2cool2btrue (29 page)

“So, Piers is half American?”

“Yeah, fifty per cent Yank, though he always plays the Hugh Grant role whenever he goes there.”

“Very shrewd.”

“Oh, yes, he knows how to charm the right people, what to say to take them in. But then you know that, don’t you?”

By the end of dinner the issue of whether I’m going to go back to hers is hanging in the air between us. Our conversation is getting vague and disjointed with short, half-finished sentences as a result. Of course, I could easily go and stay with her now that I’m not living with Lauren, but somehow that fact makes it worse. It would be like a double betrayal. Even if she is cuddling up with Peter tonight I can’t go back with Nora. I do actually enjoy talking to Nora; she makes me laugh, she’s so different from anyone I’ve ever met before, we never seem to run out of things to say, she’s so sharp it’s scary, she’s got that dangerous unknown quality about her—I feel like I’m playing with fire just having dinner with her, let alone having sex with her. But I can’t go and sleep with her again, even though Lauren wouldn’t know about it this time, of course. I just can’t do it.

“Shall we get the bill?” I say, bringing things to a head.

“Yes, of course.” She looks round very energetically for a waiter while I watch her. Sometimes she’s so in control, so cool, like when we first met and had lunch and then, sometimes, she’s like an insecure teenager. I wonder how many boyfriends she has had. I wonder if the Wall Street broker with the parental home in the Hamptons was the only one. I wonder if he really exists at all.

She insists on putting it on expenses. It’s only twenty-five quid a head, so I let her. Besides, I’ll have to start saving my money now. We step outside and I realise that getting back to my dad’s is going to be a hell of a schlepp. Notting Hill is just fifteen minutes away. But still I can’t do it.

“I’d better be getting back,” I say, touching her cheek.

“You don’t want to come back to mine?” she says, looking down at the ground, kicking an old crisp packet gently.

“I, er, I can’t. Sorry.”

“Not even for a quick fuck?” she says. I see a muscle in her jaw jump angrily.

“Nora, don’t say that.”

“Why the hell not? That’s all it is.”

“It is
not.
Look, I really like you, Nora, but—”

“But not that much.”

“Just let me finish, will you?” Suddenly the street seems very crowded, very public. “I’ve been going out with Lauren for seven years, it’s a big chunk of my life.”

“But you’re not with her now.”

“Well, I’m not living with her but—”

“But when you feel like doing it with someone else again, you’ll let me know.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Well, why did you do it with me then?”

I can’t think of how to put it, so we stand in silence as people push past us.

“Nora, I was angry and confused, you were kind, you were there. I really appreciate that.”

“And I was a useful way of getting back at your girlfriend when she was pissing you off, is that it?”

“No, no.” I touch her cheek again but she looks away angrily. “Nora, I really like you. I don’t want to hurt you and I promise I wasn’t just using you, but I’m in a relationship, or perhaps I’m not any more, perhaps I’m just getting over one, I don’t know. Either way, I just need some space at the moment. I don’t want to mess you around.”

She takes a deep breath and looks around her. “Sure,” she says in a whisper.

“The point is, if I did come back now and we had sex, it
would
just be a quick fuck. And I really don’t want that either.”

“Okay.” She looks up at me and says the worst thing she can say: “I love you.”

I smile as kindly as I can. Oh, Nora, I’m so sorry. I kiss her on the lips. “Let’s find you a taxi then.”

What I didn’t say, because it seemed too cruel to say it at that moment, is that I still don’t trust her and I’m not sure that I ever will.

Finding a cab for Nora is no problem but it takes three attempts to find one who’s willing to go anywhere near my dad’s. The first two obviously think they’re going to fall off the edge of the earth.

“What the ’ell do you wanna live there for?” asks the driver as we shoot out along Commercial Road, the meter clicking up the fare rhythmically.

“I don’t,” I yell at him from the back seat. “My dad does.”

“Oh, right.” As we drive on, I notice him look at me again in his mirror. “I thought I knew your face. You’re that guy from that website, arncha?”

I think about it for a moment. “No, that’s not me. That’s my brother.”

