by Sarah Long
Freedom to do what, exactly? This is what she wondered as she parked the car and let herself into the house that smelt of laundry and last night’s dinner. Freedom to sit alone in front of her computer? Freedom to let in the gasman? Freedom to get ahead with preparing an interesting supper of sustainably farmed Norwegian cod?
Her brother Simon had been amused to hear about her life.
‘You’ve become a real home-bird,’ he had said over lunch at the V&A, ‘and when I think how intimidated I was by you. You were always the high-flyer.’
‘Oh, rubbish,’ she’d said, ‘you’ve always been cleverer than me.’
‘But you were the A student. Mum was so proud of you. She was proud of me, too, in the end, but you were the steady performer.’
They had talked then about their mother, how glad she had been to see Jane taking opportunities her generation had never had. The chance to walk out the front door in a sharp suit and be clever all day. Earning the money to pay someone less clever to come in and clear things up at home.
Well, that was ail over now and the sharp suits were gathering dust in the wardrobe. In the best music-hall tradition, she had turned into her mother, holding things together at home and doing the best she could for her daughter. Patterns repeated themselves.
Rupert rang at ten thirty. She pushed her chair back from the table and held the phone tightly to her ear in anticipation of the pleasure of seeing him again.
‘Are you working?’ he asked.
‘Of course. You too?’
‘Sort of. Richard’s just gone out, so I can speak freely and tell you how much I HATE MY JOB!’ Me shouted the words and she giggled.
‘Why don’t we have lunch this time?’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen you eat, I think it could be sexy’
‘Wouldn’t count on it, I’m a messy eater.’
‘I remember a friend of mine left his wife because he couldn’t stand watching her eat. It’s something you need to clear up early on in a relationship.’
‘We’re not in a relationship, remember.’
‘No, of course not. I’ve told Richard I’m having lunch with a prospect, so that’s what you are.’
‘Makes me sound like something out of The Crucible. Goody Prospect.’
‘Do you know Racine? It’s in the Brompton Road, opposite the V&A. French food in a rather stern setting, solemn rows of dark tables. The mussels in saffron broth are quite something.’
Three hours and a great deal of preparation later, Jane was able to agree with him that the saffron broth was indeed quite something. And so are you, she thought, seeing him again for the first time in three weeks. He said he was glad she agreed with him, and she noticed that when he smiled the skin around his eyes broke into laughter lines of unconditional enjoyment.
He was telling a story against himself now, about being the only unfashionable person in the hotel in the desert. ‘I took the same shorts I always take on holiday, but everyone else was in a djallaba, leaving me to be the token fat Englishman.’
He couldn’t care less about appearing gauche, very different from Will who would never invite ridicule by casting himself in an unflattering light.
‘It was one of those minimalist hotels where you can never find the door handle or the light switch. Switches aren’t aesthetic so they have to be hidden under a flat panel, apparently. So was the minibar: I had to press every bit of wall space before I found it.’
She should stop drawing comparisons, it wasn’t fair. Of course it was more fun to listen to the stories of someone you barely knew rather than tread the familiar paths of conversation with the person you lived with. It was too easy to exaggerate or romanticise. She shouldn’t read too much into it.
‘I’m so happy to see you again,’ she said. ‘It’s such a treat to meet for lunch . . .’ She wanted to let him know that happiness was something that could be measured out in small doses, that it didn’t require any life-changing decisions. ‘It’s all you can ask, isn’t it?’ she went on. ‘Live each day as if it were your last, because one day it will be. And know that at least you had the saffron broth.’
Rupert was not prepared to play the game, he couldn’t trivialise his feelings.
‘It’s no good,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I can go through with it. This wedding business.’
Jane said nothing.
‘Lydia’s got it all worked out, even the menu. It seems we’re going understated like Kate Winslet with champagne and bangers and mash, as I’m sure you were dying to know. It all seems so final, and I just don’t see how I can. Not with the way I feel about you.’
