‘But I’ve got to finish that article and Sue said …’
‘Sue said nothing. You’ll finish it. Now finish off what you started here. Have another beer.’
His fingers traced her jawline; staring up at him, framed by the wide blue afternoon sky, Kate gazed into his eyes.
‘I’m so happy,’ she said quietly.
‘Are you?’ Sean said, mock-curiously. ‘Why?’
She felt a rush of honesty overtake her; a desire to stop playing it cool, to tell him everything she was feeling. But there were no barriers between them anyway, hadn’t been when they were friends, and now they were together, nothing but honesty between them. They were alone as much as possible; from waking tangled up in each other to rushing back from their other social commitments: drinks after work, cinema outings with friends, catch-up meals in desultory, cheap pizzerias, to their gorgeous, grubby flat, sinking into each other. Sean had not slept in his room since the night of his birthday. In fact, the only time he went in there now was to get new clothes or to dump some of his dirty clothes back in there from Kate’s room, especially when they had friends coming round.
Though she was a daydreamer, in daily life Kate was a practical girl, for the most part. It blew her away, the feeling she felt for Sean. As spring flowered into summer, they didn’t go away. It got stronger and stronger, and they both grew more confident, and happier.
They started telling their friends: Betty and Francesca were amazed, and a little appalled; Steve and Zoe were fascinated, dumbstruck, and then very happy for them. Sean’s friends at work barely cared: in the world of IT, falling in love was akin to killing people: socially unacceptable. The one friend Kate hadn’t told, the one cloud on her horizon, and it was so silly she couldn’t believe she was worrying about it, was Charly. She didn’t know why she hadn’t. She didn’t want to hear what Charly would say, hadn’t seen much of her lately, either, not just because she was spending all her spare time with Sean, but also because, if she was honest, she knew what Charly was like sometimes and she didn’t want to be on the end of it. She felt guilty about it, hated making excuses to Charly on account of it. She was Charly, after all. She didn’t know why it bothered her.
Thinking of this now, Kate frowned, and bit her lip.
‘Are you going to tell your dad, then?’ Sean said. Sean loved Kate’s dad. He thought he was a real dude, a great guy. They got on pretty well, on the rare occasions Daniel Miller made it down to Rotherhithe.
‘He’s in Jamaica, recording his new album, with that horrible new girlfriend,’ Kate said glumly.
‘Who?’ Sean said, almost joyously. He slapped his thigh. ‘Your dad, man! He’s crazy! Always some new girl on the scene, it’s like a revolving door. Sorry.’ He corrected himself, as Kate gave him a withering look. ‘So … who is she? Is she a stayer?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Kate. ‘It’s that PR from the record label, Lisa. Remember, she was at his birthday dinner thing.’
‘The short thin one with the massive –’ Sean gestured expressively with his hands. ‘Yeah. I remember.’
‘Dad’s mad about her,’ said Kate, crossly. ‘He even bought her a watch. To say thank you for what she’s done for him.’ Sean raised his eyebrows; Kate flicked him. ‘Don’t. Ugh,’ she shook her head. ‘It’s a holiday fling, that’s all. I give it a couple of weeks. I’ll go and see him when he’s back and tell him about us. It’ll cheer him up after he’s dumped her. He likes you.’
Sean grinned. ‘I like him, man. Lisa! Well.’ He shrugged his shoulders.
They fell silent again, Kate lying with her head in Sean’s lap, watching the sky, listening to the people around them playing in the park. She breathed in slowly, catching everything, how she felt.
‘What shall we eat tonight?’ she said, lazily.
‘Can I ask you something?’ Sean said then, kissing her on the nose. A bee droned dangerously close to Kate’s ear and she sat up suddenly, bashing him.
‘Ow,’ Kate said, rubbing her nose. ‘Ow. What?’
Sean rubbed his face; she thought it was because she’d hit him. It was only afterwards she realized it was because he felt awkward.
‘I think … Gosh, I don’t know how to say this.’
‘What?’ said Kate, feeling the breath tighten in her throat. She leaned against him. He looked into the distance, up away towards Primrose Hill. Kate followed his gaze. She could see a kite in the sky, its red and yellow tail fluttering in the breeze.
‘You know the lease on the flat’s up next month?’
