State We're In Read online

  If I go to Lisa’s to shower and change, I’ll avoid being subjected to more knowing looks from the scandalmongers. However, I run the risk of bumping into my family. I can imagine that encounter with awful clarity. As I sneak in the back door, I’ll find the children buzzing around the kitchen (which will, as usual, be full of delicious smells like buttered toast and fresh coffee), and if I manage to make it upstairs, then I’ll no doubt meet Lisa or Henry on the landing (which will ooze the scent of Lisa’s shower gel) and they’ll throw me that look, the one that is a mix of disappointment and concern; it’s the concern that embarrasses me the most. I can’t imagine my strained and stinky body in amongst their warm, domestic, sweet-smelling environment. No one would actually say anything too cutting, of course, but arms would be folded across chests in a way that would be clearly condemning. The thought makes me freeze.

  I pause for a moment and consider which is the lesser of the two evils: being exposed in front of my colleagues or my family? It’s a bleak choice. I’d care less if I could brag that Jeff and I had enjoyed a croissant breakfast together and that we’d made plans to meet up and catch a film this evening, but as the situation stands, it is pitiless and brutal. I could lie – simply tell everyone I’ve had a night of unprecedented romance and it’s the start of something special – but I’m not quite that pathetic. Not yet.

  A spring breeze nips meanly at my legs. It reminds me of my mother’s infrequent but sharp smacks during my childhood when I’d done something extremely naughty. It seems fitting. I didn’t have time to put on my tights; besides, they’re most likely laddered, as last night they were removed in a hurry. My hands shake. I feel a bit like I did when I fell off my bike last autumn and had to go to hospital to have my head glued. The nurse said then that I was in shock.

  I try to get my bearings. I look left and right but don’t recognise the street I’ve tumbled out upon. We travelled to Jeff’s show home by cab and so I’ve no idea which part of London I’m in. A red double-decker bus hurls by; the number 43 to London Bridge. It doesn’t help much. I could be anywhere between the old Friern Barnet library and Guy’s Hospital. I look around for a familiar landmark but can’t locate one. A frightening sense of disorientation swamps me, drowning me. I’m lost. I try to read the bus stop’s timetable but the numbers blur as tears threaten. This is ridiculous, I scold myself. I’m a grown woman; there’s nothing to get upset about. It isn’t as though I’m the one who has deliberately betrayed someone; I didn’t intend to be the other woman. Besides, this isn’t the first time a man has lied to me and deceived me. It crosses my mind that that’s exactly why I’m crying. This isn’t the first time and it is unlikely even to be the last.

  The sky is low and grey. It suits my mood. It’s the sort of sky that seems to wipe out possibility. This sky negates the fact that it’s actually a new day. Purple-black night-time skies are exciting. Bright blue daytime ones are productive. Grey skies allow neither thought. I pull my jacket tighter around my body. I need to find a tube station. I need to get underground. Then I’ll go to my gym. I won’t be able to change clothes, but at least I can get a shower. That way I won’t run the risk of bumping into any of my family and I won’t cause my colleagues to heave.

  Although I speed down the escalators and along the platforms and dash to the gym, where I try my very best to shower as quickly as possible, I find that time dances away from me like a ballerina on pointes, performing in Swan Lake. My need to be efficient is hampered by the fact that I don’t have a coin for the locker and have to negotiate at reception to secure one, which I then drop. It rolls underneath the pine benches; I find two used Elastoplasts and a soggy hairband before I find the pound coin. It’s just that sort of day. Then I have to queue for a spare cubicle and shower. There’s another queue at the coffee shop, but I really can’t get by without my morning mocha, so ultimately, despite the very early start, I arrive at the office an hour and fifty minutes late.

