You, Me and Other People (12 page)

We’ve agreed to play at St George’s Hill since Matt and I have corporate membership there. I have a nine o’clock tee-off booked and Tim Granger has declined lunch afterwards, telling me in his email that he will be visiting Noah before heading back to the city.

This hurts. It’s like it’s open and out there, but it’s not. Tim knows, Kiera knows, Gordon knows, but no one in my life can know – including Matt. I put him off the round of golf, telling him I think it would be good for Tim and me to do it alone, iron out all our creases. Matt was not so sure and pleaded with me to reconsider.

It’s eight thirty and, in the car park, I see Tim first. His driver, Cal, has dropped him off, is removing his golf clubs from the boot as Tim waits, head down over his BlackBerry. I remove my own clubs, walk the trolley in his direction, and offer my hand when I arrive.

‘Tim,’ I say, ‘good to see you.’

‘I’ll text you when we’re back on the eighteenth, Cal.’ Tim ignores my hand, and my greeting. There’s nothing I can do but retract it and walk on up to the clubhouse, hoping he’ll follow. Unsure how to behave, I decide there and then to let him take the lead. I’d like to talk about my unfair dismissal from the Granger account. He will no doubt want to concentrate on the fact that Kiera and I created Noah. Either way, this isn’t going to be easy.

We play the first hole in silence and are walking towards the second tee. I’m determined to let him have the first verbal shot at me. When it comes, it’s a cheap one.

‘So, how long were you, a married man, banging my sister?’

I do not rise to the bait.

‘Kiera and I were friends. We only ever spent one night together.’ In this case, honesty, I decide, is definitely the best policy.

‘Once was enough, wasn’t it?’

‘To what?’

‘Fuck up several lives.’

My mouth almost gapes open.
Do not react.

‘With respect, Tim, how have I done that? Kiera told me she was pregnant, told me she wanted to have the baby and that she wanted me to have nothing to do with any of it. I have respected her wishes, especially since she got married when Noah was a baby. Kiera has dictated this whole thing. Whose life have I fucked up?’

He is silent.

‘It’s not my fault he’s sick, Tim.’

‘It could be. There could be a genetic link. Maybe your DNA is as fucked up as you.’

I’m suddenly unsure that I should be on a golf course with this man. He’s angry. Angry at me, angry at Kiera, angry at the world. His irrational hatred of me has just become crystal clear. Where I thought I could reason with him, I’m no longer convinced. And he’s wielding a steel stick beside me.

‘You let her go through a difficult pregnancy alone. Just because you were screwing someone behind your wife’s back.’

‘I never knew she … I—’

‘You’ve never given her a penny.’

‘She wouldn’t let me. I have an account set up for Noah. She—’

‘Keep your fucking money, Adam. It’s not like he’s going to need it anyway …’

This floors me. I feel as if he’s hit me square on the jaw, when all he actually does is hit one of the best drives I’ve ever seen. This is a man able to channel his frustration. I should take lessons. Of course, I follow it up with one of the worst shots I’ve ever hit and end up in the rough in the trees. He laughs.

‘Why did you want me off your family account?’ There. I’ve said it. He stares at me, then shakes his head vigorously.

‘Because you’re a wanker, and you’re a wanker who’s lost us a shitload of money.’

‘The markets lost you a shitload of money. You know very well that money would have been lost no matter who had advised you.’

‘Well, let’s just stick to you being a wanker then.’

I stop walking. ‘You know what, Tim? I have been a wanker to my wife, to my daughter – hell, even the woman I just dumped: guilty as charged. But I have never behaved badly to clients, or to Kiera. We had a one-night stand – both consenting adults. The only person who was hurt from that was Beth, so get down off your fucking high horse.’

‘You just dumped someone?’ Tim makes a face.

‘Yes.’ I blush at the memory of the no-strings booty call since then.

‘Does Beth know about this one?’

‘Yes. Beth dumped me first. She threw me out because of Emma. I’ve just dumped Emma because I still love Beth. Happy?’

He laughs. ‘No. Are you?’

The unspoken implication is one I’ve wrestled with myself. If I continue to behave the way I do, will I ever be happy again?

‘We used to be friends,’ I say.

‘We did, or so I thought,’ he muses.

‘What was there to gain, Tim? This is the way Kiera wanted it. She kept the baby and I kept schtum. Everyone was happy, and no one would ever have known any different if Noah hadn’t got sick.’

