A Most Desirable Marriage (6 page)

‘Swedish Brian just slipped I think, too drunk to stand up straight. The other one was being polite.’

‘Men don’t kiss women out of politeness.’ She wiped her hands on her apron.

‘I’m sure they do sometimes. Anyway, it was depressing.’

‘Why? Didn’t you fancy him?’

‘I didn’t, but it’s not that. He was a decent man but . . . he wasn’t Lawrence.’ She felt tears in her eyes. ‘How do I ever replace him, Donna?’

Her friend sighed. ‘Wish I knew, darling.’ She got up from the stool and opened the door for Max, who was outside snuffling to get in. The Border Terrier immediately came over to Jo, licking her hand and jumping up to be patted.

‘Hey Maxy,’ Jo took the little face in her hands and stared into his pansy eyes. ‘Tell me the secret . . . go on, I’m sure you know.’ The dog wriggled out of her grasp. She looked up at Donna. ‘I just wonder how he can love me for so long, and then suddenly not love me at all. I’ve tried to do the same, but it’s not working.’

‘I’m sure he does still love you.’

‘That’s even more stupid then.’

‘If you were in the grip of a sexual passion, you’d probably forget him . . . certainly in the short term.’

Jo growled with frustration. ‘Yes, but how do you get in the grip? That’s what I want to know. I mean I’m sure having it off with Hugh or Brian wouldn’t be horrible exactly . . . but passion? One so huge it’ll make me forget Lawrence? How likely is that?’

Donna shook her head from side to side, considering. ‘You just never know. I had a friend once who—’

‘Don’t tell me . . . she was eighty and bonked the milkman every minute of every day until she died.’

Her friend chuckled. ‘Close . . .’

‘It’s OK for you. You don’t want commitment. You scarper at the first whiff of love. I’m not like that.’

Donna was silent for a moment. ‘I suppose I am happier on my own. I mean Walter and I rubbed along fine, but even in the early years I had a wandering eye. Don’t know what it is, but the thought of being like you and Lawrence – faithful for hundreds of years – makes me positively nervous.’

‘That didn’t work out so well though, did it . . . for me and Lawrence.’

‘For nearly forty years it did.’

‘And you’re not scared, as you get older, that you’ll run out of men to have affairs with and end up totally alone?’

‘Losing my sexuality scares me stiff. But I don’t see how having a permanent partner would solve that. I’d just be stuck with someone who only makes love to me because I’m there.
And
he’d probably expect me to cook his meals and wash his smalls.’

Donna picked up Jo’s mug and her own and went over to the windowsill to make a fresh pot of coffee.

‘I took him for granted,’ Jo muttered, suddenly and painfully struck by the sheer comfort of being Lawrence’s wife. Of going out with him to social events, of knowing he would be home in the evening and she could tell him, over a glass of wine, all the things – be they thoughts or actual events, either trivial or vitally important – that had happened during the day. Of knowing there was someone there who was always on her side, who would actually listen when she told him a boring story about delays on the Central Line. Of waking in the night, worrying, and being able to get a cuddle and some common sense. Of sex with a person who knew her body as if it were his own. And unlike Donna, she enjoyed cooking for Lawrence, didn’t resent washing his socks, although she drew the line at ironing his shirts. She wasn’t pretending it was perfect, but the comfort was intrinsic, aside from the usual ups and downs of married life. No passion she was ever likely to enjoy in the future would wipe this from her memory.

Her friend’s expression was weary. ‘Darling, listen. What’s gone is gone. You have to try and move on. There are probably hundreds of men out there who think as you do, who want real commitment. You just have to look.’

But it was the thought of the looking that Jo found so depressing.

*

‘Mum, I’ve got a job!’ Nicky’s voice was buzzing with excitement. ‘I’m round the corner . . . can I come over?’

‘Of course. What is it? What’s the job?’

‘I’ll tell you when I get there. Be about ten. Bye.’

