Don't Get Me Wrong (23 page)

“I'm not sure she sees it that way.”

“This isn't about you, Harry. This isn't about what you think. This is about Eva.”

It was the same clipped tone she always used whenever she spoke to him these days. But what did he expect? That's how she coped under pressure, with extreme efficiency. Whenever Kim came round to the flat, her arms were always full of books, leaflets, and box files bursting with information. Harry could see that the words made Eva tired. But she never showed it. She sat with Kim on the sofa—the sofa that looked so tiny in the corner of Harry's vast apartment—and listened carefully as Kim explained the latest treatments, the ongoing trials, the papers published in academic journals.

Sometimes, when Kim was talking, Otis would come and stand next to Eva, and she would put her arm round him and pull him close. They weren't even looking at each other, but you could see that they had taken refuge, as usual, in the silent communication that excluded everyone else.

Otis had just started school. He liked it. He had a blue sweatshirt with a line drawing of the school building picked out in white on the front. His book bag was blue, too. The school was only ten minutes' walk from the flat. Most of the time Eva managed it. But sometimes Harry went in late. Or a friend—another parent—picked Otis up and brought him back at the end of the afternoon.

It seemed strange to think that Eva had ever contemplated moving away. This was her home now. She had found her community in the fug and dirt of central London.

Great Tom, the bell in the southwest tower, chimed the hour.

At least I can tell her about this now, thought Harry, looking out over the tents. Eva had liked the idea of a peaceful protest against capitalism. Gentle resistance. I can describe what I've seen, the encampment on the steps of St. Paul's.

He turned to make his way to work.

A jogger ran past in skintight Lycra—red-and-blue leggings and a long-sleeved white top. He started threading his way through the tents, using the camp as an obstacle course, pausing just long enough to shout, “Why don't you all get fucking jobs!”

No one responded. No one even looked at him.

She's had the surgery. Halfway through chemo. Radiotherapy in December. All over by Christmas.

Next spring I'll take her to Monterey. I want her to see the place where they sang. Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, the Mamas and the Papas.

•  •  •

Kim stood in the bay window of Izzie's flat in Sydenham. She had offered to look after Otis for the whole day. We'll have a
great time, she said. We might go to Crystal Palace Park. Go and see the Victorian dinosaurs—great green models looming out of the bluebells. No one ever seems that surprised to see them there. Let's go to the park, have an ice cream, and see some extinct animals! But then this is southeast London. There are billionaires stepping over beggars. Why would anyone be surprised by a stegosaurus?

I'm really grateful, said Eva.

Polite, thought Kim. As if I was a friend doing her a favor.

Kim leant her forehead against the glass. Behind her, Otis, who had emptied his rucksack onto the carpet, was already managing a fictional world in which a badger grappled with a giant octopus, a sea lion rode a fire engine, and a space rocket landed upside down in a farmyard, scattering the sheep.

Below her, in the street, Harry and Eva were getting into the Porsche. The roof was down. Kim, the all-seeing eye, the secret camera, felt like a spy. A Peeping Tom. She saw Harry speak. But she was too high up to hear the words. Harry had given Eva a silver charm bracelet that morning—antique, heavy, jangling like wind chimes whenever she moved. But up here, high above, Kim couldn't hear that either.

Eva had a long gauzy scarf tied round her head. It was pale blue and white. You couldn't see she was bald.

Then Harry started the engine, and there was a rumble, like the roar in the throat of a big cat. Harry didn't move off straightaway. They just sat there, talking and laughing, as if they had all the time in the world. Then Harry pulled out of the parking space, and the car built up speed—fast, streamlined, racing
down the dull suburban street—until all Kim could see was Eva's scarf fluttering, like bunting, in the wind.

•  •  •

Rooftop bars in London get very crowded on a Friday night. People like the contrast. All week they've been ground down by pressure and deadlines. Released from the bunker of work, they want to get as high as possible, physically and metaphorically. The taller the City grows, thought Harry, the more important it is to be way up in the clouds. Otherwise you can end up feeling like an ant. Busy but easy to crush.

