Greatest Love Story of All Time (10 page)

‘… and worst of all, worst of all, is imagining what will happen if the three months comes to an end and he decides he doesn’t want me back,’ I wailed dramatically. Then I looked up at her. ‘Hang on,
what
weren’t you going to tell me?’

But Jenny was clutching her stomach, the other arm braced against the side of the sofa. ‘Fran, I need to go to hospital,’ she said quietly. ‘I just had a mini contraction. They’re expecting complications and they told me to go in as soon as this happened. Can you take me to the Portland? Do you mind?’ So polite, Jenny, even with a baby in her birth canal.

With the help of a terrified waiter, I helped her downstairs to the road where we hailed a taxi. ‘The Portland,’ I said, ‘as fast as possible.’ I felt like a bad extra in a bad film.

Just as we pulled away, Jenny grabbed my arm and literally roared into my ear, ‘FUUUUCK!’ Then ‘CUUUUUUUNT!’

I tried not to laugh. This was most unlike her.

The roar subsided and she panted in my ear, ‘Oh, my God, that was another.’

I stopped feeling amused and started feeling
panicked. ‘Don’t worry, Jenny,’ I said unconvincingly. ‘Contractions start hours before the baby’s born, don’t they?’

Jenny’s eyes were shut and she muttered, ‘I think it may happen quickly, Fran. It didn’t take long with Molly so they told me to come as soon as … CUUUUUUUUNT!’ She slammed her back against the seat, face contorted with agony.

In the rear-view mirror, the driver’s eyes were filled with pure fear. ‘St Thomas’, I said to him. ‘It’s three minutes away and you don’t have time to crawl across town.’ She began to protest. ‘I’m not a midwife, Jenny, and I’m not delivering this baby. Come on, now, try to keep calm.’ I squeaked as she pulled a clump of my hair out and screamed again. This was awful! What on earth had happened to nice calm labours in birthing pools where women sang songs and did yoga and arts and crafts between contractions?

The driver floored it.

As I watched Jenny being wheeled out of sight, taking her information about Michael with her, I cursed myself for feeling so angry.
What the hell was she about to tell me
? I swayed grottily in the corridor outside, still rough as arse from two and a half weeks of being stoned.

Jenny had given me her mobile and asked me to call Dmitri. I did so; he said he’d be there within half an hour. And then, as I went to hand her phone back to a nurse, I paused.
No. Don’t do it.

Calmly, quietly, as if it were perfectly normal to stalk your ex using his sister’s phone, I breezed into her inbox. The first message was from Dmitri; the second from me; the third was from Michael. My finger hovered over the ‘read’ button. Over the years I’d bollocked endless girlfriends for hijacking their boyfriends’ phones but now, standing by the lifts on the sixth floor at St Thomas’, I got it. Nothing would stop me reading whatever it was he had to say, however much it was going to hurt me. I was, after all, the crack whore now.

Feeling blood pumping loudly up round my ears I pressed ‘read’: Am with Nellie. We’ve got some lovely new jumpers for you. Hope you’re OK. Speak later X

I sank slowly on to a bench and watched a woman being wheeled past by a porter. Outside, it had begun to rain. I stood up and walked over to the window. The London Eye cruised slowly around, unhurried, unbothered by the weather, uninterested in what was happening to me.

Michael’s name was still highlighted on Jenny’s phone. ‘Call?’ asked a prompt at the bottom of the screen. I shrugged. Why the hell not? Things couldn’t get any worse.

He answered almost straight away. ‘Jenben! I thought you were in labour already! Look, I’m going to walk Nellie home and then come straight over … How’s it going? … Jen … ? Jenny? Hello … ?’

Gulls wheeled overhead as I walked along the Thames Path, past the bookstalls under Waterloo Bridge where tourists sheltered from the rain and talked brightly over takeaway coffee. Rain had streamed down my face and neck and was now inside my clothes; small sharp darts of cold on my back and chest that stung my skin. I was freezing and my teeth were chattering but I couldn’t stop walking, on past the Oxo tower and then the Globe theatre, where a smiling Korean couple asked me to take their picture.

Nellie. Nellie. Nellie. The rain got harder, hammering directly into my face. The Thames was brown and uncharacteristically angry; it looked swollen and deadly as it flowed fast and silent under London Bridge. Where the hell do suicidal people get the courage to chuck themselves into that? I wondered. (And why aren’t I one of them?)

