Any Way You Want Me (16 page)

I nearly dropped my serving dishes in shock. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, turning away from her to the sink. I put the taps on, squirted washing-up liquid into the bowl, busy, busy. How did she know?
What
did she know? Had one of her friends seen us in the Albert? My fingers shook under the bubbly water. Reflected light winked up at me from the cutlery.

‘That guy in the bar the other week. The one we saw with Becca.’

With
Becca
? Oh. Oh! Jack. She meant Jack.

I almost laughed out loud in relief. ‘No way!’ I said. ‘Absolutely not. Nothing has happened with him!’ I was careful to put my emphasis on the ‘nothing’ rather than on the ‘him’.

Cat put the plates down on the side and came over to me. ‘Really?’ she asked, looking into my face. ‘Really and truly? Only you’re acting a bit strangely. And I couldn’t help wondering . . .’

I looked straight back at her. ‘Cat, I don’t even know what happened to that number he gave me,’ I said. The truth felt like a luxury. She could bang on about Jack until she was hoarse, and I could honestly answer everything without guilt, for the simple reason that there was nothing whatsoever to tell. I laughed. ‘Anyway, he’s hardly my type, is he?’

‘Good,’ she said. The words rushed out of her; I could see her transparent relief. ‘Good. I’m really glad. Because you and Alex are just so great together and I would hate anything to mess it up.’

The smile tightened on my face like an uncomfortable mask. ‘Well . . .’ I started. Then I got stuck. ‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ I said. I looked over at the door guiltily and lowered my voice. ‘I mean, I wouldn’t say that we’re that “great together” at the moment. Yeah, we get on, obviously, and we still have a laugh, but . . .’ I shrugged. ‘It’s all so bloody domestic. We don’t do much any more. We don’t go anywhere. We’ve been out together
once
since Nathan was born. I mean, look at you and Tom, off to India, making plans—’

She interrupted, shaking her head. ‘Look at you and Alex, with your house and two gorgeous children!’ she countered.

I pulled a face. ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Look at me right now with my hands in the kitchen sink, where they are every single bloody day.’ I closed my mouth abruptly. My voice sounded shrill and bitter.

Cat hesitated. ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ she asked.

‘Yes, fine,’ I said, not looking her in the eye. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

I put the pile of plates into the foamy water and dried my hands. I would finish those in the morning. Right now, I needed to drink some more beer.

‘No reason,’ she replied awkwardly. ‘I’m just glad you’re all right. I mean, I’m glad that the Jack thing was . . . well, that it was just a bit of a laugh. Nothing serious.’

‘Yeah,’ I said briskly. ‘Another drink?’

Friday went by slowly and exhaustingly in the usual whirl of deeply trivial yet deeply passionate battles over which socks Molly was going to wear, what she didn’t want to eat for lunch, how she didn’t want a nap, and all the rest of it.

Nathan and I weren’t the happiest of souls either. I had started phasing out breastfeeding, which meant reproachful glances from him every time I produced a bottle instead of my own boob (or so I interpreted it anyway) and hot, full, uncomfortably lumpy breasts for me, with milk inadvertently dribbling out if I so much as heard him snivel.

Who would be a woman? I thought miserably as I discarded another drenched breast pad. All this leaking and bleeding, and all the rest of it. I had been chatting to a heavily pregnant mum, Nicki, down at the park that afternoon, who had started coughing, only to wet herself all down the front of her khaki maternity trousers. I mean . . . Was there no end to the lack of dignity?

‘Oh,
bollocks
, not again,’ she’d moaned, trying and failing to gather up the wet material over her enormous mound of bump to inspect the damage. ‘Does it show?’

‘Ye-e-eah,’ I’d replied carefully. ‘Only a bit, though.’

‘Fucking fuck shit bollocks,’ she’d growled, low enough that her two-year-old wouldn’t hear. Then, with a resigned shrug, she’d carried on where we’d left off in our conversation, moments before. ‘And then he suggested Octavia if it’s a girl! Octavia! I said, Liam, remind me what kind of car we’ve got again.’

I grinned. ‘You haven’t.’

‘We have! A Skoda fucking Octavia!’

‘Mummy, what she saying?’ Molly had asked loudly.

Nicki had clamped a hand to her mouth. ‘Sorry. Bad case of pregnancy Tourette’s. I think it’s my repressed rage at being a woman, you know. Having to do all . . .’ She’d waved a hand over her seam-straining bump. ‘Having to do all this.’

