by Simon Brooke
“This is on me.”
“Andrew, you’re the one who’s out of a job.”
“Yeah, but …” Hang on, we don’t want to go down this avenue, do we? She is looking at me expectantly. “Yeah, but I’ve still got my credit cards. Come on, we can get that number 22.”
We run and just catch it.
“Upstairs,” says Jane.
“At the front.”
We go to a little Italian restaurant at the end of the King’s Road and the manager, a huge man with suspiciously black hair and radiant body odour, makes a great play of finding us the last table in the garden. As we wait I realize how good it feels to be like a normal couple—girlfriend and boyfriend, husband and wife, rather than being surreptitiously scrutinized by other people as they try and decide whether we’re mother and son, aunt and nephew, boss and young exec, or something more exotic.
Finally seated amidst great ceremony with napkins and jolly laminated menus, we have oily, garlicky bruschetta and then pasta with tomato salad.
“It’s like being on holiday,” says Jane, looking round. Then she adds, “Christ, that’s just the sort of thing my mother would say.”
“Oh, oh. That’s the first sign. You’ll be dressing like her next.”
“I am. This is her dress.”
“Really? Shows how much I know about women’s clothes.” Actually I’ve learnt quite a lot recently, following Marion from shop to shop but I don’t want to think about that now.
“She’s got great taste,” says Jane, stabbing a piece of penne. “Except in boyfriends.”
“Yeah?”
“Nothing outrageous like drug dealers or toy boys,” I catch my breath but she continues unaware. I hope.
“But they never seem to work out and it’s so obvious why to everyone except her.”
“I think that’s quite fun. My mum and dad are depressingly happily married.”
“Oh mine only got divorced … what was it? Five years ago? Up to then everything was blissful. I remember thinking how boring it was when everybody else’s parents were splitting up and going off with other people. I used to make up stories about them having rows and throwing pots and pans around the kitchen. I told my friends they had a very tempestuous relationship—they hated each other but were yoked together by some deep-seated passion like the couple in Private Lives or something.”
“Bloody hell, that’s a good one.”
“Mm, I might write it up as a film script.”
“In the last scene they make love and then she dies.”
“Why not? Horribly.”
“Eaten alive by their pet piranhas.”
“Accidentally shot by one of his collection of eighteenth-century muskets.”
“Strangled by her scarf as she sets off in her sports car.”
“Anyway, then what happened? To your parents, I mean,” I ask, gesturing subtly but successfully (thank God!) to the waiter for another bottle.
“I came back from my first term at university and they said they were getting a divorce. They’d only stayed together for me and my brother and now we’d both left home they were going to go their separate ways.”
“That’s awful.”
“I was more surprised than upset. Anyway they seemed quite happy about it. We went out for a Chinese that night. Weird, like a celebration. They don’t live far away from each other now so it doesn’t make that much difference.” The waiter brings another bottle over and she watches him open it, smiling up at him when he refills her glass. I realize how nice it is to be sitting opposite someone who doesn’t feel the need to treat the waiter like shit. “My mum said she wanted to spread her wings so she moved three streets away.” We laugh and Jane shakes her head. “She’s hardly ever been away from Birkenhead in her life. She’s went to Malta three years ago and didn’t like the food. She’s only been to London twice and once was to stay with me last Christmas. She just walked around open-mouthed and kept talking about the price of everything and how many foreigners there were.”
“Just like my mum and dad,” I say. “It’s so embarrassing.”
“I thought you were from London,” says Jane, eyeing me suspiciously. Why do I always feel I’m on trial with her?
“No, who told you that? Vinny again?”
“Oh, I thought you said.”
“Vinny said, didn’t he?”
“No,” says Jane, opening her eyes wide. “Anyway, he said you’d been asking questions about me.”
“God, he’s a gossip, that boy.”