“Really, you don’t half look alike. Bet he’s keeping a low profile somewhere, is he? He must feel a real prick.”

“Yeah, I think he does.”

“Unless, you know, no offence intended, he’s in on the whole thing. Waiting to get his share and then get the hell out, know what I mean?”

“I don’t think he is. I think he’s just a helpless pawn in a bigger game.”

“Well, you’d know.” He drives on a bit more with me willing him to shut up. “But what about all these big names? They must be livid. They’ll be suing the arse off him, won’t they?”

I think of Josh Langdon’s little bit of backtracking on the news report and Piers’s odd laughter when I mentioned legal action to him.

“I don’t know,” I say, and then I introduce the subject of traffic congestion around the Blackwall Tunnel, and that keeps him busy until well beyond Limehouse.

When I get back just after eleven my dad and Thingy are curled up together watching the climax of a Tom Cruise action movie at deafening volume.

“Hi, kiddo,” says Dad sleepily. Thingy remains glued to the set eating Jaffa Cakes.

The next morning my dad is tearing around the flat because he has overslept. His driver is waiting awkwardly by the door to the apartment, shuffling from foot to foot. I nod hello to him and then sit quietly out of the way until the Armani-clad whirlwind has left in a cloud of expensive aftershave, still cursing and swearing. I have a swim and use the gym. I get back up to the apartment at eleven and Thingy is putting away the groceries that have been delivered from Harvey Nicks. She smiles and offers me a biscuit. I smile back, shake my head and point to the cereal which is in the box she’s currently unpacking. She laughs, pushes away the box with the cereal packet in it and opens the biscuits anyway, shaking the packet around in front of me temptingly.

I snatch them from her and run away to the other side of the room with them. She shouts something and comes running up to me, giggling, trying to grab them off me. I hold them above her head and she jumps up. Then she pokes me in the stomach and I crumple up, startled, winded, laughing. She makes for the biscuits but I’m too quick for her, yanking them away again.

Then I dash off back down the living room towards the kitchen, but on the way I open the window and throw them out. The wind catches them and we both look down to see a confetti of tiny bickies blowing across the urban landscape. Harvey Nicks bics—chucked away just like that. Lauren would be furious at such silliness, my mum would be shocked at the waste. How much? Just for biscuits? But over the last few weeks I’ve been drinking vintage champagne at five o’clock in the office for no reason, wearing Comme des Garçons shirts once and stuffing them in the drawer, never to look at them again, and chucking expensive freebie toiletries in the bin because there’s no more room in the bathroom cabinet. So what the heck?

I look down again. The biscuits are still falling, blowing around, some disappearing from view.

I’ve set them free. The poor little Harvey Nicks bics.

What’s-her-name looks horrified and begins to punch me playfully. It’s our longest exchange since I got here.

A bit later on I ring directory assistance and get the number of the PR company that Sarah works for and, after some debate, during which I watch more MTV and
The Box
than any sane person should in their entire lifetime, I ring her and ask whether she’s spoken to Lauren.

“Yes, I saw her last night.”

“How is she?”

“Hang on, let me close the door to my office.” She comes back a moment later. “Charlie, she’s really upset.”

I feel my throat tighten slightly. “Yeah, well.”

“She can’t believe how you’ve changed.”

“She’s the one that’s changed, Sarah, all that TV crap.”

“I know, but it’s what she wants to do, you know how determined she is. She’ll get it in the end. But the thing is she doesn’t want to lose you.”

“It’s driving me mad, though. That ghastly bloke.” I can’t even bear to say his name.

“Look at it from her point of view—all this 2cool stuff, she says you just won’t leave it alone.”

“Sarah, I’m implicated in it. I’m a director. I might go to jail.” I don’t really believe that but I want to make the point.

“Mark can get you a good lawyer—”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got one thanks. Look, I’ve left really anyway, it’s all finished now.”

“But also, you know…”

“What?”

“You slept with that journalist.”

“I…well…so? She’s sleeping with
him.”

“She’s not, believe me. Look, actually I think Peter’s—What? What? Now? Sorry, Charlie. Got to go, crisis. Erm, call me later will you?”

