If You're Not the One

by Jemma Forte

  Now she slipped away from the drawing room leaving her guests (not one of whom she considered to be a friend) to mingle, drink champagne and eat their canapés.

  Frankly she was grateful for an excuse to leave for a minute. Prior to Tim’s request/order she’d been struggling to make small talk with the wife of his financial advisor. At one point things had got so desperate they’d discussed whether or not children should be allowed to give up the piano or not for twenty-five minutes.

  Jennifer made her way through the corridors and into the spacious hallway, stopping only to check her appearance in a huge gilt-edged mirror which hung on one wall.

  She looked immaculate. Her hair had been blow-dried that afternoon into the look which tended to be preferred by the ladies of Notting Hill and Chelsea. It was big, slightly stiff but with a wave at the bottom. Very Kate Middleton. She was wearing a new silk shift by Stella McCartney which probably wasn’t quite conservative enough for Tim’s tastes but which she loved, with some gorgeous Marc Jacobs heels. Her skin was looking far younger than her thirty-eight years due mainly to some expertly injected Botox and aided by monthly facials. She looked rested, slim, toned and totally dead behind the eyes.

  Her phone vibrated in her pocket. It was a text, one which improved her mood beyond measure. It was the fix she needed and she responded quickly before continuing her way to the staircase which led down to her vast kitchen. So vast in fact, it actually took up the basement floor of the entire house and was larger than most people’s flats.

  Downstairs, their chef, Joe, and two of the waiting staff were milling around, engaged in one activity or another.

  ‘Hello Jennifer, everything all right?’ asked Joe, treating her to a big friendly grin. He’d been with the family for four and a half years now.

  ‘Fabulous thanks. The quail eggs are disappearing at a rate of knots as are those homemade cheese straws.’

  ‘Oh good, that’s what I like to hear.’

  ‘I’m here to ask if you’d mind awfully going to the cellar and grabbing another bottle of the Montrachet for Jeremy? You know Jeremy, the one who’s got a face like a side of beef.’

  ‘I do indeed,’ laughed Joe.

  ‘I can get it if you want,’ offered one of the young waiters.

  ‘No, don’t you worry,’ insisted Joe. ‘The starter’s all plated up so I’m fine to go. Besides, it’s best to make sure we open the right one eh? Some of those bottles are worth more than you’ll earn in a year, young man.’

  ‘Thanks Joe,’ said Jennifer, leaving them all to it and clip-clopping out of the kitchen and back upstairs.

  Back in the hallway she hesitated for a fraction of a second, checking to make sure no one was around. Then, certain she was alone, instead of making her way back to the party she turned left, heading with purpose towards the rear of the house and ultimately the largest of their three sitting rooms. She closed the door quietly behind her and picked her way across the room stealthily to the French doors which led out onto the garden, one of the largest in London. The striped, immaculate lawns almost went on for as far as the eye could see and the rest of the garden had been designed as if it belonged to a stately home with lots of topiary and neat beds which were completely colour co-ordinated. Despite having four children there wasn’t a plastic slide in sight.

  Jennifer ventured out onto the flagstones and tiptoed along the side of the house until she came to another door which was slightly ajar. As soon as she reached it a hand appeared and yanked her inside.

  She immediately giggled and felt a lurch of happiness and desire as those same hands drew her in and then started to explore every inch of her body.

  ‘Oh my god you feel so good in this dress.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Yeah, you look amazing in it too. Absolutely gorgeous.’

  ‘Oh, I do love you,’ she gasped, her heart full to the brim with love and lust. How was it even possible to feel this turned on so quickly?

  ‘I love you too, gorgeous girl,’ said Joe, his hands everywhere, his mouth in her hair, kissing her face, her neck. ‘What’s the situation later?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said doubtfully. ‘You know how he gets at these things, he’ll probably be up till five am, talking utter shit, but if I can come and see you I will. I’ll have to play it by ear.’

