‘Ready for your hot night out?’ Charlotte stood on my doorstep looking lovely in a long black skirt and fuchsia top, and big chunky silver and black beads. Her usually wild mass of blonde curls was held back from her face in two silver clips. ‘Speaking for myself,’ she said, ‘I can hardly contain my excitement.’
She waited while I gathered up my handbag and shouted goodbye to Stanley and Ashley – the 16-year-old from down the road who was performing his début as a babysitter.
‘He seems very sensible,’ I said to Charlotte as we walked back down the path. ‘I don’t think they’ll burn the house down.’
‘Roger’s got a face on,’ she said breezily as we reached the car.
‘Oh, why?’
‘Doesn’t want to go and I’m making him drive. As I said to him, how does he think I feel? I think I’m a pretty brilliant wife to spend an evening with all those bores – I’m certainly not staying sober while I do it.
‘Just telling Laura you’ve got a face on, love,’ she said, as I opened the back door of the car.
‘Hi Roger!’ I enthused. ‘Thanks for this.’
He greeted me back and then lapsed into silence. I wondered whether Charlotte was right about his mood. Or was he sweating, not only about his wife and Hannah being in the same room, but me there too, watching it all?
Part of me felt guilty and interfering but another stronger part said if there was nothing going on, there was nothing for him to worry about. Charlotte was no fool anyway – if this Hannah was hanging about, she’d soon pick up on it. Hopefully that might be enough for Roger to send her packing.
‘Where is this do, anyway?’ I asked brightly. ‘In the offices?’
‘Upstairs room of the Conservative Club,’ Charlotte informed me. ‘Pictures of Thatcher and Queenie everywhere. Lots of old farts in blazers. Usual curly sandwiches and sausage rolls.’
‘You said the food was lovely last time,’ said Roger mildly.
‘I said the food was the best thing about it,’ Charlotte replied briskly. ‘Which is not the same thing at all. I’m always amazed how many people have no idea how to put on a decent buffet.’
For the rest of the journey Charlotte treated us to a diatribe entitled The Worst Party Food I’ve Ever Eaten , with sound effects, so that I was feeling suitably nauseous by the time we made our way up the blue-carpeted stairs of the Conservative Club. At the top, I followed her and Roger into a dark panelled room with a bar at one end.
A waitress in uniform held a tray with white and red wine or small glasses of sherry.
‘Bet it’s not cold enough,’ muttered Charlotte, taking a glass of white.
‘Think I’ll get a beer,’ said Roger heavily, heading for the bar.
Clumps of people stood about talking, the men mostly in dark suits, the women in dresses and skirts. I scanned the room for anyone who looked even vaguely like the woman I’d seen Roger with.
‘Which is the one who always cries?’ I asked.
Charlotte surveyed the room too. ‘Can’t see her – perhaps they’ve got rid of her – but, oh God, here we go.’
A large woman in bright blue chiffon was bearing down on us.
‘Ah Charlotte, how lovely.’ She kissed Charlotte loudly on both cheeks before swinging round to bestow a bountiful smile on me. ‘And this is?’
‘This is my friend, Laura,’ Charlotte said. ‘Laura is carrying out some research into the families of lawyers – their perceptions of their role in the furthering of the corporate whole and its values.’ Mrs Chiffon looked slightly glazed. ‘She’s come along to see how we do things at Hammond and Barnes. Laura, this is Sheila Hammond – wife of Alan, the longest-standing of the senior partners. Alan’s the one retiring.’
I tried to keep a straight face as I held out my hand. Sheila pressed the tips of my fingers with hers. ‘How fascinating,’ she said, looking round the room. ‘Have you spoken to Ellen, yet?’ she asked Charlotte, lowering her voice. ‘She’s still getting over the operation …’
While they were talking, I checked out where Roger was. He was standing near the end of the bar with three other men in their fifties. I couldn’t see anyone who looked remotely as I remembered Hannah. She must be coming. Charlotte had said that the practice were very hot on every single employee and their partner turning out for these dos and if she was a senior partner’s secretary she’d surely have to be here – especially if it was the one who was leaving.
‘A face I don’t recognise!’ Beside me, a tall man in an expensive-looking suit was holding out his hand. ‘I’m Jeremy, one of the partners.’
‘Oh hi – Laura,’ I said. ‘I’ve come with Charlotte and Roger.’
‘Splendid! We could do with a bit of fresh blood at these things.’ He laughed. Charlotte looked over her shoulder and winked at me.
‘Hello, Jeremy,’ she said dryly.
