"You tell me," said Anthony quietly.

Vanessa giggled and shoved him playfully on the arm. She picked up her handbag.

"I really must go," she managed. "I have an entire family to heckle."

"Sounds wonderful."

With considerable messing about, they collected all their belongings and pushed their way out of the by then heaving wine bar. Outside, the fresh night air sobered them up enough to feel slightly self-conscious.

"Are you getting a cab?" asked Vanessa.

"Nah. Where you going?"

"North. Highgate. You?"

"Notting Hill. I'll catch the tube."

A cab appeared, and Anthony waited contentedly by its door, watching Vanessa lean into the window to give her address to the driver. Before opening the door, he stepped an inch toward her. They were eye to eye. She could smell the mingled aroma of smoke and aftershave.

"Night then," he smiled.

"Night then."

It started off as a fairly friendly good night kiss, perhaps a tad unnecessary for a business meeting, but pleasant nonetheless. It ended up, however, as something very different. Before the cab had rung up a fiver, Anthony had mastered most of the curves that had been preoccupying him of late and Vanessa had transformed into the woman she once was. It was as much of a discovery for her as it was for him.

Eventually, they stepped apart for some air. Vanessa leaned against the cab door, catching her breath. Her legs were trembling.

"Night then," she mumbled, turning without looking back.

"Night then," whispered Anthony, drawing himself back into the cold.

Vanessa stumbled into the cab and sat down heavily, her lips hot and stinging, her stomach liquid acid. As the cab driver put down his sandwich and set off, she was thrown into the back of the seat and started to feel very sick indeed.

When she flicked on the kitchen light, Vanessa found Jo sitting at the kitchen table.

"Oh!" she jumped. "What are you doing? Spying in the dark?"

Jo gave a little smile. "Josh is showering. I thought I'd give him some privacy."

"Oh G.o.d," moaned Vanessa, making herself a nightcap. "I'm so sorry you've got to put up with him. It's ridiculous I know. Homeless in Highgate, living rent-free in his father's house, age twenty-five. I ask you. d.i.c.k hasn't got a clue."

Jo's jaw dropped. "Rent-free?" she breathed.

"G.o.d yes. Poor little rich boy."

"I-I had no idea. He pays...absolutely nothing?"

"Absolutely nothing."

Jo couldn't speak. She thought of how young she was when she'd started paying rent to her parents. She thought of how hard Shaun worked. She thought of the holidays Sheila had missed because she hadn't worked enough on weekends. It was as if someone had deflated the bright balloon that was Josh.

Vanessa went to the drinks cabinet and took a long look at Jo.

"Don't go falling for the famous Josh Fitzgerald charms," she said kindly. "Twenty-five going on fourteen. Of course," she added, tapping her nose with her finger and spilling some whiskey on the floor, "that's all between you and me."

"Of course," whispered Jo.

After a swig of whiskey, Vanessa started up again.

"I suppose d.i.c.k's been watching television all night again?"

Jo tried to think what d.i.c.k had been doing.

"Of course he has!" Vanessa answered her own question. "I'm the only one who works around here. My husband's job is to have fun. My job is to make it possible for him to have fun. And you know what the funny thing is?"

Jo shook her head, preparing herself for something very unfunny.

"The funny thing is that my husband thinks he works hard!" Vanessa came and sat at the table. She leaned forward. "I'm so sick of my job I could puke. I hate it. It's exactly the same at my office as it is in my home. My job...my job...a job with its own t.i.tle and a salary...is to make sure that everyone else gets to have all the fun and all the kudos."

"Oh dear."

"And!" she said, "And...it's not as if I get support from my husband. Oh no! He resents me. He resents the fact that I work my a.r.s.e off to support our family. Hard to believe isn't it?"

Jo nodded.

"I spend every minute of every day working, supporting our family while d.i.c.k's doing G.o.d knows what-probably dallying with some woman for all I know, 'cos he sure as h.e.l.l isn't selling any f.u.c.king records-and..." she worked herself up to a crescendo, "he resents me for it!"

"Oh dear."

"You know what my t.i.tle should be?"