  When I started working at Loving Bride!, I believed with every fibre of my body that it was my dream job. I couldn’t imagine working anywhere more romantic, exciting or thrilling. The added bonus was that Martin and I got engaged very soon after I started the job, and working on a bridal magazine allowed me to indulge in every aspect of wedding planning – to the max. I could legitimately have conversations about invitation calligraphy, flower girls’ ballet shoes and the latest trend in buttonholes without anyone actually calling me insane. As my job meant I was constantly talking to cutting-edge wedding providers – who were all desperate for positive editorial coverage in Loving Bride! – I was in a position to blag a Caroline Castigliano wedding dress, four floor-length strapless raspberry bridesmaid dresses and a tiara designed by Lou Lou Belle, as well as cut-price rates from a photographer, a videographer and a chauffeur for my wedding.

  Ultimately, because of my zest and interest in all things bridal, I was given my own column, ‘Marrying Mr Right’, in which I detailed my wedding plans, triumphs and disasters in a humorous manner, guiding other brides every step of the way as they moved towards their big day.

  Calling off my wedding was not only a private catastrophe but it had a devastating effect on my career too. My editor, Verity Hooper, insisted that it was out of the question that I announce to our Loving Bride! readers that I’d got cold feet. Instead she forced me to write a piece pretending that the wedding had gone ahead as planned, and even insisted that we stage some fake photos; after all, there were a number of sponsors who were expecting product placement.

  I forced myself into the Caroline Castigliano dress and smiled for the camera. What choice did I have? My job was on the line. To say that it was a tough day in the office is the biggest understatement I have ever muttered.

  However, my devotion to duty did not go unrecognised. The original plan – that I continue to write my column under the new name ‘Being Mrs Right’ – had to be abandoned, naturally. Even Verity saw that I could not sustain a fake marriage just so I could deliver a monthly column about domestic bliss. Instead I was given a column with the self-explanatory title ‘Meeting Mr Right’. Simply put, it is devoted to ways in which a woman can meet someone she might want to marry. I write under a pseudonym; I’m not even a real person.

  ‘But you write for a bridal magazine; surely the readers have already found the man they want to marry,’ Lisa pointed out when I told her what I was going to write.

  ‘Verity thinks my pieces might catch the attention of the single bridesmaids who flick enviously through their friends’ mags. She hopes that we can expand the readership beyond the affianced to the struggling and desperate.’

  ‘Charming.’

  ‘I’m quoting.’

  ‘And she sees you as the perfect woman for that job?’ I’d pretended not to catch the sarcasm in Lisa’s tone. I survive a lot of embarrassment by simply pretending I’m a bit hard of hearing. ‘Isn’t the concept all a little antiquated and rather more suited to Jane Austen’s era than the twenty-first century?’ my sister had persisted.

  ‘Marriage is still as relevant today as it was when women embroidered, wore bonnets and never discussed menstruation,’ I’d replied. Lisa had tutted and pointed out that that was a difficult position to maintain considering I’d just ditched my fiancé, practically at the altar. However, we both accepted that work is work and at least I still had a job.

  In the name of research, I’ve investigated the pros and cons of speed dating, the authenticity and effectiveness of various dating sites and the triumphs, trials and tribulations of blind dating. I’ve gone on singles camping holidays where you’re forced to share a tent with a stranger (that shouldn’t be legal!), I’ve scoured social networking sites and I even faked a smoking habit so I could give smirting a whirl.

  ‘What in God’s name is that?’ Henry, my brother-in-law, asked when I told him about that column. ‘Sounds like an illness.’

  ‘Flirting while smoking,’ I explained. ‘Outside, away from the noisy din of a bar, I’ll
be able to chat to people beyond my usual social circle. Smokers always maintain that smoking is an instant conversation starter, and there’s something rather intimate about leaning in to light a cigarette.’ Lisa and Henry exchanged one of the many looks they gave each other over my head; this one was amused, smug and pitying all at once. However, my asthma started to bother me and I eventually had to admit that I think smoking is a filthy habit that ruins clothes, looks and lungs; besides, I didn’t want to kiss anyone who tasted like an ashtray.

