by Adele Parks
My whole life.
No. No that cannot be the case. I won’t let it be. The important thing is not to panic. I make the decision to catch the tube. Normally I shun public transport but today I feel it’s fitting. I sit sweating alcohol with the other mindless losers of London town and I fit.
I pay little attention to where I alight and am surprised when I pop up at Bond Street. It has started to rain and I’ve failed to bring along an umbrella. The drizzle follows me around, suggesting that even the rain gods know of my hideousness.
I spend the morning wandering around London feeling repentant and rebellious at once. I tell myself Peter pushed me to it. I had no choice. He’s been ignoring me for months. But even I don’t believe me. I know that I always have a choice and no one ever pushes me to do anything. I feel dreadful. Cheap. Used and ruined. Truly spoilt, devastated, wrecked and trashed in a nineteenth-century-heroine way that I’ve never believed in. Until now.
Inexplicably, with a fated inevitability that I thought was the exclusive domain of the know-no-better-tourist, I find myself walking along Oxford Street towards Tottenham Court Road. An ugly part of town at the best of times, and this is by no means the best of times. Some think that these areas of town represent London’s vigour, the thrills and spills of life. I can only see the spills. The homeless, the drunks, the poor and overworked. It’s depressingly real, and a contrast to the sleek, shiny streets of the City or the privileged, leafy streets of Holland Park where I usually spend my time. The area is over-illuminated by aggressive, gaudy neon signs that have swallowed the former greatness and grandeur. I think my subconscious is punishing me by trawling me through this vileness. My conscious mind – my instinctive self-preservation – wins out. Within only a few steps it’s possible to escape these style atrocities and find the chic, lively parts of town with which I am more familiar. I take a right and hurry towards the wonderfully grand boulevard that is Regent Street. The saturation of trendy stores and intense retail activity will surely lift my soul.
I discover that London is a series of scenes that have been backdrops for episodes in my life. Like old diaries fluttering open for me to read, I come across a particular set of steps, a certain shop, a statue, where I played out defining moments of my life.
I spot the antique shop in Bond Street where I bought Peter and Rose’s wedding gift. The vase is on the windowsill in our downstairs cloakroom. Funnily enough it was not something Rose wanted to hang on to when they were drawing up the settlement – no matter how much it cost she thought it was worthless. I hate it too.
Then I spy the Vintage House, where I once bought Peter a bottle of single malt worth over £400. I remember his response was a mixture of pleasure at my recklessness, pride at my independent means and mortification that I’d spent that much on a malt which was too complex for him to appreciate. We had great sex that afternoon, though. Astounding. Where did that recklessness seep to?
I stumble across the Anything Left-Handed shop, where we once laughed ourselves hoarse at the quirky stock. He bought me a left-handed clock, even though I’m right-handed. I hung it in my kitchen and thought it was appropriate as time seemed to go backwards, it dragged so, when I wasn’t with him. I think the clock is in a cupboard in the spare room now.
Next I pause outside Sotheran’s of Sackville Street, the oldest trading antiquarian bookshop in Britain. This place reminds me of Connie. A different Connie from the confident woman she is today. A poor, desperate Connie who was muddled up in an impossible affair. She asked me to help her source a poetry book for her lover there once, a million years ago. I remember her anxious energy and her destructive determination at that time. I can’t imagine Connie being unfaithful now. It’s as ridiculous as – well, me being unfaithful. I remember that day’s shopping with Connie so clearly because that evening I met up with Peter and he promised he’d leave Rose for me.
I trail through Conduit Street and down New Bond Street. I don’t pause to look at the beautiful designer labels but find that I turn full circle upon myself and wander back along Piccadilly and towards Leicester Square. Damn my sub-conscious, drawing me towards ugliness I want to avoid.
I look up and see the Piccadilly Lions and I know that from this day on I will associate them with my treachery. Finally, I wander into the National Portrait Gallery.
