by Sarah Long
They emptied the car without speaking and Tessa opened the door to the empty house. A pair of Max’s trainers discarded in the hall gave her false hope, but he’d been and gone, leaving only an empty biscuit packet on the table. It always amused her, the way they’d help themselves to food and forget to dispose of the evidence. If you’re going to steal a packet of sweets, don’t give yourself away by dropping the wrappers, she’d told him once when he was about seven, call yourself a thief! In a way it was reassuring that he hadn’t changed at all.
Matt took his computer into the study.
‘I’ve got some work to do, don’t wait up.’
Max had left a note on the table, sorry to miss them, he’d done his washing, maybe he’d come over for dinner in the week. Tessa went into the laundry to find his clothes thrown haphazardly over the rack. She rearranged them to optimise drying, putting the shirts on hangers, marrying up the pairs of socks. It only seemed like yesterday that she was hanging out his babygrows, then his trousers, increasing in size over the years until they were longer than his father’s. ‘You lanky beanpole,’ Matt had said in affectionate mock indignation, inspecting the label on a pair of Levis that Max had just bought. ‘I wish my leg measurement was two inches longer than my waist!’
Tessa took her laptop upstairs into Lola’s room to make the Skype call, where she wouldn’t be disturbed by Matt. The bed was still covered with discarded clothes from Lola’s last visit home, she’d have to tidy them up when she came home for Christmas.
John came through, his voice had its usual effect on her, and she closed her eyes to think herself back into the four-poster bed.
‘Weekend in the country, then?’ he was saying. ‘How was the room service? I’m guessing it didn’t match up to last time?’
He was coming back in two weeks, he said. They should go away somewhere to make plans for their future. He’d been giving it some thought; if she wasn’t comfortable with America, they could go elsewhere. Once he sold his company he’d be free as air. They could just fly away like a couple of birds wherever she wanted. ‘Don’t look back,’ he said, ‘don’t throw away this great chance for happiness. It does’t happen to everyone, it is a gift to be cherished.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
‘Don’t think you can each go your own way and be as happy as if you pulled in double harness.’
Blanche Ebbutt, Don’ts for Wives, 1913
‘I suppose I’d better offer to make you a cup of tea,’ said Sam, now they were back from the vets where Benson had died during the night. Painlessly and at peace according to the well-rehearsed animal nurse who had been recruited for her caring manner.
Harriet sat on the Chesterfield with Hedges on her lap, enjoying the privilege of being the only one.
‘To be honest, I’d rather have something stronger. I’ve drunk enough tea for one morning.’
Sam didn’t need encouraging, and went straight to the drinks cabinet to bring out the whisky.
‘Remember bidding on his?’ he said, patting the mahogany top of the handsome piece of furniture. ‘It was over our budget, but we really wanted it because it was bow-fronted. Funny how your priorities change over the years.’
‘Our hearts used to leap at the sight of anything burnished and Victorian,’ said Harriet. ‘I’m over it now, though, the decorating phase. You too, I think?’
It was an invitation to discuss how he was feeling. They had been getting on so well since last night, when he had changed his plans so he could come down and join her here in the house where they had always been happiest. Mirela had been willing to stay an extra night with Celia, who was quite enamoured of her new friend.
‘God, yes,’ he said, handing her a glass of whisky then sitting down in the armchair. ‘I’d be happy never to choose another stick of furniture in my life.’
‘Thank you for cancelling your meeting,’ said Harriet. ‘It would have been horrid to do it on my own. Though I’m glad we decided against the garden burial, it’s much more sensible to have the canister of ashes.’
Sam twisted the glass in his hands, looked away from her for a moment, then turned back to face her.
‘Harriet, we need to talk.’
She carefully lifted Hedges down on to the carpet and prepared herself for what he was going to say. This was it, he was going to suggest they put an end to the farce of their marriage, it was hardly unexpected. She faced him calmly.
‘I’m listening.’
‘I spoke to mum’s doctor and, as he told her, it’s not good news. He reckons six months, a year at best.’
Harriet felt a lifting of her spirits, he wasn’t leaving her then.
‘Oh dear, as quickly as that,’ she said. ‘I didn’t get such a precise prognosis from the hospital, but I was with Celia and I suppose unless she was specifically asking . . .’
‘Exactly, but now we know.’
‘Poor Celia. We must make things as comfortable as we can for her.’
‘You’ve already done so much for her, I’m very grateful. Harriet, what I want to ask you is, will you come to New York with me?’
‘New York!’
He’d never invited her along on a business trip before, it was an attractive prospect.
‘Yes, I’d like that, when were you thinking? I could try and get Mirela to cover for a weekend.’
‘I don’t mean a weekend,’ said Sam. ‘I’m looking at relocating permanently. And I’d like you to come with me, it would be a new beginning for us.’
She hadn’t seen that coming! Completely and utterly out of the blue! She imagined herself walking in Central Park, attending intellectual salons; she had a friend who had moved there recently and said it was far more acceptable – even expected – to have serious conversations. It was an extraordinarily exciting prospect.
‘But what about Celia?’ she said.
