by Anna Maxted
We ascend mutely in the silver lift and walk into the bar. It’s full of bright polished faces and I wish I were any one of them. I’d be the piano stool if it meant escaping the cool hell of Saul’s placidity.
“Would you like a drink?” I mumble to his left nostril.
“A lemonade, thank you,” he replies. He nods toward some empty chairs. “I’ll get the table.”
I watch him stride toward it. He looks thinner in that dark suit. I pay for a vodka and cranberry juice and dream of escaping to a parallel universe.
“There you go,” I croak.
“I’m all ears,” says Saul.
I chew on my hair and tell him. As I speak I realize that Chris isn’t going to call and that I’ve been tricked into risking a perfectly workable relationship. Did I really think that a man who says “A little less conversation, a little more action, please” without weeping in shame at what he’s become, will call when he says he will? I hunch in my chair to ease the ache. I need you, Chris, I need to touch you, why am I never the one, why is it always like this? I remind myself that it serves me right and that Saul is good enough to be getting on with. I brace myself to be shouted at. I dread his rage, but anything is better than this terrifying anticipation. When 7:30 comes, I want to beg the waitress to let us share a table.
The witch seats us in a remote spot. Saul could decapitate me with the bread knife and no one would be the wiser. In fact, he cuts me off midconfession to order seared tuna and chat with the waiter about whether the French or California Chardonnay will do it justice. It’s a dead fish, I think, and you’re about to eat it. Poseidon leaping from the gents and spearing you through the heart would do it justice. I peer at Saul’s unreadable face and wonder if I have speared him through the heart. It’s his own fault for being so soft. He always rang when he said he would. Where’s the sexual tension in that?
But no sign of spinelessness now. He’s aglow with foreboding. I am too bunged up with fear to eat. I light another cigarette.
“Carry on,” says Saul. I kill my cigarette in the ashtray. I feel like a pumpkin farmer earnestly explaining my alien abduction to Dana Scully. At one point Saul touches me lightly on the arm, indicating that I should stop yapping for a moment while he asks the waitress to bring more pepper! I feel cheated. Yes, I feel cheated! Why isn’t he jealous? Why isn’t he turning green and howling at the moon? Am I so throwaway he barely cares if I cheat on him? What would Simon do if Babs cheated on him? Murder them both and go to prison, I’ll bet—that’s how much he loves her! I study my plate.
“Is there something wrong with your grilled sole?” Saul asks, making me itch to throw it at him.
“No,” I reply, hating the waver in my voice. “But it has a face and I’ve just gone vegetarian.” And he laughs.
“What?” I whisper.
Saul lays down his knife and fork. “Natalie,” he says soothingly, “it’s not a problem.”
“What’s not a problem?” I blurt.
Saul’s smile hovers between regretful and concerned.
“Well,” he replies, regarding me over an invisible pair of half-moon spectacles, “it’s not as if this relationship was anything serious.”
“What do you mean?” I say faintly.
“I mean,” says Saul, refilling my wineglass with a generous splash, “that our relationship was always a bit of fun, but the fun has petered out, and our relationship is now patently over.”
The grotesque four-letter word over resonates between my ears like the twang of a monstrous elastic band. Over. How can it be over? How can Saul be saying it’s over? He adores me! And since when was our relationship “a bit of fun”? It wasn’t fun!
“But…but—” My voice is out of batteries.
“Natalie,” continues Saul in the same cheery tone, “we both know that things haven’t been right for a while. Be honest. You’ve devoted so much time in the last few months to helping Babs prepare for her wedding that I’ve hardly seen you. And when I do see you, she’s all we talk about. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m a big fan of hers, she’s a smashing girl. But this never-ending chat about her relationship, it’s made me realize there’s no us. However”—a consoling pat on the hand for the loser—“if you want, I’d be happy to remain friends.” I am so shocked that my eyes itch. He’s so indifferent that he’s happy to remain friends!
“Chin up,” he murmurs. “This Chris of yours sounds like a good chap.”