Who in the name of God was Nellie? Had Michael left me for another woman? Was this separation a sabbatical so he could go and knob someone else before popping the question? Or, worse still, had he just left me for her and wimped out of telling me? Surely there was no way. We had lived together; he’d always told me where he was going. I’d have
known
if there was someone else on the scene. It was just impossible.

No, it isn’t,
said a voice inside me.
It happens all the time.

FUCK OFF, I yelled in my mind, but the internal
voice was insidiously soft and cruel as I pushed the wet slicks of my hair off my face and walked up the ramp to London Bridge station. The possibility of feeling even more rejected and unlovable than I already did was making me feel dizzy.

A few minutes later I was on the Northern Line, imagining a smiling stranger sitting in the waiting room at St Thomas’, her small gloved hand in Michael’s.

‘Who in the hellfire is called Nellie anyway? This name is for an elephant, no? Not a girl. No mozzer has called her daughter Nellie since 1900, Francees. She will be nasty like a badger’s bottom. And nothing you are telling me suggests that Michael is banging viz her.’

Silence. I sat in bed staring at Stefania, who had taken it upon herself to storm into my house again, although this time she’d decided against kicking my door down. Her wild hair was piled on top of her head and her tiny boyish figure perfectly enclosed in an eye-watering leather miniskirt and Take That T-shirt combination. It was Saturday and I had been in bed since I’d got in from the hospital yesterday, back in my tracksuit and working towards becoming human compost. I was drinking brandy and had been imagining Mario Testino taking big, bleak photos of me alone in my bed.

Stefania started opening windows. ‘Right, Francees. You have two options. You ask Jenny who zis Nellie elephant is, or you forget about it. Zose are ze only two options, you understand, yes? You do not have ze facts so you cannot sit here in a goulash.’

I sniggered and had another nip of brandy. ‘Stew?’

‘Whatever ze dish,’ Stefania snapped, ‘you cannot do zat to yourself. Or to me,’ she added, as she got up and started to clean out Duke Ellington’s bowl, which had become a little crusty of late. ‘And stop drinking zat disgusting spirit,’ she added. ‘Do you vant to turn into a steenking drunk?’
Like your mother
hung in the air.

Duke Ellington shot through the door at high speed and galloped over to Stefania as if she was the last human being left on earth after the apocalypse. He could spot a reliable feeder a mile off, Duke Ellington.

She turned back to me. ‘Which are you going to take then, Fran? Option one or two?’ She gave Duke Ellington a late breakfast and he wove round her legs, purring, pretending to be a normal, well-mannered cat. The little scrote.

‘I’ve decided to take option three,’ I said. ‘I’m going to stalk her.’ I opened up my laptop and logged on to Facebook, taking a little tot of brandy as I did so. It was beginning to do the trick.

‘You vill
not
,’ Stefania barked. ‘Are you out of your mind? Option sree will lead to earthquake and disaster, Francees.’ She removed the brandy from my bedside table but failed to grab my glass in time.

‘Stop it, Stefania,’ I said irritably.

I began scouring Michael’s list of friends. There were far too many girls, all posh and sexy and clever. ‘Bunch of hoes,’ I said, under my breath.

I continued scrolling down, knowing there definitely
hadn’t been a Nellie among his friends a few weeks ago. But there was a Nellie now. Oh, fuck. There she was. Nellie Daniels. Long, shiny brown hair, a black dress and a glass of champagne, laughing at something off camera. A man’s arm lay on her shoulders. Michael’s? I felt sick. ‘Shit. SHIT. Stefania, I’ve found her already. She’s a friend of his on Facebook!’

Stefania strode over. ‘Step away from zis computer,’ she yelled, grabbing it from me. ‘You’re being a foolish penis. She could be anyone! Being friends on myface does not mean that he has seen her naked. You are jumping into conclusions!’ She marched off with my laptop and put it into the oven, for no discernible reason.

I stormed off to the toilet, tears of panic rising. I needed her onside. I needed her to understand how frightened I was. I’d thought I’d hit rock bottom already: the possibility of there being an even deeper chasm for me to fall into was making me feel faint. I simply couldn’t cope with Michael having a girlfriend called Nellie Daniels. I thought about his hands roving over her back and her mane of shiny brown hair and nearly puked.

In the mirror my face was like a boiled dumpling, all puffy and bloated from crying with the dregs of yesterday’s makeup under my eyes. A cold sore was forming by my mouth. Faced with a choice between Nellie-the-fucking-champagne-girl and myself, I thought I’d probably choose her too.

