“Aaaaarggh, how do you do it, mate – listening to a bunch of screaming six-year-olds all day?”
Although he never dared say it, I knew that Will viewed teaching as a woman’s job and couldn’t understand why a man would choose to do a job working with children.
“It’s not that bad,” Ben said.
“Listen, I have one six-year-old at home and it’s more than enough.” He took another gulp of wine, then clicked his fingers at a passing waitress and pointed to the bottle on the table, which was running low. Everything about Will, all his mannerisms and actions, were fast. “But I suppose the holidays help. Imagine that, Nat,” he turned to elbow her, “imagine having six weeks off in the summer on full pay? It’s some life.” He lifted his glass again.
I reached for Ben’s hand under the table and gave it a squeeze.
Will picked up the wine bottle and filled his glass with what was left. I wasn’t drinking and Ben and Nat still had half-full glasses. I continued my conversation with Nat but from the corner of my eye I saw Will lean in conspiratorially to Ben.
“Listen, mate, enjoy your last few months of freedom while you can. Don’t get me wrong, I love my three boys to death, but sometimes I miss that freedom of being able to do whatever it is you want to do, y’know?” He sounded melancholy as he raised his glass to his lips and gulped back the red wine. “Once kids come along, your life will never be the same again . . .”
I could see Ben biting his tongue. The cheek of him to blatantly talk about his family like that – yet sit here with Nat and not even bat an eyelid.
After our starters were eaten, and having drunk a good bit more wine, Will pushed his chair back from the table and relaxed back on the seat. He slung his right arm around Nat’s shoulders and was running his other hand up and down along her thigh.
“How’s work at the gallery, girls?” he asked.
“Well, we have a new photographer coming on board next week,” I said.
“Yeah, so Nat was saying – Sam Wolfman, isn’t it?”
“Wolfson,” Nat cut in.
“Sorry – Wolfson – I do listen, darling, I swear.” He laughed and Nat smiled indulgently at him.
“We’re very excited,” I said. “His work is very different to what we usually display in the gallery so fingers crossed now it does well.”
“Well, it better or Tabitha will be coming after us!” Nat laughed.
I watched the hand inch a bit higher. Will turned in towards Nat and then was kissing the nape of her neck gently like they were the only ones in the room.
Ben and I ate our mains of Cornish turbot and jowl of pork as quickly as we could without making it obvious that we were rushing and we both claimed to be too full for dessert even though the portions in Ransan’s were minute.
“But you always have dessert, Kate – it’s your favourite part of the meal!” Nat protested. “Well, you have to at least stay for a coffee.”
“Of course we will.” I looked at my watch. It was only ten o’clock. Ben and I had coffee, while Nat and Will both had Tanqueray cocktails.
When we were finished Ben signalled the waitress over and asked for the bill. She came back moments later and handed it to him. I balked when I saw the final total over his shoulder. The wine alone was £118 a pop. We couldn’t afford this.
“I’ll get this, guys,” Will said, taking the bill from Ben’s hand.
Ben pulled it back again and after a brief stalemate said, “No, no, we’ll pay for our share.”
I groaned internally. Will could well afford to foot the bill and I knew Ben was just being proud. We left the money for our half and said goodbye to them. I told Nat that I’d see her in the morning.
“I might be a little late,” she said, winking at me as she turned to smile at Will.
“I can’t believe we just spent the equivalent of over a week’s rent for the pleasure of eating out with that twat!” Ben said on the Tube home. “We’re supposed to be saving money.”
“I know,” I yawned. “I could have had my roots done all year for the price of dinner tonight.” I was exhausted and rested my head on his lap. I had a hard time trying to stay awake. I was rocked by the motion of the carriage. At least it was quiet at that time of the evening. “His poor wife!” I said.
“I wonder if she knows that her husband is having an affair? Or maybe she turns a blind eye to it so long as the money is coming in and she’s living the Chelsea dream?”
“Who knows? But I’m so surprised at Nat. Yes, he’s good-looking and charming but he’s a complete alpha male. I don’t know how you kept so calm when he was dissing your job!”
“Because he’s a fool – it doesn’t matter what he says.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I’m going to try and talk to her again about it tomorrow – see if I can get her to see sense.”
Back at home we fell into bed. Ben wrapped me in his arms from behind and I fell asleep instantly.
Chapter 6
The next day I watched from inside the bay window of the gallery as Will’s Aston Martin pulled up on the path outside. Ben always called it his “midlife-crisis car”. Nat breezed through the door seconds later with a big smile on her face.
“Good night then?” I asked.
“The best!” she said dreamily.
She was still wearing the grey trousers and tunic from the night before. There was a trace of black eyeliner smudged beneath her eyes. Her hair was scraped back into a loose bun, not neat like the one she wore last night. She must have forgotten her hairbrush.
“Last night was good fun, wasn’t it?” she said. “The food was great!”
“Yeah – they always get it right there, but it’s bloody expensive.”
“I know – I hope it was okay for you guys?” She seemed concerned.
I brushed her off. “Don’t worry about it.”
