Having It All

by Maeve Haran

  ‘Should I congratulate you?’

  ‘Absolutely!’

  ‘Oh yes? Then why are you crying?’

  At Lewes station Mel’s red BMW sat waiting for them in the car park, as reassuringly brash as ever, with all its shiny extras still intact.

  ‘One thing I like about the country’ – Mel’s tone implied that the list of things she didn’t like was far longer – ‘is that people have proper respect for cars. You don’t find the wheels have been nicked every time you stop to make a phone call.’

  But Liz wasn’t listening. She was thinking about Nick and picturing his face when she told him David was going to be all right about the divorce. And she realized how much she’d missed him.

  He might have elevated hedonism into a lifestyle, but it always made him fun to be with. Sometimes the way he never took anything seriously annoyed her, but tonight his gentle teasing was just what she wanted.

  She could go straight home to Jamie and Daisy, but they’d be asleep by now and she knew that, selfishly, the person she most wanted to see was Nick. She needed him to hold her and to make love to her to chase away the blues that had descended like a hammer on the final nail in the coffin of her marriage. She wanted not to think but only to feel. To be abandoned and wanton in the safety of knowing that he loved her and that he would understand. She wanted him to tell her about the wonderful life they would have together.

  As they drove along the road towards Seamington, she turned to Mel, trying to keep the excitement out of her voice.

  ‘Mel, I don’t want to go home yet. Could you drop me off at Nick’s? I’m going to drop in and give him a surprise.’

  It was on the tip of Mel’s tongue to say that not everyone liked surprises and that Nick might be one of them, but she could hear the anticipation in Liz’s voice and she told herself she was being ridiculous.

  But in the cold night air, which had changed almost overnight from summer to autumn, she shivered all the same.

  ‘Why not go home first and see Jamie and Daisy and give him a ring. I’ll run you over if he’s in.’

  Liz laughed. ‘But that’d be ridiculous. Jamie and Daisy will be asleep. And we practically go past his front door.’ She looked at her friend curiously. ‘You don’t like him, do you?’

  ‘I’m not marrying him.’

  ‘That’s not the point. Why don’t you like him?’

  ‘Liz, for heaven’s sake, I didn’t mean anything. Don’t be so touchy.’

  And Liz realized she was right. Where Nick was concerned she was touchy. She tried to make her voice sound neutral. ‘What is it you don’t like about him?’

  Mel gave in. She could hardly tell the truth, that she thought he was vain and lightweight and selfish. But she might as well stick the knife in a couple of inches anyway. She thought for a moment, trying to pin down her instinctive distrust of the man. ‘I can’t imagine him with egg on his tie.’

  ‘So who wants a man with egg on his tie? Certainly not you!’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  And the trouble was, she did. ‘And you can picture David with butter running down his chin, I suppose.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I never thought I’d say it. But yes, I can.’

  They were approaching the right-hand turning to Firle. Nick’s drive was only a quarter of a mile away. Should she go? Bloody Mel, she’d almost put her off. It was now or never.

  ‘You can drop me here. There’s a light in the sitting room. He must be in.’ She climbed out of the car and leaned on the window. ‘You go on, Nick can drop me home.’

  She watched Mel turning round and started walking down the drive. The scent of honeysuckle was everywhere, even more heady and sweet than in the daytime, its pink and yellow blossom growing wild in the hedgerows and twisting itself round the Old Rectory’s white iron gateposts.

  As the gravel crunched under her feet she stood for a second in the pitch dark drinking in the perfume and thinking of autumn. The leaves would start to fall soon. The hips were already on the roses and the apple trees in Nick’s orchard were heavy with apples, each as red and shiny as the poisoned one in Snow White.

  In a matter of months, a year at the outside, she would be living here, picking white daisies and roses for her flower arrangements, a basket on her arm, wearing an old straw hat, the Lady of the Manor. She smiled. Eat your heart out, Marie Antoinette.

  As she got to the front door she wondered whether to ring the bell and decided it would be more fun to go round the back and surprise him. The kitchen door would be open as usual.

