Can We Still Be Friends (22 page)

It had been a month ago, just before Christmas, when Tania had called her into her office, where she was sunk in an armchair, a bottle of Soave open on the small table beside her. The sound of the Salvation Army playing ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ outside the nearby shops drifted in.

‘Good news, love. I’m promoting you. Happy Christmas.’ She leant forward and poured Annie a glass of the wine. From her
flushed face, Annie realized that Tania had been drinking since lunchtime. It had been the same all that week, but then everybody was doing it in the run-up to the holiday. Even Stella in Accounts had broken her two-glasses-on-a-Saturday-night routine at the office lunch at Foxtrot Oscar.

Tania continued, ‘You can manage some of the smaller accounts on your own now. It’ll free me up to get new business if I don’t have to be thinking about people like Tony and Trish and that Elephants of theirs, which, truth to tell, I only do for old times’ sake.’ She smiled boozily at Annie. ‘You’re probably thinking about the cash. I can scrape together another grand. Stella tells me that’ll bring you up to £12,000 a year. And you’ll be Junior Account Executive. How does that sound?’

And so January 1985 had arrived for Annie Brenham with a new boyfriend and a bigger job, both of which had appeared unexpectedly and yet seemed completely natural. Somewhere inside she wondered, at times, whether both shouldn’t have been a little bit harder to achieve, just so that she could feel that it was them she wanted.

Pulling her over-sized cream sweater over her head, the one she liked because it was so wide it made her legs look skinny in comparison, she grabbed her bag at the hoot of the car horn, noticing as she did that Sal had dumped her damp towels in the hall that morning. As she picked them up to fling on to Sal’s bed, something fell on the floor. An empty vodka bottle. Not good, thought Annie, pushing it out of her mind. Now was not the time to worry about it.

Charlie’s tall frame was folded into the interior of his old car, of which he was particularly proud, even though it made a terrible noise and could be freezing cold, with its ill-fitting canvas roof.

‘You’ll see. It’s magical when the weather warms up and we can put the top down. You’ll love it,’ he promised Annie. She couldn’t help noticing that he obviously thought they would still be together in the summer. There he was, joyful as Mr Toad, when normally he was so efficient and driven that you’d expect he’d far prefer something modern, like a BMW or an Audi. It was sweet really.

On Saturdays, Fleet Street was empty of its normal traffic. The buildings towered over quiet pavements as Sal left the office, her coat wrapped around her, and walked in the direction of the river. She felt terrible – so bad that she couldn’t focus on her story about the Dorchester’s takeover by the Sultan of Brunei. Not that she had the foggiest idea where Brunei was. Fresh air might help. She hoped so, anyway.

She stood on the bridge looking down at the fast-moving water, the current obvious from the crazy swirling below. The stubborn London grey of the sky overhead suited the Dickensian quality of that part of the city, with its many churches, old clocks and narrow, winding streets.

It had been a big mistake to go out last night, but Annie wasn’t going to be at home and she hadn’t been in the mood to stay there alone.

‘Charlie’s taking me to stay with these old friends of his. He says they’re people he’s known for ever – well, the husband, anyway – and he wants me to meet them. I hope I do OK,’ Annie had informed her before she ran out of the door that morning. Sal had thought that it was Charlie who had to prove himself, not Annie, but she didn’t say so. At least Annie had a boyfriend. It wasn’t the kind of thing she liked to spend much time considering but, if she looked back, she hadn’t had one in ages. Not someone she saw regularly, made plans with. And sometimes, like this weekend, it would have been nice to curl up with someone and watch TV, an Indian takeaway on their laps. Someone she knew well enough that they could laugh about their curry breath the next morning.

That might have been a reason not to go out and get plastered at some lager-sponsored party with Ollie on a Friday night when everybody, even the most alcohol hardened of hacks, knew they had to keep it together for work on Saturday. It hadn’t even been fun. When she got home, it was still early, not much after midnight, and Annie’s door was shut, no light coming from it. She remembered that she had a bottle of vodka in her chest of drawers. She wasn’t sure why she kept it there instead of in the kitchen, where
they kept the wine (when they had any). She supposed she didn’t particularly want Annie keeping an eye on the level of the bottle. Anyway, there it was. The wooden drawer stuck, as it always did, when she tried to open it, making a loud noise. The bottle was under a pile of knickers, and there was only a small amount of clear liquid left in it. Just enough for a nightcap, and it would help her sleep. The bass from the speakers at the party was still crashing in her ears.

