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“He’s a bully, Emma, pure and simple. He’s been criticising you and making you feel shit since the day you started.”
“I know, but there’s a rumour he’s going to take over the Manchester office.”
“You’ve been saying that for three years.”
“I can’t just leave.”
“Why? Because of your mum? Jesus Christ, Emma, you need to grow a pair. You’re twenty-five years old. You only get one life; do what you want. Fuck your mum.”
“Daisy!”
“What?” She tops up her glass and knocks it back. From the glazed look in her eyes, I suspect that this bottle of wine isn’t her first of the night. “Someone’s got to say it and it might as well be me. You need to stop caring about her opinion and do what you want. It’s getting boring, your obsession with what your bloody family thinks. You’ve been on about it since uni and—”
“Sorry I’ve bored you. I thought we were supposed to be friends.” I reach for my bag and stand up, but Daisy reaches across the table and grabs my wrist.
“Don’t be like that. And stop bloody apologising. Sit down, Emma.”
I perch on the edge of my seat. I can’t speak. If I do, I’ll cry, and I hate crying in public.
Daisy keeps hold of my hand. “I’m not being a bitch. I just want you to be happy, that’s all. You’ve already told me you’ve saved up enough money to stop work for three months.”
“That’s emergency money.”
“And this is an emergency. You’re miserable. Come and work with me in the pub until you get something else. Ian would take you on in a heartbeat; he loves redheads.”
“It’s dyed.”
“For God’s sake, Emma—”
Her phone vibrates on the table and the tinny sound of Rihanna and Eminem’s “Love the Way You Lie” cuts through the chatter and hum in the pub.
Daisy holds up a hand to me then snatches up her phone. “Leanne? You okay?” She puts a finger in one ear and frowns in concentration. “Okay. Yeah, we’ll be there. Give us fifteen minutes to grab a cab. All right? Okay. See you in a bit.”
She tucks her phone into the tiny clutch bag on the table then looks across at me. There’s concern in her blue eyes, but a sliver of excitement, too.
“That was Leanne. She’s in that new gay club, Malice, in Soho with Al. Al’s on the hunt for Simone and her new girlfriend.”
“Shit.” I clutch my bag and reach round for my coat on the back of my chair.
“You okay if we go? I know we were talking about your job but—”
“It’s fine.” I stand up. “Al needs us. Let’s grab a cab.”
We sit in silence as the taxi splashes through puddles and the bright lights of London’s West End speed past us. The streets are unusually empty, the heavy rain forcing locals and tourists into already packed pubs, their windows misty with condensation.
Daisy looks up from her phone. “You know it’s the anniversary of her brother’s death, don’t you?”
“Al’s brother?”
“Yeah. I rang her at lunchtime.”
“How was she?”
“Pissed.”
“Shit, at work?”
“No, skiving; she was in the pub.”
“She’s been doing that a lot recently.”
“Yeah, when she’s not stalking Simone,” Daisy says, and we share a look.
It’s been over a month since Al and Simone split up, but Al’s behaviour is becoming more and more erratic by the day. She’s convinced that Simone left her because she met someone else, and she’s determined to find out who it is. She spends hours on Google, looking for “clues”, and she’s created several false Facebook profiles to try to get access to Simone’s page and the pages of anyone she’s friends with. None of us had seen the split coming, not least Al, who’d been planning on proposing. She’d been saving up for months for a ring and a safari in Kenya so she could propose on an elephant ride – Simone’s favourite animal.
“Here we are, ladies,” the cab driver says over his shoulder as we pull up in front of the neon pink Malice sign.
Daisy pokes a tenner through the glass partition then opens the taxi door. “Let’s go and get Al.”
“Excuse me, darling. Thank you. Excuse me.”
Daisy elbows her way through the throng of bodies clogging up the stairs, and I follow in her wake. We’ve already squeezed our way across the dance floor on the ground level in search of Leanne and Al, but there was no sign of them. No sign of Simone, either.
“Loos!” Daisy twists back and waves her mobile phone at me as she reaches the top of the stairs then takes a left.
I struggle to push my way through the huge crowd of women drinking beer and hanging out outside the women’s loos but finally manage to make my way inside.
