The Perfect Happiness

by Santa Montefiore

  “I find her infuriating,” grumbled Angelica.

  “Don’t worry, darling. She’d kill for your tousled locks,” said Letizia.

  “No, she’d like your marriage,” said Candace. “Hers is a deeply unhappy one, and that’s the core of her bitterness.”

  “Last year she admitted to me that she was well past forty, but she’s clearly forgotten, because she keeps referring to the approaching ‘Big Four O’ and asking what she should do to celebrate,” said Scarlet.

  “Correct her,” Candace suggested. “Honey, it’s the Big Five O!”

  “Her husband works at Lehman’s. I don’t think she’ll be doing anything to celebrate,” said Angelica.

  “Maybe selling her vast collection of shoes and handbags,” said Letizia.

  “The Birkins are fakes,” said Candace. “Believe me, I know.”

  At that moment, Kate strode into the restaurant in a knitted minidress and boots, her eyes hidden behind big Chanel sunglasses. Every eye turned as she looked around for her friends, then waved vigorously when she saw them. Women envied her lithe body and striking face, and men sensed something wanton that women did not. She weaved through the whispering tables like an enchanting snake, savoring the attention.

  “Sorry I’m late.” She blew them all kisses. “It’s just been one of those mornings.” She flopped into a chair, dropping her Anya handbag to the floor. “I need a drink.”

  “I didn’t think you were drinking,” said Letizia.

  “I’m not meant to be, but one little teeny weeny Bellini won’t hurt the baby.” She smiled at the waiter, who blushed.

  “So Pete got back last night. Did you tell him?” Candace asked.

  “No. I’m too scared.”

  “So what’s your big idea?” Angelica asked.

  “I’m going to wing it.”

  “You’re not going to get rid of it?” Candace was astonished.

  “I can’t.”

  “It’s only a teeny weeny bundle of cells.”

  “I know, Candace, but still it’s a life. I’ve always been anti-abortion. There’s a child in here.” She touched her belly.

  “Not that you’d know,” said Letizia.

  “It’s smaller than mine,” Angelica observed.

  “Not for long,” said Candace. “Angelica’s joining my Pilates class.”

  Scarlet grinned at her. “Make sure you have a pedicure first—that David is delicious.”

  “Trust me, that’s the last thing on your mind when you’re trussed up, in agony, and sweating like a pig.”

  “You don’t sweat, Candace, for sure!” Letizia laughed.

  “Of course she doesn’t,” replied Scarlet. “She glows like a princess, of the Park Avenue variety.”

  The waiter came with Kate’s Bellini. She took a sip and smiled. “That’s better. You see, I was thinking, my lover has similar coloring to Pete, so hopefully, unless there are any hideous kickbacks from previous generations, the baby will look enough like Pete to fool him.”

  “That’s optimistic,” said Candace.

  “It happens all the time,” said Scarlet. “Apparently a vast percentage of children in this country do not belong to their fathers.”

  “I think you should come clean,” Letizia advised.

  “And risk losing Pete?” asked Angelica.

  “Is he worth keeping?” Candace asked. “What’s your lover like?”

  “Not the marrying type,” said Kate.

  “Already married?”

  Kate shook her head. “I can’t say. I haven’t told him about the baby, and I’m not going to. To be honest, he’s rather embarrassed about the whole thing. As far as we’re both concerned, it never happened.”

  Candace growled, “There’s someone in there who says it did.” She pointed a manicured nail at Kate’s stomach.

  Kate grinned. “But he’s not telling.”

  “Not yet,” said Angelica.

  At half-past three they picked up the children from school, standing in a huddle discussing Jenna Elrich, who was barking into her telephone in French to one of her staff. When she got the children home, Angelica went upstairs to check her e-mails. Never before had she been so eager to read them. With an expectant grin she clicked on her mail. There was one from her agent suggesting lunch—and one from Jack Meyer.

