My Life On a Plate

by India Knight

  I collect Jack and Charlie from Rollo’s house, and the very sight of them fills me with that passionate love you sometimes feel for your children, for no reason, in the ordinary middle of ordinary days. We make macaroni cheese for tea and build an entire Lego village before bathtime; I almost want to cancel dinner with Robert to spend more time with them. Jack squeals with delighted fear at his bedtime story, which involves me being a growly monster; Charlie sits in his bed, twirling his hair like he did when he was a baby.

  Robert’s keys in the front door signal my own bathtime. I’ve half an hour to get myself in order before our dinner reservation. Of course, if I believed what I read in women’s magazines, I’d simply put on some heels, a darker lipstick – and put my hair up, perhaps – and, hey presto, a sophisticated day-into-night look, just like that. I wonder, and not for the first time, who writes that crap. (The answer, of course, being me – I write that crap: ‘Try a darker eyeshadow and a black liner for a night-time look that’s as sophisticated as it is sexy.’ Ha!)

  Lying in the bath, I can hear Robert and the boys giggling downstairs. He’s being a monster too, one that tickles as well as growls. There’s nothing, really, to beat family life when it’s like this. Nothing. And I think my period really must be due, because the thought of this kind of happiness, inexplicably, makes me want to cry.

  I don’t think I’ve really told you what Robert looks like. His hair is a dirtyish, messyish kind of blond; he’s five foot nine – about my height; and his features are the right side (for a man) of pretty. There’s something slightly cruel about the curl of his mouth, but this is compensated for by his kind eyes: the kindest eyes I ever saw, in fact – you need to be careful, with eyes like that, or you get taken in, since Robert is not, actually, particularly kind. The eyes are a dark, flinty sort of grey, which makes their kindness all the more startling, and are very long-lashed. He has a prominent, aquiline nose, but is by no means beaky. (I do think, though, that beaky is preferable to pug, when it comes to men’s noses.) He is very slim and his clothes, his impeccably tailored clothes, hang off him properly, as if he were a mannequin.

  He’s handsome, Robert, I think to myself as we sit at our candlelit restaurant table for two. He’s handsome, and he isn’t my type. He has very nice hands. He looks clean. You could lick him and only ever taste Creed Green Irish Tweed (tiens!) after-shave.

  My clean, fragrant husband and I sit very straight and order two glasses of champagne.

  ‘Looking forward to Paris?’ Robert asks.

  ‘Yes. God, Robert, I had a bikini wax and it went wrong.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I couldn’t bear to let her do the other side. So now I’m all misshapen.’

  ‘God, Clara, does it hurt that much?’

  ‘Like you wouldn’t believe. But anyway – if we, you know, in Paris, do try and keep your eyes averted.’

  Robert gives me a long look, one that combines – if you ask me – both mirth and faint disgust. But then he surprises me by saying, ‘I don’t mind, Clara. I really don’t mind. Don’t worry about it. It’ll be okay.’

  And this is a kind thing to say; it matches his eyes. But it makes me feel pitiful somehow, not quite right, as if I were the kind of person you make allowances for. The kind of person you don’t sleep with much, perhaps.

  ‘Do you think we’re happily married, Robert?’ I ask, passing him a menu. ‘And do you remember the lemon risotto we had here last time? It was so delicious.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Robert. ‘Yes, it was – but it’s not on today, they’ve got pumpkin and sage instead. I’ll have that. And a plate of antipasto to start.’ He flicks his eyes towards the waiter. Robert is the kind of person who always catches waiters’ eyes. He’s also the kind of person who’s never had spinach in his teeth, or not had a tissue to sneeze into while trying to impress a companion.

  ‘I’ll have the tomato salad and then the squid, please,’ I tell him.

  ‘And some pommes allumettes,’ says Robert automatically, on my behalf.

  ‘No, not today, thanks,’ I tell the waiter. ‘Just the salad and the squid.’

  ‘A first!’ says Robert, leaning back in his chair. ‘Why don’t you have some? They’re your favourite thing.’

  ‘I don’t know – I keep not being starving,’ I tell him. ‘It’s really weird. I keep not wanting my favourite things.’

  ‘Actually,’ says Robert, leaning back further and narrowing his eyes, ‘I think you’ve lost a bit of weight.’ He pauses. ‘You’re looking lovely.’

