‘RACHEL! HANG ON a sec!’
That’s Chrissie’s voice calling me, but as you can clearly see I’m in a bit of a rush right now. I’m getting my coat on and shutting down my terminal at the same time, so I can’t really stop to talk to her. I know exactly what she wants to ask me, though.
‘Rachel, are you ignoring me?’
Trying to. ‘No, Chrissie, of course not, I’m just rushing off.’ It’s Friday afternoon a week later and I’ve got another date with Nick. I’ve seen him every day since last Friday. I’m starting to think I’m heading towards being in love with him. I know that I have never felt this way about anyone before. And I’ve never had physical symptoms before. Just thinking about him makes me feel dizzy and light-headed, and that’s pretty much all the time.
I turn towards Chrissie, who’s standing there with one hand on her fake Gucci bag handle just below her shoulder – the bag itself is not visible – and a cigarette in her other hand waiting to be lit. Today she’s a fruity vision in off-the-shoulder cerise, white flared trousers and pink stilettos. She refuses to de-emphasize by wearing muted colours like black or navy. Her lips are always gaudy pink or red, and her hair is a huge mass of dyed auburn curls falling on to her bare shoulders. So obvious.
‘So, what’s going on with you, then?’ she asks me predictably. ‘We’ve not seen you for lunch all week. Got another job?’
I laugh. She knows that I’ll never leave Horizon. ‘Course not.’
While we’re here in the sales room for a moment, take a look at the sales league tables over by Jean’s desk. Remember I told you I was always in the top three? Well, have a look now. Can you see my name anywhere? Look down a bit. It’s at sixth place. The funny thing is, I don’t even care. I’ve got much more interesting things to think about every waking moment than how I am going to beat Jean’s old record.
Jean spoke to me about it on Wednesday. M and M had obviously reported to her that my figures were slipping, although no doubt she had noticed this herself anyway.
‘You all right, Chick?’ she had asked, exhaling a hot cloud of stale smoke breath over me. Horizon Holidays is a no-smoking building, but Jean just smells of smoke all the time. She has to go all the way down in the lift to the ground floor and out into the car park for a smoke, so she doesn’t go very often and when she does go she smokes three, one after another. When it’s very busy in telesales, she can go for hours without leaving, but her mood worsens the longer she goes without a puff.
‘Fine thanks, Jean,’ I replied, swallowing as my mouth filled with saliva. I had to fight with every nerve the violent impulse to gag. Jean’s breath had never affected me like that before. It must be the lack of sleep.
Do you think I’m in denial? The signs are all there – the symptoms, the dates, the calendar – but still I don’t add it all up. It’s so much easier not to acknowledge something unpleasant in the hope that it will go away on its own eventually and we never have to do anything about it.
‘Sure, lovey?’ Jean went on. She was not terribly maternal and this was about the limit of her caring. ‘Your figures are down a bit. Anything we should know about?’
I glanced up at the tables. At that point, on Wednesday, I was fifth. I looked back at Jean. ‘So I’m fifth out of forty-five instead of third? Do you see that as a problem? Am I skiving off, not pulling my weight, not putting the effort in? Why don’t you speak to Val?’ Val’s head came up at hearing her name and she looked over at me nervously. ‘Val’s lucky if she makes it above fifteenth. I’m doing probably twice as many sales as her in a week, every week, even when I’m fifth. So if you want to have a go at someone for not cutting it, have a go at her.’ I realized a bit late that Val might have found this slightly offensive, and looked over at her. She had gone very white and her mouth was slack as she stared at me in horror. She looked devastated.
Mum says people overreact to what I say sometimes because they don’t like the fact that I’m better looking than they are. Maybe this was one of those times. Val cut off the person she was talking to, tore off her headset and rushed out of the room.
Jean and I watch her go in silence, then Jean turns back to me and stares at me for a few seconds. I’m wishing she would just go and get her foul breath away from me and eventually she says, ‘Right, I’m off for a smoke. Graham.’ Poor Graham flinches in his seat, then reluctantly stands up and begins patrolling slowly around the room, doing Jean’s job of making sure no one’s on ‘Busy’ when they should be on ‘Free’ or ‘Incoming’.