Even the memory made her feel sick. Maybe fresh air hadn’t been such a good idea after all. Gripping the wall of the bridge and looking out at the city on either side, she thought she really ought to make more use of it, before turning to walk back to the office. Go to the museums, go to the theatre. Her mum had told her the last time she’d gone home how much she envied her.

‘When I was your age I would try to get up to London occasionally, just to walk around and visit the museums. Free museum entry is one of the most civilized things about this country. You are a lucky girl, you know, having it all on your doorstep.’

‘It’s not at all certain that we will remain civilized under this government if free museums are the measure,’ her father had proclaimed. ‘I’m not sure we have ever had such a philistine prime minister. I question whether she has read anyone other than Jeffrey Archer.’

When she arrived back at the desk, the newsroom was at full throttle. Andrea was there, one hand holding the receiver, the other guarding her mouth. Even though the room was noisy – the clatter of typewriters, the rattle of the telex, the telephones that rang ceaselessly – it was possible to hear each other’s conversations. Words drifted over – ‘drink lots of liquid … yes, every four hours … no, no – they’re downstairs … your father … call me if it gets worse.’ Sal realized that Andrea must be talking to a child. How old were her kids? Andrea never struck her as a mother but, now she thought of it, she didn’t know anything about Andrea’s life. And Andrea knew nothing about hers. The office was its own world, a place where you went to be the person you were at work. For the
first time, Sal wondered whether Andrea might actually be a different person somewhere else.

‘Have you finished yet?’ Andrea yelled across at Sal as she put the phone down, reassuming her professional persona.

‘No, not quite. I’m having a bit of trouble finding someone who stays at the Dorchester. I need a quote. You know, something about how the bathrooms need updating, or that the room service is poor. Five hundred quid a night to stay there, that’s if you want a suite. He’s paid 43 million for it. S’pose he thinks it’s worth it.’

‘There’s a rumour that that Egyptian bloke Al Fayed, the one who is in the deal with him, is going to bid for Harrods. You should wrap that into the story – how central London is soon going to be owned by foreigners. Patrick likes a slant. One example is an incident, two is a story. But get your skates on.’

Sal tipped back in her chair, fiddling with the mood ring Annie had given her at Christmas. She couldn’t decide whether it was now brown or green. At any rate, it was wrong, since her mood was definitely black.

‘Maybe there’s something in all the new building going on. All the developments over in the East End. I’ve got a contact in the property business I can talk to.’ Charlie could make himself useful, thought Sal.

‘Well, get this one done pronto and we can talk about that afterwards.’

‘So, how many children do you have, Andrea?’

‘Three. And the middle one’s come down with some virus. But talking about that won’t get the story done.’

‘Here’s my copy.’ Across the desk, Marsha ripped the paper out of her typewriter. Sal was pleased to see that there was a dark line around the roots of her central parting. Any dent in her relentless perfection was worth noting. ‘I’ve got time to work on that story you mentioned earlier, if it’s needed. Incidentally, Sal, your father called while you weren’t here just now. He said could you call him. I didn’t know when you’d be back.’

‘I only stepped out for a few minutes. I hadn’t gone to Outer
Mongolia. Anyway, thanks.’ Sal started banging on the typewriter keys in a conspicuous and noisy display of activity.

Charlie dominated any room he entered, Annie thought, looking at him positioned near the fireplace, his height reducing much of the furniture to dolls’ house proportions. It was one of the things she found attractive, the way he assumed ownership of any situation. It made her, by association, feel safe. Although it was only five o’clock, it seemed as if it had been dark for hours. They had arrived at Sophie and Mark’s Cotswold manor house just in time to sit down to a lunch of stodgy fish pie, and had been confined indoors ever since by the continual rain.

‘As I was saying, it was a pity you couldn’t have been here earlier and got in a walk. Mark and Simon made it up to Chalkers Stump this morning. It gave me and Fizz an opportunity for a good old catch-up.’ Sophie poured tea from a polka-dotted pot.

‘I’m taking myself off to check out the footie. Leave you to natter.’ Charlie gave Annie a hug as he passed, allowing the room to return to a more normal size. Sophie tucked her hair behind her ears. It was what Sal called plastic hair, impossibly smooth, and a deep brown, falling past her shoulders.

