Spellbound (15 page)

15

In the abstract Joe loves having a place in the country, couldn’t wait to tell his colleagues, his clients, about their ‘weekend house’, but the country has never really been his cup of tea, and he’s been happy to let Alice take over these past few weeks.

Joe loves living in New York, would be quite happy if he never travelled further north of 91st, nor further south of SoHo. He loves the pace, the people, the lifestyle, and if there is any hindrance at all it is Alice.

He is still trying with Alice, God how he is trying. He has – again – mentally renewed his commitment to her, and is trying his damnedest to be the husband he knows she wants him to be, but he’s in New York, where there’s temptation on every cross street, and he can feel the itch beginning again.

Just the other week he’d been at a client dinner at Le Colonial. He arrived early, went upstairs to the bar, expecting to have a quiet drink, perhaps review some papers, but the music was throbbing and the room was crushed with beautiful people. He watched with amusement, noticing how everyone spent their time looking around the room to see if they were missing something, or
someone
, more interesting, and found himself drawn to a dangerous-looking brunette in a tiny black dress and high leather boots.

He was just enjoying the frequent flirtatious glances, the hint of a smile from her as she realized he was staring, when his client showed up. Ah well. Better for it to be over before it had begun, but nevertheless he had gone back up to the bar when the dinner was over, had hoped she would still be there, but of course she had gone.

And Alice? Alice now feels much the same about New York as she did about London. Easier only because she is anonymous in New York, doesn’t feel the same pressure to be the perfect trophy wife. But Alice is beginning to spend more and more time in the country, and the longer she stays there, the more work she does to the house, the more she falls in love with it and the less she wants to leave.

Alice has knocked down walls and discovered raised wooden panelling that was hidden some time in the sixties. She has ripped up the lino in the kitchen and discovered wide old oak planks. She has found the room that must have been Rachel Danbury’s office, and finds she can spend hours sitting on the window-seat in there, gazing up at the trees, thinking about nothing other than how at peace she feels.

The more she discovers about the house, the more she feels as if she knows the writer. She has yet to lay her hands on a copy of
The Winding Road
, but it’s as if Rachel Danbury’s personality is embedded within the walls, the very foundations of the house, and Alice is slowly drawn into her spell, falls more in love with the house with every passing day.

There are times, however, when Alice has to go in to the city. She does so reluctantly, but Monday to Friday – or Tuesday to Thursday if she can get away with it – go in she does. To the theatre with Joe, to openings at the Met, charity benefits at the Frick, restaurants, bars and clubs. She comes in to have her highlights done at Frederic Fekkai, to shop at Bergdorf Goodman for the requisite black tie outfits, to lunch with Gina at Jean-George or Le Cirque 2000 – the only thing she truly enjoys about coming in to the city.

Alice is astonished at how close she and Gina have become in such a short space of time. ‘My replacement,’ Emily had sniffed in mock disgust, but to a large extent it’s true. Emily is her oldest friend, and will always be her best friend, but with the distance now separating them Emily can’t possibly understand what her life is like.

And she and Gina seem to have so many things in common. ‘We’re so lucky,’ Gina says repeatedly. ‘You and I have such wonderful husbands. Can you believe how lucky we are?’

Alice smiles each time and agrees, grateful that Joe is back to being the man she married, the man she first fell in love with when she was a teenager. He’s home every evening, and phones when he says he’s going to. His mobile is always on, and for the first time in years she doesn’t lie in bed awake every night, heart pounding as she tries not to think about where he is or what he’s doing.

She doesn’t dwell on those years of insecurity and panic, on pushing those fears out of her head because the truth might be too terrible to contemplate.

Now, even those nights when Alice is in the country and Joe has stayed in the city to work, she phones and he picks up. He’s never unavailable these days, never seems to have inexplicable absences, or business trips to unnamed hotels. She phones him late at night, at the apartment, and he answers and tells her how much he misses her.

And on the weekends, when he catches the train down to Highfield on a Friday night or a Saturday morning, and she picks him up at the station in her new Ford Explorer, he puts his arms round her and kisses her deeply, and she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt he really loves her.

16

Joe watches Alice as she stands outside throwing sticks for Snoop, laughing and reaching down to pet him enthusiastically each time he drops a stick at her feet.

