Chasing Charlie (19 page)

CLAUDIA

All week I immersed myself in work and kept banter with colleagues to a minimum. I avoided eating lunch with Jill. I didn't go out in the evenings – except for a quick visit to the gym one evening with a very amusing Sam, who proved to be welcome light relief. I had never seen anyone take to a crosstrainer quite as unnaturally as she did.

But that was only one night. More typically in the evenings I went straight home, took my pills and curled into a ball in front of the TV. It was the slowest week of my life.

The only thing of note I had achieved was getting in touch with the two men I had slept with before John. Marco was first. He was a buff bouncer from a club I often go to, his olive skin stretched taut over his biceps. I had known him for years and our relationship was a warm friendship based on mutual respect and understanding for each other's sex appeal. He had been very blasé about it and promised me that he'd get tested as soon as he could.

‘Oh, my darlin', don't you worry your pretty head any more. Marco will find out the facts and get straight back to you.' He was obviously well used to the procedure and completely unfazed by it all. It was slightly comforting to think I wasn't the only woman in London going through the torment of contacting lovers. Marco wouldn't be the only lover in London getting tested. In fact, he was probably a regular at his local clinic. I could just imagine Marco happily calling into a clinic on the way to work in the early evening and flirting with the receptionist. Then I swung back to feeling cheap. The voices in my head, in their roles of ‘Daddy's little girl' and ‘woman of the world', were conducting an epic conversation in my head.

I'm sharing this experience with sleazy bouncers – that's crazy!

Stop being such a snob.

But I come from a good family. It's not meant to be like this.

You come from a sperm and an egg, get real.

Papa would hate this if he knew.

Your daddy tried keeping you in a box away from other people.

He didn't mean any harm!

No, but he's a snob and wanted you to be better than everyone else.

He was just doing what he knew was best.

But you love knowing all sorts of people.

But I don't have to sleep with them all!

Life's for living, stop giving yourself such a hard time.

But I caught a
bug
!

On and on it went boiling away quietly in the background as I wrote emails, took meetings, went to the toilet and collected documents from the printer, keeping my head down and my hands busy. The busier I was, the quieter the argument in my head, but when I left the office it ramped up into a full-blown barney. Claudia has chlamydia. Claudia has chlamydia. Only whisky would dampen the noise. Shots, two minimum, downed as quickly as possible. The orders from Doc not to drink on top of the medication were too hard to stick to. It was only a couple of drinks, I reasoned, and it lowered the volume of the voices in my head enough for me to fall asleep.

It was at the end of one of these short evenings that instead of passing out directly, I picked up my phone to call David, the second man before John. David was in insurance, a brisk, extremely clean man who I'd met one night at a party.

‘Yes?' he answered his mobile, obviously frightfully busy at nine thirty on a Tuesday evening.

‘It's Claudia.'

David paused although why he had to I had no idea. My name would have come up on his phone anyway. Unless he'd deleted my contact details of course. Pity he was hearing from me with such bad news.

‘Claudia.'

‘Yes, I'm sorry to bother you—'

‘Yes, I am rather busy.'

I could hear the sounds of a restaurant in the background. He was out for supper. He was probably with a woman. Not the best environment to hear you needed to go and get tested for an STI. But you shouldn't have answered your phone during supper, you rude man. I remembered his air of self-importance – I was momentarily attracted to it until I realised (unfortunately post-coitally) that he didn't possess a smidgen of warmth to coax his confidence into charm. He was a cold, calculating, vain bore. Which was why he would have answered his phone. If my name hadn't come up, he would have answered it in case it was someone important. If my name had shown it would demonstrate to whomever he was dining with how important he was, receiving calls even during supper.

Plonker.

‘I won't keep you for long. It's just that I've had a bit of bad news, which may impact on you.'

David was silent, waiting for me to go on.

‘Um, I, um, I've just found out I have an STI – chlamydia – and that means that you'll need to go and get tested too.'

Again, David was silent.

Oh this is fun, I thought grimly.

‘Are you there?' I asked him.