In December 1999 Peter and I met on the steps of the NPG on Christmas Eve to furtively exchange gifts. He’d bought me diamond earrings. I can’t remember what I’d bought him but I know it wasn’t an expensive gift. I had purposefully chosen something small because I had expected his gift to be a token and I did not want to embarrass him. Birthdays and Christmases are tricky times for mistresses. For his birthday I had resorted to buying myself beautiful underwear and booking us a room at a quiet hotel. An isolated, discreet gift. That Christmas he spoilt me and I was left feeling inadequate and inappropriate because I had not quite pitched it properly. I’d undervalued him and myself. I tried to explain that it was hard to buy a married lover a gift that is at once meaningful but will not draw the wife’s attention; even the whisky had to be drunk at my house. Mistresses who buy ties or cufflinks are tomcats pissing in a new territory. They want the wife to discover them, which seems especially spiteful at Christmas. I had few scruples about our situation, I wanted him so badly, but I have more class than to force a confrontation during the season of goodwill.
We were actually spending Christmas day together, at his home with Rose. I was one of their many guests. Those terrible days of duplicity were horribly uncomfortable. Sharing him is impossible to be proud of. Having him to myself was all I longed for then. So when did it get more complicated? Why did I complicate matters?
I’d wanted him for so long. Ever since I set eyes on him, when he came with Rose to visit Daisy at university. We were all just kids. How can I have been so stupid as to jeopardize everything I have worked for, for so many years? I am a bloody fool.
I feel a smidgen better once inside the gallery. For a start it’s dry, and besides which I adore the clean white lines, the clear signage and the decent gift shop. So many galleries are let down by their gift shops. The NPG is my favourite gallery in London. I like to look important people in the eye. I like to see power, beauty and sex recorded. For seconds at a time I try to block out my own atrocities as I stare dictators, ministers and kings in the eye. It’s exhausting, so I scuttle to the café. I need liquids to help the hangover. But what will salve my ravaged soul?
Surrounded by the gently clinking china and the hushed tones of interested gallery visitors I try to make sense of the night before. Random but damning flashbacks assault my consciousness. I struggle to order the events but fail to make sense of them either emotionally or chronologically. His breath smelt of stale food. He needed to shave. His whiskers scratched my neck and face. He had fat fingers. Fingers that grabbed at my stockings and laddered them. I roughly wipe my mouth. I can still feel his attempts at urgent and inexpert kisses on my lips. I want to slice them off. I push the images aside. I can’t bear to think of it. I leave the tea. I have to keep busy.
There is a temporary photo exhibition of old movie stars which catches my interest. We live in a culture that gets excited by snapshots of fallen idols. Nothing makes us smile as much as a drunken soap star falling in the gutter, a pop wannabe flashing her bikini line as she inelegantly gets out of a cab or artists who have snorted away their own noses. But, today, I can’t stomach anyone else’s fallibility; my own inadequacies are repugnant and evident enough. I decide that portraits of great stars, people with style, mystique and charisma, such as Lauren Bacall, David Niven and Virginia McKenna, will be more peaceful and comforting.
In my hungover state I seem to be incapable of reading basic signage and I take the escalator that misses the mezzanine floor, where the exhibition is taking place, and instead find myself transported directly into the Tudor Gallery.
My first thought is, how do I get out? There’s no obvious down elevator o
r stairs. I begin to panic. The clean walls seem to close in on me and the open spaces that I’ve been luxuriating in vanish in an instant. I have to get out of here. Immediately. No time to linger. I don’t want these dead people staring at me. I feel disconcerted, then condemned, as the dour creatures with their beady eyes seem to snigger at my folly. My disloyalty.
I flatten myself against a wall to steady my whirling head and my shallow, panicked breathing. I try to take long, deep breaths. Get a grip, Lucy. The floor is deserted, except for three or four earnest-looking Japanese schoolgirls who are politely ignoring evidence of my mounting disarray.
I look again at the familiar portraits to discover what I thought I already knew. This is a technique I often use at work. The most dangerous traders are those who think they’ve seen everything before and stop looking properly. I’m always more cautious and careful than that. I always look at everything anew and from fresh angles.
