Love @ First Site Read online

"You know," he pats his hand against his chest. "Check for lumps. Not that I noticed any last weekend." He grins, gently nudging my shoulder with his.

  I stare wordlessly out into the middle distance. This person, who clearly knows as much about cancer and its devastating effects as I do about the offside rule, has inadvertently made an off-the-cuff remark that has skewered me to my seat with deadly precision.

  Amidst all the trauma of the past few weeks, the operation, my parents' devastation, the memory boxes for the children, my own emotional anguish, the one thing that hasn't crossed my mind is the possible physical implications for me.

  Whilst there's no history of breast cancer in our family and Olivia's ill health is looking increasingly like an unavoidable bolt from the blue, who's to say the same couldn't happen to me?

  "I never thought of that," I stutter. "I'll make an appointment to see my doctor next week."

  "Attagirl," he says cheerily. "And don't forget, I'm more than happy to check you regularly for any lumps and bumps." He starts to nuzzle my ear.

  And that was it. Not one question about Olivia's well-being, whether she was older or younger than me, did she have children, were our parents still alive and if so, how had they reacted. Nothing. He simply carried on as if my revelation had never been uttered.

  "So, I thought we'd finish off here, then go back to my place," he murmurs, his hand discreetly roaming inside my jacket. "What are you wearing?"

  "Clothes," I say flatly.

  "Very funny, you know what I mean. Are the stockings back by popular demand?" His hand moves down to the hem of my skirt, but I clamp my thighs together and brush him away.

  "Not here!" I chide. "People are looking." On the contrary, no one is taking a blind bit of notice of either of us.

  "Let them look," he says. "They're probably jealous." He removes his hand from my leg and picks up his wineglass instead. "Are you wearing stockings?"

  I shake my head. "No, it was a bit cold tonight, so it's tights, I'm afraid."

  He looks fleetingly disappointed, then his face lights up and he leans forward, gazing straight into my eyes. "Then I'll just have to remove them with my teeth."

  At any other time, when Olivia wasn't ill and I had consumed a few more glasses of wine, his remark would probably have whipped me into a sexually aroused frenzy. But sober and still slightly wounded from his low-key reaction to the reason for my slightly somber mood, it sounds misplaced and faintly ludicrous.

  Our food arrives, a welcome distraction for me as I struggle to make a crucial decision about what happens afterwards. Do I drink to excess to numb my pain, then go back home with Simon for a night of unbridled passion? Or do I just give in to my subdued mood and put this date out of its misery until a time I feel better equipped to be windswept and interesting? If, of course, Simon feels inclined to hang around and wait for my return to form.

  Postponing a decision until I absolutely have to make it, I eat my main course in virtual silence whilst he regales me with a story he'd heard that week about an elderly woman who wandered into a mobile cervical screening unit set up in a supermarket car park.

  "So she walks up to one of the nurses and says 'Excuse me?' but the nurse is dealing with another patient, so tells her to go into one of the little booths and take her trousers off," he says, stuffing a piece of nan bread into his mouth and chewing rapidly.

  "She does as she's told, and the nurse eventually follows her in, does the smear test, then tells her to get dressed again and register her name and address at the desk.

  "Afterwards, the old duck wanders up to the receptionist and says, 'I've never had to do this to get a bus pass before!'"

  He starts laughing and lolls to one side, a cue for me to laugh too. I dutifully oblige before clearing my plate of the last vestiges of chicken korma.

  Simon pours the last dribbles of the wine bottle into both our glasses and waves it at me. "Fancy another here, or shall I open one when we get back to my place?"

  I let out a small sigh and shift slightly in my seat. "Actually, Simon, I really hope you don't mind, but I want to go home."

  "Your place then?" he says happily. "No, I don't mind at all. It'll be nice to see it."

  I wince a little. "No, I mean I'd like to go home alone."

  His face drops almost instantaneously. "Oh, I see. Sorry, bit slow on the uptake there." He gives me a weak, sheepish grin.

