27 weeks
‘No Prue?’ Felix calls from across the City gastropub. ‘Mummy mini-break. Love it. I’ll get us some Virgin Marys.’ He gets to the table where she’s been waiting for fifteen minutes and takes off his coat to reveal a full three-piece black suit and collarless shirt, faintly clerical, the uniform of the off-duty barrister. He dusts rain out of his brush of ginger hair. Felix, Charlie’s best and oldest friend, looks like a caricature of an early-ageing public school boy. Shortish, beginning to get round and with a permanent expression of delighted surprise. A bachelor, though not by design, he dotes on Charlie like a god and has always been Naomi’s favourite of her husband’s friends. She texted him to say that she had a meeting near his chambers and would he be free for a little chat. As he settles himself into a chair opposite her, she can see his joviality is tempered with mild concern. She and Felix have never met up before without Charlie.
A waitress comes over to their table and he orders them Virgin Marys before correcting his to a Bloody one. A silence descends and he bats it off with a sound, something like a satisfied sigh, and smiles, sharp incisors trying to find each other in his mouth.
‘So, two kids. Bloody hell! Whereabouts are we now?’
‘About two-thirds of the way.’
‘Shit me. You look absolutely fantastic TBH,’ he says, shifting in his seat. He empties his pockets, the apparent source of his discomfort, out on to the table. His phone, a clunky leather wallet and a packet of cigarettes. Naomi eyes them, she hasn’t thought much about smoking this pregnancy, despite what’s been going on, but she could murder a cigarette now.
‘This is my last pack, Scout’s honour. I’ve got this personal trainer and she said if I smell of cigarettes at my next session she’ll kick me in the balls. And speaking of strong women, how’s my little Prudence? Living up to her name?’
‘If it’s prudent to turn your parents into angry zombies by waking them every night then very much so.’
‘Fuck. Really?’
Naomi nods, a wan smile. The murky drinks arrive on their table. Felix clinks the top of her glass with his and slurps from the straw before wincing slightly from the strength of the booze. Naomi takes out her straw and drinks her Virgin Mary. The horseradish stings behind her nose but sitting here, with a friend and a drink in her hand, feels more indulgent than a spa day. She and Prue have been staying with her mum and dad in Bournemouth. Prue needed a change of scenery and Naomi an extra pair of hands to help with her little girl for a few days. But, with Prue crying out for Naomi every time she’s tried to leave her with her granny for a few hours, it’s not quite been the break from her family that Lillian insisted she take. So although her reasons for being here are anything but fun, she couldn’t help but enjoy the child-free train journey and now being in a bar, being part of the mass of people at their lunchtime carousing. It makes her nostalgic for the big boozy City lunches she used to have every couple of weeks at her old work. At the time she thought they were gross. She was there to work, not to get drunk and overstuffed with rich food while batting off the flirtations of sleazy middle-aged men but, when most of your meals consist of a toddler’s leftovers, lukewarm beans and oversteeped Weetabix, it’s hard not to miss how adult, how successful, drinking good wine and eating good food made her feel.
‘I’d take Prue off your hands for a bit, give you a break,’ Felix says, index finger tapping on the cigarette packet, ‘but unless she likes train journeys and eating fry-ups in bumfuck regional towns, no offence, then I’m not sure I’m your man.’ Naomi laughs but she can tell that Felix is waiting for her to tell him why she wanted to see him.
‘Charlie’s fine,’ she says. ‘That’s not why I wanted to catch up.’
‘That’s a relief. Thought you’d had another catastrophe.’ He uses the French pronunciation, without the final ‘ee’ sound. ‘He’s been dodging me, don’t know if he told you. For a long while, really. We’ve not caught up for months. He told me he’d got bloody busy, things taking off with whatever gizmos he’s working on, so I didn’t throw my toys out of the proverbial. But I did think that that could’ve been a bit of a … a fabrication as it were, so when you texted, I was a tad concerned.’
