How to Be Second Best

by Jessica Dettmann

  The source of the Chanel perfume is reclining on the leather sofa in the huge living room we enter, and she springs up with remarkable agility.

  ‘Hello, Emma!’ she calls, and scurries over to hug me around my waist. Wanda Forthwright is elfin, with a dark pixie haircut and small, sharp features. She doesn’t look like she’d be as loud as she is. The quietest she can make her voice would still have the downstairs neighbours banging on the ceiling with a broom, should she ever have to live anywhere as downmarket as a flat. She doesn’t shout; it’s more that she projects her voice to the back rows of a theatre, even when she’s standing two feet away from you.

  ‘You are the most wonderful darling for coming,’ she booms. ‘I can never thank you enough for agreeing to do it. Getting Carmen out of my house and back to the office where she belongs was the only way this book was ever going to get finished and I’m sorry it meant you had to be dragged up here.’

  ‘It’s my pleasure, Wanda,’ I say. ‘I hope I can help. Carmen said you were getting a bit stuck on a few chapters. Maybe we can unstick them together.’

  ‘Of course we can. Let’s get started straight away, as soon as you’ve seen your room and had some lunch and maybe a nap and a swim. Shall we say, three o’clock?’

  That’s over three hours away. I need to get started so I can get finished and back to my children.

  ‘I’m fine to start now,’ I suggest. ‘No time like the present.’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ she says, with great certainly. ‘You must eat, rest and swim. And then you may rejoin me and we can look at the manuscript. I’ll be working on it in the meantime, don’t you worry about that.’

  ‘Oh, well, all right,’ I say, a bit confused. ‘Carmen made it sound like you weren’t really able to get on with it at the moment. She said you were stalled.’

  ‘No no,’ she says. ‘I’m getting on beautifully now. I had some trouble remembering some stories but it’s all coming back to me. Now, darling Philip will show you to the guesthouse. I like to make him earn his keep.’

  My phone rings and Wanda says, ‘I’ll bet you one hundred thousand dollars that’s Carmen, ringing to check up on us.’

  I glance at the phone. She’s right.

  ‘I’d better get this,’ I say.

  ‘You better had,’ she replies.

  ‘Hello?’ I say.

  ‘How’s it going?’ demands Carmen. ‘Have you unblocked her yet? Remember, I want you to think of her as a toilet. You are the plunger. Go at her with whatever force is required until there is a Word document containing ninety-thousand unputdownable words about all the people she’s fucked.’

  ‘Hi, Carmen. Thanks, I had a very good flight. I found the place okay.’

  ‘I’m not paying you to have a good flight,’ she says. ‘Have you started work?’

  In mock fear, Wanda has done an exaggerated scuttle over to a great mahogany desk on which stands a computer. She sits down and begins to type.

  ‘Hold up the phone,’ says Carmen. ‘Wanda,’ she yells so loudly that she can be heard across the room. ‘I want to hear typing.’

  ‘I’m typing,’ Wanda shouts back. ‘But I will stop if you keep calling and harassing poor Emma.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ Carmen says. ‘I’ll leave her to you. Good luck.’

  ‘Thanks, see you.’

  I hang up and sit down on one of the large sofas. Philip nods to me and leaves. The room is quiet, except for the sound of Wanda’s nails clicking against the keys. With a slightly furrowed brow she stares at the screen and types furiously.

  For fifteen minutes I sit there until she stops, looks up and seems surprised to see me.

  ‘Emma! Why haven’t you gone for lunch and a rest? You don’t need to just sit there. I’m not a flight risk.’

  ‘Sorry, sorry, I just thought you seemed like you were on a roll and I didn’t want to disturb you. Are you sure you don’t want me here on hand? I’m very happy to just sit quietly in case you need me.’

  ‘Go to your guesthouse, Emma.’ She waves imperiously in the direction of some French doors leading to a verandah. ‘Philip? Philip! Come rescue Emma.’

  Philip must have been just outside, like a secret service agent, because he appears instantly.

  ‘Ready?’ he asks me.

  ‘Sure,’ I say.

  ‘Follow me.’

