‘I must call her and go and see her, though. It would be odd not to just because I’ve had the abortion. I’m sure she’ll understand how different it was for me.’
On the hottest days, the
Herald
offices could be a nightmare. Even with the windows open, the area around Sal’s desk in the middle of the room was stifling. Desks near the windows were prime real estate, a reward for long service and canny negotiating. Even Andrea hadn’t managed to get one.
‘I’ve mentioned your story idea to Patrick. He’s keen on aspects of it. Scamp out a draft.’ Andrea was indulging in her ritual of applying Nivea, rubbing it along each finger into the cuticles. A pot always sat on her desk, alongside a bottle of 4711 cologne.
Sal watched her. ‘What do you mean when you say “aspects”?’
‘He thinks there’s a big story about the property scenario in London and he wants to look at making it one of our round-up stories – get different angles on it from different people. But it’s not on the agenda for this Sunday.’
‘I’m nearly finished with the butchers,’ Marsha interrupted with her usual superiority. ‘There’s some impressive information on what a lamb shortage would mean.’
‘Butchers? What’s that then?’ Sal enjoyed the idea of Marsha trawling through dull facts on meat cuts. ‘Aren’t we the lucky ones? All the big stories on this desk.’
‘Actually, Sal, it’s a breaking news story, although it’s been buried. I find that’s often the way. The skill is in digging it out. I’ve been tracking this one all week.’
‘Have you now? Fascinating. But what is it? Sainsbury’s out of lamb cutlets? Traditional Sunday roast an endangered species?’ The opportunities were endless. ‘Sounds like a silly-season special to me.’
‘And you’ll find that’s a myth, the silly season. Some of the most important events have taken place in summer: Hiroshima, Pompeii, the outbreak of two world wars …’ Sal realized Marsha could continue on this theme for some time.
‘Well, as far as I’m aware, there’s no immediate danger of the Third World War breaking out any time soon, so I hope we might be able to squeeze my idea in after the lamb catastrophe.’
Marsha ignored her. ‘The current story is that they’re banning the slaughter of lambs in Cumbria. It’s after Chernobyl. There’s a worry about the fallout and now there’s talk that the ban might extend south. It’s potentially a nationwide concern. Sometimes we get so bound up with what’s going on in London.’ Sal’s eye-rolling at this was visible to all. ‘At any rate, the butchers, since you asked, are understandably nervous. I’ve got on to the restaurants and
hotels, but now I’m waiting for a quote from Prue Leith to finish off.’
‘Patrick’s keen because it’s an English story,’ Andrea added, deciding, on this occasion, to support Marsha. ‘He always worries when Ireland is dominating the news agenda like it is this week. We often get a drop-off in sales.’
‘I can’t believe the Irish have voted no on the divorce referendum. That place is still in the Dark Ages. When I last checked, it was 1986 not 1886.’ Sal tilted her chair back, noting the stain on the front of her navy skirt as she attempted to reclaim some of the journalistic higher ground. Bloody annoying, that stain. She’d bought the skirt in Whistles a few months ago and, too late, she’d realized that the synthetic fabric meant that it was difficult to get stains out. She was grateful that at least she’d escaped Lambsgate.
Sal’s punctuality always surprised Kendra, who had a tendency to be late. She was waiting outside W. H. Smith as agreed when Kendra arrived on her bike. The nights were drawing in, even though it was still August.
‘Have you told Annie about the piece yet?’ Kendra asked, trying to wheel her bicycle with one hand so she could walk next to Sal.
‘Not quite. But you know what I’ve discovered? Charlie’s deep in it with his Charterhouse crowd. He’s on their board. The business guys filled me in. So he can’t not know what’s happening. I don’t know what to say to her.’
‘Poor Annie. It’s all going wrong right now, isn’t it? I don’t even think she’s getting on that well with Charlie after the miscarriage. She says he just doesn’t get it. He keeps on saying they need to move forward. She’s told me she’s on anti-depressants, but don’t mention that to her.’
‘If I was stuck with a bloke like Charlie I’d be on them too. I still don’t know why she married him.’
‘You do. You told me the other day, on the Heath, that we had to just accept it. She thought he would make her safe. She thought it was what she wanted.’
