Jane had no idea what time it was. She didn't care about that, either. She just knew that from now on, every second of every minute of every hour of the rest of her life was going to be utterly, painfully, blackly miserable. For a brief moment, the world had been her oyster. Now it was just a shell. She was back in the bad movie again. Or perhaps the bad oyster.
She stared at the ceiling and wondered how she could have got it so wrong yet again. Why hadn't she seen what was coming? Tom hadn't given her many clues, it was true, but she should have known it would end badly. It always did. With Nick, with Mark, and now with Tom. And all within a few weeks. True, married, trusting, hi-honey-I'm-home happiness was beyond her reach, now
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and for ever. If it wasn't for bad luck, Jane decided, she'd have no luck at all.
She was cursed, there was no doubt about that. But not just by a failure to pick the right man. Her life was blighted by a beautiful blonde, a glamorous albatross hanging round her neck with six-inch stilettos and a pressing appointment at Michaeljohn. Champagne was utterly inescapable. Try and move magazines and you found she'd come with you. Visit your friend in the middle of nowhere and you'll find her in the garden. Bury her two hundred feet under a runway and she pops back up with her arms round the man of your dreams. Jane screwed up her eyes in despair. It might be caprice on the part of Fate to bind her life up with Champagne's, but it wasn't her idea of a joke. Almost worse than Tom's betrayal was the contemplation of a future not only manless but clamped as firmly to Champagne's side as her Chanel handbag.
Jane could not blank out what she had seen in Tom's flat. The sight of him clasping Champagne seemed tattooed on the inside of her eyelids. For the millionth time, she ran and re-ran the fatal ten seconds of footage in the video machine of her brain, but still managed to make no sense of it.
Why
hadn't he told her he had a girlfriend? He had been so open about everything else. She had
trusted
him, for God's sake.
She got up and staggered, head throbbing, to the shower. But if washing Tom right out of her hair was simple, washing him out of the bathroom, or any other part of the flat, was impossible. Although he had only visited it twice, Tom's presence seemed now to permeate its very fabric. He had walked on
that
floor, sat in
that
chair, laughed at her cooking in
that
kitchen and, most of all,
slept in that bed.
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She could barely glance at a written word in case she thought of him. If she turned on the radio, the merest hint of classical music set off a waterfall of weeping. Even the soap powder in the kitchen cupboard reminded her of the blonde children that would never now run merrily down the pathway.
The day after the day after she had discovered Champagne and Tom together, Jane finally sought refuge in the
Fabulous
office.
It was a hideous mistake. Here, more than anywhere, reminders that she was the only single, betrayed woman in the world seemed brutally abundant.
'I'm having
just the worst
time with my boyfriend,' Tosh was drawling to Tash as she entered. Jane pricked her ears up. This sounded promising. 'He's being
such
a pig. He told me yesterday he was taking me to Bali.'
'Well, what's wrong with that?' asked Tash. 'Although,' she added, raising her eyebrows, 'I suppose Bali
is
a bit five-minutes-ago now that everyone who's anyone is going to Sardinia. Actually, I
do
see your point.'
'No, no,' said Tosh. 'The problem is it turns out he's taking me to the
Nutcracker.
To the boring old
bailed
Can you imagine
anything
more
yawmville?
Even in the loos, where Jane retreated frequently during the morning to indulge in some spontaneous weeping, there was no escape. The basins were, as always, positively blazing with the flowers that were sent to the
Fabulous
office. From hopeful PR companies, hopeful designers and, worst of all, hopeful lovers they came, a never-ending stream of fashionable bunches. Brilliant gerberas wrapped in brown paper; withered twigs in glass pots; vast, rope-bound sunflowers the height of a tree; massy bunches of
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heady lilies; they were all plunged unceremoniously into the basins waiting to be taken home by their recipients. Or, as often happened, forgotten and left in the loos to rot. Her own flower-receiving days having been cut off in their prime, Jane found the sight of these exuberant, neglected bunches almost too painful. She briefly considered patronising the men's loos instead.