  Philip has retrieved my bag from the car and carries it for me. We walk around the side of the house, along the wide cool verandah. The day is hot but there are ceiling fans out here to keep the air moving. A flight of stairs leads down to a gravel path — this one without any love messages spelled out in contrasting stones. Bay hedges tower over us on each side, and it’s like walking through a maze.

  Eventually we emerge onto the flagstones surrounding a huge swimming pool. Under a pergola covered in vines are six sun lounges, on three of which are draped lithe golden young women. They’re all wearing bikini bottoms, large sunglasses, and that’s all.

  ‘Edie, Clara and Kate, please meet Emma Baker, Wanda’s editor. Emma, this is Edie, Wanda’s goddaughter, and her friends, Clara and Kate.’

  The girls greet me in a languid fashion. They look as though they’ve been in a sun for a while. They ought to be wearing hats and rashguards. A sudden urge to make them all have a big drink of water and generously apply SPF 50 sunscreen comes over me. Instead I politely say hello, trying not to look at their small pert breasts, which is difficult because they are all pointed at me like the eyes of three little owls.

  I feel a hundred years old.

  One girl, who might be Edie, says, ‘Come have a swim with us. The water’s amazing.’

  ‘Oh, thanks,’ I stutter back. ‘I didn’t actually bring my swimming costume, and I’m probably mostly going to be working pretty hard with Wanda while I’m here, so I might not . . . but thanks.’

  ‘Cool, no worries. We’ve got loads of swimmers, you know, if you want to borrow something.’

  ‘Yeah,’ says one of the others, ‘Edie got a huge box of samples today, so there’s plenty of stuff to try on.’

  ‘Great,’ I say, trying to sound as if I have the faintest idea what they mean by samples and why Edie, who appears to be about twenty, would have just received a huge box of them. ‘I might see you later.’

  Philip sets off towards a building at the far end of the pool and I trot after him. It looks like a miniature version of the main house, but without the towers.

  Opening the doors from the verandah and gesturing for me to go inside, Philip announces, ‘Voila! The guesthouse. Well, a guesthouse. There are three more down the hill. I’m in one, and the girls have the other two at the moment. You get top billing so you can get to the house quickly if Wanda needs you.’

  I look around. This is the nicest place I have ever stayed. It’s far more luxurious than the hotel Troy and I went to after our wedding, which until now was my absolute benchmark for elegant places. My little house has a living room, a bedroom with a king-sized bed, a bathroom with a sunken bathtub beside its own set of doors opening onto a lush tropical garden, and even a kitchen. Everywhere are vases of fresh frangipanis and gardenias, and all the upholstery is cream.

  Instinctively my body tenses up and I mentally start moving all the vases to high shelves. Then I remember, with a jolt, that my tiny interior decimators aren’t here. No one’s going to knock over vases and spill milk on the Moroccan rug. There’s a bottle of red wine on the counter in the kitchen, and the only person who’s likely to knock a glass of it onto the pale couch is me.

  Philip reads my silence as disappointment. ‘Is something wrong?’ he asks sincerely. ‘If there’s a problem you can move down the hill. Is it the girls? Do you want to be further from the pool? I can assure you they aren’t loud. They’re like a bunch of cats. They just lie in the sun all day and then have a brief flurry of activity as the sun goes down. Then they don’t trouble anyone until a very late breakfast time.’

  ‘It’s lovely, Philip
,’ I say. ‘It’s the nicest place I’ve ever stayed.’

  ‘I’m so pleased,’ he says, beaming. ‘It is nice, isn’t it? I’ve been known to outstay my welcome here, it’s so hard to leave. Shall I make you a cup of tea? Coffee?’

  ‘Tea, please.’

  ‘Tea it is.’

  ‘How did you meet Wanda, originally? Have you been friends for a long time?’

  He switches on the kettle.

  ‘Once upon a time I was married to Wanda’s little sister, Jean. It didn’t last very long. We weren’t a good match and after a few months she met someone she liked better and moved to Jamaica.’

  I can’t help myself. ‘Jamaica?’

