This Charming Man

  But she wasn’t dying. She just wished she was.

  The light chime of bells. Poppy’s voice saying, ‘Come back to the room.’

  She opened her eyes. Eight other people, mostly women, were sitting in a circle, in the flickering candlelight.

  ‘Did you feel it?’ Poppy had told them to focus on their soul. ‘Did you feel a connection?’

  Yes, the voices murmured, yes, yes.

  ‘Let’s go round the circle and share our experience.’

  ‘My soul is silver light.’

  ‘My soul is a golden ball.’

  ‘My soul is white and shimmery.’

  ‘Marnie?’

  Her soul? It felt like a tomato which had been left at the bottom of the fridge for four months. Black, reeking, rotting. One touch and it would collapse. It sat at her centre, infecting her entire being with filth.

  She spoke. ‘My soul…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘… is like the sun.’

  ‘Beautiful imagery,’ murmured Poppy.

  She tiptoed to the mosaic bowl and put in a carefully folded ten-pound note. She always left more than the others.

  ‘See you next week,’ Poppy whispered, cross-legged and long-limbed on the floor.

  Yes, yes, and remember to smile.

  She clicked quickly down the path, keen to reach her car. She got in and slammed the door. Possibly harder than was needed.

  She’d had it with meditation.

  Medication, though. That was a different matter.

  ‘No improvement?’ Dr Kay asked.

  ‘No. Worse if anything.’ She shouldn’t have gone to Dublin. Over the weekend, putting on a cheery show in front of her family had depleted her, leaving her lower than ever.

  ‘In that case, let’s increase your dose.’ Dr Kay consulted Marnie’s file. ‘You could go up another 75 mgs.’

  ‘I’d prefer… can I change brands?’ It was time to try a better one. ‘Can I have Prozac?’

  ‘Prozac?’ Dr Kay was surprised. ‘Prozac is a bit of a dinosaur. No one really prescribes it any more. Your current medication is from the same family but newer, more sophisticated. Fewer side-effects, more effective.’ She reached for her drug encyclopaedia. ‘I can show you.’

  No, no, no. ‘Please, no, it’s okay.’ There was no way of enduring it while Dr Kay found Prozac in the book, showed her the contra-indications, then found the other drug. It would probably take less than a minute, but she didn’t have a minute in her. ‘Please. I’d like to try Prozac. I have a good feeling about it.’

  ‘But… how about… have you considered therapy?’

  ‘I’ve done therapy. Years of it.’ On and off. ‘I’ve learnt things but… I still feel terrible. Please, Dr Kay…’ She knew only one thing: she could not leave until she’d got a prescription for Prozac.

  She flicked a glance at the shut door, to remind Dr Kay of her waiting room, crowded with sick people, clamouring for entry. It was cruel but she was desperate. She couldn’t go on as she was. Please give me Prozac.

  Dr Kay was staring doubtfully at her.

  Please give me Prozac.

  Then Dr Kay dropped her eyes. It was over. Marnie had locked herself so tight into waiting mode, she was surprised. Like when a tyrannical regime crumbles in one’s lifetime; the way she’d felt when the Taliban had been ousted from Afghanistan.

  ‘Okay. We’ll try you for a couple of months, see how you do on it.’ Dr Kay reached for her prescription pad. ‘Is there anything else, Marnie? Anything else you’re… concerned about?’

  ‘No. Thank you, thank you, thank you.’

  She left, gratefully holding the prescription.

  Everyone knew. Prozac worked.

  When she pushed open her front door, Nick zipped from the kitchen into the hall. He looked distraught. What was it?

  Then she knew. ‘No bonus again?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No bonus? You found out?’

  ‘No, not that.’ He gripped her arms. ‘Where the hell have you been?’

  ‘I told you. The doctor.’

  ‘But it’s eight o’clock.’

  ‘I didn’t have an appointment. I had to wait. Where are the girls?’

  ‘In the playroom.’

  They were watching Beauty and the Beast. Again. Daisy was sprawled the length of the sofa, her legs slung over the armrest; Verity was curled in a ball, sucking her thumb.

  ‘Hello, babies.’

  ‘Hi, Mum.’