  ‘Hmm. It’ll all come back on again, so I wouldn’t think about it too much,’ I say, made gruff by the direct compliment.

  ‘I don’t care what weight you are, Clara,’ says Robert, sounding resigned and not exactly tender.

  ‘You didn’t answer my question. Do you think we’re happily married?’

  Robert sits back in his chair and runs an impeccably manicured-seeming hand through his impeccably tousled hair.

  ‘What do you think?’ he asks, unnervingly, and fixes me with his kind, flinty, paradox eyes.

  There are some situations where it just won’t do to be seen to dither and this strikes me as one of them. Though, clearly, not him.

  I say, ‘Basically, yes.’

  ‘Why?’ Robert asks. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘We’re such good friends,’ say, and Robert nods. ‘You’re my best friend, or as good as. We like the same jokes, and the same things, and the same food.’

  ‘And the same children,’ Robert adds drily.

  ‘And we love our children.’

  ‘And do we love our lives?’ he asks. ‘Really.’

  The waiter places a second glass of champagne in front of me.

  ‘You love yours, I think,’ I say to him. ‘And I love mine. I mean, I don’t know what it means, loving your life. I don’t have any points of comparison. There isn’t another me and you I can measure us up against.’

  ‘But you’re happy?’

  ‘Yes, of course, Robert. Aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says slowly, stretching the word out like a Southern plantation owner. ‘I’m happy enough.’

  I hate ‘happy enough’; I hate middling, compromisey, half-arsed, horrible, ungenerous ‘happy enough’.

  But I say, ‘That’s the mature thing, isn’t it, to be happy enough? Not delirious, or depressed, but happy enough. That’s what shows you’re a functioning, emotionally sussed adult.’ I do hope my face is composed, because Robert is able to detect even the smallest lie. Confusingly, the next sentence isn’t a lie, though, I don’t think. I say, ‘I’m happy enough too.’

  ‘Not delirious…’ Robert says, gazing into the distance. ‘Clara, you know I love you.’

  ‘Yes. And I love you.’

  ‘I’d never hurt you.’

  ‘Nor me you. Are we playing Mills & Boon?’ I say, trying to lighten the oppressive atmosphere that’s suddenly gathered around us.

  ‘Yes. I am about to press you into my manly chest,’ says Robert, which does the trick. ‘You will feel my strong heart beat and your insides will liquefy with desire.’

  ‘Robert, are you trying to say something?’

  ‘No, Clara,’ he says, pushing his antipasto around his plate. ‘I’m not trying to say anything. Except that we’re spoiled people and sometimes I think that we should count our blessings. Chin-chin.’ He raises his glass.

  ‘Cheers. I do that all the time,’ I blurt, having taken a sip. ‘I count them all the time.’

  ‘Do you?’ says Robert, raising an eyebrow. ‘Anyway, let’s talk about something else.’

  I start telling him about Tamsin; he fills me in on Richard’s affair (still ongoing), and passes on gossip. We leave the table at 11 p.m., faintly woozy (me), and, back home, both go into the boys’ room to kiss their sleeping heads good-night. Robert stands, framed in the door, while I stroke Jack’s fluffy little head, and when I look up he smiles at me so sweetly that, were we still playing
Mills & Boon, I might say something about breaking and hearts.

  I have decided to give myself the day off. It’s Thursday, the day before Dunphy’s party, and I am going shopping. Flo has come round to look after the boys. I have hours, and hours, and hours to myself. I am going to buy a lovely dress, and make-up, and shoes. I am, not to put too fine a point on it, beside myself with excitement. I am not going to buy a single practical thing. I am not even going to look at price tags. I am going to do the kind of shopping I haven’t done for years.

  Flo has given me a list of shops. I don’t mean that I am the kind of simpleton who doesn’t know where Selfridges is, but as I say, I haven’t done this kind of shopping for years and the kinds of little boutiques du jour I’m after are no longer in my address book. I don’t want to look like anybody else. I want the most beautiful things my money – or Messrs Barclays’ money – can buy. It’s been at least eight years since I spent more than £100 on a dress. I can’t wait.

  Following Flo’s directions, I find a narrow little street in naff Covent Garden and, sure enough, half-way down, as promised, is exactly the kind of shop I was after. Its tiny little window glitters with promise. Frothy, beaded, sequinned, feathered dresses hang from pale-pink, padded satin hangers in colour-coded blocks: azure, candy-pink, scarlet, violet. From the street, I can see a pea-green dress that’s exactly like a mermaid.

