The Next Best Thing

by Sarah Long

  He waved a hearty greeting to Richard, who then returned to his phone call. Rupert took off his heavy coat and settled at the opposite desk, fixing his face in an expression of purposeful zeal as he focused in on the screen.

  It was awful being in partnership with a friend. When he’d worked for the bank, he used to complain about it: the hierarchy, the red tape, always being accountable to someone else. Now he was only accountable to himself, and to Richard. And to the investors who had entrusted them with millions of pounds. It made his blood run cold just thinking about it. His younger self might have relished the challenge, but his new couldn’t-care-less self wished the whole thing would just vanish in a puff of smoke.

  Richard finished his phone call.

  ‘Brian Timmons. Looks like he’s going to come through with a few hundred thou.’

  ‘Great.’ Rupert’s voice sounded phoney even to himself. ‘I’ve got lunch with a prospect myself today. Ex-banker, husband works at the French embassy, she sounded pretty interested.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Big Hairy Audacious Goals, let’s go for it.’

  It was such a strain, all this encouraging mutual back-slapping and talking positive. When all he wanted to do was go up to Richard and say ‘fooled you!’ and they’d have a laugh about the whole thing then go off to the pub.

  Rupert knew he was not the first to feel disaffected by his work. Other people called it burnout, and fell into dramatic crises of depression, harming themselves with penknives and receiving therapy on BUPA. But Rupert was too humble for all that. He wasn’t theatrical enough to cast himself as the flawed hero of his own private tragedy. And besides, he wouldn’t say he was depressed exactly. It was just that he didn’t really want anything any more. He suspected it might simply be the onset of middle age. Which was a bit of a joke, as he was about to become a blushing bridegroom.

  Richard came over and dropped a brochure on his desk. “lake a look at this, Rupert, old boy. Let me know what you think.’

  Richard called him old boy in jokey deference to his breeding. Whereas Richard was an Essex boy made good, Rupert had an entry in Burke’s Landed Gentry and family money of such noble distinction it had gone yellow with age, like those treasure-island maps that kids dip in cold tea to give them an authentic look. Richard liked to imagine Rupert still had a soft spot for old Nanny, pensioned off in some cottage on the family estate while the big house with forty-seven rooms and its own chapel crumbled into elegant decay. All rubbish, of course. But the name of Beauval-Tench brought a touch of class to their outfit. And Rupert was a good bloke, solid and dependable, which was more than you could say for some of the toffs who ended up in the city.

  Rupert glanced through the brochure, admiring the chiselled jaws of the men it featured. He was particularly taken by one of the main board who called himself the Director of Ideas. As though he sat in the brain of the company, pulling strings to initiate movement among the lesser organs. Heavy lower limbs dragging on the spark of his own creative genius. Was this company one they should invest in? How the hell was Rupert supposed to know? Could he really spend the rest of his life doing this job?

  He looked across at Richard, so at ease behind his desk. Richard loved this work, he was made for it, his eyes lit up at the thought of a deal, and he fed off adrenaline. His very body oozed confidence and dynamism. He was absolutely certain that life would give him what he wanted. In fact, he was rather like Lydia, which made Rupert wonder if there was something in him that was subconsciously attracted to go-getters, to make up for his own wishy-washiness.

  He had hoped that formalising things with Lydia would help him feel better. It was a positive step, the right time, and quite frankly the decent thing to do. He had been amazed that she had fallen for him when a girl like that should have had the whole of New York at her feet. He was, let’s face it, no matinee idol. They had hit it off immediately, united by their Britishness in the artificial hothouse of Manhattan. They enjoyed defending crooked yellow teeth and cynicism against orthodontics and preppy wholesomeness, it had been fun. He didn’t consider the bond strong enough to survive the move back to London, but Lydia had proved him wrong, reorganising her work so she could follow him home and showing a flattering willingness to fall in with his plans. It became clear that she saw their future together, and to be honest he felt he owed it to her. She was so funny, clever and beautiful, you really couldn’t ask for more.

