Living with my mother’s moods and excesses would have put a strain on anyone’s health and he had a fair dose of ‘artistic temperament’ himself – which as far as I was concerned was a euphemism for too much drinking and too much thinking about yourself. In my opinion, my mother’s mental illness was another version of the same thing.
And that was how I had come to see the catastrophe of my parents’ lives. Death by emotional self-indulgence. Living death in my mother’s case. There is no doubt they were both intensely creative people; my father was truly gifted, my mother I wasn’t so sure about in that regard, but she was a published poet.
The problem was, as they were both also blessed with financial security, they had no reality checks to keep them earthed and they just disappeared up the fundament of their artistic endeavours – and their pot pipes. Not even having kids was enough to ground them. They had too much freedom to express themselves.
Most of the artists I knew who were my contemporaries had to do other jobs to fund their ‘real’ work and it seemed to keep them relatively normal. Ossie and Polly were a case in point – they were rich kids, much better off than my parents actually, and they never really did anything. Without the balance of an innate work ethic, or some kind of fundamental humility, I had come to the conclusion that inherited wealth could be a curse for the naturally creative.
It was great how I could analyse all of that now in a relatively detached way, I thought to myself, as I lay there looking at a lovely black and white photo of my father holding me up – a chubby smiling little girl – in front of one of his paintings. It was the one that was now in the Tate Modern, I realized. Time was when I couldn’t even look at that photo, let alone think about it all, but since being with Ollie, doing well at work and starting to feel relatively secure, I had gradually been able to allow the memories of those times – good and bad – to seep back into my conscious mind and I seemed to have assimilated them in some way.
Of course, I did sometimes feel racked by guilt and wonder whether I should go and see my mother again, but I always came to the same conclusion. It would upset me horrendously – and she wouldn’t know who I was anyway, so what was the point? I had once asked Ollie if he would come with me to see her, but he had looked so horrified at the prospect I had never brought it up again. Suited me, really. I was jogging along very nicely in my life as I was and I didn’t see the point of upsetting myself for nothing. It worked for me as it was.
Although Ursula had urged me constantly over the years, I hadn’t ever had any therapy or counselling; I hadn’t even ever discussed what had happened with my brother – in fact, that was the main reason I didn’t see much of Toby. If I didn’t see him, it couldn’t come up, easy. I had found that on the whole, the less I disturbed all those memories the better I was and without needing to resort to the prop of therapy, I had sorted it all out in my head, in my own way.
Ursula never seemed to believe me, though. She had mother issues of her own – which was understandable when you’d met her terrifying parents – and because it had worked for her, she was convinced it was the answer to everything and everyone’s problems. It was just about the only thing that really got me down about her.
The ‘you’re too thin’ nagging was just an irritation, which I actually found quite amusing, seeing how overweight she was. I found it hilarious that she could tell me that it was ‘emotional blockages’ that made me so ‘obsessed’ with staying slim – or thin, as she always called it – when years of therapy had failed to sort out whatever was keeping her fat.
Then there was the baby thing. She just refused to believe that I had made a free and happy decision that I didn’t want to have children. She was convinced that somehow Ollie had brainwashed me with his own ‘selfishness’, as she called it.
So although I had been annoyed when she had dragged Paul into our squabbles about these things, I was pretty much used to them, but the therapy thing really got me. People like my mother – mad people – needed therapy. Not me. I was fine.
As we sat down for dinner that night in a cosy little nook off her huge Fifties kitchen, I wondered how long it would take her to bring up her favourite subjects – particularly Dr Claptrap, or whoever her latest brilliant, perfect-for-me, analyst discovery was.
Longer than usual, I was thinking as we polished off the bottle of Meursault 1998. Ursa was a wine connoisseur and enjoyed sharing it with me. She’d taught me to appreciate it, starting me with one glass with dinner from when I had first arrived at her apartment. Along with books, art and music, she thought it was something civilized people needed to know about.
