Sugar Mummy (35 page)

'Andrew? Andrew? Hello? Are you there?' There is a pause. 'Oh,
Andrew? Where the hell are you? Please pick up the phone. Please.' She clicks off.
She sounds so worried, so concerned that I feel a spasm around my lips, like I almost
want to cry. Sorry, Sami, I wish I wasn't putting you through this.

There is a beep and it's Claire's voice 'Andrew, it's Claire,
it's, urn, nearly a quarter to eleven. Obviously we're just wondering where you
are and if you could make contact just to let us know that everything is all right
and there is no reason to worry I'd be very grateful. I don't seem to have you booked
out on annual leave today but if you could just give me a ring, that would be very
helpful. Thanks. Bye.'

Oh, fuck off, you smug bitch.

There is another beep and it's Marion. 'Andrew, I called you
at the office but they said you weren't there. It's a quarter after eleven. I want
to make arrangements for this evening. Call me on my mobile.'

Her message just goes right through me. I just can't really think
about Marion or what I'm doing this evening. I've just had enough. I take another
gulp of tea, the machine beeps again and Debbie's voice comes on. 'Andrew. It's
twelve-thirty. Where are you? Could you either give me a call or come into the office.
Thanks,' she says evenly. There is no message from Jonathan, thank God. Presumably
Viv and the pig decided that it was not worth making a fuss over £100.

I ring Sami but she's out at lunch so I tell someone I don't
know that I've overslept and I'm on my way in. It sounds like it's their first day
and they're so polite that I feel like adding, 'By the way, have you any idea how
much trouble I'm in?' I decide to have a shower and wash my hair - since I'm so
incredibly late anyway, half an hour extra won't make any difference. I have a couple
of pieces of toast and another cup of tea standing in the kitchen, still trying
to come round properly and then set off. My suit and shirt feel odd on me, perhaps
because I'm not used to putting them on halfway through the day. Needless to say,
I have to wait ages for a bus and when I finally walk into the office it is gone
half-past three and I don't know why I bothered.

Sami doesn't see me because she's on the phone but Claire just
says lightly, 'Oh, hi. Debbie wants a word, let me just see if she's free.' Debbie
is on the phone so I have an agonizing wait until she finishes her call. Sami sees
me and looks up with a mixture of anger and concern. I mouth 'overslept' and she
gives me a desperate look. She is just telling the person on the phone to hang on
a minute when Debbie calls me in. I shrug my shoulders, smile apologetically and
go into Debbie's office.

It all happened very quickly. I thought I'd just get a bollocking
as usual but when Debbie said she wanted me to resign 'for all our sakes' I didn't
argue. She was right: I had pushed it too far. I could have asked for another chance
and told her quite honestly that I had genuinely overslept this time, but to tell
the truth I just couldn't be bothered. I was fed up with the lying and the atmosphere
and the constant strain of trying to work out new excuses for getting time off.
I was fed up with rehearsing my arguments with her and trying to justify myself
to her. I was fed up with constantly being on the verge of being sacked. Debbie
had finally won.

I wrote a brief letter to confirm my resignation and the terms
we'd agreed and put it on Debbie's desk. She looked up at me as if she was about
to say something but I just walked out. I thought about apologizing for the trouble
I'd caused but really I never wanted to see her again. I started clearing out my
desk and then realised that there wasn't anything to clear out - I didn't actually
own any of this shit and I certainly didn't want it. Sami's chin was trembling as
she tried to force back tears. She looked so much like a sevenyear-old being brave
that I couldn't help smiling - which was probably what stopped me from crying. I
touched her arm and she started to sob, then I muttered 'Sorry' and she ran out
of the office. Another girl caught my eye across the room and tried to look sympathetic.
That really did make me laugh. She looked slightly confused.

As I walked out of the office for the last time I heard Claire
say something about my P45 being in the post. How many times had we joked about
that?

I walk most of the way home. My only thought is 'Oh God, I've
got to take my suit off again - I only put it on five minutes ago.' I pop into the
corner shop, Knightsbridge Food & Wine, and then drop the thin, striped polythene
bag of milk and orange juice in the hallway, drift into the living room and flop
down in the armchair. I switch the telly on. A black and white film with Kenneth
More, then a quiz show with a contestant wearing a tie and V-neck pullover. By the
end of the programme he has won £25. He seems quite pleased. Then I switch over
and it is the news: pictures of women in veils wailing at the camera and later a
long shot of people walking down Oxford Street.

