‘Is she indeed?’ I raised an eyebrow. ‘Then consider us whipped.’
It was early May by then and warm enough for us to take our drinks to the Sellerses’ terrace. Weathered teak furniture had been exhumed for the occasion and a fleet of plastic cars and other toys cast to the edges in an effort to reclaim territory from the battalions of small children in attendance. Older ones clustered on the trampoline, soon a seething mosh-pit of close-combat bobbing that made me shudder slightly.
On offer for the adults were Prosecco cocktails and a tableful of canapés and nibbles Caroline had rustled up by her own fair hand: squares of pastry smeared with tapenade and crème fraiche, curls of salami stuffed with soft cheese, the sort of thing I could no longer taste even in my fantasies but that Jeremy wolfed.
‘Amber, you look amazing!’ she cried, when Richard led us into the throng. ‘It’s like you’ve stepped off the pages of Vogue.’
‘I don’t think so,’ I protested, but soon others had joined in: ‘Oh yes, you do!’ ‘That dress! I couldn’t squeeze into that in a million years!’ ‘Where’s it from?’ ‘Goodness, isn’t she stunning?’
I was not used to this level of open admiration by other women; it simply did not exist in my old working world of competitive cynicism. As for our neighbours in Battersea, fifty per cent had used their apartments as occasional pieds-à-terre and the remainder had been far too self-involved to notice any sartorial success on the part of anyone but themselves. (The men were a different story. I’d soon stopped reporting to Jeremy the number of advances made to me in the lift.)
This, clearly, was a different style of community. At least twenty-five neighbours were here and every single one was demonstrably excited to meet us.
‘Kenny and Joanne live a few doors down from us,’ Caroline said, introducing a flushed and jolly pair, both of whom, extraordinarily, wore mud-spattered wellingtons to the event. ‘You might have seen their Labradoodle?’
‘I’m not sure …’ There were numerous dogs on the street, I’d seen them being taken for walks in tangled packs; and cats, too, sitting on gateposts with an air of reserving judgement (unlike their big-hearted owners). All had names interchangeable with those of human infants: Lily, Archie, Poppy.
Jeremy and I settled in a group with Kenny, Joanne and a clutch of others keen to discuss our renovations and reassure us we were not the pariahs we feared we might be (not when we looked this good). They all knew the house from social occasions hosted by the Lockes and were well informed as to what our predecessors had and had not done to it over the years (‘I had a shower there once when our water was turned off,’ Kenny said. ‘Abysmal pressure. I don’t know why they didn’t just put in a pump. Total false economy’). And whatever the Lockes might think, the consensus here was that the People’s Republic of China couldn’t hold a candle to Lime Park.
‘Did you know Rachel Locke had her third baby on your living-room floor?’ Caroline told us. She had a very likeable manner, mischievous and chummy, but a rather less successful look. Her eyes were a little bulbous and the distance between nose and upper lip elongated: it was as if someone had intended making her beautiful but had abandoned the job before finishing. The main issue, however, was her personal style, which might best be described as windswept. I would need to take her in hand, I decided.
‘I didn’t know that, no,’ I said, grateful for the pristine chevron parquet about to be laid in our living room.
‘Any plans yourself in that direction?’ someone asked.
This I was used to: the directness with which people enquired into a brand-new acquaintance’s reproductive affairs. It had begun the very day Jeremy and I returned from our honeymoon, the implication being that you could only have children if you were married first. The child-free and unmarried would ask their questions with a certain dark suspicion, while those who’d already begun breeding behaved as if they’d personally proposed us as members of a golf club, our acceptance to which was a foregone conclusion. But they all asked equally brazenly.
‘We would like kids,’ Jeremy told them, his arm snaking around my waist. ‘Who knows when – we thought we’d just let nature take its course, eh?’
