Talk to Me (8 page)

‘Jus’ lemme know next time,’ he said, swinging back to the keyboard.

We stood in silence behind his hunched back, watching as his fingers tapped away, a blur of motion, while he muttered under his breath. He was a lot chattier to the computer.

After a while he leaned back, put his hands behind his head and swivelled the chair to face us, smiling grimly. ‘It’s clean. Only changed the screen saver. No time to do nuffink else. Wot ’ave you bin doin’ to upset ’im?’

Emily rolled her eyes. ‘You might say I was doing a friend a favour.’

As Dom heaved himself out of the chair and slouched off shaking his head, she turned to me again. ‘All’s well that ends well, then.’

‘You think?’ I asked, looking at the restored screen.

‘He’s made his point, although we can’t prove it was him.’

‘Suppose not.’

‘I shall just ignore it,’ said Emily disdainfully. ‘I’m not rising to his pathetic little tricks. If he thinks I’m a bitch – that’s his problem, not mine. He’s burnt his boat now. Hardly going to bother me again, is he?’

I was still worried. Very worried. Coming in here to make his point was pretty risky. Would that be the end of it?

In the meantime there was no harm in letting Barney know. I was quite looking forward to that. It might wipe the smirk off his face for at least ten seconds.

Barney thought I was making a fuss about nothing.

‘Seriously, Olivia. What do you want me to do? Peter’s totally harmless.’

‘What? You know him?’

There was a brief pause and I tapped my mobile phone impatiently.

‘Not know him, know him.’

I might have guessed. Bloody Barney and his bullshit marketing crap.

‘He’s not exactly my type, darling.’ Barney’s voice was filled with scorn. ‘He came recommended though.’

‘I thought you said you vetted everyone.’ I enjoyed a moment of smugness, I’ve never managed to get one over on Barney.

‘Olivia,’ his exasperation showed. ‘We’re not sodding MI5. Besides define vetting. We check up on people.’

‘And what does that entail?’ I said, determined not to let Barney have the last word.

‘They have to bring their driving licence and proof of current address with them.’

‘And that’s it?’

‘What more do you want?’ he spat down the phone.

He had a point. A driving licence was pretty official.

‘Well, is there anything you can do? He’s freaking Emily out and I’ve got to live with her.’

‘I’ll make a few enquiries.’

And that would be the end of that, I thought with a sneer.

‘I’m sure …
if
it was him, it was an isolated incident but don’t hesitate to call me if anything else happens.’

What! Had hell just frozen over? Before I could summon up the capacity to speak again, Barney had gone.

In contrast Kate thought it was all highly amusing.

‘Serves her right,’ she sniggered down the phone later that afternoon.

‘It’s not funny,’ I said, the handset tucked in the crook of my ear as I carried on typing an email. ‘I think it’s a bit scary. Emily’s just pissed off.’

‘Probably because the wrong guy emailed. Let’s face it, Olivia, she ticked three different boxes – there are still two other guys out there she’s not moaning about at the moment.’

True, Emily hadn’t said a word about any other contact she’d had. I glanced up at her on the other side of the office. She was chatting away to Cara, perched on her desk as they both poured over a page of
Hello!
.

‘So how’s the packing?’ I asked, changing the subject. ‘Did you get everything you wanted in Boots?’

There was a pause and a sigh as if she was about to say something and changed her mind. ‘A nightmare.’ Her voice wobbled. ‘Mum has gone out and bought grocery supplies – half of Asda. I’m never going to get it all in. You’d think I was emigrating for good. I’m only going back to Oz for another six months.’

‘Can’t you extend your visa?’

‘What the hell for?’ she snapped.

‘Sorry, I thought you loved it there.’

‘It’s all fine. Greg is great. Australia’s great. Everything’s just great.’

‘Sure?’

There was a pause and a deep breath. I thought she was going to launch into some confessional but her voice was back to its usually perky tone. ‘It’s all fine. My biggest worry is getting through customs. I can see it now, surrounded by hysterical sniffer dogs driven wild by Mum’s Marmite stockpile.’

I giggled. ‘I’m sure they’re used to it. All Poms travel with the stuff.’

‘Not ten jars of it.’

‘You’ll get it all in. If not, you could leave me a couple of pairs of shoes.’

‘Not bloody likely. I’d rather ditch the Marmite.’

Things on the Luscious Lips launch were starting to get hectic. Emily was still in the office at six-thirty, which was unheard of, and her shoulders were so tense her neck had almost disappeared.

Across the room her face was turning redder and redder as she carried on a conversation on the phone. I got a ‘God-give-me-patience’ eye roll before she slammed down the phone and hurled a pen at the wall opposite.

