A Funny Thing About Love (7 page)

She picked up her bag. There was absolutely no way she could stay at work now. She had to get away, somewhere she could give vent to the pain. Her office door
burst open. Of all the people in the world right now it was safe to say that Karl Fraser was the very last person Carmen wanted to see.

‘Michael Evans has got a fucking Channel Four quiz show and he's not even funny!' he roared, sending a shower of spittle Carmen's way, causing her to flinch.

‘Actually, he is funny,' she corrected him. Karl was too wound up to sit and paced like a caged rhino up and down Carmen's tiny office, which only took three paces each way. He kept bashing into her cherry blossom lights. If he broke them she would bloody kill him as they'd been a present from one of her best friends, Jess.

‘He is not!' He stopped pacing and leaned across the desk. Carmen contemplated putting up her umbrella as defence against the rain of spittle. ‘Where is my fucking quiz show? I won the fucking Eddie two years ago, the world should be my fucking oyster.'

‘Maybe it's because you've alienated every single TV producer you've ever met with your enormous, overweening, unbearable ego.' Carmen thought, or rather she thought she'd thought it but judging by the look of sheer astonishment across Karl's fleshy face, Carmen had actually said it out loud. Nick's shocking news seemed to have freed something in her. She felt swept along on a righteous tide of anger herself. It seemed all the pain, anguish and bitter disappointment were being channelled right at Karl, like a wave gathering momentum as it reached the shore. She was powerless to resist.

‘
What
did you say?' he roared.

‘I think you heard me. You are egotistical in the extreme and impossible to work with.' Carmen stood up.

‘What do you know about
anything
? You're just a fucking agent!' Karl snarled.

‘I know talent when I see it,' Carmen shot back, the wave of anger rearing up and breaking now. ‘And I know that you have an appalling case of halitosis. I also know that I loathe you and no longer want to represent you. In fact, I no longer want to represent
anybody
, so if you'll excuse me, I'm going to hand in my resignation and get as far away from all you egotistical fuckwits as possible.'

‘You'll never work in comedy again!' Karl shouted.

‘
Unoriginal
, egotistical fuckwits. Oh, and I thought your last stand-up set was deeply derivative. Frank Skinner was doing all that aeons ago. So do me a favour and piss off, and do everyone else a favour and buy some Listerine.'

Carmen marched out of the office and along the corridor. She heard Will calling her name but ignored him and, blatantly disregarding all company protocol and Trish, who was shaking her head and saying, ‘No!', she burst into Tiana's office. Tiana was perched on her desk, yacking away on her inevitable BlackBerry.

‘I really need to talk to you,' Carmen interrupted. Tiana held up her hand and then pointed at the lilac sofa.

Carmen sat down and waited for Tiana to stop
tormenting her with her voice. Finally Tiana ended the call and swung round to face Carmen.

‘So, Carmen, what can I do for you?'

‘Actually, Tiana, I've decided to resign. With immediate effect.'

‘Really? That is something of a shock announcement, isn't it?' Alright, she could have the lift as it was a question. ‘Are you sure you aren't overreacting to the news about Matthew?' And that one as well. ‘I know how close you guys are. And I know your appraisal left you a lot to think about, but I am sure you can make the requisite improvements?' But not that one.

Carmen shook her head. She felt as if she was about to dive into the deep end and the water looked very dark and very scary, but she had to do it. ‘I think it's time for me to do something else, Tiana.'

Tiana clicked her Mont Blanc pen on and off, another intensely annoying habit. ‘Usually I would ask you to work a month's notice? But I feel under the circumstances that it might be best if you clear your desk now? The company really can't have agents working for it who can't give a hundred and fifty per cent?' Another pet hate of Carmen's was people who came out with this percentage as if it meant something, instead of being utter nonsense.

It wasn't a question. Carmen nodded. This really was it.

‘And you can say your goodbyes at Matthew's party. It's been nice working with you, Carmen?'

There, she was dismissed. She was about to reply,
but Tiana was already on another call. Carmen had just torpedoed her own career. Way to go.

