The One Before the One (15 page)

‘Won’t you stay for pudding?’ said Rachel, concerned, following me out as I bundled Lexi out of the door. ‘It’s summer fruit brûlée.’

‘Sounds lovely, but no, I’m stuffed!’ Then I tripped up on the front doorstep and stubbed my toe.

The worst thing is, as I lay here on my death bed, I can’t talk to Toby and I certainly can’t talk to Lexi.

There’s a soft knock on the bedroom door.

‘Does the patient want a drink?’ enquires Lexi.

‘No,’ I groan, crawling further down the duvet.

She opens the door quietly and sighs, all motherly, and I get that feeling again, like I’m sure this is supposed to be the other way round.

‘You were really drunk, weren’t you?’

‘I am like a highly trained animal, Lexi,’ I mumbled from underneath the duvet. ‘I am in such peak condition that I am very sensitive, that’s all.’

I pull back the duvet.

‘You look like shit.’

‘Thanks. I feel it.’

‘Can I ask you something?’ she says, coming to sit on my bed. ‘Is there something going on with you and Toby?’

I feel the bile rise in my stomach again. I toy with the idea of telling her – what’s the big deal, really? I mean, we all make mistakes. But I can’t, not now, I don’t know why. I’m supposed to be her big sister, aren’t I? I’m supposed to set an example. I take a deep breath.

‘What on earth do you mean?’

‘It’s just, you seem to really like him, that’s all, and you seemed so nervous yesterday, so not yourself.’

I opt for something in the middle ground.

‘Yes, I find him attractive,’ I say. ‘Who wouldn’t? He’s a very attractive man. But he’s married, Lexi. I could never do that. Never in a million years.’

She sighs. ‘Okay, well, I just thought I’d ask. Also, I want to say sorry.’

‘Sorry? What for?’

‘For bringing up the book club thing yesterday, after Toby had said it was a political hot potato.’

I manage a smile.

‘Oh don’t worry about that,’ I say.

That, I think, is the least of my troubles.

‘Let’s just get this straight. I am
never
doing that again!’

I had already had the official telling off from Shona over the weekend but was still in the throes of acute alcohol poisoning at the time, so couldn’t properly concentrate until now, 9 a.m. on a Monday morning, under the harsh strip lighting of the office canteen.

‘I am
so
sorry.’ I reach over and squeeze Shona’s hand. ‘I know how much you hate lying, how rubbish you are at it.’

‘Thanks a bunch,’ scoffs Shona. ‘I did my best yesterday, under difficult circumstances, I’ll have you know.’

‘Oh God, I know you did, Shone. Course you did. I didn’t know my sister was going to open her big gob, did I?’

Shona frowns and blows air sharply out of her nose.

‘I’m not sure that’s really the point, is it? I mean, the fact is, you’re still seeing him and he’s still married. What are you going to do, Caroline?’

I sink further down in my seat, steeling myself for the next lie that’s about to fly out of my mouth.

‘Finish it,’ I say.

‘When?’

‘This week.’

‘
When
this week?’

‘This weekend.’

‘Good, because you know this is all going to go wrong, don’t you?’

‘She was lovely,’ I mutter. ‘I mean, why did she have to be so lovely? It’s not fair.’

Shona looks at me – that look she does, a mixture of motherly concern and dismay – like, how could you be so incredibly stupid? Life to Shona Parry is simple: clear-cut, black and white. She doesn’t judge – I know she doesn’t like me any less for what I’m doing – but she will tell you, if only with a look, when she thinks your behaviour sucks, and this is definitely one of those looks. A look that says, ‘Oh. And I thought you were better than that.’

I thought I was better than that, too. I thought I was bigger than that, but the longer this goes on, the smaller I feel like I’m actually diminishing before my very eyes.

Things had hit a whole new level when, in the midst of post-drinking depression yesterday, after I’d managed to drag myself from my pit of self-loathing and check my emails, there was this from Rachel:

I sat there, festering in my tartan pyjamas, and felt a new wave of nausea wash over me; a different, un-alcohol-related nausea, a kind of spiritual shrivelling like throwing a piece of paper in a fire. I liked her. She was a warm, lovely person. She was smart but not smug, gorgeous but not obviously aware of it. Not exactly the overbearing, limelight hogger that Toby made her out to be. In fact if anyone was an overbearing limelight hogger at that bbq, it was Toby himself with his Hawaiian outfit and stupid drunken jokes about the kind of men I go for. Why was he being such a tit all afternoon?

‘It was a double-bluff of course!’ he says, when I corner him in the office later that morning, as if I must be thick not to have worked this out already.

‘What do you mean?’ I said, unable to hide the hurt in my voice.

‘If I was seen to be trying to set you up with other blokes, then how could she suspect, silly?’ I looked at him with big eyes.

