Chapter Forty-Seven
It was a Tuesday evening three months after I’d left EKArts, and I’d just painted the fingernails of my right hand fuchsia pink and the fingernails of my left hand, pale grey.
Pebble was asleep on the cat tower Sara had bought for her (‘sorry, I know your flat is tiny, but Pebble needs this’) and I was watching Runaway Bride for the twenty-seventh time, at a conservative guess.
The part-time consulting work I’d been doing had bolstered my bank account.
I was well rested, I was a regular at yoga classes, and I’d booked myself onto a ceramics course.
But to top everything off, and the reason I was smiling was… I’d got a new job. A perfectly formed job, that had fallen into my lap like a ripe apple from a tree.
Sara said that her lists and pep talks had seeded the idea, leading to me manifesting the job of my dreams. I’m not into manifesting.
What I had done was spotted a job ad, done extensive research, a visit to the place, a quick chat with their HR, and then the hottest application I could muster.
Although, obviously, there was some serendipity involved, because the job I wanted came up. So… perhaps Sara could have that one.
In a couple of weeks, I was going to be the Head of Communications and Content for a charity that ran several botanical gardens.
Not only were they doing important work botanically, they also had a strong emphasis on diversity and inclusion, including outreach for young people with disabilities.
I’d opted to work at the site nearest to Dad and Alex, which was commutable from London but also opened the door to me moving out of the city.
My office would be situated in the midst of one hundred acres of gardens and trees.
Every time I thought about my start date, I did a little hand clap of glee.
When my phone vibrated, I reached for it immediately. I saw the name on the screen and felt a spike of stress even before I entered the lock and opened the message.
ESME: Hey, sweet Lizzy. I hope you’re enjoying your freedom.
… typing.
I stared at the phone, feeling dread seep through me. The same feeling you get when an ex contacts you out of the blue, and you want to run away, hide, or block them. The only person who might have trumped her in terms of displeasure was Jack Dillane.
ESME: I’ve been meaning to get in touch because I want to say goodbye properly. Lunch? At The Teynham? Xx
I tossed the phone aside and carried on watching the film. Twenty minutes later it vibrated again.
ESME: Go on, Lizzy. For old times’ sake.
Twenty minutes after that.
ESME: I’m going to keep asking, you know.
I batted my third-coat-of-varnish nails in the air and thought about her offer. An expensive meal. A last look at the person who had been my professional focus for the most intense years of my life. Closure.
Don’t do it, screamed ninety percent of my brain.
You’ll never get over it without one last look, whispered the other ten percent, softly and persuasively. I picked up my phone.
LIZZY: You’re on.
A week later I found myself at The Teynham, awaiting Esme at her usual table.
It would have been a great flex to have turned up late, but I am constitutionally unable to be anything other than early.
Plus, Esme was always late, so trying to be later than the late person ran the risk of losing the table.
I arrived five minutes early and, with a flicker of rebellion, took the seat she normally sat in, facing outwards with a clear view of the room; a petty, but surprisingly satisfying, thing to do.
As I waited, I adjusted the folded cuffs of my white cotton shirt (half tucked in to black jeans), put my hands to the cream-coloured fake pearl necklace, and caught a satisfying hit of my most expensive perfume.
I wanted to look calm, perfectly chilled out, and elegant.
I wanted to show her that leaving EKArts had transformed me, not diminished me.
I felt transformed inside, but did it show on the outside?
I inspected my pink and grey nails, annoyed with myself for even caring what she thought.
The truth was, I felt sick. Sitting on the tube, every cell in my body told me never to go near Esme ever again.
I knew, on some level, that our relationship was irretrievably toxic; I’d been trying to do the best, most professional job I could, but I’d also put too much of myself into it.
My not having a life had suited her down to the ground, with her midnight phone calls and early morning messaging chains about her insecurities, her bright, impractical ideas which required me to translate them into reality.
Her rejection of my performance at the potential investors’ meeting had been deeply unfair, but it had also been a betrayal of the more-than-just-professional bond we’d had.
I’d simply replicated my family dynamic in my working life: I’d been Esme’s chief problem-solver, and I’d expected her loyalty in return.
In a way, I didn’t blame her: she’d just been doing her thing.
She was mercurial, sensation-seeking; it was like expecting loyalty from a butterfly.
I was also responsible for allowing it to happen.
But at the last, she hadn’t even had the guts to cast me aside directly, pouring her passive aggressive feelings into an email instead.
My jumping from EKArts had suited her as much as it suited me.
After all, she and Ajax were always after what was shiny and new: apps, partners, directors.
Esme was almost exactly ten minutes late.
When I caught sight of her it was like slipping back in time, back to our scores of confidential lunches: the grey, satin, draped dress she wore, the enormous eyes with their fake lashes, tousled hair, porcelain complexion.
I knew she was totally indestructible, but still there was that vulnerability in her expression.
I got up from the table as she approached.
She held her arms out to me and instinctively, I took a step away, smiling as brightly as I could. ‘It’s good to see you,’ I said.
There was no stopping her; she kissed the air a foot away from my face either side. Short of head-butting her or flouncing from the room, I couldn’t prevent it, and those options seemed unnecessarily dramatic.
She looked sidelong at the waiter. ‘Just bring us a selection of whatever’s best. Thank you.’
‘I’ll have the blue cheese salad, please,’ I said, catching his eye. ‘And sparkling water.’
Esme said nothing, a faint smile playing over her features. She took in where I was sitting – her chair. ‘I guess a different view will be refreshing,’ she said.
‘I thought it best not to sit with my back to the room,’ I said. ‘You never know when someone’s going to stick a knife in your back, after all.’
