‘Is it something I’ve said?’
Cara howled.
‘It’s emotional release,’ Adam decided. ‘After the crash.’ He hoped he was right. ‘It’ll be okay.’ God, he was crap at dealing with crying women. It was years since he’d had any practice. In the last few years it had been women who’d reduced him to floods of tears. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ It was always a good standby in times of crisis.
More tears. Apparently the answer was no.
‘Do you want me to leave?’
Cara clung more fiercely to him.
Now Adam was deeply confused. And, no matter what he said or what he did, she wasn’t to be placated. He was running out of options. For the next half hour she snivelled, sniffed and sobbed into his chest until finally she fell into a restless, twitching, mumbling sleep.
Adam lay on his back looking at the ceiling. Cara lay curled up, knees hugged tightly to her, back towards him. The cool winter dawn eased itself through the kasbah-style curtains, bathing the room in a flat grey light which did nothing to subdue its colour scheme. Adam didn’t know quite where he wanted to be, but it wasn’t waking up in an orange and purple, clothes-strewn bedroom with his work colleague.
Adam shaded his eyes with his arm, pushing back the unwelcome intrusion of light. His eyelids closed over them with all the comfort of a cheese-grater. He, in contrast to Cara, hadn’t slept a wink all night. This was a bad, bad situation to be in. And one that he definitely should have avoided. He stared at the tense contours of his friend’s sleeping back. She looked so white and fragile against the rich Burgundy sheets that he felt moved to reach out and touch her. He didn’t. Perhaps her tears weren’t about the crash. Perhaps it was because she suddenly realised who she was in bed with. She was probably wondering how the hell she was going to face him over the news desk in the morning. This was a terrible, terrible mistake. They were naked and making love before either of them, it seems, had considered the wisdom of their passion.
He silently berated himself for being totally hopeless at this sort of thing. What should he do? Would it be better to wake Cara and risk upsetting her again, or should he sneak out without disturbing her? This was ridiculous! He was a grown up – an adult who should be used to handling adult situations. Why did he always go to pot as soon as someone of the opposite sex became involved? Didn’t other people grow out of this kind of emotional torture shortly after Josh’s age?
The snoring coming from Emily’s room had stopped. Adam wondered if she was awake. Perhaps she’d know what to do. He knew that he couldn’t lie here any longer or he’d drive himself barmy with indecision. Adam slipped out of the bed and felt around on the floor until he located his boxers, and then grappled with them quietly so as not to wake Cara. Their clothes were scattered to the four corners of the room and Adam gradually located them all, feeling foolish as he crept around like a naturist cat burglar.
He pulled on his jeans and his roll-neck jumper, keeping his eye on Cara for any signs of life. Perhaps he should write her a note. But in the gloom, he couldn’t focus on anything that looked like something he could scribble on. They’d have to deal with it in work later on anyway. This was stupid. Stupid of him. Adam retrieved his jacket from the sofa and shrugged that on too. He didn’t dare look in the mirror; he knew without seeing his reflection that it would be a truly terrible sight. His chin probably looked like Desperate Dan’s. Adam scratched his fingers through his hair, straightening the worst of its excesses. His mouth felt as if something small and furry had crawled into it and died.
He stood over Cara, not knowing whether he should risk planting a farewell kiss on her cheek in case it woke her up and set off a whole new avalanche of tears. As he didn’t feel emotionally capable of dealing with it, disappearing was the best option. Casting a fond glance at Cara’s frowning face, he tiptoed out of her room.
As he passed Emily’s door, he paused. All was quiet. Adam tapped gently but there was no answer, so he opened the door tentatively and peeped round. The shapeless hump of duvet looked unmoved and the wine bottle was where he had left it. Emily, it seemed, was still off with the fairies.
Adam continued down the stairs, hoping that none of them creaked too loudly. At least escaping like this, it would give him a few hours to think of what to say to Cara. He inched towards the front door, turned and took one last melancholy look back up the stairs and then went outside into the chill, fresh dawn.
Chapter Sixty-Three
I’m sitting in the kitchen, making love to a cup of tea and contemplating my Declan-induced hangover, when I hear the front door click shut. Strange.
