More to Life Than This

by Carole Matthews

  In the back of the car the children were smiling like a pair of Rubens’ cherubs. They started to sing Ten Green Bottles. The countryside whizzed by—the canary-yellow fields of rapeseed, a sprinkling of scarlet poppies in the hedgerows, birds flitting from telephone wire to telephone wire.

  ‘And if one green bottle should accidentally fall…’

  That’s just what she felt like. As if she was teetering on top of a wall like an unsteady bottle, waiting to see how long and how far the fall would be, and how much the process of being smashed would hurt. She looked at her handsome husband and her beautiful children and a cold shiver ran down her spine as she wondered if anyone else ever felt as if they were living in an Enid Blyton story.

  chapter 2

  ‘You look really fed up,’ Kate observed as she towelled her hair dry, grateful that the changing rooms were, for once, warm and not too smelly. It might be one of the most exclusive health clubs in the area, but even the lady members were still prone to bouts of cheesy-feet.

  ‘I am,’ her friend Sonia agreed.

  ‘What is it? Sex or Weight Watchers?’

  ‘Weight Watchers. I’ve put on half a stone.’

  ‘Half a stone?’ Kate looked at her friend in dismay.

  ‘Since last week.’ Sonia collapsed on the bench, stuffed her sweaty T-shirt in her holdall and pulled on her knickers.

  ‘How did that happen?’

  ‘I was permanently hungry.’

  ‘I thought you could eat unlimited vegetables.’

  Sonia glanced sheepishly at her friend. ‘How was I supposed to know that Cadbury’s Caramel wasn’t a vegetable?’

  ‘Sonia!’ Kate laughed.

  ‘I hate you,’ her friend said vehemently, shoe-horning herself into her jeans. ‘You just don’t understand what it’s like. You’re the only woman in the world who has trouble keeping weight on.’

  ‘I look after myself.’

  ‘So do I,’ Sonia protested.

  ‘The difference is I look after myself with a healthy diet and exercise.’ Kate looked at her sagely. ‘You look after yourself with Mars bars and Bacardi and Coke.’

  Kate came and sat down next to her friend, struggling to pull her leggings over her damp skin. ‘I really don’t know why you worry,’ she said comfortingly. ‘You look great, Sonia.’

  ‘I’ve put heaps of weight on over the years.’

  ‘Not that much, surely?’

  ‘I used to weigh seven pounds, three ounces.’

  Kate laughed. ‘Well, I think you look good as you are.’

  ‘Her friend hung her head and examined her pink Nike trainers intently. ‘I feel I have about as much sexual allure as a Fray Bentos steak-and-kidney pie.’

  ‘Are things no better between you and Tim?’

  ‘He still views sex as a non-participant sport, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Oh, Sonia.’

  ‘Do you know,’ she said lightly, ‘a vigorous sex session burns off a hundred and sixteen calories. That’s equivalent to one whole Hob Nob biscuit. I try to use it as part of Tim’s calorie-uncontrolled diet. It adds a whole new dimension to “Do you fancy a quick cup of tea and a Hob Nob, darling?”’ She looked sadly at Kate. ‘He just never takes me up on it.’

  ‘Jeffrey and I are no different,’ Kate admitted. ‘We’d rather watch 24 than make love these days.’

  ‘That’s really sad,’ Sonia commiserated. ‘But at least Kiefer Sutherland’s there to cheer you up.’

  ‘Sex isn’t everything in a relationship.’ Kate didn’t sound convinced, even to her own ears. Their bed seemed to be getting wider and wider as the gulf between them grew. Jeffrey treated her like his favourite sister, not like the red-hot love machine that she felt burning inside her. ‘It’s important to have companionship, shared interests and mutual respect.’

  ‘If you believe that, you’ll believe anything,’ Sonia snorted. ‘I’d rather have a good bonk any day of the week. Or every day of the week,’ she added after a moment’s thought.

  Kate rested her elbows on her knees and put her head in her hands. Her legs felt leaden, even after the hour of ‘Lean-Burn, High-Octane’ stepping, and they matched the heavy feeling that permeated the rest of her body. Why didn’t she enjoy anything any more? She always seemed to feel vaguely detached, as if none of this was really happening to her—and everything felt like such an effort. When had her get up and go got up and gone?

