CHAPTER FOUR
‘You’ve been holding out on me!’
Raina laughed at the outraged tone in her friend’s voice. They both turned in their seats to look back at the museum, which was far behind them now.
‘What the hell was all of that?’
‘I actually don’t even know,’ Raina said, sliding down in the leather seat of the car. ‘That guy! I think he’s casing me for a story. Arrogant, cold-blooded shark. He’s not getting shit from me.’
‘Nuh uh,’ Pepper scolded in disbelief. ‘Every time I’ve seen that man, he’s been working on some story, and he always looks as serious as a heart attack. I’ve never seen him look like that.’
‘What, a guy can’t be horny on top of a grift? Never mind about him,’ Raina said wearily. ‘I won’t see him again. You might, but I won’t.’
‘Why won’t you?’
‘Didn’t give him my number.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘As a heart attack,’ Raina said, turning her head to smile at her best friend as she echoed her previous words. She didn’t know why, but she suddenly felt a pang of regret.
‘Rai,’ Pepper said gently. ‘What’s wrong with him? I mean, I’ve heard he’s a bit of a dick . . .’
‘He’s not, actually,’ Raina said thoughtfully, more to herself than to Pepper. ‘He says what he thinks, and sometimes doesn’t tidy it up first.’
She laughed at the memory of his fumbling attempts to apologize. It was weirdly refreshing. She knew better than anyone what it felt like to say the socially unacceptable thing. She might have learned to mask very well, but she was no stranger to fucking up in a social situation.
She suddenly felt the ghost of his gentle fingers on the base of her spine, and it caused her to jerk in her seat. Nice hands didn’t erase sneaky agendas.
‘Let’s get burgers,’ she suddenly said to Pepper. ‘The food they served wouldn’t have fed a rabbit.’
‘All right,’ Pepper said loftily. ‘But I want it noted that I’m allowing you to drop the subject.’
Raina let her head fall against the window of the car. She closed her eyes, the lights of the bright city still flickering behind her lids. London could be so brash, so loud, so overpowering. Her heightened senses welcomed every breath of it whether she wanted to or not.
Yet now, all she could smell was the lingering scent of him.
‘Welcome back to another episode of The Disability Track. I’m your host Raina Lewis and if you’ve met one of us, you’ve only met one of us. I hope you’re all having a good morning.’
Raina sipped a quick mouthful of warm water with lemon and then returned her attention to the expensive microphone.
She’d turned the small office room of her house in Barnes into a recording room.
The late April sunshine gently spilled into the room, and with the warm carpet beneath her bare feet, Raina felt content.
‘So, today,’ she said brightly, ‘we’re hearing from June, all about her wedding. June, girl. Tell us everything.’
‘Hi, Raina,’ said a cheerful, disembodied voice.
‘June! Married lady.’ Raina felt everything uneasy inside of her settle as she spoke to one of her listeners.
The space she’d created for other women like her had become her church.
A community of people she felt at peace with, who knew her story as well as they did their own. ‘Welcome back. We’re all listening.’
‘Well, the toxic brother-in-law never came.’
‘Oh, praise God!’
‘I know! He made sure to leave lots of surly voice notes when he realized we were all having a brilliant day without him.’
‘Ah, well,’ Raina said cheerfully. ‘Narcissists hate being denied a stage.’
‘That’s what my wife said!’
The episode went smoothly. June recounted her day to Raina and thanked her profusely for connecting her with a dressmaker who specialized in plus-size couture.
They discussed the unseen wedding tax for disabled brides and how best to plan an accessible reception.
As Raina listened to the elation in June’s voice, she felt a soft pain.
Hearing about happy families and a perfect day made Raina slightly envious.
She wasn’t the sort of woman who needed another person or material things to validate her. She was proud of her achievements. She’d been proud as a cleaner; she was proud now.
And maybe her job wasn’t something her parents’ friends understood, but she was satisfied with it. No office politics, no boss with wandering hands. She loved what she got to do each day. She loved talking to listeners on a split screen, or reading out their comments.
But sometimes it was lonely. Just sometimes.
She pressed her toes into the soft carpet and sighed. In her little recording room, she could fool herself. She could pretend that the world was the way it should be. She wasn’t in the minority. She didn’t have to expose her scars. There was a shorthand.
She checked her phone. A voicemail. Something that, in her line of work, had the potential to ruin her day.
