Getting Rid of Matthew (6 page)

9

I
T WAS FRIDAY MORNING
and Helen was typing up a press release for Laura and trying to stop herself from altering the occasional word where she thought things could be improved. It concerned the rumors that ex–
Northampton Park
soap opera "babe" (just been sacked, in dire need of some column inches) Jennifer Spearman had just gotten engaged to reality show singer Paulo (gay, terrified of losing his fan base of eleven-year-old girls). There had, of course, been no rumors. This release, which denied the relationship vehemently, along with a few well-placed "unauthorized" pictures of the couple seemingly caught unawares, was designed to ensure there soon would be.

As a personal assistant, Helen didn't qualify for an office of her own; instead she shared a large open-plan space with two other P.A.s, black-haired, thin-lipped Jenny, and Jamie, who was harmless enough if a bit too easily influenced. It was the modern day equivalent of the secretaries' typing pool, although, of course, no one was called a secretary anymore, there were only P.A.s and, when they reached stellar status, executive P.A.s.

Jenny was poison. Only twenty-six, she considered herself the most senior among the P.A.s because she looked after Matthew. She spoke in a baby voice—a cartoon helium whine, with her
r
's pronounced as soft
w
's—which belied her fierce power-hungry streak. She fought tooth and nail to make sure that her name was the first on any general memo, that her chair cost five pounds more than Helen's or Jamie's, and that she had control of the stationery catalogue. Rumor had it that she had once been caught with a tape measure, measuring the length of the desks to make sure hers was the largest. She had a bully's mentality and, because Jamie was weak and Helen could not be bothered to fight, she was able to reign as the self-appointed queen of the office.

The open-plan area led directly off the company's main foyer and, at around eleven o'clock, just as she was beginning to wonder how to fill the long hours before lunchtime, Helen's eye was drawn to the reception desk, where a woman was waiting for Annie, Global's podgy-faced receptionist, to get off the phone. She was holding something that looked like a computer bag. Helen let her gaze move up to the woman's face and her heart nearly stopped beating. It was Sophie.

Helen ducked down behind her monitor, then peeped over the top of it again, like a private eye with a newspaper. What the fuck was she doing here? Panic made her thought processes cloudy, and she was convinced that Sophie was here for a showdown with her—husband-stealing, child-orphaning bitch that she was. It played out in her mind like a scene from
Jerry Springer
, the whole office looking on as the wronged wife shouted and cried, Helen having to defend herself, trying to put a spin on the situation that made taking a man away from his wife and young children seem like the acceptable thing to do. Her colleagues alternately openmouthed or smirking behind their hands. When she looked back again, she saw the bag over Sophie's shoulder. The computer, of course—she'd brought Matthew his computer. Calmer now, her brain allowed back in the memory of Matthew saying that he hadn't told Sophie the identity of the woman he was leaving her for. Helen breathed again. She was off the hook. For now.

Having gotten fear out of her system, curiosity took over. Picking up a file from her desk, she walked over to a filing cabinet close to the reception area just as Annie put down the phone and greeted Sophie. Pretending to riffle through random papers, she listened as Annie said she'd let Matthew know that Sophie was there. Sophie jumped in.

"No. I'm in a rush. I'll just leave the computer."

She had a nice voice. Friendly. Helen snuck a surreptitious look. She waited for the long-held feelings of loathing to overwhelm her. Here she was in the flesh, the enemy, the focus of so much negative energy over the last four years that you could plug lightbulbs into her. It felt almost a letdown that Sophie was just a woman—a woman who was shaking slightly with the effort involved in trying to hold it together. It was obvious she'd made an effort today, in case she bumped into her husband, but no amount of makeup could disguise the dark circles around her eyes. Where was Matthew, by the way? Helen considered ringing him to warn him to steer clear of reception, but Sophie was turning to leave, exchanging banal pleasantries with Annie. She'd nearly made it through the door when Matthew strode out of the conference room opposite and all but collided with her. Helen took a step back and engrossed herself in her papers again.