  I can also see some tiny little assistants, with tiny little twiggy arms, and suddenly, right there on the pavement, I mutate into Two-Ton Tessie, destroyer of pretty frocks, seam-burster. Mercifully, Madonna, fresh in my mind from Tamsin, comes gallantly leaping to the fore once again. Would Madonna stand on the pavement, feeling shy of a few skeletal creatures with a couple of brain cells between them? No, she would not. And neither will I. I push the door open and totter into Aladdin’s cave.

  What’s this? Not a mean look, not a whisper, not a ‘Have you tried Evans?’ in sight (not that anyone’s ever said that, thank God, but in my more paranoid moments I can’t help think it’s only a matter of time). Instead, one of the twigs clicks forward on her tiny kitten heels and says, ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I want to look fabulous,’ I say, feeling like one of those old boilers you get on morning-television makeovers: puddings on legs who want to look like Monroe – ‘I want to ooze sex, Brian,’ they say delusionally.

  But I persevere. ‘I want to look fantastic. I need a dress, and shoes, and maybe some kind of cardigan or wrap. Can you help?’

  ‘Stay there,’ says the angel in a size 4 top, steering me towards the changing room. She returns a couple of minutes later, arms laden with exquisite frocks. ‘There are a few here to choose from,’ she says, ‘but my colleagues and I think the green one. We thought so the minute you walked in. Would you like to try it on first?’

  The green dress is the diaphanous, glittery mermaid’s dress I saw through the glass. It is the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen. The assistant discreetly withdraws while I struggle out of my old clothes. The dress – a 14, I notice with some surprise – fits like a glove. My stomach sticks out a bit, but so what, really? It just looks like a normal stomach, as opposed to the concave bodies featured in Vogue.

  ‘That’s incredibly flattering,’ the assistant says approvingly. ‘It’s bias-cut, which is what’s making your body look so long.’

  ‘It’s amazing,’ I say truthfully. ‘But what about my arms? I’m not wandering about flashing my arms.’

  ‘I brought you some wraps, and this cardigan,’ she says, ‘which I think is just beautiful.’ She unfurls a tiny wisp of heavily beaded cream satin; the shimmering beads form tiny pink roses. I don’t know what’s going on, but it fits too.

  ‘It fits!’ I shout, feeling mad with joy.

  ‘It fits beautifully. And then, I thought, some heels, something delicate,’ says the girl. ‘We don’t want to look too colour-coordinated. I had some very pretty sandals, with straps made out of ribbon, but I think we may have sold out. What’s your shoe size?’

  ‘It’s 7,’ I say. And to myself: ‘If they have the sandals, my life is going to change,’ much in the way that, aged fifteen, I’d say, ‘If it’s an even number of steps to the corner shop, X will ask me out.’

  The sandals would make the outfit perfect. I have to have the sandals. ‘I could maybe squeeze into a 6,’ I call after the assistant.

  ‘You’re in luck,’ she says, returning with a box. ‘We have one pair left, in pink – to match the roses – size 6.’

  ‘I won’t trythem on,’ I say, feeling panicky in case they don’t fit. ‘I’ll just take them.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ says the girl. ‘Wouldn’t you like to see the whole outfit?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I’ll try them on at home. Now, do I need anything else?’

  I leave an hour later. As well as the dress – God, the dress: I could snog it – and the cardigan and the ribbon shoes, I have cream-coloured clip-on fabric roses for my hair, some tiny pearl and crystal earrings for my ears, and a bottle of the house scent, which smells of crushed mangoes.

  ‘You’re going to look beautiful,’ says another assistant as I sign the Visa receipt. His gaze rests on my wedding finger. ‘He’s going to love it.’

  ‘I hope so,’ I say, feeling panicked again. ‘That’s the idea.’

  18

  ‘It’s Dunphy’s thing tomorrow evening,’ I tell Robert later that night. The boys are bathed and combed, ready for bed. They’ve been allowed quarter of an hour’s worth of Playstation as a treat. ‘I’ve been shopping. Do you want to see?’

  ‘Are the two related?’ asks Robert, smirking slightly. ‘Are you making a special effort for the special party?’

