The Next Best Thing

by Sarah Long

  ‘Next I do aerobics and yoga before I shower. I floss three times a day and once a month I hang the enema bag on the bathroom door, run the hosepipe up my bottom and do a handstand. Wonderful clear-out.’

  ‘Ugh!’ said Jane before she could stop herself.

  Jeremy looked at her in surprise. ‘Just basic body management, darling. You need to look at your body as a business and the organs as executives. They each have job descriptions you know, and hang on to emotional memory. Especially the thalamus.’

  ‘The what?’

  He ignored her. ‘The heart and liver need a lot of nourishment and motivation. I pay them special attention in my morning meditation. You need to nurture yourself to heal yourself. That’s why I’m never ill. Plus I only buy organic’

  Yes, it would be easy to stay healthy when you led such a spoilt and pampered life.

  He seemed to read her thoughts. ‘But my number-one tip is, get yourself a nice rich man and the rest will follow.’ He blew a kiss to Roland who grunted in acknowledgement as he filled his glass to the rim. He was grateful to Jeremy for providing floozy glamour, it was just what he needed after a hard day in his study.

  Jane did her best through dinner, helped along by Ossian who seemed amused by her account of her daily life, egging her on for details, asking her to talk him through the school run. She couldn’t help wondering if he was taking the piss.

  ‘Hey, Bella,’ said the model, who had eaten nothing all night. ‘I really like your curtains. That is just so cool, blankets held back with leather belts.’

  Bella leaped up to finger them and demonstrate their authentic roughness. ‘Belgian surplus army blankets. And the belts are from Cap Kids.’ She shrugged. ‘Simple ideas are always the best.’

  ‘I absolutely agree,’ said Twirly. it’s a hard and fast rule in my novels. Particularly in my latest where I had the rather straightforward notion of twins separated at birth who then meet up . . .’

  ‘Green tea, anyone?’ Bella cut him off quickly. Writers could be terribly dull; clearly it had been a mistake to invite three at one sitting. Actors were so much better value, dishing up hilarious theatrical anecdotes instead of droning on about their dreary books.

  Jane declined the tea, to her hostess’s surprise.

  ‘Would you prefer a tisane? Or raspberry leaf?

  Ayurvedic?’

  ‘No thanks. Have you got any coffee?’

  Jane’s request was met with the astonishment you might expect if you asked for Class A drugs at a prayer meeting.

  ‘Let me see,’ said Bella, getting over the shock, ‘I think one of my au pairs bought some last week . . . yes, here we are.’ She searched in a cupboard and brought out a packet of instant-cappuccino sachets as though she were holding a filled nappy sack.

  ‘One of your au pairs, how many have you got?’ asked Jane, then immediately wished she hadn’t. How mumsy was that, to show an interest in the home help? ‘Just two. Work it out, instead of paying a fortune for a nanny, you get two nice girls for a pittance each, they share a room and have each other for company and you have twenty-four-hour cover. I can’t think why more people haven’t cottoned on.’

  Afterwards, they moved across the sitting area, where Roland spilt wine over the Moroccan throw and passed out in a large snoring heap. Will went off to the loo with the model in order to ‘talk to Charlie’. Which left Jeremy centre-stage to talk about his latest therapy.

  ‘It seems that Sudden Wealth Syndrome is quite common now,’ he confided. They identified it at the Money, Meaning and Choices institute in San Francisco. Roland wanted me to see someone after we were talking about Who Wants to he a Millionaire at a dinner and I happened to say that thirty-two thou was nothing to us. Which it isn’t. It wasn’t as if I was in a room of social workers, either, most people there would have spent at least that on their fortieth birthday parties. But then when I ran up a bill of twenty-five thou redecorating the bedroom, he insisted I take myself in hand. So to speak,’ he added with a lewd wink.

  Was he serious? Since when did striking it lucky mean you had to go into therapy? Jane had had enough now, she wanted to go home.

  ‘Guilt is a terrible thing,’ Jeremy was saying, ‘it can ruin your life if you’re not careful.’

