Chapter 4
JAKE
Following my frustrating appearance on TV, I have a busy day with back-to-back client meetings and calls.
In my last meeting of the afternoon, a new female client tells me that the last straw for her in her marriage was going home after having been to the cinema to watch a romcom with girlfriends (who afterwards all gushed about their own partners).
Her husband had forgotten she was out and had locked the front door and nodded off in front of the TV.
When she’d finally got inside, she’d looked at him squinting at her, with one sleep-crumpled cheek and his shirt hanging out over his slightly squidgy belly (her words).
She’d done the comparison with the hero in the film she’d just watched and her husband had not matched up. She decided then and there to walk.
I would so much like Freya Cassidy to have heard about this.
Freya would probably have done one of her perfect little smiles (all cute and misleadingly sweet and innocent-looking) and trotted out her symptom-rather-than-cause line again.
And, while that is of course a valid point, I really do think that a lot of people, when vulnerable, can be misled into thinking that their relationship is lacking when really they just need to work at it.
People getting their heads filled with fake romantic nonsense is not great.
And it’s mind-blowing that a woman peddling such ridiculous and dangerous fiction doesn’t believe in love herself. Taking the whole do-as-I-say-and-not-as-I-do thing to great heights.
I blink, realising that my client has spoken and I didn’t hear what she said. I am never distracted like this.
I apologise profusely and focus very hard on her until the meeting concludes.
I find myself thinking again about Freya Cassidy as I pack some papers together to take home to work on this evening.
It’s annoying to be left with the feeling that someone whose work you thoroughly despise has in some way bested you.
I shake my head. It doesn’t matter. I’m never going to see her again and I’m never going to agree to appear on morning television again.
By the time I’ve got home from work and parked the e-bike I picked up outside my office, my head is clear, and this morning seems a long way in the past. I’m going to go to the gym, do some more work and then head to the pub for a quick pint with Minuk, a friend who lives round the corner, and my day will end much more enjoyably than it began.
I pull out my phone to text him and, wow. The phone’s alight with many dozens of messages from friends and family. I feel extreme worry for a second or two until I realise that nothing seriously bad has happened to anyone I know.
What has happened is that everyone I know has left work and seen that the argument between Freya Cassidy and me has blown up.
There are videos of us arguing. They’re obviously edited for highlights, I see when I watch the first couple, but at the same time they are actually quite representative of what did happen.
We did thoroughly dislike each other (well, I thoroughly disliked her, or at least her work, and I’m guessing she didn’t love me from the way things panned out) and we did argue.
And apparently millions of people watched us and a lot of them rewatched us and lot of people who did not originally see us now have.
There are also already actual memes of us, and apparently (according to my friend Affan) they’re multiplying by the literal second.
I don’t do social media at all; it’s a whole other world that operates in complete parallel to my – real-life – world.
It’s odd to think that without anyone telling me, all of this could have been happening online without me ever having found out, just passed me by.
It has not passed a lot of people by, though. It’s crazy.
Yeah. Wow, basically.
I send brief replies to everyone who’s messaged me (no small job), before getting changed for the gym. Hopefully this will all have blown over in a couple of hours’ time.
Nope, I discover when I emerge from the gym.
That was total social media naivety. I have a lot more messages, many of them from people I haven’t heard from in quite a while, some of whom should surely not even have my number.
It seems like everyone I’ve ever met has seen the clips.
Freya and I have ‘gone massively viral’ in the words of my cousin’s thirteen-year-old daughter.
I really have no way to respond other than to hunker down – sparing the odd brief thought for Freya and wondering whether she’s experiencing the same – and not go for a pint this evening after all.
We can go tomorrow; this is bound to blow over soon, I’m sure.
Another five-second wonder story will come along.
My phone is a lot quieter in the morning; it seems that everyone saw the clips yesterday and it’s already blowing over. Good news.
If I had Freya’s number, I think, as I grab a bagel and a banana from my kitchen on my way out for work, I’d almost be tempted to text her to see how she is.
I can’t imagine she’s experienced something like this before either; if she weren’t one of the most annoying people I’ve ever met, I’d quite like to discuss our mutual weird experience with her.
Fortunately, I obviously don’t have her number, so I can’t message her. And that’s that. I’m off to work and by the end of the day this will all just be an anecdote for future dinner parties.
Except.
Mid-morning, Veronica, my PA, tells me she has a Very Important Caller on the line.
She’s behaving a little oddly, if I’m honest. Eyes rounded, almost popping out of her head, and mouthing something indecipherable at me.
She’s been working for me for over two years and never in that time has she referred to someone as a ‘very important caller’.
Even when the callers are very important.
I’m wondering if the caller is royalty. (Veronica is an ardent royalist.) Is this breaking news? Another royal divorce?
Oh. As soon as she puts the caller through I realise what has happened. It’s bloody Sonja.
She sounds a little breathless.
‘Jake. I only have a minute while the ads are on. I know that Freya’s on board. Your chemistry together. The way you argued. Viral. It was already kicking off even as you were on yesterday. We’d love to set the two of you a challenge and then have you back on the show.’
‘No,’ I say immediately. I’m not stupid; lesson learnt.
‘Jake, darling, I know you’ll agree. We’ll meet for a drink later to discuss.’
And then she’s gone.
She’s as crazy as the whole viral thing. I will not be meeting her for a drink.
Except (again)…
She messages me during what I’m guessing is the next ad break. It seems that she isn’t above a bit of outright blackmail.
She’s suggesting (commanding) that the three of us get together this evening in the bar at the Savoy to hammer out the details of our challenge. (What does she mean by challenge?) And she says:
Don’t forget that millions of people have seen the clip of the two of you, and some of those are prospective clients, or the friends of prospective clients (it’s a small world). Did I tell you that my friend Laura Darke mentioned you the other day and is planning to get in touch?
Right.
Laura Darke was one half of Britain’s now-ex-favourite TV couple before they announced they were having difficulties in their marriage. I would very much like to represent Laura in the divorce that the nation knows is coming.
I stare at my phone and shake my head as I think.
Sonja is a sneaky woman.
Laura Darke. I would really like to represent her.
It’s very likely that Sonja knows her. So it seems quite possible that whether or not I agree to meet her and Freya for a drink this evening could influence whether or not I get to work with Laura.
Fine. Fine. I’ll meet them. I will not, however, be participating in any kind of a challenge.