  Dear Sage, Your e-mail is the most exciting thing to happen to a poor old dog lying on the porch, bored and neglected! I can hear your voice in your sentences and your laugh, as I imagine you must have laughed when you suggested that my porch is as big as Olivier’s. If Olivier is clever, he won’t require a big porch, but lie next to you in complete bliss on a porch the length of his nose to his wagging tail. (Wagging, I stress, because he’s married to you!) As for my ideas, I’m putting them together for you, looking back over my life and experiences. It’s not ready yet. Perhaps I’ll give it to you when you come out to South Africa, which I hope you will, very soon!

  From Dog on Porch

  5

  Search for the beauty in everything because it’s there if you look hard enough.

  In Search of the Perfect Happiness

  Angelica stared at Jack’s e-mail, a mischievous smile playing guiltily about her lips. She knew she shouldn’t be encouraging him. But the chance of their meeting again was very slim. He lived a safe distance away in South Africa. Even if he came to London, she’d never be able to explain away lunch, and she certainly wouldn’t dare go behind Olivier’s back. She’d be sure to bump into someone they knew and be found out. She toyed with these ideas for amusement, for the sheer pleasure of the impossible dream.

  With a recklessness that was quite out of character, she wrote a reply.

  Dear Dog on Porch, I think the first secret to happiness is acceptance. Isn’t the desire to have what one can’t have the root of our unrest? Sage

  Pleased, she pressed Send without hesitation. She waited a while for a reply. She’d have to go down to the playroom in a moment to beg, bribe, and coerce her children into doing their homework, but she was reluctant to tear herself away from the computer. Just as she was about to get up, the telephone rang. It was her agent, Claudia Hemmingway.

  “Hi there, Angelica. How’s the writing going?”

  “It’s great,” she lied. “Just began today.”

  “Fabulous. Can’t wait to read the first draft.”

  “Don’t hold your breath. I won’t have anything for you until after Christmas.”

  “That’s okay, so long as you’re pushing on. Listen, I think we should have lunch. There are a few proposals I want to discuss with you.”

  “Nice proposals?”

  “I think so.” She paused. “I haven’t seen you all summer. Let’s say it’s time to regroup.”

  “Oh God, you’re going to try to persuade me to go to Australia again.”

  “I promised I wouldn’t.”

  “I can’t leave the children for that long—you know that.”

  “And I totally understand; it’s just that . . .”

  “It would be so good for my career. Olivier doesn’t consider it a career.”

  “The money you make certainly classes it as a career.”

  “You talk to my husband.”

  “Look, I’m not going to try to persuade you to go to Australia. I promise. Let’s have a nice lunch and put together a battle plan for the next book. When can you do it?”

  “Can we put something in at the end of November? I know it’s a long way off, but I’m reluctant to leave my desk while I’m on a roll.” Gives me more time to get something written.

  “That’s fantastic. I don’t want to interrupt your creative flow.”

  As Claudia was looking through her diary, Angelica heard the ping of a new message. There, highlighted in bold, was the name: Jack Meyer. “What about Thursday the twentieth?” Claudia suggested. “We can go to Sotheby’s Café. I know you like it . . .” There was silence. “Angelica? Are you still there?”

  She tore
her eyes away from the screen. “Yes, yes, I’m here. Sorry, just got distracted by an e-mail.” She flicked through her diary, eager to finish the call so she could read what he had written. “The twentieth of November. It’s in.”

  “Great. I’ll leave you to your writing and that e-mail!”

  Angelica put down the telephone and turned back to her computer screen.

  Dear beautiful Sage, In my case the desire to have what I can’t have poses a tremendous challenge, which generates a great deal of happiness in the form of anticipation. Perhaps acceptance in its purest form is the key to lasting happiness. The trouble is that there is nothing pure in my form of acceptance, only frustration and rebellion as I fight against it. Surely if I accept my lot, I will never raise myself up to my true potential? What do you say to that? From Dog on Porch

  With an increasing sense of guilt, she read it again. “Dear beautiful Sage . . .” He obviously wasn’t worried that his wife was going to read his e-mails. She knew the rest of what he wrote referred to her and the challenge she posed. She was the object of his desire and quite unobtainable. Yet she didn’t feel she was in danger. E-mail gave their letters a comfortable detachment. It wasn’t like speaking on the telephone, or talking across the table at lunch. It enabled her to flirt in a way she would never have dared flirt in person.