“He’s had a bit to gossip about.” I’m not sure what she means by this so I plough on. “No, I’m from Reading. But if you come from Liverpool, anywhere in the south counts as London, I suppose.”
“Patronizing bastard,” says Jane gently.
“It’s true. Reading’s about as cool and metropolitan as—”
“Liverpool?”
“Well …”
Jane has mock hysterics and then leans back in her chair and sighs contentedly. She looks around the restaurant while I look at her. Her smooth pale cheeks are slightly flushed with wine. She turns back to me.
“What you looking at?” she says, smiling slightly.
“Not much,” I say, smiling too.
“London’s mad, isn’t it?” she says.
“Mad?”
“Yeah, just like so different from where I grew up. It’s not just those twenty million pound houses you read about in the Standard and seeing famous people in the street—the kind of thing my mum loves to hear about, it’s, well …” Her voice drops to a whisper. “Look at those girls over there.” I take a casual glance around the garden and pause to see two pretty average Sloanes sitting behind us, talking about a wedding they’ve both been to. I look back at Jane and shrug my shoulders. She leans over to me and I catch another whiff of her perfume again.
“If those two went into the pub at the end of our road in Liverpool people would think they’d come from Mars,” she hisses. “Those accents, the pearls, the Alice bands,” she looks over my shoulder again to get a proper look, frowning with curiosity, “the stripy shirts with up-turned collars and I bet …” She drops her napkin on the floor and then leans down to pick it up very slowly. “I knew it—Gucci loafers on one and navy blue pumps on the other. If you’ve grown up in Liverpool and you suddenly see them they’re like creatures from another planet. If they tried to order a drink I don’t think the landlord would even understand them.”
“Is that why you moved to London?”
“Sloane spotting?” She freezes for a moment and then grimaces with embarrassment.
“What’s the matter?” I mouth.
“Shit, how embarrassing,” whispers Jane, trying not to giggle. “She turned round. Never mind. No, it’s just what Scousers do—move to London. It’s Liverpool’s biggest export, isn’t it? Its population.”
“So you came to London to make some money?”
She looks at me for a moment. “Er, no! Why do you assume everyone’s obsessed with money just because you are?”
“I’m not obsessed with it. I just want to—”
“Do anything you can to make a fast buck?”
“No, I’m just …” Yes, I suppose I do, that’s exactly it. Make some money quickly while I’m young enough and free enough to enjoy it. What’s wrong with that? Why is it worse than making a slow buck? But then I’m suddenly back in the Registry Office with Ana Maria. Poor Ana Maria, who just wants to stay in a country where they’ll let her clean toilets and scrub floors six days a week. I’m just doing Marion a small favour and in return she’s giving me a small amount of her money so that I can get a bit of leg up.
Jane is looking at me, curious, expectant. “Well I’m just fed up with being poor,” I say, exasperated at the simple prosaic truth. “With having to save up for things, do without things, feel guilty if I buy something, eat out, go on holiday. Work out if I’ve got enough to buy a new shirt. I’m fed up with watching the pennies. I want to have enou
gh money so I don’t have to think about it.” OK, fifteen grand won’t do that but it’s better than nothing.
“And that’s the most important thing to you?” asks Jane.
“It’s not money itself, it’s what it can buy.”
Jane laughs loudly. “That old one. I don’t believe you just said that.”
“And perhaps like most clichés, it’s true. I want the freedom money brings you.”
“And a BMW and a house in the Cotswolds is freedom?”
“Not those particular things necessarily. But I want to just be able to go out and get them if I want them.”
“A very materialistic type of freedom.”
“Not at all.” A potent mixture of passion and two bottles of Frascati means that we’re both talking loudly now but I don’t care. “I might just buy a small house somewhere warm and sit under a tree all day.”
“Very ambitious.”
“Oh, right. A moment ago you were accusing me of being a shallow, materialistic yuppie and now I’m a slob.”
“You certainly sounded like it, Mr. BMW. Perhaps I was wrong, though—perhaps you just aspire to being one of the idle rich. Much grander!”
