The Love of Her Life (6 page)

‘Not sure, really,’ said Kate. ‘I need to sort stuff out in the flat. See Dad. Spend some time with Dani, too, I suppose. And catch up with people, Francesca and all that lot.’

‘How’s your work going?’ Zoe emptied the rest of the bottle into her glass.

‘OK,’ said Kate. ‘Someone’s covering me while I’m away. They’ve been really good about it.’

‘Are you – what’s happening with becoming an agent? Are you handling any stuff of your own yet?’

She took another swig of wine as Zoe watched her, waiting for her answer.

‘Not really, no,’ she said honestly. ‘And I like it that way, Zo. I know it’s terrible, but I loved it. I liked not having to be me any more.’

Zoe nodded.

‘I thought you’d be editor of some huge magazine some day,’ she said. ‘
Devil Wears Prada
, that sort of thing. Or writing a bestselling novel.’ She shook her head. ‘That’s all.’

‘You sound like Lisa,’ Kate pointed out. ‘I thought you’d be a QC by now.’

‘You thought lots of things would happen,’ Zoe said. ‘So did I. Look at us.’

The cluttered kitchen was silent; the house was quiet.

Kate tried to imagine what it must be like for Zoe, alone every evening, while the children slept upstairs. Tears pricked her eyes; a painful lump rose in her throat.

‘Hey,’ she said, trying to change the mood. ‘Do you remember your housewarming party here, all those years ago?’

‘My god,’ said Zoe. ‘I always forget about then. We only had the groundfloor flat then. Isn’t it weird, how different it was then.’

‘Sure was,’ Kate nodded. ‘That was a great party though.’

‘You wore your blue and gold dress.’

‘You stood on a chair and sang “Cabaret”.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Zoe ruefully. ‘Didn’t Francesca snog that Finnish gatecrasher from the flat upstairs?’

‘Yes, she did!’ Kate hit the table, memory flooding back.

‘And – oh my god. Wasn’t that the night you got together with Sean?’

She cleared her throat, as Kate was silent, drowning in waves of memory. Then Kate said,

‘No, it was a few weeks later.’

‘But you were flatmates, weren’t you?’

‘Yes, we were …’ Kate squashed a piece of bread into her fingers. ‘Yep. That was a weird night. I’d forgotten.’ And she had, strangely. It had been one of those event evenings that mark the beginning of a new time in one’s life and thus the end of another, she realized now. ‘Six years ago,’ she went on. ‘I can’t believe it. It seems – well, it’s weird.’

‘So near yet so far,’ said Zoe, and Kate nodded.

Kate unwrapped an after dinner mint, and carefully smoothed the foil out onto the table. ‘When did you buy the flat upstairs?’ she asked. ‘I can’t remember. Was it after you got married?’

‘After,’ said Zoe flatly. ‘Steve flirted totally disgustingly with the estate agent and I didn’t speak to him for two days. But he got the price down by five grand, so I couldn’t hate him anymore.’

Kate well remembered Steve’s flirting. There was nothing she could say to this.

‘Typical of him,’ Zoe went on. ‘Bloody typical.’ She blinked rapidly. ‘Anyway, what was I saying? Yes, Mac. Mac!’ Kate nodded. ‘You see, I always thought he had a bit of a thing for you. That night at our housewarming party, you know. He was mad about you for a while, you know that, don’t you?’

Kate was silent, and then she said, ‘Well, it’s a long time ago, isn’t it.’

‘Yep,’ said Zoe. ‘It’s just a shame. We should get you two together before you have to go back, you know.’ She looked Kate over, appraisingly, like she was a prize heifer. ‘You haven’t seen him since – how long?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Kate. Keep your voice light, she told herself. ‘Is he –’ she opened her eyes wide. ‘Is he well, though?’

‘Yeah.’ Zoe nodded. ‘He’s OK. Got a bit of grey hair. Works too hard. Doesn’t talk about stuff much. But he’s OK. I know he’d love to see you.’

Kate looked around the bright, cosy room, feeling cold suddenly, and very tired.

‘It’s weird talking about this,’ Zoe said, sighing. ‘I never talk about it, about all of us any more. I’ll have to make the most of you while you’re here. It’ll be a while won’t it?

