Kitabı oku: «The One Before The One», sayfa 2

CHAPTER THREE

The morning after Lexi arrives in London, I wake up to the sound of something throbbing. At first I assume it’s a hangover, but then decide I feel nowhere near rancid enough, since mine are largely of the vomit-on-waking variety. I remove my earplugs and fumble around on the floor for my glasses, morning being a gradual reintroduction of the sensory world to me, my myopia at a level where I have been known to say hello to my own reflection.

It doesn’t take me long to realize the thumping is music and it’s coming from downstairs.

It’s only then that I remember I have a guest.

‘Lexi?’ I’m banging on the bathroom door in my pyjamas now. ‘Lexi, are you in there?’

‘Yeah,’ comes a muffled voice from inside. ‘Come in if you want. I’m fully dressed.’

I push open the door. It’s steamy and warm. I just can make out Lexi hovering over the sink but not much else.

‘Er, music?’ I shout with what I hope is a vaguely humorous I-am-so-cool-with-your-rock-music-at-seven-in-the-morning but there’s an accusatory rise at the end of the sentence.

‘Gossip!’ she shouts back

‘I’m sorry?’

‘GOSSIP!’ She stands up from the sink. ‘The MUSIC. It’s GOSSIP. Why, do you like them?’

‘CAN’T SAY I’VE EVER HEARD OF THEM!’

‘WHAT?! BETH DITTO IS A FEMINIST ICON OF OUR TIMES!’

‘I THOUGHT YOU SAID IT WAS GOSSIP?’

‘IT IS. BETH DITTO IS THE LEAD SINGER OF THE GROUP, GOSSIP.’

‘OH …’

‘WHY ARE WE SHOUTING?’

‘I DON’T KNOW. I CAN’T HEAR BECAUSE I CAN’T SEE AND I CAN’T SEE BECAUSE I HAVEN’T GOT MY GLASSES ON. I THINK I LEFT THEM IN HERE!’

‘Oh my Lord,’ giggles Lexi as I edge right up to her face. ‘You really are blind, aren’t you?’

She fumbles around near the sink, hands me my glasses, and I put them on. Only then does everything become clear. Well, almost clear, there’s still something obstructing my vision. Lexi has her hair wrapped in a Tesco bag, dribbles of purple dye running down her forehead, around her ears. My sparkling white, Italian designer bathroom basin – obscene amounts of money from a place on Lavender Hill – is splattered with purple dye. As is the wall. As is the towel around Lexi’s neck. As are, I discover, my glasses. Hence the dark spots in front of my eyes.

‘Um, the sink,’ I squeak, thinking, keep a lid on it, Caroline. Keep things in perspective.

‘The sink?’ says Lexi.

‘It’s covered in dye.’ I put a specific emphasis on the word ‘dye’.

‘Oh!’ She bites her nail. ‘Shit. But it’ll come off, right?’ She goes to rub at it with dye-covered fingers. ‘Er, Lex, don’t do that?’ I’m trying to sound calm, whilst suppressing the hysteria that’s bubbling within me.

‘If I just …’ She licks her fingers and goes at it again.

‘Stop!’ I mean it to come out normally but it shoots out of my mouth like a small, hard pellet. ‘NOW. Please. Lexi.’

‘All right, missus.’ She’s brightly rubbing at it with my flannel now. ‘Calm your boots. I’m just going to give it ever such a little …’

She wipes away a drip of dye that’s rolling down her forehead and then goes to pick up the flannel again, at which point I crack. I literally slide, cartoon style, across the bathroom floor in my towelling bedsocks, grabbing the side of the sink. ‘FOR GOD’S SAKE JUST LEAVE IT OKAY? JUST …’ I gather myself. ‘Leave it.’

She stops rubbing.

‘Oh, okay. Sorry,’ she says. Does she actually flinch? Something tells me this little arrangement may not pan out that well. Something tells me I have lived alone for far too long.

My sister turning up for the summer aside, I do occasionally worry what it says about my life that I look forward to coming to work on a Monday. The hating weekends thing crept up on me, really. For the fourteen years that Martin and I were together, weekends were okay. Well, they were much the same as anyone else’s – any other couple’s, that is.

Endless rounds of barbecues and visits to the almost in-laws; Sunday afternoons spent at the Tate Modern, even though neither of us really liked anything in there so we’d end up in the shop where I’d buy another Dali postcard and Martin would buy his mum her birthday present in advance – usually another Liberty-print oven glove.