I turn back from the door to my desk and realize that the room has suddenly gone rather quiet. There is the muted sound of people on calls but they are all trying to talk really softly. Anyone not on a call has swivelled in their seat and is staring at me. I look straight back at them.
‘What?’
Gradually, they all return to their work, some with a sad shake of the head, some with severe frowns in my direction. I’m standing there with my hands out, like, what’s the problem? Eventually, Chrissie comes over.
‘You can be a real bitch sometimes, Rach. You know Val’s got problems at the moment.’
‘What?’ I mean, I sit next to the woman at work, we’re not married.
Chrissie sits me down at my desk and pulls Val’s chair over to park her own wide load. ‘Her mum’s dying, for fuck’s sake. Come on, surely you knew that? She’s in a hospice, got days to go, apparently. Val is in a shocking state. She spends every spare minute hunched over the bed, waiting for her mum to breathe her last, and you sit there and have a go at her for only being fifteenth in the league.’ She shakes her head at me. ‘Jesus, I knew about it and I don’t sit next to her. Don’t you ever speak to her?’
‘Oh yeah, like you’re a walking saint.’ I don’t need to be lectured by anybody, least of all Chrissie, who makes sure she is abreast of all the gossip in the office and passes it on to anyone who’ll listen. She’s overlooking the fact that not knowing all the ins and outs of someone’s very private and personal circumstances is actually to my credit. I don’t bother to say this to her, though. Actually, she’d already walked away so I couldn’t say anything else.
When Val came back to her desk about twenty minutes later, eyes red and puffy, I tried to smile at her but she didn’t make eye contact.
Anyway, that was Wednesday. It’s now Friday and I’m trying to get out of the office quickly. I have a dinner date with Nick at seven thirty and it’s now five ten. If I allow fifteen minutes to get home and an hour and a half to get ready, that will leave me with about forty minutes to get a taxi to the pub, which is ample. In fact, it will give me more time to get ready, which I’ll probably need because I haven’t decided what to wear yet.
‘So?’
Ah. Yes. I’d forgotten about Chrissie. She’s still standing in front of me, unlit cigarette between her scarlet-tipped fingers.
‘Chris, can we walk and talk? Only I’m going out later and I need to get ready.’
‘OK.’
‘Right.’ I hesitate just once more before walking off towards the lifts. ‘Night, Val.’
Val just moves her head to acknowledge that she’s heard me. I shrug and walk, Chrissie tottering along behind me in her pink shoes.
‘So? Where are you off to tonight?’
‘Dinner with Nick. At La Bougie.’
She’s silent for a moment. I knew she would be like this. Disappointed, I mean. For some reason, she desperately wants my relationship with Nick to go wrong. Like when she was laughing about that soft kiss on my ear. Mum says she wants to be me and have my life, so the next best thing is to hope my life turns to crap. We reach the lifts and I thump all three down buttons, then stare up at the lights as if hoping to bring the lift more quickly by sheer will.
‘La Bougie. Wow, that’s a bit posh, isn’t it?’
‘I know.’
‘Got something nice to wear?’
I turn slowly and look at her for a few seconds. ‘Yes.’ Not that she’d know. She’s got about as much style as a Punch and Judy tent.
When we reach the pavement, she pauses for a second. She’s got the lighter out in her hand already so the time it takes for her to light the cigarette, take a deep drag and snap the lighter back into her bag is a mere two or three seconds. I’m making my getaway, though. She hurries to catch up.
‘You going to Jake’s party next week?’
I stop. ‘Next week? I thought it was the nineteenth?’ Christ, this means I’ll have to go out tomorrow and get the present, which means I might miss Nick when he calls.
‘Oh, yes, you’re right, it’s a couple of weeks yet, isn’t it? You going?’
‘I am his godmother, Chris. Look a bit off if I wasn’t there, wouldn’t it? Why? You going?’
She nods, her lips encircling the white filter of her cigarette. When she takes it away from her mouth, the end is covered in pink lipstick. ‘It’ll be better if you’re there. We can have a bit of a chat. Out the way somewhere.’ She takes another drag, and we arrive at my car.