  The kitchen was dark but neat and tidy, even the tea-towels hung neatly on their rack and the J-cloths folded over the sink. There was a faint smell of bleach, comforting and antiseptic, like matron’s office at school. He’d clearly given the housekeeper the evening off. But the lights in the hall were on and she noticed that one of the bulbs was dead, the only wrinkle in the otherwise perfect setting, but like a pimple on the face of a stunning woman it showed all the more.

  She walked across the hall, her feet silent on the antique Persian rug. A bluish light flickered from under the door of the drawing room and she realized the television must be on.

  As her hand gripped the door handle she heard voices, and stopped for a moment trying to work out whose they were before she went in.

  She turned the door handle.

  Afterwards she would wonder how different her life would have been if she had gone home that night. But at the time she simply smiled and pushed open the door.

  CHAPTER 34

  For a moment she stood frozen in the doorway.

  What she saw was, in some ways, a harmless and innocent scene. And yet the little tableau was typical of Nick’s unthinking hedonism

  Nick lay on the sofa, face down. And next to him, on the rug by the open fire, Henry knelt giving him a massage.

  Neither had seen her and as she listened to the sounds of pleasure as Henry’s fingers kneaded at the knots of tension in Nick’s back it struck her how sexual the act of massage could be.

  Nick’s eyes were closed, a smile of deep contentment on his face, and occasionally he let out a little groan of pain or ecstasy. How like Nick not to care who it was who gave him pleasure, but simply to lie back and surrender to the moment.

  And she heard her own voice finally speak, hardly recognizable as her own, as though it were someone else who was talking.

  ‘What a touching little scene. Old and faithful friend massages away the young master’s aches and pains. But then you do have a particularly demanding life, don’t you, Nick?’

  Henry jumped up, startled, knocking a cup of tea over as he did so, looking as guilty as if she’d found them curled up in bed together.

  With athletic grace Nick simply sat up and patted the seat next to him. ‘Liz, darling. I didn’t expect you back tonight.’

  ‘Clearly.’

  Nick ignored the acid in her tone, or maybe, she thought bitterly, didn’t even notice it.

  ‘I had a frightful headache and Henry suggested a massage. Did you know Henry had healing hands?’ He smiled his most winning smile. ‘People come to him from miles around.’

  ‘Don’t bother with the excuses, Nick. I’m not interested.’

  ‘Liz . . .’ she heard a pleading tone. But not from Nick. From Henry. ‘It wasn’t what you thought.’

  ‘And what did I think, Henry?’

  Henry looked away and shrugged. To Liz he seemed somehow infinitely pathetic. The old dog who had outlived his usefulness, still waiting at the table for any crumb of affection or pleasure Nick cared to toss him. And she saw, now, why Nick had wanted to come back here the other day and show off the engagement ring. Poor Henry.

  For Nick she realized she felt nothing except a hollow, empty deadness.

  As she watched him with his easy provocative smile, shrugging as if he had been caught out in some minor social faux pas – forgetting his host’s name, or using the wrong knife – for the first time she
saw the truth about him.

  He was like a child, used to having its own way simply because it was a child, who had grown up and suddenly discovered it had another, far more powerful weapon. Its sexuality. And since that fateful day had never missed a chance to use it on both men and women.

  She wondered for a moment if Nick and Henry had been lovers or if Nick was just using him.

  And, wearily, she realized that it made no difference. She couldn’t marry Nick.

  She had two children already. She didn’t want a third.

  Feeling numb and empty, she turned to go. Nick reached for her hand and tried to stop her but she shook him off. She knew he loved her in his way. But tonight she knew it wasn’t enough.

  Slowly she walked out of the room and opened the front door. Then, as the reality of what she’d seen finally hit her, leaving it wide open she ran down the gravel path to the lane, thinking of nothing but how she had to get away, to fill her lungs with fresh air and feel the cold wind on her faming face.