‘Hello, darling,’ Jeremy gave her a long, lingering kiss on the cheek, which made Sheila Hammond raise her eyebrows.
‘Do behave yourself, Jeremy,’ she said, as he swept toward her.
‘You just want one too, I know,’ he declared, planting a kiss on her cheek as well.
‘Don’t be silly.’ Sheila gave a girlish giggle.
‘So what do you do, Laura?’ Jeremy turned back to me and raised one eyebrow in what he clearly thought was a rakish manner. ‘Fill me in.’
I gave him the line about the research and the in-house magazine, deliberately doing so with lowered lashes and an admiring look on my face. I glanced back quickly. Charlotte had moved away slightly. She and Sheila were now talking to a tall woman with grey hair and a stick.
‘Maybe,’ I said coquettishly, ‘you could fill me in on the gossip. Any good office scandals erupted lately? Romances? Affairs?’ I kept my eyes on his.
‘Oh well,’ he said, moving in closer and putting a hand under my elbow. ‘Let me see now, we could always start one …’
He was quite attractive in a self-congratulatory sort of way and quite amusing to talk to if you didn’t mind the size of his ego. He didn’t have any beans to spill about anyone else but I stood nodding and smiling as he regaled me with tales of the long line of secretaries who had fallen so uncontrollably in love with him they’d been unable to do their jobs, and the High Court judge who was always asking him to visit her in chambers.
While he was talking I kept one eye on Roger in the corner and the other roving around the room for any sign of the Bunny Boiler. Jeremy probably thought I had a squint.
We’d just got to the point in Jeremy’s story where he’d been invited back for a nightcap but had been warned by the male PA that it might be a threesome that was on the menu, so was considering his options, when I suddenly saw her over his shoulder.
It was the same woman for sure. I recognised the way she held her head, slightly to one side as if shy. She was wearing a calf-length, dark green jersey dress over boots, and several strings of beads with little dangly bits. Her hair this time, was blow-dried in a big cloud around her face and, apart from lipstick, she didn’t seem to have much make-up on which made her appear quite pale and fragile. Probably quite deliberately, I thought crossly, as I watched her slide up and nonchalantly join Roger’s group.
I saw him turn and give her a brief smile, the other two men nodding to her too. But it was Roger she positioned herself next to. As I watched, their arms were almost touching.
I spun around in alarm to see where Charlotte was. She was still talking to the grey-haired woman. Sheila Hammond seemed to have disappeared.
‘So I thought – ha ha,’ Jeremy was saying, ‘discretion being the better part of valour and all that …’
‘Yes, quite!’ I chortled too, though I hadn’t got a clue where we’d got to in the saga. I darted another glance over to where Roger’s group were still talking, catching Charlotte’s eye accidentally as I did so. She gave me a little wave and mouthed something. I wondered how I could get to talk to Hannah. I guessed I’d just have to wait till she went to the loo and follow. I looked again. She had a glass in her hand now, though by the look of it, it was only water.
Let’s hope that wasn’t all she was going to drink and she didn’t have a cast-iron bladder that would last till she got home.
‘I hope you’re looking after my friend, Jeremy.’ Charlotte had appeared by my side. ‘And not leading her astray.’
‘Unfortunately not,’ said Jeremy, with an expression of mock regret. ‘But we are having a delightful time. How are you darling?’
‘A little wine-depleted,’ said Charlotte, holding up her empty glass. ‘And it looks as though Laura is too. Would you be a star …?’
She grinned as Jeremy headed for the bar. ‘He’s all right, really,’ she said. ‘If you don’t mind all his bullshit. I notice he’s on his own tonight so I think we can safely assume the latest woman has very sensibly dumped him. They never last very long. Can’t think why.’
‘He’s quite funny,’ I said absent-mindedly, still looking at Roger. Was it my imagination or was that woman actually brushing against his sleeve now?
‘What’s the matter? What are you staring at Roger for?’ Charlotte asked suddenly.
‘I’m not!’ I said quickly. ‘Actually, I was looking at that guy he’s talking to – he, er, looks familiar – who is he? The one in the pink tie?’
‘Dunno,’ said Charlotte dismissively. ‘Haven’t seen him before. The other bloke is Tom their finance guy – he and Roger get on well.’
‘Is that his wife?’ I asked innocently.
Charlotte shrugged. ‘No, Linda’s over there. Don’t know who she is either. One of the secretaries, I expect. They always seem to have a few new ones knocking about. Jeremy frightens the old ones off!’ she added, as Jeremy returned carrying two white wines.