Post break up, there were about three months where I revelled in my new-found freedom. When the novelty was over, however, and my concerned friends, who had rallied round went back to their neglected boyfriends, I began to dread weekends. Especially summer weekends. Bank holiday weekends are the work of the devil. The two in May, a torture device. Because what I envisaged about summer in London: Tooting Lido, picnics on Hampstead Heath, Shakespeare in Regent’s Park, didn’t hold that much appeal on my own and sometimes, although I hated to admit it, I would feel lonely. Panicky, even. And at times like that I’d start to think that maybe I’d made a huge mistake with Martin – well, actually, I still sometimes wonder if I’ve made a huge mistake with Martin. I kind of missed the ‘schedule’ after all. At least he was enthusiastic about doing stuff, even if it was Duxford Aerodrome. Also, Martin Squire is, quite simply, the nicest bloke in the world. Which is probably why he wasn’t the bloke for me.

I get out my mobile to call him. I miss ‘us’ most in the mornings, sitting here at Battersea Park station, the heady, oily smell of a London summer in the air, the sky already a brilliant blue. Maybe it’s because it reminds me of the summers we sat here together, Martin giving me one of his early morning pep talks: ‘Caro, nobody’s dying, you’ve still got me. What’s the worst than can happen?’ he’d say. ‘You lose a client. You fail.’

I’d go into voluntary spasm at the thought.

The phone rings and rings, which is strange, because Martin always picks up. I leave a message.

‘Hello you, it’s me. Why aren’t you answering your phone? Wanted to know if you fancied coming to see an exhibition with me on Saturday? Thought I’d get you early. It’s by a German artist, some sort of conceptual thing – I saw it in Time Out. Might be crap but it would just be nice to see you. As ever. Also, you’ll never believe this, but guess who just rocked up on my doorstop last night, announcing she’s staying for the whole summer? My bloody sister! As you can imagine, I’m freaking out. I need a Martin pep talk. Oh yeah, and the exhibition. You’ll probably want to know—’

‘Where it is,’ I’m about to say, but then a cargo train approaches and by the time it’s passed, the space on the answer machine has been used up and there’s just a flat tone ringing.

Shona’s the only person in the office when I arrive. She’s on the phone and I know exactly, by her straight, tense back and clipped voice, who to. She presses ‘hold', gives a little shudder and puts her fingers to her head, mimicking a trigger. Shona’s not one for hiding how she feels about people, especially how she feels about Darryl Schumacher.

‘It’s Darryl Bum Smacker,’ she hisses. ‘Wants to discuss a date for the pitch for Minty Me – and to take me to dinner, obviously.’

‘Tell him I’m not here yet. Tell him I’ll call him back, okay?’

‘She’ll call you back,’ says Shona.

Then, more irate: ‘I said she’ll call you back!’

Even more irate: ‘I don’t think what I’m doing at the weekend is really that relevant to the oral hygiene market, do you, Darryl?’

She slams the phone down.

‘Cock,’ I hear her mutter under her breath before taking another call. God, I love Shona. I wish I could be more like Shona. Doesn’t suffer fools. Never gets stressed. Never puts her job before her principles – which is maybe why she’s still the sales’ team’s admin exec after seven years at the company. If we let her loose on selling anything we’d be in liquidation by now.

Darryl Schumacher is head buyer for Langley’s supermarkets, notorious for making women physically sick but also for driving the hardest bargain in the oral hygiene market. For weeks now, I’ve been chipping away at him, toeing that fine balance between what our boss calls skilful sales and ‘the sledgehammer effect’ (i.e., all punch and no result). I sell oral hygiene products to supermarkets for a living. I know it’s not saving the world, but I love my job and seem to be quite good at it. But then I guess, without blowing my own trumpet, that I’m pretty good at most things if I put my mind to it. ‘Caroline is a very capable young lady,’ teachers would write on my report. You know the sort: three As at A Level, First Class degree, head-hunted on the university Milk Round to join Skidmore Colt Davis’s graduate scheme – a geek, basically.

This is a crucial time with Schumacher. If he catches me off guard, I could lose the sale, but if I play my cards right, we’ll have Mini Minty Me breath freshener on the shelves of all branches of Langley’s by next week, meaning profit for the company and a stab at being nominated as Sales Person of the Year in August’s Institute of Sales Annual Awards – not that that’s a highlight or anything.

So now, when I’ve just walked into the office and I’m not on my guard, is not the time to deal with Schumacher. I’m distracted by Lexi’s arrival and I want to mail Toby.

To: toby.delaney@scd.co.uk

From: caroline.steele@scd.co.uk

Subject: Teenage Mutant Sister invasion at 64 Coombe Gardens. Argh!

So, on Sunday I am knee-deep in admin [small, white lie but he doesn’t need to know this] when the doorbell goes. You will never guess who was there, announcing she’s staying for the summer?!

There’s a sudden pressure on my shoulders and then a familiar schoolboy giggle.

‘Writing love letters to me again? Give it a rest, will you? They’re clogging up my inbox.’

