by Terry Tyler
The meeting lasted from nine-thirty until eleven-thirty, after which I did my rounds then sought out Erin and looked forward to our long, lazy lunch at our table by the window in Hampton’s. I allowed myself a brief fantasy about making it a boozy lunch, too, then retiring discreetly to the nearby Huntsman for an afternoon of unbridled lust, but forced myself to snap out of it.
I drove my Arctic princess down into town, walked proudly in with her on my arm, and honoured the waitress with my best charming smile as she showed us to our table. Outside the snow swirled, flakes sticking to the window; I love the snow, it’s magical and romantic. I also love Hampton’s during the day, especially in winter. The music (Billie Holiday, Etta James) is just at the right level to make the atmosphere mellow and intimate, the sort of cosy place in which you could happily stay all day, drinking yourself to into oblivion in a most civilised manner. I ordered a glass of red, and Erin asked for one of those huge daft frothy cold coffee things that women like; she looked about sixteen, drinking it through the straw, with her furry hat still on. I felt as if we were in a 1960s film. Then she took the hat off, looked up, waved to someone, and completely destroyed the moment.
“Hope you don’t mind, I asked Jane and Will to join us.” I could tell by the look on her face that she knew I would mind. But I stood up, greeted Will, kissed Jane, beckoned the waitress, and sat back to listen to them all discussing the topic of the moment, i.e. Isabella.
“Erin, I hope you don’t mind my saying this, but I really think she needs psychiatric help,” Jane said. “Phil thinks so, too.”
“Yeah, so do I.” Erin rested her chin in her hand, elbow on table; she looked enchanting. “If she’d allow any of us to, we might be able to help, as well.”
“I don’t know what we could do,” Jane said, rather sadly. “She isn’t open to anything I say; she just wants Phil, and a baby.”
“Yes, but this latest ruse was beyond simply the desire for a child,” Will said. “She’s always been intense, but this is crazy behaviour.”
I attacked my newly-arrived tagliatelle. “Who knows about it? Is it common knowledge?”
Jane picked a breadstick out of the glass on the table. “No, but I gather Phil was so pissed off that he offloaded on someone, so it can only be a matter of time.”
I smiled. “That someone being?”
She pointed the breadstick at me and winked. “I’m not saying anything.”
“I’m guessing his little friend in General Accounts,” Will murmured.
Jane snapped her weapon in half. “Yep, her or the one in Archives.”
“Oh, there’s one there as well, is there? It’ll be the number one gossip item around the office, then,” I added.
Erin’s eyes flashed. “This is my sister we’re talking about, don’t forget.”
I reached over the table and placed my hand over hers. “We know that, darling. And you know that the people around this table have known Isabella a long time and are genuinely concerned for her; any tittle-tattle won’t come from us.”
I was only acting concerned for Erin’s sake. I didn’t give a monkey’s really. Isabella Lanchester was nothing to me. Less than nothing; she’d fucked up my dad’s life, partly out of spite, I think, and she was fucking up what should be Erin’s company, too.
“I’m wondering who will be the first to suggest a vote of no confidence,” Will said, in that mild sort of way he had of introducing such things so that no one realised the suggestion was actually coming from him. I liked the way he did that, and wondered if I could carry it off. He took a large mouthful of lasagne and gave me an only just perceptible wink.
Indeed, it could only be a matter of time before someone voiced the idea with more purpose.
The rest of the meal was taken up with discussing the madwoman Castillo, each of us choosing our words so carefully so as not to offend Erin or say what we really thought, that the conversation was next to pointless, and then I drove home.
To Norfolk, and my wife.
