by Sarah Long
How easy this was – how true it was that a problem shared was a problem halved. He should have told Laura sooner, but good God, if she had come on to him earlier the way she had today in the kitchen he wouldn’t even have looked at another woman. She was responsible too. If she hadn’t become so mumsy and domesticated, he wouldn’t have fallen into Flavia’s man trap.
He nuzzled up to Laura.
‘I was a fool. I love you and I will never leave you.’
FOURTEEN
On the day of the school Christmas party, tensions were running high among the Full-Time Mothers. Busy, busy, busy was the message they sent out as they ferried cardboard boxes into the school hall, rolling their eyes at each other and exchanging grim little smiles. Look at us, they were saying, martyrs to the cause.
At the de Saint Légers’ apartment, Laura and Lorinda were sitting at the dining table putting the final touches on their home-made decorations for the British stand. Discarded tubes of glitter-glue littered the parquet, along with scraps of green and red paper, the fall-out from their decorative holly frieze. Lorinda was grumbling about the ruthlessly secular approach the school took towards Christmas.
‘How can you have Christmas without a Christ child? Mary and Joseph and that little baby, that’s what it’s all about. It’s so barren seeing those kids singing “Jingle Bells” instead of proper Christmas carols.’
‘You know why – it’s out of respect for all the different religions. If you wanted a Christian school you should have chosen one,’ said Laura.
‘I don’t want a Christian school, I just want to see a nativity play. I want that heart-stopping moment of seeing my little Mathilde dressed up as the Virgin Mary cuddling a swaddled doll.’
‘She probably would have been just a shepherd, and you would have been bitter and twisted. At least this way you won’t think she has been slighted – there are no star roles in singing “Jingle Bells”. But I know what you mean.’
Laura, too, would have loved to see her children immersed in a proper Christmas play, in a little village hall, on a rickety stage, watched by young and old, and followed by sherry and mince pies. It was part of the nostalgic fantasy of the life in England she had renounced when she agreed to follow Jean-Laurent to Paris.
‘We should have married Englishmen and retired to the country to make jam,’ she said, entering one of Lorinda’s and her favourite games.
‘And grow prize-winning chrysanthemums.’
‘Raise money for the Church roof.’
‘Make home-made chocolate cakes in the Aga.’
‘Wear size sixteen floral dresses.’
‘And put on all the jewellery we own for our annual trip to town with our old padded-shoulder suits from our glory days as career girls.’
‘Instead of which we are city housewives – edgy, sassy, sophisticated.’
‘Sad. Except for you, of course, with your glamorous lover and trips to exotic hotels.’
‘Lorinda, please don’t remind me. I’m trying to put that dismal little episode behind me. Number 73. How humiliating is that!’
‘Not at all humiliating – it served its purpose. Look at you and Jean-Laurent – you’re happier now than you’ve ever been.’
It was true, of course. They had never had such good sex, and Laura knew this was because it was spiced with the danger of betrayal and deception. It was hard to get excited about an old pair of slippers that nobody else would want to wear, and her new enjoyment of her husband’s body was interlaced with images of him with Flavia. It was also enhanced by her own short-lived adultery; a secret that gave her an added thrill, a power over her unknowing husband.
She had seen Antoine just once since their return from Thailand. He had been regretful, slightly offended, but had suffered only a light scratch to his self-esteem. They had lunched at the Ritz, though the room upstairs had remained unused. There had been no poetry recitals – she had forfeited the right to hear his wonderful voice delivering words of love from Marivaux. He understood her decision to end the affair, although he felt she was giving into the pedestrian side of her that wanted to stamp out anything beautiful and life-enhancing and plod on in the dreary furrow of normal married life. But that was how she was. He had always felt that her love-making was overlaid – please don’t take this as a criticism, Laura – with a rather unappealing grey Protestantism.
Laura had choked on her truite chablisienne at the idea of herself lying in bed wearing a Lutheran dog collar. Was it his experience, then, that Catholics were better in the sack? How many other proddy dogs did he count amongst those seventy-two lucky women? He had winced at the crudity of the question as though that just about proved his point, and said that she was lacking a certain willingness to abandon practical considerations to the realms of fantasy, and he didn’t know if this was to do with religion or was more simply une question d’éducation et de sensibilité. It had been tempting to ask where he would rate her in his list of seventy-three, but luckily for her dignity she had managed to keep her silence.
‘Time to go, then,’ said Laura. ‘We don’t want PTA Paula getting her knickers in a twist.’
They packed up the holly frieze into a cardboard box, together with the Santa Claus poster and a couple of rolls of red and green crêpe paper, and took the coffin lift down to the ground floor.
‘I feel almost festive,’ said Lorinda as they climbed into the Renault Espace. ‘Have you got the sherry?’
‘Chin Chin,’ said Laura, waving a bottle. ‘Croft’s Original, since we’re sophisticated types. And that enormous Christmas cake, which is bound to hang fire, don’t you think? I for one will be straight over to the Japanese table. I’d much rather get stuck into sushi than a great heavy slab of cold fruit cake.’
