Love Rules (11 page)

‘You've known each other ages,’ Saul recalled.

‘Since school days,’ Mark said, ‘friends for years. Confidants. And then one day, Alice says to me, “If you ask me, I'll say yes.” I hadn't a clue what she was on about. I mean, I hadn't even kissed the girl, let alone taken her to bed. I just stared at her gormlessly. She proposed. It wasn't a leap year. I hadn't bought diamonds from Tiffany or QVC. I was washing up and, calm as you like, she turns to me and asks me to marry her.’

‘And you still can't believe your luck?’ Saul laughed.

‘That's just it,’ said Mark, ‘it's not about luck. To me, the more you love someone, the more you deserve them – and I'd loved her for a long, long time. Albeit from afar. I hadn't resented the fuckwits she dated though I hated them when they hurt her. I hadn't found anyone special and was happy to see women in a non-committal way. And then Alice decided she'd like to marry me.’

‘So, you have this gorgeous woman, successful in her career, who buys her own diamonds, no matter how fake they are, and simply stings you for a pair of Jimmy
Choos
every now and then,’ Saul quantified. ‘Can life get much better?’

‘Well, I'm looking forward to the bonus,’ Mark laughed, ‘which will hopefully coincide with the next Jimmy Shoes sale!’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Anyway, are we here about Quentin?’ he murmured covertly, with a wink and a surreptitious tap of his nose.

‘We are,’ Saul nodded, privately bemused that such an expensive restaurant hadn't bothered to fillet his monkfish. ‘Now, because we're pitching at a slightly older market – not so much aspirational, as can afford it anyway – I was thinking of a City section. You know, investments, portfolios, gift horse and traps; lively overviews on finance and our times, a note of light relief from the
Financial Times
.’

Mark nodded. ‘Interesting,’ he said, ‘how can I help?’ He glanced at his watch again. ‘I'll need to make tracks in half an hour, Saul. But I'm back from Tokyo at the weekend.’

‘You bastard,’ Richard Stonehill panted, hands on his knees, his squash racket between his feet, ‘you bastard. You're just a jammy bastard.’

‘And you're a bad loser,’ Saul laughed, wiping sweat from his brow onto his T-shirt. ‘My game, my match – your round.’

‘Let's make it the best out of seven then,’ Richard said, slashing a ball against the court.

‘Fuck off,’ Saul laughed, returning the shot perfectly. ‘What would your wife say when I call her to say you've thrown yourself into Highgate Ponds with concrete in your pockets because you lost five–two?’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Richard said, ‘you're younger than me. Anyway, I have a cold coming. But next week I'm going to roast you, mate,
roast
you. Annihilation.’

‘I look forward to it,’ Saul said, slicing the ball and intentionally missing Richard by a hair's breadth.

‘You won't even
make
it to Highgate Ponds,’ Richard said, returning Saul's ball impressively, ‘you'll do the hara-kiri thing right here on court.’

‘And on that note,’ Saul said, ‘let's go for a drink.’

For a moment or two, both men just gazed at the pints of pale, chilled lager with unreserved affection before raising the glasses to their lips and taking a long, well-earned drink. They said ‘cheers’ to each other, chinked glasses and then downed what was left. ‘My round,’ said Richard, going to the bar at the Swallow and ordering sausages and mash for them both. ‘How's Thea?’ he asked, on returning.

‘I had a set of my keys cut for her just today,’ Saul grinned. ‘And Sally?’

‘It's our wedding anniversary this weekend,’ Richard said, ‘five years.’

‘Cheers!’ said Saul, with admiration.

‘Who'd have thought a crazy fling would lead to marriage,’ Richard marvelled wistfully.

‘Are you whisking her off to Paris?’ Saul enquired.

Richard laughed but shook his head.

‘Venice?’ Saul tried. ‘Barcelona? Babington House? No? Well. I assume you've been to Tiffany's.’

‘No,’ Richard groaned, ‘not yet.’

‘Mark Sinclair was telling me Alice buys her own jewels,’ Saul said.

‘Really?’ Richard responded, ‘but on his credit card probably. She has some fuck-off diamonds, that girl.’

‘No, she buys them herself,’ Saul revealed. ‘They're
fake
,’ he said, ‘fake! How cool is that?’ He really was more impressed than he would have been had they been genuine. ‘She buys them for small change from the shopping channel.’

Richard laughed. ‘Seriously? Bloody hell. She certainly wears them well. Perhaps I'll ask her to order double – I'm sure I could pop them into a Tiffany box.’

