What Women Want (21 page)

‘I want to add one thing to what Amanda’s just said. We should also congratulate Bea for the way she’s got us all behind
Bare Bones
. She recognised the novel’s quality in the first place and insisted we read it so we all shared her enthusiasm – as you’ve just heard. It’s a great acquisition of hers that I’m sure will mark a turning point for us.’ He turned towards her and smiled while the audience joined him in applause. Amanda turned her head, tight-lipped, but clapping along with the rest.

Bea couldn’t believe what she’d heard. She could feel herself blushing, surprised but delighted by Adam’s public vote of confidence. That could only be good news for the book too. Perhaps he wasn’t always the bad guy after all. And, more importantly, perhaps she’d got the battle lines wrong. Perhaps they weren’t drawn up so she was against him and Amanda. Perhaps he stood squarely between the two of them. Suddenly the day looked a lot better.

The presentation of future highlights went smoothly, as did her overview of how they planned to develop the list. She didn’t want Amanda to have a chance of hijacking that as well. Stuart was an edgy and entertaining speaker. How he made people – even her – laugh during a pitch for a football book was beyond Bea, but he did, as well as bringing out the best in his more off-the-wall non-fiction titles. Afterwards they both found themselves surrounded by an enthusiastic group of colleagues, wanting to congratulate them or know more. The fact that they had generated so much support made her feel good. As did the small surge of satisfaction she felt when she saw Amanda alone and cornered by the financial director – a man who could bore for England. Amanda must realise how badly she had misjudged her opening remarks. She had underestimated the staff of Coldharbour, most of whom had worked with Bea for so long and who, thanks to Adam’s pointed intervention, could see through her. She was going to have to work hard in the afternoon brainstorming session to win them over.

And work hard she did. Bea had to hand it to her. Amanda did not give up easily. She appeared after lunch with the bounce back in her step. By the end of the afternoon, she had succeeded in regaining the confidence, albeit wary, of her new colleagues. She listened to what they had to say, threw open their ideas for discussion, drew Bea in when necessary, noted down the consensus of opinion and promised to act on it. She was respectful, funny and modest. It looked like a bravura performance, unless Bea had overestimated her. But she knew she hadn’t.

*

‘So, how do you think it went?’ Adam leaned back, clasping his hands behind his head.

Bea was watching the orange sparks being sucked up the back of the chimney from the blazing log fire. ‘Soldiers going into war’ was what Adele called them, as they glowed brightly before being extinguished in the darkness. ‘Good, I think,’ she replied. ‘Everyone seemed glad to be made to feel part of something again.’

Most of the staff had returned home while some of the directors and senior management had stayed over to continue the discussions that had arisen from the brainstorming sessions. Now dinner was over, a couple had drifted to their rooms while others were down in the snooker room. Bea, Amanda and Adam had ended up in the bar. Bea was still too wound up to be ready for bed, and snooker offered no temptation whatsoever. Adele’s late-night addiction to BBC’s
Pot Black
had never rubbed off on her daughter. The promise of a nightcap by the fire was too good to refuse.

‘I agree,’ said Amanda, sipping her tonic water. She sat opposite Bea, in an identical leather armchair that threatened to swallow her tiny frame. If only it would, mused Bea.

‘Anything we should have done differently?’

‘I don’t think so – although I should have let Bea announce
Bare Bones
. I wasn’t thinking.’

‘Not like you.’ Adam narrowed his eyes and turned his head towards her.

‘I know. But I hope I’ve made up for that over the rest of the day.’

Was that an apology? Looking across at Amanda, who had changed into a short woollen dress that clung in all the right places, Bea realised from her body language that the answer was a definite no. She had turned towards Adam, her left arm across her body, her left leg crossed over the right, effectively blocking Bea from the conversation. Her attention was directed solely at their boss and Bea saw how, for that moment, he was mesmerised. Amanda was admitting to him that she knew she’d messed up and that it wouldn’t happen again. It had nothing to do with Bea. The collegial role she’d played all afternoon had been a necessary strategy to take her to the front of the race.

‘The session I sat in on seemed to go well.’ Adam tore himself away from her gaze. ‘Didn’t you think, Bea?’

‘Mmm, yes,’ she murmured. What gorgeous brown eyes you’ve got.

‘Can I get you another?’

