The Consequence of Love

by Sandra Howard

  Barney, her alcoholic father, had given Nattie away; he’d swayed a bit and she’d felt that they were propping each other up. Bystanders wouldn’t have known; the church, the traditional service, the profusion of fragrant flowers, family and friends being boisterous and warm, Victoria looking truly beautiful, feted and admired as the mother of the bride. Her wide brown eyes with their flecks of gold had glistened with proud happiness. Those joyful tears, though, had pierced Nattie’s heart like the point of a sharp knife. Victoria’s euphoria had been as much about relief that her daughter wasn’t marrying Ahmed.

  William hadn’t felt the same way. He’d known the depth of Nattie’s love for Ahmed, respected her feelings, and believed in his bright young reporter, while others – advisers to Victoria, the head of MI5 particularly – had been suspicious and mistrustful, unsure whether Ahmed was genuine or playing a double game. Nattie tried not to harbour past feelings of bitterness; she loved her mother through it all.

  It was Thursday, late closing, and as they tried to cross Oxford Street the backed-up buses and blasting horns were getting to Hugo. Being late anywhere always really bugged him. ‘It’s as noisy as fucking Cairo! You know how I hate being the last to arrive. It makes it harder to be first to go – which I’ll certainly want to do.’

  When they finally arrived, bursting out of the lift on the uppermost floor, Hugo couldn’t stop apologising. ‘Traffic, traffic! So sorry, Maudie,’ he said, kissing her upturned cheek. ‘It was truly awful.’

  ‘Stop, stop, Hugo, who cares?’ The domestic small print, the fine timing of a dinner-party meal, meant nothing to her – nor was she flustered on anyone else’s behalf. She was petite, gamine, her pert face prettily framed by feathery dark hair, wearing a skimpy, figure-hugging electric-blue dress and eight-inch heels. She had a smooth coil of gold round her neck and her scarlet lipstick was perfectly applied; she looked cool, polished and confident.

  ‘I must have a girly minute with my old friend,’ she said. ‘Hugo, go grab a drink from Stefan over there and mingle. He’s a gem, Stefan, serves at all our gallery previews.’ Hugo trailed off and with Nattie to herself Maudie studied her, cocking her neat head to one side. ‘You’ve really got it together tonight, Nats. That dress is great with the tan. I love the netting midriff, I’m madly jealous! So spill then, I want to know what’s going on; there has to be something, you look far too fab – anyone would think you had a new lover. My God, I really think you have! You’re blushing like you used to at school.’

  ‘Come off it, Maudie, you know me. How’s Harold?’ Nattie asked, desperate to shift the focus. ‘Is he around? Any more exotic little “business trips” coming up?’

  ‘He’s being Daddy in the South of France right now, then we’re off to New York. I shop and give him the tab, he does his Goldman Sachs bit and takes me clubbing.’

  ‘Will he leave his wife, do you think?’

  ‘God, I hope not! Harold’s okay in small doses, but I certainly don’t want him cramping my style. I mean, my date tonight is a dish.’ She took Nattie’s arm. ‘We should eat, I’m getting glances, but come and say hi to a few people first. Hugo needs rescuing, by the look of it.’

  He was talking to a lanky man with a droopy, yellowing moustache and looked relieved to see them. ‘This is my wife, Nattie,’ he said with pride as they came up.

  Droopy Moustache squeezed her fingers till she winced. ‘Great to meet you, Naty.’ He sounded South African. ‘Your man’s a lucky fella! Pieter’s the name, and that’s my missus yonder, Earnestine.’ He nodded towards a tall woman across the room.

  Yonder? Nattie’s lips twitched and she caught Hugo’s eye as Maudie moved them on. Earnestine towered, even over Hugo who was six foot. She was an avid collector of British twentieth-century art, it transpired, and Pieter owned extensive vineyards.

  Maudie’s date, Miguel, with his haughty chiselled features, was magnificent. He looked like a Spanish bullfighter, but turned out to be a ballet star. He kissed Nattie’s hand and his eyes were molten and smouldering as he gazed into hers.

  They met Walt next, a nattily dressed American whose wife was a languorous brunette. ‘Walt and Gloria are health freaks,’ Maudie said, ‘but I can forgive them anything for their amazing eye – except that they always buy the one painting I can’t bear to let go!’