I push myself upright and pad out into the lounge. No one. I carry on out into the hall when I hear a car start up and do my nosy neighbour bit and pull the curtain back and have a peep. A dark green Vectra is just pulling away outside, but I don’t recognise the car and wonder with a little pang of jealousy whether Cara has had company. Perhaps she’s finally got lucky with the lovely Adam.
There are times when I wish I was a morning person and this is one of them. The early greyness is giving way to a beautiful dawn. A pink swish is appearing above the houses and the clouds turn indigo as the sun deigns to put in a rare appearance. This is a wonderful time of day. So still and quiet. By the time I hit the ground running, the hell that is my usual day has already broken loose. I drop the curtain into place and go back into the kitchen and make Cara a cup of ginseng tea – although waking up to something that looks like gnat’s pee cannot be very inspiring – and then plod up the stairs to deliver it.
When I stick my head round the door, Cara is cuddled up in a tight ball in her bed. There is indeed evidence of a visitor not long departed. Cara is a nightmare to share a bed with as she normally sleeps splayed out like a starfish. I have only experienced it on a few enforced occasions, and it’s not something I’d hurry to repeat. Her eventual life-partner will have to get used to sleeping on a four-millimetre strip at the edge of the bed.
‘Hey.’ I shake her shoulder gently. ‘Tea.’
Cara opens her eyes dreamily and looks rather disappointed to see me standing there. She’s awake in a nano-second and shoots upright, grabbing the duvet round her.
‘Where is he?’ she hisses, looking at the empty space next to her.
‘Who?’ I say.
‘Adam,’ she says. ‘The Adam.’
‘Does he drive a Vectra that looks like it’s on its last legs?’ I put her tea down and make myself comfortable on the bed in Adam’s vacated space. It still feels warm and smells of nice man smells.
‘Yes.’
‘Gone,’ I say.
‘Gone?’
‘Ten minutes ago.’
‘Ten minutes ago?’ Cara is turning into Little Sir Echo. ‘What did he say?’
‘Nothing.’ I shrug.
‘Nothing?’ There she goes again.
‘He sneaked out without me seeing him.’ In fact I’m quite glad he didn’t catch me in my raggy old dressing gown with mascara-panda eyes. ‘I just saw his car disappearing down the street.’
‘Oh wombats!’ Cara snarls.
‘So?’ I give her a nudge. ‘He’s finally succumbed to the greater power of the universe?’
‘I seized my moment,’ Cara says, sounding like a conquering emperor. ‘He melted into my arms.’
‘Wonderful.’ I wish I sounded less envious.
Cara sighed dreamily. ‘Emily,’ she says, snuggling down, ‘it was wonderful. Fabulous.’
I lift an enquiring eyebrow.
‘More than fabulous,’ she says, warming to her theme. ‘He is sensitive, caring, sexy, sensual.’ My friend is going all squirmy. ‘And has a gorgeous bottom.’
Is this really Cara I’m talking to?
‘He is all I have ever wanted in a man.’
I think we can safely assume that Adam was a pretty good shag.
‘The sex was sublime.’ Cara smiles, serenely happy. ‘It is the most spiritual experience I’ve ever had.’
Ah yes, that’s more like it.
‘I felt lifted up,’ she continues.
I’m beginning to wish I’d never asked. This makes my romp in the Saucy Santa outfit seem as sordid as the tabloids have portrayed it.
Cara fixes me with one of her more scary earnest stares. ‘I felt our souls merge,’ she says, breathily candid.
I don’t quite know how to respond to that. I’ve had some pretty hot-to-trot sex in my time, but I don’t think I’ve ever had a soul-merge – and I lack the emotional strength at this moment to ask Cara for a blow-by-blow description.
My friend takes my hand and her eyes fill with tears. ‘Emily, can I tell you something?’
‘You haven’t agreed to marry him?’ I say suspiciously.
‘No.’ Cara is dismissive. Clearly nothing as earthly as that. ‘It’s personal.’
‘Shoot,’ I say.
‘When I came to orgasm,’ Cara looks bashful, ‘I cried, Emily. I cried with sheer joy at the beauty of it.’
She looks like she might do so again. Cry, that is. Not the other thing. I purse my lips. ‘And what did Adam think?’ Did he have to be peeled off the ceiling with ecstasy too? I want to ask.
