The Next Best Thing (38 page)

‘I’ll go and pack the sponge bag,’ Jane said, ‘then we’re all clone.’

In the bathroom, she applied her anti-ageing, retinol-enhanced magic potion, and dipped into a smaller pot that promised special protection for the fine skin around the eyes. She then took her
tweezers and tweaked out a hair that had just started to grow on one side of her chin. The first signs of age; it was as if her body was giving out warning signs, telling her this was it, it was
downhill from now on, she had better make the most of it. She peered closely at the mirror for further signs of decay.

‘Vanity, thy name is woman.’

She started as Will came in behind her.

‘You made me jump,’ she said, ‘I thought you’d gone out.’

He looked at her reflection appraisingly. ‘Not too bad, are you? Holding up quite nicely, I’d say. I think you may have lost some weight.’

‘Thanks.’ She smiled at him, he was making an effort to be nice, after all.

‘I thought I should update you on my plans,’ he said, turning his attention to his own reflection, lowering his chin and running a hand over his shaved head. It felt hard and virile
beneath his fingers. ‘As you know, I’ve resigned from my column. Sorry to drop that news in front of Lydia, by the way, I meant to speak to you first about it, but everything’s
been moving at such a pace . . .’ He paused and leaned forward, frowning at what looked like a blackhead on his forehead. No, relax, it was just a fleck of dirt. ‘It’s all to do
with this film project,’ he went on, ‘they want me to go over and spend some time in Hollywood.’

‘How long?’

‘Hard to say. A few months. But I’ll come back for the odd weekend, and you might like to bring Liberty over for a break in the summer. They’re putting me up in a suite,
there’d be plenty of room.’

Jane imagined them creeping around the hotel, trying not to be in the way. ‘You’d be working, though.’

‘Obviously,’ he said, talking to the mirror again. ‘They’re not paying me to take an extended holiday with my family.’

He was wearing a plain white tee shirt beneath a loosely structured suit, with its sleeves pushed up, like Bruce Willis. ‘What do you think?’

She wasn’t sure if he meant his appearance or his career plans. ‘I think it sounds very exciting, well done.’

‘It could just be the start. I may well decide to move over there permanently, and if it works out, you might like to join me. You might finally achieve your dream of leaving London.
Though we don’t want to get too ahead of ourselves,’ he added. Better not to make rash promises. ‘The thing about your work is you can do it anywhere,’ he went on, meaning
anywhere I choose to lead you.

It was true that a few months ago she would have jumped at it. Now, the idea of a new life with Will just left her cold. It was all she could do to carry on as they were.

‘But you’re so attached to London,’ she said, ‘all that stuff in your column about it being the only city you could call home.’

He shrugged. ‘You’ve got to take opportunities when they present themselves. Don’t want to lie on your deathbed wishing you’d clone things when you had the
chance.’

She couldn’t argue with that. ‘What about Liberty? She might turn into a valley girl. Or become a drug addict, someone from a Bret Easton Ellis novel.’

‘Don’t play the anti-American ticket, Jane, you sound like the
Daily Mail.
Anyway, this is just for a year or so, there’s no need to rush into any decisions.’

‘A year? You said a few months.’

‘To start with, yes. And you can stay here, if you like, in the long-term. There’s no need for you to uproot if you don’t want to.’

He doesn’t want us, she thought. So much for her effort in holding together the family unit. He was buggering off to Hollywood and she and Liberty could do as they liked. They were
expendable.

‘When are you leaving?’

‘Next week. Gives me just enough time to sort everything out here.’

‘Including us?’

‘I’ve never had to sort you out, Jane, you’re so damned efficient.’ He smiled at her. ‘How’s your packing coming on?’ he asked.

‘Nearly finished.’

‘Good, only I might need a bit of help getting organised.’

He left her to it and went back down to the galleria. That had gone quite well, he thought. Kind of welcoming and noncommittal at the same time. He wanted to keep the family on board, but he
needed to be realistic about the future. Alone in Hollywood, he couldn’t rule out the possibility of a bit of love interest. He felt a flicker of horniness. A writer in Hollywood, all those
Californian girls with blank eyes and easy ways. Himself as a kind of intellectual Beach Boy, winning them over with his huge vocabulary. He conjured up an image of himself sitting on a surfboard
on Venice Beach, holding forth like Socrates, drawing in the sand for the benefit of a crowd of admiring beach babes.

