Country Plot

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘But he’s sweet,’ Sybil protested. ‘I like him.’

  ‘Well, I’m not likely to have the choice,’ Jenna said, feeling herself choke up. ‘I’m going to end up all alone in a council flat with seven cats. I’ll die and nobody will know, and the cats will eat me.’

  ‘Oh, that’s absurd,’ Sybil said.

  ‘It certainly is,’ Oliver said vigorously. ‘You’d never qualify for a council flat.’

  Jenna couldn’t help laughing, though it ended up as a snort forcing its way through the lurking tears. ‘Beast,’ she said.

  Oliver refilled her glass. ‘Seriously now, tell me what happened. Every detail.’

  So she told him. He was wonderful to tell, because he really did want every detail, and he sympathized with her completely. By the time she had talked herself out, they had consumed Sybil’s salmon with ginger and coriander, crushed potatoes and baby pak choi, and were finishing off the second bottle of Meursault before tackling her magnificently boozy tiramisu, Oliver’s favourite pud.

  ‘He’s a stinker,’ Oliver said in judgement. ‘He doesn’t deserve you.’

  ‘Definitely not. He’s a rat,’ Sybil agreed.

  ‘A louse,’ Oliver improved. ‘You shouldn’t have got yourself mixed up with an architect, you know. You can never trust them. You should have picked a nice engineer instead. Roads and bridges, docks and piers, that’s the stuff for engineers. Wine and women, drugs and sex, that’s the stuff for architects.’

  Jenna had heard that rhyme before, many times, but it still amused her. ‘Yes, but where am I going to find a nice engineer?’ she objected. ‘You’re married. Anyway, you’re my brother and, to quote Sir Thomas Beecham, you should try everything once, except country dancing and incest.’

  ‘I don’t think I’m the only one. I’m sure I could set you up with someone if I put my mind to it.’

  ‘I don’t want to be set up, thank you,’ Jenna said. ‘I’ve had it with this whole relationship thing. I’m so off men, you wouldn’t believe. How do you become a lesbian?’

  ‘Two members have to put you up,’ Oliver said. ‘And there’s a frightful initiation ceremony. I found out about it by accident and I’m sworn not to divulge. It involves biceps tattoos and Melissa Etheridge CDs. I can’t say more.’ He looked at her seriously. ‘You wouldn’t like it.’

  Jenna laughed, but she cried a bit at the same time. ‘Oh, Oliver, what am I going to do?’

  ‘Oh, darling, everything will sort itself out in the long run. It’s the short term we have to think about – what you’re to do with yourself while you get over it. I’ll bend the mighty brain and come up with something. I’m home for ten days so we’ve got plenty of time to talk everything through. For now, let’s just enjoy pud, and then have coffee and lots of Marc in the drawing room. And some music. I’m so ready to listen to something that doesn’t involve sitars and finger bells!’

  Sybil brought the tiramisu to the table. ‘You ought to take a holiday,’ she advised.

  ‘No money,’ Jenna said. ‘And with no job, I can’t afford to put it on the credit card. I’m homeless, jobless, loveless, penniless and hopeless. Damn Patrick!’

  Oliver reached across and laid his hand briefly over hers. ‘We’ll sort it out,’ he promised.

  He was such a comfort. And Jenna could see how the tiredness was catching up with him, and could not be so selfish as to keep him talking about her problems now, so she let herself be comforted, and reached for another subject.

  ‘How’s everyone else?’ she asked. ‘How’s Rock?’

  Oliver was the third child of the Freemont family. Michael was the eldest and Jenna the youngest, and Oliver came between two other sisters, Rachel and Harriet. When he was about ten, and precocious, he had announced to their parents one day that it was like being between a rock and a hard place, and the parents had thought it rather clever. For a time everyone had tried calling Rachel and Harriet Rock and Hardplace. Hardplace was too unlike a name and didn’t suit Harriet anyway, so it lapsed. But Rock had stuck, and Rock Freemont was such a brilliant name for being famous with that Rachel had gone to Los Angeles as soon as she was able, to be famous properly in the best place for it. She had blagged her way into an agency in a menial capacity, and worked herself up, until she was now, at thirty-six, one of the big-name agents in Hollywood and earning shedloads of money. She had married a producer, Greg Scarpaccio, and they lived in a vast house in Beverley Hills that Oliver always referred to as Cliché Towers. Though she didn’t communicate much with the rest of the family, she kept in touch with Oliver by email. He said it was from a residual sense of gratitude to him for having given her the fantastic name.

