She lives alone. That much he knows.
Matt is observant in his way. A bathroom tells more than you might think. Just the one toothbrush. A modest array of make-up materials. A lavatory seat that won’t stay up unless you hold it. Strange how many builders don’t know how to fit a lavatory seat. You have to turn the off-centre hinges so that the base of the hinge is thrown forward, not back. Then the seat will lean against the cistern. Get it wrong and it won’t stay up without your hand holding it, which is awkward to say the least. Matt always carries a small adjustable spanner with him, so that he can refit wrongly-fitted lavatory seats. It only takes a couple of minutes. It just bothers him too much, to think of the house owners enduring the faulty fitting for month after month, as if it were some kind of natural hazard.
Most people are so helpless. It’s odd, he never thinks of himself as better than others, but why do they tolerate poor workmanship? Why don’t they make their gates close properly, and their tables not wobble? Why live with low-level irritation when you can do something about it? It’s not hard. He’s no genius, God knows. All it takes is a little care, a little close looking, a little time. You get a reputation for being handy, for being able to fix things, and people throw jobs your way, even jobs you know nothing about. But you get into the habit of having a go, and you find most things aren’t really so difficult. Even violins.
People see a violin in pieces and they think that’s it, it’s over. But violins never die. You could run over a violin with a truck and still put it together again. If you take your time with it no one will ever see the joins, and the sound will be as good as ever.
I had a bit of bad news, she said.
Crying her eyes out. Why? Maybe one day I’ll be able to ask her. Maybe one day I’ll be able to make things better for her.
By being hurt, Meg has placed herself within his reach. His mother says, who’d want you? Matt does not disagree. He has as low an opinion of his powers of attraction as his mother could wish. But in other ways, and at the same time, he’s a proud man.
Who is there who knows me? Who is my superior? Who can judge me? No man I ever met.
The way she looked at me. Such pitiful eyes, not daring to believe I’d understand her. After all, what am I? Just the plumber come to fix the shower.
Maybe I’ll get hurt. Time I got hurt. Better to be hurt than go on the way I am.
All the time working away, shaving whispers of wood from the maple feet.
He has a clear visual memory of her face. Very pale clear skin. Those startled green-brown eyes, beneath dark eyebrows. Her hesitant look, checking to see how she’s being received.
On Monday he’ll pick up the replacement shower pump. Sometime on Tuesday he’ll go round to her flat and do the work. Then some words will be spoken. He has no idea what. Then his life will change for ever. Or it won’t.
20
The anger in Belinda hasn’t gone away. It’s grown.
Tom sits in his usual chair in front of the fire reading the papers, an early evening glass of wine by his side, as if nothing has changed. Belinda moves back and forth between the kitchen and the living room the way she always does when cooking dinner, except she’s not cooking dinner. There is no dinner.
Tom doesn’t know this yet. He thinks everything’s gone back to normal.
That’s how they think. They have a little fling, they say they’re sorry, life goes on. They say, ‘It’s nothing,’ and it’s all forgotten. Like hell it is.
The anger has been growing in Belinda all day. The initial shock has passed, and some of the panic fear that came with it. Now all she can see is the stupendous selfishness of what Tom has done. The careless cruelty. What he has done isn’t nothing, it’s a physical act with physical consequences. Like rape, when you think about it. Rape is when a man uses a woman’s body against a woman’s will for his own pleasure. Well, he’s used a woman’s body, hers, against a woman’s will, mine, for his own pleasure. This is a three-person sex crime. There’s an act of selfish lust, and there’s an injury. So why isn’t he being punished? Why is he sitting reading the paper as if nothing has changed?
She pours herself another glass of wine, her fourth, but does not offer to refill his glass. He gets up, puts more wood on the fire, resumes his seat and his newspaper. He must know she’s standing in the doorway watching him. Why doesn’t he say something? What does he imagine she’s feeling?
