The Forgotten Girl (28 page)

I grabbed Suze's keys from the side of the bed, and dashed off to the office to pick up my clothes. As I was leaving, my dress slung over my arm and the matching hat clutched in my hand, Rosemary appeared.

‘So it's the big interview?' she said, with a smile. ‘Are you prepared?'

I made a face.

‘Everything's gone wrong,' I said, turning my head slightly so she wouldn't see my bruise. ‘But I think we've got it back.'

‘You're great,' she said. ‘I'm off to a meeting now, but I'll give Margi a call later. Good luck.'

Thrilled to bits with the boost to my confidence that she'd given me, I sailed back to Suze's, locking the door behind me and running up the stairs. She was still in bed, covered with the blankets.

‘Suze,' I said. ‘Suze, I've got clothes and make-up. We need to get ready. Suze…'

I threw her keys onto the table and stopped short. Next to the keys was the brown medicine bottle. Its cap was off, and it was lying on its side. And it was empty. My stomach lurched. That bottle had been three-quarters full when I saw Suze take a Valium last night. Maybe it was a different bottle? I picked it up and read the name Edna Evans on the label, realising in horror it was indeed the same one. Foolishly, I looked round the table and on the floor in case the pills had dropped out, but they were nowhere to be seen – Suze must have taken them all. And, by the look of the empty gin bottle – she'd washed them all down with booze.

Frantic, I threw the medicine bottle down and leapt onto the bed, shaking Suze violently.

‘Suze,' I shouted, grabbing her shoulders. ‘Suze, wake up.'

Next to me was a half-drunk glass of water. I picked it up and threw it in her face and to my absolute relief, she made a noise.

‘Wake up, wake up, wake up,' I begged. ‘Come on Suze, come on.'

I shook her again and she moaned softly.

‘Did you take all these pills?' I said. ‘Did you?'

She opened her eyes and stared right at me.

‘Suze,' I said urgently. ‘Did you take all the pills?'

Her eyes closed again and I started to sob. I picked up her keys and raced downstairs again, to the phone box on the corner of Peter Street. I phoned an ambulance and then, leaving the door open, I ran back to Suze and cradled her in my arms.

‘Wake up, Suze,' I begged. ‘Please wake up. I can't do this without you.'

Heavy footsteps on the stairs made me weak with relief that the ambulance men were here.

They marched into the room, filling it with their reassuring presence.

‘She took Valium,' I babbled at them. ‘And she drank gin. She's alive and she opened her eyes but just for a minute.'

‘We'll take her to hospital,' one of the men said. ‘Are you her sister?'

‘No,' I said. ‘She doesn't have any family. I'm her best friend.'

He looked round the squat, faint disgust showing on his face.

‘Did a punter do this?'

I didn't understand.

‘What do you mean?'

‘A punter? Did he beat her up?'

‘She's not a prostitute,' I said, angry at the idea. ‘She's a writer.'

He gave me a look that suggested he didn't believe me, and even if he did, that wasn't much better.

‘What's her name?'

As he spoke, his colleague lifted Suze up and put her on a stretcher. She looked so small and weak, with her bruised face, that I gasped.

‘Her name,' the ambulance man said again.

‘Nancy,' Suze said, ever so quietly. I rushed to her side. Her eyes were still closed.

‘Did you hear that?' I said, weeping with relief. ‘She spoke to me. She said Nancy.'

‘Nancy?' the ambulance man said. ‘Is her name Nancy?'

I opened my mouth to say no, but suddenly I remembered Suze saying we should swap places, and instead I found myself agreeing.

‘Yes, she's Nancy,' I said. ‘She's Nancy Harrison.'

Chapter 45

2016

Having Suze on board was amazing. She had more energy than the rest of us put together and she didn't seem to mind me bombarding her with questions almost every hour of the day and night.

Her support had really got my team excited about what we were doing. Riley was frantically planning the fashion pages and trawling all the vintage shops near the office for an outfit for Amy Lavender to wear on the cover. She'd been thrilled when we'd told her what we were planning and was completely throwing herself into the idea.

