Close My Eyes (11 page)

Brandon and Fay moved to Edinburgh when the children were little, but Brandon still spent much of his working week in London, which is where he met Anna, Art’s mum. Brandon was, as far as
I can gather, as ruthless about the affair as he was in his business dealings. At the time, Morgan was not yet two and the first of her younger brothers had just been born, and – I’m
guessing here, obviously – maybe he felt like he wasn’t getting enough attention at home. He met Anna at some fancy club where she was working as a waitress. At the time, Anna
apparently had ambitions to be an actress and, according to Art, Brandon hinted he would help with her career. He was in his prime then – a good-looking man with piercing eyes. Even in the
photos you can see he exuded power. Fragile, naive Anna didn’t stand a chance. When I met her, over twenty years later, she still had ‘victim’ stamped on her forehead.

Anyway, Fay found out about the affair after Anna became pregnant with Art. Brandon gave Anna money for the abortion, but Anna refused to have one – about the only moment in her life when
she stood up to anyone. I suspect Anna could have got quite a lot of money out of Brandon if she’d handled the situation more cannily but, in the end, Brandon gave her nothing and the whole
story was hushed up. Fay stood by her man, on condition that Brandon cut all ties with both mother and child.

When Art tracked him down, aged eighteen, Brandon was cold and uninterested. Art hates talking about their meeting. In fact it’s only thanks to Morgan that I heard about it at all.
Apparently when Art arrived on the doorstep Brandon refused to let him into the house. There was a big scene, which Morgan witnessed from the landing. Art left, having been completely humiliated.
Morgan ran out of the house after him and they talked on the street. I’ve asked Art about this showdown with his father several times but he’s only ever talked about it once –
shortly before our wedding – saying it was the worst moment of his life.

When Brandon died soon after their only meeting, Art was, unsurprisingly, left out of his will. Fay refused to entertain the idea that Art was entitled to any money, despite Morgan’s
pleadings. However, Art has told me, often, that even if he’d been offered an inheritance, he wouldn’t have taken a penny; that he ‘wouldn’t give the cold-blooded bastard
the satisfaction’. It doesn’t take a psychiatrist to see the root of Art’s drive and ambition in Brandon’s rejection, but Art always dismisses such notions. He doesn’t
like to feel his father has had any influence over him whatsoever.

‘Gen?’ Art calls from upstairs. ‘Gen, have you seen my black shirt?’

With a sigh, I turn away from the mirror as the doorbell rings with the first guest. What with Morgan all brittle and exasperated and Art exhausted from work, it feels like it’s going to
be a long night.

The Prodigy followed by an old Basement Jaxx song followed by my favourite disco track of all time: ‘Disco Inferno’. I smile to myself, watching the party’s
hardcore dancers – Tris and Boris and Art’s PA, Siena, plus Dan and Perry with their wives.

The party is in full swing. The majority of Art’s colleagues are here. I haven’t seen most of them for a while, though I know practically all the Loxley Benson staff well: Art
doesn’t stand on ceremony and runs his office with something I once heard Tris describe as a ‘flat hierarchy’.

The room is also full of the friends who were once mine and are now ours: Sue and Hen and their husbands among them. Hen squeezes my hand when she arrives.

‘Sorry I was on edge before,’ she whispers. ‘I need to talk when you get a moment.’

I nod, wondering what on earth she has to tell me that she couldn’t have said earlier. For a second I wonder if it’s something to do with Beth, but before I can ask, Hen has moved
into the middle of the living room, and half the guys from Art’s work have surrounded her. She’s in her element, though poor Rob looks a little stiff and awkward. He has followed her
over and is sticking to her like she’s going to save his life, which, socially, I imagine she often does. I watch, fascinated, as Hen flirts and charms her way around the group, while Rob
gazes at her in adoration.

Art’s working the room, chatting and smiling to everyone. I should have known that no matter how tired he feels, he wouldn’t let it show in public. He’s easily as charming as
Hen, but there’s something commanding about him too – a way he has of making everyone he speaks to feel like the only person in the room. Right now he’s with a couple I
don’t recognize. Must be clients. Personally, I wouldn’t have invited business contacts, but Art likes to mix business and pleasure. Well, to Art, business
is
pleasure.

I don’t mind, but it does mean Art and his colleagues have to watch how outrageous they get. And I do too, I suppose. Not that anyone’s likely to get that out of control.

