A Funny Thing About Love (6 page)

‘Let's forget I said that,' Carmen groaned. ‘Anyway, you look particularly lovely. Is someone getting married? Are you being presented with an award for being such a super-fantastic silver fox agent?'

Matthew gave a wry smile. ‘Not exactly.' He paused and adjusted the buttonhole. ‘I wanted to let you know before the management meeting, where I'll announce it formally, that I'm resigning. This is my farewell-cruel-world suit.'

Carmen looked at Matthew in total astonishment. He loved his job, loved the company, which he'd founded. It was his life. ‘Why on earth are you doing that? You're too old for a midlife crisis!'

‘I suppose I should take that last comment as a kind of backhanded compliment,' Matthew replied, folding his long, thin body into the chair opposite Carmen's desk. ‘It's time for me to go, Carmen; I can't fit in with these new people. Penny's online furniture business is going well and we're lucky to have a fairly decent pension. I'd like to leave while I still have fond
memories of the company. I simply can't go on like this, with Tiana on my back every two minutes, wanting to know about figures. It's all spreadsheets this, projections that, it's sucking the life blood out of me. I've been drinking too much, you must have noticed.'

Carmen thought back to the day before, when Matthew had been lying drunk on his sofa, and it wasn't the first time that she'd gone to his office and discovered that he was half-cut. In spite of the dapper suit, Matthew looked exhausted, a man at the end of the line, with huge bags under his eyes that a small hamster could have cheerfully slept in.

Carmen gave a heartfelt sigh. The thought of work without Matthew's wit, kindness and emergency bottle of red wine was a deeply unattractive one. How much longer could she go on herself ? She knew she wasn't ruthless enough to be a really successful agent, but Matthew had always protected her, seeing other qualities in her. However, on the basis of her appraisal, Tiana saw the lack of ruthlessness as a weakness and a failing.

‘What will you do?' Carmen asked. ‘You
promise
you won't drink yourself to death?'

Matthew made the cub scout salute. ‘I promise. I'm actually going to finally pull my finger out and write a novel. I've only been thinking about it for the last thirty years. Procrastination is my middle name. And I'm going to be on your case, demanding to see the next episode of your sitcom. I love what I've read so far.
You're a really good comic writer, with a great ear for dialogue and brilliant grasp of character. Don't let this place bleed you dry.'

At this, Trish poked her head round the door, blasting the room with geranium. ‘Sorry, guys, the meeting's about to begin and Tiana has asked me to get everyone together.'

Matthew stood and held himself straight up to his impressive full height of six foot three. ‘Those who are about to die salute you,' he said ironically, raising his hand.

‘I'd have felt a whole lot better if you'd said, “At my command unleash hell”,' she replied, as they both began walking towards the boardroom.

‘We can't all be Russell Crowe in
Gladiator
, Carmen. I would look bloody awful in a leather miniskirt.'

At the mention of Russell, Carmen got a dreamy look in her eye; she did have a thing about the actor. Then she pulled herself together. ‘I don't know,' she said, surveying Matthew's long legs. ‘There's probably a niche market for spindly-legged men in leather skirts. I can google it later if you like.'

Carmen was sure it was entirely deliberate that Tiana was sitting on one side of the vast, glass-topped table coolly looking out at all her employees. Will, as her deputy, was sitting at her right. Carmen suddenly felt shy. He caught her eye and gave the briefest of smiles before looking down at his notes. Maybe he felt embarrassed about last night. To hide her discomfort, Carmen
joked to Trish, ‘Do you think she's going to do a “Suralan” and tell us we're fired?'

Trish glanced at her and smiled. ‘No way, you look too smart to fire today.'

They both considered Carmen's pearl-grey fitted shift dress and shoe boots – after the casual look yesterday, she'd thought she'd better pull her finger out style-wise. ‘But I'm sure she'd like to,' she muttered back. Trish, usually so positive about everyone, had nothing good to say about Tiana.

Matthew took his place next to Tiana. The mischief was entirely missing from his eyes. Tiana gave him a tight little smile and then launched into her speech.

