‘How was the kissing?’ says Polly. ‘I bet it was good.’
‘Oh God it was so good,’ I say, thinking back to how great it had been. Perfect kissing. The sort of kissing that cannot stay in one place. The sort of kissing that has to end up somewhere else. ‘I know if I see him again it will happen again and we’ll probably end up shagging.’
‘And so what if you do? It could be the start of something.’
‘I can’t.’ I shake my head, trying to convince myself as much as her. I agree with her that Daniel and I are very compatible when it comes to the things that really matter. I know who he used to be and I know who he is now. And I can’t rid my brain of the idea that we’ve done a lot of the groundwork already: if we started again now we might actually stand a chance of making it. We could be happy; we could fall in love and maybe even stay in love.
‘That marriage is
never
going to last,’ she says.
‘He needs to work that out for himself though. He might never leave her.’
‘But you could give him a reason to leave,’ she says, resting her hand on my arm.
What? And be like Leyla? ‘I can’t be the other woman.’
‘You were there first,’ she says.
‘Yes I was. But that was a very long time ago. And I don’t want to be his stepping stone.’
‘But maybe he could be yours?’
‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘But maybe he’s already been that. He’s the only one since Jake who made me feel some hope. Look, Polly, Daniel is married, and he’s not getting unmarried any time soon.’
She nods. ‘And Jake …’
I open my window half way and turn to look out over the empty train track. ‘I still miss him, Poll. I can’t pretend I don’t. It still hurts. And I’m embarrassed to say it, because he so wasn’t worth it …’
‘It’s that final year that did the damage. You wouldn’t miss him if you’d left earlier.’
‘Who ever leaves at the right time?’ I say.
‘You’re allowed to miss him,’ she says. ‘But what you’re not allowed to do is let that get in the way of giving the future your best shot.’
‘It shouldn’t still hurt,’ I say.
‘It will pass, I promise.’ She gives me a small smile and tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear.
I nod and take a deep breath. ‘I know you must be right. It must have been so much worse for you with Spencer …’
‘Heartbreak is heartbreak, Susie. You don’t need a marriage certificate to prove it. One thing Mum said to me when things fell apart was that you rarely get everything in your life functioning well at the same time – friendships, love, work … But two out of three’s good enough.’
‘I’ve only got one out of those three,’ I say.
‘Exactly. So let’s work on the things that are in your control. Your job. You’ve been threatening to quit forever.’
‘And I will, this Christmas.’
‘Sometimes you have to cut your losses, quit while you’re behind. Like you just said: no one ever leaves at the right time. Come on, Suze, you’re totally capable of a million things. What else could you do?’
I pause. I still feel silly talking about it, but it’s actually starting to look pretty cool.
‘I had an idea for a blog, based on my grandma’s pasta theory. There’s a story behind each recipe. They’re all good recipes. And who doesn’t like pasta, right?’
‘Everyone likes pasta,’ she says. ‘I made your bolognese for Dave the other night, he hasn’t stopped talking about it since.’
‘So I started working on it, about a month ago. I was a bit drunk, but I’ve done quite a lot on it since then. I mean, I know it wouldn’t make money for ages, if at all … But if I could earn £14k with a local job or something … And I’ve been thinking I might ask Sam to help me with some more advanced technical stuff …’
‘Sam – the cute one at work?’
‘I work with him, yes.’
‘Right: that’s a plan Go home now and do some work. And go into the office tomorrow and ask Sam to help you. Just do it. Stop waiting for someone or something to save you. You’ve got to save yourself.’
And of course she’s right.
On the train back home I think: ‘No one ever does leave at the right time.’
Why is that?
You don’t leave a relationship when your instinct first kicks in telling you that it’s not going to work.
Because you want it to work. Maybe it will work. You’re in love. Plus you’ve invested time, and energy, and hope.
If you leave then you’ll have to start over. If you leave then you’re admitting failure. If you leave then the worst thing in the world will happen – you will be single, a statistic in a magazine article about twenty-first-century loneliness. And so you stay. You live with dysfunction. You bury your feelings. And then a year or two later, when one of you can’t ignore those niggling doubts any more, someone cheats, or thinks of cheating, or leaves.
