“They might make each other happy.”
“Jemma is a go-getter. Neil is so laid-back he’s horizontal.”
“Perhaps Jemma would encourage him to do a bit more with his life. He’s always going on about how he’d like to have more exciting assignments. She might give him the motivation he needs. Get him out of his cozy rut.”
Ed turns toward me. “Do you think a woman should encourage her partner to achieve his dreams?”
“Of course I do.” I smile sleepily at Ed. “Haven’t I always supported you?”
“Ali…”
“I think I will invite them round for dinner. It’ll be fun.”
“Ali…”
I stretch my neck and stifle a yawn. “I’m so sleepy.” I turn to Ed and kiss his nose. “Are you sleepy?”
“Yes, but…”
“Shall we turn the light off and settle down?”
“Yes.”
I turn off the lamp and the cool white light of the moon streams in through the window, picking out the white cotton cover on the bed. My house hasn’t had the Kath Brown treatment and is pale and uncluttered, except when the children are awake. I lie back against the pillow and pull the duvet up to nuzzle my neck; my body is heavy and sinking dreamily into sleep. The last thing I notice is that Ed has both of his eyes open and is staring at the ceiling, but I am too far gone in my surrender to deep, deep slumber to ask why.
CHAPTER 12
I am trying to clear the breakfast dishes away and finish my own toast at the same time. I think I’ve drunk my tea or, if not, I can’t find it amid the debris. “Have you got your gym things, Thomas?”
“Yes.” Thomas is still sitting at the table playing with two plastic wotsits that came out of the Rice Krispies. His gym things are nowhere in sight. They could still be in the ironing basket for all I know.
“Have you done your homework?”
“Yes.” There is more of a growl in Tanya’s answer. This is mainly because I’m monitoring her homework timetable with all the fanaticism of a Gestapo officer, and she is becoming desperate for her Buffy fix, which she’s not allowed for another week.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Even the German?”
“Yes.” She looks at me as if I am some lowlife clinging to her shoe. I hear about these wonderful mother-daughter relationships all the time. Women who can talk to each other about anything, who are the best of friends and who share their emotions openly to the supreme benefit of both parties. Sometimes they even wear matching clothes. I wouldn’t be seen dead in the things Tanya wears and vice versa. I nag my daughter constantly and she scowls at me. Perhaps this is something else I’ve inherited from my mother. We were exactly the same. All through my teenage years we fought like cat and dog, as if I was the daughter from hell, when in actual fact I was a little angel who just had a minor bit of wing slippage from time to time. It was only when I was in my twenties that I appreciated what a wonderful woman my mother was. I can only hope that Tanya has a similar revelation. But I would prefer it to happen next week.
“Elliott, have you got your lunch?” I know he has because I saw him eat the Penguin biscuit out of it as soon as he’d finished his Coco Pops, even though he tried to eat it under the table. By the time he is twenty-one, that boy’s veins will flow with pure chocolate.
“Yes,” he says.
“You haven’t eaten the chocolate biscuit out of it, have you?”
“I only tasted it a little bit,” he confesses. “With my teeth. I thought I might not be hungry enough to eat it at lunchtime,” he adds with a logic that defies further investigation.
“How’s the eye?” I ask Ed, who is sitting silently amid the mayhem with his cup of coffee hovering at his lips, staring serenely into middle distance, as he does every morning.
“Fine,” he says, lifting a finger to test it. The skin is only slightly pink, not the shiner I expected. Even though I failed in my quest to pump him full of arnica, he appears to have suffered no ill effects. Still, he seems a bit subdued. It could be shock.
“You’re going to be late,” I warn him, glancing for the millionth time at the clock. I’ve looked at it so often I’m starting to annoy myself. Why does its hands always move faster when you’re pushed for time?
He picks up the newspaper and opens it. “I’m not in a rush today.”
“Why?”
Ed shrugs. “No reason. We could travel in together, if you like.”
I stop my tidying up. “We never travel in together.”