‘Thank you all for coming here?' The Antipodean lift was in full swing. ‘I won't take up too much of your valuable time, I know how busy everyone is, but I have a special announcement?' She looked round the room, making sure she had the full attention of the twenty or so people there. ‘Matthew has decided to step down as deputy director of the company.'

There was an immediate mass intake of breath and exclamations of ‘No way!'. Clearly Matthew had only told a select few.

‘You can't leave!' Trish wailed. ‘You
are
Fox Nicholson!'

‘Hear hear,' came a chorus. But not from Tiana or Will, it had to be said. Carmen shot him a WTF look which he ignored. He was doing his bland corporate, expressionless act, and he was rather too good at it for Carmen's liking.

Matthew smiled. ‘Thanks, but it's time for me to take a bow. I've worked in this business for over twenty-five years and really you can't teach an old dog new tricks. I can't help wanting things to be the way they were, and that's just not helpful to the company right now. But I love all of you and hope you're going to stay in touch. I might even join Facebook.' At this there was an audible chuckle from the room, as Matthew was a notorious technophobe and had only just got a mobile phone, and he detested using email. He was so dignified and courteous and such an all-round lovely person, Carmen could feel tears prickle her eyes, and she knew she wasn't alone as she scanned the room and saw the expressions of shock on her colleagues' faces.

‘Anyway,' Matthew continued, ‘I want to go with a bang and not a whimper, so I'm having a party at home at the weekend. You're all invited.' Matthew's parties at his house in the leafy suburb of Thames Ditton which overlooked the river had been wild annual events that usually took most of the office at least a week to recover from.

‘Speech!' Lottie piped up, beating Carmen to it.

Matthew shook his head. ‘Not here, Lottie, I'll do it at home.' Matthew's hatred of the boardroom was also legendary. It had used to be a cosy, shambolic room with a large wooden table and mismatched chairs, until it too had undergone a makeover and all the furniture had been swept out and replaced with the impersonal glass-topped table and black
leather and chrome chairs, which were desperately uncomfortable.

After a few more platitudes from Tiana about how much Matthew would be missed, everyone shuffled out of the room and slunk back to their offices.

Carmen wanted to ask Will if he'd known about Matthew, but he was deep in conversation with Tiana.
Traitor
, she thought savagely, and stomped out of the boardroom. Yet again as she sat down at her desk it was impossible to work. There were too many thoughts swirling around her mind for her to concentrate on what she should have been doing, which was to prepare for the meeting with Karl Fraser. After some ten minutes she couldn't resist the impulse to see Will any longer. She just had to find out if he had known about Matthew.

He was in his office this time, busy writing something at his computer. He radiated stress and seemed a million miles from the Will who had kissed her last night, but Carmen ploughed on regardless. ‘That was nice of you to speak out for Matthew at the meeting,' she said sarcastically. ‘Did you know he was leaving?'

Will looked up. He seemed pretty annoyed at her tone. ‘Yes, I knew, and what was I supposed to say? I've only known the man three months and I am Tiana's deputy. She's the one who gets to make the speeches.'

Carmen scuffed her shoe boot on the wooden floor, deliberately making an irritating squeaky noise. ‘I just think you could have said
something
. Matthew founded
this company, people are going to be really sad to see him go.
I'm
really sad to see him go.'

Will pushed his hair back. He seemed distracted and there wasn't a smidgen of flirtation. Carmen was starting to feel distinctly awkward about last night. Maybe Will had lied when he'd said it was a good kiss, maybe he thought it was a terrible kiss and was now trying to put as much distance between them as possible.

‘I know you're upset about Matthew and I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do about it. Anyway, I've got to get on, I have a meeting to prepare for.'

Carmen felt horribly rejected. ‘Yeah, well, so have I,' she said defensively.

‘Like flirt with the postboy?' Will asked, a slight twitch to his mouth.

Okay, so that was a slight improvement. ‘No, like see that fuckwit Karl Fraser.'

‘Look, if he gives you a really hard time, you can always refer him to me.'

It was actually a sweet thing to say, but Carmen couldn't help feeling patronised. ‘No, no, I can handle him. Anyway, must get on.'