And that’s the main reason why this Jake thing haunts me.
Because I knew for so long that it wasn’t right, but I was a coward. I just sat there doing nothing about it, because I was scared. Same way I’m sitting at NMN, knowing that even after they promote me I’ll probably be too scared to actually leave.
I have been scared about a lot of things since Jake left.
Scared Rebecca would find a boyfriend and I’d be the last singleton left.
Scared I’d made a fool of myself in front of Jeff.
Very scared of how I felt about Daniel – too much longing for someone I shouldn’t long for.
Most of all I was scared I’d never get over Jake, scared I’d never feel OK again. But Polly’s right. I will.
And there’s only one person who can help me: me.
I call Daniel back that night.
‘Are you OK?’ he says. ‘I was worried about you.’
‘You don’t need to worry about me,’ I say. ‘Sorry I had to run off.’
‘Is your neighbour OK?’
‘Sort of. Terry spoke to her earlier. She’s going to be in there for at least a couple of weeks I think. They’re going to have to reset the bone in her wrist.’
‘Sounds painful,’ he says.
‘Yep. Perils of old age. I’m going to head down to the hospital to see her tomorrow after work. Visiting hours are only till 8 p.m. but I should be able to escape the office more or less on time.’
‘That’s so sweet of you.’
‘Not really, I feel like it’s the least I can do. Terry’s going to look after her budgie this week and then we’ll work out a plan once we know when she’ll be coming out.’
‘You’re not going to fight Terry for custody of the bird?’
‘No way. Do you know how noisy budgies can actually be? I’ve just finished making Marjorie some of her favourite dark chocolate mousse. That’s my one good deed for the day. It’ll be nicer than the food in the hospital, though I don’t know whether she’ll be in the mood to eat it.’
‘Well if she’s not, then I always am!’ he says.
‘Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll find a home for it.’
‘No, I’m serious, I love chocolate mousse.’
‘I know you do.’
‘So why don’t you save me a little bit and I can pop over tomorrow night when you’re back from the hospital and say hi?’
I wish.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t know what time I’ll actually be back.’
‘OK then, how about Thursday? I’m round at Joe’s for dinner but we could go for a drink first. I could meet you after work in town?’
‘I can’t. I’m sorry. I wish I could,’ I say.
‘Why can’t you?’
‘Because I like you too much to see you – if that makes any sense?’
He pauses. ‘Not really; that doesn’t make much sense at all.’
‘What happened yesterday,’ I say. ‘I feel bad about it. But not that bad. I know I wouldn’t stop myself next time.’
‘Look: we can just be friends,’ he says. ‘We are friends.’
‘We were friends,’ I say. ‘And we will be friends, I hope. In fact I’m sure of it. But we just can’t be friends at this precise moment in time.’
He is silent. I can’t bear it when he’s silent. I have to force myself to speak again. ‘Daniel: I have to focus on other things for now that are more important in my life. And so do you.’
There is more silence. Silence which I want to fill with the words: ‘Actually forget everything I just said and come round now, right now and I’ll open a bottle of wine and make us a lovely dinner and let’s see what happens …’
But I don’t. Because I am finally doing what Jake told me to do years ago: growing up.
Status report:
Where is this new Fletchers brief?
And where is Jonty? He’s been to-ing and fro-ing like mad these past few days, and when I ask where he’s going he just looks blank. It’s 9 a.m. already and if he’s chucking a sickie he should at least have called in by now with that pathetic pretend-croaky voice he puts on.
Hopefully he’s interviewing at another agency and then I can recruit someone less work-averse … Though I’m sure Berenice has a file marked ‘Nepotism’, full of replacements already lined up …
Speak of the devil, he’s calling now …
‘Susie, you’ve got to help me out.’
Do I?
‘I’m at Fletchers and I’ve just realised I’ve left the new script on my desk. Any chance you could scan and email it to me?’
‘What? What do you mean, new script?’
‘Oh. Shite. Have you not spoken to Berenice yet?’
‘About what?’
‘Ah, well, I don’t have time to explain but basically could you just scan it for me?’
‘Just call the team and ask them to email you,’ I say grumpily. What on earth is going on? Jonty’s not meant to look after TV briefs, he’s not experienced enough yet …
‘I can’t speak to the team,’ he says.