At which everyone looked me over as if I alone represented nature and Jeremy had nothing whatever to do with the course I might take. The problem with this sort of conversation was you couldn’t help suspecting that behind those enquiring eyes were images of you naked and engaged in the sexual act (or, God forbid, in childbirth itself). Perhaps Jeremy liked this more than I did: there was undisputed kudos in having a young, attractive wife as yet unburdened by motherhood. Well, enjoy it while you can, I thought, because on the evidence of this welcoming committee it was not possible to have children and get fitted for a decent bra. And did something happen to your ankles and calves too? Those I could see that were not encased in rubber were uniformly stocky – did they, like hips, broaden with childbearing? I checked my own lower legs, smooth and tapered, my feet arched into elegant nude slingbacks.
‘You all know each other so well,’ I remarked to Caroline. ‘Do you get together very often?’
‘Oh, all the time. It’s a very sociable street. But there are a lot of young kids and babysitters cost the earth, so we tend to do these daytime gatherings. We do have our book group, though, that’s in the evening. I’ll invite you to the next one.’
‘Maybe I could babysit some time?’ I was thinking it might be good practice for me. As a girl I’d helped my mother with her babies, but the experience seemed otherworldly now. My whole childhood did.
‘I wouldn’t say that too loudly if I were you,’ Caroline drawled. ‘Seriously, Amber, take it from a veteran: enjoy your freedom while you can. And while you’re at it, remind me how it feels. No detail too insignificant, OK?’
I laughed. I could tell she and I were going to get on very well.
I sensed Rob Whalen’s arrival before I saw him: a rise in oestrogen levels, perhaps, or a collective twirling of hair among the womenfolk, the sudden flicking of glances through lowered lashes. As the only unattached male in the circle, he evidently had a celebrity of his own.
‘Have you met our resident enigma?’ Richard said, drawing him towards us. His hair was damp from the shower and he’d shaved, presenting himself as an altogether more respectable character than the one I’d encountered before.
Jeremy seized him by the hand, his smile broad and genuine. ‘You’ve met my wife, I think. But I know you must already loathe us both.’
‘I certainly do,’ Rob said amiably. ‘And a little bit more every day, I suspect, until eventually I’ll snap and murder you in your beds.’
Beds. I noted the plural: wishful thinking on his part.
‘Did Amber not show you the schedule?’ Jeremy said, as sincere as Rob was sardonic. ‘It’s designed for the pain to be sharp but short. The last thing we want is to make enemies of our new neighbours.’
‘She hasn’t shown me, no,’ Rob said, his gaze resting on my mouth. ‘I’ll have to invite her over and quiz her.’ At this, an extremely pleasurable fluttering started up in my abdomen, the kind of sensation that can only be activated by someone new and untried. He raised his eyes to Jeremy’s. ‘So how are you finding the commute?’
As they chatted about signal failures and defective heaters I sipped my drink and watched. I made a point of not comparing the two men directly, their respective heights, breadths, thicknesses of hair, but I did allow myself to think that, based purely on appearances, an outsider might guess incorrectly at which of the two I was married to.
Just then a latecomer was shepherded into our huddle. Liz, she was called, a neighbour from the house across the road, who scattered two painfully loud infant boys in opposite directions as she came to a halt. Thirty seconds later they had reunited to scrap over a toy motorbike, a tussle that Jeremy stepped in to umpire while she slipped beside Rob and began discussing primary-school curriculum with him. The gist seemed to be that she felt that the teachin
g of spelling in England was all wrong, nay a ticking time bomb, and he had useful comparisons to make with the education systems in France and Sweden.
‘That’s very interesting,’ she said with an eagerness that bordered on mania. Though pretty enough, she had the most hectic-looking haircut I’d ever seen – it was as if it had been scribbled on her head by Quentin Blake – and make-up so poorly applied I wondered if she’d handed crayons to her sons and given them free rein. ‘Do you think we’ll ever get it right here?’ she asked Rob, almost in plea.
‘Only by accident,’ he said.
He was clearly a prized guest: Caroline brought him a selection of snacks as if he was far too important to be expected to go and help himself, and several times children came up to try to engage him in a game, as if they’d collectively discerned that he, of all the men present, might be a superhero.
‘You’ll be a great father, Rob,’ Liz told him, with the softest of sighs. ‘When the time comes,’ she added.
