Can We Still Be Friends (19 page)

The door slammed behind her as she walked out into the corridor, just as Jackson and Mimi reached the bottom of the stairs.
Jackson’s hand was clearly fondling Mimi’s bum. It took only a second, almost less, when he saw her, for him to adjust his face into a generous smile, moving away from Mimi and grasping Sal lightly by the shoulders in an embrace.

‘Sal. You’re looking great. That colour really suits you.’ He leant in to kiss her cheek.

Sal jumped back, words and thoughts circling her mind, but she was silenced by confusion as she debated which
bon mot
should emerge first – ‘You complete prick’? ‘I’ve always thought you were crap’? ‘Don’t pretend you aren’t getting off with that cold bitch I met today’? ‘How can you be such a shit?’

Jackson smoothly introduced Mimi. ‘Mimi, this is Sal, a pal of mine from London. Great place, isn’t it? I always try and drop by when I’m in New York. Keith’s a terrific guy.’

‘We met earlier today, at the office,’ Mimi said, with clear distaste. ‘She was on the press junket we persuaded Michael to do.’

‘Jackson’s my best friend’s boyfriend, you might be interested to know, and he’s a total shit,’ Sal heard herself say, her voice surprisingly calm when she finally spoke. She was oblivious to Mimi’s pointed downgrading of her precious interview. ‘He’s been a shit from day one,’ she restated icily, ‘but, unfortunately, Annie is too sweet and kind and beautiful to realize it.
You
are much better suited.’ She shoved past the couple, back up the stairs as quickly as she could, both to get away and to prevent them seeing the widening gash of the ladder in her tights, now highlighted by the white soap.

‘I’ve got to have another drink. It’s an emergency,’ she gasped when she got back to the table. As another bottle was produced and she told Broadhurst the story, painting Jackson as a professional cad, she failed to notice that his interest was quite obviously on the wane. He’d taken a pen from the jacket beside him and was doodling on a scrap of paper. ‘He thinks he’s irresistible, one of those men whose dick is always halfway outside their pants. And the thing about Annie is she’s just so
nice
. There isn’t anybody who wouldn’t love her. She only wants to meet the perfect guy and have babies, really. That makes her sound boring, but she isn’t. It’s just
the way she is.’ Sal paused only to gulp at the champagne. Her date was now looking around the large room, clearly for an escape route. ‘Kendra, she’s our other friend, thinks it’s probably to do with her dad dying when she was still quite young. That seems a bit obvious to me, but Kendra’s done quite a lot of psycho-stuff. Anyway, it’s awful, it’s really awful. If it were me – not that I would have had anything to do with him in the first place – I could deal with it. I know how to survive all that crap. Annie doesn’t.’

At this point, Michael Broadhurst nodded sympathetically and placed his napkin on his plate deliberately.

‘You should be going, don’t you think?’ he asked as he gestured for the bill, whatever oblique interest he might initially have had in Sal now utterly dispersed, as her compact, feline attraction was replaced by a less appealing slurring floppiness. ‘You have a flight tomorrow, don’t you? Is it the daytime or the red eye?’ He handed her the white slip of paper but she couldn’t take in the long list of items.

‘I imagine the
Herald
’s standing us this dinner.’ It was not a question. There seemed to be all kinds of things at the bottom of the bill – taxes, and God knows what else. Was she meant to tip? She couldn’t. The bill left her only fifteen dollars of the float she had taken out with her to the States. When Andrea had handed her the envelope of cash, she had made it clear that she expected Sal to come back with some. The senior staff like Stuart and Patrick had American Express cards, but a junior wasn’t eligible for a company credit card and she certainly didn’t have one herself. Her cheque limit was £50 – not that she could use cheques in New York – and, anyway, she didn’t have £50 in her account.

As Broadhurst mouthed ‘Catch you in a minute’ to a table where Debbie Harry-lookalike twins were holding court, he manoeuvred her outside, to where a few cabs were waiting. One minute they were on the pavement, and the next, without quite knowing how, she found herself in the back of one, the door slammed behind her. He blew a kiss off his hand and headed back into the restaurant. ‘Good luck with the piece.’