So far she hadn’t brought up my weight; why I should move to New York; my shallow, selfish, venal husband; my self-deluding attitude to having children; or my need for therapy to sort out any of the above – so I’d been chattering happily on, telling her all about the shoot and what I’d been up to.
We’d discussed how wonderful Paul was, especially considering his grim upbringing, I’d marvelled appreciatively about Snapdragon’s beauty and Ursula had announced she was getting bored with her. A sure sign she was going to end the liaison before Snappie cooled off on her.
I had experienced what happened after such a parting. There would be snowdrifts of daily letters, poetry delivered by hand, hung-up phone calls and the apartment buzzer going in the middle of the night – for about ten days, before the girl got over it.
Just once I’d seen what happened when Ursula didn’t end it first. A woman she had been more seriously smitten with than usual – someone closer to her own age and sophistication – had cooled off on her and told her she wanted some ‘space’. Ursula had retreated to her bed for a fortnight and it had taken her a lot longer than that to get over it fully. It was the only time I had ever seen my human rock falter.
By the time we were halfway down a bottle of 1985 Margaux to go with a hearty boeuf bourguignon, I was beginning to wonder what was going on. It never took Ursa this long to start probing me. It was quite a novelty, so I just went with the flow, telling her all about Nelly and Iggy – including his extraordinary life story, which got her quite excited about doing a book deal for him – which eventually led me on to the Sunday salon and Slap for Chaps.
Ursula listened intently, her face not betraying much, then as I was telling her about my latest conversation with Ollie, how he had been interviewed on the ‘Today’ programme about it and was going to be on a discussion panel with Germaine Greer – an old pal of Ursula’s – she finally came out with it.
‘Are you having an affair, Emily?’ she said. Just like that, out of nowhere.
I just gaped at her, I was so amazed. How did she know? And was I? Was this strange thing with Miles an affair? I had never thought of it that way.
Ursula took a long drink from her wine and raised an eyebrow at me.
‘Well, it’s either that, or you’re pregnant,’ she finally said. ‘And I don’t think you would have drunk two bottles of wine with me if you were. Anyway, having a baby might make you fat and I’m sure you wouldn’t risk that, much as I long for a grand-un-daughter. So, are you going to tell me?’
‘How did you know?’ was all I could croak out.
She threw back her head and laughed and then surprised me, by jumping up from her seat and coming round and giving me one of her special bear hugs. Hugus Ursus I called them.
‘Oh, you funny little girl,’ she said. ‘I’m so happy for you. Enjoy it.’
Then she started clearing the plates from the table and asking if she could tempt me with any of the cheesecake she had bought specially from Payard – the only pudding I couldn’t resist. It took me a moment to realize I was actually disappointed that she hadn’t asked me more questions. I got up and followed her into the kitchen.
‘Is that it?’ I said. ‘You’re going to spring that on me and then not ask me anything more about it?’
‘Well, do you want to tell me?’ she said.
‘I want to know how you
guessed,’ I said, jumping up to sit on the kitchen counter while she put the things in the dishwasher.
‘You have a glow, Emily. A post-coital glow. It’s as simple and corny as that.’ She chuckled to herself. ‘When you have known as many women as I have, you can spot these things.’
I pondered for a bit.
‘Did I have the glow when I saw you on Tuesday? When we went to Elaine’s?’
‘A little. I noticed something different, but not so much as tonight. The minute I saw you this evening I knew.’ She paused a moment. ‘Is he in town?’
It was my turn to chuckle.
‘Only on the end of the phone,’ I told her.
She roared with laughter.
‘Well now, that is an affair. I was going to play it cool with you, but now I am fascinated. Who is he? Or she?’
‘He!’ I said indignantly.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘Don’t stress. I just don’t make assumptions, that’s all. And it quite often takes a complete change to make someone glow the way you are. You look radioactive.’
She got the cheesecake out of the fridge, put the open box on the worktop between us and got out two spoons. She handed me one and dug hers right into the middle of it.
