The Right Man (25 page)

My
mother’s phone was still ringing. Maybe she wasn’t in or wasn’t up yet. I hung
up, but feverishly tried the number again in case she’d been just about to pick
it up, or I’d misdialled. It carried on ringing.

I
suppose it’s the same with children. It’s all very well, isn’t it, having
cuddlesome, generous, warm-hearted, caring, liberal parents, but what if big
monsters come and eat them up? You want to feel safe. You want to know your
parents can look after themselves first, don’t you? You want to know they can
see off the opposition, by whatever means. Then if they give you a bit of
attention on top of that, well, it’s a bonus, isn’t it? I suppose that’s why
Liz is interested in someone like Bob Henderson, BSCI FTT or whatever fucking
letters he’s got after his fucking name. He fights to win. Like Naomi. He’ll
lie, cheat, steal, anything, but he’ll win. Naomi should’ve been in the legal
profession, it would have suited her. Skunks. And Liz probably knew exactly
what she was doing. She was right to drop me. Little old fat old Guy, faffing
about like an auntie trying to get everything right, trying to do all the right
things, to have everything in order. That’s a servile mentality, that is. Just
like my dad. Over-reaching myself, unable to see what’s going on right in front
of my eyes. Jollying along on my merry jaunt, singing a pretty song, anything to
keep me from realizing what a total no-hope, pathetic little turdy little
never-has-been wanker I am. Any song will do, any bit of business, any sound in
the brain, so long as it keeps the mind from hearing that empty ring of
disappointment.

I was
looking at my chubby failure of a face in the tiny pink plastic mirror in the
kitchenette now with a penetrating loathing. I hung up the phone again. If I
felt like this, what chance did Grace have? I’m supposed to set an example, to
be the man, the guy, the one she looks to, the one she listens to, the one they
all look to, the one they all listen to. The phone rang.

‘Guy?’
It was my mother. ‘What’s going on? It’s early in the morning, I was asleep.’

‘Sorry,
Mum. How did you know it was me?’

‘I did 1471.’

‘Have you looked at the
short list of flats I sent you?’ She obviously hadn’t. 1 didn’t want to drag
her around hundreds of unsuitable flats. I wanted her to see one of those
photos on the estate agents’ details and fall in love with it and then let me
make all the arrangements without getting in the way or interfering. Our
conversation stalled and she started on at me about Grace.

‘You
never bring her round to see me, Guy.’

‘Well,
it’s difficult, you know.’

‘What
about Liz? She never phones me. What does she do all day? She could bring her
round and I’d be happy to look after her if Liz wanted to go shopping or
something.’

‘It’s a
long way, Mum. It’d take her longer to come to you and then all the way out and
back. Why don’t you ever come over to us to see her?’ I knew she wouldn’t, so
there was no harm in suggesting it. She had no inkling of my sleeping in the
office. I hadn’t wanted to upset her, knowing that in the end she would advise
and tut-tut her way to controlling everything.

‘Oh,
you know I can’t do that, Guy. I wouldn’t want to feel like the proverbial
interfering mother-in-law. I don’t want to invade another woman’s home, and
besides, there’s nowhere to park.’

It’s
funny that no matter how much you pay for it, you DIY
it,
you share in
the bin-emptying of it and the fridge-filling, even if you do a fair share of
housework, you sleep in it and you eat in it, as far as your mum is concerned,
it’s still another woman’s home. It’s still not yours.

‘OK,
Mum,’ I said. ‘But you must come round -for tea sometime, we’d love to see you,
and let me know what you think of the flats I’ve sent you. The one with the
small kitchen has a great view over Bishop’s Park and you’d be so much nearer
us. You could walk, you could see Grace every day. And you’d be much nearer Tony
too, which is a sort of mixed blessing, I’ll grant.’

I knew
the idea of walking anywhere would put her off, but what the hell. I just
wanted her at least to look at the details. Rather pointless persuading her to
come and live near Grace when I wasn’t even there myself But I did want to have
her sorted out. One less thing to worry about. We said goodbye. She hung up and
I sat, listening to the dialling tone. It was better than the unbearable
deafening silence, which would hurt my ears if I were to put the receiver back
in its cradle. I felt a strong desire to speak to Grace, so I rang home — if
you can call it such.

