A. A load of frills, and
B. A toilet brush, is very difficult.
10) Creating a blood-sucking vampire bat is much easier. Especially as you do not have to spend much time on the eyes because they are so small.
CHAPTER 53
Steph did not join Hattie and Tom for breakfast the next morning, and he was hoping to get out of the house without seeing her, but just before they were leaving, she arrived downstairs.
‘Hattie, darling,’ she said, ‘Mummy won’t come with you this morning, but I’ll be here when you get home. Big hugs.’
She did not speak to Tom at all then, but when he had got Hattie and her karate kit into the car, she called him back.
‘I’ve decided not to move up here. You’ve put me off, so
you
can tell Hattie. You always leave the nasty jobs to me so you come out of it looking like Dad of the Century. Well, not this time.’ She looked him up and down. ‘Going to work via Miss Vintage?’
The gloves were off again and it was back to everything being his fault.
On the drive to school, Hattie was still high on the belief
that Steph would be coming to live near her, which then grew into questions about why she couldn’t just move in with them. He wondered what story Josh would get at school.
‘You look lovely,’ he said to Fran when she opened the door and she said he was a flatterer and led the way into the sitting room.
‘So, nothing to report?’ she asked.
‘Just that I still love you … and you seem to be wearing more than you were on the phone the other evening.’ He pulled her to him and kissed her and felt some of the tension that Steph and the accident had put into his shoulders unknot.
‘I meant,’ she said, when he stopped kissing her, ‘anything to report about Steph?’
‘Do we have to talk about her now? I’ve got to be at work very soon.’ He reached for her and must have winced because she nodded at his shoulder and asked, ‘How’s it doing?’
‘Aching a bit. Could do with a rub.’
Fran obliged and it felt bloody good. ‘My penis is aching a bit too,’ he told her. ‘Any chance of a quick rub for that?’
‘Tom Howard,’ she said, ‘that’s awful,’ but the atmosphere had changed and when they went back to kissing it felt different. Deeper kisses, hotter. Hands starting to roam and explore.
‘Let’s get you out of that dress,’ he said.
‘No need.’ She broke away from him and lifted up the hem. No knickers – thighs, pubic hair, belly.
‘Oh, God,’ he said, ‘you were waiting for me,’ and then they were down on the floor.
‘You’ll be late for work,’ she panted as he pushed into her.
‘I’ll be quick,’ he said and then, ‘sorry, that’s not much of a turn-on. I meant, oh God, I don’t know what I meant.’ And it felt great, an urgent coupling, his pants and trousers down, her dress up round her waist.
Afterwards he said, ‘I needed so much to be that close to you again.’
And she placed her forehead against his and agreed.
Putting himself back together he said, ‘Thank you for being so understanding about all this, Fran. Not being stroppy or going into battle with Steph.’
‘Well, I hope above all things I’m a grown-up, Tom. It’s best to stay objective.’ It was said with conviction, but Tom thought she looked preoccupied and the way she was standing in front of her work table reminded him of how she’d been when she’d trapped her jumper in the boot of her car.
‘What have you got behind you, Fran?’
Her attempt at an innocent face was rubbish.
He gently moved her to one side.
She was working on a sculpture of a vampire bat hanging upside down from a tree. It had great black wings and white fangs from which droplets of blood were dripping. Its eyes were very small.
‘It’s Steph, isn’t it?’
She looked very guilty. ‘Well, I’m only human.’
He found it funny, but less amusing was the way that it reminded him of how vindictive Steph could be. Would she go quietly tomorrow, or draw further blood?
‘Tom.’ Fran’s tone alerted him that she was about to be serious. ‘You look like you have the worries of the world on you and I wish you’d realise that you don’t have to face all these things on your own. You
can
trust people with your secrets – as I’ve done with you.’
He felt the warring impulses to tell her or to be quiet. ‘Maybe once Steph’s gone,’ he said, ‘then I can think straight.’
Fran was giving him that grave look of hers and when she reached for his hand, he thought she was going to kiss it, but she placed it on his chest.
‘Remember that day we met?’ she said, patting his hand and then pressing down on it with her own. ‘You were like this, trying to hide the llama spit?’
He nodded.
