end.
The two of them take their places on the olive velvet sofa opposite Matthew’s desk, so low that he appears to be on a raised stage looking down at them. His office smells so faintly of whisky that it might not be whisky at all. And coffee, drying in the heat, at the bottom of the cup. The smell of the place, the way it looks, it could be a normal morning at the office, the stage set for the start of business: windows closed, blinds pulled down over the glass walls in preparation for a private meeting, books straightened and arranged in the cases so they descend in shapes like flights of steps. Apart from his computer, he keeps an entirely clean desk: blade, fineliner pens in one drawer, pending contracts in another. Scripts piled into a cupboard, titles inked onto their spines. Everything must have its place: stacked, stored, tidied and hidden away.
‘Travel arrangements for Cannes,’ he says.
Is this how he’s going to do it? Work through the list towards her? Siobhan rattles off flight names and departure times.
‘Calls,’ he says.
‘DB called again,’ says Siobhan. ‘He sounds fucked-off.’
‘Thank you. Noted.’ The subject is closed.
‘He’s called five times,’ says Siobhan.
‘And he can call again, if he likes. I’ll speak to him when I get round to it.’
Siobhan tucks the borders of her script outline neatly behind her notepad but recovers quickly, saying, ‘Did you manage to get to the Deal cottage this weekend?’ because this is always her strategy for deflecting the energy from a conversation that has caused him stress, like telling a child to think of nice things like beaches and sweets before they go to sleep at night.
Matthew is studying something intensely on his phone, glasses balanced at the end of his nose. He doesn’t reply immediately but when he does he says, ‘Yes. The weather was lovely. The jasmine is out.’
His gaze is nowhere near Becky. It is dissociated, disinterested, so far from her that she might not be there at all …
He looks up at her suddenly, as if he’s sensed the beam of her thoughts on him – his brow still furrowed, his eyes narrowed. He takes a deep breath and reorientates himself by saying, ‘Tux?’
‘Waiting for you at the hotel,’ Becky says, laying down the order confirmation sheet in front of him.
‘Accreditation passes?’
‘Waiting for you at the hotel,’ says Siobhan.
‘Good,’ he says. ‘Becky, have you got yours? You’ll need them for all screenings and parties.’
‘Yes,’ says Becky, looking away from Siobhan instinctively, feeling uncomfortable that she is the one who gets to go to the ball.
‘Have you confirmed all our meetings with the actors tomorrow? You should get Jenifer Palmer and Sarah Pastor on the list. Both look the part.’
‘Yes, all set.’
‘On which note,’ says Siobhan, more quietly than usual, ‘I just wondered whether you’d had a chance to look at my film idea so you can, I don’t know, maybe give it to someone you know who might be visiting the festival and might sort of like it?’
‘It’s interesting,’ he says, which Becky knows means it’s not interesting enough, but before the conversation can progress further his mobile rings and without looking at either of them he waves them out of the office like he is directing traffic. He waits for them to step outside before he answers.
Becky is the last to leave. She hears him say, ‘Yes, David.’
The two wait outside. Siobhan sat at her desk, Becky perched on the edge, waiting to be called back in.
‘Fuck, he’s in such a bad mood.’ The door buzzes and Siobhan picks up on speaker, ‘Bonjour?’
‘Siobhan, it’s Antonia, can you let me in?’
‘Er, sure.’ Siobhan presses the buzzer and looks at Becky, shrugging.
Antonia sometimes calls the office more times in one day than she does her own child (a tall and gawky boy called Bart) and Becky knows this because Antonia tells her this. She calls Becky to co-ordinate stuff or just to remind her that she needs to usher Matthew out of the office on time because they are popping down to the Deal cottage for the weekend and want to miss the worst of the weekend traffic. Antonia gets Pucci scarves and spa weekends for her birthday from Matthew that have been researched and paid for on his credit card, by Becky, and Antonia knows this because Becky needs to check in advance that Antonia doesn’t have allergic skin reactions to mud wraps and whether she – discreetly, of course – would like Becky to secure her an appointment with that special Botox man everyone always raves about.
Antonia enters the room in a cloud of expensive perfume. Her black and silver hair is tangled in a bun and strands have escaped everywhere. The shape it makes, tested through time to work with the curve of her face, is both messy and yet impossibly stylish. Her hairstyle works with the linen dress (a tailored and loose cut, only a few crumples) which in turn works with her leather sandals (one gold strip across the place where fine foot bones fan) and buffed sandstone calves. She is expensive and lovely and perfectly curated for a warm spring day.
She is also, most definitely, feeling harassed. Her face is drawn and her words quick. ‘Becky. Siobhan. Where is he? He’s not picking up the phone to me.’
Becky answers. ‘He’s in his office. On a call. Won’t be long. Can I make you a coffee while you wait?’
‘No, thank you, I need to talk to him.’
‘I don’t think he’ll be long.’
‘I mean now.’
Becky feels an instinctive need to give Matthew the space and privacy for his call with DB. It’s what she’s paid to do. But Antonia is glaring at her.
‘OK, sure,’ she says. ‘Let me pop in and get him off the phone.’
Becky moves quickly, perhaps to get ahead of anything Antonia might be planning on doing, like bursting into the office. She pushes Matthew’s door open and hears the words, ‘She misinterpreted that. That’s not what happened at all.’
He looks up, cheeks flushed a deep pink.
Becky just has time to mouth the word ‘Antonia’ and for Matthew’s face to arrange itself in a way that Becky has never seen before. Something almost childish: both beseeching and perturbed. But before she has a chance to enquire, Antonia moves past her. ‘Thank you, Becky. I’ll take it from here. What the fuck are you playing at? In our house?’
Becky backs out quickly and sees the door is shut firmly behind her.
Siobhan whistles through her teeth like a bomb flying through the air. Then for a short time they listen to Antonia and Matthew’s raised voices behind the door, nothing distinct enough for them to understand exactly what the argument is about but enough for it to become clear to Becky that it might concern the woman on the floor of their well-appointed kitchen.
Becky fights the urge to cower under her own arms as if that were protection enough from the explosion that will surely come. And, as the net of aggravated people surrounding Matthew widens, Becky fears he will take his frustration out on her by frog-marching her out of the office saying she stepped over one too many boundaries. She saw him part-stripped of his clothes in his own home and part-stripped of his dignity and composure in the office and it’s too hard to maintain a professional façade after that kind of thing.
Becky finds herself googling her boss’s name, wanting to know the identity of the woman getting between such a couple.
She feels afraid of what might happen next and yet also relieved that someone other than her knows about the woman on the kitchen floor. Surely Becky can afford to forget what she saw now that it’s clearly just business between husband and wife?
She