‘You’re coming to this Christmas lunch?’
The first thing Gabriela saw of Madeleine was her perfectly painted fingernails tapping rhythmically against the corner of her desk. When she finally looked up from her notes, she smiled and pushed her chair back so as to get a proper look at her, the sequin pencil skirt and low-cut leotard.
Giving a wolf whistle, Gabriela raised her eyebrows. ‘Wowzers, glad to see you’re getting into the spirit of it. To be honest, I didn’t see you as a natural enthusiast for this sort of thing.’
‘Bof.’ Madeleine raised her eyebrows. ‘Let’s just say I have my mind set on a certain present this year.’
Without turning, she indicated Serena, who was laughing effusively with one of the guys from Operations.
‘Oh God, not you too—’
Madeleine kissed her teeth. ‘So, you coming or what? You can be my wing-woman.’
Gabriela groaned, leaning into her desk drawer, pulling out the Christmas bauble earrings that Tom had presented her with the night before. Afterwards, he’d shown her the miniature reindeer outfit he had picked out for Sadie, his face creasing with laughter as their daughter teetered like a reckless drunk at a stag party across the living room which already felt ten times smaller than when it was just the two of them, incapable of holding her in.
For all its faults, not least the way her once buoyant career was toppling towards a dizzying freefall, the system Tom and Gabriela had created had started to work. After months spent finding their feet, feeling out the balance of power, they had in many ways adjusted to the new rhythm of their lives.
Of course it wasn’t perfect, but what arrangement was? Their familial set-up was a work-in-progress, she reasoned to herself in moments of doubt – a temporary solution until Sadie went to nursery, at which point Tom would return to freelance work. The firm he had been working for ad hoc on the project in Shoreditch was rolling out its operations and would be keen to have him back, they said, just as soon as he was ready. And by then, she would have worked her way back up the ladder, having regained the trust of her superiors. At that point she would be free to give Emsworth the two fingers he so royally deserved.
‘Too-wit too-woo,’ Tom had wolf-whistled when she walked into the kitchen that morning, where he was doling out slices of buttery toast to Sadie, Chet Baker flooding out from the stereo.
‘Look at how hot your mum is,’ he said, nudging Sadie with his elbow. ‘You can see why I put up with her, can’t you? Even if she’s going out on the razz again.’
She laughed, rolling her eyes. ‘I’m sorry. To be honest, I’d actually rather not go. I’m bloody knackered.’
‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘You have to be there. Anyway, there’s an episode of In The Night Garden we haven’t watched yet and I for one am extremely excited about it. You just never know what Igglepiggle will do next … Isn’t that right, Sadie?’
Sadie looked up at him, her expression wide with love, her chin shiny and smeared with crumbs, and when she and Tom caught each other’s eye, for a moment Gabriela didn’t want to leave.
‘I’ll call you later,’ she called out as the milk in the pan ran over, making a hissing noise as it hit the flame of the hob. Tom ran to the cooker, swearing under his breath as she leaned in to kiss their daughter on her head, dodging her greasy fingers as Sadie reached out to touch her, scared she would ruin the only dress she seemed to fit into these days.
An hour later, she pulled at the hemline, which felt shorter than usual as she made her way up the stairs towards the allotted room in the suitably archaic pub in town someone in the office had booked for the annual Christmas lunch. As she and Madeleine walked in, Gabriela spotted Emsworth engaged in conversation with a couple of senior faces she recognised from other departments.
Feeling Madeleine’s hand on her arm, she followed her beeline for the table, decked with garish tinsel and essential-range crackers.
Madeleine placed her hand on the chair next to the one with Serena’s coat hung over it. ‘You’re sitting there.’ She tugged Gabriela’s arm towards the chair on the other side of hers as their colleagues, already sloppy with drink, gathered around like scavengers in search of food.
‘What are you having?’ Madeleine asked as she grabbed a bottle of Chardonnay from the table, eyeing the label disapprovingly before pouring liberally.
‘Whatever,’ Gabriela replied, holding up her glass. The truth was, she didn’t fancy an alcoholic drink at all. What she really wanted was a cup of tea and a bed to lie down in. By some cruel twist of fate, now that Sadie had finally decided to sleep through the night, Gabriela felt worse than ever. Every morning recently she seemed to wake up feeling more worn out than the night before, despite having a full eight hours’ sleep. Some evenings, she found herself bypassing dinner altogether, passing out with her daughter tucked into her chest on the sofa, her body so weak that she thought she might never wake up.
But there was no way she was going to let these guys see that.
‘Gabriela! Would you mind?’
It was Peter Bradford, pulling out the chair next to hers a while later as she took a gulp of her second glass of wine.
‘Not at all! Peter, how lovely to see you again! I thought you were still in Moscow?’ she said with a rush of exhilaration, tinged with discomfort.
‘Oh, you know, taking a little break – thought I’d come and see what’s going on in Blighty. I’ll be back there in a few weeks. Between us, I’m moving into a new role in Human Rights and Democracy. I’ll still be based in Moscow, so I’m just pulling some things together for the department this end before I head back … But enough about me – how are you? I hear there have been some changes since we last met?’
‘Good,’ she said, too quickly, her head still ringing with his words: Human Rights and Democracy. This was exactly where she wanted to be. A department reshuffle meant the possibility of a new opening …
‘So what’s the plan, with the new department?’
She knew it wasn’t the subtle approach preferred by Bradford and his sort, who still favoured clandestine winks and backslaps over brandies in quiet members’ clubs. But he would be going back to Moscow soon, and this might be the only chance she got to impress on him how keen she would be to apply. To remind him how useful she could be.
