You Can’t Fall in Love With Your Ex (Can You?) (37 page)

“So,”
Mel said, sinking down cross-legged on to the floor next to me. Already I
envied her casual grace – and I had years of this ahead of me, years of seeing
other women do stuff I’d once been able to do, and couldn’t any more. “Christ,
that’s uncomfortable.” She stood effortlessly up again. “Want tea? Or one of
these scone things?”

“Just
tea. Black, obviously,” I said, and I took a spiteful pleasure in seeing Mel
blush as she remembered the last time she’d made me tea.

She
held her cup and mine awkwardly, not sure where to sit, until I moved my legs
over to make space for her on my sofa, even though it hurt. She perched her
perfect bum on the edge and looked at me sideways through her hair, putting the
teacups down just too far away for me to reach.

“I’m
so sorry about what happened, Laura,” she said. “We all are. The whole company
is, like, gutted for you. But you don’t need me to tell you that, of course – you
must know already that your pain is our pain.”

What
the fuck was she on about? My pain was my own – I could feel it becoming more
intense by the minute as she leaned her insubstantial weight against my foot. I
tried to move away and that hurt even more, so much that I hissed involuntarily
through my teeth.

“Oh
my God, what am I like?” Mel said, leaping up and almost tipping me over onto
the floor. “Sorry, Laura. Look, now I’m up, I won’t sit down again. I expect
you want to know why I came.”

To
gloat, I thought. But I said, “Oh yes, I’m avid to know.”

Mel
ignored my sarcasm and said, after a brief, dramatic pause, “I came to say
goodbye.”

“Goodbye,
then,” I said. Pathetic, I know – but my leg really, really hurt and I was
really, really thirsty, and also I needed to wee and the sooner she buggered
off the sooner I could ring Gareth on his mobile and ask him to help me back to
bed. There was no fucking way I was asking Mel.

Mel
rummaged in her handbag and found a nail file, and scraped it up and down her
thumb a bit. Then she cleared her throat and said, “I’m going to New York. I’ve
been offered a job at NYCB.”

“That’s
nice,” I said, hating her.

“And
I’m getting married,” she said. That made me try to sit up, and, with a bit of
hefting from my arms, I managed to.

“What
the fuck?” I said.

“Yes,”
Mel said. She gave the little, subtle tilt of her head that she always did in
moments of high emotion in her solos, which she thought was highly affecting
and several of my colleagues had told me they found highly annoying, and she
added, “To Marius. I know you’ll be so happy for us, Laura. He’s been offered a
creative directorship there, and New York is such a wonderful, creatively
challenging environment – I just can’t wait. We’re so in love.”

I
was too shocked to say anything for a minute. Then I managed to stammer, “But
you… Since when?”

Mel
giggled. “We’ve been together a few months, actually. It was a secret love
affair! Marius didn’t want people talking about me. He’s so wonderful, so
considerate. He…”

She
burbled on, but I wasn’t listening. I was thinking. Suddenly, so many things
made sense. How defensive Mel had been whenever Marius was mentioned – she must
have been harbouring a crush on him for ages. And then he’d promoted her, and
slept with her, and she knew that everyone would say the two things were
inextricably linked – which they probably were. So, to deflect attention from
what she was doing, she’d started the rumour about him and me. I wondered if
she knew what he’d done to me in my dressing room that night. I hoped she
didn’t – but who knew? Mel was ambitious enough, and presumably still
sufficiently in awe of her famous fiancé, to overlook a minor indiscretion like
sexual assault.

“But
I must skedaddle,” she said. “Curtain goes up on
The Nutcracker
in…” she
glanced at her watch. I’d never seen it before – it was slim, gold and studded
with diamonds. “Four hours.”

She
swooped down and embraced me, trying to pull me up into a hug, but that made me
yelp with pain. Just then Sadie arrived home, took stock of the situation at a
glance and rang the local taxi firm, standing guard over me like a Rottweiler
while Mel gathered her stuff together and acted all casual.