I could burst out crying but I’m damned if I’m doing it in the Oxo Tower Brasserie. My suddenly ex pours me a tall cool glass of water and suggests that if I’m feeling “under the weather” perhaps he should call me a taxi. I nod snufflingly, and mutter that I’m going to the ladies’ to wash my face. Saul pauses for an appropriate second, then adds, “Now, are you going to eat that sole, or can I have it?”
“Cheer up, love,” says the cabbie, “it might never ’appen.”
I smile my gratitude for this fabulous rare jewel of insight and think, It just did.
I can tell he’s dying to talk at me, so I dig out my mobile and ring Tony.
“Speak,” he says imperiously. There is a fuzz of blurry chat and shrill laughter.
“It’s Nat,” I holler. “Saul just dumped me!” I await his condolences.
“What champagne you got, darlin’?” he says.
“What!” I squeak.
“Aw, floozie,” says my brother. “Bowcock was never going to set the world alight. You’ll have forgotten him by tomorrow. You’ll be fine. You always are.”
I nod gratefully into the phone.
“I wouldn’t tell Mum, though—she’ll be gutted,” adds Tony. “Keep the change.”
I sigh. “Thanks,” I say, beeping off.
I flop in my seat, and the cabbie says, “Hard day? You finished work, ’av ya? Day over for ya?”
I reply, “Not quite,” and ask if he wouldn’t mind taking me to Holland Park. Then I ring the speaking clock and affect animated chat. When the driver swerves to a sulky halt outside the smart green door, I shove notes at him and leap out. As I press the buzzer it strikes me I haven’t even checked if she’s in. When she opens the door in an apron I’m so relieved, I burst into the tears I prepared earlier.
“Oh my god,” gasps Babs. “What happened to your chin? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, but it’s all gone wrong!” I wail. “Chris hasn’t rung and I’ve just been dumped by Saw-haw-haw-haaul!”
I plan to sink weeping into her arms, but she pats me briskly and sidesteps my trajectory.
“Sorry for not ringing first,” I sniff, stumbling. “I was in a state.”
Babs looks at me. “You’re all right,” she says. “My hus band—oh, ha ha, I can’t get used to saying that—is playing rugby. My brother’s here though. Come in. Mind the boxes.” My pleasure at Simon’s absence is canceled out by Andy’s presence. I pick my way past the Kilimanjaro of Selfridges merchandise clogging up the hallway and follow Babs into her steel and wood kitchen. Andy sees my mascara-streaked face and leaps from his chair.
“Shall I go in the other room?” he says. I cover my chin with my hand and will Babs to say yes at the instant she says, “No.”
I ignore Andy and sit down.
“You look like you’ve just joined the SEALs,” he says in a remarkably ill-conceived attempt to cheer me up.
“No she doesn’t,” says Babs immediately.
“No you don’t,” agrees Andy, as my smile turns to mush. “I meant that your, um, eye shadow has run. I’ll be in the other room, shall I?”
He exits the kitchen at a swift trot. I glare after him. Babs prods lovingly at a slab of raw meat in a pan and says, “Andy’s a bit on edge right now.”
“Really. How strange, after a year’s holiday. I didn’t think you ate red meat,” I say, unwilling for the conversation to be diverted.
“I do now. Although this is for Si,” explains Babs. “He’ll be back any minute.”
I marvel that you ca
n know someone so well—think you can know someone so well—then be confounded by their choice of partner. They’re not who you thought they were after all. You’re not half as intimate as you so boldly presumed.
“Poor Andy. He’s staying with Mum and Dad. They’re driving him up the wall.”
“I thought he owned a flat in town,” I say impatiently.
“He rented it out while he was away,” she replies. “There’s still a few months left on the lease. He’s looking for a room to rent short-term, but London’s so pricey it isn’t true,” she adds.
I vaguely sense that Babs wants to communicate more than her words imply. I grope for a secret meaning but retreat empty-handed.
“Has he tried Streatham?” I say politely. By the look on her face, I have failed as a special agent. I feel hollow and awkward. I am the damsel in distress and I resent Andy’s trying to steal my conical hat with the floaty bit on top. He has short hair and it doesn’t suit him.
“Is he still upset about his fiancée?” I ask dutifully.
“He was a bit more than upset, Nat,” says Babs. “He and Sasha were together for three years.”