  ‘So give your money away to charity if that’s how you feel,’ said Ossian with a shrug, ‘rid yourself of the cause.’ Personally he’d never lost any sleep over his millions, but then again he’d been born to it. Unlike Jeremy, who had gone overnight from hotel receptionist to kept man and crazed spendthrift.

  ‘It’s not really mine to give,’ said Jeremy, nodding towards his prostrate companion whose snoring had now reached a deafening level, ‘and to be honest, I don’t want to give it away. I like being rich, I just want to stop feeling bad about it.’

  ‘Shrinks are the new priests,’ said Ossian, ‘it’s the secular version of paying a cleric to say mass for you.’

  Will was animated on his return from the lavatory, and it was well into the small hours before they finally did leave. Roland was roused from the dead by Jeremy and assisted into a taxi, while Twirly and the model went home on foot. Jane had her eye on the clock as she drove away, calculating how much she needed to pay the babysitter, and whether she had sufficient cash in her purse. She knew better than to ask Will. He couldn’t really be bothered with tedious stuff like this after a good night out.

  Will was wide awake on the journey home. ‘I couldn’t believe you, Jane, sitting there with your instant coffee, like you were at girl-guide camp.’

  ‘Ging gang goolie,’ she said, slowing down as they approached a roundabout, ‘I can’t help being conventional, blame it on my upbringing. And at least coffee is cheaper than cocaine, you should be grateful I’m so cheap to run.’

  ‘I hope that wasn’t a sly dig at me. I’m allowed to enjoy myself now and then, aren’t I?’

  ‘Of course. And I’m allowed to indulge my quaint old-fashioned habits. At least my needs are simple and you don’t have to fork out for a therapist for me. Or an enema bag. That Jeremy was quite something, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Colourful, at least.’

  ‘And incredibly narcissistic’

  Will sighed. ‘You’re so . . .’ he was searching for the right word ‘. . . sensible. That’s the word for you, Jane. You are such a sensible woman.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment, shall I?’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘I do like. Unless you’re trying to say that I’m a boring person without an original idea in my head.’

  ‘Hmm.’ He was laughing now, but Jane wasn’t going to let it go.

  ‘So, if I am so uninteresting, why did you . . . why do you live with me?’

  ‘Interesting question. And one to which there are many answers.’

  ‘One will do.’

  ‘Just one, now let me see.’ He drummed his fingers on the window and gazed out thoughtfully at the deserted London streets.

  ‘Your wild-mushroom risotto, perhaps. Or the way your hair springs up at the front. Your smile. Maybe it’s because you don’t cramp my style, you know how to give me space . . .’

  ‘Not very convincing so far . . .’

  ‘Or because you’ve offered mc the chance to be a father again without ramming it down my throat . . .’

  ‘Useful breeding stock . . .’

  He frowned and tried again. ‘I suppose I live with you because I am happier with you than I would be without you. Yes, that’s it, it’s like Cyril Connolly said, if we want to be happy “we must select the illusion which appeals to our temperament and embrace it with passion.” And you are my illusion.’ He smiled across at her in triumph, and added in an American accent, ‘You are my illusion of choice.’

  They drove on in silence for a bit.

  ‘And what about you, Jane,’ he asked. ‘Are you happy with your life?’

  She drove in silence for a while, thinking about everything she had to be grateful for. Her precious da
ughter, her job, her house. The fragile construction of their family life. You had to be so careful the whole thing didn’t come crashing down around your ears.

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I make it my business to be happy.’ She took her hand off the wheel to squeeze his leg.

  Jane drove the babysitter home to avoid paying for a cab. Will was already asleep when she got back, wearing his British Airways blindfold to keep out the morning light. His ears were blocked with special wax ear-plugs that he’d bought in France. The normal ones were hopeless, they fell out in the bed like rabbit pellets, whereas Boules Quies could be lovingly kneaded to size. He lay there, his chest rising and falling, all orifices defended from attack by the outside world.

  Not wanting to wake him, Jane slipped into bed without turning on the light. She stared up at the blackness and thought about their conversation on the way home. It should be obvious, shouldn’t it? Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so: that’s what John Stuart Mill thought.

