by Fiona Neill
‘You were the one who told me to live and let live,’ I say gently. It is not meant as recrimination.
‘Tolerating an affair is not the same as confronting its reality,’ he says. ‘I am happy for Emma to talk incessantly about this man, although not in the kind of detail you favour, but I don’t want to meet him. It’s not a moral judgement, it’s more that the situation makes me feel uncomfortable, and that is not my idea of a fun evening out with my wife.’
‘But you understand why we have to go?’ I ask. He ignores the question.
‘I suppose the good thing is that it makes me supremely grateful that we lead such an uncomplicated existence,’ he says, yawning. ‘I cannot imagine a scenario where I am giving a dinner party with a woman who is not my wife, meeting all her friends, knowing that my family is at home in bed. It’s too much of a head fuck.’
‘Neither can I,’ I say. And I can’t. I wonder whether the fact that I can’t entertain this fantasy reflects the shallow depths of my feelings towards Robert Bass – it is after all a single-issue relationship – or whether this cosy domestic scene is simply the antithesis of where I want to escape to.
‘I know it’s going to be a bit of an endurance test. Just say the word if you want to bail out,’ I say.
‘The code is “deep shallows”,’ he says teasingly. ‘Have you seen him again?’
‘I have, a couple of times,’ I say truthfully.
‘Did he studiously ignore you?’ he asks.
‘No, he was quite attentive really,’ I say, and he raises an eyebrow. ‘Actually, his wife has been around a lot more. Celebrity Dad is a big pull. Adds a bit of glamour to all our lives.’
‘How is Joe getting on at school?’ he asks.
‘Apart from going to bed in his school uniform in case we wake up late, I think it’s all fine. Do you know he watched the whole of The Sound of Music without rewinding to the Nazis once?’ I say. ‘He’s also got a girlfriend but says that they haven’t yet discussed the M word.’
‘But surely he knows that we have two alarm clocks. We’ll never sleep in. What’s the M word?’
‘Marriage,’ I say. ‘He takes these things quite seriously.’
‘Have you called the builder about that leak in the bedroom?’ he asks.
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘Did you renew the house insurance?’ he asks.
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘God, Lucy, how uncharacteristically organised of you. If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you had a guilty conscience,’ he says.
‘You know me too well, then,’ I say, but the lift has stopped and he doesn’t hear.
The doors open, and we struggle to push back the iron grilles. Such an entrance favours those who are already there. Opening, as it does, into the large sitting room, it is designed to wrong-foot new arrivals, who are left stepping from darkness into light, narrowing their eyes to adjust to the glare. The grilles make such a noise that it is impossible to arrive unnoticed. Pairs of nervous eyes look at us as we make our entrance, but we are robbed of any opportunity to assess the configuration of characters scattered around the room or mark out territory that we can occupy. We are too involved in trying to escape from the cage.
Emma’s banker, sensing our discomfort, steps forward and puts out his arm to shake hands with us, pulling Emma along with him. His other arm is firmly coiled around her. I stare at this arm, tracing it from the top down to where it comes to rest somewhere just above her left buttock, the tips of the fingers actually tucked down the back of her low cut jeans.
Emma’s arse is one of her best features. That was decided years ago. And he clearly concurs. They are entwined in a way that suggests that separating to opposite ends of the table over dinner will be difficult.
‘Hi,’ she says, leaning forward to kiss us, and then resting her head on Guy’s shoulder before staring at us inanely, waiting for one of us to say something. She has that dreamy, far-away look that women get when they either are pregnant or have just had sex. He has that slightly smug air of a middle-aged man who has recently discovered that his touch can still reduce a woman to rubble.
‘I’m Guy,’ says the banker confidently. I feel Tom recoil beside me. I am relieved for Emma’s sake that Guy has decided to play a proactive role in hosting this party and embrace the occasion in all its awkwardness alongside her. At least this is one situation she won’t have to face alone. Already I feel annoyed with him and to a lesser degree with her. Then I feel guilty, since as far as I can remember, this is the first dinner party that Emma has ever thrown. They want us to enjoy their happiness, but I am obviously finding it more difficult to forget that he has a wife than they are. I don’t know what I had anticipated, but I thought they might be a bit reticent, or a little shy, or at least sensitive enough to realise that other people might find all this disconcerting. It feels so fraudulent.