Perhaps you’ll love it back here so much you won’t go back. Yay!’

‘I am going back,’ said Kate. ‘Seriously. I love it there. I’ve got a new life, you know.’

‘I know you have,’ said Zoe. She crinkled her nose. ‘You needed it. I like thinking of you leading this super-glam New York life, meeting up with Betty for cocktails, running around like Sarah Jessica Parker. Sort of means I can’t hate you for not being here, Katy.’

Since her last birthday party had consisted of her mother, stepfather, and the Cohens (from down the corridor), and Maurice the doorman having a slice of cake out on the sidewalk, Kate didn’t know what to say to this. She smiled and nodded, sagely, as if hinting that a life full of incident and drama lay waiting for her across the ocean.

At eleven o’clock, Kate left, by then a little worse for the wine. As she was putting her coat on, Zoe opened the door and said,

‘Bye darl,’ Zoe said. ‘I love you. It’s so good to have you back.’

‘It’s good to be back,’ Kate said and then, that moment, as she hugged Zoe, it was.

When Kate got back home, the letter from Charly was still in her bag. She waited till she was in bed, face washed, warm chunky bedsocks from Bloomingdales, which her mother had given her last Christmas, enclosing her feet. Her old bedroom smelt faintly of familiar things, Coco perfume and peonies. Outside, someone somewhere was yelling at someone else, or perhaps at no-one, and away beyond her the city flickered, lights gradually going off one by one, still at its heart never asleep. Kate smoothed her hands over the duvet and blinked, the fatigue of the day finally catching up with her as her fingers fluttered on the glue of the envelope.

She drew out a letter. A letter and a photo. It was of Charly and Kate, dressed up before the office Christmas party, their first year at the magazine. Kate winced at her ill-advised Spice Girls-era black clompy platform boots, black miniskirt, waistcoat and hair in a high ponytail, and then, almost greedily, her eyes drank in Charly, glorious as always, her long, tousled hair tumbling around her tanned shoulders, the little black dress with spaghetti straps, the gorgeous, still-covetable knee-high black suede boots. It had been so long since she’d seen her, she’d forgotten how beautiful she was, how hilariously different the two of them were.

Hilarious, yes. That they’d been friends, so close you couldn’t slide a finger between them, so obsessed with each other it was almost like a relationship, so heartstoppingly sad that she hadn’t seen Charly for years, that Kate rocked back against the bookshelf, as if a ray of something had just shot out and hit her in the chest. That was the effect Charly still had on her, nearly eight years on, all those years since they’d first met.

Kate didn’t read any more. She screwed the whole lot up, jumped up out of bed, and the cold hit her. She ran through to the kitchen, opened the little narrow french doors, and threw the letter, the photo, the envelope, out. She wondered, as if watching herself from above, why she hadn’t just opened her bedroom window, or thrown it in the bin. But it wouldn’t have been far away enough.

It was only when she felt something drop onto her chest that Kate realized tears were running down her face. In the dark corridor there was no sound. She crawled wearily back to bed, turned the light off, praying for a deadening sleep.

But the thoughts crowding into her brain danced there all night. She should have realized that those scenes would go through her head again, that she would dream about it all again. Back when she was starting her life as a grown-up, they all were. Look how it had turned out. She’d told
Zoe, she never thought about it, she’d practically forgotten everything.

But that was a lie. Although she didn’t want it to be, it was imprinted on her brain, for always. How could it not be? And the dreams always ended the same way, with Kate realizing what, deep-down, she carried around with her every single day in New York. That she shouldn’t be here. She didn’t deserve to be here. That was why she didn’t let herself remember.

October 1999

‘Hey. New girl. I’m going to Anita’s for lunch. Do you want to come?’

Kate blinked up at the vision before her, and pushed her tortoiseshell glasses slightly further up her nose.

‘Er, yes, please,’ she said, shocked. ‘Thanks.’

‘I’m going
now
,’ the vision said. ‘I’m bloody bored, and Catherine and Sue are going to be gone for fucking
ages
on that conference meeting thing. Let’s get out of here.’

