by Clare Naylor
“Oh, I punish him all the time. But when we do have sex it’s even better,” Mirri said tartly as she held up a pair of diamonds to Kate’s ears.
“Don’t you ever get tired of all the game playing?” Kate asked. Not, for once, being supercilious. She was exhausted by the very thought of Mirri’s life, and she didn’t have to live it.
“Of course I do,” Mirri said in a suddenly melancholic way. “That’s why I can’t ignore Nick Sheridan anymore. My past’s caught up with me and now my life only seems very frivolous, ridiculous, and sad. I’m too old to chase men.”
“You don’t chase them. They chase you,” Kate reminded her.
“But now it looks as if I have to do the chasing.”
“It’s not chasing. You’re looking him up after thirty years. It’s not as if you’ve been stalking him since the day he left.”
“No. I don’t think I can do it.” Mirri shook her head furiously. She was sitting on the floor cross-legged with Bébé on her lap.
“What do you mean? You can’t back out,” Kate protested as she looked out the window to see Leonard instructing two men as to where to place the tarpaulin of a tent he’d drafted in at the last minute. “Bugger this rain,” Kate said, and turned back to Mirri.
“He doesn’t want me. If he did he’d have found me,” she said and buried her face in the lion cub’s fur. “It’s not as though I’m hard to find. He must know I’m in the country. It’s been in the papers. No, Kate. That’s it. I’m not doing it.”
“You haven’t got anything to lose.” Kate sat on the edge of the bed and pleaded with her.
“This love affair you had. It’s thrown a shadow over your whole life. Don’t you think you should find out whether it’s as significant as you think?”
“What about Louis? He could be the love of your life. You didn’t give it a chance,” Mirri said petulantly.
“Don’t turn the tables on me. I’m getting married. Now, promise me you’ll call him. I know you want to. You’re just chickenshit.”
“Chickenshit?” Mirri didn’t understand what Kate meant.
“You’re afraid.”
“If he’s bald I’m going to walk away without saying hello,” she threatened.
“Wow, thank God you’re not superficial. And I agree, it’s completely reasonable to discard your soul mate, the one man you’ve ever loved in your life, because of his bald spot,” Kate said sarcastically as the rain continued to flood the garden.
“I’ll do it. Okay? Now leave me alone. I need to look young for this evening. I don’t want everyone thinking I’m your mother.”
From the magical moment when the tent in the garden was hauled into the sky, Kate was in a dreamworld. Jake had arrived earlier and they’d had an hour of mellow chatter as they made last-minute phone calls to invite friends, dashed to the shops to buy extra tonic water and lemons for the drinks, and finally took a shower together in Kate’s bamboo cubicle.
“Why do we need a house anyway?” he’d asked as one of the green bamboo shoots tickled Kate on the shoulder and Jake kissed the other one. “I like your shed. I could begin married life in your shed.”
“Too late. I’m going to make an offer for the house on Monday,” Kate said. “I’ve got rising damp in my bones from staying here. Don’t forget that I’ve lived here for months. It’s not a novelty anymore.”
“I know, but it’s so romantic.” He hugged her tight and nuzzled her neck playfully.
“We’d better get out there. Everyone’s going to be arriving in ten minutes,” Kate said as she readjusted her shower cap, which was protecting Mirri’s handiwork.
“Let’s get married straightaway. Next week.” He gave Kate one final squeeze before she ducked out of the shower.
“You’re so impractical sometimes.” Kate laughed as she grabbed a towel. “Are you afraid I’ll change my mind?”
“No.” Jake was adamant. “I just don’t think we should lose the moment.” He called out, “Is there any soap out there, angel?”
Kate and Jake ran down the garden path with an old golf umbrella shielding them from the downpour. They ducked into the tent to discover that they were almost the last at the party.
“I told you we didn’t have time for a quickie,” Kate whispered in his ear with a giggle as everyone turned to welcome them. Despite the fact that it had been a last-minute party, there were a surprising number of people there. Kate’s mum came forward and kissed them both and from then on a steady stream of people bombarded them with questions and sighs and requests to see the ring.