There was a toe-curling moment, which probably only lasted ten seconds but seemed like a minute, when neither one spoke, followed by an awkward stuttered hello. Though she tried to pretend it wasn't happening, a tear sprung out of the corner of Sophie's eye and trickled down her cheek. Annie, who had a preternatural sense for identifying a potential source of gossip, didn't even try to pretend she wasn't listening in.

Sophie gave Matthew his laptop.

"I thought you might need this."

He lowered his voice, but not enough that he couldn't be heard by Annie.

"How are the girls?"

For fuck's sake, Matthew, thought Helen, take her into your office, don't make her have this conversation in public.

Sophie's voice was shaky and barely audible.

"Missing you, of course."

"Tell them I miss them, too," he was saying, and Helen was practically blushing at the humiliation Sophie must be feeling.

"Phone them and tell them yourself."

And Sophie left him standing there with her dignity (almost) intact.

It was all around the office in minutes. Helen kept her head down at her computer, but could practically feel a Mexican wave of whispering traveling around the room. Eventually, Jenny came and sat on her desk.

"Have you heard?"

For a moment, Helen considered standing up and shouting, "Yes and it's all because of me. I'm the reason his wife was crying and his shirts aren't ironed and his kids are going to grow up without a father." But she settled on "Heard what?"

"Matthew and his wife have split up. He's moved out—no one knows where."

She took a dramatic pause for a reaction. Helen contorted her face into something she hoped would pass off as surprise.

"How sad."

"I knew there was something up with him. Oh, my God!" Jenny's stage whisper reached a squeakier pitch. "You don't think he's gone off with someone else, do you?"

"How the fuck would I know?" said Helen, a touch too defensively.

"Imagine. I mean he's so…old. Hey," she shouted across at Reception, "what if Matthew's been shagging around?"

Annie gave a visceral shudder. "Grim."

Great, thought Helen, who for some reason had always believed that her female colleagues found Matthew rather attractive. Absolutely fucking great.

* * *

"They can never find out it's me."

Helen and Matthew were eating dinner at the kitchen table again. This time she'd cooked; fish fingers, oven chips, and frozen peas, a meal she was secretly hoping might make him yearn for Sophie's grown-up dinners.

"I mean it, Matthew, we can't ever tell anyone at work."

He'd gotten his puppy-dog look back, the one which made Helen want to kick him.

"Are you ashamed of me?"

"Of course I'm not, I just don't think it'll do either of us any good."

"But I want to show you off. I want everyone to know how much in love we are."

She felt sick.

"Tell you what, why don't we just wait a bit and then we can tell them we got together after you left Sophie. It'll be cleaner like that. Otherwise, everyone's going to think I'm a rampaging bitch."

"OK," he agreed reluctantly. "I suppose we could wait a month."

"Let's make it two." She put her hand over his and smiled at him, thinking, OK, I have two months to work out what I'm going to do.

* * *

It was nearly two weeks since Matthew had moved in and Sophie's only contact with him had been the excruciating laptop moment. She knew enough about Annie to know that the news would be all around Global by now if it wasn't already, and her stomach turned over as she imagined the mock concern for her that would be peppering Matthew's colleagues' conversations. She was in the anger phase now—how dare he allow her to be humiliated like that, and more to the point, what was wrong with her, worrying about whether he needed his computer? It was none of her concern now—so when he called to say he needed to get more of his stuff, she thought about telling him where to shove it. But that wasn't her. He asked if he could come when the girls were going to be there and Sophie gave him a time on Saturday afternoon when she could go off to the supermarket and they need only have the bare minimum of contact.

He arrived promptly at two and hesitated on the doorstep, unsure whether to ring the bell or just let himself in. Sophie could see him through the venetian blinds on the kitchen window, hands in his coat pockets, the slight stoop he always affected when he was feeling uneasy. He looked tired. She called Suzanne to let him in and take him up to the living room, then she slipped out the front door. She didn't even want to say hello.

* * *

To Helen, it felt like she had gotten her old life back for a couple of hours. She lay on the sofa reading a book, reveling in the silence. She knew she should be trying to clear more space to make room for Matthew's things, but she couldn't be bothered to move. She wondered idly how he was getting on, then dismissed the thought as quickly as it had come.