She spent the next hour in a complete daze. Trish helped her pack up her books and snow globes, all the while bemoaning the fact that she was leaving. Carmen also had the humiliation of having Dex the security guard hovering in the doorway, making sure she wasn't going to steal anything – though quite what she would steal was anyone's guess, seeing as the only valuable thing was the MacBook, and that belonged to her. Or maybe he was stopping her from seeing her colleagues, in case she spread ill will and discontent and was bad for morale. Dex kept shifting his weight, which was considerable – too much time spent sitting in front of a CCTV monitor, eating Danish pastries – from Doc Martened foot to foot and apologising, ‘I'm just doing my job, Carmen.' His plump white face was quite pink with embarrassment. Carmen ended up feeling sorry for him. She'd always thought he'd probably suffered enough by being the one who caught Dirty Sam on the fire escape, and he was decent enough not to report him.

Connor the postboy was on his rounds and looked equally devastated to see what was going on. ‘I'll have to have a goodbye kiss, Carmen,' he said, managing to squeeze past Dex and popping his head round the door in expectation.

That really would be the icing on her day. Carmen took a step backwards and blew him a kiss. ‘Let's not
spoil the memory of the one we had at Christmas,' she said. ‘Dex, you'd better get Connor away, I don't want him to get into trouble.' Connor looked reluctant to budge without the full tongue-on-tongue experience, but Dex was bigger and managed to extract him.

‘Are you really sure you're doing the right thing?' Trish asked for about the twentieth time.

‘I need a change, Trish,' Carmen told her. She was disappointed not to have seen Will, but Trish said he'd been called out of the office on urgent business.

‘I'm sure he'll be in touch,' she said as she caught Carmen gazing wistfully out of the door in the direction of Will's office.

‘I doubt it,' Carmen muttered, ‘but I guess he'll be at Matthew's.'

‘Oh, he'll ring you, Carmen, he really likes you. He's always really down when you're not in. And the kiss last night seals it, doesn't it?'

Although Carmen had always admired Trish's ability to run the office, unjam the photocopier, remember to buy fresh coffee and organise Matthew, she had never placed much significance on Trish's matchmaking abilities, seeing as Trish's longest relationship that she knew about to date had been with her collection of cacti. Still, she didn't want to be rude, and gave Trish a hug goodbye. Trish then insisted on giving her one of her favourite cacti. ‘This is Basil, he loves it if you sing Motown songs to him,' she declared. ‘He likes them all, but I always feel “Papa was a Rolling Stone” is his favourite.'

‘Are you sure?' Carmen replied. Clearly Trish really,
really
should get out more.

‘Yes, he needs to be free from here as well, he hates the air con, they all do. In fact, I might have to take them home, but then what would I look after?' Trish said sadly.

‘What about some tropical fish?' Carmen suggested, reasoning that fish were pretty low maintenance and calming to watch.

Trish fiddled with her braids. ‘Fish, I like it. I'll write up a proposal for Tiana.'

‘Can't you just ask her?'

Trish shook her head. ‘No, she has to see everything in writing.'

Carmen felt that she had definitely got out of the company at the right time.

It was only when she was walking towards Oxford Circus Tube at the, for her, unusual time of three o'clock in the afternoon that the enormity of what she'd just done hit her like walking into a brick wall. She carefully placed Basil on the pavement while she scrabbled for her phone. ‘Marcus, is there any chance I could see you? Nick's having a baby and I've just resigned.'

‘Oh, for fuck's sake, Carmen! You mad bridge burner, get a taxi. I can see you for a bit before I have to do the pre-record of the show.'

Marcus was riding high on success – both as a stand-up comic and now as a presenter of a Friday-night chat show on Channel 4. He had been one of Carmen's first discoveries and they had quickly become friends, though Carmen was always aware of the client/agent divide. In a way it was a relief when Marcus left the agency, as it made their friendship uncomplicated. Carmen hoped that Marcus would have some words of wisdom for her as she was shown to his dressing room by an ultra-efficient male PA, complete with headset, walkie-talkie and clipboard. Just once, she thought, she would like to meet an ultra-inefficient TV PA.

