When I Find You

by Emma Curtis

  He cocks his head. ‘What gave you that impression?’

  ‘Come on. It’s obvious. I’ve had a crap couple of months, and your wife has been incredibly kind to me. She is one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met.’ I hate that there’s a tremor in my voice. I take a sip of wine and start again. ‘I really like Phoebe and I’d love to be friends with both of you. I meant what I said about the babysitting.’

  ‘What are you two plotting down there?’ Cathy asks, immediately drawing everyone’s attention to the fact that we have our heads together.

  At a discreet signal from Phoebe, Elliot scrapes his chair back and picks up the empty wine bottles. He ducks his head as he rises and says in my ear, ‘The haircut suits you, by the way.’

  Then he glances over my shoulder, stands up and leans over the table and blows out the tea lights one by one. The room is cast into darkness and Phoebe comes in bearing a plate with a chocolate tart on it and one, flickering candle.

  ‘Happy birthday to you …’

  As soon as I close my eyes something clicks, like a cog finding its place in the wheel. If Rebecca and David are lovers, then that is where David got his information. I can imagine Rebecca telling him: Strictly between you and me, darling – and for God’s sake, don’t let on that you know – Laura is face-blind.

  Sunday goes by, slow as a stopping train. I sleep in then go for a run. I clean the bathroom and kitchen, phone Isabel for a chat and shop for the following week. I don’t look at the card again, but I know it’s there, I’m keenly aware of it. I watch five back-to-back episodes of a Netflix drama in the evening, then switch it off and fetch the card and pull my laptop on to my knee. My fingers fly across the keyboard, barely keeping up with my thoughts. I delete some, rewrite parts. The result is emotional and threatening; absolutely true to the way I feel.

  I don’t understand why you aren’t weighed down by guilt. You seem not to care about what you did. How can you carry on as though nothing has happened? Your behaviour is so unbelievably arrogant. There are things I can do, people I can talk to. It might be too late for proof, but it’s not too late to damage your reputation.

  My pen hovers as I debate signing my name. I don’t. I know it’s cowardly, but Deborah warned me against harassment, and I don’t want to give him ammunition to take to a lawyer. I fold the sheet of paper and put it in a white envelope that I’ve printed with his name and the words Private & Confidential. I don’t want Felicity opening it. I have no problem locating David’s address. I have it in my contacts because I’ve had stuff biked to his home often enough.

  Two a.m. It’s the dead hour and no one is out, the restaurants closed and the street eerie. I head up Willow Road and when I reach the corner of Constable Lane, I stop. The Gunners live about halfway along, in a graceful black-bricked Georgian house. I walk along the opposite side of the road. The curtains are open downstairs, caught back to frame a towering flower arrangement so perfect that I suspect it might be fake. The lights are out and there is no sign of life.

  Rain splashes on the windowsills and on to the pavement. I run across the road, push open the letterbox and slide the envelope in. I hear it hit the mat as I ease the flap back down. From deep inside, a dog yaps, its nails clicking on the stone floor as it comes to investigate. I start to jog and don’t stop until I’m back at the shops. The heat from my body turns the dampness from the driving rain to steam. I’m sweating and cold and wet at the same time, but it’s done. I picture David catching sight of the envelope lying on the doormat when he comes down in the morning, picking it up and frowning as he reads the address, puzzling over a letter delivered by hand in the night, and finally opening it and reading my words.

  I imagine Felicity following him downstairs, the baby on her hip, pausing to ask what it is. He won’t look at her as he folds it and stuffs it into his pocket. He’ll say something like, Just one of those irritating estate agent letters. Mr & Mrs X are keen to buy a house in this street. He’ll shrug it off with a distracted smile, but later, he will get it out, read those words again and understand their implication.

  This isn’t over yet.

  I am exhilarated, elated, surging with energy.

  32

  Rebecca

  ‘THANK GOD YOU’RE here.’

  Felicity opens the door, wide-eyed and frazzled, her hair tied back with what looks suspiciously like a pair of underpants, Daisy wailing in her arms. The boys are yelling at each other, still in their pyjamas, Buzz stamping his foot and Spike howling, ‘Mum! Mum!’