  Lydia’s euphoria at being engaged more than made up for his own indifference. She had moved into the flat and begun writing lists in a red notebook that she kept in the kitchen drawer. The hook was segmented into different sections, each headed Lip in her rounded handwriting. Surprise engagement party, wedding guest list, reception venues, Cadogan Gardens — redecoration, joint finances with a question mark. Whenever they spent an evening in, she would pull the book out and run through the details with him over their drinks. Rupert would crash on his beige leather sofa and wish he could turn the TV on, while Lydia perched on the matching pouffe, crossing her ankles like the queen as she quizzed him about his views on a remote Scottish castle versus the In and Out Club. Should they go for romantic medieval heritage or faded London chic? There’s so much to think of, she would say, as she flipped the book shut. It’s rather wonderful, isn’t it, having all this to plan, just as we were running out of things to talk about. Rupert couldn’t help wondering what Lydia would do for a hobby once the whole wedding business was over.

  Richard was pacing up and down now, speaking into a cell phone the size of a matchbox. His voice filled the room, and Rupert wished not for the first time that they had opted for two separate offices. Open plan was all very well when a whole floor of people were involved, but when it was just the two of you, it felt like an unconsummated marriage, sharing a twin-bedded room with someone you didn’t have sex with. Hideously intimate. When you worked in an office of two hundred people, nobody could hear you on the phone, but now he had to wait for Richard to go out if he wanted to make a private call.

  He checked his emails and tried not to listen into Richard’s conversation. It was easy to look busy in front of a computer. All you had to do was scrunch your face up into a frown and peer intently at the monitor, one hand on the mouse, and everyone thought you were super-industrious.

  Staring at the screen, Rupert wished he was at his house in France. He wished he could walk out through his garden, fragrant with lavender and rock roses, push open the high metal gates and make his way down the stony track until he reached the village and the Bar des Sports. There he would sit up at the bar, on a stool upholstered with cracked maroon fake leather and drink a pression and smoke a Gitane, even though he gave up cigarettes a decade ago. He would order a fat steak frites — saignant, naturally, and a demi of house red. After crème caramel and a small, dark coffee in a proper little cup certainly not a Starbucks abomination with an inch-thick rim – he would walk back to the house and stretch out on the swing seat in the garden. Although, as it was December, he might prefer to make a fire in the wide stone chimney and lie down on the day bed, reading Rabelais or Baudelaire or Jeffrey Archer or the sports section of yesterday’s limes that he had picked up in Marseille. That was all he wanted, wasn’t it?

  The phone rang, and it was his lunch date, Marie Helene, ringing to cancel because of a breakdown in childcare, they would have to fix another time. Rupert put the phone down and thought what a shame it was. She sounded attractive in that breathy, neurotic way of Parisian women, always in a hurry and permanently tense in the face of imminent catastrophe. He could imagine the vein throbbing behind the fine skin of her forehead as she gave the failing servant a good old bollocking down the phone. Lovely French girls, lovely Paris, Paris mon Amour.

  So that left him with a free lunchtime. Except there was no such thing when you were creating your own business, time famine being the executive’s number one enemy. Even so, Rupert felt disinclined to tell Richard of his change in
plan. Instead, he pulled an envelope out of his briefcase that he had been carrying around for a while. It was a mail shot from the French Institute — they must have got his address through something to do with his French bank account. It listed details of the winter season of films, and, if he remembered rightly, they often had lunchtime screenings. Yes, there it was, today at 1250, A Bout de Souffle, the Godard original of course, and not the jumped-up remake. It was perfect, he wouldn’t even need to cancel the taxi; instead of dropping him at chez Max, it could go on to South Kensington, and he would be just in time to get a ticket. It was hardly likely to be sold out. Most people had other things to attend to during the working day.

  Jane often went in for a guilty bout of housework on Friday mornings. Knowing she would soon be sloping off to the pictures, the least she could do was wipe round the kitchen beforehand. The problem being that she really had no idea how to go about it. Cleaning was not something she had ever been taught. Her mother had been more interested in encouraging her schoolwork. She didn’t want her daughter’s fine mind going to waste on mopping floors.