Normally, if you want to enjoy stunning views over London, you have to book. Or queue. But the waiter just nodded them through.

“They know me here,” said Syed.

Harry didn't realize he was joking until they got the other side of the glass doors. It was November. The roof terrace—open to the elements, slightly shiny with rain—was cold and deserted. A few months ago, Harry would have said, What are we doing out here? Bad idea. Let's go in. But their old easy relationship had disappeared. The row in the pub had cut deep. Nowadays, whenever Harry heard rumors in the health care sector, or saw shares unexpectedly plummet, or watched as companies scrambled to make statements about price-sensitive information that had somehow been leaked, he wondered whether Syed was behind it.

You need to be able to trust your friends. It doesn't work if you're suspicious of what they're doing behind your back.

For a few minutes, they didn't talk at all—just stood there with their bottles of beer, looking out over the waist-high barrier onto the darkening City. They could see the Tower of London, St. Paul's, the Shard, the Gherkin. All the office buildings had horizontal stripes of yellow light like deck chair fabric. If I leant right over and peered round the edge, thought Harry, I could probably wave at Otis. Or at least in his general direction.

“I thought you might not come,” said Syed.

I nearly didn't, thought Harry, staring out over the gray skyline.

“I thought you might have written me off as someone you didn't want to associate with.”

Harry took a mouthful of beer. He felt Syed watching him.

Syed said, “I didn't do it. And I'm not going to.”

Harry looked at him properly for the first time. “You said it was too late.”

“I was lying.”

Harry thought about this. “Why?”

“So you'd think there was nothing you could do.”

I should have known, thought Harry. Typical bravado. “What happened to the brother-in-law?”

“An uncle. An interest-free loan. So he's fine.”

They stood in silence. Harry said, “Would you have done it?”

“Spread false information? Probably.”

It goes on all the time, thought Harry. It seems like a game. A bit of light law-breaking. You forget all the victims at the end of the process. All the little people investing their money.

Syed said, “The family is angry.”

“With you?”

“They think I'm rich. They think there's no reason not to pay my brother-in-law's debts. I'm being selfish. Unreasonable.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. It had to happen.” Syed took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “I couldn't carry him forever.”

They stood side by side contemplating the horizon. Syed said, “And anyway I'm glad it happened. It made me stand up to my mother. She loves me. I'm her world. I can do no wrong. But that's a hard burden to carry. Being someone's pride and joy. She has a picture in her head of who she thinks I am. And every day I feel I'm failing, because I don't match up. However hard I work, however successful I am, I'm not the perfect son she carries around in her mind every minute of every day. So when I said I wouldn't give him the money, and she couldn't shame me into changing my mind, something shifted. I had disappointed her. I was no longer perfect. I felt free. She kept saying, ‘What's wrong? What's happened to you, Syed? Are you ill?' And I said, ‘No. I'm just not going to do it.' ” Syed was silent for a moment. Then he said, “And you know what? It feels good.”

Harry said, “You could feel even better.”

“How?”

“Tell her about the gambling. And the strip clubs.”

Syed laughed. The atmosphere between them was suddenly lighter. He said, “Why did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Warn me off. Stop me doing it. Most people would have just let me go ahead and make a complete dick of myself.”

Because I wanted to do something right for once. “I didn't think you'd like the food in prison.”

“Seriously.”

Harry said, “My friend Christine says you should look after your friends. And I always do what Christine says.”

“Christine?”

“Not your type.”

Syed smiled. A gust of wind ruffled the large red cordyline at the corner of the terrace. He shivered and turned up the lapels of his jacket. “It's fucking freezing. Shall we go in?”

“I thought you wanted to suffer,” said Harry. “I thought that's why we were out here.”

“I just wanted you to see the view.” Syed took one last look at the London skyline. “The City. Cause of jubilation and despair.”

The only thing, thought Harry, over which I have any control at all.