She tore off a piece of bread and tried to be sensible. ‘Don’t say that,’ she said. ‘We hardly know each other, please don’t bring me into this . . . we mustn’t get serious.’
‘I want to be serious . . .’
‘No, you don’t.’
‘Yes, I do.’
He caught her hand across the table and the touch of him made her catch her breath. She shook her hand free, and sat back, reasonable, trying to calm things down.
‘But it’s not real, is it, you and me?’ she said. ‘It’s just something we’ve dreamed up. I’m sure a shrink would say we are projecting our fantasies on each other, or transferring our longings, or whatever.’
‘I don’t care what a shrink would say. Anyway, that’s what love is, isn’t it? What else is it if it’s not about projecting fantasies?’
‘Love doesn’t come into it. Love is what I have for my daughter. Unconditional love, of the throw-myself-under-a bus-for-her type.’
‘And for Will?’
‘Will is the father of my child.’
Though even as she spoke the words, she thought how unappealing they sounded. The sombre progenitor, the paterfamilias, the name filled in on a birth certificate. Why was she still with him?
‘If I didn’t know I was doing the right thing,’ she said, ‘I might feel sad.’ She took a sip of water. ‘Because I think that you and I could have been very happy together, in other circumstances. In fact, I’m sure we would. Much happier than I am with Will.’
She had said it. For the first time, she had admitted that her life with Will was not the fairytale she pretended it was. For ten years she had counted herself lucky to have him. Until recently, when she had come to see him in a different light.
‘But you can’t undo things,’ she continued, ‘and I can’t wish I’d never met Will. I’ve loved him very much. He is Liberty’s father, he’s half of her, and I could never wish not to have loved him, that would be like wishing I hadn’t had her. You must know, don’t you, that I’ll always put Liberty first. And especially, I would never break up my home. I couldn’t inflict that on her.’
She was back in her own childhood now, remembering the moment when her mother had told her that Daddy was leaving them because he had met someone he preferred to her. Then Jane saying it wasn’t true, that he couldn’t possibly like anyone more than her. To Jane’s childish mind it was out of the question that anyone could be preferable to her perfect mother.
Rupert was leaning forward now. ‘People do split up, you know,’ he said, ‘even people with children. It happens all the time . . .’
No. She had to make it clear that this was out of the question.
‘I know it’s fashionable for couples to break up and tell the kids that whatever happens, they love them most of all. But that’s not true, is it? If they loved their kids most of all, they’d stick together, even if they hated each other. They wouldn’t just swan off with anyone they fancied.’
‘I’m not talking of swanning off. You know that; please don’t cheapen this.’
‘But we need to be realistic. Whatever you decide to do about Lydia is up to you, but please don’t bring me into the equation. I’m not available.’
He sat back in his seat.
‘Except sometimes on weekday afternoons,’ she added. ‘Let’s just enjoy it, shall we? It’s not like anyone’s died. Can’t we just rew
ind to five minutes ago? Back to the fat man in the desert, I liked that bit.’
He smiled reluctantly. ‘I still haven’t told you about the fat man on the glacier,’ he said. ‘Reclining before an open fire in a hotel constructed entirely of ice.’
‘Oh look, here comes our cassoulet.’
They stopped talking while the waiter placed two steaming bowls in front of them.
‘I was imagining cooking a cassoulet for you, in my French house,’ he said. ‘It was when we’d just got back from holiday, I was thinking of having to go back to work, and I kept thinking of you, sitting in my kitchen . . . and I realised that was all I wanted.’
‘It sounds so simple, doesn’t it?’ she said. ‘But it’s not. There’s all the other stuff. We should just be glad to make the most of our time together.’
‘So that’s where we are, is it?’ said Rupert when the waiter had gone. ‘Two people in complicated mid-life situations who occasionally meet up to exchange laughter and comfort.’
‘Sounds OK to me,’ said Jane. ‘Attached female, mid-thirties, loves gardening, food, French cinema — seeks male for occasional midweek sorties. No need to rock the boat.’
‘Have you ever placed a lonely-heart ad?’
‘No. You?’
