Love Nest

by Julia Llewellyn

‘God, you gave me a shock!’

  He was standing in his green velvet dressing gown, which still hung on his bones like an empty flour sack. ‘Sorry. I realized you weren’t in bed, so I came to find you.’

  Karen decided to try and communicate something of her feelings. ‘I’m just feeling a bit sentimental.’

  ‘About leaving this place?’ She nodded. Phil stared at her. ‘Christ, I can’t wait. I feel the whole place is infected by my illness. It’s like there’s a malign spirit here. Until we’re somewhere new, I won’t be cleansed of it all.’

  ‘But you know that’s just in your imagination.’ Her tone was gentle but he shook his head, his voice rising to the whine she’d come to dread. ‘It’s not. I feel it. God, Karen, how can you say something like that? It’s not as if you don’t know how I’ve suffered.’

  ‘OK,’ she said angrily. ‘OK, you’re right.’

  They stared at each other for a moment. Then he put his arm round her shoulder.

  ‘Sorry, Kaz. It’s just sometimes I think you don’t understand how desperate I am to get out of this place. To make a fresh start.’

  ‘I know.’ She should tell him how equally desperate she was not to go to Devon. But over the past couple of years Karen had got used to keeping her worries to herself. ‘But how can we afford it all?’

  ‘We’ll manage. Stop fretting. I have plans.’ He turned towards the door. ‘Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m going back to bed for another couple of hours.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about you,’ she snapped. ‘But I have to go to work. After the school run. So if you don’t mind I’ll get on with preparing breakfast for everyone.’

  He turned and looked at her, askance. ‘Hey! You know I need my rest. Where did that come from?’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, not sounding it. ‘Only I do get tired too, you know.’

  ‘It won’t be like that in Devon. In Devon, everything will be so much more chilled. No commute. No work to stress you.’

  ‘No money,’ Karen retorted under her breath, as he disappeared back up the stairs to the bedroom. ‘No escape.’ Once again, she flirted with that awful wish that Phil had died, instead of being replaced by this unrealistic, inward-looking creature.

  She brooded on her situation as she dropped the girls at school, and then all the way to the office. Sophie was on the phone to one of her mates.

  ‘I mean, I don’t know what it is with Natasha,’ she was saying. ‘Her kids are just so damn fussy. Won’t touch anything green, hate cheese. I just don’t know why she isn’t stricter with them. I’m not going to let my children down from the table until they’ve finished every morsel on their plates. You just start as you mean to go on.’

  Karen dimly remembered her old self, the self who would never park her children in front of the television, never use a dummy, never reward with sweets, and tried to keep a straight face. Her phone rang. An internal number.

  ‘Hello?’ she said wearily, suspecting it would be Accounts berating her about her slow payments to freelances.

  ‘Karen?’ A voice she didn’t recognize.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s Max. Max Bennett.’

  ‘Oh, hello. How are you getting on?’ Max Bennett! Since bumping into him in the canteen, she’d wondered occasionally if she should contact him. But why would he want to hear from such a careworn frump?

  ‘Fine. Just wondering if you might be free for lunch some time soon.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Don’t worry if you can’t, I know what it’s like.’

  ‘Well, the magazine does go to press tomorrow, so we’re pretty busy. Friday might be good, though. If it works for you, that is…’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said. ‘I’ll call you if there’s a lull. Perhaps you could show me one of your local haunts.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Karen said, sounding extremely businesslike. She was sure she wouldn’t hear from him. Still, as soon as she hung up she dialled her hairdresser.

  ‘Hi, it’s Karen Drake here. Do you think Mandy could fit me in tomorrow evening? Only I’m long overdue some highlights.’

  18

  On Friday afternoon, Anton called Lucinda in the office.

  ‘Lucinda, howzit? I’m really sorry but we won’t be able to go for our country walk. I have to go to South Efrika this weekend. Family affairs to sort out. I’ll be back towards the end of next week so we can rearrange. I hope you’re not too disappointed.’

  How bloody presumptuous! ‘It’s fine,’ Lucinda assured him coldly. ‘I hope you have a good trip.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll be thinking of you. We’ll do something nice when I get back, I promise…’ And the line went dead.