Jo was sitting at her computer looking unenthusiastically at the list of publishers Maggie was suggesting. She didn’t want to move, she liked the publisher she was with; they’d done a good job for her. But could she afford to write the book for so little? Maybe I should find a proper job, something that pays me regularly, she thought. It had never been an issue before, with Lawrence basically supporting her writing, then money coming in from
Bumble and Me
. But what could she do? Trained at the BBC, she had written and directed
Play School
and other children’s programmes until she was in her forties, when the commissions dried up. But she wouldn’t be welcome at the BBC – or anywhere else – at her age. She was glad when Nicky interrupted her gloomy reflections.

‘So . . .’ Her handsome son stood in front of her, his hands held out expressively towards her. ‘Jimmy just called. It’s a play at the Bush, starting next week. Not a big part, but I’m the friend of the main character, who’s an alien who makes close relationships with me and a girl, but we don’t know he’s an alien, and it all goes pear-shaped.’ Nicky paused for breath, his eyes bright with excitement. ‘Jimmy says it’s about how much you can really know someone. The writer is this poet guy who sounds a bit bonkers, Jimmy says, but I don’t give a toss. It’s the
Bush
, Mum! Like, everyone who’s anyone in the theatre sees stuff at the Bush. It is
the
actors’ theatre.’

‘That’s brilliant, darling.’

‘And . . . and, wait for it. Guess who got the part of the alien?’

Jo barely had time to shake her head, when Nicky burst out, ‘Travis . . . Travis Rey!’

Jo wracked her brain. She never got used to her children’s assumption that she could recall every inch of their life with perfect clarity. And if she failed to, they would look dismayed, shocked that these people, events, schedules didn’t hold equal significance for her and the rest of the world. Luckily she managed to recall who Travis was.

‘Umm . . . American Travis from drama school?’

Nicky nodded approvingly. ‘Didn’t even know he was back in town. God, we had such a laugh at the audition. Neither of us thought we had a hope in hell. But he just did a New York fringe gig that got him standout reviews. And they made us do a scene together, so perhaps our chemistry clinched it.’

Jo did remember Travis from Nicky’s days at LAMDA. Being in west London, Nicky had often brought his friends back for supper, the kitchen suddenly full of these charming, often beautiful, endearingly show-off drama students who took over the evening with their lively banter. Travis stood out among the butterfly crowd not only because he was American and mixed-race, but because he was always quieter, less talkative than the others.

‘God, Mum . . . this could be a real chance. A couple of mentions, that’s all it takes.’ He grabbed her and twirled her round, his energy and excitement barely contained.

Jo made Nicky a sandwich and they sat on the terrace while he told her about the play. It was scheduled to run for six weeks, with a three-week rehearsal period.

‘So have you seen Dad?’ she asked when discussion about the play was exhausted.

‘Nope. But I’ve talked to him a couple of times, OK?’ Nicky sounded defensive.

‘Cassie hasn’t even done that . . . at least she hadn’t when I rang last week.’

‘Mum . . . not being rude, but you shouldn’t get involved with us and Dad. He’s made his decision.’

‘I know. But—’

‘But he’s our dad and we should keep in touch. We’ll regret it if we don’t, blah, blah . . . we have heard you.’

Her son was biting his top lip, an age-old sign of irritation.

‘I’m not doing it on his behalf,’ Jo insisted, although this was not strictly true, ‘I just know how easy it is to lose touch with people . . . let resentments build up till it’s hard to go back.’ And she did know; she’d done it with her own father. Unlike Lawrence, and admittedly without the ease of mobile phone communication, Gerald Hamilton had barely made the effort to keep in touch after he left them the day before Jo’s fifteenth birthday. She understood better now how hard the terrible incident – and the gossip surrounding it – that drove him away must have been for a man of such rigid probity. But she was not to blame for any of it, although she was never sure that her father saw it that way. He had always lumped Jo and her mother together disdainfully as ‘women’. Not people, not his daughter and his wife, just members of a sex for which he had little respect.

