‘Was that her?’ whispered Ludo, as, shielded by the wall of the steps, we emerged cautiously.
‘Yes,’ I hissed back.
‘Ah. Thought she looked like you.’
I shot him a horrified look. Realized he was joking and cuffed his arm.
‘She looks like your sister, actually. Who I find pretty scary, incidentally.’
‘Well, if you find Ginnie scary, this one will utterly terrify you. We’re talking living daylights, here.’
‘I ran into her in the fruit and veg section of Waitrose the other day – Ginnie, I mean. She asked me, in that loud, imperious voice of hers, if I’d “finished with her sister”. My fingers plunged straight into the tomato I was fondling. I went the colour of it, too. Opened and shut my mouth like a goldfish. Eventually I spluttered, “N-nearly.” ’
I giggled.
‘ “Well, make sure you tie up any loose ends,” ’ he said, aping Ginnie’s cut-glass voice. ‘And all I could think of was your blonde hair, spread loose on your shoulders as you were hanging out the washing last week: how the sun had caught it.’
Ludo could say things like this: things that made your heart lurch, the lurching being all the more violent when it hadn’t happened for some time. Years. Had probably given up all hope of it ever happening again.
‘How’s Eliza?’ I said lightly, defiantly breaking the moment as we perched together on the crumbling bottom step, faded lavender bushes brushing our knees; deliberately bringing us to our senses, reality. I felt cruel as he swam back to the surface and sighed.
‘Oh, same as ever. Planning a skiing trip at the moment. Méribel, apparently,’ he said bitterly.
‘Really? I didn’t know you could afford that?’
‘We can’t. We can’t afford to go to the pub for lunch. She wants to borrow. Says it’s so cheap at the moment, we’d be mad not to, and that one day her parents will die and she’ll inherit some money anyway, so why wait? Why not use it now? I think she’ll be spiking their cocoa soon.’
‘And if you object?’
‘I do, mildly. And she points out that she’s only trying to lead the sort of life she’d been led to believe she could expect from me. She sort of spits it. Savagely. Says that all the girls’ friends go skiing and it’s unreasonable to send them to a school where they can’t join in the lunchtime chat.’
‘But they go to the state school now.’
‘I know. Apparently skiing trips still come down with the rations, though.’
‘Not in this house they don’t.’
We narrowed our eyes across to the distant hills beyond; to the ponies grazing in the steep field above the river. We sometimes spoke like this and I knew what we were doing: quietly wondering who was the most unhappy. Who had the most miserable marriage. I knew Ludo won by a country mile. The difference was that I still loved Sebastian. I didn’t spit at him and he didn’t really at me any more: also, he put absolutely no pressure on me. He was just there, getting more dishevelled and distant and dislocated from me by the day, in my garden. And I knew he loved me. We just couldn’t do anything about it, because he despised me, too. And they were so close, weren’t they? Love and hate. It seemed to me, though, that Ludo and Eliza didn’t feel any strong emotion for each other at all. Just a weary indifference, which was surely worse.
Ludo’s hand reached out for mine in the fold of my dress. Our fingers curled around each other’s. We held on tightly, knowing we were unobserved, and knowing too that this was as daring as we got, apart from the uncharacteristically bold hug last week. That had been enough for me. It had got me through the rest of the day with a broad smile on my face, as I bounced around the kitchen, being pleasant to the children – which is what I mean by the glue. And for the next few days as well, still hugging the memory. But it had not been enough, I suspect, for Ludo. I think he went home happy, but yearning.
‘Listen, Ella,’ he said suddenly, turning to face me on the step. ‘I know we both hate the idea of planning anything underhand, but it doesn’t have to be seedy and Brightonesque, you know. We could go somewhere pretty, Somerset, perhaps. I could be on a gardening course – there’s a new one in Tavistock – and you could be looking for those Call Ducks you want, the white ones that mate for life. We could just happen to meet in the market square, you with your crate of ducks, me with my portfolio under my arm and with an “Oh, what a surprise!” look on my face. We could go for lunch at the local pub, have a bit too much to drink, and then I could discover the pub had rooms above and we could repair to one, with a dear little wrought-iron bed and a view of the Quantock Hills. It could all just unfold like that, in a flurry and a heap of clothes, so spontaneous, so joyful, so – loving. What d’you say?’ he finished urgently.
