor detail,’ says Vicky. ‘Now where shall I sit? Here?’
‘No,’ I say.
‘Yes,’ says Greg. ‘We’ve got to go downstairs and meet with that constituent, Molly – so it doesn’t matter where Vicky sits at the moment – does it?’
He hustles me out of the office so fast that I don’t even have time to ask, ‘What constituent?’
There isn’t one, and we spend the next hour locked in the surgery room, trying to find out what the hell is going on. Greg phones The Boss repeatedly, but he’s probably hiding from the Whips again and isn’t answering his mobile or his pager.
I phone Carlotta to see what she knows about the situation. The answer to that is nothing, or nada. She is as stunned as we are, but Spanish, don’t forget.
‘Wha-at?’ she says. ‘A replacement? For Marie-Louise?’
‘Apparently,’ I say. ‘Though I can’t see why. We haven’t got any money in the staffing budget to cover a temp. Get Andrew to call me when he turns up, please.’
‘Oh, I will,’ says Carlotta, who sounds unusually determined. She obviously remembers Vicky all too well.
While I wait for Andrew to make contact, I reclaim my desk, but at a price: Vicky settles herself in the Oprah room instead, where she kicks off her shoes. God knows how she can afford those: don’t red soles denote Louboutins? Then she reclines on the sofa, as if waiting for someone to peel her a grape, while making notes – though she doesn’t say what about. Probably how many wrinkles I’ve gained since the last time she saw me.
It’s late afternoon by the time The Boss finally bothers to phone. ‘You wanted to speak to me?’ he says. ‘I’m in a rush, so make it snappy.’
‘Um, yes. Andrew, about Vicky—’
‘Great to have her back, isn’t it? She’s a breath of fresh air, and loyal with it, not like some of you.’
‘Back?’ I say. ‘But Marie-Louise is only off sick. She won’t be away for more than a few days.’
‘Oh, well, we’ll see about that,’ says Andrew. ‘You just look after Vic, and get her anything she needs. Now can you put her on? I want to welcome her back into the fold.’
I put the call through to the Oprah room, then Greg and I both put our ears against the door. All we can hear is giggling and the occasional, ‘Oh, Andy!’
Maybe we’re going down with Norovirus too, since it’s all we can do not to start throwing up.
WEDNESDAY, 6 OCTOBER
I’m sure Max thinks I’m contagious. He hasn’t given me a kiss for days, not even a peck on the cheek when I get home from work. Anyone would think he knew I’d been indirectly exposed to chicken pox – and how.
That’s a very uncomfortable thought, so I concentrate on hot babes, naked bin routines and German wine in an attempt to feel less guilty again. It works a treat, if how depressed it makes me is anything to go by.
Vicky has that effect on me, too, though at least she likes to take extremely long lunches, which comes in very useful today. She’s just left the office when there’s a buzz on the intercom. A delivery.
I send Greg to collect it, because I am busy – mainly because Vicky still hasn’t done any diary work at all, as far as anyone can tell.
‘I thought you said you didn’t shag Johnny?’ Greg says, coming back into the office.
‘I didn’t,’ I say. ‘He nearly knocked himself out, and then his wife called to say his daughter had chicken pox, remember?’
‘Oh, yes,’ says Greg. ‘Are you sure that’s not what’s wrong with your face? I haven’t had it, you know.’
‘Ha, bloody ha,’ I say. ‘Johnny didn’t even kiss me properly – and, anyway, why are you asking me about him now? It’s been ages since he and I met up, and I’m still not sure if I want to repeat the experience.’
‘Because of these,’ says Greg, reaching behind him into the lobby and producing three vast bouquets of deep red roses.
He dumps them on my desk, and then continues, ‘The card says, “Enough of the delaying tactics – when do we do it again? Johnny. Kiss. Kiss. Kiss. Kiss. Kiss.”’
