Diary of an Unsmug Married (50 page)

‘It’s a panic attack, you fool,’ he says. ‘Probably due to all these adrenalin-fuelled late nights, looking for Mr Sampson’s bloody file. Go and lie down in the Oprah room for a minute, until you get a grip.’

That’s
not going to happen, unless there’s a miracle and the file turns up, but I do feel a bit better after another brief, sofa-based snooze – until I stand up again. Then I start thinking about what Johnny said, and what he’s expecting us to get up to in forty-eight hours’ time, which doesn’t leave me very long to work out if Max really
is
having an affair with the Botox Queen, before we do.

‘No wonder you still don’t know if Max is up to something,’ says Greg, ‘seeing as your investigations have been totally half-arsed, so far. You should have let me stalk him. I have a talent for covert ops.’

‘
Edmund Beales
is better at keeping a low profile than you are,’ I say. ‘Even
he
wouldn’t refer to a Semtex Surprise, in a public place.’

Greg claims Mr Beales probably
would
, ‘if he had the imagination to come up such a witty phrase’, but I don’t reply. I’m too busy thinking about what would happen if I
did
get photographic proof that Max is guilty. Then I’d
definitely
be entitled to have a fling – as long as said fling was metaphorical, and didn’t involve Johnny falling over any more stationary objects – but what about
after
that?

What would become of Connie and Josh if Max and I split up? I don’t even want to think about that, let alone consider what would become of me. It’s not as if spending the rest of my life with Johnny would be an option, even if I wanted to.

For one thing, I’d be bound to fail the training course for oil company wives, seeing as I can’t even eat a canapé without getting crumbs all down my front. Now I’m
definitely
having a hot flush.

‘It’s another panic attack, you muppet,’ says Greg. ‘You’re losing your mind.’

‘Thanks so much,’ I say. ‘Where’s your empathy gone?’

‘It’s burnt out. Well-known problem with MPs’ staff. You need some Valium.’

I suppose Greg could be right, so I decide I’ll ask my doctor for some when it becomes clear that I’m going to have to meet Josh at the surgery anyway.

‘Mum, I think I’ve broken my hand,’ he says, when he calls at lunchtime. ‘Can you take me to A&E when you finish work?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘I am not spending any more of my evenings there this month. Especially not when I’ll have to go back to work afterwards, to carry on hunting for this bloody file. You’ll have to make do with an ordinary doctor for now.’

This approach is vindicated when the locum GP feels Josh’s fingers and says that he doesn’t think that they’re broken, but to come back in the morning if the pain and swelling get any worse.

‘I didn’t expect the Hallowe’en lantern to be quite so hard,’ says Josh.

‘And how did you find out that it was?’ says the doctor, in a tone that suggests that he doesn’t much care.

He seems even more unimpressed when Josh explains that he brought his fist down on it, at the same time as yelling to Robbie, ‘You know the band, The Smashing Pumpkins? Well, here’s their greatest hit!’

I’ve got a horrible feeling this doctor may also cover Silverhill Surgery, judging by his humourless reaction, so I decide not to ask him about the Valium. He’d probably go back and tell his colleagues I’m a drug addict if I did. Then they’d write another letter of complaint to The Boss.

‘Josh, do you
never
learn?’ I say, as we walk across reception towards the exit. ‘That was really awkward.’

‘Just playing it for laughs, Mum,’ says Josh. ‘Just for laughs. That doctor should try it some time. The miserable bugger.’

I don’t react, as I have just noticed a poster, printed on bright pink paper, detailing ‘other services’ offered at the surgery – including Botox injections at £150 a throw.

‘So that’s where Ellen gets hers done,’ I say, to no one in particular, as Josh turns left to head for home, and I turn right to return to the office.

I shall have to save up for some of those myself if these late nights carry on. I look exactly like my great-grandmother, shortly before she died. Or maybe shortly afterwards.

WEDNESDAY, 27 OCTOBER (VERY LATE)

I look even more like Great-Gran when I leave the office again, at almost midnight, as I still haven’t found that bloody,
bloody
file of documents. I get a taxi home, as Max doesn’t answer when I call to beg him for a lift. Probably because he still hasn’t returned home himself.

When I ask, Josh says Max hasn’t phoned him either.