‘We’re so pleased Charlie has got a nice new girlfriend. You know, Mark and he have been pals since God was a boy. Mark has always said that Charlie’s just waiting for the right one and he’ll be walking down the aisle in weeks. It’s been hard for him, with most of his friends hitched by now.’

Annie wasn’t sure of an appropriate response. They’d only been together for a couple of months. Surely it was too early to be talking about weddings. With other boyfriends, she had always felt the need for them to continually demonstrate that they wanted to become more deeply involved, but she didn’t feel that about Charlie. Which was wonderful. He was always there, so she never had to want him in that needy way.

‘We haven’t been together long. We’re having fun, though. He’s planning to take me to Venice for Easter.’

‘Yes. He knows Venice well. We all went together for a weekend a few years ago, when he was dating Charlotte Stuttaford. Not that they saw much of the city. We had to keep dragging them out of bed.’

Annie forced a smile, even though she didn’t want to think of Charlie in bed with someone else. He was certainly keen on sex; she’d discovered that soon enough. He’d bought her a whole new wardrobe of expensive underwear – teddies, suspenders, tiny lacy pants – which he loved to see her wear. It was curious, she thought, the power of these scraps of fabric.

‘I hate tights. Most men do. Stockings are so much more exciting. It turns me on to think of you wearing them,’ he had said only weeks after meeting her. She was trying to wear them for him, but she found them uncomfortable and, on the days she wasn’t with him, reverted to tights. Embarrassed by the idea of Sal spotting the stockings, she would rinse these new additions by hand, hanging them in secret on the radiator in her room rather than on their shared plastic clothes horse where everything else would dry when they hadn’t gone to the launderette.

‘Hi, Fizz. I was just telling Annie how pleased we all are that, this time, Charlie’s got a nice girl.’

Fizz was carrying a grubby-faced toddler. She looked over at Annie, as if she were confused about whether she were the girl in question. ‘He’s certainly had a few horrors. Do you think we could get some tea for them? This one’s starving.’ She jigged the child around.

‘Of course. Let’s see what Mrs B. can produce.’ They all followed Sophie out of the room, down a chilly flagstone corridor to the kitchen, where a woman in a floral apron was peeling carrots at the sink.

‘Mrs B., this is Annie Brenham, who’s here with Charlie. You know how he wolfs down your steak and kidney.’ Sophie gestured at Annie. ‘I think the children can have fish fingers – there’s tons in the freezer. Then, can you lay up for tonight? We’ve got Lord Cavening and his guests joining us for dinner – it may be a bit of a squeeze, but we’ve managed before.’ The figure at the sink demonstrated no sign of having heard any of this, and continued her scraping.

‘Mrs B., you are a gem.’ Sophie turned back to the other two with
a raised eyebrow. ‘Let’s rescue the boys. They’ve got the kids with them in front of the TV.’ She put a hand on Annie’s shoulder. ‘It must be fearfully dull for you, being stuck with us and the children.’

‘Not at all. I love children. I’ve always wanted them,’ Annie replied as they left the kitchen.

‘You might find Mrs B. a bit frosty,’ Sophie whispered. ‘She doesn’t really approve of unmarrieds sharing a room.’

Out of the immediate vicinity of the fireplaces, the house was cold, as if the stone had soaked up the chill from the gusting wind bending the large trees in the garden. Lying on a quilted counterpane, Charlie leant over to the bedside table to check the small alarm clock, his other hand caressing the soft flesh where the black suspenders dented Annie’s pale thigh. She had been changing for dinner when he had interrupted her and positioned her in front of the tilted cheval glass mirror and bent her over. She liked to watch herself and him, the way his face screwed into a frown of totally engrossed lust and concentration.

‘Pity we’ve got to get up for dinner. I could just lie here all evening with you. Ferdie Cavening is a drone, but he’s harmless. Sophie said it was champagne in the drawing room at eight. What are you wearing, darling?’

Annie showed him the silk velvet jacket she had thought would be a safe bet for the evening. She was going to wear it with a full dark-red wool skirt she had bought from Edina and Lena. Edina was an old friend of Tania’s and always gave the office a sale preview so they could grab some of the best pieces early.