Because I am immediately called upon to fill the uncomfortable silence that lies between us, I have little chance for anything more than a cursory assessment of the man who stands before us. He is dressed in a fine interpretation of smart-casual that I imagine Emma has put together for him. A pair of True Religion jeans, a striped Paul Smith shirt, and a pair of trainers, so shiny and new that I doubt they have left this building. I wonder what he wears at home but that would depend on whether his wife wears Boden or Marc Jacobs. Husbands always end up resembling their wives.
He is smaller than expected, not short, but small enough that Emma is wearing a pair of flat gold ballet pumps. Attractive, although in a less obvious way than I had imagined, and younger looking than his forty-three years, because judging by the flat stomach under the slightly-too-tight striped shirt, he is a man who goes to the gym. I wonder when he has time for this. Having two of everything is an exhausting prospect. Two women; two super-kingsize beds; two wardrobes, one filled with clothes chosen by his wife and one with clothes chosen by Emma, and he needs to remember exactly who bought him what. At least he doesn’t have two sets of children. Yet.
‘Nice to meet you at last,’ I say.
‘I hope so,’ he says. ‘It’s unconventional, I know.’
When he smiles I can understand what has drawn her to him, because despite the blustery confidence, there is an openness to his face that suggests someone who is less certain about the lot he has drawn in life than he should be. And I can relate to that. He stares at me for a little too long, and I don’t begrudge him assessing me in the same way that I have just done. Given that we are complete strangers, we both know much more about each other than we should. I wonder exactly what Emma has told him about me and whether we are so different. He might have crossed the line but I’m not so far behind. I am close enough to see him on the other side.
I spot Cathy sitting on the sofa between two men, neither of whom I recognise. She looks at me apologetically and shrugs her shoulders to indicate that she has brought the flatmate with her. But from my vantage point on the other side of the room, it is not immediately apparent which man is her boyfriend. She is sitting on the sofa, barefoot, her legs curled underneath to one side so that her knees rest against the man on the left. But he looks like the metro-sexual one, I think, a little confused. His hair, short and spiky, requiring at least a monthly trip to the hairdresser, definitely has product applied. He is laughing loudly. The man on the other side is fiddling with her hair, pulling a few stray strands away from her face. It is like an old painting, where you have to try hard to work out all the relationships between the people pictured, by looking for clues in the symbolism of the objects littering the background, except in this apartment almost everything is new, which makes it all the more confusing.
Tom pulls me along by the hand as though he is leading a slightly recalcitrant pony. ‘Great place. Generally speaking,’ he says. ‘I’m not sure about the mechanism for sliding the walls along, looks a bit cheap to me. Let’s get another drink.’ He is heading towards a bottle sitting at the end of the island in the kitchen area. I
am alarmed to notice that he has already finished one glass of champagne.
‘Which one is Cathy’s boyfriend?’ I whisper as he fills up my glass.
‘The one on the right,’ he says proudly. ‘I thought they might be a good match. Pete seems a decent bloke, he’s never been married, got no children as far as I know and I think he’s pretty good-looking, although obviously that’s difficult for me to tell. I do know that he’s the office heart-throb.’
‘How do you know that?’ I ask, squinting at him across the room.
‘I canvassed some of my female colleagues for opinion,’ he says.
‘The trouble with matchmaking is that it isn’t something methodical,’ I say. ‘It’s more chemical.’ But as we get closer, it becomes clear that Tom is right. This man is gorgeous. Even though he is dressed in the architect’s uniform of black shirt, black jeans and jacket. He is also tipping towards forty and unmarried, and there are always questions that need to be asked about that.
‘By the way, I forgot to tell you that you look really great. I love that dress,’ says Tom.
