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‘Soon,’ I said, splashing my moo juice onto the kitchen top. ‘And I’d be away for a little bit.’
‘And how long is a little bit?’ He put the milk back in the fridge and took his tea. ‘Three days? Four?’
I stirred my tea with a teaspoon that didn’t match any of his other cutlery and watched the milk swirl away into an evenly coloured cuppa.
‘I’m not sure.’
I was lying. I did know. Agent Veronica had sent me several long and detailed emails about the job, each with an increasing degree of foul language. Agent Veronica did not believe in mincing words.
The job would take at least three months, probably more. The rest of July, August, September and some of October. I could easily be away until Christmas. Stood there in Charlie’s kitchen in my pants, holding a hot cup of tea, everything seemed to slow down to a complete standstill and I couldn’t quite seem to find the right words to tell him that. So I didn’t tell him anything. It was a serious problem I appeared to have developed.
‘Sounds like an amazing opportunity,’ Charlie said, heaping mounds of white sugar into his mug. I wasn’t allowed to put sugar in Charlie’s tea, I never added enough. ‘I mean, you never went travelling or anything after uni. It might be fun.’
‘It’s not just as easy as packing a bag and getting on a plane.’ I breathed in and felt the world shift back to a normal speed, rattling off the excuses I’d been telling myself, every time the tiniest buzz of excitement swelled up in my stomach. ‘I don’t have anywhere to live, I don’t have any money, I don’t even have a camera. And yes, the pictures from Hawaii worked out but this is a much bigger deal. It’s not a fun thing, it’s a proper job that a real photographer would kill for. I honestly don’t know if I’m up to it.’
‘You, Tess Brookes, are up to anything you put your mind to,’ Charlie said, his dark brown eyes clear and resolute. ‘You know that. Or at least I know that. How many times do I have to tell you?’
I looked up at him with a half-smile hidden behind my mug. Of course, he had to go and remind me that he wasn’t just a great shag and my lifelong crush, but my best friend as well.
‘A camera is easy enough to get, isn’t it? And you haven’t bloody shown me the pictures from Hawaii yet but I don’t believe you would do anything less than a perfect job. You always do.’
‘You mean because I’m OCD?’ I asked.
‘I mean because you work hard and you’re good at whatever you do,’ he said, splashing his tea around his bare feet. ‘As for the not-having-anywhere-to-live thing – you could always stay here.’
‘I’m not a very good roommate, as I’m sure Amy would tell you,’ I said, tearing off some kitchen towel and wiping up his mess, vaguely impressed in the back of my mind that he actually had kitchen towel. ‘And really, your spare room isn’t big enough to swing a cat. Plus you’ve got a surfboard in it. When was the last time you surfed?’
‘I didn’t mean move in as a roommate,’ Charlie said. ‘I don’t want you in the spare room.’
I stood up slowly, clutching the grubby kitchen towel. His floors needed cleaning. ‘What?’
‘How’s your tea?’ he asked.
Leaning against his kitchen cabinets, resplendent in a creased-to-buggery boy’s T-shirt, with bird’s nest hair and a handful of dirty paper towel, I searched for the right words. Charlie crossed his legs, leaning against the fridge in an impressively casual display.
‘Did you just ask me to move in with you, in a non-roommate capacity?’ I asked, scrunching the paper towel into a tiny ball in my fist. ‘Seriously?’
‘I’d say “I know it seems a bit quick” but it doesn’t.’ He put his tea down and took the paper towel out of my hand before throwing it at the bin. And missing. ‘I’ve had two weeks to think about this and it was two weeks too many. I know how I feel about you. You’re my best mate and I reckon last night proved the amazing sex wasn’t just a one off, so why mess about?’
‘I can think of a few reasons,’ I replied. Actually, I couldn’t. I could only think of one but this really didn’t seem like the time to tell him I’d been shagging someone else the whole time I was in Hawaii, especially since he’d apparently been sitting on his arse in London, doing some pretty epic soul-searching. ‘It … it is a bit quick, Charlie. I feel a bit bleurgh about everything.’
‘Bleurgh?’ He looked understandably deflated.
‘Overwhelmed,’ I clarified. ‘Confused.’
‘So this wouldn’t be the right time to tell you I’ve accepted a pitch for our agency, then?’ he asked, wincing.
‘But we haven’t got an agency?’ I said. ‘What have you done?’