“Yeah, it was on a pal’s houseboat on the Thames,” Jake said for the umpteenth time that day. Kate felt another of the alien flutters in her stomach when she wondered how many times she’d hear this story throughout the rest of her life. She smiled at Jake’s cousins Lizzy and Jemima, whom she’d barely met before, even though they were supposedly close, and politely made her excuses to duck from under Jake’s arm and find Mirri, whom she’d spotted grilling Jake earlier. She was longing for a report.
“Are you having a good time?” She spied Mirri chatting to Robbie in a corner.
“Darling, I’m having a marvelous time.” Mirri had her hand on Robbie’s knee.
“Where’s Tanya?” Kate asked. Hoping that Mirri wasn’t going to cause any fireworks between her best friend and her husband.
“She’s talking to your mother,” Mirri replied. “I’m just giving Robbie some advice.”
“Very useful advice actually.” Robbie elbowed Kate in a conspiratorial way. “But you’re not to tell my wife about it.”
“About how to have babies.” Mirri winked and the two laughed. Kate held out her glass as it was refilled by one of the very smart waiters whom Leonard seemed to have conjured from thin air. They were wearing Nehru jackets the same color as the cornflowers that were wound around the tent poles. The whole party really couldn’t have looked more stunning if they’d spent a year organizing it and hired the bossiest party planner money could buy.
“Well, I think that Robbie understands the general principle of making babies,” Kate said, “unless you were planning on giving him a practical lesson.” She gave Mirri a warning look.
“Darling, I may have adored his father but I like his pretty wife enough not to mess around with the son.” She laughed her throaty laugh and Robbie looked as starstruck and transfixed as he had been when he first met her. And Kate had to admit that Mirri was breathtakingly seductive this evening—sitting here in her corner of the party like a queen bee with all the honeybees swarming to her for approval. She had her hair down around her shoulders, a cigarette wafted smoke in the eyes of anyone who looked too closely, and her scent seemed to make the men fall under a spell. Or perhaps that was her cleavage, which flashed into view from behind her fitted, barely buttoned shirt every time she leaned forward to whisper in their ears.
“Mirri’s given me a pretty great tip about getting Tanya pregnant,” Robbie revealed under his breath.
“That’s interesting,” Kate said, wondering when her goddess had become a fertility guru as well. “So, Mirri, I want to know what you thought of Jake?”
“I like him. But I don’t trust him,” she said nonchalantly, and lifted her cigarette to her lips. “Which I suppose is all right. Sometimes when men aren’t trustworthy and you feel that you must marry them—well, it’s a good thing not to trust them. That way you can’t be disappointed.”
“You’re such a cynic. He’s been so sweet to me,” Kate said, hardly even bothered by Mirri’s dismal warning.
“I think he’s great,” Robbie said. “We had a bit of a chat about the football. He’s nicer than I remembered.”
“I told you,” Kate said victoriously. “He just needs to be given a chance.”
“A chance is exactly what he doesn’t need. A tight rein is. Don’t get too comfortable with him and it may be fine,” Mirri said with foreboding in her voice.
“Why are you so suspicious of him?” Robbie asked
with the sort of ingenuousness that makes women look like jaded old tarts.
Not that Mirri seemed to mind. “I have met his type. I know,” she said, with the ring of omnipotence.
“God, it’s like sitting with the Delphic oracle.” Kate laughed. “I’m going to talk to Tanya and my mum. At least they’ll want to know what color my dress is going to be.”
Which of course they did. In fact, by the end of the evening Mirri’s was pretty much the only dissenting voice at the whole gathering. The rain stopped and the bonfire—which Leonard’s gardener had been hastily preparing, and then carefully covered up before the first spots of rain—was lit. As everyone gathered around the leaping flames, the women with shawls and men’s jackets thrown over their shoulders, the men forming a breakaway group with folded arms, everyone seemed genuinely convinced that the marriage of Kate who had never stopped standing by her at-times-naughty man, and Jake, the naughty man with rather too much charm for his own good, was a brilliant idea. They thought they’d be the perfect match. No one doubted that Jake might be a handful and that Kate would have her work cut out for her, but then when had that ever stood in the way of a marriage?
