by Celia Walden
‘So?’
‘So what?’
‘So what brought this on?’
‘I just thought it would be nice.’ Nice to have the life you thought you had torn down over a dressed crab? The whole idea was increasingly feeling mad, wrong, but she had to go through with it now. They both did.
‘Here you go, sweetie. Eat your toast.’
‘Already had some with Daddy.’
‘OK.’ Nicole swallowed. ‘But you have to have a proper breakfast, or you’ll be hungry by ten.’
She’d been holding the toast in the palm of her hand like a waitress would a tray, she realised. It was ridiculous. And everything about the scene in that room had struck her as luridly staged.
‘Mummy’s made it now, sweetie. Eat it.’ Folding the toast in half, Nicole had presented it to her daughter.
‘But I didn’t want it!’
‘I don’t care. Take it.’
‘I don’t want to. I’m not hungry!’
Ben was frowning up at her. ‘Nic – I think she’s had enough.’
‘Fine.’ Dropping the dry triangle onto her husband’s breakfast plate, Nicole had caught Chloe’s questioning glance at her father. Rather than make her feel guilty as it might ordinarily, the look had only wound Nicole up further. She’d left the house with the vindictive thought that, however heartbreaking, the next few months might at least give her the chance to claw back some space in her daughter’s heart – a thought she felt ashamed of now as she took one last look at herself in the hotel-room mirror and headed out the door.
Angelini’s was already bustling by the time she got there. There was no sign of Jamie but a handful of couples bent over menus were scattered about the restaurant and two big groups of businessmen who had clearly been there since lunch were braying on either side of the central bar. The noise levels snapped her out of the trance she’d been in since she’d checked into the hotel: this was real.
‘Excuse me?’
The blonde at reception turned towards her, the phone pressed to her ear now visible: ‘One minute please,’ she mouthed. And Nicole nodded. She didn’t have to go through with this. She could walk out of the restaurant right now, call Ben and tell him something had come up. Then everyone involved, from Ben and Chloe to Maya and those two kids, would just get on with their lives, oblivious to the mine they’d just sidestepped.
‘New dress?’
His arm was around her waist, his stubble familiar against the side of her neck, and for a moment she questioned which of the two men it was. Then Nicole turned to kiss her husband hello.
‘You’re early,’ she said.
‘I know. When the Tube runs on time it throws everything out of whack.’
‘Course it does. And no, this is old,’ she half-lied, plucking at the blue fabric.
‘Pretty.’
‘Thanks.’
She wished he didn’t look so boyishly excited, and was anxious to be seated. At any moment, Jamie and Maya would arrive.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Yes.’ The receptionist seemed to be hanging up the phone and lifting her eyes to them in slow motion. ‘The name? Harper? Ah yes, here you are.’
Snatching up two menus, she showed them to their table. And Nicole was relieved to find that it was the banquette she’d requested in the second part of the restaurant, but with a clear view across the first.
‘Remember those long lunches we used to have at that all-you-can-eat Chinese back at Bristol?’
Ben had insisted on sitting beside her on the banquette – ‘that way we can people-watch’ – and was staring in undisguised fascination at the group of businessmen putting in a vast brandy order.
‘I do.’ Nicole looked back down at her menu. ‘Wish we had expense accounts like theirs. What are you thinking?’
‘I haven’t even looked.’ He put a hand on her arm. ‘Relax. There’s no rush. Suzy said she could stay as late as we needed.’
‘Great.’ Nicole’s smile felt freeze-dried on her face. She needed a drink. ‘Excuse me?’ Her voice was a little too loud, too desperate.
The waitress came over.
‘A vodka Martini for me please and he’ll have a G&T.’
She knew she sounded snippy but didn’t care. She also knew what Ben would say as he leaned towards the waitress, anxious as always to mollify any antagonism Nicole might have instigated.
‘I’m afraid it’s a medical emergency.’
The waitress said something back, something not quite funny or quick enough, but Nicole didn’t catch it because Jamie and Maya had just walked in.