‘Don’t be mad at me.’ He held his hands out to defend himself against whatever puny attack he thought I might launch and grabbed a sneakily hidden copy of Marketing Week from the top of the microwave. ‘But I saw Perito’s were looking for a new agency and one of the blokes in their marketing department is on my football team and I knew you’d come up with an amazing campaign, so I asked him if we could pitch. And he said yes, because he totally loves your work.’
‘He loves my work?’ my ego asked on my behalf.
‘He was totally obsessed with you,’ Charlie nodded. ‘Knew loads of your campaigns.’
‘So just like that? We’ve got a pitch?’ I wondered if there was any wine left. Tea clearly was not strong enough for this conversation.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But …’
‘But?’
‘He needs to see the pitch by next Friday because they’re seeing agencies the following Monday. And we’re going to be one of those agencies.’
‘That’s not even a week!’ I loved stating the obvious. ‘We would have to come up with an entire marketing campaign, just me and you, by next week?’
‘Yeah, but Tess, Perito’s Chicken as our first account? Our own agency?’ Charlie looked so excited. I recognized the enthusiasm; I used to share it. ‘How amazing would that be?’
Worryingly, if anyone had asked me that question two weeks ago, I wouldn’t have been able to describe how amazing it would be. I’d have been like a pig in peri peri sauce.
Charlie Wilder was asking me to move in with him. Charlie Wilder was asking me to pitch an advertising campaign for a Portuguese chicken cook-in sauce. Charlie Wilder was asking me to start a brand new advertising agency with him. But no, I had to go off to Hawaii on a voyage of pissing self-discovery and meet a tosspot of a man who would be rolling around on the floor, sides positively splitting, at the sound of any of this.
‘And it isn’t just Perito’s.’ Charlie was still talking, still trying to win me round. ‘I talked to some of our old accounts and they’re interested. Squiggles’ Kitchen Towels wants to come with us.’
At least that explained why he had so much kitchen towel.
‘And there’s Brookes & Bryan, the jewellers we just signed; they’re up for it too. And I reckon I can totally get Noodle Pots. You’re the best creative director there is, Tess, and I can’t do this without you. They all want you, not some knobhead account manager. I need you.’
Charlie took a step towards me and reached out to run a hand through my hair.
‘Tell me you’re not just the littlest bit interested?’ he said, his hand getting stuck somewhere around my ear.
I shivered, trying to separate out my feelings of professional pride and sexual desire. I wasn’t sure whether or not I could. It was a bit disconcerting.
‘I’ve got to go to my meeting,’ I said in a weak voice. ‘Can we talk about this later?’
Sensing defeat, Charlie stopped. Part of me was so disappointed that he hadn’t grabbed hold of my hair, bent me over the oven and shagged me senseless until I agreed to all of his demands; but the part of me that got up at seven every morning, got dressed and went about her daily business in a sensible fashion, respected him for giving me the time and space to make a considered decision. After all, this was sweet, loving Charlie we were talking about, not filthy, tosspot Nick.
Not that I was thinking about Nick.
‘Tess-motherfucking-Brookes!’
Agent Veronica stood up, put out her fag and grabbed me for a stale, non-optional hug as soon as I set foot in her office.
‘Sit your arse down. Cup of tea? Cup of tea.’ She strode over to the door and coughed delicately. ‘Two cups of fucking tea when you’re ready, if it’s not too much fucking trouble?’
Slamming the door behind her, she shook her head and sat back down behind her desk. ‘Can’t get the staff,’ she lamented. ‘Now, do I need to slap some sense into you or have you just come to confirm your flights?’
Veronica, it was fair to say, was something of an imposing woman. Very blonde with very red lipstick and an ever-present fug of cigarette smoke that tended to knock the breath out of your lungs before you had a chance to get a word in edgeways. Not that you ever really had a chance to get a word in edgeways. She stubbed out a crimson-ringed dog-end with matching pointy nails and sat back in her seat. Perched on the edge of my chair, my bag safely on my knee, I waited for her to say something. It never hurt to put a potential weapon between Veronica and your vital organs.
Given that she hadn’t spoken in four seconds, I took it that I was safe to begin.
‘Well—’
‘I don’t want to hear “well”!’ she shouted, slapping her desk with her hand and grabbing a fresh pack of Silk Cut out of her drawer. ‘I want to hear, “sorry I’ve been such an ungrateful shithead all week, Veronica. You’re amazing, Veronica. When does my flight to Milan leave, Veronica?”’
