The viewing suite in the 1970s concrete block that Wavelength called its offices housed a dozen chairs in varying states of dilapidation, a coffee machine that was usually full of warm black syrup and the biggest television that money could buy. The offices themselves cost a seriously ridiculous amount of money to rent and were sandwiched between a sex shop and an Italian deli. One of which Ed frequented most days. In the summer, unbelievable smells came out of both of them. Wavelength was one of a dozen or more small film companies squashed in between delis and sex shops in the same road and, if you didn’t actually see the offices, it gave them a very trendy address on letterheads.
Next to him Orla sat primly in her black leather club chair, legs crossed neatly at the ankles. She was sniffling slightly following her unfortunate interlude in the canal and had a vaguely consumptive cough. She did, however, also have one too many buttons open on her blouse, and beneath it there was a black lacy bra. It could have been because she was feeling feverish, but whichever way, it had been giving Ed dry lips and a certain difficulty in concentrating on the finished promotional video he had previously made for Auto-Choppers, a gadget no overloaded, low-tech kitchen should be without. It had a variety of different interchangeable blades, which could be used for a wide range of slicing, chopping and general pulverizing of unsuspecting kitchen comestibles into certain oblivion. If he weren’t a cynical, hard-bitten video producer, he would have sworn it was a millennium replica of that scourge of the kitchen, the K-Tel Chop-o-matic, an orange plastic device designed to bludgeon vegetables to certain death and your Formica work surface along with it. If you didn’t keep a close eye on it, it would have your fingers too. Like the offices, also a product of the 1970s.
The company had poured a suitably large amount of cash into paying for a minor soap star to promote it, and she was doing a grand job for them, perkily dissecting a red pepper with all the skill of a would-be pop star. Orla was making appreciative noises. At least Ed hoped she was—the room was very dark and stuffy, and there was an outside chance she could have been snoring. The closing title music signaled the end of the film, jingling away chirpily until the video clicked and automatically started to rewind itself. Ed got up and turned on the lights. He drew back the curtains, jerked open a reluctant window and let the traffic noise and fumes of London backstreets pour in. Orla stretched, arching her arms above her head and testing the breaking point of her blouse with her breasts. “Great work, Ed,” she said when he sat down again.
Ed shrugged. “The client will be pleased.”
“So should you be,” she said. “It’s neat, tidy, professional.”
“Yes,” he said with a nod. “But not pushing the boundaries of creativity.”
“Er…no,” Orla conceded. “I guess not.”
Ed huffed.
“Don’t brood on it, Ed,” she advised, touching his arm with a deft, light stroke. “Things are happening. This isn’t how it will always be. There’s a way out.”
“I know,” Ed replied. Orla and he had chatted more about her schemes and plans when she’d been over to his house for dinner, but, as yet, she hadn’t pushed him for a decision. Nor had she opened her checkbook to him and told him how much the deal would be worth. No doubt, crunch time would be coming for both.
“How are things at home?” Orla hadn’t moved her hand.
Ed’s lips tightened. “Not great,” he said. It wasn’t simply the fact that the Auto-Chopper promo was never going to be the advertising world’s equivalent of a Guy Ritchie movie that was making him brood, it was more the fact that Ali had announced she was going on two weeks’ holiday. Ed picked his fingernail and looked up at his colleague. “Alicia is going to the Maldives—”
“It’s a great place,” Orla gushed.
Ed’s face clouded over “—with love’s young dream.”
“Great if you like sand,” she said hurriedly. “And sea. And fish…” Her voice trailed off weakly.
Ed puffed meaningfully.
“I thought he was supposed to be a starving artist?”
“So did I. Or perhaps I just hoped he was.”
“That’s understandable,” Orla said sympathetically. “Maybe he’ll dash off a few more masterpieces.”
“He’s not bloody David Hockney. He does drawings of middle-aged women with nothing better to do than hang around in Covent Garden. Passably good drawings. It’s hardly art.”
“Saatchi paid thousands of pounds for a run-down beach hut because Tracey Emin had stuck a note to the door. The same woman wheels a disgusting unmade bed into your Tate Gallery and it’s hailed as a triumph. So what’s the definition of art?”
“If you can masturbate to it, it’s pornography. If you can’t, it’s art.”
Orla gave him a patronizing smile. “You have a lot of bitterness inside you, Ed.”
“You know what I’d like to do?” he replied with a world-weary sigh. “I’d like to take one of those little plastic Auto-Choppers and grate Lover Boy’s dick off for him.”
Orla looked at him, brow furrowed with concern. “You must move on, Ed,” she told him earnestly.
Yes, I must, thought Ed. I must move on to inserting a strange and interesting range of Performing Power Tools into a selection of his bodily orifices.
“This could hold you back in life. Living with anger stifles the creative process,” she lectured.
“Yes,” Ed said wearily. As if he hadn’t got enough to worry about.
“She’s showing no sign of wanting to return?”
“No.” But then, as Neil had pointed out, he hadn’t exactly asked her to. He had, however, made several visits to lurk outside Christian’s house. And he wasn’t sure whom he wanted to catch a glimpse of more—Ali or Christian. Thankfully, he had seen neither.
Ed had noted the address and telephone number down when he had found the card in Ali’s handbag. It was a stupid thing to do and he wasn’t proud of it, and he’d tortured himself with it ever since. He’d phoned Christian’s mobile a dozen times, maybe more. And he’d always remembered to dial 141 beforehand so his call couldn’t be traced. Sometimes he’d listened to Christian’s irritatingly chirpy and hip message: “Hey, man! Whassup? Leave a message!” and wanted to punch him on the nose even more. Sometimes Christian had answered the phone himself, and he sounded so young, so sure and so lacking in responsibilities that it made Ed’s tired, burdened, middle-aged heart want to bleed.
“You know what you should do?” Orla broke into his thoughts.
“No.”
“Give her a taste of her own medicine.”
“Great idea.” Ed brightened. “I just don’t know any obliging twenty-three-year-olds.”
“How about an obliging thirty-something?”
If it was a honey trap Orla had set, he had a feeling he’d just walked straight into it.
“Where would we go?”
“Budleigh Salterton,” she joked.
“What about the kids?”
“Let Ali look after them for the weekend.” It seemed a reasonable suggestion, but then that would mean Christian Trendy Bastard having them for the weekend too.
“If we’re going to be partners, it would help to get to know each other better. Away from the work environment.”
Partners? This hadn’t cropped up before. Ed had assumed that Orla would be the boss and that he’d be the hired help. This put a whole new slant on things.
“Yes,” he said hesitantly.
Orla leaned on the back of her chair, her hand cupping her face. One black eyebrow arched imperceptibly. “After all, what’s good for the goose is surely good enough for the gander….”
And in the absence of a better suggestion, Ed decided it probably was.