Nearly three weeks into her exciting new job at
Woman’s
World
, and Kate had yet to have lunch with anyone; she was too terrified. She sat on a bench by Lincoln’s Inn each day at lunchtime, eating her sandwich and hiding behind a book if she saw anyone from the magazine. The offices were near Holborn, a big glass building housing all the magazines in the stable of Broadgate UK, and every morning the revolving doors sucked in these tall, gorgeous, glamorous stick-girls who strode past Kate, hair flowing in the breeze, expressionless and cool, and every evening it spewed them out again, as she flattened herself against the wall, trying not to get in their way. She spoke to her boss Sue, to Gary,
the postroom boy, with whom she was insanely jolly and chatty, the way new people always are with the photocopying man, the postroom boy, the security guards. They’re men, they’re not bitchy, they don’t ignore new people as a point of principle.

To everyone else, however, she felt miserably that she might as well be invisible. If by chance one of the tall goddesses who hustled and bustled around Catherine Baldwin, the fearsome editor, should be forced to address her with some features-related query which only she could answer, Kate heard herself replying to their careless questions in a voice rusty with lack of use, and a tone hopelessly fulsome and inane.

‘Hi!’ she’d squeak. ‘Hi, there! No, Sue’s not here! She’s still out at lunch! Sorry, sorry,’ she would say, practically bowing, as Georgina or Jo or Sophie looked bored and not a little contemptuously down at her.

Because it was now October, the whole new job thing had a curious resemblance to going back to school, or university. The days still dry and relatively warm, the leaves dusty and crunchy on the trees, the streets of town suddenly busy again after the dog days of August and September. They were still playing ‘Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)’ and ‘Livin La Vida Loca’ on the radio, but they sounded flimsy, summery, silly, out of kilter. The Argos Christmas adverts had started appearing on TV, even. As Kate and her new flatmate Sean walked to Rotherhithe station in the mornings, the still rising sun would hit them in the eyes, and in the evenings though they tried to deny it, it was too cold to sit outside at the pub.

Kate and Sean had been friends at university, but they were more friends-in-a-group than friends who went out for drinks on their own together. Tall, laconic, with a Texan drawl, Sean was Steve’s best friend. Steve was a good friend
of Kate’s too. In the Easter term of their first year at university, Kate had introduced Steve to her best friend Zoe, and Steve and Zoe had been going out ever since. So Kate and Sean had spent a lot of time together in the past few years.

Still, though, Kate was still fairly surprised to find herself sharing a flat with Sean, but then lots about her life now surprised her – the fact that she was south of the river, for starters, was a shocker, as was the fact that she didn’t like alcopops any more – she preferred a glass of Chardonnay. She’d been to TopShop and bought a black and grey checked miniskirt, which she wore with a black polo-neck and black tights, mistakenly in the warm, dry weather of September, but it made her feel super-mature. She did her own shopping at the supermarket, picking out Things to Cook from her new Jamie Oliver cookbook. She bought the
Evening
Standard
on her way home each night and felt super-grown-up, reading it with a concentrated expression on her face on the Tube.

Three weeks into her new living arrangement and all was going swimmingly – too swimmingly, in fact, because Kate had started to dread saying goodbye to Sean each morning. He sometimes perplexed her with his constantly flirty ways and optimistic, can-do attitude, as well as intimidated her since he was, without doubt, usually the best-looking man in the room. Now, he was the friendliest face Kate saw most days and she would cling to him at the ticket barriers.

‘I don’t want to go to work today,’ she’d say, clutching his arm.

‘Hey now. Don’t be silly,’ Sean would say, gently prising her off him with a giant, paw-like hand. ‘It’s only been ten days. You’ll soon make friends, Katy. You’re shy, that’s all.’

‘They’re horrible,’ Kate would mutter, biting her lip. ‘Don’t like it. Don’t want to go to work and be grown-up.’

It was true, in its way. Part of her wished this wasn’t
happening, that she was back at home with her father, cheerfully cooking stew, throwing insults at each other, listening to music. Warm, exotic – but a little bit safe, boring. Wouldn’t it be easier if she just moved back in with her dad again? And never left the house, faced the real world, with all its terrifying complications that she wasn’t at all good at? Yesterday, she had spilled coffee over one of the girls at work – George. George had given her what Kate could only identify now as a death stare and said, ‘That fucking top was
new
,’ even though it was only a tear-drop-sized spot of coffee. Kate was thinking of having plastic surgery to change her appearance.