‘No. That reminds me, I heard a great story about a bloke on a plane who was sifting through a pile of replies he’d had when he had advertised for a girlfriend. The guy sitting in the next seat bought the reject pile off him for fifty quid.’
She laughed. ‘It might have worked out well, who knows? At least he would know they were all single girls looking for lurve.’
‘I wish you were one of those.’
‘Don’t start that again.’
‘I do, though. I wish I’d met you through a dating agency; that way you’d be available.’
‘You wouldn’t have joined a dating agency, you already had someone.’
‘So did you.’
‘Look, we’re here, aren’t we, so why not just enjoy it, leave all the other stuff at home. There’s something to be said for the occasional treat – we don’t have to put up with each other’s nastier habits.’
‘You sound like a bloke.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s usually men who compartmentalise their lives. Women are supposed to be all or nothing.’
‘One compartment’s better than nothing.’
‘That’s true,’ he said, picking up his knife and fork, ‘and anyway, it sounds like I don’t have much choice.’
Part-time love is like social smoking: each occasion just makes you crave the next. When Rupert accepted there was no hope of them walking off into the sunset, it did nothing to diminish his feelings for Jane. He lived from one meeting to the next, feeding off the memory until they could see each other again. As he joked with her in Kew Gardens one rainy afternoon, this was courtly love, and he was the knight laying down the cloak of his devotion over the puddle of their daily lives. The impossibility of fruition lent an edgy sweetness to all their meetings.
Rupert felt bad about Lydia. Adultery would have been less of a betrayal than going to sleep every night with the image of Jane in his mind, less treacherous than confining his happiness to a small compartment of his life that had nothing to do with the woman he was going to marry.
He should call the wedding off, he knew that. But he felt paralysed, unable to act. Lydia had it all organised, and it made no difference to him. He couldn’t have any more of Jane than he had now, so why not go along with it? At least Lydia was happy with the arrangement. He hoped his feelings might change, kept waiting to go off Jane; surely it must only be a matter of time before they tired of each other. He had considered putting an end to it, but the thought of not seeing her again made him feel entirely bleak, as though there really was nothing to live for. You had to take what you could from life, not kick aside opportunities for happiness.
These were Rupert’s thoughts as he watched Lydia holding forth to their dinner guests about her design plans for the apartment. She was hosting a business dinner party for him, getting into practice as the perfect networking wife. The wife of a banker, that was, not the wife of a gardener. He was well aware of the motivation behind tonight’s little dinner. Clive the butler had been hired to answer the door and take people’s coats, though Rupert thought this unnecessary for eight people who were all in full possession of their faculties.
So far, they were just six in the drawing room, which had been decorated with lilies and a Chilean throw that did a reasonable job of disguising the beige sofa. Lydia had invited Marie-Helene de Montfort, the banker turned housewife who had invested in Rupert’s fund after rearranging the cancelled lunch which had thrown him together with Jane. Rupert’s partner Richard was there with his wife Caroline, and then there was Mark, a morose but wealthy dotcom entrepreneur.
‘I’ve commissioned an artist to come up with a humorous interpretation of Rupert’s coat of arms,’ Lydia was saying. ‘We’re looking for a mixed-media mural to run the length of the sitting room. He was quite taken with the demi lion rampant holding a fusil with a cock motif, he might introduce some sexual ambiguity there.’ She fiddled with her engagement ring. Not quite a rock, but pretty damn near. Just this side of tastelessness. ‘The important thing these days is to wear your ancestry lightly, send it up while at the same time celebrating its rich history.’
Watching her perform, Rupert remembered what a good show she had put on that weekend they had driven down to East Hampton for dinner at his boss’s beach house. Lydia had made them all laugh with her stories about shopping for shoes in Barneys, and Rupert’s boss had told him afterwards how lucky he was to have a girl like that. Everyone enjoyed it so much they had stayed until 11.30, wildly late by American standards.