“Oi!” A large woman wearing a Superdry T-shirt and oversized jeans shoots out a tattooed arm to bar my way as I attempt to squeeze past her. “There’s a queue.”
“Sorry, I’m just looking for a friend.”
“Emma, in here!” A cubicle door swings open and Daisy waves at me through the gap. She pulls an apologetic face at the woman in the queue. “Sorry, we’re dealing with a crisis in here.”
“Bloody lesbians,” the woman says, “always a melodrama.”
There’s no room for me to squeeze inside the cubicle so I hover outside and poke my head around the door. Al is sitting on the loo with her head in her hands. Leanne and Daisy are pressed up against the walls either side of her. Every couple of seconds, the main door into the loos opens and pumping house music floods the entire space as women file in and out, grumbling as they squeeze past me to find an empty cubicle.
“Al, sweetie.” Daisy hitches up her dress and squats down next to her friend. “Let’s get you home.”
Al shakes her head. The hems of her jeans are wet with rainwater and the laces of one of her trainers are untied. There’s cellophane poking out from beneath the arm of her T-shirt. She’s had another tattoo but I can’t make out what it is.
Leanne catches my eye, as though noticing me for the first time. She’s dyed her fringe pink since the last time I saw her. Her sharp black bob has always looked a bit severe, but with the pink streak and her new thick-rimmed black “geek” specs dominating her thin face, she looks like she’s wearing a motorbike helmet.
She shrugs and angles her arm towards me so I can read the time on her Mickey Mouse watch. It’s midnight. She flashes her fingers at me then holds up two more. Shit, Al’s been drinking for twelve hours.
This isn’t the first time Leanne’s had to call Daisy and me to take Al home. At five foot six, fourteen stone and bull-like in temperament, it takes all four of us to manoeuvre Al anywhere, especially when she’s drunk. Simone used to manage it, but she had an advantage: Al was in love with her. She could always talk her into going home, no matter how much she’d had to drink.
Two of the girls washing their hands in the sink behind me start laughing, and Al looks up.
“Are they laughing at me? Are you fucking laughing at me?” She half rises but Leanne presses down on her shoulder and Daisy grips hold of her wrist so Al is rooted to the toilet.
I glance behind me. “They can’t even see you.”
“They know.” Al runs a hand over her Mohican. “Everyone knows. I’m a fucking laughing stock.”
“No, you’re not,” Daisy says. “Relationships end all the time, Al. No one’s judging you.”
“Oh yeah? Then why did Jess on reception say ‘Ticket for one?’ when I came in?”
“Because you came alone?”
“Oh, fuck off, Daisy” – she yanks her hand out of Daisy’s grip – “what would you know? You haven’t been dumped once in your whole life.”
“Well, I have,” I say, “and I know how much it hurts, especially if they leave you for someone else. I’d had my suspicions about Jake for a while, but then when he—”
“Emma!” Leanne makes a stop talking gesture with her finger across her throat.
“Not that Simone left you for someone else,” I say, but it’s too late. Al’s on her feet and barging past me.
“If she’s here with that fucking bitch, today of all days, I’m going to swing for her. I’ll swing for both of them. Fucking baby dyke bitches.”
“Al!” Daisy totters after her, reaching for her arm. “She’s not worth it. Al!”
“Well done, Emma.” Leanne glares up at me from behind her neon fringe. “I’d just talked her down and you fired her up again.”
“She didn’t look very chilled to me.”
“You didn’t see her before. She was punching the cubicle walls. She nearly got us both thrown out.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
She pushes past me. “You never do, Emma.”
By the time I find the others, they’re standing in the centre of the dance floor downstairs with a circle of people surrounding them. Al is in the middle, jabbing her finger at Simone and some other girl I don’t recognise. Daisy and Leanne are either side of her.
“I fucking knew it,” Al says. “I knew you were sleeping with Gem.”
“Actually” – Simone squares up to her, even though she’s several inches shorter and several stone lighter – “Gem and I got together after we split up, not that it’s any of your business.”
“I think you’ll find it is.” Al turns her attention to the other woman, who takes a step closer to Simone and slings a heavy arm around her shoulders. She’s at least six feet tall, all sinew and muscle, with a heavy jaw and close-cropped hair. She’s got a boxer’s physique and the attitude to match.