‘Hello, Raina? This is Samantha from Autumn Hobbs Productions? We spoke at an event a few weeks ago. Look, I’m producing a new dating show for next season and it’s disability focused.
We would love to have you as one of our onscreen subjects.
The working title is “Unpretty” and we’d love as many neurodivergent women as possible.
Call me back. I’d love to tell you more about the project. ’
Raina pressed ‘delete’ with calm conviction.
Programmes like that were voyeuristic. At worst, they treated people like circus performers. At best, they were patronizing in their quest to portray all neurodivergent love stories as only ever wholesome and pure. Almost childlike.
Raina’s trysts had never fit that description.
This thought brought a face into her mind, and she grimaced. The face of an arrogant, cold-blooded shark.
And then she did what she’d ordered herself not to do.
She googled Tom Branimir and his work. She had to admit, he was infuriatingly good.
His pieces were long, in-depth and dry. One was for The New Yorker.
He exposed his subjects with a detached coolness, but Raina was forced to admire the steely principles underlying each article.
His thinly veiled disgust for a woman who said essential oils could cure cancer took a backseat to his need to present all the facts first. His pieces were, she hated to say, unapologetically excellent.
‘Bastard,’ she muttered, smirking.
She’d thought about the Hathaway Dinner more than she cared to admit.
She’d thought about it as she dressed a small blister on the heel of her foot.
She’d thought about it as she organized her make-up bag.
She’d thought about it while on a virtual call with her accountant.
She’d thought about it while buying olives.
She thought about it in bed at night.
Enough. He’s an arrogant muckraker with a hidden agenda.
She quickly logged off her computer and grabbed her keys. She needed to walk, get away from the intrusive thoughts.
One last memory crept into her mind, a memory of a porcelain-blue tie.
Liberty. She would go and wander around Liberty.
Mirren Branimir radiated love and insolence all at once, smiling broadly at her big brother as he sauntered into the accessories hall she worked in.
‘Nice dark circles!’
‘Well, I can always go next door and drop a grand on some eye cream,’ Tom retorted sardonically, but his expression was warm. ‘How’s things, Miri?’
‘Bit slow but they’ll pick up. How was the Hathaway Dinner?’
Tom arched an eyebrow. ‘How did you . . .?’
‘It was all online.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘It was fine.’
‘You never let me tag along to your fancy things.’
‘Because I don’t want to be a bad influence. Besides, you work here. You get enough fancy.’
Liberty of London had become a regular stopping point for Tom since Mirren was hired.
He liked to check in on his sister and make sure she was all right.
He never wanted to cramp her style, but their nervous father up in Scotland appreciated his efforts, even if it sometimes made him feel like an overprotective spy.
Mirren was still in the honeymoon phase of moving to London.
She found Leicester Square charming. The M&M store’s presence didn’t cause her to break out in hives – yet.
She lived in Shoreditch with three flatmates.
She enjoyed the Tube. She hadn’t learned to avoid Bank Station unless absolutely necessary.
After a decade, Tom was a little more jaded. But he would let her think that London parties with the so-called elite were a good night out, rather than cynical and depressing.
Well. There had been one pleasurable thing about the Hathaway Dinner.
‘Mind you,’ Mirren added, her tone catty and looking to catch. ‘I’d hate to meet those scaffy friends of yours again.’
‘Seb and Ottie?’
Tom couldn’t feign ignorance. He knew his Cambridge brethren were not for everyone.
He knew how they looked to his sister. Yet he couldn’t explain to her what a help Seb had been during university.
He’d taken pity on Tom, who lacked the shorthand so many of his classmates seemed to already possess.
Seb had made those years bearable. While Ottie was someone Tom still found a little pitiful, he knew enough of her to know that, beneath the insecurity, there was a frightened girl who was terrified of being laughed at.
‘Sorry my friends aren’t as cool as yours,’ was all he said.
He’d spent years on the garden of his career.
Planting the seeds, mowing the grass and tending to the greenhouse containing his next project, and it had resulted in a beautiful Eden.
All of the hard work and effort had paid off, but that didn’t really make up for having no one to share any of it with at the end of each day.
‘How’s the book?’
‘Fine.’
‘What’s it all about again? Are they just reprinting your articles?’
‘Yeah, but I’m also writing about how I wrote them.’
‘How you caught the baddies, you mean?’
He snorted. ‘Kind of.’
‘Good. I’m so glad you skewered that woman who said positive vibes would cure leukaemia.’