  Somehow, every month for five years, I’ve produced one thousand two hundred words detailing different schemes for meeting and netting Mr Right. No one is more aware of the irony that I have failed to do as much. Recently – although I don’t want to admit it to anyone, including myself – I’ve found that I’ve been running out of ideas. I sometimes struggle to maintain the necessary hopeful, cheery and bright tone that is required at Loving Bride!. I’ve resorted to bulking out the word count with entire paragraphs comparing wedding favours and bows on chair backs. Sometimes I question whether I wasted my time studying journalism at university.

  The email detailing a sudden request for a meeting with Verity doesn’t come directly from the editor herself, but rather from her PA. Who sends an email is a slight – but distinctly important – statement that isn’t lost on me. The tone of the note is carefully designed to make it clear that my presence is expected, almost demanded, rather than requested.

  Panicked, I check that I’ve actually pressed the send key and delivered this month’s column (I occasionally forget this detail), but I’m relieved to find my article has been flung across the web. I quickly reread what I sent to check that it’s free of typos and any libellous comments. It was a tricky moment when I wrote about Durex rather than Dulux in the article about tasteful colour palettes at singles parties, but I can’t see any similar glaring errors. I wonder whether there’s anything in the content that might have irritated Verity. There was that time when I wrote an entire article saying that I simply couldn’t ever have sex with a man with a hairy back and would rather lick the inside of a tube carriage than do so, only to discover at the corporate summer barbecue, that Verity’s husband is more hirsute than a Newfoundland dog. Secretly my view is that Mr Hooper should have kept his shirt on; he was the reason there was so much food left over from that event. Anyway, it explained Verity’s slightly frosty response to that particular piece, but this time I’m almost certain I haven’t said anything that could be deemed offensive.

  Relieved, I note that the meeting is scheduled for 12.50, just ten minutes before lunch; it’s most likely that Verity wants to ask me to join her at some swish restaurant. A previous engagement has probably fallen through, and rather than let a booked, long-coveted table at the Ivy go to waste, she is going to invite me to make up the numbers. I’m thrilled. A decent lunch will go some way towards cheering me up.

  I knock on the glass door to her office. My editor doesn’t look up, but says in a particularly clipped tone, ‘Come in. Sit down.’ I don’t manage to quite settle in the chair before she says, ‘Jo, I’m sorry, there is no easy way of saying this, but we’re letting you go.’

  ‘Go where?’ I ask. Look, I’m not an idiot; part of me instantly understands that I’m being fired, but another part chooses to not quite compute what’s being said. ‘Am I going on a shoot?’

  Verity sighs but doesn’t dignify my clasping at straws with a direct response. ‘As you’re aware, you’re on a roll-over consultant contract.’

  ‘I am?’

  ‘Yes, you are.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, if I remember correctly, you decided you didn’t want to be tied down to a three-month notice period.’

  I do dimly recall a conversation I had in this very office, years ago. I insisted that Verity keep me on a temporary contract as Martin and I had always planned that, after we married, he would try to get a transfer to his Chicago head office, and I wanted to be able to move with him at the drop of a hat. Martin did secure a role in the head office, but by that time I’d already called off the wedding, and there was no need for me to dust off my passport. I suppose I never got round to changing the terms of my contract.

  ‘Since you’ve failed to respond to the three formal warnings issued regarding your poor performance, I’m afraid I have no alternative other than to—’

  ‘When have you issued formal warnings?’ I demand. I haven’t received any warnings. What is Verity on about? This is a disgrace, a set-up. Indignation flows through my body.

  ‘HR sent emails.’

  ‘Oh.’ The indignation slinks away and is replaced by embarrassment. I have a habit of deleting emails from HR without bothering to read them, as they’re usually doctrines about dress code or some tedious document about time sheets. No doubt anticipating as much, Verity has made copies of the emails; she passes them to me. I skim-read the cold warnings. Seeing the charges in black and white is sobering. I’m reprimanded for poor timekeeping, consistently failing to deliver copy on time and inappropriate behaviour with the guy in the mail room.

  I realise I need to defend myself. ‘Everyone is late from time to time. It’s the roadworks on Islington High Street.’

  ‘Jo, you travel to work by tube.’

  ‘I always deliver copy ultimately.’

  ‘Yes, riddled with mistakes and often inappropriate.’

