Somewhere Only We Know (28 page)

And dissecting Nadia’s love life, of course.

“So you just left it like that?” Caro repeated for about the third time that morning. “With so much unsaid?”

Nadia felt her face go pink. “It’s not that it was unsaid. It just…”

“Wasn’t said,” Caro supplied dryly when Nadia left her sentence hanging a shade too long. “I see.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Well, he broke up with that bit he’s been hankering after for yonks for you. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is!” Caro laughed, causing Nadia to flush further.

Nadia distracted herself by holding up and shaking out a metallic silver blouse with ornate buttons – a bit showy for her purposes. She moved it across to the ‘no’ pile. “Do you have anything a bit less… exciting?”

“No. I’m an exciting sort of gal.”

Nadia reached up on reflex to snag the acid-yellow silk top that Caro was throwing at her out of the air. “Seriously, Caro, I’m thinking nice sensible dress and blazer here.”

Caro was back in the depths of the wardrobe. “You want to make an impact!” was her only retort.

“Perhaps, but I don’t think I’m going for the sort of impact that neon provides,” was Nadia’s tactful response, as she loosely folded the yellow top and placed it atop the “no” pile.

“So, you’re just not going to talk about it until, what, next week?” Caro continued as if Nadia had never changed the subject. “How can you stand it?”

“I’m trying to stay focused, is all.
You
are not helping with that, by the way.”

“I only signed on to help with the clothes,” Caro replied smartly. “How about this?” She held up a plain wrap dress in a soft, deep grey – the colour of smoke in the dark. Nadia reached out to touch the hemline.

“It’s beautiful,” she agreed. “Much more what I was thinking.”

Caro moved closer to the bed, dropping the dress gently so that the material pooled in Nadia’s lap. “Okay, then.” She patted Nadia on the shoulder in a way that reminded her of something her grandmother used to do. “You’re going to look great. And it’s going to be fine.”

“It’s going to be fine,” Nadia echoed automatically.

“And then, lucky girl, you’ll be getting the visa
and
the man,” laughed Caro, moving away to scoop up the “no” pile in her arms. “This has been a really good summer. I’m so glad we’re both loved up at the same time!”

Nadia watched her friend move back into the wardrobe, tasting the comment she wanted to make inside her mouth, barely managing to swallow it back. “Uhuh.”

“Now we just have to find someone for Holly!”

And there it was: an opening.

“True.” Nadia ensured that the utmost nonchalance was in her tone. “What about Rory?”

There was a definite pause. Even the hangers that had been rattling on the rail swung to a halt.

“No,” came Caro’s disembodied voice. “Not Rory. Not Rory and Holly.”

“Really? Why not? I think they’d be cute together,” Nadia pushed.

“Nah.” Caro emerged looking harried. “Holly’s too sweet for him. He needs someone with a little more… bite,” she finished, with a jut of her jaw. Nadia smothered a smile.

“I thought you didn’t even like Rory.”

“I like him fine.” Caro needlessly smoothed down her bedsheets with agitated fingers.

“You know, I thought in Brighton that there was a little something, something going on between the two of you…” Nadia pressed.

Caro shot her a look loaded with warning. “Nothing went on between us. I was with Monty.”

“Well, you weren’t, though, were you? Not that weekend, anyway. You hadn’t heard from him for a month.”

Caro’s face shuttered and Nadia knew she’d gone too far. “Well, it all turned out well, didn’t it?”

“I suppose…”

“Look, I know you don’t like Monty, Nads.” Nadia blinked – she thought she had been quite subtle. “You’ve never liked him. But I love him. And he loves me. He
left his wife for me
. This is the real thing. So you’re just going to have to learn to deal with it.”

In for a penny. Nadia raised her head to meet her friend squarely in the eyes. “Is it the 'real thing' because you love him? Or because he left his wife for you?”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means I don’t want you to feel obligated. You were getting over him when he turned up at your door – don’t deny it, you were. You had a great time in Brighton. There were sparks with Rory, there were.” Nadia insisted, when Caro opened her mouth to protest. “Monty messed you around for the longest time. Have you forgotten it all? I haven’t. I don’t think I ever will.”

The room fell into an uneasy silence. Caro broke it with a heavy sigh.