  ‘She’s in storming form, as always. Greg’s producing the new Julia Roberts movie, and Rock’s got a terrific part in it for one of her newcomers, one of those gets-you-noticed roles. Oh, and she and Greg are having another dog.’

  ‘Another? They’ve got three already.’

  ‘From what I gather, she was toying with the idea of adopting an African baby, like Madonna, and Greg talked her out of it. So she’s having a dog instead. A designer dog, of course.’

  ‘A Labradoodle?’ Jenna said. ‘I hear they’re all the rage.’

  Oliver looked impish. ‘No, this one’s a cross between a bulldog and a shih-tzu.’

  Jenna worked it out, and then punched him on the arm. ‘You’re making it up.’

  ‘I bet if I bred them I’d find a market for them in California. Actually, I think she’s getting a schnoodle, which is a cross between a schnauzer and a poodle, and actually quite a sensible mutt, despite the silly name.’

  ‘Just don’t talk about dogs in front of the children,’ Sybil said. ‘They’ve always wanted one, and that’s the last thing I need to complicate my life. It’s a shame you can’t go and have a holiday with Rock and Greg, Jenna. That would take you out of yourself.’

  ‘It might put me in someone else,’ Jenna said. ‘I don’t need any more fantasy and illusion in my life. I couldn’t afford the fare, anyway. How’s Harriet?’

  Oliver and Sybil exchanged a quick glance, before Oliver said, ‘She’s having another baby. Due in October.’

  ‘Oh, good for her,’ Jenna said, but her voice wobbled a bit in spite of her determination. Harriet’s little Martha was nearly two, and adorable. She had a nice financier husband and house in Greenwich and soon would have two children. Her timetable was impeccable: living with Richard at twenty-six, married at twenty-eight, had Martha at twenty-nine, and baby number two due at thirty-one. And here was Jenna, twenty-seven and nothing to show for it.

  Sybil read her thoughts and sought to distract her. ‘We saw Michael a few weeks ago,’ she said. ‘All of us went over for Sunday lunch.’

  Michael, thirty-eight, was a corporate lawyer at a big company’s headquarters in Swindon, and lived in an almost unbearably exquisite village in the Cotswolds. With his extremely beautiful wife. And their four children. Oh hell, I’m such a failure, Jenna thought.

  Sybil was still reading her thoughts. ‘He’s getting an enormous bald patch,’ she offered comfortingly. ‘He’s starting to look like a monk.’

  Oliver burst out laughing, and Jenna couldn’t help joining in. ‘Oh dear, if I’m reduced to Schadenfreude, there really is no help for me,’ she said, wiping her eyes.

  ‘Never mind, monkey-face,’ Oliver said. ‘All will be well. One day, anyway. Let’s go and listen to some Brahms.’

  ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you,’ Jenna said. ‘Family is a wonderful thing.’

  Three

  On Sunday morning her best friend, Izzy, rang her to say she had found out who the Other Woman was.

  ‘Serious beavering combined with a spot of good luck,’ Izzy admitted. ‘This friend of mine, Dot, who works for Designers Guild, knows someone who knows something about a big job being done by Patrick’s firm in Onslow Square—’

  ‘Yes, I know. Penthouse suite. No expense spared. Patrick’s working on it.�
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  ‘That’s right,’ said Izzy. ‘Apparently the interior design’s being done by Sotterton’s – Dot said they’d hoped to get it at DG, which was why she took an interest. Anyway, this friend of hers, Beryl, works for Sotterton’s, and she says the designer who’s actually doing the penthouse is someone called Charlotte Anstruther. Sloaney-type, ex-public school. Tall, blonde, fairly eye-worthy, apparently. Beryl says she’s on site an awful lot, more often than you’d think necessary, so suspected there must be a man at the bottom of it, and fair enough one day this bloke came to the shop to pick this Charlotte up for lunch. Said they needed to talk about the Onslow Square job, but Beryl said there was a lot more than that going on. They were obviously pretty friendly, and Charlotte took his arm and they were heads-together and laughing before they’d even got out of the shop. Charlotte apparently told Beryl the bloke was the architect in charge, and the description fits Patrick, so I reckon that’s who it must be.’

