Swapping Lives

by Jane Green

  ‘Do you understand, Richard?’ Now it’s Amber’s turn to raise her voice. ‘This isn’t about you. This is about remembering who I am. It’s about defining myself outside of this narrow suburban world. I’ve become a woman I don’t recognize. I never used to care about keeping up with the women in the League, and now I’ve bought into all that crap, and I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to be that insecure, bitchy person I feel I’m becoming.

  ‘I just need a break,’ she says forcefully. ‘I just need to see life from a different perspective, and this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I have to do it.’

  ‘Do I have a choice?’ Richard says, and Amber finds she can’t look him in the eye.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sarah Evans, whose letter is at the top of the possibles pile, is a real possibility for the first three minutes Vicky spends with her. She drives up to Oxford on a perfect June day – the sun is shining brightly, belying the coolness of the air outside, there is almost no traffic, and as she turns off the motorway and onto the country roads, she feels her heart swell just as it does every time she goes to see Kate and Andy.

  ‘It must be because our ancestors were farmers,’ she has said to Andy, who doesn’t quite feel the same pull. ‘I’m sure this passion for the country is genetic.’ But nevertheless, be it Somerset, the Cotswolds or Oxford-shire, Vicky always has the same feeling of coming home.

  Sarah Evans lives in a slightly messy Edwardian brick house, just as she described, on the outskirts of Oxford. Her two West Highland terriers scamper out to lavish Vicky with licks and jumps when she pulls slowly into the gravel driveway, and Sarah, standing at the end of the path, hand in hand with her two tow-headed children and a large smile on her face, looks just as lovely as she seemed in her letter.

  ‘I’m Sarah,’ she says, disengaging for a second to shake hands. ‘And this is Jack. Say hello, Jack.’ She looks at Jack encouragingly, but he continues to scuff his foot along the gravel and refuses to look up. ‘Come on, Jack, say hello to Vicky. This is the lady I was telling you about. Just say hello, darling.’

  ‘No!’ Jack says finally, and pushes his mother hard as he runs off around the corner.

  Vicky watches him disappear with some disbelief. That was a hard push. She looks at Sarah expectantly, waiting for her to say something, tell him off in some way perhaps, but Sarah laughs nervously and apologizes. ‘He’s going through a stage,’ she explains. ‘He’s been pushing and smacking me, but I know it’s just how he expresses his frustration.’

  ‘Right,’ nods Vicky. ‘How old is he again?’

  ‘Six. I know, I know. Sometimes I think he’s old enough to know better, but he’s had these phases before and they don’t last. Honestly, he’s just a very clever little boy, and very much an individual, as you can see. Jack!’ She turns and raises her voice ever so slightly as a rock comes flying from the place where Jack was last spotted. ‘Darling! What have I told you about the wall?

  ‘Sorry, Vicky, what a terrible first impression. Just hang on. Come on, Will, let’s go and see what Jack is doing,’ and dragging Will behind her she disappears round the corner, followed closely by Vicky who sees that Jack is in the process of demolishing a drystone wall. Clearly this is an ongoing process, one that has taken quite some time and dedication, and given the fact that this wall surrounds the garden, has a gate and arbour in the middle of it, trees and bushes all around, Vicky has the feeling that no one, other than Jack, is planning on taking this wall down.

  For one corner has now disappeared. Several large stones are lying on the ground, others have been thrown, or attempts have been made to throw them, to greater distances, and Vicky watches as Jack clambers up on top of the pile of rocks that used to be part of the wall, and heaves a giant rock off it, kicking and pushing until he manages to topple it over.

  ‘Jack!’ Sarah says sternly. ‘Enough, I said! Right that’s it. Stop!’

  ‘I hate you!’ Jack yells from the wall. ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Darling, don’t say that,’ Sarah pleads. ‘It hurts Mummy’s feelings when you say that.’

  ‘I don’t care. It’s true. I do hate you.’ Another stone comes flying.

  ‘I’ll let you watch Power Rangers,’ Sarah says finally.

  ‘Yay!’ Jack shouts, jumping off the wall and running inside.

