Foursome (9 page)

‘How is Alex managing,’ I ask tentatively. ‘For money?’

‘Don’t ask,’ she says, and I know that that means she is still paying his way.

*

All too quickly Alex and the girls arrive back with Lorna in tow. Then Dan turns up with our two and Kerrie and, before I know it, there are eighteen eight- and nine-year-olds causing havoc all over the house. Usually at these parties the grown-ups take it in turns to sit in the little downstairs TV room drinking spritzers and weak lager while the kids take over the living room and do whatever kids do, with hands off supervision from one adult. This time the dynamics are all over the shop so Isabel and I stay with the children the whole time, while Alex and Dan pop in and out every now and then to see what’s going on. I am dreading the part when the visiting kids go home and ours all crash out in the bedroom when, traditionally, we all get pissed together. Somehow that doesn’t seem like such a good idea this year.

At one point Lorna leaves Alex and Dan to it and comes to join the party. It’s such an inappropriate gesture, even if well intentioned, that I don’t know what to do. I want to tell her to go away and leave us alone, but I don’t want the kids to pick up on a bad atmosphere so I at least sacrifice myself to keep her away from Isabel and I listen to her drivelling on about how Natalie reminds her of herself when she was little and hasn’t Nicola got lovely hair and isn’t William the spitting image of Dan for about an hour without strangling her, which is, I feel, quite an achievement.

William is the only boy and, as such, is alternately adopted by the screaming masses as some kind of pet and then spurned by them as a pariah. It’s like watching a microcosm of a rioting mob. It’s impossible to see from the outside why the mood changes, it just suddenly does, and every one of the group picks up the cue at the same time just as if they had been given an order. My poor boy is utterly bemused by the shifting tides, but he valiantly battles through, somehow knowing the good times will come again as they always seem to. I have to stop myself from steaming in to rescue him. By seven thirty, when the first of the parents comes to collect their offspring, he has been a servant, a dog, a horse, a pampered baby and the groom at several play weddings.

Zoe and Kerrie are nowhere to be seen, presumably holed up in Isabel’s spare bedroom. I can’t blame them for not wanting to spend the whole afternoon in the middle of this mayhem. It’s exhausting.

Suddenly it’s quiet. Kerrie, the last to leave, is promising to text Zoe as soon as she gets home. What they can have left to talk about I can’t imagine. Our kids are staying the night here as they always do on these occasions and, while the shattered twins go off complaining to have their baths, William and Zoe are dispatched to the TV room with sandwiches and Coke and the promise of an hour’s TV before bed (William) and two hours for Zoe. The five of us reclaim the living room and flop on the sofas, temporarily ceasing hostilities because we are so knackered. Lorna, of course, is holding court.

‘Aren’t Nicola and Natalie funny the way they’re so different I mean I said to Nicola you should be a journalist when you grow up because you know how she likes telling tales and she said I want to be a nurse stupid it’s Natalie who should be a journalist and…’

Isabel stands up suddenly, as if remembering exactly what the situation is.

‘Actually, maybe I should phone for cabs.’

‘No,’ I say, pulling her hand so she sits again. ‘We’ll stay for a bit.’ I want to say that Alex and Lorna should go. Surely if they had any kind of awareness they would offer. But, of course, they don’t.

‘Why don’t I get some drinks?’ Lorna says, oblivious to the tension. ‘What does everyone want?’

Isabel looks at her open-mouthed for a second as do I. Lorna starts collecting our glasses as if she were the gracious hostess.

‘No!’ Isabel says, snapping back to life. ‘I’ll do it. Thanks, though, Lorna,’ she adds in an effort to be nice. I don’t know why she’s bothering. OK, so maybe Lorna thought she was helping in some kind of misguided way, but her lack of social awareness is staggering. She’s got Isabel’s husband and now she’s acting like she’s taking over her home too. Or, at least, that’s how it seems to me.

‘I’ll help you,’ I say to Isabel, practically snatching the glasses out of Lorna’s hands.

Dan settles down, as if in for the long haul.

‘Let’s all get pissed,’ he says.

In retrospect this was not a good idea.