Shrugging on my coat – a flak jacket might have been safer – I wandered over.

‘You OK?’ I asked briskly, as she tossed papers into her file tray.

‘What does it look like? You have no idea. You wouldn’t believe the hoops we’re jumping through to please “darling” Miranda.’

Served her right. Although it was still nothing compared to my afternoon. An hour long phone call placating my client, a doppelganger for Jabba the Hutt, when a planning application didn’t go his way. His company had just seen several million go down the Swanee.

She looked appealingly at me. If she was looking for sympathy, she’d come to the wrong place.

‘I suppose you could say it serves me right,’ her voice softened. ‘I’m sorry, Olivia. I should have told you that we were using the dress idea.’

Normally I would have said something conciliatory like, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ But an ear bashing from Jabba had left a full-blown disco beat pounding in my head. All I wanted was to get home.

‘I’m leaving,’ I said wearily. ‘Now.’ Just talking to her was taking too much effort.

‘I’ve said I’m sorry,’ she said in a lost little voice. ‘Please don’t be mad at me.’

It was just like being back in the playground.

‘Emily, at this moment I couldn’t care. I just want to go home. Swallow half a dozen Anadin and wallow in a bath. Coming?’

Casting a look of loathing at the piles of papers spread across her desk, she scooped them all up and dumped them in her pending tray. Then, leaning down, she gathered up a selection of files from the floor and shoved them in, too. I watched horrified, hands twitching. Talk about disorganised – no wonder she was stressed.

‘I shouldn’t but … I can speak to Miranda’s agent in the morning. You wouldn’t believe the stuff Miranda wants. Do you know—’

‘I’m going, now.’

‘All right. All right.’ Suddenly she looked at her watch. ‘Shit, I forgot. Daniel’s coming. He phoned earlier. He’s got a meeting first thing so he’s staying over tonight.’ She pulled a face. ‘I could do without it. I’m not cooking.’

Cooking? Emily! That would be the day. She liked being taken to restaurants and was very old-fashioned when it came to splitting the bill.

‘He’ll have to make do with a takeaway. I’ve got a bit of a headache. Not that I need to worry on that score.’ She snorted. ‘I can’t remember the last time we had sex.’

And she thought she had problems. I wasn’t sure my body still knew what sex was.

I tuned her out as we left the building. Every other word was Miranda.

Tottenham Court Road was heavy going, thick with bus queues and dawdling tourists blocking the crowded pavements. I wound ruthlessly in and around the throng of people and Emily had to jog to keep up with me, which was deliberate. If she was concentrating on breathing she’d have to stop talking.

I was halted mid-stride by a sudden, sharp tug on my jacket as Emily grabbed my arm and pointed to the other side of the busy road.

‘What?’ I snapped. All I wanted to do was get home.

Her mouth was moving but the words were incoherent. The wall of red double-decker buses made it difficult to see what she was pointing to.

‘Did you see him?’ she exclaimed.

‘Who?’ I asked impatiently. It was impossible to pick out anyone with so many pedestrians waltzing between the bumpers of the stationary traffic.

Emily was always spotting famous people. Last month it had been Elton John in Starbucks, wearing a fluorescent jacket and hobnail boots. She wouldn’t believe it wasn’t him until he left the coffee shop, put on his hard hat and walked onto the building site next door.

Just outside the entrance to a tube station was a bad place to stop, especially in rush hour. A few choice words were hissed at us as people jostled past.

Emily frowned, rubbing her forehead. ‘He’s gone now.’

‘Who?’ I asked exasperated, starting down the steps, rubbing my hip, which had been jabbed by a briefcase.

‘Perhaps I’m imagining things. I thought it was him. Peter the emailer.’

‘You sure?’ I looked round, examining the people coming down the stairs behind us.

‘No, it was just a glimpse. Broken glasses mended with tape.’

Goosebumps rose along the hairline around the back of my neck.

I nudged Emily downwards, anxious to keep moving. ‘We’re in the way. Mind that pushchair. Here.’

Shoving my bag into her hand, I went to the rescue of a tired looking woman who was trying to manoeuvre a buggy down the steps. I felt for her, she had a toddler to deal with and I had Emily!

Once down on the platform, having said goodbye to my grateful new friend, Emily and I stood six deep waiting for our train.

‘I think I just imagined it.’ Emily laughed nervously. ‘I’ve got him on the brain.’ But we both took an unconscious step back from the platform edge, eyeing up other commuters.

‘Mm,’ I responded reassuringly.

When the train arrived the flow of bodies inched into the carriage. The doors slid closed just as one last chap squeezed between the doors. His hand reached up to clutch his glasses. Through the heads crammed in the space between I could just see the silver tape holding the frame together. From the look on Emily’s face she’d seen it too. I tried to get a better look but the mass of people and newspapers got in the way.

