The strap of the rucksack cuts into my palm as I grip it tighter. ‘I’d like to talk to Alex about photography for a wedding.’ The second lie slips out easily, although I might be blushing.
She’s his gatekeeper.
The pen is raised like a spear as she stands on guard. She’ll send me away if she doesn’t think I have a good reason to meet him.
He is the gatekeeper for the children.
She smiles; a customer-service smile. ‘Alex rarely gets involved with weddings. I can put you down to talk to one of the others? They’re all very good. I can show you their portfolios if you would like to choose someone?’
‘It’s not my wedding.’ I sit down in the chair on the opposite side of her desk, my jeans sliding on the leather seat. I am under-dressed, in jeans and canvas daps. ‘I’m a wedding planner and I have a large society wedding scheduled for next year. I want the best photographer. These shots will be on the mantelpieces of stately homes for generations.’
A dubious gleam twinkles in her eyes. She judged my clothes when I was standing and now she’s judging my scarce make-up and un-kempt hair and she knows I’ve lied. I don’t look wealthy enough to be a society wedding planner. I would be dressed in a figure embracing, tailored, deisgner suit and I would not have even come in person, I would have rung first.
Anger overrides the nervousness. I square my shoulders and the lies become even easier to say. ‘No one else will do. That is why I have come in person, to express how important this event is. The bride’s family won’t accept one of his assistants.’
She stares at my face while she decides what to do. ‘Okay, I can book you in for a quick chat with him, say an initial quarter-hour, and he can make a decision if he wants to do it or not. But I’m not promising. Alex is in demand.’
‘Yes, I’m aware.’
She flicks through pages in a paper diary, the sweeping sound of the paper stirring the air in the small waiting room. ‘His diary is full for weeks,’ she adds as she continues looking. ‘Ah. Here’s a small slot. Four weeks’ time. He won’t charge you for a first appointment.’ Her gaze drops down as she reaches for a card and writes the time and date on it. Then she looks at me. ‘Here.’ She holds out the card.
‘Thank you.’ I stand again, re-exposing my jeans that are faded from over-washing, not fashionably bleached, and the jumper that has pulls in the threads where it caught on the wall in the car park in Swindon.
‘Goodbye,’ I say to fill an awkward moment.
I am given another bland customer-service smile. ‘Good—’
I shut the door on her last syllable.
6 weeks and 5 days after the fall.
The lies I have been telling Chloe over lunch are becoming as thick as pea soup; if I’m not careful they will become so thick and deep the pea soup will drop on my head in a smothering, embarrassing slime. But she keeps asking questions, wanting me to expand on the details I’m making up.
Louise’s urgency is in me; it has been racing through my blood for hours. Her energy pushes the lies from my mouth. I feel like the friend of a bully. I can’t hear her words, but I feel her pressuring me. Rushing me. She doesn’t want me to be here with Chloe. She thinks this is wasting time. But even though I have her heart, she doesn’t own my mind and body.
Whereabouts was the job in Bath? Chloe’s questions go on and on. How big is the school? What are the staff like? What are the class sizes? Have I looked at places to live near there? Can I really afford a place on my own?
I won’t remember what I’ve said if she asks me to repeat anything later. I’ll tell her I didn’t get the job as soon as I can.
I want to change the subject but it’s hard to find a moment in the rush of her incessant questioning.
‘I can’t imagine you leaving London,’ she says eventually, ‘or living alone.’ She doesn’t want me to get the made-up job anyway.
Chloe and Simon are too used to my dependency on them. I must break that. I want the freedom I have access to. ‘I’m well now. I don’t need people to be there for me all the time. I know how to wash myself,’ I joke.
She smirks.
‘I can even wash my clothes now; I can pick up the washing basket and fill the machine. I can polish my shoes too and, guess what, I can lift a spoon to my mouth.’ I laugh.
She shakes her head. ‘You’re not funny. I can’t help being nervous for you.’
‘If I decide to move to somewhere in that direction it’s only a short train journey away, and I’m not nervous.’ I am eager and excited – but those emotions are merged with Louise’s impatience.
Chloe’s lips twist and her nose twitches. She’s worried because ever since I’ve known her I have been ill to some degree.
I can feel the difference Louise’s heart pulses into every cell in my body. Chloe can’t. It will take her and Simon longer to know how different my life is now.
‘What if I promise you will be the first to know if I feel unwell? And if I do feel ill I’ll hand in my notice and move back to London.’
Chloe gives me one of her broad smiles that throws good cheer out. ‘I’ll take that promise and I’ll hold you to it.’
I hold out a hand to shake on it. ‘Deal.’
‘Deal.’ Her hand takes mine, warming it as her fingers wrap around and hold on securely.
We hug each other in the entrance hall of the underground station, then say goodbye, before I descend on one set of escalators and she disappears into the tiled tunnel leading to another Tube line.
It’s 5.45 and busy; teeming with commuters who rush and push past me with no courtesy, just a need to carry on with the next part of their getting-home journey.
I shuffle along in the herd of people navigating the London rush hour, manoeuvring down the narrow escalator and then finding a carriage to squeeze into, like cattle packed into a pen. I stare out of the windows that show me nothing but the black tunnel we are speeding through. But that’s better than looking at the armpit of the man who’s hanging onto a ceiling bar an inch away.
There’s something strange in the reflections formed on the windows, with the blackened tunnel wall beyond them – a blurred figure. A woman who seems to be looking at me.
I look over my shoulder; the woman isn’t there. It is just the man’s arm and chest.
When I look back at the window, the woman has gone.
I want to get home. I love seeing Chloe, but today feels like a wasted day. I’ve been trying to find out the name of the young woman I met at the house yesterday. I think she’s the children’s nanny, but Alex doesn’t have any personal social media accounts and as far as I can tell the nanny hasn’t liked or followed his business accounts.
When I walk through the back door into the kitchen, Mim is straining the water from a saucepan of peas.
She glances over her shoulder. ‘Hello.’
‘Hello.’
‘Did you have a good afternoon?’ She puts the saucepan down, but there’s an odd stiffness in the movement that hints at the fact she feels uncomfortable.
I smile, slightly. ‘Yes. Thank you. Can I do anything?’ Maybe it’s because I could do more to help, and she’s fed up of me being as much work as a child. I should help with the cooking and looking after the boys now that I can. I’ve taken more than my share of Simon’s concern and