2cool2btrue (33 page)

I’m going to have to find somewhere else to live. With Nora? A bit premature. She might not want me to, at least not so soon.

I really don’t know that much about this girl, my new
girlfriend?
Is that what she is? Is that what she wants to be? Is that what I want her to be? Suddenly I feel very uncertain. Lauren was all about certainty, comfort, familiarity, but Nora is like setting off in a new city without a map.

I feel sort of exhilarated when I think about it. New things. New places. New little rituals. That business of finding out about each other. New “our songs.” I’m enjoying this feeling, relieved to discover it, buoyed up by it, so I work at it a bit, pushing myself in this direction, telling myself it’s where I want to go, what I want to do. New things. New starts. With Nora.

To my surprise she’s already there when I arrive at eight twenty-five. I haven’t worked out what to say to her about Lauren. I suppose I was just hoping the words would come. She smiles broadly, throws her arms around me and kisses me on the lips, playing with my hair.

“How are you, babe?” she says, looking at me closely, obviously trying to read from my face what has happened between me and Lauren. But my miserable expression could mean anything—sad because we’ve split up or sad because we haven’t and I don’t want to see Nora any more. Or just sad because I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here and what I’ve got myself into.

“All right,” I mutter. I realise how much I’ve been looking forward to seeing her but not here, like this. Not with her in this mood—Nora the journalist on a high because of a story, perhaps the biggest story of her career. Not here, in this smart, noisy bar, full of hip people double kissing and hitting each other with media world gossip and elegantly crafted one-liners.

“Good.” She scans my face again. I look away. “You look very nice.”

“Oh, thanks.” I don’t feel it. “Er, so do you,” I add rather unconvincingly.

“How did it go with Lauren?”

I open my mouth to tell her but I don’t know where to start. I can hardly bring myself to say “We’ve split up” and even if I did, what would I say then? “So how about it?” I just can’t work out how I feel at the moment, let alone find some words to express it. Before I talk about me and Lauren I need to talk about me and her.

“Listen we’ve got to talk—somewhere quiet,” I tell her. She looks at me again, trying to read me once more. I realise Nora must hate this. Not being ahead of the game must be an unusual experience for her, probably quite frightening.

“What’s wrong with here?”

“It’s too noisy, too many people.”

“Have a drink,” she says suddenly, a note of anger in her voice.

“Nora—”

“Excuse me,” she bellows across at the barman who makes a great show of looking shocked at such over-excitable behaviour in this temple of cool. Her elbow catches her own glass but I manage to rescue it just in time.

“Well? What do you want?” she barks at me.

“Nora, look, listen to me—”

“Come on, what do you want? Can’t be that difficult. Glass of white wine?”

“Erm, yeah, yeah, whatever.”

She remains staring resolutely in the direction of the barman, despite my attempts to get her to face me. When the drink finally appears she snatches it from him and thrusts it at me. I look at it. Realising that she is determined not to let me speak I take a large gulp of it.

“Can we talk before we get to this party?” I say slowly.

“If there’s time,” she says, knocking back her gin and tonic.

“Look, it’s not what you think—”

“Ha!” she says. “That old one.”

“Nora, really.” Somehow the longer she goes on, getting angrier, assuming she knows what has happened between me and Lauren, the more difficult it is to stop her and tell her the truth. I need to find the right words, to tell her how I feel about Lauren and how I feel about her. To see where we go from here.

“Do you like it?” she says smoothing down her dress and twisting around to show it off. She is wearing a simple black close-fitting frock with a fur collar. And a lot of diamonds. “Got it from the fashion department. Mustn’t get it dirty—or ripped or anything.” She giggles, maniacally. She’s scaring me now. “These rocks are paste of course, but they’re so glam, aren’t they? They’re mine. I bought ’em in New York years ago.”

“Nora, what is going on? What’s this party all about?” I certainly can’t talk to her while she’s so obsessed with this fucking thing. Now I’m beginning to get nervous about it.

“I like your jacket.” I’m wearing a black dress shirt and a black Armani jacket courtesy of 2cool and some faded, stitched-up blue jeans—“model’s own,” as they say. When I sneaked back into the flat, avoiding Lauren who was watching TV and talking quietly on the phone, I couldn’t really think what to wear. I just wanted to get out. I opened the wardrobe and saw all our things together, the history of the last six years on shelves and coat hangers, all of it waiting now to be divided and packed. I just grabbed the first thing that looked vaguely appropriate.

“Thanks,” I tell her for the second time. “Now what on earth is going on?”

“I don’t know, you tell me.”

“I would if you’d give me a moment,” I tell her, my face paralysed with anger.

“We’ve got all evening together so you can do it whenever you want,” she says. I try and interrupt but she ploughs on. “Don’t ask me about this party tonight, by the way, because I don’t know anything. Honestly! All I know is what happens at these things will tell us a lot about 2cool and why all these people who have coughed up aren’t that bothered about trying to find out what happened to their money.”

“So what
is
going to happen at this thing?” I decide that she is right, I’ll just drag her into a quiet corner later, when she is less hysterical, less wired and more willing to listen.

“I don’t
know,”
she says, opening her eyes wide. “But we’ll see. Just have patience. Here, look at this.” She holds up her handbag, spilling her drink and mine.

“What about it?”

She looks around suspiciously and then points to what looks like a large sequin on one side of it.

“Hidden camera.”

“What?”

“The picture desk sorted it out for me. You just squeeze the catch here. Hang on, I’m doing it the wrong way round, yep, that’s it, you just squeeze the catch here and it takes a picture.”

“Why? A picture of what?”

“What goes on at this party.”

