The Model Wife (12 page)

14

It had been a depressing conversation. Another hundred pounds a month was going to be needed. At the end of it, Thea called a taxi. As light drizzle fell, she stood shivering in the drive, doing calculations in her head. She could afford it, but it was getting tighter and tighter. She pulled her jacket more closely round her and fumbled in her bag for her iPod. Some Dylan would cheer her up.

‘Excuse me,’ said a voice behind her.

She turned round. It was the dark man she’d seen comforting his mum in the hall. He was short, only coming up to Thea’s shoulder. Twenty-seven? Twenty-eight? He had pointy ears and sideburns. All in all, he looked like a character out of
Lord of the Rings
, albeit dressed in a Stone Roses T-shirt and denim jacket.

‘Are you waiting for a cab to the station?’ he asked. Home Counties accent. ‘Only I was wondering if you’d mind sharing?’

Thea did mind. She wanted to be alone with her thoughts and her bag of Skittles. She didn’t want to share any purple ones, particularly with a stranger. But she couldn’t think of a way to refuse him.

‘Sure,’ she said ungraciously, as a black Mondeo pulled up in front of them. They climbed in.

‘Going back to London?’ he said after travelling the first few minutes in silence.

‘Mmm. You?’

‘Yes. Visiting family?’

‘Yes,’ she said brusquely, then softened slightly. ‘My grandmother. What about you?’

‘My mum.’

Thea wasn’t sure what to say. ‘She must have been very young when she… fell ill.’

‘Sixty,’ he said. He shrugged. ‘It’s hard, isn’t it? I feel guilty that I don’t go to see her often enough, but my job takes me away a lot and…’

‘Most of the time she doesn’t know you’re there anyway.’

‘Exactly.’

Thea eyed him. He didn’t look like an international jetsetter with his beaten-up leather satchel over his shoulder. Curiosity got the better of her. ‘What do you do?’

‘I work for a charity based in Guatemala. I’m here most of the time, but I go there a lot.’

‘Oh right.’ She was mildly interested now. It took her mind off her gran in any case. ‘What kind of charity?’

‘We work with street kids. I’m the press officer.’

‘I work for the
Seven Thirty News
. Senior producer.’

She was showing off and she was punished immediately. ‘Really? That’s my favourite news programme. Only one with a serious agenda any more. I’d love to get something about our work on your show.’

‘Mmm,’ she said, as the cab pulled in to the station forecourt. Damn. He’d be forever bombarding her now with dull press releases. ‘Oh look, the twelve eighteen’s there. Quick!’

They jumped out of the car, fumbled for their tickets to get through the barrier and dashed on to the platform. He held the door open, allowing her to scramble on to the train.

‘Thanks.’ She smiled politely.

‘You’re welcome.’ There was an empty block of four seats beckoning them. Shit. Thea wanted to read and listen to music in peace, not talk to someone barely out of their teens about his page on MySpace and what his favourite ringtone was. But she could hardly move off to the other end of the train. So they sat down together.

‘Would you like a paper?’ She offered him one. That should shut him up.

‘Love one.’ He took the
Guardian
from the pile. Typical charity worker, Thea thought, amused.

‘Um. Do you mind if I listen to some music? I just need to clear my head a bit.’

‘Of course not.’

Relieved, she slipped on her earphones and for once not being in a Bob mood decided to go for some Joni Mitchell. For a while she lost herself in the music. She was snatched from her reverie by a hand waving in front of her face. Thea looked up. A man in uniform. She pulled off her headphones.

‘I was saying tickets, please, love.’

‘Oh sorry!’ She fumbled in her bag while the inspector mumbled, ‘Bloody iPods.’ She looked up. The press officer grinned at her. There was a cockiness about him Thea found a bit unnerving. After the inspector had stamped her ticket, he handed the
Guardian
back to her.

‘There you go. Thanks for that.’

‘Keep it if you like. I’ve finished it.’

‘Oh, OK. I will.’ A pause. ‘Nice, Greenways, isn’t it?’