Let me tell you about my wife. I married Amy Robsart because I loved her, not because of Sydestone Holdings, which is her father’s massive company that owns whole stretches of Norfolk. I met her at the party of my old school friend and partner in crime Toby Blount (compared with whom I am a positive angel) who lives up that way. This was shortly after Erin told me, absolutely and finally, that it would be years before she wanted to commit herself to marriage, or indeed any sort of ownership-indicating, ring-wearing activity. Yes, I was feeling bitter and wanted to get back at her, but I was genuinely attracted to Amy. She’s the opposite of Erin, quiet, introverted, wants to be looked after, which appealed to me at the time. She’s pretty and fair, natural looking and not the sort of girl who stands out in a crowd, but she stood out for me when I met her. I felt calm with her. At peace. Although our marriage is a good thing for Lanchester Estates, because I can forge land deals, that’s just a happy accident. I would have been attracted to her anyway; I needed a girl like her after having my heart wrung out by Erin.
Apart from the fact that I fancied her, she made me feel about ten feet tall, too.
The problem is that all that docile sweetness has not held my interest. I thought it would, but it hasn’t. Being made to feel like a Big Man was good, but I discovered that it isn’t enough to keep the interest going in a long-term relationship unless you’re a total chauvinist. At first I loved teaching her stuff about music, films, books, business, sex, relationships, life, et cetera, but after a while I wished she would make a contribution, discover her own preferences, voice her own opinions, instead of waiting to be educated by me. To be honest, my feelings were on the wane even when we got married, although I didn’t dare admit it to myself at the time. I do still feel great affection for her, but I am not in love with her anymore. I’m in love with Erin.
If Erin asked me to leave Amy and go to her I don’t know what would happen, but she won’t, because she insists she will never, ever come between a married couple again, little realising (or does she?) that she can’t help but come between us. So it looks as though I’m staying where I am; in a marriage to someone whose heart I can’t bear the thought of breaking, and a platonic friendship with the woman I love.
It’s frustrating, but it could be a lot worse.
I liked being in Calais because I could do my own thing. I was happy to get engaged to Amy while I was over there; a less than satisfactory relationship can seem more appealing when you aren’t physically in it for long stretches. We bought a house, Stenfield Lodge in the Norfolk village of Stenfield, though we didn’t move in until we were married, as a lot of structural work was needed. Daddy Robsart wouldn’t have approved, anyway. Yes, even in the twenty-first century. Amy stayed with her parents and I rented a cottage in the village. After the hotel thing went up the Swanee she wanted me to leave Lanchester Estates and work for her father, at the rural head office of Sydestone, but I couldn’t, and not only because I wasn’t ready to sever my ties with Erin.
Amy wanted me to become a big fish in that small, sleepy Norfolk pond, but that sort of existence isn’t for me. I like cities, I want hustle and bustle, and people, restaurants and bars, and adventures, and life. New York would be my ideal, but Amy’s vision of hell. I don’t want to stay in Norwich forever, although I like both the city and my job. But I want more. ‘More’ was going to be the chain of Lanchester Dudley hotels, but now I am forced to think again. There is all the time in the world, and much I can do.
I am never quite sure if Amy is aware of my feelings for Erin. She went through a phase of being a total pain in the arse with insecurity, but now she doesn’t mention her much. Perhaps she doesn’t want to know.
When I got home that night, we ate the usual amazing dinner. My wife doesn’t work, so spends her days emulating the great works of her heroes: Nigella, Tony and Giorgio, Gordon, Jamie, et al, which is great, some of the time, but I do get a bit fed up with everything we eat having to be ‘deconstructed’ or ‘pan fried’
and drizzled with a caramelised cranberry jus, or whatever. When she describes something as ‘pan fried’ I want to kill her. It’s so moronic; I mean, what else would you fry something in, but a pan? Your shoe? And I wish she wouldn’t produce this restaurant-style fare for every single bloody meal. Sunday breakfast in our house isn’t bacon and eggs, it’s smoked mackerel and dill frittata with crème fraiche, garnished with fresh tarragon. Even a simple ham sandwich has to come in homemade sourdough bread with a mustard confit.
When I ask her what’s for dinner she reels the menu off like she’s on fucking Masterchef.
“What’s for dinner, dear?”
“Filet of Madagascan monkfish with goji berry gnocchi, saffron fondant potatoes and pan fried reindeer bollocks tossed in camel’s jism.”