  ‘Thank God for television,’ Sarah smiles wearily. ‘It’s the only thing that keeps me sane. Oh God, I shouldn’t be telling you that, should I, not when I want to be the life-swap person. It’s not usually this chaotic, I promise.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ says Vicky, already wondering how soon she can leave. She can’t think of anything worse than spending four weeks in Jack’s company. As lovely as this house is, as picture-perfect as Sarah’s life might appear, ten minutes with Jack and Vicky can see it would be a living hell.

  The day goes from bad to worse. Jack is an expert in terrorizing Will, who has learnt the best defence is screaming, and Sarah is too worn down to do anything to stop it other than shout herself.

  Amidst the chaos, the screaming and the crying, Sarah keeps apologizing to Vicky, telling her it’s not usually like this, that the boys didn’t sleep well last night and that’s the only reason Jack’s behaving like this.

  ‘What time do they go to bed?’ Vicky asks curiously.

  ‘Jack goes to bed around eleven,’ she says. ‘But we manage to get Will down by nine.’

  ‘Really?’ Vicky’s eyes are wide. ‘Eleven? Do you think he’s getting enough sleep?’

  ‘We’ve tried putting him down earlier but he refuses to sleep. And last night he was running around the house until one o’clock in the morning.’

  ‘Never mind him being tired, you must be exhausted,’ Vicky says sympathetically.

  ‘Now you see why I want to swap lives with you.’ Sarah grins wryly. ‘I’d probably spend the entire four weeks sleeping.’

  At four o’clock Vicky sinks gratefully into the driving seat of her car. ‘Peace!’ she sighs to herself, waving a hearty goodbye to Sarah, Will and the horror as she pulls out of the driveway and stops in a layby to phone Janelle.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ she tells Janelle, who hoots with laughter when she hears about Jack. ‘I couldn’t put up with that for a day, let alone four weeks.’

  ‘Not your dream lifestyle?’

  ‘The house was lovely, the dogs gorgeous, but revolting kids. Never going to happen.’

  ‘Oh well,’ Janelle smiles. ‘Let’s see what happens tomorrow. Remind me, who are you going to meet tomorrow?’

  ‘Next up is Sally Lonsdale. I think she may be more promising. She’s the one in Chislehurst who sounds very funny.’

  ‘Have you told the TV people today’s a no?’

  ‘Not yet. They’re planning on coming up to meet everyone after me, but I’ll phone Hugh and tell him not to bother with Sarah. Even if it makes great television I’m not putting myself through that kind of hell.’

  ‘Well, good luck tomorrow, then. And darling, don’t forget to keep me posted. This is fun, isn’t it!’ Janelle trills as she puts down the phone.

  Sally Lonsdale is exactly what Vicky had hoped she would be, only smaller. Too small, Vicky suspects from the first minute, ever to be a viable swap – her clothes wouldn’t fit Vicky in a million years. With streaky blonde hair and a strong cockney accent, she’s as warm and clever and funny as she had seemed when Vicky had phoned her after receiving her letter.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she’d said on the phone. ‘I love my husband and I love my kids, but I’m bleedin’ exhausted, and I know they all love me but they don’t appreciate me. Best thing I could do is disappear for four weeks, although chances are they wouldn’t even notice I’d gone. Still, all you have to do is drive the kids around, keep the fridge stocked with food, put the dinner on the table and you’ll be fine.’

  Sally’s kids are older than Vicky had expected. Dave is sixteen, Daisy fourteen, and Pete eleven. They aren’t around
when Vicky pulls up outside 745 Station Road, and it takes a while for the door to be answered, although as soon as the bell rings a sharp yapping starts up inside the hallway, and after a minute Vicky hears a voice yell, ‘Shut up, Pixie! Quiet! Keep it down!’

  The door opens to Sally, cradling a small white shih-tzu dog, which pants excitedly as Sally gives Vicky a kiss on the cheek and invites her in. ‘Be careful, love,’ she says, stepping over the paint pots and bundled-up dust-rags in the hallway. ‘John, my husband, is doing up the house and you know what men are like – not exactly known for their tidiness!’

  ‘Is he here?’