He shifted in his seat and went online to take another look at the hotel he would soon be calling home. It floated up before him, speaking of endless possibilities. The size of his suite was
about twice that of the galleria. The phone rang.

‘Will, it’s Chas.’

‘Chas, hi.’

‘Hang on a minute, just got a call through on the other line.’

Will tucked the phone under his chin and clicked on the screen, running through the hotel facilities: gym, sauna, personal trainers on site, it might not be a bad idea to up his fitness
level.

‘Sorry about that,’ said Chas.

‘No problem, what’s new?’

‘Well . . . not good news, I’m afraid,’

‘Oh?’

‘Those fuckers at the studio . . .’

‘What?’

‘Basically, they’ve changed their minds. Decided they’ve got someone else they want to use, don’t ask me why.’

Will’s hand froze on the mouse. ‘They can’t do that,’ he said. ‘It’s all worked out. I’ve just given notice at the
Messenger.’

‘Ouch,’ said Chas, ‘that was a bit premature.’

‘But I was supposed to be leaving next week, for Christ’s sake.’

‘If you’d discussed it with me, I’d have told you. Don’t count on anything until you’ve signed the contract.’ Will jumped to his feet in a panic, feeling his
shorn head, vulnerable and exposed. It had been tempting fate, shaving off his ponytail like that.

‘You told me,’ he said, ‘you told me to tie everything up as soon as possible.’

‘I said, get prepared, that doesn’t include handing in your resignation,’ said Chas evenly. ‘First bit of advice I give all my clients is don’t give up the day
job.’

‘Listen, mate!’ Will was shouting at him now. ‘You were the one who got me into all this, it was you who was talking like it was all in the bag. Don’t you think that as
my agent you might have advised me a bit better?’

‘Don’t shout, Will, it’s really not my fault . . . These things happen.’

‘Fuck you!’ Will threw the phone down and realised he was shaking. He poured himself a shot of vodka and downed it quickly, then poured another. He walked over to the window and
stared out into the grey and rainy street. This time next week he should have been basking in the Californian sunshine. He was to have taken his place in that lurid blue Hockney-swimming-pool
landscape. In his head he had already formed the scenes: working in a huge studio alongside powerful executives, then returning to host a thong-clad soiree round the pool. He was to have been the
intellectual English writer in Hollywood, a latter-day Isherwood, except straight and minus the yoga. And now it had all been snatched away. He remained at the window for some time, motionless,
wondering what to do. He watched an old lady pushing along a four-wheeled shopping basket, pausing to lean on it, while a group of boys were mucking around on bikes, performing wheelies. The usual
banal sights.

Dear old grimy London, he thought at last, it could be worse. At least you saw people on the streets here, unlike Los Angeles, where everyone was sealed inside their cars. It wasn’t really
him, that half-baked West Coast idiocy, he should sec this as a blessing in disguise. He’d ring the paper now, withdraw his resignation. Then he could negotiate a six-month sabbatical some
time soon, to get on with his book. He was a writer, after all, not a film lackey. He felt a theme for next week’s column coming on:
Losers go to Hollywood.
The dumbing down of the
American film industry, with particular mention for those shits who had just messed him about. How there was more talent in one BBC studio than in the entire American entertainment business.

Feeling much better, he went back to his desk and called his editor, explaining that he had changed his plans, waiting for the warm sighs of relief as she welcomed him back into the fold.

‘I’m sorry, Will,’ she said when he’d finished, ‘but we’ve already made other arrangements.’

‘So, un-make them!’ he said. ‘You can’t tell me you’ve done anything irrevocable since yesterday. As I know only too well, nothing is definite until it’s
signed and sealed.’

There was an awkward pause.

‘The thing is, Will,’ she said, ‘there’s been the feeling here for a while that maybe . . . it’s time for a change. We need to be hooking in our younger readers,
and sometimes your angle is a little bit . . . of its time, shall we say. We’ve already given your column to a very exciting new writer . . .’

‘Another twelve-year-old, like you, is it?’ Will said, before hanging up for the second time in ten minutes.

