Acquired Tastes (7 page)

She was small and slim and very pretty, with dark, lustrous skin. The curve of her cheeks and the perfection of her features reminded him of sculpture, an effect emphasised by her hair, which lay flat against her head in an intricate braided design. The faint musical lilt of her voice was a legacy of her Caribbean childhood. After the lecture, Jeremy made sure he was the first to congratulate her. With a little coaxing on his part, she accepted a glass of organic wine and despite the disparity in their backgrounds, they discovered they had a lot to talk about.

Belle lived in a housing estate in Stockwell, but did her gardening on an allotment several streets away from where Jeremy and Vanessa lived. He had taken to dropping by there at weekends to offer her vegetables and flowers from his garden, and they would sit and talk over cups of Celestial Seasonings herb tea. It was Belle's gentle but firm persuasion that had finally decided Jeremy to become a vegetarian. But while giving up flesh was one thing, getting up the courage to tell Vanessa had been another. Since by this time they rarely - if ever - sat down to a meal together, he was able to become a vegetarian without her noticing. However he knew he had to tell her sometime, but when?

One evening, after several large glasses of organic wine, he shouted the announcement of his conversion through the bathroom door as Vanessa was getting ready to go to yet another media party.

Just as he decided that she had not heard him and he was about to return thankfully to the kitchen, Vanessa's head wrapped in a towel appeared round the door.

'This is some kind of a joke, isn't it?'

'No. I've decided that on environmental and ethical grounds I must take a stand. I wish you'd think about it too Vee, I feel so much better, liberated even, since I've taken the decision.'

Under Belle's tutelage, he had acquired some new vocabulary.

Vanessa strode across the room, naked except for the towel on her head, her body pink and glowing from the bath. She rubbed her hair vigorously. 'Whose dumb idea is this? It sounds too idiotic even for those chinless wonders who you work with. Is it some kind of silly, schoolboy bet?'

Jeremy perched himself on the end of the bed and tried to be patient. He wanted Vanessa to understand and perhaps even to join him. They seemed to have so little in common these days.

'I don't think you understand Vee, killing animals for our gratification is wrong. If only you'd seen the documentary about factory farming the other night, you'd never touch another steak. Belle says … '

Vanessa whirled round, suddenly alert. 'Belle, who's Belle?'

'She's just someone I met at the gardening club,' Jeremy said defensively.

'Really?' Vanessa sounded disbelieving. She stood in front of him.

Nakedness made most people look vulnerable, but not Vanessa. Jeremy tried to avert his eyes but it was difficult.

'Tell me more about this Belle,' she demanded.

At that time there hadn't been anything to tell, but Vanessa did not believe him and so begun a period of questions and suspicion. Vanessa called him at work, often demanding to speak to him when he was meeting important clients just to prove he was there and not with Belle. She even prodded him awake in the middle of the night to question him about her.

At first he had tried to keep away from Belle, but Vanessa's pitiless interrogation finally drove him to the sanctuary of the allotments and Belle's little shed, where Belle comforted him while they drank some of her surprisingly strong, home-brewed beer.

Jeremy groaned and put his head in his hands at the memory. He had not intended to commit adultery, it just happened, and it was Vanessa's fault. She had gone on and on at him until he was almost at the point of madness.

The unmistakeable sound of a London black cab drawing up outside Vanessa’s flat made him look through his fingers. A familiar pair of legs got out of the cab and strode towards him.

'Well, if it isn't my long lost ex-husband,' Vanessa said mockingly.

Jeremy struggled stiffly to his feet.

Vanessa looked him up and down, shocked by the change in his appearance. He had lost a lot of weight, and his hair which had always been thick and floppy, now straggled long and lifeless, almost to his shoulders. The Jeremy she had known always wore Jermyn Street suits and shirts. Even at his most casual he wore cavalry twill trousers and a sports jacket. But the man standing awkwardly in front of her wore a scruffy T-shirt, filthy ripped jeans, and a pair of ancient trainers which in some past life, may have once been white.

She indicated the bulging carrier bags at Jeremy's feet. 'This is your audition for your new career as a bag-lady, I take it?'

