Felicity Everett - The People at Number 9 - a gripping novel of jealousy and betrayal among friends

“Introducing… the new… Chairwoman of the… Townswomen’s Guild,” Sara tried to say, but it came out as a series of gulps and squeaks.“Mrs Andy Hiddle…” she gasped, then keeled over on the rug, insensible with mirth.

6

It was hard to concentrate the next day, partly because of the hangover, but mainly because, somewhere along the line, Sara had lost even the small shred of enthusiasm she’d once had for her job. She found herself reading and re-reading the same phrase – “ I don’t really have a preferred supermarket and tend to use whichever is most convenient ” – until the words merged into one another and ceased to hold any objective meaning. For a stopgap job, NPR Marketing had taken up an awful lot of her time. Other creative types who had joined when she did had long since moved on. Anders the miserable Swede now wrote voice-overs for Masterchef ; Tracy Jackson was a lobbyist for the Green Party. But NPR had granted Sara two generous periods of maternity leave and, although her game plan had been to return after Patrick’s birth for no longer than her contract dictated, five years had somehow elapsed and she was still sitting at the same desk, in what was essentially a cupboard, opposite the talented but cynical Adrian Sutcliffe.

A part of Sara had known for a long time that her and Adrian’s relationship was unhealthy. They were co-dependants, facilitating each other’s inertia through corrosive humour. As long as they channelled their creative energies into satirising the futile nature of their work, the slavish ambition of their less talented colleagues and the passive-aggressive behaviour of their workaholic boss, Fran Ryan, they could kid themselves that they were, respectively, a novelist and a journalist manqué .

“Eyes front,” said Adrian now, “Rosa Klebb at three o’clock.”

Sara snapped out of her reverie and battered her computer keyboard with a flurry of random keystrokes.

“On my way to Gino’s,” said Fran, “can I get you anything?”

“Ooh lovely,” said Sara, “tuna melt for me, hold the mayo.”

“Why do you let her do that?” said Adrian, after Fran had gone.

“Er… because it’s lunchtime and I need something to eat,” said Sara, with the interrogative upward lilt she had picked up from her children.

“You know what she’s up to, don’t you?”

“She’s getting my lunch?”

“Yeah, so you don’t leave the building.”

Before Sara could make a suitably acerbic retort, Fran had popped her head back into the office.

“By the way, can I tell Hardeep that you’ll ping the survey across by close of play today?”

“Yep. On it,” Sara said, picking up her biro as she spoke, ready to throw it at Adrian as soon as the door had closed.

Lately, Sara’s boredom was making her rebellious. Neil’s promotion was practically in the bag, and he had hinted on numerous occasions recently that she might at last like to “free herself up” from the rigours of work, which she took to mean free him up from the necessity to dash round Waitrose after a hard day at the office. She had resented the suggestion at first, but since Lou had been so encouraging of her writing, she was beginning to harbour serious ambitions in that direction. When Fran returned with her sandwich at one thirty, she didn’t bother to minimise her computer screen; instead, she doubled the font size.

As the front door banged shut behind Nora’s father, the draught wafted an empty plastic bag up in the air. Nora watched it as it rose and seemed to inflate itself with his very absence, before floating back down and lodging between the banister rails. She started to sing quietly,

“Bye baby bunting, daddy’s gone a-hunting, she sang, over and over, until the words became, not words, but sobs.

“One tuna melt,” said Fran, barely able to tear her eyes from the screen. Sara scrabbled in her purse and handed Fran a fiver, which she took, without shifting her gaze.

“It’s okay, I don’t need any change,” said Sara, pointedly.

“No, right,” said Fran, remembering herself. “Er… well, bon appétit,” she added, giving Sara a terse little smile before she left the room.

“The worm turns!” said Adrian, with grudging respect. Sara nodded in haughty acknowledgement and took a greedy bite of her sandwich. A large gobbet of mayonnaise dripped onto her jumper.

On the train home, she spotted Carol’s Simon getting on further down the carriage. Normally she’d have lowered her eyes to her Kindle, certain in the knowledge that everything they had to say to one another could be covered on the short walk between the station and their road, but she had hatched a plan and was bursting to tell someone, so she called out his name.

“Oh, hello, Sara.” He started to thread his way through the carriage towards her. She could tell from the look of portentousness on his face that he had some news of his own to impart. “I expect you’ve heard…” Sara prepared herself for the death of a pet, or a recurrence of Carol’s sister’s ME.

“What?”

“Cranmer Road got a stinking OFSTED report. One step away from special measures.”

“Shit!” Sara remembered her words to Gavin, as he’d urged a reluctant Arlo over the threshold on the first day of term: “Don’t worry, it’s a really lovely school. You won’t regret it.”

“Carol must be doing her nut.”

“Oh, I think she’s secretly quite pleased,” said Simon, “she’s been looking for an excuse to go private for ages.”

Sara stretched her lips into a smile.

“It was the numeracy that did it, apparently,” Simon added, “that and inadequate special needs provision.”

“Inadequate special needs? That’s a travesty,” spluttered Sara. “They bend over backwards at that school…”

Simon raised a didactic finger. “Ah but special needs includes GAT, you see.”

“GAT,” repeated Sara dumbly.

“Gifted and Talented,” said Simon, patiently.

Of course. The middle classes were in revolt because they thought the Head was squandering resources on the thickies instead of hot-housing their little geniuses.

“Ridiculous,” she said.

“Well, I’m not so sure…” Simon demurred. Then, sensing an ideological rift opening up, asked quickly, “How’s work?”

“Oh, you know, alright.”

Suddenly, Simon was the last person with whom she wanted to share her burgeoning literary ambitions. She could just imagine the smirk on his face as he relayed the news to Carol that she’d given up work to write a novel.

She expected better of Neil though.

“I’m not saying, don’t do it,” he said defensively over dinner, “I’m just querying the timing, is all.”

Sara tried not to wince at the Americanism. They seemed to be creeping into his vocabulary lately. She wasn’t sure if he had picked them up from watching back-to-back episodes of Breaking Bad , or from reading American business manuals, but, either way, they didn’t enhance his credibility as a literary adviser. He seemed to think she should do a course. As if creative writing was something that could be taught, like car maintenance or Spanish. And yet, the most irritating part of this suburban inclination of his to kowtow to “teachers”, was the fact that it piqued her own insecurity. She didn’t want some second-rate novelist picking over her work. She much preferred Lou’s bold exhortations to “just go with it”, to “trust the muse” and “tap into whatever’s down there.”

Now she found herself becoming tearful with frustration. She planted her fork in what remained of her quiche and tried not to let her voice quaver.

“I don’t think you realise what it’s like for me,” she said. “I’d like to see you spend eight hours a day writing consumer questionnaires.”