I drive a lovely little burgundy Clio. It was only a year old when I bought it and I’ve really looked after it. Dad wrote me out some maintenance thingies I have to do once a month or so, like the oil and the water, tyre pressure, windscreen washer, and anti-freeze in the winter. Mum laminated that one too, and it lives in the same drawer as my chores list in the kitchen.
Chrissie looks at my car with obvious contempt then smiles. ‘Have you seen my new car? Look, over there, the grey one.’ I follow the direction she’s pointing but I can’t pick out which one she means. ‘It’s a BMW,’ she says.
‘When did you get that?’ She’s had a Volkswagen Polo for years, and loved it, as far as I was aware.
‘Oh, few days ago. Finally managed to get the deposit together. What do you think?’
I nod distractedly. ‘Yeah, it’s lovely.’ I’m so focused on the time and getting home and what I’m going to wear and what we’ll do after the meal that I don’t really give this any thought. It should have occurred to me to wonder how she could possibly afford a car like that on our wages, even including commission, but it didn’t.
‘OK, I’ll see you later, Chris. Have a good weekend.’ I get in, slam the door and head for home.
So this is La Bougie. Mum told me that’s French for The Candle. What I love about this place is the fact that they light the whole thing with candles. They’re on the walls, in the light fittings, on the tables. Thousands of them. There’s no electric light anywhere. It must take them hours to light them all every day. Mum reckons that some of them are fake and they’re actually gas fittings on the wall that light automatically when you turn them on. But even if that’s true, it’s still a real flame, isn’t it, so it’s the same.
There’s my Nick, enthusiastically sawing through a thick piece of steak. I’ve got Caesar salad but I’m not really eating it. I’m just staring at the man sitting opposite me. Even with a mouthful of chips he’s sexy. He grins at me, and winks. There’s a little drop of ketchup on his bottom lip and I have a sudden really strong urge to kiss it away. Can’t do that here, though. Bit too posh.
He’s surprised me a bit tonight, actually. Although he’s driving us both home afterwards, he’s still had a couple of pints of lager. I suppose it doesn’t matter, if he can take it. Some people just can’t drink and drive, even if it’s only one or two, but obviously Nick isn’t one of them.
This is so lovely. We’re not talking much but we’re just so comfortable being in each other’s company, we don’t need conversation. You can see that just by looking at us, can’t you? That’s what really matters in a relationship – compatibility.
I don’t have a dessert, but Nick’s having one of those Knickerbocker things. I thought he would probably go for the cheesecake, but I was wrong about that, too.
When he’s finished we split the bill and stand up to leave. Nick is such a gentleman, he comes round behind me with my jacket and helps me into it. He leans down over my shoulder and nuzzles into my neck, inhaling deeply. I close my eyes.
‘You smell beautiful,’ he says against my skin and I breathe in the scent of him, his warmth against my back, his hands light on my shoulders.
‘You smarmy git!’
My eyes snap open at this loud, coarse voice intruding on our private moment. Nick’s hands are gone from my shoulders and in an instant he has moved two or three feet away from me. I turn to see who has spoken, and find a young man of about eighteen standing there, grinning broadly, looking from me to Nick and back again.
‘You old bugger, Nick! What the hell are you doing? All right, love?’ he says to me as an afterthought.
I don’t like the look of this character. Look at his hair – so short you can see his scalp. There’s a faded tattoo on his forehead that looks a bit like ‘SINKS’. He’s got a pin through his eyebrow, too, and the type of green anorak that always makes me think of football hooligans. I take a small step backwards and look at Nick. What I see disturbs me a bit. He’s looking very nervous, his eyes darting about, frowning at this person.
‘Hi, Sean,’ he says quietly. ‘You all right?’
‘Yeah, mate, tops. Who’re you here with? Your m—?’
‘No, not my mates,’ Nick says quickly. ‘I’m here with a lady friend. Now, if you’ll excuse us . . .’