‘Look,’ Sean would say, punching her playfully on the arm. ‘You’re Kate Miller, aren’t you? All you ever wanted to do since I’ve known you was work in magazines. Didn’t you?’

‘I’m not right for them. I don’t fit in.’

‘You got a First in English from Oxford, Kate,’ Sean would say. ‘You’re right for anyone. You gotta see that. You’re young, you’re cool! Man. They’re lucky to have you, OK?’

Kate would rather die than use her university education to impress people, and she refrained from pointing out that at college she’d done nothing
but
work, while everyone else was off having fun, drinking, putting on plays, drinking, sleeping with each other, going to balls, going to silly parties, drinking and sleeping with each other. She wasn’t cool, she was the opposite of cool, she was … lukewarm. She was destined for the shadows, watching from the sidelines, not centre stage. Ugh. But Sean, whose nature was as sunny as his hair colour, couldn’t see that about her, and it annoyed her.

‘You’ll find some friends,’ he said, one Thursday, nearly three weeks after she’d started there. He patted her on the shoulder, moving her away from the ticket barriers. ‘You’ll
love it there soon. This is your time! You’re in the big wide world now, and you’re gonna find your niche. I promise.’

Sean was untroubled by self-doubt. ‘It’s easy for you,’ Kate said, childishly. She looked down at the floor, knowing she was being stupid, feeling eleven again, like she was back at school, trying to persuade her mother to let her stay at home. Sean put his finger under her chin, and she turned her face up towards him.

‘Hey,’ he said gently, looking into her eyes. He smiled, his tanned, kind face crinkling into lines. ‘It’ll be easy for
you
, Katy. You’re wonderful. We all know it, you just need to know it.’

She clutched at his wrist, taken aback. ‘Oh, Sean.’ She was embarrassed, she didn’t know why, and she smiled back at him, shyly. ‘You’re just saying that.’

You’re just saying that
. She sounded about five; Kate cringed, inside, then asked herself why it mattered, as awkwardness fell upon them. She tightened her hold on his wrist, reached up and kissed him on the cheek.

‘Thanks,’ she said, and she smiled at him, feeling happy, all of a sudden. ‘You’re right, Sean. Thanks a lot.’

‘I know I am,’ he said, and he was still watching her. ‘Now, you’re gonna be late. Have a great day. I’ll be there when you come back, after a long day slaving over some JavaScript. OK?’

‘OK. Bye. Thanks.’

His mouth curled a little. ‘No, thank you.’

He was a flirt, such a flirt, she told herself, as Sean walked away. Kate watched him shaking his head at her over the ticket barrier, as the sea of commuters bustled past them, off with lives of their own, full of promise and exertion and interaction and … Oh, all the bloody things she was no good at. It was so sweet of him to try, she told herself. She stared after him. He would be there tonight when she got
home, watching TV, and they’d sit on the sofa together and chat about their day and yet another day would have passed with her being shunned, like the Amish. So she’d cook him something and he’d teach her how to mend her bike, or how to rewire a plug, or something, and they’d spend the evening together, like they always did. She’d be fine, if she could come home to that life. It was a nice life. Who said you had to love your job?

But Sean was right. Because that very day, Charly decided to notice Kate.

They went to Anita’s, a traditional Italian around the corner from the office. It was free of Broadgate employees, by dint of the fact it served food, in particular food that wasn’t just leaves. Charly seemed to know them all, the waiters practically clapped as she slunk in, her long legs sliding into a table by the window.

‘God, Sue’s a bitch, man,’ she said as they were seated. She pushed her small frameless sunglasses up on her head and nodded at a waiter. Her honey-coloured hair tumbled around her, she smiled at Kate, the freckles on the end of her nose wrinkling. ‘Yeah, we’re ready,’ she said to the waiter, hovering nearby, a look of adoration on his face. ‘What you having? Salad nicoise for me. No dressing. With extra olives. And a coke. Thanks.’

She flung the menu back at him without acknowledging his presence. Kate said,

‘Er … me too.’