  An hour later, an enormous bunch of lilies and freesias was deposited in front of Lucinda’s nose by a grumpy-looking delivery man.

  ‘Hello!’ said Joanne. ‘Who’s the lucky girl then?’

  ‘Oh. Wow.’ Lucinda was mortified. Hastily, she opened the card.

  ‘?’ it said.

  ‘Who are they from?’ asked Marsha.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she lied, showing her the card, thanking the Lord there hadn’t been any kisses.

  ‘A mystery admirer,’ Joanne said shortly. Gareth was unusually silent, staring at his keyboard. He stayed silent until everybody else had left for the pub and they were alone together.

  ‘You’re still coming to the gig, aren’t you?’ Lucinda asked.

  ‘Sure,’ he said, staring stonily at his screen. ‘If you still want to go with me.’

  ‘Of course I do, Gareth. Is everything OK?’

  He looked at her. ‘People have been gossiping about you, you know.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Immediately Lucinda was on the defensive.

  ‘Mmm.’ His voice was very gentle. ‘Apparently you’re seeing Anton Beleek.’

  ‘I am not!’ she said loudly, and then, when Gareth didn’t respond, she went on. ‘He’s just a friend. We’ve only had dinner a couple of times. And been to the opera once. There’s absolutely nothing going on between us.’

  ‘He’s a bit of a catch,’ Gareth said, but without any hint of sarcasm. ‘Owns half of east London, as you know.’

  ‘I don’t care about things like that,’ Lucinda said impatiently. ‘Who said I was going out with him, anyway?’

  ‘Some bloke saw you at the opera and told Niall. Marsha was listening in and…’

  Bloody Marsha. Lucinda had thought she was her friend. ‘We went to the opera and then I went home alone. Kind of like our outing will be tonight, OK?’

  The last point was probably uncalled for, but she was hurt. Gareth smiled at her, apparently unruffled.

  ‘Just thought you’d like to know.’ He stood up. ‘We’d better get going. I’ll just get changed.’

  A few minutes later he emerged from the lavatories in jeans and a white T-shirt. It was disconcerting seeing Gareth out of his suit and tie, like the time Lucinda had spotted Anne-Marie, Daddy’s normally uptight PA, at the Patinoire de l’Europe, ice skating in a candy pink all-in-one, her head thrown back in laughter. And realized she was her father’s latest mistress.

  She didn’t want to think about it. ‘I didn’t think to bring a change of clothes,’ she said ruefully, looking down at her beige Armani suit.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ Gareth said. ‘Just take your jacket off.’

  They took the Hammersmith and City line to Shepherd’s Bush, where – at Gareth’s suggestion – they ate delicious pierogi in a funny little Polish restaurant with frilly curtains and check tablecloths. From the Royal Opera House to this, Lucinda thought with a wry grin. She wasn’t sure which one she preferred. She was aware that she hadn’t done as much young persons’ stuff as a woman of her age perhaps ought to. Her student crowd had been pretty sedate. A bit of her wondered what it would be like to – for example – go on a druggy weekend in Ibiza, but that wasn’t the kind of behaviour that turned you into a CEO. Sedate outings with Anton to the oper
a and Michelin-starred restaurants were far more in keeping with the kind of image she wanted to project.

  Gareth interrupted her chain of thought. ‘I take it you know all about the Vertical Blinds’ lead singer. He’s a big smackhead. That’s why the last gig was cancelled. He was too out of it, apparently. Be interesting to see what state he’s in tonight.’

  The auditorium was dark and hot. Gareth kept up a stream of chat but it was hard to hear what he was saying. After an hour, the band still hadn’t appeared. Lucinda felt irritated and impatient.

  ‘They always keep you waiting, it’s part of the mystique,’ Gareth said.

  But another hour passed. The crowd was starting to get restless. There was a bit of booing, some slow handclapping. Some people left.

  ‘We don’t have to stay,’ Lucinda said to Gareth, seeing him stifle a yawn. She knew he’d been up at five thirty to show a big-cheese client a penthouse at the Barbican.

  He shook his head. ‘No, no, I’m enjoying myself. Let’s get another pint.’