‘Jesus, Toby. You nearly gave me a heart attack.’

He laughs, chomping on a pastie. I’ve never known anyone eat as much as Toby Delaney, and still have a concave stomach.

‘I tend to have that effect on women,’ he says, sitting down at his desk.

There are bits of pastie all down his tie but even that, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to take away from his breathtaking attractiveness. In fact, it seems to add to it, which I find exhilarating and demoralising all at the same time. The less he tries, and he never does, the more delectable he seems to become.

I lean back on my chair, assuming an air of nonchalance. It’s something I’ve perfected after nearly a year of sitting opposite someone who it’s all I can do not to strip naked and eat.

‘So how was your weekend?’ I say.

‘Oh, you know … missed you,’ he mouths, chucking a pen in front of me.

‘Shut up, Delaney!’

‘I did!’ he says, clutching at his chest with mock hurt. ‘Anyway, pick up that pen, will you? I want to see your pants.’

I chuck the pen back at him

‘What about you?’ he says. ‘Good weekend Steeley? Or are you keeping it a secret?’

But then there’s the familiar ‘dong’ as his computer sparks into action. I wait for him to carry on the conversation but he’s too busy squinting at his screen.

‘Caroline still topping the sales targets,’ he reads, in a South African accent, mocking our boss’s email. ‘You bitch.’ He shakes his head. ‘You total spawny cow.’

I’m about to respond with some devastatingly witty comeback when a familiar figure looms over our desks.

‘What’s that I hear, Mr Delaney? Spawny cow?’

Janine Cross. Our boss. At least five foot ten of South African sinewy muscle and balls. I speak metaphorically, of course, although it wouldn’t surprise me if, tucked into those skintight Joseph trousers, she does, actually, have a pair of iron balls.

‘Do I detect a smidgen of jealousy?’

‘Um …’ Toby can’t speak. More due to food bulging from his mouth than anything else.

‘Or just a healthy competitive streak?’

‘Oh, just the, er, streak,’ says Toby.

Janine shakes her head at him then smiles at me. ‘So, you got Morrisons? Well done. Very well done, in fact. Just Schumacher to get in the bag now, Caroline, but I have no doubt you’ll crack it. If you carry on like this you’ll definitely be in the running for Sales Person of the Year.’ She taps Toby on the shoulder. ‘Look and learn, Toby, and don’t think I’ve not noticed that you were late twice last week and haven’t reached your target for three weeks running.’ Then she strides off on her racehorse limbs towards a slightly scared-looking marketing team.

Toby’s shaking his head at me.

‘You’re such a lick-arse, Steele.’

I am about to reply when a high-pitched ‘Eeek! Eeek!', unmistakable as the sound from the shower scene in Psycho, interrupts us.

‘What the hell’s that?’ exclaims Toby.

‘What?’

‘That noise like the shower scene from Psycho.’

‘I’ve no idea.’

Toby looks around him. ‘Well, it’s not coming from me.’ The noise continues, grows louder, more urgent.

‘I didn’t say it was coming from you.’

‘So where is it coming from, then?’

‘I don’t know!’

‘It’s coming from you, Steele!’ Toby slides back on his chair, pointing at my bag.

I pick up my bag and open it, look inside.

‘Have you got a rape alarm in there? That’d be typical of you.’

‘What the hell do you mean by that?’

‘A bomb, then?’

‘Don’t be bloody ridiculous.’

‘What is it, then?’

‘I don’t know!’ I hold up the bag a metre away from me. ‘But I’m not looking – you can.’ And I walk over and thrust it onto his desk.

‘Oh, nice. So I get the bomb-in-a-bag,’ says Toby, shaking it up to his ear. He opens it. ‘Jesus, there’s like a whole ecosystem in here.’

He rummages a little and then, a smirk spreading across his handsome face, lifts out my mobile phone, the ‘Eek! Eek!’ becoming ear-splitting as he does. He stands up and hands it to me. LEXI is flashing in silver.

‘Hello?’

‘Hiya!’ says the Yorkshire voice on the end of the line. ‘What d’ya reck to what I’ve done with your ringtone? It’s awesome, isn’t it?’

‘So how long is she staying?’

Toby is highly amused but trying not to show it. Shona is sitting on her desk, biting hard on her pencil, trying to come up with a solution, because this is what Shona does in every problematic situation.

For some reason, Toby seems to have orchestrated a ‘crisis’ meeting and skidded over next to me on his office chair, which is causing all manner of problems, mainly in the pelvic region, since I can smell him: a clean, just-had-a-shower smell, but made purely of pheromones and mixed with something reminiscent of fresh, sugary bakery goods. Something delectable. Something flutters between my legs.

‘The whole summer,’ I say, pretending to look conscientiously at my emails, when really I’m picturing Toby, in bed, naked, and me, burrowing my head in his chest hair.

