In a Cottage In a Wood

‘What?’ Daniel tries to step back. ‘What the hell are you talking about? And get off me, Neve, you’re completely wrecked.’

Neve slides her hands around his waist and over his firm buttocks, looking at him impishly through her lashes. She can feel the beginnings of a hard-on against her stomach as she pulls him closer and he makes a small sound in his throat. She’s not sure whether it’s a sound of being turned on, or a disgusted ‘tut’.

‘Not too wrecked,’ she says in a low voice. ‘We were always good together like this, weren’t we? Remember, I know what you like.’ She tries to peel his pyjama bottoms down and is suddenly thrust backwards so hard she almost falls down the steps.

‘Stop it!’ yells Daniel. ‘Just fucking stop this!’

‘Danny? What’s happening?’

A sleepy high-pitched voice seeps from the staircase and Neve stares over his shoulder to see a girl she recognizes from the pub, standing behind Daniel. She’s wearing one of his T-shirts and coils of blonde hair spill over her shoulders. Yawning like a cat, she then blinks hard at Neve.

‘What’s going on?’ she says, awake now. ‘What’s going on, Danny?’

‘Danny! No one calls him Danny! Who the fuck are you to be standing there like that and calling him fucking Danny?’

And with that she bursts into violent sobs.

Danny regards her with a look that makes her actually clench her toes inside her shoes.

‘Just go home, Neve,’ he says. ‘You’re only embarrassing yourself. You need to accept things and move on, alright?’

12

Neve remembers several things as her alarm clock, which by some miracle she managed to set last night, goes off with the intensity of a road drill next to her.

1. She was given a cottage yesterday.

2. She went to Daniel’s and humiliated herself.

3. When she got back to Lou’s she threw up in the bathroom.

4. Then she cleaned it up.

She definitely cleaned it up. Didn’t she?

Scrambling out of bed, she smashes her knee into the frame in her haste, and swears. She pulls on a hoodie with shaking hands and, thrusting open the study door, heads down the landing to the bathroom.

Lou is just emerging through the door. She is wearing rubber gloves and holds a bucket filled with cleaning products.

‘Lou, I’m so sorry, I swear I meant to sort that out.’

Lou regards her younger sister. She doesn’t look angry. She looks exhausted. Her nostrils are inflamed and red, her skin porridge-coloured.

‘You didn’t do a very good job,’ she says in a flat monotone. ‘Luckily I went in there first. Steve’s having a lie-in.’

‘Lou, I really am—’

Maisie begins to wail.

‘Forget it,’ says Lou and her voice is sharp now. ‘Just forget it, Neve.’ A surge of shamed affection for her sister washes over her and she goes to touch her arm but Lou pushes past and goes down the stairs.

It takes two paracetamols, a double strength ibuprofen and a triple espresso to give Neve the physical means to be able to walk into the office just before nine. The pounding in her head is more muted now, but her stomach occasionally shivers with nausea and her hands are shaky.

She vows to belatedly sign up to whatever the Dry January thing is on Facebook later. Dry half-of-January has to be better than not doing it at all.

The morning creaks by a second at a time and she tries to bury herself in admin jobs that have built up since the start of the week.

Mid-morning, Fraser and a couple of the other editors sweep into the office, and the sleepy energy instantly changes. This is partly because they are all wearing suits; even Fraser looks quite dapper in a dark blue pinstripe, despite the cut being a good fifteen years out of fashion.

Neve weakly turns on her smile of greeting, which slips when she sees the mean shine in Fraser’s eyes and notices the man he is showing into reception. Small and bespectacled with close-cropped grey hair, it’s his companion from Waterloo yesterday.

‘Miss Carey,’ says Fraser brightly. He has never called her this before. He somehow manages to make it less respectful than if he had used her Christian name. ‘Can you please organize for some coffee in the conference room?’

‘Yes, sure,’ she says, even though she isn’t supposed to leave reception. The party of five men sweep past her and she notices the stranger frown at her, in obvious recognition from the day before. Her heart gives an anxious jolt and she feels clammy sweat beading her hairline. She grabs the bottle of Diet Coke on her desk and takes a long swig.

One of the picture editors, a shy young woman called Edie who wears 1940s-style clothes, comes into reception then. She stares at the retreating backs of the men, chewing her red-lipsticked bottom lip; brow creased.

‘Edie,’ hisses Neve. ‘What’s going on?’

Edie comes over in her neat little dress covered in sprigs of cherries, thick tights and 1940s sandals. Her blonde hair is twisted into victory rolls at the side of her head. She fixes large pale eyes on Neve and makes a face of dismay.

‘That’s Holger Meier,’ she says in a low voice. ‘He’s one of the directors from Brahmen Klein.’

‘Shit …’

Brahmen Klein is a huge European media company. She’s been too preoccupied to think much about the rumours in the office. Now all she can do is remember the shocked expression on the face of this man, who has power over her future, as she told Fraser to ‘bugger off’.

‘Oh God,’ she says. Edie sighs.

‘Yeah. I’d better get back to updating my CV,’ she says. ‘I suggest you do the same.’

Neve doesn’t make the coffee.

Instead, she thinks about the moment Isabelle Shawcross whispered hot breath into her ear; breath that was on a countdown to being her last. She thinks about the fact that she is going to lose her job; if not today, then soon.

She thinks about last night, and Christmas, and the reception she is going to get from Lou and Steve when she gets back.

She understands that Daniel is now part of her past and will never be in her future again.

The switchboard begins to light up in front of her and she watches it as though from behind a sheet of glass. Then she picks up her coat and handbag, and leaves the building for ever.

Lou is out with the girls at one of their classes when she gets home. She is struggling under the awkward weight of a bunch of flowers that cost more than £40, bought after transferring the last of her dad’s money into her current account. They’re a mix of gerbera in bright purples and yellows. She knows that Lou loves gerbera.

She carefully arranges them in a vase on the kitchen table, making sure she wipes up the spills of water she leaves in the process, then hunts for paper and a pen. All she can find is a drawing pad of Lottie’s, covered in stick people and attempts at cats in crayon, and a felt tip pen. Finding a sheet that leaks colour through from the drawings on the other side, she rips it out and begins to write a note.

Lou and Steve. I’m so grateful for everything you’ve done for me. I’m really sorry I’ve been such a nightmare. I do love you, whatever you might think. xxN

Then she takes the duvet cover, sheets and pillowcases she’d taken from the sofa bed that morning and tips them into the linen basket. Getting the vacuum cleaner out of the hall cupboard, she gives the room a thorough clean.

She can’t take everything but she’ll think about that later. This is only for a few days, to get her head together. She manages to stuff a surprising amount into a small wheelie case and a rucksack, which she hoists onto her back, wobbling under the awkward weight.

A few minutes later, she leaves the flat, closing the door with a quiet click behind her.

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