  It’s pandemonium and Felicity seems incapable of action, concerning herself solely with her daughter. From the depths of the house there’s a crash. Rebecca pushes past her. In the kitchen, it looks as though David has swept everything from the island counter: bowls of cereal lie broken, their contents spreading across the limestone, the iPad has a crack across the corner of the screen, a mug has come to rest some way from its handle. The Today programme is playing on the radio, a female presenter interviewing a member of the Shadow Cabinet. Rebecca crosses the room and switches it off. Only then does David appear to notice she’s there.

  She glances from his red face to the clock on the wall. If they are going to make their breakfast meeting, then they need to go, but it doesn’t seem to her that David is going anywhere this morning. She quashes a spurt of panic. She knows from watching her father deal with her mother’s periodic histrionics that a show of anxiety on her part will only make matters worse. It’s better to absorb his raging energy like a sponge and step in once he’s worn himself out. He paces the room, stopping every so often to stare out of the wall of glass doors that stretches from one side of the house to the other. Eventually he presses his palms and forehead to the cold glass and groans.

  ‘David,’ she says. ‘What’s going on?’

  He drops his hands and turns and is about to speak, but Felicity comes in, followed hard on her heels by the two boys, her gaze darting between her husband and Rebecca.

  ‘Dad!’ Spike is furious, tears welling. ‘Buzz took my Skeletor.’

  ‘Will you shut up about your fucking Skeletor,’ David roars.

  Spike stares at his father, the colour draining from his face, and throws himself at his mother.

  ‘You can’t take it to school anyway,’ Felicity says, stroking his head and scowling furiously at David. She mouths, ‘You bastard,’ at him, and starts to pull her children towards the door. Daisy’s cries grow louder, more tragic.

  ‘Why don’t you go up and get dressed, boys?’ Rebecca says, striving for calm. She feels like a ship’s captain in the middle of a squall. ‘Mummy will come and find you in a minute. Go on,’ she adds, surprised not to be instantly obeyed. ‘Clothes on.’

  Shutting the door to the kitchen, she finds Felicity sitting on the stairs, steepled hands against her brow. ‘Would you mind taking them to school for me?’

  ‘Felicity! I can’t look after your children.’

  ‘Buzz is your godchild.’

  ‘Right. Yes, I know but I’m not really equipped. Sorry.’ The apology is for her flippancy, for her betrayal, for possibly driving her friend’s husband to this. She nods in David’s direction. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I don’t know! Everything was fine, and then Daisy got her fingers caught in the door, poor darling, and started screaming blue murder and Buzz and Spike started squabbling and he just lost it.’ Her voice rises. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  Rebecca opens the door a crack and peers through. David is sitting on the floor with his back to the glass, his eyes closed. ‘Why don’t you take them to school while I get him out of here?’

  ‘It’s too early.’

  She sighs with exasperation. ‘Well, what were you expecting me to do with them then?’

  ‘Take them to the playground for half an hour?’ Felicity says hopefully.

  ‘Felicity, you know I can’t do that. We have a meeting, and, anyway, I’d probably lose them. I’ll talk to him. You get yourself and the k
ids out of the house. Is there anywhere you can go?’

  ‘I suppose I could give Harriet a call,’ Felicity says. ‘I don’t expect she’ll mind if we land on her. Can you take Daisy for a minute while I finish dressing?’

  Rebecca cradles a wet-faced Daisy in her arms, the child giving little sniffs just in case anyone should forget she’s upset. Daisy is warm and heavy, and Rebecca holds her close and breathes her in. There’s a school sweatshirt hanging over the back of the sofa and she uses it to protect her coat, then snuggles the baby’s head into her neck. It’s an amazing feeling, so ordinary and yet so precious. She’s reluctant to hand her over when Felicity reappears with Spike and Buzz. Rebecca is grateful to see she has released her hair from the underpants.

  Once she’s hustled all four of them out of the house she calls Agnes and tells her they won’t be at the meeting, and that Agnes has to make something up. Agnes doesn’t ask questions. Rebecca hangs her coat over the banister and goes back to David.

