A Perfect Husband

by Hilary Boyd

  In the end he’d just told her straight out. There was no way he could see of sugaring the pill. ‘Freddy can’t pay the rest of the money. Nor can Mum. We’re fucked.’ And the screaming began.

  Now she lifted her head from the cushion into which she had been pressing it for the last ten minutes. Puffy-eyed, skin pink, light-brown hair straggling damp around her cheeks, she gave him a furious look as she hurled the cushion onto the floor. ‘He’s a bastard. A bastard, bastard, bastard.’ Her accent made the first syllable short and explosive.

  Dillon was sitting uneasily on the edge of the small kitchen table opposite the sofa. ‘He didn’t seem to believe that Suzie would actually cancel it. He said it would look really bad, that they’d never do it.’

  Gabriela sat up, her expression disbelieving. ‘Does he think he’s the Queen of England? Who lets someone have a wedding they haven’t paid for?’

  ‘I know. To be honest, he seems a bit unhinged, as if he’s totally lost it. He was rambling on about how it was all his fault, how he’d let us all down, how Mum was a saint . . . How he’d really believed he would win.’

  ‘Meu Deus,’ she whispered softly. ‘Freddy gambled our wedding away. He’s a nice man – I don’t believe he’d do that.’ She bit her lip, a fresh horror obviously presenting itself as her eyes widened. ‘Mamãe! Mamãe’s coming and there’s no wedding? What are we going to do?’ She covered her face with her hands, began rocking back and forth on the sofa, small moaning sounds escaping from beneath her fingers.

  Dillon came to sit next to her, ignoring the insistent buzz of yet another call from his mother, trying to keep his anger under control in the light of his fiancée’s meltdown. He was baffled by Freddy, but found most of his rage directed towards his mother. She must have known what Freddy was doing. How could someone indulge in a habit that extreme and his wife not have a clue? And how could she have given all her own money to him without monitoring it? So bloody naive it took his breath away. She had called him four times now, but Dillon didn’t want to talk to her.

  He put his arm round Gabriela’s shoulders. ‘Listen, I’ve been thinking. It doesn’t have to be a disaster. We can still get married, just somewhere else. There are hundreds of restaurants—’

  ‘Nowhere is going to have a place at the last minute for a hundred and fifty peoples.’

  ‘People,’ Dillon said automatically. Gaby’s English was very good. She had lived in London for nearly ten years now, coming over on a bursary at nineteen to study arts and festival management at South Bank University. But whenever she was upset, her language lapsed.

  ‘That’s what I said.’ She glared at him and he backed down.

  ‘We can ask Nino. He’d be sympathetic – he might close the place for the night.’ He thought for a minute. ‘We’d have to cancel most of the guests, just keep it to family and very close friends. Wouldn’t be more than, say, twenty-five? Less, even. It might work.’

  Gabriela stared at him. ‘But we can’t get married in his restaurant, can we, Dill? Remember? The place has to be legal for marrying.’ Her features tightened. ‘Like the Roof Gardens.’

  ‘I know. But we’ve registered, filled in all the forms, we’re officially set up to get married somewhere. We just have to tell them we’re changing the venue. I can’t see why that would be a problem.’

  ‘Really?’ Her voice was rising now. ‘Okay, so where do we go?’

  He knew he had to come up with something fast. But he didn’t have a clue. ‘I’ll ring the registrar and ask. They must have a list of designated places. Or I can check it out online.’

  She shook her head in frustration. ‘God, Dillon, you are living in another world. How do we pay for this new place? Have you forgotten? We don’t have money now.’

  Dillon had forgotten. Or, at least, he was so used to asking his mother and stepfather to bail him out – not huge amounts, but he only had to hint at something he needed, like a new bike, for one of them to suggest they might help – that he couldn’t get his head around the fact that this source, which had been a constant safety net in his life, through his gap year, university and beyond, had suddenly dried up.

  For a brief moment he wondered what his mother would do now. But part of him didn’t really believe the two of them had absolutely nothing left. Not wedding money, perhaps, but surely enough to keep going. Freddy had said it was ‘disastrous’, but his stepfather was not above exaggeration when telling a story, usually for comic effect, although there was no comedy here.