Sean’s previously grinning face falls into a confused frown. ‘What you on about, you poncey tosser?’ A weaker, less convinced version of the grin appears briefly as Sean steps forward and punches Nick on the shoulder. Nick steps back hurriedly, turning away, taking hold of my hand. He looks really uncomfortable now and this makes me feel anxious. Maybe this Sean is part of a gang and maybe somehow he thinks Nick is involved? Nick’s hardly looked at me since Sean appeared, but his hand is gripping mine tightly. Maybe Sinks is the name of the gang? I step closer to Nick’s broad back.
‘Look, Sean, we’re just leaving so I’ll see you round, OK?’ He walks quickly towards the door, dragging me with him. I glance back towards Sean whose face is now screwed up with anger.
‘Yeah? You can stick that right up your arse, you ignorant wanker!’ he calls after us, accompanying this comment with a hand gesture. I feel Nick flinch but he keeps walking, head down.
We walk like that all the way back to the car. Nick’s got a long stride, so it’s quite difficult for me to keep up. By the time we get there, I’m actually a bit fed up with him, and I’ve started frowning. He lets me in and as soon as he’s in he turns to me and touches my face. I forgive him.
‘I’m so sorry about that,’ he says. ‘Did it ruin the evening?’
I shake my head, sinking into the touch of his hand against my cheek. ‘Who was that?’
He drops his hand and stares out of the windscreen. ‘Sean lives near my parents. I sort of grew up with him.’
Immediately I shake my head. Something’s not right. ‘But he’s only about . . .’
‘No, I know, he’s eighteen. Obviously there’s a few years between us.’
‘Oh.’
‘But we lived near each other. I used to play with him anyway. Poor kid didn’t have many friends so I kind of let him hang around with me, you know.’ He laughs but it’s a shallow, forced laugh. ‘He was an irritating little so and so, always wanting to hang round the arcades, or play on the waste land on his bike, making ramps and things to jump over out of old bricks and bits of corrugated metal. This one time, we found an old tyre, so we hoisted—’
‘You did that with him?’
Nick stops abruptly and looks at me. He nods.
‘So how old were you then? If he’s, what, six, seven years younger than you?’
He shrugs. ‘Well, it wasn’t . . . I mean, it was mostly me, you know. He’s just a kid. I was probably about seventeen or eighteen, he was probably ten or eleven. Something like that.’ He’s not looking at me.
I nod. ‘Oh.’ But something is definitely wrong. His voice is different, he’s nervous and agitated. Is this Sean some kind of threat to Nick now? Is there more to their friendship than the ‘big brother’ picture that Nick has painted? Did they get up to more than just building ramps for their bikes? Illegal activities, or something dangerous?
I know it’s ridiculous and immature but thinking about that is a bit of a turn-on. Suddenly there’s a side to Nick I don’t know about, a dark side, and it excites me. I put my hand on his leg and he turns to look at me at last. ‘Let’s go,’ I say, my pupils dilated and my breath laboured. He doesn’t need telling twice.
Let’s move on to next morning. You don’t need to see what happened next. Suffice to say that he didn’t stay over. He never does. I don’t know why – it makes perfect sense to me seeing as he’s got decorators in his own flat at the moment. That’s why we always come here, and that’s why he has to go home each night, to make sure they’ve locked up and turned everything off properly. And then he has to stay there the night so he can let them in the next day. He says he pays them extra to work all over the weekend, so it should be finished soon and I’ll get to see it at last.
It’s Saturday again so naturally I’m working through my chores. There’s the laminated list on the counter top in the kitchen – see it? You can see I’ve crossed out the first third, which is not bad going seeing as it’s only just gone one p.m. Look at me though, compared to last Saturday. What a difference! I’m together again, and collected, now that Nick and I are definitely an item. On top of that, I’ve got this new feeling of temporariness about this flat now, so I’m not putting as much effort into the cleaning as I used to. It seems like only a matter of time before I’ll be moving in with him, so I’m a bit more relaxed about the list. In fact, I have crossed a few things out without actually doing them. I really don’t see the need to wipe round the edge of the kitchen clock every week. It’s only Mum that looks up there anyway. I’ll do it five minutes before her next visit.