  ‘It makes sense,’ Jenna said sadly.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ Izzy said sympathetically. ‘Two people spending a lot of time together, alone in a half-built roof extension. Working late – you said Patrick’d been working late a lot recently. Standing close together, heads bent over the same set of plans. Fingers touching accidentally—’

  ‘You don’t need to go on.’

  ‘He says, “We’ve got things to discuss – can’t do it here with all the dust and building rubbish around – how about lunch?” One thing leads to another—’

  ‘I said you needn’t go on. I get the picture,’ Jenna said. ‘It was always going to be a worry, when he works on such exalted properties. Posh clients – rich, idle women, most of them – not to mention top-end designers, mostly female, who have to be super-glamorous to get the jobs in the first place. And Patrick’s so gorgeous. And the domestic settings they meet in are so convenient.’

  ‘Oh Jen, I’m sorry.’

  ‘I just always thought he wouldn’t be tempted – or that if he was tempted, he wouldn’t fall because we were happy together. But she’s much more his type than I am, obviously. They’re a better match.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t really know what he saw in me to begin with.’

  ‘Now don’t start that. Any man would be lucky to get you. You’re gorgeous, bright, funny—’

  ‘—and nobody wants me. How’s Toby?’ she changed the subject. Izzy was going out with a married man – if ‘going out’ was the right way to describe the relationship, which seemed to involve always being in, sitting alone at home by the telephone night after night and weekend after weekend.

  ‘Oh, he’s fine,’ Izzy said. ‘He thinks he might be able to come over this afternoon,’ she added proudly. ‘His wife’s going to see her mother, and if she takes the kid with her, he’ll be able to get away for a couple of hours.’

  ‘So you’re going to stay in all day on the off chance that he’ll come over for a bonk, and then leave you to spend the night alone while he goes back to his nice cosy home?’

  ‘He comes over whenever he can,’ Izzy protested feebly. ‘It isn’t easy for him.’

  ‘It seems bloody easy to me. He has it both ways and you have nothing. He never takes you out anywhere. You can’t go on holiday together, or spend Christmas together—’

  ‘Oh, I know, I know! I hate it!’ Izzy wailed. ‘I want a proper life. I want to sleep with him and go shopping with him and spend weekends with him and all that bourgeois happy shit.’

  ‘Iz, you know he’s never going to leave his wife. He uses you. You should dump him,’ Jenna said gently.

  ‘I can’t! I’d have no one! I’d be alone!’

  ‘But you’ll never find anyone as long as you’re involved with him.’

  ‘I’ve invested two whole years on him – I can’t throw all that away now. I’m twenty-nine. It’s all right for you, you’ve got Patrick—’ She stopped abruptly. ‘Sorry, Jen,’ she said more quietly. ‘I was forgetting who’s supposed to be comforting who.’

  ‘We’re in the same boat now,’ Jenna said.

  ‘A leaky bloody rowing-boat with no oars,’ Izzy said glumly. ‘What a life! What’s wrong with us? What’s wrong with them?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jenna said. ‘I miss him so much, Izzy. But I hate him too. How could he do that to me?’

  ‘One consolation, if he cheated on you, he’ll cheat on her just the same. You’re better off without him.’

  ‘Wise words, Izzy my friend. Now apply them to yourself.’

  ‘Oh God, you’re right!’ Izzy said. ‘Even if Toby left Jennifer and married me, I’d be wondering all the time if he was going to do the same thing again.’

  ‘Chances are he would. Once they’ve tasted blood . . .’

  ‘Oh don’t. That’s it!’ Izzy said decisively. ‘I’m going to give him up. Definitely. I’m going to tell him to sling his hook, and take my chances out there. It’s the only way. Let one good thing come out of this conversation, anyway.’

  ‘Good for you,’ Jenna said. But she knew that Izzy wouldn’t stick to it. She’d given up Toby at least six times before, and always took him back when he said he couldn’t live without her, and swore he’d tell his wife about her at ‘the first opportunity’. Only that opportunity never materialized. There was always some excuse. Well, one thing was for sure – Jenna was not going to play second fiddle to Charlotte in Patrick’s life. She had the horrible object lesson of Izzy before her. ‘You’re an inspiration to us all,’ she told her friend.