  She introduced them to a couple of women, Sophia, a silken redhead in a white toga, and Helen, handsome, high-boned, wearing magnificent diamond earrings.

  Maudie summoned everyone and they settled in at a glass table in the dining alcove, which was glass-walled with arresting views of the river to take the place of paintings. Nattie was between Walt, the health freak, and Helen Longman who, she remembered, hearing her surname, was a highly regarded film director.

  Helen was a fascinating dinner neighbour. They talked books, ones that were filmable, and some they’d both loved that weren’t.

  Stefan cleared the first course, slightly greasy smoked salmon, and served the main dish. ‘It’s a recipe called Chicken Alexander,’ Maudie said. ‘I haven’t done it before, so apologies in advance.’ Nattie knew it was from the frozen food company, Cook; she’d served it herself once, but owned up to it.

  She retreated. Ahmed was in London somewhere; it seemed unimaginable. What was he doing at that moment? Was he working here? Was he safe? She prayed he wasn’t looking down the barrels of any guns. Four whole days and four long nights . . . the waiting was intolerable. She flicked her eyes to Hugo, hoping he hadn’t been picking up vibes. He was on the opposite side of the table next to the silken-haired Sophia and hanging on her every word. After all he’d said! Nattie was more irritated and jealous than amused. Men were so predictably susceptible.

  She was ignoring Walt, on her other side, and he touched her arm.

  ‘I’ve been waiting my turn to talk to the loveliest girl in the room.’

  Nattie shook her head with a self-deprecating smile. ‘I’m very far from that.’ She could have done without the chat-up line; he’d managed to sound as obsequious as a social climber and self-satisfied at the same time.

  ‘Tell me, Nattie,’ he said, facing her full on while his foot strayed to touch hers, ‘what do you do? I want to know all about you.’ His American-accented voice carried and Hugo looked across, his attention momentarily diverted from the silken red-head. It was small comfort.

  Nattie knew from long experience that the last thing a man like Walt wanted was to ‘know all about her’; he’d far rather talk about himself. Shifting her foot, she took her cue from Maudie and admired his physique.

  ‘You’re in great physical shape, Walt,’ she said, beaming with an admiration she didn’t feel. ‘You must be doing something right! Tell me about your regime.’

  He beamed back. ‘Well, diet is important, of course. I can recommend the bloodless diet, it’s excellent.’ Nattie resisted asking whether it didn’t make him feel a little light on the corpuscles. ‘And I have a superb personal trainer who promised me a whittled-down waistline and rock-hard thighs in no time.’

  She smiled warmly, hoping that would keep Walt going while she indulged herself, thinking of Ahmed – his body and thighs meant rather more to her than Walt’s – the clean male scent of his skin, his way of wrapping her up in his arms very protectively after sex. Everything about him was still so vivid. They had fitted. His outflow of energy, love and enthusiasm had lifted the levels of hers. Suppose she had closed down the account a month or even a week earlier? Would he have still got in touch? Would her world have stayed righted while the kernel of sadness in her heart remained?

  ‘I work out real hard every day,’ Walt was saying, ‘though one has to be careful. I actually had some breathing issues recently, just while I was doing a big presentation. Had to see a cardiologist. He put the ultrasound scanner on my heart and sticky pads with wires all round my chest. He watched and listened and it seems I have a very calm heartbeat. He kept time like slowly, saying, “Ba-boom . . . ba-boom . . . ba-boom,”
then he said, “You have a beautiful heart.” ’

  Nattie couldn’t decide whether Walt was being entirely serious, but suspected he was. ‘You must have felt very proud of those fine regular ba-booms,’ she said. ‘I’m terrifically impressed with your dedication.’

  Walt was on a roll after that, detailing how most people rigged up with sticky-pad wires in hospital rooms would have elevated heart rates – unlike his own tranquil organ, she presumed. She switched off again, feeling agitated. The waiting was unendurable; she was buckling under the strain. Hugo’s eyes were trained on her now, too. The weekend loomed – it wasn’t going to be easy.

  ‘Do you run, Nattie?’

  She stared at Walt blankly. ‘Only after my children.’ She laughed, managing a comeback just in time. He said she couldn’t possibly be old enough to have any.

  The evening dragged on. Hugo seemed in no hurry to leave.