‘The same?’ the waiter said, raising his eyebrows.

‘Yes,’ said Kate, not wanting to be conspicuous. She handed him the menu back.

‘You don’t want dressing neither? The same?’

‘Yes!’ said Kate, trying to affect an incredulous laugh.

‘You want extra olives too?’

‘Oh, go away,’ Charly said, batting the waiter away. ‘Just bring her a normal one. Leave us alone. So. D’you like Catherine? What do you think of Sue?’ she demanded, leaning in, her long, slender fingers plucking a stale roll from the basket in front of them.

Kate was taken aback by the directness of the question, and a little terrified. She hadn’t imagined she’d have to speak, more that she could just sit there and listen to Charly, whom she’d noticed striding around the office, effortlessly glamorous. She never seemed to hang around with the Georginas and the Jos, the Pippas and the Sophies, she was her own separate entity. More beautiful than them, cooler than them (she had been wearing cropped trousers and heels for ages – long before Madonna in the Beautiful Stranger video, as she informed anyone who wanted to listen) – less posh than them, less fake than them. She knew it, and she didn’t seem to care.

‘Come on,’ said Charly impatiently, and Kate was shaken from her reverie. ‘Is Sue a good boss? She really annoyed me today, you know, telling me to recheck that piece on gloves for autumn.’

‘Er … Aah,’ Kate said, hating the impaired speech she seemed to have developed since her arrival at
Woman’s World
. What would Sean say if he could see her? She thought about it, and smiled. ‘I like her. She’s nice. Bit uncommunicative – I mean I wish she’d tell me what’s going on a bit more.’

‘Yeah,’ said Charly, nodding. ‘She seems to think you’ll just guess. She’s OK, but I know what you mean. I used to work for her.’

‘Did you?’ said Kate. ‘How long – how long have you been here?’

‘Not long,’ said Charly. ‘Too long, you might say. A year. I was her assistant, now I work with Catherine and Georgina –’ Kate nodded, she knew this ‘– and I sometimes write the
editor’s letter when no-one else can be fucked to do it, and I do a couple of featurettes.’

‘You do the Letters Page, don’t you?’

A frown passed over Charly’s beautiful face. ‘Yeah, and I fucking hate it. Load of weirdos writing in to tell you how to make stuffed animals out of the lint from the washing machine, or wanting you to print a picture of their grandson just cos he’s done a shit that’s shaped like Alma Cogan.’

‘Really?’ Kate was fascinated.

‘Not the last one, no.’ Charly shook her head. ‘Barbara Windsor, actually.’

Luckily the salads arrived, saving Kate from further comment. Charly ate like a demon, shovelling food in her mouth, throwing out odd comments, inviting responses from Kate, making jokes about the office, filling her in on what she hadn’t known – Barbara in Sales had slept with Fry Donovan, the new Broadgate publisher, a couple of years ago, and he’d given her a job to keep her quiet, so the rumours went, which is why Barbara giggled helplessly whenever Fry walked into the room. Claire Cobain on the subs desk threw up into Phil’s yucca plant the day after the Christmas party; she’d forgotten and he hadn’t realized for three days, except they all kept gagging on the smell. And Jo and Sophie weren’t speaking to each other after Sophie heard Jo saying to Georgina in the loos that she looked rank in her new black patent platform boots.

All Kate had to do was throw in the occasional question, raise her eyebrows at the required moment, but Charly was a great companion, and soon Kate found herself opening up, telling her about her flatmate Sean, about her best friend Zoe, about how she’d started to dread coming into work, how she’d eaten her lunch on a park bench for the past two weeks –

‘By yourself?’ Charly demanded. ‘Sitting in Lincoln’s Inn
eating a sandwich from Prêt à Manger by yourself? God that’s sad. What did you do if someone you recognized came past?’

‘I’d look down at my book, or else I’d turn my head so they couldn’t see me,’ said Kate, and as she said it, she realized how silly it sounded. Charly laughed, her eyes wide open with surprise, and Kate joined her.

‘That’s the saddest thing I’ve heard for a long time,’ Charly said.

‘I know,’ Kate agreed. She looked at her watch. ‘We should get back, you know.’