Barefoot in the Dark (24 page)

‘
There
you are!’

Madeleine’s voice, mere seconds later, entered the office along with a bright stripe of light, as she’d swung open the door, blinding Hope. It had grown quite dark. She hadn’t realised. Madeleine flicked on the light switch.

Hope was on her knees beside Simon, who was crying. Great gulping sobs as he rocked on his haunches. Her hands were shaking, she realised.

‘Hope?’ Madeleine said, peering across the office at them. ‘What’s happened? Is Simon all right?’

Hope could hear him trying to still his sobs.

‘He’s fine,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘Just fine. No panic. Just tripped on one of the computer leads trying to pick up his pen. You’re all right, aren’t you, Simon?’ He made some sort of noise.

Madeleine was crossing the office now, and Hope, still with her back to the door, swivelled her head to catch Madeleine’s eye.

‘Too much champagne, eh?’ she said, ostensibly to Simon, but inclining her head and signalling with her eyes to let Madeleine know not to press. She would have to tell her, of course. She couldn’t not. But not now. Not with everyone around. ‘I think we’re all a bit worse for wear,’ she went on. ‘Maybe you could call him a taxi or something? Wouldn’t do to have the other staff see you like this, eh, Simon?’ She felt his shoulders heave beneath her hands.

Madeleine, though clearly perplexed, was also blessed with a quick brain and a keen nose for trouble. She nodded. Stuck a thumb up. Winked knowingly.

‘Absolutely,’ she said now, while rolling her eyes at Hope and grinning. ‘No problem. On its way. Hey, Si? I’ll make sure they save you some cake.’

And she was gone. Hope rose to her feet, heaving Simon up too and hooking his chair with her ankle. He sat down on it listlessly, silent and acquiescent. He was, she realised, far more drunk than she’d thought. The sour tang of alcohol eddied around him as he breathed. His knuckles looked livid. Two angry cuts oozed bright red blood. She found a packet of tissues in her desk drawer and wrapped several around his hand, which was already swelling, then spat on another and rubbed away the smear of blood on the wall. He watched all this through glazed eyes.

‘Right,’ she said finally, not knowing quite what to do or say to him, and retreating to the safer ground of getting organised instead. ‘That’ll have to do. I’ll go and get your coat for you and fetch you once the cab arrives, OK?’

He lifted his head and looked up at her. ‘Thank you,’ he said dully.

‘Do you want some water or anything? A coffee?’ He shook his head. ‘Right then. I’ll be back soon.’

* * *

‘I need a proper drink,’ declared Madeleine some forty-five minutes later, once everyone else had left and the offices were dark and silent again. ‘And so do you, by the looks of it. You in a hurry to get home?’

Hope looked at her watch. It wasn’t yet nine. And no, she wasn’t in a hurry to get home. She felt too strung out. Too tearful. All out of energy for dealing with people. Besides, with her mother out of commission at the moment, she’d had to ring round and get the girl down the road to babysit. She’d come with her boyfriend. No. She’d be in no rush. Hope shook her head. ‘Now I’m out, I may as well get my money’s worth, eh?’ So they walked the few streets to the local wine bar, and perched themselves gratefully on stools at the bar.

‘Ah, a cigarette at last,’ Madeleine said, pulling a packet from her handbag. ‘You can’t imagine what a trial it is having to pretend I don’t smoke all the time. Makes me feel like a naughty school girl.’

‘What
I
need,’ said Hope, resting her elbows on the bar top and sipping tentatively at her expresso, ‘is a large mug of cocoa, some slippers and a hot water bottle, and to go to bed – under a candlewick bedspread, ideally – and stay there for the rest of my life. Look! See? My hands are still shaking. Can you believe that? Do you think he broke anything?’

Madeleine lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. ‘God. That’s better.’ She shook her head. ‘Broke anything? I doubt it.’ She winked. ‘Bar his heart.’

‘You didn’t see it. He really punched it hard, Maddie. God, it was horrible. What got into him?’