‘Talking of Alice,’ Saul said, dropping his voice, ‘I'm working on a project with her – top secret. But I have an idea for a property section. I'm not talking estate agents' advertorials. I'm not talking Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen makeovers. I was thinking of a section that is part DIY, part property improvements, part investment savvy. You know, kitchen extensions or loft conversions or knocking through – a how to, how much, how long.’

‘Sounds good,’ Richard nodded.

‘You're an architect,’ Saul shrugged, ‘can I pick your brains?’

‘Cool,’ Richard nodded, ‘sure. What's it called?’

‘Top secret,’ said Saul.

‘That's a bit naff,’ said Richard.

‘The
title
is top secret,’ Saul said very slowly. ‘I'm not telling you the title because I can't. I'm sworn to secrecy.’

‘Code-name?’ Richard asked.

‘Quentin,’ Saul revealed rather reluctantly.

‘Gay?’

‘No – as in
Tarantino
,’ Saul explained. And he and Richard proceeded to quote salient lines from
Pulp Fiction
until their sausages arrived.

Beth and Hope

When Beth Godwin and Hope Johnson set up their Pilates studio in Crouch End, Sally Stonehill joined on a whim because there was an introductory offer on. Thea signed up on the recommendation of Lars, the Feldenkrais practitioner at the Being Well. Alice joined on account of the effect of Pilates on the physique of Elizabeth Hurley. Mostly, the three of them synchronized their sessions. It hardly mattered, though. They were so busy concentrating on engaging their pelvic floor and pursuing core stability that they barely said a word to each other apart from ‘great Pikes, Thea’ or ‘your reverse-monkey looked good, Alice’ or ‘I'm finished with the Reformer, Sally’.

Invariably, if they'd been training together, they'd go for a meal afterwards, determined to consolidate the merits of Pilates with healthy salads or bowls of hearty soup and glasses of mineral water. Usually, though, there was some reason for a glass of wine too – from it being good for the blood, to it being necessary to toast one of the girls for something or other. However even the one glass of wine, when mixed with the endorphins of exercise, led to the inevitable ordering of chips. To share, of course. Just to pick
at. And mayonnaise too, please. Who's for ketchup? Anyone for HP Sauce?

‘A large bottle of sparkling mineral water,’ Alice ordered.

‘It's my wedding anniversary this weekend,’ Sally remarked, with intent.

‘Is it? Right then,’ Alice responded, ‘a bottle of Sauvignon too, please.’

‘I'll have the avocado and mung bean salad,’ Thea told the waitress with scant enthusiasm.

‘Grilled trout for me, please,’ ordered Alice, ‘no butter.’

‘I think I'll go for the stir-fried veg,’ Sally muttered.

‘Anything else?’ the waitress asked casually.

‘Oh, one portion of chips,’ Thea added as an afterthought.

‘Actually, make that two,’ Alice said, ‘to share between the three of us.’

‘And some mayo, please,’ Sally called after the waitress.

‘Cheers!’ said Alice, raising her glass. ‘Here's to you and Richard and to marriage in general.’

‘I'll drink to that,’ said Sally, ‘here's to my husband and five lovely years.’

‘Cheers,’ said Thea, ‘here's to – chips.’

‘You'll be next,’ Alice nudged Thea and winked at Sally.

‘I hardly see the boy,’ Thea remonstrated, tapping the prongs of her fork against the pad of her thumb before pointing her cutlery at Alice. ‘You have him working all bloody hours on your hush-hush project.’

‘How's that going?’ Sally asked Alice. ‘Richard likes to think of himself as Editor of Architecture and Interiors or something. The prat.’

‘We're launching next month,’ Alice said triumphantly.

‘Will there be a glamorous party?’ Sally asked hopefully.

‘Of course,’ Alice said.

‘And may lowly primary school teachers attend?’ Sally asked.

‘You may,’ Alice confirmed graciously.

‘And will there be room on the guest list for a sports masseuse?’ Thea asked.

‘God no,’ Alice laughed in mock shock, ‘but I might turn a blind eye to the girlfriend of the editorial consultant sneaking in.’

‘Cow,’ Thea stuck her tongue out at Alice.

‘How are things with Alice's Editorial Consultant?’ Sally asked Thea. ‘Richard has spent a small fortune on a new squash racquet. Bad workmen, tools and blame, springs to mind.’

‘Lovely,’ Thea grinned, ‘it's fun. It's cosy. It's sexy. It's everything I want. And everything I need.’

‘You mean it's love,’ Sally deduced.

‘Yes,’ Thea confirmed, ‘yes, it is.’