  ‘Wish he were,’ she sighs. ‘That’s the problem with having a builder for a husband. You think it’s going to be fantastic, that you’re going to save a fortune and live in a bleedin’ palace, and then what happens is they take on too many jobs at once and you become the last priority on the list. Look at this,’ and she gestures to the living room which has a gaping hole where a fireplace either once stood, or is waiting to stand.

  ‘He took out the old gas fire a year ago, and we’ve been waiting for a fireplace for over a year now. Meanwhile I’ve got to live with that great gaping hole. Wait till you see the kitchen.’ She rolls her eyes.

  Ah yes. Wait indeed. Vicky winces as she walks in. Half the lino flooring has disappeared, exposing unfinished planks of wood. Several cupboard doors are off, and a couple of cupboards have actually been removed, so piles of plates and mugs are tottering precariously on the counter.

  In the middle of the room, however, is a beautiful island, chunky maple topped with solid butcher block, it has pull-out rattan baskets, small hooks for hanging tea towels, and is far and away the nicest thing in the kitchen, if not the entire house.

  ‘Ah yes. I see you’re eyeing up my husband’s pride and joy. What kind of man starts demolishing a kitchen,’ she gestures to the mess, ‘then stops halfway to make a butcher-block island? Not that I don’t love the butcher-block island,’ she says, ‘but I’d be much happier if he finished off the rest of the bloody kitchen first.’

  ‘How do you live through this?’ Vicky asks in horror, once she’s determined that pretty much the whole house is in a similar state – every room appears to have been started, but not a single room has been finished. Piles of clothes, books, CDs are everywhere, nothing has a home, and nothing is where it’s supposed to be.

  ‘He keeps promising me he’ll finish it, and when it’s finished I know it will be gorgeous. Whoops, here comes Bob the builder now.’

  ‘Anyone home?’ John, a giant at six foot four, twice the size of his wife, walks into the kitchen, puts his arms round Sally and lifts her up as he plants a kiss on her lips.

  ‘Oh stop it,’ she bats him away, but laughs as she does so, and Vicky smiles at the demonstration of affection. This is why she puts up with it, she realizes. Because she loves him. Because it doesn’t matter.

  Vicky spends the entire day with them, meets the kids, then joins them for a drink at the local where she’s introduced proudly as a big cheese from Poise! magazine. The Lonsdales are what Vicky would describe as salt of the earth, the very best people she could hope to have met, and she leaves with a huge smile on her face, yet she cannot think of anything worse for her than to live in that house.

  She knows she would go crazy living in that dust and debris. And whilst she’s trying to find nice people, it’s more important that she finds people with whom she wants to swap. The point of the exercise, as she keeps reminding herself, is to discover whether the grass is in fact greener on the other side, and there’s no point in swapping with someone whose grass is already dead, not to mention covered with dust.

  No. As lovely as the Lonsdales are, Vicky doesn’t want what they have. And with a sigh she realizes it’s onwards and upwards, and tomorrow is the final possibility in England – Hope Nettleton.

  ‘God, I hope this is worth it,’ she says when she phones Leona at the magazine for a chat on the drive down. As a London girl Vicky hasn’t spent this much time in the car since she was at university, and whilst it’s lovely being out of the office and listening to Radio One during the daytime – a luxury she hasn’t had since she was a student – she’s beginning to find these long drives ever so slightly boring.

  Thank God for mobile earpieces. So far today she’s spoken to Jackie, Deborah, and now, as she’s circling the outskirts of Bath looking for the right turning, she’s talking to Leona.

  ‘Oh. My. God,’ she breathes, as she turns into a sweeping driveway through large stone pillars topped with old stone finials. ‘This is beautiful!’

  ‘What? What?’ Leona says excitedly. ‘Are you there? What’s it like?’

  ‘It’s enormous!’ Vicky breathes out. ‘Christ! I’d kill to live in a house like this. Actually, it’s not a house, it’s a palace.’

  ‘No, seriously, describe it.’

  ‘I think it’s Georgian. White, stucco, ivy or something climbing up the walls. Huge floor-to-ceiling windows. Planters of bay trees on either side of all the windows, and there’s a, what do you call it – a parterre? Potager?’

  ‘Describe it.’

  ‘One of those gardens which is a pattern made of low hedges.’

  ‘A parterre, I think.’

