Other People's Fun, page 19
The keyboard clicks stop for a moment and I can hear his breath as he takes stock. ‘OK, can’t say I was expecting that,’ he says. ‘She certainly made an impression when we met. Very… self-assured,’ and I guess this means she didn’t defer to or flirt with him; she didn’t bother to court his approval. She didn’t need to. Maybe he longed, even then, to take her down a peg or two. And Murray – who is, after all, so extraordinarily successful.
‘Of course,’ he adds thoughtfully, ‘Sookie must be finding all this media posturing pretty, um, triggering. I wonder if she’ll talk.’
‘She might, if you catch her at the right moment,’ I say. ‘For instance, I know she’s on her own this evening – you could try her now.’ I tell him not to worry if she doesn’t answer immediately. No point in leaving a message. Just press redial. Keep trying. She’ll pick up in the end. She always does.
I send him her number and then there’s the tiresome fussy business of ending the conversation, navigating his thanks and ludicrous assurances that the story is in the best possible hands. He’s just as keen to get rid of me: he’s going to make the call straightaway, as soon as we hang up. ‘Great, goodbye,’ I say, and then I press the red button.
There’s a voicemail waiting for me, a notification from the missed call. I stand in front of the noodle shop, listening to the message as a waiter places a bowl in front of a solitary diner who is seated in the window. Nell’s voice, tired and excited, almost anxious. She just landed at Heathrow and is waiting for her luggage. Is everything OK? Because she’s had the weirdest feeling recently. She can’t really explain it but anyway – she missed me, she had a longing to see me, so she booked a flight. She wants to catch up, hang out – all the things you can’t do properly over WhatsApp or FaceTime, even if you have a signal. She wonders when I’m free.
The diner unwraps his chopsticks and the steam twists up towards the pendant bulb, clouding the window.
At this moment the moon will be rising over the forest, casting its cold light upon the glade where Myrtha is gathering her attendants. The Wilis will arrange their arms and turn their shrouded faces away, drifting over the stage like mist, and the hush will be so deep that the people in the front rows will hear the soft blunt flutter of the bourrées. Necks, shoulders, wrists, hands: what a relief, to leave the world behind, escaping to a place where everything is so quiet and beautiful, where the wildest and ugliest of feelings are disciplined and turned into something exquisite.
It’s almost unbearable, to think of that sound breaking out: the handclaps, beeps and bumps, the jump-rope chant which is also a call to arms. There is a chance Sookie will stoop and grope for her bag as soon as she hears the opening notes, but, knowing her, I think it’s far more likely she’ll perform a swift calculation and – while the people around her shift indignantly in their seats, trying to divine the source of the sound – she’ll sit tight, waiting for the voicemail to kick in, her eyes innocently fixed on the stage.
On and on it goes at top volume, that fierce beat hissing and sparking around the dark auditorium like a loose electrical cable. Four seconds. Five. Six. Seven. Each an eternity. Outrage will chase along the rows, sweeping through the circle and the stalls and into the boxes. It will reach up into the gods and down into the orchestra pit. On stage, every last dancer in those precise ghostly formations will feel it, and they will all hate her for it. They may not know who she is but they will know the sort of person she is, and they will never forgive her.
The ringtone will shut off abruptly, and she will think: it’s over. I got away with it. Then it will start again, and it will never really stop, not for her. It’s only just beginning, as far as she’s concerned.
In the noodle shop window, the solitary diner is busy with his bowl, his features blurred by the steam on the glass. I turn away and walk on, towards the bright coloured lights, and as I approach the station the clamour of the city gathers around me, the traffic and the music and the conversations, the stories that people tell each other about themselves. It’s all there, and I can take it or leave it. It’s up to me. Here I am, I think. Here I am.
Acknowledgements
With love and thanks to:
Poppy and Barnaby Critchlow
Sara and David Lane
The FWC: Helen Papaleontiou and Rachael Tiffen. Also Georgia and Ines Aberdeen, and Clemency and Ethan Tiffen
Amanda Coe, Morag Preston, Jane Dwelly, Becky Morris, Peggy Vance, Daisy Cook, Olivia Lacey, Lucy Darwin, Alison Critchlow, Lynne Riley, Damian Whitworth, Andrew Clifford, Rachel Thomas, Annalisa D’Innella, Megan Carver, Kasia Czernia, Liz Dormandy, Fiona Walker, Jo White, Vicky Nichols, Grace Farrugia, Olivia Bell
Lucia Gahlin, who showed me the Petrie Museum shabtis
My agent, Karolina Sutton
My editor, Juliet Annan, and all at Weidenfeld & Nicolson, particularly Sarah Fortune; as well as Gráinne Fox, Helen O’Hare, and the team at Little, Brown and Company
Always missing Susie Steiner and Deb Dooley
Discover Your Next Great Read
Get sneak peeks, book recommendations, and news about your favorite authors.
Tap here to learn more.
Also by Harriet Lane
Her
Alys, Always
Harriet Lane, Other People's Fun