  She was happy enough for sure, with her lovely daughter and a man to share her life, and her work to keep her occupied and drive away the demons. Those were the most important things. Then there was the accumulation of small pleasures that made up the rest of happiness. Cooking and gardening and the occasional treat to look forward to, like her trip to the cinema tomorrow lunchtime.

  It was a habit she had acquired when Liberty started school, and she finally found she had some time to herself. Often on a Friday afternoon, she switched off her computer, turned her back on her domestic duties and took the tube to South Kensington to see a film at the French Institute. She always went alone, that was part of the pleasure. With no-one to defer to, she was anonymous, silent, and free to please herself. In three years she had revisited the oeuvre of Bunuel, Godard, Truffaut, and kept up with the new releases. She sat near the back, surrounded by empty seats, sipping on a min I bottle of Evian and letting the Frenchness of it all wash over her. Dark gallic eyes, suffused with unspoken meaning, the banal stirring of a cup of coffee somehow conveying the looming shadows of tragedy.

  Tomorrow she was going to sec an old favourite, A Bout de Souffle. It had all the ingredients. A heroine with a Joan of Arc hairdo and authentic striped tee shirt; fantastic black and white shots of Paris in the days when you could just draw up and park your 2CV on the Champs Elysées; the suggestion that happiness was contained in a simple room with a bare mattress, two glasses and a bottle of wine. Young people with their lives ahead of them. She couldn’t wait.

  She snuggled into Will’s back, her non-seeing, non-hearing partner, who was now snoring loudly. Thanks to his ear plugs he was sealed in a soundless world, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t be heard. Jane reached out a hand to pinch his nose and cover his mouth. There was a silence, then the familiar pig-like snort as he wrenched his face away to take a desperate breath. Then he settled back down to regular, quiet breathing. If there was one thing Jane had learned in ten years of non-marriage to Will, it was how to stop him keeping her awake at night.

  That night she dreamed she was on a safari with Panda and half of Liberty’s classmates. They were wearing their purple uniforms, packed into one giant Jeep under Jane’s supervision, while Will followed in a separate vehicle, scowling at them from under his weathered Drizabone hat.

  THREE

  Rupert Beauval-Tench slipped on his jacket and glanced down at Lydia still asleep in bed. She wouldn’t wake up for at least two hours, which was perhaps why she looked so serene. Though come to think of it, she always looked serene. She was blessed with the peace of mind that came from knowing what she wanted, and being in no doubt that it would all come her way in the end. It was what had attracted him to her, this presumption that life was a party to which she had been invited as chief guest of honour. He only wished he felt the same.

  He quietly closed the door to the apartment and went downstairs, letting himself out of the front entrance where the taxi was waiting, engine purring, black and shiny against the redbrick terrace. Considering this was such a chic address, the architecture was pedestrian, like a series of Victorian school-buildings.

  Climbing into the back of the cab, Rupert stretched out his long legs and reminded himself that London taxis were one of the few reasons he was glad to be back in Britain. In New York the sullen drivers refused to get out, and left you to pull your own suitcase out of the trunk. In London, you felt they were on your side; they were engaged and chatty, with firm opinions, and often alarmingly well-read.

  ‘Mayfair please,’ he said. ‘St James Street.’

  The driver nodded, and Rupert disappeared behind his copy of the Financial Times. He might as well face the worst and check out this morning’s figures, though doing so always left him with a creeping sense of gloom. At the age of forty, he knew he should feel much happier than he did. Not only did he have a lovely new fiancee, he had his very own new business to run.

  ‘Looks like you’re in finance.’ The driver had raised his face to speak, obliging Rupert to meet his gaze in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘Sorry?’

  The driver pointed at his FT. ‘You want to take a look at that book by Roland Edgeworth I’ve left out in the back,’ he went on. ‘He’s got a good section on you lot. “In sawcy State the griping Broker sits.” John Cay. Wrote The Beggar’s Opera,’ he added, seeing Rupert’s blank response.

  Rupert politely put down his paper to take a flick through the densely worded tome bulging out of the back pocket of the front seat.

