by Adele Parks
‘Let me be the judge of that,’ Pip had insisted but to no avail, her spectacular CV was slipped back across the desk and an interviewer waved goodbye to a fabulous opportunity.
After months combing the papers, trailing around agencies and hauling her portfolio to fashion houses in order to find the dream job, Pip settled. She settled for a job as a fashion buyer in a previously prestigious but slightly tired department store on Bond Street. She was made to feel truly grateful for her position as swim- and cruise-wear buyer. No one worried whether she was overqualified. They just told her that she wasn’t allowed to go to the toilet without advising a more senior member of staff on the shop floor, that the jacket potatoes in the staff canteen were good value because they were subsidised and that a free weekly check-up with the store’s chiropodist was a perk that she’d need to take advantage of because standing on her feet all day took its toll.
Pip’s heart mended rather faster than her career prospects and pretty soon she was dating different men. Only they were really all the same man. They might not have been called either Philippe or Jacob, they might have been called Tom, Dick or Harry, but they were the same shallow, selfish womanisers, who underestimated and undermined. They were the sort of men that some women have the good fortune to avoid throughout their lives, the sort of men that other women attach themselves to like filings cling to a magnet. Somewhere, out there, in the immense, complex universe there was an unwritten rule book, full of secrets, sayings and sliding scales that some people instinctively understood and others learnt through experience but Pip simply couldn’t get her head around. The fact was, the sharper the chiselled cheekbones, the harder the heart.
Pip still believed that a successful career was enhanced if it was shared with the one you love and she still believed that a blazing career demanded sacrifices she wasn’t prepared to make. The difference was she no longer thought the perfect companion in her life had to be tall, dark and handsome. Rather she was small, blonde and cute. Pip’s one true love was Chloe. Any career she now carved out would have to be one that would allow her to be around for Chloe’s school holidays and, ideally, one that afforded them the opportunity to do more than potter in their (tiny) back garden for the duration of those holidays.
‘I have to start straightaway, they want—’
‘Sorry, Pip, can you hang on a moment,’ said Steph apologetically.
Pip listened as some woman asked Stephanie whether she had any organic raw sugar because the woman in question was, apparently, slightly intolerant of refined sugar. Pip heard Steph reply that there was refined and raw (both organic) sugar in the bowls which she’d find just next to the cream jug. Yes, the white jug with the yellow rim was cream, and yes, the white jug with the red rim was skimmed milk and yes, the white jug with the blue rim was full fat milk. If Steph was feeling any frustration that this woman had hunted her down in the library, she did not show it. Pip thought that the woman was a moron and should use a bit of common sense, instead of expecting Steph to run around after her. Just because Steph was brilliant at looking after people and had a knack of anticipating needs before the needy even recognised them for themselves didn’t mean that her goodwill should be abused. Although Pip had enough self-awareness to realise that she probably only felt this strongly about this particular issue, at this particular moment, because she needed Steph to share her success and was always a tinsy bit resentful of Steph’s other friendships.
Stephanie returned to the conversation. ‘Sorry about that. Look, I’m being a bit rude to my guests, much as I’d love to spend all morning on the phone with you, I better go.’
‘I get it. You’ve invited people into your home, the very least you can do is avoid causing the allergy lady an angry rash.’ Pip didn’t actually believe that the woman had an intolerance, she was probably just dieting, but Pip knew that Steph would feel an extreme responsibility and wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the conversation properly anyway. ‘I’m going to find the food hall and do a quick treat shop,’ she added, feigning nonchalance.
‘I’ll come to yours, this evening. You can give me a blow-by-blow account then,’ suggested Steph.
‘No, not tonight, you can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘I have to run up a sample skirted apron in a heavy stripe by tomorrow. I promised the Selfridges buyer.’ True, Pip was showing grit and focus but, less nobly, she was making Steph wait because she was fighting a flash of irritation that Steph was not available when she wanted her. Pip wasn’t proud of her co-dependency and she made a mental promise to herself that she’d work on it, just not at this moment in time.
‘Oh. Wow. OK.’ If Steph noted the rebuke, she elegantly chose to ignore it. ‘Well, tomorrow then. I’ll need to get a babysitter because Julian is away but I should be able to manage to do that.’
‘Perfect. I’ll give you an entire debrief then.’
‘I’ll bring champagne. I’m so proud of you!’
5
All of Steph’s guests left by eleven thirty. She waved goodbye to the last of them as her cleaner, Mrs Evans, arrived. A number of the mothers had lunch appointments and needed to refresh make-up or change clothes, others had to meet their personal trainers or some ‘divine lady’ they had ‘found’ who was making curtains for their second reception room. Pip always joked that she wondered where all the ‘divine’ ladies who made curtains, highlighted hair and catered for parties were hiding until the mothers of the pupils at Mansfield School for Boys ‘found’ them. Stephanie tended to ignore this line of sarcasm as she knew that Pip was just the sort of talent that would be ‘found’ by these women and once she was, she’d be considerably less resentful of their exuberance when opening their fat chequebooks.