Her glass of brandy was already combining with the dim lighting and the warmth of the fire to make her drowsy. But not too drowsy to realise that staying down here any longer would be a mistake, if not potential career suicide. She was aware that she had drunk enough at dinner to loosen her tongue, unlikely to be a good idea in this company. Tempting as it was to stay, she was still coherent enough to know that she was reaching a point at which she might say something she’d regret. Her differences with Amanda should be dealt with in the most discreet way possible, while flirting with Adam (yes, she was drunk enough to admit to herself she wanted to) would be a huge mistake. Mixing business with pleasure nearly always got messy and there was always a ‘morning after’. Best leave all that to Amanda.

She shifted to the edge of her chair. ‘Actually, I think I’m going up. Thanks, though. I’ll leave you to it.’

The relief on Amanda’s face was all too evident.

Once standing, the lure of Bea’s pristine bedroom became irresistible. Congratulating herself on doing the sensible thing, she wished them good night, and headed towards the lift. There was no doubt in her mind that the day had worked in her favour. When she reached her room, she took her mobile from where she’d left it charging. A missed call from Kate reminded her of their earlier conversation. It was too late to call her back now but surely nothing could be so important that it wouldn’t wait until they met tomorrow.

‘Are you absolutely sure it was Oliver?’

‘I’m one hundred and ten per cent certain. They came out of that restaurant on the corner of Clerkenwell Green. He had his arm round her, then he kissed her and he pushed his hair off his face in that way he does, and they headed off together towards Farringdon Road.’ Kate was impatient at having to repeat what she’d seen.

The two women sat on her sitting-room sofa, mugs of coffee ignored on the table in front of them. The curtains were already drawn against the fading light, the fire was lit and the room snug. Paul was out. Mouse was curled between them, eyes half shut and one white-socked paw stretched towards Kate’s leg.

‘I’m sure there must be a perfectly innocent explanation,’ she added, wondering if she had been right to call Bea, who was bound to blow the whole thing out of proportion.

‘Did he see you?’

‘God, no.’ Kate sounded appalled. ‘I stopped just long enough to be sure it was him, then carried on. I wish now that I’d gone over. Then he’d have had to introduce me.’ That was exactly what she should have done, of course. If she had, they wouldn’t be sitting here now. Or if they were, at least they’d be talking about something else.

‘You should have followed them.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Kate exploded. ‘We weren’t in an episode of
Taggart
or something.’

‘All right. Calm down. Tell me what she looked like.’

‘Young. Dark hair tied back. Smartish in one of those black sheepskin coats with a shaggy collar. Boots, black with a heel. Definitely attractive from a distance. Maybe I’ve jumped to the wrong conclusion but they looked so, I don’t know . . . comfortable together.’ Or had they? Perhaps she was imagining this intimacy. Having supported Oliver in the face of Bea’s scepticism, she almost didn’t want to doubt him now.

That particular Friday morning had been difficult with a patient who had nothing more than a sore throat kicking up a fuss about the wait time. He had insisted on jumping the queue in front of other more obviously needy patients, who accepted that Kate was running late. His uncalled-for aggression, which had ended in him throwing a chair across the waiting room, had upset the reception staff and meant that Kate was still fuming when she saw the patients who had followed him. Her mood had hardly improved by the time the session had overrun by three-quarters of an hour, and she was left with a mound of paperwork to finish and the blood reports to check before dashing off to Bart’s. She’d promised Mrs Fairweather a visit and couldn’t break her word.

The old lady had been such a good neighbour for years, keeping an eye on their house and feeding the ever expanding and shrinking menagerie of pets whenever they went away, as well as remembering the kids with a fiver at Christmas and Easter. Now she’d been admitted to Bart’s in the last stages of metastatic breast cancer and she had no one left to visit her. Kate had decided that she could catch up on her missed work by staying late after the evening surgery and finishing off on Saturday morning. Again.

Now she wondered whether being so stretched might have made her read a meaning that wasn’t there into an entirely innocent meeting. At the time, she had been thinking about Paul, wondering what he was up to. His behaviour of the last weeks had continued to disturb her and, despite her attempts to bridge the distance between them, they seemed as far apart as ever. Recently, he’d been paying more attention to his appearance than she remembered him doing before. When he wasn’t in the office, he spent so much time at the gym he was in danger of developing a six-pack; he’d returned from the hairdresser with a new buzz cut, plus some fancy aromatic aftershave, but when she’d asked if anything was bothering him he’d accused her of being so stressed she was imagining things. She believed him when he said he was going through a tough time at work but, nonetheless, a little voice still nagged away at her, suggesting there was something more going on than that. Weren’t these all the tell-tale signs of a man having an affair? She had risen above the temptation to look through his pockets or check his mobile for messages. Instead she had decided she would find a moment to confront him directly. After all these years of marriage, the least he owed her was respect. But back to Oliver. Perhaps her own anxiety about Paul had led her to misinterpret what she thought she had seen him doing.