He laughed. ‘I can’t help it if they all get the hots for me and fade away with unrequited desire,’ he said smugly.
‘In your dreams.’ Charlotte laughed too. They began reminiscing about the previous year’s Christmas party and someone called Jeanette who’d dressed up as a reindeer and done something Jeremy had never fully recovered from when she’d got him behind the photocopier after too many Tia Marias.
‘Don’t give me that! You couldn’t believe your bloody luck,’ Charlotte was saying. ‘Apparently she needed her stomach pumping …’
A waitress appeared with a tray of cheesy pastry squares and I took one. More people seemed to have arrived and there were now a large couple blocking my view of Roger and his gang. I craned my neck to see if they were all still there and caught sight of the back of Hannah’s head. Damn it, I’d need a pee myself soon and I couldn’t keep going. Still, it would be as well to find out where the loo was, so I was prepared.
I asked Charlotte, left her and Jeremy still running through past episodes of drunken debauchery, and went out of the room and along the corridor to the ladies.
It was empty. As I was washing my hands, the door opened and I braced myself, wondering what I would say if it were her . But another woman of about my age came in, smiled, and went into one of the cubicles. I put some more lipstick on in the big mirror and stuck a bit more gel on the spiky bits of my hair, which, miraculously, had gone into quite a pleasing shape tonight, and was just about to go out when the door opened again. It was Charlotte.
‘Wondered where you’d got to. You bored witless yet?’
‘No, not at all. I’m having a good time.’
Charlotte pulled a face. ‘You’re easily pleased.’
She went into one of the cubicles. I waited, fiddling with my hair a bit more. It would be just my luck if Hannah came in now while Charlotte was in earshot. Though quite what I was going to say to her, I didn’t know. Leave my mate Roger alone or I’ll scratch your eyes out?
‘I hope they bring out something a bit more substantial to eat soon,’ Charlotte called, over the sound of flushing. ‘I’ve had all this wine and I’m starving. Still, at least Roger won’t want to stay very late,’ she said, as she came out and went to the basin. ‘Not if he’s had to cuddle the same pint all night.’
As long as that’s all he’s cuddling, I thought darkly.
As we went back into the party room, I suddenly felt apprehensive. What was I going to say to Hannah? A waitress came up to us with a bottle in each hand.
‘Sorry,’ I looked around. ‘I don’t know where my glass is.’
As Charlotte went across the room to where some filled ones were still on a tray, I looked for Roger once more. Now there was only him and the guy Charlotte had said was Tom, leaning against the bar. Hannah had disappeared. Shit.
‘Here you go,’ Charlotte put a glass in my hand. ‘Now, where’s the bloody food?’
I searched the room as if looking for it. I couldn’t see Hannah anywhere.
‘I think I’ve left my lipstick in the loo,’ I said. ‘I’ll just go back and look.’
Charlotte nodded. ‘I’m going downstairs for a fag. Can’t wait any longer. Linda!’ She waved at a dark woman in a red dress. ‘Ciggie break?’
‘You be OK?’ she asked me.
‘Yes, sure.’
‘Rog is over there, if you need him,’ said Charlotte. ‘He’ll look after you. Ah, here’s someone for you to talk to.’ I sighed inwardly as she pulled a smiley girl with long brown hair toward us. ‘This is Anji Perkins – she’s one of us. Likes her wine and wants something decent to eat with it.’
Anji was very friendly, but I was only half listening to her as she regaled me with what a great cook Charlotte was and how, having spent nine years in Asia, she, Anji, even though she said it herself, made a mean curry …
Usually I’d have been fascinated – I like a good jalfrezi myself – but I was twitching to locate Hannah before Charlotte returned.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I blurted out after a few minutes, ‘I’ve just got to …’
I beetled back down the corridor and flung open the loo door. Two of the cubicle doors were closed. She must be in one of them. I needed whoever was in the other to come out quick and sod off.
But neither of the women who emerged were Hannah. One was a woman I hadn’t seen before and the other was Sheila Hammond, with whom I was forced to have a tedious exchange about what a marvellous time I was having and how friendly a company it was and how she and Alan would miss it when Alan had retired, except that, knowing Alan, he wouldn’t really retire because he just wouldn’t be able to keep away …
I had been grunting in an interested fashion for several minutes and was just hoping we were drawing to some sort of conclusion when the main door opened again and, in she walked!