  ‘How was school?’

  Neither answered her. They were in a trance. She’d read that when children were watching television, their metabolic rate was lower than when they were asleep.

  ‘How long have they been watching that?’

  ‘About an hour.’

  ‘Oh Nick. Couldn’t you have played with them? Instead of sticking them in front of a DVD?’

  ‘Couldn’t you have come home earlier?’

  He followed her into the kitchen, one step behind her, her shadow. She opened the fridge and wondered about food.

  She felt him staring and turned to look.

  ‘What?’ she asked.

  ‘What, what?’

  ‘What are you staring at me for?’

  ‘What time did you leave work?’

  ‘What did you feed them?’

  ‘Lasagne. What time did you leave work?’

  ‘How much did Verity eat?’

  ‘Enough. What time did you leave work?’

  ‘Six.’

  ‘Six exactly?’

  ‘Nick, I don’t know.’ She sighed. ‘Close enough. Maybe three minutes past, maybe five past.’

  ‘And you went straight to the doctor?’

  ‘I went straight to the doctor.’

  ‘And you’ve been there all that time?’

  ‘I’ve been there all that time.’

  ‘What did you do while you were waiting?’

  ‘Read magazines.’

  ‘Which ones?’

  ‘Let me see… Good Housekeeping. Red. And another one, I think it was Eve.’

  ‘Then you came straight home?’

  ‘I came straight home.’

  He stared hard at her and she dropped her eyes.

  There was probably something in the freezer that she could defrost. She opened and shut a couple of drawers; Marks and Spencer moussaka, that would do. And frozen peas. Protein; if you didn’t get enough, it made things worse. She closed the freezer door with her hip and when she turned around, he was right behind her, so near she bumped against him. ‘Jesus!’

  He didn’t move.

  ‘You’re in my way.’

  His body had blocked her into the corner between the freezer and wall, close enough so she could smell his breath.

  ‘Nick.’ Her voice was reasonable. ‘You’re in my way.’

  ‘Am I?’

  He studied her face, seeming to catalogue all that he saw. She couldn’t read his expression, but it made her nervous. The moment went on for a very long time, then he moved aside to let her pass.

  There was something a little shameful about having a short drive to work. Twenty-minute commutes were for losers. Real people endured a macho hour and a quarter; it was important to have something to complain about.

  While she was stopped at the traffic lights on Wimbledon High Street, a bus passed in front of her, the huge letters on its side – an ad for a DVD – streaming down the street like a banner. FEARLESS. It hit like a stamp to her heart. It was a message.

  Fearless. Today I will be fearless. Today I will be fearless. Today I will be fearless.

  But even after repeating it several times, she remained doubtful. It didn’t feel right. No, this wasn’t meant to be her message. The ad on the next bus would be the one.

  But what if a bus didn’t come by the time the lights changed? Then she would have to do without a message today.

  She was anxious. She wanted her instructions.

  Don’t change, don’t chang
e, don’t change, she pleaded with her traffic lights.

  Between the trees to her right, a large patch of red flickered. A bus was coming. She watched expectantly. What would it say? One by one, the words appeared. Put. Everything. On. Ice. Put Everything On Ice.

  What could that mean? Keep everything steady? Don’t make any big decisions? Or was it more practical advice? Literally put everything on ice? Yes, that too could work.

  Then she remembered that it was only an ad on the side of a bus and that, in terms of her life, it probably meant nothing at all.

  As she waited for the barrier to the underground car park to lift, she noticed that she was ten minutes late. She couldn’t understand it. She’d had spare time this morning. But time played tricks on her: it jumped, stretched, swallowed itself. It wanted her to know that she couldn’t control it and this frightened her.

  She parked between Rico’s Aston Martin and Henry’s LandRover. Craig’s Jag, Wen-Yi’s Saab, Lindka’s TransAm – the garage was like a luxury-car salesroom. Mortgage brokers were well paid, at least this lot were. Her four-wheel-drive Porsche looked just the part, except, unlike everyone else, she hadn’t paid for her own car.

  She looked around, hoping not to see it: a Lotus. But there it was; Guy was already in.