‘It’s beautiful,’ Thea said. ‘But you can’t help wondering whether it makes any difference.’

‘I console myself that Mum’s in a lovely place, but then I wonder if she’d be better off at home with me.’

‘That would be a hell of a burden,’ Thea said.

‘I know. But I still think I should be up to it.’

‘I feel the same way.’ Their eyes locked. Embarrassing tears welled in Thea’s eyes. She rarely talked about her grandmother. Mum hated any references to her dead husband’s mother because – ridiculously after thirty-three years – she thought it upset Trevor, and Thea’s friends didn’t want to know about an old woman for whom there was no future. No hope.

‘I’m Jake, by the way,’ he said.

‘Thea.’

The train was passing the grey, rain-streaked streets of South London, about to pull in to Waterloo. Thea was surprised at how quickly the journey had passed.

‘Well, here we are,’ he said, standing up. He smiled at her. ‘It’s been nice talking to you, Thea. You don’t have a card, do you? You never know, there might be a story we could work on together.’

‘I’ve forgotten them,’ she lied.

‘Oh well, never mind. Here’s one of mine. Perhaps we could have a drink some time? Or – I don’t know – maybe lunch now, if you’re not doing anything?’

Thea looked up startled. He fancies me, she thought. Half of her was flattered, half taken aback that someone so much younger than her, shorter than her, in such a lowly job might think he stood a chance.

‘Um… I’m busy now. Meeting some friends. Sorry.’

He shrugged. ‘Shame. Maybe some other time.’

‘Yes, maybe.’

He stood, obviously waiting to see if she’d follow him off the train, but she sat motionless.

‘OK, then,’ he said, ‘see you around.’

‘Absolutely.’ Through the window, she watched him walk briskly up the platform towards the Tube. She glanced at his card: ‘Jake Kaplan, Guatemala Children’, followed by an address and phone numbers. She stuffed it in her bag, where she knew it would nestle among Tampax, keys, lipsticks and her Oyster card for several years until some time towards the end of the next decade she had a clear out. Thea’s bag was full of identical tatty cards from press officers all trying to get a profile for their cause. Brutal as it was, most of them were ignored. Thea was sure Jake’s charity did a lot of good work, but it was just one of thousands trying to make a difference. She saw no reason to give it special treatment.

15

The following evening Thea stood on the doorstep of Rachel’s maisonette in Islington, a huge tray of sushi in one hand, a bottle of sake in the other. Her heart was beating with excitement as she waited for her best friend to open the door. Ridiculously, it had taken them nearly three weeks to get together. Two dinners had been cancelled because Rachel’s pregnancy was tiring her out and another because Thea had been called away overnight to Newcastle where a child, feared drowned, had been reunited with her family. But tonight they were finally meeting, having agreed that the best venue was Rachel’s house, so she could loll dribbling on the sofa when exhaustion got the better of her.

To further conserve energies Thea had promised to bring the food. She was chuffed with her choice: sushi had always been their favourite and this was from Ikkyu, the battered dive next to the Scientology Centre in Tottenham Court Road, where the pair of them had spent probably one fifth of their twenties gorging themselves from the hand-roll sushi set and analysing every two-word text Luke had ever sent.

‘Ta dah!’ she cried as the door opened, waving the goodies above her head like a cheerleader.

‘Oh,’ Rachel said.

‘I know, I know. You can’t drink the sake,’ Thea said.

155

‘That’s for me. But you can have as much sushi as you can stuff in.’ She tried not to stare at the small, yet still obvious, swelling below Rachel’s green cashmere sweater. Last time she’d seen Rachel was five months ago in Manhattan when she’d spent the entire weekend telling Thea how her boyfriend, Dunc, didn’t want babies until he’d got together the finance to direct his first movie and how that was fine by her. A couple of weeks after returning home her coil had ‘accidentally’ failed.

‘But I can’t eat sushi any more,’ Rachel wailed, ‘raw fish.’ Thea had seen it a dozen times before: former Amazons metamorphosed into wusses who panicked at the sight of peanut butter and spent hours debating whether to get their hair coloured. But she was determined to take Rachel’s pregnancy in her stride, so she smiled patiently.