I knew exactly how she felt.
Having to do all this
, indeed.

On Saturday morning, I woke up feeling shivery inside with apprehension. Alex’s work do was that evening and I desperately didn’t want to go. I needed a good excuse to get me out of it.

‘Oh-h-h,’ I moaned at the breakfast table. ‘I think I’m coming down with something. I feel really ropy.’

‘What sort of ropy?’ Alex asked from behind the newspaper.

‘Just a bit fluey,’ I said, improvising rapidly as I glimpsed a packet of Lemsip in the open kitchen cupboard. ‘Um . . . Headache, aching joints, blocked nose,’ I said, reading aloud from the box. ‘That sort of thing.’

‘Mmmm,’ he replied, as if he wasn’t really very interested. ‘Lot of it going around at the moment.’

‘Yes,’ I said, then played my trump card. ‘I just hope I’m up to going out later on. Because right now’ – I coughed pathetically – ‘I don’t feel like going anywhere other than bed.’

That made him put the newspaper down. ‘What – you’re backing out of the do tonight?’ he asked. ‘Sade – I know you don’t like these things, but . . .’

‘And I like them even less when I feel ill,’ I said as weakly as I could. ‘But hopefully if I just take it easy today . . .’

Alex looked at me disbelievingly. ‘Sade, you’re such a crap actress,’ he said. He actually sounded exasperated. ‘If you don’t want to go, just say so. Don’t give me all this I’m-so-ill stuff.’

I stared at him, open-mouthed. ‘That’s a bit rich, coming from Brixton’s biggest hypochondriac,’ I said accusingly. ‘Oh, I’ve got a twinge in my back – ooh, I must be practically paralysed. Get me to a consultant at once!’

Alex smirked at me and picked up the newspaper. ‘Sounds like you’re feeling better already,’ he said lightly.

Smug git, I thought crossly, and made a big show of mixing myself a disgusting honey and lemon drink, knowing I’d only pour it down the toilet as soon as I had a chance.

‘Still,’ he went on, from behind his paper battlements, ‘if you’re going to duck out on me at the last minute, then at least I won’t feel really bad about getting hammered with everyone else, I suppose.’

I stared at his newspaper, quite tempted to punch a fist through it. Right. So that was the score then, was it? Either I came with him – which I so didn’t want to do – or, by not going, I gave him licence to . . . Well, to do absolutely anything he wanted, by the sound of it. And what exactly did he have in mind? Something with new-girl Nat, she of the loud laugh?

‘Like I said, I’ll see how I feel later,’ I said through gritted teeth. Curses. I’d handled that really badly. So . . . what to do? Go, and risk bumping into Mark? Or stay, and torture myself imagining what drunken Alex was up to all night?

I flounced out of the room with my horrible honey drink. I’d have to go, I decided – but I’d just stick by Alex’s side all night. After all, there was no way on earth that Mark was going to try anything on with me while Alex was in the same room, was there? No way on earth.

By the time the evening rolled around, I was starting to get a bit trembly with nerves. I felt really odd about seeing Mark again after that strange, intense encounter in the pub – how would I be able to look him in the face after that? I also hated going to these work parties, where they all knew each other and I knew almost no one.

‘It’ll be fine,’ Cat, who’d come to babysit, said cheeringly, slapping on my make-up for me. ‘Look, I’m making you look utterly ravishing here, so
everyone
will want to talk to you. You’ll be the belle of the ball.’

‘Ding-dong,’ I said glumly.

‘There,’ she said, spinning me round so that I could see my reflection. ‘Whaddya think?’

I gulped at the sophisticated-looking woman who was staring back at me. Cat had really done the business. She’d put my hair up in a neat twist at the back with an elaborate cross-over pattern on the top of my head – the sort of thing that I would need five hands in order to accomplish. Then she’d given me smouldering Catherine-Zeta-type eyes, shimmering cheeks and a perfect coral pout.

‘Wow,’ the glamorous stranger said in the mirror. ‘Is that really me?’ I giggled in a most unsophisticated way. ‘God!’

‘Fucking hell,’ Alex gulped when I swished down the stairs and into the kitchen, two minutes later.

It wasn’t just the make-up he was ogling, it was also Cat’s black Chanel dress she’d lent me. ‘Fifteen quid from Portobello,’ she’d said, ‘and it’ll look great on you.’

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ Alex said, coming over to run a hand over my bottom. ‘Let’s stay in instead. Cat – you’re dismissed.’

‘Really?’ I asked in delight.