“Darling, I think he’s terribly handsome. And he has wonderful taste in wine,” Leonard pronounced as he flitted excitedly over to Kate, having been on the receiving end of some of Jake’s ministrations for the past twenty minutes. “And I never knew he was so bright. No, I must say I’m very impressed and looking forward to having him be one of the family.”
“Leonard, are you drunk?” Kate asked her slightly more-sparkling-eyed-than-usual champion.
“Of course. I’m roaringly drunk. But that doesn’t mean I’m not right in the head.”
“I’m so pleased you love him,” Kate said, and tucked herself close to Leonard’s orange tweed waistcoat for a hug. “Everyone does. Except for Mirri of course.” She caught sight of Mirri chatting animatedly to her mother. Despite the fact that the two of them were like chalk and cheese—Kate’s mother was passionate about her garden, her dogs, and, rather bizarrely, birds of prey. Her idea of shopping for clothes was a new pair of pruning gloves, and glamour meant brushing the dog hairs off her skirt. But still the two seemed to be getting on famously. As long as she and Mirri kept their talk of slugs to the kind that play havoc with your geraniums and not the kind that play havoc with your daughter’s heart, Kate didn’t mind.
“I hope the wedding’s going to be as much fun.” Kate said to Jake at the end of the evening as they put the last guest into a taxi and bolted the garden gate. Though most of the paparazzi loitered only during the daytime now, there was still the odd one who came in the dead of night in the desperate hope of finding a drainpipe to shimmy up to catch Mirri at it with Jonah. Or whoever. The Jonah story seemed to be old news to them now. Kate hoped that soon they’d vanish completely. Unless Mirri started dating someone else—that is, Nick. In which case it’d be flashes galore all over again.
“ ’Course it will.” Jake put his arm around her and they walked back down the garden to the shed. On the way he picked one of the cornflowers from the tables and tucked it behind Kate’s ear. “We’re going to be happy. We really are,” he promised. And Kate knew that he meant it and that his intentions were the best. But she still wished on the full moon, just to be on the safe side.
Chapter Twenty-three
“So how’s the work going?” Tanya asked as she and Kate sat in the ruins of the kitchen in Kate’s new flat. It had been a month since her and Jake’s engagement party, and she’d finally had the builders in to rip out all the old bathroom kitchen fittings. The girls had a bottle of wine and sat on two rotting chairs they’d found in the garden.
“It’s fine. I’ve finished Bébé and Mirri’s thrilled with him, but she’s going to stick around a bit longer until I’ve finished my portrait of her. I’ve had to put it on the back burner to get the polar bears done for Louis. I daren’t piss him off,” Kate said as she wondered whether the chalky-blue kitchen she had in mind would work in a small space. She’d have to ask Jake; he was pretty good at that stuff at least, even though he wasn’t exactly forthcoming with the dirty work like getting in the plumbers and electricians. He claimed not to have a clue about anything like that. As if Kate might be fully cognizant with it all. Still, he’d been tirelessly looking for the right country-and-western band to play at the wedding, which she wouldn’t have been able to do in a million years.
“Is he still being cold with you?” Tanya asked.
“He’s so professional, it kills me.” Kate sighed. “You know I really do love Louis. Of course it’s irrelevant whether I fancied him or not now but we were great friends. I feel like once this project’s over we’ll probably never see each other again. But I can’t stand to think too much about that. “
“It’s sad,” Tanya said as she sloshed Evian water into her wine.
“It makes working with him hell. He hardly ever comes to check up on the work but when he does he doesn’t look me in the eye, he doesn’t talk about anything except the piece. I thought he’d have gotten over it by now. Well, not exactly over it but, well more accepting maybe.”
“Yeah, he will,” Tanya said, then couldn’t help but break into a smile. Kate looked at her across the wallpaper paste table that they’d set up for their little take-out supper party to christen the house. “Kate?”
“Yes?” Kate leaned back in the chair and looked expectantly at her friend.
“I’m going to tell you something. Which means absolutely nothing, by the way. It’s just something. But it could be something important. Or not . . .” She looked sheepishly at Kate, who was holding her breath, hoping that Tanya was about to say what she thought she might say.
