Together Apart (10 page)

15.

M
r Madsen, I’ve already called the plumber, and he’ll be dropping round today,’ Adam said, cradling the phone between his shoulder and ear.

It had been one of those days when everything went belly up. He’d already had to deal with a flooded basement, and between bollocking a cleaner for smashing a bottle of a tenant’s perfume and having to deal with the disappearance of the wayward handyman, an angry tenant was another problem he didn’t need.

‘It’s just not good enough.’ The voice on the other end of the phone was jarring, making Adam grit his teeth. ‘I’m paying nine hundred pounds a week. I shouldn’t have to come home to a leaking shower. I don’t think you appreciate how difficult it is trying to sleep with a constant dripping noise coming from the next room.’

Adam pressed two fingers against his left temple. ‘I will personally see to it that the shower is fixed today, and I’ll call you as soon as it’s done.’

‘I don’t know what it is you think I do all day, but I don’t have time to sit around and wait for you to call me. I expect it to be done by the time I return this evening, and if it isn’t, then I’ll be forced to break the lease.’

The phone disconnected, and Adam slammed the handset down, puffing out his cheeks. His shower dripped by itself too sometimes, but he wasn’t screaming down the phone at his landlord to fix it. He just ignored it. Which was just as well since his landlord had officially become the most difficult person in London to get hold of.

What was it with these tenants? If turning into a spoiled, over-demanding prick was what came with high-ranking status and having people pander to your every whim, then he’d rather stay where he was. He loved his job – he really did – but on days like t
his, h
e wanted to walk out of the office and never come back. With a sigh, he picked up the phone and punched in the handyman’s number. All this and it was barely even lunchtime. It was going to be a lo
ng day.

25 October

I’m meeting Claire for dinner tomorrow. She’s on downtime for ten days, so we’ll be able to catch up properly. Nervous isn’t the
word. It’s
been ages since I last saw her. I love her to bits – she’s
my sist
er. It’s just that I always feel so inadequate next to her. She was always so perfect growing up. She was the thinner one, the taller one, the smarter one. Watching her swan around the house made me feel like the ugly duckling – the ugly duckling who messed things up and became the evil twin. But even though I want to hate her sometimes, I can’t, because she was there for me. Claire, who could annoy me to the point where I wanted to smash my own head in, was my rock back then. She never judged me, not once. We used to be so close when we were young, and then Dad died, and it all fell apart. But she still supported me when I needed it the most. And now I’m in a mess again, like a moronic idiot who can’t learn a single lesson in life.

Argh! I can’t be thinking about this right now. The office is starting to fill up, and I’ve got tons of work to do, which is just as well. At least being busy is saving me from the embarrassment about
Friday
night. Nobody said anything mean, but somehow I don’t think I’ll be on the invite list for the next trip to the pub. Oh well.

Later that evening, after a long, hot shower, Adam flopped onto his bed. It had been a trying day, but everything had been sorted. The leaky shower was fixed, and the elusive handyman had been located. Best of all, the lease on the penthouse had finally been signed, lifting from his shoulders the burden of having their star apartment sitting empty. He was looking forward to the hefty commission coming in his next pay packet.

The sound of the TV echoed from Sarah’s bedroom. She must have come home while he was in the shower. For a fleeting second, he wondered if he should go and say hello, but he knew she’d be passive. Sometimes, when they did cross paths in the flat, she had such a pained look on her face that it almost physically hurt him. After the day he’d had, he couldn’t deal with feeling dejected too. Instead, he reached under the bed and slid the box of diaries towards him. At first, he’d been paranoid that she had some secret way of arranging them, so she would know if anyone ever read them. He still felt guilty. He was invading her privacy, and she was only a few feet away. Reading them was wrong, plain and simple, and if she ever found out, she would never forgive him, but he just wanted to know what had happened to her.

It had become so much more than uncovering a secret. After the dinner with his family, he’d thought constantly about David and Joe. Their wives were nice enough, but he didn’t want to end up like his brothers. Sarah had never made him feel trapped. He was smart enough to recognise a good thing, and despite there being a whole list of things about her that he’d been ignorant about, what they’d had together was good. It was better than good.

19 October 1998

I’m
finally
seeing Richard tonight. He’s taking me out for my
birthday
. I haven’t seen him since last week, so we’ve been mostly speaking on the phone. We’re going to watch a film and then go back to his. He’s so lucky to have such laid-back parents. There’s no way I would ever be able to bring him back here. Peter would go berserk, and I’d never hear the end of it. He goes on at Claire
all th
e time because of the way she dresses and the friends she
hangs arou
nd with. He keeps saying they’re a bad influence, hanging around on the corner of the street even though they don’t really do anything other than talk. Mum doesn’t say anything. She just lets him preach at us.