She’d blown that, hadn’t she, thought Sal, opening the window to help relieve the sickness she was feeling as the cab drove back uptown, weaving through the potholed streets. The whole thing had been strange. He was odd. What had he wanted in the first place? When she’d met him in the morning, she thought he might fancy her, but it hadn’t turned out like that. Maybe he
was
gay. Though why had he asked for a girl to interview him then? Was it a double bluff? Anyway, it wasn’t her fault, although God knows how she was going to deal with Andrea over the money.

Switching on the television back in the hotel, she flicked through the channels. It was incredible when you thought they only had four back home. She didn’t feel at all tired. On the contrary, she was wound up and angry: her date had been confusing, since he didn’t fancy her and didn’t want her to write it up. But that didn’t matter really, not like running into Jackson. That meeting, combined with the large amount of alcohol she had drunk, convinced her that she had a duty to sort this thing out. She picked up the receiver, asked for the hotel switchboard and gave them the number of Cranbourne Terrace, waiting to hear the English ring tone.

‘Hello?’ Annie’s voice was soft, sleepy.

‘Annie, it’s me, Sal.’

‘Are you OK? What’s the matter? Where are you? Are you still in New York? What time is it?’

‘Yeah. Oh, I don’t know, about midnight, I guess. I just saw Jackson.’

‘What do you mean? Why are you calling me in the middle of the night?’

‘Annie. You’ve got to dump him. He was in this restaurant. The Odeon. I was there with Michael, and I saw him with his tongue down Mimi’s throat. Mimi is the ultimate horrible PR for the penultimately horrible Michael. He was all over her. I promise you. You’ve got to get out of this.’

‘You’re drunk. You’re crazy and drunk like you always are. I can’t believe you’re doing this – calling me out of the blue and waking me up to tell me this.’

‘Well, yes, I’ve had a few drinks – guilty as charged – but that doesn’t mean I didn’t see him. I told him what a bastard he was, Annie. How he didn’t deserve you. You know, I always thought something like this was going to happen. How many other girls is he getting off with? Annie, you’ve got to think about yourself. You deserve better.’

‘I don’t want to hear. You don’t think, do you? You just do what comes into your head and you never, ever think. Maybe, just maybe, I didn’t want to know.’ Annie’s voice had a catch to it as she slammed the receiver down.

Sal lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. The room was starting to move around her. She fixed her eyes on the smoke alarm wedged into the corner of the room and waited for the spinning to stop.

The effort required for Annie to move from her bed, with the commitment to the day that action would imply, was too great. It had been a month since she had broken up with Jackson, and she wasn’t even beginning to feel any better. If anything, the pain was getting worse. She could feel it sometimes, stabbing in her chest. This must be what heartache felt like. She’d never known it really existed.

‘I really loved him, otherwise it couldn’t hurt like this,’ she had told Kendra the previous evening on the phone as she sat, like she had every other evening that week, staring out of the windows. The fact that London had exploded with the lushness of early summer, the evenings light, the garden squares filled with flowers, made her unhappiness even more acute. This was one of her favourite times of year and she was absolutely miserable.

To make it worse, she was furious with Sal. Surely your friends were meant to make you feel better, not worse. If Sal hadn’t told her then Annie wouldn’t have known. If she hadn’t known, then she would have still been with Jackson and, maybe, she wouldn’t have had to feel the way she did this morning – every morning. She would still be able to sit in the cinema with him, holding his hand through the whole film, his thumb stroking her palm. She would be able to watch him watch her undress, an intensity in his gaze and an admiration for her body that never seemed to dim. And, most of all, she would be able to look forward to seeing him, to hearing his voice on the phone, to waiting for the doorbell to ring so she could rush down the stairs and find him sitting in that big black Jeep, outside in the street. And now all that had gone.

It had seemed like for ever between Sal’s early-morning call from New York and Jackson’s return to London, even though it was only
a few days. She was in the office typing out a press release when he rang.

‘Annie. Hi. I’m back. When can we meet?’

She had been dreading the call. It meant she had to finally decide to break up.

‘How about tonight?’

‘Hmmm. Could be a little difficult. Are you free Friday?’ Friday? She couldn’t wait that long. If enough time passed she knew she would find excuses for his behaviour. After all, she had up until now.

‘Can you have a drink after work tonight? It’s important.’

‘Okaaay? Anything you want to tell me over the phone?’