“Think you’re clever, do you?” Al says. “Taking Simone off me?”
“I don’t think anything.”
“’Course you don’t. Pig shit doesn’t think.”
Boxer Woman smirks. “Piss off, Al. No one’s interested, least of all Simone. And for the record, I didn’t take her off you, she came running.”
“Bullshit. We were happy before you started sniffing around.”
“Is that so? According to Sim, you’re a possessive control freak who wouldn’t let her out.”
“Is that what you told her?” Al glares at Simone. “That I’m a control freak? After everything I did for you? When we met, you had nowhere to live. You had nothing, Simone and I let you live with me rent-free. I gave you money to go clubbing. I would have done anything for you.”
“You smothered me.”
Al’s eyes mist with tears. “Then you should have told me, not run off with this bull dog.”
“What did you call me?” Boxer Woman drops her arm from around Simone’s shoulders and takes a step towards Al. “Say that again to my face, you fat bitch.”
“Fuck you.” Al half steps, half jumps forward and swings at the taller woman before Leanne or Daisy can stop her. Her fist makes contact with Gem’s jaw and she stumbles backwards. Her foot slips on the beer-stained floor and she tumbles to the ground. The crowd whoops with excitement, and out of the corner of my eye, I spot a male member of security, walkie-talkie pressed to his ear, striding towards us. Daisy sees him too and gestures for me to help Leanne, who’s desperately shoving Al towards the door.
It doesn’t take much persuasion to get her to leave now. She’s so jubilant she practically skips out of the room.
“Fucking yeah!” She punches the air then winces and hugs her right hand to her body. She glances behind us as we hurry her towards the exit. “Where’s Daisy?”
Leanne and I exchange a look. “She’ll be fine. She’s chatting up the bouncer.”
“Dirty slut.” Al laughs all the way out of the building and into the waiting cab.
Chapter 3 (#u624b2904-9d06-5c83-9d77-210617b8d961)
It’s the next morning and I’ve only been at my desk for ten minutes when Geoff, my boss, wanders over. He lingers behind me, his hand on the back of my chair. I shuffle as far forward as I can so I end up perched right on the very edge of the seat.
“Late again, Emma.”
“Sorry.” I keep my gaze fixed on the spreadsheet in front of me. “Tube was delayed.”
It’s a lie. We didn’t get Al into bed until 2 a.m. and then I had to wait for a taxi to get me back to Wood Green. By the time I rolled into bed, it was after three.
“You’ll have to make up the time. I want you here until seven.”
“But I need to get to Clapham by then, my brother’s in a play.”
“You should have thought about that this morning and got up earlier. Now …” My chair creaks as he rests his full weight on it and leans around me so his mouth is inches from the side of my face. I can feel his breath, hot and sour in my ear. “I’m expecting that spreadsheet by lunchtime so I can look over it before I speak to the sales team this afternoon. Or should I expect that to be late, too?”
I want to tell him to stick his spreadsheet up his arse. Instead I curl my hands into fists and press my fingernails into the palms of my hands. “You’ll get it.”
I’ve been Geoff’s PA for three years. He’s Head of Sales here at United Internet Solutions, a software, hosting and search engine optimisation company. I was only supposed to be here for three months – it was meant to be just another of the countless temping jobs I took after university – but he extended my contract and then offered me a five-grand pay rise and a permanent position. Daisy told me back then to turn it down and do something else, but the only thing I’ve ever really wanted to do is be a vet, and you can’t do that with a business degree. And I couldn’t face temping again.
I wait until Stephen Jones, Geoff’s favourite salesman and self-proclaimed “top dog”, strolls past us and into his office, closing the door behind him, and then I head for the ladies’ loos, my mobile phone hidden up my sleeve. I check the stalls to make sure that neither of the other two women who work for UIS are about, then I dial Mum’s number. It’s Tuesday, which means she should be at home. She works in the GP surgery she and Dad set up when they were newly married and still childless, but she only does Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The phone rings for several minutes before she finally picks up. She’s had her mobile for years but still hasn’t worked out how to set up voicemail.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” That’s how she greets me. No “Hello, Emma,” no “Everything okay, darling?” just “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“I am at work.”
“Should you be on the phone? You don’t want to upset your boss, not after your recent appraisal.”