‘He’s a great kid, you know. Really clever … bright.’ His eyes widen behind his narrow steel-framed glasses.

My heart falls in my ribcage. I cannot respond.

‘Have you been tested yet?’ he asks.

‘Yes, I’m waiting—’

‘How long ago?’ he interrupts.

‘A few days.’

He shakes his head. ‘You’d have heard by now. Good news travels fast. Bad news …’

My heart plummets further. Meg. I know I have to do it.

‘Your daughter?’ Tim reads my mind. ‘Exactly how big a wanker does she think you are?’ He hits another big shot, right up the fairway. ‘Fore!’ he bellows to the group of golfers at the pin up ahead.

And all I can think of is how apt his cry is. Warning up ahead! I might as well have it branded on my scalp …

While we’re not bosom buddies when he leaves, I do feel that I’ve made headway with Tim. He shakes my hand, thanks me for the round of golf. I ask him to get Kiera to call me.

He nods. ‘Are you going to try and see him? Noah?’

‘I want to.’

‘Gordon won’t want you there. Especially—’

‘If I’m not a match.’ I finish his sentence for him. ‘Why upset the balance, right?’

Tim shrugs.

‘I want to see him, Tim. He doesn’t have to know who I am. I could be a “friend” of the family. I could be a “friend” of yours? I don’t want to upset the Kiera and Gordon dynamic, that’s not what I want. But I would like to see him.’

‘A friend of mine? That may be pushing it.’

I’m silent. There’s nothing else to say really.

He climbs into his car. ‘Leave it with me,’ he says, then pulls the door shut.

I’m left with hope. I hope that I’ve mended an important bridge and I hope that he may be able to influence Gordon, and that I might get to meet Noah.

Have I the strength and courage to ask Meg? Hope for Noah may live on through her. Hope for me is fading. She and her mother will never forgive me …

Kiera’s call comes an hour after the golf and five minutes after the call confirming I’m not a match for our son either. I’m back in the office, still reeling, when Matt enters the room and her number flashes. Instinctively, I pick it up, then realize it’s probably not a conversation I should have in front of him. He shows no sign of leaving, so I stick to listening, give her one-syllable replies. ‘Have you talked to Meg?’ she asks.

I tell her that I will do, to leave it with me, and I hang up the phone.

‘Emma?’ Matt asks. ‘How is she?’

‘Hmmm. I guess she’s fine, but we’re not together any more.’

Matt sits, his eyebrows heading towards the heavens. ‘Right,’ he says.

I exhale deeply. I am weary, tired of getting everything wrong, tired of so many hidden layers of my life. It’s frankly exhausting and, there and then, I decide Matt should know the truth. ‘That was Kiera Pugh, née Kiera Granger.’

Matt’s eyebrows furrow together in a deep frown. ‘Why is Kiera Granger calling you?’

As soon as he asks the question, he pieces together something in his head. I’m sure he has the facts all wrong, because the conclusion he draws makes him spit the next words.

‘No – Adam, no – Jesus; please – don’t – tell – me – that …’

I hold a hand up. ‘Kiera’s a friend. That’s all.’

It’s like the oxygen had been sucked out of the room, then comes gushing back in. The relief is tangible.

‘Ten years ago, we did have a fling. Now, we share a nine-year-old son. Kiera made it clear she wanted to do it alone, and so I’ve not been involved in Noah’s life.’ I’m on a roll. This honesty thing is something I could maybe get used to. I choose not to look at Matt’s face, for fear of changing my mind. ‘Noah is ill – leukaemia. Kiera got in touch because we need to find a bone marrow match. She had to tell Tim I was the father, hence his reaction to me and my “warped moral compass”.’

Matt is making a coughing sound as if he’s going to vomit. I still can’t look at him. ‘Kiera’s just calling to remind me that our best hope for a match is Meg. Which means I have to tell her everything, ask her to be tested. Ask her if she’s a match to go through a stem cell donation. And, all of this, Beth will have to know …’ I stop talking, stand up and turn to look out through my window. My hands are deep in my pockets, my shoulders slumped. I remind myself – looking down at people passing below on the street; traffic on the river – that life, despite everything, just carries on, oblivious.

After a few minutes, Matt appears beside me. ‘I can get tested,’ he offers. ‘I’m sure Jen would too. You never know. Sometimes there are non-familial matches.’ He puts an arm around my shoulders. ‘Christ, Adam, your life makes me dizzy.’