‘Maybe he’s popped round to Ellen’s,’ I say. ‘To re-light her fire, I mean
boiler
, again. I’ll just go and have a look.’

I almost break my neck in the attempt, as Ellen’s house is in complete darkness and I walk into her whirly washing line when I try to sneak up close to the windows. There’s definitely no one in though – so, if she’s with Max, it must be at a hotel somewhere. Probably the bloody Marriott, now I come to think of it. Max knew exactly where
that
was, didn’t he?

I’m about to phone reception and demand to speak to him when in he walks, looking even worse than I do.

‘You’re losing your job this week, so please don’t claim you’ve been working until this time of night. Where the
hell
have you been?’ I say, or rather, shout at him.

He makes a shushing motion with his hands and says, ‘The hospital.’

Then he takes off his jacket, and sits down heavily on the sofa, while I say the first thing that comes into my head. ‘Oh, the
hospital
. Did Ellen need an emergency Botox injection, by any chance?’

‘Mol, I’m tired and I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ says Max, closing his eyes. ‘I’ve been with Mrs Bloom since six o’clock.’

I am
so
fed up of the obviously fictitious Mrs Bloom. Time to do some calling of bluff.

‘Right,’ I say. ‘If that’s true, then give me her number, now. If you’re sure she’ll be able to confirm your story – to your wife.’

‘She can’t confirm anything at the moment, Molly,’ says Max, speaking very slowly, as if to a child. ‘She was unconscious only a few hours ago. Some sort of diabetic coma, the doctors said.’

‘Oh,’ I say, mainly because I’m not sure whether to believe him or not.

It does sound credible, though, when Max starts to explain. He says that Mrs Bloom called him just as he was leaving work and asked him to pop in on his way home to fix a curtain pole, which had fallen off the wall. When he arrived, she didn’t answer the door, and then he spotted her through a window, sitting slumped in her chair and not moving at all.

‘So I broke the window, climbed in and realised that she was unconscious,’ he continues, ‘and then I phoned an ambulance.’

Max says that he waited with Mrs Bloom until it arrived – intending to come home once it did. But Mrs Bloom had regained consciousness by then and was terrified, so she begged him to ride in the ambulance with her and then to sit with her in A&E. Not wanting to add to her distress, he did as he was asked – or so he says.

‘She’s got no family, you see,’ he says. ‘So I didn’t have the heart to abandon her.’

And I yelled at him, for
that
. God, I really am unreasonable.

THURSDAY, 28 OCTOBER

I go into work early again this morning, in a last-ditch attempt to find Mr Sampson’s file, so I don’t get to apologise properly to Max, who’s fast asleep when I leave the house. I might as well have stayed in bed with him a bit longer – seeing as I still haven’t found the damn thing by the time the mail arrives, along with Greg and Vicky.

I do wish mad constituents hadn’t given up using lurid green ink. Now everyone’s got a computer, it’s much harder to work out which letters to be careful about when you’re opening them, although funny-coloured envelopes are usually a reasonable indicator.

I’m sorting through this morning’s delivery when I spot a lavender one, so I decide I’ll leave that until last, on the grounds that it may ensure that I remain alive for as long as possible. Then I use my non-patented letter-opener-stabbing procedure, the one that involves half-turning my back.

The tension is contagious, and Vicky chooses that moment to vacate the office – on what she calls an urgent mission.

I keep jabbing and tearing for another few minutes, until finally –
success
! I’m still in one piece, and my technique’s obviously improving, as so are the contents of the envelope.

‘What is it?’ says Greg, from underneath his desk.

‘Oh,’ I say, then, ‘
Aw
.’

‘What?
What?
Can I come out, or not?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘You’ll never guess what it is, anyway.’

‘As long as it isn’t any more bloody white powder and my man-boobs are safe from being put on public display again, I don’t care
what
it is,’ says Greg, sitting back down in his chair and wiping his forehead on his sleeve.

‘It’s a
thank you
card,’ I say. ‘Believe it or not.’

Greg chooses the latter option. ‘Piss off, Molly!’ he says. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘See for yourself,’ I say as I pass the card to him, which then renders him speechless for at least a minute.

He can’t remember the last time a constituent said thank you after we’d got them a result, and neither can I – not that I think you should get bonuses for doing your job, but a word of appreciation never goes amiss. (Igor’s not a constituent, so he doesn’t count.)

