The Time of Our Lives (25 page)

‘I can’t imagine what that was like for you.’

‘I’ve never got used to losing him.’ I glance up, wondering if I should feel self-conscious. ‘I’m sorry. Here’s you making small talk, and I’m filling
you in on the great tragedy of my life.’

‘Don’t be silly. I’d rather hoped we were beyond small talk by now.’

A smile flickers to my lips. ‘I suppose we are.’

‘So talk. If you want to.’

And I do.

It doesn’t feel uncomfortable; it feels good, solid and cathartic. I feel proud to tell him about Roberto and absolutely no need to hold back.

‘He sounds like an incredible man,’ he says finally.

‘He was,’ I reply. Then my phone rings. I look at the screen and my heart plummets. ‘Excuse me, Harry. I’d better take this.’

After a day littered with phone calls, I feel numb while talking to Charles. In fact, I feel numb to this entire situation. I step away from the sun bed and go through the
motions of updating him, and vice versa.

He has a quote ready for the follow-up pieces in tomorrow’s press. I can’t see how anything can be worse than those in today’s press so authorise them, and end the call with a
sigh before returning to Harry.

‘I need to go to the business centre to look over a media statement,’ I tell him.

‘Aren’t you supposed to be off-duty when you’re on holiday?’ he replies, helping me gather my things. ‘Or is yours one of those companies where you have to sign
your name in blood on your first day?’

‘It’s not usually the latter, although I’m beginning to wonder this week. I’m totally out of my depth at the moment.’

He starts walking me to the door of the hotel. ‘Everyone feels like that in a new job. I don’t know how you cope on your own, with a young daughter on top of it all. Most
people’s stress levels would be sky high. And living in London can’t help.’

‘It’s not London’s fault,’ I say quickly, used to defending the place against my mother’s views. ‘I love the place. I could never live anywhere
else.’

‘Hmm,’ he says.

‘You don’t agree?’

‘Actually, I love the place too. I’m just in denial.’

‘Because of your move?’

He nods as he holds the door to the lobby open for me. ‘But it’s the right thing to do, even if my mum’s now feeling so bad about me moving back that she virtually begged me
not to when I spoke to her last night.’

‘You sure she actually wants you?’

He laughs. ‘Quite sure. She just doesn’t want to feel like she’s making me do something that isn’t right for me. But it is right, I know it is. She’s had a tough
time lately and she needs me whether she’s trying to hide it or not.’

‘What happened, if you don’t mind my asking?’

‘She was made redundant from her job as a care home manager. She’d been there for years and it really hit her hard – she became quite depressed and was struggling for money.
She then got a new job but was overcome by anxiety about starting it. She hadn’t started a new job in twenty-five years.’

‘Has it got any better?’

‘So she says.’

‘You think she’s just putting on a front?’

He nods.

‘So you just want to be there for support, really?’

‘I think it’s the least I can do. Still, shame we can’t meet up after this trip, eh?’ he adds, with uncharacteristic hesitancy.

I don’t manage to find an answer as we arrive at the lift and the doors open.

‘Well, hopefully I’ll see you later,’ he says.

And for a short, misguided moment, I want him to kiss me. Like at the end of a date. Because in a small way, that’s what today felt like. Despite the interruptions. Despite the
circumstances. Despite everything.

I allow myself to look fleetingly into his eyes as I consider the vague possibility that he might be thinking the same. But he simply smiles and starts backing away. Disappointment rises in my
throat.

‘Oh . . . Imogen?’ he says.

‘Yes?’

‘Are you around later?’

‘Yes, I guess so.’

‘Why don’t we meet for a drink?’

I nod, not feeling as nonchalant as I hope I look. ‘That’d be nice.’

‘How’s 8.30 at that little beach bar opposite the sailing club?’

‘Great. See you then.’ I smile, turn to the lift and step in.

The doors are about to close when someone slams on the button and they spring open again.

‘I meant to say . . .’ Harry begins.

‘Yes?’

‘I think you’re lovely too.’

Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about 8.30 p.m. But these are not normal circumstances, because this is my life and nothing in my life is
normal. Even on holiday, when I’m trying to switch off.

