Running in Heels (5 page)

—I brace myself for the torrent of slander that always follows this phrase—

“…but it's not fair that she hogs all the publicity, she's always in the paper, every day there's a massive picture of her showing off her nice swayback legs—which I must say are so hyperextended they're practically deformed!—and I can't see how she ever has time to rehearse—she seems to spend all her time talking to journalists! I'm a principal too, why can't they interview
me
?”

Mel's lower lip wobbles. I feel a rush of pity.

“Don't be upset, Mel,” I urge, “I'll sort something out for you,” I add rashly.

Mel claps her hands and—to my surprise—flings her arms around me. It's like being hugged by a bag of nails.

“Do you promise?” she cries. “Thank you so, so much!” She
pauses, then says, “I know! Why don't we go for a coffee and talk about it? You could sit in on rehearsal on Friday, then we could go out. Out of the building! I don't know anywhere around here but I'm sure you do! It would be fun, oh please say yes!”

I'm shallow enough to be flattered at the chance to chitchat with a star. I am also mesmerized by her eyes, so huge and blue and doleful, how could I refuse? I agree and watch her skip out. She sings Tori Amos's “Cornflake Girl” all the way down the corridor.

I grin and realize my chin hurts. A spot. Great: my first orgasm and I get a rash. I force myself not to touch it or look—this place is made of mirrors and frankly I'm sick of the sight of myself. Then at 6:03, after a day of sullen silence, the phone rings. I grab it like a drowning man grabs at a twig.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Natalie, it's Sally at reception.”

“Hello, Sally,” I reply, trying not to droop.

“I have a gentleman here to see you.” Her voice drops—“I guess he's to blame for your
intriguing
appearance today”—and then at her normal pitch, “Shall I send him up?”

The comments on my lack of lipstick are starting to unnerve me. Maybe I suffer from inverted body dysmorphic disorder and am twice as ugly as I think I am. But lust conquers all and I cry, “Yes, yes, oh thank you, send him up now!” I feel ashamed of doubting him.

“My pleasure,” says Sally with a giggle. “He'll be right with you.” I slam down the phone and start running in different directions—I fumble for my makeup bag but it is wedged at the bottom of my bag by that great big bully of a book,
Stalingrad
, lent to me by Saul (I keep meaning to start it). Finally I wrench Antony Beevor's spiteful opus out of the way and tug out the makeup bag. I am poised to click open my powder case when I hear a gentle knock. I stuff it out of sight and rake my hands through my hair.

“Come in!” I croak.

My caller strides in, clutching a large bouquet of deep red roses, and my heart sinks.

He looks at me and the smile dies on his face.

“What,” says Saul in a voice I've never heard before, “is that on your chin?”

IT'S POLITE IN MODERN SOCIETY NOT TO GROW A
beard. (In the name of equality this applies to women too.) Beards are musty cornflake-ridden things and should only be grown in emergencies. Designer stubble in particular is hazardous and should be banned. If it were, my chin wouldn't look as if it had been attacked by a cheese grater and Saul wouldn't be staring silently ahead and driving his Lotus at a more geriatric pace than usual. I feel menaced. I slide low in my seat and twiddle with my hair. The last ten minutes have not been fun.

“What's
what
on my chin?” I'd whispered, a slow curl of fear unfolding. My hand flew to conceal the offending spot. Except it wasn't a spot. It was a red patch of crusting scab. An injury sustained by fierce and prolonged rubbing against an unshaven jaw. I had stubble trouble.

“There's something I should tell you,” I said in a small voice. I waited for Saul to smash his fist into the wall like a normal well-adjusted male and scream, “You bitch! I'll kill him!” but all he said was, “You forget that I've booked us a table for seven-thirty at the Oxo Tower Brasserie. We can discuss it there.”

I opened my mouth, then shut it and nodded. He held open the door for me and I cringed as I ducked under his arm. As we reached the car I realized he'd left the roses to die on my desk.