‘You opened my card, and read it, without even asking me?’ I am outraged, though even more astonished. Johnny – sending flowers, to me?
‘Well, yes, I did take the liberty of having a little peek,’ says Greg. ‘To protect you, of course. You can’t be too careful, Molly – these bad boys might have been sprayed with anything.’ He looks me up and down, as if he’s never seen me before, then says, ‘You must have done something pretty spectacular to get him to send all these.’
‘I don’t think I did,’ I say, ‘but I’m certainly going to need a pretty spectacular excuse to explain them to Max.’
Or I would need one, if I was going to keep them – which I obviously can’t. But, oh, they are so beautiful, and they even have a scent, not like most shop-bought flowers these days.
I decide to drape them around my office – just for a little while – while I try to persuade Greg to drive them over to the Easemount hospice, but then the intercom goes again. There, I knew it. The deliveryman is going to say there was some mistake, and the flowers were meant for a totally different Molly Bennett.
Sent from a totally different Johnny Hunter. Ah. Hmm. That would mean that both our names were wrong. Is that likely? I’m still trying to decide, when – oh, Christ! – Max walks in behind Greg, who is rolling his eyes in a silent (and grossly ineffectual) plea for mercy.
‘Couldn’t stop him,’ he mouths.
‘Bloody hell,’ says Max. He looks at me, then at Greg, then back at me. ‘Who are this lot for?’
‘The Boss,’ says Greg, at the same time as I say, ‘Joan.’
Joan? Joan? Have I lost my mind? If there’s anyone less likely than me to be deluged with floral tributes, it’s Joan. Even if she’d just dropped dead.
‘Joan Collins,’ I say. ‘From The Boss. They’ve been delivered to our office by mistake. Should have gone to the London one, so that he could give them to her in person. Some gala do.’
Greg’s nodding so hard that he’s going to give himself a brain injury if he’s not careful.
‘Bit over-the-top, aren’t they?’ says Max. ‘I’ve always thought red roses a bit naff, myself. You had your lunch yet, Mol? I’ve got a free half-hour, so I thought I’d surprise you.’
‘Oh, you have,’ says Greg.
I glare at him, but Max doesn’t seem to have heard. He takes down my coat from the hook and hands it to me.
‘Come on, then, let’s go to Caffè Nero and I’ll buy you a panini,’ he says. ‘I know how to treat a woman.’
‘Indeed you do,’ says Greg.
I fix him with a glare and run my
finger across my throat, before I turn and follow Max down the corridor towards the stairs. God knows what my blood pressure’s doing now.
THURSDAY, 7 OCTOBER
I think I’m coming down with something. I keep sneezing and my temperature’s going up and down like a yo-yo. Maybe it’s an allergy to roses, or to Vicky?
She’s still swanning around on those impossible heels, and referring to The Boss as Andy to everyone, including Joan. She’s lying in wait for me, when I walk into the loo. As usual.
‘Molly,’ she says, ‘what is that awful woman doing back here? I thought we’d seen the last of her.’
‘I don’t exactly know,’ I say. ‘She was at conference, and then she turned up here. To help out with the diary while Marie-Louise is off sick. Oh, and before I forget, I’ve got some roses for you in my office, if you pop by later on. They’re from The Boss, in recognition of your fantastic work in helping him get re-elected.’
Joan gives me a funny look, but doesn’t argue. I just hope she doesn’t thank Andrew for them next time she sees him. That could get really complicated. Especially as Greg made up an entirely different and even more ludicrous story to explain the flowers to Vicky, when she asked him where they came from.
‘I think she thought they were for her,’ says Greg. ‘From her lover man, Andy Sinclair. The one who seems to think that she’s Goldenballs now. I really enjoyed telling her they weren’t, even though I probably made that a bit too obvious.’
I don’t care if he did, and none of this stupid subterfuge would have been necessary anyway if the bloody hospice hadn’t refused to accept donated flowers, even when I assured them that mine were definitely not contaminated. So much for my good deed for the day.
