by Tess Stimson
Ned
Nicholas Lyon looks like a fancy divorce lawyer straight out of central casting. Double cuffs, red braces, monogrammed gold cufflinks, the works. Big corner office with a huge mahogany desk and a panoramic view across the Thames. Plush carpets. Croissants and fresh-brewed coffee. I hope Martin hasn’t given me a bum steer on this guy. Christ knows how much it’s costing me just to set foot inside the door.
The lawyer extends his hand over the desk. His grasp is firm and cool, and he meets my eyes steadily as we shake. Got to give him points for that. Despite the pinstripe and braces, there’s something about him that’s solid and down-to-earth. The far wall is covered with his kids’ artwork, and his desk is crowded with silver-framed photos of his family on a variety of bucket-and-spade holidays. The wife looks vaguely familiar; it takes me a moment to place her as Malinche Lyon, the only cookery presenter who, in my book, can give the pneumatic Nigella a run for her money.
‘I’ve got the basic details here from our phone conversation,’ Lyon says, opening the slim manila folder in front of him and unscrewing a gold fountain pen. ‘But I’d like to go through it again with you now, if you wouldn’t mind.’
Bet he would, at three-fifty an hour. ‘Shoot,’ I say.
‘You and your wife, Katherine, have been married for fifteen years?’
‘Kate. It was our fifteenth anniversary last month. We lived together for about six months before that.’
He makes a note in his file. ‘And there are two children: a boy aged seventeen, and a girl of fourteen?’
‘Yeah. Guy’s from my first marriage, but he’s lived with me since the divorce. He was one when Kate and I met. Agness was born about a year later. She’ll be fifteen in a couple of weeks’ time.’
‘And how old is your wife?’
‘Forty. Today, actually,’ I add.
Bloody ironic: it’s the first time I’ve ever remembered her birthday without prompting since we got married. I even bought her a present in case she came home in time: a fancy leather wallet from that posh company the Prime Minister’s wife runs. Cost about the same as a small car, but I figured I might as well push the boat out, especially now I can afford it. I’ve got quite a bit of ground to make up here, after all. Kate gets upset if I don’t buy her something for Christmas and birthdays, but it’s not because I don’t care. I just never know what to get. That’s the problem, Kate always says. I should know.
I’ve never understood why things like presents, anniversaries, Valentine cards matter so much to women. But I suppose that’s not the point. They matter to Kate, so I guess she figures they should matter to me.
Briskly, the lawyer runs through the rest of the basics: what property we own, which schools the kids go to, what Kate and I do for a living, blah blah. He asks about our respective salaries, his expression not flickering when he learns my wife earns about six times more than I do. I’m relieved he doesn’t dig any deeper into our finances for the time being. It’s not illegal to place a bet, of course, which is all anyone would be able to prove, but I don’t particularly want to explain why I’m suddenly in clover if I don’t have to.
‘You said your wife left you the second week in April,’ Lyon says, looking up. ‘I realize it’s painful, but can you tell me anything more about that?’
‘Not much to add,’ I say, shrugging to show I don’t care. ‘She just got on a plane and flew to Rome. Didn’t say a word to anyone, just went.’
‘How did you find out where she was?’
‘The cops tracked her down. They thought I’d buried her under the patio till they traced her through her credit card.’
‘Have you spoken to her since?’
‘Once. There didn’t seem much point pushing it,’ I add. ‘If she wants to come home, she knows where I am.’
‘Did she give you the impression that she would return?’
‘She said she needed a bit more time to “get her head together”,’ I snort, scribbling quotation marks in the air with my fingers. ‘But how long am I supposed to wait? I haven’t heard from her in weeks now. Meanwhile, the kids and I are struggling to cope, the bills are piling up—’
‘Mr Forrest, I do understand,’ Lyon says. His expression is sincere and sympathetic. ‘I just want to be sure we aren’t being a little premature here. Your wife has only been gone eight weeks, and you say she does plan to return.’ He hesitates. ‘Unless there is a third party involved?’
‘I’ve never even looked at another woman, and Kate knows it!’