Jane tried to take comfort in the Jordan Madison layouts stacked for approval on her desk. She signed them off almost without looking. The Madison coup now felt flatter than a week-old glass of Bellinger. What difference did it make to anything?
'Someone kept calling and calling for you yesterday,' Tish told Jane as the morning drew to a close. She had clearly only just remembered. A man. But he wouldn't leave his name. Um, and the advance copies have just come in. On the desk in Victoria's office.'
'Advance copies of what?' asked Jane dully. She did not comment on the mystery caller. She didn't care.
'Fabulous,
of course,' grinned Tish. 'The Lily Eyre one. Remember?' she added, teasing.
'Vaguely,' said Jane. It seemed a lifetime ago, But she may as well look at them. Go through the motions.
Dragging herself into Victoria's glass box, she glanced cursorily at the new issues, gleaming beneath swathes of plastic packaging. She could barely bring herself to cut it open. The Jane who had edited that issue and sent it joyfully off to the printers was a different, younger and more hopeful creature altogether than the shattered wreck who stood looking at the finished product.
The cover was, indeed, a radical departure from
Fabulous
s staple diet of demure debutantes. Dressed in brilliant red, her lips a slash of identical scarlet, Lily Eyre
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looked sexy and exciting. Inside, the interviewer had turned in a witty and incisive piece, with lots of hilarious quotes about the film business from Lily. When Jane had first read it, it had made her laugh. Now, looking at the cover, she wanted to cry.
She had no idea whether the issue was good or bad. Was it a bold departure from the norm or a disastrous experiment which might well backfire on the newsstands? What did she know? She couldn't even tell a good guy from a deceitful two-timing bastard.
Tish interrupted her reverie. 'I've just had a message from Archie Fitzherbert's secretary,' she said. 'He wants to see you in his office this afternoon.'
That was that then, thought Jane numbly. Fitzherbert had obviously taken one look at the issue and hated it. He'd probably
retched
at the horrid
obviousness
of it. He'd probably tell her to go and work on
Penthouse.
She'd lost her man, now she was going to lose her job.
The telephone on her desk shrilled. Miraculously, as if aware there was a crisis, Tish actually went to answer it. Jane stood cowering by the magazines in Victoria's office. She didn't want to talk to anyone.
'It's a woman,' hissed Tish, covering the receiver. 'Very grand-sounding. Shall I put her through to Victoria's phone?'
Tally, thought Jane gratefully. If there was one sensible, kind, concerned voice she needed to hear just now, it was Tally's.
'Yes please,' she instructed Tish, sitting down heavily in Victoria's huge leather revolving chair. Her relief was shortlived. It was not Tally on the line. It was Champagne. The woman she had last seen all over Tom like a rash. Jane felt weak with hatred. She prepared to slam the phone
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down, but Champagnes opening remark caught her off guard.
'Where the bloody hell
were you
haring off to the other day?' barked Champagne. 'You didn't even say hello.
Bloody
rude, I thought.'
Jane gritted her teeth.
She
had caught Champagne with her arms round someone she had imagined was
her
boyfriend. Was she expected to apologise for it? Should she have stayed and chatted? 'I suppose I was rather surprised to see you there,' she replied, dangerously evenly.
'Why?' demanded Champagne.
She obviously thinks I'm even more stupid than I think I am, Jane seethed to herself. 'Because I thought you were at the Gatwick runway protest, of course,' she snarled, biting each word as it came out. 'With
Piers'
'Oh. Yah, well, actually, that all turned out to be a bit of a misunderstanding,' honked Champagne. 'Got myself in a bit of a hole there, to be honest. In fact, as far as Piers is concerned I'm afraid my name's pretty much
mudtt.
the moment. Haw haw. Christ, I'm funny.'
