The Darkening Hour (26 page)

‘Do you ever wonder if it’s worth it though?’ he asks, slumping down next to me on the sofa. He puts his arm round me.

This is the moment, I think. Snow tumbling down outside, my martini yet to drink. Mona, Daddy, my family and my job, a million miles away across the river. I wish I never had to move away, could
stay here, on this sofa, with Max’s scent and the Christmas tree. We would be figures caught for eternity in an intimate embrace like the
Girl with a Dolphin
– a perfect moment
preserved forever.

‘When I first met you,’ he says, ‘what was it, God, can it be four–five years ago now? It seemed so important. My career. Being recognised. Earning a sackload of money.
But lately, I don’t know, it must be middle age. I wonder what it’s all about?’

I look up at him and he squeezes me into him.

‘Max, I thought your career was what kept you going. What you get up for in the morning.’

‘It was. But you know, with the kids growing up I’m aware of the way Valerie and I fight over whose job is more important and I wonder, perhaps neither is. Perhaps it’s the
simple things that matter. A game of soccer in the park. Pancakes for breakfast. Home-made, I mean, not some junk from the mall. We screwed up, Dora, we should have made more effort. Now the kids
are almost gone, I’m afraid. We could have, should have done it differently. Better.’

‘You must stop this, Max. Come on. You know as well as I do there’s no ideal family model.’

I think of my messy family, Roger and Claudia in Rabat, me and Leo here, Leo unemployed, Daddy down in a dark basement while his other children swan about doing as they please. ‘We all
muddle along as best we can,’ I offer lamely.

‘Hmm.’

I know what he’s feeling. It’s that devil that assails us all as we get older – I’ve heard it time and again on the phone-in. Anxiety that we messed up. Regret that we
didn’t do things differently.

‘Anyway, what’s in all these bags? Have you bought up the West End?’ I tease him. I want to lighten the atmosphere, fend off the compulsion to unburden my worries, to tell him
too much.

He lets out a long, weary sigh.

‘It’s just money though, isn’t it, Dora? I spend money on my children to compensate for not being there. I never saw it before. Being in those shops today – people were
frantic! I had a kind of epiphany. What the hell am I doing on the other side of the Atlantic, buying gifts when I should be with them?’

He swirls the ice around in his glass, gazing into the amber liquid.

I’m afraid. He’s about to say he’s leaving. Going home to be with his kids. He can no longer see me. It’s all been a mistake, I’m a component of the regret
that’s assailing him.

A void opens before me: no job, no family, no Max.

But then he goes on, ‘I’m on the wrong track, but I don’t know how to get off. I’ve been so hell-bent on the pursuit of success. I’m thinking of giving up my job
before it’s too late.’

This
is
his way of telling me he’s decided to spend more time at home. With his youngest son, with Valerie! I feel panic course through me.

‘If you gave up your job you’d have no excuse to meet up with me,’ I blurt out before I can stop myself.

‘Oh, I don’t know. I’d get away to see you from time to time. That would be a priority. Of course.’ He bites my earlobe gently.

‘From time to time?’

‘As often as I could.’

‘Well, I’m glad to hear it,’ I say, the panic receding a little. ‘But how would Valerie feel if you left work?’

‘She’d love it. It would mean she could put herself first, make sure she gets all the promotions she’s been angling for.’

I wince at the word ‘promotion’. But he goes on. ‘If I left my job, she could move on up the ladder. It would mean our downshifting, of course, but hey. You only live once. I
want some quality time. I’ve had enough of the rat run. And in fact . . .’ he pulls me in closer to him, ‘it would mean I could see
more
of you, rather than less. I
wouldn’t be constantly jumping on the next plane to go to some conference on the other side of the world. I could actually stay over, listen to you on your show . . .’

Oh Max, please, don’t ask about the show.

I say, ‘Are you sure about all this? Your career has always been part of you. You might miss it.’

‘It’s different for me than you,’ he goes on sweetly. ‘I am just an invisible cog in a very big wheel. I’m doing work that frankly I’m getting a bit old for.
You’re
about to become a household name. My sexy-voiced goddess!’

‘Oh come on, Max . . .’

‘No, really. It was the best thing you could do for yourself, getting that woman to help you out, so you can focus. How’s it going, by the way? How are those marvellous thighs? Is
she still climbing the furniture to brush your ceiling roses?’