‘I don’t know,’ Cara admits, chewing at her fingernails. She casts a glance round her bedside cabinet which is littered with essential oils, herbal potions and lotions and generally healthy detritus. ‘I thought he might have left a note or something . . .’ she tails off unhappily.
I feel a frown draw my eyebrows together. It’s true – he high-tailed it out of here in the cold light of day without so much as a by your leave. He might have a nice, smiley voice and Cara might be in a state of sexual nirvana, but I’m beginning to think that this Adam sounds as much of a bastard as the rest of them.
Chapter Sixty-Four
Adam sat opposite Chris in the staff canteen of the Hampstead Observer and wished that he could feel quite as engrossed in the joys of his bacon sandwich as his friend apparently did.
It was nine o’clock in the morning and a desultory straggle of staff were queuing up for breakfast orders. Adam had drunk three cups of strong black coffee in an effort to kick-start his system, but to no avail. He still looked, and felt, like shite.
After a few moments of Neanderthal devouring, Chris looked up as he realised that Adam wasn’t eating. ‘What?’ he said with his mouth full.
‘What?’ Adam replied defensively.
‘What’s up?’
‘Nothing.’ Adam picked up the greasy bread.
‘Mate,’ Chris said, putting his down, ‘there’s always something up. It wouldn’t be you if there wasn’t some sort of crisis in your life. This one just happens to be putting you off your bacon butty. And it’s about to put me off mine.’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘You’re in here developing photographs when you should be at home in your bed and you’re not eating.’ Chris gave him an I-rest-my-case look. ‘Come on – tell Uncle Christopher.’
Adam huffed and put his sandwich down again. Chris picked his up. ‘Promise you won’t tell anyone,’ Adam said.
Chris frowned. ‘Not even Toff?’
‘Well no,’ Adam conceded. ‘You can tell Toff.’
‘It can’t be that bad then.’
Adam pressed his lips together. ‘I think it is.’
‘Is it about women?’
‘Yes,’ Adam said.
‘One woman in particular?’
‘Yes,’ Adam said.
Chris abandoned his sandwich. ‘Perhaps you’d be better off talking to Toff in the first place. You know I’m crap about giving advice about the fair sex.’ He leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. ‘It was me that advised you to ask out that Sophia from Accounts. Look what a can of worms that turned out to be.’
‘True.’ Adam nodded.
‘Then again, mate,’ Chris said, ‘I haven’t had a decent piece of gossip for ages. You might as well dish the dirt.’
Adam leaned forward too. ‘You mustn’t breathe a word of this in the office.’
‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’
Adam threw his friend a warning look. ‘I will ensure that you do die if this gets out. Slowly and painfully.’
‘I promise. On my mother’s life,’ Chris swore.
‘Your mother’s dead,’ Adam reminded him.
‘It’s purely a figure of speech,’ Chris said.
Adam checked round to see that no one else in the canteen was listening. He dropped his voice. ‘I spent the night . . .’ He checked for eavesdroppers again. ‘I spent the night with Cara.’
Chris was unfazed. ‘You were both on the night-shift.’
‘No,’ Adam said patiently. ‘Not on the night-shift.’ He paused, and when the penny still didn’t drop: ‘I spent the night with her.’
Chris cocked his head on one side and looked thoughtful. ‘Can you define “spent the night”?’
‘Chris!’ Adam shouted and then checked again that they weren’t being watched.
‘What?’
‘I.’ Adam pointed to himself. ‘I. Spent. The. Night. With. Cara.’ Then he waited.
Chris appeared to be hard of hearing. ‘At the crash?’
No, Adam thought, he was just hard of understanding. ‘Not at the crash,’ Adam stressed. ‘After the crash. I spent the night with her.’
Chris still looked blank. With an impatient sigh, Adam put two fingers from each hand next to each other on the table and rubbed them up and down.
Chris’s eyes widened. ‘What – you shagged Dippy Chick?’
‘I was trying to put it another way.’
Chris’s brow creased. ‘Is there any other way?’
‘What do you think?’ Adam said.
‘Mate!’ Chris said, turning the full force of a perplexed expression on Adam.