‘I was talking,’ Nicholas Lyon says gently, ‘about your wife.’
The idea has occurred to me; of course it’s bloody occurred to me. Even if it hadn’t, everyone from the cops down seems keen to point it out. I almost wish Kate had run off with another bloke: at least that way I’d have someone to blame. I just can’t see it, that’s all. It’s just not her.
‘Look, Kate’s not like that,’ I say, uncomfortably aware that I must sound like every cuckold in history. ‘I know what you’re thinking, but she’s always been into her work, her career. She doesn’t have a lot of time for one man, never mind two.’
He puts his pen down and leans forward on his clasped hands. ‘Mr Forrest . . .’
‘Ned, please.’
‘Ned, then. If no one else is involved on either side, do you have any idea why she did leave?’
Yeah. She lost a baby, and I was a total fuck-up about it. She thinks the kids and I take her for granted, and she’s right. Her mother’s a passive-aggressive, blood-sucking bitch. She’s pissed off with that young tosser moving in on her territory at work. She’s married to a loser who earns peanuts and can’t even hang on to that without blowing it on the nags. She’s a chronic overachiever who probably blames herself for any and all of the above.
I wave my hand to indicate his family photos. ‘How many kids do you have?’
‘Five,’ he says, slightly thrown by the question. ‘Three girls, two boys. Why?’
‘How would you feel if your wife upped and left without a word?’
He sighs. ‘Ned, I can see why you’re upset. But are you sure that aggressively pursuing a divorce is really what you want to do?’
‘I’ve got grounds, right?’
‘We can always find grounds. Unreasonable behaviour, for one. Desertion perhaps. But that isn’t what I meant.’
‘Martin said you were a ball-breaker,’ I comment. ‘You certainly broke his.’
His expression doesn’t waver. ‘Naturally, I pursue my clients’ interests with vigour when required. But I have to tell you, Ned, that that usually means settling these affairs without ending up in court. Litigation is costly and draining, both emotionally and financially. It’s a weapon of last resort.’
I hear what he’s saying. But things have gone too far. I’m too angry and too hurt. She’s humiliated me in front of everyone, and I’ve had enough of sitting around and taking it like a patsy.
‘She left me,’ I say doggedly. ‘I need to take charge.’
For a long moment, Lyon says nothing. Finally, he picks up his pen again and draws a pad of foolscap towards him. ‘I fnd,’ he says neutrally, ‘that a legal shot across the bows can have a very sobering effect on occasion. It focuses the mind. You’d be surprised,’ he adds, looking up suddenly and catching me by surprise, ‘how many times people realize, once they see everything down in black and white, that divorce is not what they want after all.’
Kate
Most of the time, I forget Keir’s twelve years younger than me. He has such a serious air about him, even when he’s reading the paper or relaxing. Unlike so many men, he doesn’t seem to have that competitive, childishly macho need to prove himself all the time. He debates without taking it personally; he’s able to say he’s wrong, even when he’s right. The magazines next to his bed are Time and the New Yorker. His fridge contains basil and tarragon as well as beer; he’s well-read, thoughtful, and knows the difference between Oman and Amman, Milton and Melville. Most o
f the time, it slips my mind he’s nearer my son’s age than my own.
Most of the time.
I cling on as Keir swerves to the side of the road and waits for his friends on the other two Vespas to catch up with us.
‘It’s gotta be somewhere around here,’ Keir says, peering at his palm-pilot.
The other two boys lean over to study the map on the tiny screen. Behind them, their girlfriends shake out long, shiny hair – neither of them is wearing a helmet – and touch up their lipstick.
‘Roberto did say Via Pigneto, right?’ asks one of the boys.
I don’t know why I keep thinking of them as boys. They’re probably the same age as Keir.
‘Near a restaurant called Primo,’ Keir confirms. ‘We’ve probably missed it again.’
I smother a sigh. We’ve been up and down this stretch of road at least four times in the past half-hour, and it’s nearly midnight. I don’t know why we couldn’t just stay at the bar we were in, or at any of the other three bars we’ve been to tonight, for that matter. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. As I recall, the number of bars you hit in an evening is inversely proportional to how old you are.
