by Jane Fallon
I don’t really care. Georgia is about as sensible as it’s possible for a teenager to be about the importance of her exams. Robert has always been better than me in acknowledging that. I have a tendency to panic. To feel the need to remind her over and over again not to blow it. I can hear my mother doing the same to me and, even though I remember how it used to drive me crazy that she must have so little faith in me, I can’t stop myself parroting the same.
Today I keep quiet. Partly because I’m so relieved I don’t have to clean up myself. I concentrate on the job in hand, unpacking the bag I’ve retrieved from the bakery on the way home (I almost couldn’t get away from Myra, she was so desperate for the details), stashing the contents in the fridge. Smile, I tell myself. This is all pointless if you give away that something’s up.
‘What’s Alice been up to lately? Anything I should know?’ Robert speaks to his sister on the phone about once a week. I long since stopped asking for news.
He laughs a wry laugh. ‘The usual. I think she had a new boyfriend for a while but that seems to be all over now.’
Alice has had a seemingly endless stream of rich, usually older, boyfriends. If you ask me, she’s one of those people who thrives on conflict. She loves the highs and lows, the screaming rows and hysterical break-ups, followed by the gut-wrenching apologies and promises to change. I once asked her – when I was still pretending to try to form a bond with her for Robert’s sake – why she was always attracted to relationships with added drama, and she raised an arched eyebrow at me, took a long drag on her cigarette and said:
‘It makes me feel alive.’
It was all I could do not to laugh. But that’s Alice for you. She’s always starring in her own movie in her head. Usually French and incomprehensible and in black and white, I imagine.
‘She’ll probably have someone else on the go already,’ Robert says now, an effort at friendly banter.
‘Knowing her,’ I agree.
‘I wish she’d settle for someone,’ he says. We’ve never really talked about this, not for years anyway, because I would always express a similar sentiment, and Robert would get all defensive and say something twattish like that Alice was a free spirit or a butterfly. So I’m surprised to hear him say this now. Even more surprised, given that settling for me seems to be the last thing on his mind these days.
‘I know. Not that she’d thank us for saying so.’
‘No,’ he says. ‘Best not offer any advice on that front.’
Alice arrives in a flurry of silk scarves and Chanel No. 5. She has an electronic cigarette dangling daintily between the fingers of her right hand and a bottle of something fizzy clutched in her left.
She flings herself at her brother, air-kissing him noisily on each cheek, then does the same to Georgia and, slightly less enthusiastically, me. I hear her actually say the words ‘Mwah! Mwah!’ as she hovers near my ear. She’s looking good in a Breton top and faded, rolled-up jeans. Ballet flats on her feet. Basically, the identical clothes she was wearing when I first met her nearly twenty years ago. Her long blonde hair is side parted and carefully tousled. Her green eyes are kohl-rimmed. She’s still a beauty, there’s no doubt about it.
‘You’ve lost weight.’ She holds me at arms’ length, trapping me there while Robert and Georgia turn to look. I actually blush guiltily. Trust body-obsessed Alice – stick-thin even to this day – to notice.
‘Oh, I don’t think so. Maybe a little. We went for a walk …’ I add, as if so out of shape was I that one walk on the Heath could make a visible difference. Although that’s probably not too far off the truth.
She grabs at my waist and I squirm. As usual, I’m in an oversized top and leggings. She hangs on to – what looks to me – quite a handful, while I stand there feeling like livestock being appraised at market.
‘You have. Definitely.’
‘Actually, Mum, you do look like you’ve lost a bit.’ Georgia gives me a big smile. I know how much my getting fit would mean to her.
I’m actually quite flattered that Alice noticed, although then I remember that she has always been obsessed with how big I’ve become. She’s a size fascist. To her, a woman letting herself pile on the pounds is on a par with her neglecting her children. Whenever she’s having some kind of grubby liaison with a married man she’ll always say in a knowing way that the wife has ‘let herself go’, thus implying it was the wife’s own fault that her husband ran off with a skinny narcissist who spends all her waking hours worrying about how she looks. And always with half a glance to me.
