‘I’m sorry,’ Olivia said, her pale face colouring when Antonia emerged with a hesitant smile. ‘You must be Antonia. I’ve heard you’re very beautiful and you are.’
But in Antonia’s mind, the word beautiful has never stuck.
She turns away from the mirror, hoping Olivia likes her better now. She seemed tense at the last dinner party. ‘Well, being the bloody office heartthrob …’ she said pointedly to Mike several times. It seemed a strange thing to say. He looked embarrassed and perplexed. But perhaps they were all a little too drunk, Sophie in particular, who turned up with two bottles. Still, the party went well. Of course Helen said the usual, ‘For goodness sake, Antonia, sit here and talk. I won’t bite,’ but lovely Charlie was there with his genial wink, ‘Oh, but she does and it’s ferocious. I wouldn’t risk it.’
She’s still brushing her long hair when Sophie arrives at White Gables, so doesn’t have time to straighten it completely.
‘You look gorgeous, darling,’ Sophie says as she wafts past her and into the large bright kitchen. ‘But then you always do.’
She turns and studies Antonia. ‘Why don’t you do me a favour, just for once, and have a slob-out day? Just one day when you don’t brush your hair or apply any make-up. Don’t even clean your teeth or change your underwear. Twenty-four hours of not being perfect. Would you do that, just for me?’
Sophie’s startling green eyes are on hers just a little too long before she breaks the gaze. ‘But then you’d still look gorgeous and smell of lily of the valley on freshly baked wholegrain, wouldn’t you?’ She picks up a magazine from a low glass table and starts to flick the pages. ‘The curl’s coming back in your hair, Toni. Why don’t you leave it this time? I like it curly.’
Antonia turns away as the telephone starts to ring. They have the hair conversation too often and she isn’t in the mood for Sophie’s amateur psychoanalysis today. Sophie has always been there for her since childhood, good times and bad, but sometimes her familiarity can be claustrophobic. She rubs the back of her neck. Her strained weekend with an unusually quiet David has left her tense.
‘Aren’t you going to answer the telephone?’ Sophie asks. ‘If you won’t, I will.’
‘No, Sophie, leave it. It’ll be a call centre. I don’t want to encourage them.’
‘Then unplug the bloody thing.’
The telephone stops ringing and Antonia lets out her breath. Perhaps she should unplug it. But what about her mum?
Sophie flings the magazine on to the white leather sofa, following it herself with a huge sigh. ‘Sami says I broke every taboo at dinner with the Henleys on Saturday.’
‘Let me guess, you asked them how much they earned as well as how much their house was worth?’
‘Well, I always ask that! But apparently I talked about sex rather a lot and I asked Tim whether he’d ever been unfaithful.’
‘Ouch!’
Sophie laughs. ‘I didn’t think anyone else could hear and we’re all gagging to know if the rumours are true. But I didn’t talk about religion or politics.’
‘That’s all right then.’
‘At least I don’t think so. I drank far, far too much.’
Antonia fills the kettle from the tap at the centre of the gleaming granite-topped island and then perches on a chrome and leather bar stool before swivelling to examine her only real friend. Sophie does look pretty rough today, older than her thirty-one years. Her skin is blotchy, there are dark circles under her eyes, she’s wearing no make-up and her auburn hair is chaotically tied with an elastic band at the nape of her neck. She looks remarkably like Norma, her mum, but Antonia knows better than to say so.
‘I look terrible, don’t I?’
‘Well …’ Antonia laughs. Sophie doesn’t look her best, but with Sophie looks don’t matter. Sometimes she looks plain, at other times dazzling, but however she appears, her personality shines through her brilliant eyes, entrancing all who come within her range.
‘Well, what?’ Sophie snaps.
‘I was thinking about your butterfly and moth theory.’
‘Bloody hell, you don’t forget anything, do you? It wasn’t meant as an insult. We were a winning team, Toni. You would attract the men with your butterfly beauty and I would keep them spellbound like moths around a light. Or something like that. Most people would prefer to be the butterfly!’
‘I know. You ugly old moth, you.’
‘Hmm. I guess some men prefer an easy win, while others prefer a bit of a challenge.’
