by Fallon, Jane
‘She's got to go,’ James said angrily.
‘She already is going. Isn't that what this is about?’
‘I mean, she's got to go now. Today. I don't want her in the office a moment longer.’
‘Oh, for God's sake, James,’ Malcolm said wearily. ‘Grow up.’
But James was having none of it. There was no reason to go easy on Sally now. The damage had been done. She couldn't undo it. He wanted her as far away from him as possible as quickly as possible.
Sally was chatting on the phone when he went out to reception to look for her. A woman he didn't recognize was sitting on one of the chairs with a mournful-looking cat in a basket. James stared at Sally until she looked up and acknowledged him.
‘I need a word,’ he said, not caring who she was speaking to.
‘I'd like you to pack up your stuff and go,’ he said, when she came through to his room a couple of minutes later.
‘I don't understand.’ Sally looked as if she was going to cry, which made him uneasy, but she had brought this on herself.
‘Oh, I think you do. Don't think I haven't worked out that it was you who tipped off the Inland Revenue.’
‘What?’
He had to admit she was a good actress. She looked genuinely taken aback.
‘You know I'd never do a thing like that,’ Sally was saying.
‘I tell you you're fired one day and a couple of days later this happens. Come on.’
‘James,’ Sally was crying properly now, ‘whatever's happened is nothing to do with me. I swear.’
God, he hated it when women cried in front of him. It always made him lose his resolve. Well, not this time.
‘I'd like you to leave now, please,’ he said, and then he left the room before he changed his mind. Once Sally had gone, the tax people could investigate all they liked. They wouldn't find anything to corroborate her story. He had had to do what he had done. He'd been given no choice.
What James hadn't thought through when he'd ordered Sally to pack her bags and go, he thought later, was who was going to run the surgery in the meantime. He'd have to get Katie to help him out, she always seemed to have all the time in the world and she was always ready to do anything for him if it would make him happy.
‘I can't,’ Katie said, when he told her why he was calling. ‘I've got clients this afternoon.’
‘Well, can't you cancel them? This is an emergency.’
‘No, James, I can't.’
‘Oh, for God's sake,’ he said, and put the phone down. Well, they'd just have to muddle through. Between him, Simon, Malcolm and Judy, the veterinary nurse, they'd have to manage.
There was something up with Katie, James thought, once he'd rung off. She wasn't being her usual sweet, compliant self. It would be this thing with his parents — she was still pissed off that he had lied to her about it, that would be it, although she would never have said so. He resolved to be extra nice to her. He had had a good weekend at home — he had felt closer to Stephanie than he had allowed himself to feel for a long time, once he had got over the shock of her in that top, that was. What was it with women that they all wanted to wear the same thing? Actually, she had looked gorgeous in it and he had wanted to take her in his arms and tell her so, but that wasn't really how they were with each other, these days. They had got out of the habit. He felt bad now that maybe he had been neglecting Katie a little, but the harsh truth was that as much as he believed he loved her he would have preferred to be down south with his family right now. Life was simpler there.
25
Stephanie could hardly believe it when Katie called to tell her what she'd done. ‘You tipped off the Inland Revenue? God, Katie, maybe we should have talked about it first.’
Katie had been unrepentant. ‘He's asked for it. Anyway, I thought that was the point, we were meant to be doing stuff to him to make ourselves feel better. That's what you said.’
‘It's just that this is so… huge,’ Stephanie said. ‘I mean, it's one thing to upset him a bit, make him feel like he's not so invincible after all but this is a whole other area. This could have serious consequences for him.’
‘And?’ Katie said, and Stephanie started to wonder if she was speaking to the right person.
‘I don't know. I just feel a bit uncomfortable, that's all.’
‘What's the worst that can happen? They'll ask him if it's true and he'll say no. Even if they somehow stumbled across the truth he'd just have to pay the back tax and maybe a fine. Come on, Steph, it'll give him a few sleepless nights, that's all.’