“Sure,” I tell her, sitting in my empty, white room with my few clothes strewn around me.

I stand out on the balcony and let the wind buffet me for a while. I look out at the Canary Wharf tower and the other glass and steel buildings with their backdrop of fast-moving clouds. Sometimes if you position your eyes right, it looks as if the sky is still and the towers are falling over. Trains snake their way between buildings and I can even see people in the streets like little dots. Real human beings, dwarfed by what they’ve created around them.

When I step back in again, slightly punch-drunk from the wind, my hair all over the place, a phone is ringing. It’s a mobile phone lying on the industrial stainless steel kitchen work surface. It’s not mine. I don’t think it’s Thingy’s. It must be my dad’s. He must have left it this morning in his mad rush to get out the door.

There is no number showing on the screen, just the word “Unavailable.” I pick it up and answer it.

“Hello?” says a voice. “Jared? Sorry, have you got a sec? I need to ask you something. Hello? Is that Jared?”

“No, it’s not, it’s his son. Can I take a message for him?”

There is no response from the other end, just a pause, and then the caller clicks off.

It’s not much to go on, and there was a lot of background noise, street sounds, people talking, cars, buses, but it was just enough for me to recognise the voice.

What the fuck is Guy ringing my dad for?

I
put the phone down. It
was
Guy’s voice. I know it. I recognise those clipped vowels, that strangled urgency. Thingy comes in and smiles sweetly, then goes to the cupboard and gets out a bag of Kettle Chips before sitting down in front of the telly, flicking between the twenty or so music channels that my dad’s got. A girl in a bikini top and miniskirt dances manically around a computer-generated backdrop and sings to a thumping Europop beat:

I watch her for a moment then I look over at Thingy. I wish I had someone to talk to.

“What?” says Nora. “You’re kidding, that can’t be right.”

It’s so much easier to discuss this with her than to talk about us, our relationship, if that’s what it is.

“I’m sure it was him,” I tell her. “I know that voice too well.”

“And it was your dad’s mobile?”

“Yeah, he left it behind this morning.”

“What does he say?”

“My dad? I haven’t asked him about it.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because…” I don’t want it to be true? Because I don’t want him to lie to me? Because I don’t want him to be involved? I’m not sure whether I’m shocked or angry. “Because he’s been in a meeting all day,” I lie.

“Have you left a message for him?”

“Yes.”

“Good. As soon as he gets out of the meeting and you speak to him, call me. I’m going to ring Piers to see what he thinks. You couldn’t hear anything in the background that would indicate where Guy was?”

“No, just traffic and people.”

How many times have I heard this kind of exchange in stupid cop shows? This time it’s real.

“I wonder if the mobile phone company could tell us what incoming calls your dad has had recently.”

“It’s possible, I suppose.” More cop show stuff.

“Find out from your dad, can you? Look, I’m on deadline for another piece. Speak soon.”

Nora the hard-nosed journalist is a lot easier to handle than Nora the lover, I decide, slumping down and staring at
MTV Dance.

I don’t ring Dad, but just after seven he comes home. Thingy looks up from the settee and aims her face at him. He bends down to kiss her and there is rather a lot of tongue action so I head into the kitchen area.

“Hi, son,” he shouts through to me.

“Hi, Dad,” I shout back. “Want a drink?”

“Um, yeah, get me a glass of champagne, will you?”

“Champagne?”

“Yeah, why not, we’ve just closed a deal and acquired another U.S. agency. Cronkite, Lipchitz, Winckel, Schwimmer. Heard of them?”

“They’re the talk of Chiswick,” I mutter, popping open a bottle.

After Dad has settled down and bored us with the details of his brilliant acquisition strategy (I say “us”—Thingy doesn’t move her eyes from an episode of eighties vintage
EastEnders),
I say to him, “You left your mobile at home this morning.”

“Did I? Oh, thank God for that, I thought I’d have to get another one. I just can’t seem to hang onto them. Did anyone ring me on it?”

“A couple of people. Your reflexologist to confirm Thursday at six.”

“Oh, fuck! Can’t make it, I must ring and tell her.”

“Cathy?”

“Oh, I’ll ring her. Anyone else?”