There are times, like this, when he feels as if he barely knows Alice any more. The Alice he knows is quiet and reserved. The Alice he knows is sophisticated and insouciant. But the Alice he’s watching now throws her head back with laughter as Snoop chases her around in circles.

The Alice he thought he knew would never have dared get grass stains on her trousers, but then again, the Alice he thought he knew would never have worn old faded jeans, a Gap sweatshirt and a sleeveless puffa jacket.

But most of all, the Alice he thought he knew always had an air of mystery about her. She always seemed to be living in something of a dream world. Even when they were together, he never felt that she was quite with him, which was undoubtedly part of her attraction for him.

There was a deep air of sadness surrounding the Alice he thought he knew. This Alice, this Alice who is now rolling on the grass and giggling as her dog tries to lick her face, is permanently and deliriously happy.

This Alice wakes up in the morning and bounds out of bed. She is always busy doing something. If not cooking – something she hasn’t done on a regular basis for years – she’s waxing a table, or ripping down a wall, or staining a piece of furniture.

The house seems to be filled with music, and Alice, Alice who has always been so quiet and reserved, bubbles away with conversation. She tells Joe of her trips, her visits to the farmer’s market in Wilton, the people she met while looking for pots of tarragon and lavender at Gilberties. She tells him of her walks on the beach, of the people she passes and the houses she admires. Her newfound joy is bursting out of the cracks in the walls, squeezing under the windowpanes and touching everyone who crosses her path.

Including, naturally, Joe, who refuses to be swept up in her good humour.

Joe cannot understand where his meek, subservient trophy wife has gone. He only sees flashes of her these days in Manhattan. When Alice comes into the city, accompanies him to a party, or a gallery, or a busy bar, then she reverts back to the Alice he knows, the Alice he fell in love with.

In Manhattan, the city he is starting to feel he is getting to know, Joe is very definitely king of his world. He is the quintessential Wall Street banker, with enough money to ensure his life runs exactly as he wants it to run. He knows who he is in Manhattan. He knows his role, he knows Alice’s role, and when in the city Alice plays it well, dressing up in her designer clothes and smiling beautifully but blankly at the colleagues and clients with whom he has to socialize.

But out here in Highfield there can be no doubt that Alice is queen of her castle, and despite himself it makes him nervous. The dynamics of their relationship seem to change almost as soon as they cross the border from Westchester into Connecticut.

When Joe thought about a place in the country he envisaged a large new house, preferably with a pool, and preferably on the beach. He assumed it would have giant power showers and rolling lawns, otherwise, quite frankly, why bother? He never thought his place in the country would be a tiny crappy cottage filled with nooks and crannies.

Of course he still plans to build the house of his dreams on the other side of the lake, although he really hasn’t got time to start researching architects and builders, and Alice doesn’t seem the least bit interested in a different house. But when colleagues ask about his country place, he tells them about the beauty of the land and the pond (true), how it was the deal of the century (true-ish, although not quite as good a deal as George had tried to persuade him it was), and that they’re about to start building the Chambers Mansion (not if Alice has anything to do with it).

Joe doesn’t really know what to do with himself out here. He can’t see the point in going for walks, has never understood the point of walking for the sake of it, and so each time Alice asks him to join her, he declines.

Like so many other men who work on Wall Street, Joe finds it almost impossible to relax. For him it means slumping in front of the small television in his office with the
Wall Street Journal
.

Joe doesn’t like cooking (although he loves eating), and he doesn’t like gardening, and he doesn’t have any hobbies. He doesn’t like animals – although the first time he came upon eighteen wild turkeys meandering up the driveway he had to admit he was awestruck – and he’s too lazy and disinterested to explore the local area.

What Joe does best is socialize, shop, and seduce. Socializing has been difficult because other than Gina and George he really hasn’t met anyone else down here, and Gina and George, as lovely as they are, are not here every weekend. Shopping is fine if he bothers to go to Greenwich, and seduction is something from which he’s trying very hard to abstain right now.

But the itch is getting stronger. Particularly now that Alice just doesn’t seem to need him as much as she has always done. Joe has always been the strong one in the relationship, has grown accustomed to being dominant, has enjoyed being the strong, manly husband, but just as Alice seems to grow more confident and more powerful as they cross the border into Connecticut, Joe seems to weaken.