‘I’ve had a lot of thinking to do,’ I protested as she savaged the plastic film around the cigarettes.
‘Wandering around in the rain? Staring out over the river and wondering “What if?”’ she asked. ‘Fuck that. You’re leaving on Sunday.’
‘It hasn’t rained this week …’ I muttered, confused. Then realized what she had said. ‘What?’
‘Sunday, you leave on Sunday.’ Veronica took care to enunciate each word very carefully, as though I were simple or slow. I was fairly certain she believed I was both. ‘You start work on Monday, so it seemed like a good idea to get you on a flight on Sunday. You comprende?’
‘I can’t leave on Sunday,’ I said, holding my bag closer into my body. ‘That’s in two days. I’m not ready.’
‘So what are you doing sat there like a bastard lemon then?’ she asked. ‘Go home, wash your fucking hair, pack a fucking bag, find your fucking passport. You’re going.’
‘Veronica …’ I started, reaching a hand up to touch my hair. ‘I can’t just up and leave on Sunday for three months.’
‘Why? You haven’t got a job, have you? You haven’t got anywhere to live …’ She paused to light up again, either oblivious or unconcerned by the laws about smoking in the workplace. I assumed the latter. ‘From what I’ve heard, you’re lucky you’re not having this conversation with me in a fetching orange onesie. Thank God they didn’t send you down, girl. Some butch bitch’d be wearing you like a glove puppet inside half an hour.’
‘Who told you …? You know what, never mind.’ I blinked, trying to erase the terrifying image she had just planted indelibly in my mind. ‘It’s still a lot. To go off to Italy for three months in two days. I can’t even speak Italian.’
‘They all speak English,’ she said, dismissing my fears with a sweep of her ignited arm.
‘Really?’ I asked.
‘Well, no, but if they don’t speak it, I doubt very much that they’ve got anything fucking interesting to say anyway.’ She pointed at me, making stabbing motions with her lit cigarette on every word. ‘You. Are. Going. To. Milan. On. Sunday.’
‘I can’t go for three months,’ I replied, my head full of Charlie’s morning erection and Perito’s spicy chicken. Not together though, eww. ‘I can’t.’
With a loud, fragrant sigh, Veronica leaned back in her chair and fixed me with a narrow-eyed stare as her assistant shuffled through the door and placed two cups of tea on the desk with a barely smothered cough.
‘You know you’re not supposed to smoke in the workplace, don’t you?’ I asked, chugging my tea so there would be one less hot thing for her to throw at me.
‘I eat here, I sleep here, I shit, shower and shag here.’ Veronica ground the half-smoked cig into her ashtray, leaning forward and gripping the edge of the desk with her blood-red talons. ‘Can’t imagine anyone’s going to tell me to put my fag out. Unless it’s bothering you?’
‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘I find it quite comforting.’
‘Your parents smoke?’
‘No,’ I replied, feeling the fear of God in my gut. ‘Just, you don’t see it enough these days, do you?’
She sat back again, reaching behind her and shoving the window open. It wasn’t until I heard the amplified buzz of traffic outside that I realized I’d been holding my breath. Sweet Baby Jesus in the manger.
‘So you don’t want to go to Italy for three months?’ she asked, clicking her mouse a couple of times and looking over at the screen of her Mac.
Thank God, we were back to business.
‘Three months is so long. A lot can happen in three months,’ I said.
‘Oh, are you expecting some other fashion icon to appear from the heavens and offer you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?’ she asked, her hands clasped together in prayer.
‘I don’t want to agree to three months,’ I replied, as staunchly as possible. Playing hardball had never been my thing. Actually, playing any kind of ball had never been my thing, euphemistically or otherwise.
‘I’ll tell them you’ll go for a week, do a recce and then make a decision,’ she said. ‘And if that decision is anything other than “thanks for giving me this opportunity, Mr Bennett, now may I kiss your arse?” I’ll have you fucking killed.’
A week. I felt relief roll off my shoulders. I could do a week. I’d know how I felt in a week. Probably.
‘Thank you,’ I said, visions of Roman Holiday and big plates of pasta suddenly rushing through my head. Everything I’d held at bay until now crashed over me on one big Italiano-gasm. I was going to Milan.
‘That would be amazing. It’s just that I’ve got other stuff, maybe. I don’t want to commit to something I might not be able to do.’
