by Sarah Duncan
'Well, it seems very nice to me. Very spacious.'
Spacious. Isabel winced inwardly when she heard it; it seemed such a non-word, the sort of word used by estate agents. A bland word, like pretty, and tasty, and saying you were fine. Don't be mean, she told herself. Justine's only trying to be positive about it.
'Magnolia everywhere works wonders.' She looked around the kitchen, her own personality asserted over the blandness by the addition of copper pots from Morocco and a string of scarlet chilli peppers like an archaic coral necklace. 'We're lucky, we had a house in London which we let out while we were abroad, so it meant it wasn't such a shock when we came back.'
'Do you still have it? It must be worth a fortune,' Justine said.
'I don't know about that,' Isabel said, embarrassed. 'But we've still got it. If we'd had more time we'd probably have sold up and bought something else down here, but we've got good tenants and the way prices are rocketing in London it's probably best to hang on to it.' She frowned. Neil had wanted them to sell her father's house, complaining about the cost and hassle of maintenance, but she knew her father would have preferred that his house be saved for her children rather than financing a more impressive home. Secretly she hoped it would provide whatever fees the children needed to go to university: her father had always regretted that he didn't have the chance to go. Thinking of the children brought her back to the present.
'I suppose I ought to start getting the children's tea ready. Does Rachel like pasta?' Justine nodded. 'I try and think of different things for them, but they won't try anything new and I end up eating it, so I tend to stick to the old reliables,' Isabel said. 'Neil said the other day that only three things in life were certain: death, taxes and pasta for lunch.'
She began preparing the children's meal, putting water on to boil, getting out a saucepan and cheese grater. 'Do you know Patrick Sherwin well?' she asked, as nonchalantly as she could.
'Oh, Patrick,' Justine said, leaning back on her chair. Isabel hoped the chair back was up to it and waited to hear what Justine had to say about her new employer.
'Do I know him well?' Justine said slowly, as if buying time before her answer. 'I've known him for about...um...eight years.'
'Quite a long time.'
'It seems like forever. Goodness, we were both married when we met.'
'So he has been married,' Isabel asked, feeling guilty about talking about Patrick behind his back, but unable to resist. 'But he's divorced now, isn't he?'
Justine let out a snort of laughter. 'Don't you already know? I thought you'd already started working for him.'
Isabel prodded the spaghetti down into the saucepan, watching the stiff strands bend and become supple in the hot water. She felt foolish and naive.
'Perhaps it's not surprising you don't know. Patrick can keep very quiet when it suits him.'
'I wouldn't expect him to talk about something personal like that in the work place,' Isabel said, feeling she was sounding prissy.
'But you want to know, don't you?'
Isabel shrugged, not wanting to say yes. But she did very much want to know.
Justine stared up at the ceiling. 'I don't think Patrick or Caro were suited from the start. She was very much part of the hunting and shooting set round here. Still is, in fact. After their divorce she married some man with two thousand acres towards Petersfield.' Justine fiddled with a biscuit on her plate. Isabel realised Justine hadn't actually eaten any of the hand-made cookies she had bought from the WI market especially for the occasion. No wonder she was so slim. Isabel had already eaten four.
'It's funny how the rich always seem to marry the rich, isn't it?' Justine said.
Isabel blinked. 'I don't know. Do they? Perhaps that's how they get to be rich.'
'How they stay rich anyway.' Justine crumbled a bit of biscuit, squashing it flat under her index finger. 'One thing you'll learn is that there are an awful lot of people with money round here. Not so much in the town, but outside in the villages. Stupid money. Some of it's from the City but a lot of it's inherited.' She sniffed.
Isabel didn't know what to say. The conversation seemed to have nose-dived rapidly away from Patrick and Caro, and she wasn't sure how she could steer it back again.
'So Caro's rich?' she tried.
'Rolling in it,' Justine said. 'You'd have thought with all that money she could afford to dress decently.' She sounded as if the way Caro dressed was a personal affront. Then Isabel realised that it might be.
'Did you do your wardrobe thing with Caro?'
