Not Dead Enough

tried to keep up to speed with the latest in fashion, in food, in pretty well everything, so that she could be the smart, hip girl-about-town that suited his planet-sized ego.
    A few minutes later she was striding in the clammy heat down the shady side of Wardour Street. Someone had once told her Wardour Street was the only street in the world that was shady on both sides – a reference to its being the home of both the music and the film industries. Not entirely untrue, she always felt.
    Twenty-seven years old, long brown hair swinging around her neck and an attractive face with a pert snub nose, she wasn’t beautiful in any classic adman’s sense, but there was something very sexy about her. She was dressed in a lightweight khaki jacket over a cream T-shirt, baggy grungy jeans and trainers, and was looking forward, as always, to her day in the office. Although today she felt a pang of longing for her fella, not sure quite when she would see him next, and an even deeper pang of jealousy that tonight he would be at his home, sleeping in a bed with his wife.
    She knew the relationship wasn’t going anywhere, just could not see him giving up all that he had for her – even though he had ended a previous marriage, one from which he had two children. But that did not stop her adoring him. She just couldn’t bloody help that.
    She totally adored him. Every inch of him. Everything about him. Even the clandestine nature of their relationship. She loved the way he looked furtively around when they entered a restaurant, months before they had actually started sleeping together, in case he spotted someone who knew him. The texts. The emails. The way he smelled. His humour. The way he had started, recently, to arrive unexpectedly in the middle of the night. Like last night. Always coming to her little flat in Brighton, which she thought was strange as he had a flat in London, where he lived alone during the week.
    Oh shit , she thought, reaching the door to the office. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit .
    She stopped and tapped out a text:
    Missing you! Totally adore you! Feeling
    dangerously horny! XXXX
    She unlocked the door and was halfway up the narrow staircase when there were two sharp beeps on her phone. She stopped and looked at the incoming text.
    To her disappointment it was from her best friend, Holly:
     
    RU free 4 party 2morrow nite?
     
    No, she thought. I don’t want to go to a party tomorrow night. Nor any night. I just want—
    What the hell do I want?
    On the door in front of her was a logo: a symbol of lightning made in the image of celluloid. Beneath it the words, in shadowed letters, B LINDING L IGHT P RODUCTIONS.
    Then she entered the small, hip office suite. It was all Perspex furniture – Ghost chairs and tables, aquamarine carpets, and posters on the walls of movies the partners in the company had at some time been involved with. The Merchant of Venice , with the faces of Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons. An early Charlize Theron movie that had gone straight to video. A vampire movie with Dougray Scott and Saffron Burrows.
    There was a small reception area with her desk and an orange sofa, leading through to an open-plan office where sat Adam, Head of Business and Legal Affairs, shaven-headed, freckled, hunched in front of his computer, dressed in one of the most horrible shirts she had ever seen – at least since the one he wore yesterday – and Cristian, the Finance Director, staring at a coloured graph on his screen in deep concentration. He was dressed in one of his seemingly bottomless collection of fabulously expensive-looking silk shirts, this one in cream, and rather snazzy suede loafers. The black frame of his collapsed fold-up bike sat next to him.
    ‘Morning, guys!’ she said.
    For a response, she received a brief wave of the hand from each.
    Sophie was the company’s Head of Development. She was also the secretary, the tea-maker and, because the Polish cleaning lady was away having a baby, the office cleaner. And receptionist. And everything else.
    ‘I’ve just read a really crap script,’ she said. ‘ Hand of Death . It’s dross.’
    Neither of them took any notice.
    ‘Coffee, anyone? Tea?’
    Now that did elicit an instant response. The usual for both of them. She went into the kitchenette, filled the kettle and plugged it in, checked the biscuit tin – which contained just a few crumbs, as usual. No matter how many times a day she filled it, the gannets emptied it. Tearing open a