by Jane Fallon
Now she moves on to another old favourite, berating Robert for not putting a word in for her with the Farmer Giles casting director. I tune out, think about Josh and the plan we’re about to put in place.
We have to think of a way to get the four of us – me and Robert, Josh and Saskia – in the same place so that Josh and I can make our big announcement. We agonized over whether telling them together was the way to go, or whether we should each break it to our own partner in private. On balance, we thought it would be good for us to present a united front, for them to see us together, so obviously a couple. It seems more definite, more shocking. And shock value is what we’re going for.
So we’ve decided that Josh will throw another party. I’ll invite myself to come along. Somewhere during the evening (we’re a bit hazy on this part) we will take them into Josh’s study and break our news.
We’re pretty confident that we have a bit of time on our side. Josh had a sneaky look at Saskia’s latest Amex statement and discovered that she has ordered some very expensive items from Heals, so I dug out my best ‘Saskia Sherbourne’s assistant’ voice again, and rang up, asking to check on the delivery date. I was told that the sofa and coffee table were being delivered in just over a week’s time, but the bed not for another two and a half. There is no way, Josh and I surmised, that Robert and Saskia are going to move into the nest without a bed. Of course, if they were that desperate to get away from the two of us, they could go to a hotel but, we figure, they’ve stuck it out this long, what’s a couple more weeks?
So Josh is going to organize the do for two weekends’ time. That way Saskia won’t be wondering why the sudden urge for a gathering. And, as luck would have it, it’s her birthday in a couple of weeks, so that will give him the excuse he needs.
‘Her forty-fourth?’ I say when he tells me. We’re chatting on the phone. We haven’t seen each other in the flesh since our night out, but the memory of the kiss is still front and centre of my mind.
‘God, no!’ he says, in mock-horror. ‘Forty-second. Or third. Or maybe even first. I lose track.’
‘It’s so sad that she thinks a couple of years makes all the difference.’
‘I don’t think she does. But she’s stuck with it now, she’s kept the pretence up for so long.’
Josh and I are making a big effort to be generous when we talk about our partners. We’re trying very hard to be the nice guys.
Alice has a new boyfriend she wants to introduce to us. Oh joy. Over the years I’ve managed to avoid having to meet most of them because they come and go so fast and, usually, if duty called, I would just send Robert to oblige. I remember one who was supposed to be some kind of millionnaire businessman but disappeared to the loo as soon as the bill arrived, and one who clearly was wealthy but couldn’t seem to give us an explanation why. I think that one ended up in prison, actually.
Alice is hardwired to be incapable of not driving every man she dates to the brink of insanity. Her self-obsession, her paranoia, her inflated sense of her own importance. Her refusal to eat anything that might accidentally have a couple of calories in it. So the fact that this one has, apparently, lasted three months is big news. Not that I have any interest in meeting him. None.
Of course, I can’t say this, so I find myself agreeing to a dinner on Thursday night. Alice tells us he – Ivan – will be able to get us a reservation at City Social even though it’s such short notice, because he’s very well connected. She waits for us to be impressed. I can’t quite muster it but Robert indulges her and oohs and aahs.
I ask her what he does and she tells me he’s a film producer. She rattles off a list of films he’s had an involvement in, some of which I’ve heard of, but, as most films have a gazillion producers and half of those have just contributed sums of money that they hope to recoup with interest, it’s not necessarily a job in itself.
She’s very over-excited about how it’s going. ‘I really think this could be it,’ she says dreamily. Mentally, I give it another month.
Later I text Josh. ‘Can’t we pull the plan forward? I’ve got to meet Alice’s new boyfriend on Thursday and I need a way out of it.’
He rewards me with a smiley face that I’d find irritating coming from anyone else, but – like Alice with her new boyfriend, I realize – I am in the phase of being blind to his faults. Maybe he just feels that a silent expression of laughter counteracts all the ‘haha!’s he’s been subjected to over the years.
