One Step Too Far (20 page)

36

Angel takes ten minutes to get ready, even though she’s the type of girl you’d imagine taking hours. She has rung in sick – which she hasn’t done in ages – and she looks stunning in nude floaty chiffon. Her blonde hair is swept into an off-centre bun at the nape of her neck and I don’t know how she does it herself, with just three or four Kirby grips. I feel big and gangly next to her, like a giant runner bean in my emerald dress, and I try not to hate her.

Angel insists we order a cab, and when it turns up the seats are grimy and the car stinks of smoke and car freshener and I have to wind down the window and lean my head out to stop the nausea returning. It ruins my hair, but Angel just sits there, all chiselled cheekbones and slim silky legs and her chignon doesn’t move a centimetre. By the time we arrive I’m sure my face is the colour of my dress, and I think perhaps I should have stayed in bed after all.

People are just starting their main courses and great armies of waiters and waitresses are descending on the tables like a culinary invasion, and Angel and I get in the way of the fillet steak in a cream and champagne sauce, or pumpkin and ricotta filo parcels for the vegetarians amongst us. I know this because Angel gets Luke’s dinner and he’d ordered the non-meat option, and I joke to her in a no-nonsense Northern way that that’s why he’s ill, he doesn’t eat meat, the big wuss. “Shush,” says Angel, smiling, and although it annoys me to be told off maybe I was a bit loud.

Although Simon seems delighted to see me, alive, bathed, back on my feet, he seems even more keen to see Angel, and she sits down beside him and I get Nathalie. I’m sure it’s me who’s meant to be next to Simon – these things are usually boy girl boy girl and there are definitely name tags. I’m certain Angel’s meant to be Luke. I suspect that Simon has swapped the tags and the thought makes me cross.

As I sit there moodily I feel like the world is wavy, not quite straight any more. I wonder what’s wrong with me, why I’m so jealous of Angel tonight. There are so much more important things to be upset about. I realise for a moment I’ve stopped thinking about
it
although it’s still the anniversary of it
but the thought that I haven’t thought about
it
makes me think it and I turn abruptly to Nathalie.

“You look nice Nat, love your dress.”

“Thanks Cat, vintage – aka Oxfam!” She laughs, and then looks serious for a second. “You OK? Simon said you had a dodgy oyster at lunch – that must’ve gone through you quickly?”

“Er, yes,” I say. “I’m feeling much better now though,” and I tuck into my steak as I’m bloody
starving
.

The food’s average and I’m getting a bit fed up now – Simon’s monopolising Angel and although Nathalie’s lovely I’m too grumpy to talk about clothes or celebrities or ads, and in truth I can’t think of anything else to talk about today. Tiger is the other side of the table, looking fierce and phenomenal, and although we don’t speak she catches my eye and I know that Simon has confided in her and she gives a smile of such kindness I didn’t know she had it in her.

Angel turns to me then, and I can tell she’s embarrassed by Simon’s attentiveness and doesn’t want to upset me, so she whispers, “I’m going to the ladies, you coming?” I know what that usually means, and I shake my head: I’m still being strong for my little boy, although what’s the point, he won’t ever know, I can’t go back to him now.

So she gets up and goes on her own, and although she’s so tiny everyone notices her as she crosses the room, maybe it’s the way she walks, and she reminds me of Ruth, her mother.

Simon shifts across to speak to me. “How are you doing Cat? I was so worried about you earlier.”

“I feel better now,” I say, although the vacant feeling hasn’t quite gone. “You seem to have hit it off with Angel.”

“She is gorgeous,” Simon concedes. “And anyway, you won’t have me.”

I look at him then and see the longing in his eyes, not for me or for Angel in particular, but just for love, for genuine giving-accepting all-encompassing love, like I once had with my husband, before Caroline, or was it me, destroyed it. I take his hand.

“Simon, I’m so sorry about earlier, I promise it won’t happen again. I hope I didn’t ruin your best suit, I’ll pay for the dry-cleaning of course.”

Simon ignores my attempt at humour. He looks at me searingly. “You were about to tell me your secret earlier, weren’t you, Cat? What is it, you can still tell me. I’m sure I can help.”