  Dillon searched his brain for someone who would stump up, but it would involve a fair amount, even if they scaled it right down. Most of his friends were just scraping by, still employed on short-term contracts, with no guarantee of future employment past a few months.

  Getting up from the sofa, he said, ‘I’m going to ring Sara.’

  Gaby nodded, a spark of hope in her eyes. She was slightly in awe of his sister, whom she saw as so competent, so ambitious, so clever.

  Sara’s mobile was engaged and he left a message. It was a long ten minutes before she called back.

  ‘Have you heard?’ he asked, not even saying hello.

  ‘I’ve just been talking to Mum. What a nightmare. She said she’d been trying to get hold of you.’

  ‘Huh!’ His sister was taking her usual phlegmatic approach to life. Nothing seemed to faze her – normally a trait he admired. Today, however, he was thoroughly irritated. ‘I don’t want to talk to her.’

  ‘Oh, come on. It’s not her fault Freddy’s a compulsive gambler, Dill. She sounded in a terrible state.’

  ‘She’s in a terrible state. You should see Gaby,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, no, I get that. She must be devastated. What are you going to do about the wedding?’

  ‘I haven’t a sodding clue. Maybe you can tell me what you’d do if your wedding was cancelled last minute and you didn’t have any money to organize another.’ He took an angry breath. ‘And you’ve got your crazy Brazilian mother-in-law coming to stay in your tiny flat for two whole weeks for a wedding that isn’t going to take place. Plus a whole raft of equally crazy sisters and aunts and cousins and God knows who else arriving on these shores.’ Another breath. ‘What would you do, eh, Sas?’

  ‘Hey, don’t take it out on me. I’ve only just heard. It must be a total nightmare for you both.’ He heard her say something muffled to someone else. ‘But, wow, can you believe Freddy? I mean, I sort of knew he was a player – all those famous people he hangs out with, the parties, the yachts and suchlike. But it never entered my head he was frittering his millions away at a casino. What’s poor Mum going to do?’

  Dillon didn’t want to think about Freddy. Or his mother. He wanted his sister to come up with a plan to save his wedding, and perhaps even his relationship.

  ‘I’m going over to see Mum later, when I’ve finished here,’ Sara was saying. ‘She said Prem was there, but Prem has to get back to the shop and I don’t want Mum to be on her own. She must be freaking out.’

  Dillon felt a brief shaft of guilt. Then the anger returned. ‘I’m sure it’s not as bad as they’re making out. They must have some money left somewhere. I mean, there’s the flat—’

  ‘Rented,’ Sara interrupted. ‘I think it must be serious, Dill. Freddy would never have ruined your wedding if it wasn’t. He’s not like that.’

  ‘So you say. But obviously neither of us knows even vaguely what our stepfather is like, do we?’

  ‘True.’ His sister fell silent. ‘Listen, ring Mum. Please. She’s got enough on her plate without you kicking off too.’

  Dillon didn’t answer.

  ‘Gotta go,’ she added in a whisper. ‘Talk later.’

  She hung up and Dillon was left holding his phone, disappointed.

  Chapter 19

  Freddy answered the call from his bookkeeper as he walked away from the flat. He hadn’
t said goodbye to Lily, or told her where he was going, because he couldn’t face her again. The hurt in her eyes, the disbelief, had made him feel as if he’d been scorched all over. Yes, of course he’d known she would be upset – he had gone over the grim scenario a million times in his head. But he hadn’t really believed it would ever happen, not really. When he did think about the impact on his wife, he had imagined rage and blame, explosions that would somehow blow him away. He’d expected her to banish him, to tell him, quite reasonably, never to darken her door again. What he hadn’t bargained for was her strange desire to see it through together. And her love for him was an agonizing twist of the knife. She wouldn’t walk away from him: he had to do the walking. Which felt almost too hard.

  ‘Freddy, where are you?’ Angus’s voice was tense. ‘There’s a bit of a situation here. Did you see the winding-up order against the studio in the Gazette this morning? All hell’s breaking loose. Every creditor on the planet seems to have read the bloody thing. Bank’s frozen the account. They’re all baying for blood. It’s Air-Live who’ve gone for us, the bastards. But we never got a petition. I’m just about to phone James. They can’t advertise the order without serving us first.’

