Got You Back (14 page)

Once her hair was finished she was exhausted by the effort of sitting still for so many hours, so she went downstairs to the beauty salon and was lucky enough to find there had been a cancellation. She treated herself to a massage and a glycolic facial, which left her skin rosy and glowing like a baby's. On the way home she bought magazines — trash about celebrities and their weight problems and who was going out with who — and organic sausages with ready-made mash for dinner. She texted James to say she was going over to her mother's, then took the phone out of its socket and turned off her mobile. She poured herself a glass of wine, fed Stanley a piece of steak that James had put in the freezer for himself, and which she had defrosted this morning, then curled up in the big armchair in the living room.

Stephanie had called earlier to unveil the next step in the plan. Katie could remember the day James had told her he no longer had any contact with his parents. They hadn't been seeing each other long and she had been touched by how much the estrangement seemed to pain him. He had tried everything, he'd said, to patch things up, but his mother and father wouldn't relent so he had had to give up. He had had to let it go, he'd said, looking saddened, otherwise it would have eaten him up. When she had pressed him to tell her exactly what the fall-out had been about he had concocted an elaborate story about his mother having taken Stephanie's side in the divorce because she felt he had been selfish to insist on spending half the week up north. ‘She said she thought I cared more about my career than my family.’

‘But the only reason you moved to London in the first place was for
Stephanie's
career!’ Katie had exclaimed indignantly.

‘Exactly,’ James had said. ‘I thought about saying that to her but I didn't want to look like I was trying to blame the whole thing on Steph. It was both our fault, we were equally to blame.’

‘You're such a nice person,’ Katie had said, and thinking about that now she laughed out loud.

‘So, we ended up having a flaming row. Mum told me what a disappointment I was, and Dad joined in, saying I'd let everyone down by allowing my marriage to break up. I left before I said something I regretted and I haven't spoken to them since.’

Katie had stroked his hair. ‘You poor thing.’

‘As long as Finn can see his grandparents, that's all I
care about now. I'm a grown-up. I can live without my parents.’

‘I couldn't stand not to see my mum,’ Katie had said. ‘I hope Stephanie appreciates what you did for her.’

James had laughed a forced laugh which, she had thought at the time, was tinged with sadness. ‘Oh, I doubt it.’

On a couple of other occasions when he had mentioned his childhood or his family she had got the distinct impression that his parents were very demanding, that he'd always felt their expectations had not been fulfilled.

‘But you're a vet,’ she'd said. ‘It doesn't get much more impressive than that.’

‘They don't think so. To be honest, I don't know what I'd have to do to impress them, really.’

So, when Stephanie had told her that James had a long conversation with both his doting parents at least once a week and that Pauline, his mother, always referred to him proudly as ‘my son the vet’ to anyone who would listen, she had been a little taken aback. She could understand now how important it was to him that his parents never came up to visit: it would blow apart his double life — but it had been such an elaborate lie, and he had told it with such relish. Stephanie had said they were good people, that they had to stage-manage next week very carefully to avoid Pauline and John getting hurt, and Katie was more than happy to go along with that. She had no desire to be mean to people she didn't even know and it seemed to her that they were just two more victims of James's deception. She felt sorry for them.

20

Fluffy O'Leary was pegged out on the operating table, tongue flopping out of the side her mouth while the anaesthetic did its work. It was a routine operation and one that James had performed hundreds of times before. Admittedly Fluffy was older than the average cat who came in to be spayed, but her owner, Amanda O'Leary, had felt strongly that she had to indulge Fluffy's natural female urges and allow her to have at least one litter of kittens before her womanhood was cruelly stripped away from her. Fluffy had duly been mated with some close male relative who was deemed to be worthy and had produced a brood of underweight sickly-looking kittens with red squinty eyes and runny noses, a symptom, no doubt, of too much inbreeding.

James had never been overly fond of Fluffy, who was about as unfluffy a cat as you could get and who had a tendency to bite and scratch whenever he went near her, but he couldn't help admiring how lithe her muscular form was so soon after having had five babies. Pity women aren't like that, he caught himself thinking, then chastised himself. Had he really become that shallow? Yes, probably, he told himself.