  Suddenly it struck her that she had no car, that it was nearly midnight and she was two miles from the nearest phone box and even further from her home.

  But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except this feeling of stupidity, of being blinded to the truth because of her passion for him. As she stumbled along the lane in the total blackness of the countryside, she felt no fear. A rapist could jump out of the bushes and she’d just laugh. She was impregnable. No one could hurt her any more than she’d been hurt already.

  ‘You knew! You knew all along! And you didn’t tell me!’

  Britt heard the pain in Liz’s voice as they stood apart from the others outside Ross Slater’s offices the next morning.

  ‘I didn’t know, Liz, I guessed there was something, that’s all. I could have been wrong.’

  ‘But you weren’t wrong were you? Oh, Britt, what am I going to do?’

  ‘You’re going to forget all about him. You’ve got Jamie and Daisy. You’ve got a beautiful home. And after this morning you could be rich!’ She reached out and took Liz’s hand. ‘He was only a man after all!’ She smiled wryly. ‘And what do they matter?’

  Liz smiled back. They both knew that, in their lives, whether they liked it or not, men had mattered too much.

  But Britt was right. She had her children and she had her home. And last night she’d finally come to a decision. She didn’t want to join the idle rich. She’d seen what it did to other people, drifting aimlessly from tennis lesson to interior designer to hairdresser, counting the minutes till six o’clock and the first G and T. She had no intention of selling out to Ross Slater no matter how much he offered, because right now she needed WomanPower more than ever before.

  As Liz waited with the others at World of Work’s glossy HQ, she tried to wipe the night before from her mind and concentrate on the meeting ahead. The others would be relying on her, and she must somehow shake off the deadly bitterness that kept making her wonder if anything mattered any more.

  At ten precisely Ross Slater’s secretary appeared to meet them and she ushered them not into Slater’s office, where she had been before, but the boardroom. Clearly they were being given the red-carpet treatment.

  She’d expected it to be all mahogany veneer and Olde English hunting prints, but instead the room was both tasteful and stylish, in terracotta with painted Egyptian columns. Liz tried not to be impressed as she recognized the work of Rory O’Leary. Trump Tower. New York’s Russian Tea-rooms. Palaces in Abu Dhabi. And World of Work’s HQ. The artist never revealed his prices. And if you had to ask you couldn’t afford him.

  A side table by the wall at first appeared to be a witty trompe l’œil, but since a gold cafetière and five cups stood on it, Liz realized it must be real. Five cups. And there were four of them. Herself. Ginny. Mel. And Britt, acting as their adviser. Ross Slater clearly didn’t need advisers. He was the kind of man who decided what he wanted to do for himself and did it.

  His secretary had just poured them a cup when Slater arrived, alone, as cool and charming as ever, in an expensive hand-sewn suit. Only the diamond winking at them from the heavy gold of his signet ring, and the faintest fattening of his vowel sounds, hinted that his background was more East End than Eton.

  He sat down, relaxed and calm in this setting which said ‘Ah ha, you thought you knew me, you thought I was a jumped-up barrow boy, but don’t underestimate me’ and she realized why he had brought them here instead of coming to them. He had wanted to flash his power and his taste, to show them that he wasn’t a faceless conglomerate, but a man of vision, an individual in a corporate universe.

  And as Liz introduced him to the others she could see it was already working. The others were watching him, fascinated, waiting for his first move.

  Once he knew that every eye was on him he leaned back in his leather chair and, very casually, began his pitch.

  ‘As you know I want to acquire WomanPower and I’d like to tell you why, and, of course, why you should sell to me.’ He smiled disarmingly. ‘WomanPower is a huge success. You couldn’t buy the kind of publicity you’ve been getting. You’re the darling of the media. The Government seeks out your views and cooperation. You are women and work. But you aren’t capitalizing on it.’ He looked round at them. ‘And my research tells me it’s because that’s the way you want it. You want to stay small so you can have a home life as well as a business.’

  So. He’d been doing his homework. Who had told him that? Dawn, the office manager, after a few drinks and a lot of flattery? It couldn’t have been one of them. Apart from Liz none of them had met him before.