‘Yes.’ Kate nodded, too vigorously. ‘Er, yes. They’re raising the rents, I told you –’
‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Sean, cutting across her. His voice was awkward. ‘I think we should stop living together.’ He breathed deeply, and sighed, like it was a weight off his shoulders. ‘I think we should move in with other people.’
‘Why?’ Kate said, trying to swallow, fighting down the panic washing over her. ‘Don’t you – don’t you love me anymore?’
It sounded so weak, compared to what she was feeling.
‘Of course not,’ Sean said. ‘I’m in love with you, and I want to ask you to live with me at some point.’
‘Oh,’ Kate said. ‘I see.’ But she didn’t.
‘Kate,’ he said. He took her hand solemnly, and kissed the tips of her fingers. His forehead, under the short thatch of yellow hair, was a little pink from the sun; so was his nose. She looked at him in amazement, still not quite believing he was here, and that this might all be about to end. ‘I’m in love with you. This is all I want. But I want us to start our life together properly. Like it’s special. I want to date you, take you out to dinner, stay the night at yours sometime and then move in together. Not just go from being flatmates in some dingy flat who got drunk and had sex one night and then never moved on. I want us to be … special.’
Kate blinked at him, a smile spreading across her face, like sunshine warming her up again.
‘There,’ he went on. ‘You see what I mean. Do you?’
‘I do,’ Kate said.
‘Does it make sense? That we need some time apart if we’re gonna be together?’
‘Well …’ She thought of how much she was going to miss him. She saw him every day, spent every night with him, he was her world, totally, and panic suddenly gripped her as she thought about making her way in the world without him. As if he were reading her mind, Sean said,
‘Hey, babe. Look at me.’ He lifted her chin with one finger so she stared into his eyes. She clutched his finger, like a little baby clutching an adult’s hand. ‘This is a good thing, OK? We’ll be glad we did it. I promise.’
She knew he was right, but she clung to him, not wanting to let him go, as the shadows lengthened in the park. Only after a while did it occur to her, when she was drunk with wanting Sean, as they swayed home together, wrapped around each other. Charly. She would move in with Charly! She gave a little shiver.
‘OK, babe?’ Sean asked her, wrapping his arm round her a little tighter.
‘Absolutely,’ she said softly. ‘Great.’
‘You’re a weird girl, Katy-Kay.’
‘I’m not!’
He pulled her up so she was sitting on his knees, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, then he kissed her, all over her face, her ears, her neck, her eyes, till she stopped crying and was laughing, shrieking, pleading with him to let her go. He could always win her round like that, could always make her fall in love with him again, all over again.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘You?’ Charly said, the next day, when Kate ran into the office, eyes shining. ‘Why the hell d’you think I’d want to move in with you?’
‘Oh,’ said Kate slowly. She put her bag down on her desk and took out the floppy disk with the Editor’s Letter she’d written hastily the previous night, after she and Sean had got back from the park.
‘I mean,’ said Charly, sinking into her chair and pushing herself away fro
m the desk with one long, shapely leg, ‘you’re a bit of a loser, Kate.’ She started counting with her fingers, long nails passing over each other. ‘You own Ace of Base’s debut album. And “Fields of Gold” by Sting.’
‘I bought them with a voucher –’
‘You think little grey cardigans are the answer to all the world’s fashion dilemmas,’ Charly went on, lifting and then dropping the edge of Kate’s beloved Whistles grey cardigan, currently the most expensive item in her wardrobe, bought with the money her mother had given her for Christmas. ‘You like “Coronation Street”, for fuck’s sake. Like an old granny. And you like garden centres. I can’t live with someone whose idea of a good weekend is picking out trellis plants and then rushing home for another gripping instalment of what happened to Derek and Mavis.’
‘Derek died in 1997, and Mavis has moved to the Lake District. They haven’t been in it for years,’ said Kate, trying to fight back. ‘Get your facts straight. And garden centres are … cool! You can buy all sorts of stuff in them.’
‘Jeez.’ Charly stood up. ‘Look, if it’ll help you out, I’ll move in with you.’
‘What?’ said Kate.
‘God.’ Charly rolled her eyes, looking totally bored. ‘I’ll live with you, Miller. OK?’ She put her arms round Kate and hugged her. ‘You know I’d like to.’