“Yeah, Guy.”

“Guy?” He takes a sip of champagne and changes the channel to the annoyance of Thingy, who looks round at him from her position in his lap and frowns. “Guy who?”

“Guy from 2cool.”

He switches channel again. “Your former business colleague ringing
me?
What are you talking about?”

“It sounded like him,” I say, staring at my dad.

“But I don’t know him. Why would he be ringing
me?”

This time when he tries to change channel Thingy snatches the remote away from him.

“Right. Must have made a mistake.”

“Well, what shall we eat tonight? French? Italian? Chinese? Fusion?” He kisses Thingy, during which time she manages not to move her eyes away from the telly.

“Actually I’m not very hungry,” I say, getting up and going to my room. “I think I’ll just have a bath and go to bed.”

I haven’t felt so homeless since I first walked out of our flat in Chiswick.

As soon as I lie down on my bed I leap up again. I feel physically sick. How could he tell me crap like that? Why is he lying to me? Why
would
a father lie to his son, and so unconvincingly? To protect him? From what? I’ve been exposed to so much shit over the last few weeks I can’t believe there could be anything else. Could there be? Something worse? Something that he knows about, that he’s involved with?

I decide to have a Jacuzzi; at least it will kill some time. Above the noise of the bubbles and the pump I hear a knock on the door.

“I’m in the Jacuzzi,” I yell.

“Oh, right,” says Dad. “I, er, wanted to check that you don’t want anything. To eat, I mean. We’re going to order some food.”

I’m suddenly reminded of the time when he was leaving Mum. His clumsy attempts to win me over, to make me understand why he was doing this terrible thing. He kept arranging these trips and outings for me and my sister. Big, planned things. His anxiety as he took us to the Planetarium or a special kids’ screening of that year’s Bond movie or a pop concert (we always had a box, or special seats—shame it was never an act we liked) was contagious. By the end of the day I felt sick with nerves as well.

Eventually he gave up on my sister who, being a bit more forthright than I am, made her feelings very plain. Then it was just me and him. If he’d simply sat down and said to me, “Please forgive me, please can we go on being father and son,” it would have been so much easier but, instead, he kept manifesting it, clumsily acting it out, with his expensive, meticulously planned treats. Even more desperate, more intense now with just the two of us. His jolly commentary and self-conscious enthusiasm. Perhaps I should have said something. Like “stop it,” for instance. But I couldn’t bear to, in case it hurt him.

“No, I’m fine thanks, been eating all day,” I shout back.

Even above the noise of the Jacuzzi I can sense him hesitate outside the door before he goes back to Thingy. I watch
Raiders of the Lost Ark
on my own massive stereo surround-sound plasma screen before launching my now nightly assault on the hi-tech lighting control panel and slipping under the sheets.

The next day I’m awake by seven but I lie in bed until I hear my dad leave at eight. Then I get up and have some orange juice. It’s raining softly outside. The huge wall of windows makes me feel slightly exposed and I want to pull a curtain or get away from them but, of course, it’s impossible. I shiver slightly as I finish the juice. I haven’t got a pullover, just a couple of T-shirts, a couple of short-sleeved shirts, some jeans, some undies and five socks, none of which match. I wish I’d been better organised but then again I’m not used to walking out like this.

The mist and fine rain mean that you can hardly see beyond Canary Wharf. The Thames is slate grey, flecked with white. A barge moves almost imperceptibly in the choppy water. I think of Lauren and wonder what she’s doing now.

My mobile rings.

“Charlie Barrett?”

“Speaking.”

“It’s Detective Inspector Slapton here. We just wanted to return your papers and computer terminals.”

“Oh, yeah.” I’d almost forgotten about them.

“Also I need to ask you some more questions.”

“What kind of questions?”

“Just a few simple ones to help us with our enquiries. I’m sure they won’t prove too demanding.”

“No, sure.”

“Right, when can we deliver these things?”

“Where do you want to deliver them?” I ask, thinking out loud.

Not surprisingly Slapton is a bit confused by this question. “Well, that’s up to you, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I suppose it is.” I watch the rain on the windows for a while and then make a decision. “Can you deliver them to my flat in Chiswick?”