‘I remembered that Ellen said he didn’t have friends or family in London, but perhaps it was someone visiting. I shouldn’t have called you.’ She got up to poke the fire, collapsing the embers to make space for a couple of logs she took from the large wicker basket.

‘Of course you should. You always want to see the best in people, even when it’s not there.’

‘It’s not that. I just don’t want to spoil things for Ellen.’

‘Better they’re spoiled now than later when she’s in even deeper.’ Decisiveness was what Kate had always considered one of Bea’s strengths. She was never afraid to go straight to the heart of the matter, then act immediately. ‘I think we should tell her.’

‘Bea, we can’t. If he’s really having an affair, it would kill her.’ Exactly as it will me, if I find out that’s what Paul’s doing, she thought.

‘(a) It won’t. Not really. But (b), just in case, we’d better find out for sure before we talk to her. There are too many things that don’t quite stack up. I’m not going to stand by and watch her get her heart broken. I still can’t believe that shed. What was he thinking? Ellen said he didn’t have any money and that’s why she’s stumping up for his rent. God knows how she’s doing that. And look what he did to her precious garden!’

‘When I last spoke to her, she was still torn between being thrilled that anyone would do something like that for her and sad about the garden. She didn’t talk about the money. I didn’t know what to say.’ Used to listening to so many people in so many different forms of distress at the surgery, Kate normally prided herself on having an answer to suit every situation. Years of general practice had taught her that there was little variation in the range of human experience. The differences came from the way people reacted to the circumstances in which they found themselves. She wanted to support Ellen – but how? Oliver’s motives in erecting the shed were either presumptuous and overbearing or generous and loving. Bea thought the former, Ellen seemed to think the latter, while Kate was caught somewhere in between.

‘I can’t understand how she can let a man take over her life so completely and so quickly. It doesn’t make sense to me.’ Bea had always been so much clearer than her two friends about who was in charge of her life. She had never really let go of the reins for anyone and that was probably what had done for her relationship with Colin, thought Kate.

‘Of course it doesn’t. But see it from her point of view. The sex is probably great, he makes her feel good about herself and she can’t say, “Stop,” over the small things because she’s scared it’ll put him off.’

‘Which means he can take advantage of her,’ Bea concluded decisively.

‘She doesn’t see it like that.’

‘OK, you’re right. But I can’t let it lie. She may be happy to know nothing about who he really is but I’m not.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Not sure yet. A bit of digging.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t.’

‘Then why did you call me? But don’t worry, I’ll be
so
discreet.’ Bea laughed as she reached for her coffee but Kate could see that she was quite serious. When she was in that mood, there was no point in trying to dissuade her.

‘Right. Not another word about him,’ Bea said firmly. ‘I’m dying to tell you about Mark, the away-day,
and
I want to know what’s going on at the coal-face of medical practice. You first.’

As Kate launched into what had been happening at the surgery, she relaxed. She would let Bea do as she chose. She couldn’t stop her even if she wanted to and if she didn’t turn anything up immediately, which she probably wouldn’t, then she’d soon lose interest and that would be that. Within minutes, Bea was exclaiming at the incompetence of the practice nurses who, despite their training, had apparently failed to learn how to read the thermometer on the Labcold fridge and had cost the practice their entire supply of vaccines. Then Kate had embarked on the story of the sad end of one of her patients. A woman had phoned the police because of the swarms of bluebottles clustering on the inside of a neighbour’s window. No, she hadn’t seen him for a few weeks, now she thought about it. Turned out that the poor old sod had been lying there dead for at least a fortnight.

*

Kate was still laughing to herself about Bea’s story of her aborted swim and wondering how long Mark would stay in the picture, when she heard the front door slam. Bea had left half an hour earlier, muttering about the number of scripts she had to read and having no time to take Adele and Janey to look at their new flats. That half-hour had given Kate enough time to think about what she wanted to say to Paul. The advice she always dished out to her patients with marital problems was to talk to each other. But that was so much easier said than done. There were always plenty of reasons to put off an awkward conversation, given all the demands life made on her and Paul and, of course, she wasn’t altogether sure she wanted to hear what Paul had to say. But talking about Oliver and Ellen had driven home her need to get things into the open. Once she knew her situation for sure, she could work out the best way to face it.