‘Oh, thanks,’ I say, appreciatively. It is a wraparound dress with a long sash that used to do up at the side, but as I have become more voluptuous, it does up further and further round my waist.
Tom’s colleague waves at us to come and sit down. He looks relieved to see us and unfurls himself from the sofa to stand up and introduce himself, holding out an improbably long arm to shake hands. He is tall and lanky and leans over us both.
‘This is Pete,’ says Cathy excitedly. ‘And this is his flatmate, James.’
‘Great to meet you, Lucy, of course, I recognise you from the photo that Tom has of you and the kids on his desk,’ Pete says. This disarms me slightly, because I had no idea that Tom had taken a photo of us to work. It seems on the face of it to be a sweet gesture, a show of family pride. After all, from a distance family life looks so neat and tidy. But I would normally demand picture approval if I was going to be on such public view.
‘Which photo is that?’ I ask Tom.
‘It’s that one of you holding Sam and Joe when you were about to give birth to Fred,’ Tom says, looking down at his glass because he knows that this is a big faux pas. For some reason he always loved that picture. Perhaps because it underlines his virility. But I am horrified and he knows it. I have that doe-faced expression common to women in the latter part of pregnancy, and my features have melted into the soft folds of my face and neck. I look like a dog with a litter of puppies clinging to me. I will need to resolve this later, although it is too late because it is that image that will stay with people.
‘You look amazing, like a potent Aztec fertility symbol,’ says Pete. I am speechless. It is not the look I am aiming for. I am sure that Yummy Mummy No. 1 never gets compared to ancient fertility symbols. Her last pregnancy, with her fourth child, went unnoticed for the first six months, and even then there was debate over whether she was simply gaining weight.
I note with relief that Emma hasn’t been left to her own devices in the kitchen. Guy seems to be in charge, pointing to plates to indicate exactly how much rocket should be placed on each one, and in what order the prosciutto, feta cheese and walnuts should be applied. The whole process takes some time, because every few minutes they stop to kiss each other.
‘If they keep that up, they won’t make it through dinner,’ says Pete, looking indulgently at Cathy and leaning over to kiss her on the lips. ‘We might not either.’
‘I suppose if I thought this might be the first and last time I would ever give a dinner party with the man I love, then I might be like that,’ says Cathy. Pete puts his arm proprietorially around her.
‘We can have as many parties as you want,’ he says.
‘I’ll help with the cooking,’ says James.
‘He’s a great cook,’ says Pete. ‘Isn’t he, Cathy?’
‘Very good,’ says Cathy, looking at me and rolling her eyes. ‘I’m going outside for a cigarette. Do you want to come with me, Lucy? Just for company.’
‘I know all about her smoking habit,’ Tom says dismissively. ‘The children told me.’
We open the doors on to the balcony outside. It is warmer than anticipated and we sit down at a round table and chairs, surrounded by small bulbs peeking from flowerpots. Inside, I can see Tom and Guy in animated conversation. I light up a cigarette from Cathy’s packet of Marlboro Lights. I have tried to make my own last, because as long as I don’t buy another one, I feel as though there is no serious intent to my habit. I have even smoked half a cigarette, stubbed it out in the garden, and finished smoking it a couple of days later. I feel that if I can keep this under control then, somehow, I will be able to keep everything else in order.
I try to explain this to Cathy but she looks dubious.
‘Lucy, however you try and rationalise things in your head, I know that you are on a collision course,’ she says. ‘Your brother is right. You should stay away from that man, especially now that you know your feelings are reciprocated.’
‘Just because you think about something doesn’t mean that it will happen,’ I say. ‘Besides, he’s helping to lift my mood, I’m having a lot of fun.’
‘If both of you are thinking the same thing, there is more chance that it will,’ she says. ‘Especially because you show no appetite for disengaging.’