I frowned.
‘What about the ducks?’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘D’you think you ever will?’ Lottie asked me, when I popped in to see her on the way back from getting the milk and the papers some days later. I told Lottie pretty much everything. Had nothing to hide. Yet.
I sighed. ‘I don’t know. Some days I think: Oh, for God’s sake, just do it, Ella Montclair. It’s not as if you have a proper marriage. And other days I shrink from it, thinking: No, how could I? He’s married. And he has more of a marriage than I do in some ways. They at least live together and to all intents and purposes are seen to be a couple: go to dinner parties as husband and wife and all that. Everyone knows Sebastian and I live next door.’
‘So you’re more honest,’ she said, crossing the kitchen to let the cat out, wearing her Hobbs suit – she was off to work and her sartorial standards were high: no droopy ethnic skirts at the Holistic Centre for her. ‘Or at least, Sebastian is. Since he was the one who moved out.’
‘Yes, but not everyone has the luxury of various converted cattle sheds in the garden to facilitate an honestly broken marriage. Some people have to grin and bear it. Get on with having no married life, but still sharing a bed and a bathroom.’
She was thoughtful as she poured the coffee. ‘You’re having an affair with him, anyway, you know,’ she said, casting me a glance.
‘I know.’
‘In all but –’
‘Yes, I know, Lottie.’
‘And, after all, you love him.’
‘Yes, but I still love Sebastian,’ I said quickly.
‘Yes. But the distance between the two of you gets wider all the time. When did you last have a proper conversation with him, for instance?’
I narrowed my eyes at her pinboard on the wall opposite. ‘Well, he came to supper last weekend. Tabitha had a friend and wanted it to look … normal. I asked, and he came. In a clean shirt, showered …’
I remembered turning in surprise as he came through the back door with a bottle of wine. A smile, even. Had flushed with relief and … something approaching delight. And he’d been sweet to Tabs and her friend, and even Josh had slunk downstairs fully dressed and displayed his best side, telling funny stories deadpan, being the cool older brother. I could see Tabs looking pleased as her friend was rapt, and then there’d been some brilliant father-and-son repartee as they sparred together. They could do a fine double act when they felt like it. But then, when the girls had taken the plates to the side and gone to watch a film, it had disintegrated. Sebastian had noticed a picture, a cheap print I’d bought recently, where, years ago, one of his had hung. I’d had to sell it to appease the bank, but for a long time had been unable to bring myself to replace it with anything. Except … the blank space had upset me too. Recently, I’d steeled myself and splashed out fifteen pounds.
‘Nice to see I’ve been replaced with bland, derivative trash,’ Sebastian had commented, amused, glancing at it.
I couldn’t tell him I’d been unable to hang anything good, because nothing would ever be as good. That it would always feel like a compromise. Had deliberately gone for a cheap, John Lewis reproduction of sheep in a field, to replace Girl with an Orange Bow.
‘Yes, I thought it was pleasant enough,’ I’d said neutrally.
‘Oh, it’s pleasant enough. Although, frankly, I preferred the nasty mark on the wall. But if that’s what you want, there it shall stay. We must, after all, dance to your tune.’
Sebastian had had quite a lot to drink by then and as he made a long arm for another bottle on the side, Josh made a comment to this effect.
‘I think I’ll be the arbiter of that,’ his father had snapped back.
To change the subject – and getting up quickly to close the door to the playroom – I’d asked Josh how his A-level project on Laura Knight was coming along. Josh had inherited what remained of our genes. He’d shrugged gnomically and I’d offered to look at it after supper.
Sebastian had snapped: ‘Don’t bloody well help him!’
There’d been a silence.
‘I wasn’t going to,’ I’d said, looking at his furious face across the table. ‘I was just –’
‘Just going to control, to organize, to manipulate,’ he’d sneered, and I’d crumpled inside. Outside, too. There’d been tears, which, thankfully, the girls hadn’t seen, but Josh had, and somehow he’d hustled his father away, back to his lair, and then been sweet to me, as Josh sometimes could. But I’d gone to bed very tight and very, very disappointed.