Determined to get out and about to see more of Barcelona, Meredith, Nicola and I head to the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya. It’s described in my guidebook as ‘a one-stop
immersion course on the world of Catalan art, from medieval church frescoes to chairs designed by Gaudí.’

Nobody could ever accuse me of being an art enthusiast. I realise I run the risk of being seen as a philistine by saying that, but quite often when something is supposed to stir every corner of
one’s soul, I’m left completely cold.

I do books. I do music. I’ve even been to two operas, although admittedly that was in a fruitless attempt to impress Roberto’s mum. But when I hear people enthusing about works of
art – even proper ones that don’t involve unmade beds – I never quite
get
it. Which obviously never stops me nodding sagely in fervant appreciation. I don’t want to
look completely thick.

Still, I need to do some sightseeing, or I’ll leave Barcelona having experienced only the same level of culture as if I’d spent the week in a high street establishment called
Tanerife.

The experience, however, is far from the promised ‘immersion course’, as the only thing in which I’m immersed is other people’s problems.

‘Imogen, I am beside myself after yesterday,’ Carmel, David’s wife, tells me on the phone as I peer at something I’m reliably informed is Romanesque. It’s very
agreeable, although I wouldn’t have one at home. ‘You don’t mind me phoning, do you?’ she continues, failing to pause for me to respond.

I’ve never considered us friends before: our acquaintance stems solely from the manifold social functions at which I’ve been seated next to her. But that doesn’t stop her
now.

‘I am
furious
with David.
Fucking
furious. And, by the way, I
never
use the f-word, so this gives you a measure of how furious I am. I’ve just said it to the
postman too. He dropped his bag in a puddle.’

I don’t doubt that Carmel has never used the f-word. Everything about her is refined and sophisticated, from her cashmere wardrobe to the dinner parties accomplished enough to make Marco
Pierre White hang up his apron. She was a midwife at an exclusive, private hospital before she met and married David, although it’s impossible to imagine her ever doing a job that involves
quite so much mess. I saw her at 4.30 a.m. a couple of months ago, having picked her and David up from the airport to accompany him straight to a board meeting. Unlike the heap of a human being I
represented at that ungodly hour, she was fragrant and angelic, with not so much as a crease in her Jaeger slacks.

‘It was a ridiculous mistake. I think David would be the first to admit that,’ I say, trying to be diplomatic, but conscious that my first loyalty has to be to my boss, arse that he
is.

‘Ridiculous is one word. Treacherous. Reckless. Idiotic.
Fucking
idiotic. There. He’s made me say it again. Dear God, he’s turning me into Billy Connolly,’ she
laments.

‘How are the children?’ I venture. I don’t know why I still refer to Michael and Lydia as ‘the children’ – as if I’m about to give them 50p for an ice
cream – when one is sixteen and the other has just finished her A levels.

‘Oh, don’t ask.’ She exhales.

‘Okay, well—’

‘Lydia has gone out and spent a fortune on new shoes in case she’s “papped”, whatever that means, and Michael has been sitting in front of the television, refusing to
move, for almost twenty-four hours now.’

‘He does that quite a lot anyway, doesn’t he?’

‘Yes, but there’s an insidious glaze in his eyes now. And he’s watching
This Morning
. It’s extremely unsettling.’

I open my mouth to speak, but she’s on a roll. ‘David has jeopardised his career for this, Imogen. And it’s not like he can claim his requirements weren’t being fulfilled
at home. The man is
unstoppable
in the bedroom, a fact for which I’ve had to make considerable sacrifices, let me tell you.’

I urgently want her to stop talking now.

‘He’s
bent,’
she reveals. ‘You know,
down there
. Like Bill Clinton. And I’d probably have preferred to service
him
for the last thirty-four
years rather than David, let me tell you. At least I’d have got a decent wardrobe and some world travel out of it.’

Nicola taps me on the shoulder in an attempt to point out some wondrous piece of work, but I simply nod and press on with the call.

‘Have the media tried to get hold of you?’ I ask.

‘They’re camped outside here now.’