  She sloshed the mop around the rubber floor then lifted its heavy, drooping head onto the strainer thing that sat on the bucket. Was this correct, or were you supposed to go down on your hands and knees with a scrubbing brush, like the kitchen maid in a costume drama? She had once bought something called a Swiffer, a nervy little stick with a flat end to which you were supposed to attach disposable cloths. One swiff round the floor and it was all clean, and it could even swivel round to turn corners and climb walls. Jane soon worked out it was for very clean people who used it twice daily to supplement the proper operation that was carried out with heavier equipment. In her home, it was like taking a feather duster to a coal face.

  She left the mop leaning against the wall and tiptoed over the sopping wet floor to make herself a coffee. That was another reason she couldn’t stand cleaning: you always ended up having to change your socks. But she couldn’t leave the room right now because she had to stay and listen to Desert Island Discs. She’d just realised the castaway was a girl she used to work with who had won acclaim for a slim novel about alienation and then achieved a dazzling marriage to a business tycoon.

  Self-deprecation was the style adopted by most guests on Desert Island Discs, and Fanny Lipman was no exception, undermining her success with a skin-deep veneer of modesty. Jane bent down to take a bottle of bleach from the cupboard. She liked the way it worked its mysterious alchemy, removing the brown stains as she poured it round the white sink. The phone rang, and Jane turned down the radio to answer it, soaking her socks further as she made the return trip across the film of dirty water that covered the kitchen floor.

  It was Lydia, though as usual she didn’t bother to clarify.

  ‘You took a while to answer, so I can tell you’re not at your desk. I’ll tell you what, I just woke up, in Rupert’s fabulous extra-king-size bed, and realised I had a free lunch today. Do you fancy meeting up? I rather thought Fifth Floor at Harvey Nicks.’

  ‘And I rather think that sounds beyond my budget,’ said Jane, ‘we can’t all be ladies who lunch.’

  ‘I’ll pay.’

  ‘Too busy, I’m afraid, I’m actually cleaning the kitchen.’

  Damn, how did she let that slip out?

  ‘Then I need to get on with my proper work,’ she added quickly.

  She didn’t mention the film at the French Institute. Lydia might want to join her and end up in the next seat, whispering loudly and ruining the atmosphere.

  ‘Cleaning, how very avant-garde of you! You know housework is supposed to be the new gardening, though both are menial beyond belief if you ask me. Arc you wearing a Cath Kidston pinny?’

  ‘Certainly not, Will won’t hear of anything floral in the house. And I don’t know how you can compare planting a rose with wiping grease off a cooker. At least I know which I’d rather be doing.’

  That reminded her, she must put her seed order in. It kept her going through the winter to imagine how the garden would look later on, bursts of blue speedwell against the pale yellow verbascum, sweet peas running riot through the trellis. She wanted to try nasturtiums this year, pale orange flowers and heart-shaped leaves they could eat in salads. Gardening was so much more rewarding than housework.

  ‘Well, if you really can’t spare the time, I’ll have to look further through my little black book,’ said Lydia, thinking that maybe she’d treat herself to a pedicure instead, ‘but I’ll see you on Sunday anyway, don’t forget I’m giving you a lift.’

  ‘I won’t. Let’s hope it won’t be too ghastly, suppose it’s just you and me and Toni? That would look really feeble, like we’d just trailed along to get in with her.’

  ‘Oh buck up, it’ll be fine. What else would you be doing on a Sunday night, apart from humouring that child of yours? Let her father deal with her for a change while you get out and enjoy yourself for once.’

  Jane could hear the music had ended and Fanny was speaking again. ‘Quick, turn the radio on, Fanny Lipman is on Desert Island Discs.’

  ‘Fanny Lipman! That secretary from your old office?’

  ‘Turned lady authoress and multi-millionairess.’

  ‘Oh puh-lease. They must be getting desperate to ask her on.’ Though Lydia had nothing but admiration for the way she’d got her claws into Number Ninety-seven on the Sunday Times rich list. ‘I’ll let you go then.’

  ‘Bye.’