  ‘Hang on, I haven’t done it yet,’ Izzy said.

  Jenna didn’t say, ‘That’s exactly what I mean.’

  It was fortunate that she had the conversation with Izzy first and was feeling braced, because almost as soon as she put the receiver down, the phone rang again, and without thinking she picked it up. It was Patrick.

  ‘Jenna, thank heavens! Why didn’t you call me?’

  ‘Hello, Patrick.’ The sound of his voice was making her insides do acrobatics, and she couldn’t manage any more than that.

  ‘I’ve been worried sick about you. You just went off without telling me where you were going.’

  ‘You should have guessed I’d be here. Where else could I go, after all?’

  ‘I shouldn’t have to guess,’ he said crossly. ‘You’ve no idea how worried I’ve been.’

  ‘Not worried enough to make you phone here before now.’

  ‘I’ve been very busy,’ he said, giving himself away. ‘I have a job, you know. One of us has to earn enough to pay the bills.’

  ‘You know about me losing my job, then?’

  ‘I tried to ring you at work,’ he said. ‘That obnoxious female, Julie, said you’d been let go.’

  And even that didn’t make you ring me here, Jenna thought.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he added into the silence she left.

  ‘Well, it hardly matters in the scheme of things, does it?’ she said.

  ‘Oh come on, Jenna, let’s not make a big song and dance over this,’ he said impatiently. ‘I made a mistake, I’m sorry. Now let’s be civilized about it. Come home, and let’s talk about it.’

  ‘There’s nothing to talk about,’ she said stonily.

  ‘Look, I know you’re angry, but do try to keep a sense of proportion—’

  ‘A sense of proportion?’ she said, amazed. ‘I find you in bed with another woman, and I’m supposed to make the adjustment?’

  ‘All right, I know it was unpleasant for you, finding out like that, but let’s put that behind us. It’s not as if I planned it. It was just something that happened. An aberration.’

  ‘Not good enough,’ Jenna said. ‘You don’t find yourself in bed with someone in a split second, like getting knocked down on a crossing. It takes time to get your clothes off, if nothing else. You could have stopped at any point, but you didn’t.’

  ‘But it didn’t mean anything! I swear to you, Charlotte doesn’t mean anything to me.’

  ‘Unfortunately, while you were in be
d with her, neither did I,’ Jenna said. ‘I wanted to say to you, “How could you?” But I can see only too clearly how you could. I’m sorry, Patrick. Even if I wanted to come back, I could never trust you again. And I don’t think I do want to.’

  ‘I think you do,’ Patrick said angrily. ‘You just want me to beg you. I thought our relationship was a bit more grown up than that. Besides, I have nothing to beg for. I’ve been damned good for you, and you know it. You had nothing when I met you. I’m sorry you lost your job, but it’s a blessing in disguise really, because I know of a really good opening for you, a much better job, something you’ll enjoy, something with real prospects. You don’t want to throw all that away for the sake of a silly tiff. Come home, and we’ll talk it through in a civilized manner, like two adults. That’s my last offer. It’s not as if you have that many options, is it? You can’t want to sleep on your brother’s sofa for ever.’

  ‘If I’d been thinking of coming back, you’d have just talked me out of it,’ Jenna said. ‘Do you hear yourself? You don’t even think you’ve done anything wrong, do you? It was only getting caught you regret.’ She tired of it, suddenly. ‘I’m going to put the phone down now. Goodbye, Patrick. Don’t call again, because I won’t talk to you.’

  ‘Wait! Don’t hang up!’ he called urgently. ‘I’ve got something important to say.’

  ‘What?’ she asked wearily.

  ‘You’ll change your mind about coming back,’ he said. ‘But I advise you not to take too long about it.’

  ‘Is that all?’ she said. ‘You cheated on me, and now you’re threatening me?’

  ‘No! That wasn’t it. What I wanted to say was – Charlotte wants her watch back.’

  ‘What watch?’ Jenna said, amazed at his cheek.

  ‘The one you took. I don’t say “stole”, because I know you were upset, but—’

  ‘If you are referring to the present you gave me, which you left on my bedside cabinet for me—’ Jenna began.

  He interrupted, sounding nervous. ‘Now, don’t mess around, Jenna. I mean it. That’s a very expensive watch!’