Name & Address Withheld (14 page)

Rachel snatched the magazine and then—having isolated the compliments from his last few sentences and mentally stashed them away for later—hurled it at him in only partially mock disgust.

‘You, William, are a pathetic male. When you stop living a life with the complexity of a twelve-year-old’s you’ll realise that everyone has problems and that life is not just about getting as much great sex as you can.’

‘It’s not…?’ Will affected incredulity followed by a hint of disappointment. In fact he looked so convincing that Rachel found herself laughing. She was laughing so hard that she suddenly felt she might be on the verge of crying. Lowering herself onto the sofa next to Will, she crossed her legs to signal that their meeting was now back in session.

Predictably, Will’s suggestions were novel, although Rachel was quick to point out areas that needed refining. All part of her vital strategy to keep Will’s confidence in check and straight from the latest ‘101 Ways to Keep Control and the Upper Hand’ manual.

After he’d left she sat back on her sofa and imagined the rewards flooding in. She could almost visualise her winning table at the awards dinner. Success was so close that she could smell it. It was predominantly masculine with a hint of fabric softener and essence of Malboro Lights—well, at least that was the musky trail that Will had left in his wake. And he was a vital part of the campaign team, whether she decided to tell him or not.

chapter 11

L
izzie rolled out of bed for the second time in seven hours. Matt had surprised her with an early lunch, only the food element had fallen by the wayside as their sexual appetites had overtaken their feeding instincts. She whistled to herself as she climbed into the shower. Working at home had definite advantages.

Matt was back and seeing Lizzie again. He wasn’t sure how it had happened. No, that was bollocks; he knew exactly how it had happened. He’d missed her. He’d called with every best intention of mentioning the wife, wedding thing, but then Lizzie had asked him round for dinner and before he’d had a chance to say anything… So it was her fault? No, Matt knew better than to try and argue that one. But there’d been no improvement at home. The only thing she’d had for him when he’d got back was a credit card bill. So now, suddenly, in his ‘for richer for poorer’ capacity she expected him to subsidise her designer wardrobe. It wasn’t as if she needed more clothes than her frankly huge salary could provide, and when he’d jokingly suggested she joined Shopaholics Anonymous she’d had
a massive sense of humour meltdown. When he’d less flippantly accused her of using him she’d flown into a rage; she’d screamed, she’d shouted, she’d almost cried, but she hadn’t actually denied it.

He had to leave. He didn’t want a wife and a mistress. He just wanted one woman. Unfortunately not the one he was married to.

He was beginning to feel like the victim of a huge conspiracy. He’d wanted his wedding day to be the happiest of his life—every groom said it was and he’d believed them, but on reflection he didn’t think they could all have been genuine. And now there was Lizzie. He’d never been as himself with anyone as he was when they were together. Only she had no idea who he really was.

Lizzie gave herself a quick blast of cold water in an attempt to frighten her cellulite into going away and to try and focus her wandering mind. Matt worked long hours, and often at weekends, and that coupled with Lizzie’s two evenings at the station, one day at
Out Loud
and total overload of letters, e-mails and faxes meant that they really had to make time to be together. But those moments more than compensated for the time they were apart. Just knowing he was out there was enough.

Lizzie balked at her latest pulp fiction cliché and turned the mixer tap to freezing, gasping for breath before turning the dial back in the red direction. She had punished herself enough. So what if she’d formerly been the leading protagonist of the you’re-better-off-on-your-own-because-the-only-person-youcan-count-on-in-life-is-yourself movement? Now she was beginning to wonder whether it was because she hadn’t met the right person.

Matt was the soul mate that she hadn’t thought existed outside the scripts of Nora Ephron. It was relaxed and real and she didn’t feel the need to rush things along or make demands because something was there that she hadn’t had before. She was operating on another plane and, it seemed, fitting more life into less time.

Clare was now demanding an introduction. Lizzie hadn’t exactly been hiding him away, but their long and erratic hours made it difficult to organise a mutually convenient time for a drink. Plus, Lizzie was only too aware that Clare had a generous helping on her own emotional plate. It was almost exactly two years since she’d discovered that Joe was cheating—not the sort of anniversary a young, single-again thirty-something wanted to trumpet, and definitely not the most tactful time for Lizzie to introduce her to Mr New Love Interest. In a no-time-like-the-present flourish Lizzie decided to organise a night out. She’d been doing a lot of working and seeing Matt and not enough being there for her best friend. Towelling herself dry, she decided to rectify the situation right away.