‘Really?’
Charly squeezed her. ‘Look.’ She sounded embarrassed. ‘You’re my best friend, aren’t you?’
‘Right!’ said Kate, pleased not just that Charly was going to live with her, but also that she’d called her her best friend. ‘Yes!’ She hugged Charly back. ‘Ohmigod, this is so great!
Do you seriously want to …?’ She gazed anxiously at Charly, who sighed again.
‘Man, I said I did, didn’t I?’ she said crossly. Charly didn’t do overt displays of emotion.
‘Great! Great!’ said Kate. ‘I’ll just give this to Sue –’ she waved the Editor’s Letter at Charly ‘– and then let’s start calling up places shall we?’
‘Go on then,’ Charly said in a childish voice. ‘Give your little head girl swotty letter to Sue. Hey – you never said, by the way. What’s happened with the Tex Mex Sex Machine? Why aren’t you guys living together anymore? Finally got bored of waiting for him to snog you, did ya?’
‘Oh, that,’ said Kate, humming nervously, and turning back towards her, running the piece of paper through her fingers. ‘Well – um.’
‘What?’ Charly looked at her suspiciously. She could smell intrigue a mile away.
‘Yep,’ said Kate. ‘Look. There’s something I have to tell you.’
‘No way,’ said Charly. She stood behind her desk, arms akimbo. ‘You’re doing your flatmate. I can’t believe it. Kate Miller. How long?’
Kate swallowed; she could feel her eyes bulging. ‘How the hell did you know that?’
‘I’m not stupid. You’re shagging Sean. Sean the sheep. Sheep-shagger. Hey! You’re a sheep-shagger!’ Charly clapped her hands. ‘Woo-hoo!’
‘Charly!’ Kate said sharply. ‘Zip it.’
Sophie and George, who sat a short way away from Kate and Charly, looked round curiously, to see if they could work out what was going on. On the other side from them, Claire and Phil, reunited once again, studiously ignored them. Relations on their side of the office since his encounter with Charly the previous year had not been great.
‘Sorry,’ said Charly. She narrowed her eyes, and was silent. ‘OK,’ she said, after a moment’s pause. ‘You fucked him.’
‘Charly.’ Kate felt helpless; she forgot, always forgot what Charly was like when you showed vulnerability.
‘Oh my god,’ said Charly, stepping around her desk and coming and standing next to Kate. ‘Has he dumped you? Is that why –’ she looked into Kate’s face, searching, and Kate felt the power of Charly’s gold-flecked tiger eyes, sizing her up, seeking her out. ‘No way, no way. What’s going on? Don’t tell me you like him, Kate.’
‘I love him,’ Kate said, trying to sound calm, and like it was normal, not extraordinary. ‘He loves me. Our lease is coming up, so we’re moving out, so we can start over properly, go on dates and stuff. He’s moving in with our friend Jem. And I want to move in with you.’
‘Uhuh.’ Charly nodded. She was silent again, her eyes taking in Kate once more.
‘So that’s the situation,’ said Kate, firmly.
‘So you’ve got a boyfriend,’ said Charly. ‘This is shit, you’re going to be a real pain in the neck, having dinner out of Jamie Oliver books with other couples and talking about property. God.’
‘Yeah, right,’ said Kate.
‘You’d just better not have anything like that in our flat,’ said Charly. ‘Otherwise I think I’d rather stay in Leigh-on-Sea with Mum. Got it?’
‘Promise,’ said Kate.
‘And no fucking Radio 4 in the mornings, either,’ said Charly. ‘I’m depressed enough already in the morning. I don’t want to have to listen to John Humphrys going on about Kosovo or the rainforests before I’ve even had coffee. Got that too?’
‘Fine by me,’ said Kate.
‘And another thing –’ Charly began, but Sue appeared in the doorway of her office, looking rather more flustered than usual.
‘Kate! Have you got the thingy –’ she waved her hands vaguely ‘– Editor’s Letter?’ Already moving away, pulling down the jacket of her executive suit, ‘I need it for –’
‘Yep, sure, in a minute,’ said Kate, looking down at the crumpled, sweaty print-out of the Editor’s Letter, which she had crushed in her hand. She looked at Charly. ‘What else?’