He had never quite got used to Steph's stretchmarks and the soft pouchiness of her stomach since she had had Finn. God, it would be so much easier being an
animal. You rarely saw a male dog who didn't feel like mating because the female had a bit of cellulite on her haunches. Mostly, with Steph, though, things had changed because she had suddenly seemed so aware of what he might be thinking. She had taken to getting changed with her back to him or even in the bathroom with the door closed. It was her self-consciousness he found offputting, not the changes to her body. It had made his arousal seem dirty and unwanted, something she was embarrassed by. Katie, on the other hand, was still uninhibited. A female dog, he thought, wouldn't bat an eyelid if her mate shagged half the bitches in the country. Animals so often got it right where humans failed.

He often found his mind wandering in this way during procedures and would suddenly realize that the nurse was handing him the suture to sew up the incision and the whole thing was over without him really even noticing. The first time it had happened he had worried for days about what might have gone wrong. Now he just accepted that this was his way of getting through the tedium. He scrubbed his hands, checked that Fluffy was coming round satisfactorily and headed upstairs to Reception to make a phone call before he had to greet his next patient.

His parents were arriving on Monday afternoon and he needed to ring Sally at the other surgery and get her to cancel his appointments so that he could go over and see them and still get home early enough so that Katie wouldn't wonder where he was. He had booked them tickets to see
The Importance of BeingEarnest
at the Theatre Royal for Monday evening, and had told them he was on call so he wouldn't be able to join them. Of course, they
understood that it wouldn't do to have his beeper go off in the middle of the performance. Now he just had to think of some way to get out of seeing them on Tuesday evening and he was in the clear. He would take a long lunch break on Tuesday and drive them to a pub somewhere, then on Wednesday he would pick them up at their hotel and ferry them down to London. He knew they'd be disappointed at not being taken to Lower Shippingham to see where he worked and meet his colleagues, but that would quickly be outweighed by their delight at seeing him at all and the knowledge that he'd made an effort to spend time with them. He was almost looking forward to it.

‘I just saw Sam McNeil,’ Sally said, as soon as she realized who she was talking to. ‘She's still going on about you buying the food for your dinner party from Le Joli Poulet and pretending you'd cooked it. God, what did you feel like when they found out?’

James remembered why he didn't really like Sally and why he must get round to replacing her. ‘Can you cancel everything I've got on Monday afternoon? See if Simon or Malcolm can handle any appointments that are hard to reschedule.’

‘Why? What are you doing?’ she said, and he thought, no, I really
must
sack this girl, she's awful.

‘That's none of your business,’ he snapped. ‘Just do it.’

He put down the phone without saying goodbye, his good mood punctured.

Stephanie and Natasha's dealings with Mandee Martin had so far proved to be much more straightforward than
those with their other two clients for the BAFTA awards. Mandee had lost the
y
and added the two
es
so as to differentiate herself from another girl called Mandy who was also famous for no one knew quite what. Both girls were trying to lose their surnames and become known by their first name alone. At present Mandy with a
y
was winning having gained two headlines in the last few weeks: ‘Mandy's Randy’ above a story in which she bemoaned her lack of a boyfriend and ‘Handy Mandy’, in which she had dressed up in dungarees and very little else and gone to the shop to buy some paint. Mandee could see that there was still potential for ‘Mandee's Dandy’ if she could get herself photographed with a dapper young man on her arm, or maybe ‘Bandy Mandee’ although that didn't sound like it would be too flattering. Neither Natasha nor Stephanie could understand why she was paying for the advice of a stylist but Mandy with a
y
apparently had one, so that was probably the reason. Mandee's brief was that she needed to wear something that would get her in the papers. It didn't matter what it was (a balaclava and a bowling ball with a sparkler sticking out of the top and ‘bomb’ written on the side, Natasha had suggested laughing, but Mandee didn't get it). Stephanie wasn't really comfortable with having Mandee as a client, but Natasha had assured her there was no danger of any journalist ever asking Mandee who her stylist was so they should just take the money and run.

Currently they were in Agent Provocateur trying to find the smallest piece of underwear that could be worn on its own without Mandee getting arrested. Stephanie was hoping that when Finn grew up no one would tell
him his mother had once encouraged a nineteen-year-old girl to go out for the evening more or less naked.