Liz had
changed the outgoing message on our answer-phone. Instead of my voice there,
there was now hers, speaking in a very clipped and measured way. ‘You’ve
reached, etc., and for work enquiries for Liz Garnet, please call …’ She
sounded overly formal. I remembered when we’d first got that answer-phone,
second-hand from Mullin and Ketts, of course, and she’d claimed to be unable to
work out how to use it, so I’d had to do it while she giggled in the
background.

There
were seven short bleeps before the long one, and it was Monday morning so she
wasn’t picking up her messages. Maybe she had spent the weekend at Bob
Henderson’s, maybe she had taken Grace with her, maybe Grace called Bob ‘Daddy’
now. Maybe Bob Henderson had connections with a paedophile ring in Belgium and
Grace was even now in a crate in the Channel Tunnel.

‘Hello,
it’s Dad here,’ I said on to the machine, with as much of a jovial lilt as I
could muster. ‘Just ringing up to see how you are and I’ll see you in a few
days.’ And then, lowering my voice to adult tones in order to address Liz, ‘I
could pick her up from nursery on Wednesday and drop her off, or would you like
me to put her to bed at home? Just tell me which suits you better. Please ring
me back to confirm.’

Then
the silence again, banging around in the vaulting emptiness of Mullin and Ketts,
Meard Street, the painful silence again. Or rather, just Mullin now. I would
have to arrange new notepaper. The ‘Ketts’ had flown and was now in Regent
Street. I looked at my watch: 8.55. They probably wouldn’t be in yet. I could
go round there and piss through their letterbox, or post them a turd. I could
ring the Ketts Stanton-Walker number and leave obscene messages on the
answer-phone. I could burst in after ten o’clock and shout at them a lot and
get thrown out by the police. I could get my lawyers to threaten them with
injunctions. I could hire hit men to go round and fell them all with guns with
silencers on: shtip, shtip, sthip.

I
thought of the ‘How Men Need to Change’ weekend. If only all this had happened
on Friday. I would have had. something to scream about in the large hall.
Something to talk about in the circle with our eyes closed. I remembered the
confession of the pervy guy and unwillingly put Liz into his violent gang-rape
fantasy. When it came to the bit where he dragged her face down across the
gravel path, unwillingly again, I got an erection. My phone rang, thank God. I
snapped it out of its cradle.

‘Hello.’

‘Oh,
hello, Guy, it’s you. I wasn’t expecting a person. You’re in early.’ It was
Susan Planter. ‘Listen, Guy, I’ve had a terrible weekend. They’re all over me
like a rash. I’ve got three of them outside right now. They clicked away when I
took the kids to school and followed us halfway up the road. It’s a nightmare.
It’s like Princess Di, it’s ridiculous, I mean, I’m not even wearing a split
skirt or anything. I’ve taken the day off work. I can’t face going out of the
door again. They keep trying to show me photos of him with that slut to see if
they can get a reaction out of me, and the phone hasn’t stopped ringing. I don’t
deserve this, Guy. I don’t deserve it.’

I told
her how to arrange Call Divert and offered to do it for her.

‘And as
for that little shit. You said I shouldn’t talk to any of them, but he’s been
blabbing his mouth off to anyone who cares to ask. The little shit, the
bastard. How could he?’

Evidently
Jeremy had been splashed all over the weekend tabloids attending some awards
ceremony with Arabella in a backless, low-cut evening gown. I hadn’t read a
paper since Thursday, too busy workshopping my masculinity. So Arabella
Stanton-Walker had had a busy weekend. A flashy celeb do on the Friday night and
then a get-in at her spanking-new Regent Street office on Saturday, although,
no doubt, she would have got her people to do anything which required heavy
lifting. Like my client files, for example.

‘I feel
like telling the first one to offer me any serious money that Jeremy’s got a
very small penis, Guy, I really do. I know it’s wrong but I’ve got to do
something. I can’t handle this. He’s a total shit. He’s a…’

She was
lost for words and quite hysterical on the end of the line. It sounded as if
she’d dropped the phone, and from further away. I heard a crash and a shout.
She picked up the receiver again, out of breath.