‘Should I cut my hair off so I look like Twiggy?' she suggested when I rang her to make arrangements for the photoshoot.

‘Absolutely bloody not,' shouted her agent, Babs, in the background.

I laughed.

‘No, Pritti's got some wigs for you,' I said. ‘And she's been speaking to some brilliant make-up artists about the perfect sixties look for you. We're going to have a lot of fun.'

Damo was busy designing pages. The original Mode only had a few colour pictures inside – it was mostly black and white – so ours was going to look very different. But he was playing around with different fonts, experimenting with layouts and making all the dummy pages look amazing.

And Vanessa, well, she was unbelievable. She and Emily were running themselves ragged. Ness had commissioned some features from freelance writers, written a few herself, I'd written a couple too, and Emily was writing the rest. When she had any spare time – which was often long after everyone else had gone home – Ness would devote herself to her ideas about taking Mode to its readers. Luckily Lizzie had been bowled over by Vanessa's ideas. The two of them had put their heads together and somehow managed to arrange stands selling Mode in clothes shops, gyms and coffee bars. I hoped it was going to work. The rest of our plans were really coming together and that was the final bit.

Suze was adamant she didn't want to be featured in the mag, so we'd tweaked the day-in-the-life article a bit and instead of it being about Emily's life compared with Suze's in 1966, we'd done a generic 1966 woman and the same for 2016. Damo, who could draw beautifully when he wanted to, had drawn stylised cartoon figures to illustrate the piece. He'd based the 1966 woman on Suze or Nancy in the Rolling Stones picture. She had long straight dark hair and was wearing a black and white dress. Miss Millennial, as we were calling the modern woman, had long, wavy blonde hair. She was wearing skinny jeans and a flowery blouse. I loved it and I hoped Suze would, too.

Altogether, I was thrilled with the way things were working. I was happy, my team was happy and, most importantly, Lizzie was happy.

A week after I'd spoken to George Mann, I sauntered into work feeling content with my lot. The next issue of Mode had hit the shelves that weekend. It was the first of our ‘weightier' themes and was called The Feminist Issue. We'd scrawled those words right across the cover and the model we'd used was a mouthy female comedian called Lou Little, whose hilarious – and fairly ranty – act had won almost as many awards as it had attracted critics. It had been a risk, there was no doubt, but I was hoping the sales would be up, even by a tiny amount. As long as we stopped that downward curve, I'd take it as a positive.

The magazine was on my desk. I avoided looking at it. I hated my first look at the new issue, positive I'd suddenly spot a gazillion mistakes on the cover. Instead I turned my attention to the new issue of Grace, which was also waiting for me. It was the first issue that Jen had worked on and I was interested to see what it would be like.

Still shrugging off my jacket, I picked up the magazine and stared in dismay.

Their cover star was Ali Gold, a singer who had been outspoken about the unequal treatment of men and women in the music industry. She was pictured staring straight at the camera, holding a board on which was scrawled the words
I am a feminist
.

I sat down in my chair so heavily it creaked.

‘Shit,' I breathed. ‘Shit. Shit. Shit.'

I had been worried Jen would take the broad ideas from Mode. That she would tell everyone on Grace that we were theming our issues, and they'd step up their game accordingly. What I hadn't considered for one moment – one ridiculously misguided moment I now realised – was that she'd just blatantly, out and out, boldly steal all our plans. That she'd take the fact that our next magazine was The Feminist Issue and simply nick it. And the truth was, with Grace's far better sales, it would look to everyone as though we were the ones who stole the idea.

I went through every emotion that day. I wrote and deleted two, or maybe three, furious emails to Jen. I picked up my phone to call her about ten times – though I knew she wouldn't answer even if I dialled her number. I went to the gym at lunchtime and did a kickboxing class, pretending my opponent's padded gloves were Jen's pretty face. But none of it made me feel better. I was angry, hurt, betrayed – and by the time I was ready to leave work that evening, I was just bloody sad.

As I hit the button for the lift, Damo grabbed my arm.

‘No way,' he said.

I looked at him wearily.

‘Don't start,' I said. ‘I'm going home to cry. I don't want you to try and cheer me up. I want to wallow.'