Jeremy made a weak attempt at a smile. 'I'm sort of between homes at the moment.'

Vanessa raised an eyebrow. 'Really. And to what do I owe the pleasure of seeing you?'

'Would it be possible to speak inside?' Jeremy said, rubbing his buttocks, 'I arrived a bit early and your doorstep is a bit hard.' His jeans bagged about his thighs.

'I'll give you five minutes and that's it, so it had better be good,' Vanessa said crisply, putting her key in the lock.

Jeremy picked up his belongings and followed her inside.

'Leave those in the hall,' Vanessa commanded, 'I don't want you bringing anything unpleasant into my flat.'

Jeremy meekly put down his suitcase and bags and wiped his hands on his T-shirt, and his feet on the mat, before stepping into Vanessa's flat. He blinked and looked around. Every surface was white.

What had once been a grand, ornately decorated drawing room had been stripped of every cornice, fireplace, dado and architectural indulgence leaving flat, featureless walls. Only the floor offered any contrast and that was made of blond beech wood. There were no books, pictures or ornaments, none of the bric-a-brac of life to give a clue to the personality of the occupier.

Vanessa indicated a white leather sofa. Jeremy nervously wiped his hands on his T-shirt again and sat down, gingerly.

'Well?' demanded Vanessa, sitting in a white leather armchair opposite him and crossing her long legs.

Jeremy took a deep breath.

'I know we're divorced,' he began.

'Really? ' Vanessa raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. 'And whose fault is that?'

Jeremy looked at his hands. His finger nails were filthy. He tried to hide them. 'I didn't mean…' his voice faltered.

'Then perhaps you shouldn’t have screwed around with that woman.'

'But I didn't, at least I hadn't. Not when you said I had, and if you hadn't been so… so… well… perhaps I might not…'

'Are you trying to say
I
was responsible for you committing adultery?' demanded Vanessa.

Jeremy shrugged helplessly. He had never been any good at arguments.

Vanessa relaxed back into her chair. She was enjoying herself. 'Am I to assume from your current homeless state that you are no longer living with the right-on PC little Ms Belle?' Her voice was as light as a soufflé.

Jeremy's jaw twitched as he tried to control his emotions. 'She's found someone else,' he said at last.

'Did I hear you right? She's found someone else.' Vanessa's voice was shrilly triumphant. 'This definitely calls for a drink.'

She jumped to her feet and headed for the kitchen.

Jeremy stared at the ground, misery blurring his vision. He knew he should not have called Vanessa, but he had nowhere else to go. He'd spent the last week living in a cheap hotel near King's Cross, venturing out only to buy an occasional hamburger. But the other rooms in the hotel appeared to be rented by the hour, and the grunts and squeaks coming through the paper thin walls at every hour of the day and night had prevented him from sleeping. Although he would not have thought it possible, the sound effects had succeeded in making him feel even more wretched than he already did.

After a few days of this, he had finally got enough courage to go home and face his mother. However, when he telephoned her from a booth on King's Cross station, a contrite and repentant speech ready, his brother James had answered.

'Jeremy old boy, how are you?' his brother boomed in a voice loud enough to hear even over the station announcements. 'We were only talking about you at dinner last night. Mother still seems a trifle upset, but I must say, whatever the old girl thinks, I rather envy you. How's the little coloured gel?'

'She's okay, ' said Jeremy shortly, he didn’t like lying to his brother but neither did he want to explain anything to his brother. 'I was wondering James, is mother there?'

'Not at the moment, old boy. I've been left holding the fort. Mother and Lucinda have taken the boys out on a shopping spree, needed some new shoes or something, can't keep up with them. Are we going to see you? Lucinda and I are staying with Mother for a week or two to give the boys a chance to do the museums in South Ken. Lucinda says she's turning into a country bumpkin and needs a bit of culture so it suits her too. Can’t say I like London myself, too many damn people and most of them foreign, especially in South Ken.'

Jeremy was silent. If his brother and his family were staying with his mother, there was no way he could face them all. He didn't know which would be worse, Henrietta's anger or Lucinda's solicitous little talks.