Yes, and my parents were together for sixteen years. Time for—as Matt would say—a two-faced moment. I heap my voice with hammy woe and sigh, “Poor Andy, it must have been so hard for him.”
Privately, I think it’s high time he relinquished his teen queen title. The big ballyhoo about Andy is that he was engaged to a girl who left him for another guy a month before their wedding. While this was certainly a great blow, he received lashings of sympathy and got to keep all the presents. Plus the minute she bailed, he quit his megabucks job as a broker, leased out his chrome-and-leather-stuffed penthouse in Pimlico, sold his Audi, and went on a twelve-month boo-hoo sunshine jaunt, working in beach bars, swimming with dolphins, no doubt beading his hair, and finding himself—what a martyr! The men I know find themselves by lolling on the sofa and sticking their hands down their trousers.
I can barely believe that the sympathy wagon still trundles on. If he were female, the world would be gleefully sorry for about a week, pompously urge him to get on with his suburban little life the next, all the while covertly fanning rumors that he was a shoddy cook and spent too much time furthering his career. If a woman bails she’s a hussy, while a bloke is practically encouraged to leg it. So Andy is treated like a big brave abandoned baby, whereas a jilted woman is tarnished, as if the man’s infidelity is her fault, no wonder he—
“So,” says Babs, handing me a cup of bionic tea, “Saul ditched you.” I’m unsure if her phrasing is compassionate, but decide not to question it.
“Babs,” I say, “you wouldn’t believe how nasty he was.”
“Would his nastiness have something to do with Chris, by any chance?” she replies.
I grit my teeth. “Possibly,” I say.
“Quelle surprise,” says Babs.
I stare at her. I feel like Julius Caesar with a knife in his back. Meanwhile, Babs is Brutus, watching me bleed to death with interest.
“Babs,” I squeak, “I have been binned by two men in one day!” I burble out the whole sorry tale (excluding the orgasm bit, as I don’t wish to detract from my grief). Babs’s mouth shrinks and shrinks until it becomes a chicken’s bottom. Then she says, “Awh, Nat, I’m sorry. But face it, Chris was a fantasy. Everyone flirts at weddings. You just took it a bit far. Si says Chris is notorious. When you’re driven by ambition or drugs—and Chris is driven by both—you are not reliable. You weren’t to know. You were tempted—we all get tempted, we wouldn’t be human otherwise. But you knew the risk. Bottom line, you cheated on Saul and he found out. What did you expect? I know we’ve had our laughs about Saul, but he’s not an idiot. Think how hurt he must be.”
Babs squeezes my arm and adds in a softer tone, “Come on, Nat. You know I adore you, and I hate to see you upset. But what do you expect me to say?”
I make a face and scan the room for a large purple hat, as she has obviously ordained herself archbishop without telling me. Even my mother in collaboration with the pope wouldn’t have the gall to come out with a sermon like that.
I blurt, “My life’s just fallen apart!”
Babs clunks her mug onto the table. “Your life hasn’t ‘just fallen,’ ” she says. “You dropped it.”
I want to speak but the words are gummed to the roof of my mouth. I stare at my bitter tea in its brittle new Wedgwood Jade thimble-size cup and wonder how to run away and retain dignity. To my amazement—I assumed she’d carve an A on my forehead and cast me out before I contaminated the marital home—Babs rises, bends, and hugs me. I clutch her.
“Give Saul time, Nat,” she murmurs. “He might come round.”
I nod and scream inside, “I don’t want him to come round! I want Chris! I don’t want you to be married either!”
What a brat. I tell myself not to be so silly and selfish. I am pleased for her. I’m just gutted for me. I smile at Babs and say, “You’re right. Thank you. And by the way, the new kitchen looks great. I, I like the way you’ve framed your seating plan.”
“Arr! Do you? You sweetheart.” Babs beams, and for a second she’s my old Babs again. Next thing I know, she’s trapped my shoulder in an iron squeeze, vanished and reappeared in the time it takes me to dab my eyes, and announced, “Andy’ll give you a lift home. You’re on his way.”