  "No, it's me who should be sorry. You've organized and paid for the cinema, brought me to this wonderful restaurant for dinner . . .," I pause and look around, ". . . and all I've done in return is to be a total wet blanket."

  He makes a tutting noise and shakes his head. "No worries. Entirely understandable considering what your sister is going through. Just as long as it's not my company that makes you miserable," he jokes, clearly not comfortable at the conversation veering towards serious matters again.

  "No." I smile. "On the contrary, you've cheered me up enormously. You should have seen me before I came out."

  He waves at the waiter and makes a scribbling motion with his hand. "I should probably get an early night anyway. I'm playing soccer with the lads tomorrow, and there'll no doubt be some ferocious drinking afterwards."

  "Sounds great," I say unconvincingly. I already have my day mapped out in my head. Shopping for memory boxes and sifting through the two bin liners of old photographs stuffed in my closet, trying to find ones Olivia might like to include.

  Ten minutes later, shuddering in the cold outside the restaurant, the distance between Simon and me seems even more unbridgeable.

  "Well, thanks again, and sorry again," I stutter, my teeth chattering.

  "Don't apologize. These things happen," he replies, as if my sister's breast cancer was simply one of life's little misunderstandings, like a lost check or a broken alarm clock.

  "I'll e-mail you next week and we'll reschedule."

  "That would be nice." And I do mean it, anxious that our fledgling relationship is given another chance to live up to its early promise.

  "Great." He walks out into the road and flags down a passing black cab. "Here you are. You take this one, I'll find another."

  "Thanks." I climb gratefully into the warm and sit down. "Head for Tooting, please," I say to the surly driver, who raises his eyes heavenward. They hate going that far out from the center of town.

  Simon puts one foot into the cab and leans forward, planting a soft but cold kiss on my lips. "Sorry if I was a bit crap when you told me about your sister," he mumbles apologetically. "I'm not very good at that sort of thing."

  "Me neither." I smile. But I'm learning, I think to myself as the cab pulls away. I'm learning the hard way.

  Thirty One

  When I walk into the Monday meeting--penultimately, but not last, if you must know--I hide my surprise well at seeing Eddie and Tara sitting either side of Janice's desk. A triptych of evil.

  "It's the three unwise monkeys," whispers Kevin as I squeeze between him and Camilla on a two-seater sofa.

  "Now then," intones Janice, indicating to Tab to close the door. "Eddie and Tara have very kindly agreed to come in on the ideas meeting because, quite frankly, they are appalled at the lackluster content of the program recently."

  Gomez and Morticia nod in agreement, their faces set hard.

  Only recently? I muse. It's been complete shit for months; some might say from the outset.

  "Anyway, as from today, things are going to change around here," continues Janice.

  Hoo-bloody-rah, I think. About time too.

  "Number one." She holds up a red talon.

  "Her counting's coming along nicely, I see," whispers Kevin to the back of my head.

  "Yes, Kevin?" Janice's head swivels in his direction. "Something you and Jess would like to share with us?"

  Great. Now I'm in trouble with teacher.

  "I was just admiring your fantastic nails," oozes Kevin sycophantically.

  "Well, don't," she snaps. "As I was saying, number one
. . . no more dull and worthy items."

  It takes me a couple of seconds to realize she's looking straight in my direction. And so are Eddie and Tara.

  "Sorry, are you talking to me?" I place my palm flat against my chest and look perplexed.

  Janice is about to answer, but Eddie holds his hand out and her mouth clamps shut like a faulty trap door.

  "Two of the dreariest items we've run recently have both been yours," he says pointedly.

  "Mine?" I'm struggling to think what they are, considering that 99 percent of the program could easily be described as inexorably tedious.

  "Yes," chips in Tara. "They were both about that Sunshine House place."

  I blink rapidly, aware that all eyes in the room are focused on me. "What, the Phit visit?"

  Eddie leans forward slightly, a lion moving in for the kill. "Phit are big news," he concedes, "but by the time you'd finished with them, they were about as interesting as . . . as . . . that hairstyle," he says, pointing straight at some poor girl from the phone room whose crowning glory resembles a tin hat. "You didn't even ask Ned Pearson about the lap-dancing incident."