She was right. Stephanie could see that. It was just, well, she didn't like the idea of Katie acting without discussing it with her first. If she were being honest that was what was really bothering her. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘You're right. Poor Sally, though.’
Katie laughed. ‘I know. At least he'd already fired her because if he'd just told her to leave on the strength of this I would have had to do something to change his mind. She'll be OK.’
Stephanie was running late. By the time she'd finished talking to Katie and slapped her makeup on it was ten past ten and she was due at a private members’ club in Manchester Square at ten thirty for a magazine shoot. She called Natasha to tell her to try and hold the fort without her. The subject today was a young writer who had been showered with awards for her first TV piece, which dramatized her own abusive marriage. She was telling her life story to one of the weekly glossy magazines and Stephanie and Natasha were providing the outfits for the pictures. Luckily Natasha had had time to go into the office first thing this morning to pick up the two suitcases of clothes they had chosen.
By the time she arrived at the Georgian building, which was so discreet there wasn't even a sign on the door — Stephanie had had to go twice round the square before she figured out where it must be — she was red in the face and looking anything other than a glamorous stylist. Natasha had everything under control. The writer, a sweet nervous girl called Caroline, had been cajoled into a sleek black dress and was looking gorgeous.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ Stephanie muttered, as she climbed over the mess of lights and reflectors and made her way through to the side room, where Natasha was sifting through the cases looking for something or other. ‘How's it going?’ she asked breathlessly.
‘Fine. Calm down,’ Natasha said. ‘The clothes fit, she looks great in them and everyone's happy. Plus the photographer's quite cute.’
Stephanie peered round the door. Natasha was right, she thought, looking at the photographer, who was at that moment standing on a chair to get a shot of Caroline gazing up at him. Oh, well, that would make the day go faster. ‘What's his name?’ she said to Natasha, retreating behind the door before he looked over and saw her staring.
‘Mark or Michael, something like that. I can't remember.’
‘Michael Sotheby,’ Michael, not Mark, said, as he held out a hand. Caroline had been sent off to try on another outfit.
Stephanie smiled. He really was quite good-looking. Late forties, maybe. Brown eyes. Crinkly smile. ‘Stephanie Mortimer. Sorry I was late.’ His name rang a bell. She had seen it in magazines, probably. She always looked at photograph captions to see if they credited the stylist. They almost never did.
They chatted about nothing in particular — editors and makeup people they both knew, and an exhibition of pictures by the controversial photographer Ian Hoskins, which catalogued his father's descent into alcoholism and which was opening in Hoxton in a few days’ time.
‘That's amazing,’ Stephanie said. ‘I absolutely love him and you're the first person I've met who's even heard of him.’
‘When are you thinking of going?’ Michael asked, and Stephanie realized she was blushing, as if he'd invited her out on a date.
‘Oh, you know, I'm not sure so —’
‘Well, maybe I'll bump into you. Stranger things have happened.’
Stephanie laughed as if he'd made a fantastically witty pronouncement. Then she realized tha
t she was being a little bit flirtatious — a reaction, she was sure, to the fact that Michael was doing the same. Immediately she became self-conscious and awkward and the moment passed.
Caroline came back in wearing a knee-length royal blue dress from Diane von Furstenberg and Stephanie fussed around her, pinning up the hem and feeling ridiculous. It was so long since she had flirted with anyone that she had forgotten how to do it and, anyway, strictly speaking, she was still married — at least for the next few weeks — so it was probably highly inappropriate. James may have ditched his morals but I still have mine, she thought self-righteously.
‘He fancied you,’ Natasha said, in the cab on the way home.
‘Don't be stupid.’ Stephanie blushed, giving away the fact that she had noticed it herself.