He shouldn’t really be drinking vodka at this time in the morning, but then again these were exceptional circumstances. Will topped his glass and sat down to think again. The book, of
course. He’d have to get a new agent, naturally, and not before time. Bloody Chas. Until he’d got the deal, they could manage on Jane’s money. Jane, bless her. What a good job
he’d left the door open when he told her about moving to America. That could have been a very costly own goal.

He called out to her, but there was no reply. She must still be upstairs, finishing the packing. Setting the glass down on the desk, Will went up to the bedroom to find her, but the case had
gone and the bed was neatly made.

‘Jane!’ he bellowed down the stairs. Running down, he could make out the suitcase standing by the door. He continued down into the basement where Liberty was eating a sandwich and
Jane was wiping down the surfaces in the businesslike way of someone preparing to leave.

‘There you are!’ he said in relief. ‘I thought for a moment you’d gone off without saying goodbye.’

‘Five minutes,’ said Jane, looking at her watch.

She was looking good, he thought, in her long sheepskin coat. And Liberty in her civvies instead of that damn uniform. He felt a surge of affection for them both, the way he did whenever he felt
a bit out of sorts.

‘There’s been a change of plan,’ he said, ‘you might actually be seeing a bit more of me than we thought.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Jane. ‘Co upstairs, Liberty, and get your things together for the journey’

Liberty obediently went off, leaving her parents alone together.

‘I’ve been thinking, Will,’ said Jane, ‘and I realise that I’ve waited far too long. If it wasn’t for Liberty, we wouldn’t still be together, we both
know that.’

Will started to protest. Was she out of her mind? After everything he’d done for her, everything he’d taught her, the quality he brought to her daily life.

‘I used to think that Liberty was reason enough,’ Jane went on, ignoring him, ‘you know my view that a child should be brought up by both parents. But seeing how easy you find
it to walk out makes me realise that my illusion of us as a happy, functional family is a lie. I don’t want Liberty growing up with us as an example of a normal couple. I don’t want her
to think that what we have is a good, loving relationship, when it’s nothing of the sort. So I’m leaving you.’

‘You’re what?’

‘I’m leaving you. Of course you can see as much of Liberty as you like, and I don’t want any money, we’ll manage.’

‘What do you mean, you’re leaving me? You’re nothing without me, you’ve said so yourself many times!’

‘And you let me believe it! Look, Will, when we met I was so impressionable, and glamorous. You still are, of course,’ she added, feeling a sudden rush of pity, ‘but
you’ve got to admit I was a pushover. Making me fall in love with you was like taking candy from a baby, as you have pointed out to me on more than one occasion.’

Will stared at her, casting around wildly for something to say that would stop everything from crashing down around him.

‘But I honestly feel it’s over now,’ Jane was saying. ‘Let’s be grown up about it. I’m no longer your little protege, and you . . . well, you’re you . .
. hugely clever, and in with all the right people, and now with a fabulous future in the film world. You know it makes much more sense for you to go there by yourself, free of any ties . . . you
more or less said so, earlier on.’

‘But that’s just it, Jane,’ Will interrupted, ‘I’m not going, it’s fallen through. They’ve pulled the plug on me.’

He explained what had happened.

‘I see,’ said Jane slowly, ‘what a shame, I’m so sorry.’ She thought it through. ‘But that doesn’t really change anything between us, does it? I’d
still have reached the same conclusion, even if you weren’t going.’

‘You can’t leave me now! I’ve supported you for all these years and the minute I want something back, you tell me you’re swanning off!’

‘Will, the house is yours, your money’s yours, all you’ve ever given us has been a roof over our heads, and that’s all I ever asked for.’

She was heading up the stairs now.

‘But I need you to support me, while I write my book,’ he said desperately, laying all his cards on the table.

‘Sorry. You’ll just have to dig into your savings, and don’t pretend you haven’t got any . . .’ She knew about all those secret funds and Mini Cash ISAs that he
kept quiet about, filing them away where he thought she wouldn’t see them.

‘Hang on,’ he said, ‘you could at least show me how the washing machine works.’

“Treat yourself to a new one,’ said Jane, ‘and a dishwasher, while you’re about it.’

Liberty appeared at the front door. ‘Say goodbye to Daddy, we’ll see him soon,’ said Jane.