I reckon I could give her that, too, and she’d rave over it, as long as I called the camel’s jism a ‘coulis’.
The only meal Erin ever made me was cheese on toast and Heinz tomato soup.
After I’d eaten the pan fried reindeer bollocks that night, I sprawled out on the sofa in front of the television pretending to watch something about spies in Warsaw (I think it might have actually been called Spies of Warsaw), and wondered how many people were married whilst being secretly in love with someone else.
Like me.
Like my father.
I made myself a promise to sort out Raine’s visit the very next day.
It proved impossible to get Mum and Kirsty out of the house together and for long enough—I suggested a spa day to them, and Kirsty said “why would I want to spend a day lying on a couch listening to Mum talking about soft furnishings while some idiot in a white coat covers me in green gunk?”—so Raine arranged to borrow her friend Dana’s flat, in Eltham. We chose a weekday simply because there would be fewer excuses to be made to Amy and Raine’s husband. I left for work at eight-thirty, as normal, and told Mum that the two of us were going out for the day, having a bit of father and son time. My biggest fear, as I was driving down from Norfolk to Hertfordshire, was that Dad would be having a bad day, but he was in super-switched-on mode, so near to his old self that the unaware would not have noticed the difference. He had on a black suit with a black shirt, what I used to call his gangster gear; I hadn’t seen him look that smart for a long time. I had to stay for a cup of coffee while Mum quizzed us about what we were going to do and told me, several times, not to let him drink too much, as if he wasn’t standing next to me. When he got into my car and put his seatbelt on he said, “You should have said, it’s okay, he doesn’t need to drink when he’s with Raine, it’s only you that drives him to it.”
We both laughed at that, but he was quiet for most of the journey to Dana’s flat.
The day was cold and dank, the sort when the pavements don’t dry up even when it stops raining. Dana lived on the ground floor of a big old Victorian house in a nice residential area. I’d texted Raine when we were ten minutes away; it was getting on for midday when we pulled into the driveway, and she was standing in the porch.
I turned off the engine and Dad drew in his breath sharply, touched my arm and said, “Thanks, son.”
I sat in the car as he got out; I looked at Raine and I saw her put her hand to her mouth, her eyes filled with emotion. Suddenly it hit me what a great reunion this was, and I remembered something else. When I first told her that Dad wanted to see her, she said ‘I’ve buried it’. Not ‘I’m over it’ or ‘I’ve moved on’. Big difference.
Anyway, her face crumpled up, and damn it if my eyes didn’t fill up, too. Dad stood there for a moment, his hand still on the car door handle, and then I watched him walk over to her, holding his arms out; she ran over to him and fell into them. Honestly, it was like something you’d see at the end of a film. If I’d been a woman I’d have been in floods. They just stood there kissing and smiling at each other, kept touching each other’s faces. I’d never seen anyone look so overjoyed to see anyone. I felt terribly intrusive, but I couldn’t drag my eyes away from the look on her face. I’d never found Raine particularly sexy (I prefer the wild and exotic, like Erin), and Dad was a fifty-six-year-old man with Alzheimer’s, but at that moment he looked every inch his rakish old self, and she looked beautiful. Less superhumanly immaculate than before, more normal; her hair was longer and she wore a belted raincoat and jeans.
I hated having to interrupt such a moment, but I couldn’t very well just drive away; then Raine looked over at me. They both looked lit up with happiness and I gave myself a mental pat on the back; I remembered Calais, when they’d spent three days grinning inanely at each other.
I got out of the car, and went over to them.
“Thank you,” she said, and gave me a hug, too, Dad still holding her hand.
“I’ll pick you up in—oh, about three hours, then, shall I?” I said to him.
“Make it four,” Raine said.
“Days,” said Dad, and we all laughed, which was nice; it lightened all that intense emotion.
“Sure. Well, you’ve got my number,” I said. “Otherwise I’ll be back at four o’clock, okay?”