  It was time for her to open her car door and join the world; instead she slumped back against her headrest. Eight hours. Of other people. Of having to talk. Of having to make decisions.

  Get out get out get out.

  She was as powerless to move as a butterfly pinned to a card, but her paralysis mixed unpleasantly with the knowledge that she was late again and getting later with every second.

  Get out get out get out.

  She was moving. She was outside the car and on her feet. The lump of lead in place of her stomach was so dense, she could hardly stand for the weight of it. She felt as if she was staggering as she walked towards the lift, as if her knees couldn’t support the burden of herself.

  Kill me kill me kill me.

  She looked at the lift call button. Her hand was supposed to press it. Nothing happened.

  Press it press it press it.

  Rico was the first person she saw when she opened the door. He’d been watching for her. His dark eyes kindled with warmth. ‘How are you?’

  I’m dead I’m dead I’m dead. ‘Fine. You?’

  At the sound of her voice, Guy looked up, his haughty face cold. He tapped his watch. ‘Twelve minutes, Marnie.’

  ‘I’m really sorry.’ She hurried to her desk.

  ‘Sorry?’ he called after her. ‘That’s it? No explanation?’

  ‘Roadworks.’

  ‘Roadworks? Roadworks affect us all. No one else is late.’

  Henry hung up his phone. ‘New case! Director of Coutt’s. Serious up-trading. Lots of wonga.’ Some of it coming Henry’s way. Brokers got 1 per cent of the price of every house sale they brought in.

  ‘Where did you find him?’ Craig asked jealously. A new mark for one broker meant one fewer for the others. Competition was fierce.

  ‘At my cousin’s wife’s father’s funeral,’ he boomed.

  ‘You gave someone your business card at a funeral?’ Lindka asked.

  Henry shrugged good-naturedly. ‘Nice guys finish last.’

  Lindka reached for Guy’s Telegraph and rustled through to the obituaries. ‘Shedloads of them here. Let’s share them out. “So sorry for your loss. Need a mortgage?” ’

  Everyone laughed.

  Marnie managed a wobbly smile. Once upon a time she’d been one of them: sharks. At weddings and birthday parties, she’d moved among the guests, smiling, chatting, asking general-sounding questions (‘Where are you living?’), and moving as tactfully as possible to the specific (‘Have you thought about moving?’), trying to ignore the voices in her head telling her it was horribly inappropriate to tout for business at a family celebration. All that had mattered, she’d told herself, were the follow-up phone calls. When she was getting paid 1 per cent of the purchase price, it was worth enduring myriad looks of distaste.

  However, even at her most productive, she’d never been one of the high-generators, like Guy, the owner of the company, or Wen-Yi, who seemed to conjure up a never-ending stream of house-buyers out of thin air. She hadn’t got what it took to pursue people to the bitter end. If she’d intuited that they were irritated or uncomfortable, she’d backed down. Paradoxically this had at times worked in her favour. People had liked that she was gracious – well, some of them had; others had thought she was a no-mark who wouldn’t have the grit to get them a good deal, and they’d gone instead to a swaggery wide-boy like Craig or an overconfident posho like Henry.

  When she got pregnant with Daisy, she’d given it up. There was no reason not to: Nick earned enough for both of them and she wanted to be a full-time mother. But the truth was, she’d been rescued by pregnancy. Her luck had been on the turn, she’d felt it slipping away from her. She’d got out before everyone else knew too.

  She had never planned to return, but a year ago Nick hadn’t got his annual bonus and there was a sudden, terrifying hole in their finances. A huge block of money for mortgage payments and school fees simply wasn’t there.

  After the shock wore off and the readjustment began, the thought of returning to work after a six-year break began to seem exhilarating. Suddenly she understood that the reason she was so unhappy was because she wasn’t suited to being a stay-at-home mum. She loved Daisy and Verity to the point of pain but perhaps outside stimulation was vital for her.

  Guy had welcomed her back and as she showed up on her first day, in her new trouser suit and high-heeled shoes, she was buoyant with pride: a useful member of her family. She mattered. But – literally within days – it became obvious that she could no longer do the job.