Presently Jeremy was invited by Richard to inspect his outdoor lighting system just as Liz was summoned indoors to see what her sons had done with a twelve-pack of Andrex, and all at once there we were, Rob and I, alone under the magnolia, unsupervised.
‘She’s nice,’ I said, nodding after Liz. ‘Big on literacy, I take it.’
With an easy manoeuvre, he turned his back to the rest of the group and smirked privately at me. ‘They’re all big on literacy, Amber. They’re big on everything to do with education, which is why I don’t always come out to these things. I tend to get cornered.’
That explained the ‘enigma’ crack, I thought, and the VIP treatment. I had an inkling as to how he’d come to be lured on this occasion.
‘They might as well be sitting in the classroom themselves,’ he continued. ‘You wait till the entrance exams come around, you won’t believe your eyes. I swear, they’ll be down on their knees, lining up to tackle the non-verbal reasoning on their kids’ behalves.’
I giggled. ‘I suppose it’s better than not giving a damn if your child bothers turning up at school or not.’
The smirk deepened. ‘Do I gather from that statement that we can add truancy to your list of former crimes?’
‘What former crimes? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Smiling, I glanced around the terrace. ‘Isn’t Felicity here?’
‘No, she’s out of town, visiting her daughter. She’ll be back this evening.’
I liked that he knew her whereabouts; it implied a certain protectiveness of her. ‘She obviously prefers city life in her old age?’
‘Oh, Felicity wouldn’t leave the Big Smoke if you paid her. She’s been in Lime Park longer than I have.’
Over his shoulder, a neighbour I’d met once or twice before – Mel – was trying to catch my eye and I waved hello, a polite note of deterrent in my manner. I had no intention of ending this conversation. ‘I must pop round soon and check we’re not disturbing her too much,’ I said. ‘I would hate to be the one who drove her out.’
‘That’s not a bad idea. Maybe take a cake. She likes lemon drizzle.’
I remembered what he’d said the previous time we met, about keeping her onside. He’d not intended it purely in relation to the building works, I suspected.
‘So,’ he said, finished with Felicity and his attention now firmly on what he saw in front of him.
‘So … ?’ I echoed.
‘Are we going to do this or not?’
I inhaled sharply.
‘And don’t say “Do what?” Because you know exactly what I mean.’
I have to tell you this wasn’t nearly as high risk as it reads on the page, because his body language was so utterly guiltless, his voice dipped slightly but perfectly casual in tone, as if he were proposing a trip to the garden centre. Only his eyes, which no one else could see but me, betrayed the dangerous nature of his intent, daring me, seducing me, and my excitement rose like a sudden spike in blood sugar.
‘Of course I know,’ I replied, the same easy tone, the same unimpeachable body language. And that was the moment that I chose to acknowledge the truth: you could reinvent yourself but you could not reinvent the wheel. Of course I would be sleeping with Rob Whalen. Accepting this, I became very calm. ‘The answer is yes, we are. But there are things that must be understood beforehand.’
‘Sure.’ He dipped a hand in his pocket for his phone. ‘Can I take your number?’
He was still tapping in the digits when Jeremy and Richard appeared behind him, Jeremy beaming with that slightly idiotic bonhomie men exhibit when they outnumber women.
‘Darling,’ I said, ‘Rob and I were just exchanging numbers. We think it might be useful in case there’s a problem with the works. But I’ve forgotten my phone. Could you take his details instead?’
‘Why don’t I just send you a text so you’ve got mine,’ Rob said helpfully to me.
‘Good idea. I’d prefer it if you addressed all complaints to my wife,’ Jeremy joked. ‘She’s the front of house in this operation.’
‘You have my word,’ Rob said.
He moved away to join a different group and Richard was summoned by Caroline to circulate with drinks, so Jeremy and I held hands at the edge of the terrace, facing the flock.
‘Isn’t this nice of the Sellerses?’ he said. ‘They’ve made such an effort and everyone’s so friendly. A different world from the Wharf, eh?’
‘We’re very lucky to have such sociable new neighbours,’ I agreed.
‘I like your Rob.’
‘My Rob? Hardly. But me too. He’s funny, kind of naughty.’ I nuzzled Jeremy’s shoulder a little and he squeezed me closer.