‘Maybe you should buy some of this stuff,’ Natasha said, holding up an admittedly very pretty thong and balcony-bra combination. ‘That'd give James something to think about.’

‘He probably wouldn't notice,’ Stephanie said glumly.

‘Apparently,’ Mandee piped up, ‘you should never let your man leave home without giving him a blow-job first. That way, even if he meets a gorgeous woman, he's not going to stray because he'll be thinking about what he's got at home.’

‘You really should be a marriage-guidance counsellor,’ Stephanie said. ‘Men'd be queuing up to take their wives to Relate if they thought you were going to give them advice like that.’

‘Well, that's according to some magazine I read.’

‘Let's have this conversation again a few years down the line when you've got a couple of kids and your husband's idea of grooming is pulling the hairs out of his nostrils with your tweezers.’

‘He doesn't?’ Natasha looked at Stephanie aghast.

‘You know Martin does it too. Your relationship just hasn't degenerated far enough for him to do it in front of you yet.’

‘You have to work at relationships. Make an effort.’ Mandee stood hands on hips, oblivious to the fact that passers-by in the street outside could get a great view of her standing there in her underwear.

Stephanie bristled. ‘Exactly how many relationships have you been in, Mandee? And I mean relationships, not
a quick one with some bloke whose name you haven't even bothered to ask.’

‘Steph.’ Natasha shot her a warning look.

Mandee was looking unfazed. ‘No, it's OK,’ she said. ‘Actually, I've been with my boyfriend since I was fourteen. I've never slept with anyone else.’

‘Really?’ Stephanie flushed. ‘Shit, sorry.’

‘Don't worry. Everyone just assumes I'm a slapper. I'm used to it.’

‘And do you… you know… every time, before he goes out?’ Natasha asked.

‘God, no. I was just telling you what I read in a magazine.’

‘Mandee, do you really want to go out dressed like that? I mean, can't we find you a nice dress or something?’ Stephanie rubbed her eyes. They were going to have no clients left soon if she kept on offending them all.

‘Do you think maybe you should take a couple of weeks off?’ Natasha asked tentatively as their taxi sped up Camden High Street.

‘And do what?’ Stephanie snapped.

‘I just think maybe you need a holiday, that's all.’

‘You mean you're worried I'm upsetting our clients?’

‘Well,’ Natasha said, ‘there is that, yes.’

‘I don't need to be lectured on relationships by a nineteen-year-old girl.’

‘I know. She was just trying to be nice. And, even if she wasn't, she's paying us so we can't start picking fights with her.’

Stephanie knew she was behaving like a sulky child
but she couldn't help herself. ‘By “we” you mean me, I take it?’

‘I mean both of us,’ Natasha said diplomatically. ‘I know they're annoying, Mandee and Santana and Meredith, but it's only a few weeks till the BAFTAs so we should just think of the money and bite our tongues.’

Stephanie exhaled loudly. ‘I know you're right but the last thing I need is time off now, OK? Maybe it was a mistake, dragging this thing with James out like this. Maybe I should just have told him to get out the minute I found out.’

‘Are you telling me you didn't get a tiny bit of pleasure from the dinner-party fiasco?’

Stephanie managed a smile. ‘Well, maybe a little.’

‘Just imagine his face when what's-her-name — Sam — read out what was on the receipt.’

Stephanie laughed. ‘Katie said he looked like a dog who'd been caught red-handed, eating someone's birthday cake.’

‘I love that he tried to deny it at first.’

‘Poor James,’ Stephanie said, without feeling. ‘And it's only going to get worse.’

21

James had found the past few days almost therapeutic. Away from the humiliating scene of the food incident — and, indeed, anyone who knew about it — it had been almost possible to forget that it had ever happened. He could go about his normal day-to-day business in London without having to listen to people's jovial comments about what to him was a major source of embarrassment. That was the trouble with living in a small village: everyone knew everyone else's business. It would be forgotten soon, some other piece of local gossip would rise up to eclipse it, but for now it felt painful being the butt of the joke. He had never been any good at laughing at himself.