‘What do Japanese women eat when they’re pregnant?’ ‘I don’t know. I think they make sushi differently there or something.’ Rachel looked pained. ‘I’m really sorry, Thee. It was a brilliant idea of yours. Don’t worry. I’ll have something from the freezer. Dunc will be happy to finish what you don’t eat.’

‘Dunc’s here?’ Thea tried and failed to keep disappointment out of her voice as she followed her friend into the gleaming kitchen. Despite her job as a high-earning lawyer, Rachel had always been brilliant at homely stuff. It mattered to her that her fridge was full and her surfaces like mirrors, whereas Thea could not have given the tiniest hoot.

‘No, he’s gone to the pub with his mate Stan. There’s some football match on.’ Rachel riffled through the freezer drawers. ‘Look, there’s a lasagne here, so I’ll eat that and you can have the sushi, you lucky thing.’ She sighed melodramatically. ‘Still, only five months to go, then as soon as the baby’s out I’m going to buy the most enormous Stilton I can find and devour it in one sitting.’

‘So how are you feeling?’ Thea was determined to empathize.

Rachel smiled as she jabbed the ready meal’s plastic film with a fork. ‘Very tired. Very sick. Not throwing up, but constantly nauseous. And my boobs hurt all the time. It’s supposed to get better from the third month but I think that’s just one of the many lies they peddle, like childbirth doesn’t hurt much, to ensure the human race keeps going.’ She opened the microwave and shoved in the lasagne. ‘Anyway. Boring. How’s work? How’s
Luke
? God, I saw the article on trophy wives.’

Thea giggled. ‘And they say journalists make things up. Every word accurate.’

‘Have you met her yet? I mean the Bimbo?’

Thea found she couldn’t make eye contact. She picked up the sake and studied the label. ‘Yup. At a dinner party.’

‘And?’

‘Hannah’s let her off too lightly. She’s virtually an imbecile.’

Actually, in her heart Thea knew that was unfair. She couldn’t really judge Poppy’s intelligence, because she’d hardly had a chance to open her mouth all evening with the amount of chatter going on around her. And so much of that chatter was shop talk about the various news networks and their staff; no one outside the business could have been expected to understand it. Thea had heard her making an effort to engage Marco in conversation but he was so busy arselicking to Dean that he had cut her off at the pass.

Deep down, Thea also recognized that the women had been less than kind to Poppy because she was a) so pretty, b) so young and c) was a stay-at-home mother which would have unleashed a tornado of self-doubt in Emma and Roxanne. The fact that she had stolen Emma’s closest friend’s husband hadn’t helped either. Thea shuddered to think how Emma would react if she ever found out about her and Luke. But how could she?

‘Tell me more,’ Rachel was saying eagerly. ‘Is she like this client I had to deal with the other day who didn’t know that birds laid eggs? When I told her, she said: “Well, you learn a new thing every day!” ’

‘On that sort of level,’ Thea said shortly.

‘Bloody hell – Luke! What an arse. Why are men always so obvious? Have you seen him yet? Properly I mean.’

‘Hardly spoken to him. It’s all over. You know that.’

‘Yes.’ Rachel nodded. ‘You know I always thought you were far too good for him. Any man who cheats on his wife is only going to do it again.’

‘You never said that at the time.’ Rachel had always been encouraging about her and Luke, saying it wasn’t Thea’s fault if he’d so obviously married the wrong woman and assuring her one day he’d see the light and they’d come together.

‘Didn’t I? I’m sure I did.’ The microwave pinged. ‘Oh, what sweet music. Let’s eat. I’m always starving; I’m going to get so fat.’

‘You’re not, you’re growing a baby,’ Thea said dutifully.

She picked up some toro and dipped it in the wasabi. ‘How’s Dunc about it all? Is he excited?’

‘Much more than I expected him to be.’ Rachel sipped some pear juice. ‘I’ve been very lucky, Thea. When my coil failed, he could have left me, or put pressure on me to have an abortion but, instead, he’s taken it in his stride.’