  ‘Well, that wasn’t so bad,’ he conceded, when they were finally on the way home. Nattie was driving; he’d moved on to single malt whisky after various wines and was very mellow. ‘They were an okay lot, after all – apart from that slime-bag, Walt.’

  ‘He was in great physical shape, though.’ Nattie said. ‘You have to give him that.’

  She drove on, feeling full of angst and irritation. ‘So was the beautiful copper-haired Sophia,’ she threw out. ‘She seemed to cheer up your evening no end.’ Hugo looked so infuriatingly pleased with himself that Nattie couldn’t help having a bitch. ‘I would say that Walt wasn’t the only one round that table trying his hand . . .’

  The hot sunny spell was over. It poured on Sunday morning, steady rain, the sky sagging under solid pewter clouds. Nattie was glad that her mother and William were coming to tea; it would fill the afternoon. She and Lily made flapjacks and fairy cakes with much tasting of the mixture while Hugo spent most of the morning on his knees, building a wooden train circuit. It involved linking bits of track that had to rise over wobbly bridges to make slopes for the train to shoot down – a task that took infinite patience, since every time he achieved it Tubsy would stumble against one of the bridges and cause a concertina-ing scene of destruction.

  It was the last day of Lily’s school holidays and they went out to lunch at a local pizzeria. It was busy, full of other young couples with children and buggies, all steaming and smelling of wet clothes. They got the last table, although squeezing in Tubsy’s buggy alongside others took a feat of precision parking.

  With Hugo preoccupied trying to attract a waiter and Lily spelling out phonetically the few words she recognised on the menu, Nattie struggled with a great worry on her mind. She’d been wrestling with it all weekend, a particular problem about her mother and William coming to tea. Suppose William, as editor-in-chief of the Post and Ahmed’s old boss, knew Ahmed was back in the country? Would he keep shtoom?

  He’d be sensitive to Hugo’s feelings – he knew how things were – but would even William really imagine that she, married now, with children, would keep Ahmed’s return a secret? Nattie prayed he didn’t know. A corner of her longed to share the news, talk to him and be advised. She couldn’t and wouldn’t, but it was a comfort to know that William would be understanding; he knew how things had been and what Ahmed meant to her.

  ‘They’re here, Mummy!’ Lily was standing on a seat at the window and jumped down. ‘Granny and Grampsy are here.’ She raced to the front door, standing on tiptoe to unlatch it. ‘Granny, we’ve made fairy cakes!’ she exclaimed, before they’d stepped over the threshold. ‘Yours is the one with the pink heart. And Grampsy, yours has blue icing with a silver ball. But you can have two if you want.’

  ‘Two silver balls or two fairy cakes? Come and give me a big hug.’ William swung her up in the air, golden hair flying, kissing her head as he returned her to the ground.

  Victoria kissed her next. ‘I love your T-shirt, Lily, with that enormous Hello, and the biking shorts too! I had to wear frilly frocks when I was little. And look at you, Tubsy, getting so big – Thomas, I should say, or Daddy will be cross. Have you got a kiss for Granny, darling?’

  Tubsy hadn’t. He clung to his mother, he wasn’t long up from his nap. Lily tugged on her grandmother’s hand, pulling her towards the kitchen.

  ‘It’s a bit early for tea,’ Hugo said, ‘and the television’s on for Gramps’s match . . .’

  It was a four o’clock kick-off, the game just starting, and they went into the sitting room. William’s football team was Liverpool and he sat as motionless as a cat in front of a mouse hole, watching them play, his concentration total, his eyes never straying. Nattie began to relax a little. If he knew about Ahmed being back in the country he was hiding it well.

  Her mother was into football too, although since her team was Southampton she wasn’t as keen to watch a rival game, especially with Tubsy ready to be sociable. He enjoyed being clapped when he took a few hesitant steps and allowed himself to be hugged. ‘Come and see Tubsy’s train circuit, Mum,’ Nattie said. ‘Hugo spent all morning building it.’

  Victoria was soon on her hands and knees in the kitchen, pushing the wooden engine round the track. ‘You’re a lot more patient with these two, Mum, than you ever were with me,’ Nattie complained, only half lightly.

  ‘Don’t tell me you have memories of being fifteen months old!’ Victoria laughed, but she looked quite got-at. ‘I wasn’t in Parliament back then,’ she said, ‘and I was always on my knees with you, so there. You were the very round little apple of my eye.’