She didn’t look at either of us but went straight into one of the cubicles. My heart began to beat harder. Sheila was showing no signs of letting up – we were now going over Alan’s obsession with the work ethic for the second time – and if she didn’t belt up and bugger off soon, Hannah would be out and off again while I was still trapped.
But as the flush eventually sounded, Shelia abruptly stopped speaking and swung round. ‘Ah, Hannah, dear, there you are. How’s life treating you?’
I could hardly join in the conversation, so I got out my make-up bag and began to reapply eye shadow very slowly, hoping Hannah might linger to do a bit of the same if Sheila ever slung her hook.
But she was busily giving Hannah much the same speech as she’d just given me and Hannah was murmuring politely. I started layering on mascara and waited, afraid they’d leave together and my chance would be lost. Or, worse, Sheila would go and Charlotte would reappear!
Instead, praise the heavens, someone else arrived. A much younger girl, who I’d seen earlier, popped her dark head round the door and saved the day by announcing cheerily to Sheila that people were waiting for her.
‘Excuse me, Mrs Hammond – they’d like to start the presentation soon.’
Sheila whipped out a bright pink lipstick, pursed her lips in the mirror, and scuttled after her. I started painting my own mouth, watching Hannah in the mirror as she stood alongside me washing her hands, and wondering how to begin. When I couldn’t find another square inch of my face to make up, I took a deep breath and turned toward her.
‘So – you’re Hannah.’
She looked at me uncertainly. ‘Yes, I am.’
‘I’m Laura,’ I said boldly. ‘I’m a very good friend of Roger’s wife.’
I’d thought she might look embarrassed, or try to brush it all off by being terribly friendly as if she and Roger were entirely above board, but she did neither. She gave a tiny smile, brushed some hair from her eyes in an irritating, little girl way, and looked at me calmly.
‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘He’s told me about you.’
For a moment I was lost for words, shocked that Roger would have spoken to her about our conversation. Then I felt annoyed.
‘It was me who answered the phone when you rang up,’ I said coldly, taking a chance. I couldn’t actually be sure if it was the same voice or not – she wasn’t being particularly breathy now – but she had a light, girlish, slightly soppy tone that could easily have sounded that way if she’d wanted it to.
She didn’t reply to this – just went on looking at me.
‘We didn’t choose it to happen,’ she said eventually, sounding like a bad film. ‘It just did.’
‘What did?’ I said, heart beating hard. ‘You’ve had a few drinks together, that’s all – he feels sorry for you.’
‘Is that what he’s told you?’ She gave another small secretive smile and I wanted to slap her.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He told me you’ve been bleating on about your boyfriend dumping you and, as you obviously seem unable to cope with life, he’s tried to be kind to you.’
I saw her flinch and for a moment regretted being so nasty – suppose in fact Roger was just being kind and she really was having a terrible time. But then again …
Her eyes narrowed. ‘He’s been a bit more than that.’
‘Have you slept with him?’ I asked in alarm, before I could help myself.
She smiled again, and her tone took on a triumphant note. ‘What do you think?’
‘I don’t know what to think,’ I said. ‘Except that you must be very sad and desperate to deliberately go after a married man and attempt to break up his family.’
‘I didn’t,’ she said curtly.
‘What was that phone call about then?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
I looked at her with contempt. ‘Right.’
‘Charlotte and Roger have a really happy marriage,’ I went on, cold at the thought of Roger being stupid enough to risk it with this destructive creature and praying she was making it up about them going to bed together, ‘so why can’t you–’
‘It doesn’t sound that way to me,’ she interrupted. ‘That’s why he needs someone to talk to. We talk all the time, and when we can’t talk, we text. He says I’m his soul mate.’
I snorted. ‘He’s got Charlotte to talk to.’
Hannah looked defiant. ‘He says nobody listens to him at home. He is really unhappy and unfulfilled.’
‘He is not!’ I said exasperated. ‘And I’ve never noticed him not being listened to.’ Even as I said it, I knew that wasn’t strictly true, but he and Charlotte were still friends, they were comfortable with each other. Up until this woman had come on to the scene I would have said they had the happiest marriage I knew …
‘What we have is very strong and we will be together in the end. He needs me. We have a bond,’ Hannah said, a mad, dreamy look in her eyes.
‘He’s got a bond with his wife,’ I snapped. ‘It’s called two children and a mortgage.’
We stood staring at each other for a few seconds. And I began to feel a real sense of unease. This woman could be about to wreak absolute havoc and Roger what the hell was Roger doing?
‘Don’t you bloody dare –’ I began, but she suddenly leapt toward the door, opened it and shot through it, leaving it swinging back in my face as I tried to shoot after her.