‘No, no. Things are really taking off, he’s got this steadicam he’s made. Big companies are fighting over it.’
Felix’s face lights up with relief that his best friend hasn’t got some unacknowledged beef with him. ‘Well, chin chin,’ he says, thrusting his drink into an air-cheers before taking another slurp. Naomi smiles then turns her attention to folding the corner of a beer mat until it breaks.
‘I got a “friend request” from someone, Felix,’ she says. ‘They also started following me on Instagram and, I don’t really use it, but on Twitter as well.’
‘Right.’ He draws the word out, his features overlayed with earnestness. She’s reminded of how grave the consequences of his job are, how every time he’s in court he’s working to keep people out of prison. Charlie told her that he’d texted to say he’s been trusted with a big embezzlement case at the Old Bailey involving some sort of organised crime. ‘Batting way above his average’ was the phrase Charlie said Felix had used about the sorts of cases he was being handed. They had a little laugh at his expense, at his good-old-boy bonhomie. Charlie never felt at home with the nepotistic private school backslapping. Naomi always thought that was what sent him so far in the other direction in his career, wanting to make something new rather than support all the old structures that he thought ridiculous. The irony is that he still feels the need to be seen as a ‘great’ man, exactly the sort of out-dated concept his school spent so much time instilling in their students.
‘The person’s name is Lex Palmstrom. I did some googling and someone with that name went to school in Ipswich, close to your old school.’ Felix’s brow furrows. ‘You always remember stories from your schooldays. So I was wondering if the name rang any bells?’ She shrugs slightly, nervous. Naomi knew it was a risk coming to see Felix, he’s fiercely loyal to Charlie and has strange views about the brotherhood of men. She remembers a story about how Charlie had split up with his long-term university girlfriend, Annika, and Felix had drawn the troops of men from their shared friendship group together and told them that it was their responsibility to be there for him and that they shouldn’t talk to her again. It’s not surprising that a four-hundred-year-old all-boys private school would produce someone with such a deep-seated fear of women’s power.
‘Charles doesn’t remember this person?’
‘I haven’t told him.’ Felix makes some sounds, the sort politicians make in parliament when they’re not happy about something. He undoes the button of his collarless shirt, revealing a tuft of orange chest hair. He’s literally got hot under the collar over being thrust into a conspiracy with his best friend’s wife. ‘He’s been struggling with the business for so long and I probably shouldn’t tell you this but it’s been getting him really low. It’s become pretty bad.’
Felix nods sagely as if he knows more about his friend’s precarious mental health than she would have thought.
‘But things are finally going well and he’s starting to get back to himself again so this, this person following me online, it’s probably nothing.’ Felix taps the cigarette packet on the table. ‘I’m probably just pregnant and paranoid.’
‘If you’re worried, you should still tell him.’
‘I’m not worried, just curious. I thought this bloke might be someone you used to knock around with. Maybe he’s trying to get in touch with Charlie, or you. Neither of you do the social media thing.’
Felix looks more uncomfortable than she’s ever seen him before. It was a mistake coming here, but she didn’t know what else to do. She had thought about showing Charlie the old Facebook profile picture of his best mate ‘Sali’, show him that he wasn’t who he said he was. But what if Charlie had confronted him about it? At the very least he would want to know why his wife had taken such great pains to unmask someone who, as far as he was aware, she barely knew. The fact that she had slept with Sean, with ‘Lex’, was bound to come out.
Felix prods the ice cubes in his drink with the stick of celery. She should have emailed him, or come up with a better reason to speak to him in person. She’d thought of others. She’d drawn out a few different options with a list of pros and cons. Asking on Charlie’s mum’s behalf was one. Or pretending she’d had a job offer from someone whose LinkedIn profile said they went to school near them, and she wondered if Felix had any background on him because Charlie couldn’t remember. But she needed something that he wouldn’t then talk to her husband about and Felix is a barrister, he ties people’s lies into knots for a living. She knows she has to try to stay as close to the truth as she can without revealing anything too alarming.
