The Next Best Thing (2 page)

Jane ran her finger across her computer screen and examined the line of dust which it had accumulated. Dust was supposed to be made up largely of skin cells, so why did it look so grey and
fluffy?

‘Frantic, can I call you back? I’ve got to get on before school finishes . . .’

‘Ah yes, that child. You’re a saint, Jane, you know that?’

‘Mmm.’

‘But good for you, you’ve managed to keep some kind of career going.’

‘Nice of you to say so. Must go . . .’

‘No honestly, Jane, I take my hat off to you. It can’t be easy working all by yourself, with no-one to bounce ideas off. It would drive me mad, I know that.’ Lydia fell silent
in a moment of true, shuddering pity. ‘Anyway, the reason I called,’ she went on, ‘was to ask if you were going to Miss Lancaster’s memorial service.’

‘Who?’

‘Miss Lancaster, you know, our old tutor.’

Jane cast her mind back to a woman with Margaret Drabble hair and large flat feet, pouring out three glasses of Stones ginger wine before their midday tutorial. ‘Of course, I remember, she
was nice enough but I think I’ll give it a miss. No point in wallowing in the past.’

Lydia’s motives were neither sentimental nor nostalgic. ‘It’s a great networking opportunity. All those people you haven’t seen for ages, some of them really worth
knowing. I’ve made some great contacts at memorial services.’

Jane was not convinced. The last thing she wanted was to run the gauntlet of polite enquiries from her peers. Holding up the unremarkable achievements of her life for general inspection, while
Lydia glittered and whirled around her.

‘No, I think I’m busy that day,’ she said, ‘I don’t think Miss Lancaster will miss me.’

‘Obviously
she
won’t. I’m just thinking of you. It would do you good to get out more. Finger on the pulse and all that. Hang on, there’s my other line, I’ll
call you back.’

And with a dismissive click Jane was dropped back into her fusty old life. Self-chosen, and therefore not pitiful. The life of the home worker. Independent, flexible, the mistress of her
destiny. Or underpaid, lonely and unrewarded? Discuss.

Goodness me, it was nearly lunchtime and the place was still a pigsty. She’d better just take ten minutes out to tidy up, they couldn’t have Chas sitting down to dinner surrounded by
mountains of trash. She took a stray plastic bag and started to fill it with bits of Barbie outfits that were strewn across the counter: a tiny boucle jacket, a handbag the size of a thumbnail and
minuscule stilettoes for deformedly small feet.

The best thing about working at home was being able to move around freely since you weren’t stuck behind the same desk all day, though the benefits were debatable when you were constantly
reminded of your household chores and other family commitments. She sighed, picked up the rest of the toys littering the floor and decided to relocate to the bedroom to escape the demands of her
kitchen. Picking up the laptop, she stepped over the piles of clean sheets sitting on the stairs. Her sister-in-law had noticed her laundry-pile habit and last Christmas had given her a rectangular
basket specially designed to fit on a bottom stair. The idea being that on your way up you would gaily seize it by the handle and swing it behind you, tra la la, all the way to the linen closet,
that well-ordered place so loved by women with its crisply pressed Egyptian-cotton sheets interleaved with lavender nosegays.

Upstairs, she slipped under the bedcovers, placing the computer on her knees. It was cold up here — Will didn’t believe in heating too many unnecessary rooms — and the computer
generated a reassuring surge of warmth through the goose down. This is the life, she thought, tapping happily at the keys. Tucked up in bed in her pyjamas and the womb-like security of her very own
sleep/workplace. You couldn’t really ask for more. Lydia was welcome to her hectic schedule of royal encounters, jumping into cars in a flurry of pashminas and spiky heels. It made Jane feel
exhausted just thinking about it. Though sometimes she wouldn’t mind slamming the front door and clipping off to the office in a pair of noisy look-at-me shoes. But Will was right, it made
more sense for her to be at home. As he pointed out, it was one thing going out to work if you were a top dog with a fat salary to pay for nannies and cleaners. But when you were a middle-ranking
nobody, you were lucky to break even once you’d paid for a childminder, and tube fares and lunch and decent clothes.