  ‘Does that mean Mummy was a fat baby, Granny?’

  ‘Chubbier even than Tubsy! Can you go to get Gramps for tea, Lily? I’m longing for my heart cake and it’s half time, tell him – he won’t miss any of the match.’

  Lily shot off, and alone with her smiling mother, Nattie felt on the defensive.

  ‘How’s everything?’ Victoria asked. ‘It seems ages since the holiday already. Why don’t we have lunch out somewhere, without the children? We never do and I’d love it. You seem a bit on edge, to be honest, but who wouldn’t be, working and running after a fifteen-month and four-year-old!’

  She kept up her warm smile. She had a lovely face, wide-eyed and individual; she was over fifty and timelessly beautiful. William still gazed at her with the kind of adoration few would have credited him with being capable of feeling. He was a hard newspaperman; they didn’t come tougher than William Osborne.

  ‘Be great, Mum, I’d love that. Not least to say extra thanks for our glorious holiday. I shouldn’t be the slightest bit stressed after that, no way, but the autumn’s such a frantic time at work.’

  ‘How’s Tuesday? That’s a Jasmine day, isn’t it?’

  ‘No can do,’ Nattie said, too quickly, with a fluttering heart. ‘It’s a day of meetings, not the best.’ They settled on Thursday. She would know where she was with Ahmed by then. Her nerves spiralled off in a coil; she felt spirited away to some never-never land of dreams and the blood galloped in her veins.

  After tea Nattie had a moment alone with William. He had slipped back into the sitting room for the second half of his match and she took him in another cup. ‘Thanks, I need that,’ he said. ‘We’re losing!’ He patted the sofa beside him. ‘Everything okay, love? I kind of feel you’ve got something on your mind. You’re like your mother; it shows upfront. All fine at home?’

  ‘Sure. I’m having a few small issues with a guy at work, though, and a brilliant young Pakistani writer I interviewed the other day is on my mind too. She’s got family problems and I wish there was a way someone could help. Her younger sister’s still in Pakistan, being forced to marry a much older cousin who she can’t bear the sight of, and this young writer, Sadia, has gone out there to try to help her escape. I can’t see she has a hope, though.’

  ‘Send me the details, I’ll see if there’s anything to be done. I suppose she made you think of Ahmed? It’s tough, I know. It doesn’t go away.’ William smiled. ‘But that’s just how life is.’

  N
attie was glad of his comforting squeeze.

  6

  Tuesday Morning

  Hugo was in a fluster. Worse, he was in a real state, dropping his papers as he stuffed his briefcase, in a great rush. Nattie felt sympathetic, but relieved that his mind was elsewhere and impatient to have him gone. She was in a frenzy of anticipation. To be seeing Ahmed in hours . . .

  ‘I’ve done Lily’s lunch box,’ she said, trying not to sound too pressuring. ‘She’s out in the garden, I’ll just get her in. She’s feeding Moppet an entire salad drawer.’

  ‘That guinea pig’s going to need treatment for obesity soon,’ Hugo remarked, though he was only half tuned-in. He gazed at Nattie with the sort of pained, helpless look that usually meant he was about to ask a favour. She steeled herself, wary, in no mood for helping with anything that took time.

  He had a press launch that morning for one of his clients, the bed people, SleepSweet, who were bringing out a new made-to-measure luxury range. They’d always been an easy client to handle, he’d got on well with the chief executive, but the man had just been headhunted and his successor, so it seemed, was all attitude and had it in for Hugo. He sounded a real box of nails. Nattie hoped Hugo would calm down and not worry, but she feared he’d let his nerves show.

  ‘What is it?’ She smiled, hardly focusing.

  ‘I hate to ask when you’re going in today, but can you take Lily just this once? It’s getting harder to park anywhere near the school these days, which means quite a walk to the tube. Be a real help if I can go straight from here. It’s getting late . . .’

  ‘Okay, I’ve just got time.’ Nattie forced a smile. Hugo didn’t have to bundle Tubsy into the baby-seat, do a round trip in rush-hour traffic and miss the chance of precious minutes alone. Lily’s school was on the way for him.

  ‘Thanks,’ Hugo said with a heartfelt smile. ‘Sorry I’m a bit uptight, but this new CE, Murray Beard, is after my guts. I bet he’s got a pet PR firm of his own, the fucker, and wants me out.’