Like Sami, Antonia thinks, still gazing at Sophie, and for a moment she drifts. Perhaps she is an easy win, but easy win or not, Sami wanted her first. It was her he wanted the night they all met. It was her he begged to go out with him, but she gave him to Sophie because Sophie wanted him so much.
‘Antonia! My coffee. I’m waiting!’
Sophie is staring, her green eyes sharp. ‘What are you smiling about? You really must stop that weird on another planet stuff you do. And turn off the radio, it’s hurting my bloody head.’
‘Our former lives,’ Antonia replies, turning away and opening the white, high-gloss cupboards to take out a single pink-dotted teapot with a cup on top and a large mug with Sophie’s cappuccino written on it. She arranges Belgian rolled wafers on a long ceramic dish. ‘Life before marriage, life before you decided we should go more upmarket.’
‘Yup, we bagged a surveyor and a solicitor. Didn’t we do well!’ Sophie replies, throwing her head back and laughing her deep guttural laugh.
Antonia studies her for a moment before taking the lid off the teapot, giving it a stir and breathing in the smell of peppermint. ‘Do you really think so?’ she says as she offers Sophie the wafers.
‘Sami said David had a skinful on Friday. “Unbelievably rat arsed” were his precise words. He wanted to have a fight over some harmless comment Sami made about you, apparently, which was pretty stupid when he could hardly walk,’ Sophie says, ignoring Antonia’s question. ‘What was that all about then?’
‘No idea. You probably know more than me.’
Antonia sweeps the crumbs into the sink as she contemplates last Friday night. She had been sound asleep and was awoken suddenly, the accusatory sound of the doorbell in the dead of night throwing her back to a time she tries hard to erase. She padded from her bedroom and down the limestone stairs, the sound of her heart loud in her ears, and there was Mike Turner peering through the peep hole while doing his best to hold David upright.
‘Sorry, Antonia,’ Mike said, and for a moment she gazed at him, her new name taking her by surprise, even after all these years. But then she rallied, shaking herself back to the dark cold night and the state of her husband.
Mike’s eyes seemed watchful; she found she couldn’t meet them. ‘I know it’s late but he’s had a bit too much,’ he said after a moment. ‘And he couldn’t find his keys. So I thought I’d better— Do you want me to help him upstairs?’
‘I can get myself up my own fucking stairs.’ David pulled himself upright and pushed Mike away. ‘I could’ve found my way home too. Fuck off home and polish your halo, you fucking sanctimonious Irish prick.’
‘Sorry, Mike,’ she said, not knowing what else to say. Her heartbeat started to slow, but she felt panicky, that familiar metallic taste in her mouth.
Mike stood for a moment, looking unsteady on his feet and raking his hand through his dark messy hair. He opened his mouth, as though looking for the right words, but then turned away and lifted his hand. ‘No problem, he won’t remember in the morning. Taxi waiting. Night, Antonia. Take care.’
Antonia fleetingly wondered about David’s surprising behaviour before climbing into bed beside his unconscious bulk. He could drink enormous quantities of booze, but was rarely drunk. She closed her eyes, hoping sleep would overcome the unsought memories jabbing at her mind. But just as she was finally drifting off, David woke up with a jerk. He stared at her face for what seemed like an age before starting to cry, loud, wretched sobs.
‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, please forgive me,’ he wept, pushing his face against her breast like a small helpless child. But then he fell back to sleep as swiftly as he’d woken. Antonia lay there, her silk nightdress stuck to her chest from the tears and saliva, feeling nothing but a queer blankness, tinged with memories of disgust.
‘You’re doing it again, Toni. Stop!’
Sophie’s words bring Antonia back to the muggy September Monday and to the scrutinising eyes of her friend. She feels the tightness in her stomach, the burn of her cheeks and that mild taste of panic. ‘Ready for a top-up?’ she asks, turning away.
‘Less coffee and more cream this time. And different biscuits,’ Sophie replies, picking up the television remote control, pointing it at the huge flatscreen on the wall and flicking through the shopping channels. Then, after a few moments, ‘You know you’ll tell me eventually.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘Lunch calls. Are you ready to go?’ David asks, putting his head around Charlie Proctor’s office door and inhaling the familiar smell of old books and leather.
‘Is it that time already? Thought the old juices were giving me gyp. Turns out it’s just my stomach rumbling for lunch!’