‘I sink ve should do some yoga,’ Stefania said, when I came back into the sitting room. ‘You are like ze advert for ze Camden Sexual Health Clinic.’

I sat on the sofa and downed a good inch of cognac. ‘Piss off. I don’t want to do yoga. I want to talk about Nellie Daniels.’ Stefania shook her head and turned on the TV. Even though she always behaved as if TV was the enemy of mankind, she often forgot herself and sat absorbed for hours in front of my screen. ‘OK. Ve vatch television. You need to know vhat is happening in the world.’

She’d chosen a bad moment. For there, smiling at his front door with his arm round his Teutonic wife, was Nick. A strap line underneath read, ‘Nick Bennett joins Tory election campaign team.’

A little jolt of fear shot through me and I sat down. This was not good. Not good at all. I glanced uneasily at my phone.

‘I hate zis man! He looks like he has sex viz his hand many times each day.’

I smiled weakly, wishing I could tell her the truth about Nick. But of course I couldn’t.

Soon after, Stefania got up and went to her shed to make lunch, issuing a barrage of threats to end my life if I didn’t get into the shower and do something productive with my day.

I slouched back to bed and brooded. Seeing Nick’s face again was making me wonder.

The day before Michael had dumped me, I’d told
him I was going to ask Hugh if he’d consider me for the election-coverage team.

Michael had raised an eyebrow. ‘Really? Is that a good idea? You’ll be working fifteen hours a day, Fran,’ he said. Duke Ellington stared at him from atop the work surface, licking his paws.

‘I know. But I want to do it, Michael. I’m thirty years old tomorrow, and it’s time I tried my arm with politics. I’ve wanted to do it for ages. I reckon the time’s come – it’s nearly two years since I was made a specialist producer in ents.’ I shifted to the other foot. ‘Fran does Westminster, innit.’

He scratched his head and blinked, reminding me of how he’d looked when I’d first met him. ‘Are you sure it’s right for you?’

‘You don’t think I’m clever enough, do you?’ I’d blurted out, after a brief pause. For no reason other than a vague need for moral support, I picked up a carrot from the work surface.

‘What on earth makes you say that?’

‘You’re just trying to stop me making a fool of myself by asking Hugh. You don’t think I can do politics!’ I pointed the carrot at him.

Michael looked slightly irritated. ‘Don’t be silly. I’m just anticipating what Hugh’s going to say. His first question will be “Have you got any contacts?”’

‘And I
have!
’ I cried. ‘I’ve got a bloody direct line into the Conservative Party!’

Michael smiled exasperatingly.

‘You think I’m some fluffy little bumstain from entertainment who can’t hold down a job in clever politics! Well, I can! I can, Michael, I know I can.’ I thumped the carrot against the side of my leg, feeling suddenly close to tears.

Michael shut his laptop and walked over to stand in front of me. He took the carrot out of my hand and put it on the work surface behind me. ‘Listen, you mad carrot-waving woman, I don’t think you’re fluffy and I definitely don’t think you’re a bumstain. But what I
do
think is that you’ve been working long hours for months now and you need a break. You need more time for you. And us. I miss you!’

What had I done to deserve this man? I put my arms round his waist. ‘OK. I’ll have a proper think. Maybe you’re right. I can’t remember the last time we just sat around and watched TV.’

He smiled and kissed my forehead. ‘I think we should down tools – laptop and carrot respectively – and go and make use of the last few hours of your twenties,’ he said, leading me out of the kitchen.

‘Stop it,’ I hissed at Duke Ellington, who looked at me with stony disapproval as we passed him.

I had emailed Hugh the next morning. I couldn’t not go for it.

And just as I’d been about to leave work for my birthday dinner/potential engagement with Michael, Hugh had hauled me into his office. ‘I got your email about the election team,’ he barked, as I closed the
door behind me. ‘Fran, if you wanted to join the Millbank lot, why the fuck haven’t you said anything to me? Why the fuck did you wait till the fucking election came along? It’s a big fucking deal – how do I know you won’t fuck up?’

I’d tried not to smile at Hugh’s interview technique. ‘You don’t,’ I replied. ‘But you do know that I haven’t fucked up anything else for you and that I’d work so hard my arse would probably fall off.’

Hugh said nothing.

I took a deep breath. ‘What you don’t know is that it’s my thirtieth birthday today and that there could be no greater present than a place on the politics team. It’s why I got into journalism, Hugh. It’s what I want to do. I read about politics, I think about politics, I blog about politics.’ (That last one was a surprise. Did I?)