  ‘Well one of those with little benches. Jesus. This is the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen. I feel as though I’ve just stepped into the pages of World of Interiors.’

  ‘And just think, you haven’t even seen the interior,’ quips Leona.

  ‘Okay, World of Exteriors, then. I want this life swap,’ groans Vicky, quickly saying goodbye as the front door opens and a tall, dark-haired woman glides out to greet her.

  ‘You must be Vicky.’ Hope Nettleton smiles a nervous smile as Vicky gets out of the car and instantly feels inadequate. Not that Hope Nettleton is unfriendly, far from it, but she has the kind of natural beauty that women like Vicky can only ever hope to emulate, and even then with truckloads of beauty products and makeup. On a good day Vicky knows she would be described as pretty, on a spectacular day she may even make very pretty, but that’s with an awful lot of artificial help, and first thing in the morning Vicky is the first to tell you she looks like a monster.

  One glance at Hope Nettleton tells you she never looks like a monster. Has never known what it is to wake up with puffy eyes and a spotty forehead. Has never stood in front of a floor-length mirror and squeezed the flab on her thighs, bemoaning just how much can be squeezed between a finger and thumb.

  Hope Nettleton has clearly never had a bad hair day in her life. She is one of those tall, slim, elegant beauties. Large brown eyes, a perfect button nose, high cheekbones, and when she smiles Vicky is further aghast to see she has a set of the whitest, straightest teeth Vicky has ever seen.

  Her glossy chestnut hair is pulled back in a low ponytail that sits perfectly over the shoulder of her crisp white shirt. Her brown linen trousers fit her toned thighs perfectly, flaring ever so slightly over turquoise beaded sandals.

  She has the kind of clothes-hanger body that can buy clothes at Marks & Spencer and carry them off as if they were Armani. She is, in short, everything that Vicky is not, everything that Vicky has always wanted to be; and with a start Vicky remembers that Hope Nettleton is the woman who has an unfaithful husband. How could any man be unfaithful to this? How could any man want anything more perfect than Hope Nettleton?

  It turns out, over the course of several cups of Earl Grey tea in the Mark Wilkinson-designed kitchen, which is exactly the kitchen that Vicky would have chosen if she had all the money in the world and lived in a house just like this one, that Adam Nettleton didn’t want perfection.

  Adam Nettleton, it seems to Vicky, seemed stifled by all this perfection, and the woman with whom he’d chosen to have the affair that has caused Hope Nettleton to write to Vicky in the first place, is the very opposite of Hope Nettleton.

  ‘That’s what I couldn’t ever understand,’ Hope keeps sighing over the kit
chen counter. ‘I could understand if she was gorgeous. If she was brighter than me, or prettier than me, or more fun than me, but I know this woman, I’ve met her several times at work do’s, and Adam and I had always joked about how boring she was. Is.’

  They are interrupted by the crunch of a car on the gravel outside, and Hope’s face lights up as she goes out to meet her children from school.

  Vicky can see how much she adores her kids, and for the rest of the afternoon she bakes jam tarts with the girls in the kitchen, then goes with Hope and the kids for their riding lesson at the stables down the road.

  Vicky finally has hope, in more ways than one. I could live like this, she thinks, excitement fluttering in her stomach as she realizes that this is her dream life, that this could be the perfect swap.

  Hope is upstairs giving the little one a bath while Vicky sits on the stone steps outside the front of the house, watching Sadie and Molly put on a play, when a large black BMW glides through the pillars.

  ‘Daddy!’ the girls shriek at the same time, and Vicky stands up, pushing her hair back, wishing she’d had a chance to blot the shine on her face and put on more lipstick, wanting to make a good impression because she’s pretty damn certain that this is going to be it.

  ‘Hello, girls.’ Adam steps out of the car and gives the girls an absent-minded kiss, never taking his eyes off Vicky. ‘Where’s Mummy and who’s this pretty lady?’

  Vicky looks at his raised eyebrow, his smile that – unless she’s going completely mad – seems to be flirtatious, and she knows that the affair that Adam had confessed to was not his only one.

  It is obvious in the way he shakes her hand, the way he looks her up and down, undresses her with his eyes, smiles approvingly when she tells him why she’s there.