Don't Tell Eve (18 page)

Jess’s stonewalling forced Oliver to try another approach. ‘The thing is,’ he tried to explain, far too early the morning after Zoë’s party, ‘the thing is that I’m writing an article on Eve and I wondered if you’d mind having a chat. It can be off the record – whatever you like.’

There was no way Jess was going to speak to this pushy journalist about Eve, and everyone knew that ‘off the record’ was a phrase that meant nothing anymore. Besides, he’d already indicated that Eve wasn’t the only thing he was investigating. ‘No, I’m sorry, I can’t do that. By the way, have you spoken to anyone else at Papyrus?’

‘I’ve spoken to Eve.’

‘Right, well, that’s the main thing. Good luck with your article and if you need to speak to anyone else here, you should go through our publicity director.’ Jess put down the receiver. While a number of people knew about the dolls, only four could connect them to her. Unfortunately those four included Zoë and Phil. As Zoë knew how Jess felt about journalists, this meant Phil had to be the culprit.

She went to find him.

With evident reluctance, Phil stopped cruising the net and wearily raised his bloodshot eyes in Jess’s direction.

‘So what do you know about the piece on Eve?’ she asked.

‘What piece?’

‘Don’t give me that, Phil. It has to be you who’s been speaking to that journo and telling him about, you know, what you’ve seen.’

‘What I’ve seen? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t spoken to any journalists recently, except a guy I met last night, and he does stuff about design anyway. And what
did
I see? I don’t remember seeing anything, certainly not any dolls …’ Phil leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head.

In an attempt to regain the upper hand, Jess asked the question that had also been bothering Phil’s assistant all morning. ‘What is that on your chin?’

‘Oh, that? It’s a jazz dot. Do you like it? I was sick of the stripe. It’s kind of cool, isn’t it? Anyway, we could talk all day about my facial hair, but I’d much rather discuss what the hell you’re up to.’

After Jess had walked out, Phil stood up and moved towards his new window with just one thought: women really were impossible. This thought was still occupying him when the phone rang.

‘Phil.’

‘Jack. How’re you holding up?’

‘Been better.’

‘Ditto – and you won’t believe what happened when I got home this morning.’

Jack was used to Phil’s stories. ‘Try me.’

‘The soap actress – or actor, as she wants to be called now, because it sounds more serious – had broken into my house and fed my fish.’

While Phil’s adventures sometimes did involve actresses, feeding fish didn’t normally come into it. ‘Er, yes?’

‘She was sitting on the sofa, watching as they ate, cold-blooded cow.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Use your brain, mate. She was murdering my collection and, like a psychopath, enjoying it. Overfed fish die.’

‘Oh, right, I see.’ Jack tried not to sound as though he believed that the only appropriate places for fish were oceans, rivers or plates. ‘What did you do?’

‘Rescued them – well, scooped off the excess sprinkles just in time.’

‘What about the actress – sorry – actor?’

There was a brief pause before Phil answered. ‘Well, she was upset.’

‘About your fish?’

‘No, she didn’t seem to care much about them.’

‘What was she upset about then?’

‘Me, apparently. “Apparently” I’d treated her badly. I mean, Jess had already lectured me on how I should have handled things – I tell you, never share a taxi with that woman, but then you probably know that – so anyway, that bit didn’t come as a total shock, and neither did seeing her, I guess. But the fish business? Jesus.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘Well, she was upset.’

‘Bloody hell Phil, you didn’t?’

‘It was two in the morning, I wasn’t thinking straight, I was drunk and I just wanted her to stop crying.’

‘Sex is not the solution to every problem.’

‘Ha! That’s what you say – she stopped crying.’

‘Yeah right, until you dump her again.’

‘No, it’s okay. I explained clearly this morning that there’s someone else, so it can’t work. I even used terms she could understand.’

‘What did you say?’

‘It was brilliant. I said that she should think of my house as the Big Brother house, and should consider herself evicted.’

‘For a smart guy, you’re surprisingly stupid sometimes.’

‘Well, she left and the fish lived, so it was a happy ending. But you didn’t ring to talk about me, I’m guessing.’

‘I’d factored it in but, yeah … That book, were you serious? And who else?’

‘I’m working on it. And I was – am – very serious. What about a meeting tomorrow, with Zoë? We need to get this moving quickly if it’s going to happen.’

‘Don’t worry, we’re on to it.’

