“Gripper!” She called for the dog as she walked through the ground floor, flicking on every light switch she passed and turning on the TV for good measure, even though she had no intention of watching it. “Gripper—whatever you’ve got, drop it!”
She walked into the kitchen and switched on first the kettle and then the radio, intent on filling the quiet house with noise. As she sipped a much-needed cup of tea, Meg looked at the Mystery Is Power bag that Natalie had given her, sitting on the kitchen table. It was gone three o’clock and Robert had promised to be back by seven. All the food was prepared and just needed to go in the oven, so she had a whole afternoon, if she wanted it, to pamper herself in readiness for the evening. She couldn’t remember the last time she had properly got ready for a date, and for some reason the thought of doing it now made her feel foolish. It was the amount of effort it required, she realized. Farming out the children, prizing herself into underwear she would never normally go near. Was it really necessary to go to those lengths just to have dinner with her husband? To try to smooth out some of the furrows that their relationship had turned up recently, shouldn’t she just be able to talk to him without the need for all this effort? But then she remembered she had tried that, and worse still she remembered, with a contracting knot of pain in her chest, what he had said to her.
She phoned Frances to check on the children and see how they were doing. They were doing exactly what Frances told them to, of course, because that was the way Frances ran her house, with military precision.
“Are you sure you don’t mind having them for the night?” Meg asked. Frances, who was always more than ready to help her out in any way she could, somehow had the knack of simultaneously seeming just a touch resentful about being put upon even when volunteering her assistance freely.
“If you think it’s too much,” Meg went on, “I could come and get them and put them to bed here, and I’m sure Robert and I would have just as nice a time.” Meg half wanted Frances to say, “Yes, please come and get them,” because she missed her children in the same constant way that she did whenever they weren’t in the same room with her. But love them as she might, even she knew there was little hope of any kind of romantic dining going on with all four in the house. At least two children at any given time would be demanding something from one of them.
“Nonsense,” Frances replied smartly. “They are absolutely fine here. You shouldn’t have asked us to have them if you weren’t sure that we could look after them.”
Meg bit her lip. It really was quite amazing how regularly she managed to unwittingly offend Frances.
“I just hope Iris doesn’t keep you up all night,” she said wanly.
“Organization, Megan,” Frances said. “That is the secret, one you have never seemed to master.”
Meg had had dinner ready for exactly seven on the dot so that she could serve it the moment that Robert walked in the door. She really had thought he would be on time, because punctuality was one of his big things. He could not bear lateness; he often said people who were habitually late were basically telling you that your time was worthless.
But he was very late now. Meg was used to him coming home at all hours when he hadn’t specifically agreed to be in at a certain time. But he had never done this before, not ever.
Just before seven she had put on her new dark green top that had been sitting in her drawer with the label still attached to it waiting for a special occasion, and the Topshop skirt with a pair of heeled boots. It seemed silly to put on boots when she wasn’t going out; but she didn’t think she looked fully dressed without them. She hadn’t put on her underwear at that stage, because it seemed impossible to breathe out at all once you were in it. Instead, she had planned to pop upstairs just before dessert and surprise Robert after the lemon sorbet, although she was not exactly sure how. She had hoped a couple of glasses of wine would have helped her wing it.
At a quarter to nine Meg had reluctantly tried his cell phone number, reluctantly because she didn’t want him to think that she was nagging him. It rang for a long time before his voice mail picked it up. She hesitated before leaving a stupid and clumsy message: “It’s me, Meg. It’s nearly nine and I just wonder if…you are okay? Are you coming? Can you call? I hope you’re okay.” Meg looked at the telephone for a long moment after she put the receiver down, half expecting him to ring back immediately. When he did not, she decided she simply had to revise her plans. He was probably stuck in a traffic jam somewhere, with his phone completely flat.
Instead of allowing herself to get upset, or worse still give in to the impulse to cry, she would move directly to phase two of the evening. She went upstairs and put the underwear on, wishing she had a silky satin dressing gown, like the negligée in Natalie’s collection, instead of the chunky terrycloth one she slipped on over the ensemble.