She was in an ochre silk dress that shouldn’t have worked on a blonde but did – the matt golds and browns of her skin, maybe. He was in jeans and a pale blue shirt she hadn’t seen before. Was the receptionist more attentive than she had been to Nicole and Ben? It seemed so. There was something undeniably impactful about the two of them side by side.
‘Well, it’s got to be the Dublin Bay prawns hasn’t it? We’re having starters?’
Ben was so engrossed in the menu that he didn’t notice her following Jamie and Maya with her eyes as they were led to a table on the far side of the restaurant that was nevertheless in her line of sight. Jamie was right: nobody was going to recognise anyone here.
‘Nic?’
‘Sorry?’
‘The prawns?’
‘Yeah – go for it.’
There was a moment’s indecision as Maya decided where to sit, and when Jamie finally opted for the chair looking out towards her, with his wife opposite him, Nicole saw that her dress was cut surprisingly low behind and her smooth brown back bared almost to the waist.
Nicole held her breath. This was it. Just as they’d planned. And any minute now he was going to raise his eyes to her.
‘Then again the calamari looks good. But thirty quid? A bit much for a starter.’
‘Have whatever you like.’
She was scared to look down in case she missed Jamie.
‘OK, so here’s an idea. I have the prawns and you have the calamari and we share both? Then I might even have a steak … oh, and let’s get some of the sautéed spinach on the side?’
There was something faintly ludicrous about her husband’s interest in restaurant food.
‘Perfect.’ She snapped her menu shut. ‘Where’s my Martini?’
As though on command, the waitress appeared with their drinks, hovering expectantly in front of them and obscuring Nicole’s view.
‘Do you have a nice Sauvignon Blanc?’
‘Yes the Pouilly-Fumé Domaine Chatelain is one my favourites, but if you’re after something a bit more bracing, there’s the CRUX Marlborough …’
As the waitress leaned forward to point it out on the menu, Jamie finally lifted his eyes to meet hers. He was smiling along to something Maya had said but his eyes were intense, aroused, and as Nicole squeezed her thighs together beneath the table she felt a crackle of pleasure travel up her body. In just a few hours the worst would be over – and her real life could begin.
‘That one sounds great.’
‘The CRUX?’
‘Yup.’
‘Not the Pouilly?’
‘Sorry?’ How complicated could it be to order a bottle of wine? ‘We’ll go for the CRUX.’ Ben laughed. And then, once the waitress had left, ‘Bracing?’
‘What?’
‘Can wine be “bracing”?’
She managed a small laugh, but it wasn’t enough to smooth away the concern on his face.
‘You OK? This morning you seemed a bit …’
‘Yeah, sorry about that. I’ve had so much on at work and I slept really badly last night for some reason.’
Ben started his usual refrain about her working too hard, one she usually found galling on account of it being her hard work that kept them afloat as a family. Tonight, though, it didn’t seem to matter and she found herself nodding along to everything he said. Two glasses of champagne were being taken over to Jamie�
�s table, and Nicole thought it odd, in bad taste, that he should have agreed to drink something so celebratory at a time like this.
A younger, prettier waitress came to take their order, laughing at something Jamie said, and Maya seemed to be asking a lot of questions. She would be one of those women, wouldn’t she? The ones who ask how things are cooked and what’s in the sauces: all the things Nicole had always been so blokeishly unconcerned with. Was that what Jamie liked about her? How different she was to his wife? And would he miss the whimsical, delicate mother of his children once he was waking up every day to Nicole?
She turned to Ben, already heady from the Martini. ‘Do you think I’m too dominant?’
‘What?’ He spluttered a little on his G&T. ‘Er, no.’
‘You know what I mean. The career thing.’ She paused. ‘You never like it when I order your drinks for you, do you?’
‘I like pretty much everything about you if you must know.’
‘Such as?’
‘You want a list? OK. So I like that you’re clever and decisive. I like that you always fill in those travel form thingies I can’t be bothered with and how good you look in those weird neon-panelled leggings you run in. I like that you’re such a great mother, even if you’ve never, ever been known to carry a pack of Wet Wipes in your handbag.’
