It comes to time to put the presents out and for the first time since the accident and the newspaper article, Ken and Linda are alone, face-to-face in what should be a happy and intimate time, like every other Eve of Christmas. It is not. As they stolidly put out presents and Ken brings in the bikes from the garage, Linda puts everyone’s presents in their traditionally allotted place under the tree. There is nothing from Ken to her.
She asks him when he comes in - after all, the next day should be the same for the children as every other year.
“Ken, that’s all the presents out - except yours to me?”
He looks at her, mild pleasure, she thinks, in his eyes.
“I did not buy you one, Linda.”
“Great. Just great. That’s going to look good in front of the kids. I thought we were going to go on as normal?”
She should not have used that word.
“Normal? How can you talk to me about normal? These last weeks and months and weeks have been a travesty, thanks to you and your abnormal behaviour.” He emphasises the word ‘abnormal’.
She needs to keep her cool but she can’t. Too many weeks of tiptoeing around his judgmental silence have passed for that.
“You bastard, Ken. It happened. OK? You wanted this family to go on. I’m trying. You make it a charade.”
It goes on. And on. Without too much attention to the fact that they are still drinking the wine, they rail at each other, hurling accusation and insult back and forth, stripping away what is left of their relationship down to its bones. It only ends when neither of them can think of anything else damaging to say. They sleep in the same bed, each one utterly alone.
Despite the alcohol and the distress, Linda sleeps well that night and wakes only once to the knowledge that something major has happened. She goes over to sleep again and wakes at eight on Christmas morning. She can hear the voices of the children, deliberately waking her and Ken and urging them on to the traditional family descent to the sitting room below.
Ken emerges from sleep, apparently in a better frame of mind and both parents hug the children and made a show of wishing each other a happy day. There is no eye contact. They descend, Kenny too grown up after his recent fifteenth birthday to show much excitement but Angela still chattering and unaware that anything is wrong.
The room looks good - filled with colour, boxes and bikes. The hour of drinking coffee and opening presents passes quickly enough. The tradition of watching each family member’s gifts to the others follows its usual pattern. Kenny has golfing accessories for his father, perfume for Linda. Angela has a hat for fishing for Ken, gloves in the right size for her mother. And so on. Linda duly gives Ken his casual clothes and accepts his peck on the cheek. Then, of course, there is a silence as it dawns on Kenny and then on Angela that there is a present missing. Linda is about to say something about Ken being caught up in the surgery on Christmas Eve but Ken puts his hand into his dressing gown pocket, pulls out an envelope and passes it to Linda, saying,
“This was for you.”
She notes the past tense. She opens it. It is a photograph of a car, a people carrier. He has bought her a new car.
“It’s in the garage.”
“Oh. Ken.”
The children think that she is overwhelmed. They shoot off to see the car for themselves. She is not overwhelmed. She is angry, angry with herself. But she contains it. This is Christmas morning.
“Ken. I’m sorry.”
“Forget it. It was a foolish idea, anyway.” He leaves the room to go into the kitchen. She smells bacon cooking. They always have bacon on Christmas morning.
They both know that the argument would have happened somehow and at some point. But that does not ease Linda’s guilt or Ken’s black mood. They get through the day as best they can. The kids put their bikes on the bike rack behind the people carrier and they all head into the country to find a cycle track. Ken cycles on his bike with the children and Linda sits in the car, morose in the silence of the grey afternoon light. They cook the turkey, eat it in the late afternoon and phone the grandparents in Spain. Linda speaks to her brother, Danny, and even over the phone and after all the years since she last saw him, Danny knows that things are not right. But she passes it off and Danny just encourages her to think about a family trip out to Canada to see him. The whole Pilar family are too too tired and the adults too jaded, to do more than watch television in the evening.
Late on Boxing Day morning, the kids are off again on their bikes to show them to friends and to compare presents. Linda is in the sitting room making some effort to tidy the room of presents when Ken appears with a tray of coffee. She knows that he wants to talk and she sits down, wanting to clear the air but afraid of another row.
“I want a divorce, Linda.” It is said as baldly as that.
Her two silent reactions after the immediate shock are, “Fine,” and “What about the kids?” She does not have time to say anything, before Ken goes on.
“And I want the children with me.”
She is furious.
“I want. I want. It’s not as simple as that, Ken, and you know it. You’ll get your divorce but over my dead body do you just walk off with my children. What they want matters, Ken, and making sure that they do not lose their childhood out of all this matters too.”
“I’m not having them in any lesbian relationship, Linda and I’ll fight you tooth and nail over that.”
“That’s not for you to say, Ken. Kids have a say these days.” She is stabbing in the dark but she sees Ken back off. “Anyway, I’m not in a lesbian relationship, thanks to you.” She pauses before going on more calmly, “How we go about this matters as much as how it all pans out. So the sooner we stop rowing and start thinking about the children again, the sooner we can start to sort all this out.