‘He doesn’t normally turn up to these things, Richard says, but look how the women are all over him. He could take his pick.’
‘Maybe he already has?’ I said. ‘Liz, I reckon. She’s certainly up for it.’
‘Not with that barnet,’ Jeremy said, making me laugh. ‘Mind you, she’s not the only one who looks like she’s been dragged through a hedge backwards.’
‘I know. Maybe that’s why they’ve all got their wellies on,’ I said.
He snorted and, attracted by the sound, Richard approached with a bottle of bubbly, vapour trailing like breath from a living creature’s throat.
‘Having fun?’ he asked, replenishing our glasses.
‘Oh yes!’ I exclaimed. ‘It’s the most wonderful party, Richard. You must let us thank you by taking you and Caroline to lunch at Canvas next weekend.’
As Jeremy and Richard beamed at the suggestion, I happened to catch Rob’s eye and we nodded with the casual recognition of new acquaintances.
It was all so effortless, so natural. You’d think I’d been born to betray.
Chapter 7
Christy, May 2013
Not quite a month after the move to Lime Park, Christy was called to Laurie’s office for an unscheduled meeting. She arrived to find that her director hadn’t yet finished her previous meeting: Colette, the agency’s head of HR, was still sitting there, notes in front of her, mug of tea half full.
‘I know this isn’t the greatest timing,’ Laurie said, ‘you’ve just moved house and everything …’
Christy automatically glanced down at Laurie’s abdomen, careful to keep her expression affable. A committed fan of the structured dress, Laurie was today loosely draped in brushed cotton, her complicated neckline nothing more than a distraction, a red herring if Ellen was right. That was why Colette was present: just like last time, they were going to demand extra work of Christy for no additional pay. Her noble intentions having faded somewhat in recent weeks, she wondered if she should make a stand and negotiate an increase. Even with Joe’s promotion they needed every extra penny they could get.
‘It’s been confirmed that we have to cut staff by twenty per cent,’ Laurie said, and so confident had Christy been of the lines to come that there was a delay in understanding what was in fact being said here. And now Laurie appeared t
o be giving her the option of taking the money and running, no humiliating consultation period to endure.
‘It could be a blessing in disguise,’ she said in a hopeful tone.
‘In what way?’ Christy enquired.
‘I just meant it would give you time to sort out your new house.’ Laurie looked injured, which was rich given that she was the one dishing out the painful news. ‘There must still be masses to do. You can break the back of the decorating.’ These were statements, not suggestions, and made with an air of victory. She was necessarily forgetting what Christy had told her about having inherited a show home; number 40 Lime Park Road was no blank canvas, but a masterpiece that had come glazed and framed and tied with a bow.
Colette said nothing; she merely witnessed.
‘I have to think about this,’ Christy said. ‘It’s so out of the blue.’ But hadn’t she known in some God-fearing, subterranean sense that this was exactly what had been going to happen?
She’d sacrificed more than a baby to get herself a house on Lime Park Road.
Pausing only to collect her bag, she fled the building and dialled Joe’s number from the street. ‘I have to see you,’ she breathed. Approaching the entrance to the Tube station, she saw it was only a little after ten, the ticket hall still swarming with tardy commuters and early-bird tourists. Her disposal had been the first business of Laurie’s day. ‘Can you meet for a few minutes?’
‘Only if you’ve got time to come here,’ Joe said.
Relieved of her job and all of a sudden frighteningly, nonsensically, possessed of all the time in the world, she set off for the office where he’d worked since he was a trainee in his mid twenties. He’d been a late starter then, the oldest of the year’s intake, having worked two jobs to fund the conversion course, and yet now when she pictured him it was like watching a child set out on some careless sun-drenched adventure. He – they – had had no sense of the stormy skies ahead.
She corrected herself: his sky was still blue, he was a partner now. Then she reminded herself that married people – best friends and fellow adventurers – stood under the same sky, if necessary sharing an umbrella … and she abandoned the metaphor to the roar and clatter of the Underground.
The Sudden Departure of the Frasers Page 8