‘Why not?’
There’s a pause on the line. ‘Because I’m scared of them.’
Scared of them?
It can’t be.
I head over to his desk. ‘Jonty … where is this script?’
‘Somewhere … fuck … on the left maybe? Under the status report?’
‘Hold on … this one here … with Karly and Nick’s name at the top?’
‘Yeah, that’s the one. Please hurry up, I can’t screw this up, it’s a big meeting.’
I look at the script. I take a deep breath. No. It can’t be. It cannot possibly be.
‘Jonty, I’m afraid I’m going to have to call you back.’
‘What
are
you talking about?’ says Berenice, looking at me as if I’m speaking Dutch. Or Danish.
‘That whole script is
my
idea based on
my grandmother’s theory
and I cannot believe Karly is putting my words in Celina Summer’s mouth – Celina Summer hasn’t even got an Italian grandmother! And Jonty, running the project? And no one even mentioned it to me? I’m sorry, Berenice, but I don’t understand how this has happened.’
I can feel my face burning with rage, my arms feel fuzzy with adrenaline.
She sighs. ‘It’s quite simple. Devron was obviously keen to turn around another script quickly with Celina in it, to capitalise on the success of Karly and Nick’s last campaign. And Robbie and Karly talked about this idea a while back. And there’s nothing sinister about the fact that we gave it to Jonty. Frankly, after all the bad blood between you and the creative team, how could we
not
give it to Jonty? I thought you’d be relieved. I have no idea why you’re quite so angry.’
‘I’m sorry, Berenice: “I’m Celina Summer and when I was little, my granny used to say there’s always the perfect pasta for whatever life throws at you. Take pesto with penne …”? That is practically verbatim what I said to Karly during the research group. Apart from the words “I’m Celina Summer” …’
‘Oh really, Susannah. It’s not your idea.’
‘Jeff from Fletchers was sitting next to me when I was talking about it; he’ll tell you it was my idea.’ Except we were both a bit tipsy and while I’m pretty sure he’d vouch for me I’m not entirely sure how much detail he’d remember.
‘Even if you did have a vague conversation on that general subject, Karly’s the one who turned the raw nugget into a script. Ideas and scripts are not the same thing. You could have an idea about a man wearing jeans, that doesn’t mean you wrote a Levi’s ad.’
‘Berenice,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘It was not a raw nugget. It literally is my idea. My words. My grandmother. And I don’t want Fletchers to use it.’
‘You can’t copyright an idea, Susannah, it’s not intellectual property. I’ve had many ideas in my time that I’ve shared. Besides, Devron’s signed off on the concept already, we’re just finessing the details.’
‘But I might want to do something with that idea myself.’
She pauses to consider this. ‘If what you’re actually saying is that you’re interested in doing a week’s work placement in the creative department then that is something we could potentially discuss with Robbie.’
‘No, that is not what I’m saying at all! Fletchers pay us a hundred grand a month for creative ideas, and that particular idea is mine – not Karly’s, and not this agency’s.’ And it is my escape route out of this hell hole! I’ve put in all this hard work and now it’ll look like I’ve copied Celina Bloody Summer!
Her voice takes on a sharper edge. ‘Now is not the time to be throwing your toys out of the pram. I find it quite surprising that you would be so disruptive, after all the problems you created on the last brief, given that you’re presumably still hoping for some sort of promotion at year end.’
‘Hold on. Are you saying you’ll definitely promote me but only if I let this slide?’
She twists her head slightly.
‘Is that what you’re saying, Berenice?’
‘If you do what is expected of you, and what is right for the brand and for this agency, then that will be taken into consideration in due course …’
‘And that means …’
She turns her head to look out of the window, then gives an exhausted sigh. ‘
Yes
. We can do that for you at Christmas.’
‘Right. Jolly good. At Christmas,’ I say. ‘Fine. See you at Happy Hour next week.’
I am still quivering with rage when I walk into the mail room.
‘Sam,’ I say. ‘I need you to do me a favour.’
‘I’m not very good at cutting up bodies,’ he says, looking at me nervously. ‘I can chop up Karly, but I can’t do Nick too.’