‘But when I first saw you, I actually thought something different – one of those back-of-the-brain thoughts that only comes out later.’
‘That I’d hurt my arm wrestling?’ He laughed, but she cut across it.
‘No, that was my second thought. My very first impulse was that you were protecting your heart. And I think you’re still putting up a barrier, rather than opening up and trusting that someone will catch you if you fall.’
‘I really do have to go now, Fran, sweetheart.’
She removed her hand. ‘Well, off you trot then. But it really would make everything easier if you confided in me.’
‘What can I say, I’m terrible; a typical, uptight Englishman.’
They both laughed at that, but later, when everything was falling round his ears, he wished he’d laughed less and listened to her advice more.
CHAPTER 54
Liz didn’t need hand signals or words to convey that something was wrong – her eyes said it all.
Mrs Mawson and Edward Mawson were sitting in his office.
Awkward so soon after he’d been with Fran.
Who was he kidding? It would have been awkward even if he hadn’t just seen her. This was too mob-handed for a cosy chat.
Careful, Tom
.
‘Have you been offered coffee?’ he asked them as he closed his office door. Mrs Mawson gave a curt nod. She looked more strained than the last time he had seen her.
‘Let’s cut the small talk,’ Edward said. Tom figured that usually when Edward was as pumped up as this, he got to kill whatever he was pursuing.
Mrs Mawson smiled and it was the one she used for Jamie. Not a good sign. ‘We wanted to discuss the nature pages with you,’ she said. ‘You have, I believe, not only
gone against my wishes, but also did nothing to stamp on negative comments from your staff about my choices.’
And how would you know that?
‘I’m not quite sure what you mean,’ Tom said, trying to keep it amicable. ‘We are featuring the artist you suggested.’
‘Alongside some amateurs from the local comp,’ Edward cut in. He seemed to be channelling a 1950s sitcom, possibly based at Eton.
‘My email could not have been misinterpreted,’ Mrs Mawson said. ‘I wanted the paintings by the artist I recommended to replace my father’s work.’
‘You said nothing about
only
using him.’
Edward made a noise like air escaping from an uptight git. ‘It’s the action of a man who hasn’t got the balls to be openly defiant, but still wants to take a pop at us.’
Tom looked at the two incredibly rich people sitting in his shabby office and said, ‘I find that reading of the situation really insulting. I’ve tried to give you what you want, while fulfilling my remit – one you agreed on – to take the magazine forward.’
Edward was trying to engage Tom in one of the Mawsons’ stare-offs, but Tom wasn’t having it. He looked at Edward’s receding hairline.
‘I did flag up last time we met, that interference in my
editorial role would create problems such as this. Even so, I’ve tried to accommodate you—’
‘That’s big of you,’ Edward snapped.
‘Despite,’ Tom pressed on, ‘the fact that I feel this particular artist’s work is, I’m sorry to say, not up to the high standards expected of us.’
‘Ah yes, high standards,’ Mrs Mawson agreed. ‘Which brings me to my next point. How long have you been having an affair with Fran Mayhew?’
Tom would not have been surprised if some more of the plaster fruit fell off the walls. There it was – the real reason for this visit.
Damn, damn, damn. This had to happen now?
‘We paid you the courtesy of ringing your home this morning to tell you we would be coming in,’ Mrs Mawson explained. ‘A woman who said she was your wife informed us that you were at Fran Mayhew’s bungalow. When I enquired why, she told me. At great length.’
Tom imagined the relish with which Steph would have spilled the story. She’d have been even happier if she’d realised that she wasn’t simply getting him into trouble for fornicating on company time.
Mrs Mawson looked pained. ‘So now we’re dealing with misconduct as well as incompetence.’
‘Uh, excuse me,’ Tom said, ‘where do those two things come into it?’
Edward spelled it out for him. ‘Failing to find a proper replacement for the nature pages. Expressly going against my mother’s wishes regarding artist selection. Rubbishing her judgement by tearing up her correspondence and leaving it on open display. And now this Mayhew lark.’
‘I might simply have tackled the incompetence with a formal warning,’ Mrs Mawson said. ‘But it’s unlikely we can rebuild our working relationship following this latest … development. She, presumably, has told you who she is—’
‘Who she
says
she is,’ Edward corrected his mother.