I smile. ‘Thank you. And I know. I’ve a headache myself thinking about it.’

‘What a tangled web?’ he continues. ‘It’s the stuff movies are made of. Maybe you should write it all down, sell it to Hollywood for a fortune.’

I know he’s trying to be light-hearted, but his remark makes me think of Beth. Meg said something about her being shortlisted to write a song for a movie. My stomach churns into anxious knots at the thought of how I may be about to really break her heart, this time into tiny, tiny pieces. Tiny, unmendable pieces … I pray silently for a miracle, one that will avoid me revealing what a truly spectacular liar I’ve been for so long.

Embankment station. I see the red and white Underground sign flash before my eyes and I leap upwards, just in time, before the door slides shut. Feeling the chill of the Tube station, I pull my coat tight around me and climb the escalator. Outside, I glance across to the swollen river on the opposite side of the street, where a group of students are stacked up against the wall singing loudly. I turn right and head west towards Big Ben. Tucked in a tiny street behind the Houses of Parliament, The Waterhole is packed to the rafters, with all sorts – suited, bespectacled civil servants meet tourists and artists alike.

T-shirted smokers – who must be freezing – hover outside the front door as I push my way through to the rear, oak-lined bar. It stretches for ten metres and each of the many tan-coloured leather barstools is occupied. Opposite these, the worn, tartan-clad booths, where patrons feast on nibbles and bubbles, are equally busy. Ben is standing in the last one, waving in my direction.

When I reach him, it’s obvious that he still hasn’t told Karen I’m coming. She seems pleased, hugs me, tells me it’s great to see me, but I have an instinctive feeling that tonight, three may be a crowd. I’m trying not to react, hope my upset gets lost in the busy throng of the pub. Ben pours me a long glass of champagne from a half-full bottle. ‘Have you heard from Josh? Are we celebrating yet?’ he asks. Karen looks up at me, wide-eyed, expectant, like a baby bird in a nest.

‘Nothing,’ I reply.

She squeezes my hand, pulls me into the booth beside her.

‘We will be soon,’ Ben says with a confidence I have never felt. ‘I’ll go and get another bottle.’ He heads back in the direction of the bar.

‘I’m sorry about this.’ Karen’s face crumbles. ‘I didn’t know he’d asked you. I was annoyed enough that he pinched our nibbles and bubbles idea, even before you arrived. I mean, I know he’s still trying to impress me, but we have to make our own adventures. I don’t want him hijacking yours and mine, just because I told him once what fun it is.’

‘I was a little jealous,’ I confess. ‘Actually, I was a big bit jealous. To be fair, he hasn’t been in London for a while. Maybe he just doesn’t know where people hang out.’

‘Beth, he was gone a year, not a decade. I just don’t think he got out much even before he left!’

She’s right. Before he left, Ben had been in a six-year relationship with Elise. I wonder how much of the break-up he’s shared with Karen.

‘He’s told me he and Elise didn’t go out much. She was a home bird?’

‘She was … How much has he told you about her?’ I choose a black pitted olive from an almost empty plate.

‘Not a lot, but then I’ve not really asked either. I don’t particularly want him raking over my past, so I’ve tried not to with him. I was sort of hoping you’d fill in the blanks?’

I realize I’ve been dreading this moment since they got together. How do I tell Karen that Ben and Elise split up after years of unsuccessful IVF treatment? Ben wanted to adopt as he has always wanted to be a father, but Elise wanted her own child … Since I know Karen wants children too and, at forty, her child-bearing years are limited, I’m hesitant to raise it.

‘Not now,’ I whisper. ‘He’s on his way back.’

‘More bubbles and some menus for nibbles.’ Ben grins, hands us both a menu. We both smile, pretend to look at it, then say together, ‘Quesadilla sharing platter, please.’

‘Actually, I’ll get it.’ I stand up. ‘I need the loo. I’ll order it on the way. You okay with that too, Ben?’

He nods.

I take a note of the table number, place the order at the busy bar and head to the left-hand side of the building, where the Ladies’ toilets are. I know it’s the best spot in the building for a full phone signal and, sitting on the loo, I remove my phone from my handbag.

Finally, there is one text. Josh. It says: CALL ME. I stare at it. If it was bad news, maybe he’d have just texted the words, ‘Sorry, not this time …’ Or the same text, ‘call me’ with lower-case letters. If it was good news, he’d have put an exclamation mark after the capitalized words. I feel queasy as I speed-dial him on #4.