All this I didn’t tell Lottie now. I know I’ve just said I told her everything but sometimes it was bad enough living it, without having to relive it.
‘Yes, he came to supper,’ I said quickly. I fell silent.
‘And it wasn’t great?’
‘No. It wasn’t great.’
She was putting a series of Vogue prints into clip-frames to hang around her room at the centre to give it more of a chic ambience. Lottie was a very reluctant hippie. She believed in alternative medicine but didn’t like the herbs and beads and sandals that went with it. She kicked against the womb music and the healing stones and clicked into work in high heels and as much bling as she could afford.
‘I’m not advocating you have an affair with him, Ella. I’m just saying I wouldn’t be judgemental if you did. I have a feeling that, if you did, you couldn’t live in the crazy ménage you do at present, and maybe, just maybe, it would be good to rethink that.’
‘What’s wrong with my crazy ménage?’
‘Everything. You think it’s helping the children, but is it?’
‘Oh, Lottie, I don’t know. I don’t know that shagging Ludo would help them either.’
‘True.’ She went quiet. ‘It might help you, though. What’s the plan, Ella? Really? The endgame? To live there for the next thirty years while Sebastian has affairs and you’re celibate, catering to everyone’s needs – your mother’s included, now – the smell of burning martyr wafting from every orifice?’
‘He hasn’t had anyone since Isobel. I’d know.’
‘I know, but it’s only a matter of time, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, so we both have raging affairs, is that it?’
‘No, you move out. Move on. Move away. Maybe with Ludo. Maybe with someone like Ludo. But you move out of Limbo Land Farm with its life-sucking vortex which is dragging you down, and start thinking of pleasing yourself, instead of everyone around you.’
‘But that’s what I signed up to, didn’t I? What we all sign up to when we marry. Pleasing husbands, children, in-laws – whoever. That’s the deal.’
‘He broke the contract, not you,’ she said, abandoning the pictures and settling down to add a second coat of varnish to her already highly lacquered nails.
‘Is this you in therapist mode, Lottie?’ I asked admiringly. ‘You’re very good.’
‘No, because, sadly, I’m just supposed to listen.’ She shook the varnish bottle vigorously. ‘Not supposed to advise at all. Particularly in the acupuncture world. I can’t tell you how hard I have to bite my tongue.’
‘And you really can’t tell me anything about Eliza?’ I hazarded, bending my head to meet her gaze as she attended to her manicure. I batted my eyelids wantonly.
‘You know I can’t.’ She paused. Sat up a bit. ‘I’ll tell you one thing, though.’ She looked me in the eye. ‘She’s not telling me the truth.’
‘You mean … Ooh, Lottie! You don’t think she’s got someone, do you?’
‘No idea. All I know is that the spiel she gives me at the beginning of each session – because she has to say something, everyone does for five minutes – about her perfectly normal home life, is rubbish. I know that from you, obviously, but I’d know it was bullshit, anyway. Her headaches are worse than ever and that’s not right. Even with my shaky paws they should be getting a bit better. Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps she’s got a guilty secret.’
We were quiet a moment: in silent, companionable contemplation of married life in all its various complex forms.
‘Lotts,’ I said at length, gazing as coat number three was applied. ‘Do the long nails help?’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Well, I can’t help thinking … in terms of needle-grasping …’
‘Oh, no, I’m used to them. And as we know,’ she eyed me beadily, ‘so much of my job is needle-retrieving. They come in very handy.’
I giggled. ‘Is it getting any better?’
‘Well, it’s not quite so disastrous. But I did have a problem with the underside of Mrs Armitage’s foot the other day. You know, she teaches Matthew. It was so horribly crusty – I couldn’t get the needle in; it kept buckling. It’s the people I know, Ella, who are the problem. Complete strangers and I’m in like a die. Anyway, you’re coming in later, aren’t you? Four thirty? I‘ve got you down for half an hour.’
‘Oh, yes. God, I’d forgotten.’ I had. Had booked it ages ago. I’d been in once before, when I couldn’t sleep; but, if I’m honest, it hadn’t really helped. Lottie had been a bit flustered. I felt a shiver of nerves.