When she finally reached the end of the chapter, Jane leaped out of bed and ran a bath. While waiting for it to fill, she walked across to the window and looked out at the rainy street where two
men in hooded sweatshirts were shouting at each other. It was funny how she’d ended up in this dodgy bit of London where, bizarrely, houses were twice as expensive as in the leafy suburbs of
her upbringing. Her dream had always been to move to the country, but she knew it wouldn’t ever happen. Will didn’t do the country. Or at least he might do the country for a weekend
provided he was staying in a stonking great house with no ribbon developments to spoil the view.
His
fantasy, as he liked to reiterate in his newspaper column, was to live in London for the
rest of his life. Dear old dirty London: her clothes may be ragged but beneath them beats a heart of gold. Or words to that effect.

She quickly bathed and changed then went downstairs to call Zanussi. Two more chapters, then she’d have to rush off to Ikea to get those shelves for Liberty’s bedroom. Will had been
chasing her to get them for weeks now and she didn’t want to tell him yet again that she hadn’t had time, it sounded so feeble. She finished her work in silence, then picked up her coat
and the Ikea catalogue, marked up in Will’s neat handwriting. On the North Circular she stopped for petrol and bought a family-sized box of Maltesers, which she ate from her lap as the
traffic stopped and started its way through the drizzling rain.

In the downstairs bar of the French House, Will caught sight of himself in the mirror. With the benefit of low lighting and three gin and tonics, he had to admit he liked what
he saw. He turned his head to get the best angle of his cheekbones, and found it incredible to think that he was pushing fifty. That was no age, though, these days. Fifty was the new forty, or more
like thirty-five in his case. He smoothed some rogue hairs back into his ponytail and turned to his companion.

‘Another one before you go, Chas?’

He wasn’t usually so profligate in buying rounds, but it was worth keeping his agent sweet. Chas had sounded pretty bullish about what he might get for Will’s next book. Anyway, he
could probably push the drinks through on expenses.

Chas looked at his watch. ‘Better not, I’m late already. I’m sorry about tonight, do apologise to Jane for me.’

‘Don’t worry about it, she’s cool. One thing about Jane, she doesn’t get uptight about a change in plan. Not like Carol, she wouldn’t have spoken to me for a
week.’

‘How is the ex?’

‘I hardly know, all right I think. Best thing I ever did was walk out of that marriage. Tough at the time, but she’s grateful to me now. Freed her up to start a new life with that
dismal travel agent.’

‘And left you free to set up home with the lovely Jane. You’re a lucky man.’

‘I know.’

‘Clever, good-looking woman who knows how to cook. And she earns her own money.’ Chas sighed as he thought of his own high-maintenance ex-wife. Lounging around at home between trips
to the beauty salon. He had asked her once whether she ever thought about going back to work. Perfectly innocent question, you’d have thought, but her reaction had been savage. ‘What am
I supposed to do?’ she’d snapped back at him. ‘Get a job in a shoe shop?’ That was the problem with well-educated women. A few child-rearing years out of the market and they
became unemployable.

‘That’s the advantage of cohabitation over marriage,’ said Will. ‘Women understand it’s not a meal ticket for life.’

‘Rod Stewart said he wasn’t going to marry again,’ said Chas. ‘He’d just find a woman he didn’t like and give her a house instead.’

‘Exactly.’

They sat in silence for a moment to consider this monumental statement.

‘I’ll be off then,’ said Chas.

They left the pub and said their goodbyes on the pavement. Chas had been offered a ticket for the Donmar, and Will insisted he take it. If there was one thing life had taught him it was always
to drop an engagement if something better came along. He wandered up Dean Street towards the tube, but then thought better of it. A man in his position shouldn’t have to slum it on the
underground, even if he was financially crippled by years of alimony. He hailed a cab.

‘Shepherds Bush please.’

Shepherds Bush, that was bad enough. It had been Notting Hill before the divorce, and for the purposes of his newspaper column, it still was. The Portobello Road was his beat, and every week he
wrote of its delights to lighten the journey of his poor readers as they headed off to their god-awful suburban homes.

The seductive smell of garlic cooking in olive oil greeted Will as he opened the front door.

‘Hey baby,’ he called out, taking off his coat.

Jane came up from the basement, looking delicious in a soft pink sweater. She didn’t often wear make-up but he could see she’d made an effort tonight. Her hair was loosely pinned up,
framing her heart-shaped face, and her delicate features were flattered by a pale lipstick.

‘Where’s Chas?’ she asked, looking round as if expecting him to be hiding behind Will.