I look at him sadly then, as I know that he can’t help, no-one can, and I also know that I’m back from the brink, it belongs in my past life, and I will never ever tell now, as long as I live.

37

As time went on Anthony became more and more unreasonable. If Angel burnt the toast, or he didn’t like her outfit, or a girlfriend called her to have a chat, he’d go off on one, screaming and shouting, calling her names. Angel tried to stand up for herself, but it was hard, she was dependent on him now. She’d given up her job, her flat, her friends were drifting away, and what did she have? Beautiful clothes and expensive dinners, the most stunning view of the Thames, and a boyfriend who called her a cunt. She didn’t even feel she could tell her mother – Ruth seemed delighted that her Angela had found such a charming rich lover, it was embarrassing to confess the truth. So Angel did her best to not upset Anthony, it really wasn’t worth the trouble, and she rarely saw her friends anymore, made sure she only wore clothes she knew he approved of, never ever answered back, and when he started to tell her what she could and couldn’t order in restaurants she didn’t bother to try to assert her own opinion, she couldn’t face the row.

Things may have carried on for a lot longer if Anthony hadn’t stepped it up a gear. Instead of just flying into a rage and screaming obscenities, he started saying things like, “If you forget to put the dishwasher on again, I’ll kill you, you fucking bitch.” And then when that didn’t fix her, he started ramming her up against the kitchen cabinets and spitting into her face as he said it.

Angel worked really hard to make Anthony happy – she didn’t want to be like her mother, with a string of rubbish boyfriends and the occasional trip to A & E accompanied by a small scared child. Anthony was a lovely guy really, he’d treated her so well at first, hadn’t he? Surely she could bring that back if she tried hard enough. Yet the irony was that the more she tried to placate him, the more she invited the eventual physical attack, and when it came it was merciless. Afterwards he sobbed and held her tight and promised to never do it again, but when Angel suggested she find somewhere else to live while he sorted himself out, he turned nasty again and physically locked her in the apartment and took away her mobile. She thought about standing on her marble-tiled balcony and yelling it to the river, that she was held prisoner here, but Anthony seemed to get wind of that idea and locked the terrace door too.

That first time he kept her prisoner for a week, until he was sure she’d learned her lesson. Although she was only locked up occasionally after that the fight had gone out of her – after all she must deserve it somehow. She lost weight and her hair became lank, and Anthony started telling her she was ugly and useless and that no-one else would want her and she even began to believe it. But when the beatings and threats to kill her became almost daily Angel knew enough was enough, it was time to act, and she hatched herself a plan.

38

Angel comes back from the toilet and she’s in a good mood, her eyes are sparkling and I almost wish I’d gone with her. She sits the other side of Simon and starts talking to the H of CSGH and I can tell it doesn’t take her long to realise that he’s the hanger-on of the four, the one with no talent who just got lucky. Angel is so bright and capable, it’s a shame all she does is work in a casino, she could do so much more, and then I remember the things she’s endured and I think it’s a miracle she’s survived at all.

The waiting troops swoop again and deliver lemon tart with blueberries and crème fraiche, and for such a fancy affair they could have made a bit more of an effort with the menu. The awards bit of the evening is due to start soon and they’ve booked some chat show host from Channel 4, and he’s being briefed by a stressed looking woman with a clipboard and heels she can’t walk in. One of the waiters pours me more wine and he does it in a hurry, like I have no choice but to have it, and although I probably shouldn’t I’m bored and moody so I take a sip and then another, but still I can’t shake off the feeling that I’m only “almost here,” I’m just observing. Simon’s face looms large at me when I look at him, everything seems out of proportion, the lights that waltz around the stage as the presentation starts are screamingly bright, and I look down at my half-eaten lemon pie and feel bilious again. It must be the drugs the doctor gave me, they definitely haven’t agreed with me, and as I don’t know what else to do I raise my glass and drink.

The compere makes a risqué joke about what a bunch of tossers people in advertising are, but as he’s in a room full of people in advertising it falls rather flat. Someone heckles him that at least they don’t visit massage parlours, referencing his recent tabloid scandal, and he goes to walk off stage until Clipboard Lady manages to placate him from the wings.

