‘Your rather strange wish,’ said Julian, ‘is my command.’ He ushered her to the en-suite.
‘You look as if you’re struggling.’ Charlie materialised by the raw fish. ‘Need a hand?’
‘God, yes.’ Gratified somebody had noticed, Kate gestured at a platter. ‘Could you arrange my attempts at maki rolls so they look appetising?’
‘I’ll try.’
They didn’t catch each other’s eye as they worked, but, like the easy laughter over her regrettable new haircut, this silent collaboration was a step forward.
The new millennium was a time not only of superstition but of hope. Kate and Charlie couldn’t avoid each other – Becca would never allow that – but perhaps they were on the brink of a new era when they could be friendly and savour each other’s company again.
‘Is that OK?’ Charlie stood back from his handiwork.
‘It doesn’t look like the picture in the book.’
‘As long as it tastes nice.’
‘True.’
Such politeness.
They’d never discussed the second miscarriage. She mourned the lost little soul but lacked the vocabulary to empathise with Charlie about his bereavement. She’d spent long hours with Becca, whose uncharacteristic withdrawal into herself had worried the family. From their conversations, Kate knew Charlie had insisted they refrain from ‘trying again’ too soon.
‘He wants time for us to heal,’ Becca told Kate. ‘He says no need to rush. He thinks we should travel, have some adventures together.’
Becca’s acquiescence was atypical: she must really love him, thought Kate.
This tendency to doubt the calibre of her cousin’s marriage was a habit Kate was trying to break. It was her new year – a new millennium! – resolution, along with a vow to be more grateful for her own luck in love and life.
‘So,’ said Charlie, ‘I hear you own three shops now.’
‘I don’t own them,’ said Kate. ‘I manage them.’ She oversaw every aspect of ‘her’ shops – as she thought of them – bringing to bear a pernickety perfectionism lacking in other areas of her life. No two working days were the same. Like a truffle hound, Kate nosed out emerging trends and was ruthless when vetting prospective staff members. Only those with a ready smile and a muscular work ethic need apply. Julian believed she spoiled them but Kate believed that everybody deserved to be rewarded for their input. Her team would do anything for her.
Sometimes, when she stepped back and took in the bigger picture, Kate smiled at how seriously she took her job. As if I’m the leader of a nation and not the manager of a handful of shops.
Julian and Becca emerged from the adoration of the bidet. ‘Don’t get her started on those shops,’ he said. ‘She can talk all night about them.’ He launched into a high pitched impression of Kate that he only did when sloshed. ‘Oh I’m so tired. Oh I need to be up early to open up the Blackheath branch.’
‘That sounds just like you!’ Becca clapped.
‘So then I say to her,’ said Julian, ‘Leave! Be a proper wifey.’ He put his arms around Kate and buried his face in the back of her neck, severely cramping her sushi-making style. ‘It’s not like we need the money.’
‘I like working.’ Kate struggled to cut up a radish with six foot four of bloke leaning on her.
‘I noticed. You’re always at bloody work.’ Julian straightened up.
‘So are you!’
‘It’s not the same thing.’
When Julian had first shown an interest in Kate’s work, she’d assumed he understood her ambition, but it transpired Julian thought her need to work would blow over, like a head cold.
‘Now, now.’ Becca put her hands on her hips. ‘No fighting, you two. You can’t start a new millennium on a row.’
‘We’re not fighting,’ said Kate.
‘We never do,’ said Julian.
After years of ducking as Mum chucked china at Dad over minor transgressions it was soothing to live with somebody so easy-going. When the cumulative civility got too much she simply rang her mum and provoked her.
Julian’s penitent face made a silent apology and Kate leaned over and stroked his cheek. In the midst of the dinner party they forged a moment of togetherness, before his eyes slid from hers.
‘Let’s eat!’ Kate resolved to limit Julian’s alcohol intake.
The dining zone (Kate cringed when Julian referred to it that way) was black panelled, with black glossy floor tiles. A black table floated amid black chairs; it was like eating down an elegant mine and made Kate feel as if she’d been shoved forward in time, becoming an older, more poised version of herself. The sophistication of her life was like a gorgeous coat she’d spotted in a shop window, and never dreamed she might own. Yet here she was, wearing it and trying to look as if it was comfortable.