‘I’m pleased for you,’ said Charly. ‘He’s a really nice bloke. OK?’ She turned back to the desk, as Kate smiled with pleasure. ‘And you’re in luck. I had a fling with an estate agent in December. I’ll give him a call. And the beat goes on. Now, off you go to buy some matching monogrammed dressing gowns, OK?’
Kate ignored her and sat down to print out the letter again, as Charly picked up the phone. A minute later she was talking to an ex-boyfriend whom she’d dumped only last month and who just happened to be an estate agent for a lettings agency in Kilburn and West Hampstead. By lunchtime they had five different flats to see. Charly was, as she reminded Kate, really really good in the sack.
‘You’re going to share with Charly?’ Sue didn’t look up from her desk, but she swivelled from side to side as she read Kate’s piece, chewing a pencil, her cropped blonde hair never moving an inch as her head bobbed. ‘This is good, Kate. Great. I thought you had a boy you lived with? Isn’t he your boyfriend?’
Confused by this non-sequential speech, Kate said, ‘Thanks. Yes, he is now, actually. Er –’ She scratched her head, trying to keep it simple. ‘We were flatmates when we got together, so we thought it’d be best to live apart for a while, make sure we’re doing the right thing.’
Sue wasn’t that interested. ‘Hm, hm …’ she said, looking up at Kate, over her article. ‘Thanks again, dearie. You know …’ She stared into space. ‘You’re an interesting girl. Did you know? You Are An Interesting Girl.’
Kate moved from one foot to the other, not sure how to respond, she never was with Sue, who was capable of great insight and total, crushing rudeness at the same time.
‘Interesting,’ Sue said again. She tapped a pencil on the table, her small, busy fingers drumming a beat. ‘How long have you been here now?’
‘Nearly two years,’ said Kate.
Sue nodded. ‘I’m thinking about something. Forget it. It’s just – you.’
Kate raised her eyebrows hopefully.
‘You, Kate. You’re such a funny mixture.’
‘How?’ Kate asked, suddenly impatient.
‘Well. Of reserve and openness. You’re so shy, you wouldn’t say “Boo!” to a goose –’ she made the ‘Boo!’ extremely loud, and Kate jumped ‘– but at the same time you’re a very intuitive girl. You get what people want to read about. What they’re interested in.
Always have done.
I worried you were this shy little freaky thing with her head full of books. And I’m glad I was wrong.’ Sue flicked her eyes over her. ‘And you look good these days too, now you’ve found black and stopped experimenting with tartan miniskirts. That’s all. Thanks.’
‘Er …’ said Kate, brought up short. Sue waved her away, imperiously, with the pencil.
‘I’m thinking about you, that’s all,’ she said. ‘Wait to hear more.’
‘What does that mean?’ Kate couldn’t help asking. ‘Sorry.’
‘OK,’ Sue sighed, and looked around, conspiratorially. She was clearly bursting to tell. ‘Have you heard about this startup magazine Broadgate’s financing? Have you heard of … Venus?’ She said it in a whisper, like it was a hallowed name.
Kate shook her head slowly. ‘Oh. Well …’
She had, of course, heard loads about Venus, but since the world of magazines was rife with gossip, and since Sophie, Jo and George were the worst gossips in the world, wildly unreliable and apt to over-embroider to the point of Bayeux-Tapestry-lengths and since Charly loathed ‘industry’ gossip, as it implied an interest in one’s job, Kate had tried to ignore most of what she’d heard, as it was impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff. Besides, for the last couple of months she hadn’t really cared either way, had just worked as hard as possible so she could get home as soon as possible to Sean.
But Venus was the secret obsession in the office. It was going to be bigger, faster, glossier, trendier, younger, more beautiful than anything that had gone before, they said. New offices, by the river, they said, being designed right now and the interiors were being done by Phillipe Starck. Venus was going to be revolutionary, they said, a fortnightly glossy for young women, with fashion and celebrity and gossip and interesting articles too. They said more was being spent on its launch than the combined turnover of Woman’s World, Lovely Life and even the mighty Great! in one whole year. They said … well, they said lots of things, all in hushed voices, in corners, which gave the already super-secretive enterprise an even more momentous air.
The Love of Her Life Page 13
