Chapter Twenty Seven

Later that evening Sorcha was lying on the sofa, watching a stunningly miserable Czech film with subtitles which were making her squint, when her mobile started ringing. She hadn’t expected the film to hold her attention, but once she had calmed down enough to be able to sit still she was glad for the distraction.

She didn’t know quite what to think when she fished the phone out of her handbag, and saw the screen flashing Jake’s name. And the beginning of the conversation was slightly peculiar, as Jake seemed to feel the need to explain who he was, and to be a bit confused that she already knew, before explaining that he was just calling to give her his new number.

“We’ve hired a secretary, a PA like. Well, actually, we’re borrowing one from the record company for a bit, until we can sort out hiring someone and everything. But anyway, she’s meant to be starting with us tomorrow, and was going to be letting everyone know, but I thought I’d better tell you myself. In case you didn’t believe her, or something.”

Sorcha wanted to ask whether they had really been attempting to run a multi-million pound business without so much as a PA, but thought better of it.

“Why are you changing your number, Pet? Are the police worried about something?”

“God, no. Nothing like that.” The line went silent for long enough that Sorcha checked the screen to see whether the handset had died, before Jake continued, “Well, I mean, they’re worried about Stevo, and the fact that they don’t know where Dad is, and stuff, but nothing new. Although I reckon they’re still a bit,” he paused again, thinking through his word choice, “disgruntled, I suppose. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were listening in on this, but then I reckon they’ll listen in on the new one too. There’s just too many people who’ve got this number, and there were some weird messages when the stuff was in the papers.”

Sorcha felt sick at the thought of the police listening in: she’d done a pretty good job of filing the misdemeanours of the earlier part of the week in a part of her brain where they wouldn’t generally pop up to bite her. And she couldn’t remember the laws on phone tapping with any more clarity than she could remember those on breaking and entering; and she was almost certain that they had changed as well. But she had been about to launch into an explanation of the call with the youth centre, and that unnerved her. Jake’s rather halting, hesitant manner really didn’t inspire confidence at the other end of a phone line, either.

“But they don’t suspect you of being involved in it all still, do they?”

“I don’t think they know.” There was another implausibly long gap, which Sorcha wasn’t quite sure what to do with, “They’d built this whole theory, around the fact that I “disappeared” as they put it between the end of the tour and going into the studio, which was back at the beginning of the month. They got a bit disappointed when I could tell them exactly where I was and tell them who to contact, to corroborate what I was saying. I reckon that’s what meant they let me go.”

Sorcha found herself pacing up and down, trying to will him to hurry up, and then found that she had nothing to say in reply. She kept expecting that he would just end the call, but he seemed happy to just keep her hanging on the end of the line not saying anything at all. It really wasn’t a very easy way to go about having a telephone conversation. It got to the point where she felt compelled by the silence to say something.

“I found out a bit more about the youth centre in that article we were looking at, by the way.”

“OK”

It sounded like an invitation to say more, but she wasn’t sure that he had understood that she wasn’t going to be exactly forthcoming in her comments if they had a wider audience. She half wished that she had chosen some other way to break the silence.

“It’s still going. Apparently they were supported for a while by some anonymous mystery donor, but the payments stopped a few months ago. I had a brief chat with the lady who runs it: suggested that the other members of the band might be good for a few grand if she got in touch with you.”

“Great. I let you cry over me, and already you’re out spending my money.”

Jake sounded amused: the comment was made gently, almost as if he was asking a question. But she still wasn’t sure whether he had got the point or not and she couldn’t exactly ask him.

“I’ve cried in your company at least three times. And I’ve bled all over you, too. That ought to count for something.”

He laughed briefly, and then fell silent again, which still didn’t work very well on the phone. Sorcha frowned theatrically at her handset, to no effect, before deciding that her best bet was to put it on speaker on the coffee table, rearrange herself on the sofa, and turn the film back on with the sound muted. It rather took the edge off the film, but it was a lot less frustrating than it would have been if she had tried to treat it as a normal kind of telephone conversation requiring some kind of sustained interaction.

Over an hour or so, they had what would have been a reasonably sensible conversation, had it been condensed into a period of about ten minutes. He asked her whether work had been OK, and she said yes. She thought about asking about his work, but concluded that she was likely to make an idiot of herself if she did so and decided that it was probably a good time for another one of the weird silent bits. He asked her if she’d eaten, to which she didn’t really reply. She asked him if he had slept, at which he laughed. He said they ought to get together again soon, which she said would be nice.

Once he had finally decided that she probably had better things to do, and she hadn’t contradicted him, she realised that she had somehow missed the ending of the film. The conversation left her feeling rather confused. The only thing it even vaguely reminded her of was a comedy sketch she had once seen, about fourteen year olds having a phone conversation which ended up being all about which of them should hang up first. Except the analogy didn’t work, because Jake seemed to be in no hurry at all to hang up, or have much sense that she might be.

She was sitting in a partners’ meeting the following morning, having a heated discussion about the repeated failings of their European networks, when she suddenly remembered that the whole point of the sketch had been that the fourteen year olds were dating. She swore, loudly.