The Trials of Tiffany Trott (22 page)

“But I’m sure Lucy would prefer a nice, neat Caesarian,” I said, although I don’t think she heard me. Natural childbirth? Twenty-five hours of crawling around on her hands and knees bellowing like a bull? You have got to be joking! I thought. Especially if I’ve got to be there.

“Yes, I’m going to have Lottie naturally,” I overheard Sally say to someone at Frances’s party the following Monday. “I really think it’s the best approach. I don’t want to be some anonymous body on a production line in a hospital.”

“Which
is
your local hospital?”

“The Chelsea and Westminster.”

“Oh, I’ve heard that’s wonderful.”

“Yes. Yes it is. It’s fabulous. Like a five-star hotel. But that’s not the point, is it?” she continued.

“Isn’t it?”

“No. I want to give birth at home, in a pool, with soft music playing.”

“Well, my specialty is medical negligence and let me tell you that I have to handle a lot of cases where home deliveries have gone horribly, horribly wrong.” Sally shifted uncomfortably from one foot to another. She didn’t want to hear this. “Now, let me just give you the background to one
particularly
fascinating case I handled in 1989,” the man carried on. “It really was gruesome—in fact the baby died. Now the midwife in question . . .”

“I’d love to hear about it, but could I just get a refill first,” I heard Sally say. “Back in a sec,” she fibbed as she escaped toward the kitchen. Sally’s always so tactful. It’s one of her
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nicest qualities. That’s what I noticed most when I first met her ten years ago. I’d been commissioned to write a brochure about her bank, Catch Manhattan, and she was chosen to brief me about the options and futures market. We’ve been friends ever since then. And I’ve never, ever seen her lose her rag, or swear, or show even the slightest irritation with anyone. Ever. She’s got fantastic self-control.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang and there was Kit, with Portia. Oh
why
didn’t I marry Kit? I thought, yet again, with a pang.

“Tiffany!” He gave me a lovely, enfolding hug.
Why didn’t I?

“Hallo, Kit,” I said. “Hallo, Portia.” Portia smiled at me. Very warmly. And this was unusual. And she looked . . . different. On the few occasions she’d agreed to come to my parties with Kit, she had stood around with a patently bored air, rudely tugging at his sleeve, or rolling her eyes at him in a conspicuous fashion to indicate that she’d had enough. This evening she looked more—animated. And she was holding Kit’s hand. Quite possessively. I’d never seen that before.

“Sorry we’re late,” said Kit. “We just popped in to the Blow Coward Spank party for half an hour.” That’s why Portia was smiling, I thought—she’d obviously had a couple of drinks already.

“What a wonderful Christmas tree, Frances,” Kit exclaimed. And it was. It barely cleared the ceiling, and it was beautifully dressed—no vulgar swags and bows in carefully coordinated colors, but a polychromatic confusion of pretty glass baubles and spangly beads, covered by a cobweb of white, twinkling lights. On the top was a porcelain angel with huge, gold chiffon wings.

“Kit, will you give me a hand in the kitchen?” said Frances. “I need someone to help me mix the cocktails.”

I was left standing with Portia by the Christmas tree. She was so tall. She and Kit always looked a bit comical together, because he’s five foot nine and she’s almost six foot. Six foot three in her heels. But today she had flat shoes on. That was un
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usual. While she leant her elbow on the mantelpiece to steady herself, I subtly scrutinized her face: cheekbones you could stand a tray on, luminous skin, and large, gray-blue eyes which looked almost turquoise in the flickering half-light of the fire. It’s not hard to see why Kit loves her. She’s beautiful.

“I’m bleeding pissed off, Tiffany,” she said in her native Streatham. “I’ve just done this
awful
shoot for
Harpers & Queen.
At Longleat.”

“But it sounds fun.”

“Well, it wasn’t.”

“Why not?”

“It was for swimwear, that’s why. I’ll be lucky if I don’t get pneumonia. And that bloke who owns it, Christopher Thynne, he was hovering around.”

“Perhaps he’s looking for another ‘wifelet,’ ” I suggested.

“Oh darlin’, thank you,” said Portia, as Kit brought us a couple of
enormous
Martinis and then slipped away into the crowd.

“In fact, Tiffany,” she continued, knocking back half her cocktail, “I’m pretty fed up with being a model.” Gosh. I mean, Portia had never really bothered to
talk
to me at any length before, let alone confide in me. “I’m thirty-two,” she said, “I’m burning out. I’m much too old for it—the other girls all call me ‘Grandma’—and the shoots are boring as hell.”

“What about the catwalk?” I asked. “Isn’t that fun?”

“I ’
ate
the bleeding catwalk,” she said vehemently, taking another mouthful of Martini. Gosh, she was really loosening up. “All that getting up at five-thirty to be at some airport. All that hanging around backstage with the other girls, bitching about the designers. I’ve made enough money,” she added. “I want to do something more
meaningful.
I want to use my brain.”

