Wish You Were Here (35 page)

As I approached the barrier, I dug into my pocket for some change. The diminutive ticket collector already had his hand out, palm upward. It was a tacit agreement we had. He knew I was a lazy slut who couldn't be bothered to buy a ticket at the right station, and I knew he was a thieving bastard who pocketed my sixty pence. We smiled
sweetly at one another, both happy with the arrangement, and London Transport was none the wiser.

As I walked up the few remaining steps to the main road, I felt as if I was walking into a Persil advert. South Kensington was awash with bright, primary colours bathed in sunshine. Tall white houses soared up into a bright blue sky, and the little patches of green grass at their feet played host to the very first signs of spring as snowdrops, crocuses and a few lonely daffodils bobbed around in the sunshine. It was a beautiful day, and my spirits rose.

They rose even higher as I turned the corner into Cresswell Gardens, for this was where I'd met Harry and it never failed to please. Number twenty-four, to be precise – yes, this was the one. I paused outside, allowing myself a moment of sentimental nostalgia.

If I say so myself, I'd looked pretty damn sexy that night; seductively clad in a black Alaia dress which clung to every curve – of which I have a few; some would say too many – and with a liberal sprinkling of Butler and Wilson's finest baubles at my ears and around my neck, my long, wavy blonde hair freshly highlighted, and the remains of a tan still glowing … I hadn't looked bad.

The occasion had been a birthday drinks party, but to this day I can't remember being invited, although I do remember the hostess's look of surprise as I kissed her warmly on both cheeks. I'd obviously crashed it, probably with Lottie, who knows everyone. It had been a small, select gathering, and the venue had been the drawing room of this majestic townhouse. It was chock-a-block with original oil paintings, tasteful antiques, and other
expensive and eminently breakable family heirlooms, and in fact the atmosphere had been so rarefied that people were talking in whispers. They didn't stray from their own little groups of two or three, and it seemed to me that everyone was in danger of turning to stone and joining the rest of the precious treasures dotted around the room.

Thankfully, as the evening limped along, the hostess was suddenly alive to this possibility, and hastily poured a two-litre bottle of brandy into the insipid punch. A rather horsy girl standing next to me said she thought it was the stupidest thing she'd ever seen. I thought it was inspired. Within twenty minutes the party was revving up like nobody's business, and I delved deep to summon up all the Dutch courage I possessed to chat up the most attractive man in the room.

He was standing by the window wearing a pair of ageing beige cords, a blue shirt and a bright red skiing jumper. An unruly mop of floppy blond hair was constantly falling into the bluest eyes I'd ever seen. He was such a cliché it was untrue. He was calmly eating pistachio nuts and staring out of the window to the street below, pretending he didn't know how divine he looked and what a commotion he was causing.

No less than three knock-out-looking girls were prowling and circling around him, tossing back metres of silky hair and adjusting their hemlines up or down, according to whether they had good or bad legs. I decided to skip these formalities and move in for the kill. Buoyed up by too much bevvy and my revealing little black dress, I took a deep breath and dived in.

Somehow, and to this day I know not how, I managed
to monopolize him totally for the rest of the evening, engaging him with my witty repartee whilst at the same time staving off the competition. The circling harpies evidently decided I'd scored and limped away to nurse their egos and, within the hour, I'd secured myself a seat opposite him in a restaurant of my choice somewhere on the Fulham Road. Before you could say your place or mine, it was back to his for Rémy and rumpy-pumpy – and the rest, as they say, is history. Unfortunately I was under the distinct impression that, unless I could recapture some of that original wit and vitality, I was in danger of becoming history too. I bit my lip miserably. Why was love such bloody hard work? Perhaps I should have a few sun-beds.

I turned the corner into Egerton Street where the houses are even taller, even whiter and even lovelier. My second pause on the walk to work was just coming up, right … here. I stopped in front of one of the tallest and whitest and gazed up at it, for this was where Harry and I were going to live when we were married. I'd picked it out ages ago as being the perfect house. I could almost hear my Manolo Blahnik heels tip-tapping around the highly polished wooden floors as I checked on my beautiful blond children asleep in their bedrooms and adjusted my Chanel suit in the enormous hall mirror before skipping off to join my husband for dinner or the theatre – or both.