‘Where’ve you been? I’ve been trying you for an hour.’ Josh’s voice is soprano.

‘What? I’ve no missed calls, I—’

‘Never mind. Are you sitting down?’

The irony of my situation is lost on him. I am, in fact, sitting down on a faded wooden toilet seat, the sort that risks splinters. A caricature picture of Benjamin Disraeli stares down on me from the back of the cubicle door. My knickers are around my ankles. I tell him: ‘Yes.’

‘You’ve done it, girl, you’ve only bloody well gone and done it!’ His voice rises a further octave before finishing the sentence.

‘What?’

‘They want it. They want your song in the movie. “Fall Apart” will be the main movie track. In fact, they’re looking at probably changing the movie title to something about glue seams, or something from one of the lines, but they
love
it!’

‘They love it,’ I repeat, as I feel a wee trickle into the loo. ‘They do?’

‘Christ, yes, they do. I had the top guy on the phone only minutes ago. I’m talking the head honcho, Beth. They want to meet you. In Los Angeles. Soon as – in the next week or two. You need to come in tomorrow, talk dates, contracts, etc.’

‘They want to meet me?’

‘Yep.’

‘In LA?’ I feel another wee trickle out.

‘In LA. Soon as—’

I can’t see Josh, but I know he’s smiling. ‘Crikey,’ I muster. ‘LA. Are you coming?’

‘You don’t need me! All my hard work will be done by then, but it starts from tomorrow. Beth, we need to talk, so that I can make sure this contract is rock solid, watertight, and that you get paid even if this movie doesn’t get made.’

‘Right.’ I pull my zip up, close my jeans button, one-handed.

‘So, come in tomorrow, for elevenses. Coffee and pastries?’

‘Eleven, yours tomorrow.’ I’m nodding.

‘And, Beth?’

‘Yes?’

‘Well done, you superstar.’

He hangs up before he has a chance to hear me thank him. I tell myself that I’ll do it tomorrow. Outside the cubicle, I put my phone down, wash my hands, catch my reflection – I look like something from a home for the bewildered. I don’t have to sack Josh. I may even buy those boots. My face looks frozen in time. ‘It’s shock,’ I say aloud, as I make my way back to Karen and Ben.

‘So … Adam and Emma have split up.’ Karen flashes a conspiratorial smile in my direction.

I nod.

‘What? You knew already?’

‘Yes, he told me at your party.’ I take a sip from my glass. ‘I’m not sure I care though,’ I add, taking my place beside Karen in the booth.

‘And apparently he and Ben are about to start training for a mini-marathon.’

Now that does get a reaction. I snort with laughter. ‘Adam? Do something to keep fit?’

‘I’ll be training him.’ Ben obviously feels the need to defend him.

‘Ben, the only exercise Adam ever gets is either golf, or screwing other women. Good luck with that.’

‘He’s doing it for charity,’ he adds.

‘I hope they don’t need the money.’ I shake my head.

‘It’s something that’s important to him.’

I’m intrigued. ‘A charity? That means something to Adam? Which one is it?’

Ben blushes, a fully fledged, cheek-to-cheek, crimson rush of blood. ‘I can’t remember.’ He shrugs it off.

My antennae are twitching, but I choose to ignore that, wanting instead to share my news. The noise at the bar suddenly increases as a birthday group arrive and park themselves just beside us.

‘Josh called.’

‘What?’ Karen raises her voice. ‘Did you say Josh called?’

My head bobs up and down.

‘And? What? What did he say, Beth?’ She is screaming now and Ben is telling her to hush.

‘They love the song. They want to meet me – in LA! Soon as …!’

Karen pushes me from the booth into a standing position, scoops me into a huge hug, screaming at the top of her voice. ‘I knew you could do it, I knew you could do it!’

I can’t help smiling. When she lets me go, one of the birthday group grabs both my hands, yanks them up and down and shouts, ‘I knew you could do it too!’ Then they all start chanting the same thing. I laugh out loud, until one of them actually asks, ‘What is it you’ve done?’

Ben’s voice is heard next. ‘She’s written a song for a movie! She’s going to the U S of A!’ he yells above the din. They all look at each other and cheer loudly. ‘Yay!’ ‘Wow!’ ‘That’s brilliant’ repeats from this crowd of strangers. An unopened bottle of champagne appears from some unknown place and is thrust into my hand.

Step aside,
Pretty Woman
. I’m going to Hollywood.