Jo shook her head.

"s.h.i.twork manager. That's what I do. Manage all the s.h.i.twork. At home and in the office. All the invisible, dirty, thankless s.h.i.twork. I'm the eternal housewife of the operation. I spend every minute of every day ma.s.saging the geniuses' egos while making sure they work to deadline, brief, and budget, making sure the client doesn't know how much everyone hates them, and making sure a thirty-second ad is made at the end of it. And then I come home and do exactly the same here. Except without the ad, obviously. In fact, my job, by its very nature, is totally invisible. You only notice my job when things go wrong. In fact," her voice was rising, "the better I do my job, the more invisible it becomes. I mean," she was now ranting, "when the cogs are well oiled everyone a.s.sumes it must be easy to oil b.l.o.o.d.y cogs. Don't they?" She was now shouting. "But it's not! It's impossible to oil buddy clogs." She stopped, and said slowly and carefully, "b.l.o.o.d.y cogs." She paused. "I just do it b.l.o.o.d.y well."

In the pause that followed Vanessa drained her drink and walked precariously to the sink. "b.l.o.o.d.y well," she repeated, "for not enough money and absolutely no kudos." She added her tumbler to the others in the sink.

"Oh," she exclaimed politely, staring into the sink. "We seem to be behind on the dishwasher schedule."

"I was just going to fill it and put it on after I'd finished my drink," said Jo.

"Ah good," said Vanessa, leaning against the sink and looking at the floor. "And I think I may have spilled some drink too." She looked back up at Jo. "What would we do without dishwashers eh?" she winked, woman to woman, then gave the kitchen a once-over. "Perhaps you could give the place a little tidy while you're at it. Right then. Better get to bed. I'm knackered. No peace for the wicked eh?"

Jo smiled.

"Do you want the light off again?" asked Vanessa. "Or will you need it on to finish up?"

"On please."

"Okay then," Vanessa said. "Sleep well."

Jo yawned as she watched her boss walk down the corridor and turn to go up the stairs.

When Jo heard Josh leave the bathroom and pad through her bedroom into his, shutting his door behind him, she got up, poured her unfinished drink down the sink, and started to transfer Vanessa's and d.i.c.k's evening tumblers into the dishwasher.

Meanwhile, Vanessa tiptoed up to Zak's room, hitting her forehead on the giant plastic dinosaur hanging from the door to scare robbers, and kissed him softly on his face. She sat on his bed and watched him sleep for a while. She went into Ca.s.sandra's room and found her, boiling hot, lying upside down on her bed. She swept her daughter's sweaty hair away from her face and kissed her on her unusually flushed cheek. Then she sat on her bed and watched her sleep. Finally, she entered Tallulah's room, where the little girl was breathing heavily, her eyelids flickering. She watched her sleep for a while. Eventually she crept into her own bedroom. d.i.c.k lay fast asleep, dead to the world.

She looked at him for a moment, then looked away. She got into bed and lay there, her body still reeling from Anthony's unexpected, expected kiss. Every time she closed her eyes to allow the familiar, trusty Harrison Ford to calm her anger and help her sleep, she got Anthony instead. His image seemed to be imprinted on her eyelids.

She opened her eyes and stared into the dark. Why wasn't her life simple like the rest of her family's? She lay awake for what felt like hours, reliving her secret like a naughty schoolgirl until the early hours.

Chapter 13.

Shaun was visiting that weekend, so Jo would be unable to spend her Sunday with Pippa and the girls. They'd planned to all meet up on Sat.u.r.day night, but her Friday night, Sat.u.r.day, and Sunday were strictly reserved for him and him only. Which meant she had to make up for it on the Thursday night.

"That's brilliant," said Rachel. "Thursday night is ladies' night at the club."

"Fantastic," said Pippa. "Now all we need is to find some ladies."

They all shrieked with stupid laughter.

As they turned up at the club, Pippa gave Jo a little nudge.

"So," she said. "Shaun's coming tomorrow, eh?"

"Yup."

"Does Josh know he exists yet?"

"Nope."

"Never mind," said Pippa. "I'm sure he won't even notice."