‘Obviously, we’ll wait until . . .’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve explained the position to Eric and we’re looking at next October, possibly later.’
‘The fall!’ said Harriet, imagining them on a weekend in New England, kicking through the massive American-sized red leaves before repairing to a diner for pancakes.
‘We’ll only need a small apartment in Manhattan, then I thought a place up the Hudson River for weekends.’
‘Oh yes!’
Harriet jumped up and went over to hug Sam.
‘Alex can come and spend weekends with his glamorous girlfriend and James can visit us, it will be fantastic!’
‘Good, so I’ll take that as a yes, shall I?’ said Sam.
‘Yes indeed. A very definite yes.’
*
Sandra was not in the best mood when she arrived home, following an auction where she had made a schoolgirl error. By mistaking a lot number, she ended up buying an enormous stuffed bear instead of the chandelier she had her eye on as a centrepiece for Megan’s dining room. She could hear the television and went downstairs to find Poppy catching up on The X Factor, eating a blueberry muffin.
‘Mind those crumbs on my new ottoman.’
‘How was your auction?’ asked Poppy, without taking her eyes off the screen. ‘Did you buy something fab for Kim’s mum?’
‘Actually, it was a bit of a disaster.’
She told Poppy about her mistake.
‘So funny,’ said Poppy. ‘I must tell Kim.’
She switched off the television.
‘Actually, please don’t. It is a bit embarrassing when I’m trying to appear professional.’
‘OK. Dad’s gone out by the way, he told you not to wait up for him.’
‘Did he say where?’
‘Nope. But he seemed pretty happy.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Haven’t seen him like that for a while. Kind of excited, running up the stairs and singing.’
‘Oh. Do you want a cup of anything?’
‘Tea please. I’ll come up with you actually, I need to do some wor
k.’
Poppy followed her up the stairs, then pulled out her school books and settled down at the kitchen table.
‘By the way, Mum, I can’t believe you added Josh.’
‘Added him to what?’
‘On Facebook. You sent him a friend request.’
‘Oh that. Well he didn’t have to accept, did he?’
‘He didn’t want to offend you.’
If he didn’t want to offend me, thought Sandra, he shouldn’t have posted a pornographic image of himself.
‘Actually, Poppy, I’ve got a bit of a confession to make. You left your page open on my iPad, and I got to look at your photos.’
‘Mum!’
‘I know, it was wrong, but I’m just nosy, I can’t help it.’
Poppy was looking at her, trying to assess the damage.
‘Which ones did you see? You didn’t go into my messages or anything, did you?’
‘Not really. Only a bit.’
‘You didn’t! Honestly, Mum, that’s so low!’
Poppy put her hands over eyes, as if that could somehow prevent Sandra from seeing the compromising photo. Sandra went up to her and gave her a hug.
‘I’m sorry, darling, I know I shouldn’t have looked, but I am your mum so of course I want to know what’s going on in your life. And I didn’t realise that you and Josh were actually, you know . . .’
‘I’m not a little girl any more, Mum! I can’t believe you’d go snooping on me like that!’
Poppy pushed her mother away.
‘It was wrong, I know that,’ said Sandra. ‘But when you have a child of your own, you’ll understand. I realise you’re not a little girl any more, but you always will be, to me.’
Poppy relented and wrapped her arms round Sandra’s waist.
‘I know, Mum. I love you.’
‘Love you too.’
‘Yuck,’ said Sandra and they both laughed.
They remained locked together for a while, then Sandra said:
‘But the reason I had to tell you I’d seen the photo . . . I wanted to be absolutely sure, you are being careful, aren’t you? I’d love to have a grandchild some day, but not too soon.’
‘Chillax, Mum, I’m on the pill.’
Sandra felt a mixture of emotions. Relief that her daughter was being sensible, and disbelief that her little girl was grown up enough to consult a doctor for contraceptive advice. As a mother, she was through to the next stage. Adulthood beckoned, and Sandra would soon be free.
‘I’m glad you are, thank you for telling me and I promise I won’t do it again,’ she said. ‘The only photos of Josh that I’ll look at from now on are the ones he puts on his wall. Fully clothed, more’s the pity.’
‘Mum!’
They sat in companionable silence, Poppy with her schoolwork while Sandra emailed Megan that there was disappointing news on the chandelier, but she was sure there would be other, even better examples out there. Then she saw she had a missed call from Mariusz and a voicemail. This was unusual, he didn’t tend to leave messages, relying on her to simply return his call. She listened to what he had to say:
‘Sandra, please, I realise we must be living together. When I see Gregor lying beside me I know this is mistake and it must be you. I love you. Yours, etc.’
She smiled at the last bit. Somehow he’d picked up the idea that this was how English gentlemen signed off, as if dictating to a secretary with a dismissive flap of the hand. There was work to be done on his language skills, but she knew she could help him with that. Watching Poppy’s head bowed over her homework, she knew her competent daughter was going to be just fine. And she had a pretty good idea where Nigel was this evening.
*
Max had been rather coy about his appearance in a university play, but he had eventually mentioned it to his parents. He was playing the lead role in Le Misanthrope and would get them a couple of tickets if they were interested. ‘Of course we’re interested,’ Tessa said, ‘do you really need to ask?’