Even presented on the best wedding-present crockery, Kate’s sushi spoiled the photo-shoot perfection of the setting, as if a child had scribbled on an old master.
Becca was fulsome in her praise: ‘Wow! This is dee-licious!’
Kate winked at her, grateful.
When talk turned to mortgage rates, Kate poured herself a hefty glass of wine. Becca regarded Julian as a property guru, and was always keen to pump him for insider tips.
‘I keep telling Charlie we need to flip a property,’ said Becca, pound signs almost visible in her blue eyes.
‘I keep telling you we can’t afford it,’ said Charlie.
‘You should listen to Becca,’ said Julian. He turned to his disciple. ‘Why not consider buying off-plan and selling on without even taking possession?’
The collusive eye roll Kate and Charlie shared was the first in more than two years, since the wedding. They both looked away, as if caught stealing.
‘The key word,’ said Julian, ‘is liquidity.’
Slipping away to change her shoes, Kate sat on the bed and removed her shoes, rubbing the arch of her foot. Madness, she thought, to wear high heels in your own home. She found her slippers and pushed her toes into their fluffy innards.
She only meant to sit on the edge of the bed for a moment, but she couldn’t resist lying back among the pillows. Weaned on fairy tales, she’d always wanted a four poster: Julian had insisted on making this dream come true. In the spirit of compromise, he’d bought a modern version in black tubular steel, with no hangings.
Finding the remote control on the bedside table, Kate pushed a button and ivory silk drapes purred across the glass wall, cutting her off from the nosey parkers celebrating across the way and fading the room gently into darkness. She remembered when the remote had malfunctioned, condemning her and Julian to sleep in a goldfish bowl. She’d had to dress in the bathroom.
‘Eh?’ Time skipped and suddenly Becca’s face was an inch from Kate’s.
‘You fell asleep, you silly old bag.’ Becca hauled her up. ‘Come on. It’s almost midnight. I promise we’ve stopped talking about mortgages.’ She giggled fruitily. ‘Well, me and Julian have stopped. Charlie hasn’t said a word since you left the room.’
An early firework spat across the sky. Dinner debris littered the table.
‘Don’t you dare!’ Julian tugged her onto his lap as Kate began to clear away. ‘You’re off duty now.’ He kissed her, his mouth demanding and uninhibited as if he’d forgotten they had company.
Giving in for a moment – Julian was good at many things; kissing was one of them – Kate pulled away, rubbed her nose against his. ‘Not quite off duty,’ she said. ‘I made chocolate roulade for afters.’
‘Decadence,’ said Julian approvingly, ‘after all that wholesome fish and rice bollocks.’ He slapped her bottom when she stood up.
‘Stop it,’ she said, almost annoyed but not quite.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Julian, quietly so only she could hear. ‘About earlier. Slagging off your job like that. Naughty Julian.’
‘Five minutes to go!’ Becca danced by herself on the rug, reaching out to press gang Kate as she pas
sed en route to the sink. ‘Spoilsport!’ she called as Kate eluded her.
‘Full glasses for the toast,’ said Julian, topping up the flutes on the table.
Charlie grabbed gratefully at his, as if it was a life belt, not a glass.
‘No, not for me.’ Becca nipped over to place her hand ostentatiously over her glass.
A penny dropped. Kate said, ‘You haven’t drunk a drop of booze all evening, cuz.’
Becca put her hands together as if praying and said to Charlie, ‘Can we tell them? I know we said we’d wait but . . .’ Without waiting for his response, Becca squealed, ‘I’m pregnant!’
‘Wow! Congratulations.’ Julian enveloped Becca in a hug.
Kate didn’t look at Charlie. She waited her turn with the lady of the moment, and squeezed her close. ‘This is amazing. Do you feel OK? Any sickness?’
‘I feel a million dollars.’ Becca was alight with energy, bouncing on the spot. ‘It’s so exciting!’ With visible effort, she cranked down the glee and said, gravely, ‘Of course it was a shock at first. We’d decided to wait. But lightning struck!’