'Sure, she had the full wardrobe consultancy, colours, clear-out, the works. Not that it did her much good. Or me come to that,' Justine added like an afterthought. Isabel wondered what she meant but Justine looked cross so she didn't like to pry.
'Tell you what, the pasta's nearly ready. Why don't you call the children down?' Justine got up and went out of the kitchen. Isabel quickly laid the table with three places, drained the pasta and made a sauce by adding a knob of butter, some cream and a mixture of quickly grated Gruyere and cheddar. At the end of this activity she was slightly surprised that none of the children had yet appeared and went out to the hall.
'Hello?' she called up the stairs. 'Children. It's tea.' Silence. She called again, and this time she heard sounds of movement. Michael came first, slouching down the stairs in a manner that would befit a teenager, Rachel and Katie next and lastly Justine, who was saying, 'Come on girls,' in a rather hearty manner. Isabel had the distinct feeling that she hadn't been fetching Rachel and Katie for tea but had been having a quick scout upstairs. Justine smiled as she passed her, shooing the children into the kitchen. Isabel shrugged. There was nothing she could do about it, except hope the bedrooms weren't disastrously untidy.
Justine was very complimentary about Isabel's cooking skills, gushing about how clever she was to knock up something so delicious, so quickly. Isabel was uncertain how to react. It was obvious that the dish was simple, so Justine's praise seemed excessive. She was now standing and looking along the mantelpiece at the clutter of postcards, finger paintings, dusty treasures and 'to do' lists.
'Is that Neil?' she asked. Isabel turned in her seat to look. Justine was pointing to a photograph of a man standing, hands on hips, relaxed, confident, while behind him a massive sky was streaked with the beginnings of sunset, turning a range of jagged mountains gold.
'Mmm. That's the Arabian peninsular, the Empty Quarter.'
'It's not empty, you know,' said Michael, shovelling in pasta. 'That's just what they call it.'
'Don't speak with your mouth full,' Isabel said automatically. 'And don't interrupt.'
'That's all right,' Justine said, making Isabel feel like a harsh and repressive mother. 'What's in it if it's not empty?'
'Lots of things. Birds and animals and people.'
'Sand?' Justine's voice had an attractive lilt to it, almost as if she were flirting.
'Oh yes,' Michael said, oblivious. 'There's lots of that. Can I have some cake?'
'When the girls have finished.' Isabel noticed that Rachel was struggling and said she didn't have to finish. Justine cut in quickly.
'I have a rule that children have to finish what's on their plates.' She smiled tightly at Isabel, who was nonplussed. Rule twenty-three of mothering: never interfere with another mother's discipline. But it seemed unfair to expect the child to eat food she didn't want in a strange house. And unnecessary. Nobody benefited from forcing a child to eat.
'I gave Rachel quite a big helping in the first place,' she said carefully. 'I should have asked how much she wanted. It's quite filling so perhaps this once...' She smiled across at Justine, who rather grudgingly said Rachel didn't have to finish.
Isabel collected up the plates, then cut the cake. Out of the cardboard packaging it seemed smaller than she'd thought. In her hurry, she cut pieces individually, with no regard to where the centre of the cake was, rather than cutting a cross and then halving each piece.
'I seem
to have made rather a mess of this,' Isabel said, licking her fingers, puzzled at how the cake had turned out. 'From the WI market I'm afraid. I used to make my own, but now...' One piece was short and fat, the others long and thin, like a trigonometry question in Michael's homework - how many of these are scalene triangles, how many isosceles? Michael and Katie squabbled over who had the largest piece. Isabel felt flustered, especially as Rachel was sitting quietly eating her own misshapen slice. Her manners were impeccable. Perhaps Justine was right to insist on good table manners at all times, regardless of the circumstances. Justine was looking at Neil's photograph again.
'I've always liked that photograph,' Isabel said. 'We'd only just got married, and Neil had given me a camera.'
'He looks young.'
'We've been married forever. Neil was twenty-six and I was just nineteen.'
'Nineteen!' Justine's eyes were alert with speculation. 'Nobody gets married at nineteen nowadays.'