‘Max! Honestly! Her main role is caring for Daddy. But she’s freeing me up. I wouldn’t be here with you otherwise.’

‘That’s good. I’ve rather come to depend on her as much as you.’

I force myself to laugh. I must not let this get to me, Max’s determination to bring Mona into the conversation.

I think suddenly of the way she handed me my phone with his message on it as I left the house, and a burning anxiety creeps through my belly. She couldn’t have somehow taken his number,
with the intention of contacting him? I think of her flirting with Bob that night. Of what she said about Madame’s husband. No. I’m being irrational. She can’t write – she
can’t text. My thoughts are encroaching on what could be a perfect evening.

‘It’s not been easy, training her. She’s not all that bright, not educated.’

‘Sure. You don’t clean other people’s houses if you’re a professional with a string of letters after your name.’

Another unpleasant thought I’ve been trying to keep at bay creeps in.

Now I’ve been demoted at the radio station, Mona’s and my positions aren’t that different. Mona might not have had a formal education but she isn’t stupid. She’s
probably as clever as I am. Maybe more so. She can, after all, speak our language while I’m monolingual. Her lack of qualifications are due to poverty, not a dearth of brain cells. And I
think again about that sighting of her next to me in the mirror, how much more beautiful she could be, with my help; how her dowdy look, when she arrived, was, like her education, all down to lack
of money. What am I afraid of? That somehow she is going to take away from me the last vestiges of what makes me Theodora Gentleman? That she might even steal my lover?

When we’re eating, and halfway through the second bottle of wine, Max says, out of the blue, ‘I want you to ask me home one day soon, Dora.’

This is so unexpected, so abrupt, I can hardly take it in.

‘You know we don’t do that, Max. It’s what we agreed.’

‘We’ve been together so long now, I want more of you. If you do too, that is.’

‘I don’t know. I . . .’

He goes on, ‘Look, Theodora, another reason I want to leave work is so I can see more of you. I’m fed up with meeting in hotels. Yes, I know it’s a little unequal. I
can’t ask you back to mine. There’s Valerie and the kid – and it’s too bad, because I’d like to sleep the night in a bed with you. Not an anonymous bed in a hotel, but
in a proper bed, that shapes itself to you. To us. The only way we can ever do this is if I come to you. And I wondered whether, now you have help, I could come?’

I examine his face. He’s looking at me earnestly. And I suddenly see myself through his eyes. This loving daughter who has taken her old father in while juggling her job as a successful
radio presenter with a beautiful London home and a housekeeper, her long red hair, her carefully picked out clothes.

I picture the day he comes back – putting any suspicions about Mona aside. I can show him a side of myself he hasn’t seen before. My house
is
looking gorgeous these days,
restored to its original elegance, now I have Mona.

The ceiling roses and picture-rails, the cornices and the intricate tiling around the fireplaces are now features to be proud of instead of the encumbrances I had previously found them,
gathering dust so I was ashamed to expose them to him.

I know Max will adore the charming cherubs on my porch, their chubby legs and their shipbuilders’ instruments, he’ll love the sculpture of my mother that adorns the steps down to
Daddy’s basement. I have things to be proud of. My home is a true reflection of me as a person, I think wildly. It’s sophisticated with an olde worlde charm; it’s furnished
tastefully and is artistic without being overstated.

With quarry tiles in the kitchen that sparkle now Mona has polished them, the freshly laundered Egyptian cotton sheets I’ve told her to ensure are always on the beds, with gleaming mirrors
and windows, and its polished wooden floors, it is a house of which to be proud.

I
could
allow Max to come home, see a little more of me, see in a sense inside me a little. Perhaps he would heal the hurt I’ve been feeling about losing my job. Sharing more of
my life with the man I love might be exactly what I need.

‘OK,’ I say at last. ‘I suppose we could consider it.’

‘I’m back here on the twenty-third,’ he tells me. ‘I was thinking, if I stayed overnight with you, then we could spend Christmas Eve together before I fly home. I can
give you your Christmas present.’

I think of Anita’s invitation to spend Christmas with her. My mind quickly adjusts the plans. I can send Mona and Daddy over to Anita’s and have the house to myself on Christmas Eve
with Max! The whole world suddenly feels warm and bright.