And when he made grudging contact with her in the ensuing years it was strained and unsatisfactory; Jo dreaded seeing him. They would invariably meet at the Hilton Hotel, Paddington – because Gerald’s train to Gloucester went from that station – and sit opposite each other with tea in a white china pot on the table between them for exactly one excruciating hour, during which time he quizzed her about the mechanics of her life, never about how she actually was. Then as soon as the hour was up, he would look at his watch, tell her his train was about to leave, and bid a formal goodbye, the look on his face one of absolute relief that it was over.

He was still alive, as far as Jo knew – she hadn’t heard that he wasn’t – still living in a seaside flat in Ramsgate, but she hadn’t seen him since the last terrible visit four years ago. The thought that she should make the effort often pricked her conscience, but the powerful reluctance that followed the thought meant she never did anything about it. And despite what she advised the children, she didn’t regret losing touch. But Lawrence had been a good father, hers had not.

‘I know, but you just have to trust me and Cass on this one.’

She smiled. ‘I do.’

‘No you don’t. You think we’re both still five.’

Nicky was silent, pressing his index finger on to the crumbs from his sandwich and eating them until his plate was tidy. ‘It’d just be gross to have to be polite to Arkadius.’

‘You can tell Dad that.’

‘It’s not because he’s a man . . .’ Nicky went on, as if she hadn’t spoken, ‘I wouldn’t want to meet
anyone
Dad was having sex with. It’s different for Cass. You know she’s totally not prejudiced in any way, but the man thing really freaks her out. And it freaks her out that it freaks her out. She can’t get her head around it.’

Jo watched her son’s troubled expression and cursed Lawrence. How dare he be so bloody, bloody selfish?

Her son raised his head. ‘Tell me how
you’re
doing, Mum.’

She smiled. ‘OK . . . you know . . . I miss him, I can’t help it. But I’m trying to get on with my life.’ She heard Donna’s exhortation to ‘move on’ ringing in her ears. This was what everyone wanted her to do, because they couldn’t help, couldn’t do a single thing to change her sad, stuck, lonely situation. It was making them feel bad as well.

‘That’s good,’ Nicky said, obviously wanting it to be true.

Jo felt the first drops of rain, which the overcast day had been threatening since dawn. They both got up.

‘Uh, Mum? Just a thought . . . say if it’s a bad idea . . . but Travis is looking for somewhere to stay while he’s doing the play. He had a flat share set up but it’s fallen through he says. I wondered . . . how would you feel about him staying here?’

‘Here?’ Jo echoed, alarmed.

‘I haven’t asked him or anything,’ Nicky said quickly. ‘He’d pay, obviously, and it’d be a good use of my room.’

Was her son trying to protect her from loneliness?

‘I’m fine on my own,’ she said.

‘I know, Mum. This isn’t a set up. No pressure if you hate the thought. As I said, I haven’t mentioned it to him.’

As Nicky prepared to go, Jo considered the proposition. It would make sense financially, of course, but how would she feel having a virtual stranger in her home? Her isolation was a precious protection, a shield against reality. At some stage I’ll have to meet the challenge of the rest of my life, she thought wearily, or sink into something a lot more scary.

‘I could bring him round for supper . . . so you could meet him properly?’ Nicky was suggesting.

She took a deep breath. ‘OK . . . yes, why not? But don’t say anything to him yet. Promise?’

As soon as her son had gone, she regretted her decision. I can still change my mind, she told herself.

19 August 2013

Jo had insisted Lawrence meet her in a café on Holland Park if he needed to talk. She didn’t want him in the house again because his real presence activated the ghost presence she was trying to dispel, and each time he turned up she had to start all over again.

She deliberately got there late. This wasn’t easy for someone so neurotically punctual, but she hated the idea of him seeing her sitting alone at a table waiting for him.

Instead, she caught sight of him before he realized she was there, and viewed him almost as a stranger. He looked tense, hunched over his coffee, gazing at the screen of his phone. He jumped up as soon as he spotted her and held out a chair for her to sit down. They didn’t embrace.

‘How’s it going?’ he asked, as he might a friend over whose life he held no sway.

She couldn’t work out how to answer, whether to take the banshee route: ‘How do you bloody think it’s going?’ Or to appear cool and unfazed by her new life. Before she had made a decision, he was asking, ‘Do you want a coffee?’