  He smiles at me. ‘No, she went of her own accord.’ He hands me my tea. ‘Jean and I didn’t stay in touch, but Wanda sort of kept me in the divorce. We got on, and she was never close to Jean. And then of course years later, I introduced Wanda to Monty — that was all my doing. My first and only successful experience as a matchmaker. That was ten years ago. I think your boss Carmen was quite cross when she found out I was responsible for that. I think she thought Wanda would be having dangerous liaisons with unsuitable men to this day if I hadn’t ruined everything by putting Monty in her path. Carmen seemed to think there might have been enough material for a second volume of Affairs in Order if it hadn’t been for me. But hey ho. The heart wants what it wants.’

  ‘That’s what they say,’ I agree.

  He gestures to the kitchen. ‘There’s lots of lunchy things in the fridge there — would you like me to put something together for you? A sandwich? An omelette?’

  ‘I’m sure I can manage. Thank you,’ I tell him. ‘You’ve been very kind. I should probably get to work. Do you happen to know if Wanda’s printed out the chapters she’s done so far?’

  ‘I do! She has. I was meant to mention that. They’re on the desk there by the window. She’s printed them out in Times New Roman, but I’m to tell you that if there’s a font you prefer, we can reprint them with no trouble at all.’

  ‘That’s great,’ I tell him. ‘I have everything I need. I might get started.’ I’m keen to call home and see how everyone’s getting on, and I wonder if Philip is going to stay here all day, anticipating my every need and making me tea.

  He takes the hint. ‘I’ll get out of your hair then. I’m going to be back up at the main house, and when Wanda’s ready we’ll give you a call.’ He gives a little wave, followed by a strange sort of awkward bow as he backs out of the room, closing the French doors behind him. I watch as he bounds back around the pool. He moves beautifully. He’s fit and strong, probably because he hasn’t had his body destroyed by childrearing. I can’t think of anyone who has had a kid and not come away with a bad back or a busted shoulder or something similarly debilitating. Lugging well-fed toddlers around and wrangling them in and out of car seats is not good for your spine.

  Sitting down at the desk with my tea, I try calling Dad. It goes to voicemail. I leave him a quick message, letting him know I’ve arrived safely and asking for an update, then I turn my attention to the manuscript.

  I read for about a minute and a half before I can’t concentrate any more. It’s too quiet. All I can hear are trees moving in the breeze and the odd birdcall.

  My usual soundtrack of gently or sometimes violently squabbling toddlers is conspicuously absent and it’s really throwing me. That’s ridiculous, I tell myself. This is how people work. This is an utter luxury: uninterrupted, peaceful editing time. This is what I long for when I’m attacking my work in five-minute bursts at home, getting up constantly to cut up carrots or attempt to glue broken Milk Arrowroot biscuits back together with peanut butter.

  It’s good that I’m not having to decide whether it will be more distracting to be asked for the scissors every thirty seconds or hand over the scissors and worry about what’s being done with them in the next room, and whether the sound of the curtains being opened and shut is in any way related.

  Refocusing, I manage about three more pages before I have to get up. On a bookshelf in the corner, along with every book Wanda’s ever written, is a CD player. I haven’t seen a CD player for years. I switch it on and press play. It’s The Best of David Bowie 1969/1974. Perfect.

  I sit back down and work for an hour, solidly, without getting up.

  The chapters Wanda’s written so far are, mercifully, excellent. She’s done just what she said she would do, which is dish the dirt on everyone she’s ever been with. And because it’s in chronological order, the book has a natural flow. She’s captured her own character development too — from the fearless but naive teenager, fresh off the farm in 1961, through her time as a lover and muse to some of the biggest names in rock and roll history, to the point where she embraced the fledgling feminist movement and began to exert a new kind of power, taking charge of her career and her future, and in doing so becoming an icon to a whole new generation.

  But there are some unexplained gaps: two years in the late 1960s are unaccounted for, eighteen months in the mid seventies, and four years from 1987 to 1991. These are the gaps that have been causing Carmen so much distress.

  Once I finish a quick first read through of the chapters, I check my phone. There’s a brief text from Dad — All good here — and several from Carmen. At least she’s easing up on the voicemails. The first text says, Any luck? If not, try standing behind her and Heimlich manoeuvring the chapters out of her.

  Her second text says, Update please.