“Bye,
Laura, mwah, mwah,” she said, when the taxi finally arrived. “See you soon – maybe
on stage!”

Sadie
took Mel’s elbow and steered her back into the house. From the expression on
Mel’s face, I suspected my sister might have been using the martial arts
techniques she learned as a child, which gave her the skills to cause
excruciating pain but leave no mark.

I
lay back, relieved to be able to stretch my leg out and equally relieved to be
free of Mel’s saccharine presence. Then I noticed a WH Smith carrier bag on the
floor underneath my chair. A half-litre bottle of Diet Coke was lying next to
it, and a copy of
Dance Weekly
had almost spilled out.

I
edged carefully around and stretched beneath me, retrieving the Diet Coke first
of all. I took a few grateful swigs, then reached for the magazine.

Just
a few months before, I would have devoured the gossip pages eagerly. Now, what
I read only made me sad. It told me one thing I had known for a while: that
Laura Braithwaite, a rising star in the company, had sustained a career-ending
injury. It confirmed what Mel had just told me: that the Creative Director was
decamping to New York with a select few of his top dancers. And it told me why:
that he had been exposed as a serial harasser of women, and that the whistle-blower
had confronted Marius, broken his nose, handed in his notice and then boarded a
flight back to Moscow, where he was expected to resume his glittering career.

The
next day, I awoke to brilliant sunshine. The world had that washed-clean
feeling you get after loads of rain, and my brain felt like it had been
laundered, too. I was actually singing as I went downstairs to feed the kitten,
until Darcey stuck her head out of her bedroom and said, “Mummy, please stop
making such a noise. I’m trying to watch
Frozen
.”

“Sorry,
Pickle, I won’t do it any more,” I said. “Come on, get dressed, we’re going
round to Zé’s.”

But
as I helped Owen get his clothes on, I found myself singing again – Jonathan’s
song. “What shall we do with sleepy Owen?”

“I
want Daddy,” Owen grumbled.

“I
know you do, darling, and so do I. But I hope we’ll see him very soon.”

I
didn’t feel as confident as I sounded – not by a long way. But the gorgeous
day, as well as the late-night phone conference I’d had with Felix and Zé, made
me slightly more optimistic.

Half
an hour later, the children were rushing around Zé’s garden and she, Felix and
I were drinking coffee and eating croissants in the sunshine.

“The
thing is…” Zé and I said together.

“Go
on,” I said.

“No,
you first,” she said.

“No,
please,” I said.

“Christ,
you two!” Felix said. “Can’t you just talk over each other, like men do? What’s
with the politeness?”

“Okay,
then,” I said. “The thing is, Jonathan’s still not taking my calls. I don’t
even know where the bloody company flat is. And until he talks to me, I can’t
sort anything out at all.”

“And
Rick’s not taking my calls either,” Zé said. “The fucker. And until he does, I
can’t tell him that I want him to die a slow, painful death and never see his
daughter again. But he’ll have to, won’t he?” She lowered her voice. “How is
this happening to me? How does going to visit your ex-husband in prison even
work?”

“You’ll
find a way,” Felix said, squeezing her hand. “I believe there are buses that
take you there, full of gangsters’ molls carrying rasps hidden in fruit cakes.
Or maybe I watched too many of the wrong sort of movies when I was a kid.”

“You
can piss off, too,” Zé said, but she was giggling in a helpless sort of way.
“God, I’m so glad the two of you are here.”

Then
her mobile rang.

“Fuck,
it’s Rick’s lawyer,” she said.

“Put
it on speakerphone,” Felix said, glancing over his shoulder to check that the
children were well out of earshot. “We need to know what’s going on.”

Zé
pressed a couple of buttons, then said, “Hello?”

“Is
that Mrs Campbell?”

“Yes,”
Zé said, sounding a bit croaky.

“Please
hold for Mr Faraday.”

There
was a beep and then another beep, and then a plummy voice said, “Zélide? Martin
Faraday here.”