She took off her silk scarf and plonked her bag on the desk in front of her. She went into the kitchen and made herself a black coffee. She came back out, clasping the mug between her hands.
“So what did you think of him?” she said, sitting onto her chair.
“Yeah, he’s charming. He seems to really like you.”
“Well, I’m glad you guys got to know each other a bit better.”
“So where did you stay last night?” I asked. She obviously hadn’t been home.
“Oh, he left his car in town last night and we didn’t want to waste time getting a minicab back to my place so we checked into a suite in Claridge’s.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Oh my God, Kate, it was the most amazing place I have ever stayed in! I bumped into Cate Blanchett in the corridor this morning. I mean literally bumped into her – I was so embarrassed.”
I vaguely remembered seeing something on TV the day before that Cate was in town to promote her new film.
Will rang Nat a while later and I was subjected to listening to the two of them talk about how amazing the night was. The conversation seemed to be about how good the sex had been. It started to irk me so I stood up and took my laptop upstairs to get a head start on the weekly sales report for Tabitha. Was it the glamorous lifestyle and the money – or did she genuinely like him? It was as if I didn’t know her any more. She wasn’t the same Nat that I knew. She was a good-looking girl with a lot going for her, so why was she ready to waste herself at Will’s beck and call? Yes, he seemed to like her but it could only end in tears – there could never be a happy outcome.
When Nat finally finished the phone call, I heard her come upstairs to me.
“Sorry – was I talking too loud?”
“No, I just thought I’d make a start on the sales figures,” I lied.
I decided to seize the moment and tackle her about Will.
“Look, Nat, tell me if it’s none of my business – but what are you doing? Where is this going?”
“Where is what going?”
“You and Will.”
“Oh . . . well . . .”
/>
“What worries me is that he makes no effort to even hide the fact that he’s married with kids! It’s like he thinks it’s perfectly legit to go around having affairs –”
“Affair,” she corrected.
“Come on, Nat – I doubt you’re the first and you certainly won’t be the last either.”
“Well, cheers, Kate!”
“But what about his wife and children – surely you must feel bad for them?”
“Of course I do – it’s horrible! But it’s complicated. I absolutely hate myself every time I think about them. But he and his wife lead separate lives.”
“Oh come on, Nat – that’s what they all say – don’t be so naïve.”
“No, really they do – separate bedrooms – the lot. I know he’ll stay with her for the sake of their children – he has always been upfront with me about that. But it doesn’t mean that he has to miss out on another chance of finding happiness. Sometimes love just finds us and no matter what your head tells you is right or wrong, your heart will win out at the end of the day.
Nat was a hopeless romantic. It made me want to slap her stupid sometimes.
“But you deserve more than just a piece of a man! You’re getting some other woman’s sloppy seconds!”
“It’s not like that.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. When we’re together, it’s well . . . amaaazing.” The smile from earlier on crept back onto her face. “Look, Kate, when you love someone you have to make sacrifices sometimes.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but no matter how good the sex is I wouldn’t put up with sharing a man.”
“I know you wouldn’t, Kate. But that’s because you don’t have to – you’ve got Ben. Do you have any idea of how hard it is to meet a man without any form of baggage today?” Her tone was defensive.
“No, I suppose I don’t.” I had met Ben when I was twenty-seven. I never had to endure the carnage that Nat told me was the London dating scene past the age of thirty.
“Well, please don’t lecture me then.” She turned on her heel and walked back down the stairs, then turned around again. “Oh, and Kate?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s not just about the sex!”
Chapter 7
Things were tense between Nat and me over the next few days. Although we were talking to each other, I could tell that she was annoyed with me, but we had an exhibition coming up soon so we both knew we had to leave our differences aside and get on with the organisation for it. We needed to brainstorm for ideas so I suggested that we treat ourselves to cakes in the bakery down the street. We sat down inside the bay window and ordered – well, I did – Nat was trying to be good – she was on a healthy eating buzz although Lord knows she didn’t need to lose any weight.
“Here, give me a bite of that.” She finally gave in to temptation and dug her fork into my sticky toffee pudding. A river of toffee sauce came oozing out. It ran down the side before pooling thickly onto the white plate in front of me. “It doesn’t count when it’s on someone else’s plate.”
“Right,” I said, opening my notepad and flipping it over onto a clean sheet. I wrote the words ‘To Do’ at the top of the page and underlined them twice. I loved lists. There was no better feeling in this world than crossing things off a to-do list. Sometimes I even wrote down tasks that I had already done just so that I could put a line through them. I knew it was silly.
Nat had come up with the exhibition title of Silence. She had a good eye so she always curated our exhibitions while I organised the admin end of things such as the invites and the food and wine. She had always had an interest in photography herself. She was forever clicking away with her SLR whenever we were out somewhere.
“Your photos belong on these walls too, you know,” I would say to her whenever she showed me some of them.
But she would shake her head in disagreement. “Not yet.”
She had been saying this for years. I wasn’t sure what she was waiting for. Maybe confidence that might never come?