Suddenly it's evening. I decide to go for a run. I haven't done
it for ages. It'll do me good. Wake me up. Help me to think through what I should
do next.

I tip the dirty laundry basket upside down and find my sweat
pants. I pull on my trainers, a T-shirt from this morning and set off. At first
it feels awful - legs like lead, heart racing. I've forgotten how to do it. I pass
some girls on the other side of the road and I decide they must have had a laugh
even though I can't hear them do it. But after a while as I get back into the old
rhythm a bit more I begin to enjoy it. The sweat starts to run down my face, into
my eyes, blurring my vision. The pumping of blood and the roar of my breath shut
out the noise around me. Belting down the quiet streets, breathing hard and sweating,
I feel completely calm, for the first time since I don't know when.

Even though I'm not as fit as the last time I ran a few months
ago, I push myself hard and after I've done my old circuit, I carry on. I go back
round the park into some nearby streets I've never been down before.

Finally I begin to make my way back. Gasping and wheezing. I
put the key in the lock and run upstairs, collapsing on top of the clothes I'd scattered
from the dirty laundry basket. The room is spinning slightly and my heart is thumping
through my ribcage but I feel much better.

I have a shower and feel strangely calm and relaxed. Marion rings
from the car while I am drying my hair.

'Hi, honey. You have a good time last night with your mate?'
She articulates the word not just as an absurd piece of English slang, but as if
it were totally absurd that I should have any mates at all. 'Where'd you go?' she
asks reproachfully but I don't rise to it.

'Yeah, it was fun. We just went for a few beers and a Chinese,'
I say flatly.

'Sounds thrilling. Anyway, I'm on my way to Lord and Lady Caterham's
for drinks but I'll be back around eightthirty so I'll call you then and we'll
go eat some place, OK?'

'Sure.'

'Hey, guess who I saw today?'

'Who?'

'I was having lunch with an old friend at Joe's Cafe and I bumped
into Farrah. She was raving about you. So charming, so good looking, she said. Anyway
she wants us to go over for dinner next week.'

'Great.'

'You sound a bit down, everything OK? Still feeling hungover
from all that charlie?'

I take a deep breath and tell her. 'Marion, I got sacked from
work today. I overslept and when I went in they sacked me.'

'Sacked? What does "sacked" mean? Fired?'

'Yeah.'

'Oh God! You'll need cheering up tonight.'

'Cheering up? Just a bit. What the hell am I going to do?' But
she is telling the driver something about parking.

'Look, I'll call you about eight-thirty and we'll talk about
it then. OK. Kisses.'

'Yeah, bye.'

I put on a rugby shirt and my oldest jeans and get a beer out
of the fridge. There is another game show on telly and I realise I have started
answering some of the questions so I turn over quickly. Vinny comes in.

'Evening all.' Funny thing about me and Vinny, we've lived together
for very nearly a year now, seen each other naked, seen each other ill, made tea
for each other, dragged each other up to bed when we've been too pissed to put one
foot in front of the other but we hardly ever call each other by our first names.
'All', 'mate', 'sunny Jim', 'dog breath', even surnames, but never our first names.

'Hi,' I say.

He disappears into the kitchen and comes back a few moments later
carrying a tray with a steaming polystyrene box and a bottle of beer on it.

'Don't mind, do you?' he says, holding up the bottle of beer.

'What?' It's one of mine. 'Oh, no, help yourself. What's that?'
I say, looking at his food.

'Baked potato with chicken tikka,' says Vinny, clearly pleased
I've asked. 'From that new place near the Tube station. £2.95. Can't be bad, can
it? Stir fried beef and chilli £3.25, Thai prawns £2.95, Guacamole £2.75 - or was
that the beef? Can't remember, anyway something like that. Gastronomy from around
the world gathered for your delectation, lovingly microwaved and gently laid out
in an expanded polystyrene tray. I should be a copywriter not a graphic designer.'

'Brilliant.' We watch the telly a bit longer.