  It was their fourth and she was definitely tipsy, but why not? It was Friday night and she was only twenty-four. They pushed their way to the bar and then squeezed back through the crowd until they were just a couple of rows from the front. The lights lowered. Half the crowd cheered, half booed. The band shuffled on to the stage. First a drummer, then a short red-haired guy with a guitar round his neck.

  Then Nick Crex.

  To Lucinda’s surprise, the sight of him made her feel as if a pilot light had been turned on deep inside her. She’d always known he was attractive, in an academic kind of way. But seeing him on stage in a military jacket and drainpipes, a guitar hanging round his neck, she felt a whoomph of lust, violent and scorching in its intensity, as if a match had been dropped in petrol.

  ‘That’s the client?’ Gareth nudged her.

  ‘Mmm.’

  She couldn’t take her eyes off him. He struck the first few chords. The drummer started drumming, the guitarist strummed and a skinny blond guy shambled over to the microphone. Everyone started screaming. Gareth nudged her.

  ‘There he is. Jack the Smackhead.’

  He certainly looked out of it. His eyes were completely unfocused. He shuffled around the stage, limbs moving uncoordinatedly, mumbling into the mike. The crowd screamed some more but in an unconvincing way, as if they were extras in a crowd scene following bad directions. Lucinda glanced at Gareth. He was grinning.

  ‘He’s off his chops. It’s a disaster.’

  Lucinda looked again at Nick. He was looking down at his guitar, his mouth in a straight line, his eyes furious. There was something very sexy about a man who looked so angry. He looked up and caught her eye.

  Oddly nervous, she gave him a little wave. A faint grin lit up his face for a moment, then it turned blankly angry as he continued strumming. Lucinda’s whole body tingled, as if she’d been shocked. Her eyes were fixed so firmly on Nick that she missed Jack tripping over a cable and falling flat on his face. Hearing the audience’s ‘Ooh’, she turned to see him rolling giggling on his back like an upturned turtle. The music halted abruptly. The booing started.

  Nick pulled his guitar over his head and threw it to the ground. He ran into the wings. Standing on tiptoes, Lucinda craned to see him. There was a girl waiting there, pretty in a kind of cheap way, blonde and busty. She threw her arms around his neck. He pushed her away. Lucinda watched entranced. Her face, her hands, even her earlobes felt as if they were on fire.

  She didn’t feel jealous of the girlfriend. She just made her want Nick more. Even though she was a bit drunk, she felt extremely sober. She suddenly knew as sure as she knew her own name that she would sleep with Nick Crex. She wanted him. And whatever Lucinda wanted, she got.

  Over the next forty-eight hours Karen found herself thinking about Max constantly. Bumping into him in the canteen had just depressed her. But the lunch invitation had completely rejuvenated her. She moved around the Post building with a new self-consciousness, aware that though Daily staff rarely trespassed on Sunday territory it wasn’t entirely unknown. When she talked on the phone to irritating PRs or aggressive freelances she kept a bright smile on her face and laughed a lot, which they must have found most unnerving.

  It was odd, because she barely knew him really. Hadn’t given him a thought in thirteen years. And today’s lunch would probably just be a one-off. Karen knew how these reunions worked: you exchanged news, pulled out a photo of your children which the other one scrutinized and said ‘Aah’ to, gave a bit of career advice, said, ‘We must do it again soon,’ and as soon as you walked out the door all thoughts of them were obliterated in a round of online food shops, au pair crises and work deadlines.

  She consoled herself with this on Friday morning, when she woke after less than three hours’ sleep feeling like a bad-tempered porcupine and looking slightly less pretty. Nothing appealed less than lunch with someone she vaguely wanted to impress. Never mind, the pace on the Daily was frantic. He’d never be able to escape.

  But he called her just after one.

  ‘I’ve just finished my first story and I can knock off the second this afternoon, I reckon. So how about we nip out for an hour? You can show me the sights.’

  She took him to L’Amandine, a little deli with a café attached, in the warren of stuccoed houses behind Kensington Church Street.

  ‘This looks nice.’ Max looked around at the framed vintage travel posters, the lace curtains, the croissants under a glass dome on the zinc counter.

  ‘The food’s good,’ she said, a little jittery after the four coffees she’d consumed that morning. ‘If you don’t mind service with a scowl.’ She nodded at Estelle, the proprietor. As usual, Estelle blanked her, as if she had just escaped from prison, rather than having come in here at least three times a week for four years. ‘So how are you finding life at the Daily?’