'You still there, old boy?' demanded James, 'sounds like you're calling from Grand Central Station. By the way, Mother said something about you leaving the bank and setting up a sandwich business, but she must have got the wrong end of the proverbial stick, she is getting on a bit …'

'Give my regards to everyone, must dash,' Jeremy slammed the receiver down. James would be aghast if he knew what had happened and right at that moment, he did not want any hearty older brother lectures on how he should sort himself out and no doubt 'bite the bullet' and other such platitudes.

He looked up as Vanessa came back into the room. She thrust a glass of whisky and soda into his hand before settling down again in the armchair across from him. 'So tell me, what happened? I thought you and she had found bliss running that silly little sandwich bar.'

Jeremy's chin went up. 'Actually, it was a whole new concept in vegetarian fast food. Belle and I had plans to turn it into a franchise operation with a branch in every high street in the country.'

'But you didn't get any further than Peckham, did you?'

Jeremy miserably shook his head.

'So your girlfriend’s thrown you out and you’ve got nowhere to go - is that the gist of it?' demanded Vanessa.

Jeremy drained the whisky in his glass before replying, it burned his empty stomach. 'I was wondering -
hoping
- that perhaps - for old times' sake - you might let me stay here, just until I get back on my feet again.'

Vanessa snorted. 'I'm not sure we have any old times' sake, Jeremy, and tell me something, why haven't you gone back to your darling mother? I'm sure Henrietta would clutch you to her loving bosom, or has she seen through you, too? I'd love to have seen her face when you introduced her to that Belle woman. She probably wished you were back with me.'

Jeremy looked at his empty glass. For once Vanessa was right about his mother. When he had announced that he was leaving his job at the bank to live with Belle, she had told him to leave the house. Women had a habit of doing that to him - first Vanessa, then his mother and now Belle. What was he doing wrong?

'All I'm asking…' Jeremy fought to control his voice, 'is for somewhere to stay just for a few days. That's not too much to ask, is it? I gave you the house and everything else you wanted when we divorced.'

He kept his eyes fixed on the floor. He couldn't look at Vanessa although he could sense her triumph at his humiliation.

Vanessa got up. He could see her feet walking towards him and then her hand took his glass.

'Jeremy dearest, there's an old saying: to the victor the spoils. There ain't no dignity in losing. Now, if you'd let yourself out, I have to get ready for a dinner date.'

'Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.'

Alicia sighed.

It was the first line of one of her favourite novels:
The Portrait of a Lady
by Henry James, and a sentence of such elegant simplicity, its sentiments so in accord with her own, it seemed to distil the essence of an age in which, despite all its iniquities, she had always instinctively felt she would have been more at ease.

From the moment she had read the first page of her first Jane Austen novel when she was twelve, Alicia felt at home, and the novels of Austen and James, Elizabeth Gaskell and Anthony Trollope, provided both a refuge and a means of escape during her years at St Aloysius. She discovered secret corners of the boiler room and the games changing rooms where she could curl up and read undisturbed in the evenings and at weekends. It was a practice frowned upon by the nuns, who considered any activity done in solitude to be suspect, but it was one of Alicia's few acts of disobedience. If they read at all, the other girls in her year read novels by Georgette Heyer, while the more daring, including Vanessa, favoured racy paperbacks which were smuggled in and wrapped in brown paper to disguise their lurid covers, before being passed around.

Alicia's love of books had translated into a degree in English Literature, and now earned her a living as a lecturer at Heartlands University. She had of course specialised in nineteenth-century literature, and, in her own quiet way, had begun to make a name for herself in academic circles. Quite a few of her papers had been accepted for publication in some of the more prestigious journals, provoking correspondence from interested academics as far afield as Tokyo and Tasmania. Her latest paper was about the significance of food as ritual in the nineteenth century novel. Alicia's favourite meals were breakfast and tea, and it was her thesis that the ritual enshrined in the taking of these two meals had been an essential part of the social cohesion of nineteenth-century life. By contrast, the invention of the instant breakfast cereal and the tea bag symbolised the breakdown of social cohesion in the late twentieth century. Neither product would ever be found in her kitchen.