‘How far back does your family actually go, Rupert?’ asked Richard. He couldn’t get enough of nobility, loved the idea of toffs dating back to a handful of dynasties, as opposed to tikes like himself who were spawned out of nothingness. His wife’s distinguished family tree hung proudly in their own baronial entrance hall, but he had never bothered to trace his own. No point in finding out you were sprung from a parlourmaid and an illiterate coalman.
Rupert was reluctant to encourage this conversation. He didn’t know what all the fuss was about.
‘I daresay my family goes right back to the monkeys, same as everyone else’s,’ he said.
‘There’s a monkey on his coat of arms, actually,’ said Lydia, ‘standing between two chevron gules — that’s red goats to you and me — and a bare-breasted woman with an ostrich plume. She’s wearing a kirtle azure, which means blue skirt in Heraldic.’
‘I, too, am from a noble family,’ boasted Marie-Helene.
‘Noblesse de robe or noblesse d’épée?’ asked Richard. ‘That’s what you have, isn’t it, for new and old nobility. Unlike me, I’m just new-money nobility. Noblesse de filthy lucrel’ He grinned winningly, but the Frenchwoman didn’t seem to think he deserved an answer.
Richard changed tack, he didn’t want to offend her. ‘How long have you been living here, Marie-Helene?’ he asked.
‘Six months,’ she replied, ‘in a tiny dolls’ house in Chelsea. My husband can no longer bear to set foot in the salon, it is so small.’
‘You should move out to the country,’ said Caroline, ‘plenty of space out our way.’
Marie-Helene looked at her as though she were from another planet. Parisians understood that the country was for weekends and holidays, certainly no place for a smart woman to bury herself away. ‘No, I am not a provincial person,’ she said, ‘although I must say London is like a third-world city. How can you live in a place where they only collect the garbage twice a week? I walk down my street and all I smell is old meat rotting in the dustbins. What are we supposed to do with our chicken carcasses between Friday and Tuesday? Tell me that.’
‘Boil them up and make glue?’ suggested Richard.
Marie-Helene scowled
at him. ‘I am surprised you do not have the plague here,’ she said, ‘and finding fresh vegetables, it is impossible, I have to drive all the way to Borough Market just to get some decent salad . . .’
‘She’s right there,’ whispered Mark, ‘it’s a bloody disgrace, this country.’
Clive the butler moved in to top up the glasses. It got on Rupert’s nerves, having him hovering in the background, dressed up to the nines in his dicky bow and tails when all the guests were wearing what his years in the States had taught him to refer to as smart-casual. All except Caroline, who never came out without a stiff bit of taffeta to hold her together.
‘And then the maid was away so I went to the supermarket myself,’ Marie-Helene went on. ‘I filled my chariot and when I got to the checkout I said it was for delivery and they said they didn’t do deliveries and offered to call me a taxi! Of course, I walked out.’
‘Why don’t you go back to Paris, then?’ said Mark. ‘It’s got to be better than here.’
Marie-Helene puffed in disapproval. ‘Even in Paris, things have become terrible. It’s the same everywhere now, nobody understands good service.’
It was a miracle how she managed to get out of bed of a morning, Rupert thought.
‘I know what you mean,’ said Mark, ‘you can’t even get a decent hotel these days. Whenever I come back from the Cipriani or Parrot Cay and ask myself, yeah, but was it really, really special, I have to be honest and say, no, it wasn’t.’ He nibbled at an olive then removed it from his mouth to stare at it critically.
‘I don’t know what you’re on about,’ boomed Caroline. ‘We’ve had some marvellous hotel holidays, and there’s nothing I like better than loading up at Sainsbury’s and bringing it all home to the kitchen.’
The final guest was Dr Firth, the handsome psychologist, who was shown in with more than servantly interest by Clive. Lydia had invited him along as light relief; she couldn’t tolerate a whole room of money people, and the good thing about a posh shrink was that he could move up and down the social spectrum. More importantly, he could be relied on to keep her entertained. His pièce de résistance was demonstrating a panic attack, taking a series of deep, short breaths and slowly rising from his seat as they crescendoed faster and faster to a gasping finale.