13

OK, so here’s what I remember. Nothing. I woke up this morning in my own bed, but with no idea how I had got there. I’m aware that my head hurts and that I feel sick and that something bad has happened although I can’t see through the fog to recall what exactly that is. My first thought is Dan. Oh God, please don’t let me have started a fight with Dan. I do that sometimes when I’m drunk and I start to get irrationally irritated about the fact that he’s so placid, that he never rises to the bait.

I look around. There’s no sign of him but his side of the bed is rumpled so we clearly both slept in the same room, which is a good omen. I groan and roll over, looking at the clock. Eight forty-five. Isn’t it Monday? Don’t I have a job to go to? I try to pull myself up to a sitting position, but my body won’t play ball. I’m scared that if I move I’m going to vomit and, looking down, I see that the washing-up bowl is beside the bed filled with God knows what, but it must have come from me.

Thankfully, just as I’m about to burst into tears of despair, Dan comes in, dressed and ready to go out and, what’s more, he’s smiling or at least he’s not looking like he hates me.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asks, and sits on the bed.

‘Oh God. What happened? What did I do?’

‘You don’t remember?’ he says, which makes me feel worse. So there is something that I should be remembering.

I shake my head but even that small movement makes me feel queasy.

‘Did we have a fight? Was I mean to you?’

He strokes my head. ‘No, of course not.’

‘What then?’ And then it hits me like a ten-ton truck. Lorna. ‘Oh God,’ I say. ‘Lorna.’

‘Yes,’ Dan says. ‘Lorna. But don’t worry too much about it. She was drunk as well. We all were. She probably won’t even remember.’

He clearly doesn’t know Lorna.

‘You do,’ I say.

‘I stopped drinking before the rest of you because I knew one of us had to be in control enough to call a cab.’

‘Tell me what I did.’

Dan kisses me. ‘I’ll have to be quick; I’m going to be late for work.”

‘Just get it over with.’

‘You just told her what you thought of her I guess. Nothing that you haven’t said about her to me but I’m not sure you ever would have intentionally said those things to her face…’

If I didn’t already feel sick before then I would now. ‘What things?’

‘You know, that you think she’s desperate, that she’s only with Alex because she’d have any man at this point, that she’s annoying…’

‘Oh God. OK, stop. Don’t tell me any more. Oh God,’ I say again, and I bury my head in the pillow.

Then I remember Alex. ‘What did Alex do?’

‘Let’s just say I’d keep out of his way for a while,’ Dan says, and I want to think that he’s joking, but I know he’s not. ‘There’s nothing you can do about it now so there’s no point beating yourself up,’ he carries on, and I notice he has a sneaky glance at his watch.

‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘Go to work.’

‘It’s just I have a meeting at nine forty-five. Otherwise…’

‘It’s fine. I’ll be fine.’

One thing I know is that I can’t call in sick. In my absence Lorna will answer the phone and, of course, she will know that I’m not ill at all. Well, I am but not in a way that it’s acceptable to miss work for. Besides what would I say to her when she picked up? Once Dan has left I drag myself out of bed and stand under the shower without even bothering to wash properly. If I leave in ten minutes, I’ll only be about fifteen minutes late for work. I’ll be useless, I’ll probably smell and my pores will be oozing vodka, but at least I’ll be there. I can decide how I’m going to handle the situation when I’m on the tube.

The fact is that I genuinely do feel awful. For all my going on and on about Lorna I know that she didn’t deserve this. No one would. I’ve never been the kind of person who feels they have the right to tell other people what they think of them. Who sees it as some kind of virtue – ‘at least I’m honest’ – when actually all they are is rude. I wouldn’t want anyone to do it to me so why would I feel I could do it to anybody else? I can be cutting, but only in my own head or to Isabel or Dan to make them laugh. I’ve never been a bully; I hate those people. I’d never want to be the cause of anyone’s misery. There’s only one thing I can do and that is to offer up a genuine and abject apology as soon as I get to the office. I’ll try to explain to her that it was more about me and the loss of my secure little family than it was about her. I’ll grovel. I may not like Lorna, but I truly want to put right whatever I’ve done wrong. Then later I’ll have to think about calling Alex and making peace with him. And Isabel to apologise for ruining the night. One step at a time.