"Mm. Thanks."

It was a brilliant night. Rachel and Gabriella decided that as they got in for free, they had to make up the difference in tequila slammers. Gabriella confessed that she fancied her boss's husband and thought he fancied her and proceeded to give all the tiny sordid details, and Pippa had a shocking story about a friend of a friend who had been caught wearing her boss's clothes. For Jo's part, she made a mental effort to forget all about Shaun, Josh, and Gerry and when it didn't work, got rat-a.r.s.ed.

And after that, the evening just got better and better. In fact, when Jo got home and fell over Tallulah's Barbie tricycle in the pitch-black hall, it was undoubtedly one of the funniest things that had ever happened to her in her entire life. And then, when she tried to get up but fell down again, landing on her knee because her heel was caught in the wheel, she thought she was going to asphyxiate from laughter.

Ten minutes later, she crawled into the kitchen, exhausted. She had to wash her knee. Easy. She climbed onto the kitchen worktop, turned on the tap, soaking herself in the process and then, positioned on all fours over the sink, put her knee in it. She hiccuped as her long hair cascaded over her face into the sink.

"b.u.g.g.e.r," she said. "Can't reachy reach. Can't reachy reach."

She really couldn't be bothered to get all the way off the work top, so she pushed one leg off the sink and tried to put the other one further in. Good thing she had such long legs and was wearing such a short skirt. Once her knee was wet enough, she tried to get the leg it was attached to out of the sink. Slowly but surely, she lowered the leg not in the sink, until eventually she had one foot on the floor and the other leg now at an uncomfortable angle on the worktop. She stood, breathing heavily.

"Oh deary deary dear," she said to herself. "Who's in a pick-" Hiccup. "Pardon. Who's in a pick-" Hiccup. "Pardon. Who's in a pick-" Hiccup. And then she laughed so much she almost fell over.

"Do you want any help?" someone said in the dark.

The shock of hearing Josh's voice from the kitchen table made her jump.

"No thanks," she said in a small voice, then swiveled her leg down and fell flat on her face.

There was a pause as a wave of humiliation washed over Jo's previous hysteria. As the pause continued, certain parts of her body began to hurt. She hoped that she'd imagined Josh's voice and the increasing pause convinced her of this. In the silence, she could just make out the pitiful sound of a drunk female starting to cry.

"Are you alright?" asked Josh, with a smile in his voice Jo could detect even through the haze that was her brain. "Don't panic," he said. "I'm coming." She heard him heave his leg off the kitchen table. "I'll be with you any hour now."

"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow" she explained, now weeping uncontrollably.

She couldn't understand where the tears were coming from, she just knew she couldn't stop them. She didn't know how long she was there before Josh was crouched next to her.

"I'd pick you up," he whispered, "but I can't pick up a teaspoon at the moment."

Jo hid her face in the floor. "I got you maimed," she whimpered.

"Please don't cry," begged Josh. "I'm a bloke. I don't know how to cope."

Jo mumbled something incoherent, which seemed to upset her even more.

Josh leaned in close and was almost intoxicated by her breath. "What's that?"

She mumbled it again.

He came in even closer. "I didn't quite catch-"

"I miss my mum and dad." She yelled into his ear. She started sobbing.

"Come on," whispered Josh. "Up you get, you'll be fine. Lean on me."

With considerable effort on both of their parts, Jo got up and leaned on him.

He flinched. "Not that hard."

Jo jumped away and was about to lose her balance when Josh gripped her firmly round the waist. They both fell against the worktop, their faces inches apart, their hips touching. Jo could feel Josh's breath on her lips. She closed her eyes. The room spun. She opened them again.

"Alright?" he whispered.

'Mmhmm,' she murmured, her bones softening. She let her body pour in toward his and steadied her head against his chest. Everything felt better now. She didn't dare move. Perhaps she could stay here forever. No, that was impossible, she had work tomorrow, and anyway, Shaun was coming to stay...

Her eyes opened suddenly. Shaun. Her boyfriend. Whom she had yet to tell Josh about. She was paralyzed. She was a wicked, bad person and she was paralyzed.