Chapter Twenty Five

The call took nearly an hour. While she’d been battling pop stars and demons, the rest of her world had been continuing in much the way it normally did. Norman had managed to get out of whatever form of restraint Caroline had put him into the night before in time for a viciously early breakfast meeting with the client, which had lead to a number of other calls in the course of the day and a friendly ‘off-the record’ lunch with a couple of the lawyers acting for the other side. Gordon was still acting like a damp and warty toad, and had a very long list of alternatives which he had considered, with an even longer list of reasons why none of them worked. There was a new and very complicated German employment point; as well as a couple of things relating to other clients which Norman ran through once everyone else had dropped off the call.

Both Gordon and Norman had expressed banal concern for her wellbeing, assured her that she hadn’t missed anything by not being in, and then proceeded to work through a very long list of things which needed to be done the following day,. She seemed to be expected to do most of them. Once she had hung up, she lay back on the bed for a couple of minutes and tried to get herself into focus. It was like living two totally different lives at the same time: the hardest bit was the transition between the two.

When she emerged, she could hear the TV murmuring in the living room. The door was closed, and she hesitated before she opened it, saying a little prayer that Jake would still be there. She smiled when she saw him: he was slouched back on the sofa, eyes closed, with his legs stretched out in front of him – his right one straight, left one bent slightly back. She wondered for a moment whether he was still in pain, too. His breathing was slow and regular; his face relaxed, but with dark shadows under his eyes which she hadn’t noticed when he was awake and smiling at her. She perched on the arm of one of the chairs, wondering what to do. The TV was tuned to one of the news channels, and a brief article on Jake’s non-arrest the night before was one of the items which repeated every half hour or so: they showed the pictures of him, wearing the hoodie, seeming to be lead away again, while making reference to his release. The Jake on the TV seemed to have as little relation to the one sleeping peacefully in front of her as he did to Norman and multi-billion dollar deals.

She would have like to turn it off, to eliminate at least one unknown from the equation, but was afraid that if she did so she would wake him. The room was also quite cool, now that it was September and the sun was round the other side of the building. There was a light cotton blanket in her bedroom, which spent the winters in the sitting room in case she needed something else to keep the cold and dark at bay. After waiting a few more minutes to see whether he stirred, she went to dig it out from the back of the wardrobe. The rhythm of his breathing stuttered as she laid it over him, and he moved his head slightly to one side, but he carried on sleeping.

After waiting for a few more minutes, and watching his breathing settle again, Sorcha left him there. She didn’t want to, but she had things to do. She put the papers and pictures back in the archive box, wishing for a moment that it was smaller and easier to hide, before logging on to her laptop and starting to work through her e-mails. She had her daybook next to her, and made a list of everything that she needed to do; mixing the points from her e-mails with the ones which appeared from nowhere and popped into her head. It made her feel in control, and gave her the reassurance that she needed that Monday had just been one long, surreal, irrelevant nightmare and Wednesday would not be anywhere as bad.

The only things from Norman related to client matters; but there was a short note from Caroline:

“Sorry: I know I pushed it too far. Have given Maggie your ring back – I told her you had lent it to me. C”

Maggie would doubtless have read it, but Caroline would have known that would happen when she sent it. If Caroline really meant an apology, it always came with a peace offering. They were usually little things – a bar of chocolate, a cup of tea, once some tiny lily of the valley from her Mum’s garden. The ring was different, not least because she would have understood just how little either of them could trust Norman, but it served the same purpose. At least it meant that she didn’t have to decide whether to attempt to retrieve it or not.

Sorcha started answering a question which had come in from a client, before realising that there was a point which she needed to double check. The copy of the Companies Acts which normally floated around the dining room had been banished to the shelves in the spare room when she was tidying that morning: now that she was thinking more clearly, it was obvious that it would have made more sense to just find a space for it in the sideboard and hope nobody else went looking too closely. She stood up and stretched her neck, before turning to go and fetch it.

Jake was standing in the doorway, just watching. He must have known that she was about to turn around, but had made no attempt to move, or hide, or even warn her. He’d wanted her to turn round and find him there. Sorcha was caught slightly off-guard, but managed not to jump or to squeak at him.

“Sleepy head.”

“Mmmm.”

Sorcha waited for him to say something more, but he didn’t, which left her floundering around for something to say.

“Are you OK now?”

He smiled, a half-awake sort of smile.

“I thought I was OK anyway, although I didn’t exactly get a lot of sleep last night. Are you feeling OK now?”

He stressed the “you”, heavily, just in case she missed the point. Sorcha had a sudden vision of the blotchy, incoherent mess that she’d been only a couple of hours earlier. It seemed a world away, and she was embarrassed.

“Oh God. Yes, I’m fine pet: I’m sorry I worked myself up into such a state. Turns out what I really needed was a dose of reality to get me to snap out of it.”

She looked at him, daring him to disbelieve her; and it seemed to work. He seemed ready to move on.

“Do you fancy going and getting something to eat?”

Sorcha hesitated. It was tempting, not least because she’d eaten nothing but toast and an apple all day, but it felt like a step in the wrong direction. It wasn’t going to be the best way to make sure that she got to the office the following morning, ready face up to normality, which was what she mostly needed to do.

“I’d really love to pet, but I’d better not. There’s some stuff that I need to be sorting out, and then I’m going to be having a very early night. A load of work stuff went tits up yesterday as well, and I need to be in a fit state to start sorting it all out.”

Jake looked wistful.

“I can’t twist your arm?”

“Not tonight, pet. Another time, maybe?”

“OK.” She couldn’t tell whether he meant it or not, and the fact that he then hesitated didn’t really help. “I suppose I had better head off then. Are there usually cabs at the hotel?”

“Yes, but I can call one and ask them to come down to the basement if you would rather not venture out there.”

His expression changed to one of irony mixed up with something like regret.

“Thanks for the thought, but I can’t keep hiding away, either, even if I’d kind of like to. Reality calls for me as well, you know.”

Looking at him, Sorcha knew she had absolutely no idea what his reality was like, and had a feeling that it was probably better that way. He seemed to be hesitating as he headed into the lobby, and she thought for a moment that he was afraid, until he turned back to her after pushing the button to call the lift.

“I don’t want you to yell at me again or anything, but will you promise me that you will go and get something to eat which isn’t just toast? Please?”

She wanted to tell him that one day of eating toast wasn’t going to harm her, before checking herself: he meant no harm.

It was only later, when she was standing in Sainsbury’s trying to remember what vegetables she liked, that she realised that they had not actually agreed what to do about what she had already pigeon-holed as “the Marty Stuff”. She shrugged the thought off: there really wasn’t anything that they could do with it other than look for an opportunity to return it.