She waited, her whole body poised, leaning toward the moment she would hear Robert’s key in the lock.
By a quarter to ten Meg was beginning to realize why woman-kind gave up bones and stays in favor of Lycra at the first opportunity. While in the lamplight of the bedroom she secretly thought that she did look rather fetching, visualizing what her soft white torso would look like underneath the corset made her wince, as she could picture long red welts mirroring the garment’s construction printed into her ample flesh. Every few minutes she would go to the top of the stairs and peer down at the front door. Gripper, who had an uncanny ability to sense Robert’s homecoming still wasn’t there.
Meg rather wished that she didn’t have quite such a reliable indicator of Robert’s imminent arrival. It robbed her of the balm of hope and made the waiting seem all the more futile. After what seemed like an age divided between sitting on the edge of the bed and chewing her bottom lip while looking at her knees, and leaning over the edge of the banisters hoping to get a sight of Gripper, nose on paws by the door, Meg noticed that the digital alarm clock on Robert’s side of the bed now read 11:04.
Even the resolute optimist in her had to admit that the evening had been ruined. He wasn’t here, he hadn’t come. He hadn’t even called. But Meg still believed that it had to be due to circumstances that Robert couldn’t control, because, she told herself, even if he were about to leave her, the man she had married would never be intentionally late. Even if he had planned all along to tell her over dinner there was no hope for their marriage, she was certain he would have been on time to deliver the bad news. She tried not to take his absence personally. She did her best to excuse his failure to call and let her know what was going on, and as she lay down on the bed and closed her eyes for a few minutes she told herself there was nothing to be gained by crying about something she wasn’t sure had even happened yet.
But all the same there were tears on her pillow as she drifted off to sleep.
Meg opened her eyes and realized that she was not dreaming. Robert really was there on the bed, kissing and nipping at the tops of her breasts with a hungry mouth.
“Robert?” She only managed one word before he covered her mouth with his, moaning in the back of his throat as his hands ran down the length of her body.
“God, Meg,” he whispered with urgency as she helped him struggle out of his own clothes. And then she felt the weight of him, his skin next to hers; the bite of the corset digging into her flesh under the pressure of his body; the strength of his fingers gripping her thighs.
For a moment Meg felt sure she had to be dreaming, because this man who was intent on freeing her breasts from their constraints was not Robert. The passion and hunger she saw in his eyes were not like him at all; she felt as if she were being somehow wonderfully devoured and as she began to believe in his desire she felt herself ignite too, and rise to meet and mirror his excitement. Layer after layer of her daily life seemed to slip away: the erratic mother, the disorganized housewife, the woman who was always keen to please but never quite sure that she did enough.
For a few intense moments Meg felt utterly powerful, an
omnipotent goddess holding the dreams of all men in the palm of her hand. She cried out, experiencing the shock of orgasm just moments before Robert climaxed himself and then collapsed, his face falling into her shoulder.
For several moments she listened to him breathing and then he rolled off her and drew her into his arms, pressing her back against his chest and kissing her hair.
“I love you,” she whispered happily.
But Robert was already asleep.
Unable to sleep, Meg eased herself out of Robert’s arms and picked up his hastily discarded trousers that were lying crumpled on the floor. As she held them by one leg, a few loose coins and his cell phone fell out of the pocket. She picked it up, realizing that it couldn’t have gone flat because the display had lit up as it hit the floor.
Meg looked at the screen. It was displaying a text message. He must have forgotten to close it after reading it. She saw the letters on the small screen for a split second before she actually read the words. Some intuitive part of her warned her just to put the phone facedown and walk away right then, but it was a warning that came too late. She had read the text already before she realized what it meant.
I’ll miss you tonight. Think of me when you are with her. Lx
Quickly Meg closed the text and put the phone down on her dressing table. She looked back at the bed where Robert was sleeping soundly. She thought about that exciting, unfamiliar look in his eyes as he made love to her and then she thought about that text.