“Won’t that be rather
academic
in your case?” I said. Actually I didn’t say that at all. I just said, “What would you like to do?”

“Maybe work for the Samaritans,” she said with another
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large swig. “I’d like to help other people. I’d
reely
enjoy that. Sorting out their troubles. I’ve listened to enough problems from other girls over the last fifteen years to last a lifetime—drugs, drink, anorexia, bulimia, boyfriend problems, divorce, domestic violence, custody battles . . . the things I’ve heard. You’d hardly believe it. I’ll ’ave to do a course, of course.”

“Of course,” I said, astonished. Gosh, this Martini was really, really strong.

“But the most important thing of all,” said Portia, “is that I want to spend more time with Kit.”

“That’s a good idea,” I said.

And then she looked at me and said, “Tiffany, why didn’t
you
marry Kit?”

“Oh really, Portia, what a funny question . . . ha ha!”

“No, reely, Tiffany . . . why didn’t you?” I pretended not to hear.

Standing just behind us were Lizzie and Martin, and they were talking to Catherine. “No we’re not going skiing—we’re going somewhere rather special, actually,” I heard Lizzie say. “In January. Chile and Easter Island. Martin’s
always
wanted to go to Easter Island, haven’t you, darling?”

“Yes,” he said happily. “I have.”

“He’s always had a bee in his bonnet about those massive stone statues.”

“Yes,” he responded, “ever since I was a little boy.”

“They’re really interesting,” said Catherine excitedly. “No one knows how on earth they got there! I did them for A Level geography. You
lucky
things.”

“Well I thought it was about time Martin got to do something
he
really wanted to do,” said Lizzie, giving his arm an affectionate squeeze. “He works so hard. So my mother’s going to come and look after the girls.”

Then I saw Kit and Martin engaged in animated conversation—and wondered whether they’d ever told Portia and Lizzie where it was they’d gone that weekend.

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“I know you think I’ve been a bitch to Kit,” I heard Portia say. What?

“Good heavens
no
!” I lied, with a nervous sip of my Martini. “Why ever should I think that?”

She threw back her head and swallowed the rest of her drink. “Because I ’ave been a bitch to him, that’s why. But he was so suffocating,” she continued, waving her spiked olive at me and swaying slightly. “All that pressure. I couldn’t stand it. All that pressure to have babies—as though that was all he needed me for. I wasn’t even sure I
wanted
kids. I’m still not sure.”

“Well . . .”

“And all those Teletubbies videos,” she went on. “And the trips to Ikea. And I felt such an idiot in that bleedin’ Discovery. It really got me down. He never understood, Tiffany. Until recently, he never understood that I wanted to choose, in my own time.”

“Well, that’s very understandable,” I said.

“Yes. And at last he seemed to realize that,” she said tipsily. “I don’t know what it was, but he stopped being so claustrophobic. He changed. In fact he . . . but Tiffany, I just wanted,” she leant forward. “I just wanted . . . to tell you something else.” Oh my God, I didn’t think I could take any more confessions from her. She put her hand on my arm. “I just wanted to tell you . . . how important you are to Kit,” she said. Oh God, oh God, I couldn’t take this. “And I’d never, ever stop you being close to him, because I know how much you mean to him. You always will.” I could feel my contact lenses slip and slide as my eyes began to fill.

“Thanks,” I said. “I feel just the . . . really don’t know what I’d do without . . . er, sorry. Won’t be a sec.”

I sat in the downstairs loo, crying quietly. I can’t take it when people get emotionally upfront with me. Can’t deal with it at all. Especially in my present, pre-Christmas, pissed-off frame of mind. And she’d hit the nail on the head. Why
hadn’t
I married Kit? It was too late now. But if I
had
married him then I
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wouldn’t have had such an awful time with Phillip, or such a frustrating relationship with Alex, and I wouldn’t now be going to hideous “dinner parties” in Shepherd’s Bush or pining after married men with girlfriends. I could have avoided all that, if I’d simply said “Yes” to Kit eight years ago. But I didn’t. I said “No.” So it’s all my own fault and I’ve been taking the consequences ever since. I splashed water on my face and went back into the sitting room, where the party was now in full swing.

“We’re going to Easter Island together.”

“Well, we’ll be in Verbier.”

“We’re going to the South of France, actually.”

“We’ll all be up in Norfolk.”

“We always go to John’s parents.”

We, we, we. All the way home. That’s what Christmas was about. We. Us. Our. But I wasn’t we. I was me. Myself. I. One. Singular. Single. Not double. A Lone Ranger. That was it. Lone.
Alone.
I probably always would be, I reflected miserably. With my crossword puzzles and my cross-stitch and my increasing cross
ness.
I’d never ever, ever find my spiritual twin now. It was too late. And if I did he’d be married, just like Seriously Successful. Gosh, how much had I drunk? What a mistake, it always made me maudlin. I decided to leave. I could feel myself coming perilously close to emotional meltdown. Portia had simply triggered what had been welling up for weeks.