'So how's the prostitution going?' he asks wow-wowwowing some
hot potato. I give half a laugh. 'Well?'

'Never mind.'

Vinny pokes around in his baked potato a bit more. 'All right,
how's the throbbing hub of the media world then?'

'Dunno. I got sacked today.'

He looks round at me and swallows hard. 'Bloody hell.'

I look at him. 'I overslept this morning and when I went in they
sacked me.'

'Oh, shit, mate, I'd have woken you but I thought you were staying
at hers.'

'Oh, it's not your fault. It was just the last straw, they'd
have sacked me for something else.'

'What time did you get in to the office, then?'

'About three-thirty.' We look at each other for a moment and
then burst out laughing.

'That is late,' points out Vinny.

'Well, I like to do these things in style.'

'Who sacked you? That sour-faced cow you're always moaning about
- what's her name?'

'Debbie. Yeah. She was trying to be really nice about it as well,
the bitch.'

'Bitch.'

'Fucking bitch.'

Somehow telling Vinny about it has brought it all home. What
am I going to tell my mum and dad? How am I going to make next month's rent? Will
Debbie give me some sort of reference? I'll have to speak to her about it. Arghh!
It's not worth it. I'll do without. With no job, no money, no references and no
way of getting together next month's rent without going cap in hand to my parents,
I've now got to move in with Marion. Keeping this place on as a bolthole is no longer
an option either.

'Thing is,' says Vinny. I sense a prepared speech is about to
follow. 'Thing is, do you think she might have been the cause of it?'

'Who? Debbie?'

'No - her.'

'Oh, Marion.'

'It's just that I know it's nothing to do with me but she has
caused you some trouble recently.' He pauses but I let him go on. 'I mean, tell
me to mind my own, 'ut like I said to you other day, since you've been seeing her,
you've been stressed out, miserable as fuck, forgetting things ... the Indoor One
A Side Football League has gone to pot.'

'I know.'

'Your rent cheque bounced. The landlord rang yesterday, asked
me to tell you,' says Vinny sadly.

'Oh fuck,' I say quietly. 'I'll sort that out.'

I look back at the telly where a blond woman in a smart, pink
suit is opening and closing a washing-machine door with a look of anger and concern
on her face.

'Hey,' says Vinny. 'Shall I ring Jane? We could go for a drink.
The three of us. Go on, it would be a laugh.'

Oh, Jane. She'd probably find it funny or at least ironic that
I'd lost my job. Mind you, at least she'd be more sympathetic than Marion. Perhaps
I do want to tell her. She might even offer some helpful advice. I imagine Jane,
who knows everything, telling me what to do next with my life. The thought of it
makes me smile. I could get a job with her in Paperchase. Share a house at the end
of a Tube line with God knows how many other people. At that moment the phone rings.
I reach down and pick it up.

'Hi, it's me,' says Marion on her mobile. 'That party was a mind-bending
bore so I left early but I've booked a table at Bibendum for nine. I'll send the
car for you at eight-thirty OK?'

'Great, see you then.'

'Oooh. Try and cheer up, sweetie.'

'Will do.' I hang up.

'That her?' says Vinny, without looking at me.

'Yeah.'

We watch telly in silence and I get us another beer each. I realise
that, in fact, they are not some cool, exotic French label as I had thought but
Sainsbury's own brand. Still, Vinny won't mind.

 
I change into a dark suit
with a dark grey shirt to match my mood and go back to the living room to wait for
the car.

'See? Table by the window. I know you like being by the window,'
says Marion. Do I? I really can't remember.

'So, what happened?' she says, as the waiter unfolds a napkin
and puts it in her lap.

'Well, I just overslept and when I got in-'

'What do you want to drink? I'll have a vodka martini, very dry.
Same for you?' Why not, perhaps I like vodka martini as well as sitting by the window.

'Yeah,' I say to the waiter, a French-looking guy with very black
slicked-back hair and an under-lip goatee. A working man, not like me.

'Then we'll have some champagne. A bottle of Louise Roderer.'

She begins to sound less like she is trying to cheer me up and
more like she is celebrating. 'So, you got into work and they fired you?' she asks,
looking around the restaurant to see if there is any one she knows. Obviously disappointed
that there isn't, she turns back to me.