“Hi
Martin,” Zé said. “Is there – I mean, have you heard anything new?”

“I’ve
got good news,” the lawyer said. “A decision has been taken by the firm to drop
all the charges. No further action will be pursued, so long as Mr Campbell
undertakes to repay fifty percent of the funds in question. The remaining… er…
shortfall is to be absorbed by the partners.”

I
gasped. That meant Jonathan.

“Mr
Campbell has asked me to advise you that he will be travelling to Dublin this
afternoon to spend a short period with his brother there, recovering and
reflecting on what has occurred,” said the lawyer.

“That’s
probably a wise decision,” Zé said. “Because if he came back here, I couldn’t
be held responsible for what would occur then.”

The
lawyer cleared his throat. “I understand your distress, Mrs Campbell. Please be
aware that I shall be in constant communication with your ex… with your
husband, and likewise with the partners at Strachan Delaunay Whitworth. I’ll be
keeping you informed as and when the relevant documents are signed and the
settlement agreement finalised.”

“Thank
you,” Zé said faintly.

“Thank
you,” Martin Faraday said. “And good day.”

“OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod,”
Zé said, hugging her knees to her chest and pressing her forehead into them.
“It’s all still so shit, but I feel so relieved. Why did they decide that?
How’s he got away with it? I’m so livid with the brass neck of the man, but
still —”

She
reached her hand into the air and snatched it down again in a triumphant,
“Yes!” gesture, then got up and ran out on to the lawn, sweeping Juniper up
into a massive hug.

“Mum,
don’t!” Juniper’s clear voice carried easily to where Felix and I were sitting.
“God, you’re so embarrassing.”

I
looked over at Felix, my heart hammering. “What now? I really, really need to
talk to Jonathan.”

“Couldn’t
be easier,” Felix said. “What’s his number?”

He
had the small, happy smile on his face that he’d always had when he was
embarking on an adventure.

“Felix,
what are you going to do?”

“Nothing
illegal, I promise. Give me his number and you’ll be with him this morning.”

I
hesitated, then decided to trust him and trotted out the eleven digits of
Jonathan’s mobile.

A
few seconds later, over the speakerphone, I heard my husband’s voice, sounding
so familiar and yet so strange, distorted by the horrible distance that had
spread between us.

“Jonathan
Payne speaking.”

“Mr
Payne?” Felix said. “Faraday here.”

I
gasped and had to muffle a laugh with my hands. Felix had replicated the
lawyer’s accent flawlessly.

“Yes,
Martin,” Jonathan said wearily. “What is it? You know I’m -”

“I’m
aware of your situation, Mr Payne,” Felix said. “But it would be most helpful
if you could spare just a few minutes of your time for a brief face-to-face
conference.”

“Christ.
All right then. I suppose you want me to come to your office?”

“I
don’t believe that would be advisable, Mr Payne,” Felix said. “There’s the risk
of media scrutiny. You’re staying at the client apartment, I understand?”

“That’s
right,” Jonathan said.

“Forty-four
The Drake, EC2Y?” Felix said.

“Er,
no,” Jonathan said. “It’s eight-one-one Roman House. I’ll give you the
postcode.”

“That’s
quite all right,” Felix said. “My error. I have it here. I shall be with you in
under an hour.”

He
ended the call, just as Zé and the children came running back to the table.

“Can
I have a croissant?” Owen said. He pronounced it ‘crusty’.

“Of
course you can, sweetie,” I said. I felt like my insides had been scooped out
and filled up with a weird, curdling mixture of relief and trepidation. “Butter
or jam or both?”

“Both,”
Owen said.

“Felix,
will you do some magic?” Darcey said. “Please?”

Felix
smiled again, the delighted, almost devilish grin I knew so well. “I think I
just did,” he said.

“Felix
will do some magic for you soon, Pickle,” I said. “Mummy has to go out.”

“Can
I come too?” Owen said.

“Not
today,” I said. “You’ve got to stay here with Zé and be a good boy.”