Chapter 19
19
In the window of the coffee shop, Kate reads the copy of Woman George was an Oxford graduate with a photographic memory, and they both had their places secured by Christmas of their final year. They just had to get first-class honours, which they both did: George in mathematics at Magdalen; Kate in business management at York. They met in the subsidised canteen on their first day when Kate handed George a tray in the queue for lunch. Kate was sun-kissed but meek, fresh from heartache in Central America; George’s small blue eyes jumped out against his Tenerife tan.
‘Hello there,’ he mumbled stiltedly.
Kate mustered up a smile and her kind, cried-out eyes crinkled.
Now her eyes scan the offices of Digby Global Investors. No sign of George. One o’clock and he still hasn’t come out for lunch. Or had Kate missed him?
She looks back at her magazine.
Six royal baby facts you probably didn’t know.
1.06 p.m.
Damn that app.
1.10 p.m.
I’ve come all the way here.
She looks up to the top floor, where George’s office sits on the corner, and wonders if ‘Lunch B’ is happening right there, right now, in his office. Clouds dance across the reflection of the building, and a wind picks up on the thoroughfare.
Can’t wait for lunch X
Kate stands, folds her magazine into a bag that’s too small for it, and puts her navy summer jacket on over her V-neck T-shirt. Time for plan B.
In the light and spacious ground-floor atrium, worker bees descend the escalators fresh from cutting deals, ready for lunch. They look different to how they looked eleven years ago, when Kate left to have Chloe. The staff seem younger. More confident. Better dressed. Finely polished.
Two young women sit at a long low reception desk and Kate hits a glitch. She hadn’t honed her plan B, seeing as she was sure she would be following George out of the building. He usually went out when he had lunch with B. And now, now that she’s going to ‘surprise’ her husband with an impromptu visit, she can’t announce herself or this will give him time to work out a cover story, if indeed he needs one.
She walks across the shiny dark grey tiles flecked with silver shards and thinks on her feet. The blonde hair, the B initial. Bethany must be her first port of call.
‘Kathleen Timberlake to see Bethany Henderson,’ Kate announces in a slightly different voice than usual, as if she’s pretending to be a newsreader or an airline pilot.
Neither receptionist looks up.
‘Just one second,’ says the one with a sleek brown bob.
Kate looks at the escalators, to keep her eye on the downward traffic. If he sees her, if he catches her out, she will say, ‘Surprise!’ and pretend she just wanted to take George out for lunch.
‘Hmmm, I’m not getting anything…’
‘I’ll wait,’ Kate says firmly.
The receptionist looks put upon. She wanted to get back to telling the receptionist with the Pre-Raphaelite mane about whatever it was she was talking about in hushed tones, and again, Kate has the crushing sensation of being an inconvenience. A burden. She thinks of Hector holding the beautiful girl’s face in the bar.
The receptionist dials again.
‘Hi, Bethany? Oh, hi, Freya, is Beth about?’
Clearly all the receptionists and all the PAs know each other at Digby Global Investors.
‘I’ve got someone down in the lobby to see Beth.’ Don’t tell her who you are; she’s one of them. ‘Sorry, what was the name?’
‘Kathleen Timberlake,’ Kate says with unusual authority. She sees the receptionist trying to repress a smirk. ‘Kathleen Timberlake… Yeah. Is it not in the diary?’ Kate can’t hear the voice on the other end.
The receptionist covers her mouthpiece. ‘Where did you say you were from?’
Kate has to think quickly. ‘Office supplies.’
Kate’s apple cheeks flush russet red, mostly in surprise at how quick she is to lie.
‘It’s the Staples rep.’
Rep? Rep? I’m his wife.
‘You want to come down or shall I send her up?’
Please don’t send her down, please don’t send her down.
The receptionist hangs up.
‘OK, just sign in on the iPad and you can go up. Take this escalator and you’ll see lifts at the top. It’s the sixth floor. When the lift opens, turn right and Freya will meet you through the double doors, Bethany’s in a meeting with her boss. Freya said she’ll see you.’
The receptionist looks Kate up and down as she types her name on the iPad to sign in.
Kathleen. Timberlake.