by Carol Smith
“What, the Greeks?”
“No, idiot. Now, let’s get cracking. Do you want me to run you there or will you walk?”
“I’ll go on my blades. No sweat.”
Imogen helped herself to a biscuit from the tin on the dresser, then sat down to lace up her boots. Gathering up her hardware and sticking the knives safely back into their slots in the block, Beth gazed at her daughter with rapt approval. She was a good kid and a joy to have around. That was one more blessing she had that rich, beautiful, oh-so-well-connected Vivienne Nugent lacked. But this was no time to be getting sentimental over her. Beth glanced at the kitchen clock. In forty minutes’ time, if she were lucky, Vivienne’s husband would be banging on her door, and, she devoutly hoped, God willing and barring accidents, banging her into the bargain not a long time later.
With Imogen safely packed off for the night, Beth sprinted up the stairs and turned on both bath taps full blast. Because she combined her career with being a full-time mother, she rarely had the luxury of a proper soak and a total workover before she met up with her lover. This was just a typical evening; forty minutes for bath, change of clothes, makeup job, the lot. One of her gossipy girlfriends, a Greek with more money than sense, had the irritating habit of ringing Beth for an inconsequential chat just as she was tearing around the house trying to get her act together.
“Now go and lie in a candlelit bathroom,” Helena would end up soothingly, having wasted most of Beth’s precious time with the solipsistic details of the minor crises of her life, “and be sure to relax properly before you meet him. Get yourself into a proper frame of mind.”
You stupid twit! Beth always wanted to shout. How can I when you have already consumed three-quarters of my getting-ready time? It was a maximum twenty minutes, now it’s down to five. You’ve had all day to paint your nails, watch Australian soaps, nap, and shop, now you’re treading on my space. Get real! Get yourself a life! Get lost!
But she never did, of course. That was Beth all over. She would make soothing noises, fix a lunch date for two weeks’ time which Helena would invariably cancel at the last minute, and promise to keep in touch. But, no doubt about it—and here was the point—she’d still choose, any day, the chaos and bustle of her own erratic life over the sterile emptiness of her rich friend’s. Which brought her back, inevitably, to Vivienne Nugent.
• • •
Beth was back in the bedroom with the bath emptied and quickly rinsed round, frantically blow-drying the damp ends of her hair, when Oliver phoned to say he was going to be late. At least an hour and a half, he said; something to do with the bank.
Of course, she thought, what else but the bank? It wasn’t a traffic accident, or a nuclear bomb, or an unscheduled cloud of locusts, or even another woman. Nothing as complicated as that. At least Oliver was consistent in his excuses. In an odd way, it gave her a certain security.
And it also gave her the breathing space she had just been longing for; time to run an iron over her less than immaculate linen shirt, to hunt for the cuff links that went really well with it, to pin up her hem, even stitch it. Time, if she judged it correctly, for a five-minute lie on the bed to unwind and think randy thoughts in readiness for the evening of passion she had been looking forward to all week.
One of the delights of illicit love, as Beth had observed before, was that you got the thrills without the drudgery, the gingerbread without the guilt. If you only saw someone sporadically, it was easy to present yourself always at your best. Life’s little nastinesses, like period pains, cold sores, and unwaxed bikini lines, could be swept under the bed with the rest of the fluff balls. Beth stretched luxuriously on her white lace duvet, unwinding to Streisand’s Back to Broadway and studying her less than perfect cuticles which she simply hadn’t the energy to fix. Not after the hours she’d just spent laboring over a hot stove.
At nine Oliver rang again to say the meeting was still in progress and he wasn’t sure what time he’d get away. He apologized and told her he loved her. He said he’d call the minute he could but urged her to have a snack, just in case. Beth made smooching noises over the phone and said it really wasn’t a problem, that she’d still got plenty to do and would expect him when she saw him—then cursed and kicked the bedpost when he rang off. Shit, shit, shit. This was the downside of being a mistress, though how she loathed and detested that word, finding it archaic and degrading. The side it was easy to overlook when the going was good. She wrapped herself, cursing, in her silk kimono and sloped off downstairs to see what she could plunder from the fridge out of the advance preparations she had already made for Wednesday’s Greek wedding.