Madeleine smiled broadly as she drank a mouthful of red wine. ‘Well, half a bucket of Sainsbury’s finest, for one thing. But mainly you, of course, sweetie. What else? It would be rather romantic if it wasn’t so pathetic. Just goes to show. You never know with people, do you?’

Hope felt this statement to be profoundly true. She felt she didn’t know anything about anyone any more. ‘But Simon? Simon, of all people! If I’d had the first idea –’

‘Come on, darling. He’s been mooning over you since the day you started. No. Tell a lie. Before that, even. He used to come back to the office with a dozy expression on his face when you were still helping out at the shop. It was only ever a matter of time.’

‘Yes, but the way he lunged at me! I mean I know he’s been keen on me, but if I’d thought for one minute he’d behave like that – he really didn’t have a clue. He really thought I was up for it. I was gobsmacked! I wouldn’t mind, but I’ve never given him even the tiniest indication that I was interested in him. Never!’

Madeleine placed a hand on Hope’s forearm. ‘Darling, you are so touchingly naïve. You didn’t need to. Some men are highly accomplished self-deluders. And you are just the sort of woman that men like that have no difficulty fixing their fantasies upon.’

‘Me? How d’you work that out?’

‘Because you’re just so damn sweet and pretty, honey.’

‘Come on!’

‘Believe me, you are. Hope, if I was gay, even
I’d
fancy you, sweetheart.’ She laughed. ‘You just have those looks that bring out the beast in a man.’

‘Thanks, but I think I already knew that. Iain was perfectly civilised when I met him.’ She pushed her coffee away. Perhaps she needed a real drink too. ‘Oh, stop depressing me, will you? I don’t want a beast. What do I have to do? Become one?’

‘God, Hope, no. Stay as sweet as you are. It’s just something you have to factor into your dealings with men, that’s all. Mind you, you are way too nice. If he’d tried it on with me like that, you wouldn’t have caught me patting him and offering to call him a taxi. I’d be too busy stamping on his other hand.’

‘I know, I know. But I just felt so guilty. I mean, what is it with him? Months and months of looking like he’s – Christ – and then this!’

Maddie flicked her ash into the ashtray. ‘He has a little difficulty expressing himself, our Simon. Bit of baggage, that’s all.’

‘Baggage? What sort of baggage?’

‘Oh, I don’t know the ins and outs, but I believe he was jilted. There was certainly an engagement, or so Betty told me. Five or six years ago. I think she pulled out pretty close to the wedding. Like I say, I don’t know the details. And I certainly haven’t asked. He keeps himself pretty much to himself, but to the best of my knowledge, there hasn’t been anyone since. You want a text book on low self-esteem? Well he wrote it.’

‘I should have read it. God, what a mess. This has been brewing up for months, and I’ve just shut my eyes and let it. I’ve been running with him so often –’

‘Well, there’s that for starters. Frankly, sweetie, with a body like yours, it doesn’t do to don Lycra with a man you’ve no carnal designs on. He’s probably been trotting round ogling that little bottom of yours, thinking his excitable little thoughts, planning his little campaign, imagining his –’

‘Oh, don’t, Maddie!’ Hope put her face in her hands. ‘I
know
. God, I can’t imagine how he must be feeling right now. How’s he going to face me tomorrow?’

‘That’s his problem, darling. Not yours.’

‘Maybe, but how am I going to face him?’

‘Look. Do you want me to speak to him?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Is there any point?’

‘Probably not. Unless you want to slap a harassment action on his head, I’m happy enough to let it go. Look, it’s done now. At least it’s brought it to a head. And let’s face it – it
was
an office party. Everyone does appalling things at office parties. Even the Simons of this world, apparently. So – hey - there’s hope for him yet! Er… ’ She raised her glass. ‘No pun intended, of course.’