The awards are interminable and I can’t believe I’d thought it was so important to come, on today of all days. Frank is up for best TV commercial and when it wins I get to go up with Simon to collect the award. As I stand in my long green dress gurning at the camera, holding a plaque for an ad about underarm no-go zones involving runaway ponies, I think how ridiculous this whole world is and wonder how it’s taken me so long to realise. I don’t know why I’ve become so self-important, it’s not as if I’ve been making movies or anything, we’re not at the Oscars, I’ve just been trying to sell stuff. It’s funny really.

The unfortunate compere makes another inappropriate ad-related remark as the next award-winner appears on stage in a voluminous orange dress, and people titter nervously. I’ve had enough. I look around the table and Simon is leaning into Angel, Tiger is looking bored and haughty, as if this is all beneath her, and I’m sure it is, and I long to get up and run across the room, to the safety of the ladies and the contents of my purse. And then I remember I flushed them down the toilets at work, and I don’t feel so smug about it now, so I lift my glass instead and sip my white wine, and it’s warm, but I sip again and again, I don’t know what else to do with my hands. The room feels like it’s moving away from me, like the floor is splitting in half and the stage is drifting off towards Park Lane and leaving me marooned here, on my advertising life raft in the ocean of my ruined life. I shake my head, and try to remember that this is meant to be a new day, a new start.
No it’s not, it’s still the same day, and anyway what difference does it make.
The brutality of the understanding that there is no neat finish, no end to the grieving, that I may have changed my whole life and let a full year go past but despair is part of me and always will be now, well that realisation exhausts me, and I close my eyes and lean forwards onto the table, my head turned neatly sideways, into the remains of my lemon tart.

39

Anthony had deleted all of Angel’s numbers from her mobile a while ago, so she couldn’t call any of her friends for help. He’d definitely track her down if she fled to one of her girlfriends’ houses, and he knew where her mother lived, so she couldn’t go there either. She just couldn’t think what to do, she seemed so weak and useless these days. In the end she remembered that one of the bouncers from work lived in a house that seemed to have loads of tenants, most of them mad apparently, and from what he used to say there was nearly always a room available. One sparkling April morning, when Anthony was off to a meeting in the City and the cheery breeziness of the day had put him in better humour for a change, Angel made her move. She felt ghost-like, invisible as she walked along the river, terrified she wasn’t meant to be there, worried that someone might report her. She told herself not to be silly and carried on, head down against the wind. She walked through the Galleria and then cut up to Tooley Street, where she found a phone box, one of those old-fashioned red ones people used to use. She hadn’t been in one for years, but the never-forgotten stink of old urine and dead saliva was so revolting it made her physically gag, and the cards on the windows were probably those of friends of hers. She called Directories and then the casino, and after nearly two minutes of ringing, one of the managers answered. When he asked who was calling, she said it was Angela and he put her through without comment, and she was lucky, Jerome was on shift. He'd been brilliant, she hadn't had to explain anything, and he told her to leave then, now, and so she’d rushed back to the flat and packed her favourite clothes and left everything else, and by the time she'd come out fifteen minutes later pale grey clouds were scuttering across the sun, and it felt colder, more ominous, and the quick-moving shadows were sharp, defined, landscape-changing. Angel flagged down a cab and it took her across the river, through the City towards Anthony, and then thankfully away from him again, along Upper Street towards Finsbury Park. She found when she got there that the house was a hovel, it had no river view or fancy porter to say, “Morning Miss Crawford,” but it was safe and she was free, and so to Angel it was a palace.

40

Angel is shaking me gently and I can hear laughter, and as I sit up sleepily I realise that people are laughing at
me
this time, that wanker of a compere has singled me out for abuse now. I recover my composure and sit straight, feeling better in myself, like I’ve had a power nap and am ready for action. I couldn’t care less what he’s said or why people are laughing, what does it matter today of all days? I toss my head like a pony, and a little piece of pie flicks off and my ear feels sticky, but I’m still pissed enough to simply sip my drink and look nonchalant, and the conversation turns to the next tedious award.