Pound slips below euro on Britain’s high streets. Brown moves out of Blair’s shadow. Arkansas woman gives birth to eighteenth child.
Even the newspaper’s playing his game, acting as if life goes on and we all still care about the financial crisis and the war in Afghanistan.
Husband shits on family home for fun. Leading surgeon lies and cheats and expects to be forgiven. That’s the news.
He looks round, lifts his spectacles.
‘Anything I can do?’
‘I don’t know,’ says Belinda. ‘You tell me.’
‘I mean about dinner.’
‘What dinner?’
There, that’s stumped him. He likes his food.
‘Don’t you want dinner?’ he says.
‘Since when did you care what I want?’
‘For Christ’s sake!’
It comes out like a shout of pain. Well, good. Time he shared some of the grief round here. But he’s choking it back. Mr Reasonable returns.
‘We’ve been through all that.’
‘Have we? Where did we end up?’
‘I just don’t know what more you want me to do. I’ve said sorry. I’ve said it’s over. What else am I supposed to do?’
You’re supposed to be punished. You’re supposed to hurt. But she doesn’t say it.
‘You’re such a fucker,’ she says.
‘All right. All right! But if we’re going to try to make a go of this—’
‘If!’
‘I want to. I’ve said so. It’s what I want. But you have to want it too. I can’t do this all by myself.’
‘You did the other bit all by yourself.’
‘Jesus, Belinda! Can’t we – can’t we – just move on?’
‘Pretend it never happened.’
‘No. Just … give it a rest.’
‘No. We can’t. It’s not that easy, Tom.’
He throws the newspaper onto the floor. What’s this? A tantrum. Are we throwing our toys out of the pram?
She goes into the kitchen. These twitches of distress almost hurt more than the other coping mechanisms, the let’s-be-grown-up shit. Don’t cope, Tom. Join the party. Crack up.
She’s too proud to pity herself and too angry to pity him but there’s a load of pity going for the asking here.
He follows her.
‘Look,’ he says, his voice gruff and angry. ‘You may not want to eat but I do. I’m going to go into Lewes and get a takeaway pizza.’
‘If that’s what you want,’ she says.
As if the problem is dinner. As if fetching takeaway pizzas solves anything. How about some takeaway sex while you’re at it, Tom? But off he goes, pulls on his coat, picks up his car keys, happy to be in motion, making something happen. Maybe he thinks if he goes and gets the dinner then everything’ll be all right again.
She hears his car reversing onto the lane.
Incredible. Piss away your marriage, take away a pizza.
Belinda doesn’t know what to do with her anger. In some distant part of herself she’s aware that it’s not constructive, that it’s in danger of making a bad situation worse. But she can do nothing about that. The anger possesses her. She prowls about the house looking for something to smash. She wants her own hurt to be reflected in the world around her. The handsome rooms of the expensive house seem to mock her. All this good taste, representing so many hours poring over colour charts and fabric swatches, all that furniture shopping that had once absorbed her – every item has its history, the lampshades she found in the little shop in Wells-next-the-Sea, the Turk’s head pot from Sicily, th
e Wilton carpet that was such an amazing deal because the line had been discontinued – what does any of it matter now? With one stroke he’s destroyed the value of their shared home, which is – she never knew this before – the outward form of their marriage, their family. What has been a source of comfort and reassurance is now become a hollow mockery. There is no marriage. There is no family. Only four separate individuals following their own impulses, whose paths cross from time to time under this roof.
Very well, says Belinda to herself. If that’s the game I can play it as well as any of you. Why should I sit at home being mother while Tom and Chloe and Alex do what the hell they like?
She goes into the little room she calls her study, though no studies ever take place there. Here she has her computer, used for emails and Internet shopping. She opens Entourage and taps in an email address she obtained over a year ago now, after bumping into a friend from way back. Then she starts typing in a message.