'I know.' Isabel pulled a face. Yet again she'd have to make it clear that she and Neil didn't have to get married because she was pregnant. 'Neil was just about to start a two-year contract in Saudi, and I couldn't go with him unless we were married. And then, under their law, I became his property and so they paid for my airfare, and provided us with suitable accommodation for marrieds. Otherwise Neil would have had to stay in a ghastly sort of hostel place.' She shrugged. 'And there wasn't much to keep me in the UK, so we got married, went off to the desert and lived happily ever after.' Occasionally - usually after a row - she wondered what would have happened if they hadn't had to get married so quickly. Recently the thought had become more insistent, popping up in unlikely places. 'More cake?' she added, handing round the plate of squished triangles.
Katie and Michael, having finished their cake, pushed their chairs back and ran from the kitchen, but Rachel lingered. 'Please may I be excused from the table, Mrs Freeman,' she said, her hands neatly in her lap.
'Call me Isabel, do, Mrs Freeman makes me feel so old. And of course you can get down if you've had enough to eat. Go and find the others. What lovely manners she has,' she said to Justine, while Rachel ran after Katie.
Justine smiled, gratified, and started to clear up.
'No, no, leave it. I'll do it later. More tea?' Isabel asked, thinking wistfully of the sitting room and a conversation that didn't involve children and domesticity. A conversation about other things. Like Patrick Sherwin. But Justine had taken over, clearing things away. Isabel felt embarrassed at the number of utensils she seemed to have used to make such a simple meal. She really wanted to dump them in the sink and sort it out later. They had just finished clearing up when Neil came into the kitchen.
'You're home early,' Isabel said as he kissed her cheek.
'I caught the four twenty.' He turned to Justine and held out his hand. 'Hello. Neil Freeman.'
She took his hand. 'Justine Torens.'
'Justine's daughter is in the same class as Katie,' Isabel chipped in, hoping that Neil would go upstairs or into his study and shut the door. But he didn't. He stood there drinking tea and chatting to Justine and showing no sign of disappearing. There were things she wanted to talk about, to ask Justine. Instead they were talking about one of Neil's favourite projects, a huge dam which had provided hydro-electricity for hundreds of thousands of houses but in the process had also drowned several villages in a remote valley. Isabel glowered. How could Neil imagine that Justine was interested in all that? Justine was nodding and asking questions, but Isabel could see that her attention wasn't held.
Finally Justine ended it. 'I really must be going,' she said, picking up her bag. 'I've completely outstayed my welcome.'
'Not at all,' Neil and Isabel said together, Isabel mechanically and Neil with a beaming smile as if he meant it. 'Stay for a drink,' he added.
'That's so kind but, no, thank you. I must be on my way.' She went into the hall and called up to Rachel then turned back and held her hand out to Neil. 'It was so nice to meet you. Your work sounds fascinating.' Rachel came clattering down the stairs, followed by Katie. 'Thank you so much for having us, we've really enjoyed ourselves, haven't we Rachel?'
Rachel nodded obediently. Isabel found herself opening the front door. Normally it took hours for people to go: children disappeared, one shoe lost, toy left in the garden, that sort of thing, but Justine was leaving rapidly. As she passed through the doorway she paused.
'I was going to tell you all about Patrick, wasn't I?'
Isabel nodded, conscious of Neil hovering in the hall behind her. 'Another time, maybe.'
'There's really not much to tell. I mean, he doesn't keep his skeletons hidden in his cupboard. If anything, Patrick's skeletons are thoroughly out and probably drinking with him down at The Mason's Arms.' She shot a glance past Isabel towards the hall and whispered, 'You know what they say about him, don't you?'
Isabel shook her head. 'What?'
'They say...' Justine looked sideways at Isabel as if gauging her reaction, 'he's very good in bed.'
Chapter 6
Good in bed. Isabel sorted the post into letters, junk mail, bills. Good in bed. The words seemed engraved on her brain, so that some of the letters seemed addressed to 'Patrick Sherwin, Good in Bed', not 'Patrick Sherwin, 45 Downton Road'. Who were the 'they' who said it? And how did Justine know? Had she and Patrick...? Isabel thought about it as she made coffee for Patrick in the cafetière. She knew Justine was divorced, but little else about her.