  She stands in the doorway, regarding him wordlessly. He holds her eyes for a moment, then his gaze drops. Rain batters the windows. A fat pigeon roosts on the bare branches of the cherry tree that dominates the end of the garden. In the spring it will be heavy with pink blossom. She walks round the room, picking things up; a rabbit soft toy with elongated limbs and ears, a black-and-white photograph of David flanked by his sons, taken before Daisy was born. She puts them down on the table and starts to clear up the mess, dealing with the broken china, wrapping it in yesterday’s newspaper and depositing it in the bin. She wipes up the puddle of milk and cornflakes and rinses the rag out under the tap, checks the iPad is working. There is no sign that this is bothering David, or that he’s wondering why he isn’t the centre of attention. Finally, she approaches him, making a tutting sound in her mouth with a click of her tongue against her palate, positioning herself at his feet, in the invisible arc between them.

  David stares straight ahead. Every so often he twitches, once or twice he raises his hand and rubs his jaw. He needs a shave. She pulls over a chair, sits down, and presses his head against her knee. She strokes his hair, then weaves her fingers through it, twists her hand and tugs his head back.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ she asks. She keeps her voice even, doesn’t allow emphasis on any of the words.

  He begins to count out loud. ‘One two three four …’ When he reaches twelve, she tightens her grip and he stops. ‘What the fuck?’ He takes hold of her wrist and tries to prise apart her fingers.

  ‘I assume Felicity has tried love and sympathy,’ she says, releasing him. She takes his hand and slides it between her legs, clamping it halfway between her knees and her crotch. ‘What’s brought this on?’

  He releases a long breath.

  ‘Nothing. I just flipped out. I didn’t sleep last night, and the kids started kicking off and it was like someone had flicked a switch. All the shit came tumbling in.’

  ‘Perhaps you should see a doctor … if it’s depression, or a breakdown of some sort.’

  ‘It’s not.’

  He raises his voice and she flinches. Ignoring her reaction, he jumps up and goes upstairs. She follows him into the en-suite and watches him face his reflection in the mirror and rub his hand across his stubble.

  ‘I look like fuck.’

  She raises her eyebrows.

  ‘Did they go out?’

  She nods. ‘They went round to Harriet’s.’

  ‘Good. She’s not one of the harpies. How’re we doing for time?’

  ‘We’re fine. I cancelled.’

  He stops what he’s doing. ‘You did what?’

  ‘I cancelled the meeting, David,’ she says slowly. ‘You’re in no fit state.’

  He takes a long time to answer. ‘OK. Great. We’ll have to fit them in before the end of the week.’

  He seems to have recovered, but she’s worried that it’s only a temporary respite; that this will happen again. As the car takes them through London, she thinks about Felicity dressed any-old-how with her sobbing baby in her arms, two boys demanding her attention and an equally needy man-child having a life-crisis in the kitchen. Is that what she wants? Kids and chaos instead of her ordered and beautiful existence with the spikes of excitement that being with David brings? David is working, checking his messages, the last hour apparently forgotten. She should forget it too. She touches his knee and he covers her hand with his. If she could guarantee their relationship would not end, she could go without the baby. But there is no guarantee. Worse, after this morning she can’t hide from the fact that he won’t only let her down, he might let their child down too.

  33

  Laura

  DAVID WALKS BRISKLY across the media floor. I’m working on my plans for the party, tweaking the drawings that have come back from Good Sets and keeping my head down. He doesn’t speak to anyone. David is one of those people who change the atmosphere of an entire building according to their moods; and today he’s in a weird one. People have noticed.

  Graham turns and says, ‘What’s got up his arse?’

  ‘Christ knows,’ Finn responds.

  ‘He looks like shit.’

  We go silent when he stops at the door to the stairwell, pulls it open and then seems to change his mind. He retraces his footsteps, comes round to where we three are sitting, and places his hands firmly on the back of my chair. My neck is on fire. Graham and Finn turn their attention to their screens, pretending not to notice.