Max is looking at me with that guileless smile – so sweet, so trusting, I feel overwhelmed with love and appreciation for him.

We sit for a while longer, silently watching the snow fall outside, getting faster and thicker, and I feel that, despite everything, things are going to start to get better.

The snow doesn’t settle. When I go to work over the next few days, the sky is grey again, the river restless. Leo has gone off to Roger’s in Rabat and the house
feels empty. My show was dismantled last week. I’m asked to shadow Charlotte on the consumer programme so I’ll be ready to front it in the New Year.

Ben, the receptionist, doesn’t look up when I arrive.

‘Morning,’ I say, waiting for his usual greeting. He glances up.

‘Oh yes. You’re to go down to Charlotte – she’s waiting for you in the IT suite.’

The administrative staff’s eyes glaze over as I pass them. Even the longer-standing cleaners who usually smile and wave look away. People who would have gone out of their way to shake my
hand, to sit next to me in the canteen, don’t even glance at me.

I move on towards the windowless office at the back of the building, where people’s heads are bowed over their work. No one looks up.

‘Oh, Theodora.’ It’s Charlotte. ‘I’ve been asked to show you the ropes.’

Charlotte came to the station only a year ago, a new fresh-faced presenter whom I’d had to mentor. How come the wheels have suddenly turned, that
she’s
mentoring
me
?

‘What we have to do,’ Charlotte says, focused on her computer screen, clicking on various emails, ‘is chase up two main complaints. We’ve got one here about a games
console that the vendor refused to exchange though it was faulty when the purchaser bought it. We need to track down the manufacturer and the retailer. You could perhaps take the retailer. Get them
to give you a comment.’

It’s only nine thirty. I wonder how I’m going to get through the day, how I’m going to force myself to focus. I’ve never had to do anything so dull.

I spend the next two hours talking to gormless salespeople on the end of the line, trying to find a manager who’s prepared to talk to me. Half the time I’m put on hold listening to
tinny renditions of Vivaldi as the minutes tick by.

By eleven I’m wondering whether Gina might come down to see me, as she’s researching upstairs, but the day drags on and she doesn’t appear.

I’m about to go out for my lunch, when Charlotte comes across and leans over me, her heavily pregnant belly almost in my face.

‘How did you get on?’ she asks.

‘I’ve got a couple of contacts to phone back this afternoon,’ I say. My stomach’s rumbling, I want to get out, buy a sandwich. I need fresh air. The office is stuffy, and
the work so tedious I can barely keep my eyes open.

But: ‘This afternoon’s no good,’ Charlotte says. ‘We have to have something now – it’s going out tonight. Phone them again, hassle them. Let’s get
something in the bag.’

‘I really need a break,’ I say, standing up. ‘It’s lunchtime.’

‘I’m sorry, Dora, we’ve got to get a story. Have another go. I’ll ask Hayley to bring some sandwiches in. What else would you like. Coffee?’

I can’t believe this is happening, that I’m working for my inferior. Charlotte’s tight-lipped tone is beginning to irritate me. I wonder why she’s left it so late to go
on maternity leave? She looks as if she’s about to drop any minute.

‘When you’ve finished on this, we need to speak to other consumers, get quotes on their similar experiences.’

I’m supposed to grovel to these sad consumers, beg them to speak live. It’s like the work Gina used to do for me. Her work, however, required skill and sensitivity, an eye for a good
story and a nose for what was genuine and what wasn’t. The pinnacle of excitement in this one involves vacuum cleaners that don’t suck and package tours that were disappointing.

‘It’s all got to be researched and the facts verified by the end of today,’ Charlotte goes on.

‘I’m surprised you haven’t already died of boredom,’ I mutter.

‘What was that?’ she asks, frowning.

‘Nothing.’

I put my head down and make a show of being fascinated by the small print on a gas supplier’s contract.

At the end of the day, I leave work feeling drained, but unsatisfied. How has it come to this? I used to leave work on a high – with that wonderful glow a job well done
gives you, a buzz from the sense of achievement, and the knowledge that my voice had been heard, sorting out the issues of my confused and troubled listeners. Today I feel as if the energy has been
sucked right out of me. I catch the bus and sit amongst other exhausted commuters, women who look as if life has passed them by, men whose eyes reflect despair, a freight of souls who have lost
everything.