‘Hey, Gen, come and dance!’

It’s Boris, one of the Loxley Benson directors and a good friend of Art’s. The whole board are here: Boris, Dan, Perry, Leo, Tristan and, of course, Kyle.

I let Boris drag me over to where the others are dancing. Dan and Perry both got married last year and they’re with their new wives. Two tall, dark, handsome men with two petite, pretty,
blonde women. I start moving to the music – George Michael, ‘Outside’, which I don’t remember being on my iPod. I glance over at the stereo . . . a different iPod is in the
slot.

Tris – very posh, very gay, very camp – grabs me around the waist and starts twirling me round. He’s tall and smells lightly of something vaguely musky and hugely expensive. He
sings the chorus in my ear, then laughs. ‘You look gooorgeous, darling. I love that bracelet.’

I glance down at Morgan’s gift which has been getting admiring comments all evening.

‘Is this yours?’ I shout over the music, pointing at the iPod.

Tris makes a mock-penitent face. ‘What could I do, darling? George was just begging to be played.’

I grin. Tris throws his hands flamboyantly up in the air. I try to give myself up to the dance, letting Tris twirl me around. I don’t want to think about IVF and Beth and all my unanswered
questions right now, and yet, despite the music and the chatter and the general organized chaos of the party, my doubts cling to me, refusing to be put down.

After a minute or two, Boris drags me away. He’s half Tris’s height, but built like a brick – solid and ruddy-faced. I’ve always suspected he had a bit of a crush on
me.

‘She’s mine, you ridiculous queen,’ he says.

I glance over at Boris’s wife, standing in the corner. Like Boris she’s Russian; unlike him, she has never fitted in. At this moment, she’s staring at me as if she’d like
to kill me.

I disentangle myself from Boris and back away, into Kyle.

‘Gen? How’re you doing?’

I smile up at him. Kyle Benson’s a sweetheart. A big, lumbering bear of a man and Art’s partner at Loxley Benson. He’s fiercely protective of Art. Morgan might know the facts
of our session at the IVF clinic, but if Art’s told anyone about our argument over whether or not to go ahead – and how he feels about it – it will have been Kyle.

They met when Art was fourteen and his mum wasn’t coping with either her life or her teenage son. Art, by his own admission, was out of control – in trouble at school and getting
into petty crime: joyriding and shoplifting beers, that kind of small-scale stuff that social workers with serious faces warn can easily escalate.

Anna was working as a receptionist at a beauty salon at the time and one of the beauticians knew someone who knew someone who took in troubled boys for weekly, informal fostering. It could have
been a disaster, unpoliced and unregulated as it was, but it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to Art. The couple who fostered him on and off over the next couple of years already
had a teenage son, Kyle, and the two boys became firm friends.

‘I’m good, Kyle, thanks,’ I say. ‘How about you?’

Kyle shrugs. ‘Fine. Work’s been manic though. Has Art told you about meeting the PM?’

‘Yeah,’ I say to Kyle with a grin. ‘Once or twice.’

‘I bet.’ Kyle’s solid, jowl-heavy face splits into a huge smile. ‘It’s good to see him happy about something. That is . . .’ The grin vanishes and he groans.
‘I mean . . . shit, Gen, I didn’t mean he isn’t happy . . . it’s just he told me you were thinking about the IVF again and I know how hard that is on both of you . .
.’ He blushes, his face weighed down by embarrassment.

‘It’s okay.’ I smile, trying to make him feel better. He’s kind and dependable and has stood by Art all their lives. At Loxley Benson he pads around in the background,
and while Art’s the dynamo coming up with creative ideas and driving them through, I sometimes wonder if it isn’t Kyle who holds everything together. ‘So what impact do you think
The Trials
has had on business?’ I say, changing the subject. ‘Art seems to think it’s all positive – better name-recognition, that sort of thing. D’you think
there are any downsides?’

Kyle grins. ‘Only the bunny boilers, and they’re tailing off now it’s not on the air any more.’

I smile back. Art has shown me a selection of the emails sent to him at Loxley Benson. They range from the sweetly admiring to the blatantly sexual. Several women even attached topless pics of
themselves.

‘If I Were a Boy’ comes on Tris’s iPod and he starts writhing about, performing what looks like some sort of pole dance using Hen as the pole. Almost everyone in the room is
watching and laughing.