It’s not as if this thank-you was even deserved, seeing as all I did was to sort out ambulance transport for that lovely man, Mr Bradley – which the hospital should never have forgotten to arrange in the first place. Not when they were the ones who’d chopped his leg off.

Anyway, Mr B writes that, since he finally managed to attend his out-patient appointment, he’s now had his prosthetic leg fitted, is ‘managing very well’, and that he and his wife will be ‘eternally grateful’ for what I did for them.

‘Makes you think, doesn’t it?’ says Greg, dabbing at his eyes, while claiming to be suffering from a bout of winter hayfever.

‘What does?’ I say, pretending I believe him.

‘How some people are so reluctant to ask anyone for help, no matter how much they deserve it, and then this lot of bloody whingers—’ Greg gestures at the files and letters strewn across his desk.

‘I know,’ I say. ‘But at least there’s some hope, while there are people like Mr B around.’

After Mr Meeeeurghn phones to complain that his neighbour is still sniffing him at every opportunity, and Miss Emms calls to say that her guinea pigs are now suffering from cannabis anti-motivational syndrome, I’m starting to change my mind about
that
.

‘Big Ears Beales is still stalking that poor policeman, too,’ says Greg, slamming his phone down at exactly the same moment as mine begins to ring again. ‘Taking photos of the poor man everywhere he goes.’

‘
Ssh
,’ I say.

I am on the phone to Carlotta, who sounds as if she’s about to have a heart attack. Apparently she’s been trying to get through to us for well over an hour.

She’s only just managed to say, ‘Andrew – on his way back – early – furious’ when the man himself walks in, accompanied by Vicky, who’s been absent from the office ever since I opened Mr Bradley’s card.

Andrew’s clearly in a towering rage, while Vicky’s smiling like a well-fed piranha yet again.

‘Explain this, Molly,’ he says, slamming the lunchtime edition of the local paper down on my desk.

The front-page headline reads, ‘Local MP to be sued by constituent’.

The article itself begins with my name, and is followed by phrases like ‘loss of vital documents’, ‘incompetent’ and ‘negligent’. The ‘negligent’ bit is directed at The Boss for employing me, the incompetent who lost the documents – according to the ‘whistleblower’ who advised Mr Sampson that this had happened, earlier on today.

‘You’ve done it on purpose, Molly, haven’t you?’ he says. ‘First you set all the doctors in Lichford against me, and now you do
this
! It’s bloody sabotage, that’s what it is.’

Andrew’s face is the colour of a prune. God knows what his blood pressure’s doing.

‘But—’ I say, when Andrew interrupts.

‘Give all your work to Vicky –
now
,’ he says. ‘She’s the only one here who knows what she’s doing.’

‘Thanks so much,’ says Greg, glaring at The Boss, who glares right back at him.

‘You should watch
your
bloody step as well,’ he says. ‘You’re
all
dispensable.’ With that, Andrew walks into the Oprah room and beckons for Vicky to go and join him.

‘Don’t stand for this, Mol,’ says Greg. ‘If you won’t tell him who had that bloody file last, then I damn well will.’

I’m too stunned to do anything at all, so Greg throws his hands up in frustration, then asks to speak to Andrew in private, i.e. without Vicky being present. Andrew says he’s not putting up with any more sneaky behaviour, so Greg’s forced to tell him that Vicky was the last person to have the file – while he’s standing in front of her.

‘
And
she hasn’t spent one single minute helping me and Mol to look for it,’ he adds. ‘When we’ve been here until God knows when for the last few nights, the two of us. Even Joan tried to help, but Vicky didn’t.’

At this, Vicky bursts into tears, very decoratively – no hiccups or runny noses for her. Then she says that Greg and I have been bullying her ever since she started work, because we resent her for watching Andrew’s back.

‘Andy, you
know
I’m the only one you can trust,’ she says, dabbing at her eyes.

Her mascara isn’t even smudged, which – for some reason – finally gives me a kick in the butt. ‘Ah,’ I say. ‘So
you’re
the one who’s been telling Andrew that everyone here is against him, are you?’

‘They are,’ says Vicky. ‘Especially you. I’m the only person who appreciates him. Aren’t I, Andy?’