“Fuck off.” She stares at me, surprised but not offended. “It’s all right for you being a woman.” At this her jaw drops in horrified amusement. “Oh, shut up. You don’t have to work. You don’t. Even these days, it’s perfectly acceptable for you to marry some bloke and let him pay for you.”
“Ha! While I lie on the settee watching Richard and Judy or having coffee mornings.”
“If you want to.”
“Oh, thanks.”
“Or you could concentrate on bringing up the children, or go to art classes or write a novel or do gardening or work for a charity—”
“While my husband provides for me?”
“Yeah, because at the end of the day he has to. Don’t you see? Even now, you’ve got the choice. I haven’t. I’m going to have to sell space or do something equally soul-destroying and brain-rotting in an office until I’m sixty-five and then watch telly in the afternoon and follow my wife around Sainsbury’s carrying the shopping bag and telling her to hurry up.” I have to say it: “Like my dad.” This last comment takes the wind out of her sails.
“You could look after the children while your wife works,” she says, unconvinced.
I snort cynically. “You’ve been reading our features section: ‘Andrew and Amanda live in West London. Amanda, twenty-seven, works in PR while Andrew, twenty-eight, looks after the couple’s two children, Lily aged one and, er, Lysander aged four.’ Picture of floppy-haired twat in Breton top with baby sling standing next to people carrier. I used to have to share the lift every day with the gormless, horse-faced Sloanes who write that shit.” I see from Jane’s face that the two specimens behind me must have turned round again. “Oh fuck off,” I mutter and we giggle like kids then we sit back in silence while I play with the remaining penne on my plate and Jane watches me.
She says, “God, you’re gorgeous when you’re angry.”
“Now who’s being patronizing?” We both sit back enjoying the effect of the wine and food and pondering on this little outburst.
“I’d better be going,” she says at last.
“Sure,” I say, sitting up and looking round for the waiter. “Sorry if I was a bit aggressive there.”
“No, don’t be,” she says, reaching across for my hand. “I like it when people are honest. What do they call it? A frank exchange of views.” She smiles wickedly.
“We certainly had that.” I catch the waiter’s eye. He smiles and nods and begins to make his way over.
“You’re very good at that,” she says.
“Good at what?”
“The restaurant thing. Catching the waiter’s eye, asking him what’s good today. All that stuff. I’m crap at it.”
“You don’t have to do it, you’re a girlie,” I explain sweetly.
“Any coffee, dessert?” says the waiter as he takes our plates.
“What about some zabaglione?” I ask Jane.
“Ooh, I love zabaglione,” she says.
I look up at the waiter and he nods and smiles.
“One? Two?”
“Just one and two spoons,” I say.
“God, I feel quite pissed after that,” I say almost to myself as we leave the restaurant.
“I don’t,” says Jane immediately.
“You must be, a bit.”
“No, I’m not,” she says boldly, walking along a line in the paving stones as if to make her point. “I could drink you under the table, you wuss.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
We continue in silence for a while.
“You’re living with her now,” asks Jane.
Oh, shit! “How do you know?”
“Well, you more or less said, and then I rang Vinny and he confirmed it.”
“Good old Vinny.”
“Don’t blame him.”
I have to answer the question she hasn’t asked, “I’ve just got no money and it’s a place to stay. She says nothing. “It’s just made me realize how wrong the whole thing is,” I say truthfully.
“Well, like I said, I’m not keen on playing the home breaker. It’s your decision,” she almost whispers.
“I’m going to end it. It’s crazy. I’ll live at home if necessary till I get another job.”
“Vinny says your room’s still free in Fulham,” she volunteers and then seems to regret it. “At least it was when I spoke to him.”
“I don’t deserve you, Jane,” I say, stopping and turning her to look at me. I touch her neck and ear.
“No, you fucking don’t,” she says.