Steph had had all her curtains made by a divine lady just three years ago and she fully expected them to last for quite a few years yet. She (reluctantly) saw her personal trainer on a Tuesday and Thursday, straight after school drop-off (Julian had bought her the twice weekly sessions for Christmas, although she’d have preferred the duck-egg blue Le Creuset pan set which she’d long since had her eye on), and she didn’t have any lunch appointments, the charity committee that she sat on tended to lunch on a Friday. She had nowhere she needed to be.
Out of the corner of her eye Stephanie noticed Mrs Evans cast a despairing and disproportionally disgruntled glance around the kitchen. She clearly thought the debris from the coffee morning was excessive and muttered that she would start in the bedrooms, as though the task of cleaning the kitchen was simply too overwhelming and horrifying. Steph immediately felt guilty and at once carefully stacked all fifteen cups, saucers and side plates in the dishwasher, then she popped the remaining scones in a Tupperware box (three left, which was lucky, they’d be a perfect after-school snack for each of the children) then she swooped around the kitchen with a brush and dishcloth to eradicate any stray crumbs that had the nerve to loiter, she didn’t want to upset Mrs Evans. Steph was very lucky to have a cleaner (even if the said cleaner was a bit of a slacker). Stephanie was very aware of her privileges. Her luck. She thanked God for it. Literally. Unlike many of her friends, she actually gave a lot of thought to religion and she regularly attended church. In fact she always felt rather relieved to be on her knees, counting her many blessings and repeatedly verbalising her gratitude to whoever orchestrated the world so that she managed to be up here, on the top of the pile. She wasn’t exactly sure how she’d been so lucky. Did she deserve it? She hoped so, but frankly, deserving good fortune seemed to have little to do with the matter. Incredibly kind people, earnest, funny, hard-working, gentle people found their lives suddenly blighted with tragedy just as often as the vicious, the miserable, the deceivers and the crooks of this world. It all seemed such a lottery to her, which was a terrifying thought. If you didn’t know what you were doing right to ensure such a fortunate set-up, then how could you possibly avoid it all going wrong?
It was a capricious world. Steph constantly navigated t
he choppy waters by working hard and abiding by the rules.
She’d studied hard at school and gained decent grades, enough to allow her to read Economics at Birmingham University. It was often said that, unlike Pip, Stephanie had been lucky in love, she’d never had her heart broken. Whether that was luck or careful management was a matter of opinion. It’s true to say that Steph had not been the sort of girl that felt a need to run to Paris or run away from it either. She didn’t have any of that artistic bent (which often led to that type of wild and extravagant behaviour). Steph thought that the lack of an artistic bent was a matter of luck. She believed that some people had it and that was their misfortune because an artistic bent could not be managed or tamed, it would always break free and wreak havoc. Stephanie liked being so supremely sensible however unfashionable that made her. Much rather that than be in Pip’s position. Pip was somewhat like an emotional grasshopper, either flying high in the sky, leaping from one love to the next, or being carelessly crushed underfoot.
Stephanie had met Julian Blake at university; he was also studying Economics, proving they had so much in common from the start. She’d watched him from a distance for many weeks before she actually spoke to him. This was not just timidity (although that was part of it), she used those weeks to observe him, to weigh him up. He was not the most gorgeous man in the lecture hall (that honour fell to a boy called Eddie Black – and yep, Pip did sleep with him when she once came to visit Steph and no, he did not call) but Julian was certainly attractive. He was over six feet tall, he had a huge smile and big blue eyes that flashed with intelligence and amusement by turn and dark blond curls that she wanted to glide her fingers through. He had a few pimples around his hairline and upper lip that tended to bleed when he shaved but they all had pimples at that time. Steph knew that he’d grow out of them and she suspected that he’d be the sort of boy that suited his looks best when he was a man (she’d been right about that, he definitely had a solid handsomeness to him now, sometimes when she looked at him her breath caught in her chest). Steph had noticed that Julian had hobbies (he liked rugby and football then, and golf and cycling now). Her mother had advised her to marry a man with hobbies because hobbies kept a man out of trouble. Not that she was thinking of marrying Julian. Well, at least not straightaway. She wasn’t the sort of girl who expected, or intended, to fall ‘madly in love’, as the phrase went. She thought that was pure folly which would lead to inevitable heartache. No, Stephanie took a long view.
Steph became Julian’s friend first. She manoeuvred things so that they kept bumping into one another at the library, on the sidelines of the rugby pitch, in the student union bar. Nods of recognition became smiles and then they naturally drifted into comfortable conversation. To this day, twenty years on, Steph still hasn’t confessed to Julian how carefully she studied his timetable and extra-curricular activities so that she could always be in the right place at the right time. She sometimes wondered whether she should tell him. Would he be flattered? Would he be impressed by her cunning? Maybe they could laugh about it now. Maybe, but she didn’t want to spoil the illusion that he’d nurtured. He seemed to quite like the idea that they’d somehow just stumbled into one another’s arms.
For a year she had enjoyed that status of best friend and she’d never once hinted or suggested that they should be anything else. At close quarters, without any romantic notions that might entangle and confuse, Steph had been able to clearly judge exactly what sort of man Julian was.