Thankfully, Robert has lost interest in the state of my body already. ‘What can I get you, Alice? Is that fizz cold?’
She hands over the champagne. ‘Not really, but it’ll do.’
‘We have cold,’ I butt in, a big smile plastered on my face. Champagne was on my list of Alice favourites and my supplies bag contained a bottle.
‘We do?’ Robert looks at me quizzically. We never do.
‘I got some in,’ I say. ‘Special occasion.’
He rewards me with a smile, pleased that I’m indulging his sister’s expensive tastes. ‘Excellent. And I’ll put this in for later, shall I?’
‘You’re looking gorgeous, as always, Alice,’ I say, eyes wide, no hint of sarcasm.
She attempts modesty: ‘Oh no, I just threw on any old thing.’ I nearly laugh. I’m a much better actress than she is.
We settle down at the kitchen table, doors to the tiny balcony open, as it’s a beautiful evening. Alice begins her one-woman monologue ‘Tales of Me’ – which basically means she talks about herself and her fabulous life non-stop for the next half-hour. There are stories of man friends who have whisked her off to the south of France and unrequited suitors who are half dead with desire for her.
As she holds court I find myself tuning out and just watching her. Despite my suspicions of Botox (paid for by God knows who), her skin is starting to look a little papery. Fine lines are creeping vine-like around her eyes. It suddenly strikes me as rather tragic. To be someone for whom looks have always been the most important thing. To define yourself as a ravishing beauty all your life, only to watch it begin to fade before anything else has started to have any meaning. At least I stopped relying on what I looked like years ago. I can’t imagine how tiring it must be.
The thing that really knocked me sideways about Alice when I first met her wasn’t her complete lack of interest in me, it was her confidence. She always knew that everyone in the room had noticed her. I remember her once bemoaning to me the fact that girls didn’t like her because they were intimidated by her beauty. She’s always been a master of the humble-brag. Poor me, poor me – by the way, have you noticed I’m gorgeous? She had absolute faith in the fact that if people didn’t want to be her friend they were just jealous.
I, on the other hand, thought that her indifference to me must mean that I was dull. Provincial and unworldly up against her glittering urban sophistication. It took me years to work out she was just scared I would come to be more important in Robert’s life than she was.
I get up and potter about, getting the food ready. The olives are already on the table and, as she speaks, Alice nibbles on one with her tiny, perfect teeth. The starter is a goat’s cheese salad, already made, apart from lightly grilling the cheese. Cheese that I know Alice will take one bite of, declare delicious and then leave. At the moment, I’d love to be able to do the same, but it looks so yummy that I’m giving myself a night off my diet. This evening is enough of a trauma as it is.
‘So,’ I say, in an effort to be friendly, ‘what’s happening with you? Didn’t Robert tell me you were doing some kind of new show or something?’
He did, several weeks ago, before the new me was born. I know that because when he came off the phone and told me Alice had decided to write and perform a piece about her own fascinating life I said something like ‘Jesus Christ, who’s going to go and see that?’
Her face lights up, another opportunity to
intone about herself.
‘Yes! I’m only at the early stages, you know. I just thought I have so many extraordinary stories to tell that I should get them all down on paper. I’m looking for a director at the moment.’
‘Amazing,’ I say. It isn’t. I’ve heard a version of this many times, plays Alice is on the verge of producing and starring in. None of them ever gets off the ground. ‘Where are you thinking of putting it on?’
She twirls her champagne around in her glass. ‘Oh, well, ideally somewhere like the Donmar …’
Georgia snorts and then recovers herself. The Donmar Warehouse has a capacity of about two hundred and fifty. There aren’t two hundred and fifty people in the world who would want to go and see Alice wank on about herself if her play ran from now for the rest of her life.