  She was aware that she was encouraging Jack for her own amusement, which wasn’t really fair. She should stop it before it went too far. But she managed to convince herself that it was as much a game for him as it was for her. He probably had e-mail “friends” across the globe—what was one more?

  So how should she respond to his thoughts on acceptance? She sat back and considered, chewing on a pen. The happiness of which he spoke was temporary, more of a high than a state of inner peace and harmony. She posed a challenge, and the desire to win her gave him the anticipation of happiness, but, having won her, the challenge would be gone and happiness would elude him once again.

  Her fingers hovered over the keys. She knew she should wait a few days before replying. She didn’t want to look keen. But the temptation was too great to resist, and besides, didn’t she deserve a little innocent fun?

  Dear Dog on Porch, The happiness you speak of is a temporary happiness. Imagine a dog on his porch. If he’s straining at the lead and yearning for what is in the garden, he will only feel frustrated and unhappy. If he strays into the garden in chase of a rabbit, he might experience the pleasure of the chase, but then his happiness evaporates until the next rabbit. If he accepts that he must stay on the porch and lies there feeling the wind through his fur and the sun on his skin and doesn’t yearn for that rabbit, surely then he will feel the deep inner contentment of just being. From a rather confused Sage

  She was wrenched from her ponderings by Joe shouting up the stairs that he wanted to watch Ben10 but that Isabel had stolen the control to watch High School Musical. “No television until you’ve done your homework,” Angelica replied, skipping down the stairs. “Joe, you’re first. Look, the sooner you do it, the sooner it’s over, then you can watch Ben10.”

  While Sunny made spaghetti bolognese for tea, Angelica sat with Joe at the dining room table. Happiness is loving my children, she thought as Joe read out loud. She watched her son’s earnest face as he concentrated on the words and tried to imagine what he was going to be like as a man: handsome like his father, certainly, with her light eyes and fair skin. Out-spoken like his grandfather. Unique in the way that every human being is a one-off.

  Her mind drifted to Olivier, and she felt a twinge of guilt, though there was no fear of his reading her e-mails; he never set foot in her office. He wouldn’t imagine her having a cyber friend like Jack. No one would. Olivier had a reputation for loving women. After all, he was French. In fact, if Olivier didn’t chat up girls at every turn, people assumed he was ill or in a bad mood, and they were probably right. It didn’t mean that Olivier didn’t love her above all others, just that he needed the adrenaline rush of a flirtation and the confirmation that at forty-eight he was still attractive. But she, being English and less flamboyant, was reputedly a paragon of virtue.

  Angelica drew Joe into her arms and gave him a bear hug. “You’re brilliant,” she exclaimed, savoring the smell of his hair and his soft skin against her cheek. Her children were still little, but it wouldn’t be long before they were pushing her away, not wanting to be cuddled, and then she’d have no one to wrap her arms around, because Olivier was never here and when he was, his mind was still in the office.

  “So, can I watch Ben10 now?”

  “Go on, then. Tell Isabel it’s her turn.” She watched him disappear into the hall. My happiness depends on the health of my children, she thought. Not a lasting happiness because it is always clouded with fear. I fear things that might never happen. Wasted energy and yet, I can’t stop myself. For every moment of bliss I fear the pain of loss. How would I cope without them? Happiness is like small islands in a sea of fear. Why can’t fear be small islands in a sea of happiness? Why fear at all? Can’t I just accept things as they come and deal with them as they arrive? She smiled wistfully as Isabel padded into the room.

  When Olivier arrived home, the children were in bed and Angelica had cooked dinner. The table was laid in the kitchen with place mats and napkins, wineglasses and a single candle.