Katie was drawing up a list of things to do and people to invite to James's fortieth, which was now only a couple of weeks away in early May. So far, the list of guests ran to nearly fifty. James was well known and well liked in the village, where most people had needed his services at one time or another. She had put Hugh, Alison, Sam, Geoff, Richard and Simone on the list because she knew that, although their little dinner-party circle was history, James would still think it was important that they were there and, more importantly, she didn't want them to miss the big showdown, which she and Stephanie were planning for around ten o'clock.
‘Anyone I've missed?’ she asked, handing him the list. She had hired the village hall, her cottage being way too small, and James had suggested they serve lavish canapés and champagne followed by dancing.
‘How about the McIntyres?’ he said, mentioning a couple who had recently moved into the village. The wife, so Katie had heard, was distantly related to royalty, which would be right up James's street. ‘Have you ever even spoken to them?’ she asked now.
‘No, but it would be neighbourly,’ James said, and Katie had to stop herself from asking if he would be being so neighbourly if the McIntyres weren't so well connected.
‘How about that couple who've moved into number twenty-six?’ she said, knowing what the answer would be. The couple who had moved into number twenty-six had five kids and three dogs and four old cars in their front garden. Neither of them seemed to have a job.
‘Oh, no, I don't think so,’ he said. ‘They don't seem like our kind of people.’
What ‘our kind of people’ were, Katie wasn't entirely sure, but she'd had a pretty good idea that the couple at number twenty-six wouldn't qualify. ‘We'll invite whoever you want,’ she said now, leaning over to kiss him. ‘It's your party and I'm going to make sure it's exactly what you deserve.’
‘Actually, stuff it,’ said James, who, she imagined, was starting to feel as if he wasn't quite as popular now as he'd once thought. ‘Ask them. They might turn out to be nice.’
Katie had felt a rush unlike any other she had ever experienced when she had picked up the phone and asked to be put through to the local tax office. It had taken a few minutes to get through to the right person, and while she was hanging on, she had wondered whether she could really go through with what she was about to do. She had decided to put on an accent, suddenly afraid that they might one day play James a recording of his accuser, but as soon as she had started to speak and the officious woman at the other end had asked her to talk more slowly because she couldn't understand her she had dropped it. She was a former employee, she told the woman, and she had left because she had been shocked by James's business practices. When asked to give her name she had claimed to be Sylvia Morrison — the first name that had popped into her head, presumably because her mother was called Sylvia and Morrison was the name of the man who ran the local fruit and veg shop where she had done her shopping that morning.
The woman hadn't been at all friendly and had, in fact, sounded very sceptical. It didn't seem to Katie as if she was taking the accusation seriously. When it was over Katie had had to sit down with a stiff brandy, which was what people always claimed they did in these kinds of situations. After that she'd felt sick, a mixture of the drink and the excitement. She couldn't believe what she had just done. She felt scared and elated, guilty and shocked by what she was capable of. She didn't know whether to feel relieved that almost certainly nothing would come of it or disappointed. Most of all she felt alive.
When James had come home a week or so later and had told her about the letter, she had been afraid she would smirk and give herself away but she'd managed to be all sympathy and understanding. It frightened her how naturally it had come.
26
When the phone rang on Tuesday evening Stephanie nearly didn't answer it because Finn was moaning about having been given broad beans, which he ‘hated’, with his homemade chicken nuggets, and she knew that if she took her eyes off him for even a second he would scrape them into the bin. She'd picked up her mobile, intending to turn it off, but when she saw that it was a number she didn't recognize her curiosity took over and she found herself pressing the green button to accept the call.
‘Hi,’ a man's voice said. ‘It's Michael.’
Stephanie racked her brain. Did she know a Michael? He sounded vaguely familiar. Before she could answer he, obviously having picked up on her hesitation, added, ‘From the shoot yesterday. Michael Sotheby.’
Michael the photographer. Nice Michael who had made her blush. ‘Hi!’ she said, a little confused. ‘How did you get my number?’
‘It was on the call sheet,’ he said. ‘Is this OK, me ringing you?’