‘I suppose so …’course, the Stones got it right.’ Sal started to sing. ‘“You can’t always get what you wa-a-aant …”’
‘He’s not what she needs either.’
Kendra always insisted on reading the entire menu at Pizza Express, even though she never ordered anything other than a Margarita. Sal had a theory that, although Kendra was veggie, she got a buzz out of contemplating the possibility of an Americano with its pepperoni. Annie, though, hadn’t even glanced at the menu. Her thick blonde hair was tied into a lank ponytail. The sparkle of her wedding ring contrasted with the dull look of her eyes, as if a fine gauze was creating a layer between her and the rest of the world.
‘Everyone happy with red?’ Sal ordered it without waiting for an answer.
‘Next week we could go to this new place I’m going to review in Battersea. The restaurant critic’s on holiday, so they’ve given some of us a go at covering for him. We can make the bill look like there’s only two of us. Anyway, I’ve seen his expenses. They’re massive. Are you on for it, Annie? Though it’d almost be like work for you, I suppose.’
Annie’s tight smile was no answer. She didn’t know what to say. Everything had become difficult since losing the baby, even making a decision like whether to go to a restaurant with Sal. It was probably easiest to say yes.
‘Sure.’
Sal’s leg was jigging up and down on the floor. It was one of the many signs of her having had a few drinks – that and the particular set of her face, which Kendra could spot across a room. It started with a kind of oozy softness, a grin that bore no relation to anything anyone was saying and which then, as the drinking continued, became sharper, mocking and eventually often cruel. She’d hoped that Sal could have held it together for this night. Annie was enough to deal with.
The pizzas arrived quickly. Usually, the threesome would have been so busy talking that they’d become cold before they even
began to eat them, only Kendra eating bits of the crust as she chatted, but this evening was different. Every conversational possibility could veer into disastrous territory. Pete would make Annie think of the abortion, Gioia could only lead them into the cul-de-sac of Charlie’s bid for the land around the Chapel, Charlie – well, Charlie was obviously, judging by Annie’s behaviour, becoming part of the problem rather than the solution.
Even feeling as she did, Annie knew she was the main cause for the failure of the evening. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see her friends, to laugh with them at the kind of stupid things they always laughed about together, their very repetition reinforcing every time just how funny they were to them, and probably only to them. It was just that she couldn’t do it. She was in a bubble of her own dull misery. Each morning, there was a lovely brief moment when she felt all right, but within minutes the depression would invade. She could almost feel it moving through her body, making her so heavy she could scarcely lift her head.
Charlie was doing his best, she knew that, but he was a man perpetually moving ahead. It was what made him so effective, whether he was closing a deal, installing a sound system or ensuring that they always had the room with the best view in a hotel. He saw little point in reviewing the past and, in the unusual event of something not working out, he would change direction and keep his eyes firmly fastened on the new route. It was as if he were on the other side of a sheet of glass. Now, all she could think of was the loss of their baby.
The three struggled to make the evening stretch to ten o’clock; leaving before then would be too grisly an admission that they were not able to make the evening work.
‘I’m knackered,’ Kendra offered, not remotely tired but feeling that she should allow Annie to escape. She had never seen her look so flat.
‘Yes. I’m tired too. I can give you a lift, Sal – it’s on my way.’
‘It’s early, I’m just going to make a call.’
They watched her weave her way through the tables to the phone box in the hall outside. High heels didn’t suit her.
‘There’s something I’ve got to tell you,’ Kendra said, Annie’s silence encouraging her to speak. ‘She’s interviewed Gioia as part of a piece she’s writing to try to help save the Chapel. I know that Charlie’s involved in what’s going on, but I’m sure the Chapel is small fry in the overall scheme. I don’t think it’s going to be a problem for him. And it’s so important to them. Sal was going to tell you but, what with everything, I guess she never found the right moment.’ She looked at Annie, but saw no reaction other than her reaching out to take one of Sal’s cigarettes. ‘They’re taking a picture of her tomorrow.’
‘Yeah … well. Let’s see. It probably won’t make much difference either way. I kind of wish you hadn’t told me. But …’ She shrugged.
Kendra looked across to where Sal was joking with the waiter who had brought them the bill. Her arms were gesturing all over the place, in choppy moves.