‘Lex, you said?’
She nods.
‘What was the surname?’ he asks, still seeming unsure he should help her without Charlie knowing.
‘Palmstrom.’ He squints his eyes remembering, then they flick open and roll around his eyes. He goes for his Bloody Mary again, the drink’s almost finished. He’s about to speak before he’s distracted by a large group of suited men cramming into the bar. The noise level doubles. Felix leans forward.
‘There was a Swedish girl. Well, she wasn’t actually from Sweden but everyone said she was Swedish because of her name. I can’t remember what it was exactly, but Palmstrom rings a bell.’
‘What was her first name?’
He shakes his head. ‘We just referred to her as “Swedish”. She wasn’t at our school, obviously because she didn’t have a dick.’ He holds up an apologetic hand for being puerile. ‘She was at Colchester Grammar, maybe? Some people from school used to hang around with the girls from there. Charles and I didn’t really know the Colchester lot.’
‘Who did?’
‘The “cool” gang, the ones that were good at sport, got into drinking before everyone else. They used to knock around with the girls from Colly Grammar, the good-looking chicks. Guess the lads from our school had more cashish than anyone at their school. Don’t know why the girls would hang out with those wankers for any other reason.’
‘Everyone’s an idiot when they’re at school.’
‘I wasn’t, obviously.’ He laughs, glad to lighten the mood for a moment. ‘Anyway. Lex Palmstrom. I’ve never heard the name. He’s not someone I knew, so not sure I can help really.’ He has helped but Naomi can’t tell him how.
‘Do you know what she’s doing now? The Swedish girl?’
‘Not the foggiest, TBH.’
‘You can’t remember her first name?’
‘Nay, just ignore the friend requests if you’re worried. Get rid of your Twitter if you don’t use it. These online platforms aren’t safe anyway. The companies are selling your data to whomsoever they like and the whole world can see the pictures of Prue you’re probably posting. Lock it all down.’ Naomi smiles, nods. She sips on her Virgin Mary. The waitress comes past and she orders a shot of vodka.
‘It’s going in here,’ she explains to Felix’s raised eyebrows. ‘Otherwise it’s just like having soup.’
‘Hear, hear!’ He relaxes, happy that he seems to have got through to her. ‘So, any other news in the Fallon peninsula?’
‘Prue bit someone at nursery.’
‘Shit.’
‘They won’t have her back for another week so I’ve been looking after her full time.’ Felix makes the right sympathetic noises. ‘It’s funny being a mum. All the things you used to do, everything you used to do for fun, the things that make you who you are, are suddenly taken away. I’ve only had one proper night out since Prue was born and I was back by nine o’clock.’ Felix chuckles, gives her a wan look that says that he wouldn’t mind going out a bit less. ‘And even staying in, people keep telling me about box-sets and Charlie and I will start watching something and Prue will scream out, or we’ll be too tired. I found myself actually asking to watch Britain’s Got Talent the other day. You’re braindead. You honestly are. Charlie’s had to work all the time so it’s literally been me chatting to a two-year-old for a month. Imagine Charlie when he’s had too much to drink and you have to get him home?’ Felix guffaws, eyes to heaven.
‘Like herding a particularly sweary cat.’
‘Well, Prue’s twice as hard to deal with as that, so when this name suddenly appeared on my phone, “Lex Palmstrom”, it was a distraction, a bit of excitement. It took me ages to find him on the Internet but it was something to do. I know it sounds stupid.’
‘No.’