The phone rang. 'Patrick Sherwin Associates,' she answered. Good in bed, she thought. 'I'll just see if he's in.' She held the phone to her chest while she hollered for Patrick upstairs. 'He's just coming,' she told the caller, then waited for Patrick. He came clattering down the stairs and took the phone from her. 'Yup?' he said. Isabel tried not to listen to his conversation. It was boring anyway, something about a computer not working. Patrick was trying to work out what the problem was, long-distance. He wasn't very successful at keeping the irritation from his voice, she thought, as she handed him his coffee. He smiled as he took it from her and she felt herself blush. Good in bed. The phrase nagged like a football chant in her head. She could imagine cheerleaders, ra-ra skirts twirling: 'Good in bed!' - clap, clap, clap - 'Good in bed!' - clap, clap, clap.
She went back into the kitchen and made tea for herself, dreamily lifting the tea bag from the mug and dropping it into the sink tidy. What was it that made a man good in bed? She'd always thought that, for women, it was their own mental attitude that made the difference. Certainly for herself she thought it was true, although her own experience other than with Neil was limited and seemed a long time ago. Perhaps it was experience that made the difference. But the man might just be repeating the same moves, over and over. Or he'd learn what suited one woman, and then have to learn new tricks for the next. So he'd have to be sensitive. Considerate. Receptive. Not qualities traditionally associated with men. At least, not with the few she'd known. Perhaps all women liked the same things. But that was like saying everybody liked potatoes. Most people did, but some liked chips, and others went beyond baked, roast and mashed for more exotic variations such as duchesse and dauphinois.
She frowned. It couldn't be size - well, not just on its own. And as for inventiveness, there seemed something offputtingly mechanistic about ticking off the various positions. Up a bit, left a bit, bullseye! More akin to painting by numbers than true art, and there were people who said that making love was an art. She sipped her hot tea. How irritating of Neil to pitch up at the very moment when Justine was going to tell her something interesting.
'Why must I work with imbeciles,' Patrick shouted as he came in, making her jump. 'These people are morons. It's enough to drive you mad.' He opened a cupboard door then slammed it shut. 'Where's my coffee?'
'Where you left it,' she said, watching him with trepidation. His anger seemed to fill the room. He drummed his fingers on the worktop, then ran them through his hair, which seemed to be sparking with electricity.
>
'Well, get it,' he said, throwing up his hands as if exasperated beyond endurance by her obtuseness.
Obediently she went into the living room and collected his coffee cup, only thinking of saying 'Get it yourself' as she turned to take it back. I mustn't be a doormat, she thought. But she was there with the coffee cup in her hands. And he did seem very angry. She could hear him crashing around in the kitchen, slamming cupboard doors. He'd got angry so quickly, it was like spontaneous combustion. Unexplained and devastating. She went back into the kitchen and put the cup on the table.
Patrick didn't appear to register her return. He was too busy pacing up and down, cursing clients for their infinite stupidity, their total absence of brains, their complete lack of appreciation. He spat out the words with passion. 'And then they have the nerve to tell me - me!' he stabbed his chest with a finger for emphasis, 'that the system doesn't work.'
Isabel didn't know what to say. She shrugged her shoulders and tried what she hoped was a calming smile. 'Never mind. I'm sure you'll be able to sort it out.'
He turned on her, his eyes blazing. 'Never mind? What the hell does that mean? Of course I mind. Of course I fucking mind, you stupid woman. I'm going out.' He swept past her, the swing of his shoulders expressing pent-up energy so strongly that she involuntarily took a step back. The coffee cup on the table must have caught on his jacket because it went flying, smashing onto the floor and splattering shards and black coffee over the tiles, followed by a second crash as Patrick slammed the front door shut behind him. The sound reverberated through the house.
Isabel stood rigid until the house had settled back into stillness. Then she bent down and picked up the broken bits of china. Her hands were trembling. She'd never seen someone so angry, so physically angry, close up before. Neil retreated into a cold shell, teachers at school had been sarcastic, her parents had kept their arguments behind closed doors. She wrapped the pieces in newspaper and put them in the bin.