‘We’ll be here all night at this rate. I’ll go and get her. You’ve got some wine – just there.’ Kendra gestured to the upper corner of her mouth where Annie had a stain of red. She leant over and wiped it for her. ‘There you go. Oh, Annie. You look so sad. It will get better, you know. It will. You have to give it time.’
‘So everyone keeps telling me. Time. Sure. How much of it do you think it takes?’
Sal’s noisy return broke them up.
‘So, are you sure you’re not coming? It’s Tuesday night. It will be fun, Annie. It might cheer you up, a bit of a bop.’ Every other Tuesday, a small club near Portobello was taken over by Arturo, a Brazilian boy with green eyes and red trousers whose contact book included socialites, deejays, old roués and suppliers of the essential mix of drugs.
‘Don’t be stupid, Sal. It’s not what she feels like.’ Sometimes Sal could be so insensitive. It was unbelievable that she could be so clever and at the same time so stupid. Kendra sat back down next to Annie. ‘You go, though. Tell us about it tomorrow.’ They were relieved to see her leave.
The walk to Arturo’s took Sal from the bright light of the main road into silent streets punctuated with impromptu tables outside restaurants and pubs where drinkers were making the most of the last hour, drifting in and out. Turning a corner, she could see the flags strung across the streets for the approaching Carnival weekend and hear through the windows an enthusiastic beat of drums. In the darkness, with music, she felt free, so much better than she had at the table stuck in a soupy fog of problems with the others. Sometimes it was easier just to be on your own. She bent over to retie the ankle strap on her shoes, then heard footsteps approach. A figure stood over her. She looked up to see a high hat, scraggly beard and white teeth.
‘Hey Jimmy. How you doing? Coming to Arturo’s?’ Standing up to greet him, she knew she would smell the strong grass he could always provide. They walked to the tatty blue-painted door together, Jimmy’s gruff voice gaining them entrance to the small, long room, which had tables at either side and a bar in the corner. There were only a few people in the room and the noise of any new entrant made everyone look up. If you were a stranger, it could be a hostile place.
Her friends were already there, and she squeezed herself on to the end of the bench. They weren’t really friends, more like people she knew from round and about: the son of a famous artist with a smack problem, a girl whose photographs had started to appear in
Tatler
and
The Face
, Chris, a foreign correspondent who would always pitch up when he was in London, and Tiger, who everybody said was having a scene with her stepfather and, even though her mother knew, nothing was being said about it. Ten thirty was still early, the room an audition for the real thing. At the table, they’d started playing Perudo, but Sal wasn’t in the mood for a dice game so she got up to get a whiskey. Downstairs, there were a couple of boys manning the decks, handling the vinyl albums with the skill of jugglers. Jimmy followed her down. She knew he was only a moment away from making a move on her, even though he was totally stoned. She briefly wondered what it would be like to have
sex with him and if he’d be able to get it up anyway. It was a drag no one was dancing. For a few moments, she swayed to herself in the centre of the room, the drink and a few tokes making her not care that she was alone. It probably wouldn’t be long till someone had some coke. That would wake everyone up a bit.
It was two hours later when she crashed. ‘I tripped on my ankle strap. Crazy shoes. I should never have bought them. I’m hopeless with heels,’ she would say when asked how she had managed a compound fracture of her wrist and a cut running across the apple of her cheek deep enough to need stitches. When she fell on the dance floor, a colourful spinning top in her bright-pink dress, nobody had paid much attention. They were used to seeing her fall then pick herself up, laughing, and dancing even more crazily. It was only when she sat there in a heap as the figures shifted around her that Tiger saw tears mixing with the blood streaking her cheek, a glass in shards beside her on the floor. Chris had taken her to the nearby hospital in a cab but, after checking her into the crowded A&E, he’d left, returning to Arturo’s. He said A&E reminded him of Beirut.
‘I’m not sure about that leather jacket.’ Kendra lay on the bed as Gioia examined herself in the cracked mirror in the wardrobe door. ‘Look. I don’t know about these things. Jeez, nobody ever came to me for style advice, but I think you need to tone it down for this.’
‘I need to not be fucking doing it at all,’ Gioia grumbled at her reflection as she adjusted her hair into an enormous top knot like a baker’s bun. Kendra had debated whether to tell her that it wasn’t her most appealing style, but didn’t want to add more stress to the business of dressing for the
Herald
’s photographer.