‘I’m not.’
‘What?’
‘I’m not a good mother. At least I never feel I am.’
‘Don’t talk rubbish. Is this about this morning? Chlo worships you.’
‘I know. But sometimes I can’t help but feel …’ Nicole looked up in alarm as what seemed like an unnecessary amount of food was placed on the table. None of this would get eaten. Because she couldn’t sit here filling her face and then tell Ben that their marriage was over. And they sure as hell weren’t going to eat it once she’d said what she brought him here to say. ‘Jeez, Ben – why do you always over-order?’
From the way his soppy smile faded, her tone had been harsher than she’d thought.
‘It’s just … it’s too much, isn’t it? It’s always too much.’
‘Nah, I haven’t eaten a thing since lunch.’ He smiled, raising his wine glass to her, and it was such an eager gesture that she felt something inside softly implode.
‘Ben …’
But his mouth was already full of calamari.
‘This is so good,’ he managed from a chink at the corner of it. ‘Here – try some.’
Nicole dodged his loaded fork – ‘I’m OK’ – and allowed herself another quick glance at Jamie, making the kind of superstitious pact she’d relied on as an indecisive teenager as she did so: If he looks over now, the next words out of my mouth will be ‘It’s over’. But Jamie didn’t look over. And he wasn’t looking at his wife, either, but down at his plate as he listened intently to whatever Maya was saying.
Pulling her eyes away, Nicole went on: ‘It’s not just Chloe I always feel like I’m letting down. I sometimes feel …’ Was this the way to preface it? Was there any way to preface ‘I’m leaving you’? ‘Well, actually most of the time I feel like I’m a pretty crap wife to you, too.’
‘What are you talking about?’
At this point Ben would still be thinking that this was one of those marital regrouping sessions couples had when they were finally able to spend an hour or two without the kids. Then again, he knew her. He’d noticed that she hadn’t touched her food but was on her second glass of wine, and Nicole caught a flicker of animal fear in her husband’s eyes.
‘Just that I know I’ve been so bound up with work, and the truth is that I love the work, you know I do …’
‘But it means you’re strung out a lot of the time? And tired. What I think you need – what we both need – is a holiday.’ He leaned forward. ‘Why don’t we spend an hour on Expedia tonight, looking up all the places we’ve never been and wanted to go?’ He was panicking and it was agony to watch. ‘Checking out the good late August deals and, you know, just book something? We can even—’
‘No.’
‘What?’ Ben laughed. ‘No to which part?’
‘No to the holiday. No to all of it.’ Look at me, Jamie. I need you. ‘We can’t carry on, Ben – not as we are.’ And it felt like coming up for air after having held your breath too long. But the relief didn’t last. As her husband stared at her, still holding his fork but oddly, as though he’d forgotten what it was for, Nicole realised something that made her wince with sadness: Ben had been expecting this for the past twenty-one years.
‘Nic …’
‘I’m sorry.’ She opened her mouth to say, ‘I tried’ before thinking better of it. ‘I do love you. But I don’t … it’s not in the way that … it’s not enough.’
He smiled, but it was the nasty smile of someone who would never stop hurting. ‘You don’t love me enough?’
‘I don’t think I feel … the way I should.’
‘How should people feel after seventeen years of marriage?’
Ben had a bullish streak, Nicole remembered, which only emerged when something threatened his wife or daughter – and in any other circumstances would be admirable. Had Ben only been able to harness it for work or life, the two of them might have stood a chance.
‘I think they should feel more than I do.’ There was no way of tempering that. ‘I’m not saying that to hurt you. I’m just being honest.’ She took another sip of wine. ‘Ben, we were so young when we got together, and we still are. You can’t be …’ She tried again. ‘We don’t have to spend the rest of our lives with the feeling that something’s missing.’
‘I don’t feel anything’s missing.’ His face was hard, obstinate. ‘I have everything I want.’