  I write back: Progressing. Will update again tomorrow.

  I make and eat a sandwich, and then I’m not sure what to do. There’s no point working on the edit any further until I have the missing chapters. I consider heading back up to the house but Philip was pretty adamant that I’d be called when I was required.

  I lie down on the couch, close my eyes, and Adam pops unbidden into my head, like a sexy, dishonest jack-in-the-box. Bloody Adam. Thinking about him makes me feel a bit sick. What’s causing that, I wonder. Guilt? Shame? No, it’s embarrassment. I misjudged him. I feel foolish. I was seeing who Adam once was — or who he once presented himself as, in his book. I should have known that wasn’t the whole story. People in books aren’t real. Not even in memoirs. It’s like I’ve tried to have an affair with a fictional character. I might as well have tried to date Heathcliff, or The Cat in the Hat or some other distinctive Man of Literature.

  I open my eyes and check my phone.

  Three o’clock. Dad will be collecting Tim from school soon. I hope he’s got something for their afternoon tea. I probably should have left some instructions about that, and about what they’ll want for dinner. I hope Freya’s not missing me too much. She’s awfully little to be left. Guilt begins to bubble away in my gut. I’m clearly not even needed up here. Wanda seems fine. Who abandons their kids so they can swan off on a junket like this? This is the kind of thing Troy does. The kind of thing Helen would do. I’m as bad as they are. My poor children don’t stand a chance. They have two parents who are incapable of putting their needs first.

  I begin envisioning a future where my children — lacking the ability to love because I haven’t shown them enough of it, devoid of empathy because they realise their mother doesn’t value their feelings sufficiently to stay at home with them and raise them — become terrible adults, blithely crashing through life with complete disregard for others. They’ll probably become conservative politicians, or property developers, or business efficiency experts. Deeply engrossed in this awful spiral of guilt and shame, I almost don’t hear my phone ping with another text alert.

  It’s from Laura. OMG IS THIS WHERE YOU ARE?

  I click on the link she’s attached and it takes me to a photo essay about Wandaland on an architectural website. The photos are beautiful, but they don’t do the real thing justice. This really is an amazing place.

  Affirmative, I text back.

  Have you swum in that pool yet? she replies instantly. Do not come home until you have. Mu
m would have LOVED that place.

  She’s right. She’s always bloody right. Our mother would have been in that pool faster than you can say ‘I didn’t bring a swimsuit’. She wouldn’t have cared. She’d have bowled up to those terrifying girls and borrowed one, or she’d have gone swimming in her bra and undies.

  When did I get so scared of everything? This is no way to live. No one seems to need me to do any work right now, so I might as well be in the pool. I’ll go and ask Edie and her mates if I can borrow some swimmers.

  * * *

  I find the girls right where I left them a few hours ago. But they’ve swapped sunlounges and are now all looking at iPads and phones.

  ‘Hey,’ Edie greets me. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘I was wondering if I might be able to take you up on your offer of a swimming costume,’ I say. ‘If it still stands.’

  She raises her sunglasses and props them on the top of her head. ‘Absolutely. Come down to my guesthouse and I’ll sort you out.’

  She grabs a white caftan that’s draped over a nearly table and drops it over her head. It floats down and she starts walking, surprisingly quickly, although I suppose she does have extremely long legs. I follow her down a path that weaves from the pool through the gardens to another guesthouse, very like mine.

  ‘Come on in,’ she says, so I follow her inside. The living room is awash in Express Post bags and courier satchels. There are unopened boxes from expensive makeup brands all over the coffee table, and piles of clothing with tags heaped on the couch.

  ‘I know I’ve got something in here that will work for you,’ she says, narrowing her eyes and scanning the room.

  ‘What is all this stuff?’ I ask her.

  Edie turns to me and somewhat shamefacedly says, ‘I’m an “influencer”. Apparently. Basically, I have a lot of Instagram followers and companies send me stuff that I might like and then mention. Some brands I have partnerships with, where I advertise things for them, you know, for money, but others just send me things on spec, and if I think they’re good I show them and if I don’t, I don’t. Wanda thinks it’s ridiculous. She’s probably right. But it’s kind of fun.’