“If that’s what you want.”

“You know the address,” I remind him pointedly.

“I’ve got it. What time?”

I look around the apartment, shiver again. I see the big plasma TV which will go on again very soon when Thingy wakes up and I say, “Soon as poss?”

This takes Slapton by surprise. “Hang on a sec, let’s think. How about eleven-thirty?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“See you then.” He rings off.

I go back into my room, think about having a shave but decide I can’t be bothered. I text my dad to tell him what’s happening and ten minutes later I’m downstairs waiting for a minicab from the one company that will pick up from this godforsaken place.

The taxi takes me to Tower Hill and I let the end-of-rush-hour crowds pass either side of me like shoals of fish past a snorkler. I buy a coffee and a bacon roll for the tube journey, feeling nervous but sort of elated. I’m going home even if I do have to face Lauren. I pick up the
Post
at the tube station. There’s a story about some footballer getting thrown out of a nightclub and then something about a little girl who died because she was turned away from a hospital by a doctor who thought she just had a cold when she had something much more serious. The parents are threatening to sue. Someone has called for an enquiry.

Nora has a piece about a woman who left her husband and went off with her stepfather. I hardly recognise Nora from the postage-stamp-sized photo of her by name. She looks quizzically over the top of her glasses. I feel I should ring her. If this thing gets sorted out, or even just fizzles away to nothing, what will happen to us? I wonder.

On the next page there is an advert for anoraks featuring Steve, one of my old mates from Jet Models. He’ll be taking some flak for that. He looks like a right dork, standing there in a horrible fawn anorak, all zips and toggles and pockets, smiling inanely into the middle distance. “A special offer from the
Post
—just £29.99 including postage and packing.” Not exactly one for your book. Still, at least he’s earning.

By the time I reach our tube station, I’m really feeling nervous. I take out my phone to ring ahead. Hang on, why the fuck should I? It’s my flat. I check for my keys in my pocket. They suddenly feel very sharp, like an offensive weapon. I’ll be stabbing them into the lock in a few minutes.

As I walk down our road, I find myself looking out for changes, like a soldier returning after the war, or someone coming back to a childhood haunt. Needless to say, it hasn’t changed at all over the last few days. But something stops me in my tracks.

Peter’s car. A dark blue Lexus, parked just down from the flat. I peer in the window as I walk past, just to make sure. Yep, there above the dashboard are some sunglasses that I’ve seen him wearing. I check my watch—just gone ten. He could have arrived this morning, certainly, but somehow I don’t think so; the car looks like it’s been there all night. There are rain-sodden leaves on the windscreen. My heart thumping with shock, anger and an explosive, paralysing unhappiness, I carry on walking until I reach what used to be Lauren’s and my home.

It looks innocent enough. But the curtains are still closed.

Just as I’m putting my key in the lock, some devious, masochistic part of me tells me to do it quietly. I slip it in surreptitiously, open the door in silence and step inside. I close the door very softly behind me and put my bag down. I can smell his aftershave already. I feel my breathing becoming irregular as my heart starts beating faster.

In our bed! The two of them.

Putting my head round into the living room I see a bottle of champagne and two glasses on the coffee table. While I was drinking champagne at my dad’s last night they were doing it here. Then I hear Peter’s voice. Very quiet, slightly muffled. Then a giggle. I have to stop for a moment. I feel dizzy and physically sick. This is
our
flat. How could she do it here? In our bed? How could she swap him for me so easily?

It’s too much. I burst into the bedroom.

Peter looks round in alarm. “What the—?” is all he can say before I grab him by the hair and drag him out of my bed. Out of the corner of my eye I see Lauren’s slim, tanned leg slip back under the duvet.

Peter is lying at my feet, contorted as he tries to look up at me and move away from me at the same time.

“Charlie!” he says, trying to cover his genitals while holding his head where I yanked his hair. There are still stray hairs in my hand. “What are you doing here?”

“You fucking bastard,” I yell at him. “You fucking,
fucking
cunt. How dare you?” My voice is cracking as anger and unhappiness surge through me. A good kick sends him sprawling across the floor.