Hope wished she was still married. Wished it vehemently and profoundly. She didn’t wish she was still married to Iain, of course, she just wished she could return, by some miracle, to the safely married state. She wished she didn’t have to inhabit the real world any longer. Or could inhabit it differently. In a nun’s habit and iron knickers, or with an obsessive compulsion to play bowls. Sex, it felt, had never loomed larger in her life. It was all around her, latent yet suffocating. It was all too exhausting, this business. Too time-consuming and racked with anxiety and insecurity. Too much a world of playing games. Of small rushes of hope and great storm clouds of disappointment. She thought she’d done that bit. She
had
done that bit. But now she was back, full circle, doing it all again, only this time with the handicap of hard knocks and experience, and the awful knowledge that the field on which she was now playing was no longer in the premier league. That most of the players on the other team were either the subs that didn’t get a game last time, or the ones that got injured, or the ones that got sent off.

Which made her at once think of football and Oliver Valentine, which took her instantly, wretchedly, straight back to Jack Valentine, which made her feel hopeless and sad. There were so few nice, normal men on the planet, and, depressingly, so very many Simons.

Chapter 25

Stick with it, thought Jack. That was the thing. A routine was comfortable and familiar. Routine didn’t invoke much in the anxiety department. Didn’t change, didn’t tax, and didn’t make demands.

When he’d got back from the hospice he had sat straight down in the middle of the lounge floor and tipped out all his files for the book. In fact, THE book, because it said so in bold marker pen on the side of the box. He didn’t remember having written the words. An act of confidence, he supposed, from more optimistic times. Whatever. It was a joke, any idea he might have had about getting it finished soon. That simply wasn’t going to happen, and he just had to accept it.

But finish it he would, if not this year than next. It wasn’t much of an ambition. Wasn’t an ambition at all, really. Not now. Now it was more of a need. That he’d finish it, get it published, do whatever it took. Just so he could put those precious words on the flyleaf:
for my father, with all my love
.

The file had all still been there when he set off for the studios the following morning. Sorted and organised, looking like business. Looking like he might yet make something of it. Filling him with hope that he actually could.

‘You’re wanted,’ Hil announced as soon as she saw him. She nodded. ‘Upstairs. By the boss. One-fifteen.’

While Jack was busy getting his show out, he didn’t think a great deal about this summons. Which was for the best, he decided afterwards, or he might just have got straight back in his car and gone home.

‘I’m not going to waste your time with small talk,’ Graham said. Which told Jack he wasn’t going to like what he was going to hear next. He was getting used to this.

‘My contract,’ he said.

Graham nodded, looking sad. Jack wondered how many years of this sort of meeting had sculpted the sincerity he could see writ upon his face. But he liked Graham. He wouldn’t want his job.

‘As you know, we’re making some pretty big changes.’

Jack nodded too.

‘One of which is with the daytime schedules.’

‘And my show’s axed.’

Graham sighed now. ‘You got it, mate. I’m sorry.’

Jack shifted in his chair and crossed his legs. He thought Graham probably genuinely was sorry. They went back a long way, he and Graham. Back to the day when he’d sat in this very office, probably only days after someone else had sat in it, hearing the same news he was hearing now.

He shrugged. ‘That’s life,’ he said simply. Because it was.

But Graham was still grimacing. ‘We’re giving the slot to Patti,’ he added quickly, as if anxious to have his worst news hitch a ride with the first news, the better to minimise the pain. ‘Quotas, you know. That sort of thing. A change of emphasis. The Target Listener and all that.’

Jack shrugged. He did know. This was how things worked. He wasn’t even surprised, once he thought about it. Why wouldn’t they give the show to Patti? She was a vibrant and talented broadcaster. In her twenties, leggy, and, intermittently at least, blonde. He made a big show of smiling in a nonchalant manner.

‘Hey, I can take it,’ he said. ‘In fact, the timing’s about perfect. I was thinking it was perhaps time for a new challenge. Easy to get stale.’

Graham looked relieved. ‘I’m glad you said that,’ he answered. ‘Because actually, potentially, there is some rather good news, too. Sport Scene.’ This was a show Jack had at one time presented on Saturdays. Till he’d got Valentine’s Day. Did he really want to take that up again? It felt like demotion. Stupid, but it did.

‘What about it?’ he said. ‘Is Connor moving on then?’ Connor, who was thirty and on a roll and ambitious. A little like he’d been. Full circle.
C’est la vie
.