She turned as Paul came into the kitchen, slim in his black tracksuit and trainers. ‘Are you all right? You look exhausted?’ Too much shagging and not enough sleep, no doubt – forget the sympathy.

‘Thanks. You really know how to make a chap feel good about himself.’

‘I’m sorry. Come and sit down.’ She patted the seat beside her. ‘I want to talk to you about something.’

He went over to the fridge and poured himself a large glass of cranberry juice, then turned towards her. She was shocked by how serious he looked.

‘And there’s something I must tell you.’

Her stomach lurched. So this was how it happened. This was how twenty-nine years of marriage came to an end. No fanfare, no bells or bunting – just a quiet announcement that would irrevocably change the course of their lives. Not only their lives, but their children’s too. While her world stood still, the world outside kept turning. As if to underline the point, a burst of laughter came from people passing the house and a car horn sounded.

‘Jack in?’ He walked towards her, looking as if every step cost him an effort, then sat on the other leg of the L-shaped sofa and lay back against the cushions with his eyes shut.

‘No. I don’t think so.’ Her voice emerged as more of a whisper than she’d intended.

‘Good.’

Kate said nothing. She wasn’t going to make it easy for him.

‘I had no idea this was going to happen.’ He sounded tired and beaten.

‘I can imagine.’ She could hear the bitterness and anger in her own voice.

He opened his eyes, surprised. ‘You know? How?’

‘I’m not an idiot, Paul. All the signs were there.’

‘But I didn’t see them, so how on earth could you?’

‘What do you mean you didn’t see them? We’ve become so distant over the last weeks. No . . .’ She raised a hand to stop him interrupting. ‘Let me finish.’

He subsided against the cushions again, all the fight gone out of him.

‘There are all the little things like the hair, the aftershave, how particular you’ve got about the ties you wear, the gym, the number of times you’ve stayed late at the office. Shall I go on?’ She let her anger take over as she realised the injustice of what was happening to her. ‘Have you considered the children? What will they think?’ She stood quickly and, in the ensuing silence, walked swiftly to the sink where she ran herself a glass of cold water. ‘Paul, how could you?’ As she turned back to confront him, his groan became a sigh.

‘My God. You think I’ve been having an affair.’ He sat up on the edge of the sofa, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. ‘If it weren’t so far off beam, it would be funny.’

She stood in the kitchen, staring at him, relief flooding through her. But if he wasn’t having an affair, what could possibly be the matter? She realised then that it wasn’t so much that he looked exhausted but that he looked old. Fear took the place of relief. She crossed the room and sat beside him, taking one of his hands. He didn’t resist. ‘Whatever’s happened?’

Paul looked up at her, his eyes empty. ‘I’ve been fired.’

Kate gasped. ‘What? I don’t understand. When did this happen? Why didn’t you tell me what was going on?’

Paul drained his glass and made to stand up. ‘I think we need something stronger, don’t you?’

‘Let me.’ Kate went over to the drinks cupboard and emptied the remains of a bottle of whisky into two glasses. He took his and gulped it down. ‘Go easy,’ she said. ‘Tell me what’s happened. The last I heard, you were the one doing the firing.’

‘Oh, I was.’ He gave a hollow laugh. ‘That bastard Tom Jenkins, jumped-up little prick, got me to do his dirty work for him. He got me to negotiate the redundancies of fifteen people. Then he fired me.’

‘When did this happen?’

‘Late yesterday afternoon. He called me in, thanked me for my efforts, then told me they had no further use for me, that my job was now redundant. I tried to call you but you were tied up.’

‘But not all night,’ she protested.

‘I know, but then I went for a drink with Chris Phillips and when he went home . . . well, I suppose I wanted some time to absorb it on my own. When I got back, you were asleep and when I woke up, you’d gone to work.’

She remembered how the bedroom had smelt like a bar when she’d got up, as if alcohol was seeping from every pore of his body. Angry, she had decided to leave him to it, hoping he’d have a hangover from hell. ‘I still don’t understand why you didn’t call me on my mobile.’

‘I wanted to tell you face to face.’

‘I’d have come home.’

‘Would you? You thought I was having an affair, remember?’ He smiled. ‘Never, Kate. Never. We’ve been through that and we’ll never go through it again. I meant the promise I made you then.’