‘Yes, one moment.'

I heard muffled voices and the sound of clothes rustling, and then the sounds of the street.

‘Are you there, David?'

‘Can you repeat that for me please?' His voice had become decidedly less confident.

‘Do I have to?'

‘Yes!' he said crossly. ‘I'm a little shocked.'

I sighed. ‘You need to get tested for chlamydia,' I repeated, ‘either at your GP or a sexual-health clinic. The results come back quite quickly.'

‘Is it curable?'

‘Yes, usually very easily with antibiotics.' My head was clearing a little as the conversation went on. I knew the script so well by now though I could have been asleep, if it didn't make me feel so churned up inside.

‘It better be,' he said, with a menacing edge to his voice.

‘If you have it, David, I'd really like to know. I'm trying to trace it back to the source.'

‘It won't be me!' he said, defensive.

‘I hope it isn't. If you don't have it, it narrows my search considerably. If you do have it, that means I need to talk to men before you.' The conversation was sobering me up quickly.

‘Right.'

‘I hope you don't have it, David, I really do, but if you do, you'll need to tell the partners you've had since me.'

‘My fiancée.'

‘Oh! Congratulations, that's great news!'

‘Not the engagement gift I was planning.'

‘No.'

There was a pause while a siren passed David by in the background.

‘So let me know the result will you? And, David, I'm really sorry.'

‘Sure you are, Claudia.'

‘Bye!' I attempted brightly but the phone was dead.

*

I wasn't expecting to see John back in the office until Thursday, as he was away in Brussels for the first part of the week. So when I heard a soft knock on my door on late Wednesday afternoon, I didn't look up to see who was coming through the door straightaway.

‘Claudia?'

I whipped my head up from my computer in shock.

‘Oh, it's you!'

‘Don't sound too glad to see me.'

‘Sorry, I didn't expect you,' I said, flustered.

‘No, we finished earlier than expected. I caught an earlier train back.'

‘Oh good, how was the meeting?'

‘Productive.'

I waited for more. I didn't want to speak to him but if I had to I wanted to talk about work. Anything but the thing lurking in the background. But John just stood there, his hands in his pockets. Refusing to talk about work at all. I tried again.

‘Simon was expecting the MD to put up a lot of opposition to our proposal.'

‘Hmmm,' he mumbled, almost as if he wasn't hearing me. He had crossed the room, his feet quiet and quick on the oatmeal carpet, to stand at the window. I felt like a junior secretary who wasn't being included in the big boys' club. I would normally get bolshy when I felt excluded from information sharing but right then I just felt small and useless. I looked at my screen. An email from Jill had just come in:

 

I know you're in here somewhere, lovely. What's up?

 

What's up? What's up indeed, I thought. What am I meant to say to John? Think of something. Anything.

He strode over to my desk and laid his hands on top of it, leaning in and then pulling back from me, as if he was stretching his wrists or something. His big torso so close to me wasn't helping my brain function any better.

‘Claudia?'

‘Yes?' I answered in a small voice.

‘Are you busy tonight?' He stared at me.

‘No,' I answered, completely forgetting my week-long pact with my television.

‘Good,' he replied. ‘Why don't we go for a drink straight from work?'

‘OK.'

‘I'll come past you,' he said. He stopped his strange moving back and forth, and looked as if he wanted to say something more but stopped himself, and abruptly left the room.

I let out a huge sigh of relief, as if I'd been holding my breath, and my shoulders dropped about a mile from my ears. Oh dear, I thought. What am I doing? I looked stupidly at Jill's email that sat there, demanding an answer.

Hiya,

I tapped out, trying to sound breezy.

Hiya, hon, I'm here somewhere.

Now what? How much of the truth can I bear to share.

Hiya, hon, I'm here somewhere. Buried in work, a bit self-inflicted. I'll come up for air one day soon and tell you all about it. Thanks for asking. Claudia x

That felt a little better. I'd felt awful shutting Jill out all week.

