Greatest Love Story of All Time (12 page)

He smiled slowly. I’d always disliked his thin, aristocratic face: it was the kind of face that gazed
solemnly at itself in a mirror for several hours each day.

‘Election show,’ he said silkily, sitting back in his new chair and logging in to the computer. ‘The team’s going to be based here, not Millbank. I’ve been doing your job,’ he added, when the incomprehension on my face failed to clear. I blushed again. Michael’s best friend, doing my job? Was this actually the worst joke in the history of the world?

I tried to regain my composure. ‘Ah. Well, thanks for that, Alex, much appreciated. I tell you what, I’ll get logged in and then you can start handing back to me.’ The idea of getting my teeth into Clever Politics was all that had got me out of bed this morning.

Alex looked me straight in the eye. ‘Sorry, I’m not explaining things very well. I took your place on the election team because they had no idea when you’d be back. They seem to think you’re suffering from some sort of gynaecological problem so I didn’t say anything about you and old Slater breaking up. Sorry about that, by the way,’ he added, clearly uncomfortable.

‘I’m fine about Michael,’ I said stiffly. ‘And we haven’t broken up, it’s a trial separation.’

He looked sceptical.

‘And I wasn’t having gynae problems either,’ I added quickly.

‘Well, either way, I’m sorry.’

The
weasel.
I resisted the urge to punch him in the crotch and set fire to the building, yelling, ‘YOU
NEVER THOUGHT I WAS GOOD ENOUGH ANYWAY.’

What had happened to my smooth transition back into work, during which I was smothered with sympathy and affection? My eyes filled with tears and I looked away towards Hugh’s office. He seemed to be watching me.

Alex snapped back into action. ‘Hugh wants you to stay on entertainment but I suggest you go and talk to him. In the meantime Eddie’s emailed you a handover from ents. Have a good morning.’ He put on some expensive Bose headphones and logged on to the election drive. I looked at my screen: I didn’t even have access to it.

‘Fran. Glad you’re better – sounded like a nasty illness.’ Hugh was walking past with a ginormous coffee in his hand. ‘’Fraid it’s back to ents for you – we needed the election team starting three weeks ago. But I’m giving you the Brit Awards to cheer you up – OK? The launch is at Renaissance tonight. You’ve got jis up your sleeve,’ he added, striding on.

I should be so lucky. It was butter.

As soon as Alex went to lunch I clicked on to Spikey PR and stared at Nellie Daniels’s page. What grooming, what poise, what crisp Chelsea coolness. She held my gaze defiantly. The idea that Michael could have seen her naked made me want to stick my head in an oven. And then, quite without warning, my hand did
something exceptionally stupid: it picked up the phone and called her direct line.

‘Hello, Nellie Daniels speaking?’

Her voice was deeper than I was expecting, but unmistakably Sloanish. I was mute.

‘Hello?’

I twirled the cord round my hand, my heart thumping. Lunchtime yoga said an email that had popped up in the corner of my screen. And out of nowhere I started speaking. ‘Hi. My name is Yolande and I’m calling from Inner Calm. We’re a new yoga and, erm, meditation centre in West London set up with the high-flying executive in mind.’

‘I’m sorry, I’m not interested.’

‘No problem. But let me at least send you our brochure?’

WHAT THE FUCK?

‘OK, fine. You must have found me on the website. My email’s there too. Thanks.’

Shit.
I had to see her, I had to see her, I had to see her.

‘One more thing, Mrs Daniels …’

‘Miss.’

Bollocks.

‘Ms Daniels. Our meditation classes for busy execs start on Wednesday next week and you’ve been specially selected for a free trial! It’s no strings attached and I know you’ll just love our set-up. The session is candlelit, with free healthy refreshments before and after. Ms Daniels, it’s
Paradise
!’

A pause. Bloody hell, she was actually thinking about it! I imagined what Leonie would say if she knew I was doing this. Or, worse, Stefania. She’d cut my head off, probably. Well, sod them. I was going in search of Nellie and no one was going to stop me. I needed to know what she had that I didn’t.

‘Well, I can’t say it doesn’t sound appealing. Where do you meet?’

‘We meet at … er … sorry, we’re new, as I said, so I keep forgetting! We’re based in a private suite at Renaissance in Notting Hill. Oh, and did I mention that you’re welcome to bring a partner?’

‘Thanks, but no – it’s early days with my boyfriend. Well, Yolande, I’ll say yes. Please email me the details. I have to go now. If you could copy in my assistant Tara Jenkins I’d appreciate it. Thanks.’