After another five minutes of debate between the boys, we all pull back out onto the road and try again, Keir taking the lead. At the next junction, he turns right and threads his way down a street so narrow that any car bigger than a Fiat 500 would probably take the front doors on both sides of the road with it.
‘Via Pigneto!’ he yells suddenly, slewing the Vespa in a tight left turn.
The street we’ve been searching for is sleazy and ill-lit. The walls of the seedy apartment buildings are covered with obscene graffiti, and foot-high heaps of rubbish are piled at intervals along the kerb. As we pass, two men furtively exchange something in a darkened doorway, and under a flickering orange street light, a couple of skimpily dressed prostitutes jut out their scrawny hips and catcall in Italian.
I tighten my grip on Keir’s waist as he slows to pick his way around deep potholes filled with rainwater. I dread to think what the party itself is going to be like.
The road dead-ends in a run-down piazza surrounded by boarded-up shops. We pull over outside a bar whose owner is putting chairs on tables inside. A thick chain and padlock dangle from the door, ready to be fastened.
‘We’re definitely in the right place,’ Keir says without irony, checking his palm-pilot against the peeling street sign on the wall above us. ‘Via Pigneto. That’s the one.’
‘I thought it was near a restaurant?’ I say. ‘We haven’t passed any.’
‘Maybe it’s closed down. Let me ask the guy inside. Someone’s got to know it.’
I climb off the scooter and quickly follow Keir. There’s no way I’m standing outside on my own, even with his friends hovering nearby.
The barman glances up as we walk in. His head is shaved; spacers drag his earlobes to chin level, and his muscular forearms are sheathed in tattoo sleeves. I suspect many of his customers look the same; no wonder he regards us, in our pressed chinos and expensive heels, with wary surprise.
Keir asks for directions in Italian, but the barman responds in perfect, if heavily accented, English. ‘You are in the wrong side of Via Pigneto. It is divided by the railway bridge. Cross to the other side, and you will find Primo on the left after twenty metres.’
‘Got it,’ Keir says. ‘Thanks.’
‘Be careful,’ the man warns. ‘This is not a good area. The bridge is closed, and you cannot drive across, you must walk. It is very narrow and dark. There are bad people who hide there. Many drugs. Be careful,’ he says again.
‘Keir,’ I whisper nervously as we step back outside. ‘Are you sure this is such a good idea?’
‘It’ll be fine,’ he says easily.
It takes age and experience to know that it won’t always be fine. Mothers worry for a reason. They know danger lurks in the dark. Some hitch-hikers are murderers and rapists. Some boys will spike your orange juice with vodka; just one ecstasy tablet can be too much. We’ve learned the hard way that ropes give way, parachutes fail to open, ice breaks.
Babies die before they’re even born.
I remind myself that the optimism of youth is one of the things I love about Keir. I’ve wasted far too much time worrying about things that have never happened, missing out on too much that’s good.
We park and lock the Vespas (I can’t help wondering if they’ll be there when we get back) and walk down Pimp Alley and over the bridge. None of the others seems in the least bit bothered by the drug deals or the couple having noisy, urgent sex against the railway parapet, though Keir lets me hold his hand tightly all the way, for which I’m grateful.
And of course nothing does happen. We find the restaurant and locate the apartment two doors down where the party is taking place. No one even glances our way.
The apartment is crowded, the music discordant and loud – ‘industrial metal’, Keir tells me – and the other guests are just kids like Keir and his friends. Graduate students and teachers, mostly. No one is shooting up or trading baggies. A few couples are entwined in corners, but most are standing around in the kitchen and on the outside terrace, drinking cheap wine from plastic cups, smoking cigarettes and chatting.
I remember parties like this: noisy, smoky, fuelled by BYOB plonk and existentialist conversation. They weren’t that much fun when I was twenty.
I sip wine that could strip the lining from my oesophagus and smile till my face hurts. I don’t understand the references to various hip websites and must-have apps, and I don’t know any of the people they’re talking about. My buzz from a couple of martinis earlier in the evening has gone, and I’m starting to get a full-on headache. More than anything, I wish I could sit down. My feet are killing me in these heels.