She’d found out that they shared the same family values (marriage was for life), that they wanted the same number of kids (three), and that they wanted those children to be privately educated (even though neither of them had had that experience). She learnt about his ambitions to go into the city and work as a hedge fund manager (at least she now understood how the kids’ education would be paid for; even if, back then, she didn’t understand exactly what a hedge fund manager did, she knew enough to understand that it meant a huge pay packet). And she discovered that he also wanted to see a bit of the world.
‘Not backpacking, God forbid.’ He’d spat out the word in disgust. ‘No way. I like using loo roll to wipe my arse, not my hand, and I like beds where the only beasts sharing with me are the girls I’ve invited along.’
‘So, five stars all the way for you, is it?’ she’d asked laughingly.
‘Yup,’ he’d replied simply and firmly. ‘I’ll work hard, earn a fantastic salary and my family and I will be very well looked after. Always.’
Stephanie had found his confidence overwhelmingly attractive and reassuring. She still did. And the man was as good as his word, they never went without anything. She’d discovered that he wanted to move to London after graduation, to live in Fulham for eight or nine years and then move out to the country, with his wife and firstborn. The rest of the kids would follow later.
This was exactly the plan they followed. After a year of being friends there was a drunken kiss at a house party that led to a change of status. Both Stephanie and Julian were ready for the shift. Steph had begun to feel secretly jealous of various, temporary girlfriends Julian dated. As he tended to date pretty but vacuous types, she felt that the women he held beneath him, when he was between the sheets, were in fact beneath him. Happily, Julian reached a similar conclusion at the same time. He seemed to increasingly appreciate Stephanie’s sagacious manner more than the salacious manners of his other girlfriends. When he was with Steph he notably relaxed, probably because he felt appreciated and respected. He often mused that they made a great team; that they were bigger than the sum of their parts, and she knew that he liked it that she got his jokes (which were few and far between, both the jokes and the people who got them). Admittedly, she suspected that the very first time he kissed her was because she was in the room when he wanted to kiss someone. Not an especially noble reason for starting up a romance but a fairly typical one for most nineteen-year-old boys. He’d probably expected the kiss to be comfortable, pleasant; he’d no doubt been surprised when he felt fireworks rocket through his body, causing his fingers and lips to quiver. Later he told her that from the moment he kissed her, he thought that perhaps he’d found the woman he should spend the rest of his life with. From then on Stephanie was sure that Julian kissed her not because she happened to be in the room when he wanted to kiss someone, but because she was the woman he wanted to kiss.
Oh yes, Stephanie Blake was a lucky woman.
She had a husband she loved, who loved her back, three healthy children she adored more than she could express (more than she could ever have imagined), a beautiful home with all the trappings anyone could hope for and today her best friend in all the world had had some good news too. Steph punched the air. Not a gesture she was ever likely to do in public but something that felt right at that moment. Pip’s good news was the icing on the cake. It was about time Pip had something to celebrate. Steph felt relieved, satisfied. She let out a deep breath. She hadn’t been aware that she was breathing in, holding it all in, but she had been. Now, she could relax. See, good things did come to those who deserved it. What a relief; she’d always clung to that belief.
The telephone rang shrilly through the house. Steph’s first thought was that it would be Pip ringing back, unable to wait until tomorrow evening to impart more details about the meeting after all. Before Steph got to it, Mrs Evans, who was now doing some light dusting in the hall (very light, Steph noticed, she didn’t actually pick up the ornaments but dusted around them) reached the phone. A moment later, Mrs Evans crossly banged the handset back into the cradle.
‘Sales pitch? New windows? New kitchen?’ said Stephanie.
‘No. One of those nuisance calls again.’ Mrs Evans looked at her employer with a mix of irritation and sympathy. ‘I thought they’d stopped.’
‘I thought they had too,’ replied Steph.
‘You should get on to the police about them,’ said Mrs Evans darkly. She did enjoy a drama and since she’d recently resolved a fi
ve-month tussle with her insurance company (over a ruined carpet, the result of a burst pipe or a bowl of deliberately spilt mucky washing-up water, depending on what you believed), now she was keen to find something new to get her teeth into.
Stephanie was by nature the extreme opposite and preferred a life with as few confrontations as possible. ‘I really don’t think that’s necessary. It’s not like the caller actually says anything, do they? They’re not offensive or threatening.’
‘No, that’s true,’ admitted Mrs Evans reluctantly. ‘They don’t say nothing at all. I pick up the phone and say “Blake residence”, all polite and everything, and then they put the phone down.’
‘Probably just a wrong number,’ assured Steph breezily.
‘Then why don’t they say so? It’s darn right rude. Besides, it’s happened too often for it to be that.’
‘Maybe there’s a fault on our line. I’ll call BT. Don’t worry about it, Mrs Evans. Look, I’m going to pop to the supermarket now. I need to pick up some champagne. My friend has had a bit of good news and we’ll be celebrating tomorrow evening. I was wondering, do you think you could babysit for a few hours tomorrow? As you know, Julian often stays in town on a Tuesday because he has telephone conferences with the offices in the States. If he gets home at all it will be after midnight.’