  Freddy barely broke step as he walked along Bayswater Road towards Marble Arch. He’d been unable to face the Tube, needing to get some air after the nightmare morning. Astonished it had taken so long for one of them to go for the studio, he nonetheless knew that he had brought every ounce of charm to bear in persuading the other suppliers to whom he owed money to hold off. Air-Live, the company responsible for computerizing the mixing desks, was not the largest creditor by any means.

  ‘They did serve us, Angus. I got the petition over a week ago.’

  The bookkeeper was silent at the other end of the phone. He was a novice, Angus. Freddy had hired him only three months before, when Mike Stone from the accountants, Stone, Williams, had begun playing up, and put him in charge of the payroll, sales and purchase invoicing, petty cash and so on. But he had not given him access to the main account.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Angus asked politely – he was barely Dillon’s age and this was one of his first jobs. ‘Couldn’t we have got James to apply for a CVA or something? Bought some time while we sort this out.’

  He sounded so keen, Freddy was loath to disappoint him.

  ‘Wouldn’t have worked, Angus. The courts would need to be persuaded that the studio is viable for a CVA. And it’s gone too far for that.’

  Angus went quiet again. ‘Okay . . . so . . .’

  ‘Listen, do nothing. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.’ He paused. ‘And Angus, please don’t tell Glyn or Isla-Mae or anyone yet. I want to do that myself.’

  It was mild, threatening rain, no sign of spring in the grey London streets as Freddy walked on. He couldn’t even muster the energy to get upset, because part of him welcomed the meltdown. It was a blessed relief to stop lying. People would take over his life now, tell him what was required. He wouldn’t be able to do what the officials asked, of course – as in, pay up the thousands he owed – but there were reliable systems for dealing with these situations. He didn’t care about being a bankrupt. He knew a lot of people in his fickle industry who had gone the same way. And it was the least of his worries, set against the backdrop of losing Lily, putting his workforce out on the street, ruining Dillon’s wedding . . . knowing gossip about his gambling habit would be spreading like a virus around London’s glitterati by now, his reputation shot.

  He stopped in a coffee chain to get a double espresso to take away, and slowed his pace as he approached the Berwick Street building, sipping the hot, strong coffee, savouring it to an unusual degree, as if this day of reckoning had heightened his senses, made him intensely aware of the tiny pleasures in life.

  *

  Isla-Mae’s face was noncommittal as she tidied her desk, piling the odd personal item into her capacious leather bag. In went a small cactus plant, an expensive-looking biro, a flower-patterned spiral-backed notebook and a royal blue mug upon which was printed, mysteriously, ‘Leeds, born and bred’. Isla-Mae was Notting Hill through and through, her parents’ Darlington vowels thoroughly expunged by a boarding school where any deviation from the distinctive slangy drawl adopted by such girls would attract merciless teasing.

  Freddy hovered, watching her. The last hour had drained him. He had gathered his employees in the sound studio in the basement, where they perched uneasily among the equipment left by a band who were – or had been until today – recording their first album there. The lights were dim, a faint rubbery smell emanating from the new soundproofing. Freddy could smell coffee as he waited for Angus to arrive. Glyn had barely said good morning to him as he’d opened the heavy door, flanked by Wayne, Joachim, Samuel, Lee and Megan. Not quite the whole crew, but he assumed the other two were not working today.

  They won’t understand, Freddy thought as he toyed nervously with the cuff buttons of his stupidly expensive Paul Smith shirt. He missed his Rolex, but that had gone long ago – hocked, not stolen from a French hotel as he’d told Lily. They’ll think I’m lying, hiding my money, letting them go to the wall with a rich man’s typical lack of concern. Should he tell them the absolute truth? Or should he fudge it? Will they be more upset, take longer to get over losing their jobs, he wondered, if I admit I gambled away their security? Isn’t it better, in this instance, to lie?