‘Laters, Miller,' Will called after her, adding, ‘I really am sorry about Matthew. And liking the dress – rock that sexy governess look.'

Will's flirty comment could not dispel Carmen's feeling of gloom as she slouched back to her office. She couldn't face the prospect of work, all those emails to follow up, all those calls to make extolling the virtues of her clients,
trying to screw out the best deal for them. It all seemed pointless. Instead she sat at her computer and clicked through photographs of the last time she reckoned she'd really felt happy – on holiday over two years ago on the Greek island of Zakynthos with Nick. There they were beaming away on one of the beautiful beaches, blissfully unaware that a year later they would have split up.

‘Oh God,' she said out loud, drinking in the brilliantly blue sea and the radiant happiness. Just then her mobile rang. It was Nick.

‘That's a coincidence,' she told him. ‘I was looking at pictures of us.'

There was a pause, during which Carmen could detect Nick's unease at the mention of the word ‘us'. ‘No, no, I'm not harbouring thoughts of getting back with you, it was just to see Greece – you know how I feel about it.' Carmen loved Greece – the sky, the clear seas, the smells, the people, the heat, the cicadas, the sunsets – she had to go there at least once a year or suffered withdrawal. ‘My soul needed a shot of happiness. Matthew's just resigned and I'm due to see fuckwit Karl and you know how much I detest him.'

She expected Nick to launch into some expletives of his own – he too loathed Karl – but none came. ‘I wanted to see you, Carmen, but I've got to fly out to Germany tonight for the tour and there's no other time, and I really didn't want you to find out from anyone else.'

Suddenly Carmen was on high alert. She and Nick had promised to do the two-year separation and then
divorce – both hoped it would be less acrimonious, less painful, and after all, it wasn't as if they didn't still care for each other, if not as lovers then as friends. ‘You don't want to get married already, do you?' she asked accusingly. For the last four months Nick had been seeing Marian, a French hairstylist he had met at one of his gigs, but Carmen hadn't realised it was serious.

‘No, it's not that.' Nick had his uptight, you're not-going-to-like-this voice on. ‘Oh God, Carmen, I'm really sorry to do this to you. Marian is pregnant.'

‘Oh' was all she could manage. Dropping the phone, Carmen lunged across the office and retched into the bin. She could hear Nick calling her name. ‘Sorry,' she wanted to say in that disembodied voice you hear when you get someone's voicemail, ‘the person you are calling is unavailable, please try later.' Nick's calls grew more urgent. She staggered back to the chair and picked up the phone.

‘I'm sorry, Carmen, really sorry, I know how this must feel to you, really I do, even though you must think I'm the most insensitive bastard in the world.'

‘When's the baby due?' Carmen didn't know why she asked this – it would only pain her further.

‘The eighth of March or around then,' Nick reluctantly replied.

‘So Marian must have got pregnant practically straight away?' Oh, the bitter, bitter irony after all that trying with Nick, when sex became the last thing in the world you wanted to do but you forced yourself, for a baby that was never going to happen.

‘Something like that.' Another reluctant reply. ‘Anyway, take care, let's speak properly when I get back.' Nick spoke in a rush, so quickly she couldn't have got another word in even if she'd wanted to. Poor Nick, the bearer of what would be to anyone else the best news in the world, no wonder he wanted to get off the phone.

Carmen very carefully clicked the hang-up button on her mobile and put it on her desk. She felt as if she might shatter at any moment. Shock pulsed through her. Nick was having a baby. She struggled to take in the news. But then again, how could she not have seen this coming? It was, after all, the whole children thing, or rather her not being able to have them, that had done for her marriage. Unexplained infertility,
her
unexplained infertility, the doctors called it. Two years of trying and then a year and a half with three cycles of IVF later the couple were broken financially and emotionally. They had not pulled together in the crisis, as she had hoped, they had been driven apart – Nick straight into the arms of another woman, Carmen into the arms of despair. She suddenly had a pounding headache.
Oh my God, on top of everything else, I've probably got a tumour
, she thought grimly.
Still, at least I've spared my children the sight of me dying young. Always look on the bright side and everything
.