  “This is romantic,” he said, dropping his briefcase on the hall table.

  “It’s just the two of us.” She noticed the silk and cashmere scarf around his neck.

  “Good. I’m too tired to talk to anyone but you, and my head is still full of rampaging elephants.”

  “Have you taken anything for it other than aspirin?”

  “Besides Nurofen, no. I think I’ll have another inhalation before bed.”

  “Take Night Nurse.”

  “All right. I’ll do that. Tomorrow, I’ll stagger into work with a hangover.”

  “How’s it been?”

  “Terrible. Everything is down. This is serious, Angelica.”

  “I know, I’ve read the papers.”

  He sighed and sank into a chair. She poured him a glass of Bordeaux. He took a sip, and his shoulders relaxed.

  “Take off your scarf and jacket, and I’ll give your shoulders a rub.”

  “What’s going on?” he asked, loosening his scarf. “Are you having an affair?”

  “Silly! You just look so tense.” She felt her cheeks redden.

  “I am tense.” She put his scarf and jacket on the back of his chair and proceeded to massage his neck. “That feels so good.” Her fingers worked deep into the muscles, feeling them soften beneath her touch. She felt guilty about her secret e-mails, and her guilt made her a geisha to make up for it.

  “I haven’t given you a massage in years.”

  He laughed. “You never gave me massages even when we were courting. I was the one with the oil.”

  “And the magical hands.” She was surprised to feel herself grow hot with desire.

  “They still are magical, you know.” He closed his eyes, and slowly his tension drained away, replaced by a physical yearning for a more primitive form of release.

  He took her hands and pulled her round in front of him, pushing out his chair so she could sit astride him. “I want to make love to you,” he murmured. “I have a beautiful wife. I should take more notice of her.”

  “With your sore throat!”

  “It’s feeling better.”

  Hypochondriac, she thought affectionately. “What about the children?”

  “If we worry about the children walking in on us, we will never make love.”

  He pulled her head down and kissed her, letting her hair fall about his face. His lips were warm and tasted of wine. He was a good kisser; he always had been. He pulled her shirt out of her jeans and slipped his fingers inside. She felt his hands undo the clasp on her bra and then the sensual feeling of his thumbs on her nipples. It had been so long, they responded eagerly to his touch. She threw b
ack her head and allowed his bristly chin to scratch the delicate skin on her neck as he kissed her. Aware of the danger of being caught by a sleepy child, Angelica wriggled out of her jeans and panties and sat astride him again, slipping him inside her with a well-practiced hand. They lost each other for a while, alone in their pleasure, until they reached the peak together. They remained entwined a moment longer, hearts racing, heads spinning with the sudden rush of adrenaline.

  “That was spontaneous,” she said, kissing his temple. It was damp and salty.

  “It is like we are young and in love again.” He stroked her hair. “We should make love more often.”

  “Life is busy,” she said, climbing off and reaching for her clothes.

  “We should make time for the important things. Now what’s for dinner?”

  • • •

  Angelica watched him tuck into the lamb cutlets with relish. Sometimes it was as if food was his meaning for living. An unsatisfactory meal could ruin his whole week. She sipped her wine and ate slowly while he talked about himself. He didn’t ask her about her day. There was nothing unusual about that: there wasn’t a great deal to report, but suddenly it mattered that he wasn’t curious. “Lehman’s has crashed. Other banks are sure to follow. This is really going to affect everyone, even us.”

  “I know. I’m being careful.”

  “No unnecessary indulgences.”

  She stiffened. “I said, I’m being careful.”

  “I know you are.”

  “I’ve got money coming in.”

  “Sure, but the publishing world is going to be hit, too. People are going to cut out things they don’t need, and books will suffer.”

  “Children still need to read.”

  “But you won’t be paid such big advances in future. You watch: everyone is going to be pulling in their belts.” She raised a reproachful eyebrow at the mention of the word “belt” and wanted to remind him that he didn’t like her to wear one.