She changes tack.
“I take it this is over the row the other night?”
She knows that she is going to make a last effort to hold the marriage together. Christmas is a bad time for making life-changing decisions. They should both cool down. But Ken is clear, if not adamant.
“Not at all. I’ve been thinking about this for some time. I suppose Christmas was my last stab at going on together but it’s over Linda. I actually don’t love you any more. And I need to make a life for me now while I still have time.”
Linda begins to feel the first pain and the grief for a relationship and a marriage that is over. But she puts those feelings away - she will deal with her own sadness later.
“What are you going to do?” It is like talking with a stranger.
“I haven’t decided yet. It depends on the children.”
She sits for a few minutes, sipping the coffee and gathering her thoughts. This is no time for them to be squabbling like infants.
“Let’s agree on one thing, Ken. We must present a united front to the children about this. They are going to feel that it’s the end of the world for a while. They’ve got to know that we still love them and that we both still want them. Ken,” she has a new thought, “Would you consider joint custody and letting them choose where they live, maybe term times with one of us and holidays with the other. Or, they could have weeks and weekends, although that’s not a very settled existence. But you see what I’m getting at?”
She watches as Ken starts to protest and cuts across him.
“Think about this, Ken No matter what we want, they need both of us. They need to know that we are not in conflict over this and that we want what’s best for them. They need their childhoods, Ken - the one thing I said they would have.”
He is still not sure.
“What about that lesbian, Jane Gray?”
“What about her, Ken? What about any battle-axe of a stepmother that you might introduce? Should I have the right to vet and veto too? Because that’s what you are saying to me, Ken.”
“Different, Linda, and you know it.”
“It’s not different, Ken, and you know it.”
&nbs
p; They are descending again towards another row and both of them pull back just in time. They stop there, agree to say nothing to the children yet and agree that they will tell them together once they have worked out suggestions to put to them. They will get through the rest of Christmas as best they can. They will speak about it again before the end of the holiday.
It is over. Linda takes days to adjust to the fact that it is Ken and not she who is ending the marriage. But she is not going to stop him. She has had her freedom imposed on her. She will take it. She might well be afraid of facing the vacuum of living outside her marriage but she will face it, none-the-less.
She also faces the fact that the children will survive. They are resilient - all children are. It is a matter now of doing the best by them in the circumstances. They need to work it out as a family - the solicitors should only come in after they have done that.
She thinks of Jane. The way is not clear yet and she does not delude herself. She has to keep thoughts of Jane out of the equation. Anyway, it seems to be Jane and Hector now. She has to put the children first. If Jane and she can be together in the longer term, wonderful. If not, she will have her career.
She talks with Ken again on New Year’s Eve before they collect Tina from the station. She gets the impression that he might have spoken to a solicitor - she cannot be sure. She asks him. They row. He has seen Bill Nicolson, if she must know. He becomes more amenable and calmer, as if following advice given by their erstwhile friend. And he has his own bolt from the blue, in terms of his plans and how they will affect the children. He wants to move out to Spain and to take up a lecturer’s post at the University of the North of Spain in Santander. His currency in practice, his ability with the language and his experience of lecturing make him an attractive proposition to the institution.
So, by definition, the children’s options are closing.
They agree to tell the children the following day, once they have alerted Tina and whilst the family is still on holiday and together.
The children cannot grasp it at first. They were told, just weeks ago, that they were all staying together as a family and now this. Kenny’s first thought is that they have lied to him. It takes Ken’s, rather than Linda’s, assurances that it was Ken who finally decided that he wanted to separate. It will take years for the children to really grasp why their parents want to divorce.
Linda and Ken assure the children that they would both like to have them with them. Since that is not possible, they want them all to work out together how they will live. It is a fine balance between continuing some sense of family and being clear that this is final in terms of their parents’ marriage.
Ken tells them about his provisional plans to go out to Spain to live and work. Both children become excited at the thought of living abroad till they realize that that would mean not being near to Linda.
There is no best solution. The family, which they are losing, was the single best solution for the children.
It takes days for them to come to the decision. But the two youngsters do it together. They would like to live with their mother during term times and with their father in Spain during holidays. Kenny and Angela both insist that they two must be together - there is no question of one child going to one parent, the other to the other. Ken agrees to this. Linda and the children will keep the family home. The couple see the family solicitor and then all the family see the solicitor. Angela celebrates her thirteenth birthday. She and Kenny grow up this holiday. Somewhere in the background Tina probably plays her part, but she never does say anything to Linda.
Linda’s preparation to return to work is, if anything, a welcome relief from home life. She cannot think about it any more. She has nursed and supported her children, nudged Ken along and licked her own emotional wounds for long enough.
Her career is intact. She has survived. Nothing more is said about her and Jane. She will say nothing at work about the divorce. All that can wait.