‘Right. Wow! Doesn’t … I mean, that must get booked up a long way in advance …’
‘Well, of course,’ she says. ‘And a part of me wonders if it wouldn’t be better in a more intimate setting anyway. More, you know, conversational. Like the King’s Head. Or the Etcetera.’
The venues she’s naming are getting smaller and smaller, but she’s still dreaming. One night in a broom-cupboard-sized theatre, capacity one, would be about right. She could take whatever man she was seeing at the time. Oh, and Robert would probably want to go. She could do an extended run of two performances. Of course I say none of this.
I can see that Robert is looking at me, no doubt waiting for me to scoff, so I keep my expression open and friendly.
‘You’ll have to tell the story about the bloke who cast you in that film that didn’t exist. That was a great one.’ This, I know, is one of Alice’s favourite stories about herself. I don’t believe a word of it. It has to do with a very attractive, successful man (all the men who pursue Alice are attractive and successful, apparently) setting up a fake audition just to meet her. I remember I pissed her off the first time she told me because my reaction was that he was obviously some kind of dangerous sex pest and she should report him to the police. Now I listen to her tell the whole thing again and laugh and ooh in all the right places.
I pull out the grill pan and slide the cheese on to the plates. Georgia takes this as her cue to escape. There’s a flurry of hugs and perfume.
‘I haven’t even had the chance to talk to you properly,’ Alice says sulkily.
‘I’ll see you again soon. I’m late,’ Georgia lies, and she flees before the lecture can even begin.
Sadly, that means I get to hear it myself.
‘Such a shame,’ Alice starts as soon as the front door closes. ‘But I suppose we have to let her make her own mistakes.’
Usually, this is where I would pounce. I can’t abide the way she thinks she knows best about everyone. Worse that she thinks everyone wants to end up like her. Today I bite my tongue.
‘Exactly. You can’t force anyone to do anything they don’t want to do. However much you may want to.’
‘Sadly true.’ She sips on her champagne. Then turns her attention to her brother. ‘So, Robbie …’
She’s the only person who ever calls him Robbie. He is so not a Robbie. I called him Rob once, early on in our relationship, and he made it very clear that he was a Robert.
‘… how’s the great Farmer Giles?’
They chat away happily and I leave them to it, concentrating on eating my way around the cheese, just like Alice. Great, she can be my new role model.
Robert smiles expansively. ‘Isn’t this nice? We should do it more often.’
By the time she leaves in a taxi I’m exhausted with the sheer effort of pretending like I care all evening but Robert is in such a good mood that it must have been worth it. He reaches for the red wine and pours us both a glass.
‘I’m going to get ready for bed,’ I say, yawning. ‘I’ll be back to drink this. Leave the clearing up till tomorrow.’
‘I’ll just load the dishwasher.’
I leave him to it. Head for the bedroom to change. Halfway through, I do something I never do and go and stand in front of the full-length mirror in just my underwear. I know that Alice is right. My clothes are feeling looser and I’m sure I must have lost a few pounds. If I was expecting to be pleasantly surprised, I’m in for a letdown. Rolls of fat still spill out in every direction. My arms flap when I move them and my legs knock in at the knees from the sheer effort of carting the rest of me around every day. Even though I’m starting to feel stronger, there’s no evidence of anything resembling muscle anywhere.
Smaller I may be, but I can’t see it. Of course, I have avoided seeing my naked reflection for so long that I never witnessed myself at my biggest. But it was bigger than this, obviously. Bigger than huge.
I shove myself miserably into my pyjamas (a different oversized T-shirt and leggings, funnily enough) and head back to the kitchen. Robert is back at the table, glass in hand.
‘I think I’m going to go to bed, actually. I’m knackered.’
‘Oh,’ he says, and he looks disappointed. He’s never been one to sit up drinking alone. I know I can’t afford to lose the brownie points I’ve accumulated this evening so I force myself to give in.
‘OK, well, I’ll just drink that one, seeing as you’ve poured it.’
I sit down opposite him.