“And you still won’t tell me?—”

“I told you, we’ll have to wait and see.”

“Nora, you’re really beginning to annoy me.”

“Feeling’s mutual,” she says quickly.

“Then for fuck’s sake, let’s go somewhere quiet first and—”

“Here he is,” she says, looking over my shoulder and waving.

I turn round. A guy in a baseball cap and sunglasses is walking straight towards us. Not surprisingly most other people in the bar have spotted him too and are looking discretely but intensely to see who it is. Robbie Williams? Will Young? Oh, no, they almost certainly won’t know him but I do:

“Piers!”

“Shhh,” he and Nora say in stereo from either side of me.

“What are you doing here?”

“Hello, matey,” he says, looking around, coming up close to me and shaking my hand while clutching my elbow as if he’s trying to stuff my arm into the black bomber jacket he’s wearing.

“What do you want to drink?” whispers Nora.

“Oh, a real drink. Thank God,” he whispers back.

Fortunately the barman is being a bit more attentive this time, obviously wanting to check out the “celeb.”

“G and T,” he hisses at Nora. “A large one. Lots of ice.”

She relays this to the barman who has in fact already heard and is inspecting Piers closely.

“Good disguise,” I tell Piers, as more people turn to look at him.

“Cheers,” he says, winking behind his sunglasses, oblivious as usual to my sarcasm.

“Why don’t you tell Piers what’s happened recently,” says Nora. “To you, I mean.” For a moment I think she must be talking about my meeting with Lauren again, sarcastically implying that if I won’t tell her I’ll tell Piers, bozo that he is. Then I realise that she has other things in mind. I leave out the Peter and Scott episode but explain about Slapton’s visit and the computers. Piers is pleased and tells me that he knew it would all work out okay. Then I give him an edited version of the conversation with my dad.

“Your dad,” laughs Piers as he takes his drink from the barman.

“What about him?” I say, staring intensely. If I thought talking to Nora was going to be difficult until a few minutes ago, now with Piers here it’s going to be impossible. He looks surprised at my hostile reaction.

“Well, it’s just unfortunate that…you know…he’s mixed up in this.”

“Unfortunate?” I say, moving slightly closer. Piers takes a step back.

“Just saying. I’m sure he won’t, you know get into any trouble.”

“He’d better fucking not.”

“Stop it boys,” says Nora. “Don’t forget, we’ve got to work together tonight.” She’s probably right. I back off.

“I’m so glad to be out of that bloody warehouse place. Full of rats, I’m sure,” says Piers.

“It must be,” says Nora.

“I’m looking forward to this party, as well,” sniggers Piers.

I’m not.

We leave about ten and walk up Park Lane a bit before turning down a side street.

“It’s Wareham Street which is just…about…here. Here we are,” she says leading us into a little thoroughfare of flat-fronted Mayfair houses, near Frederica’s where we had our launch, a lifetime ago. I look round for Piers and see him flattened against a wall looking furtively around him before making this next move.

“Oh, try and keep up, you tit,” I tell him.

“Number twenty-five—this is it,” says Nora. She stands still for a moment and then looks round at me. She takes a deep breath. “You ready?” Now I’m feeling really nervous. She checks her hair and then her handbag camera. “What time is it?”

“Ten past ten.”

“Okay, I’ve got to be out by midnight to file, I’m going to read it over to the copy takers from my mobile. That’s the very latest time I can do it so don’t let me forget, for God’s sake. Things should have got going already with a bit of luck.”

I grab her arm.

“You’re really going to write about this?”

“Derr! Why do you think we’re here?”

“I don’t want you writing about it.”

She laughs irritably.

“What’s it got to do with you? How can you stop me? I can write about anything I want.”

“What’s the problem?” says Piers from behind us.

“My dad. Even if he’s not here tonight, he’s involved, isn’t he?” But he did say he was doing something tonight, though, didn’t he? This was obviously it.

“Oh, for God’s sake” says Nora. “I won’t mention him, if you don’t want me to. There are plenty of other people,
important
people here after all.”

“But it’ll get back to him. Other journalists will be looking for every name connected with it. People will talk, won’t they?”

“Well, it’s his own fault, then he shouldn’t have got involved.”

“Nora, it’s not him I’m worried about it, it’s my mum.”

She looks surprised for a moment and takes a deep breath.

“Look, I’ll do my best to keep him out of it. Now, Piers, get the door. You’d better stand by that security camera, you’re the one they’ll be expecting.”

“Nora!”

“Piers, get the buzzer.” Piers looks anxiously at her and then squeezes between us and hits the intercom.

“Oh, just fucking go home then. Go on,” hisses Nora. I seriously think about it for a moment. “Go back to Lauren,” she adds suddenly. In the light of the street lamps I’m sure I can see tears welling in her eyes. She blinks furiously and looks towards the door.

“Look, Nora, I’ve been trying to tell you—Lauren and I have split up.” Just saying it takes my breath away for a moment. Nora looks stunned as well.

“What? Why didn’t you just say so?”

“I’ve been trying to. I
need
to talk to you. There’s all kinds of things we need to discuss.”

A harsh white light comes on from above us.

“Hello?” squawks a woman’s voice from the entry phone.

“It’s Piers. I’m here for the badger meeting.”

“Piers? Piers Gough-Pugh?
You naughty boy, come in.”

The door opens.

“Oh,” says the woman, looking at the three of us.

“I brought a couple of friends,” says Piers, kissing her on both cheeks.

“Well, I’m not sure…” She takes a look at me. “Oooh, I dunno.”

She moves aside and lets us in. She’s wearing a tight black dress. It’s only as we walk past her and go inside that I see it’s made of rubber. And backless. Very, very backless.