That seemed right enough. And even if it hadn’t, I’d not have had much choice in the matter.
“But this is contingent,” Sir Arthur was saying, “on your complete discretion. Should I find that you have been spreading any kind of rumours about my daughter or my household—”
“I wouldn’t,” I blurted out. “I wouldn’t do nothing to hurt Miss Emily. Not never.”
There was a kind of sorrow in Mrs. Loris’s eyes then. “On that much, at least,” she told Sir Arthur, “I believe we can trust her.”
And that was that. I packed my things at once, and that evening I was on the last train back to Stepney.
I never got to say goodbye to Emily. Never got to take nothing to remind me of her, ’cept a half-ate, half-wrapped bundle of gingerbread. And I carried that all the way back to my mum and dad’s house in Stepney. Stuck it in a box under my bed.
Never could bring myself to finish it.
Midnight
It came as no surprise to Audrey that the lights were still on in Jennifer’s trailer, nor did it come as any surprise that the response she received when she knocked on the door was a clear, “Fuck off, Audrey.”
“I thought you’d want to know that I got the Doris situation sorted.”
“And in less than two hours. How blisteringly efficient of you.”
Audrey stood on the steps facing a blank expanse of caravan with a-not-taking-this-shit expression that, as an inanimate object, it was in no place to appreciate. “If you’re going to insult me, could you at least do me the courtesy of not doing it through a door?”
“Best way to insult somebody. It means you don’t have to put up with their sulky faces.”
“I do not have a sulky face.”
“Sweetheart, you’reallsulky face.” Jennifer’s voice was a little louder now, as if she was moving about inside. “You did nothing in your mercifully short tenure on my show except whine about things. Oh boo hoo, you’re sexualising a teenager. Boo hoo, an oldwoman has to go for a bit of a walk. Boo hoo, you won’t let me publish my affirming story about two hot lesbians in the forties.”
Audrey knew when she was being baited, but she hoped that like the wily octopus, she’d learned to hook the bait out of the trap without actually getting caught by it. “Firstly, at least two of those were actually very bad things you did need to stop doing, and the last one I’m at peace with even though I still think it’s a good story. Anyway, I just came to tell you I’d done what you asked, and I have so”—she gave a kind of flustered exhalation that was part sigh part general yargh—“so good night I guess. Sleep well. I’ll talk to Alanis in the morning.”
Having said her piece and not wanting to stand around like a fool, Audrey turned and walked slowly away. Very slowly Hopefully slowly.
“You know if you were really leaving, you’d have got much further by now,” said Jennifer’s voice from behind her.
Turning back, Audrey saw a very awake, somewhat dishevelled, mildly irate Jennifer Hallet standing in the now-open doorway. There was, she thought, something about Jennifer that wasmadeto be seen the wrong side of midnight. Something about the way her hair, normally pulled into a severe ponytail, spilled loose over her shoulders. The way the shadows fell across her eyes and cheekbones like she was some kind of highly caffeinated vampire. She danced that line betweenoverworkedandwanton, and if Audrey’d had more energy she would have pretended she wasn’t into it.
“If you were really going to let me,” Audrey replied after justslightlytoo long a pause, “you wouldn’t have looked.”
“Maybe I was just going for a walk.”
Honestly, Audrey had expected better. Or at least more vulgar. “That seems unlikely. You don’t seem like the moonlit-stroll type.”
“Then maybe I just wanted to remind you, to your smug face, that you don’t actually have anywhere to sleep because you’re not on the show anymore, so you don’t have a room assigned.”
“Well, if you were,” retorted Audrey, “that would make you both a dick and bad at your job. And I’m pretty sure you’re only one of those.”
“You’re right,” Jennifer grudgingly admitted. “Colin’ll sort you out.”
Which resolved the question of sleeping arrangements. Which left Audrey with no other reason to stay. But she hovered anyway. And so did Jennifer. “Unless…” Audrey began.
Jennifer sneered in a way Audrey was at least hoping constituted protesting too much. “Unless what—unless I wanted to make you a better offer? Sorry to disappoint, sugartits, I don’t shit where I eat or fuck where I work.”
That was the thing about midnight. It wasn’t just Jennifer Hallet it was kind to. Audrey didn’t believe in magic, but there was something about this witching hour that made bad ideas look like good ideas. She took a step forwards. “You say that, but you called me up to solve a problem you could perfectly well have solved yourself.”
“I delegated.”
“And I could have said, ‘No, go fuck yourself,’ but instead I drove for nearly three hours to come and help you out.”