‘Great! See you a week on Wednesday, Ms Daniels.’

‘Nellie. Goodbye.’

It’s early days with my boyfriend.
How could she be going out with Michael? This abrupt, businesslike woman with a husky Prada-sunglasses-type voice and a personal assistant? Did Michael have to schedule blow jobs via Tara Jenkins? What the hell
was
this?

Then, sitting bolt upright, I realized what I’d just done. A meditation class for high-flying media execs? At the fucking Renaissance? The most expensive members’ club in town? This was the work of a complete mental case!
Cancel, Frances, cancel!
I picked up the phone and called Renaissance.

Hoping that perhaps they’d be booked up for months ahead, I was alarmed to find out that yes, they did indeed have just such a room available. It was late January and still freezing after all. After twenty minutes’ hard negotiation I managed to get them to reduce the hire fee to a mere two hundred pounds because I’d be bringing in a raft of desirables to whom they could tout membership. Within minutes, a hire contract had arrived in my inbox and I was entering my credit-card details.

And that, suddenly, was that. I had a room, and an exec seeking inner peace. I only needed to find an understanding Buddhist and nine other high-flyers. Piece of cake.

Oh, God.

I went to the toilet and rested my forehead on the cold white tiles, wondering if I had actually lost my mind.

I texted Leonie: Fancy a meditation class next Wednesday?

Of course I don’t. How’s work going? You OK? she replied.

No. Bloody Alex got transferred over here. Has taken my job on election team. Sitting next to me. Too fucked up for words. I texted back.

Oh dear! she replied. It seemed a little jolly, given the circumstances, but I had bigger fish to fry.

Over the next week I nearly died with the effort of not calling Michael. On several occasions I started
emails but I just couldn’t shake his words from my head: ‘If we have ninety days of total blackout, Franny, I’m sure we can sort things out.’ What ‘things?’
What
had gone so badly wrong and, more importantly, how had I failed to notice it? Pondering this painful conundrum, I felt more frustrated and stupid than ever. How had I failed to notice whatever was wrong? I must have seemed to Michael like a child so intent on eating her apple that she couldn’t see it was rotten.

‘I honestly don’t know,’ Leonie said tiredly, when I called her from a meeting room one lunchtime, crying uncontrollably and asking why the hell I’d been dumped. ‘He’s just … urgh, Fran, I don’t know what his fucking problem is.’

Sitting next to Alex was pure torture. It was like staring at a delicious cake I couldn’t eat, its still-warm sugary scent floating softly into my nostrils invitingly. The temptation to wrestle him to the ground armed with a staple gun and demand information about Michael and Nellie was unbearable. How long had it been going on? Was it serious? Was she great at oral?
WHAT THE FUCK?

But, of course, I remained silent. My pride could not take any further blows.

Scraping together the enthusiasm to do the job I’d loved for the last five years bordered on the impossible and the entertainment team seemed to be doing quite well without me. Most of my time, therefore,
was divided between stalking Nellie and finding media fools to join my meditation class.

By the end of my first week Alex had drawn up a ten-page dossier on David Cameron and I had put together a ten-page fully illustrated dossier on Nellie Daniels. (It was an outstanding piece of work by anyone’s standards. I had ten different pictures of her, featuring seven stonkingly crisp, tailored outfits, and a list of fifteen of her Facebook friends who had open profiles through which I could stalk her in the coming days. I had worked out that she lived on the Fulham Road and had discovered via her friend’s Facebook that she was going to a party at Boujis on Saturday. I knew her birthday, I knew how she’d met Michael’s brother-in-law Dmitri (a power lunch at Kensington Roof Gardens in 2002) and I knew that she was a member of the Richmond Park Running Club.

Most of all, I knew that I hated her. And that her life couldn’t have been more different from mine. My dossier on her read like a manual on how to be young and successful and glamorous in London: where to shop, where to eat, who to go drinking with, where to live. I imagined what a dossier on me would look like. It would probably have been dropped down the bog at some point and would be curly and dog-eared. It would note things like ‘eats kebabs’ and ‘wears dirty tracksuits’ and ‘has alcoholic mother’. Next to Nellie’s power-lunching existence, my life felt like a
lumpy old cowpat. Of
course
Michael wanted ninety days off from me if he’d got lucky with Nellie stinking Daniels.

It was unbearable.