Charlie peers at the ancient oak grandfather clock which dominates the room. He places his hands on each arm of the leather chair, hauls himself up and then steadies himself against the desk. He clears his throat and adjusts his tie before reaching for his overcoat and umbrella.
‘Charlie, it isn’t cold or raining and you’re forty-six, not sixty!’ David might say. But that wouldn’t be sporting or, indeed, nice. Besides, Charlie is Charlie, a cliché of his own creation. He was wearing a paisley smoking jacket and an avuncular smile the day they first met at boarding school. The eleven-year-old David had been allocated Charlie’s study. ‘How do. Ten years ago you would have been my new fag. Shame they scrapped them,’ Charlie said by way of greeting that morning and yet it still took David days to work out that Charlie was a pupil, albeit an eighteen-year-old sixth former, and not a benign schoolmaster.
But today David’s thoughts are with Antonia and their weekend. He woke late on Saturday to an empty house, a certainty in his gut that Antonia had left him. He misbehaved on Friday night. He made a scene at the pub, though he couldn’t recall the details. But worse than that he cried in her arms; that he could remember.
Charlie closes his office door with a thud. The ‘Senior Partner’ brass plate shakes. It’s left over from the days when the position of senior partner was handed down from father to son and when it meant something. Now it’s incongruous, like Charlie himself. None of the other partners went to a public school; they went to grammar school or, in the case of the young guns, to a state comprehensive. The flavour of the partnership these days is political correctness, accountability and liberalism. Gone are the days of getting on because of the ‘old school tie’. Nepotism died with Charlie’s old man. David has learned to adapt, to tone down the open vowels and to voice slightly left-wing opinions he doesn’t believe in, but Charlie seems oblivious to it all. Or perhaps that’s part of his act, his survival.
They stroll pass the imposing eighteenth-century St Ann’s church, past the al fresco diners huddling under chic canopies at its side, then continue through the cobbled alleyway to Sam’s Chop House.
It’s dark and quiet as usual on a Monday in Sam’s. David brought Antonia here once, not long after they met. He wanted to show her off, his new stunning girlfriend, never dreaming that one day soon she’d say yes and become his wife. But she was withdrawn, she’d looked uncomfortable in the company of the older lunchtime lawyers and eventually asked if they could leave.
‘Have you decided?’
David starts, his heart seeming to lurch out of place. Charlie is frowning at him, as though he can read his thoughts.
‘Decided what?’
‘What you’re eating of course. The steak is always delicious here. But don’t ask for rare. They don’t bother cooking it at all. Are you all right, David? You’re miles away.’
David glances at Charlie’s face before dropping his gaze to the menu. His mind is in spasm. He’s finding it difficult to focus. There are hugely worrying things to discuss, to confess, but it’s all he can do not to put his head on the table and sleep. ‘Yes, steak’s a grand idea,’ he says. He wonders if he’ll manage to eat it. He worries whether he’ll keep the food down. ‘Shall we order? There’s something I wanted to talk about. It’s pretty—’
‘Let’s try a bottle of that rather nice Chianti. I’ve been stuck in the All England Reports this morning. No one reads case law any more, but they should, David. Back to basics, I say. Now at Cambridge …’
David’s mind strays back to Antonia. Thank God, she came home. He didn’t ask where she’d been. Her absence from White Gables for so long was strange, but it didn’t matter. She was smiling; she was home.
‘Do you know what I fancy doing?’ she said, her cheek cold against his. ‘But we don’t have to if you don’t want to.’
He watches as the glossy red wine is poured and then lifts the glass to his lips. Charlie is still talking, but he can’t concentrate on anything but the wisps of chin hair he has omitted to shave, which are moving in time with his mouth.
‘And I told George Briggs what I thought. Bloody Queen’s Counsel. How they lord it over us mere solicitors. Waste of a Monday morning.’
David wasted his morning too. He sat in his sunlit office with the insurance file on his desk, staring at its cover for hours, but seeing nothing. He needed to work things out in his head, but thoughts of his wife, her fresh face and her laughter, filtered in with the rays through the blinds.
‘Been to the doctor …’
He puts down his fork and looks at Charlie with surprise. Now that Charlie has mentioned it, he does seem pallid, his face puffy and sweaty.