She tutted gently under her breath. ‘So sharp, Lizzy. Let’s just have a lovely time. Like two old friends bidding each other au revoir.’
I preferred a hard goodbye to au revoir.
‘Will you have some champagne, if I order some?’ she said.
‘Not for me,’ I said, as agreeably as I could.
She tsked. ‘Oh, come on, Lizzy. I’m trying to be nice. I’m trying to celebrate all of the great things we did together.’
She ordered it anyway, as I knew she would, and I let the waiter pour us both a glass.
He was a young man, and his hands trembled as he lowered the bottle, his gaze flicking towards her face as though he couldn’t stop himself from looking at her.
Fame. Esme had that megawatt charisma; that artful, expensive, dishevelled look.
She would always be a goddess of sorts. But you shouldn’t get too close to goddesses; they were just as likely to brand you with misfortune as let you bask in their golden light.
He put the bottle into its cooler with gentle hands and walked away; I saw him talk excitedly to a colleague.
‘I’ve hired a friend of yours,’ said Esme, breaking into my silent musings. She named Steph, someone I’d worked with in my last job. ‘She’s a brand maven, you know? So positive, so incredible.’ I heard the barb in her words, the easily denied dig. So positive, unlike you.
I thought of sunny Steph being put through the mincer by Esme and felt sad for her that she hadn’t checked with me before applying. ‘Treat her well,’ I said.
‘You make it sound like working for me is a chore,’ she said. ‘I don’t think it’s too bad, all things considered.’
My face made an expression which she obviously didn’t like, and I thought of Olly, months ago, telling me we’re going to have to work on your face. The memory made me smile, and when I looked back at Esme, I saw she didn’t like my smile either. That she was waiting, itching to say something.
‘So why did you ask me here?’ I said. ‘There’s clearly a reason. Let’s not pretend it’s because you like me.’
She paused, took me in. ‘You’re quite the hostile psychologist today,’ she said. ‘By the way, Ajax has got the most wonderful therapist. Does excellent inner child work. Why do you think I asked you here?’
I mulled the question for a moment, watching the bubbles rise in my champagne glass. ‘I think you wanted to show me you’re doing well. That I’m expendable. To give the impression of – what? – professional competence. I’ve seen behind the curtain, though, so you’d have to be very persuasive.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘And you’re not impressed? I guess we see what we look for.’ This was one of her mottos that she used when creating art; she had even stitched a textile banner once with the words embroidered on there, now worth six figures.
‘Quite right,’ I said, with a nod, turning the glass by its stem. ‘And it goes both ways. You’re never going to be able to look at me straight because I know what’s behind your facade. And I’m never going to be able to look at you straight because…’
‘You know, Lizzy,’ she interrupted. ‘Many people have tried to shame me in the past, and I can tell you now, it’s impossible.’
‘I’m not trying to shame you. And you didn’t let me finish. I’m never going to be able to look at you straight because you betrayed the trust between us.’
Her face showed precisely no emotion.
‘I came here because I wanted you to understand that,’ I continued. ‘How much of myself I put into my work. How much I gave to EKArts. To you. Only for you to dismiss all of it – that last email. It was inexcusable, Esme. Do you see that?’
Even as I said the words, something clicked in me, a sudden realisation emerging into the light. She would never try to understand. Never bend. She sat back in her chair, folding her arms, a slight smirk on her face.
I waited a moment for her to answer, then realised she wasn’t going to. ‘Are the underlings rebelling, Esme?’ I said. ‘The lesser mortals asking for a moment of consideration?’
‘So dramatic, darling,’ she said, looking into the middle distance.
‘And it’s your loss, darling,’ I said. ‘Because I’m the best at what I do. Even if I forgot that, for a moment.’
‘And I’m the best at what I do,’ she said. ‘I quote: “The most exciting artist of modern times”.’
The quote was fifteen years old, journalistic exaggeration in one of those ‘thirty under thirty’ lists. But I let her have it. She was extraordinary. I nodded, raised my glass. ‘Cheers to that.’
We both drank, ate a few mouthfuls, the atmosphere superficially calm but curdled beneath.
‘For the record, I think you’re going to regret not being part of the Chroma project,’ she said, softly. ‘We all have to change, reinvent ourselves, adapt.’
I tilted my head, looked her in the eye. ‘For the record,’ I said, ‘my only mistake was not leaving sooner.’
Her mouth twitched slightly, the only sign she had heard me. ‘I just think it’s going to be huge,’ she said.
Quietly, I put my knife and fork down. ‘I’ve got to go,’ I said. If I stayed, we would keep talking in circles. Our dynamic would never be fixed; we were locked into it forever.
‘Where are you going to be working?’ she said, watching me as I reached for my jacket, and put it on.
‘A lovely little place called none of your business,’ I said. ‘No more calls, please, Esme.’
She laughed throatily. ‘My dearest, darling Lizzy. Don’t worry, I’ll pick up the bill.’
‘This one’s on me,’ I said, looping my bag handle over my shoulder. ‘I got what I came for.’
For the first time, her fake smile faded. ‘You’re full of surprises.’
‘I wish I could say the same about you, Esme.’ I said. ‘Good luck. Try not to break too many things, and too many people, this time around.’
As I left the restaurant, touching my debit card to the payment machine, I heard the clamour of her, rising from the table, changing her seat, the waiters rushing to rearrange her dishes and glasses, to make everything perfect for her again.
The woman I’d met at that party a few years ago, the one who had told me how she had first made art, sitting on the floor, cross-legged, charcoal stick in hand, was long gone.
Esme was someone else now. Perhaps she always had been.