With a plate of hummus and pita bread to keep her stomach from rumbling, and a whole bottle of chilled Chardonnay to wash it down, Beth settled in front of the telly to watch the end of the news and await Oliver’s next call. Her golden mood was fast darkening round the edges, she had to admit, and she couldn’t avoid a growing grievance at her situation, with a child safely parked and a whole evening wasted—for what?
Love without ties was a marvelous thing, far superior to the drudgery and bind of marriage, provided you were the one on the up end of the seesaw, the one who called the shots. While it was you with the burgeoning career and glorious future, financially solvent and answerable to no one, love without ties was a piece of cake. No messing. Happiness, romance, eternal optimism, and great orgasms were on the upside; the downside things like guilt and betrayal and loneliness and middle age and acting like a louse and betraying your friends you learned to push under the carpet.
Michael Fish gestured and smirked and made jokes about the weather while Beth, reflectively, poured herself another glass of wine. And, almost imperceptibly, a pale specter with extraordinary bone structure and haunted eyes slid into place beside her on the sofa.
While meeting Oliver had been the genuine thing, an instant coup de foudre that Beth could no more have ducked than a sudden thunderstorm out of a clear sky in an open field, loving Gus had been something altogether more low-key.
And as their parting had been so gentle, Beth and Gus had remained the best of buddies. They met only sporadically but stayed in touch and their youthful love matured into something more lasting, more like the empathy between siblings. Gus would always be there for her and Imogen and she for him. It was a comfortable love, a more enduring one—better by far than something explosive like the love Beth had for Oliver.
Who had still not rung. She carried the empty bottle into the darkened kitchen and pulled the cork of another. The clock said ten to eleven and she had an early start in the morning. What the hell, her mood of erotic anticipation was long since dissipated so she might as well be blotto whether he turned up or not. This was the aspect of illicit love she really hated, it made her feel grubby and ashamed. Oliver had swept her off her feet with his glamour and raw need, after years of noninvolvement and a series of casual relationships that would not threaten her child, but lately his increasing absences had made Beth realize what she was having to do without. Now, while she was still at her best and her child was rapidly growing up and gaining her own independence.
The phone finally rang at ten past and, by mutual agreement, they decided the night was shot. He told her again that he loved her, repeated his regrets, promised to call in the morning and that he would make up for it.
Beth grunted and sank another glass of Chardonnay as she crashed down the receiver in the sleeping kitchen. Then, gripped by a sudden unspeakable rage, she grabbed hold of one of her newly sharpened knives and flicked it, with the deadly precision of a circus performer, across the room and into the scrubbed pine surface of the table, where it bit with a quivering thwang.
Sod off, Oliver Nugent, I deserve better! she thought—and somewhere in the lurking shadows the sad-eyed specter responded with a tight-lipped smile.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Vivienne’s house meant more to her than anything. She hadn’t started off domesticated, it had grown on her
over the years since they had bought this wonderful place. To begin with it had been something of an extravagant gesture, a sign to the world that the Nugents were upwardly mobile, but lately, with Oliver’s increasing absences abroad, the house had become Vivienne’s fortress, her retreat from what she felt to be an increasingly hostile world. Here only Dorabella and the cats could see her as she drifted inconsequentially from room to room, and when Dorabella was off duty, she spent more and more time shut away in the sanctuary of her bedroom.
They used to entertain a lot as a couple and at one time Vivienne’s soirees had been the hottest ticket in town. She had had dinners for thirty on a regular basis, with tables laid out in the candlelit conservatory and live music in the first-floor drawing room, while guests carried their plates to sit on the stairs and listen. Ashkenazy had played here, and Itzhak Perlman, and she’d even persuaded Pavarotti, because he admired her beautiful eyes, to come around one evening after they’d eaten and sing a couple of arias to go with the brandy and cigars. If she’d known Eleanor Palmer, she’d doubtless have invited her too.