Think of me when you are with her.
Fourteen
Natalie arrived on Willoughby Street at seven forty-two, a full eighteen minutes early. She had tried very hard not to be early. She had, in fact, tried actively to be rather later. But despite her efforts, fate had conspired for her mother to be unusually compliant, not to mention sober, a taxi to be stopping right outside her house just as she opened the front door, and the usual Saturday-night traffic nowhere to be seen.
Willoughby Street was a very short street. More of a dead end than a proper street, Natalie thought resentfully as she hovered on the corner. Willoughby Close, they should call it, or Avenue. It most certainly was not a street. A street would have offered a far greater opportunity for walking up and down, uncertain of your next move. Almost the only door on Willoughby Street, apart from the side entrance to a comic-book shop, was the main entrance to the flat where Jack was staying. A door just waiting for her to approach it, almost indecent in its obviousness.
Well, at the very least she could not be early, she decided, as she set off with a plan to take a brisk mind-clearing walk around the block. But her plan failed almost instantly as she found herself entering the Museum pub on the corner. She circumnavigated several tourists enjoying the authentic British pub experience and asked at the bar for a virgin mary.
“Sure you don’t want the vodka in it?” an authentic Australian barman asked her with a jaunty smile.
“Oh, I want it,” Natalie said. “I really, really want it, but I can’t have it. I’m breastfeeding and I try to keep my baby’s alcohol intake down to three or four units a day.”
He didn’t bother her again after that.
As she sipped her drink, Natalie realized that she was utterly unprepared for this moment.
She also realized that there was never going to be any time, at any point in the future, when she would be prepared for it. It was unpreparable for, if such a word existed, which she was fairly sure it didn’t. The thought, though, gave her a small sliver of comfort, a sense of friendly fatalism. What happened next was entirely out of her control. All she had to do was remember her promise to Freddie, not let her feelings cloud her judgment and make sure that she behaved with dignity and integrity.
It was the last part that she had worried about the most as she got ready earlier that evening.
Inevitably, Sandy asked her where she was going.
“Out,” Natalie said automatically. Sandy had been standing outside smoking several cigarettes in quick succession after an extended period without her nicotine hit. She had talked to Natalie between puffs through a tiny gap in the French doors.
“I just thought that as you are asking me to look after your son for the whole day, the very least you can do is tell me why,” Sandy said, hugging herself as if chilled, even though it was a fairly mild evening.
“Why do you think that?” Natalie said, rooting through her makeup bag for her eyeliner. “You came here to help me look after your grandson so I could have a break. I’m having a break.”
“Actually, that wasn’t the only reason I came back. I have a life too, you know, in Spain. Things I’d like to talk to you about.”
“Look, Mom.” Natalie paused, sitting at the breakfast bar, her compact hovering in midair, her eyeliner pencil millimeters from her lids. “I can’t do this now. I’m really, really grateful that you’ve had Freddie for most of the day and I know I’ll have to pay for it with emotional pain for the next ten years or so. But I have to go out tonight, it’s important. Now please come in and stop smoking for five minutes. You’re no good to me at all if you spontaneously combust.”
Sandy took one more deep drag of her cigarette before reluctantly stubbing it out with the toe of her slipper and coming in. She stood at the end of the breakfast bar watching her daughter carefully outline her eyes.
“You look lovely,” she said after a while.
Natalie nearly poked her eye out. “Pardon?” she said, dropping the pencil, which rolled off the marble counter and clattered onto the floor.
“You do,” Sandy said. “You look really lovely…are you meeting a man?”
Still stunned by the unprecedented compliment, Natalie was almost tempted to tell her mother everything. The urge to unburden the truth about the momentous occasion she was about to embark on was so great that she nearly couldn’t resist it.
But this was still Sandy she was talking to. Still the woman who told a boy Natalie once brought home from school that she had written that she loved him over a hundred times in her secret diary.