‘I know,’ Adam said. ‘I know.’
‘Are you mad?’
‘I’m beginning to wonder.’
Chris rubbed his hands over his eyes. ‘What on earth possessed you?’
‘I couldn’t help it,’ Adam told him. ‘You know that we’d been to cover this terrible, terrible car crash and we were both feeling very . . .’
‘Randy.’
Adam scowled at him. ‘Traumatised. We needed to comfort each other.’
Chris looked doubtful.
‘Okay, mate. What would you have done in that situation?’
‘Shared a bag of chips?’ Chris suggested.
Adam ploughed on regardless. ‘She went all sort of girly and vulnerable and I was a goner.’
‘Oh man!’
‘Chris,’ Adam said, ‘I haven’t made love to a woman in months.’
‘Any men?’
‘Be serious.’
Chris’s frown deepened. ‘I am.’
‘The spirit was willing and so was the flesh.’
‘What can I say?’ Chris said, sounding suitably exasperated and shaking his head in disbelief. Adam felt mortified. His friend sat back and studied him with his arms resting on his burgeoning beer belly. ‘Cara?’ he said, astounded. ‘Fuck.’ Then he laughed loudly. ‘Oh, you already did.’
‘This is not funny!’ Adam snarled.
He brooded silently as Chris struggled to suppress his mirth and returned to demolish the remains of his bacon sandwich. With a little chuckle, Chris wiped the grease away from his mouth and said: ‘Was she any good?’
Adam looked outraged. ‘How can you ask that?’
‘She’s my boss,’ Chris said. ‘I need to know these things.’
‘I wish I’d never started this conversation,’ Adam said.
‘You must have something to unburden from your soul, otherwise you wouldn’t have,’ Chris pointed out with a surprising amount of insight for someone whose intuition was normally limited to predicting the outcome of premiership matches. ‘It must be something pretty dreadful.’
‘It is.’
‘Did Mr Floppy put in an untimely appearance?’
r /> ‘No, he did not.’ Adam was indignant. ‘As a matter of fact, I thought the whole thing was going rather well until . . .’ He ran out of words.
‘Until?’ Chris prompted.
‘Until she cried,’ Adam said flatly. ‘She cried. When we . . . when she . . . at the point of . . . She cried. Lots. Inconsolably lots.’
‘Ooo,’ Chris said.
‘I didn’t know what to do.’
‘Well, you wouldn’t.’
Adam raked his hair. ‘Has it ever happened to you, mate?’ he asked. ‘Has anyone ever cried when you were making love to them?’
Chris thought for a moment. ‘As a matter of fact, they have,’ he said sagely.
Adam brightened. ‘Really?’
‘Yeah. But then her husband had just walked in.’ Chris rubbed his chin. ‘I don’t know if that counts.’
‘I’m bloody sure it doesn’t!’ Adam snapped.
Chris started to laugh.
‘Stop taking the piss and help me out here,’ Adam begged. ‘I don’t know what to do. She obviously thought it was a dreadful, dreadful, mistake.’
‘I think she’s probably right,’ Chris said. ‘There’s a little saying about not doing doo-doo on your own doorstep. I think there should also be one about definitely not doing it on your boss’s doorstep.’
‘I was trying to be nice,’ Adam said.
‘Well, the next time you think about being nice, stick hot pins in your eyes instead. It’ll hurt a lot less.’
‘What do you think she’ll do?’ Adam ventured.
‘I think she’ll make an effigy of you and, if you’re really lucky, she’ll saw its bollocks off quickly.’
‘I’ve got to apologise,’ Adam said.
‘Resign,’ Chris advised. ‘Then you won’t have to face her.’
‘I can’t do that!’
‘She’ll come in early and look for you,’ Chris warned.
Adam shook his head. ‘She wouldn’t do that.’
Chris glanced out of the window. ‘Oh no? Her car’s just pulled into the car park.’
Adam blanched, shot out of his seat and craned his neck to get a better view of the car park. ‘Where? Where?’
Chris laughed again.
‘Oh sod off,’ Adam said and sank back into his chair, realising that he wasn’t going to be able to rely on Chris to provide any useful advice in getting him out of this mess. He had got himself into it, he was just going to have to get himself out.