‘Thanks for this evening,’ he says. ‘I know she can be difficult sometimes but it means a lot to me to have her round.’
Another gold star slots into place. I’m fishing around for some small talk – there’s only so far I can go with the ‘wasn’t it lovely to have Alice round?’ conversation. I’m terrified he’s going to want to start inviting her every weekend. Luckily, I’m saved by Georgia barging in, clearly a couple of vodkas down.
‘Is it safe?’ she hisses in a conspiratorial whisper.
‘Are you drunk, madam?’ Robert laughs.
‘Only a little bit. Is there any of that champagne left?’
‘No!’ Robert and I say in unison.
‘Spoilsports.’
‘Now I really am going to bed.’ I down the last of my red wine. ‘You too, I’d suggest.’
She rolls her eyes at me but ambles off in the direction of her room, waving a hand as she goes.
‘Do you think we’re terrible parents because our seventeen-year-old has come home tipsy?’
‘What, and we never did at that age?’ he says with a smile.
God, I think, we were only a couple of years older than Georgia when we met. How depressing. ‘That was different.’
He raises an eyebrow. ‘In what way?’
‘I have no idea.’
Things are going so well that I start to wonder if he’ll want to have sex with me. Robert always initiates it. I gave up on that one years ago because I started to get scared he might take one look at my roly-poly tummy and reject me. And it doesn’t happen very often. Rarely, in fact. Especially lately, for – it now occurs to me – obvious reasons. But when it does it’s usually on a night like this one. A few drinks, a bit of conversation about the old days, both of us making an effort. Oh God, I hope not. Not when I know it won’t be me he really wants to be with.
I bend down and kiss the top of his head. ‘Night.’
By the time he gets into bed I’m doing a good impression of someone who’s fast asleep.
9
When my phone dings to tell me I have a message and I see the name Gail I’m confused for a moment. I have no idea who it is. Then it hits me and I look around guiltily as if I’m about to get caught out.
It’s short and to the point.
‘Can you talk?’
Robert is sleeping off the champagne and red wine. I send a message back, ‘Try me in 5’, pull on Georgia’s trainers and head down to the street, still in my PJs but with a hoody over the top. Phone clutched in my hand, willing it to ring. I daren’t try him because I don’t know if he’s somewhere where it would be safe to answer. It strikes me that this must be what having an affair is like. The simultaneo
us jolts of fear and excitement.
I’m half crazed with anticipation, just turning the corner on to the main road, when my ringtone – that generic tune that I’ve never got around to changing that means whenever half the population’s phones ring I reach for my bag – kicks in. I check the name and answer before it has the chance to play through again.
‘Hi.’
‘Paula. It’s Josh,’ he says, as if I might not have worked that one out by now.
‘Yes. Hi. Where are you?’
‘Out on a run. You?’
‘Walking. So?’
I hear an intake of breath. ‘I think you might be right.’
‘Shit. Tell me.’
‘I only got the chance to look late last night when she went to have a bath. There’s only one other message between them …’
‘Really?’ I’m finding it hard to imagine how one text can be so devastating as to constitute irrefutable proof. ‘And …?’
‘It’s a reply to the one you saw. It just says, ‘All fine. Don’t text, she might see.’
I wait to hear if there’s more, but that’s it. A part of me wants to scoff and tell Josh this proves nothing, but I know that, actually, it does.
‘Shit.’
‘This is … I don’t know if I can handle it.’ Josh’s voice cracks. I feel desperately sorry for him. Unlike me, he still believed his marriage was perfect, until yesterday.
Here goes. ‘Here’s what I think. I want Robert to get what’s coming to him. I know you probably don’t feel the same. You probably want to try and save your marriage. But, whichever way you look at it, we need to try and break them up. Trying to force them to separate will make them resent us and probably push them together.’
I cross the road to the park and keep walking. The air is heavy with the scent of lavender. Dogs, delirious with freedom after a night being cooped up, run around, frenzied. I explain my whole plan, such as it is, to him. He listens without interrupting.