  But he knew he couldn’t win. They wouldn’t believe him whatever he said. The truth, ridiculously enough, was the least believable scenario. It was doubtful that anyone earning what they did could even remotely conceive of gambling away hundreds of thousands of pounds. So he lied. He told them bad debts, bad decisions on his part and not enough financial savvy had led to the company’s downfall. He told them he was devastated. He told them he had used every single penny he had to try to salvage the business – which was true, in fact. He told them he hadn’t slept for six months worrying about their fate. He told them he was personally bankrupt. He said he was sorry. And again, as it had been with Lily earlier, the word was useless in describing just how penitent he was. A stupid, ineffective word that implied a sort of polite, minor-league transgression. He hated himself for continuing to repeat it in the face of the stony silence. But he didn’t know what else to do.

  Glyn, inevitably, was the first to speak. ‘So that’s it, then? We won’t get paid?’ His normally friendly gaze was shocked and sullen now.

  ‘The receiver will decide who gets what, I’m afraid. It’s out of my hands now. But you will all be creditors, obviously. And there’s a lot of very expensive equipment to sell.’

  ‘Being a creditor won’t pay the mortgage,’ Glyn said.

  The others were silent, looking at each other, the floor, their mobiles, none of which had any signal in the cell-like studio.

  ‘What are we supposed to do now?’ Joachim asked tentatively. He was a first-class technician, a nerdy, pale, mostly silent young man, but always polite and greatly respected for his work. Now Glyn turned to him, his round face red and sweating in the stuffy, enclosed environment – no one had turned on the air-conditioning this morning.

  Giving a harsh laugh, he said, ‘Haven’t you been listening to Mr March, here? Company’s gone tits up, boy. We’ve been sold down the proverbial.’

  But even after the baldness of Glyn’s statement, his soft Welsh tones flat with anger, the faces bore little comprehension.

  ‘Do we go, then?’ Samuel asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Glyn replied. ‘Yes, you do bloody go, Samuel. Hoppit, all of you. Fuck off home, if you’ve still got one to go to. Nothing for you here.’ He cast an aggrieved look at Freddy and made for the door, letting a welcome gust of air into the heavy atmosphere.

  Freddy was sweating too. The caffeine hadn’t helped, his nerves already shredded, and now, as he watched his workforce file out slowly, heads bent, he knew he had to sit, or
fall down. Slumping against the wall, he spotted a low, rickety stool, which must have belonged to the drummer of the band using the studio, and lowered himself onto it. Swaying, he tried to take deep breaths, then doubled over as a stabbing cramp racked his guts. Does it get much worse than this? he wondered. But he knew the answer was probably a resounding ‘yes’.

  Now Isla-Mae spoke, her tone not unsympathetic. But then, Freddy, thought, she doesn’t have a mortgage, or even rent. She still lives with her parents in the wide, leafy stretches of west London. ‘Did you speak to Dad?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And he couldn’t help? Really?’

  Freddy smiled. ‘He knows me too well, Isla-Mae.’

  She obviously wasn’t sure how to take this, and bent to her task of packing her stuff.

  ‘I’m sorry it had to end like this. You’ve been really great,’ he said, and she smiled up at him, her square, rather plain face registering a mild embarrassment at the compliment.

  ‘Yeah . . . I’ve enjoyed it.’

  He didn’t know what else to say, wasn’t sure if he should hug her or something. He was fond of her, had known her and her brother, Red, since they were babies. But being her boss was new to him and he’d always felt slightly awkward with it, if he were honest, never knowing what, of his work practices, she was feeding – innocently enough – back to her father. So he turned, with a smile and a wave, went into his office and shut the door behind him.

  He thought of Joachim’s question, ‘What are we supposed to do now?’ and felt a chasm opening in front of him. A void. No work, no wife, no home, no family, no money. Probably no friends either – no one wanted to be associated with such spectacular failure in case it proved contagious. His brain knew the truth, but his mind was unable to take in what it really meant.

  Feeling a bolus of grief forming in his gut, and worried he would break down, start to howl if he didn’t get a grip, he stood up, went over to his favourite spot by the window, his arms raised, hands resting on the wooden frame, and looked down on the busy market. Real life, not his ridiculous version of chaos. It distracted him momentarily.