‘Please . . . cappuccino.’

He looked surprised, as she had intended he should – small triumph. She’d drunk milky lattes for as long as there had been the choice in London cafés.

‘Too much milk,’ she explained and he nodded.

When they both had their drinks – his another large black coffee – she watched him take a deep breath. She knew exactly what he was going to say.

‘Jo . . . we need to talk about finances.’ He wriggled with discomfort. ‘As you know, I have to move out of Martin’s flat by the middle of September. And obviously I can rent somewhere in the short term . . . but . . . but I don’t have the resources . . . not when I’m giving you money as well, to afford anywhere for long . . . not now I’m living off my pension.’

‘So you’ve decided to jack in the affair and come home?’ She adopted her most innocent expression, but she couldn’t help smiling at the shock on his face. ‘Joke,’ she added softly.

‘Please, this is hard enough without you taking the piss,’ he snapped. Then he looked immediately contrite. ‘Sorry . . . it’s just I’m under a lot of pressure at the moment.’

‘Are you?’

He looked at her suspiciously, but this time her query had been genuine.

‘Why?’ she prompted when he didn’t answer. ‘I thought now you’d retired you’d be shot of all the stress.’

‘I can’t really talk about it . . . it’s not fair on you. But money is certainly a part. And the children.’

She was intrigued. Money and the children were “a part”? Did this mean Arkadius was playing up already?

‘So you want to sell the house.’

He seemed caught off guard by her bluntness. ‘Well, yes . . . I don’t see we have a choice.’

Despite her bravado, Jo’s gut churned as she faced the prospect. Her beloved house . . .
their
beloved house, witness to their love, their life, their children’s childhood. The first time they’d seen it, they’d both known. It was a wreck, and the wrong end of town – Shepherd’s Bush wasn’t trendy back then. But Lawrence had looked at her, raised his eyebrows ever so slightly, and she had just smiled. The day they got the keys, they had perched side by side on the scabby kitchen work-surface – soon to be ripped out – swinging their legs like children as they gulped sparkling wine from two paper cups and toasted their future.

‘It should sell well, especially if we catch the autumn market. We’ve paid off the mortgage, so there’ll be plenty to divvy up . . . we’ll both be able to get a decent place.’ He paused in his clearly rehearsed spiel, his eyes meeting hers with reluctance. ‘I mean we probably would have downsized in the next few years anyway. It’s an expensive house to run and with the children gone we don’t need all that space . . . we wouldn’t have . . .’

‘OK.’

‘OK? So you’re all right with it?’

‘Yes.’

He stared at her, waiting, perhaps, for her to really understand what he was telling her. But she’d been expecting this. She had steeled herself. And she knew it was the only way for her to stop worrying about money too. Yes, she could make it really hard for him – which, insultingly, he seemed to expect – but right now she didn’t have the stomach for a fight.

‘I’ll get on to a couple of estate agents, see what they value it at. Do you have a preference?’

He looked nonplussed. ‘For what?’

‘Estate agents, Lawrence. Do you want me to use anyone in particular?’

‘I hadn’t really thought—’

‘No, well,’ she interrupted him. ‘I’ll find some.’

‘That’s great,’ he said, his voice leaden.

‘If that’s all you wanted to talk about?’ She drank the last of the horrible cappuccino, which was far too strong and would probably keep her awake till she was ninety, and pulled her bag up from the floor.

‘I suppose . . . yes.’

He seemed oddly reluctant to let her go. Did he honestly expect her to sit and shoot the breeze about the weather and the price of tea? More likely he wanted a self-pitying moan about the children, which she was not prepared to countenance.

‘OK, well, I’d better get back.’ She got up. ‘I’ll email you a list of agents.’

‘Right. Thanks, Jo . . . and thanks for being so understanding.’

God, she thought, swallowing the bile that had suddenly risen in her throat. There he was, almost home free, and the idiot had to ruin it.

‘ “Understanding”?’ Her voice rose a couple of octaves. ‘You think I’m being
understanding
?’