Ed reaches for the cafetière and tops up his coffee. “We could today.”
“I’ve got to walk Elliott to school.”
“I’ll wait. There’s no hurry.”
“There is. I’ve got a thousand things to do.”
“It would give us a chance to talk.”
“About what?”
Ed frowns. “I don’t know.”
I carry on tidying up. “Neither do I.”
I’m all flustered and feel like throwing the cereal bowls into the air just to see how much noise they’ll make when they land. “You could walk Elliott to school for me, if you’re not in a rush.”
“Fine.” Ed downs his coffee and folds his newspaper. “Come on, Elliott,” he says, and our son for once obeys without turning it into a three-act drama. “I’ll see you later,” he says and gazes across the kitchen. He doesn’t come to kiss me and it could be his eye or my paranoia, but it seems to me that Ed gives me a very strange look.
I am meeting Christian. But you know that already, don’t you? It’s only my family who are blissfully unaware of my duplicity. Now that Ed and Elliott are out of the way, I rush Tanya and Thomas out the door with hurried kisses and threats and then fly upstairs two steps at a time. I am wearing the same black trouser suit I had on yesterday, and I change into something a bit more casual that will do for Kew and for work. But you see, I’m not going to spend the day with Christian—I’m merely going to meet him, tell him I can’t spend the day with him, at the very, very most have a quick coffee and then skedaddle back to work.
I have tried phoning the mobile number he gave me to tell him that I wouldn’t be going anywhere near Kew Gardens today, but the wretched thing is always turned off and I haven’t been brave enough to leave word on his answering service. And I don’t trust those things anyway. They’re like teenagers. You can never be quite sure that they’re going to pass the message on.
I was just not going to go at all. Just not turn up. But then, he is a lovely boy, and I couldn’t stand him up without an explanation. Have you ever been stood up? It’s dreadful. I had a crush on the school heartthrob, Gary Eccleston, when I was sixteen, and I worshiped him from afar for months and months and months. He was going out with Caroline Gregory, the first sex kitten I ever came across. She was petite and girly and the most outrageous flirt, and she dumped him in spectacular style for a down-market boy from the local comprehensive. A week later he asked me out. I was gobsmacked. So was everyone else. The school heartthrob and Ginger Nut. Ha!
He arranged to take me to the school disco, and I waited for him at the end of my road, so that my mother, who was in nagging harridan mode, wouldn’t see him. I looked gorgeous. Really, I did. I’d spent hours doing my makeup. I’d tamed my hair with Jemma’s help, using every potion under the sun we could find in Superdrug. I’d borrowed a groovy outfit from my best friend, Andrea Thornton. And I stood there feeling on top of the world, bursting with pride. And he didn’t come.
I waited for hours. Hours and hours. I couldn’t believe that anyone could be cruel enough just to leave me standing there on my own. Apparently, the school disco was great. Andrea told me all about it. She got off with Joseph Simpson, to whom she is now happily married and has two children with. Gary Eccleston went on his own and got back with Caroline Gregory, who dumped him again the very next day. I cried in my bedroom all night, letting my mascara run on the pillow and wondering just where I’d gone wrong.
So, you see, I could never ever do that to anyone else. Especially not Christian.
I take the Tube to Kew and, far from being late, I am ridiculously early. I walk up and down outside the curly iron gates feeling conspicuous. Ten o’clock comes and goes. I have a very weird feeling about this. This is Gary Eccleston all over again. I’ve only come to tell Christian I’m not coming, for goodness’ sake, and now he hasn’t come. I’m standing here with my self-confidence ebbing and one nibble away from chewing my fingernails. The thing about being stood up is that in the back of your mind you know you’ve been stood up but there’s always that nagging doubt that your stander-upper might have had an accident and that they are not there with you through no fault of their own. I couldn’t bear for anything to have happened to Christian. I hope he has bumped into some twenty-year-old Caroline Gregory look-alike last night in some trendy bar and has decided not to come. Perhaps he’s sitting in a café somewhere laughing about it to her. Perhaps it’s for the best.