38
Saskia
Well, that didn’t go as well as I’d hoped.
Robbie is pacing about the apartment – looking spectacular, with its freshly painted accents, and cleaned to within an inch of its life by moi – like a tom cat who’s been locked in all day, watching out the window as his rivals run riot around his territory.
In the end, I couldn’t wait for the furniture to arrive. I was so excited. I arranged to meet him in a café around the corner. He was grumpy, to say the least, about coming into town, and I should have realized then that maybe this wasn’t the right time. He’d had an early start – I was off today and I spent my time adding a few little touches. Fragrance sticks and vases of flowers on the windowsills. I went to John Lewis and picked out fabric for new blinds and curtains. Bought wine glasses and a couple of bottles of bubbly and stashed them in the fridge – so he was tired and a bit crabby from the off. I should have suggested we go to the pub up the road and have a couple of glasses of wine. That might have loosened him up. But he knew there was something up and he just kept asking me what it was, so we didn’t even order a coffee, I just led him straight to the apartment block and asked him what he thought.
He guessed as soon as we got there. Unsurprisingly, as the concierge on the desk downstairs (nine to six, Monday to Friday; they don’t call them porters around these parts) greeted me with a ‘Hello again, Miss Sherbourne’ as we walked into the lobby.
‘Oh no,’ I heard Robbie mutter under his breath. ‘What have you done?’
I gave him an encouraging little smile as the lift doors closed. Of course, with his fresh eyes on the place, I noticed every little scuff and paint smear. The faux flowers on a little table outside 7B suddenly seemed a bit sad rather than charming.
‘Close your eyes,’ I said as we got to the door. I was still determined he was going to love it, even though he hadn’t said a word to me since that first comment.
‘Saskia …’
‘Close them!’
He did as he was told and I let us in – although I got the key stuck at first so it took longer than I’d hoped. I grabbed his hands and pulled him inside behind me. Turned him to face the room. The sun was still shining, although low in the sky, and the place looked stunning.
‘OK. Open them.’
I waited for a reaction. He looked around. Blinked.
‘You haven’t taken it yet, have you?’
‘Of course I have. Just for a year. It’ll give us time to decide where we really want to be.’
‘Where I want to be certainly isn’t in the West End.’
‘Marylebone isn’t the West End. Not really. And you’ve got the park right there.’ I flapped my hand in the direction of the window. ‘Don’t you think it’s lovely?’
‘It is. It’s a lovely flat. But I thought we were going to do this together. Find an area that worked for both of us. Chiswick, or Hampstead …’
‘Isn’t the café Paula works in in Hampstead?’
‘Not Hampstead then. But somewhere like that. Dulwich. Maida Vale.’
‘It’s fabulous around here.’ I knew I sounded petulant but I couldn’t help myself. I’d put so much thought into this place. I loved it. Love it.
‘It’s noisy, and there’s no parking …’
‘There’s a parking space in the basement just for us.’
‘Only one?’
‘It’s only for twelve months. I mean, the first one’s practically up already.’
‘Couldn’t you tell them you’ve h
ad some kind of family emergency? That you need your money back?’
‘It doesn’t work like that. And besides, all the furniture’s arriving next week.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Saskia. We’re supposed to be in this together. That means making decisions together. Choosing furniture together.’
I stomped across the floor towards the kitchen area. Opened the fridge and extracted the champagne. He started pacing the floor, up and down, which is where we are now.
‘I didn’t think you’d want to waste time hunting for the perfect coffee table.’
‘Well, I would. Because it would be our perfect coffee table. Both of ours.’
I have to say, that takes the wind out of my sails. It’s such a sweet thing to say.
‘Oh God, I’m sorry. I’ve messed up, haven’t I?’
I start trying to get the wire off the top of the champagne bottle, but it only winds itself on more tightly. A tear plops out of my eye, rolls down my cheek and on to the counter before I can wipe it away. This isn’t how this evening was meant to go.