At about five o'clock, she heard his car pulling up outside and started to drag herself toward the front door. She stopped as she heard Matthew's voice talking to…who? She pulled back the curtain a fraction and dropped it back again when she saw Matthew, flanked by two small pre-teenage girls, each carrying a box. Fuck! He'd brought Claudia and what's-her-name. Helen rushed to the mirror and started tweaking at her frizzy Saturday afternoon hair and wiping away at yesterday's smudged mascara which was encrusted underneath her eyes.

How could he do this to me? she thought. Without so much as a phone call. Had he no idea that adolescent girls valued appearances above all else? She had already planned what she would wear on their first meeting—FCUK jeans, high brown boots from Aldo, and the baby-blue Paul Frank hoodie which, she knew, was way too young for her, but which she was hoping would make her look "cool." Labels that adolescent girls had heard of and would admire. She had decided to go for the big sister approach—admittedly a scarily old big sister (it was all a bit
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
) but anyway. Now the only clean item of clothing to hand was an age-appropriate fitted light-gray sweater which she wore to work, but it would have to do. She was pulling the clean top on over her head when she heard his key turning in the front door. Affecting an air of what she thought looked like sophisticated nonchalance, she managed to arrive in the hall seemingly unruffled as he led the girls in.

Matthew was in overcompensatingly jolly father mode.

"Look who I've brought to meet you," he said.

"What a lovely surprise," said Helen, almost convincingly.

"They've been dying to see you for themselves, haven't you girls?" From the looks on his daughters' faces, any idiot could tell that this was a lie.

"This is Suzanne." He indicated the taller, slightly less sullen-looking of the two.

"And this is Claudia."

Claudia looked Helen up and down as though she were sizing up a rival.

Helen smiled in what she believed was a youthful, pally manner. "It's so great to meet you. Your dad talks about you both all the time, so I feel like I, kind of, know you already. And I'm really hoping we can be, like, friends."

The girls looked at her blankly.

"Do you know you've got your sweater on inside out?" Claudia said, and then immediately turned back to her father. "Can we go home now?"

"No, Claudia. Don't be rude, say hello to Helen."

Suzanne muttered an almost inaudible hello while Claudia fixed Helen with a blank stare.

"It'll take them a bit of time to get used to you," said Matthew apologetically. "Come into the living room, girls, and you can chat to Helen while I get you a drink."

"This is a dump," Helen thought she heard Claudia say as he ushered them on through.

* * *

When Sophie first brought Suzanne home from the hospital, Matthew had told her that he saw it as his second chance to prove himself as a father. His relationship with his son, then twenty-six, had always been fairly formal—Matthew had not taken easily to parenthood first time around and had always been slightly afraid of the judgmental gaze of his eldest child—but it had deteriorated to almost nonexistent following Matthew's abandonment of Leo's mother. Bizarrely, Leo had always gotten on well with Sophie, whom he saw—quite rightly, it now seemed—as another potential victim of his father's selfishness. He placed the blame for Matthew's disloyalty squarely on Matthew's shoulders and, although he never mentioned it, it sat between them like a glass partition, preventing them from ever getting too close. So Matthew mostly kept in touch with his only son via his second wife, a situation which he knew was flawed at the best of times, but about to become impossible.

Suzanne, forced into the role of "the clever one" by the arrival of much prettier sister Claudia, had been struggling to live up to her reputation ever since, but the amount of praise and attention she received from Matthew when she did well in an exam made the hours of secret studying worthwhile. She was a placid, easygoing child on the surface, but she was hiding some frantic paddling underneath.

Claudia, on the other hand, seethed with resentment at her pigeonholing as "the pretty one" because she believed, quite rightly as it happened, that the reality was that she was also the cleverest. She knew all about Suzanne's clandestine cramming, but she never let on, and the harder Suzanne worked, the more Claudia assumed an attitude that said she couldn't care less about school. Her bad behavior, optimistically described by her teachers as "a phase," was so clearly a reaction to her boredom in a class full of children whom she overtook academically years before, that any amateur psychologist could have spotted it, but sadly there was never an amateur psychologist around when you needed one.