‘God,
really
?’ My hand flies to my mouth. ‘Are you trapped in there? Have you said anything to them?’

‘Of course! I offered them bacon sandwiches and told them if they were expecting us to come out and do the loyal-wife-and-husband bit, they would be inordinately disappointed.’

‘You said that?’ I groan inwardly and make a mental note to warn Charles Blackman of this new source of angst.

‘I did, but they don’t believe me that he’s not here. They obviously think I’m hiding him in the airing cupboard. Not that I’d let him near my bed linen these days,
the grubby . . .
fucker
.’ The last word bungee jumps out of her mouth as if it’s the most liberating thing she’s ever uttered.

I move through to the next room, trying to keep up with Nic and Meredith as they weave through the crowds. ‘Dare I ask if you’ve spoken to him recently?’

‘No, that’s what I’m phoning you for.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes. There’s no reception at Great Aunt Janice’s caravan. I’ve tried texting him, but he’s obviously either ignoring me or there isn’t a signal.’

‘How do I fit in?’

‘I need you to pass on an extremely important message to him next time he phones you. Because I know he’ll phone you. He phones you more than he phones me.’

My head starts to throb again. ‘Okay.’

‘It’s very important that you pass this on word for word, direct from me.’

‘Er . . . okay, let me get a bit of paper. I want to make sure I get everything down right.’

I open my purse and remove an old receipt as I squeeze past the elderly German tour group in front of me and find the one and only free spot in the gallery.

‘Okay. Fire away.’

She clears her throat extravagantly. ‘David.
Fuck
you.’

My phone does not stop for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. The only respite I get is on the metro, where there’s no reception. So joyous is the experience
that, if it weren’t for the raging heat in here, I’d consider staying on it and looping the city until morning.

When we emerge up the escalator into blinding sunshine, more talks follow with Charles, who is trying to find out what the press is intending to quote Carmel as saying in tomorrow’s
papers. He also tells me that they got David’s name from a police press officer.

There are calls from a variety of radio stations, who seem to have acquired my number from the
Afternoon
programme, and who are phoning to see if I have anything to add. I direct them to
Charles, who is at least capable of opening his mouth without some anatomical colloquialism spilling out.

There’s a call from Elsa at work, begging me to think of some way she can help me. God love her, it’s an offer I’d love to take her up on if she didn’t work in Accounts
and would be the first to admit she wouldn’t recognise a crisis management strategy if it hit her in the face.

And finally there’s David, who phones as I’m traipsing wearily back to the hotel, resigned to the fact that, while I can technically tick the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya
off my sightseeing list, I’m not convinced I actually
saw
much of it.

‘I’m in a phone box,’ he announces. ‘The reception here is terrible but, on the plus side, I’m very isolated. I think the only way to handle this is to pretend
it’s not happening.’

‘How are you feeling?’

He draws in a long breath. ‘I feel like I’m in that film
The Road.
You know, post-apocalyptic, but with a certain weary dignity.’

‘You haven’t seen the papers then?’

‘I’m not even looking. I’m just going to stay here, keep my head down and emerge when the new parliament opens.’

‘The new parliament?’

‘Charles tells me that August is silly season for the news industry. The press has nothing to write about because all the politicians are away in Carcassonne or wherever for the summer, so
all I need to do is wait until next week when Cameron and his crew are back. They’re bound to do something stupid enough to knock me off the pages of the tabloids.’

I note the use of the word ‘me’.

‘You know they’ve printed your name, then?’

‘It was inevitable.’

‘Have you had any contact with anyone from Getreide about this yet? I ask.

‘Yes, and it’s safe to say they’re re-considering their position.’

‘You mean the whole merger could be off?’ I ask.

‘It wouldn’t surprise me. The point is . . . The point is I don’t care any more,’ he wheezes. ‘Clearly I’m not saying that to the board, but it’s true.
You know what I always say in situations like this, don’t you, Imogen? Be real. Be cool.
Be yourself
.’

‘Hmm,’ I manage.

‘Why aren’t you saying anything? Oh God, is it the papers? Tell me! Are they awful?’

‘No! I mean . . . I heard from Carmel earlier,’ I prattle.