‘Mmm,’ Thea said. She believed the story about the coil failing as much as she did in the tooth fairy. Before she could come up with a more eloquent reply the door slammed.

‘Oh, that’ll be him.’ Rachel looked at the microwave clock. ‘Back earlier than I thought.’

‘All right?’ Dunc grinned, ambling into the room. ‘Good to see you, Thea.’

‘You too.’ Thea smiled, although she felt like a bicycle wheel that had just run over a broken bottle. However happy Rachel seemed, Thea couldn’t help being depressed that her beautiful, bright, funny friend, who could tie a knot in a cherry stone with her teeth, would now always be linked to a man who – while undeniably handsome – could boast that he knew every word of
The Office
DVD boxed-set off by heart. A man, what was worse, who seemed content to live off Rachel’s vast salary while he tried to get various projects off the ground; not to mention a man who absolutely refused to marry her because, as he charmingly put it, he found the thought ‘too depressing’.

‘Yum, look at that sushi,’ Dunc exclaimed, grabbing the only piece of yellowtail sashimi, which Thea had been looking forward to.

‘So how are things, Dunc? What are you up to at the moment?’

‘It’s really exciting actually. Me and my mate Stan are setting up this new internet venture so you can order takeaways online.’

‘Like Hungryhouse?’ Thea ventured politely.

‘Who?’

‘Hungryhouse. I use them all the time. You type in your postcode and they list everyone near you who delivers.’

‘Oh. Right.’ Dunc scratched his curly head uneasily. ‘I’ll have to check them out.’

‘Might be an idea,’ Thea said. She didn’t meet Rachel’s eye. The doorbell rang.

‘That’ll be Stan. We’re having a meeting.’

‘On a Sunday evening?’ Rachel sounded calm, but Thea knew she was annoyed.

‘We won’t bother you, babe; you can still have your early night.’ Dunc headed to the door and returned with a plumpish man with an unnervingly low hairline. ‘Hey, Stan, meet Thea. Thea, Stan.’

‘Nice to meet you.’

‘Likewise. Shit, look at all that sushi.’

‘Help yourself,’ Dunc said generously.

And so an hour passed, during which Dunc and Stan ate all the best bits of the sushi and showed no sign whatsoever of convening a business meeting, preferring instead to engage in heated debate about the merits of Facebook versus MySpace with many detailed anecdotes from friends. Thea yawned discreetly and drank as much sake as she could get away with. Rachel caressed her stomach as though it was a lazy Siamese cat.

‘What is it you do, Thea?’ Stan said turning to her, after a long discussion on the evil that was TalkTalk broadband,

which had ended with Dunc hurrying to his office to check some fact.

‘I’m a journalist.’

Stan made the sign of the cross. ‘Oooh, better be careful what I say. Don’t want you misquoting me.’

Why did the dullest people always say this? Thea smiled stiffly.

‘Thea’s not that kind of journalist,’ Rachel said loyally. ‘She’s a senior producer on the
Seven Thirty News
.’

‘Oh yeah? Never watch the news. Get it off the internet. Hey, have you ever met Ricky Gervais?’

‘No. But I hear he’s a complete arsehole.’ This wasn’t actually true, but it was worth it because Stan looked like a three-year-old who’d just been told there was no Santa Claus.

‘I can’t believe that.’

‘Well, that’s up to you.’ Thea grinned as the lie began to take shape. ‘But he was the only star who refused to contribute to our summer charity appeal. He said charity began at home.’

‘Stan,’ Dunc yelled from the other room, ‘come and look at this. It proves my point one hundred per cent.’

‘Excuse me, ladies.’ Stan got up. As soon as he’d left the room, Rachel smiled.

‘He’s nice, isn’t he?’

Thea looked at her friend in astonishment. She might as well have asked her to affirm that Pol Pot was a cutie.

‘Quite good-looking?’ Rachel pressed on.

‘He’s OK. I mean he hasn’t got a harelip or a disfiguring skin condition.’

‘He split up from his girlfriend recently.’