‘Are you sure? Because it looked like you didn’t care to me. Like you’d forgotten yourself and were getting some sort of twisted kick out of your little “Let’s matchmake Caroline game”.’

His eyebrows did a little flicker of alarm. I could almost read his mind: she’s not getting needy, is she? Paranoid? Emotional? Could it be that she’s like a normal woman after all? That she’s not the enigmatic, in-control Steele I knew and loved? And the thing is, I can feel it, I can feel my barriers disintegrating and it’s scary, raw and out of control. Now I’ve met Rachel, been in their house and seen their bed, I feel stupid, like the ‘other woman’ that I am. How can I compete
with that? Five years of marriage. An entire life shared. I feel vulnerable, stripped naked, like my skin is translucent and my nerve-endings are exposed. If this is what being in love is like, I’m not sure I like it.

End it, I think. Now, before things get really messy. He’s married! What the hell did I think I was doing? But then, as I am stirring my coffee, he comes up behind me, kisses the back of my neck and there it goes, I can feel it, one more inch of my defences dissolve. ‘Now come on,’ he whispers into my ear, kissing my cheek. ‘Don’t get all paranoid and silly. Are we still going to Brighton?’

I stroke his hand then kiss it.

‘Yes.’

‘Good, because I think this little lady needs some spoiling and I think I know the perfect place.’

Needless to say, I have far too much on my mind that morning to deal with a grovelling email from Wayne. Something about being so sorry about what happened the other night on the boat, but he can explain. And can he buy me lunch to apologize? Oh, and he has something important of Lexi’s to return.

To be quite honest, I’m not even that offended any more. Wayne drunkenly groping my sister is beginning to pale into insignificance after the events of the weekend. I’m hardly a pillar of morality, sleeping with someone else’s husband. And, Toby? Well. If a fumble with a girl a decade younger than you is a seven out of ten on the dubious morality scale, then cheating on your wife has got to be at least an eight.

Wayne suggests a patisserie on Marylebone High Street. He’s sitting outside in the sun, reading when I get there, wearing Aviators perched on his head, and a silly little retro jacket.

‘Hi.’ I stand in front of his table, blocking the sun. I’m
really not in the mood for this. In fact, I suddenly realize, I couldn’t be in a worse mood if I tried.

‘Hi!’ I make him jump and he closes the book, embarrassed. ‘Sorry, I didn’t see you there. Please …’ he gestures to the seat opposite. ‘Sit down. I hope this isn’t too rustic for you.’

Wow, he really did think I was an uptight, unimaginative philistine who couldn’t deal with anything even vaguely left of centre. It was a patisserie, for God’s sake, not an Estonian dumpling house.

‘It’s fine, thank you.’ I sit down but I don’t take off my jacket. ‘What are you reading?’

He shows me the cover: ‘The
Promise of Happiness
by Justin Cartwright. I just bought it from that little second-hand bookshop down there whilst I was waiting for you,’ he says, shadowing his face from the sun with his hand. His eyes aren’t half lovely … ‘Can’t seem to leave the house without buying a book.’

‘Me too,’ I want to say. I’m dying to ask what else he saw in the shop but I haven’t come for a friendly chat. Besides anything else, I’m still reeling from the Barbecue of Horror, my head still regurgitating the catalogue of disasters like a sick, retching dog. ‘Double bluff,’ Toby said. He had looked like he was finding it all far too humorous for a double bluff.

There’s an uncomfortable silence, then I say:

‘Anyway,
like I said, I can’t stay long. I’ve got back-to-back meetings at work this afternoon.’

He smiles at me, that irritatingly disarming smile of his.

‘You really are a workaholic, aren’t you?’

And you really have a cheek. Just because you laze about a boat all day ‘writing a novel’, or sitting in your smelly little shop charming the ladies.
‘I value my job, yes, if that’s what you mean,’ I say, curtly. ‘So anyway, you said you wanted to see me?’

‘Yes, look, about the other night. I don’t know what you think you saw but I assure you, it wasn’t what you think.’

‘Oh. And what would I have thought I saw? You groping my sister’s boob?’ I say just as a waiter comes to the table with a basket of bread.

‘Yes. I mean no! I absolutely did not grope your sister’s boob.’

‘But, Wayne, I saw it with my own eyes. I saw your hand on my sister’s left breast.’

‘It was on her heart,’ he says.

I burst out laughing. I may be thick enough not to know my novels from my memoirs, but I wasn’t that dumb. ‘And you expect me to believe that?’

‘I was comforting her,’ he says.