‘Ottoline says you’re brilliant,’ I said to bolster her – myself, too. ‘And you know her. She’s not a stranger.’
‘Ah, Ottoline.’ She put down her varnish brush and smiled. ‘She’s different. She says things like, “Don’t worry if it doesn’t work, Lottie, I’ve only come for a lie-down and a chat.” So I get it right first time. She puts you completely at your ease.’
‘What does she come in for, though?’ I asked, curious.
‘Ah.’ She tapped her nose. ‘Hippocratic oath.’ She smiled importantly. Annoyingly, actually.
I snorted. ‘Anyone would think you were Christiaan bloody Barnard!’
‘No, no heart transplants. But still. I have to keep schtum. Can’t go spilling the confidential beans or I wouldn’t have any clients.’
‘I’ll clearly have to get you drunk,’ I told her, gathering up my shopping and making to leave, ‘if I want any Eliza dirt.’
‘Oh, stop worrying about Eliza and go to it, Ella. Go and get yourself laid. It’s almost your duty to cuckold that husband of yours.’
I left, wishing I’d gathered just a tiny morsel, though. Wishing she’d just let slip that Eliza was having a sizzling affair, a glimpse of the green light I was looking for. Only then would I feel I could be the sort of woman who took another woman’s husband, I determined, as I carried my shopping down Lottie’s path and lifted it into the basket of my bike, which was leaning against the hedge. I knew that night I’d go to bed dreaming of Eliza entwined with a very beautiful Indian man from Swindon. All I knew about Eliza was that she used to make wedding dresses; she still did occasionally. Disappointingly this was not a career path many men naturally trod – I was keen for her to have an office affair – but I’d decided she must buy her silks somewhere and I’d plumped for the Indian quarter in Swindon. There she’d fallen in lust with a Mr Singh, who looked just like a young Imran Khan. He’d taken a roll of crêpe de Chine down from a rack in his shop, given her the eye, and shot out a length, as it were. Unfortunately the one and only time I’d had a proper conversation with Eliza, at a girly lunch at Ginnie’s where, horrifyingly, I
’d been placed next to her – I’d popped over unannounced with a birthday present for Araminta so Ginnie could hardly not say: ‘Do join us’ – when I’d asked where she got her fabric she’d said haughtily: ‘I import.’ Still, I persisted with the fantasy, as I couldn’t see how importing could involve a likely male. Except perhaps the postman.
She’d been cold as a fish that day, I remembered, as I got on my bike and wobbled, basket laden with shopping, down Lottie’s lane. Had obviously made up her mind I was infra dig, and had chummed up instead with Helena McCauley on her other side. The woman on my left had been pleasant enough so I’d chatted to her, but eventually she’d turned, keen to talk to her proper mates about GCSE results. I’d tried to catch the eye of the woman opposite and muscle into her conversation, nodding and smiling at what I thought were appropriate moments, but to no avail. In the end I’d stared straight ahead and concentrated hard on chewing my coronation chicken as if I was really interested in how it was made and which spices had gone into it. Ginnie had noticed, of course, and no doubt despaired, thinking: That’s why I never ask her. I’d come away thinking eight women around a table of a Tuesday really wasn’t for me. I preferred coffee with Lottie. A real chat, not a social event. Or even two minutes with Ottoline in the chicken house, I thought, as I wheeled my bike into the yard and saw her coming out of Mum’s cottage.
‘Just checking she’s OK,’ she called cheerily as she came across to meet me. She fell in beside me as I pushed my bike. ‘And seeing if she wanted supper.’
‘Oh, Ottoline, you are kind,’ I said guiltily, thinking I wasn’t. I was still feeling aggrieved at having her dumped on my doorstep. Had fled to discuss my love life with Lottie, rather than checking on her. I had asked her to supper a couple of times, naturally I had, and she’d come; but on the last occasion she’d criticized everything from the meal, hastily thrown together, to the dogs sleeping on the sofas, to Tabitha absently using her fingers to eat chips, to Josh looking at his phone while we were eating, to us not having any napkins, to – oh, everything. So I’d thought: Right. Not for some time.
My Husband Next Door Page 15