  ‘Please try,’ groaned Joe, pulling her into him ‘I’ve missed you so much it’s ridiculous. It’s been far too long since I’ve had my lovely girl lying next to me.’

  ‘I know, you don’t need to tell me,’ said Jennifer, wide-eyed. ‘I’ve been pining for you the whole time.’

  ‘But if you can’t get away, no worries my love, I don’t want it to be a stress.’

  ‘OK, speaking of which, how long have I been?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ said Joe, pulling away, but stroking her face so tenderly she experienced the most enormous pang for him. His expression was pained, par for the course these days. Their affair was getting harder and harder the deeper they fell.

  ‘I love you,’ she said for the second time, meaning it passionately.

  ‘I love you too, little squidger,’ said Joe, his Yorkshire accent such a contrast from Tim’s clipped public school tones. Then again everything about him was.

  ‘Don’t forget the wine,’ she whispered, tearing herself reluctantly away and back outside.

  ‘I won’t,’ he said, disappearing back towards the cellar.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ asked Tim five minutes later, having spotted her as soon as she’d reappeared in the drawing room. ‘I asked you to get more wine, not drive to France and stamp on the grapes yourself.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she replied. ‘I was just making sure everything’s under control for dinner. I think we should start thinking about getting everyone into the dining room. Otherwise we won’t be eating till ten.’

  ‘Right you are.’

  As the evening progressed, Jennifer’s mood took a serious nosedive.

  She did her best to be engaging, to be the perfect host, but her heart wasn’t in it. It wasn’t even in the same room. It was languishing downstairs in the kitchens where Joe was of course. She played with her food. Joe had cooked the most incredible rib of beef which he’d served with creamy artichoke mash, perfectly cooked vegetables and a fricassee of mushrooms that was out of this world. But she had no appetite. The latest anti-depressant she’d been prescribed made her feel permanently a bit wired and not for the first time she wondered if they were a waste of time. Was she actually clinically depressed? She was starting to doubt it gravely because she never felt even remotely miserable when she was alone with Joe. Quite the opposite. And yet for years doctors had told her she had depression when in fact there was a distinct possibility she’d just been fed up, bored or in a bad mood.

  For what felt like the thousandth time that hour her thoughts returned to the man who had been her best friend for two years now and her lover for seven months; seven amazing, painful, confusing, sad, yet unbelievably golden months. Since having Joe in her life she’d reassessed everything. She was permanently saturated in intense stress and guilt, not surprising given that she was committing adultery, and yet also felt more herself than she had in a long while.

  Joe, it seemed, was her soul-mate, her rightful other half, but while that bit was clear, the situation was so complicated. For both of them.

  Joe was a good man, for whom sleeping with someone else’s wife had never been the plan. He’d fallen hard and was never going to be satisfied simply with being Jennifer’s bit on the side. The two of them were smitten, utterly and hopelessly in love to the point of obsession. Every meeting was tinged with tragedy, with worry about the future and with deep frustration. Whenever they had sex, the strength of her feeling meant she always ended up in tears at the end because she was in a terribly painful quandary. If she were to leave Tim she’d be breaking up her family, turning her back on a man who may be flawed but had always stuck by her. She’d be doing the ‘wron
g’ thing no matter how right it felt and would be losing everything familiar to her. If she stayed however, she’d ultimately lose Joe and that was too unbearable even to contemplate.

  The situation was starting to make her feel ill. Having to decide whether or not to leave the father of your children was excruciatingly hard. She’d also been with Tim since university and to this day people constantly told her how ridiculously lucky she was to have landed him. As if she was almost a booby prize by comparison. Then, of course, there was the lifestyle she enjoyed, the money. Tim had made her sign a prenup and being the romantic idiot she was she’d agreed happily, wanting to prove the point that she wasn’t with him for his cash.