If Charlie shared Kate’s suspicion about how lightning could strike Becca’s ovaries not once but twice he hid it well. Both this pregnancy and her other, lost, baby had taken root in her body at a time when she was, allegedly, taking steps not to conceive.
‘We’ve been dying to tell you, haven’t we, Charlie? We can’t keep anything from you two.’
‘We’re delighted for you.’ Julian put an arm around Kate, dragging her close. He was good in these situations, knowing the right thing to say. He had none of his wife’s double edged misgivings, apparently. Kate felt grubby, bad minded. Babies were good news; so what if Becca had jettisoned her contraception so this one would arrive earlier rather than later.
‘I’ve already handed in my notice,’ said Becca.
‘Well, you’ve asked about maternity leave,’ said Charlie.
‘Oh yes, that’s what I meant.’ Becca didn’t even bother to disguise the panto wink she threw Kate’s way. The receptionist job in a luxury spa, the latest in a long line of similar positions, had never struck Kate as very convincing; Becca bounced off to work in full slap and killer heels as if acting the role of a woman with a job. There was no way she was going back after giving birth.
‘You’ll be an amazing mummy.’ Kate felt her eyes fill as she realised the truth of that. Her maddening, passionate, lioness of a cousin would dote on her cub.
‘Oh Kate!’ Becca beamed, her shoulders hitched up to her ears with the impossibility of semaphoring her emotions. ‘You next!’
‘Oh, well . . .’ That blindsided Kate. She thought she’d given up blushing years ago, along with spots and New Kids on the Block.
‘You’d better get cracking! We’re not getting any younger!’
‘Kate,’ said Charlie, ‘is twenty-three.’
Now it was Julian who Kate didn’t look at. ‘Not exactly past it!’ she laughed toothily.
‘There’s plenty of time,’ said Julian.
‘No time like the present.’ Becca, known for her tenacity, chose to pursue the point, despite her hosts’ body language.
‘We’ve got a lot on our plate,’ said Julian.
‘This apartment isn’t what you’d call child friendly,’ said Kate.
They were still smiling, still entwined.
Kate went on, wondering as she did so why she had to justify herself. ‘I want to make a mark at work before I have babies.’
‘My wife,’ said Julian, ‘is too busy to have babies. Sometimes,’ he laughed, ‘she’s too busy for me!’
Kate wondered had she imagined it, but no, she hadn’t. Julian had infused the joke with meaning, as if sending her a message above the others’ heads. Perhaps he’d taken lessons from her mother, who was conversant in the Irish dark arts of subtle scolding. She countered by keeping her own tone light. ‘Ooh, I wouldn’t say that.’
Their sex life was a subject they returned to often.
Where’s the wild girl I married? Julian would gripe as they sat up in bed reading, a radio news programme mumbling in the background.
Having explained once, twice, thirty times, Kate would attempt to explain again.
I get tired because I work hard. And I bloody love it.
She couldn’t find the language to go further without hurting him. To point out that when he got home all he had to do was pull off his tie, pour a drink and gripe about his business deals, in comparison to Kate’s race around the supermarket, preparation of dinner, serving of dinner, clearing away of dinner, all the while nodding sympathetically at the aforementioned gripes.
Is it any wonder I don’t feel like performing the Dance of the Seven Veils on demand? What’s more, Julian liked some added value in the bedroom. At the end of a long day, suspenders held no allure for Kate, who longed instead for fleecy pyjamas.
‘We’ll get around to babies!’ she grinned.
‘Excuses excuses!’ Becca was in full schoolmarm mode. She prodded Julian, as she made her points. ‘This little one inside me needs a playmate!’ Prod. ‘What are you so frightened of?’ Prod. ‘Man up, Julian, and put your lovely wife in the pudding club!’ Prod.
‘If you must know,’ Julian said, shaking off her finger more brusquely than he would ever do sober, ‘we’ve been trying since our wedding night.’
Outside, Chelsea Harbour came alive with the first of Big Ben’s midnight chimes sounding from dozens of full volume television sets.
‘No joy. Nada. Not even a scare,’ said Julian bitterly. ‘Happy now, Becca? Never content until you’ve gone too bloody far, are you?’
The last chime boomed over the silence in the apartment.
Julian wrenched back the sliding doors as the sky erupted in gunpowder flowers of scarlet and gold.