  ‘A bit nerve-racking. But nice people. Far less of a labour camp than the Sentinel. There seems to be a consensus that it’s acceptable to have a life outside the office, which makes me a bit jittery. You know that joke: “Why do Sentinel staff die so young?” “Because they want to.” ’

  Karen laughed. ‘Though the money’s better at the Sentinel, I seem to recall.’

  ‘They agreed to match my salary here. I thought that was a good deal given the state of my personal life…’ This sounded interesting. Infuriatingly, Estelle was hovering above them. Max smiled up at her. ‘May I have the croque madame, please? And a tap water.’

  ‘No tap water,’ Estelle scowled. ‘Only bottle. Perrier. Evian.’

  ‘Oh,’ Max said humbly. ‘Evian then.’

  ‘Same for me,’ Karen said. As Estelle stomped off she smiled apologetically. ‘I warned you this place had character.’ She wondered how she could get him back to the personal life topic.

  ‘I thought it was illegal not to serve tap water. Oh well. So, as I was saying, I thought same money, probably less pressure. Sounded like a win-win.’ He looked her in the eye. ‘My girlfriend works there, you see, and it was all getting a bit heavy spending all day under the same roof.’

  ‘Do you live with her?’

  ‘No. She wants that but… I’m not sure, to be honest. I’m in Essex Road. Got a little rented flat there. And what about you?’ he asked as their food was plonked in front of them with an angry grunt.

  She cringed as she said: ‘St Albans. A cliché, I know.’

  ‘Why cliché?’

  ‘Because it’s where everyone goes when they have children and decide it’s time to leave London.’

  ‘What did you say you had? Two boys?’

  ‘No, two girls.’ Virtually any woman would have asked about ages and names, but Max was a single man and just nodded. ‘And what about your husband? What does he do?’

  She thought about not telling him. But then they’d exchange a few more platitudes and lunch would be over. ‘Well, he was a venture capitalist. But he was very ill a couple of years ago. Cancer. He’s
better now,’ she continued as Max’s features formed into the obligatory shocked and sorry expression. ‘But as a result he sold his business. Said life was too short to spend shackled behind a desk. In fact… he wants us to move to the country. He’s found a house to buy in Devon, he wants that to be our project. So I may not be at the Post for that much longer.’

  ‘You’d resign? Oh no, Karen. You can’t do that. What a waste.’

  ‘Hardly,’ she shrugged.

  ‘Just when we made contact again. I can’t bear it.’ But his tone was mocking, belying the seriousness of his words. He took a bite of his sandwich, then continued. ‘All my friends with kids depart for the country. I don’t get it at all. Why do people think it’s better to live surrounded by trees and mud and cows, instead of near the shops and a cinema? It’s as if because you suffer, it must be good for you.’

  ‘I don’t think they think it’s suffering. It’s giving your children the best start.’

  Max shook his head, as if he were disappointed in her. ‘The country’s horrible. Brown. Depressing. Pylons.’

  ‘Cows,’ Karen agreed. ‘People who wear Barbours.’

  ‘No shops.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she grinned. ‘What about the Spar?’

  ‘That’s not a shop. All it sells is one wrinkled turnip and a packet of Bourbons. The owner would shoot you if you asked for anything else.’ He paused and said, ‘Do you really think you’ll be happy there?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Karen said. She paused. ‘I know Phil won’t be happy if we stay. And if your husband’s not happy then you can’t be.’

  ‘So when did you get married?’

  ‘About a year after I…’ split up with your brother ‘… left the Sentinel. I was twenty-eight. Now I think I was too young.’ Where on earth had that confession come from? ‘Not that I made a mistake or anything,’ she added hastily. ‘It’s all great.’

  ‘God, I’m thirty-two and the idea of marriage still terrifies me. Much to my girlfriend’s disgust.’

  ‘How long have you been with her?’

  ‘Nine months.’ He looked her in the eye. ‘To be honest, I’m not sure it’s going to last much longer. We’re kind of at make or break time; like I say, she wants marriage, babies and I… I want them one day, sure. But I’m pretty sure I don’t want them with her. Does that make me sound like the biggest S H One T on the planet?’