On the way to work memories come flashing back like lightning strikes. I catch an image of Lorna crying, one of Alex’s furious face, Isabel, bless her, trying gently to tell me to be quiet, to go home. I hear myself telling Lorna she has an eating disorder, that she needs psychiatric help. I force myself to block out the flashbacks by concentrating on just how shit I feel in the present, which isn’t as hard as you might imagine given how sick I feel and the jolting of the tube carriage. At one point I gag and put my hand over my mouth, and the bloke next to me changes seats, rolling his eyes at a woman opposite as he goes.

Before I’ve even put my bag down I am saying, ‘Lorna, I am so sorry.’

She looks at me with an expression that could freeze water and says nothing.

‘I was drunk. I’m an idiot. I didn’t mean those things I said. Any of them. Really.’

Still she doesn’t speak, but I can’t seem to stop.

‘I’ve been thinking about it. I was threatened, I think, by having you come into our little social circle. I was worried that it would change everything forever and I hate change. It’s ridiculous, I know. And it certainly doesn’t excuse what I did but it maybe explains it a bit.’

Nothing.

‘Say something, please. I can’t take back what I said, but I want you to believe I am truly sorry. Please say you accept my apology.’

Finally she opens her mouth. ‘I’m busy, Rebecca,’ she says. ‘I really don’t want to listen to you.’

‘But,’ I say, ‘you have to. I need to get this sorted now. I can’t get through the day with the cloud of my bad behaviour hanging over me.’

Lorna’s eyes narrow. ‘Really? I have to?’

‘I don’t mean that you have to. I just mean please will you? I feel really bad. Please just let me apologize and then we can move on.’

‘You smell terrible, do you know that?’ she says, getting up and going to the kitchen. ‘For God’s sake, don’t let any of the clients see you like this.’

I consider following her, crawling in on my hands and knees, beating myself with a stick, anything, but right at that moment Joshua comes hurtling out of his office as he always does.

‘Morning,’ he says, en route to make himself a coffee. ‘How are you today?’

‘I have a hangover, I’m afraid,’ I say weakly. There’s no point even trying to disguise the fact.

‘Hair of the dog,’ he barks without missing a stride. ‘Morning,’ he shouts to Lorna as he arrives at the kitchen and then she pushes the door shut and I know that they are talking about me.

As the physical hangover starts to recede I am left with the spiritual one, twice as powerful and ten times as distressing. I’m a bad person. I know that when I have a few drinks too many I have a tendency to show off, to act brave and hard and like I couldn’t care less what anyone thinks of me. And I also know that the next day I am always full of regret and shame. I am too old to behave like this. But still I allow it to happen. I say yes to one glass of wine after another even when I am in the company of someone I have been secretly fantasizing about putting in their place. Even when I know, as I accept glass three, that this would be a terrible idea. Suddenly I’m confident. Overexcited by my own fabulous quick tongue, my ability to make bystanders gawp at my straight-talking bravery, to make my enemies appear
that
small. Usually, on balance, I get away with it because comedy outweighs cruelty by a significant margin – like I said before, I’m not naturally mean. But then I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel about Lorna. It was a stupid thing to do. Immature. A look-at-me moment from someone who usually hides in the shadows.

Lorna lets me suffer all day. And who could blame her? I offer her a weak smile every time I catch her eye, which she makes sure isn’t often. At one point she calls Alex and talks about me right in front of my face as if I wasn’t there. She puts on a stage whisper as if I’m not meant to hear, but she’s on her mobile so if she cared that much she could just leave the room.

‘Well, I’m hurt, Alex. I mean, no one likes to hear these things about themselves.’

I bury my head in my work and try to pretend I can’t hear.

‘No, no,’ she’s saying. ‘I’m sure I’ll feel better later. You know me, I’m thick skinned.’

I decide I don’t need to put myself through this and so I walk out and sit in the ladies’ for five minutes until I’m sure she will be finished. And, while I’m there, I decide I might as well have a good cry because I’m miserable and I feel ill and I hate myself. I can’t go home feeling like this. If I let it drag over into another day, I won’t sleep and getting through to her tomorrow will be even harder once she’s dug her heels in even further. I have to resolve it. Much as I would love a world where Lorna and I could ignore each other for the rest of our lives that isn’t the world I live in. She’s one of my bosses and the girlfriend of my husband’s best friend. Even if I didn’t feel so bad I would have to sort things out. The only thing I can think to do is to wait until the end of the day in the hope that Joshua and Melanie leave before Lorna does and then beg. Corner her when she has no audience to play to and hope that I can appeal to her better nature. If she has one. I have no option.