“Oh Tiffany, do stay!” Frances boomed.

“Well, it’s nine forty-five and I’m quite tired,” I said. “But thanks for a lovely evening. I think I’ll just slip away.”

“Can’t I call you a cab?”

“No, I’ll get one on the high street, really.”

The pathetic fallacy was clearly not fallacious at all, I reflected bitterly as I left Frances’s house in the rain. The York flagstones were blurred beneath my feet as I tramped down Leverton Street and turned right onto Kentish Town Road.
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What a dismal scene. Litter, heavy with water and streaked with dirt, lifted up and down in the gutter. A Coke tin rattled out into the road and was crushed like paper under a passing car. The shop windows were rimmed with white glitter and winked and blinked with cheap lights. No sign of any taxis, and I’d forgotten my mobile phone. I’d have to wait for a bus. Damn. But as I stood at the nearest stop a man suddenly emerged out of a dark doorway and staggered toward me, a can of Fosters clutched to his concave chest. He was probably only forty-five but looked sixty, with his gray-white hair and beard, his gnarled, arthritic hands and painful, shuffling gait. Oh God, winos at Christmas. Run away, Tiffany. Run away.

“HAPPY CHRISTMAS, YONG LADY!” he bellowed and then, oh God, oh God, he began to sing. In this cracked, but curiously lusty voice. “ ’way in a-a MANGER, no crib . . . A BED . . . the little Lord JAYSUS . . . oh JAYSUS lady, have you a little somting for the homeless?” he said.

I dug in my pockets and felt a couple of pound coins. I handed them to him. But not kindly. Not in the spirit of goodwill, but simply to get rid of him. I wanted him to go away. Just leave me alone. I couldn’t take it. And there was no sign of a bus, and no taxis, but still the man stood there, belting out Christmas carols. And then he reached inside his coat and took out a postcard, and on it was a photo of Princess Diana in a pink satin gown and a diamond tiara, and her picture was seamed where it had been folded, and it was creased and cracked from wear. He showed it to me, and then he held it up with both hands and kissed it reverently, as orthodox Christians kiss icons. Then he slipped it back inside his fraying coat.

“She was a ministhering ANGEL,” he said. “An ANGEL, that’s what she was . . .”

“Yes. Yes,” I said dismally, and then the carols began again.

“HARK THE HERALD ANGELS SI-ING . . .” That was it. I couldn’t stand it. He wasn’t going to move, so I’d have to. I’d have to wait at the next stop. And, as I walked away, my feet
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splashing into the puddles in the cracked paving stones, Seriously Successful hove into mental view again. I wondered whether things like this ever happened to him, and how much money he’d have given the man, and where he’d be spending Christmas. Not at home, with his parents, partnerless, like me. Probably with that beautiful girl I’d seen him with in the Ritz. The girl who’d had a good laugh at my silly postcard from Club Med. He’d probably take her skiing. Or perhaps whisk her away for some winter sun in, say, Tunisia, or Spain. Or perhaps she’d prefer Barbados. I was just torturing myself in this way and cursing myself again for not bringing my mobile phone with me when I found myself standing outside Radio Rentals. A thick bank of television screens flickered and danced in the window—all tuned to different channels. There was Jade Jewel, on location, somewhere exotic—where was it? It looked like the Cape. Next to her was David Dimbleby, waving his script at the
Question Time
studio audience, and peering over his pince-nez. And there was Barbra Streisand in
Hello, Dolly!
on Channel Five. And on the TV next to that, Trevor McDonald on
News at Ten,
introducing some report . . . and suddenly—oh God, wouldn’t you know it?—there was Mungo Brown reporting from—where was he reporting from today? London. Kingsway. The word “Live” suddenly flashed up on the screen. He was standing with a group of homeless people, who were queuing for soup from a customized ice cream van. And Mungo was interviewing them, holding a large microphone under their bearded chins as they shivered in the damp, cold air. And then the camera followed him as he walked up to the van, and the shot closed in on the man in the thick donkey jacket who was dishing out the soup and . . . I caught my breath. What? What on earth . . . ?
Why
didn’t I know that? Why didn’t I know he did that kind of thing. My heart was banging in my chest. Why didn’t I know that Seriously Successful helped the homeless? I pressed my face to the window, but of course I couldn’t hear a word. What
was
he saying? I
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desperately wanted to hear. I wiped the rain off the glass and tried to lip read. I couldn’t make it out at all. But I could see that he looked vaguely irritated with Mungo, because Mungo then suddenly turned back to the camera, looking slightly discomfited, and I could see that he was signing off. I watched his lips: “This is Mungo Brown. For ITN. In Central London.” And then there was Trevor McDonald again.