Life Swap (35 page)

‘Say that again?’

‘Unfortunately you heard it right the first time.’

‘Oh well. Most of these women don’t eat anyway. And I don’t mind. I love macaroni cheese.’

‘Not sure you’ll like this one. It’s a rather frightening shade of orange.’

‘Mmm. Plastic macaroni cheese. Even better.’ And Vicky laughs. ‘Honestly,’ Deborah continues, ‘Amber always gets herself into such a state when she does these things. Far better to be laid back about it, plus you shouldn’t care anyway. You’re a journalist, not a Stepford wife.’

‘I know,’ Vicky groans, ‘but I’m a journalist
pretending to be a Stepford wife just for a little while. I was hoping to do a better job than I seem to be doing.’

‘Well, no one’s here yet. Let’s go in the kitchen and I’ll help finish the setting up, and just in case you were wondering, I think you’re doing a great job.’

‘You do? Really?’

‘I do, really, and I mean that in the English sense of the word.’

‘As opposed to?’

‘The American sense of the word. Not that I dislike living here, because I absolutely love it, but I do think most of the women here are completely bonkers. They praise their children for absolutely everything. Their children breathe and they’re clapping saying, “Good job! Great job!” I’m much more English about my parenting. As far as I’m concerned criticism is essential to give them a healthy dose of low self-worth.’

Vicky laughs.

‘Anyway, the point is you are doing a good job. It’s bloody difficult to step into someone’s life, and it’s not as if you’ve ever been married. The very fact that Jared and Gracie seem to adore you is testament to how well you’re doing. Trust me, they don’t take to everyone like that, and I hear you’re getting on with Richard too.’

‘Oh God,’ Vicky groans, ‘I suppose you’ve heard the rumours too?’

‘What rumours? The ones that have you seducing Richard and sleeping with him in the marital bed?’

‘Yes, those would be the ones.’

‘No. I haven’t heard those. But if I had,’ Deborah peers at her closely, ‘tell me they wouldn’t be true, because right now I really like you, but if I discovered you were having an affair with my best friend’s husband, I’d have to start hating you, and I really don’t want to have to do that.’

‘Hand on heart, I am not having an affair with Richard,’ Vicky says, thanking her lucky stars that just then the doorbell rings, because this is not a conversation she is comfortable taking further. It’s not a thought she’s comfortable taking further either, so why does the thought keep creeping into her head?

It’s not as if she isn’t quite happy with Jamie Donnelly. Okay, it might be a little early to start thinking of herself as being entirely committed, especially given that she’s phoned him a couple of times (yes, she knows that under the terms of the life swap she isn’t really allowed to do that, but if you won’t tell, she won’t), and he hasn’t been in and hasn’t called her back.

And it’s not as if she’s the type to get involved with a married man, it’s just that living so closely with someone, sharing their house, sharing their children, sharing their lives, affords an intimacy between them that is difficult to ignore, and whilst Vicky honestly has no intention of taking it further, it’s easy to see how it could happen.

Not that it will, but it’s not outside the realms of possibility, that’s all.

*

The evenings Vicky spends with Richard are quite unlike the majority of evenings he spends with Amber. Although they do occasionally still have baths together, Amber has normally eaten before he comes home, and when he does get home they have cursory chit-chat about their respective days before Amber disappears into the family room to watch television – reality shows like
The Bachelor
that he abhors – and he goes into his office to deal with household bills. Sometimes he’ll join her in the family room for a nine o’clock
Law & Order
or
CSI
, but on the whole Amber will go to bed first and read, and by the time he goes up there she’s asleep, or about to be.

Sunday night is their ‘date night’. The night when they get a babysitter, go out for dinner, and make love, although often these days that feels a little cursory as well. Richard would love them to experiment more, would love Amber to, well, even
move
a little more would be a welcome change, but he accepts that this is the best he’s going to get right now.

But since Vicky has been here, Richard has been coming home to find that Vicky has waited for him to have dinner – Vicky’s parents always having had dinner together at night, and thus Vicky assuming that this is a normal thing to do.

They have sat and lingered over dinner, sharing stories, a couple of glasses of wine, and Richard has been reminded of the early days with Amber, the excitement of getting to know someone new, the thrill of not knowing all of their stories, gradually peeling
back the layers to find the person that lies beneath.