He laughed. ‘No, you idiot, I was only joking.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Taxi should be here any minute,’ he said. ‘Get your coat, love – you’ve pulled.’

I hugged Cat goodbye, feeling even more twitchy inside. I really didn’t want to go, especially now I was looking so dolled up. Mark might think I’d done that for him – and of course I hadn’t. ‘Come on, then,’ I said to Alex, hearing a faint beep from outside. ‘Let’s go.’

The taxi roared up Acre Lane and towards Chelsea Bridge and town. As we crossed the river, I looked at the black water, sparkling with reflected headlights, and shivered. No going back, Sadie. Uncharted waters straight ahead.

The Laurel Tree was everything Becca had excitedly told me. Slippery leather sofas, Philippe Starck bar stools, beautiful androgynous staff with Prozac smiles and hundred-pound haircuts, and, most impressively, designer toilets that had probably cost more than our house.

The place was buzzing with people when we arrived. It was the leaving do for Bob Saville, some legend or other from the sports desk, and there was a display of his best articles up on one wall. I recognized a picture of Gazza crying, and one of David Beckham being sent off against Argentina, but that was about it.

Alex whisked me into a group of people and started introducing me to some of them. Jenny, one of the international writers – bad perm and no chin. Paul, political affairs columnist – sharp suit and fox-coloured hair. David, Westminster diarist – jowly and heavy-set. I smiled and nodded blankly at them, and tried not to sigh.

‘Right,’ Alex said. ‘I’ll just get us something from the bar. Back in a tick.’

The git. Was he seriously expecting me to make idle chitchat about Bush’s current fiscal policy with these political boffins? Not likely.

I glared at him. ‘I’ll join you,’ I said, treading on his toe with a carefully placed spike heel. ‘Nice to meet you all. Bye.’

The bar was heaving with women in expensive, plunging dresses and men in their best shirts, some that had even been ironed. I couldn’t see Mark anywhere but it was hardly surprising, with the current body count. The bar was three deep – something to do with the free-drinks element, at a wild guess. I suddenly felt tired and old and past it. My feet were killing me in my heels and it was only half-eight. And my bloody G-string was wedged right up my arse – it was all I could do to stop myself hoicking it out.

‘Christ, we’re going to be here all night,’ Alex said. ‘Tell you what. You carry on queuing here; I’ll go to the downstairs bar, see if that’s less hectic.’

‘No,’ I said quickly, not wanting us to be separated, but his back was already turned, and seconds later he’d been swallowed up in the crowd.

I sighed. Typical. We’d only been here two minutes and I’d lost him already. This is what happened every time, at these work dos of his. We arrived together but then seemed to get instantly separated until the end of the evening. Still, it had been far, far worse all those times when I was pregnant and not drinking, I comforted myself. At least there was a free bar here and I could get lashed without remorse.

Someone elbowed my side, and I whipped round with a glare. A skinny blonde in a black trouser suit, jacket buttoned in the middle, no shirt underneath. She didn’t even notice me.

The bar staff were busily pouring champagne, pulling beer bottles from the fridge, uncorking wine, lining up tequila shots. I watched one of them, a girl with glossy hair so black it shone blue under the neon lights, like a raven’s wing. She was wiggling to the music, laughing, singing as she shook a cocktail, looking for all the world as if it was her private party she was hostessing.

Then, I felt someone pressing up behind me. A familiar spicy tang made my breath catch in my throat. A hand brushed the side of my leg lightly before the fingers started sliding around to my bottom.

Mark.

‘No,’ I said stiffly, trying to sidestep him. There was nowhere to go, though. The crowd was all packed together like sardines. Oh no, you don’t! I thought. Not here. Not
here
!

‘Hello again,’ he said in my ear, his voice low and gruff, his breath hot on my neck.

I shook my head, hoping he would get the message. But oh . . . feeling him so close behind me was making me giddy. His hand was still on me. It was all I could think about. His fingers on my dress, sending shock waves right through me, radiating out from each finger, like ripples on a lake.

My mouth was dry. I needed to break away. I had to get out of this crowd right now, and find Alex in the downstairs bar. Right now.

I didn’t move. I stood in the middle of the bar throng, people around me on all sides, and shivered with anticipation, my heart missing several beats as his fingers lightly roamed my black dress.

What should I do? What should I do?

Go – quickly! Just go! Find Alex!

But . . . oh, the way his hand was slipping forward, up, onto my waist, his fingers harder on me.