  "That was the deal," I answer sulkily. "They would never have agreed to be filmed otherwise. Janice knew all about it," I add pointedly.

  "Did you?" Eddie swivels to confront her.

  "Don't be ridiculous," she scoffs. "I'd never agree to something like that. They need us far more than we need them."

  And that was it, really. A run-of-the-mill, textbook shafting of an employee by her employer became my career Armageddon. My Thelma and Louise at the cliffside, my point of no return.

  "So let's get this straight," I reply loudly, ensuring everyone present can hear. "You're saying that the country's number one boy band, with six number one singles already under their belt, two number one albums, and the likes of Jay Leno, David Letterman, and Oprah begging them to appear on their shows, needs the attention of a lazy, hackneyed, shitty daytime TV show presented by two of the most boring, one-dimensional people in entertainment? Don't make me laugh."

  Kevin makes a gasping noise and clasps his hand to his mouth, whilst Tab's eyes are gleaming with pride at her friend's kamikaze actions on behalf of all the downtrodden in the room.

  Eddie and Tara both sit rooted to the spot, looking pointedly and murderously at me.

  "I have never been so insulted in all my life," says Tara, her prissy little mouth puckering.

  "Then you should fucking well get out more." A cliche, I know, but still a damn fine one nonetheless.

  "I think you'd better stop right there," says Janice icily. "You and I will talk after the meeting."

  "So you can issue me with a written warning about my insubordination?" I say defiantly. "No point. Everything I have heard in this room in the past few minutes has simply confirmed to me what I've felt about this program for a long time." I stand up and move to the center of the room, facing her desk directly. "Day after day, we all churn out the same, tired old ideas masquerading behind a 'new' survey or report. The fashion always has to be sexy, yet the majority of our viewers wouldn't be seen dead in any of it, the cookery always has to be some poncey dish like asparagus spears or creme brulee, when the majority are eating pie and chips with Bisto gravy granules, and the travel always has to be aspirational, like Aspen and St. Bart's, when most of our viewers can barely afford to go to some cheesy resort. It's all pretentious bollocks," I rant.

  "And you know what? When I went to Sunshine House, I encountered real people, people who do a fantastic job for little or no money purely because they want to help others, people who like their lives as they are and don't want some aspirational message shoved down their throats by a load of patronizing TV types sitting in their minimalist, ivory towers in London.

  "It was the first time in months I have done a report for this program that actually meant something, that had a worthwhile purpose to raise money for terminally ill kids and you . . . and you . . . and you," I point at the three of them individually, "have the fucking cheek to sit there and say it was dreary? Shame on you."

  I glare at them for a couple of seconds, then walk back across to the sofa and pick up my handbag from the floor.

  "So thanks for the offer, Janice, but no, I won't be staying for a cozy little chat. You can shove your job up your big . . . no, make that gargantuan . . . fat arse!" With that finely eloquent payoff, I walk out of her office and slam the door resoundingly behind me.

  Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigoooooooood!!!" Tab rushes into the small backstreet pub where I'm huddled like a fugitive from justice and plants a juicy kiss on each of my cheeks. "A big congratulations to the office heroine!"

  "Went down well, did it?" I smile ruefully.

  "Went down well?" she shrieks. "They're currently erecting a statue of you in the foyer, the scales of justice in one hand, Janice's scalp in the other, and a plaque saying 'Saint Jess of the downtrodden.' God, you were brilliant."

  "Thanks," I say flatly. "But saints do well in the next world, it's the wicked that do well in this one. Consequently, Janice is still in a job and my initial adrenaline-fueled joy has been replaced by panic about how I'm going to pay the mortgage next month."

  Tab winces. "Yes, there is that. Well, let me do my bit for the unemployed by buying the drinks."

  She disappears to the bar, leaving me to contemplate my jobless state. Within a few minutes of gathering my coat, grabbing a vital few bits and pieces from my desk, and leaving the building, my mobile phone had started ringing hysterically to the point that I'd flicked it over to "silent." Several had left congratulatory messages, but the only call I had returned was Tab's, agreeing to meet her for this postmortem.