Walking out to catch the bus, she fantasised that she was at the Oscars and Max was on stage, modestly taking his gong, his marvellous hair flopping over his eyes, like a less-annoying Hugh Grant. She had no idea he was in the Drama Soc, he had always been rather dismissive of actors; they were boring beyond belief, he said, always talking about themselves.
John wanted them to meet out of town again. ‘Anywhere with a four-poster bed,’ he said, ‘we know where we’ll be spending our time.’ She wished she could just press a button and be there with him, without the attendant complications. As if they were teenagers who could do exactly as they pleased, without the clutter of half a lifetime. She recalled a conversation she and Matt had shared about the definition of middle-age. It was the point, he said, when the future starts to look less appetising than the past. As you went through your thirties and forties, you always felt that you were on your way up, that things were getting better all the time. Then suddenly, bang, you’re fifty and the upward curve hits a plateau. Then the descent. Tessa disagreed. She now knew it didn’t have to be that way.
She smiled at the driver as she touched in her oyster card. It was such a depressing thought, that you were careering downhill. There were plenty of cheerful people over fifty, just as there were misery-guts amongst the young. On the bus behind her right now, for instance, she could hear a girl outlining her gap year plans to her friend, in the bored, flat voice adopted by the beautiful rich.
‘So I’m going to Thailand in January,’ she said, as if the whole thing was a chore, ‘then on to Cambodia.’
‘Fantastic,’ said her friend, without enthusiasm.
Silly little girls, thought Tessa. And I’m off to the Bloomsbury Theatre to watch my beautiful son, so stick that in your posh pipe and smoke it.
The girls got off at South Kensington, floating down the stairs in a cloud of ennui, and Tessa tuned in instead to the conversation of two elderly gentlemen sitting across from her. One was complaining about his health and how his insurance only allowed him occasional visits to the specialist, then they lapsed into incomprehensible public school banter. ‘Was he a Wykehamist?’ ‘Ah yes, he was Scottish.’ ‘Not very Scottish, though.’ ‘No, he was a Rugbeian.’ Not for the first time, Tessa thought how eavesdropping on the bus was one of London’s greatest cheap pleasures.
The theatre was filling up when she arrived, a generous audience of friends and family members who were predisposed to love whatever they were going to see. From her seat Tessa could see Matt arriving, dapper in his subdued shades of dark grey. She watched him make his way towards her and thought about how it would be if she told him she was leaving him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
‘Don’t believe that marriage is a lottery over which you have no control.’
Blanche Ebbutt, Don’ts For Wives, 1913
‘So let’s get this right,’ said Sandra. ‘He wants to leave you all his money and you said no?’
She crashed her espresso cup on to its saucer and looked at her friend in mock disbelief.
‘That was a good weekend’s work. You obviously have some serious Wallis Simpson skills. I’m surprised you’re only telling me this now!’
‘He’d already altered his will, even before the weekend.’
‘It must be love.’
They were in the Members’ Lounge above the Hayward Gallery in the Southbank Centre. Through the plate-glass window, they could look down at the busy life of the river; boats ferrying workers and tourists against an architectural backdrop of monuments old and new, the Gherkin standing proudly beside St Paul’s Cathedral.
‘Obviously he’ll change it, depending on what happens,’ said Tessa. ‘He’s acting as if we’re already an item, because that’s how he sees it.’
‘Pushing for an early resolution. Do you like my new club by the way?’
The tables around them were occupied by people earnestly studying their laptops. It was London’s best-kept secret, Sandra explained, a hundred
quid a year and the perfect place for entrepreneurs like her to meet their clients and impress them with views of the city.
‘It’s very you,’ said Tessa.
‘I think so,’ said Sandra, catching the eye of a hipster on the next table who was giving her an admiring glance.
‘So, what are you going to do? Walk out on us all and set up home in the distant reaches of Oklahoma?’
‘Wyoming, actually.’
‘I don’t see it, myself. You in The Little House on the Prairie. In a gingham dress.’
‘That’s Wisconsin. Anyway, it wouldn’t have to be Wyoming. He said we can go anywhere I like. He said the world is our oyster. In fact he wants to buy a boat and go sailing round the world.’
Sandra raised an eyebrow. ‘Ambitious, I like that.’
‘He said there were no limits. We can do whatever we want. Which is true, I suppose. Except he has no baggage. And I do. For twenty years I’ve defined myself as a mother, I don’t know what I am if I’m not that.’
‘You’ll always be a mother. It doesn’t mean you can’t be other things as well.’
‘I know. But I can’t trash everything I’ve got just for the sake of that giddy excitement. Maybe if I was braver . . .’
Sandra watched her friend, could see she was close to tears.
‘You are brave, Tessa,’ she said gently. ‘You could do it, if you really wanted to. But I’m not sure you do.’
Tessa shook her head.
‘You’re right, I just don’t know. When I’m with him, he makes it sound so simple. Look at this.’
She passed her phone to Sandra, showing a photo of a boat.