Hi Kenny. I bet you don’t remember me but I met Mark Pugh the other day and we bored on about the old days and he said he was still in touch with you and that got me remembering. Funny how little things stay in the mind. Like that evening we watched the sunset, bet you’ve forgotten. Anyway how’s things? I’m an old married lady now but inside I feel I’m still 17, actually I wish I was, I’d do a lot of things differently believe me. It’s Saturday evening and I’m bored and you don’t have to reply. Belinda.
She clicks Send without rereading it, not wanting to give herself the chance to have second thoughts. The computer makes a whooshing sound and she pictures her message flying like an arrow from Plumpton to Wandsworth.
On an impulse she opens Google Earth and types in Henderson Road, Wandsworth. There before her on her screen appears a bird’s-eye view of a street surrounded by parkland. The satellite took the picture late one afternoon in autumn, the trees are brown and throw long shadows. The houses seen from above seem unlike London houses, the roofs longer and flatter. There are cars parked on both sides of the road before every house. One of them is Kenny’s car. Why not? The picture was taken, it says, in 2006. He was living there then.
What sort of life has he had? Is he happy? Does he have affairs? At the time that she knew him he was rumoured to have an unusually big dick, but no one she ever spoke to had actually seen it.
Which house is his house? She has no way of knowing, so she chooses a house at random, the third house down, the one with the largest back garden. She clicks on the Zoom Out button and makes the streets recede until they look like furrows scored in green fields. Then she zooms in once more, journeying to Kenny’s house, drawing him ever closer to her.
Stupid game. What am I trying to prove?
Ping! An email back.
So I’m at my screen searching for Xmas junk and I get this smack in the face. Do I remember you? You’re the one that got away. Beautiful Belinda, don’t talk to me about the sunset. How about THE KISS? I can feel it still. You think I’m joking? My God I don’t even want to know how long ago that was, I say it was the day before yesterday. So I want to see you again. When? Where? Kenny.
Belinda sits staring at the screen. How can it be so fast? So easy? She feels ridiculously excited, tells herself to behave, fails to listen. At least it’s better than wanting to smash things. Or just another way of smashing things. Actually she doesn’t give a damn what it is. She’s on the road again.
She pecks out her reply.
I can’t believe it’s you after all these years. Both of us married with kids, both of us growing old. It would be good to meet up and talk over the old days. I don’t expect you’re ever down in Sussex but I come up to London most weeks. I’m planning a Christmas shopping trip on Tuesday but you’ll be working I’m sure or we could meet for lunch. Or some time in the new year. Yes I remember the kiss it was so odd wasn’t it the way we had that and nothing ever again. That’s life I guess. B.
She sends it. This time she does nothing. Sits and waits.
The reply comes within a minute.
Tuesday’s good but I’ll be at Gatwick all day how about you stop off on your way back maybe 5pm ask for me at the Hilton South Terminal I’ll leave a message for you. As for that’s life well it’s not over yet and if you’re half the girl I remember you’re not one to go quietly either. Don’t know about you but some things haven’t worked out the way I hoped hey I’m not complaining win some lose some. I remember you so well girl you were sunshine and honey just the most adorable creature I ever set eyes on. Why I didn’t grab you while I could I’ll never know one of the great if-onlys of life. So tell me you’re good for Tuesday because now I’m all excited and you’re not to let me down. One kiss is not enough. K.
She trembles as she reads. She remembers him with extraordinary vividness, the flop of dark hair, the high cheekbones, the look in his eyes, all cocky and amused, just before he kissed her. The kiss itself she recalls less clearly, only that she shouldn’t, and what would Dom say if he found out, which he never did.
What would Tom say if he found out?
Found out what? That she’s planning to meet up with a boy she kissed when she was seventeen? Not exactly on a par with poking someone in marketing. And to tell you the truth, Tom, I don’t give a toss what you say. You went your own sweet way so I’ll go mine.
I expect I can make that work though I may not be able to stay long and the kiss will have to be a peck on the cheek from an old lady. Gatwick Hilton at 5 on Tuesday. See you then. B.