“Like I said, you’re just going to have to learn to deal with it,” she said, her tone pronouncing the matter closed. “Come on,” she commanded, lifting the grey dress off Nadia’s lap once more and shaking out non-existent wrinkles. “We still have to do accessories.”

Alex

Alex had spent six weeks studiously avoiding all thought of his annual appraisal. He turned in his self-assessment forms twenty-two minutes before his meeting; the look the HR Administrator shot him assured him his negligence was well noted. He couldn’t quite bring himself to care. What was Donnelly going to do about it, fire him? If he did it would certainly solve a problem.

But, to Alex’s surprise, it wasn’t Donnelly and his paunch that awaited him in the small meeting room. It was the Head of the Department, Sarah Jenkins, she of the high heels and higher expense account, who Alex had exchanged awkward small talk with exactly once, at his second Christmas party. He faltered in the doorway and her quick, pale eyes caught his stumble, flicking up from the sheath of papers she’d been studying.

“Alex. Good to see you. Please, take a seat.”

Alex obediently plonked into the chair opposite her. What was going on? To get the big boss doing his appraisal meeting he was either about to be promoted or fired, and he had to admit that the former was much less likely than the latter…

“Where’s…” His manager’s actual first name sailed clear from his head. “…Donnelly?” he finished weakly. Sarah Jenkins gave him another of those wickedly quick looks.

“I’m handling some of the annual appraisals for
Michael’s
team this year, where he’s thought it appropriate to get me involved,” was her succinct answer. Alex began doing the maths in his head: how long would his savings cover rent and food?

“So, Alex.” She didn’t smile. “You’ve been with us for a fair few years now. Graduate fast-track, weren’t you?”

“Yes ma’am.” Alex instantly hated himself for the ma’am, but Sarah carried on regardless.

“University of Brighton lad, weren’t you?”

Alex blinked. “Yes.”

“Same as me.

Alex blinked again. “Oh.” He wasn’t sure what he was meant to do with that information. Bond over shared reminiscences of vomiting outside the student bar?

“You know, a lot of the graduates from your intake year are on level eight, or even seven by now.” Yes, he knew.

“I was up for promotion in this stream.” Alex scratched his jaw awkwardly, felt a rough patch he’d obviously missed whilst hurriedly shaving that morning. “Donn – Michael didn’t think I was quite ready yet.”

“To be frank, Alex, Michael doesn’t think that you’re ever going to be ready for management here.”

Alex swallowed down the hot embarrassment. Although it was true that the thought of spending the rest of his life crawling up the Home Office ladder made him want to beat himself to death with his computer keyboard, it still sucked to hear that he sucked.

“Have there been complaints about my work?” he managed eventually.

“No Alex, you’re missing the point. You’re a very able administrator, and a very well-thought-of member of the team. It’s more that you seem to have little interest in being anything more. You haven’t displayed the ambition we’d expect in someone of your calibre. If you only did, you could go far with the organisation.”

And Alex pictured himself, at forty, at fifty – barely controlling a team of self-obsessed twenty-somethings who thought he was a prick; his own ever-growing paunch straining against his own collection of identical TM Lewin shirts; complaining loudly about how much his kids’ private school fees cost him, how his wife was getting fat and never cooked for him any more. He’d known from his first day here that he didn’t want to go far, go
anywhere
with this organisation. He just had never known where else to go.

Sarah Jenkins leaned closer to him, her elbows on the table. “Do you disagree with this assessment, Alex?”

Alex met her eyes. “No. I don’t.” He could practically hear his P45 being printed.

Sarah Jenkins smiled for the first time. “Okay.” She straightened the papers in her hands and placed them neatly down on the desk. “Have you considered other career paths within Her Majesty’s government?”

“I… hadn’t really thought about it, to be honest.” Surely it would be more of the same? The Foreign Office, GCHQ and the SIS; it would just be a different desk, a different shade of the same non-fulfilment.

“Well, that could be food for thought, then.” Sarah capped her biro and shifted in her seat. “Did you have anything that you wanted to flag in this meeting?” she asked Alex, almost as an afterthought.

“Um. No.”

“Okay then. You have a good week Alex. But do come to me if you ever want to talk about your options.”