Because she had known Marcus pre-fame, it never failed to amuse her watching him being given the star treatment. Right now he was sitting in front of a large mirror while Tara, his make-up artist, blended foundation into his practically perfect skin. Marcus was achingly good-looking, with dark blond hair, brown eyes, and lashes so long that people were forever asking if they were fake. They were not. But under that oh-so-pretty exterior was a sharp mind and an even sharper wit, and you dismissed him as a pretty boy at your
peril. Carmen had met Tara many times and always figured that make-up artists had heard it all before and that nothing phased them, so she prepared to launch herself into her tale of woe.

‘Hey,' she said, moving a pile of newspapers and celeb mags and plonking herself down on the sofa with Basil next to her. ‘Meet the unemployed saddo.'

Marcus arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow in her direction. ‘I suppose you're waiting for me to give you a lecture so you can justify yourself, but actually I think it's the best thing you've ever done.'

‘I don't know what happened to me,' Carmen babbled. She was surfacing from her dive into the deep end and panic had taken hold. ‘I mean, I've only got that ten grand I was left by Nana Lesley. I don't know what I'm going to do next. Nick is having a baby, so that means I'll probably have to sell the flat. My pension is probably worth all of fifty pence. I'll have to work at Asda forever when I'm old, and yes, I know they sell lots of organic products, but it's not Waitrose, is it? And they'll probably have to bury me in that black and fluorescent green fleece because that's the only item of clothing I'll own. And I still haven't paid for that Alexander McQueen biker jacket that you made me buy because you said it was an investment piece. Gok Wan wouldn't have made me buy it. He would have sourced something for me from the high street but, oh no, I had to be friends with a high-end-designer fashionista gay. And I bet you'll drop me now I can't go out to all those expensive restaurants, or buy designer clothes.
And I'm such a fucking cliché having a gay best friend and being single. And last night Will kissed me but today he seems to barely want to know me. And did I tell you that Nick's having a baby?'

Tara handed Carmen a large handful of tissues. For a second Carmen couldn't think why, and then she realised that she was crying, huge, fat tears spurting out of her eyes and cascading down her cheeks.

‘I'm going to get a different foundation, I'll be back in a bit,' Tara said diplomatically, heading for the door.

‘Oh God, I must sound deranged if I've made Tara leave the room. I thought she'd heard it all.'

Marcus came and sat next to Carmen on the sofa and put his arm round her. Now his tone was serious, sympathetic. ‘Stop making light of what's happened. The Nick news is big, you're bound to be reeling. I'm so sorry, Carmen.' He paused to allow Carmen to mop up the tears and blow her nose. ‘You must have known it would happen sometime, though?'

‘Sometime,' Carmen sniffed. ‘Not so soon. I thought I would be more sorted in my head, in a place where I could accept it. It makes me feel like such a failure.'

‘Don't be silly, you're', – ‘Marcus switched to his American accent – ‘intelligent, talented and gifted.'

‘Just don't say “go girlfriend”,' Carmen replied, managing the smallest of smiles in spite of the situation.

‘Well, it was you who said you wished you'd been friends with Gok. Seriously, Carmen, leaving Fox Nicholson is just the best thing you've done in ages. You were ossifying there in that horrid little glass cage,
and you know it. Give yourself six months and go off and write that drama – you'll regret it forever if you don't. As for Will, he probably felt awkward because of work, but by the sounds of things he likes you.' Marcus paused. ‘As for the baby thing, what can I say? It's not fair, it's wretched and cruel and I wish more than anything that it wasn't so.'

‘I know,' Carmen said in a small voice. ‘There is nothing more to say.'

Marcus gave her another hug. ‘You can always talk to me, even if we have the same conversation over and over and over, you know that.' He checked his watch and frowned. ‘Except now. I'm sorry, the show starts recording in ten minutes, I'm going to have to get on. Is Sadie around? I don't want to think of you on your own.'

‘Actually, I think I just want to be on my own right now.'

‘Alright, Greta Garbo, I'll call you later. By the way, what's with the cactus?'

‘This is not just a cactus. This is Basil, he likes Motown.'

That comment received another arch of the eyebrow, ‘You've named a plant? Sweetie, you really need to go home and rest. Everything will seem better in the morning and you'll realise that Basil is just a plant with attitude.'