‘You can have the second bunch for your mum,’ I say to Greg. ‘But I am not giving the third one to Vicky, though God knows what I am going to do with it.’
‘Take it home with you,’ says Greg. ‘Max seemed to swallow the Joan Collins story – hook, line and sinker.’
‘Hmm,’ I say. ‘Unless he just didn’t care.’
Greg doesn’t answer that. He’s wearing his mulling-things-over face. (This morning I told him about the kiss on the neck and the putting-out-the-bins routine. He already knew about the car, and Germany. He said the last two things were circumstantial, but hasn’t reached a verdict on the others yet.)
When Joan comes to collect her flowers, she is almost as overwhelmed as I was when they first arrived. ‘I’ve never had such a beautiful bouquet,’ she says, burying her nose into one of the blooms. ‘Not even on my wedding day. I love red roses – they’re so romantic.’
‘Aren’t they?’ says Greg. ‘Just what I was telling Molly. A symbol of true love and appreciation. And of a man with a fat wallet, of course.’
As if on cue, Johnny sends me an email. ‘Did you like the flowers?’ he says. ‘And were you surprised when they arrived?’
‘Astonished,’ I say, which is the best word that I can think of to convey shock, elation and panic, at the same time.
Johnny seems to find it appropriate, anyway. ‘Good,’ he says. ‘Thought I’d make sure you were thinking about me while I was out of contact yesterday.’
‘Well,’ I say. ‘You certainly managed that.’ He doesn’t need to know that what I was mainly thinking about was how to hide the fact that the flowers came from him – and were meant for me.
They were quite romantic, though, weren’t they? I feel like a new woman, the sort that men send flowers to, in abundance. Or I would feel like a new woman, if it weren’t for whatever is wrong with me. What are the first symptoms of chicken pox?
‘Sneezing and a fever,’ says Johnny, when I ask. ‘And blotches, of course. Now can we talk about something more interesting, like whether you’ve been missing me?’
‘Um, yes,’ I say, giving the dual-purpose answer its first outing of the day.
‘I’ve thought about you all the time over the last week,’ he says. ‘Especially when I was alone in my hotel room last night.’
‘Did I have a red nose and a stinking cold at the time?’ I say.
‘I don’t know,’ replies Johnny. ‘I wasn’t envisaging your face very much.’
So much for romance. I must be delusional. No wonder Max doesn’t care what I get up to, if even my so-called lover can’t bear to picture my face.
I take the third bouquet of roses home with me, to make up for my lack of self-esteem. ‘The Boss told me I might as well keep some of them, as they wouldn’t get to Joan Collins on time,’ I say to Max, crossing my fingers inside my coat pockets, as insurance.
‘Didn’t you say that Andrew wanted you to send them on to London by courier yesterday?’ Max’s eyebrow is doing that quizzical thing that he normally reserves for Josh’s wilder explanations.
‘Um, yes,’ I say. ‘He did, but then he changed his mind when I told him what it would cost.’
‘Hmm,’ says Max, ‘I shouldn’t think the cost of delivery’s much of a factor, not when you can afford to send tons of roses like those.’
Thank God the doorbell rings at exactly the right moment, for once in its life. It’s like a miracle, even if it is going to involve a request from a nymphomaniac to borrow a corkscrew. I’ve got a horrible feeling Max doesn’t believe the Joan Collins story in its entirety, though I can’t imagine why.
He goes to answer the door while I peer out of the window to check who’s outside. There are two men, both dressed in dark suits. Maybe this isn’t such good news, after all. They’re either debt collectors, or Josh has been up to something again.
I walk into the hallway and stand behind Max, for moral support. I probably owe him that.
‘Hi,’ says one of the men. ‘We’re here to share a message for all faiths—’
Ah, Mormons. That explains the suits – and the haircuts.