“So, I’m not, in trouble?” Alex blurted out as Sarah Jenkins rose to her feet. She stared at him as if he were mad.

“Of course not. Like I said, you’re a model employee. It’s just that you could be even more. We just want you to achieve your full potential, be the best that you can be and all that!” The ghost of Alex’s aborted tattoo finished the refrain of clichés, mocking him:
Make your life extraordinary.

Alex returned to his desk and sat staring at the industrial, impersonal grey background to his computer, waiting for the clock to tick through the afternoon.

He wished again that he was one of those people who knew who he was, knew what he was for. Back at university, when he'd been untouchable, life had seemed to be one giant buffet. He'd had his requisite degree, his beautiful girlfriend, a ring in his pocket and a small amount of savings in the bank – he'd figure everything else out.

And so maybe it was that confidence, and not his heart, that had taken the biggest kick to the nuts back then. Oh his heart had taken a fair punch, for sure. Even now, if he walked past a woman wearing that same floral scent that Alice had always worn he ached a little for that lost love – but the sheer shock of it had spiralled through him; maybe it was spiralling through him still.

You love me more than I can ever love you, Alice had told him, on that last afternoon, looking apologetic, but not as apologetic as he thought she should. And maybe he'd been subliminally thinking that nobody ever would. And as the years had drifted past and his friends had drifted away, he'd somehow never realised that he was living a self-fulfilling prophecy.

He'd always blamed Alice Rhodes, told himself she'd pulled the rug out from underneath him, derailed his perfect life. But it was becoming clearer and clearer to this older and wiser Alex, that maybe he'd done that to himself.

Alex sighed, shooting a glare at the clock on the wall that seemed to be getting no closer to five-thirty. At least he was seeing Nadia that evening; the thought made any afternoon seem more bearable.

Nadia

“I think that the most important thing is just to stress that you don’t think you can have a comparable life back in Russia,” Holly was saying. “Say it’s a culture clash. Say you don’t agree with the politics. Say anything.”

“She can’t claim to be a political refugee, or in fear for her life,” Alex argued. He shot Nadia an apologetic look. “Her parents are middle-class suburbans. She speaks the language. None of that is going to fly. You’re just going to have to persuade them of the extreme emotional damage it will cause you to leave the city that’s the only home you’ve ever known. That’s our angle here.”

“Can we not pretend you’re a lesbian?” Ledge suggested brightly. “They’re not too keen on gays, the Russians, are they? You could be a refugee from discrimination.”

“Ledge, be serious!” Holly gave her cousin a censorious glare.

“No, I mean it, it’s actually brilliant!” Ledge continued, warming to his theme. “We just have to convince them that Nadia drinks from the furry chalice…“ He was cut off, unfortunately not in time, by Alex hurling the sofa cushion into his face.

“I think we’re going to have a hard enough time dealing with the boyfriend called Matt who didn’t, then did, exist, and now doesn’t again,” Holly pointed out, shooting a glance at Alex. “And the whole quasi-relationship status in general, to be honest.” Nadia watched Alex rub the back of his head awkwardly.

The weather had broken slightly; it was dark and spitting stinging shards of rain outside, a good evening to have arranged to stay in, get a takeaway and go over the logistics of the appeal hearing.

Caro had been meant to bring the wine and notes she’d made talking to a lawyer friend of her father’s. Two hours ago she’d emailed over the notes along with the excuse that she wasn’t feeling very well and wouldn’t be making it. It could have been true, of course – there was a first time for everything – but would that be too much of a coincidence?

“This has got Monty written all over it,” Holly had agreed, without even being asked, after Nadia had passed over her phone so she could read the email. “Do you remember that time she insisted on coming with us to that gig when she had the mumps?”

“Look, I know the law.” Alex was still arguing. “And under Article 8, which it specifically mentioned in her appeal letter, we have to prove that on balance it is unfair to remove Nadia from her private life here. And considering she doesn’t have a career here, or family, or…”

“A boyfriend?” Holly chimed in, after Alex’s pause had grown embarrassing.

“Well, a partner of more than two years’ standing, whom she would preferably be living with,” Alex countered. “Without any of those things, we’re really going to have to ham up the friendships, your social life, your inherent Britishness, do you know what I mean, Nads?”