  ‘Didn’t you like my piece about honeytraps?’

  ‘You mean the piece where a bride-to-be discovered her husband in bed with the florist and then tried to stab him to death with a pair of florist’s shears? No, I did not like it. There was more blood than you find in a Tarantino movie. It’s not acceptable.’

  ‘OK, I’ll redraft.’

  ‘It’s too late for that. I’ve asked Bridget to write something. She understands that Loving Bride! is all about romance.’

  ‘Yes, it is. Romance! So why am I being reprimanded about the incident with the guy in the mail room?’

  ‘I’m quite certain that photocopying your anatomy with a boy who is barely out of school has little to do with romance.’

  ‘He was twenty-four and it was Christmas!’ I realise that I’m shouting. My lack of control contrasts bleakly with Verity’s composure.

  ‘I no longer believe your heart is in this role,’ she declares smoothly.

  ‘It is. It is!’ I lie desperately.

  ‘Jo, I’ve made an appointment for you with HR; you’re to attend an exit interview. It starts in six minutes. Do try not to be late. I’m sorry, but you’re finished here.’

  9

  Dean

  Dean had sat down while his father was asleep; now he was awake, all he wanted to do was jump up and run away, but he found he was frozen. It was a similar feeling to the one he had when women he dated said something like ‘We need to talk,’ or worse still, ‘I’ve taken a test.’ He felt trapped, angry, and whilst he might not have consciously registered it – let alone admitted it – he felt afraid.

  The years of silence extended across the room and their history. A desolate quiet seemed to compound in a solid mass throughout the ward, engulfing the dying man’s bed, dense and too heavy to shift. Dean searched his mind for something to say that might nibble at the endless silence, budge it a little, but there were no words big enough to stretch across twenty-nine speechless years. Small talk – which in most social occasions sufficed, covered up and built bridges – seemed to be exposed for what it was, a polite strategy. Conversations about the weather were irrelevant, and an enquiry as to whether his father had any holiday plans this year was clearly ludicrous. Besides, Dean didn’t want to be polite; if anything, he wanted to be vile and hateful, and although he was normally a master of strategy, he felt too raw to play any games right now.

  ‘So you’ve come,’ murmured Eddie. His breath was laboured; it caught in his chest.

  ‘Yeah, well.’

  Dean didn’t know what Eddie was hoping for. What he expected. If he was hop
ing for a tearful reunion, a heartfelt declaration of forgiveness, he was going to be sorely disappointed. Frankly, Dean didn’t know what he was hoping for either. Why had he come? What was he hoping to get out of this? Could he get to know his father in this short time? Did he even want to?

  He should just go. Part of him had wanted to leave the hospital from the moment he’d arrived, but it was difficult because of the drip that fed his father and the catheter tube that drained him; all that they meant held Dean to his chair. The doctor had explained to him that Eddie had already undergone radiotherapy and chemotherapy to try to curb the cancer and a blood transfusion to combat severe anaemia. He’d had months of treatment. He’d endured that alone. The doctor said that there was nothing left to do now but wait. To die. Dean had discovered that however angry he was, he wasn’t angry enough to walk away from a dying man. He couldn’t decide if his inability to leave proved he was a hero or a coward.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ he asked, not through a genuine desire to help but because that was what people asked patients lying in bed in hospital.

  ‘Like what? A body transplant?’ Eddie rasped. He tutted at his son and turned towards the window, leaving Dean to fight a feeling of humiliation.

  Dean had been thinking along the lines of a magazine to read or some help reshuffling the pillows, obviously. Eddie had always managed to make him feel inadequate, as though whatever he did or said wasn’t quite enough; he wasn’t funny enough, clever enough or quick enough. The bottom line was he simply hadn’t been enough to make his father stay. Eddie had left and Dean had always – illogically – blamed himself. This belief had developed not because of anything Eddie had ever said to his son, but the opposite; it was Edward Taylor’s prolonged silence that had convinced Dean he was inadequate. Many men and some women left their families, Dean knew that, but most sent the odd postcard from time to time at the very least.