“You know that Robbie and I took a break from IVF this month. You know, so I could let my hormones settle down and he could not be yelled at by me for breathing in the wrong way when he watched TV?” she asked.
“Were you that awful to him?” Kate grinned at the thought of Robbie not being able to put a foot right.
“Really awful,” Tanya admitted guiltily. “Anyway, we’re taking a break from it all but . . .” She looked unsure of what she was about to say. “I’m late.”
“How late?” Kate asked, not wanting to get overexcited just yet.
“Only about six days, but I feel a bit different,” Tanya whispered, as if there might be someone in the next room or next house who might hear.
“That’s properly late,” Kate said cautiously. “Do you think that you might be . . . really?”
“My boobs are sore. And huge,” she said as she looked down at her neat chest. “Well, huge for me, anyway.”
“Have you done a pregnancy test?” Kate poured herself another glass of wine but didn’t fill up Tanya’s glass. If there was any doubt she didn’t want to poison the baby.
“Not yet. I haven’t even told Robbie.” Tanya was blushing as she said this. “I just don’t want him to get his hopes up. But I really think I feel something. Unless I’m having a phantom pregnancy or something.” Her face deflated again.
Kate shook her head. “No, you might be right. I mean, you know your body. Why don’t we go and buy a kit from the chemist now?” Kate looked at her watch to see whether the emergency chemist down the road would still be open.
“It won’t show up yet. Besides, I ought to wait until I’m a bit more sure and then do it with Rob. ’Cause he did have to shove the injections in my bum. He ought to have a bit of the fun, too.”
“I’d have thought he might have enjoyed that part.” Kate laughed.
“The thing is. And this sounds really silly.” Tanya leaned forward onto the table and lowered her voice even farther. “I think I know when it happened.”
“What, getting pregnant?” Kate was surprised. Tanya never discussed her sex life, and she was so awkward that Kate didn’t know which of them would be more embarrassed if she began to talk about it now.
“It was the night of your engagement party
,” she said as she finished her watery glass of wine in two gulps. “We came home and I was just putting the key in the front door. I was about to rush in and turn off the alarm when Robbie sort of grabbed me from behind,” she said shyly.
“Grabbed you?”
“Well, he sort of got hold of my waist from behind. I still had the keys in my hand and I could hear the alarm beeping in the house but he didn’t seem to notice. Then he started to kiss the back of my head, kissing my hair really furiously.” She was looking at her fingers, which were spread out flat on the table in front of her at this point. There was no way she would be able to tell this story if she was looking at Kate. “Then, well, then he sort of spun me around and pushed me up against the wall.” Tanya looked up at this point and caught sight of Kate’s surprised face. “Oh, he wasn’t hurting me. It was just sort of . . . passionate.”
“Sounds great.” Kate smiled.
“Yeah, it was.” Tanya was lost in the memory. “Anyway, then he started kissing me frantically on the lips and all I think at first was that I had to tap the code into the alarm or it’d go off. But then I forgot about it. And about the fact that we were outside.” As Tanya told her this, Kate was picturing Robbie and Tanya’s house, which was right on the street in Belsize Park. No front yard; barely a front doorstep. You just stepped right out of the door and into the London square. And all she could picture was Tanya, in the pale blue, chiffon print dress she’d worn to the engagement party, and Robbie getting it on on their front doorstep with taxis bringing home stuffy neighbors and passersby copping an eyeful. “So, well, then he lifted up my skirt and practically ripped off my knickers and then we were . . . well, you know . . . having sex outside our front door and I could feel the knocker against my back.”
“I’ll bet you could,” Kate couldn’t help butting in. But there was no distracting Tanya.
“And then the alarm started to go off. And we just kept on going. I had my high heels on and we were doing it on the doorstep and we didn’t stop until one of the neighbors put his head out the front door and saw us. But by that time we’d already finished and were just sort of collapsed against one another.” Tanya drew a deep breath. “And I think that’s when I got pregnant. If I am pregnant, that is. But I just feel so sure, Kate.”