I walk up and down again and kick the pavement meaningfully. He could have let me know he wasn’t going to come. But then again, how could he? He doesn’t know my phone number. He doesn’t know where I live. He only knows where I work by default. It’s nearly twenty past ten. Well, ten-sixteen. I’m never sure whether this watch is fast or slow. I can feel tears prickling behind my eyes and feel utterly, utterly ridiculous. This is madness. How can I have let this man, this boy, into my life like this? How dare he sketch me and turn my life and my internal organs upside down and then leave me like this, wandering up and down on my own, being watched by visiting tourists who know, they just know that I’ve been stood up. I’ll give him two more minutes then I’m off. Back to the safety of Kath Brown and her frilly curtains.
CHAPTER 13
“Veggie, fruit, fruit! Veggie, veggie, fruit, fruit…”
Ed held up his hand. “Okay, okay, okay!” All the dancing fruit and vegetables stopped, bumping into each other as they did so. “Let’s just take five.”
He motioned to the lead tomato, who waddled over to him from the oversize kitchen that was the background to the Kitchen Kapers video—a ready-made sauce for less than discerning vegetarians.
“Could you possibly just run through your lyrics one more time and see if you can’t commit them to memory before the next take?” Ed smiled pleasantly at the tomato, but naturally couldn’t see if he smiled back, although from the way the tomato stomped off, it was evident that there wasn’t a lot of hilarity going on beneath his lurid red costume.
Ed tried to crack his interlinked fingers by stretching them and failed. Why was this taking so long? The set was built yesterday, and the ingredients had spent all day rehearsing their big moment. It should have been a piece of precipitation. Dead easy. The advert should take five minutes to record, plus a bit of post-editing, and yet they’d been here for more than an hour already, to no good purpose. They were supposed to be a lean, mean, budget-conscious production team, and the vegetables were supposed to be actors.
Trevor looked at Ed, who said sarcastically, “I thought it was supposed to be children and animals that are difficult to work with? I don’t remember anyone ever mentioning organic produce.”
“Will it help if I tell you that eventually the…er…fruits of your efforts will be screened in every supermarket and in post offices all over the country?”
“Not a lot.”
“What about if I tell you that it’ll make the advert for diarrhea tablets they’re going to show before it look like a heap of crap?”
“Shut up, Trevor.”
Trevor put his camera down. “You can tell one of your Harrison stories if it will make you feel better.”
“I don’t think even Harrison can help me today. It’s not every day one has to deal with a vegetable who can’t hold a note or remember four words.”
“Technically, a tomato is a fruit,” Trevor pointed out.
“Yes, of course,” Ed said. “How stupid of me.”
“Go easy, Ed. It must be difficult being a grown man in a tomato suit.”
“You’re right.” Ed picked up the white plastic cup next to him, but his tea had gone cold. “He’d probably rather be playing King Lear.”
“He’d probably rather be playing anything other than a tomato. We all have to pay the bills.”
“Some of us more than others,” Ed agreed.
“Do I take it we’re still not finding the exciting world of corporate videos any more enthralling?”
Ed rubbed his hands over his face. “And I thought I was hiding it so well.”
“If you do decide to go back to Hollywood,” Trevor said, “take me with you.”
Ed looked defensive. “Who said anything about Hollywood?”
Trevor shrugged. “It’s the only place to be if you want to work at the cutting edge. And I’m not sure how much longer you can stand this.”
Ed turned away before he was tempted to answer. He could see the juicy carrot right there just in front of him. Only this one was sitting on a six-foot polystyrene frying pan with its foam head peeled down, eating a Mars bar. “Shall we see if the vegetables are ready? Otherwise we could both be doing this for the rest of our lives.”
Ed clapped his hands. “Ladies and gentlemen! Are we ready?”
A door opened behind him, and Orla came onto the set. She walked up until she was close behind him and he could feel her breath on his neck. She always smelled good. A blend of fresh, clean soap and some ferociously expensive perfume that lured him to drink it in even if he didn’t want to. “Nice,” Orla said, and he wasn’t entirely sure what she was talking about.