On Thursday morning Alex received a call that I knew straight away was from Michael. ‘Hi,’ he said quietly. ‘Yes, hang on.’ He got up and sidled off into an empty edit suite. Naturally, I followed. ‘Sorry, she was sitting right next to me … No, I don’t think she knows. How could she?’

I felt sick.

‘Yeah, she just seems to be spending most of the day on the Internet.’ After a pause he started to laugh.

I fled.

Later that day I was roused from Nellie-stalking by a voice behind me saying, ‘Someone told me there’s a washed-up old bint who goes by the name of O’Callaghan sitting round here … You don’t know where I could find her, do you?’

I yelped and jumped up into a Dave Brennan hug. He’d been in Copenhagen doing climate change since I’d been back and I’d missed him. He pushed me away and held me at arm’s length, looking me up and down. ‘Fran, are you eating?’

‘Sort of.’

‘You have to eat, you scrote. Otherwise you’ll die. Get some pie, love. What happened to the girl who
crams bangers and mash down her gob on her own in the Union Tavern?’

Alex looked round and smiled. ‘Really?’ he said. ‘You do that, do you?’

I went red. Dave turned to him. ‘All right, Alex. Great outfit, mate,’ he said casually, peering at Alex’s Hackney waistcoat. God, I loved Dave. Alex reddened and turned back to his Cameron dossier. Dave raised an eyebrow. ‘Seriously, kid,’ he said more quietly, ‘you’ve got to eat. Got to keep up your strength!’ I nodded and, without warning, began to cry.

Dave pulled me away, shielding me from Alex’s view. ‘Oh, Franny, don’t cry,’ he said, as he thumbed away the tears that were pouring down my face. ‘Please, don’t cry.’ His kind, weather-beaten face showed his concern.

‘Sorry, Dave. I just – I just miss him so much. I think he’s seeing some posho called Nellie and I might just want to die with the horror of it all,’ I mumbled.

After a while he pulled me back into a hug. He smelt of fags and an old-fashioned spicy cologne. ‘I know how it feels,’ he said quietly.

‘Shut up. You’re going out with the most beautiful woman on the planet. You don’t know the first thing about heartbreak,’ I cried into his armpit.

He pulled away. ‘Fannybaws,
you
don’t know the first thing about my love life,’ he said, after a pause. ‘Of course I’ve been where you are now. But it gets better. OK? Easier. Come on. Go to the loo and
wash your face – you look like road kill.’ He handed me a tissue from his pocket.

‘OK. But while we’re on the topic of your beautiful girlfriend, could you spare her for a meditation class on Wednesday at Renaissance? I’ve organized one and I need to fill it up.’

Dave suppressed a snigger. ‘Seriously? Since when were you into meditation?’

‘Stop it, Dave. I need inner calm. Just make sure she’s there.’ He ruffled my hair and loped off into an edit suite where Hugh was watching his footage.

‘How’re the election plans going, Alex?’ I asked, in as companionable a fashion as I could muster. I’d enjoyed Dave’s put-down very much but I couldn’t really afford to fall out with Alex. ‘Stressful?’ I added hopefully.

Alex laughed. ‘Not really,’ he said, swinging his chair round to face me. ‘No. Politics is my heartland, just like entertainment is yours. It’s second nature. I’m just beginning a dossier on Nick Bennett, actually.’

I didn’t like his raised eyebrow. Was he giving me a Significant Look? No. I was being paranoid. ‘Oh, right! Lots of material there,’ I said brightly. But he was still looking at me like he Knew Stuff. ‘You picked him at the right time,’ I continued. ‘Bound to be in the cabinet if the Tories win!’

Alex smiled. I decided I definitely hated him.

‘I’m not so sure. I think he’s got some issues in his private life that might get in the way of that,’ he said.

My palms pricked. He surely couldn’t know about Nick and Mum. No one knew! Not even Mum’s bloody sister! He continued to watch me with a rather awkward expression on his face. ‘Oh? How do you mean? Has he been fiddling expenses, too, then?’ I asked. My voice was a little shrill.

‘No. I was referring to his … to his family life. I’ve been spending a lot of time with his aides during my research. I discovered some surprising stuff,’ Alex said. ‘But it won’t go anywhere.’ He winked at me.

What the fuck?

He knew.

I felt suddenly like I might like to be sick and knew I needed to change the subject immediately. ‘How’s Michael?’ I blurted out.

The name hung in the air like a fart on the Victoria Line.

Alex seemed a little surprised. ‘He’s good. But I don’t think we should be talking about him. You’re upset enough as it is.’