Before I went I would dispense a few last-minute instructions to the Swedish nanny – did I say Swedish? Lord, no, I meant Romanian or, um … yes, Mongolian. Or did Mongolians have those rather attractive high cheekbones? I was rattled. Well then, we wouldn't have one at all, why bother? Baby-sitters were just as good, and
cheaper. But younger. I sighed. Even I could see the poverty of my situation, when even in my fantasies Harry was incapable of keeping his hands to himself.

With these weighty problems still preying on my mind, I climbed the steps to my workplace, Penhalligan and Waters, number thirty-three. I pressed the buzzer urgently, as if I'd been waiting there for some time and wasn't late at all.

‘'S me!' I yelled into the metal squawk box, and another buzzer obligingly let me in.

The only delay I was now likely to encounter was Bob. I looked nervously around the marble hallway. Bob was a large black labrador who belonged to Maurice, the aged and grumpy commissionaire who fielded visitors and clients up to the various offices in the building. They say a dog resembles his owner, but these two really couldn't have been more different.

Maurice was a Yorkshireman; dour, miserable, grizzled and past it. Bob, on the other hand, was well-bred, bouncy, friendly, in peak condition and well up to it. He greeted most people simply with enthusiasm and affection, which was fine as long as his paws were clean and you weren't wearing white, but I was a different matter. Bob adored me. Let's face it, Bob had the hots for me. The mere smell of me would make his nose twitch with delight, and the sight of me would have him yelping with joy. Within seconds, his front paws would be up on my shoulders, his tongue frantically licking every scrap of make-up off my face. If I pushed him away, he'd think it was all part of the foreplay. He'd goose me in the crutch, whimpering with delight, and it wasn't funny because Bob was a big dog.
There I'd be, pinned to the Regency staircase or the Georgian hall-table, with Bob on top of me, pleading with him, or Maurice, or both, to give me a break.

‘Wants to play, by the look of things,' Maurice would observe at length from the safety of his chair.

‘Yes – yes, he does, doesn't he?' I'd pant as Bob's big black head would give me another excruciating buck in the groin. ‘Ooof! Geddof, Bob! But the thing is, Maurice, I'm just a teensy bit late, could you possibly – you know, call him off? Aarrhh!'

‘Humph,' Maurice would grunt in an offended fashion. ‘He's only being friendly like, better than being all aggressive like one of them Rottweilers, i'n't it?'

‘Oh yes, yes, absolutely, much better,' I'd gasp, nodding furiously. ‘It's just that – well, you know, I do have to get to work and I am rather late …'

‘C'mon then, Bob,' Maurice would growl grudgingly, jerking his head. ‘She don't want your attentions. Save them for them that do.'

Luckily Bob was remarkably obedient to Maurice's commands – probably terrified of him like the rest of us – and he'd respond immediately, slinking back to his basket. Muttering my thanks to Maurice, I'd then back gratefully up the stairs, flapping my skirt in a vain attempt to get the air to it and dry the nasty wet patch where he'd slobbered before I got upstairs.

This morning, thank goodness, there was no sign of the amorous Bob. Maurice appeared to be asleep behind his desk, so I tiptoed past, hoping Bob was also kipping deadly in his basket beside him or, even better, at home with a bad case of doggy flu.

I looked at my watch and leaped up the stairs two at a time – Christ! I hadn't realized I was that late. I flew down one of the many corridors in the grand old house, which at one time would have been full of oil paintings and family portraits. Now that the second floor housed an advertising agency, the walls were lined with stills from cat-food commercials and Tampax ads. I barged through reception shouting, ‘Morning!' to Josie the receptionist, then, out of breath and panting heavily, shouldered open the nearest door and fell into the pit I share with Pippa.

Even by my standards it was a mess. It was a small office, dominated by two enormous desks which were almost totally obscured by magazines, newspapers, TV scripts, show reels, voice-over tapes, commercials, and the odd word processor or two. The walls were plastered with Polaroid photos which appeared to chart the progress of a particularly debauched office party – a veritable collage of tongues, silly hats, bare bottoms, gin bottles and suspender belts. The windowsill, the filing cabinet, and any other spare surface area, spewed over with rampant Busy Lizzie plants and their offspring; cuttings of cuttings of cuttings had taken over in triffid-like proportions. The floor was covered with yet more magazines; in piles, in bundles, in general disarray. In the midst of this chaos, a young girl in a blue coat was slumped in a heap at her desk.