Graham grinned. ‘Of course not! No, I mean how do you feel about taking over as producer? They’ve not quite crossed the I’s, so don’t broadcast this one yet, but Brian’s moving over to ITV Wales.’

Brian had come to them from television in the first place, following a move down from London five years back. They’d been lucky to get him, and they’d known they wouldn’t keep him.

‘Really?’ Jack’s brain began whirring in an altogether unsavoury way. Was that why Allegra’s show hadn’t been commissioned? Because Brian’s had? What a bloody irony that would be. He wondered which big name he’d managed to poach for it. Then stopped wondering, abruptly. He realised he didn’t care.

Graham was nodding. ‘You’d make a good fist of it, mate. You know you would. But take some time to think it over. No hurry.’

No, thought Jack, no hurry at all. He rather wished time would just stop.

‘Coo, get you!’ said Patti when he returned downstairs. She was flicking through the brochure for the Cardiff Bay development that Charlie Jones had given him, and it occurred to him that either she didn’t know what had just happened or she was making a fine job of pretending she didn’t. The former, he judged. The former, he
hoped
.

He scowled at it now. ‘You can bin that,’ he told her.

‘How so?’

‘Because.’

‘Because what?’

He hadn’t the energy. Not today. ‘Because nothing.’

She laughed at him. ‘You’re not getting enough, Jack.’

‘Enough what?’

‘Enough sex.’

‘Is that right?’

‘That’s right. I can see it in your eyes. Tell you what. You wanna come clubbing with me later?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘You should.’

‘I don’t think so,’ he said again.

Patti poked him. ‘You old saddo.’

He nodded. ‘You got it.’

He wasn’t
that
old, but he was sure as hell sad.

‘I want to apologise.’

It was almost five-thirty, and Hope had not seen anything of Simon since the night of Kayleigh’s party. Madeleine, having spoken to him, had decided to have him work at home for a couple of weeks. It was year-end, so this was perfectly reasonable. There’d been emails, of a ‘ variety, but no phone calls, no contact, no nothing. It was a relief having him gone from the office. She supposed he was licking his wounds.
Hope. VAT receipt for this? Can you clarify?
’

But this afternoon he had arrived for some meeting with Madeleine and now everyone else had gone and they were alone in the office. He sat down heavily on the chair on the other side of her desk.

‘You don’t need to, Simon,’ she said levelly. ‘It’s forgotten. I’ve forgotten it. OK?’

He seemed to wince. Straight away, she realised this was the wrong thing to say. Or the right thing, perhaps. She must stop being kind to him.

‘I haven’t,’ he said.

‘Well, you should,’ she persisted. ‘If we’re going to carry on working together, you must.’

He managed a smile. A tight and halting affair, which made his face, already pasty under the striplight, look like a wax mask.

‘Just like that, eh?’ he said. There was no sarcasm in his voice, only sadness.

Hope put her pen down.

‘No, Simon. Not just like that. Look, I’m sorry too. I feel awful about it. What else can I say to you?’

He didn’t answer. His face was a picture of perfect misery, and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. He remained sitting, as if uncertain whether there was anything further he needed to add. Then he stood up.

‘And I wanted to let you know I’m looking around,’ he said finally. Horribly sadly. ‘So don’t worry. You won’t have to feel awful for too long.’

There was no malice in his voice, but, even so, as he walked out of the office she had to bite her lip to stop herself calling after him, taking him to task about what exactly he meant.
She
hadn’t done anything wrong.
He
had. So how come his words made her feel so guilty? Hope felt her whole body slump in her chair. She didn’t want to be part of so much hurt. It hurt her, too. She sat for several minutes with her face in her hands, and felt utterly wretched and alone. It didn’t matter how much she told herself it wasn’t her fault, that this wasn’t her doing, there was still someone out there wretched and unhappy and suffering and the cause was irrefutably herself. It felt like an impossible weight to have to carry, and she didn’t feel up to the job.

She didn’t mean for Jack Valentine to be in her head again. She just wanted someone to give her a cuddle. Was that so much to ask out of life?