I made a note that I needed to order more vinyl to put the names of the artists in the gallery window because we were nearly out of it. I also had to get booklets printed with a small biography for each artist and a price list for their work. I needed to draft up the press release and update the website, plus I needed to find someone to launch the exhibition for us. There was a lot of behind-the-scenes work that went into the exhibitions. The bigger galleries around town would use a PR person to do the majority of that work but we weren’t in that league so it was up to just me. We had only four exhibitions a year but most of our sales for the year took place on these four evenings so they were important for the bottom line. My notebook was littered with scribbled reminders. I had underlined some with thick blue lines so that I wouldn’t forget them – other tasks were linked together by arrows. There was so much to be done and my head was spinning just thinking about it all. I sat back, closed the notepad and let out a heavy sigh.
“Any plans for the weekend?” I asked Nat.
“Well, Will will be with his family for most of it but he’s promised me that we’ll do something on Saturday night,” Nat said through another mouthful of cake.
“I see.” Things had been awkward between us since our argument last week, so I bit my tongue and didn’t say what I really wanted to say – that she was putting up with second best, gratefully snatching whatever crumbs of his time he was able to throw her way. She deserved more. So much more. But, at thirty-three years old, she was a big girl now.
“Are you doing anything?” she asked.
“We’re heading down to Ben’s parents in Surrey. His sister Laura is coming home for the night so we said we’d go down too.” Laura was Ben’s older sister and had followed the family tradition of law and was now a barrister working up in Manchester.
“Nice. Well, I hope you have your Barbour jacket packed.”
“Yeah, and my Hunter wellies too.” I laughed. She always made a comment like this whenever I mentioned Ben’s parents. But, in fairness, although they were lovely people – well, his mum was anyway – they were very posh.
On Saturday morning we set off in Ben’s Volkswagen Golf along the A3 for the Surrey countryside. Ben insisted on having a car even though it spent most of the time parked up on the street below our flat. Because we lived in central London, we took public transport everywhere but Ben liked the freedom of being able to get out of the city whenever the mood took us.
It was a warm summer’s day and the radio was playing softly in the background. We had the windows down to let some air in but not enough to blow us out of it completely.
“So when are we going to Ireland?” he said to me as we drove along.
I groaned. “Soon.” God, he was persistent.
We passed over a railway bridge and, at exactly the same time, a train passed beneath us, our journeys intersecting briefly before we headed off in our respective directions.
“Come on, Kate – the weeks are flying along now.”
“Will you just leave it, please?”
We travelled along the rest of the winding country road in silence. The road weaved through neatly trimmed hedgerows and bright yellow fields of rapeseed. When we met another car we would have to pull into a gateway to let it pass.
Finally we turned into the gravelled lane of Elderberry Farm, the house that Ben was raised in. We drove the length of it before pulling up in front of the imposing house, where Ben’s Golf was dwarfed by his parents’ bottle-green Land Rover Discovery.
The beauty of the house never failed to take my breath away. The first time I had come here with Ben, I had been awestruck by the seventeenth-century house with its yellowing sandstone walls, clay roof tiles and majestic portico. It was the kind of house that had usually nowadays been taken over by the National Trust or turned into a wedding venue because the owners couldn’t afford the up-keep. Ben had never let on that he came from such a wealthy background. The house was the seat
of the Chamberlain family and had been in his family for generations.
“Ben, you said it was a farmhouse – not a big fuck-off mansion!” I had said in a panic. “Are you royalty or something? Why didn’t you tell me you grew up in a mansion?”
“You never asked.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot that that was normal first-date get-to-know-you talk: ‘So did you grow up in a mansion or not?’ I’m just waiting on Prince Charles to wave out the window at me!”
He started to laugh then. “Come on, Kate – I think that’s a slight overreaction.”
“But when you said ‘Elderberry Farm’– I assumed as in ‘farmhouse’.” All the farmhouses at home were either cottages or bog-standard three-bed bungalows like the one that I had grown up in.
He shrugged his shoulders. “What difference does it make?”
“Well, you could at least have warned me,” I had said sulkily. I’d already been feeling nervous about meeting Ben’s parents for the first time and this had just ratcheted everything up ten notches.
Now, as we climbed out, their two spaniels Admiral and Max came running from the back of the house. They started barking until they realised that it was Ben and then they both rushed at him, clambering over one another, competing for his attention.
“Easy, boys!” Ben said to them and then jumped up and down, causing them to get even more excited.
“I thought I heard a car.” Ben’s mum, Edwina, came from the back of the house to greet us. She was dressed in her usual uniform of navy wax jacket, cords and wellingtons. She had a wicker flower-basket brimming with stems of freshly cut lavender in one hand and her secateurs in the other. She placed them down on the ground and then took off her gardening gloves and stuffed them into her pockets.
“Hi, Mum!” Ben threw his arms around her neck and they hugged.
Then she came over and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
“Look at you – you are positively blooming!” she said in her plummy accent. She was what Nat would describe as a ‘jolly hockey sticks’ kind of woman.
The Last Goodbye Page 4