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But the problem was: she couldn’t even really explain it to herself.
Every time she tried, all she could come up with was:
I hallucinated the whole thing.
Because for starters, Alfie Harding shouldn’t have had her phone number. And even if by some miracle he had obtained it, there was no reason he would ever have felt the need to call someone like her. Then on top of these two impossible facts, there were the things he had supposedly said. All that mad stuff about penis emojis and wearing glasses she was pretty sure nobody knew he even needed and not wanting to talk anymore because she got him all turned around.
None of which seemed right.
Nothing ever turned him around. And he definitely did not like to reveal anything about himself. She knew he didn’t because she had it all in her dossier on him. The one that she’d prepared when her agent had let her know she was up for the job. She had that profile he’d done withGQ, where he’d cut the whole thing short because they’d asked him where he got his hair done. Recordings of his post-game interviews, in which he usually responded with nothing but furious grunts. In fact, she remembered Baddiel and Skinner doing a whole series of sketches about it. Until they’d gotten too terrified to carry on.
Because that was the thing about Alfie Harding:
He was genuinely scary.
Which only made this whole business seem even more unreal.
So what exactly was she supposed to say to Greg? She couldn’t tell him Alfie had done all that. It would just sound absurd.Like something a writer in a precarious position would make up to give herself a little boost, she thought. Then prepared herself to stay silent about the whole business, all the way through the lunch that Greg had invited her out for.
And she was glad she did, too.
Because it didn’t really go the way she had thought when Greg had suggested it. She had assumed it was going to be him telling her off, under the guise of advice.If you want a shot at ghostwriting for bigger names you need to be more accommodating, she had imagined, as she practiced smiling in a more professional way, in the mirror, and selected her least colorful pair of shoes.
But from the second she sat down, Greg seemed nothing but polite. More than polite, in fact. He urged her to order whatever she liked, on his tab. And told her odd things, like how much she was valued by everyone at Harchester and how much he personally found her cheerful demeanor delightful.
Though it wasn’t really what he said that made her wonder if he had gone mad. Or if she had gone mad. Or maybe both of them had gone mad at the same time.
No: it was the way helooked. Untidy, she thought, in a way Greg never was. His hair seemed ruffled, and his tie didn’t appear to have been straightened that morning. Plus, there was something strange about his face. A sheen to it, as if he felt ever so slightly ill. Or had maybe jogged all the way to the restaurant from home.
It was unsettling.
So much so, in fact, that she sort of wanted to ask.
Are you feeling okay, she imagined herself saying.
But couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. After all, things had gone well. It seemed foolish to pose questions that might lead them back to Alfie Harding—and especially when he seemed so keen on pretending it all never happened.They must have finallyfound someone he could stand, she thought.Or gotten stern warnings from Human Resources about angry footballers being rude in boardrooms.
And she had to say… that made some kind of sense.
Not a lot of it. But enough for her to relax.
To sit back in her seat, and smile, and enjoy her soup.
In fact, she had a spoonful of it raised to her lips, when something caught her eye. A flicker of movement from the corner of the room. Only the movement wasn’t coming from anything normal, like a waiter handing out drinks or a fish tank full of guppies. No, it was coming courtesy of apotted plant.
A violently shaking potted plant. And then she spotted what was making it violently shake. But it didn’t make any more sense than it had initially.
Because it was him. It was him. It was only bloody him:
Two-time winner of Footballer of the Year.
Golden Ball recipient.
Alfie fucking Harding.
Just there, grappling with a plant. Like that was a completely normal thing for a man like him to be doing. Even though it absolutely wasn’t. He was supposed to be the sort that spent his time in clubs, carousing with babes and chugging pints of beer. He definitely wasn’t meant to be hiding behind a fern in a fourth-rate restaurant.
And yet it was happening.