“How was work?” I shrill.

“Good,” replies Saul, and starts whistling softly under his breath. I think it's Celine Dion's “My Heart Will Go On.”

I squeeze my hands tight to prevent them shaking. The tension is hideous. I might pop like a balloon and splat his interior in shards of red rubber. Until recently I thought Saul was a pushover, about as scary as a Meg Ryan film. Now, I revise my opinion. He's Dirty Harry with an abacus. I keep glancing at him sideways to check he hasn't morphed.

“Can I turn on the radio?” I bleat.

“I'd rather you didn't,” he says. I quickly withdraw my arm, which has already reached out to turn the dial. I realize that if ever I've wanted something, Saul has agreed to it. When he broke a dirty plate and I asked him to wash it before putting it in the bin because I couldn't relax knowing it wasn't clean in there, he scrubbed it with dishwashing liquid and said fondly, “We're two of a kind!” He also bought me a new plate. He is kind and forgiving. I hope.

We ascend mutely in the silver lift and walk into the bar. It's full of bright polished faces and I wish I were any one of them. I'd be the piano stool if it meant escaping the cool hell of Saul's placidity.

“Would you like a drink?” I mumble to his left nostril.

“A lemonade, thank you,” he replies. He nods toward some empty chairs. “I'll get the table.”

I watch him stride toward it. He looks thinner in that dark suit. I pay for a vodka and cranberry juice and dream of escaping to a parallel universe.

“There you go,” I croak.

“I'm all ears,” says Saul.

I chew on my hair and tell him. As I speak I realize that Chris isn't going to call and that I've been tricked into risking a perfectly workable relationship. Did I really think that a man who says “A little less conversation, a little more action, please” without weeping in shame at what he's become, will call when he says he will? I hunch in my chair to ease the ache. I
need
you,
Chris, I need to touch you, why am I never the one, why is it always like this? I remind myself that it serves me right and that Saul is good enough to be getting on with. I brace myself to be shouted at. I dread his rage, but anything is better than this terrifying anticipation. When 7:30 comes, I want to beg the waitress to let us share a table.

The witch seats us in a remote spot. Saul could decapitate me with the bread knife and no one would be the wiser. In fact, he cuts me off midconfession to order seared tuna and chat with the waiter about whether the French or California Chardonnay will do it justice. It's a dead fish, I think, and you're about to eat it. Poseidon leaping from the gents and spearing you through the heart would do it justice. I peer at Saul's unreadable face and wonder if
I
have speared him through the heart. It's his own fault for being so soft. He always rang when he said he would. Where's the sexual tension in that?

But no sign of spinelessness now. He's aglow with foreboding. I am too bunged up with fear to eat. I light another cigarette.

“Carry on,” says Saul. I kill my cigarette in the ashtray. I feel like a pumpkin farmer earnestly explaining my alien abduction to Dana Scully. At one point Saul touches me lightly on the arm, indicating that I should stop yapping for a moment while he asks the waitress to bring more pepper! I feel cheated. Yes,
I
feel cheated! Why isn't he jealous? Why isn't he turning green and howling at the moon? Am I so throwaway he barely cares if I cheat on him? What would Simon do if Babs cheated on
him
? Murder them both and go to prison, I'll bet—that's how much he loves her! I study my plate.

“Is there something wrong with your grilled sole?” Saul asks, making me itch to throw it at him.

“No,” I reply, hating the waver in my voice. “But it has a face and I've just gone vegetarian.” And he
laughs
.

“What?” I whisper.

Saul lays down his knife and fork. “Natalie,” he says soothingly, “it's not a problem.”

“What's not a problem?” I blurt.

Saul's smile hovers between regretful and concerned.

“Well,” he replies, regarding me over an invisible pair of half-moon spectacles, “it's not as if this relationship was anything serious.”

“What do you mean?” I say faintly.

