Bad Friends

‘I’m going to chuck them out,’ I replied. ‘I don’t want them anyway.’

‘But they’re gorgeous,’ Jenny protested.

‘Take them home, then,’ I said. ‘Honestly. You have them.’

‘Of course!’ My father hit the paper triumphantly. ‘Elephant.’

I patted his head affectionately. ‘I’ll see you later.’

On the way out of the room I managed not to look at the lilies again, and I had such a nice time at Bel’s – making spaghetti bolognese with Hannah while Bel rang round making last-minute arrangements for Friday night, drinking red wine and listening to Johnno playing the guitar badly, serenading us with silly Rolf Harris songs in his broadest Australian accent – that I forgot all about the bloody flowers.

But on the way home to my father’s, the feeling of disquiet began to balloon again. It wasn’t just the fact that some freak had taken to sending me horrible bouquets; it was my sense of utter displacement – knowing it was time to leave my father’s house, time to leave Greenwich. He and Jenny were beginning to get close, and they deserved a proper chance after everything he’d been through. And I needed my own space again. I needed to finally extricate my life from Alex’s. We were going to have to sell the flat in Borough Market, and that would inevitably mean seeing him.

My mobile rang. ‘Hello?’ I swerved dangerously near the parked car on my left. ‘Hello?’ I repeated irritably. ‘Who’s there?’

No one spoke, but this time I swore I could hear someone breathing. With a howl of frustration, I threw the phone onto the floor, where its fluorescent face winked up at me mercilessly all the way home.

Chapter Ten (#u1b5226d4-3425-5d33-ae63-8df7ffd09c40)

The morning of Bel’s great party, I found Joseph Blake sulking on the office fire-escape. It was a cold sunny day, the sky as clear and bright as a Hockney print, the air fifteen storeys above the Waterloo streets far fresher than the fumes below. I’d sneaked out to have a cigarette, savouring every guilty drag as I contemplated how desperately I didn’t want to go tonight, when I heard a stifled noise.

‘Hello?’ I called quietly up the stairs. No response. ‘Who’s that? Are you okay?’

A minute later, Joseph’s blotchy red face peered down. ‘Oh,’ he said ungraciously. ‘It’s you.’

‘It certainly was the last time I looked,’ I agreed mildly. ‘Cigarette?’ I offered.

He stood and slunk down the stairs towards me, shaking his head at the packet, his blond hair flopping across his eyes. ‘No. I don’t.’

‘No, well, I shouldn’t. But we’ve all got to have a vice or two. Otherwise life’d be awfully dull, don’t you think?’

He shrugged uncommunicatively, bashing a suede brothel-creeper against the metal step.

‘So, d’you want to talk about it?’

He shrugged and bashed again. I felt my skin prickle with irritation. I took another drag of my cigarette. ‘If you don’t tell me what’s wrong, Joseph, I can’t help.’

He hesitated for a moment, looking out across the rooftops. Two young men smoked out of a window in the building opposite; one waving cheekily when he saw me glancing over. I waved back. Finally, Joseph muttered, ‘It’s them.’

He flopped his hair toward the office behind us, towards the girls scattered round the open-plan room. I glanced back at them. From outside they looked like an advert for a young fashion house, miniskirted, skinny-jeaned, Ugg boots and stilettos thrust up on desks, expensive messy hair skewered with biros, scribbling furiously and tapping fruity-coloured nails impatiently as they waited for answers from the prey pinioned on the other end of the phone lines. Sometimes the noise inside was so intense, so deafening as they pleaded and persuaded and hammered their keyboards frantically, that you’d have to step out for a moment to literally hear yourself think.

‘They don’t like me.’

‘I’m sure that’s not true.’ But inwardly I sighed. Actually I was sure it was.

‘They never ask me to have lunch.’

‘They just need to get used to you. You should invite yourself along.’

‘They don’t talk to me if I do.’

‘Well, talk to them.’

His bottom lip trembled, just like Hannah’s did when she was going to cry. Poor kid.

‘Look, I know it’s really hard, being the new boy. And it’s a very female office, I know that. Let me have a word with them.’

He shrugged again. How much of this was his fault? I wondered. He wasn’t the most prepossessing figure; there was something inherently arrogant about his stance, despite the tears. The trouble was, he lacked the charm you needed to make it in TV-land.

‘Won’t that just make it worse? It did when my parents complained to the school.’

Aha. ‘Did it? Were you bullied, then?’

‘Yep.’

‘Why?’

‘They said I was posh.’

He was posh. ‘I’ll be subtle, I promise. I’m sure it’s in your head, anyway.’

But it wasn’t in his head, unfortunately. The truth was they despised him.

‘He’s such a bloody drip,’ Donna moaned when I summoned the suspected ring-leaders into my office later that afternoon, having sent Joseph off to get some tapes dubbed. ‘Always complaining we give him the dull jobs.’

‘Well, do you?’

‘Of course we do.’ She was defiant, her dark face sulky. I wouldn’t have wanted to get on the wrong side of someone like Donna when I started out. Driven and determined, she could persuade Blair he hated Bush if she put her mind to it.

‘You know how it works, Maggie. You gotta do your time. You gotta start at the bottom. We all did. Anyway,’ she sniffed, examining her pink palm-tree nails rather than looking at me, ‘he’s weird.’

‘What do you mean, weird?’

‘It’s just, he’s always poking around.’ She flicked her long braids behind her shoulder, her full mouth set firm.

‘He’s just a bit full of himself, I think that’s the problem.’ Sally’s broad pleasant face was thoughtful. ‘He gets people’s backs up because he acts like he’s too good for the jobs we give him.’

‘And have you talked to him about it?’

‘It was like this in the summer.’

The hairs on my arms stood on end. I shook my head as if it would bring memories back.

‘I’ve tried to explain, but he just bangs on about how he’s going to be a great auteur, and how this is just a stop-gap.’

I sighed again. Yet another aspiring Nick-blinking-Broom-field, about to save the world with his art. ‘All right, look, let’s just give him another chance, okay? I’ll have a word.’ I glared at Donna. ‘And be nice, yeah? I know how intimidating you lot can be if you put your minds to it.’

She grinned sheepishly, raising the palm trees in supplication before her tightly T-shirted bosom that read Respect Me. ‘Okay, okay.’