He is well aware he does not have the control he is used to out in Highfield, and Joe’s very sense of masculinity involves control. If he can’t control Alice, surely temptation, in the form of a long-legged lovely who laughs at his jokes and thinks he is wonderful, is lurking just around the corner…

‘Aren’t you going to change?’

‘No? Why?’ Alice is dropping home-made lemon polenta cookies into a small gift bag to take to Sally and Chris’s barbecue.

‘Well, for one thing you’ve got grass stains all over your knees.’ He doesn’t say that she surely can’t be thinking of going to a social occasion in a grey sweatshirt and jeans.

‘Oh God,’ Alice groans. ‘Thanks. Won’t be a moment.’ She runs upstairs and emerges a couple of minutes later in a clean pair of equally faded jeans, with the same sweatshirt and an old pair of loafers.

‘Make-up?’ Joe says hopefully, as Alice laughs and runs back upstairs. Five minutes later she comes down with her hair freshly brushed, her lips shining with a pink gloss, and the sweatshirt exchanged for a crisp white linen shirt.

‘Better?’ she laughs.

‘Much,’ Joe says gratefully, although he still would have liked to see her in her straight-legged wool crêpe Michael Kors trousers with her high-heeled Jimmy Choo boots.

‘Whoa,’ Alice laughs and steps nimbly out of the way to avoid a procession of screaming three- and four-year-olds heading towards her, while Joe groans. ‘Oh God. Children.’

‘Of course children. What do you expect of a barbecue at five o’clock on a Sunday afternoon?’

‘Haven’t these people heard of nannies?’

Alice’s mouth drops open in amazement. ‘God, you’re so old-fashioned. Who do you think you are anyway, Little Lord Fauntleroy?’

‘But why do these people take their children
everywhere
? What happened to grown-ups having a grown-up evening?’

‘Keep your voice down,’ Alice hisses just before they round the corner to the back of the house where the barbecue is – judging from the noise – in full throes. ‘First of all, it’s not evening, and secondly it’s lovely to have your children with you. If we had children they’d come everywhere with me. I suppose you think children should be seen and not heard.’

‘Actually I… ow!’ Right on cue a nine-year-old bashes into Joe sharply as he runs past, chasing after the others.

‘Ha!’ Alice laughs. ‘Serves you right. Now put on your charming face and let’s go and meet some of the neighbours.’

*

‘You must be Joe and Alice! Hi, I’m Tom O’Leary and this is my wife Mary Beth. We live right around the corner from you on Winding Lane.’

‘Hi, I’m Chris, Sally’s husband, and I know you’ve met our daughter, Madison.’

‘Alice! Joe! How lovely to see you again. Tim, this is Alice and Joe who bought the old Danbury house. Remember the sale I told you about?’ Sandy beckons her husband over proudly. ‘So tell me all about the house, I hear you’ve done incredible things already.’

Before Alice has a chance to reply, yet another couple descends upon them. ‘Joe and Alice, right? Welcome to Highfield, we’ve heard so much about you! I’m Kay and this is my husband, James. We’re at number seven. Those three are ours – Summer is five, Taylor is three, and whoops, where’s Skye? Oh there she is crawling off again. Skye is eleven months.’

‘Hello, gorgeous,’ Gina swoops down on Alice and gives her a tight squeeze, releasing her to give Joe a kiss. ‘Isn’t this a lovely surprise?’

‘I thought you weren’t down this weekend,’ Alice says, knowing that Gina always pops in or phones to tell them they’re in the country.

‘We weren’t. But I rang in to get my messages this morning, and Sally had left a message saying there’d be a barbecue, and it’s such a beautiful day we jumped in the car after lunch and drove down.’

‘Oh, I’m glad you’re here.’ Alice squeezes Gina’s hand, although the familiar tightening of her chest when she walks into a social situation where she knows barely anyone is missing today.

Of course it helps that everyone seems to be eager to meet them, and everyone is so friendly, which is something of a shock, although an enjoyable one. Alice is used to socializing in London, used to being terribly British and reserved, and standing around with a forced tight smile, never presuming to speak to anyone without an introduction, and never daring to just walk right on over and introduce herself. She is used to waiting for an introduction from the hostess, and then waiting for the hostess to provide some grain of common ground which can hopefully form the basis of small talk for a few minutes.