‘So,’ she said, pausing with the spoon at her lips. ‘Spill.’
I dug my spoon into the cheesecake and filled my mouth with the heavenly sweet creaminess. I paused for a moment with my eyes closed to savour it – and then I told her everything.
16
In the strange half-light on the plane home to London, I sat and wondered whether I had done the right thing telling Ursula about Miles. But I couldn’t have lied to her I concluded, not to her. And especially not after she had sneaked up on me like that.
I was actually quite surprised what a relief it had been to tell someone about it and Ursula was definitely the person to choose. She didn’t make any judgements, in fact she seemed quite pleased about the whole thing.
Her eyes had twinkled with vicarious delight as I’d told her how it had all happened. I left out the more pornographic details of course – I might have been her un-daughter, but Ursula was enough of a parent figure for that to seem embarrassing – and she seemed truly thrilled to hear about my adventure. She didn’t mention therapy once all evening and best of all, she didn’t say anything to make me feel guilty about what I’d done. She didn’t even mention Ollie, which seemed a little odd in the context, but suited me.
‘How delicious, darling,’ she’d said, as we scraped the last two spoonfuls of cheesecake out of the box. ‘Nice name, Miles. And I like the idea of a surfer. Very primal. You just enjoy it. A much better distraction for you than all that silly shopping and brainless socializing you do.’
Then she paused and seemed to consider what she was about to say, as she licked her spoon.
‘I’m sure I don’t need to tell you this, Emily,’ she said finally. ‘But I’m going to anyway. It sounds to me like you have exactly the right sense of proportion about this little “entente ”, shall we call it? So enjoy it, savour it, grow from it, feel alive – but don’t get silly about it, OK? Keep it in context and don’t confuse it with real life.’
I had the distinct feeling that she was advising me to treat my affair as she treated hers – like a box of chocolates rather than a proper meal, as she had once explained it to me. Still, I was glad she’d said all that, as it was exactly the attitude I had been taking to it, apart from that one day of obsessing as I walked through New York, but telling all to Ursula had enabled me to move on from that. Miles was safely back in his box. A beautiful pink Charbonnel & Walker chocolate box, tied up with a big satin bow, but a box nevertheless.
Once I got back to London, back to Ollie and back to the office, I hardly gave Miles a thought. Certain sexy songs could make me think of him. And stills from certain fashion shows – especially Dior, of course. Seeing a cute guy on the street in worn-out jeans and a leather jacket. Anything on the telly about Australia. Or surfing. And sometimes he would just pop into my head unprompted. But mainly, I managed to keep him filed. And I always managed to around Ollie.
Not that I seemed to see my husband very much. Slap for Chaps had gone ballistic. It was everywhere, one of those things that seemed to enter the national consciousness in a unique way in Britain. Comedians made jokes about it, it came up on quiz shows, people wore it to fancy-dress parties and children played it, until it became quite normal to see a little boy walking along in full make-up as his face paint of choice, when he might have once been a lion, or Spiderman. David Beckham had worn it to a party.
Even really butch blokes wore make-up to work to raise money for charity, culminating in a whole fire crew being sponsored to wear Slap for Chaps for a week, in aid of Children in Need, with Ollie providing the make-up and the make-up artists to apply it. That was all over the telly. Especially when one of the make-up artists got engaged to a fireman. Talk about a feel-good story.
There was even a dedicated blokes’ makeover TV show under discussion, to be sponsored by Slap, with full naming rights. So on top of his already crowded work schedule, it kept Ollie very busy.
I was busy too. It was always my nuttiest time of year at work, as I had to fit in at least half my shoots before Christmas, as well as it being prime time for boutique launches and the Christmas party season itself, which was always full-on for both of us.
As well as two Slap parties – a big client number and a smaller office piss-up – I had all the designer and PR drinks to go to, Ollie had all the other magazines’ dos and I had to go with him to a lot of corporate booze-ups of varying gruesomeness.