  ‘How’re the preparations going?’ he says, leaning over me to see what I’ve been doing.

  There’s an Excel spreadsheet on my screen with a list of invitees and a note on who they are, and where they are in the pecking order. He reaches past me and taps the screen. I can feel his heat on my back, hear his breath and smell his lunch. This is becoming intolerable.

  ‘Why have you invited that knob?’

  He means Adam. ‘Because you told me to.’

  ‘I did no such thing.’

  ‘Actually, you did, David. And he’s a good person to have at a party. He’s fun.’

  Graham stops what he’s doing and turns his head to look at me. Finn is on the phone, but his last sentence misses a beat.

  ‘I don’t care if he can stand on his head stark bollock naked. He’s the fucking competition.’

  ‘OK. I must have misheard.’ I didn’t. ‘It’s a launch party,’ I point out. ‘We are about to tell the world about GZ.’ I’m leaving, so I don’t have to be humble, and what’s more I hate him. ‘We need people like him there.’

  ‘I need him like a fucking hole in my head. Uninvite him.’

  He lets go of my chair and steps back, and I swivel round and glare at his departing form. ‘Just because he left and went to work for someone else? How petty can you get?’

  David stops in his tracks and turns slowly. ‘You’ll do what I fucking tell you or you are leaving here without a reference. And not only that, I’ll make sure you don’t work in this industry again. Do you understand me?’

  ‘I understand you.’ I stare straight into his eyes and hold them there. Locked with mine.

  Beside me, Graham types, then pauses to blow his nose on a screwed-up hanky. David walks off.

  ‘Jesus,’ Finn says, when he’s out of earshot. ‘Easy, Tiger.’

  ‘He’s got a point,’ Graham says. ‘Adam was disloyal.’

  ‘Adam was doing what anyone else his age would have done: advancing his career,’ I say.

  I have no intention of uninviting him. There won’t be a thing David can do about it on the night and, given his recent form, he probably won’t remember what he said anyway. All that was about me and a night in December, not Adam.

  ‘He was underhand about it,’ Graham says. ‘He didn’t tell anyone what he was up to. David would have been supportive if he had been honest.’

  I roll my eyes. Not at him but at my screen. He notices and gives me a hostile glare.

  ‘You don’t give a shit about anyone,
do you? No wonder no one round here likes you.’

  ‘Hey,’ Finn says. ‘That was below the belt, mate.’

  Graham leaps up and I sit, frozen, staring at the names on my monitor. I didn’t realize, until I moved to this desk, how much Graham resents me; he still hasn’t got over me getting the job he wanted.

  Thursday. I’ve been crazy busy all week, trying to pull the party together, worrying whether I can find this or that in time, keeping the budget down with the added challenge of Paige’s grandiose expectations. A product launch is like producing a commercial – a short but intense activity, when nothing matters but the job. Then everything ends up in a skip.

  Finn is on the phone and hasn’t stopped talking for the last ten minutes, making me wonder if the person on the receiving end has fallen asleep. I find it hard out here, what with the buzz of conversation, the unrelenting energy, and the assumption that anyone is open for a chat at any time, no matter how hard they are trying to concentrate.

  I’m not alone for more than half a minute before someone plants himself in the vacated chair. I don’t look round because I know it isn’t Graham. The trousers are different. I keep my eyes on my spreadsheet and my hand on the mouse. I am so tired of this; so weary of the effort it takes to be constantly ready. I can feel his eyes on my profile and my body becomes as tense as a violin string. Perhaps for my next job, I’ll retrain as a shepherdess. Finn’s phone rings, he picks it up and lounges back, crossing one leg over the other, cupping his neck with his free hand.

  ‘Are you busy?’ the man says.

  I keep scrolling through my list of invitees to see who I have yet to have an answer from, and don’t look round when I reply. ‘Sorry. What?’

  He lowers his voice to a whisper. ‘I haven’t made a very good case for myself.’

  It must be Jamie. I swiftly scan his clothes and hair, his air of anxious expectation. It is him. I feel the tension flow from me and a warmth in my smile. A real smile for once.