The Things We Do to Our Friends(51)
I spent more time with Samuel and I enjoyed his company. He often turned up at my flat bleary-eyed on a Saturday morning. He always insisted on coming to me and I later discovered through Imogen (not that she ever really criticized him much, but she was a terrible gossip) that for all Samuel’s airs and graces, he lived in an ordinary student house with a bunch of rugby players, which was probably why his car was a useful tool for projecting a more glamorous, nomadic existence.
He always arrived with gifts in his arms: king-sized milky coffees and muffins, alongside a bag of stock to be shipped around the country. The traps had slowed down a little, but Perfect Pieces drummed up even more business in the festive months for some reason.
Lots of lacy knickers that had to be packaged up inventively.
Remember, no returns, Tabitha insisted.
“You’re a hard worker!” he said to me (a similar refrain I was used to from Finn) and it was nice to get his praise.
“This is easy,” I said, because it was.
“I like easy,” he said, and I could see this was true—I don’t think Samuel wanted peak drama or strange complications. Like Imogen, he was happy just doing it in his spare time for extra money.
He turned serious. “Remember, though, this is paid work, Clare. You don’t owe me. I don’t owe you. Equals.”
I was fine with that and we worked well together. We’d draft a story, carefully create a certain stain if necessary, using whatever I had lying around in the flat, or a rip to add heated authenticity. Then we’d sit on my bedroom floor and label them up, popping on a spritz of perfume, adding a handwritten note and a sales receipt, all in companionable silence. It felt very regimented. Uniform packaging. Desire produced by assembly line.
I have such fond memories of those weeks because, despite what happened afterward, there will always be that slice of life before Christmas when all was perfect, which I can carve out now when I look back. A period that started from the end of November until we went up north mid-December. Sometimes you can reflect on your life and portion away a time when all the moving parts—family, friends, work—that usually grind against each other and compete for attention suddenly move together in a perfect whir.
I had money—more than I needed, from my jobs—to buy whatever I wanted and there was a sense of security in that. The weather was perfect nearly every day: skies so blue and a layer of frost on the buildings each morning.
My living situation was closer to what I’d envisioned when I’d moved to the city. The flat Georgia and Ashley and I had chosen for our second year was much better than the flat from our first year. It was high up and my room was the smallest, a circular space with an old fireplace and creaking floorboards. I even had the wooden desk I’d always wanted, placed next to the window so I could look out onto the street below.
The days became elastic. All I needed to do was shave off an hour of sleep here or there and there were no repercussions, as I had more energy than I ever thought possible. I guzzled the hours greedily. I’d reached an endpoint—one I’d always imagined—where I wasn’t even struggling to keep it all together; I didn’t get angry or act out.
The problem is, when things are drumming along so nicely, something big always throws them off course.
Ava turned up at my flat in a taxi late at night. She buzzed and buzzed, and Georgia and Ashley came out of their rooms, looking worried.
“Why can’t your friends use the phone like normal people?” Georgia hissed at me sleepily. I shooed them back to bed and went downstairs to meet her.
“We’ve secured something big and you need to come over now,” she said.
Secured. Like some sort of government contract. I didn’t say no. I’d never say no to anything that Tabitha needed.
42
Shortly afterward, we sat around on the bed in Tabitha’s room. This was always one of my favorite parts of the whole thing. Tabitha speaking and Ava our adjudicator looking after us, usually silently. Imogen scratching away, taking notes and interrupting. Samuel was absent and I wondered where he was, but only for a second, because the briefing began.
A man.
He was wealthy, Tabitha explained, an American called Jack.
When Imogen showed us a picture, Tabitha started running around the room snorting at us wildly, her nose pressed so hard into my ear I had to push her away, and she fell back on the floor cackling in delight: “He looks like a pig. Like a big fat pig.”
We named him Jack the Pig, or just The Pig. His wife had contacted us from their house out in Palm Springs. I maintained the same stance as that first time—I didn’t look him up online. There was no point. At first, I thought I’d just assimilate the information from Imogen. But, for a change, Imogen didn’t seem as involved.
The fee structure was different too. Tabitha announced that she and Ava had decided on a hefty price that would relate to whether or not we succeeded, whether we got the evidence of infidelity. That was new.
“I thought we were supposed to be setting up a scenario, not making sure we succeed?” I asked.
Tabitha responded smoothly. “Absolutely, Clare. See it from the consumer perspective, though. Our clients need to feel that we’re motivated. They need to make sure we’re trying hard enough, and if there’s scope to cheat, we’ll find it. All sales jobs have commission, don’t they?”