When we arrive at the Tube station I lean down to kiss her on the cheek but somehow she moves or I change my angle of approach halfway through and our mouths meet. She tastes of garlic and wine and she smells of perfume mingled with warm skin. I pull her towards me. After what could have been three quarters of an hour we disengage. She is blushing slightly and rearranging her hair. I’m just staring at her.
Then she says, “Thanks. It’s been really nice.”
“Yeah, I’ll ring you at work.”
“Yes,” she says, but not enthusiastically. “Ring me when you’ve sorted things out.”
It’s not late when I get back—just after eleven. Marion is on the phone. All over the settee are bits of paper—sketches of dresses, photographs, pictures from magazines. She has obviously made sure her Personal Shopper earned her dinner. I take off my jacket and get a glass of mineral water from the cabinet by which time Marion has finished on the phone. She is staring at me.
“Hi, babe,” I say and make to kiss her. She offers her cheek and I know I am in trouble. Then I know why.
“How was Jack?”
How could she know?
“Fine. Why?” I mumble.
“Just wondered.”
“How was the Personal Shopper?”
“Don’t change the subject,” she says evenly. “We’re talking about your evening.”
“Oh, go on, then.” And she does. She walks over to the settee, shuffles about in the papers strewn over it for a while and then brings out a handful of Polaroid pictures. For a moment I think they must be something to do with the Personal Shopper but then she holds one up triumphantly, her eyebrows raised, quizzical and triumphant.
It’s a picture of Sloane Square Tube. I look at Marion. She looks down at the photo in her hand. I look at it again. It’s slightly blurred and taken at an angle but there we are: Jane, with me walking towards her, smiling. Marion holds up another—us kissing hello. Then another—us talking together, smiling again. And another—me pointing past the camera down the King’s Road. Finally we’re walking off together, Jane laughing.
“Where the hell did these come from?”
“Never mind. Why did you lie to me?”
I actually feel slightly sick—partly at being found out and partly at the t
hought of being spied on. They look like something from a News of the World exposé except that I’m in them.
“Oh, I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea.”
“What wrong idea?” snaps Marion. “You’re fooling around.”
“I am not. Jane is an old friend from college, like I said. I just said she was a bloke to stop you worrying,” I lie fluently.
“Stop me worrying?”
“Yes. You’re so paranoid. I told you—she’s just an old friend. We’ve known each other since we were at college. She’s like a sister, that’s all. Look, you can see—I’m just kissing her on the cheek.” I have a quick shuffle through the pictures to check that is all I’m doing to her. Marion seems at least halfway convinced. She snatches them off me.
“Why haven’t I met her?”
“You haven’t met any of my friends. You’re always telling me you don’t want to.” My turn to make it up as I go along.
“She’s quite pretty, even though I don’t know what she’s wearing. Is it Voyage?”
“What?”
“Voyage? That looks like a Voyage number.”
“I doubt it. I expect it’s a Top Shop number.”
“Where?”
“Exactly. It’s where girls from Reading get their clothes.”
“Mmm. I see.” She stares so hard at Jane that her face puckers up. I wonder whether Jane is shivering on the Tube. Then she looks at it again at a distance and looks at me suspiciously. I shrug my shoulders. “Let’s just hear no more of it.”
“OK. I’m sorry I lied to you,” I lie.
Marion takes my face in her hands. “I don’t want you to lie to me, Andrew. A relationship based on lies is no relationship at all. I discovered that from my husband.” She looks up at the ceiling. “Both of them, come to think of it.”
What about the others? I wonder.
“I know,” I say, looking at the Polaroids. What I really want to know is who took them.
After breakfast the next day Marion goes out for a cranial massage and Ana Maria goes out to Sainsbury’s so I dive onto the phone and ring Paperchase in Tottenham Court Road.
“Jane?”
“Hello?”
“It’s me, Andrew.”
“Hello.” She sounds pleased to hear from me.