I watch Keir chatting animatedly with a couple of teachers and realize I’m seeing a subtly different side to him: he’s more comfortable, less intense, amongst his peers. I wonder if this has to do with the fact that he and I are in a relationship, or because he feels he has to behave differently with me because of my age.
‘You want to leave?’ Keir asks during a lull in the conversation.
‘Why don’t we go back to Julia’s?’ I suggest, too tired to dissemble. ‘Her place is only five minutes away from here. It’ll be a lot quicker than going back into town.’
‘Lend me a toothbrush?’
‘You can share mine.’
The Vespa is still where we left it. I climb on behind him and almost fall asleep on the way home. Keir leaves it in the courtyard behind the cottage, and we tiptoe up the stone steps to the room I stayed in when I first arrived. Julia never locks it, and I thank God once again for her laid-back, hippie approach to security. Gratefully, I kick off the sadistic shoes and pull my dress over my head. I’m too tired even to think about going down to the outhouse to brush my teeth. Keir shucks off his clothes and climbs into the narrow single bed beside me, and we wriggle around for a moment, all elbows and knees, trying to fit together. In the end, we spoon, my knees pressed into the rough whitewashed walls, his arm slung heavily over my haunch. I remember doing this often when I was a student, and wonder how on earth I ever got any sleep. One of the greatest pleasures of growing older is being able to afford a king-size, pillow-top bed.
I wake early, pins and needles shooting through my shoulders. I lie motionless, trying not to wake Keir, growing more and more uncomfortable.
‘On a count of three,’ Keir mumbles, without opening his eyes, ‘we do a ninety-degree turn to the right.’
I laugh. ‘I’m sorry. Did I wake you?’
‘It’s cool. I can’t think of a better way to start the day.’
His erection is hard in the small of my back. ‘In this bed?’ I say. ‘Are you kidding?’
‘Kidding? I’d do it with you in a hammock.’
His hand slides along my hip, and despite my tiredness and stiffiness and the pins and needles, I feel myself grow wet. I turn in h
is arms, inhaling the warm, soap-and-sweat scent of him. A shaft of sunlight slides between the shutters and catches the molten red-gold stubble on his chin. He bends his head to my nipple, and I moan softly as a spiral of lust ripples between my legs.
There’s a sudden knock at the door, and we both freeze.
‘Kate?’ Julia calls. ‘Are you awake?’
Quickly, I pull the white bedspread up to our chins, and we straighten ourselves like a pair of wooden dolls. ‘Come in.’
‘I saw the scooter outside and figured it must be – oh!Keir!’
He bends his arm behind his head and smiles lazily, enjoying her discomfort. ‘Hey.’
Julia looks everywhere but at the pair of us. ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you. I’ll see you later. Whenever. There’s coffee in the kitchen if you want it.’
‘We should get up,’ I giggle as the door shuts behind her. ‘I need to get back home to feed Sawyer 2.’
‘He can eat the freaking parrot.’
He turns on to his side, tracing a line between my breasts, down over the soft mound of my stomach, into the warm, silky wetness between my thighs.
‘Keir. Seriously,’ I say weakly.
‘Seriously,’ he whispers, slithering down the bed.
His mouth follows the path his fingers have just drawn. A fish leaps in my sex, and I arch beneath his touch. His tongue flicks across my clitoris, and I tangle my fingers in his hair, feeling my body flood with lust.
Keir pulls back and raises himself over me, his cock nudging against me. I hook my legs around his waist, pulling him into me as my orgasm breaks. Moments later, Keir comes, and we collapse in a tangle of sheets and sweat and limbs.
Later, after we’ve showered together in the bath house, we dress in our crumpled clothes and tumble into the kitchen, laughing and kissing, unmistakably a couple who have just had sex.
‘What’s that?’ I say suddenly, staring at the envelope on the kitchen table.
Julia takes the coffee pot off the stove. ‘It came for you yesterday. I was going to bring it over this morning, but you beat me to it.’