‘Handy for climbing mountains, though. A slice of that could keep you going through the nastiest blizzard.’
‘Unlikely in Paris.’
The weather was in fact remarkably clement. The sun was shining down on the river as they drove over the bridge – they could see tourists on the decks of the bateaux mouches. With the blind faith of the five-year-old, Pierre-Louis was convinced it would snow on Christmas day, but Laura didn’t hold out too much hope for him.
When they arrived at the school, they found PTA Paula standing on the street, fuming into her mobile phone.
‘At last you’re here. Where were you? I was just trying to call you. I really had to fight to keep the pitch for the British table – we’re next to Scandinavia and they arrived hours ago!’
‘Don’t say the British territory has been overtaken by Viking marauders?’ said Laura, irritated into levity.
‘It’s not funny, Laura, this event has been a nightmare to organise, and it’s not fair to let everyone down by rolling up late.’
‘Paula, it’s three o’clock,’ said Laura, ‘You can’t think it’s going to take us three hours to hang up a few sad decorations?’
‘They’d better not be sad! You’re through the main hall, first room on the left, as long as no one has pinched your table.’
She flounced off, muttering darkly into her walkie-talkie.
‘Can you believe it?’ said Lorinda. ‘She’s mental.’
‘The whole point of not working, as I see it,’ said Laura, ‘is that you free yourself from stress. But they can’t stand it, these women, they can’t stand not having stuff to worry about, so they create stressful situations. When you think of all that energy in there, all those capable women now engrossed in decorating tables and organising who’s going to bring what. This is supposed to be fun, for God’s sake, for the kids, and it always turns into a hysterical female hormone crisis!’
Lorinda was laughing now. ‘Come on, Laura, you’re becoming as bad as them. Let’s go in and cut you a nice slice of Christmas cake, that’ll calm you down.’
‘I mean it, Lorinda, they are all mad. They should get a life. Get a job, do something.’
‘They do do something – they’re bringing up the
ir kids. Like you and me.’
‘But all this PTA nonsense hasn’t got anything to do with bringing up their children, it’s just something to keep them busy, to make them feel needed.’
‘Hey,’ said Lorinda in her faux American accent, ‘we all need to feel needed, honey.’
‘Well I don’t. Not in that way. I just can’t stand the idea that I’m “filling my time”.’
‘So why don’t you fill it properly if that’s how you feel? Why don’t you go back to work?’
‘It’s funny you should say that,’ said Laura, ‘because that’s exactly what I’ve been thinking. I’ve had enough of being a little Homebody.’
How did you get rid of a mistress you no longer required? The question was uppermost in Jean-Laurent’s mind as he parked the Porsche behind the marché Saint Pierre and began the slow climb up the slopes of Montmartre.
Under normal circumstances he would have gone for the cold shoulder treatment – don’t return the calls, suddenly become unavailable. She knew the rules; she would have got the message. But getting rid of an unwanted mistress who was carrying your child was an entirely different matter. Suddenly you became the complete bastard, the heartless seducer of hapless maidens, even though anyone could tell that he was the victim here, the stooge taken advantage of by a cunning and fecund courtesan.
In his dreams he had imagined a trap door opening up on a stage and swallowing Flavia as she stood holding her dolly-sized infant, its face mercifully hidden from sight. If only it could be like that. A puff of smoke and – whoosh! – the problem swooping out of his life for ever.
Then he had had other, darker fantasies: Flavia slipping under an oncoming train in the metro, or plunging to her death in a suicidal leap from her apartment window (unlikely as she was only on the first floor), or dying from an infection after visiting a back-street abortionist, though this obviously belonged to the pre-feminist era.
In reality, she had simply called him to suggest they meet to discuss matters, and he had agreed. Laura knew about it, of course – the last whiff of secrecy had been dusted off the affair, stripping it of all mystique. No longer the light-footed lover, he was now a man burdened by his responsibilities, facing up to the consequences of his actions. No wonder his steps were heavy as he turned into her street and rang the intercom.
Flavia was polite and cool. She sat him down and explained her position. She had loved him, she had genuinely believed they had a future together and there had been nothing in his behaviour to suggest the contrary. When she had come to that dinner party at his home, she had seen it as a subconscious desire on his part to bring her into the intimate focus of his home life, to see how her stellar presence would cast a shadow on his nice, but let’s face it rather uninspiring, wife. She had conceived a child because she thought it was the natural evolution of their relationship, the affirmation of their shared future.
‘But I realise now, Jean-Laurent, that I have made a mistake. I have overestimated you.’
She was standing by the window, her mood well this side of suicidal, he was relieved to see.
‘You are not quite what I had hoped, and my disappointment in your reaction to news of my pregnancy – our pregnancy, if I may put it that way – only confirms my suspicions. You are more ordinary than I had hoped, and I think that on reflection you probably only deserve the wife you already have. I have therefore decided to absolve you from all responsibility for my baby. I intend to move to New York and raise my child as an American. I will be a successful single parent. There are plenty of role models – Liz Hurley, Jodie Foster, Calista Flockhart. And now Flavia Fernandez.’