The sound of Madeleine laughing at something Serena had said drowned out her words and, reaching for the bread basket, Bradford continued, ‘You’ve started a family, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, I have a little girl, Sadie. My partner looks after her …’ she added quickly, desperate to move the conversation back to where it had been, to remind him how capable she was. How deserving of this chance.
‘Wonderful stuff. We have three,’ Bradford replied breezily, taking a mouthful. ‘My advice to you would be quit while you’re ahead. Ha!’
There was a sudden twinge in her stomach and a shuffle of chairs as she attempted to process his meaning – was he saying she should quit before having more children, or that she should quit the job?
‘St John, old boy!’ Suddenly Bradford was standing, before she could stop him, leaning in to shake the hands of a man in a tweed three-piece suit.
‘Gabriela?’ Madeleine’s arm jabbed hers, and she turned, dismayed by how abruptly the previous interaction had ended.
‘You guys know each other, right?’ Madeleine asked, indicating towards Serena.
‘Yes, I mean we haven’t really … Hi,’ Gabriela said, aware of her cheeks growing hot as she looked back over her shoulder, only to find Bradford had already gone.
When she looked back around Serena was smiling at her. ‘Nice to meet you properly.’
Moving her attention back to Madeleine, she added, ‘I’ll meet you down there.’
‘We’re going for a smoke,’ Madeleine said, and not knowing what else to do, Gabriela followed her. Pushing her way through the crowd, her eyes scanned the room for signs of Bradford, but by now it seemed all the upper echelons had left.
‘Who are you looking for?’ Madeleine asked once the two of them had settled in the pub garden.
‘No one. What do you think of Emsworth?’ Gabriela asked, suddenly unable to contain her thoughts, the wine having loosened her lips.
Madeleine snorted. ‘I think you know very clearly what I think of him. The man’s a complete—’
‘Yeah but, more than that. I think he’s …’
The moment she started talking, Madeleine looked up, her expression changing. ‘What?’
‘I don’t know, there’s just something …’ Gabriela reached for the cigarettes, her fingers trembling with the cold. The sight of Johnny heading out with a couple of the lads stopped her in her tracks. As she inhaled the smoke from the cigarette, she coughed, feeling suddenly light-headed, holding onto the table with her free hand.
Madeleine turned to follow her gaze towards Johnny and the boys before turning back and considering Gabriela for a moment.
‘Are you OK, Gabs? You look a bit—’
‘I’m fine, just knackered as per fucking always,’ she replied, glad for the conversation to be moving away from what she had just raised. This was not the time or place for such confidences; she was drunk. But she was only just starting her third glass, it wasn’t like her to be so affected by wine.
‘What happened to your girlfriend?’ Gabriela asked, changing the subject.
‘She’s gone to the loo, and then she’s getting her coat, ready to come back to mine.’
Gabriela couldn’t be sure if she was being serious or not, and she couldn’t summon the energy to pretend to give a shit, the headache that had begun to sneak up an hour or so earlier now reaching fever pitch.
‘Seriously though, are you all right?’
‘I feel terrible, actually.’ She spoke quietly, subconsciously rubbing the base of her back with the tips of her fingers. ‘I just— I don’t know. End of the year, probably.’
There was a moment’s pause and then Madeleine made a sound of acknowledgement. ‘Oh my God, you’re pregnant.’
‘Piss off,’ she said, taking a drag of her cigarette.
When she looked up, Madeleine was staring at her, an indecipherable expression moving across her face. ‘You’re pregnant.’ She said it again, this time without inflection, and instantly the pain in Gabriela’s head spread to her stomach.
‘Of course I’m not pregnant,’ she said, the words settling over her with a chill. Except, on the odd occasion when they had had sex recently, they hadn’t exactly been careful.
‘Hey, mind if I join you?’ It was Serena, her face crooked with a smile as she wove her legs under the table next to Madeleine, stifling a hiccup.
‘Oh my God, sorry, I’ve got hiccups! What are we talking about?’ Serena said, too drunk to notice the loaded silence that had settled as Gabriela processed the dawning realisation she’d been suppressing over the past days, holding its head under water, ignoring the bubbles floating to the surface.
‘Is she telling you about Hanoi? Urgh, I’m so fucking jealous. When are you leaving?’
Serena stopped then, finally aware of her own babbling, her eyes widening with an awkward recognition as the silence stretched out between us, even louder now.
‘Hanoi?’ Gabriela said, her voice quiet. ‘You’re going to Vietnam?’
Madeleine sniffed, taking a drag of her cigarette, and spoke more brightly than her expression suggested. ‘I was about to tell you. The human trafficking work I started in Krakow … There’s a sort of link-up with a new agency in Hanoi, part of an effort against modern slavery; they wanted someone to head up a team and – I go in January.’
‘Shit,’ Gabriela replied, her face breaking into a smile, tears forming at the corners of her eyes for reasons she couldn’t fully fathom. ‘That’s amazing, Mads.’
Madeleine smiled back at her.
‘It’s what I wanted. I’ll miss you.’
‘I know,’ Gabriela said, trying to keep her expression bright, suppressing the scream rising through her body. ‘I’ll miss you, too.’
‘Hey, Gabs,’ Madeleine asked a couple of days later, as Gabriela gathered her things at the end of the day, her mind distracted by the result of the pregnancy test she’d taken the previous day. ‘You know what you started saying at the pub … About you know who.’
Madeleine glanced quickly around the office. Satisfied no one else could hear, she continued, ‘What were you going to say?’
‘Oh, you know,’ Gabriela replied guardedly, wishing she’d never said anything – though she hadn’t, not really. ‘Just that he’s a creep. Anyway, why should we give a shit? You’ll be in Hanoi soon, and I’ll be off popping out a baby.’
‘Shit, I was right!’ Madeleine said, laughing, and Gabriela tried to smile back at her, ignoring the clawing in the base of her belly.