  ‘Please don’t talk to me as if I were retarded,’ I snap, feeling a surge of anger rising. ‘It’s bad enough that you do it at all. But don’t do it now. I’m really not in the mood.’

  ‘Oooh!’ says Robert, sounding like Frankie Howerd. ‘Have you come home from the shops all cross?’

  ‘No. I have come home from the shops in a good mood. Don’t spoil it.’ But he has, already, in a small way. It’s always in a small way.

  Robert perches his perfectly toned bottom on the arm of the sofa, lights a cigarette and pours himself a drink from the tray of gin, tonic, lemon, ice and heavy tumbler he’s brought up from the kitchen. ‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Let’s see.’

  I sit on the floor cross-legged, surrounded by bags. I’m so excited about my purchases that I can’t be bothered to sulk.

  ‘I bought some make-up,’ I say. ‘Here, look. This is black cake eyeliner. Do you remember, I used to wear it all the time?’

  ‘Very Dolce Vita,’ says Robert. ‘Yes, I remember.’

  ‘And these are some glittery eyeshadows. Can you see – they catch the light. Look at the silver one, it’s lovely.’

  ‘Very pretty.’

  ‘False eyelashes…’

  ‘I see we’re going for the whole full-on Fellini-starlet effect, then?’

  ‘Well, yes. There’s hardly much point in being fainthearted about it. I mean, if you’re going to dress up, you’re going to dress up.’

  ‘Quite. What’s this stuff?’

  ‘Powder that shimmers. For the limbs.’

  ‘Foxy,’ Robert says succinctly, making foxes’ ears with his fingers, à la Wayne’s World, and immediately making me honk with laughter. ‘What shall I wear?’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Me. Moi. What shall I wear? Is it black tie?’

  ‘Oh. Yes. No. I don’t know. The thingy’s downstairs somewhere.’ How could I have forgotten about Robert?

  He wanders off in search of the invitation and returns brandishing it. ‘It says “Dress: Up”,’ he announces. ‘Which is just as well in your case. I think I’ll just wear the new suit. You know, the one with the purple lining. I can wear it to the office and come straight from there.’

  ‘Very nice.’ I nod. ‘So you’re going to come, are you?’

  ‘Yes,’ s
ays Robert, giving me a long look. ‘Why? Would you rather I didn’t?’

  ‘No, no – I’d love you to come. It’s ages since we’ve been to a party.’

  ‘Clara,’ says Robert, ‘what are you talking about? We went to a party a couple of weeks ago. We go to lots of parties.’

  ‘No. I mean a proper, glamorous, dressy-uppy party, as opposed to a party that’s full of moaning couples who don’t have sex any more and talk about property.’

  ‘It was a glamorous party,’ says Robert, nonplussed. ‘With dancing. With caterers. Don’t you remember? Fred’s thirty-fifth?’

  ‘Whatever,’ I say vaguely.

  ‘I don’t have to come,’ says Robert, sounding huffy now. ‘If you’d rather go on your own.’

  ‘Oh, Robert, pipe down. I want you to come. We’ll look very photogenic and it’ll be charming. Now look, here comes the dress.’ I start loosening the tissue folds it’s wrapped in and feel another pang of passionate love as a corner of the pea-green fabric appears. ‘Ta-daa!’ I yell, somewhat over-excitedly, as I pull the dress out.

  ‘Christ!’ says Robert. ‘Christ, Clara. That’s amazing. It is by…’ He jumps off the sofa to come and look at the label. ‘Yes, I thought so – it was in Vogue.’ He strokes the fabric. ‘Brilliantly cut, Clara, do you see?’ he adds, pointing out the seams. ‘Bias, of course. Does it fit?’

  ‘Yes, it fucking well does,’ I say, feeling, to be perfectly frank with you, outraged.

  ‘Try it on, then, and keep your hair on. I was only asking. Did you get shoes?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, showing him. ‘And I did try it on, obviously. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see. I’m not doing it again now.’

  ‘Perfect shoes,’ Robert says, nodding approvingly. ‘Perfect outfit, actually. Very good, Clara. It’s ages since you bought anything this nice. Months. Years.’

  ‘Close on a decade, I expect,’ I say. ‘Close on my wedding day.’

  ‘Hardly my fault, darling. I’m always telling you to go and buy clothes.’