It is said that a sign of a good portrait is that the sitter’s eyes follow the viewer around the room. In which case these Tudor portraits should all be judged marvellous, for I begin to believe the sitters are alive and staring at me. I stand for some time in front of a portrait of Henry VIII, arguably the best-known Tudor – his numerous marriages cementing his infamy if nothing else. Henry VIII’s eyes are ferocious slits, quite cold and repulsive. He seems to be sneering at me, as though he knows the dirty secret of my heart and, more specifically, who I allowed between my legs last night.
Well, it takes one to know one.
One by one I study the portraits of his wives. Wives who were betrayed, beheaded, divorced and dispatched. There were wives betraying too, there still are. Where is the progress? I think of Jane Seymour; it might have been a relief to die in childbirth, rather than be married to that scary old bastard. Catherine Parr outlived him, only to die a year or so later, producing a child for another husband. I sigh. I really need more liquids. I’m about to leave the gallery when I catch the eye of Anne Boleyn. She is fixed in a transient moment of glory. She has smug lips and a pretty head that she lost. I swallow hard. Poor Anne, I’ve always related to her.
I take a moment to search for a portrait of Catherine of Aragon, the first queen. Reputedly she was prudent and good. Not my personal favourite, although popular in her time. I always felt she had too much in common with Rose for me to find the energy to like her. But suddenly and quite strangely I pity her. Dreadful fate to be locked up alone in the tower. After all, her only crime was loving too much and being unable to produce a boy for her STD-ridden husband. I shake my head and acknowledge that I must still be quite drunk to be so sentimental. I wander on.
Noisy schoolchildren jolt me away from a portrait of Henry VIII in which he’s pointing at his son from his deathbed. The giant of a man seems small in his final moments. Was he afraid to die after all the killing he had done? Was it worth it? Any of it? The victories, the defeats, the marriages, the mistakes? Our lives are so small in retrospect. If a mighty king, responsible for countries, armies, wars, atrocities and even a new faith, could ultimately be reduced to nothing more than a sick guy in a nightie, then what hope is there for the rest of us?
The schoolchildren are all soaked. It’s obviously raining quite hard outside now. By comparison, it’s hot in the gallery and so their coats and brightly coloured backpacks steam. They boisterously form energetic caterpillar trails in front of the paintings. Suddenly, there are too many bodies, real, virtual and ghostly.
I take a final glance at the dying king’s portrait. Looking again, something previously unobserved hits me. I consider the possibility that Henry VIII might not have died wondering what it was all about. What if he died knowing, absolutely knowing, that his son and perhaps even his daughters were unquestionably everything? It’s possible. Probable. He might have died believing that his insatiable desire to produce and protect an heir wasn’t madness but meaning. The small sickly prince might have been feeble and barely significant to English history but to Henry he was a god. It probably kept him sane.
It must be a great relief to believe in something with such certainty. There are no beheadings in Holland Park nowadays, but on the other hand, belief is rare too. What do I believe in? Myself? Up until yesterday I would have resolutely said yes, yes, but now I see I’m fallible. Peter? Again, until yesterday I would have argued that he was my reason for being, but how can that be if we are snapping and snarling at one another all the time? I don’t believe in God but I have to believe in more than Visa cards and designer shoes. Vogue can’t be my bible forever.
Auriol?
I steal a glance at the gaggles of noisy, drenched kids and for once they do not annoy me. I watch them, with open curiosity, as they play, poke and push one another. But, I do not see disorder and irritants. Instead I’m struck by their energy, their voluble laughter, their candid assassinations and affirmations, and I think that they are marvellous. Each and every one of them. Marvellous.
The kid with the Power Ranger backpack and the runny nose has nice eyes. The girl who keeps scratching her head seems thoughtful. The boys fighting about whether there were more King Henrys or King Georges seem bright. But suddenly it strikes me, however thoughtful or bright or nice-eyed these kids are, these are not the ones that have my answers. These are not the kids that I answer to. I blow a quick kiss of thanks at Henry’s portrait and I dash for the door.