Veronica’s head snapped round towards me so quickly, her hair almost moved. ‘You know I’m your agent? You can’t book a job without me because then I’d have to fucking kill you and I hate having to sort that out. Right pain in the tits.’
‘It’s not a photography job, it’s advertising,’ I said quickly, preparing for a slap. ‘Like I was doing before.’
‘Can you see me right now, Tess Brookes?’ Veronica pushed her massive leather chair over to the wall behind her and began knocking her head against the wallpaper harder than I could imagine was comfortable. ‘This is me, banging my head against a brick wall. And why do you think I’m doing that?’
‘Is it because I’m a fucking idiot?’
I thought it was worth a guess.
‘Ding ding ding!’ She waved her arms above her head like Kermit the Frog and thankfully stopped bashing her head against the wall. ‘You’re a fucking idiot. This is a chance that will never come around again. You are a twenty-eight-year-old untested, unproven, rookie photographer. You ought to be spending the next five years trekking around shit weddings in Bracknell, taking pictures over dinner because the main photographer can’t be arsed.’
It was a fair point.
‘At best, you’d be looking the other way while some big-shit fashion photographer got a blow job from some underage model while you changed the flash and spent so long holding up reflectors that you had a right bicep bigger than a world champion wanker.’
Again, not untrue.
‘Am I getting through to you? Shall we just go over what exactly is on the fucking table here?’
I didn’t feel like we especially needed to but I didn’t think it would be in my best interests to tell her no and so I went with a noncommittal half-shrug and made an awkward mewing noise in the back of my throat. Veronica sat forward and held out her hand, ticking off each of her points with so much force, I was worried she was going to break off her own fingers.
‘One first-class fucking trip to Italy, a base in Bertie-cocking-Bennett’s private apartments in Milan, a job working personally with Bennett himself that a million other photographers would happily bum a goat to get, and a proposed fee that is twice what I would have even attempted to get for you – and I, Tess Brookes, am a fucking ballbreaker when it comes to fees. So what, pray tell, is your opportunity? Because if it’s anything other than Jesus-fucking-Christ asking you to rebrand his bell-end, I’m afraid I’m not going to understand.’
I bit my lip and pulled my handbag closer to my chest.
‘Do you know Perito’s Portuguese Chicken?’
CHAPTER FOUR
According to a hastily scribbled note on the back of a Domino’s Pizza napkin, Amy was out at a job interview when I got back to the house and where her other five flatmates were, I didn’t care to know. Seizing my chance, I grabbed a semi-clean towel from Amy’s radiator and ran into the bathroom, locking the door. Sharing a bathroom with six other people, even temporarily, was enough to do terrible things to your sanity.
‘What am I going to do about Charlie?’ I asked my liberated rubber duck, who had insisted on accompanying me into the shower as I turned on the blessed hot water. ‘I do want to go to Milan but I really want to try for the pitch too.’
‘Can’t have it all,’ he replied with a silent quack. ‘But shouldn’t you try to clear your messes up here before you go gallivanting off to Italy? Are you moving in with Charlie? Why haven’t you called your mum? And how long has it been since you shaved your legs?’
‘I don’t think me or Charlie are ready to move in,’ I said, wondering whether or not that was actually true. It was only now that I realized how long it had been since I’d shaved my legs and he hadn’t complained about them once. ‘And my mum hasn’t called me, has she?’
It was fair to say my mother and I hadn’t exactly parted on the best of terms the last time I’d been to visit.
‘You need to call her and you know it,’ the duck said.
Annoyingly, he was right. She might be a passive-aggressive pain in the arse but she was my passive-aggressive pain in the arse and the fact that we hadn’t spoken since our argument was starting to weigh on me.
‘And of course,’ Rubber Ducky wasn’t finished with his truth bombs, ‘you’re still thinking about Nick. Even though he hasn’t called you back.’
‘I am not!’ I snapped before realizing I was lying, not only to a rubber duck but also to myself. ‘But so what if I am? He told me to call and now he won’t speak to me. What if something has happened to him?’
‘Is that what you’re telling yourself now?’ he asked.
‘Fuck off.’
The ‘he must have died or he would have called’ rationale. Keeping single women delusional since the invention of the telephone.
‘I just don’t understand why he would ask me to call him and then not call me back.’
‘Could always move in here,’ Rubber Ducky suggested, changing the subject. ‘There’ll be a free room at the end of the month.’