‘Excellent. See you tomorrow then.’

Phil began making notes.

An hour and a half later, his assistant found him. ‘You’re needed at a meeting. They rang you a few times but you haven’t been answering.’

Phil stared at her. Had he really been so absorbed in his work? It was an impression he didn’t want to give, he’d been trying – with success – to convey the opposite for months. He was going to have to work on this book in secret, in case people began to think he cared.

By late morning Zoë had consumed three espressos and had a very long conversation with Jack, who’d called disgustingly early to discuss the potential book. For someone who should have been hungover he was annoyingly upbeat and full of ideas and, as Zoë discovered to her surprise, so was she. There were so many possibilities. Not that she was convinced Phil had been serious; he was difficult to judge that way. He was difficult to judge full stop, but this wasn’t the time to think about Phil.

Instead, while opening the fuchsia silk curtains in her bed room, she addressed the man in her bed. ‘Can I get you something – water perhaps, or maybe a Berocca? Nothing like a serious dose of vitamin B after a big night. Or coffee, maybe?’

Chris blinked. The light hurt and it felt as if someone had stomped on his head. ‘Water, B-b-berocca, coffee, yes. Please.’ As he lay there, details of the previous evening began to emerge from the abyss. It had been going well, really well and then … He pulled a pillow over his head.

‘Oh, don’t be so melodramatic,’ said Zoë. ‘It happens to men all the time. Especially those who drink and are, I see in this light, not in their twenties anymore.’

From under the pillow came Chris’s muffled voice. ‘It’s never happened to m-m-me before.’

‘Well, c’est la vie. Now, can I get you some toast as well? Might make you feel better.’

Nothing would make him ever feel better again, Chris was sure of it. ‘Okay, with Vegemite, dabbed, not s-s-spread. Thanks.’

A few minutes later Zoë was back with a breakfast tray, relieved that the cleaning fairies had done their job. Apart from a faint smoky odour detectable under the overpowering scent of Pine-O-Cleen, there was no sign of the previous evening’s event. ‘So, did you have a good time?’

Chris wondered if she was trying to humiliate him.

‘I meant the party,’ said Zoë.

‘From what I can remember.’

‘The mojitos were pretty lethal, weren’t they? If it’s any consolation you weren’t the only one to get completely trolleyed.’

Images floated up in front of Chris’s eyes, making him feel even more queasy. Belly dancing, had someone been belly dancing? And hadn’t there been a screening of some weird film somewhere? And David. ‘What happened to David?’

‘How could you not have noticed?’

‘What?’

‘It was almost indecent to watch.’

‘What?’

‘He was with my PA.’

‘I don’t think …’

‘You would have. Door bitch. Leather. Gorgeous Asian girl, hair down to her arse.’

‘With D-d-david?’

‘I know, it seems unlikely at first.’

‘At first?’

‘She has this thing for musicians – who’d have thought he’d have been a closet oboist or oboe player or whatever they
call themselves. She was getting sick of edgy blokes whose memories were so shot they could hardly remember their own name, let alone hers, so when he recited some long seventeenth-century love poem, that was it. She’s a flowers-and-choccy romantic at heart, though you wouldn’t know it to look at her. Appearances, huh?’

Chris made a mental note about the poetry being the clincher. ‘Well, g-g-good for him.’ The sustenance and caffeine were leading him to hope that he might make it home without throwing up on the train.

‘So I hear,’ said Zoë, thinking how appealingly crumpled Chris was. But, sadly, he was no longer appealing in other ways and as she thought this she felt a sharp unfamiliar stitch-like pain in her chest. Was this what regret felt like? she asked herself. This had been a beginner’s mistake, a tactical error. The man she’d wanted had left the party without even saying goodbye, so she’d settled for Chris, who was objectively desirable, apparently well-informed about a wide range of sexual practices, and, most importantly, to hand. That he’d been too trashed to perform hadn’t worried her the previous evening, but it did now. If she kicked him out, he’d think she was holding it against him, and maybe get some kind of complex. There was only one thing to do, to stop this happening again.

Dropping her kimono onto the floor, Zoë got back into bed.

[site name donttell]/thedolls/exhibit-b

While the recipient of the doll had followed the instructions that had come with it, keeping it out of the way of children and animals, and resisting the urge to play with pins, it still wasn’t safe.