But here everyone just walks up with outstretched hands and welcoming smiles. Steaks and burgers are sizzling on the barbecue with Chris keeping watch, and the women are emerging from the kitchen with bowls of salads and baskets of bread to place on the table.

Beers and sodas are packed together on the table next to a huge bucket of ice, and everyone is cheerfully helping themselves while hordes of children run around on the lawn.

Alice walks into the kitchen. ‘Can I help?’ she asks Sally, used to asking the question in London, and more used to hearing a ‘No, don’t worry,’ even when the hostess is quite clearly harassed and not coping.

‘That would be great,’ Sally says. ‘You can chop the tomatoes.’ And she slides the chopping board and knife over and turns to spoon some salsa into a bowl.

‘So everyone here is a neighbour?’ Alice asks, looking out through the window to see Joe presumably charming the pants off Kay and James. While friendly enough, if there was anyone here to set her antennae off, it would be Kay. Her figure completely belies the fact that she has had three children, an asset of which she is presumably well aware, dressed as she is in tight blue capri pants and a tiny T-shirt which more than shows off her suspiciously pert breasts. And unlike the other women here, all of whom are dressed much like Alice in jeans and loafers, or flat mules, Kay is standing tall in strappy high-heeled slingbacks.

And despite Joe talking to Kay and James together, Alice can see, even through the kitchen window, that Kay is dangerous. She feels that familiar fluttering, those danger signals that make her feel ever so slightly sick, but she tries to calm herself. Don’t be ridiculous, she tells herself. Not only is the woman married, she has three young children as well. Hardly a threat.

And Kay’s husband is handsome. Why on earth would she be flirting with Joe? Because Joe is English, and charming, and different? Don’t be ridiculous, she berates herself, chopping tomatoes fast and furiously. Joe and she have never been happier. The last thing she has to worry about now is Joe flirting with other women. He’s a changed man. And anyway, surely Kay isn’t his type?

‘Kay and James seem nice. Do they live here all the time?’

‘They do now,’ Sally says. ‘They used to be weekenders, but after Skye was born they bought a bigger house down here and now they live here permanently.’

‘Were they in Manhattan?’

‘Weren’t we all?’ Sally laughs. ‘Actually that’s not true. Chris never lived in Manhattan, but I did. Most of us have lived there before we got married and settled down.’

‘They seem very friendly,’ Alice lies, wanting to try and discover something about Kay, wanting to know whether she should be threatened, but not wanting to be obvious. She knows she should be asking Gina, but she doesn’t want Gina to suspect that Alice might be suspicious of Joe, and Gina knows her too well already.

‘Oh, they are. And their children are just adorable. Kay actually runs the newcomers’ tennis team if you’re interested.’

‘Tennis? Oh no. Not our game.’

‘Oh really? So do you have a game?’

Alice laughs. ‘No. I suppose living in the centre of London we never really had time for sports. Joe loves his gym though, and I’m completely obsessed with my garden.’

‘We have a gardening club,’ Sally says enthusiastically. ‘You should come. We have guests come in to talk to us, and every spring we hold a big plant sale. In fact next week we have someone coming in to talk about autumn plantings for spring flowers. You should come.’

‘Mmm,’ says Alice non-committally, thinking how horribly suburban it seems. ‘Sounds interesting.’

Sally starts laughing. ‘I remember saying exactly the same thing when we moved here. I know how awful it sounds, but if nothing else it’s a great way to meet people.’

Alice blushes. ‘I’m sorry. Was I being a horrible snob?’

‘No more than any of us when we first got here. It just takes time to get into the small-town way of life. It’s very different, and we all think we’re better than that when we arrive fresh out of the Upper East Side or…?’ She looks at Alice questioningly.

‘Belgravia.’

‘There you go. We’ll make a Highfield girl of you in no time.’

Alice carries the tomatoes outside and helps herself to a beer, trying to ignore her slight alarm at seeing Kay still talking animatedly to Joe, Kay’s husband having disappeared to help Chris with the barbecue.