  Jane returned to her bucket, then decided to call it a day. The useless thing about cleaning was that everything only got dirty again, so what was the point? When you planted a shrub, it stayed there for years, growing, changing with the seasons. You had something to show for your efforts. All she would have to show for a gleaming kitchen floor two days later would he more sticky traces of fruit juice, bits of blackened carrot peel, rogue seeds escaped from Will’s breakfast selection.

  She poured herself a coffee and sat down at the table to listen to Fanny eulogising motherhood. It had transformed her, she said, redeemed her from her selfish existence, and given her a rich subject for her writing. Oh yes, thought Jane, turn the whole thing round to glorify yourself, why don’t you. And the tycoon had been so supportive, he’d made a point of being there this time round, having missed out so much on his first family due to pressures of work. Fanny’s next choice of record was for him: ‘I’m looking for someone to change my life.’

  And what about the tycoon’s ex-wife in all this? Her life had been changed all right, when her husband left her. She’d probably done the diets and the maintenance work, but there was no way a fifty-year-old woman could compete with someone twenty years younger. And did it make the children from his first marriage feel better to know that Dad was making up for the neglect he had shown them by drooling like an old fool over the new babies?

  Jane thought about the first time she had met Will’s two sons. It was in a pub in Notting Hill, and she had been struck by how close in age they were to her. For a moment it seemed that they were three school-leavers out for a drink together, with Will the English teacher on hand to buy them a patronising round of drinks to welcome them to the adult world. Their youthfulness had made him seem middle-aged. They were nice to her, though, and she was glad that she had not been the cause of their parents’ break-up. That honour belonged to her predecessor, long-legged Louise, who had been the catalyst to bring the failing marriage to its inevitable conclusion. Or at least that’s what Will said, and she had never enquired further.

  Jane opened the doors into the garden and breathed in the sharp air. She liked this time of year, when you could think about your plans for spring planting. Even in a London garden you got the exciting, rotting smell of vegetation that had finished sinking down for the winter.

  She went to the bottom of the garden, to a hidden patch on the other side of the shed that she had earmarked for a makeover. It was to become her hot and vulgar garden. Will favoured elegant grey and green plants; she had alwa
ys indulged him with hostas and santolini, white lilies, stern Edwardian specimens that complemented the decor of the house as you looked out of the galleria window. All very tasteful. But behind the shed in this little suntrap she was only going to plant bright orange and yellow plants. French marigolds, zinnias, wallflowers, red-hot pokers, black-eyed Susan, sunflowers and – Will’s particular bugbear – dahlias. She had ordered the naffest ones of all, the sort that looked like artificial pompoms. Next summer, she would lie here on a plastic sun-lounger and eat synthetic ice-cream and let her eyes be dazzled.

  The steps of the French Institute were wide and grandiose, backed by a vast Art Deco window with square panes of pale green light. After the film, Jane made her way down the staircase, looking at the young man sitting behind the curved reception desk. With his earnest spectacles and cropped hair, he was so authentically New Wave, he could have stepped straight out of Godard’s 1950s Paris.

  Jane looked away and realised that the vision in her left eye had become out of focus. Damn it, she had lost a lens. It happened quite often, and was not a big deal. It just meant you had to freeze and very slowly inspect every inch of your clothes and the floor around you. She stood still on the step, and waited for everyone to walk past her so she could take her time and search for it properly. It wouldn’t take long, there hadn’t been many takers for the lunchtime screening.

  After running her fingertips over her face and body, she carefully crouched down and began combing the surface of the step she was standing on, then the one below.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  She became aware of a pair of stout black brogues coming to rest a few inches away from her face. She was no expert on men’s shoes, but these looked the sort that came with a thirty-year guarantee. Above them rose a pair of socks decorated with red and green diamonds. She looked up further and saw they belonged to a large man with kind eyes wearing a blue pinstripe suit. A pair of red braces nudged out over one of those stripey shirts with a plain white collar that had just become fashionable again, though he clearly didn’t know that. He looked like the last person you’d expect to run into at an art-house movie. And he had stopped for the sole purpose of helping her. It had been so long since anyone had unexpectedly offered to do something nice for her, that Jane felt at a loss.