‘Couldn’t make it unfortunately. Sends his apologies, though he knows the loss is all his. You look gorgeous.’

Jane dropped her welcoming smile and frowned at him.

‘Well, thanks a lot!’ she said. ‘You could have rung. I’ve been charging around like a blue-arsed fly getting everything ready; it would have taken you two minutes to let
me know.’

She turned on her heel and Will followed her down the stairs. ‘Be nice to me,’ he said, ‘you lovely creature. I was only telling Chas what a marvel you were, how un-uptight,
how free-wheeling . . .’

The table had been set with three places, lit by candles and miraculously free of clutter. Will deftly removed one place setting.

‘There we are, all the more for you and me. Just the two of us, much more romantic ‘

It was unusual for him to be currying favour like this, mostly it was the other way round. Jane looked at him with a mixture of exasperation and amusement. She still couldn’t resist him
when he turned on the charm.

‘Oh . . . all right then,’ she relented. ‘At least we can have a normal conversation and I won’t have to listen to you and Chas talking shop.’

She liked it when he courted her like this. It reminded her of when they first met, and he used to bombard her office with flowers. He knew how to treat a girl, of course, being that much older;
she wouldn’t fall for it in quite the same way now she was in her thirties. She watched him pour himself a glass of vodka then hold the bottle out to her enquiringly. She nodded and he gave
her his louche, lop-sided smile. She’d been mad for that smile back then, she’d thought he was James Dean and Dustin Hoffman rolled into one sexy bundle of charming sophistication.

He handed her the glass. ‘Liberty in bed already?’

‘Yes, she was exhausted. Long day for her — ice-skating and French after school.’

‘You got the mushrooms I take it?’

‘But of course.’

‘Fresh and Wild?’

‘No, I got some button mushrooms on special offer at Safeway.’

His eyes widened in disbelief.

‘Only joking,’ she said. ‘You know I wouldn’t risk offending Chas with anything from a supermarket. Just too bad he blew us out.’

‘Never mind, Nigella, we’ll just have to go it alone.’

She didn’t mind the Nigella allusion. Posh and sexy, crashing greedily round a kitchen filled with giant cooking pots. She smiled her acknowledgement and took a long, objective look at
him. He’d still got it, she thought, that confidence, the way he assumed the room. She’d still cross the party to talk to him, though if she was being brutally honest, she’d have
to admit the last ten years had not been too kind to him. The beginnings of a soft belly hung over his belt, and his face had loosened. He should get rid of the ponytail, too, now he was thinning
on top. She ought to have a word with him about it.

‘They came to fix the dishwasher,’ she said, ‘just happened to have someone in the area, luckily. That was the high point of my day, how about you?’

‘Oh, you know, another day, another dollar. Another crop of wise and witty insights for my grateful public.’

‘Lydia rang this morning,’ said Jane, emptying the bag of mushrooms into a colander and taking them over to the sink.

‘What are you doing?’
Will’s voice had become shrill with alarm.

‘Washing the mushrooms.’

‘You mustn’t do that!’

‘They’ve got clods of earth sticking to them.’

‘So wipe them off with a damp cloth, but you must never, never wash mushrooms. They’re like sponges, they soak up the water then it all comes out when you cook them and they lose all
their flavour. I’m surprised you didn’t know that.’ He turned away to top up his glass, and while he was rummaging in the freezer for ice, Jane surreptitiously ran the cold tap
over the colander. She was damned if she was going to have her dinner ruined by lumps of soil.

Will turned back to face her. ‘What did Lydia want?’ he asked.

‘This and that. She wanted me to go to some sad old don’s memorial service. As if. You would have thought she had better things to do. She’s always going on about how busy she
is. Busy, busy, busy, I hate that, don’t you? So self-important.’

‘“And yet, methinks, she semed hisier than she was”,’
said Will, in the actorly voice that he liked to adopt for quoting Chaucer.

‘It’s like what business people go through when fixing a meeting,’ said Jane. ‘You know, all that fawning about how I’m sure your diary’s fuller than mine
— quite ridiculous.’

‘I agree,’ Will replied, reverting to his normal voice, a fashionable blend of public school and glottal stops. ‘It’s seriously uncool to bang on about being busy. Very
second rank, and also suggests you’re not coping. Although Lydia’s always been a bit of a bustler though, hasn’t she?’