I don’t want to go home and I don’t want a lift from Andy. Yet here I am, rattling down Elgin Avenue in a tatty blue Vauxhall Astra, hoping no one sees me, and indulging Andy’s schoolgirl take on romance, which I’ll bet he purloined from an aged copy of Australian Cosmo. Here it is in all its glory:
“I reckon you should treat a new bloke like high-risk stock—you know, imagine your emotions are your savings. The best strategy is to invest 10 percent. Invest all your savings instantly and you’re stuffed!”
He’s been talking nonsense since Babs waved us off. I knew I was in for a long ride when he said, “So, Natalie. What do you do to relax?”
What a stupid question! “I go abroad for two weeks every summer,” I replied. (I wanted to add, “although Simon has recently pinched my hunting partner.”) Cue a lecture—if you can believe this—about yoga. Blimey. Being dumped by his fiancée really has hit him hard. And after nine minutes on the wonder of Sivananda yoga (apparently it’s not all about humming with your legs crossed), he suggested I find a relaxation technique—if not yoga, something “to take you out of yourself.” I’d barely grappled with this affront when he said, “I’ve got this picture in my head of you, Natalie, of when I last saw you. It must have been about four years ago. A load of us went go-carting with Babs, remember?—you were insane! You were going to be first round that track at all costs, and I can just see you, this blur in a white helmet and green overalls, screaming with laughter as you made the finishing line, and then running away from Babs, who was trying to spray you with diet Coke, you were a fast runner, and now, and now…you’re a different person. You seem so muted.”
So I reminded him that I’d just been involved in a multiple relationship pile-up and he had the gall to come out with the line about “high-risk stock”!
I look at his tanned face side-on and marvel at his short memory. So, St. Andrew, I want to say. You don’t remember. Babs’s fifteenth birthday party, kissing me numb in your parents’ linen cupboard (I’ve not looked at linen cupboards in the same way since), mumbling a stream of testosterone-fueled rubbish about me visiting you at college, you’d write, you’d phone, we’d go out, I’d stay over, I was so shy, but god I was gorgeous—I was fifteen, I believed you!—and so I waited and dreamed and planned my dress, and silence. I couldn’t tell Babs and I couldn’t tell Tony. Thanks, Andy, you lying git. That snog-and-go reverberated in my head for years. High-risk stock. I reply, “I think that’s so wise.”
Andy looks at me and laughs. “No you don’t,” he says—all green eyes and perfect skin. “What’s wrong, Natalie? You’ve been giving me the e
vil eye since the wedding.”
6
I WAS SUCH AN EASY CHILD, AS MY MOTHER NEVER tires of boasting to the dentist, the lady in the bank, Mrs. Parekh in the corner shop, the man in the post office, her fellow receptionists at the doctor’s office, and a great many other people who couldn’t give a toss. Tony—surprise!—was the difficult one, the baby who screamed so long and loud that my mother would often shut him in the front room and run to the end of the garden to stop herself from hitting him. Naturally we don’t talk about that, but I was told it once by an indiscreet relative. I suspect that my mother harks back so persistently because my failure to marry and spawn and shin up the career ladder without chipping my nails makes me less of an easy adult.
If she could see me right now she’d be more disappointed than ever. A perfectly good son-in-law has been wasted and instead of hurling myself on a burning pyre, here I am scuttling to the studio to watch Melissandra rehearse with a full-beam smile on my face because the man who displaced my prospective husband, the man who my great friend assured me was more likely to donate his penis to a sausage shop than call me, the man who constitutes a blatant misuse of my horizontal resources has just called me (better three days late than never) and we are meeting tonight. So there. Altogether, today is turning out to be an excellent day. The Italian State Tourist Board press office responded to my fax, and while the essence of their response was “pay for your own bloody jollies,” they were kind enough to pass on the number of L’azienda turistica di Verona. I am researching flight details and hotels and liaising with the Telegraph picture desk. Matt is delighted and I am teacher’s pet again. His pleasing verdict on the Saul and Chris saga was, “A person who dislikes animals is one step away from a serial killer.” (Saul was frightened of Paws.) Then he advised me not to call Chris until my scab cleared. But Chris called me and we are meeting at Poncho at 10:30.