‘No.’ Annie wished she wasn’t aware of Lee pretending not to look at her from across the office. She could practically see his ears moving.

‘OK. Seven at the King’s Head.’

Annie left her desk and ran down the stairs. She’d been crying so often over the past few days that she was thinking of moving her desk around so that she faced the wall and not into the room, where everyone could see her. She looked at her watch. Only four more hours till the end of everything.

‘It’s Jackson, isn’t it?’ Lee had come out to stand in the street with her. ‘What’s going on? You look a right mess.’

Annie held on to the building’s painted railing, staring into the basement well housing the rubbish bins.

‘Yes. I’m dumping him. Tonight. But I don’t want to. I don’t know if I’ll see it through.’

‘So why are you then? Sorry to sound thick … Shit. Do you think this is a moth hole?’ He held out the skirt of his kilt to Annie. It was his current favourite, and he prided himself on the particularly fetching combination of the tartan and his treasured aviator jacket.

Annie told him the story, including a conversation with Kendra, who she had hoped might say that there was no reason to dump Jackson and that things might work out. But although Kendra had
rushed out to have a cup of tea with Annie as soon as she had rung, she hadn’t let her off the hook and offered a reprieve.

Kendra could see her friend’s misery in her swollen eyes and puffy face, as if unhappiness was crawling around under her skin.

‘Thing is, Annie, I know it was crazy of Sal to call you like that – completely mad. Waking up to hear Sal drunk on the phone on the other side of the Atlantic telling you about Jackson and some American girl, it’s unbearable. I can imagine it all too well. But it’s not like everything’s been really straightforward, is it? He doesn’t seem to be that committed to you, and you’re always worrying about when you’re going to see him next. It’s like, well, it’s not a very equal relationship.’

‘You mean like you and Gioia?’ Annie said dully, stirring a spoon round and round in her cooling cup of tea.

‘No, I don’t mean that. We’re not talking about me and Gioia. But I don’t see how you can just ignore this. Don’t you think you’d feel better if you were with somebody who you could really trust?’

Annie didn’t think she’d feel better, ever, with anybody other than Jackson, but she knew that would sound ridiculous.

‘Come on.’ Lee linked arms with her as he listened. ‘Tania’s out, and we can skive off for half an hour.’ He marched her down to the local park a couple of blocks away, where they strolled along the paths of crimson and pink rhododendrons and azaleas, the plop of tennis balls mixed with the shrieks of small children. Annie was grateful for the cotton handkerchief he had given her from his pocket, even if it wasn’t completely clean.

‘You know, you don’t have to listen to Sal and Kendra. They can’t live your life for you. Friends always want to interfere. It’s like when I knew Jayjay was screwing his nuts off somewhere every night I wasn’t with him. Everyone told me he was nicknamed the Corkscrew, and I just didn’t want to know, because when we were together it was great. But I have to admit, in the end, I’m better off without him. At the time you break up it looks like there’s nothing out there, but after you get over the first bit, it changes and it’s exciting. Any day, any time, you might meet someone else.’

‘That’s a very optimistic way to look at it. The worst bit is that I know everybody is right.’

‘Now. Let’s get our priorities straight. What are you going to wear?’

‘This, I suppose. I can’t go home and change.’

Lee looked disparagingly at Annie’s outfit – a white shirt with a Peter Pan collar and a droopy navy skirt.

‘No, you are not. You are going to look your best. Make him ache with longing for you. Tell you what. Give me your keys and I’ll dash over to the flat and get you kitted out. I’ve got to collect something for Tania in Kensington anyway, so if I leg it, she won’t notice.’

‘But you won’t know where anything is.’

‘Can’t be that difficult to find stuff. Anything would be better than that sad look you’ve got on today – third-rate Princess Di stuff. Trust me. I’m a bloke, but I’ve got unusually good taste.’

By the time Annie was walking to the King’s Head, Lee had achieved his aim and, even in her distress, she knew she was looking good. He’d returned from the flat brandishing a black and pink polka-dot dress that she’d found in Portobello Market with a tight bodice that fitted her perfectly, accentuating her narrow back before flaring into a wide skirt.

‘It’s not totally sappy fifties revival. It’s got a nice dash of punk to it’ was Lee’s verdict. In the top drawer of his desk, he had a complete make-up kit.