These days, however, their socializing had died except for the occasions when bank business intervened and Vivienne was obliged to reinvent herself as a hostess and throw sterile dinners for people she didn’t much like, who lacked the glamour and wit of her own chosen circle. Oliver was away too often and Vivienne simply hadn’t the energy to put it all together anymore. She began to see the shallowness of many of her acquaintances, people who only cultivated her in order to get onto her dinner list, and she had entirely lost the zest for empty conversation. What she yearned for these days was friends, but how on earth did you set about finding them?
Meeting Georgy in Harrods had given Vivienne quite a jolt. She had tried to shut her mind to that unpleasant business, and coming face-to-face with the American girl had been an unwelcome reminder. Besides, she found Georgy querulous and rather pushy and hadn’t much warmed to her. There was something about native New Yorkers that set Vivienne’s sensitivities on edge. Georgy was simply too loud, too abrasive, and altogether too forthright to be a natural friend. She was also at least fifteen years younger and therefore something of a threat.
In retrospect, however, Vivienne had to admit she had quite enjoyed her brief stay in hospital. She was not used to the easy chat of a bunch of other women and had found it at first intrusive. Until her adventure of entering a public ward, she could not have tolerated the idea of not being entirely private, but after a bit she had found that the presence of the other women had actually helped. She remembered the laughter and the slightly coarse cheerfulness that was always there in the background and on which she had begun to rely, a morale-booster rather than a deterrent. It put her in mind of the famous wartime spirit, and she missed it.
More than anything, however, she was finding she missed Beth. She had not forgotten her kindness and the rallying words from beyond the curtain before she was wheeled off down to the theater. She longed to be able to pick up the phone and invite her to lunch, but something still stopped her. It was absurd, but Vivienne was frightened of being snubbed; Beth was so warm and outgoing, so friendly and natural with everyone around her, yet Vivienne sensed some evasion, something she did not understand. So she compromised and rang Catherine instead, suggesting they meet for tea one afternoon at Fortnum & Mason.
Vivienne was shocked when she saw how Catherine seemed to have shrunk since leaving the hospital. Though always slight, her clothes now hung on her and her pale skin, stretched too tightly over her bones, seemed almost transparent. Her cup rattled slightly as she placed it in its saucer and Vivienne found herself stroking her hand.
“How are you, my dear?” she asked with real concern.
“Not terribly good,” Catherine admitted and told her about the continuing dull pain in her lower abdomen, where the doctor had made his investigatory incision.
“What was it exactly?” Vivienne loathed the subject but felt she had to show interest.
“Ovary,” said Catherine, coloring faintly. “I had a cyst which they removed successfully. What I’m feeling now is just the results of the surgery, adhesions or something, so they said.”
Then why does your skin look like fish scales? thought Vivienne. And your hair so lifeless and dull?
She changed the subject. How were their fellow patients? she inquired. Had Catherine kept up with any of them? A flush of life returned to Catherine’s pallid cheeks and she visibly perked up. She did see Sally, she said, who dropped by quite often to visit her mother. And Sally saw Beth. And Beth saw Georgy.
“I like Beth,” said Vivienne cautiously. “I admire her spirit. I’d quite like to see her again. Do you think we could all have lunch—or are women with careers like that always rushed off their feet?”
“Don’t know,” said Catherine. “I suppose it depends. Sally knows the lowdown. I think Beth mostly does lunchtime affairs—business do’s in the City, stuff like that—but when she has a run of working in the evenings, then she alters her hours and takes some time off. That’s the joy of being your own boss. Shall I ask Sally?”
“Would you?”
San Lorenzo, thought Vivienne, or the Fifth Floor at Harvey Nichols. Or perhaps Dorabella could whip up something simple so she could invite them to the house. But hang on, Beth was a professional cook. Would Dorabella’s basic cooking be impressive enough? she wondered.