Robert is by my side in an instant. ‘Don’t cry.’
He pulls me towards him and I sob on to his shoulder. ‘I overreacted,’ he says. ‘It was a bit of a surprise, that’s all, and you know how I am with surprises.’
It’s true. He hates surprises. Why didn’t I think of that before?
‘I’ve spent hours painting it …’ I say – rather pitifully, I admit, because I’ve invested so much time and effort into trying to make it perfect. But also because I can sense he’s softening and I could end up having my cake and eating it too, if I play my cards right.
‘It’s a beautiful flat,’ he says into my hair. ‘And you’re right, it’ll be perfect for us for a few months while we get on our feet. Clever you.’
I have no doubt that I’ve won the biggest battle. Once he’s been through the emotional turmoil of telling Paula and moved all his stuff in, he’s hardly going to want to move out again right away. And if he does, I can put up a fight. Dig my heels in.
‘Thank you,’ I say, handing him the champagne bottle. There are two chairs already on the balcony – thankfully, John Lewis delivered them yesterday – and I’m planning that we take our glasses out there and watch the sun go down before we each head home to our spouses. If the bed was here we’d make love to seal the deal, but we’re both a bit old for the floor. What with my back and his knees, we’d need a paramedic on standby, haha!
He pours out two glasses and I take one and clink it against his. ‘Here’s to our future.’
He clinks back. ‘Together.’
‘Two more weeks,’ I say as we leave. We’ve been making plans. As soon as the rest of the furniture is here, that’s it. He’s a bit hesitant because, of course, bloody Georgia messed up her A levels and now she’s staying at home for another year – why she couldn’t just retake after a couple of months and then go off travelling or something I don’t know, but he tells me her grades were so far removed from what she needs that they’ve decided she needed another full academic year to catch up – but I leaned on him. Made it sound a bit now or never – without going full-on bunny-boiler, obviously. I told him I was leaving Josh in two weeks’ time, whatever, and then I’d be young(ish), free and single, living it up in my swanky flat in Marylebone. Chiltern Firehouse every night, hanging out with God knows who. I didn’t actually say it was over for us if he didn’t leave Paula at the same time, but the threat was there. In the end, he agreed that it would be ridiculous for us to wait another year. Georgia is eighteen. She can stand on her own two feet. And if she has a meltdown, better she has it now when her retakes are months away.
He gives me a big hug, leans down and kisses me. ‘Two weeks.’
Before that, I have to get through this stupid party Joshie is planning. Bless him, he wants to celebrate my birthday in style, and so he’s invited everyone to come over, and hired a catering company so I won’t have to do any work towards it. I feel awful that he’s going to all this expense and effort just before … you know … but what can I do? I can hardly turn around and tell him he’s wasting his time and money. So I’ll just have to smile and look grateful. Try not to think about how humiliated he’s going to feel when he has to explain to all our guests that I’ve left, a few days later.
Although, I’m thinking he’ll want to hand his resignation in pretty swiftly after I break it to him, so at least he’ll know he’ll hardly have to see some of them again.
Poor love.
39
Paula
Of course, Alice and her new beau are late. Far be it from her to ever miss the chance to make an entrance. Robert and I are offered a seat at the bar, or the option of going straight to the table, which is the one we take. It’s not as if we’re on a date and want to prolong the evening any more than we have to.
‘This is lovely,’ I say, looking around. That’s my best effort at making conversation.
‘Mmm. It is.’
The waiter appears and we order wine and sparkling water.
‘God, I hope he’s not an arsehole. I hope he doesn’t spend all evening telling us how rich he is.’
Robert laughs. ‘He definitely will.’
‘Do you think she asks for their bank statements before she agrees to go on a date with them?’
‘No, because most of them are conmen, so far as I can tell. She’s just too trusting.’
