Busy Woman Seeks Wife (15 page)

“What is it?” she coaxed, reaching out—with both arms, he noticed—to smooth imaginary fluff off his shirt. “Are you bored?
Would you like to move on to the Globe?”

He shook his head vehemently. “No, no! I’m fine here as long as you are. It’s just… well, I haven’t been up for any decent
parts for ages and I feel as if things are passing me by a bit…” Frankie trailed off and looked over the Bean’s shoulder
into the distant corners of the huge hall. He couldn’t meet her eyes. There he was, a loser in a world where she had been
one of the greatest winners of her time.

“But look at you!” she said indignantly, stepping backward. “You’re young, talented, fabulously good-looking… yes, you
are, darling. London should be at your feet. I believe in you, Frankie, I do. And I’m never wrong.”

Frankie shook his head, almost irritated at the gulf of misunderstanding. She had no idea about his life, or his talent, come
to that. “Bean, it’s very sweet of you,” he sighed. “And I do appreciate the fact that you want to make me feel better, but
you don’t really know the first thing about my life. You really don’t know how spectacularly uneventful my career has been
to date. You say I’m talented, but really, what have you seen me do? Make tea? Drive you to the shops and back? Do the sodding
washing and change sheets?” He stopped and frowned. Bloody Todd.

The Bean looked at him steadily for a moment. Not one of her flirtatious glances, nor the teasing look she would sometimes
throw when she’d said something outrageous and was waiting for a reaction. She caught his eyes and stared at him, weighing
him up carefully. It was an unnerving experience and Frankie was struck for the first time by the similarity between the Bean
and Alex, who had searched his face in exactly the same way at that disastrous interview. He hoped he was doing better this
time. At last she spoke.

“My darling boy.” She reached up to grasp his shoulders, and her voice was low and steady. “This is exactly the moment your
training has prepared you for. The moment when you feel nothing is going right but when you must act as if you are on top
of the world. This is the moment to show what you’re made of! You’re going to call that agent of yours and demand she pull
her finger out. Tell you what. Sod the Globe! It’ll be there tomorrow. Let’s go home. I’m going to make some calls. If I can’t
double the number of auditions you’ve had in the last month, I’ll treat you to lunch at the Ivy. Then we’re going to get you
ready to do battle—and you’re going to win!” Without even waiting for a response, she marched off up the long slope towards
the main entrance, where the sunny South Bank was waiting for them. Trying to quell his unease, Frankie followed in her wake.
Double his auditions? What was two times zero?

Back at the flat, the Bean disappeared into her room with her battered address book. She’d been too preoccupied to talk much
in the car and Frankie hadn’t wanted to ask what she had in mind. Whatever it was, it certainly couldn’t make things worse.
He just didn’t want to look like a prat. And, he had to admit, she hadn’t looked this enthusiastic about anything since he’d
met her. She hadn’t even asked if it was time for
Countdown
or paused to flick through one of the awful gossip magazines she was always buying when they were out. He went to prepare
her a snack. If it kept the Bean happy, he’d go along with it.

Later that afternoon, all his other tasks completed, Frankie finally went into Alex’s room. She’d given up all pretense of
being efficient now and obviously felt quite comfortable with the fact that he would put away her clean laundry. She was like
a ghost, everywhere but never there, apart from her little notes and a basket of dirty laundry. How would Alex feel if she
knew a man she didn’t even know had bought her tampons last week? What would she say if she knew he had ironed her T-shirts
and folded her sensible cotton knickers and bras into neat piles?

Frankie shrugged and stripped the bed. No use wasting time thinking about that now. He had work to do. There was no reason
on earth why Alex should ever find out how intimately he knew her now. The Bean was almost well enough to go home and soon
the whole charade could end. Frankie shook out the pajamas under the pillow and caught the now familiar scent of Alex’s skin—clean,
warm and a little bit soapy. He folded them carefully and laid them on the chair while he stripped the bed of its white cotton
sheets.

S
aff glanced at the clock as she slammed the pan drawer. Max was late. Usually he’d ring her if he was going to be this late.

“Come on,” she chivvied Oscar, who was lying out on the sofa watching
The Simpsons.
“Clarinet practice then bed.”

The boy groaned. “Why? Clarinet is lame.”

“Because you need to practice.” She pulled him gently by the legs and puffed up the cushion behind him. He seemed so long
now, taking up almost all of the sofa. How had that happened without her noticing? Perhaps he grew in the night like Jack’s
beanstalk. Where was Max?

“But, Mum, it’s sooo boring, and Mr. Tredington is an idiot, and anyway I know my scales.”

“But your pieces are not so great, Oscar,” she bit with an aggression that surprised her. “And you are going to look like
the idiot in the exam if you don’t get them right.”

“Who cares?” He unfolded himself and stood up, his body slouched sulkily. “I wish I played something cool like the drums.
Ricky plays the drums and everyone says he’s cool.”

“Well you don’t and you
should
care. It shouldn’t always be me who has to get you to do things.”

“Why not? You don’t do anything else all day.”

Saff felt as though she had been slapped, and stood there, tea towel hanging limply in her hand, as Oscar pushed past her,
deliberately banging against her arm. She knew she should have pulled him up and explained very clearly how she spent her
time caring for his dad and him and Millie, and how she cleaned and cooked for them, and made their rooms nice, and organized
their busy lives. But somehow she couldn’t get a word out.