•  •  •

Most of the time, Kim managed to forget that she and Jake worked for the same organization. He, after all, was based in the head office in Vauxhall—and busy in the Palace of Westminster—while she trailed around the regions, causing distress in Bristol, Leeds, Birmingham, and Cardiff. Even if she was called in for a meeting with the CEO, she was unlikely to bump into him. Jake was always out. He was that kind of person. Too busy to sit at a desk.

Rhodri hadn't been promoted to head of research, but he seemed remarkably unconcerned. “It wasn't my time, was it?” he said. “That's what I always think. Sometimes you're lucky. Sometimes you're not.”

“When did you become so wise?”

“I don't know if it's wise. It's just the way it is.”

“So what will you do?”

“Well, I can't carry on working for nothing. Which is all that's on offer here—another internship. So I'll have to look for something else.”

Kim, now part of the management team, was shamed into silence.

Back in her office—having slipped through the fire exit and up the concrete stairs to avoid walking past Zofia's desk—Kim checked her phone, plowed her way through the outstanding emails, and sorted her desk into some semblance of order. She didn't like leaving things in a mess when she was away—it looked so unprofessional—and she was due back in Bristol in the morning. Her heart was heavy at the thought. Her restructuring plan had boiled down to slashing the hours of part-time employees who needed the work (paying them less) and increasing the hours of full-time employees who already had too much to do (paying them the same). And tomorrow, she thought, I have to make two people redundant. Tony and Catherine. Who both have families. And mortgages. Bills they can't pay and credit cards stretched to the limit.

You should never make people redundant on Fridays, in case they're going back to an empty flat and end up alone and suicidal. But you do it all the time. So you don't have to witness the fallout. So the workforce doesn't get upset.

Oh, thought Kim, suddenly desolate. I always used to comfort myself that I was the best person for the job. I followed the rules. I handled the process properly to minimize pain and shock. Now I'm not so sure. Now I hide behind words like consolidation and staff surplus.

She looked up. There in the doorway was Jake.

“So,” he said, as if they'd seen each other a few minutes before and were resuming the conversation, “you're off home, are you?”

How strange to see him standing there, she thought, the man I lived with for three years. I know the feel of your hair, the smell of your skin, the blotchy rash on your neck after sex. I know the way you sleep, kicking out at imaginary chihuahuas. I know the sound you make drinking tea. I know, if we were in a room full of people, that you would be furtively assessing who's who, ranking importance, reviewing worth. Constantly checking your phone. Texting when you think no one's looking. Working on those clever put-downs disguised as compliments. Impatience repackaged as charm.

You stand there clothed, with your thick thighs in your baggy chinos, but I see you naked.

He smiled. “Drink?”

Brutal verbal editing, she thought. He must be spending too much time on Twitter. “No thanks. I need to get back.”

Jake leant against the door frame. It looked like a casual move. But it's never casual with Jake, thought Kim. He's blocking my exit.

“Shame. I wanted to catch up.” A look of concern. “Ask about Eva.”

It felt to Kim as if he'd grabbed her round the throat, squeezing hard.

“I was talking to Rhodri. Tragic news. It must be so hard for you and your mother.”

I find illness so draining, of course.

“Particularly hard that she's so young.” He shook his head. “It doesn't seem fair, does it? Her whole life ahead of her. And a small child, too.”

“It's all fine. The treatment's going really well. We're all looking forward to Christmas.”

“You can't help thinking, Why? Why has this happened? Why her?” Jake sighed. “On a happier note, I wanted to offer my congratulations.”

Kim stared. “On what?”

“On the excellent job you're doing in Bristol. I was chatting to Lulu”—it took Kim a moment to realize he was talking about the CEO, who, as far as she knew, only ever used the name Louisa—“and she told me you'd cut back all the dead wood. In record time. Textbook right-sizing. Managing reduction. Ramping down resources. Of course, I don't want to take all the credit. That wouldn't be fair. You've worked hard.” He smiled. “But since you learned so much from me, I think I have just a small understanding of how George Osborne's maths teacher must feel.”