Lawrence’s eyes widened.

‘The only thing I understand is that you’re a selfish . . . pathetic . . . transgressive . . . moron.’ She spoke quietly, very slowly, enunciating each word, which, despite her rage, she’d chosen with care. Then she turned on her heel and flounced out of the café.

*

‘Matt’s being a pain.’ Cassie’s voice sounded tired.

‘Oh, dear. Can you talk?’

‘Yes, he’s gone . . . taken Moby to the abattoir.’

‘No! You’re really going to
eat
Moby?’

‘Well, yeah Mum. As my dear husband keeps reminding me, that’s the point of keeping pigs. You feed them up and then you eat them. And in our case, barter them. Amazing what you can get for a few free-range, rare breed pork chops.’

‘He just seemed more like a pet to me,’ Jo said, remembering his black eyes peering up at her from the pen.

‘That’s what we’ve been fighting about for the past few days. Matt thinks I’m a wet townie for getting sentimental when I knew he would have to go one day. I tell you, there’s no way on this earth I’ll let one morsel of Moby’s flesh pass my lips.’

‘Nor me. We’re hypocrites though. I, for one, am quite happy to eat someone else’s Moby.’

She heard her daughter sigh. ‘I suppose. But Moby
was
more of a pet to me. Matt’s always out doing something. The pig was my only friend.’ Cassie gave a soft laugh. ‘He was such an escape artist, I spent most of the time chasing him in the woods.’

‘Are you saying you’re lonely, darling?’

‘No . . . not really. But it’s hard, Mum. I know we both make out everything’s idyllic here, and in most respects it is . . . but just the daily slog of not being able to access normal things, like a packet of frozen peas for instance . . . can get fucking boring sometimes – you’ve said it a million times, I know. Especially when I can’t say anything to Matt without him rolling his eyes like I’m a total loser for not appreciating his precious Eden.’

‘It’s not fair on you.’

‘I think it would be OK if he’d just acknowledge that it
is
difficult sometimes. It’s his obsession that everything has to be perfect all the time that drives me mad.’

‘Could you get a job locally? Something to get you out of the house?’

‘Doing what?’

‘I don’t know . . . maybe you could work for the local paper . . . environmental articles or something?’

‘Yeah . . . not very likely.’

‘Why not? You’re a journalist. You have stuff you can show them. I’d have thought they’d be gagging for someone with your experience.’

‘I did reviews and the odd article for
NME
, Mum. Not sure working for a trendy music rag’ll cut the mustard with a rural weekly mostly concerned with pot holes in the road.’

‘Worth a try?’

‘I don’t know . . . I’ll speak to Matt.’

There was silence between them for a moment. Jo wanted to scream at her daughter that Matt didn’t own her, that it wasn’t up to him whether she worked or not. But she knew that would be incendiary talk. She just worried that her feisty daughter was losing her independence, being subsumed by her husband’s wilful zeal.

‘Take a break, come up for a few days,’ Jo suggested. ‘I’d love to see you.’

‘I’d love to see you too. But I can’t . . . there’s so much to do at the moment, I can’t leave Matt with it all. He’s getting two more piglets . . . he says you’ve got to have more than one because pigs need company. We shouldn’t have left Moby alone apparently. He’s picking them up on the way back from the abattoir so as to make the best use of the borrowed truck.’

‘OK . . . well, you know you’re always welcome.’

‘Thanks, Mum. Love you.’

‘Love you too, darling.’

*

Travis Rey seemed to have grown into himself since she’d last seen him. Jo realized he must be fortyish by now – he’d come late to drama school – and he had filled out. His six-foot frame, which he held with poise, was chunky and muscled. He wasn’t regularly handsome, but his face had a quiet charisma, it drew the eye with its light gold skin and large, dark eyes, straight nose and engaging grin. Travis had dyed his hair blond recently – perhaps for some part – and it was growing out, the tips bleached white by the sun, giving him the strange look of a Renaissance saint, the ones with a halo attached to the back of their head.

‘Beer?’ Nicky asked his friend, reaching for the six-pack he’d brought along.