‘Did he?’ Thea yawned.

‘So what do you think?’

Trying to hide her irritation, Thea filled her glass with sake. ‘Rach, stop this at once!’

‘Stop what?’ Rachel said with mock innocence.

‘Trying to matchmake. I don’t want to be part of the smug marrieds club.’

‘Nor do Dunc and I,’ Rachel said rather sharply.

‘True,’ Thea agreed hastily. Just as Rachel knew without asking how she felt about Luke, Thea didn’t need to be told that Rachel’s ‘I don’t care about marriage, it’s just a piece of paper’ line was an out and out fib. She added, ‘But Rachel, I don’t fancy Stan. Sorry. I don’t fancy anybody at the moment. I’m sure I will again in time, but I don’t want babies so where’s the rush?’

Rachel’s hands moved protectively to her bump, as if such words might harm her unborn child.

Hastily Thea carried on, ‘Look, I’m thrilled you’re having a baby. I’m going to be its big bad godmother, and stuff it with sweeties and buy it make-up if it’s a girl and violent computer games if it’s a boy and generally love it to pieces. But I don’t want one of my own. You know that.’

‘But
why
?’

Because babies didn’t drink, didn’t have interesting conversations, went to bed at an absurdly early hour. They curbed your freedom, meant an end to all passion and spontaneity and turned you into a drudge like Thea’s mother. They made you settle for an oaf like Dunc, because at thirty-six, time had run out before you’d found someone better. But naturally Thea was going to say none of this, just inwardly thank the good whoever was up there that she had somehow miraculously been born without the urge to breed and was therefore spared such hideous compromises. ‘Why not?’ She shrugged.

‘I don’t know,’ Rachel said tentatively. ‘I just somehow thought maybe you had this anti-marriage and babies line because of Luke. You know, because he already had kids and you thought he didn’t want any more. But now it’s all over… Or maybe it isn’t competely finished yet?’

‘It
is
finished. I told you. It took me long enough, but I really have seen the light about Luke. Being his lover was such a cliché. It’s up there with peasants in movies always having filthy hair but perfect white teeth.’

Rachel chuckled. ‘Or women wearing bras but no knickers when they have sex.’

‘Or returning from the shops with a baguette sticking out of their string bag.’

‘Or the villain leaving at least an hour for your bomb to explode, so the hero has plenty of time to defuse it and rescue the girl.’

They were giggling when the men came back into the room. Suddenly Thea felt cold. She looked at her watch. ‘Listen, I’ve got an early start. I’d better get going.’

‘Maybe you could give Stan a lift,’ Dunc said hopefully.

‘I was going to get the Tube,’ Thea lied. She’d had every intention of leaping in a black cab. Taxis were her great indulgence, you could put them all against expenses, though rumour had it that Foxy Roxy was planning to put a halt to this practice. Well, all the more reason to enjoy it while it lasted.

‘I could walk you there,’ Stan said eagerly.

Thea looked at her watch again. ‘Gosh, actually, it’s later than I thought. Maybe I will get a cab.’ She looked unwillingly at Stan. ‘Where do you live?’

‘Acton.’

‘You’re nowhere near me. I’m in Stockwell. I could drop you at the Tube if you like.’ She made her offer sound like a doctor asking the patient to choose between amputating a leg or an arm. Stan got the hint.

‘No, don’t worry, I’ll walk. Fresh air would do me good.’

Rachel stood up and hugged her friend. ‘It’s been great to see you. We’ll do it again soon.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Just the two of us next time.’

Thea felt a lump in her throat. For a second, she’d been worried she’d lost Rachel. But maybe there was still a chink of hope. All the same, as her taxi accelerated down a virtually deserted, Sunday night Upper Street, Thea felt a bleakness inside, a realization that in her absence her London life had changed unalterably. She’d better find a hot foreign story quickly to take her away for a bit. The joy of life on the road was that you lived in a bubble where you didn’t have to worry about the mundanities of everyday life. Tomorrow she’d start scouring the foreign sections for something that could take her away from this new, earthbound existence.