Keep it simple, keep it clean. But she does appreciate being sunshine and honey. Not the sort of thing Tom ever says to her.
She catches herself referring in her thoughts to old-model Tom, the one who’s unimaginative but reliable. This has been superseded. New-model Tom is a cheating fucker. Who knows, he probably tells someone in marketing that she’s sunshine and honey.
Kenny is back. This is turning into a conversation.
Sod the peck on the cheek, I’ve been on to Mark Pugh and he says you’re still gorgeous and don’t look a day over 30. We knew each other before we were married so the way I see it is we go back to that time and pick up where we left off. Are you up for this, beautiful? You’ll make an old man very happy. Not so old, actually, I keep myself fit, nothing’s dropped off yet. So let’s pretend that the sun’s still setting and we’ve just kissed and there’s no reason in the world why we shouldn’t move on from there – Gotta go, gorgeous. I hear the witch parking her broomstick.
Belinda sits very still and allows the glow of satisfaction to spread all through her body. It does a girl good to be complimented once in a while, even if it’s just flattery. Still gorgeous and don’t look a day over thirty. If only. But I could pass for forty by candlelight. Do they have candles in the Gatwick Hilton?
She goes through the little chain of emails one by one, rereading them, feeling as she felt on Google Earth that she’s zooming towards Kenny. Then she closes the emails. Should she delete them? Why? She has nothing to hide. Tom’s the one with secrets. If he wants to go snooping among her emails, let him.
She wonders if she’ll tell him about her date with Kenny, regarding her own future behaviour as unpredictable. Well, I never guessed I’d throw the cabbage at him. You don’t know what you’ll do until it happens.
This sensation pleases her. She feels out of control. That means she’s in a state of diminished responsibility. Tom started it, he can’t talk.
She fills up her glass once more and takes it and sits by the fire and thinks of Kenny. Is it really that big? You don’t get that sort of a reputation for no reason.
When Tom comes back carrying boxes of pizza he finds her there, silent before a dying fire. He seems to have calmed down.
‘I didn’t know what to get you,’ he says. ‘I had a dim idea that you like Cappriciosa.’
‘Fine,’ she says.
‘I’ll put them out on the kitchen table. Shall I open another bottle of wine?’
‘Might as well.’
He goes and clatters about in the kitchen. Then he calls her. ‘All ready to go.’
The pizzas are immense and she’s not all that hungry. She manages about half of hers. He eats all of his.
‘So is it a truce?’ he says.
‘I don’t know what it is, Tom,’ she says. ‘I’m just taking it a day at a time.’
21
Diana’s house feels cold. At first Laura assumes this is her response to the minimalist décor Diana favours: pale grey walls, blond wood floors, white leather sofas so low and backless they could almost be beds. Small spotlights pick out unassertive works of art, a white-on-white Ben Nicholson, an Anthony Gormley maquette. The tall Islington windows have no curtains.
However, Diana reveals that the chill of the room has another explanation.
‘We really feel we have to do something about our carbon footprint. I know you like to heat your house like a sauna, Laura. I’m sorry. You’ll just have to keep your coat on.’
The Lymans are already here, irretrievably sunk on the low sofas, adding a splash of much-needed colour. Neil Lyman, a genial book agent, is a startlingly ugly man who has turned himself by sheer will-power into a dandy. He’s wearing a mustard-yellow needlecord suit over a white T-shirt that carries the red mouth and lolling tongue of the old Rolling Stones logo. Lynne Lyman, a cookery writer, has abandoned all attempts to control her weight and now aims at grandeur. She is arrayed in what looks like a gold brocade tent.
She laughs merrily at Diana’s new approach to central heating.
‘I carry my own insulation,’ she says.
Roddy gives Laura a kiss and asks her and Henry what they want to drink. So the not-talking that so disturbs Diana is not universal.
‘Brandy,’ says Henry.
‘We’ll have red wine,’ says Laura, smacking him lightly so that the others can see he’s only joking.