‘Don’t say a word to Helen, it’s probably nothing. You know what these doctors are like, always protecting their own backs. That’s what insurance is for!’
Insurance, David thinks, loosening his tie. That’s nicely ironic.
‘My blood pressure and cholesterol are sky high, apparently. He’s given me some tablets, but he took an armful of blood for more tests and gave me a stern warning about lifestyle choices. You know the sort of rubbish they talk, less food, less alcohol, less stress. Hell, David, they’re the things I live for, so I’m not telling Helen and neither must you.’
David nods, but he’s meandered again. Ten-pin bowling, he’s thinking. He and Antonia went bowling on Saturday afternoon and then stayed in the complex to eat burger and fries. He’s nearly forty and he’d never been bowling before – and how Antonia had laughed. Like a girl. A beguiling girl he didn’t know.
‘And then there’s Rupert,’ Charlie continues, pouring more wine into David’s empty glass. ‘Helen thinks it’s normal to experiment, to misbehave, to be downright rude at times. But if anything is causing my blood pressure to reach boiling point, it’s him. We’ve got to meet the headmaster next weekend to convince the school why he shouldn’t be expelled before he sits his Michaelmas exams. My questions to him will be “Where the hell do the pupils get the drugs from? Why doesn’t the school do something about that?”’
David studies Charlie’s face. It has changed from a grey sweaty white to a livid red, all the way down to his thick neck, housed in a too-tight white collar.
Now is definitely not the time to confess, he thinks. It’ll just have to wait.
‘We’ve decided to go through with IVF again,’ Sophie says suddenly, pulling out the elastic band with some difficulty and then dragging her bitten nails through the thick mass of her hair.
Antonia raises her eyebrows but makes no comment. Nothing from Sophie’s lips surprises her any more and it’s best to allow her friend to spill it all out before making any remark. There are many occasions when Antonia is economical with the truth, or when she evades an answer by changing the subject, but Sophi
e can never hold anything in for long. As a child she was alarmingly honest about everything and everybody, her mum and her youngest brother targeted the most. ‘Your breath smells, Uncle Frank. That dress makes you look fat, Mum. You know Dad loves me more than you, don’t you, Harry? Does Grandpa have a foreskin?’ That was just family: girls and boys at school were easy meat. An older girl once cornered her in the corridor. ‘Do you know what a complete and utter cruel bitch you are?’ she asked. ‘No I’m not,’ Sophie replied fearlessly. ‘I’m just honest. If you don’t like it, get out of my way.’
Antonia never got out of Sophie’s way. Sometimes she dearly wishes she had. ‘You’re mixed race, Antonia. Or black if you like. So why don’t you just admit it? There’s nothing wrong with it.’ Honest or cruel, Antonia has yet to decide.
‘Don’t look at me like that, Toni,’ she now commands. ‘I know what you’re thinking, but Sami wants us to try one last time. You know what he’s like about family. Mother Martha had five kids and so she expects to have a hundred and twenty grandchildren or something. And if I’m up for all the prodding and poking, those bloody hormone injections …’
Antonia takes a breath. The real reason for Sophie’s infertility is the one secret she has managed to keep. It has to be said.
‘Sophie, why would you want to go through it again when you’re pretty sure it won’t work? Why put yourself through it? You hate hospitals! And it’s hardly fair to Sami, you’re giving him false hope.’
‘Oh shut up, Antonia.’
Sophie stands and paces, her hands on her hips and her eyes ferocious. ‘You really take your saintliness to extremes at times. Is there a Saint Antonia? Is that why you chose the bloody stupid name? Besides, you’re the one with the problem if you really think having a baby is a fate worse than death. Most normal women want a child, it’s what nature expects and I’m no different. You’re the bloody freak, not me.’
It’s ridiculous, Antonia knows, at thirty years old, but on these occasions she still wants to cry. Instead she stands, walks to the sink and turns on the tap. Sophie will never change; her best line of defence is to attack and the assault is invariably below the belt. But when it comes to babies, she doesn’t care whether Sophie thinks she’s unnatural or odd. She doesn’t have and never has had any desire to procreate. There are enough unhappy people in the world without adding to their number. David understands. She told him from the start she didn’t want children and he accepted it at face value, saying it was fine and that he’d have the snip. He’s never broached the subject again and never asked why.
Beneath the Skin Page 2