  Now, as much as Joe told her there were more important things in life than money she had her children to think of and was unable to comprehend how she would cope, having been dependent on Tim for so long. Was she mad for even considering leaving him? Look what she’d be giving up? She glanced around the opulent dining room, the work of an over-enthusiastic interior designer desperate to justify his grotesque fee and the bunch of corpses who were sat around the Louis XVII table. On second thoughts…

  ‘So tell me Jennifer, what are your plans for the summer?’ asked Maurice Fellowes, one of the largest shareholders of reUNIon who Tim had cruelly placed her next to.

  Maurice was quite literally the short straw from what was already an unbearably tedious crowd. In fairness, not all the entertaining they did was quite this bad. Sometimes they had uproarious dinner parties with clever, creative people. People who had helped make reUNIon what it was or others whom they simply knew for social reasons. However, these days reUNIon was only a fraction of the business which Tim was involved with and it seemed to Jennifer the more money you accrued, the more you were obliged to socialise with people you wouldn’t ordinarily give the time of day to if you were skint and didn’t need to.

  ‘Well, we’re going to our place in the South of France as soon as the children break up and then, at the end of August, Tim and I leave them there and we go to the Earl of Bradwick’s boat. You know Bradwick I’m sure?’

  ‘Oh yes, frightfully nice chap.’

  Jennifer smiled pleasantly, wishing she could think of a reason to go and see Joe in the kitchen. The thought of being separated from him for a whole summer was unbearable. She was already determined to concoct some story so she could return to the UK for at least a week. He’d asked her to come to Yorkshire with him and there was nothing on earth she would rather do than spend time hidden away in a little cottage with him. It would be heaven. By contrast, the prospect of spending weeks in luxury with Tim was one that filled her with nothing but a sense of dread and foreboding.

  She sighed heavily.

  ‘So what are you and Margaret doing for the summer, Maurice?’ she asked politely, despite the fact she couldn’t give even the smallest of shits.

  ‘We’re braving Cornwall, and just praying it doesn’t rain like it did last year.’

  How brave, thought Jennifer wryly, fully aware that the house they owned there was more like a castle and was fully staffed. She was pretty sure they’d survive.

  ‘And then we’ll be going on to Tuscany where we shall stay until the end of September, which is always the nicest month there I find. This is excellent meat by the way. Wonderful food, you’re a marvellous host Jennifer.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. As it occurred to her then that he’d just complimented Joe’s meat it made her laugh inside. She wondered briefly if that made her a very sordid individual.

  Urgh, what she wouldn’t give for a normal night out. With normal people. Thank god she still had Karen, Lucy and Esther in her life, although even with her old friends, having so much money still sometimes created problems, no matter how hard they all tried to pretend it didn’t. Not for her. She couldn’t care less about it and would gladly have given them all as much as they wanted. Writing cheques meant nothing to her and if paying meant they all got to do things together she was more than happy to facilitate that. But her friends had their pride, and how much generosity it was appropriate to accept was one of the things Karen found particularly tricky to handle. As a result it was often them, as opposed to her, who were guilty of making an issue out of her wealth. Sometimes they didn’t include her in stuff because they assumed she’d turn her nose up at it, when actually she would have loved to have been invited. At other times, when she invited them to events or to come abroad with her and Tim, they couldn’t necessarily afford the flights or the spending money that was required but didn’t know how to tell her without it sounding like they wanted her to cover it. The one saving grace was that every April, without fail, they allowed her to pay for the four of them to go on a girls’ skiing trip. It was always the best week of her entire year.

  Her phone vibrated in her pocket. Expertly she managed to slip it out and onto her lap, her gaze never leaving Maurice’s rheumy eyes as he blathered on about restaurants in Tuscany and how much he loved peasant food.

  As soon as she thought she could get away with it, for a mere second, her eyes flickered onto her lap. The text read ‘Hello sexy. Hope you’re not bored rigid. Have put something special in Tim’s dessert. Hopefully see you later xxx’

  WEDNESDAY

  ‘Why does everything in life have to arrive ruddy flat packed?’ swore Max, who was struggling to make sense of the instructions he was holding. Not surprising given he was staring at the section which was written in Swedish.