  She brought in no new business. The analysis she brought to bear on her life showed that she didn’t go out as often as she used to before the kids, so there were fewer opportunities to make contacts. However, Nick had plenty of well-paid colleagues, she could have put the moves on them if she’d been committed enough. But it was impossible. She just couldn’t talk to people any more. She certainly couldn’t hustle for business and she couldn’t articulate precisely why. The only explanation she could find was that it shamed her. She didn’t want to bother people; she didn’t want to draw attention to herself; she didn’t want to ask for anything, because she couldn’t endure the rejection.

  Because she had no other choice, she forced herself to try. But she couldn’t strike the right note of breezy fun (usually with men) or trustworthy calm (women). Her true voice was buried beneath a mountain of rocks, her treacherous mouth wouldn’t say the right words, and when she tried to smile, she found that she twitched instead. She came across as pushy, strange and desperate; she was embarrassing people.

  She’d thought returning to work would fix her but it had made everything worse.

  After four months, she hadn’t brought in a single new client, which was bad news for the company but worse news for her, because she had earned no commission.

  Guy was patient, long past the point where any other boss would have told her to go, but she knew his forbearance couldn’tgoon indefinitely.

  Then Bea, the office manager, had left and Guy had suggested that Marnie step into the breach. It was both a relief – at least now she had a regular salary – and a humiliation. She was a failure. Again.

  Her demotion meant that she was now a lowly administrator, so there were no more long boozy lunches and no more clocking off at midday on Fridays.

  As a nine-to-sixer, she was obliged to be in the office, even if everyone else had skived off, to answer the phones, sign for deliveries, calm down hysterical house-buyers… It was like being cast out of paradise; once she’d been on a level with the others, now she had to do their photocopying. And yet she was desperately grateful to have a job. Guy paid her more than she was worth. He could have got someone else for less money.


  A file was waiting – like an accusation – on her desk. One of Wen-Yi’s. It was the Mr Lee sale. Her heart dropped like a rock off a cliff.

  This file was cursed. So many things had gone wrong. She had mailed the original documents to the wrong address, to one of Mr Lee’s many rental properties, where they had gathered dust on an unoccupied mat for two and a half weeks. She had sent photocopies rather than originals to the building society: a heinous offence. She had lost – no other explanation – the direct-debit form authorizing the building society to recoup their monthly payments; it should have been in Mr Lee’s file and it simply wasn’t and she had no idea, no idea at all, where it could have got to. Worse, she remembered having seen it, so it wasn’tas though she could blame Mr Lee by saying he had never filled it in.

  Her glitches and omissions had slowed down this sale by several weeks; she couldn’t bear to let herself know exactly how many, but sometimes her brain broke free of her control and ran off, taunting her by totting up the different delays, while she desperately tried to recapture and silence it.

  ‘Proof of his residency in the UK,’ Wen-Yi said. He sounded calm, but she knew he was trying to restrain his anger. ‘Where is the form?’

  She stared at him blankly. ‘I didn’t know… he needed one.’

  ‘So you haven’t got it?’

  ‘I didn’t know he needed it.’

  ‘UK Homeloans require proof of residency for foreign nationals. It’s standard.’

  The brokers did business with twenty-six different banks and mortgage companies, all of which had their own set of requirements. This was the first time she’d dealt with the combination of a foreign national and UK Homeloans, but it was no excuse. She should have known.

  ‘I’ll send one to him right now, Wen-Yi. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.’

  ‘The money’s in place,’ Wen-Yi said. ‘We could close today but this is holding everything up. The vendors have been very patient but they’re talking about putting the property back on the market. That better not happen.’

  He turned his back to her and walked away. The rest of the office pretended they hadn’t been listening and flicked their gaze to their screens, except for Rico, who semaphored sympathy with his eyes.

  She went to the cupboard behind her and, with trembling fingers, sought the right form. There were literally hundreds of different ones, but Bea had set up a good system, and when she located it, she made herself read it several times. Yes, it was from UK Homeloans. Not UK Houseloans. Not British Homeloans. And it was ‘Proof of Residency for Foreign Nationals.’ Not ‘Proof of Citizenship.’ Not ‘Proof of Non-Criminal Status.’