‘Now, that’s just silly,’ I say, annoyed. I was getting sick of either wallowing in self-loathing myself or having the piss taken out of me. There didn’t seem any middle ground any more. ‘Do you think I was born yesterday? That you could get me down here, impress me with a posh little patisserie and then relieve your conscience by spinning me some half-cocked story that you had your hand on her heart? She’s seventeen, Wayne. She’s still legally a minor and more than a decade younger than you. She’s a kid, basically. She hasn’t got a clue about life and you think I am going to sit back and watch someone like you lure her into a false sense of security about being a natural Sales Person, having “potential”, when really the only potential you’re thinking about is her as a potential shag!’ I was on a roll now, what the hell, I’d left any sort of poise or dignity I ever had on Toby’s front step and I even tripped over that.

Wayne stares at me, his jaw pulsating. I can see him clenching his teeth, trying to control himself, trying not, perhaps – remembering our drunken conversation on the boat – to bring up the small matter that I am not perfect, either.

‘Have you finished?’ he asks, after a long pause.

‘No,’ I say, ‘I don’t think I have. I wouldn’t bloody mind, but you’ve got a girlfriend, too.’

‘A girlfriend?’ He screws his face up. ‘I haven’t got a girlfriend.’

‘God, you’re pathological. I saw her with my own eyes.’

‘Where?’

‘In the Duke of Cambridge. The dark-haired girl. The one you were having dinner with?’

‘That’s not my girlfriend.’

‘Who was it then?’

‘My ex-girlfriend.’ Wayne looks at me and shakes his head. ‘Look, think what you like,’ he says, ‘but it honestly wasn’t what it looked like. It was one of those things that got misconstrued, that got … Oh God, I don’t know!’ He rubs his face wearily.

I want to believe him, I really do.

‘Well, tell me please. Think about it carefully, because I’d really like to know.’

‘I can’t say too much,’ he says, sighing. ‘It’s really none of my business but I feel compelled to say something at least.’ He pauses. ‘Basically, Lexi’s got a few issues at the moment.’

God, he was patronising. As If I didn’t know that.

‘I know!’

‘But have you asked her about stuff? About men and, you know, boyfriend stuff?’

He sighs heavily as if he’s having to cover ground now that he’d really rather not.

‘Course!’ I say. Did he think I never talked to my own sister?

‘Well, anyway, she’s upset and she’s confided in me recently, when we’ve been at work at the weekends, about the issue with Clark and you know …’

What issue with Clark? The prolonged lover’s tiff they were having? Lexi would tell me if there was a real problem, surely?

‘So, she was a bit upset and I was talking to her and … God, you’re going to think I’m more of a deluded hippy than you already do.’ He folds his arms. He’s got a T-shirt on today and I can read the tattoo.
JUSTINE
, it says.

‘Basically, I was saying to her “only you know what’s in your heart” – ridiculous I know – but I put my hand on her heart, don’t ask me why, and then you walked in.’

‘And do you make a habit of just putting your hands on peoples’ hearts?’ I ask. ‘Do you fancy yourself as some sort of faith healer as well as a novelist?’

Wayne shakes his head and gives a defeated little laugh. It wouldn’t surprise me if he thought I was suffering from some kind of personality disorder after this, I’m being so vile. But I’ve had enough of feeling like an idiot all the time and so
emotional
like I have perpetual, chronic PMT. If I’m not longing for Toby, I’m insanely jealous of his wife and now this Clark business, not to mention the fact that I still find Wayne distractingly attractive – what sort of sister did that make me?

‘Look, I’ve told you the truth,’ says Wayne. ‘So it’s up to you whether you believe it or not. I can’t do anything more. Oh, except this.’

He opens his jacket pocket and takes out a small floral book. Lexi’s appointments diary.

I flick through the pages. ‘Have you been reading this?’ I say.

‘Christ,’ he says, ‘give me
some
credit.’

I feel myself soften. Something tells me he’s telling the truth. He’s come all the way from Battersea to Marylebone High Street, on one of the hottest days of the year so far – why else would he come?

‘I just wanted to give you it back, that’s all, and say I’m concerned about Lexi. I think you should talk to her, especially about Clark.’

‘Okay, I will,’ I say in the end.

I feel awkward, like now he’s said his piece there’s really not much else to say. Then he looks at me and hesitates.

‘Look, I hope you’re not going to take this the wrong way,’ he says eventually. ‘But I felt so bad that I had even given you cause to think that I would do such a thing as grope your sister that I brought you something …’ He takes something wrapped in tissue paper out of the satchel hanging off his chair. ‘Think of it as a sort of wearable olive branch.’

Please don’t let it be underwear, I think, suddenly alarmed. Surely not? But a smile spreads across my face as I open the package. It’s the shift dress I tried on at the market. It still smells of his stall, reminds me of the day.

‘I just thought it suited you so much,’ says Wayne, watching for my reaction, hesitantly. ‘It had your name on it.’

‘Thanks,’ I say, feeling a strange mixture of embarrassment from remembering the way he complimented me on the dress at the market, annoyance that I can’t be angry with him any more and pleasure that he’s given it to me at all. I still love it.