I honestly don’t know what she sees in him. For a start, he’s butt ugly, and all he ever goes on about is Jesus this and Jesus that. He’s actually talking about going to Jerusalem next year for a holiday. I mean,
really
?! My friends get to go to Spain and Cyprus for their holidays. I’ve never been abroad before, and I don’t want my first holiday to be some kind of pilgrimage. So not cool!

Anyway, I need to get this maths homework done. I want to be able to totally focus on my first real date with Richard, not worry about bloody Pythagoras theory. I don’t see the point in learning this stuff. As if I’m going to need to know about the calculations of a triangle after school! So lame!

20 October 1998

Argh!!
Can I not get any bloody privacy in this place? I’m going to go mad, I swear!

Peter read my diary! Of all the lowlife, nosy parker things he could have done. I forgot to hide it before I left yesterday. Who the bloody hell does he think he is? And what was he doing in my bloody room anyway?

I’d had such a great night, and then I came home to see him and Mum sitting at the kitchen table waiting for me. He called me a harlot. Can you believe it? What kind of an insult is that? He’s so ancient! He must be from the Dark Ages. Nobody says ‘harlot’ anymore.

I told him he had no right to go through my things, and he said he could do whatever he wants because this is ‘his house’. Apparently, he went into my room to take my clean laundry in and saw my diary on the bed – like that’s any excuse. I told him I didn’t want him touching my clothes, and he called me ungrateful. And then he grounded me for lying about last Friday and ‘taking drugs’. It’s not like I’ve been shooting up heroin – it was only a bloody spliff ! God, he makes me so bloody angry! And Mum just sat there, letting him speak to me like that. I don’t know what’s happened to her. It’s like she’s become a total sap. She just lets him do what he wants while she gets quietly drunk. Well, he can just do one and fuck right off.

Anyway, back to the important stuff. Last night was brilliant! I met Richard in town, and we went to see a film. I can’t remember which one – it was some boring action film – but it doesn’t matter. I didn’t get to see much of it since we were too busy kissing. I still can’t believe I’m going out with him. He’s just so gorgeous and so cool, and he has the cutest smile I’ve ever seen. It’s ridiculous. And his hair is so soft, and it flops into his eyes all the time. It makes me breathless just thinking about it.

His parents weren’t home when we got back to his. I don’t think they’re around much from what he told me. Lucky him. Last week, everything happened in a bit of a haze. I was so overwhelmed that he’d even shown an interest in me – not to mention a bit stoned. This time we were completely alone and sober. He has a huge collection of CDs, and he put one on. I don’t know who it was, but it was soft and moody and made everything feel so intimate. We spent all afternoon in his bed.

We didn’t have sex, obviously. We’ve only been together for a week. But we fooled around. I thought about tossing him off, but I didn’t. I’ve never done it before, and I didn’t want to look like an idiot by getting it wrong, but when I left to come home, I regretted being so chicken. I really, really like him, and I’m certain he likes me just as much. He didn’t even try to persuade me to have sex with him. I mean, hello? He’s obviously really sensitive and mature because I’d bet money that most boys would have tried their luck with a girl in their bed like that. I know he respects me.

So, massive decision: I’m going to have sex with him. I’ve decided he’s The One. I don’t know when, seeing as I’m being held prisoner by that prick Peter, but I am going to do it.

A ball of jealousy tightened in Adam’s chest as he looked at the picture of Sarah and, presumably, Richard, wedged into the spine of the diary like a bookmark.

She wasn’t at all what he’d imagined her to look like at fourteen. She was chubby, her curly hair was dyed dark red and her piercing amber eyes were rimmed with black eyeliner so thick she might as well have painted her eyes shut. But her smile seemed to leap off the photograph towards him. It was the same smile that he’d fallen in love with.

Richard looked like a Kurt Cobain try-hard, all moody and anguished-looking with scruffy shoulder-length hair. It was obvious from the way Sarah was smiling at him in the picture just how much she adored him. He was her first love. Adam wished it could have been him. She probably wouldn’t have looked twice at him back then anyway. As a teenager, he was always the boy the girls liked as a friend but never wanted to get with. He lagged well behind his mates until, apparently overnight, he grew four inches and his skin cleared. Suddenly, he’d had a queue of girls asking him out.