“I mean,” says Saul, refilling my wineglass with a generous splash, “that our relationship was always a bit of fun, but the fun has petered out, and our relationship is now patently over.”

The grotesque four-letter word
over
resonates between my ears like the twang of a monstrous elastic band. Over. How can it be over? How can
Saul
be saying it's over? He adores me! And since when was our relationship “a bit of fun”? It wasn't fun!

“But…but—” My voice is out of batteries.

“Natalie,” continues Saul in the same cheery tone, “we both know that things haven't been right for a while. Be honest. You've devoted so much time in the last few months to helping Babs prepare for her wedding that I've hardly seen you. And when I do see you, she's all we talk about. Don't misunderstand me, I'm a big fan of hers, she's a smashing girl. But this never-ending chat about her relationship, it's made me realize there's no
us
. However”—a consoling pat on the hand for the loser—“if you want, I'd be happy to remain friends.” I am so shocked that my eyes itch. He's so indifferent that he's happy to remain friends!

“Chin up,” he murmurs. “This Chris of yours sounds like a good chap.”

I could burst out crying but I'm damned if I'm doing it in the Oxo Tower Brasserie. My suddenly ex pours me a tall cool glass of water and suggests that if I'm feeling “under the weather” perhaps he should call me a taxi. I nod snufflingly, and mutter that I'm going to the ladies' to wash my face. Saul pauses for an appropriate second, then adds, “Now, are you going to eat that sole, or can I have it?”

 

“
C
heer up, love,” says the cabbie, “it might never 'appen.”

I smile my gratitude for this fabulous rare jewel of insight and think, It just did.

I can tell he's dying to talk at me, so I dig out my mobile and ring Tony.

“Speak,” he says imperiously. There is a fuzz of blurry chat and shrill laughter.

“It's Nat,” I holler. “Saul just dumped me!” I await his condolences.

“What champagne you got, darlin'?” he says.

“What!” I squeak.

“Aw, floozie,” says my brother. “Bowcock was never going to set the world alight. You'll have forgotten him by tomorrow. You'll be fine. You always are.”

I nod gratefully into the phone.

“I wouldn't tell Mum, though—she'll be gutted,” adds Tony. “Keep the change.”

I sigh. “Thanks,” I say, beeping off.

I flop in my seat, and the cabbie says, “Hard day? You finished work, 'av ya? Day over for ya?”

I reply, “Not quite,” and ask if he wouldn't mind taking me to Holland Park. Then I ring the speaking clock and affect animated chat. When the driver swerves to a sulky halt outside the smart green door, I shove notes at him and leap out. As I press the buzzer it strikes me I haven't even checked if she's in. When she opens the door in an apron I'm so relieved, I burst into the tears I prepared earlier.

“Oh my god,” gasps Babs. “What happened to your chin? Are you all right?”

“I'm fine, but it's all gone wrong!” I wail. “Chris hasn't rung and I've just been dumped by Saw-haw-haw-haaul!”

I plan to sink weeping into her arms, but she pats me briskly and sidesteps my trajectory.

“Sorry for not ringing first,” I sniff, stumbling. “I was in a state.”

Babs looks at me. “You're all right,” she says. “My
hus
band—oh, ha ha, I can't get used to saying that—is playing rugby. My brother's here though. Come in. Mind the boxes.” My pleasure at Simon's absence is canceled out by Andy's presence. I pick my way past the Kilimanjaro of Selfridges merchandise clogging up the hallway and follow Babs into her steel and wood kitchen. Andy sees my mascara-streaked face and leaps from his chair.

“Shall I go in the other room?” he says. I cover my chin with my hand and will Babs to say yes at the instant she says, “No.”

I ignore Andy and sit down.

“You look like you've just joined the SEALs,” he says in a remarkably ill-conceived attempt to cheer me up.

“No she doesn't,” says Babs immediately.

“No you don't,” agrees Andy, as my smile turns to mush. “I meant that your, um, eye shadow has run. I'll be in the other room, shall I?”