The afternoon drags on and on. Every time she stands up I’m terrified she’s going to reach for her coat and leave for the day. I keep my head down, determined not to make things worse before I can make them better. Eventually both Joshua and Melanie head for the door. Lorna scrambles for her bag, intent on avoiding being left alone with me for a second, but I’ve started before she can even sling it over her shoulder.

‘Lorna,’ I say, edging over to the door in case she makes a run for it. I’ve pretty much decided I’ll rugby tackle her if she does. ‘Can I talk to you?’

‘I’m going to be late,’ she says, stuffing one arm into a sleeve of her coat. ‘And I don’t think we have anything to talk about anyway.’

‘It’ll only take a minute. Please just hear me out. There’s nothing I can do but apologize. I’m really sorry. One hundred per cent honestly sorry for the way I behaved. I can’t emphasize enough how much I know I’m in the wrong. And I don’t expect you to say that it’s fine or it’s forgotten. And I know we’re never going to be great friends. But could we maybe try to move on? Get back to how we were?’

She stands looking at me disdainfully for a moment.

‘What? You reading my personal emails and sharing the details with your friends?’

I’m so taken aback I can’t think what to say.

‘Alex told me last night,’ she adds, throwing her trump card on the table. ‘I always knew you were a bitch, but at least I thought you were professional.’

‘Lorna, I…’ I run out of steam pretty quickly. There’s nothing I can really say now to defend myself. Thanks, Alex. At least now I know where your real loyalties lie. As if there was really any question that any of them still lay with me.

‘In fact, Alex talked a lot about you. Like how you would have hated whoever he went out with now because you’ve got no interest in him being happy – you just want your cosy little foursome to stay the same. It’s always about you.’

I’m fuming but I don’t want to let her see it. Partly because I don’t see what good it would do, but also because I don’t want her to think that she’s struck a nerve. Which, of course, she has. I try to make light of what she’s said, forcing a fake laugh. ‘That’s ridiculous.’

She ignores me. ‘He also said that Isabel used to say you were too clingy. That it was oppressive the way you always wanted to do everything with them, just the four of you. He said it was one of the few things they agreed on by the end.’

She pauses to take in the effect her dart has had and, if she thinks she’s scored a direct hit, she’s right. I try to tell myself that she’s making it up to hurt me or that Alex was just feeding her what he thought she’d want to hear, but the truth is it’s not out of the realms of possibility. I know that there were many occasions when either Alex or Isabel or even Dan said something along the lines of ‘shall we invite so and so’ when we were arranging a birthday dinner or even just a night down the pub and, thinking about it now, I realize that I was always the one saying no, it’s more fun with just us. I feel warm tears spring up in the corners of my eyes and I try to hold them in, which, of course, is impossible and one escapes and rolls traitorously down my cheek. I flick my head to one side, hoping it’ll fly off, hoping she won’t notice, but I catch a glimmer of a smirk on her face. She knows she’s got to me. This isn’t quite going to plan.

‘You see, Rebecca, things don’t stay the same forever. Loyalties shift. You have to earn friendship. You can’t just assume that because you were close to someone once you’ll always stay that way whatever. Especially if you don’t respect their choices. You’ve made Alex choose between you, his friend, and me, the woman he’s in love with, and, you know what, he told me there’s no contest.’

She’s gathering up her stuff again to leave in triumph. I’m lost for words, floored by the things she’s said, which I guess is the effect she wanted. Payback for my savaging of her last night. It’s understandable. But I’m hurt and I can’t help but want to fight back.

‘Lorna,’ I say, without really thinking through what I’m going to say next. ‘Alex is…’ I pause. I have to remember I’m trying to make things better here despite everything. ‘Just… it’s not as straightforward as you think. Don’t buy into everything he says, OK?’

Lorna snorts. ‘Alex and I are together now whether you like it or not.’