‘I can’t live here.’ I shuddered at the thought as the water began to cool without me touching the thermostat. With still unshaven legs, I conceded defeat and turned off the shower. ‘No one should have to live here. Amy should have moved out years ago.’
‘I’m not arguing with that,’ he said. ‘This bathroom is disgusting. You’re going to have to make a decision about something and soon. I’m not showering in here again.’
Wrapped in my not-really-big-enough towel, I opened the bathroom door, trying to keep my vagina covered, and gave the rubber duck my best side eye.
‘Duly noted,’ I replied. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Hello?’
Somewhere on Parsons Green high street, en route to meet Paige on a shoot, I found the courage to call my mother. But my mother didn’t answer. Even though their voices were almost identical, I knew at once it was my younger sister, the eternally put-upon middle child, Mel.
‘All right,’ I said with a cough. ‘It’s Tess.’
‘Well.’
The ability to put that much weight behind that one word was a skill she had learned from our mother. I only got the boobs and the hair; Mel had inherited the whole passive-aggressive package.
‘Is Mum there?’ I was trying to keep my voice light in the hope that they had all forgotten me storming out of the house two weeks ago. Of course, it would have made more sense to hope I would bear witness to the second coming of Jesus but still, it was nice to be an optimist.
‘She is.’ She quickly switched to a yell that was entirely unnecessary given the size of my mother’s house. ‘Mum! It’s Tess!’
‘And what does Tess want?’ I heard Mum yell back.
‘She wants to know what you want,’ Mel relayed faithfully.
‘Can I just speak to her, please?’ I asked. My tolerance levels were dropping with every passing second. ‘It’ll be quicker.’
‘I’m very well, thanks for asking,’ she said. I had not caught my favourite sister in a good mood. ‘She says she wants to speak to you!’
‘Maybe I don’t want to speak to her,’ Mum replied, sounding very pleased with herself. ‘I haven’t forgotten what she said when she walked out of this house.’
‘She says—’
‘I heard what she bloody said.’ I cut Mel off before she could finish, wondering whether it wouldn’t be easier to just throw myself off the Westway and hope a passing bus was there to finish me off. ‘And I haven’t forgotten. I’m sorry for losing my temper and I shouldn’t have walked out without explaining what was going on but I was upset.’
‘She says she’s really sorry and she shouldn’t have walked out.’
‘That’s not exactly what I said, is it? Put her on the bloody phone, Mel.’
‘Don’t swear at your sister,’ my mum said, finally on the line without an interpreter. ‘You’re not in the position to be calling my house and being all high and mighty.’
I closed my eyes and rubbed the spot in the middle of my forehead that felt a tiny bit like it might actually explode. Still, better an aneurysm than an apology – that was the Brookes motto. Or at least it should be.
‘I wasn’t swearing at my sister—’
‘Yes, you were. I’ve got ears, you know.’
Breathe, Tess, breathe.
‘I didn’t mean to,’ I corrected myself. ‘How are you?’
‘As if you’re bothered,’ Mum huffed audibly down the phone. ‘After that scene you caused.’
The scene she was referring to wasn’t so much ‘a scene I had caused’ as a scene caused by my sisters hanging me out to dry by telling my mother I had lost my job at Donovan & Dunning, at which point she had chucked a glass of red wine across the room and got into a screaming row with Amy. In the middle of a christening. Amy had of course diffused the situation by climbing onto a table and holding the baby aloft while singing The Circle of Life. Amy was wonderful.
‘And you’re the one who walked out and said you were never coming back.’
It was good to know she’d run everything through her own filter and come up with her own version of events. History was written by the winner. The winners and their mums.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said as calmly as possible. There was no point in getting into another row; the only thing that would work here was blanket apologies. ‘I didn’t mean it. I was being stupid.’
‘Yes, you were.’ Clearly not enough apologies yet. ‘You sounded like you were off your head. Charlie says you’re not doing the heroin, though.’
And if Charlie said so, it must be true. The only person who had had a bigger crush on Charlie for the last decade was my mum. Mostly, it only manifested itself in overly maternal smothering when he went with me to visit, but I always felt a bit bad for my stepdad whenever she started pawing my best friend. Poor, lovely Brian. Patience of a saint, that man has.
‘I’m not doing heroin, I was just made redundant,’ I explained, the words still sticking in my throat. Me. Redundant. Bleurgh. ‘And it wasn’t only me, the whole company went under, so it wasn’t anything I did.’