I was waiting for John from about half past five. And I waited, and waited, and waited. I knew he had a difficult meeting last thing and assumed it was running over but it didn't stop me putting on my coat three times and almost leaving. By the time he arrived at my door, full of apologies at seven, I felt almost sick with nerves.

‘It'll have to be dinner instead now it's so late. I'm starving,' he said curtly as he ushered me into a cab. We sat in silence as the cab wended its way through the city, each of us lost in our own thoughts. I felt like I was on my way to be told off by the headmaster and John . . . well, who knew what was going on in his head. I was certain it wasn't generous thoughts about me, that was for sure.

The silence was broken when we pulled up outside a Japanese restaurant I'd been meaning to try for ages and I gasped, suddenly feeling enormously grateful and even more emotional than before. I didn't feel like I deserved to be brought to such a lovely place.

‘Everything OK?'

‘Yes. It's just . . .' I put a tentative hand on his offered arm as I came out of the cab. ‘Thank you for bringing me here.'

He looked at me, puzzled, then took me inside and shepherded me into my seat. From the start, I desperately started searching for something to talk about, deciding on work again as the easiest subject, but John gave me one-word answers. We lapsed into uncomfortable silence too quickly. I looked around us at the tables of couples or groups of friends speaking effortlessly, laughing together as they tried different pieces of the exquisitely presented sashimi and sushi in front of them. I felt we were marooned at our silent table and I was trying desperately not to care, to nonchalantly study the wood panelling that divided the room into several little areas, the plants placed just so. I even twisted around to study the water feature behind me, its perpetual gurgling as peaceful as the traditional music being piped out to diners discreetly from well-positioned speakers.

‘You can't beat the Japanese for excellent design,' I offered, a last-ditch attempt at generating much-needed conversation. But John just looked blankly at me like he hadn't heard anything I was saying.

‘Claudia.'

‘Yes?'

‘I've had my results back and I've tested positive.'

‘Ah,' I replied, the colour draining from my face, then flooding it again with an unwelcome blush.

‘I, ah . . .' I took a deep drink of water, overcome with thirst. ‘I didn't expect you to know so quickly.'

Of course it couldn't have been any other outcome – John had to have it. I hadn't slept with anyone since him – but I was still shocked to hear it.

‘I was tested in Brussels and they turned it around quickly. I found out on the train on the way back today.'

I nodded, looking at my fingers. I wished I could wave a magic wand and make this all better. What he must think of me now he knew he was infected. I felt tears of self-loathing and pity well up and excused myself, walking quickly to the bathroom.

I almost threw myself into a cubicle and sat down on top of the toilet, suddenly completely overcome with emotion, balling my eyes out, the tears hot and ferocious, full of all the sadness and frustration I'd been feeling for days, for weeks, forever. Fuck you, Claudia with chlamydia, fuck your choices, my head screamed at me, the snot running over my fingers, which were trying to muffle the raw sound coming out of my mouth, my heart. It's so unfair, I raged. I had no idea how long I was in there. It could have been three minutes or thirty. When the tears finally stopped I took several deep breaths, trying desperately to compose myself. I fished around at my legs for my bag and realised, with a sinking heart, that I'd left my handbag at the table. Never in my life had I committed such a heinous crime against my appearance. How the hell was I meant to make myself look presentable now?

I took a long length of toilet paper and opened the door, then let out a short scream. A woman stood there, looking as if she'd been waiting for me.

‘Sorry, sorry, I didn't know you were there,' I flustered.

The woman didn't flinch but looked at me calmly. She obviously worked at the restaurant but I didn't remember seeing her in there earlier. She was dressed in a dark blue kimono, her hair up in a classical bun with ornamental chopsticks poked through. She was so peaceful it was almost as if she was floating next to the hand basin.

I avoided eye contact with her as I dabbed away at my face with the toilet paper, making very little progress with the black rivulets staining my cheeks. After a little bit, I felt a light tap on my shoulder and turned to find the woman passing me a cotton pad and a bottle of Clarins cleanser, a small smile on her lips that was somehow insistent and unobtrusive at the same time. I looked at them for a moment and then took them, whispering my thanks.