“Hi,” he said, distracted by the tomatoes falling over each other to get back in line.
“This is a bad time, right?”
“You could say that.”
Orla lowered her voice. “I need to talk to you some more.”
Ed looked round to check that they weren’t being overheard, but as soon as Orla arrived, Trevor had faded into the background. “Right.”
“Did you manage to discuss this with Alicia?”
Ed made an apologetic noise. “The timing hasn’t been quite right yet.”
“Things are moving on. Can we set up a meeting?”
“Sure.”
“Tonight. What about dinner?”
“Er…” Ed scoured his brain for any remnants of conversations with Ali about parents’ evenings, dentists’ appointments, concerts, dinners with friends, but none came. “Dinner should be fine.”
Orla parted with one of her rare smiles. “I’ll look forward to it.”
Ed’s mobile rang.
“Damn,” he said as he checked all his pockets before finding it. He noticed that the vegetables were getting restless. “Ed Kingston.” He bit his lip while he listened and then spoke again. “Have you contacted my wife? Fine. Fine. I’ll be there right away.” Ed snapped his phone shut, wiping his damp palms on his trousers. His face had blanched and his forehead was creased in a frown. “Orla, I have to go. Can you do me a favor and take over here?”
Orla spread her hands. “Sure.”
“Find Trevor. He’ll give you the lowdown.”
“Is everything okay?”
“No, not really.” Ed was shrugging on his coat. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Are we still on for dinner?”
Ed was heading toward the door. “I’ll see you at the Groucho at eight.” He turned on his heels, came back and kissed Orla on the mouth. “Thanks,” he said. “You’re a pal.”
Orla watched him rush out of the door before she ran her tongue over her lips. “You’re welcome,” she said under her breath.
CHAPTER 14
Christian is jogging up the road. I want to wring my hands with relief, but stand there looking unconcerned instead. I was on the verge of leaving. Really, I was. Another few seconds and I’d have been gone. Perhaps I’ll look back on this very moment in years to come and wonder how things would have been different if
I’d walked away, got on the Tube, gone back to work and chalked this whole thing up to experience.
I was coming down with a cold the night I met Ed and nearly didn’t go to the rugby club do of indistinct origin. What would have happened if instead I’d retired to my bed with a hot water bottle and a good dose of Benylin Expectorant? Would I be married to Ed now or would he have met someone else that night, and the chance for our paths to cross would have been lost forever? As it was, we met, danced all night, had a tentative snog, during which I gave him my cold, resulting in me going through agonies wondering why he didn’t ring me for over a week to arrange our next date.
Things happen all the time that can change our lives, don’t they? It’s like a perilous journey across shifting sands. Small, seemingly innocent incidents that suck us away from our intended life course, altering our emotional landscape forever. And I know that this is one of those moments, not yet consciously, but somewhere down deep inside round one of the corners of my psyche in a place I’m choosing to ignore. I didn’t know I did denial so well. But then it isn’t only love that is blind. Guilt, inertia and lust can all be pretty shortsighted too.
This is a beautiful road. Leafy and green. It is lined with magnificent trees, and all the houses are grand and rambling. Their gardens are overflowing with flowers and spring bulbs and are a fitting precursor to the glory of Kew. I turn my eyes and study them rather than watching Christian, because I feel so exposed out here, waiting. It’s as if everyone who sees me knows that I really shouldn’t be here.
Christian arrives in front of me breathless and smiling. “Hi,” he says.
“Hi.”
“I’m sorry I’m late,” he rushes on cheerfully. “The Tube was delayed. Jumper.”
“Oh,” I say, and brush aside the thought that he might be lying. There was no mention of a delay on my line or anyone jumping on the track. But I do wonder what awful thing can happen in someone’s life that they want to stop it by launching themselves into thin air in front of a moving Tube train?
A Minor Indiscretion Page 7