‘Yes. God, yes, of course.’ Stop gabbling, Stephanie.
She remembered Finn, who she had momentarily forgotten about. She glanced over at him and saw that he was looking very pleased with himself, a clean plate in front of him. She smiled at him and moved through to the hall, pulling the door shut behind her. ‘So…’ she said, trying to ignore the fact that her heart had gone a little racy. What was wrong with her? ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I just wondered,’ Michael said, and she was sure he sounded like he was wishing he hadn't rung, ‘if you wanted to go to that Ian Hoskins exhibition with me. You know — we were talking about it.’
Stephanie took a deep breath. Was he asking her out on a date? She hadn't mentioned she had a husband yesterday, but then they had been working, why would she have? But she had been flirting with him, she thought now. She must have given him the impression she was interested.
Her silence had obviously made him nervous. ‘It was just a thought. But if you're too busy or whatever then that's —’
‘No,’ Stephanie heard herself say. ‘I'd love to. But it couldn't be till next week and I'd have to get someone to babysit my son. I have a son,’ she added breathlessly — what was she doing? ‘And a husband, but we're separating, except he doesn't know that yet. You see, he has a girlfriend, up in Lincoln. I only just found out. Well, a few weeks ago. He doesn't know that I know yet either. He only lives in London a few days a week. To see Finn. That's my son's name.’
‘Stephanie, calm down.’ Michael laughed. ‘All I'm asking is if you'd like to go and look at some photographs. If you'd rather not, then that's fine.’
‘No,’ Stephanie said, collecting herself. ‘I just wanted to be straight with you. It's a bit of an issue with me, honesty, after what's happened to my marriage. I just wanted you to know exactly what the situation is so that there are no nasty surprises lurking.’
‘OK. Well, I was married for fifteen years until last year when my wife decided she wanted out. No one else involved, as far as I know. No children. I own a flat in Docklands and I have all my own teeth except for one which I knocked out in a cycling accident and which is a fake. I once dressed up as a lobster for a school play, but otherwise no embarrassing skeletons in my closet.’
Stephanie laughed. ‘Well, in that case I'd love to go to the show with you.’ She was doing nothing wrong. Certainly nothing that matched up to what James had been doing to her.
‘How does next Monday evening sound?’ he asked, and sh
e said that would be lovely and that she'd see him there, at the gallery, at seven.
Once she'd hung up she stood in the hall for a moment, trying to work out how she felt and whether or not she had done the right thing. Finn appeared at the kitchen doorway. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Nothing. Did you eat your broad beans?’
‘Yes. Who was that on the phone?’
‘Just someone from work. You don't know them. Did you really eat your beans?’
‘You saw I did. All of them.’
Stephanie knew that if she looked in the kitchen waste bin the broad beans would be sitting in a neat pile on top of the rest of the rubbish but she decided not to push it. She had a date. Someone thought she was attractive enough to ask out. She'd make sure Finn ate his vegetables tomorrow.
Despite feeling like she was doing nothing wrong by accepting Michael's invitation — looking at a few photographs hardly rivalled pretending you were single and setting up home with someone else on the infidelity scale after all — Stephanie didn't mention it to Natasha the following morning. She kept wanting to. She and Natasha had never had a secret as far as she was aware.
At one point she even mentioned his name in passing, during a conversation Natasha began about when they were intending to return the dresses lent to them for Caroline's photo shoot. ‘Michael seemed pleased with how she looked,’ Stephanie had said.
‘He spent most of his time looking at you. I don't think he even noticed her,’ Natasha had replied, laughing, and Stephanie had thought, Now's the moment to casually drop it in that he had called and then, if that went down well, to add that they were meeting up on Monday. But something had held her back. She felt foolish, talking about going on a date like a teenager. And, anyway, there was nothing to tell as yet: they were just going to look at some photographs, Stephanie reminded herself.