  "Here you go, get that down you." She places what tastes like a large gin and tonic in front of me.

  "Thanks," I gasp gratefully, feeling the instantaneous kick of the alcohol. "So tell me what happened immediately after I flounced out."

  She grins widely at the memory. "God, it was total magic. You should have seen Janice's face, she was puce with rage! I don't think she trusted herself to speak, she just sat there glowering."

  "What about Grim and Grimmer?"

  "Eddie was the first to break the silence. He said something along the lines of, 'I always told you she was a loose cannon,' then Tara started ranting about the slur on her professionalism and how the company should issue legal proceedings on her behalf to stop you repeating it outside the building."

  "As if I ever want to see Tara again, let alone speak about her," I say wearily.

  "Then Janice found her tongue and told the rest of us that the meeting was over, but we weren't to repeat to a soul what had happened in there. She said if anyone did, they would be sacked."

  "Yeah right, she'd have to prove it first."

  "Precisely. The full story is already running on the Guardian Web site anyway, so someone's blown the whistle."

  "Janice will probably think it's me." I sigh. "Not that I care what she thinks anymore."

  "Anyway," continues Tab, her eyes shining with euphoria, "we all trooped out, but Eddie and Tara stayed behind and the most almighty row broke out."

  "Between who?"

  "Eddie and Tara. We could see them ranting at each other behind the glass, and Janice was just sitting there stern faced. It was glorious to behold."

  "Happy to oblige." I smile weakly. "Trouble is, they will probably spread it round the business that I'm crap at my job, blah blah blah, and no other company will touch me with a bargepole."

  Tab wrinkles her nose. "Nah, that pair are so universally loathed that I think you'll emerge as a bit of a maverick who couldn't take the thought of churning out any more pap on their behalf. The Guardian piece certainly paints you in an heroic light."

  I glance at my mobile phone and see there have been another five calls. "Oh well, time will tell. I'll start looking for work tomorrow, but in the meantime, can we talk about something else? It all seems so pathetic compared to other things going on in my life."
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  "Like what?" Tab frowns.

  It dawns on me that I haven't yet filled her in on the Olivia situation, having been sworn to secrecy initially, then not having had the opportunity since for an in-depth chat. It wasn't something I had wanted to divulge via fevered whispering down the side of our computers, or over a quick coffee in the canteen. And certainly not at her dinner party with Kara and the crew in attendance.

  Now, with time on our hands and no one ear wigging, is the ideal opportunity. So, for the next ten minutes, I bring Tab up to speed on Olivia's discovery of a lump and her subsequent mastectomy.

  "I went round to see her on Saturday for the first time since the operation," I conclude, "and whilst she doesn't look as bad as you might expect, I fear the worst is yet to come with the chemotherapy."

  Tab's expression is one of grave concern. "God, Jess, I had no idea. You must have been under such strain these past few weeks. No wonder you finally blew your top in there this morning."

  I wave my hand dismissively. "Oh, that had been a long time coming. But I suppose my anger over Olivia's cancer was what propelled me into actually speaking my mind to Janice rather than just griping behind her back all the time."

  "Do you want me to talk to her in the morning and explain the pressure you've been under? She might give you your job back."

  "Ye gods, no." I practically choke on my drink at the thought of it. "Say absolutely nothing. I see this as the kick up the bum I needed to get out of there."

  "So . . .," Tab winces slightly, ". . . sorry if this question seems brutal, but is Olivia going to die?"

  "Don't worry." I smile. "It was the first thing I thought of and it still pops into my head dozens of times a day." I take another swig of G&T. "No, the doctors are saying she probably won't. Although in this litigious day and age, they'll never give any cast-iron guarantees. How can they?"

  We sit in silence for a short while, so I take the opportunity to check the messages on my phone in case there are any urgent ones involving Olivia.

  "They're all from people in the office," I say eventually, smiling apologetically for the brief interruption in our conversation.