‘Sorry,' Damo said. ‘I'm not going to let that happen. Let's go out.'

I shook my head.

‘No.'

‘Come on,' he pleaded. ‘I know what you're like. You'll go home and feel all sorry for yourself and stew about what Jen's done. You'll get yourself in a tizz, you won't sleep properly and we'll all be sorry tomorrow when you're grumpy.'

I stared at him.

‘So?' I said. ‘I'm still going home.'

‘Then I'm coming with you,' he said. ‘I'll make us some dinner, we can have a glass of wine, we can talk about Jen if you want to, or we can just sit on the sofa and watch Netflix…'

I gave him a fierce look and he grinned.

‘I mean actually watch Netflix,' he said. ‘My days of “Netflix and chill” are over, baby. I'm a perfect gent. I'll go home whenever you tell me to.'

He put his arm round me and against my better judgement, I found myself relaxing against him. I had never been a woman who needed a man. I was independent and perfectly capable of doing everything myself. But right then I was tired, and sad, and stressed, and the idea of being looked after – even if it was just for one night – was really, really appealing.

‘You can stay over,' I said. ‘But you're sleeping on the floor.'

‘Deal,' said Damo.

Chapter 46

It was bound to happen, right? Damo and me? It had probably been on the cards since he first walked into my office all those weeks ago – especially if what Madison had told me was true.

We had a lovely evening. He cooked pasta and made me have a bath while he got it all ready. I changed into my pyjamas and, with my face scrubbed clean of make-up and my damp hair piled into a top knot, I padded through into the living room to eat. Damo handed me a glass of wine, put the pasta on the table and pressed play on an eighties rom com he'd found on Netflix.

‘This is the worst film I've ever seen,' he told me. ‘But I know chicks like it.'

In silence, apart from slurping our pasta, we watched the first five minutes.

‘Damo,' I said. ‘Can you put Die Hard on?'

‘I thought you'd never ask,' he said.

We didn't talk at all while the film was on, but afterwards – our tongues loosened by the wine – we sat close together on the sofa and discussed Jen and Suze and Vanessa and just about everything, apart from the way our relationship had ended.

Eventually, Damo yawned.

‘I'm beat,' he said. ‘Do you have a sleeping bag for me?'

Without stopping to wonder whether I was doing the right thing, I shook my head.

‘I do,' I said. ‘But I'd rather not get it out.'

‘So where will I sleep?' Damo said, looking confused.

‘With me,' I said. I leaned over and kissed him. He pulled away – for about ten seconds – and then he was kissing me back, his hands roaming over my back.

‘This is a really bad idea,' he said into my neck.

‘I know,' I said. ‘We should stop.'

‘Absolutely,' he said. ‘You first.'

But we didn't, of course. And I didn't regret it for one minute. Until I woke up to John Humphrys' dulcet tones the next morning and stared at Damo, who was snoring gently next to me.

His tawny hair covered his face and he'd pushed the duvet down so I got the full glory of his buff torso. I sat up and rested my chin on my knees. What a bloody stupid idiot I was.

‘Damo,' I said, pushing him a little bit harder than was necessary. ‘Damo.'

He opened one eye.

‘Morning, gorgeous,' he said.

‘You have to go,' I hissed.

He pushed his hair out of his face and looked at me.

‘What?' he said.

‘You have to go.'

‘Why?' he said. ‘Have you got a husband I didn't know about?'

‘No,' I said. ‘But we can't go to work together.'

Damo sat up.

‘Why the bloody hell not?' he said. ‘No one would care. We've not done anything wrong.'

I closed my eyes.

‘We've done everything wrong,' I said. ‘We're supposed to be saving Mode, not getting our rocks off.'

‘Our what now?' said Damo.

I glowered at him. This was no time for jokes.

‘This is it,' I said. ‘My dream job. The one I've been waiting for.'

I almost said it was the one I'd dumped him for, but I stopped myself. He knew though.

‘The one you had your eye on when you left me?' he said.

There was no point in denying it.

‘It's my dream job,' I said again.

‘Oh and don't we know it,' Damo said. He got out of bed and started pulling on his clothes.