‘What do we do?’ she whispered, her teeth gnawing her lip. ‘Is it him?’

‘I can’t see properly. Can you? Don’t catch his eye.’

‘You’re taller, you look.’

Taking a deep breath, I sneaked a glance over my shoulder. A gap appeared in the crowd. The hand obscuring his face had moved. My shoulders relaxed as the tension whistled simultaneously out with my breath. I stepped aside so that Emily had a clear view. The man by the door, huddled into an old trench coat like a cold war spy, had wispy grey hair in a comb over and was well into his sixties.

Relief made us giddy and silly. Our sniggers grew to wholesale giggles and by the time we got to our last stop, they’d turned into peals of laughter. The rest of the carriage thought we were idiots and as the passengers thinned, George Smiley glared at us over his horn rims.

‘Can you believe it?’ snorted Emily as we doubled over on the street again. ‘Talk about neurotic nellies. Totally harmless and we’re nearly wetting ourselves. Bet half of London tapes their glasses together.’

‘It’s certainly made me forget my headache.’

‘And me, Miranda. We deserve a glass of something. Let’s stop at the offy and I’ll get a bottle.’

For once, Emily and I were united in rare accord. Sometimes she could be very generous. Not just with wine, frequently she tried to press her clothes on to me, even though most of her tops would go round me three times and her trousers only reached mid-shin. No such problems with her accessories though and she owned a fabulous selection.

Luxuriating in the hot water, which I’d just topped up for a third time, I was tempted to ignore the polite knock at the door.

While I’d been in the bathroom I’d heard Daniel arrive.

Was it him at the door? Emily was more likely to have hollered through the glass.

‘Hi, Olivia.’ I closed my eyes.

As if everything else wasn’t perfect enough. Why did he have to have a lovely deep voice, too?

‘We’re getting an Indian takeaway. Do you want something?’

‘Yes, please. Can I have a chicken dhansak?’

Behind the closed door Daniel chuckled. Did he have to do that? Even that was attractive.

‘Creature of habit.’

‘Sometimes I have prawn pathia,’ I yelled back. Sticking to the same thing was much easier. It saved having menu envy.

‘Anything else, modom?’ he teased.

‘No thank you, Jeeves. That will do nicely.’

‘No wonder you’re so skinny, woman.’

‘Slender,’ I admonished, thinking it was a good job he didn’t have X-ray vision. Throughout my life I’d grown up to the refrain, ‘Aren’t you lucky? You’re so thin.’

No, I’m not. Being thin has its downsides. My knees are dead ringers for large knots of wood on a twig and I look like a boy from behind. Glumly I looked down. As for my boobs; they’d been described as a pair of nasty mosquito bites. Of course, whenever I moaned about them, Emily would pat her 36 double Ds complacently.

‘Grub up in about twenty minutes,’ he said.

I heard a muffled confab with Emily before the front door slammed shut. I stretched lazily in the water and gave myself a stern talking to. You have to pull yourself together. Think of him as an ordinary bloke. Ordinary. Well, not ordinary. Think brick walls. Not about that chip in his tooth when he smiles or … the time we once kissed.

I closed my eyes and in a rare moment of weakness let the memory come burrowing out of the hole from where it was normally firmly tucked.

We’d both had a bit to drink. Well, I’d had quite a lot. Still reeling from Mike’s betrayal, I’d spent that particular evening proving for his benefit what a great time I was having without him. Daniel decided, for the welfare of both my liver and dignity, to intercede and insisted on taking me home.

I repaid his kindness by weeping all over him the minute he settled me on my sofa. With his arm round me, hugging me, the scent of him filling my nose, I gave into the attraction that had always simmered just below the surface since the day I’d met him and leaned forward to trail a series of kisses along his jaw line to his lips.

The only saving grace of this cringe-worthy memory was that it wasn’t entirely one sided. Gentleman that he was, he didn’t push me away in disgust, but let me kiss him. I remember moving my lips over his, the tingle of the first touch and then that joyous burst of sensation when his lips moved beneath mine.

I squeezed my eyes closed and slid further down into the bath water, recalling the feel of his hand sliding into my hair to pull me close and the kiss that went on and on with a headiness as if neither of us could get enough of the other.

As the memory smouldered, I felt my cheeks heat up. There’d been longing and pent up passion in those kisses which led to a breathless embrace where I found the long lean length of Daniel’s body fitted perfectly against mine.

The crash of the front door announcing the return of my housemates made us spring apart. The horrified look in his eyes made me feel slightly sick. There was no time to say anything as the others burst into the room.

The next day I pretended I had absolutely no recollection of the previous night.