‘Six months after I started seeing Richard, we were already engaged,’ Sally recalled. ‘Mind you, six months after
you
started seeing Mark you were practically married, Ms Heggarty.’

‘Mrs Sinclair to you,’ Alice retorted. ‘Actually, the craziest thing about it all was that I didn't even start seeing Mark
until
we were engaged. Chaste is an understatement.’

‘Chaste is overrated,’ Sally said with a wink, confessing she'd bought Richard, for their anniversary, some peculiar-looking love beads which apparently he was to use on her – if they could figure out how and where.

‘Did you go into a sex shop on your own?’ Alice asked, slightly unnerved by an image of petite Sally unchaperoned amongst stacks of gadgets and racks of hardcore.

‘Mail order,’ Sally giggled.

‘Of course, Saul and I have absolutely no need for gizmos on account of his stupendous natural equipment and our exceptionally resourceful technique,’ Thea began primly. ‘But actually,’ she added in a sly whisper, ‘we have a particularly well-stocked toy chest as well.’

‘Dirty girl,’ Alice marvelled.

‘That was one kinky shopping trip,’ Thea reminisced. ‘I happened to make just a passing remark I'd never been in a sex shop. A week or so later, we were heading back to Saul's from a restaurant in Soho when he suddenly bundled me through a doorway. Slap bang into this den of iniquity and plastic things.’

‘You never told me!’ Alice objected.

‘Well, it was hardly Joseph or Whistles,’ Thea reasoned. ‘Actually, it was a peculiar experience. Down a really seedy side street yet inside it was all bright lights and the most normal-looking customers imaginable. Though I seem to recall the sales assistant being quite alarmingly tattooed.’

‘Did you giggle like mad?’ Sally asked.

‘At first,’ Thea admitted, ‘but actually, everyone was browsing the wares so casually that I soon found myself assessing the merits of one dildo against another as I would ready-meals at Tesco. Saul spent a fortune. We couldn't wait to get back to his to try things in.’

‘On,’ the editor in Alice corrected automatically.

‘No,’ Thea laughed, ‘I really do mean
in
!’

‘Do you have any of these bead things?’ Sally asked, now regarding Thea as the doyenne of kinky paraphernalia.

Thea went through a lengthy, though obviously mostly fabricated, inventory. ‘No,’ she apologized at length, ‘no beads. My advice would be, if it fits, wear it out.’

‘Mark doesn't know I have a vibrator,’ Alice confessed, half wondering whether he ought, yet unable to predict how he'd react. ‘In fact, I can't imagine using toys with him. The thing is, our sex is admittedly pretty straightforward but actually all the more satisfying for it. I had boyfriends who couldn't get it up unless they could get something battery-operated up first. God, sometimes I used to crave simple, quick missionary in the dark.’

‘I guess I bought these plastic things to sustain the spice,’ Sally said, ‘not because our sex life is lacking or uninspired. I like surprising Richie – though nowadays I sometimes have to remind myself to – because I know he loves it. The day I can't be bothered is the day to worry.’

‘Keeping the marriage alive?’ Thea asked.

‘No, it's not that,’ Sally declared, ‘no need to – all is dreamy. I just like to envisage Richard thinking to himself that he's a lucky boy. I like to think of him all distracted and hot under the collar at work by knowing what's under my pillow.’

‘It's funny,’ Alice mused, ‘how you and I have actually contrived our relationships. You ensure that you maintain the allure of a vamp all these years into your marriage. I eschew my previous incarnation as feisty temptress to secure the stability and fidelity that defines Mark. I guess you could say I'm in an arranged marriage which I arranged.’

‘Richard proposed out of the blue, when we were still at the height of our heady falling-in-love phase,’ Sally reminisced. ‘Me being ludicrously dramatic, I ran away from him to hide in the wilds of Scotland, broke my bloody leg and he then turned up and wrote “will you?” on my plaster cast.’

‘It's such a great story,’ Thea laughed.

‘God, my proposal is mundane in comparison,’ Alice admitted. ‘I asked Mark to marry me with a carrot in my mouth.’

‘I bet it wasn't mundane to him,’ Sally said.

‘Funnily enough, it's the mundanity that I love now,’ Alice defined. ‘Christ, when I think of all that passion I used to put myself through.’ She paused to privately recall it. ‘It was so damned draining; replete with suspicions. Now I am loved unconditionally. I can just be myself and I'm adored for it. It's such a relief that my worries are now confined solely to
work or to trivial things like whether we made a mistake using Cath Kidston florals in the bedroom with the rest of the house so minimalist.’

‘How is your new house?’ Sally asked Alice.