‘When I saw he went to school so close to Charlie and you I thought …’ She thought she finally had something to go on, the tiniest hint as to why this might be happening to her. She’d traced back through her whole life trying to work out who this man was, why he would target her, but it was only when she saw the image on the iPad of the grandiose school entrance hall she’d walked through with her husband just a few years ago that she realised she’s been scouring the wrong past. ‘I don’t know. You’re right. I should leave it alone. But, with what you’re saying about this Swedish girl … Argh! I want to know who he is,’ she says, laughing at her own fabricated folly.
‘You could ask him,’ Felix replies, holding the shot of vodka above Naomi’s glass. ‘This is OK, right?’ he says, glancing at her bump. She nods and he pours it in.
‘I could ask him. Yeah. Not much fun, but yeah, I can.’
‘Cheers,’ he says, clinking her now proper drink. ‘I honestly didn’t know the girl. Don’t even know that is her surname. It could have been anything, Svenson, Bjornson, Lingonberries; don’t think I ever knew it.’ He looks round at the gaggle of suits buying champagne for a group of young women, laughing at the much older men. When Felix turns back to her, he has a little glint in his eye.
‘What?’ she says, readying herself for the inappropriate joke about them it seems like he’s about to tell.
‘Swedish had a mate,’ he says, tickled by the memory. ‘The woman at the bar talking to the tall fella reminded me of her.’ Naomi looks over his shoulder at a petite woman with long dark hair nodding seriously at a lanky, balding man. ‘You know, I haven’t thought about her for years, more’s the pity.’ He shakes his head, eyes brimming with nostalgia. ‘Now she was a filly and a half. Well-endowed in the, er, chest department—’
‘God,’ Naomi says, grimacing with embarrassment.
‘She was. Wavy hair, Italian-looking. Very much my type. I remember I tagged along with your husband to a party at the house of a guy called Douglas Mason. He was the big swinging dick at the “swich”. The year above. Charles got friendly with those lot for a little while when we were fifteen. He was in the football team two years early, star player and all that, so he dabbled with those tossers for a bit. Anyway, this girl, Swedish’s mate, I asked her if she wanted to come out for a smoke and she only bloody did. We were having a chat, having a good time, I thought, and these girls come out, her pals, and they just start, well, they were being pretty harsh, to her, but about me. You know, my hair and, I had a few of the old zits as well. They were awful, sort of bitchy girls who tear people down because they can. That was the end of my involvement in the “cool gang”. That was the only time at school that Charles and I weren’t thick as thieves. He carried on hanging out with them for a bit but they always come back to old Feline; it was a matter of weeks if I remember rightly. He never liked them, thick as pigshit, bunch of bastards, TBH. Not his scene at all.’
‘Charlie’s never told me about any of that,’ Naomi says. She still hasn’t sipped her souped-up drink, the bravado of ordering it having worn off.
‘He won’t remember it. He’s never looked back. Always into the future. Even when we were eleven. Never liked dinosaurs. Always rocket-ships.’ Naomi stares at the cigarette packet that Felix flips over in his hand. She notices the health warning picture on the pack, she tries to make it out as it keeps turning over. She puts her hand out to stop it, surprising Felix. It’s what she thought it was, a foetus surrounded by bloody membrane, the words saying ‘Smoking can cause early miscarriage’. She pushes the drink over to Felix.
‘Do you want the rest of this?’ He looks at the picture, apologises and puts them back in his coat pocket. ‘Do you remember what she was called?’ she asks.
‘Swedish is all we ever—’
‘No, the one you would have bedded if it wasn’t for those pesky girls.’
‘Eliza she was called.’ He laughs to himself. ‘I remember confusing Dr Dolittle and Eliza Doolittle from My Fair Lady when I was trying to flirt with her.’
‘I’m amazed she didn’t sleep with you there and then.’ He raises an eyebrow and waggles his glass at her as if to chastise her for ribbing him before finding a space beside the celery to drink from.
Swedish. She always thought Sean could have been a Viking. His height, blond hair, chiselled features. She’s going to call Charlie as soon as she gets out of the pub. She’s going to ask him about the girl known as ‘Swedish’.