He exits the kitchen at a swift trot. I glare after him. Babs prods lovingly at a slab of raw meat in a pan and says, “Andy's a bit on edge right now.”

“Really. How strange, after a year's holiday. I didn't think you ate red meat,” I say, unwilling for the conversation to be diverted.

“I do now. Although this is for Si,” explains Babs. “He'll be back any minute.”

I marvel that you can know someone so well—think you can know someone so well—then be confounded by their choice of partner. They're not who you thought they were after all. You're not half as intimate as you so boldly presumed.

“Poor Andy. He's staying with Mum and Dad. They're driving him up the wall.”

“I thought he owned a flat in town,” I say impatiently.

“He rented it out while he was away,” she replies. “There's still a few months left on the lease. He's looking for a room to rent short-term, but London's so pricey it isn't true,” she adds.

I vaguely sense that Babs wants to communicate more than
her words imply. I grope for a secret meaning but retreat empty-handed.

“Has he tried Streatham?” I say politely. By the look on her face, I have failed as a special agent. I feel hollow and awkward.
I
am the damsel in distress and I resent Andy's trying to steal my conical hat with the floaty bit on top. He has short hair and it doesn't suit him.

“Is he still upset about his fiancée?” I ask dutifully.

“He was a bit more than upset, Nat,” says Babs. “He and Sasha were together for three years.”

Yes, and my parents were together for sixteen years. Time for—as Matt would say—a two-faced moment. I heap my voice with hammy woe and sigh, “Poor Andy, it must have been so hard for him.”

Privately, I think it's high time he relinquished his teen queen title. The big ballyhoo about Andy is that he was engaged to a girl who left him for another guy a month before their wedding. While this was certainly a great blow, he received lashings of sympathy and got to keep all the presents. Plus the minute she bailed, he quit his megabucks job as a broker, leased out his chrome-and-leather-stuffed penthouse in Pimlico, sold his Audi, and went on a twelve-month boo-hoo sunshine jaunt, working in beach bars, swimming with dolphins, no doubt beading his hair, and
finding himself
—what a martyr! The men I know find themselves by lolling on the sofa and sticking their hands down their trousers.

I can barely believe that the sympathy wagon still trundles on. If he were female, the world would be gleefully sorry for about a week, pompously urge him to get on with his suburban little life the next, all the while covertly fanning rumors that he was a shoddy cook and spent too much time furthering his career. If a woman bails she's a hussy, while a bloke is practically encouraged to leg it. So Andy is treated like a big brave abandoned baby, whereas a jilted woman is tarnished, as if the man's infidelity is her fault, no wonder he—

“So,” says Babs, handing me a cup of bionic tea, “Saul
ditched you.” I'm unsure if her phrasing is compassionate, but decide not to question it.

“Babs,” I say, “you wouldn't believe how nasty he was.”

“Would his nastiness have something to do with Chris, by any chance?” she replies.

I grit my teeth. “Possibly,” I say.

“
Quelle surprise
,” says Babs.

I stare at her. I feel like Julius Caesar with a knife in his back. Meanwhile, Babs is Brutus, watching me bleed to death with interest.

“Babs,” I squeak, “I have been binned by
two
men in
one
day!” I burble out the whole sorry tale (excluding the orgasm bit, as I don't wish to detract from my grief). Babs's mouth shrinks and shrinks until it becomes a chicken's bottom. Then she says, “Awh, Nat, I'm sorry. But face it, Chris was a fantasy. Everyone flirts at weddings. You just took it a bit far. Si says Chris is notorious. When you're driven by ambition or drugs—and Chris is driven by both—you are not
reliable
. You weren't to know. You were tempted—we all get tempted, we wouldn't be human otherwise. But you knew the risk. Bottom line, you cheated on Saul and he found out. What did you expect? I know we've had our laughs about Saul, but he's not an idiot. Think how hurt he must be.”