  ‘I’m thirty-five years old,’ she complained, ‘and already I feel I’m on the slippery slope of middle-age.’

  ‘You’re exactly middle-aged, if you believe the Bible. All we get is three score years and ten—if we’re lucky.’

  ‘Thanks, Sonia, that makes me feel a lot better.’

  Sonia slipped a shapeless jumper over her head. ‘Look,’ she said kindly, ‘you shouldn’t think of yourself as thirty-five. Think of yourself as two seventeen-and-a-half-year-olds rolled into one. That’s much more fun.’

  Kate shook her head sadly. ‘There must be more to life than this. Jeffrey’s working harder and harder just to stand still. The days seem to melt into one another in an endless stream of drudge.’ She twisted towards her friend, just as Sonia was surreptitiously removing a squashed Toffee Crisp from the pocket of her jeans. She stopped guiltily, caught in the act.

  ‘I’m depressed now,’ she informed Kate. ‘And my sugar levels are dangerously low after all that exercise.’

  Kate didn’t even hear her. ‘Do you know how pathetic my life is? I’ve even started to worry that my floating candles will sink.’

  ‘Sad,’ her friend agreed.

  ‘I have developed an addiction to watching small scented candles in assorted pastel shades glide serenely across ornate bowls of tap water. I feel suicidal when I see them starting to tilt halfway through dinner, plunging Nigella’s Beef in Designer Beer into darkness.’

  Her friend regarded her with pity.

  ‘And they always do sink,’ Kate continued. ‘I feel my negative vibes influence them. It’s karma.’

  ‘It isn’t, it’s the Titanic principle. One heavy object, one expanse of water, one impending disaster.’ Sonia proffered a bite of the Toffee Crisp.

  Kate declined.

  ‘You’re lucky that you have so little to trouble you.’

  ‘I know, I should be grateful, shouldn’t I?’ Kate pursed her lips. ‘I should be happy.’

  Sonia met her eyes. ‘But you’re not.’

  ‘No. It’s not that I don’t love Jeffrey,’ Kate said hastily.

  ‘Hmm. That particular sentence usually precedes goodbye and a dramatic slamming of the door.’

  Kate sniffled miserably.

  ‘So what are you going to do about it?’ Sonia prompted.

  Kate tilted her chin decisively. ‘I have decided to confront my velvet-lined rut of a life, take it by the throat and give it a thorough shaking!’

  ‘I constantly feel like doing that to Tim,’ Sonia conceded. ‘And, pray tell, how is this “thorough shaking” going to proceed?’

  Kate hesitated. ‘You’ll laugh.’

  ‘I won’t.’ Sonia held up her Girl Guide salute. ‘May God strike me dead!’

  ‘Promise?’ Kate took a deep breath. ‘I’ve booked myself on a week’s T’ai Chi course at Northwood Priory.’

  Sonia looked at her, po-faced. ‘T’ai Chi? Isn’t that what ancient Chinese old-age pensioners do in the parks?’ Sonia pressed her lips together and tried to look suitably serious.

  Kate said defensively, ‘Yes. It’s a Chinese system of exercises that promote physical and mental well-being. It happens to be very trendy at the moment.’

  ‘And Dean Friedman’s all the rage, too.’

  ‘It’s not funny,’ Kate said irritably. ‘I’m leaving Jeffrey, the kids and the Dyson bagless vacuum cleaner behind and I’m doing something for me.’ She pointed at her chest. ‘I’m going to have a week away from them all to think about what I want from life.’

  ‘We could g
o up to London together,’ Sonia suggested. ‘We could see The Chippendales get their kits off, get blind drunk on Bacardi and Coke at ten quid a shot in some trendy bar, and then bop till we drop at one of those sweaty nightclubs filled with Arab tourists.’

  ‘You make it sound so appealing, Sonia.’

  Kate picked up her bag and slung it on her shoulder. Sonia followed, struggling to keep up as Kate crashed through the swing doors; passing a litter bin, she greedily licked her Toffee Crisp wrapper before throwing it away.