'Oh,' said Jane, sarcastically. 'It's all over with him, then?' Poor Piers. Champagne had probably dumped him in her usual subtle fashion. She hoped Laughter wouldn't be too hard on him.
'Yah, actually,' boomed Champagne. 'Shame really. He's a bloody nice bloke. Bit grubby, could use a shower now and then. But
triffically
sweet guy.
Great
guy, actually. But we rather fell out over the whole runway business. The
hole
runway business. Haw haw haw.' Her ear-splitting laughter rolled like thunder through Jane's aching head.
'What happened?' asked Jane. She felt too weary to be angry.
'The problem was,' Champagne honked, 'that we were
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there for different reasons. I thought they were protesting
for
a runway at Gatwick, not
against
one.'
Jane felt dizzy.
'Anyone normal would have thought the same,' declared Champagne remorselessly. 'I mean, the schedules to Nice are an utter
disgrace.
They need about four times as many flights as they're running at the moment. The times I've had to
slum
it in Club because First is already booked up. So when I heard that Piers and his gang were protesting about the runway, I thought, yah,
splendid
chaps. Those runways
need
protesting about. They need about four more of them, not to mention more planes.'
Jane opened and closed her mouth like a surprised flounder.
'But it turned out that Piers and co. were actually trying to stop the bloody runway being
builfi'
exclaimed Champagne. 'Ridiculous.
Unhloodybelievable.
But then again,' she added, 'I suppose I can see their point of view.'
'Can
you?' spluttered Jane, at last finding her voice.
'Yah,' said Champagne. 'I mean, none of them have ever been to Nice in Club Class, so they have no idea what a
complete and utter nightmare
it is. If they had, obviously they'd understand. It's just a question of education. Anyway, I'm not calling you to tell you all this rubbish,' Champagne barked imperiously. 'It's about something else. We need to meet. Now. Urgently. For lunch.'
'Why?' asked Jane. WTiat could there be to say?
'Because I have some brilliant news for you,' honked Champagne impatiently. An amazing offer.'
Jane frowned. Was it to be a
manage a trots,
then? Or Tom-sharing, with Champagne having custody and Tom being allowed out for weekend visits? Or was Champagne
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about to offer one of her cast-off chinless wonders as a compensation package?
Jane's instinct warned her to steer well clear, but hard fact, in particular her impending dismissal by Archie Fitzherbert, seemed to suggest that, if she wanted to keep body and soul together for the foreseeable future, she was hardly in a position to turn brilliant news and amazing offers down. And Champagne, as Jane now realised, was in any case her destiny. No point in resisting her.
Jane was delayed leaving the office for her lunch with Champagne, because the inside of her jacket collapsed. She'd heard of unstructured linens, she thought crossly, sticking the lining back together with Sellotape, but this was ridiculous. She hoped it wouldn't flap open and reveal her handiwork during the lunch. Champagne may not be most people's idea of observant, but there was no doubt at all that she would notice that.
Even more stressed out after ten minutes in a gridlocked taxi, Jane announced her arrival at the restaurant by attempting to push the revolving door the wrong way. She was late, but Champagne had not arrived either. A supercilious and speedy waiter led Jane to their empty table. His sinuous form slid through the tight-packed tables with ease, while Jane found that presenting her bottom in a sideways shuffle to pairs of elegant lunchers was the only way she could get through the gaps herself. She threw herself into her chair, stared fiercely and unseeingly at the menu and wished desperately that she hadn't come.
After a few minutes she looked up and started to examine the eaters around her. They were mainly, she saw, emaciated women, ladies who lunch, although most of
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them looked as if they hadn't seen lunch for years. They were so thin that probably the only thing holding them together was their plastic surgeons' stitches. Jane shuddered as a tall, oleaginous man who she assumed was the restaurant manager made the rounds of the tables, planting ostentatious kisses here and there. Those surgery-raddled faces, she felt, might well come away on his lips.