A thought strikes me. ‘Does Art ever talk about . . . about other stuff from the past . . . from when we had our baby?’

I look closely at Kyle. He’s reddening again, looking awkward, then he shakes his head. Does he know something about Beth? Surely not. Kyle is so open and honest, I’m sure I would be
able to tell if he was keeping secrets. He’s just embarrassed.

I look through the window towards the dark street beyond. The reflections from the fairy lights Hen strung up earlier twinkle in the glass.

‘Are you okay, Gen?’ Kyle’s kindly face creases with a frown.

‘I’m fine.’ I give myself a shake. ‘Tell me about the meetings with the PM Art’s been having. Don’t they take a lot of his time away from Loxley
Benson?’

‘Not as much as you’d think.’ Kyle looks relieved. ‘At the moment I think they’re focusing on the Work Incentives programme. It’s great publicity for the
company. In some ways it’s even better than
The Trials
. Our clients are
seriously
impressed.’

‘Sounds brilliant,’ I say.

‘It
is
. . .’ Kyle pauses. He lowers his voice, so I can barely hear him over the music. ‘I know how Art can be, and he’s even more sure of himself since
The
Trials
, but Vicky and I . . . well, we just want you to know that we think this should be
your
decision . . . whether you try IVF again, I mean.’

‘Thanks.’ I squeeze Kyle’s arm, genuinely touched.

‘No, seriously, it’s unbelievable what you’ve gone through. Vicky and I can’t imagine . . .’

Vicky is Kyle’s wife of fifteen years and the mother of their four children. Like him, she’s solid and kind.

‘Thanks.’ I look around, realizing I haven’t seen Vicky yet this evening. ‘Where
is
Vicks?’

‘Babysitter let us down.’ Kyle makes a face. ‘Shame, she’d love to be here.’

I wonder if he means that. I’ve always felt Vicky is a bit intimidated by Art and the other directors and their wives . . . by how slick and sophisticated they are. Maybe she
couldn’t face a party full of slim, attractive, designer-clad women. I know how she feels.

As if to illustrate my point, Morgan chooses this moment to make her entrance. She looks amazing: the savage stilettos have been teamed with a deep red dress that fits Morgan like a sheath. It
finishes just below the knee and is off-the-shoulder and slash-necked, with thin straps – kind of fifties-looking, like something out of a Grace Kelly movie or early
Mad Men
.

All the men stare. In fact, so do the women. Art’s PA, Siena, a posh, slightly plump twenty-something with creamy skin and over-plucked eyebrows, actually drops her jaw.

Morgan stands in the doorway, looking around. I’m willing to bet her dress alone cost more than every other item of clothing in the room combined. She looks amazing – but totally
unapproachable. There’s something self-contained in the way she’s gazing at the rest of us which, combined with her ultra-groomed look, sets her apart. She’s so shiny she almost
gleams. No wonder the poor woman can’t get a man. You’d need nuclear levels of confidence to walk up to her.

The music is still blaring out – some trance track I don’t know – but the dancers have stopped moving. As hostess, I should go over and claim Morgan – she has met the
Loxley Benson board on a couple of occasions and knows Hen, of course, but underneath the poise she’s looking a bit self-conscious right now. Luckily Tris saves the day. He trips towards
her.

‘Morgan, honey,’ he says, ‘I bring fabulous news. I’ve got the perfect man for you.’

‘Really?’ Morgan raises an expertly manicured hand to brush back an invisible wisp of hair. ‘So when does he arrive?’

‘Lorcan Byrne,’ Tris goes on. ‘Irish guy from way back. Maybe you met him with Art when you were younger? They were, like, best friends. And Lorcan is
gorgeous
.
Remember?’

Morgan wrinkles her nose disdainfully. ‘Hmmmn . . .’

I move closer, arriving at Morgan’s side at the same time as Art. Behind us the dancers have started up again.

‘Isn’t Lorcan the guy you were with that time in the States?’ Morgan turns to Art. ‘Kind of a wild guy?’

‘Er, yeah.’ Art makes a face. ‘You didn’t really hit it off. Lorcan isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.’

Morgan looks like she wants to talk some more, but Tris whisks her off to join the knot of dancers. She’s only a few years older than they are – and could easily pass for younger
with her skinny hips and suspiciously smooth skin – but there’s a sedate, middle-aged quality to Morgan that makes her look out of place. She can’t dance, either – and those
spiky shoes certainly don’t help.