Pippa had obviously died at her typewriter. She was sitting with her head cradled in her arms, her face pressed nose-down on to her blotter. She was one of those girls who had an amazing capacity to look ravishingly attractive one day and hideously atrocious the next. Today it was
obviously the latter. Her insatiable appetite for night clubs, late nights, gin and tonics and men – not necessarily in that order – was also instrumental in determining how she looked in the morning. My best friend, soul-mate and partner in grime at Penhalligan and Waters raised a pale green face from the blotter and peered at me through severely bloodshot eyes. ‘Don't talk to me,' she whispered.

‘Chocolate milk and bacon sandwich?' I ventured sympathetically.

‘Please, if you're going.'

It was all she could manage. Her head dropped back on to her desk like a stone. I dumped my bag and moved a few papers around on my own desk to make it look as if I'd been in for hours.

‘If Nick gets back from his meeting, say I've been in for ages and I've just popped out to the bank,' I commanded.

Pippa moaned in agreement and I galloped downstairs, this time escaping through the back entrance, thereby avoiding Maurice and Bob.

I exchanged the usual pleasantries with the friendly Italians in the sandwich bar, in pidgin Italian on my part and in pidgin English on theirs, and with ‘
Arrivederci, Bella
!' still ringing in my ears, sped back to the patient, hangover cure in hand.

As I deposited it on her desk, I decided she'd improved, but only marginally. She was still wrapped up in her navy blue winter coat, even though it was a warm spring day, but her head was off the desk and she was at least indulging in some sort of activity. She was smoking her one, two, three – fourth cigarette of the morning, judging by
the ashtray. If Pippa were having a frontal lobotomy, she'd find time to light a fag.

‘Was he worth it?' I asked smugly, from my frightfully healthy position at the opposite desk.

‘Oh, very definitely,' whispered Pippa, fumbling to open the chocolate milk and quietly ramming home the fact that I might be the picture of health, but I'd earned it by spending a mind-bendingly boring evening in front of the television, working my way through two chocolate oranges and a box of Maltesers. I'd suffered the added indignity of dog-sitting for Lottie whilst she too pursued life in the fast lane. Between them, Pippa and Lottie went to more clubs and parties than I'd had hot dates. What was the point of having a boyfriend if I never went out with him? I didn't voice this last complaint to Pippa, as I already knew her jaundiced views on the subject of Harry.

‘And you?' It was a supreme effort on Pippa's part, but she managed to form the two short syllables. After all, the morning ritual of, ‘What did you do last night?' had to be gone through, come hell, high water or hangover.

‘Oh, you know, just a quiet evening in. Quite nice for a change,' I lied. I hoped she wasn't going to ask, ‘With Harry?' but she was opening her mouth ominously, so I cut in quickly, ‘No, not with Harry. Something came up.'

Pippa sighed. ‘Probably his dinner.'

‘What do you mean?' I pounced quickly, realizing she had classified information.

‘He was in the same restaurant as me last night, absolutely plastered.' It was still an effort to speak, but our code of honour meant this horrendous piece of news had
to be transmitted as soon as possible. I felt cold as I waited for the inevitable bombshell.

‘No, don't worry, he wasn't with anybody, just a whole crowd of hoorays having a bun fight.'

I breathed a sigh of relief and my heart slipped out of my mouth, down my throat, and back to a more normal position. So it hadn't been a candlelit tête-à-tête but, even so, why hadn't I been there? I like restaurants, I don't mind hoorays, and I'm game-on for a bun fight. I quizzed Pippa mercilessly, ignoring her frail condition, but she either didn't know much or was being very kind. Her answers were suspiciously diplomatic.

‘… About ten of them, mostly men.'

‘… No, he didn't see me.'

‘… Um, a blondish girl on one side and a man on the other.'

‘… No, not very pretty, more mousy than blonde actually.'