I would like to continue this discussion but, at that point, James comes outside and it all becomes a little confusing, because he puts his arm around Cathy in a way that suggests much more has come to pass between her and him than between Robert Bass and me. He looks me straight in the eye, while his fingers wander up and down Cathy’s side. She tries to move away from him, less because she wants him to stop and more because she can read my mind. Why, I am thinking, is she so concerned about my moral rectitude, when she is obviously sleeping with both of these men? The second question that I want her to answer is whether Pete knows about this, but there is barely time for this to ferment in my mind before he comes outside, and when Cathy and James make no attempt to disentangle, I realise that this is more complicated than I had anticipated.
‘Dinner is ready,’ Pete says, and the two men wander inside.
‘What’s going on?’ I ask her firmly.
‘I’m not sure,’ she whispers. ‘I know it’s a little weird. It’s not a gay thing with them. I think they fought over the same women so many times that they eventually decided to share. Then neither of them is under pressure to commit. It’s unconventional I know, but it’s quite good for my ego.’
It strikes me that everyone I am close to, and that includes my mother-in-law, is in the midst of a big adventure. It makes a dalliance with Robert Bass seem trifling. I am realistic enough to know that my body will betray me in many more ways over the next decade and suddenly it seems reasonable, even advisable, to take up the opportunity of one final fling. I am sitting in the Last Chance Saloon. Consider Madonna. Four hours of exercise a day. Strict macrobiotic diet. Fighting the ravages of time beyond the age of fifty is a full-time job. Tom, on the other hand, has another twenty years ahead of him to attract young women to his side. If Robert Bass and I slept with each other once, and made a pact not to let it happen again, then we could control the shock waves. The key is not to let things advance any further. Like the smoking. That way I can control the fallout. It’s a decision made on the hoof, perhaps, but I resolve that while I am not going to do anything to pursue the relationship, nor am I going to take any steps to prevent it from happening either.
For the first time in six months, I have clarity.
‘Do you disapprove, Lucy?’ Cathy asks. ‘You look very animated.’
‘No,’ I tell her. ‘I just wonder whether it has legs.’
‘Of course it doesn’t,’ she says. ‘There isn’t a ménage à trois lobby that has made it an acceptable format for relationships.’
‘But if it was, would you consider it?’ I ask.
‘If I didn’t have children
, perhaps, but it would be difficult to explain the concept of three daddies to Ben, I think,’ she laughs. ‘Really, it’s just a way of moving forward away from all the awfulness of divorce, to get beyond the hatred.’
‘I thought things were a little easier?’ I ask.
‘I think it would have been easier if one of us had died,’ she says. ‘At least then we would have been left with a few positive memories. Now I wonder why I ever married him and that makes me mistrust my judgement on all other relationships. Notwithstanding friendship, of course. You and Emma have always been there for me.’
We get up to go inside. I stand up so quickly that I cut my leg on a pot of pampas grass. I run a finger down the scratch and look at it. It has drawn blood. Guy waves me over to the table.
‘I wanted to sit next to you, Lucy,’ he says, pulling out a chair for me to sit on. ‘You feel very familiar.’ You have no idea, I think to myself, struggling to repress the image of them having sex in his office.
‘How long have you and Cathy known Emma?’ he asks.
‘We were a threesome long before I got married,’ I say. I feel myself blush. He is staring at his salad, critically assessing the ratio of walnut to fig, and I can’t see the expression on his face.
‘We all met at university. We lived together in the last year and partied a lot together. The three of us. As a threesome,’ I say. I have now said threesome twice within the space of a minute.
‘What else could you have meant?’ he asks bemusedly. Deep shallows, deep shallows, I want to shout out to Tom across the table.
A label with £110 written on it hangs down from his shirtsleeve and I point it out. He has the good grace to look embarrassed and asks me to remove it, undoing the button and pulling up his sleeve to reveal his forearm. I look at it. It is insubstantial, weak-looking, almost womanly. The hairs are downy and so pale that you can see the freckles underneath. His wrist is so thin that if I made a circle with my middle finger and thumb I could almost hold it in my grasp. I note the simple gold band on his ring finger.