By the time I got outside, she was already further down the corridor, mobile phone in hand, looking as if she was about to text someone. Roger, presumably, to tell him I’d just harangued her in the loo. As I strode toward her, she put the phone back in her bag and scuttled back into the room where the party was. I caught up with her at the doorway and followed her through.
But as we got back inside, it had all gone quiet. Everyone was standing still and up at the front a man with a rather red face, grey hair, and a moustache was holding forth. Next to him, Sheila and a short, bald man with a visibly sweating pate, smiled stiffly.
‘We are so grateful to Alan for his years of dedicated service,’ Red Face was saying. ‘It is through his hard work and commitment – ’
Hannah had sidled away from me past the knots of people and was standing near the window. Her face looked pinched and calculating. What was she going to say to Roger?
‘So fortunate that he has agreed to remain a consultant –’ Red Face was still going. ‘And Sheila for all her loyalty and support …’
Or God forbid, to Charlotte. Supposing Hannah announced all that to her! Whatever happened, I must keep my friend away from that woman so she didn’t get the chance …
‘See them at many more splendid gatherings such as this one …’
Roger had to tell Charlotte first. He’d have to say this deranged woman was coming on to him. That he’d only been trying to help …
‘We will be calling on his expertise. So it’s not goodbye, Alan, but rather au revoir –’ Red Face had paused for the appreciative titters and a smattering of applause.
I watched Hannah – she was creeping along the wall opposite, obviously trying to get back to Roger’s side before I did. I stood on tiptoe trying to see where he was – over by the bar, still standing with Tom, eyes turned toward the speaker. I began to edge slowly through the bodies.
‘So sorry,’ I whispered, sliding past the woman with the stick and a couple of youngish girls. I couldn’t see Charlotte anywhere but knowing her, once she’d got a whiff the speeches were starting she’d have grabbed a fresh drink and gone back downstairs for another fag. I hoped she’d stay there for a while.
Across the room, Hannah was still making her way round the edge of all the listeners. She would be at the bar any minute and be able to whisper her poison to Roger before I got there. If she told him I’d tackled her in the loo and warned her off, he’d probably be furious with me. But if I could get to him first and warn him that she was hell bent on breaking up his family …
Red Face had started again. ‘In the meantime, as a token of the esteem in which we hold you both and our deep affection …’ I saw Hannah stop and begin to clap along with everyone else as Alan waddled forward and began what I could tell was going to be a long speech himself. The couple in front of me had ignored my whispered excuse-me, so I stopped too.
Sheila had moved forward, smiling around the room like a duchess as Alan droned on about his joy in watching the firm blossom. I kept my eyes firmly on Hannah. The moment she moved, I was going to as well. Never mind whether the couple in front of me wanted to shift aside or not.
‘And my much-valued secretary – Hannah!’ I started as I heard her name. There was an outburst of clapping and Hannah smiled coyly. The people in front of her moved back to let her through. Tossing back her hair, affecting a wide-eyed expression of surprise, she walked up to Alan, head on one side again, as if embarrassed by the limelight.
At that moment I knew exactly what sort of woman she was. I could bet she didn’t have a single girlfriend to call her own. I could just hear her ridiculous, girly voice talking about how “I get on better with men, really” and the way she’d simper and act helpless when any of them talked to her.
There was no way she was going to fuck up Charlotte’s life.
As Hannah took the flowers with a nauseating mixture of pseudo self-deprecation and smug complacency, I turned toward Roger.
He was smiling broadly and clapping. Oh God, surely he didn’t really think she was his soul mate? Why were men so simple sometimes? You only had to look at her to see she was barking and bloody dangerous to boot.
She was holding the flowers against her chest, modestly listening to Alan with lowered eyes as he listed her finer points.
I wanted to shake her.
At last the speeches seemed to be coming to an end. Hannah had kissed Alan’s sweaty cheek and he’d said something about more drinks for everyone and how we must enjoy the rest of the evening and then I saw her break through the gathering at the front, heading for Roger.
‘Excuse me,’ I said again to the couple in front of me. The woman sighed and let me past. People were still bunched together beyond that, crowded around Alan and Sheila, who was now receiving people with a gracious nod as though she were Queen.
Seeing Hannah held up for a moment by someone admiring her bouquet, I executed one final almighty shove with my elbow, broke through and reached Roger’s side seconds before she did. Tucking my arm through his, I grinned up at him manically.
‘How are you doing Roger?’ I said loudly. ‘I think Charlotte would like to go home.’