The number rang for ages before it was answered.

‘Union Jack’s.’

The phone must have been somewhere between the cutlery drawer and the dishwasher. The hubbub of busy restaurant, a total contrast to the morgue atmosphere that Lizzie had got used to working in at home. Lizzie suddenly wished she hadn’t called, but hanging up now would just have been juvenile. She dug out her most important voice. ‘Clare Williamson, please.’

‘One minute.’ The phone answerer put the receiver down next to the cappuccino machine. Lizzie’s ears had been filled with the sound of coffee grinding and milk frothing—which didn’t sound unlike milk being strangled—for a little too long before the phone was picked up.

‘Clare Williamson.’

‘Hi. Only me!’

‘Liz. Hi. Sorry—not a great time. Are you at home?’

‘Yup.’

‘Everything OK?

‘Yup.’

‘Can you call me a bit later…?’

‘Yup.’

‘Say…at about, um…three-thirty?’

‘Sure.’

Lizzie liked to vary her single syllable responses.

‘Great.’

It was a quick-fire phone call, and by 3:33 p.m. Lizzie hadn’t done much except rationalise that Clare being busy didn’t mean that she didn’t love her any less and called her back. This time Clare answered herself, sounding a lot calmer if a little monosyllabic. To compensate, Lizzie injected a little more energy than normal into her speaking voice in the hope that some of the excess might rub off on Clare.

‘Ms Williamson, this is your very own social secretary speaking. Sorry to have bothered you in the middle of everything. I always forget that the times of day when everyone else has time to talk are when you are at your busiest.’

‘God, Lizzie, you’re going have to be a bit less chirpy. I don’t think I can cope with your new euphoric attitude to life and love much longer.’

Ouch. Lizzie detected a raw nerve and resumed her less playful former self. The excess energy ploy had backfired. Probably also not a good time to tell Clare that Matt had called round for a quickie at lunchtime. This was supposed to be about cheering Clare up.

‘Precisely what I was calling about, actually. Thought it was high time you and I had a flat outing to drink champagne in glamorous places while setting the world to rights—and to remind you how much better off you are without that two-timing double-crossing shit of an ex-husband of yours.’

Clare laughed despite herself. This time of year was always hard for her, and Lizzie was a good mate. Her tone softened. ‘Thanks, Liz, that would be lovely. We haven’t had a good night out on the town together in ages. Let me just look at the roster.’

There was a slight pause while Clare located the relevant sheet of paper. ‘Blimey. This week’s far too hectic… How about next Tuesday…?’

‘I’ll be in the studio, answering calls and playing CDs.’

‘Ah, yes, of course…’ She must be distracted. Mind you, Lizzie had called her in the midst of the lunchtime rush earlier. Apparently they could be just as self-centred as each other. ‘Actually, how about Monday?’

‘Perfect. Leave it to me.’

Lizzie stopped herself from ringing Matt to see if he was free then. Not only was it less than two hours since she’d seen him last, but she didn’t want Clare to feel that she’d sabotaged the girlie night she had just promised her. Instead Lizzie channelled some of her nervous energy into tackling the next pile of letters and blasted herself into action with a classical piano concerto on CD at full volume.

Moments later she was typing furiously, captured by the pace and the rhythm of the piece, her hands racing across the keyboard in subconscious imitation of a great composer at work. As the tempo increased, so did her productivity. Soon she was totally immersed in a world of heartache, confession and premature ejaculation.

chapter 12

‘S
o, when am I going to meet him, then?’

‘Who…? Matt?’

‘No, Robinson Crusoe, Ronald McDonald… Of course Mr Matt. Mr Wonderful. Mr Smile on Your Face. Mr Good News. You haven’t looked this radiant for years. He’s taken ten years off you…’

‘Ten years…?’ Clare had such a way with words. Lizzie hadn’t thought she looked that different from her twenty-two-year-old incarnation anyway. She stared into her glass, hoping for a glimpse of her reflection. Unbelievable to think she’d now reached an age where you could take away ten years and she’d still be an adult. Lizzie took an extra-large sip to harden her resolve. Maybe it was time to upgrade to anti-ageing eye cream after all. And to think that she had dismissed it as pure sales pitch when they had tried to sell her some at the Clarins counter the other day.