It had been placed next to an upstairs window, one that had been opened that morning to let fresh air into the room. It was a window the owner had forgotten to close as she cleaned. Cleaning was an activity she currently pursued with the same vigour she’d once devoted to her career. A career that was now over. She preferred not to think about how that had happened, as she didn’t understand. It didn’t make sense.

She was not thinking about her career when she hit the doll with her multi-coloured feather duster, nor was she as she watched, unable to save it as it toppled, then fell, its white shirt billowing in the wind on the way down to the swimming pool below.

When, moments later, there was a splash and the woman leaned out of the window and saw the doll bobbing up and down in the water, it had her full attention. She knew she had to act quickly and she ran down the four flights of stairs, located a pool-cleaning pole, and scooped it out.

She was aware that it wasn’t rational to care so much about a doll, but rational seemed to be an out-of-date concept: the world, she’d recently discovered, was neither a rational nor a fair place.

In the last five years Jack had read no more than twenty books – possibly closer to ten – and all except one had had pictures, most recipes as well. As to writing, he didn’t even bother having his own email address, he just used Jess’s or Alex’s or the business one.

Zoë occasionally used full sentences in emails and her reading material, when it didn’t contain pictures, involved naïve yet feisty servant girls being taken in hay sheds, fields, attics and pretty much anywhere but a bedroom by the handsome lord, count or duke of the manor, castle or court.

Apparently this didn’t matter. Phil told them that all he needed was ideas and Papyrus would do the rest.

But still, Jack would have liked to discuss the idea with Alex, who’d been writing books for years, even if he was the reason Jack was having to embark on this writing gig in the first place. Plus work twice as hard as usual. When Alex returned they were going to have a word about the definition of ‘partnership’.

Jack was loitering at the back door of The Beached Whale contemplating calling Phil to tell him he was dreaming, when Todd appeared. Todd had an unnerving way of materialising out of nowhere.

‘How about that?’ said Jack. ‘Just the man I need.’

‘Oh yes?’ Todd said, encouragingly. He liked to feel needed.

‘Go sit down outside and I’ll grab us some coffee – I want to talk to you,’ said Jack.

Less than five minutes later the two men were in the back garden of the restaurant, sitting at a small wooden table. Jack had a guilty look and a cigarette, Todd had a coffee cup.

‘So, what’s so secret that we have to hide out here to discuss it?’

‘A book,’ said Jack, lighting his cigarette and blaming Jess and Alex for his relapse. Not that he was going to tell either of them, he knew how they would react.

‘A particular book?’ asked Todd, carefully.

‘Yeah,’ said Jack.

‘Okay,’ said Todd, taking a sip. The coffee at the Whale was very, very good. Nearly as good as his own, or so Jess had told him.

‘I was at Zoë’s party last night …’

The two then discussed the book concept at length: Jack’s ideas, Zoë’s ideas – vague as they’d been, given her state when she’d spoken to Jack – and Phil’s grand plan.

As always, Todd’s comments were useful and perceptive, and not for the first time Jack wondered why Todd chose to hide his talents.

In a private room on the other side of The Beached Whale, Chris’s very new agent was making sure that Lionel, the
ex-head of Papyrus, now consultant publisher at Zest, knew just how talented Chris was.

Chris didn’t quite remember meeting the agent or how it had come about that she was now representing him. There were still significant gaps in his memory about the previous night. But he couldn’t forget Zoë. She was a goddess and there had to be a way of making her change her mind about him. Hoping his liver was in a forgiving mood, he sipped his merlot nervously. His as-of-that-morning agent was familiar with the Papyrus debacle and how much more Zest had subsequently offered as an advance. So why she couldn’t simply accept the offer, he didn’t understand. What if Zest decided they didn’t want him after all? What if no one wanted him – or his book? How would he get Zoë then? Through the window, Chris could see two blokes smoking and chatting, oblivious to his pain and quite obviously with none of their own. It wasn’t fair.

Lionel was only half listening to the agent. He was more interested in Chris, whose discomfort seemed to increase a notch with the agent’s every demand. Chris’s book was an electric combination – confronting, challenging, steamy and a page-turner. There was little doubt it was that beautiful and rare beast: a prize-winning work that was also readable – and saleable. The book, and by association its author, was the real thing. What puzzled Lionel was why Eve had dropped it from the Papyrus list. Although from what he’d heard, Eve was puzzling – and a long way from the real thing.