‘Happy New Millennium!’ Kate grabbed Becca and kissed her cheeks. They clung to each other, whispering Sorry and It’s OK.
Julian and Charlie slapped each other’s backs in the tentative, jokey manner patented by Englishmen who can’t relate to each other emotionally.
Gratefully relinquishing Charlie, Julian pulled his wife to him as if rescuing her from terrorists. ‘Happy new everything. I’m an arsehole,’ he said into her hair. ‘2000 will be our year, I promise.’
The moments when Julian opened up to her like this, like a flower whose centre she could suddenly see, still had the power to stir Kate. If only you’d let me in more often. She suddenly wanted to be the woman he needed, the lover he craved.
Kate kissed him. Like the wild girl he wanted her to be, her face was wet with tears that she could pass off as New Year sentimentality.
‘Don’t cry! You’ll start me off!’ yowled Becca. ‘My hormones are all over the place.’
‘Happy New Year, Kate,’ said Charlie, at her elbow.
She had to kiss him. It would be peculiar not to, especially as Julian was smothering Becca, making sure she knew she was forgiven. Kate leaned forward. Charlie smelled different, posh. He used the cologne Becca bought him. ‘Happy new thingummybob to you too,’ she said.
The affinity they’d felt earlier had nowhere to go. She and Charlie weren’t friends but cousins-in-law (if such a thing existed). They had too much history. Too much dead air lay between them.
And empathetic eye rolls weren’t fair on Becca or Julian.
Charlie had been right when he wrote This split is for the best. She’d been right to hand back his note. They were done.
No planes fell out of the sky. No computers exploded.
But the chocolate roulade slumped.
‘I hate doing this,’ said Charlie, to general laughter. ‘My wife’s much better than me at making speeches. But then she’s better than me at most things.’
Becca tried, and very nearly succeeded, in looking humble as the crowd crammed into the conservatory looked her way.
‘But, today I have a job to do as daddy to this little lady here.’ Charlie bounced Florence S
usan in his arms. The blue eyed, chrysanthemum haired Flo giggled, as she did most of the time. ‘I want to introduce her to all of the people she’s going to love as she grows up.’
Aww said almost everybody. Kate nudged Julian; his face didn’t fit the occasion. She assumed he was trying not to choke on the shabby chic of Becca’s new glass extension. A bunting sceptic, Julian looked uncomfortable among the patchwork cushions, the rattan chairs, and the old trunks repurposed as storage. ‘Storage for what?’ he’d hissed. ‘Yet more dusty old tat?’
‘That lady in the corner,’ said Charlie, pointing Flo’s pudgy forefinger, ‘is your godmother, Kate.’
There was a smattering of applause, as if being godmother was a talent, even though so far all Kate had done was buy a silver rattle. She nervously readjusted the enormous hat that would ruin all the photos of this red letter day.
‘I suggest you be very very naughty whenever she babysits,’ said Charlie. The gentle joke got a huge laugh; this was an easy audience.
‘I’ll teach her to swear!’ called Kate, regretting it when an elderly guest muttered, ‘Well really!’
‘Thanks!’ Becca winked from where she stood behind Charlie, like a presidential candidate’s wife. All in red, with a ruffle at the knee, she carried her ‘baby weight’ with glorious aplomb. Not for Becca the new mum uniform of stained tee shirts: she was hyper groomed, her eyebrows waxed and her lips plumped with collagen. With her new bottom-heavy figure she was a glamorous update of a pagan fertility icon, glowing with life. Around her neck, her name hung in flowing gold letters; Becca modelled herself on Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City with the doggedness of a cult member. Three years into the new millennium, it was clear that this new century – and motherhood – suited her.
‘We don’t really care what you’re going to be when you grow up.’ Charlie lifted Flo to look her in the eye as the Indian summer sun silhouetted them in gold. ‘We don’t give a monkeys whether you’re the Prime Minister or you sweep the streets. We just want you to be happy, little Flo. We want you to know you are loved.’
‘Hear hear!’ shouted Kate’s dad from where he stood sandwiched between a refurbished birdcage and a tailor’s dummy wearing an antique nightdress.
These Days of Ours Page 6