  ‘It can’t be that hard,’ said Jennifer.

  ‘Eurgh,’ said Max, which didn’t mean much but was simply an expression of how hung-over he was feeling. Last night Ted had come round to keep him company (to watch Sky Sports) while Jennifer was out with the girls, and between them they’d managed to get through more beer and red wine than was probably necessary. Apart from a bit of a furry mouth he hadn’t felt too bad at work, but the hangover had finally caught up and now he was severely regretting his ill-advised decision to embark on a major bit of DIY. The fact that Jennifer had predicted that precisely this would happen only made matters worse.

  Meanwhile, Polly and Eadie were watching agog, thrilled because they knew full well that whilst bedtime might be imminent it would also be impossible due to the chaos in Polly’s room. There were bits of wardrobe everywhere, plus the contents of Max’s tool box all over the floor.

  ‘Yeah, come on Daddy,’ joined in Polly now. ‘It can’t be that hard.’

  ‘When I need your opinion…’ he said, frowning at her. ‘Christ Jennifer, in future perhaps we should pay a bit more for furniture so that it doesn’t need making entirely from scratch.’

  Jennifer was livid. ‘Er, hang on a minute, the reason I went out of my way to drive all the way to flipping Brent Cross to get this was because you moaned so much when the last credit card bill came in. I thought you wanted us to cut back!’

  ‘If I moaned it was only because you spent fifty pounds on your mother’s birthday present,’ Max muttered, refusing to catch her eye. He knew how inflammatory this comment would be.

  ‘You’re out of order,’ seethed Jennifer.

  Max just shrugged.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I treat my mum on her birthday? And why should I be made to feel guilty every single time I buy something from our joint account?’

  ‘And why haven’t I got any furniture for my room?’ piped up Eadie, looking miffed.

  ‘Because you don’t need it,’ said Jennifer, taking a monumentally huge deep breath to bring her temper down. ‘You’ve got a whacking great wardrobe in your room and poor old Pol has had to make do with no hanging space at all until now.’

  ‘Hold that a minute, Jen,’ said Max, still looking flummoxed. ‘I think this screw needs to go in there.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘No, but at this point I can’t stare at these stupid indecipherable things any more and you never know it just might be worth a go, so humour me.’

  Jennifer rolled her eyes.

  �
��What?’ snapped Max.

  ‘OK,’ said Jennifer, growing tired of the grumpy tone of voice he was using with her. ‘Firstly I’m wondering why you have to do this now when the girls need to get to bed, when it could easily wait until the weekend, and secondly I’m still furious that you’re making me feel bad for spending fifty quid on my mum when she’s helped us out so much lately. And thirdly I was just thinking how quickly Steve would have had these up.’

  This last comment was a reference to her ex which she was confident her husband would find amusing. She’d made her point so now hoped to cajole him out of his mood with a private joke.

  She couldn’t have been more wrong. At first he just gave her a look and a faint smile but seconds later, once he’d had the chance to fully digest what she’d said, he retaliated in a way which seemed really uncalled for.

  ‘As it happens I’d rather get this out of the way, as opposed to spending my day off on Saturday doing it, and with regard to Steve, we can’t all be good at everything,’ he said, looking decidedly pissed off. ‘Just as you aren’t a breadwinner like Judith for example, I’m not good at sodding DIY. Though if you would rather be with someone who is, perhaps you should look Steve up and tell him you’re on the market. I’m sure he’d leap at the chance to meet up.’

  ‘All right,’ said Jennifer, stung by his hurtful words. ‘There’s no need to jump down my throat. I was only joking. Usually you’re always up for a laugh about Steve. And there’s no need to bring up frigging Judith’s name or to pit me against that silly witch. Or to point out I’m not a “breadwinner”. That’s just nasty. And if that’s what you want then perhaps you shouldn’t have made me feel so guilty about wanting to have a career.’