I want my daughter. I want to be with Auriol.
37
Saturday 11 November
Rose
I love weddings. I love everything about them, from the pretty little ballet slippers the bridesmaids wear to the terrible Abba tribute bands that play at the reception until the early hours. I love the moment the bride steps through the church door, swathed in petticoats and her veil. I love the fact that the congregation always gasps. I love to see women in hats and men in tails. I love the sound of heels clattering on worn enamel tiles in the aisle, as ladies rush to their seats. I love confetti, champagne and even Coronation chicken because it all adds up to something so marvellous. It adds up to a moment of intense possibility and optimism.
Possibility dominating probability for one day at least.
Not that I get the chance to go to many weddings nowadays. So while this wedding is a little peculiar for me, as I don’t know either the bride or the groom, I’m delighted to be part of it. I dusted off my hat and splashed out on a new dress for the event. This time I didn’t take Daisy or Connie with me when I went shopping. I thought there was every chance that I could be just as productive if I shopped alone, perhaps even more so.
I bought a knee-length ruby red dress and scarf. I tied the scarf around my black hat and teamed the outfit with the jacket from an old work suit. The one I was wearing when Peter first asked me to share a sandwich with him, as it happens. At least the suit has lasted, it’s aged very well. Yesterday, I decided that my old black court shoes wouldn’t do after all and I bought a pair of knee-high leather boots with killer heels. I’ve never spent so much on footwear in my life, but Connie assured me they were worth every penny. Last night I dreamt I was having my wicked way with Craig and I was wearing nothing other than the boots, so I’m inclined to agree with her.
At first I feared that because Craig is the Best Man I’d be sitting in the pew on my own, fending off questions about how I know the happy couple. But Craig explained that he was more of a chief usher and that his short pal, who I’ve met at the school gates, was the real Best Man. So we sat side by side throughout the ceremony and no one suggested I was an imposter and that I had to leave. The ceremony was beautiful. The couple had hit the correct note of simple reverence and evident euphoria.
Unfortunately it’s not a bright autumnal day, as they deserve. When we emerge from the church, rain is slapping down on to the pavements and the photos are taken with indecent haste as all the guests are encouraged to get to the reception as quickly as possible. The plan is to drink copious amounts of champagne in an effort to forget th
e inclement weather.
As we walk through the double glass doors of the reception we are greeted by the sight of hundreds of candles. Candles on tables, candles on chandeliers, candles nestling in flower displays, candles on the bar and huge fat candles, about a metre high, standing on the floor. The entire room is doused with a dreamy, wistful, faraway feeling. It’s wonderful.
‘Isn’t this beautiful?’I comment.
‘Yes, it’s beautiful, although highly impractical,’says Craig. He looks concerned. ‘They should have had tealights.’
‘Are you happy for your friends?’I ask.
‘I’m violently happy for both of them. What could be finer than finding someone you love so much you want to spend the rest of your life in their company?’
I grin. I’m charmed. Craig might object to the number of candles on health and safety regulations but he is romantic, in a true sense of the word. He’s just practical, as am I. I had been concerned that Craig and I might be nervous around one another. I feared we’d flounder once outside familiar boundaries but we haven’t. There isn’t a single awkward moment where we struggle with small talk. He doesn’t reveal a terrible or annoying habit (involving scratching, sniffing or picking) that would make me want to run from him. He doesn’t turn out to be a fascist, an addict or an embezzler. He isn’t aggressive, shy or dull. He doesn’t offend me in any way. The opposite is true: the more I see of him the more I admire him.
He is a conscientious usher. He ensures that all the guests are comfortable and mixing with one another. He helps people read the seating plan and find the cloakroom. He notices when the waiters are being a little tardy in refilling glasses and he heads off a crisis when a cousin of Jen’s discovers she is wearing the same dress as an aunt of Tom’s. He tells the ladies they are fulfilling the male guests’fantasies involving beautiful twins. His manner is flirtatious, confident and yet respectful. Both women melt.