Back in the kitchen she cast about for something to busy herself with, half an ear listening out for Oscar’s very halfhearted
attempts at his second-grade pieces. She’d show him. She folded the tea towel and hung it neatly next to the other matching
ones on the bar by the oven, and picked up a windup snail Millie had left on the table. Then she rearranged the fruit in the
fruit bowl. But that was it really. There was nothing else to do. The dishwasher hummed in the corner, cleaning the plates
from supper, the little ironing there had been to do was airing upstairs. The schoolbags for tomorrow were ready, reading
diaries signed and snacks prepared, and Millie’s school summer skirt was drying on the rack. Saff drummed her fingers on the
table, spun around, turned off the light and headed upstairs to talk to Millie in the bath.

The bath, though full of water, was empty now except for some lingering bubbles, a washcloth and a bath toy floating about
disconsolately. Millie’s towel was folded neatly on the towel bar and the little girl herself was laid out on her bedroom
floor, pajamaed, and plugged into a Jacqueline Wilson story on tape as she colored in a picture. Saff picked up a cardigan
that had been left on the floor and hung it over her chair, then wandered into her own bedroom. The warmth of the day had
cooled now and she shut the window and ran her hands over the bedspread to smooth out nonexistent creases. The room smelled
of a mixture of her perfume and polish from when she’d cleaned it earlier.

She sat down on the bed, then lay back staring at the ceiling. She loved this room, with its Colefax prints of pink roses
and her little boudoir chair in deep pink linen. She turned her head and she could see her beloved dressing table, a present
from her grandmother, and on top pictures of the children as babies, Oscar smiling toothlessly, and next to it a picture of
Max on their wedding day, his face wreathed in smiles looking right at the camera and right at her now. He had more hair then,
and looked so young. Odd to have a picture of him on her dressing table when he slept here every night, but the expression
on his face had so much hope in it that she’d kept it there. He’d been a producer at the BBC then, and he’d gone on about
how he intended to make really important programs that would win awards, and she’d be beside him. There’d be no question.

The scales had stopped now but she hadn’t the energy to go down and crack the whip again. She turned to look up at the ceiling.
She had been there always, ready to listen to Max’s ideas, and watching with pride when he and his mate Neil set up Offcut,
the strident production company that in six years had managed to achieve a clutch of awards and some considerable clout in
the business. “You don’t do anything else all day.” The words stung, but why? Because she knew she didn’t. She knew she’d
justified everything in terms of being everyone else’s support, there to provide the essential elements that kept life ticking
over. And everyone else was having the fun.

“All right for some.”

Saff turned her head sharply at his voice and sat up. “Hello, you’re late.”

Max rubbed a hand over his face wearily, then sat on the edge of the bed beside her. “I had lunch with Greta Dunant to go
over her script, then she came back to the office. It’s a great script but a risk for us. I’ve got my reservations.”

“Why?”

He waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, it’s a bit complicated. Stuff that’s hard to explain.” Clearly “stuff” was something Saff
wouldn’t understand. How worthless I am, she thought suddenly. Oscar had made it plain she was pointless, Millie didn’t even
need her help in the bath and Max thought complications weren’t worth explaining. Greta, of course, would understand them.

“Do you fancy her?”

Max turned to look at her profile.
“What?”
He snorted with laughter.

“Greta. Do you find her intelligence attractive, a turn-on? Do you?” Saff could feel her throat burn and her eyes fill with
tears, and she looked at him beseechingly.

“Saff love, what’s this all about?” He put a hand up to her face and rubbed away a tear with his thumb.

Saff looked down at her hands in her lap. “I just feel a bit insecure, that’s all.” Max put his hand under her chin and turned
her face towards him.

“Saff, my love, no I don’t fancy her. She’s overweight and hairy, she wears revolting shoes that look like something Millie
used to wear in nursery, and she has a live-in partner called Helen.”

“Oh.” Saff smiled sheepishly. “I see.” Max kissed her on the nose.

“You, my darling, are everything I want, and I’m not going to give you up for some dyke, even if she is an awesome writer.
Now get me my dinner, woman!” And he patted her on the knee.

Next morning Saff struggled to pull herself out of bed, despite the sunshine and the cacophony of birdsong outside the window.
She’d been awake at 3:50, when the first one had started tuning up, and she’d lain awake listening to the others join in ever
since. As Max had snored gently beside her, she’d plumbed the depths of herself. What am I all about? What am I for? Why am
I hurtling towards forty with nothing much to show for it? Eyes staring up at the ceiling, she’d thought about Alex and how
people needed her skills. As close as they’d been all through school, when it came to work and career Alex had always been
driven. Saff had always wanted to lie in the sunshine and make daisy chains while she should have been studying for O-level
biology, but Alex? She’d be in her room swotting.

Saff felt tired even before she’d dropped off the children at school and turned the car around wearily to head back home to
a day of—what? Turning out another cupboard that was already immaculate? Mowing the lawn in case the grass had grown half
a millimeter in the night? No, today she couldn’t face it. What had shocked her most last night and what had kept her awake
listening to the dawn chorus was the awful realization that she was only part of a whole. Of course, the idea of Max having
an affair with Greta was ridiculous, but what if he ever did, with someone else, and he left? What would remain? Would there
be any point in her? She wouldn’t even be someone’s wife. She reversed again into a driveway and headed off in the other direction
towards Alex’s place and the secret duo. It had become a refuge in recent days. From… what? Boredom and that flat feeling
she couldn’t shake off.

“Oh, you gave me a fright.” The Bean held her hand dramatically to her chest as she opened the door. “It’s quite doing my
nerves in, all this deception, but it’s rather exciting, don’t you think, dear?” She gave Saff a “mwah” kiss on each cheek
and shut the door behind her. “Of course, Alex has no idea. She’s too wrapped up in her launch. Come and have a cup of Frankie’s
delicious coffee. He’s quite a find.” She led the way into the sitting room. “Such a shame you are already married, darling,
because I think you two would be perfect for each other. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just go and apply my war paint.”