‘Poor Alice. Why is she so hung up on going out with rich men, though? I don’t get it.’ That’s not true, I do. It’s because she has no income of her own and no intention of ever getting a job, even if anyone would have her. But I’m not going to say that to Robert. I’m trying to be nice.
‘I think that’s just the kind of men she meets,’ he says, always keen to let his sister off the hook.
‘How old is this one?’
He shudders, no doubt remembering the (very wealthy) near-octogenarian she introduced him to once. He’d had the gall to keel over without ever getting around to changing his will in her favour.
‘God knows.’
We both pick up a menu and browse. I will the evening to be over.
A couple of (silent) minutes later and we’re greeted – well, Robert is – by a shriek of ‘Robbie!’, and there’s Alice in a baggy vintage dress that shows off her skinny frame. Everything else is the same – tousled hair, kohl-rimmed eyes, floaty scarf. Trailing behind her is a presentable-looking man in – I would say – his late forties. Maybe early fifties, if he has good genes and an even better surgeon. I was expecting either an Adonis or a wrinkled old prune with cash falling out of his pockets. Ivan is neither. He’s pleasant-looking. Unremarkable.
Alice thrusts him forward like he’s won a prize. ‘This is Ivan.’
Ivan, I have to say, seems like a perfectly nice man. I warm to him, because Alice keeps trying to big him up and he keeps undercutting her boasting.
‘Ivan is a film producer,’ she says proudly.
‘I work in property, really,’ Ivan says, smiling at her indulgently. ‘Doing up houses and selling them, that kind of thing. A couple of times I’ve put a small amount into a film purely as an investment. But do I know anything about the film business? No.’
‘Ivan lives in a huge house on Wildwood Road,’ she says, mentioning a road not that far from us where all the houses are huge.
‘Wow,’ I say. ‘Lovely.’
Ivan does a little eye roll. ‘It’s my latest project. I’m staying on site while I renovate it.’
‘Oh, do you do the work yourself then?’ Robert says, articulating what I was thinking. I’d imagined Ivan sitting in a penthouse office and telling people what to do.
‘Most of it. Not everything, obviously, I have to get the trades in. But the basics, yes. That’s the only way to make money, really. You have to be hands-on.’
‘So, how do you do that if you’ve got a load of properties on the go at once?’ I’m worried he’ll think I’m interrogating him, but I’m gen
uinely interested.
‘That’s why I don’t. I do one at a time. Big projects. And I project-manage each one myself.’
Alice is looking a bit put out. Somehow, rather than presenting himself as Harvey Weinstein, her boyfriend is allowing us to think he’s Bob the Builder. I, on the other hand, am quite impressed, and I can sense Robert is too.
Robert has always loved the idea of house-flipping. He used to talk about it as his alternative career choice if it all went tits up with the acting. Of course, he knows nothing about it in reality, can barely change a plug. I think he imagined himself swanning around choosing paint colours and granite worktops all day.
He happily quizzes Ivan on his trade secrets and Ivan seems happy enough to engage. I turn to Alice and mouth, ‘He’s nice,’ and, even though I can see she’s irritated he hasn’t kept up the front that he’s a Hollywood player, I can also tell that she’s pleased we like him.
‘I’m nipping to the loo,’ she announces when there’s a gap in the conversation. ‘Paula, come with me.’
Alice has never done this. Never tried to engage me in girls’ talk or act as if we’re BFFs, not just thrown together by our relationships to ‘Robbie’. I’m intrigued. I follow her to the ladies’. Thankfully, she’s not expecting me to go into a cubicle with her, because that would be a step too far. Once the door is shut, she grabs my arm.
‘You like him? He’s lovely, isn’t he? I told you.’ She’s looking a bit hyper.
‘He seems really nice. Not what I expected.’
‘He’s downplaying the film stuff, obviously …’
‘I think he has a really impressive job,’ I say, interrupting.
‘Well, it would be better if he had a permanent place to live rather than on a building site, but he’s just done it like this since his divorce because he says it makes sense.’