‘OK.’ And then meekly, in a whisper: ‘But I don’t, Ben. And I wish I did. I wish you were enough, but …’
‘You’re not trying. You’re saying all this because you’ve reached an age where—’
‘Oh, please don’t start with that. It’s nothing to do with my age or my “time of life” or “the grass is greener” or any of that stuff.’ She stole another sideways glance at Jamie, who could surely be in no doubt from their expressions and body language that Nicole had kept to her end of the bargain. But he was still listening in silence to his wife. And because Nicole knew that Ben wouldn’t give up trying to change her mind until she said something that would make him hate her, she looked him straight in the eye and said: ‘Chloe’s my daughter: I love her and need her in my life. But us, Ben … there’s no future for us.’
‘I can be different.’
‘It’s not about that. And I don’t want you to be different.’
‘I can get a job. I know you hate that I’m not working. I know you think I’m just sitting around the house—’
‘Ben! I do not think that. What you’ve done for Chloe and for me …’
‘So what then? There’s got to be a way.’ He reached for her arm but she pulled it back.
‘There isn’t. There isn’t because there’s someone who—’
‘Oh Christ.’ Ben turned away from her, and finally put his fork down. ‘You brought me here, to this place, to tell me you’ve found someone else?’
‘I wasn’t going to tell you like this,’ she murmured. ‘But you weren’t listening. You push and you push, and it’s like you—’
‘Who?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Who?’
‘I just think …’
‘You’re seriously not going to tell me?’ Ben cut in, putting his napkin on the table. ‘What I think is that I want to go home.’
You know those moments are going to be pure pain, but nobody ever tells you how, above all, they’re just plain awkward. Ben was semi-standing, bent at the knees, but boxed into the banquette by other tables and diners.
‘Excuse me,’ he murmured. But the place was so loud, and nobody moved.
‘Ben.’ She felt she needed to say it – after all, there was Chloe to think of. ‘I�
�m not going to come back to the house tonight.’
‘Course you’re not.’ And a little louder: ‘Excuse me.’
‘I think if we both just take a bit of time to—’
‘Yup. And what am I supposed to tell your daughter, out of interest?’
‘Let me help.’
A waiter had finally spotted him and come to help pull the table out. ‘The Gents is downstairs, sir.’
‘No.’ Ben had a hot pink dot on each cheekbone. ‘No, I just want to leave.’
And finally released, his napkin falling to the ground, her husband crossed the restaurant floor, right past Jamie and Maya, and walked out the door.
In a smaller restaurant it might have caused a stir, but although the diners on either side of Nicole threw one or two curious glances at her and the scarcely touched food on their table, nobody else even seemed to register what had happened. Nobody but the waitress, who had seen too many carefully contained marital disputes to count – or care.
‘Are you still working on these?’
‘Erm – no.’ Working on. Why did people say that? ‘And we should probably cancel our mains. Sorry – my husband had to rush off.’
‘Got it. You’d like the bill?’
Nicole glanced at the half-full bottle of wine sitting in its ice bucket by the table. Then she looked over at Jamie, who still didn’t look like a man ending his marriage. In fact, from their body language the pair of them looked more like they were out on a date night.
‘No.’ Nicole had been on too many business trips to feel self-conscious in a restaurant alone. And she had a morbid desire to watch Maya suffer like Ben just had.
Gesturing at her wine glass, she said, ‘I’m going to stay and finish this.’
Whether or not the waitress found this odd, Nicole didn’t care. She was too busy watching Maya, who had now picked up her clutch bag from the table and was leaning towards Jamie, as though about to leave. Was she angry? In tears? Nicole couldn’t see her face. But when she finally stood, turning back to Jamie with a final word, Nicole caught a flash of white teeth: Maya was smiling.
Something was wrong. Everything was wrong. And as she watched the receptionist point Maya in the direction of the Ladies, Jamie finally lifted his eyes to hers. She raised her chin a fraction, asking the question, begging and imploring, but there were no signs of comfort or solidarity on his face, and it took her a moment to read both his guilty expression and the words he was mouthing: ‘I can’t. Sorry.’