The Chic party, however, was the major event. All London’s hot young fashion designers, photographers, models, make-up artists, hairdressers, agents, writers, PRs and general faces around town came, and we always had it in a suitably cool venue. We usually racked up the odd visiting celeb as well, which was always thrilling.
That year we were having it jointly with Chic Interiors and they had found the most brilliant venue, in the half-finished spaces of the Wigwam hotel, which Ollie’s decorator pal Donovan Pertwee was designing. The work-in-progress feel was really rather great.
Ollie was in his element catching up with all his new interiors buddies, as well as the Chic crowd he already knew really well. Handsome, well dressed and always in a good mood, Ollie was a popular party guest and I didn’t mind a bit when he asked Bee to dance and stuff like that. It was all rather familial and nice, as I danced with her husband George as well.
I also got on down with Frannie’s Andrew, who was a surprisingly good dancer, and with all the girls together, dancing round our handbags as a joke. It was that kind of a night.
I was not so thrilled, however, when I looked over mid-chat with Rosie Stanton, who had been writing for Chic since she’d been to our Sunday salon – major Bee points to me, tee hee – to see Ollie dancing with Natalie, of all people. Just as I noticed, Gemma stumbled past – she’d had quite a bit to drink and was having trouble with her shoes.
‘Look at that little slapper dancing with your husband, Em,’ she said, leaning down and wrestling with her ankle straps. ‘Fucking shoes, that’s it, I’m taking them off. That’s better.’
She stood up again, several inches smaller, but looking much happier and looked over at Natalie and Ollie again. Natalie was positively shaking her copious suntanned cleavage – she’d just come back from a shoot in Bali with Alice and she always baked it like a roast chicken – in my husband’s face.
‘She asked him, Em,’ said Gemma. ‘I saw her do it.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘I’m putting a stop to this.’
But as I tried to get over to where they were, I kept bumping into make-up artists and hairdressers and model agents and other people I knew and I couldn’t just ignore them, so I had to keep stopping to air kiss and chat and graciously accept compliments about how great I looked, in my emerald green Dolce & Gabbana mini toga. I did look hot, if I say so my
self. I had a genius hairpiece on too, in a high pony.
By the time I got over to the side of the dance floor where they’d been, Natalie had disappeared and Ollie was gyrating enthusiastically with Spitty Felicity, so I left them to it. He’d do anything for editorial mentions, I reckoned, my husband.
Christmas itself was the usual trip to Ollie’s parents and I was more than happy about that, because Caroline and Max really knew how to do the whole yuletide thing. Log fires, a huge tree in the hall, loads to drink, a whole Stilton on the sideboard, swathes of holly – Bing Crosby could have turned up at any moment to shoot a Christmas special.
It was exactly the same every year and that’s just why I liked it. Caroline even had a service of special Christmas china which was used only then, which I thought showed real commitment. It didn’t have the glamour of the Christmases I’d spent on the Upper East Side, or up at Martha’s Vineyard, with Ursula, but I still loved it. I loved anything to do with normal family life.
Over the four days we were there, all of Ollie’s brothers came and went with their families and it was lovely to have children running around, mulled wine on tap and endless games of charades, Boggle, Scrabble and snap on the go.
Caroline even let me help with the food, which was a great honour – none of her other daughters-in-law were allowed near the Aga – but she’d sussed me out early on as a keen cook and was eager to encourage me. She made a couple of comments about me needing to eat a bit more too, but I just ignored them.
As another indication of my true acceptance into the Fairbrother clan, Caroline had even asked me if I wanted to invite my brother there for Christmas. They’d met him at our wedding and a couple of times since, and clearly thought he was the right kind of a chap. I was a bit thrown at first – he did ring me quite regularly, but I tended to keep Toby slightly at arm’s length, for fear of what he might stir up in me. But then I’d thought it over and decided it might be really nice to have an actual family member beside me as we sat down for the turkey. He was my brother, after all.
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