As easy as that? Jean-Laurent could hardly believe his luck. He restrained the impulse to whoop loudly and punch the air, and nodded gravely instead.
‘I respect your decision, Flavia. I am sorry you feel I have disappointed you. I never pretended to be anything other than what you saw, but maybe you hoped there was more there than there was.’
She smiled ruefully. ‘I loved you, Jean-Laurent. But I realise now that I was loving you reactively That book you gave me, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, explains it so clearly. Reactive people make love a feeling, they think they have no control over it. That is so feeble. Proactive people make love a verb. I am proactive, and I have decided not to love you. I will find someone else to love, someone more deserving of me.’
Good old Stephen Covey! How could he ever have doubted his pet guru! And what unexpected good luck that he should have bought a copy for Flavia at the height of their affair, when sex was often preceded by a warm-up session of reading pornographic snippets from business books.
He stood up. Quit while you’re ahead – he was sure that was the route to take.
‘You’ll be a great success in New York. I really do wish you all the best.’
He awkwardly reached across and kissed her on the cheek. She held his arm briefly then released it and gazed out of he window, out into her golden future, entranced by the vision of herself as a young, beautiful, successful woman with her perfect baby. She need not worry about turning thirty now; the baby thing would have been done and dusted.
‘Goodbye then.’
He almost skipped back to the Porsche.
Drained and depressed after the Christmas party, Laura had seen the light. The departure of Asa had thrown her headlong into the horror of 24/7 childcare, and the sight of her kitchen with its greasy litter of yoghurt pots and biscuit wrappers was enough to convince her. If she wished to remain sane she had only one option, and that was to get back to work.
Her desk was covered with copies of her CV, rewritten several times in increasingly glowing terms. The final version was, she felt, irresistible. How could anyone not want to employ this person whose rich life experience was equalled only by her faultless qualifications and professional success? True, there had been a bit of a hiatus on the professional front, which was where the life experience section came in, in an attempt to fudge the fact that she hadn’t done anything for years except for go to the gym and attend too many school functions. And change her hair colour and have sex with an endocrinologist. But overall her achievements over the past five years could best be summarised as a profit and loss sheet. On the plus side, she had gained two stone, and in the minus column, she had undergone a substantial loss of mental agility. Credit and debit – it balanced up nicely.
On the CV, of course, it had to be phrased rather differently, and she was pleased at how well she had succeeded in dressing up these idle years as a rich period of cultural study, of broadening her horizons, extending her fields of knowledge. She had, after all, realised the busy working person’s dream in achieving the freedom to move abroad, go to museums, read extensively, live life to the full instead of being chained to a desk.
Except it didn’t feel that way. She had once read that no one died wishing they had spent more time in the office. Not true. If she was run over tomorrow she would regret having missed out on so much of the camaraderie and rivalry that made up office life. She wanted a jokey mug of coffee on her desk and people to have lunch with. She wanted long days when the only sighting she had of her children was via a silver-framed photo of the little darlings, smiling up at her adoringly. All that lovely adult-only time.
She would miss them, of course, and look forward to seeing them when she got in, and spending every minute of the weekend with them. It wasn’t like she was packing them off to boarding school for weeks at a stretch. True, she had enjoyed the luxury of time spent with them over the last five years. Hours and hours of slow-moving solitude. The deadening routine, the lack of adult stimulation. How much time did you need to spend with them anyway? And how interesting could you be to other people when your conversation was centred on small children and the shadowy world of those women who surround them?
She remembered an off-the-cuff remark of a friend who had said she would never give up work because she would be terrified of having nothing to say for herself. The frien
d had realised her gaff immediately and set about backtracking, saying how in Laura’s case it was quite untrue, but the damage was done and they hadn’t been in touch since.
Laura printed out ten more copies of the story of her life, edited version. At least she was the right side of forty. Bad enough to be climbing off the scrap heap at her age, but a few more years down the line and it would be out of the question. After the menopause it seemed you put on two pounds with every year, which would soon leave you permanently beached. You wouldn’t have the agility to hop off the old bag waste pile.
Should she attach a photo to show how un-old-bag-like she was? Probably not; she wasn’t applying to be a call girl, after all. An interesting signature together with her wide-ranging list of hobbies should be enough to show how she had a bit more personality than your average unemployed ad executive.
She sealed the envelopes and swept them into her handbag. Soon she would be joining the real world. She would be able to complain about her journey to work, lament the lack of consideration for working mothers, smugly read articles about women performing miraculous juggling feats of home and office and children. She would be born again. Arbeit macht frei, work sets you free, that maligned Nazi slogan, would become her mantra.
FIFTEEN
‘Hallo, my darling; I love you.’
Jean-Laurent had his feet up on his desk and was on the phone to his wife. He could be forgiven for feeling rather pleased with himself. To be let off the hook by the mistress and readmitted so amorously into the richness of married life was more than he deserved. Well, maybe not, he was pretty special – no wonder Laura would want to keep him at any cost – but he really couldn’t believe that things were turning out so well for him. And now he was being summoned for a meeting with the European chairman, which was why he had called Laura, to share with her his excitement about what this could mean.