“What about Sally?” asked Catherine. “Do you want to include her as well? She works part-time at that pub near the World’s End. I know she’s often free at lunchtime because that’s when she comes to sit with Mama.”
“Why not?” said Vivienne, expansively. “And the American girl too, I’ve forgotten her name. Let’s have them all. Are you in touch with her?”
“I’m not but Beth is. Sally will know.”
What fun! An all-girl lunch party after all these sterile months. Vivienne was already cheering up. Something to plan for; more important, something to look forward to. Nothing too fussy, keep it simple; don’t risk frightening them off. Light, delicious food and a lot of wine, time to linger and gossip and catch up; to do the things women did in groups and get to know each other better.
“I’ll tell you what!” she said gaily, touching Catherine’s fragile wrist with one manicured nail. “Why don’t I ask Addison Harvey too, just for a lark. He’s by way of being a bit of a family friend. His wife and I sit on committees together and he plays squash with my husband. What do you think? If we’re going to have a reunion, why not make it complete!”
It was meant to be a joke, but failed abysmally. The blood drained from Catherine’s face, she knocked over her teacup, and Vivienne was just in time to prevent her from falling to the floor. What had she said?
“Catherine? Catherine?” she whispered, propping the lifeless woman back on to her chair and urgently fanning her with the menu. “No, it’s quite all right,” she added in her society voice to the gawkers at the next tables and the anxious waitress who was hovering. “She’s just feeling a tiny bit faint. More tea, please, and a fresh cup.”
“I’m sorry,” croaked Catherine after a while, wiping her streaming forehead with a sad lace hankie and pulling ineffectually at the strands of damp hair that clung to her neck. “Too embarrassing . . . I’m all right really.”
“Are you quite sure?” Vivienne was genuinely alarmed and the waitress still hovered.
“Yes, I’m sorry.”
Catherine was almost weeping with consternation and the chatterers at the adjoining tables had fallen ominously silent. Vivienne swept them with an imperious eye and it worked like magic. Conversation flowed again around them and they could, at last, have a private word.
“Is there something you want to tell me?”
“No.” Catherine faltered.
How could she explain? It was something she had never spoken of to anyone, and Vivienne, for all her kindness, was not the coziest of people nor the most accessible. And she knew his wife, she said.
And then, miraculously, a fresh pot of tea arrived with clean cups and saucers, and the bill.
• • •
“My dear, she was positively reeling!”
Vivienne was on the phone to Beth, describing the events of the previous week. “Do you suppose she’s all right? Or might she be iller than she realizes? More important, is there anything we can do? I feel so helpless . . . so responsible somehow.”
She would ask Phoebe to check with Addison but assumed he wouldn’t tell; not if he maintained the professional discretion she was relying on. Beth answered monosyllabically. She was, as usual, in her kitchen, furiously concentrating on marinating two dozen quails, with one eye on the Aga and the other on the clock. This woman certainly did go on. Didn’t she know about deadlines and life in the fast lane? Obviously not. Plus Beth had no desire to get too girly with her; the embarrassment factor put anything like that firmly out of court.
“Anyhow,” went on Vivienne, on a lighter note, “I am so glad Catherine was well enough to pass on my message and I do hope you’ll be able to join us on Thursday week. Nothing special, I assure you, just a snack and a glass of something at my place, to catch up on old times. Shall we say twelve-fifteen or twelve-thirty? Quite informal . . .”
Oh, Lord, now what was she to do?
“I’m afraid it’s not as easy as all that. I do have a full-time job, you know, and can rarely get away for social lunches.”
It was more or less the truth. The fact that she did not work every day need never be divulged. The last thing in the world Beth needed was the extra complication in her life of having to pretend friendship to a woman she was betraying. The slightly plummy voice had fallen silent and Beth, still tasting and adjusting, realized she was being less than polite. She pulled herself together. If anyone was at fault, it certainly wasn’t Vivienne, and there was no call to be rude or even offhand.