  ‘When did you last let your hair down?’ she shouted. ‘That’s all you need.’

  ‘I don’t want to let my hair down. I want to find myself.’

  They had reached their cars. Usually, the light nights filled Kate with an energy that had her digging the garden borders until bedtime, but this year even the long hot summer days and balmy nights had failed to lift her spirits. Could you get post-natal depression ten years after the children were born?

  ‘Take me with you.’ Sonia’s voice broke into her thoughts.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Go on, go on, go on!’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘It’ll be a good laugh.’

  Kate leaned on the roof of her BMW. ‘I don’t want a good laugh. I want some quiet time to think about things.’

  ‘I’d like some quiet time, too,’ Sonia insisted. ‘Let me come—please.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I can do quiet.’

  ‘You can’t. And anyway, I want to be alone.’

  ‘You sound like Zsa-Zsa Gabor.’

  ‘It was Greta Garbo. And you still can’t come.’

  ‘When are you going?’

  ‘I’m not telling you.’

  ‘You’ll miss me.’

  Kate smiled. ‘I know I will.’ She opened her car door. ‘Don’t be cross with me, Sonia. I need to do this by myself.’

  ‘Well, personally,’ her friend said sulkily as she flounced across the car-park, ‘I don’t see how waving your arms around for a week in the British countryside is going to change anything!’

  chapter 3

  ‘Jeffrey, I’m going away for seven nights.’

  Her husband glanced up from his copy of Accountancy Weekly and smiled encouragingly. ‘I know.’

  Kate lay on her back, Jilly Cooper abandoned on the bedside table. She had tried to arrange her hair seductively across the pillow, but her efforts had gone unnoticed. And there was a limit to how far shoulder-length hair would drape anyway. Their next-door neighbour swung into his drive, the beam of his headlights swooping across the bedroom ceiling. It reminded Kate of when she was a child and how she used to lie awake watching for the headlights of her father’s car to make their kaleidoscope patterns across the nobbly surface of the woodchip wallpaper in her bedroom—for only then could she sleep soundly, secure in the knowledge that he was home safely. Tonight the memory failed to comfort her.

  ‘Seven whole nights,’ she repeated.

  ‘I know,’ he murmured, turning a page. ‘You’ll enjoy it.’

  She propped herself up on an elbow. ‘I’ve never been away before. Apart from two nights in a maternity ward.’

  ‘I know,’ he said and patted her leg.

  ‘And then you set fire to the cat while you were making toast.’

  Jeffrey took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. ‘He was only mildly singed though, rather than burnt to a crisp. Unlike the toast.’ He pointed with his glasses. ‘You were wearing that nightie when I came in to tell you.’

  ‘Was I?’ Was I? The thought horrified Kate. What was she doing still wearing a nightie that was ten years old? A maternity nightie, to boot! Jeffrey must be mistaken. ‘It was probably a similar one.’

  ‘No,’ he insisted. ‘It was definitely that one. I remember the pink rosebuds.’

  Kate looked down at the faded grey-pink rosebuds that adorned the threadbare material. This was her favourite comfy nightie. Her mind did a reluctant flashback. Grief, he could be right!

  ‘Have you put plenty of food in the freezer for the kids?’ her husband asked.

  ‘Is that all this means to you?’

  ‘No,’ he said patiently. ‘I just wanted to make sure we were all organised.’

  ‘We are very organised, thank you,’ she said crisply. ‘I’m not complaining,’ he reassured her. ‘Just checking.’

  ‘Well, I’ve been considerably more organised than filling the freezer with food.’ She sat up and hugged her knees to her chest. ‘I’ve arranged an au pair.’

  Jeffrey looked flabbergasted. ‘I don’t want an au pair!’

  ‘Of course you do,’ Kate insisted. ‘Every man wants an au pair. It comes with a midlife crisis, and the urge to buy a racy little sports car instead of a Ford Mondeo. What’s more, you’ll be the talk of the office.’

  ‘I don’t want to be the talk of the office.’ He rubbed his hands over his face slowly and deliberately. ‘Besides,’ he said tightly, ‘I can manage perfectly well.’