  ‘You may be surprised to hear that I have a lot of sympathy with that.’

  Oh yeah, thought Liz, the man who works seven days a week, whose three marriages have failed because he’s never there, who goes home to a nice warm helicopter?

  ‘But I’m afraid life’s not like that. Clients don’t understand if their vacancy isn’t filled because you want to pick up the kids from school.’ Liz noticed that his voice had become tougher, the harsh but fair headmaster. ‘Some of your customers are getting edgy. There are even whispers of inefficiency. Letters unanswered. Calls not returned.’

  Liz glanced at Britt. He was singing her tune. She could almost have written the words.

  A flash of panic swept over her. Britt couldn’t have been feeding him information? She was the first one to know about his interest, after all. She could be on a fat consultancy fee if the deal went through. Then she remembered Britt’s ravaged face that day looking up at her as she hid inside the cottage, an image of such abject misery that even Liz, who had so much to blame her for, had been moved. No. Britt wouldn’t do that. Britt of all people wouldn’t do that. Not now.

  She glanced at her friend. But Britt wasn’t looking in her direction. She was listening impassively to Ross Slater.

  ‘If you go on like this, I’d give you six months.’

  For the first time Britt glanced at her as though she echoed his prediction. Six months!

  ‘WomanPower will collapse like a house of cards. You have to act now, build on your achievement! Flexible working is an idea whose time has come! And not just for women. Everyone wants more balance in their lives. People OD’d on work in the eighties. Seventy-hour weeks! Eighty-hour weeks! And what for? Money but no time. Now they want their lives back!’

  He stood up and started to pace. ‘If you join World of Work you can take your idea to every High Street in the country! Think of the people you’ll help!’

  They could all hear the excitement in his voice, the eagerness to get his hands on an idea that had potential and expand it, and it was heady and infectious. Despite herself Liz felt carried along by his enthusiasm.

  Maybe he was right. Maybe WomanPower could do more good if it was on every High Street. For a moment she felt the exhilaration of seeing WomanPower as famous as Brook Street Bureau or The Body Shop. Maybe they should sell.

  Ross Slater stopped pacing and leaned o
ver the back of his chair.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking. WomanPower is our baby and this man, this self-made millionaire who doesn’t give a toss about it, who just sees it as another brick in his empire, wants to take it away from us. But I do care about it. I think it’s unique and I would want to keep that personal touch for women, that caring quality!’ She sensed he was about to reveal his closing card. ‘And I certainly don’t want to exclude you. I would want both Ginny and you, Liz, to stay on as part-time directors. I’ve seen too many companies bought from the person who created them and watched them crumble in months. I need you! I want WomanPower because I know what we could do with it, together.’

  For a second Liz heard an echo in his words. ‘I couldn’t buy experience like yours,’ that’s what he’d promised the old man too.

  But even she wasn’t ready for what he had to say next.

  ‘I want WomanPower very much indeed.’ He paused and looked from one to the other, gauging the impact of his words. ‘And I’m prepared to pay £2 million to get it.’

  Liz tried to suppress a gasp. Two million! And she owned nearly half of it! She tried to push the thought of swimming pools and cruises from her mind and listen to what Slater was saying.

  It had been a brilliant performance. He’d thought of everything. It was, Liz saw with a frisson of fear, an offer they would find very difficult to refuse.

  Liz zipped up her briefcase realizing that Ross Slater was watching her. And in that moment she saw that he understood the situation very well. That it was she, not the others, who would be his opponent.

  He came towards her smiling. And she remembered instantly why his steely charm had made her so uneasy when she’d met him before. It was the charm of the jackboot. He was the kind of man who made decisions for you, from ordering your dinner to ordering your life. Some women probably loved it, but she wasn’t one of them.

  As she started to leave the room she felt his hand hold her elbow, detaining her as the others went ahead.

  ‘Mrs Ward. Am I right in believing you used to be married to David Ward, the journalist?’