And as he gets to know her, he can’t deny that he finds her attractive. Not that Richard is thinking of doing anything about it – he isn’t that sort of man; will look but would never touch – but how lovely to have something to look forward to at the end of every day. It’s the one bright spot in his days that feel crazier and crazier. Home is the one place where he feels in control: strong, the patriarch, the man who makes everything better. And even though he’s not planning on anything happening with Vicky Townsley, he is enjoying the touch of light relief she provides when he walks in the door. So much easier to think about than to walk through the mud-room door worrying about just how much money his wife would have spent that day.

‘Hello, I’m Vicky. I’m the life-swapping journalist you’ve all heard about, and no, I’m not sleeping with Richard, nor have any intention to, and yes, I realize I’m dressed completely inappropriately.’ Vicky has had it with the whispered glances and frosty pretence at politeness.

‘Actually I think your dress is so pretty,’ Suzy says, lifting the fabric and fingering it lightly.

‘Oh thank you! Well you must be the first. Clearly I got the dress code wrong,’ Vicky notes Suzy’s own Seven for all Mankind jeans, Manolo boots and pink beaded djellaba, ‘but I’m stuck now, and I’m fed up with everyone talking about me.’

‘Oh just ignore them,’ Suzy says, linking her arm
through Vicky’s as she walks through to the kitchen, stopping short when she sees the – still untouched – food on the kitchen table. ‘Not everyone has to get this perfect, and it’s very hard. When I did my first luncheon for the girls I got the flowers from Heywood Farms – can you imagine? They were the most horrible carnations you’ve ever seen, but I didn’t know any better. I hope Amber told you to go to Blossom.’

‘Actually no, she didn’t mention anything about flowers. I haven’t got flowers. It was all I could do to get food, and that, as you can see, was a bit of a disaster.’

‘You mean that’s for our lunch?’ Suzy eyes the meatloaf and mac ’n’ cheese, which, despite having been transferred to Amber’s best majolica, still doesn’t look any more appetizing. ‘Oh my! I thought it was for the children!’

‘Ah no. I’m sure it tastes better than it looks.’

‘Oh don’t worry,’ Suzy pats her arm reassuringly. ‘You can’t be expected to get everything right first time. Now come into the family room with me and tell me how you’re getting on with Richard.’

Chapter Twenty-six

‘Darling husband?’ Kate asks as they’re going into the house for lemonade after lying around on the sun loungers all afternoon, watching the kids play in the garden, chatting, and reading the papers. ‘Did you manage to fix the chicken coop, and have you spoken to Bill-the-chicken-man about replacements?’

‘Surprising as it may be,’ Andy laughs, ‘I
have
fixed the coop, and Bill is bringing over a few more birds later this afternoon, plus he’s going to check the coop to make sure it’s fox-proof.’

‘Bill-the-chicken-man?’ Amber raises an eyebrow.

Andy shrugs. ‘It’s a habit of ours. Few people are ever referred to by their given names alone. There’s Robert-the-gardener, Jake-the-spark –’

‘Spark?’

‘Our electrician,’ Kate explains with a laugh. ‘And rather a delicious one at that.’

‘Yes,’ Andy sighs. ‘The other prerequisite of working in our house seems to be that my darling wife has to have a crush on you.’

‘But not serious crushes,’ Kate pouts, ‘only little pretend ones, and I can’t help it if I feel protected by all these big strong men taking care of me.’

‘Jake doesn’t take care of you, Katie, he takes care of the wires.’

‘But they all make me feel safe, which is much the same thing.’

‘What about me?’ Andy laughs as he steps up behind Kate, puts his arms around her and starts nuzzling her neck. ‘Do I make you feel safe?’

‘Oh get off, you big lump,’ she says affectionately. ‘Go back to your chickens and leave me alone.’

‘I can’t believe you talk about crushes in front of your husband,’ Amber says, once Andy has indeed taken Kate’s advice and gone back to his chickens.

‘Why? I’m only being silly. He knows I wouldn’t ever do anything about it, although I have to say I did see Jake once without his shirt and his abs are rather yummy.’ She gives a little shiver then grins.

‘But does he trust you?’

‘Of course!’ Kate laughs. ‘I wouldn’t ever do anything. It’s just fun to look. Don’t you do the same with your husband?’