She loves her children. What she feels for Jane is a quite different form of love. It makes her ache. It is hard not to give any signal in that time - not to ring her even, but if she says anything she would be reopening the friendship and would have to tell Jane about the divorce. She is not going to do that. If Jane is waiting for her by transferring jobs in the city she will wait still. If she has someone else, Hector probably, there is nothing Linda can do about it.
Once a couple make the decision to separate the strain can become intolerable. Ken moves out within a fortnight of Christmas day and they both know that, this way, they can at least both go on being civil to each other. If another few weeks went by that might not be possible. It looks to Linda as though Ken has been planning the move to Spain for some time. His appointment means that he will go out to Spain in the Spring. The family make their adjustments. The children will spend Easter and then the whole of July and August with Ken and their grandparents.
They agree that Linda will buy Ken out of the house. Both of them will share the expense of continuing to employ Tina, who agrees to move with the children as they move between countries. This way, the children will be protected from another loss - that of one of their almost life-long carers. Linda contains her jealousy at the thought of Tina having the children in her absence. Tina will look out for them and protect them. She will remember their little likes and dislikes, their idiosyncrasies, in the way that no man ever could. For now and for another few months, the children are mainly with Linda, Ken coming and going to be with them whenever he wants. These are precious, poignant times.
CHAPTER 32
‘Live Tonight’ runs over the course of the winter with Susan fronting most of the fifteen programmes. It is unquestionably a sound series and Susan puts all her energies into turning out high quality journalistic commentary. The unique combination of the chat show format and the subject matter of political and moral issues of the day bring serious matters to a wide audience. Her TV audience of intelligent people with lay opinions is becoming a stronger and stronger force to be reckoned with. If her studio audience vote at the end of a show in a particular direction, then there are implications for someone somewhere in high echelons.
The watching public like it and the establishment fear it. But as far as her personal adverse publicity is concerned, the tabloids continue to chip away at her dented reputation. The press has no new material to go on but she only has to appear in the papers and there is some allusion to the Sex Romp Presenter. It might be selling papers but it is giving the TV Company a serious problem for the future. Her work might be of the first order but her sullied reputation is not going to go away.
She has support from her colleagues - the team and Jonathon Whitney in particular. She hardly moves amongst angels in terms of the lifestyles of her colleagues and, anyway, these people know how to separate the professional and the personal and just get on with the work. She has a sense that her higher bosses are jangled by the continuing tabloid attention, although Jonathon never admits as much. Susan has a far harder time from the press in the longer term than Linda and Jane have. Linda and Jane might well be last year’s news but Susan’s celebrity status means that she is not yet out of the woods as far as negative press publicity is concerned.
Behind the scenes she does everything she can to keep her serious profile to the forefront of influential minds. She rings journalists and reporters whom she has met over the years and she lunches with the wise and the good of business and public life - there are still plenty of people who have not fallen victim to her journalistic scrutiny. She attends conferences and sits through interminable conference dinners, presenting the serious and balanced face of journalism. She plays the well-known card – “you can trust me. I may be tough but I’m fair.”
In all this she keeps her sex life completely private. She is determined that the press will have nothing other than Dave to go on and that has now all but played itself out as far as Brenda’s criminal case is concerned. She is pretty certain that they will not
find out anything else about her past. And she gives them no opportunity to find out anything about the present by guarding Alberto from scrutiny, something with which he is more than happy to oblige.
The invitations for other sexual liaisons come, of course. There is no easier way to find quick sex if you are a professional than at a residential conference. And if you are Susan Blakely with a reputation waiting to be tested by any interested and testosterone-driven conference delegate you have your work cut out. But Susan knows better than to fall for that, for now at least. She drills herself to remain ‘on duty’ at all times and she avoids too much alcohol. She also stays in mixed company in the bars. She plays the model of propriety, working endlessly to downplay the image that the tabloids have given her.
It is not a question of having reformed. She is occasionally tempted and indeed wants to have several sexual encounters over the weeks. But something new is happening in her relationship with Alberto and she is content to let that take its course. Alberto is proving to be a very interesting and balanced person.
One of the things she is waiting for before she can feel completely safe and free again is the continuation of her contract with the TV Company. She spends the period up to Christmas absorbed in the programme and in consolidating her reputation. It is after Christmas before it really dawns on her that the contract will end in the spring when the TV programmes will shift to summer viewing. ‘Live Tonight’ is finishing. No one is saying anything to her about a summer and early autumn series, not even Jonathon Whitney. She waits and she watches. And she listens. But it is too early to start asking questions or to start looking elsewhere. She is worried. It would be pretty damning if either a successful series like ‘Live Tonight’ did not run for a further round or the Company did not give her some plum new job. Her currency would drop. She wonders if she is looking the end of her career in the eyes. It is a long slow winter.
Exposure Page 31