  ‘I’m not a broker, actually,’ he said. ‘Good God, have you read the whole thing? How on earth do you find the time?’

  ‘Lunch break. I get a sandwich and sit in the rank. What d’you do then?’

  ‘Me? Oh, I used to work for a bank, but I left to set up a hedge fund.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘It’s . . . a bit tricky to explain really. Not sure that I quite know myself.’ He acquitted himself with a self-deprecating smile in the mirror. ‘Speaking of which, I’d better get back to the markets, if you don’t mind.’ He replaced the book and retreated behind his newspaper. On reflection, there were times when a silent driver would be preferable to a chirpy London cabbie.

  He glanced down the figures printed in small tight columns on the pale orange paper, then sighed and closed his eyes. It must be his age. There had been a time when he was genuinely interested in all this, but since his return from New York he just felt he was going through the motions, marking time until he found a way out. This was unfortunate, since he had just gone into partnership with a colleague whose enthusiasm made Rupert feel like a sodden old rag in comparison. After eighteen years in the corporate fold they had decided with Boys’ Own bravado that it was time to go it alone, but Rupert was no longer so sure it was such a good idea.

  Turning forty, that’s what had done it for him, though he had played the occasion down with a low-key dinner for two with Lydia, rather than one of those bells-and-whistles parties that people gave to show how well they’d done. His business partner Richard had also hit forty this year, and had chartered a large ship to convey three hundred close friends in a Disco Inferno-themed evening to the Thames barrier and back. He always did things properly. He already had a wife and four kids flourishing on a country estate in Kent where he reared organic venison and hosted quiz, nights in his spare time. Rupert had a country pile too, but his was unfairly inherited rather than earned through his own talent and energy. It was unavailable anyway, having been leased to a Saudi prince for eight years. And even if he and Lydia started a family right away, he knew he’d never catch up with Richard.

  The cab dropped him outside his office in Mayfair. They had chosen St James Street because London’s most successful hedge fund was based here, and it was hoped that this success might rub off on them like gold dust. To Rupert, it felt increasingly that they were rats on a sinking ship. He climbed the stairs, trying to work himself up into a positive frame of mind. It was easier in New York wher
e the money-making ethic ran through the streets and was contagious, like a happy plague. Plus he had been there during the late Nineties boom, when everything you touched turned to gold. Not like now in this age of uncertainty, beneath grey British skies and a bear market and the rebellious British public rising up against fat-cat salaries. Rupert sympathised, he always considered himself grossly overpaid compared to real people who did real jobs. It’s just that he couldn’t really think what else to do.

  Richard was already at his desk, which was festooned with photographs of himself surrounded by his large family. Having ten photos of yourself on display might be considered vain, but for some reason this was not the case if your kids were in the frame with you. Richard’s wife was there, too, beaming out confidently, candy-striped pink trousers cropped beneath the knee, white shirt with upturned collar, headband and gold earrings. She was one of those girls from a comfortable background who seemed entirely fulfilled by her role as homemaker. Rupert couldn’t quite see Lydia in that vein, nor would he necessarily want her to be hovering with a C and T the moment he stepped in the door.

  Richard greeted him with a hand upstretched, like a policeman stopping traffic. ‘Rupert, sound fellow!’

  The hand was square and strong, confident of a lifetime’s success and happiness, emerging from a thickly folded double cuff from one of those swanky Jermyn Street tailors that were so square they were hip. Richard’s smile was unfairly dazzling for someone who got up each morning to catch the 6.59 train, and his skin was the colour of caramel.

  Rupert’s skin was fair and freckly and he hated it. When he caught the sun, or drank more than a few pints, it turned bright red, which he hated even more. Among the photos on Richard’s desk was a picture of the two of them celebrating the launch of their business, in a pub in Shepherd Market. Richard looked like Mel Gibson, small and dark and sexy, while Rupert loomed behind him like an ungainly beacon, his ginger-blond hair clashing violently with his beetroot complexion. He wanted to ask Richard to take the picture down, but everyone knew that Rupert didn’t care two hoots about his appearance and he didn’t want to rock the boat.