‘What, like July and August?’

‘That’s the whole summer, isn’t it?’

Toby sucks air between his teeth. ‘Oh, Steeley,’ he says, squeezing my shoulders. The something fluttering between my legs is positively flapping now. ‘Sharing your space with a whole other person? How are you coping?’

‘Not very well, actually. There’s stuff all over my flat.’

‘Oh no. Not stuff. In flat?’

‘Piss off!’ I nudge him in the side.

Shona groans. Poor Shona. She’s worked with Toby and I nearly a year now and the constant sexual tension by proxy must be beginning to wear thin.

‘And what about her not leaving the cushions lined up symmetrically? Leaving the tap dripping? Spoiling your one-woman efforts to save the Great Barrier Reef?’

I slap him over the head as he twinkles his swimming-pool-blue eyes at me.

‘You’re so rude! And this morning she dyed her hair in my bathroom – purple dye all over my brand new Italian bathroom.’

Toby bursts out laughing. ‘Fuck, I’m surprised you made it into work.’

‘How old is she?’ asks Shona

‘Seventeen.’

Toby almost falls off his chair.

‘Seventeen?’ Health and Safety Heather swings around and sighs dramatically, but we all ignore her since she does this several times a day. ‘You didn’t tell me you had a seventeen-year-old sister!’

‘Half-sister,’ I correct.

‘That is so cool,’ says Shona. ‘I would have killed my three brothers for a sister when I was a kid.’

Toby and I frown. Shona often saying things that make people frown.

Toby put his feet up on my desk. ‘So what’s she like? Is she a—’

‘Delaney!’

‘God, Delaney,’ agrees Shona.

‘What?’ he says, wide-eyed at the injustice of it all. ‘A student, was all I was going to say. Thanks a lot, you two.’ He stabs at a ball of Blu-Tack with his pen ‘What do you two take me for? I’m a responsible, married man.’

‘Well, since you’re such a fan of responsibility, maybe you’d like to volunteer as a fire marshal? Eh? Clever clogs. Whaddya think about that?’

Our ‘crisis meeting’ – obviously just an opportunity for Toby to laugh at me – is suddenly cut short by Heather, playfully hitting Toby across the head with her Fire Safety manual.

‘Fifty quid for the first three takers and an hour with me, to show you the ropes.’

‘That, H, is a very hard offer to refuse,’ says Toby, as Heather swings back and forth on her court shoes, clearly delighted by her opening gambit. ‘But I think I’m going to decline, on this occasion. It’s more Caroline’s sort of thing, isn’t it, Caroline?’ And then he smiles in a way that makes me want to punch and snog him all at the same time.

So that’s how I get roped into being one of the office’s three fire marshals – me, Heather and Toupee Dom from payroll. I spend the next hour learning how to use the fire extinguisher and sitting in a special chair used to evacuate disabled people from the office, whilst Toupee Dom almost knocks me out with his body odour. I try Lexi several times but, worryingly, get no answer until, finally, around lunchtime – just as I get stuck into my PowerPoint presentation, in particular a very well-executed pie-chart, detailing what’s currently driving the growth of oral hygiene goods in Asda – comes the shower scene noise from Psycho. I immediately grab my phone from the table, but it flips about in my hand like a live trout. There’s a text.

Am up town. This oldie just tried to flog uz xtc! I

WMPL!

C u l8r

DWBH. [smiley face] Ha ha. lol. Lex xxxxxx

What?

‘Am up town’ is all I can make out. So she’s in town, but where in town? Soho? Shoreditch? The arse-end of Hackney?

I immediately email Toby. He’s got a nineteen-year-old brother. He’ll know what she’s on about.

To: toby.delaney@scd.co.uk

From: caroline.steele@scd.co.uk

This text from Lexi, do I need to worry?

Am up town. This oldie just tried to flog uz xtc! I WMPL!

C u l8r

DWBH. [smiley face]

Ha Ha. lol. Lex xxxxxx

Five seconds later, an email pings into my inbox.

Subject: translation services from down-wiv-the-kidz From: toby.delaney@scd.co.uk

She’s been offered class A drugs by a geriatric. This made her wet herself laughing. She says, don’t worry, be happy!

To: toby.delaney@scd.co.uk

Don’t worry? I am SO worrying. I don’t think I can hack this responsibility for another human being/space-sharing thing, you were right.

He emails back.

From: toby.delaney@scd.co.uk

Relax woman. It could be fun. I sure wish I had a seventeen-year-old lolling about my gaff all summer. Although, it has occurred to me, I don’t know whether it has you. Does the fact you’ve got your sister staying change the book club? Like, do we need to re-locate??!

I email back.

That, Mr Delaney, is the last thing on my mind.