‘Well, maybe not ten years…but certainly two.’

That was much more like it. Lizzie raised her glass to no one in particular in celebration of her relative youth.

‘You haven’t looked this happy since you were with Rob.’

Lizzie grimaced. Rob was a long time ago. He’d been totally the wrong person for her, even if she’d managed to pretend that he was perfect for nearly six months. His idea of romance was insisting on scaring the life out of her by whisking her all over Great Britain on his motorcycle at weekends. ‘That wasn’t happy; that was windburn!’

They both laughed. Rob had even bought her a full set of leathers and a helmet. A total contrast to the perfectly faded jeans and huggable blue jumper that he’d been wearing to the dinner party where they’d met. There’d been no hint that he was a motorcycle nut. No greasy nail beds, no Harley Davidson accessories, not a Moto Guzzi key fob in sight.

‘Well, at least he was about twenty years younger than…what was he called…?’

Lizzie laughed at the collection of totally unsuitable skeletons hanging in her closet.

‘Lawrence…and he was only fourteen years older than me,’ Lizzie added a little defensively. So she had been going through her find-a-less-dysfunctional-than-my-own-biological-father-figure-and-then-sleep-with-him crisis? He hadn’t exactly been Tom Selleck to look at either. A pity, Lizzie mused. A pity also that Clare seemed to have a clearer recollection of Lizzie’s exes than she had, and appeared to take such delight in listing them after a few drinks. She appeared to be on a roll.

‘So when do I get to meet Lover Boy? Why don’t you get him to join us for a quick glass of champagne?’

Lizzie stalled. It would be preferable to them meeting sober at the flat first thing one morning when Clare would predictably ask far too many questions in the not traditionally welcoming style of a Gestapo officer. But Clare could be a bit of a loose canon when she was under the influence. Matt didn’t need to know about Rob, Lawrence, or indeed any of the others. ‘He might not be free…’

‘And then again… Honestly, Liz, you are the end sometimes.’

Clare raised her right eyebrow at Lizzie. She was going to have to do better than that if she wanted to keep him under
wraps. Lizzie knew that attempting to dodge the inevitable was pointless. Once Clare had made up her mind, it was only a matter of time before she got what she wanted.

‘Give him a call. If he’s in the vicinity he might like to pop in. I mean, you haven’t seen each other for—what?—two, no, more like three days now… Poor love…’

Lizzie rummaged in her bag. ‘Damn. I didn’t bring my phone.’

‘Here, use mine…and don’t even pretend that you can’t remember his number. It must be etched in your memory by now.’

Lizzie had to climb lots of stairs before she was close enough to ground level to get a signal. He answered straight away. Why, when you wouldn’t mind getting an answer-phone, does it never happen?

‘Matt?’

‘Hi, Liz.’

‘Is now a good time?’

‘Well, it depends on how you look at it. It’s not a great time in that it’s after nine and I’m still in the office, desperately trying to focus on my computer screen so I can type up a few proposals for an 8:00 a.m. meeting tomorrow, but it’s a fantastic time in that I’m dying to be distracted. Everything OK with you? Aren’t you and Clare supposed to be slagging off men together right now?’

‘We are—we were—well…not all men… Anyway, we were just chatting and we—well, Clare—well, we thought it’d be much more fun to slag off men if we had at least one representative popping in for a quick drink to add more fuel to our fire. I mean it’s all very well saying that all men are bastards hypothetically…but you can’t beat a real-life example.’

Matt was totally silent. Not a laugh, nothing…and Lizzie had thought that this was one of her more mildly amusing moments. She carried on regardless.

‘Hey, I’m only kidding. Look, we’re at the Atlantic Bar and Clare would really like to meet you, so I thought I’d give you a call to see if you fancied a quick drink with us before we move on to our next venue.’

More silence. Lizzie wondered if the signal had gone. Maybe she’d been chatting away to herself for the last few minutes? She moved the phone away from her ear. Just far enough to be able to see the screen but not too far just in case Matt was there and about to say something. All the bars were illuminated defiantly. They were still connected.