I watched them walk back into the flat with their arms around each other and then I drove a little way down the road, pulled in, lit a cigarette and told the threatening tears to stay where the hell they were. I surprised myself. I’m not a tears kind of guy, as a rule. I tried to work out why I’d had this extreme reaction, and decided that it was sorrow over what was happening to Dad, sadness for him that he’d wasted precious years married to the wrong woman, but also sadness for myself because I was following in his footsteps. Maybe Erin would look at me like that if I fucked off for a couple of years; perhaps I ought to try it.
I got a grip and drove back into town. I didn’t know quite what to do with myself, so I went up to HQ and nosed around there for a bit, flirting with a couple of girls and generally getting in people’s way. Then I drove out to Woodville, past Lanchester Hall, and decided to go for a pint in the Ragged Staff. I had several games of pool with a couple of Woodville’s unemployed, drank another pint, ate a cheese roll to soak up the booze, and lost forty quid in the fruit machine. By that time it was twenty to four, so I sat in the car park, had a cigarette, and drove slowly back into town and Dana’s flat.
Raine answered the door. I was amused to see she had that look about her that women have when they’ve been in bed all afternoon; pale and washed out around the lips, woozy and flushed, messy hair at the back. I love that look. Good old Dad, I thought; I was glad he’d made the most of the four hours.
Raine looked as though there had been many tears (piggy eyes), but she was smiling, and when she led me into the living room I saw that Dad looked the most relaxed and at peace I’d seen him look since—well, since he broke up with her, I suppose.
“I don’t want to go yet,” he said to me, as Raine sat back down on the sofa next to him, curling herself into him. They both had bare feet. He put his arm around her and kissed the top of her head; it was very sweet.
“I’ll make myself scarce for a bit, shall I?” I said.
“Just give us another hour.”
So I went and drove into town, had a cup of coffee, spent a while flicking through Twitter on my phone, smoked two cigarettes, listened to some music and drove around a bit more, then I went back and walked through the side door to the back garden of the house. I could see them through the French doors in the back room where I’d left them, kissing and talking, their faces never more than an inch apart. Then he stood up and left the room; Raine saw me, and came out.
I lit up yet again. “What do you think?” I asked. “Did he seem much different to you? It’s hard for me to tell, because I see him all the time.”
“Mostly he was his old self,” she said, “just a bit vague. He asked me where we were a couple of times, he thought we were back in my old flat, and he couldn’t remember anything much about what he’s done since leaving Lanchesters, but—yes, he was fine.” She assumed a faraway look, and smiled to hers
elf. I’m guessing that side of things is still functioning okay, then, I thought.
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” I offered. “The illness as a whole, I mean.”
“Yes. It’s like—like part of him has died off. I can’t explain.”
“I know what you mean. That’s exactly what it is, really. But it wasn’t too difficult for you—you’re glad we made this happen?”
“Oh yes. Yes, yes.” A tear seeped out of her eye; she took a deep breath and shook her head as if trying to stop any more doing so. “I’m sorry, I’m sure I didn’t cry this much even when we broke up. It was just so great to be together again, I never thought we would be, I’d pushed it to the back of my mind, and I hate myself, too, because we could have had more time together—” She clenched her fist, pressed it against her mouth and swallowed hard. “I just wish I could—you know, be with him, make it better for him—” She stopped and put her hands on her hips, then bit her thumbnail, as if she didn’t know what to do with herself. Her face kept quivering as if she was about to cry again.
I wondered if her husband knew the depth of her feelings for my dad. Poor chap. Still, maybe she’d made marriage to her second choice work out better than I had.
“He’s not always as normal as this,” I said. “Sometimes he’s a pain in the arse and it’s going to get a lot, lot worse. He can’t even drive now, as he probably told you; I’d have to bring him to see you—we’d need a whole handbook full of alibis for Mum!” She laughed at that. “And if he had left Mum,” I said, “you’d probably have had to give up work by now, and that would just be the start of it. You’ll walk in one day and he won’t be telling you how much he loves you because he won’t know who you are.”
“I could have dealt with it.”