Just because at that moment she wasn’t half-soused and spouting a load of rubbish, it didn’t mean that she wouldn’t revert to type at any moment. Her seemingly spontaneous compliment was probably just a cunning trap to try to lure Natalie into divulging information that could later be used against her. All Natalie had to do was to think of how her mother had behaved around Gary (while quietly editing out her own behavior on that front) to remind herself what Sandy was really like. No, it was too dangerous to trust her with anything so important.
“Not a man man,” she said cagily. “A business contact. Alice asked me to step in. She’s got the collection to sort out for the show and it’s just a business dinner, that’s all. I won’t be long. You will stay sober until I get in, won’t you?”
Sandy sighed. “Well, don’t stay out too long,” she said. “I can’t promise anything after ten o’clock.”
Natalie tasted the thick and tangy tomato juice on the back of her tongue as she watched the clock behind the bar, waiting for what seemed like an eon for it to be eight o’clock. At last the hour hand clicked into place and she knew that every second that passed now made it one more second that she was officially late. It was a small gesture of rebellion, but one that made her feel a little better nevertheless.
She stood. She straightened her shoulders, she lifted her chin, and made her way to the place where Jack was staying.
“This is the moment,” she said out loud as her finger hovered over the buzzer. “This is it.”
Despite being prepared for not being prepared for anything, it turned out that what Natalie was least prepared for happened the minute that Jack opened the front door of the apartment.
He kissed her. And not just on the cheek.
He planted a kiss full on her lips. Not with tongues or anything overtly sexy, but a mouth-to-mouth kiss, after which Natalie could have done with some mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
“Hello, Natalie,” Jac
k said, as she tried her best to look nonchalant and unconcerned, as if attractive men threw smackers her way on an hourly basis. “I’m here.”
“You are indeed,” she said, catching her breath. “Sorry I’m late; traffic, you know.”
“You’re not late,” Jack said, as he stepped out into the evening and closed the door behind him. “You’re right on time—what were you doing, waiting by the door watching the clock?” He laughed but Natalie didn’t. And then Jack didn’t.
“I made a reservation at Alistair Little,” he said as they left Willoughby Street. “Is that okay?”
Natalie nodded and they paused on the sidewalk, caught in the difficulty of the moment. One thing was certainly clear. The instant easiness and spontaneous rapport that had once existed between them was now quite gone.
“Well, then, shall we?” Jack said.
They walked side by side on Great Russell Street, with that awkward gait of two people who did not know each other well enough yet to be able to walk comfortably down a street together. And it wasn’t surprising, considering that for most of the time they had spent together prior to this moment they had been horizontal.
“Looks like the weather is improving,” Natalie said.
“Mmm,” Jack replied. Small talk too, it seemed, would take a little while to find its flow.
The evening was clear, but an earlier shower had left a mirrored slick on the streets and roads, reflecting the lights of the city as they walked, not quite in step. Natalie kept her head down, watching the toes of her boots as she went, trying hard to think of how she was going to say what needed to be said. She decided that there was almost no way to say it, or at least only one way, which, though utterly obvious, seemed impossibly hard.
“I’ve missed London while I’ve been away,” Jack said suddenly, picking up her hand and tucking it through his arm as if he was determined to move their stilted reacquaintance on. “I suppose loads of famous people, poets and writers and such have probably said it a million times better, but it’s so full of life. Chockful to the brim with millions of heartbeats. Of course, it’s not as beautiful or as romantic as Venice, or as glamorous and slick as New York, but it has just as much style. It’s got this collective spirit. It’s…indomitable. Makes me feel glad to be alive.” He stopped for a second and looked down at Natalie. “Glad to be here with you. It’s good to see you, Natalie. It’s good to be walking next to you down the street, and I’m sorry if I’ve been a bit odd or awkward since we bumped into each other. It was just that I didn’t expect to see you there, I wasn’t prepared.”
Mommy By Mistake Page 16