‘Goodness, no! My husband would be devastated if I talked about having a crush on someone. He wouldn’t find it funny at all.’

‘Oh. He sounds very serious.’

‘No, he’s not serious,’ and then Amber stops, because she realizes that whilst Richard per se is not serious, both of them certainly take themselves far more seriously than Kate and Andy seem to. In fact Amber can’t
remember the last time they teased each other in the way Kate and Andy did over lunch, laughing affectionately together over a shared joke.

‘Maybe we are too serious,’ Amber ventures, thinking out loud. ‘Maybe that’s part of this dissatisfaction. Maybe we’ve forgotten how to have fun.’

Kate puts down her tea towel and turns to look at Amber. ‘Marriage should be about fun,’ she says gently. ‘It’s about friendship, and laughter, and trust, and fun. If it’s not fun, if you take it all too seriously, what’s the point? You know I’ve been with Andy for fifteen years, and the reason it still works is because he’s my best friend and he still makes me laugh. Admittedly, not all the time, and often we get completely bogged down in work, and the kids, and life, but he’s still the person I most want to phone when anything happens in life, and he’s still the person who makes me laugh the most.’

Amber listens intently, her eyes fixed on Kate, her mind over the Atlantic Ocean with her family in Connecticut. They used to laugh as well, she thinks. In the early days before life got so crazy with children, and charities, and, well, just life.

And suddenly it seems that middle-age has set in. Richard is permanently exhausted from his commute, barely sees the children, and Amber is so busy keeping up with the Joneses she doesn’t have time to stop and relax, enjoy her kids, enjoy her husband, have fun in the way that Kate and Andy seem to have fun here.

Today is the perfect example. They haven’t actually done anything today. Nothing other than shell peas,
play in the garden, lie on sun loungers, pop down to the local supermarket for some brie and cheese crackers for tonight. And yet today has been the most idyllic Saturday Amber can imagine. Granted, it helps that they are in the heart of the English countryside, that the sun is beaming and the bees and butterflies are buzzing around the lavender that’s spilling over the old brick terrace where they’ve been lying, that the only sounds, other than the children laughing and occasionally fighting, have been the birds and the odd plane flying high overhead.

But couldn’t she do this back at home? It’s not as if they live in the city any more. In fact, if Amber remembers correctly, the only sounds in their back yard are birds and the odd plane flying overhead.

Amber never seems to have time to enjoy it the way she has today. Saturdays are filled with breakfasts at the diner, trips to the bookstore, playdates, lunch at the deli, and only if they have time can they squeeze in swimming in their own pool, and even then Amber rarely goes in, not wanting to get her hair wet, so Richard splashes about with the kids for a bit while Amber reads the papers.

When they first moved in, when Amber couldn’t sleep with excitement over the swimming pool, she dreamt of long lazy days, just like the one she has had today, playing with the kids in the pool, floating around on a raft with a drink in hand, even sensual midnight swims with Richard, maybe even making love under the wisteria-draped pergola on a hot summer night.

The truth is they barely use the pool. The truth is she isn’t living the life she always wanted to live. The truth is, Amber realizes as she listens to Kate, that she and Richard are so busy running, constantly striving to reach some goal in the future, they never take time to stop and just enjoy where they are.

And where they are is really not so bad, Amber realizes. Not that Highfield is necessarily her town of choice, not any more, but if she were to pull out of the charities, spend more time with her children, focus on her family and friends – in that order – wouldn’t she start to enjoy what she has more?

‘Richard is a wonderful man,’ Amber says eventually to Kate. ‘And he is my best friend. I think that the two of us have got so caught up in life, in the busyness and the stress, that we’ve stopped enjoying each other. It’s not that we don’t love each other – heaven knows we do, but I don’t honestly remember the last time we had fun.’

Amber takes a deep breath. ‘I know I’ve only been here a week, but I feel as though I’m having one epiphany after another. I was so nervous about coming, so convinced I had done the wrong thing, I almost thought about backing out, but now I see why I’m here.’

Kate raises an eyebrow questioningly.

‘I needed to get away from my life for a while to really see it properly. I knew I wasn’t happy, but I love my husband and love my kids, and couldn’t figure out what it was that was wrong.