Ooh, there’s the phone – that’ll be him. Although we’ve been official for a week now, it still gives me a thrill when the phone rings and I get all bouncy and excited again, even with Marigolds on.
‘Hello?’ Please please please.
‘Hi there.’ Yes!
‘Hi, Nick.’
‘Hi, beautiful. Feeling OK this morning?’
This morning? I glance at the clock, but I know what the time is. ‘I’m fine but it’s not morning, Nick. It’s quarter past one.’
There’s a moment of silence, during which I check all the clocks in the flat, thinking I was the one who had got it wrong.
‘One fifteen? Are you sure?’
‘Yeah, absolutely. You must have slept—’
‘Shit. I’m dead. Shit.’ There’s a muffled rustling at the other end as if Nick is trying to do something with his other hand. ‘Look, Rachel, I’m sorry, I’m going to have to go. I didn’t realize . . . I’ve got—’
‘Is something wrong?’
‘No, no, everything’s fine.’ He’s breathing heavily and moving around a lot at his end. Something clearly is wrong. ‘I’ll see you later, OK?’
‘OK,’ I’m saying, but he’s already hung up. ‘Bye then. Love you too, darling. Kiss kiss.’
I stare at the phone for a moment. That was a really odd call. He obviously rang me for a reason, but then never mentioned what it was. In fact, as soon as he realized what the time was, he was off. But how on earth could he not know what the time was? Not even to have a vague idea, like whether it’s morning or afternoon? Either he’d have to have spent all morning somewhere with no access to a telephone, clock, radio or television, which is highly unlikely, or he’d literally just woken up, rolled over and dialled my number without even looking.
I like this alternative. It tells me two very important things. One: I’m the first thing he thinks about the minute he opens his eyes in the morning; and two: he knows my number by heart, because surely if he’d had to go and look it up, he would have spotted the time somewhere.
I’m smiling now. But then frowning again. Why would he possibly sleep in until one fifteen in the afternoon? We weren’t out that late last night. He left here at about one a.m. again, so if it took him, say, half an hour to get home, he could be in bed by two. Surely no twenty-five-year-old healthy male needs eleven hours’ sleep?
An interesting thought pops into my head. He didn’t go straight home after leaving here. That’s the only possible explanation. Bumping into that Sean freak really disturbed him, so I have no doubt at all that that is where he went after here. He had to go and smooth things over with the Sinks gang. And now he is late for a meeting that could cost him his life. He had definitely said, ‘I’m dead,’ when he realized he was late. I’m getting all goosebumpy just thinking about the danger that he might, even now, be facing.
I’m still holding the phone and on impulse I dial 1471. The number’s there, and she tells me he definitely rang at one thirteen p.m., so I was right about the time. I write the number down quickly. Never know when I might need that.
At Nick’s house, he’s in a fluster. ‘Mum, have you seen my bloody football kit?’ he calls down the stairs as he frantically pulls on some clothes. His mum didn’t wake him up at twelve like he asked her to, even though she knows very well he has footie on Saturdays. He looks well annoyed. He shakes his head, smoothing his hair with his fingers. That’s going to have to do. Doesn’t matter anyway, he’ll be having a shower straight after the game.
Sean is going to kill him. He is supposed to have picked him up nearly half an hour ago and Sean’s already going to be pissed off after Nick blanked him in the restaurant last night.
He runs downstairs to find his mum holding his shorts and shirt, clean and pressed. He grins at her in relief. ‘Thanks, Mum.’
As he’s stuffing his football boots into a bag, he’s actually deciding that our relationship is over. Look at his face though – no hint of it. So cold. Obviously I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but basically this is it. He’s in trouble with his best mate – Sean – because of me, and now he’s late for footie, also because of me. Had I known that he was feeling like this, maybe I wouldn’t have asked him last night to go to Jake’s party with me in two weeks. Although I didn’t know it, Nick’s Saturday afternoons are always taken up with footie, followed by hanging around with his mates in the arcades for a couple of hours. Then most weeks, he and Sean will come back here and play on the PlayStation and eat Pringles.
Jake’s party, as it turned out, was the final straw.