‘Thanks, that’d be good.’ Travis held the bottle by the neck, swinging it to and fro by his side.

Jo was putting the finishing touches to the supper, frying brown bread croutons in garlic olive oil for the Caesar salad.

‘Anything I can do, Mum?’

‘Umm . . . no, I think it’s under control.’ She tipped the croutons on to a paper towel to drain and began tossing the salad in the dressing, then sprinkled parmesan shavings and finally the croutons on top. ‘If you could take this outside,’ she handed Nicky the salad bowl, ‘and I’ll bring the chicken.’ She hadn’t known what to cook. It was so long since she had made a meal for more than just herself, she felt almost nervous presenting the food.

‘These too?’ Travis had picked up the salt and pepper mills and some blue-and-white cotton napkins from the worktop.

‘Oh, yes, please.’

She realized it wasn’t that warm once she’d sat down at the wrought iron table. But the men seemed fine, even though both were in T-shirts, so she didn’t suggest they move. There was a pause as they all settled, and she detected a slight tension between them, perhaps based on Nicky telling his friend something along the lines of ‘You don’t know, I didn’t say a
word
, remember? But I’m sure Mum’ll go for it if she likes you.’

‘Nicky said you plan to stay over here for a while . . . after the play?’ Jo felt compelled to fill the awkward silence. ‘By the way, congratulations on that.’

Travis grinned his lopsided smile. ‘Yeah, uh, thanks . . . I kinda like it here.’

‘I hear you had quite a success in New York with a play?’

The American glanced at his friend. ‘It was an off-off-Broadway, so not the big time, but yeah, I got a bit of heat.’

‘Great.’ Jo wished her son would contribute a bit more instead of sitting there hunched over his drink. It was going to be a long evening.

‘But I’m back and forth across the pond,’ Travis was saying. ‘Like a tart I go where the money is.’

‘Not true,’ Nicky laughed. ‘You go where the part is. If you were after money you’d camp out at the gates of Warner Bros and wait to be discovered.’

‘Wouldn’t take long,’ Jo observed, almost to herself, then was embarrassed when Travis caught her glance.

‘I love British theatre. Best in the world. If I could get stuff here . . .’

‘But neither of us’d say no to a starring role in a film or a mini-series, right?’

Travis laughed. ‘Right.’

Jo handed round the sliced roast chicken, the salad and poured herself a glass of white wine. Nicky had lit the two fat red candles on the table, which competed with the glow from the open kitchen door.

For a while they talked about theatre. Jo and Lawrence had been avid theatre goers, although she realized their trips had fallen off in the months before he left. The last play they’d seen had been a new one, a two-hander in the West End, months ago. They’d both hated it, despite all their friends saying it was a must-see. In the interval, she remembered, they had stood sipping their drinks in the crowded bar.

‘Not sure I can take much more,’ Jo whispered.

‘Do you think something incredible happens in the second half?’ Lawrence asked.

‘Maybe, but do we care?’

‘It’s had such brilliant reviews . . .’

Jo pulled a face and for a moment they both hesitated. They very rarely walked out of a show, not least because the tickets cost so much.

‘Sure?’ he asked.

‘I am. Are you?’

He nodded. Without another word they knocked back their wine, put their glasses down on the varnished wooden ledge against the wall, and swiftly made for the exit. By the time they reached the street they were giggling like guilty school kids bunking off.

Now she felt dull and inadequate as the conversation between the two men sparked back and forth, each with strong opinions about recent productions, although she noticed Travis took a more generous view of some of his peers – Nicky’s appraisals could be excoriating.

‘I’ve got to catch up,’ she said. ‘Make the effort.’

‘Mom took a long time getting her life together after Dad passed. It must be hard for you right now.’ She saw alarm flash across Nicky’s face and assumed a surreptitious kick under the table.

‘Thanks, Travis, but it’s not the same. Lawrence isn’t remotely dead.’ Quite the reverse. He was very much alive – in love, damn him – even the burden of work removed from his shoulders. ‘No point in pretending it hasn’t happened,’ she added, addressing her son’s unease.