Mrs Mawson did not acknowledge that correction, which made Tom suspect that she believed Fran
was
Charlie’s daughter. Had she always known there was a half-sister out there who might turn up one day?
‘You must see,’ she went on, ‘that I can no longer trust you with anything that is commercially sensitive? You could simply relay it to her.’
‘Why would I do that, and why would Fran want it?’ Now he was getting angry for Fran as well as himself.
More air escaped from Edward. ‘To obtain money from us. Why else is she here? You must think we’re idiots.’
Edward was right about that.
‘I’m extremely disappointed in you,’ Mrs Mawson told
him, and she certainly looked it. ‘Up until recently, we had what I thought was an amicable relationship. But now? Well, I’m afraid I’m going to have to relieve you of your duties.’
‘Just like that?’
He was feeling so angry it was making his legs shake, even sitting down. He’d done a bloody good job, better than their other crappy candidates could have done.
‘People have employment rights,’ he said, forcefully, ‘you should know that, you employ enough of them. And my personal life has no bearing on how I do my job. If you think it does, you’re going to have to prove it. I’ll be taking legal advice on this,
Deborah
, and I don’t think you’ve got a leg to stand on.’
‘Got deep enough pockets for that?’ Edward’s sneer was farcically exaggerated.
‘And do you have a thick enough skin for when the papers get hold of this?’ Tom said right back to him.
The Mawsons exchanged a brief look.
‘This conversation is over,’ Mrs Mawson said, standing up. ‘Please clear your desk and leave now.’
Tom picked up the phone. ‘Liz, could you come in here, please.’
‘Go ahead, you tell her,’ he said to Edward when Liz arrived. When Edward did, she looked at Tom as if she wanted to hear him say it wasn’t true.
‘Because?’ she asked.
‘Incompetence and misconduct,’ Edward replied. ‘We’ll tell the staff presently.’
Tom stood up, which was when what had just happened really hit him. He set about gathering up his things, sorting out what was his and what he should leave.
‘Liz,’ he managed to say. ‘I’m sorry you’ve been landed with all this.’
‘You do know that we’re already in week two of the four-week lead-up to publication?’ Liz said to Edward. She got as much response as she would from telling a wall, but Mrs Mawson said, ‘We have a safe pair of hands to steer us towards publication.’
Liz looked vaguely embarrassed as though, even now, she wasn’t at ease with things going her way. Tom went on opening drawers, taking out pens, notepads, an old address book.
‘Shall I call Victoria in?’ Edward asked his mother.
She nodded and with that nod, Tom understood who’d been feeding the Mawsons information. He thought of Victoria admiring the gundogs and Derek’s comment about them, of having her in for a chat straight afterwards and the ripped-up email. He recalled Fran’s verdict on her. He’d seriously underestimated her ambition.
Tom wondered if Liz had got to the punchline yet.
Victoria arrived, not looking at anyone but the Mawsons.
‘There you are.’ Mrs Mawson shook her hand. ‘As discussed, you’ll be taking over the role of editor. Effective as from today.’
‘What the hell?’ Liz said.
Victoria did not display even a trace of embarrassment.
‘Anything to say to me at all?’ Tom asked her.
‘Well, I have enjoyed working for you, Tom. But really, people allowed to stay off sick for so long, Monty falling apart, hiring unsuitable freelancers. It’s not fair on the other staff.’
Tom continued collecting his things together. It was all becoming slightly unreal … Liz standing at the corner of his desk looking stunned, him filling his bag.
‘We want you to leave the building before we make the announcement,’ Edward said, while Victoria surveyed his desk as if already planning where her things would go.
Tom had a final check around. He was going to miss those bloody plaster fruit. He closed his bag, picked up the paperweight of Hattie and put it in his pocket and walked out of the office. He got some quizzical looks as he passed, but who would imagine he was leaving and not coming back? Going down the stairs, he met Linda and Derek coming up, hand in hand. They weren’t speaking but they had that intimacy about them that suggested they didn’t need to.
He went to the ice-cream shop, stood in the queue and came out with two cornets, then sat on the steps of the market cross. Not many tourists today – too likely to rain.