‘Not interested, thanks,’ says Max, ‘We’re in the middle of something important here.’
He’s already trying to close the door, which really isn’t like him at all. Max will always listen politely to chuggers,fn1 way past the point at which I’ve already lost the will to live and have started tugging at his sleeve.
‘Hang on,’ says the man. ‘Is there anyone else who would be interested?’
He must have spotted me. Maybe he thinks I need saving? Oh, God, maybe I do. I told two or three lies a few minutes ago, in quick succession. I’ve never done that before, on my own behalf.
‘Anyone who’d be interested?’ says Max. ‘No. Not on this planet, there isn’t.’
‘I’m on this planet,’ says the man, who obviously doesn’t know when to take a hint.
‘Are you?’ says Max, and shuts the door. I’ve never heard him be so rude to anyone in my life. I hope we’re both not damned for this!
‘Max,’ I say, in desperation, ‘why not give the roses to Mrs Bloom? I bet she doesn’t get flowers very often.’
He smiles for the first time this evening, as he agrees, so it seems a small price to pay to avoid hellfire and damnation. And Mrs Bloom probably should be given flowers, with a name like that. If that really is her name.
FRIDAY, 8 OCTOBER
Max seems a bit more cheerful this morning, and goes off carrying the bunch of roses for Mrs Bloom. I cry a little inside as I wave them goodbye.
Then it’s off to work, and this week’s surgery. This one’s all about men, and bad behaviour.
First Mr Beales turns up, bearing photos of the policeman who gave him his speeding ticket. ‘See?’ he says. ‘He’s not wearing his luminous jacket again.’
‘Ah,’ says Andrew. ‘Yes, I do see.’ He passes the pictures to me.
‘He’s also not wearing his uniform,’ I say. ‘And is that a pub garden he’s sitting in?’
‘Might’ve been. Can’t remember now.’ Mr Beales shuffles about a bit as he says this – always a dead giveaway that he knows that he’s in the wrong.
‘Well,’ I say, ‘was the policeman even on duty when you photographed h
im? I don’t think they’re required to wear high-vis clothing in their leisure time, you know.’
‘Molly does have a point there,’ says Andrew. ‘Good photos, though.’
‘Well, the policeman has most of his head,’ I say. ‘Which is always a bonus. Though I do think Mr Beales should check the anti-stalking legislation, don’t you?’
‘Hmm,’ says Andrew, while Mr Beales glares at me through his paedophile glasses. I will keep forgetting about his shotgun licence. And that dog.
Thank God, it’s Angie Osman next. She’s much nicer than Mr Beales, and I haven’t seen her since early May, when she brought me a box of Turkish Delight for sorting out her husband Mehmet’s indefinite leave to remain.
This case was a small triumph, as Mehmet’s application was originally refused and their wedding treated as a marriage of convenience – just because Angie’s a bit older than Mehmet. That rarely happens when male pensioners marry twenty-five-year-old bar girls from Pattaya, like Porn-Poon. Thank God Dad came to his senses, just in time.
Maybe it’s a sign – of a new beginning – and now all the men in my life are going to start behaving much better than they have been recently. The Boss will calm down, stop being so paranoid, and get rid of Vicky; Josh will become a responsible adult, stay away from supermarket car parks, and move out; and then Max will lose interest in James Blunt, fall back in love with me, and we can all live happily ever after, like Angie and Mehmet.
Sometimes, positive thinking is all you need. There are probably three Cs for that.
I’m so busy living out my Mills & Boon-style fantasy that I miss the first thing Angie says. ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I didn’t hear you. What did you say?’
Angie doesn’t reply. She’s looking down at her lap, and tearing a tissue into tiny pieces in her hands.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask, at which she promptly bursts into floods of tears.
Andrew looks horribly uncomfortable, but does produce some whole (cleanish) tissues from one of his pockets, while I try to calm Angie down. Finally, she’s capable of speech.