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘I can.’

  ‘The cat incident merely serves as a benchmark of your domestic capacity.’

  ‘You should have discussed this with me first.’ He looked at her with his I-am-very-serious face and she noticed, for the first time, the fine lines starting to etch into the smooth skin on either side of his mouth. Soon they would be as bad as hers. ‘I’m not sure that I want a stranger roaming round our home while you’re away.’

  ‘I couldn’t discuss it with you because I had to make a quick decision. She’s not going to roam, she’s going to work. And she’s not a stranger. She’s Jessica’s nanny. The family are going on holiday to Disneyworld and were leaving her behind for two weeks to water the plants and the pets and so forth. Jessica said she’d be happy to come over here on a daily basis and look after you lot as well.’

  ‘She might be happy, Kate, but I’m not.’ Jeffrey scowled until a little bump formed between his eyebrows. ‘Not happy at all.’

  ‘Jessica said she’s wonderful. So organised.’

  ‘How would Jessica know?’ Jeffrey pointed out. ‘She couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery.’

  ‘She could!’

  ‘What about the barn dance fiasco? That was Jessica’s little baby. When we arrived, complete with checked shirts and jeans, the place was still two-feet deep in cow pats.’

  ‘Now you’re just being grumpy for the sake of it,’ Kate said dismissively, remembering that it had taken them so long to shovel the manure out that no one had any strength left for do-si-do-ing. ‘Take my word for it, this girl’s wonderful. She’s a six-foot hunk of Australian beauty with pneumatic tits.’

  ‘Really.’ That failed to raise even the same level of interest as Accountancy Weekly.

  ‘Yes. Really.’

  ‘So that’s it. I’m going to be sharing my home, my one place of refuge, with an air-headed Aussie for a week?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have put it quite like that,’ Kate bristled. ‘But that’s about the sum of it.’

  ‘Fine.’

  Kate snuggled up to her husband. ‘I thought I was being helpful,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want you under any more pressure than you already are.’

  ‘We’re talking about looking after two kids for the week—my kids. And by your own admission, two extraordinarily well-behaved ones.’

  ‘They take a lot of looking after, Jeffrey, ‘Kate warned him. ‘They need constant chauffeuring. Kerry has a busier social diary than Anna Wintour. Just getting the pair of them to where they need to be on time takes a blend of mathematical precision and divine benevolence. Having Natalie here will take the pressure off.’

  ‘Natalie?’

  Kate nodded. ‘Natalie Lambert.’

  ‘I suppose she’s about sixteen?’

  ‘She’s twenty-eight. And she’s coming tomorrow morning to have a look round, so that I can show her where everything is before I disappear.’ For seven whole days! A shiver of panic rippled through Kate as he
r gaze caught the readypacked case standing by the wardrobe. ‘Then you’ll have the rest of the day by yourselves for you to get fed up playing the bountiful father, and she’ll come and take over on Monday. By which time you’ll be glad to get back to work and will be eternally grateful that I found her.’

  ‘Fine.’ He closed his magazine decisively and put it on the bedside cabinet.

  ‘You’ve finished The Joy of Accountancy, then?’ She couldn’t keep the hurt out of her voice.

  ‘I never get time to read it at the office.’ Jeffrey slid down in the bed. ‘Are you ready to go to sleep?’

  Kate wriggled down, too, burrowing against his side, feeling the warmth of his skin through the dreaded nightie. His face was pale and drained and she felt a surge of affection for this quiet, sensitive man. She traced a finger slowly over his chest. ‘I’m cold.’

  ‘Do you want to put on a pair of my socks?’

  ‘No, I don’t want to put on a pair of your socks!’

  ‘You know what your feet are like once they get cold—they’ll be blue all night.’

  She moulded herself against him seductively. ‘I’d prefer a cuddle.’

  ‘I thought you were tired.’

  ‘Well, I am a bit.’

  ‘So am I.’ He reached out and switched off the light. ‘It’s been a very long week.’ Plumping his pillow, he turned towards her. ‘By the way, your hair’s all over the place.’