‘Sorry,
Guy. I’m just so angry I can’t control myself any more.’ She was crying now and
I envied her the ability. ‘I can’t cope,’ she sobbed, sounding just like Liz
used to when Grace had her ear infection. ‘Guy, I can’t cope.’ This time,
though, there was no one in the office with me to cover up for.

‘I’m
not looking after the kids properly, Guy. I just scream at them. Could you
help, Guy? Take them off my hands for a bit before I end up hitting them or
something. Dave is driving me mad. He keeps asking questions. It’s as if he’s
blaming me, and, and I can’t give him what he needs, Guy, because I look in his
eyes and all I can see is that shit Jeremy, and I hate him. I hate my own
child, Guy. It’s not his fault but I hate him and he can see it. I’m losing him
too, Guy.’ She subsided into inarticulate snivels.

The
post arrived with a patter on the floor. There was a lot of it. The young runner
from the film company below very kindly sorts it for the whole building and
delivers it. He’ll sometimes nip out and get you a sandwich too if he’s got
nothing else to do. Very keen and probably unpaid. Should go far. I’m always
nice to him. May end up running the BFI or something.

I was
still cordless, so I walked across and picked up the mail while murmuring
sympathetically to the distraught Susan. I advised her again not to talk and
not to accept money from the gutter, but my words were hollow. I couldn’t
really convince myself, let alone her.

I
offered to pick up Dave and Polly from school and take them to a McDonald’s. I
told her that if she really did want to sell a story, then I’d do the
negotiating for her, but that she should think about it for a while first. It
was the least I could do. She was calming down now and able to apologize and
laugh through the sniffing.

‘I’m
sorry to do this to you, Guy, I’m so sorry. I feel ridiculous.’

‘That’s
OK. Really. It’s what I’m here for,’ I said, starting on the mail with the
phone crooked in my shoulder: three requests for representation, with
drama-school CVs and ten-by-eights. An unpaid invoice from the auditors for
Tania to deal with, if she was still working for me, of course. And then a
strangely shaped envelope, longer than square, with the documents inside folded
lengthways instead of across, making them hard to flatten on the desk.

‘You’ve
just got to get through to the end of this school term,’ I said to Susan down
the phone. The summer holiday was nearly on us. ‘It’s only a week or so and
then you could go away with the kids, get away, let the dust settle. Well, let
the shit settle. It’s worse than dust, I know.’

The
oblong letter was a series of papers and documents, paper-clipped and stapled,
with an introductory letter loose on the top from the solicitors Henderson Giggs.
It was signed not by Bob himself, but by a senior partner, Ralph Tropier-Potts.
Down the side of the front page was printed, in luscious purply-blue: ‘Henderson
Giggs, Copyright Litigation, Contract and Investment Law’, and the registered
office — another firm of accountants of whom I’d never heard.

I
really must think about redesigning the Mullin and Ketts notepaper, sooner
rather than later. Apart from just excising the Ketts, I mean. The designs on
these two letters today were far more modern and dynamic. It was something I
hadn’t thought about for years. Now I looked at it, our M and K logo looked,
well, too eighties.

I told
Susan that I knew of a very nice hotel in Kent which took children and which
would be totally discreet and might give her the chance to get a break and get
the unwanted eyes of the media off her. She said she wouldn’t be able to take
the time off work. I told her she had to. I reminded her to ring Dave and Polly’s
school to warn them that it would be me picking the kids up today.

Ralph Tropier-Potts
had obviously had several conversations with Liz, unless he had been briefed by
lover-boy Bob. The letter advised me that Liz was now represented by Henderson Giggs
and that I should appoint a solicitor at my earliest possible convenience. The
rest of the package contained a Standard Costs agreement for me to sign — that
I would pay Henderson Giggs’ fees since Liz had no income — and a petition for
divorce on the grounds of my unreasonable behaviour.

In the
furniture-smashing rows there had been a few slaps and kicks. Difficult now to
say who had inflicted more on the other, quantity-wise. Impossible to say, of
course, who started it. No blood ever, no bruises other than the emotional
kind. I did concuss myself mildly once banging my head against the bedroom
wall, and walked around for a few days feeling sorry for myself She had been
frightened by that, I know, but on the whole, the unreasonableness of our
behaviour had been mutual, I would say. In fact, unfathomable would be a more
accurate description. Reason for separation m’lud: totally incomprehensible
behaviour all round.