by Jane Fallon
‘So long as that’s all they’re here for,’ Stella says. Apparently, new, more humble Stella didn’t survive our falling-out. I see her flick a glance towards Al, but he’s deep in an anecdote. If he knows Ferne is only a few feet away, he’s not letting on. He’s practised at this. ‘Really, it’s too much. How are we supposed to let our hair down with them watching us?’
‘Mine’s only here so the children could come for a while,’ one of the non-Close women says apologetically. ‘She’s taking them home soon.’
‘Mine too,’ the other one says, a bit more defiantly. ‘Gail was very keen on all the children coming.’
Stella fixes her beady eyes on Katherine. ‘How about yours? Will she take the baby home soon?’ She’s in danger of giving herself away or, at least, looking unhinged in front of the whole neighbourhood. Katherine doesn’t bat an eyelid. She’s not the slightest bit in awe of Stella.
‘Oh, he’ll sleep through anything. And I’m going to take him off her hands soon anyway, because I don’t want to take advantage. She’s not on duty, she’s a guest. In fact, I might go and grab him off her now …’
She strides off, leaving the others clucking like a clutch of chickens in her wake. I watch as Katherine makes her way over to Ferne – the older children now seem to be doing some sort of catwalk show, which involves Taylor and Amber being the models and everyone else pretending to take photos – and chats to her before lifting Alexei out of her arms. I look back at Stella. She still hasn’t taken her eyes off Ferne.
I know I have to do something – for Ferne’s sake as much as Stella’s. And for Gail’s. I don’t want her party to be ruined because two of the guests end up fighting to the death on her flawless lawn. Stella and I haven’t even said hello yet. We haven’t communicated since she stomped out the other week. But I decide I have to take my life in my hands and I force myself to march confidently over to the group and hook my arm under one of hers.
‘Stella, can I borrow you for a second?’ I say, smiling manically at them all. I start leading her away before she can protest. ‘Calm down,’ I mutter, still with a forced smile plastered to my face. Then: ‘Let’s go over here!’ loudly, for everyone else’s benefit.
‘What the hell?’ she says, trying to wrestle her arm away.
‘You’re giving yourself away,’ I hiss. ‘Just come over here and take a few deep breaths.’
‘I thought you didn’t want to help me any more,’ she says petulantly.
‘I don’t,’ I say. ‘But it would give me no pleasure to see you make a fool of yourself either. Look happy. Pretend to be laughing.’
She cackles noisily, then glares at me. ‘Satisfied?’
‘It’ll do. Let’s sit here.’ I wrestle her over to a small wrought-iron table with two chairs. ‘Right, just stay here till you feel calmer.’ She flicks a glance straight back over at Ferne, who, now relieved of baby Alexei, is throwing herself into playing fashion shows with the kids. She pretends to fuss over Taylor’s hair. Practises a pose with Amber. ‘She’s playing with my fucking children,’ Stella spits.
‘I know,’ I say. ‘Don’t watch. Talk to me about something. Anything. How was your holiday?’
‘Fine,’ she says tetchily.
‘Whereabouts in the south of France –’
‘Laura,’ she interrupts and I jump. ‘You don’t need to do this. You don’t have to sit here making phoney conversation with me. Everything’s fine.’
‘Hardly,’ I say. ‘You’re about to rip Katherine’s nanny’s head off her shoulders in front of all our neighbours. So, unless the definition of “fine” has changed …’
I’m relieved that she laughs for real then. ‘Fair point.’
I make a split-second decision. I need to get her attention away from the immediate problem of Ferne. Dig my phone out of my back pocket. ‘Listen. I didn’t know whether to tell you this or not, but while you were away, they had viewings …’
‘I assumed they would,’ she says, engaged now. I show her the photos. ‘These people …’ I pull up the picture of the Gold Bentleys ‘… have put in an offer. At least, I think it’s them.’
‘Bastards,’ she says, peering at the image as if she might be able to magic them to life so she can question them. ‘How do you know?’
I tell her about my interaction with Tim the estate agent, about Jan Abramovich. She honks a big, genuine laugh at that bit, and everyone looks round at us. ‘Stella,’ I say quietly. ‘What if you told Al the whole story about the girls? As if you assume he doesn’t know any of it. Like a big confession. As if you can’t live with it on your conscience any more. Explain to him it was a donor and not an affair. It might make a difference.’
‘Why would he believe me?’
‘Why wouldn’t he? If he thinks you have no idea what he’s planning. About Ferne.’
We’re interrupted by the arrival of Taylor, come to complain that some of the other kids want a turn at being the models, and isn’t that unfair? Stella reaches out a hand and gently smooths her perfect ponytail. ‘Why don’t you let them have a turn?’ she says. Taylor pouts.
‘You should have a go at being one of the photographers,’ I say. ‘That way you can have a career that lasts beyond twenty-five and you get to eat what you want.’ Taylor raises her immaculate (microbladed? Surely not. She’s ten years old) eyebrows at me. Rolls her eyes. She turns back to her mother. ‘Me and Amber are the only ones who are going to be models in real life, so we’re the ones who need to practise.’
‘Maybe you should play something else now,’ I say. She really is a little madam. ‘Betsy wants to be a vet, so why not play that and you can be one of her patients. A sick warthog, maybe.’
I hear a loud noise and realize it’s Stella laughing again. Taylor flashes her a betrayed look. ‘That’s just stupid.’
‘Tayls …’ Stella says.
‘Sorry,’ Taylor says sulkily.
‘Laura’s right. Time to play something else. Let everyone have a turn at doing what they want.’ Taylor flares her nostrils in the exact way her mother always does. ‘Fine,’ she says imperiously. She’s used to getting her own way. But, however spoilt or self-obsessed she is, she certainly doesn’t deserve the mess that her life is about to become. Not the lack of riches – that will probably do her good – but the truth about her father, the fact that the man she’s always thought of as her dad is about to cut her off, I assume emotionally as well as financially. You’d have to be a monster not to feel for her. I try to imagine what it would do to Betsy if David suddenly stopped wanting to have anything to do with her. It’s unthinkable. It would break her heart.
‘Taylor,’ I say as she turns away. She looks back, tossing her hair. I give her a big smile. ‘Thanks.’ Her face relaxes slightly. Not quite a smile, but the grimace is gone. She turns and walks off. Walks, not stomps. It’s a victory of sorts.
Stella looks down at her hands, which are resting on the table. She twirls her mega-watt engagement ring round her finger. I assume that one is genuine. Bought when Al was still inclined to make grand romantic gestures. ‘Please let’s stop fighting, Laura. I don’t have anyone else to talk to.’
I close my eyes briefly. ‘I don’t know, Stella.’ I don’t want to get sucked back into her orbit. I feel for her, I really do, but I don’t know if I trust her. Scrub that: I don’t.
‘Whatever I’ve done wrong in the past, I have to be able to move on and work out what’s going to happen in the future.’
‘You will –’ I start to say.
Stella interrupts. ‘You’re the only real friend I’ve got. I mean, I have friends, lots of them, but you’re the only one who really knows me. Knows everything …’
I open my mouth to protest again, but she’s looking at me so intently, tears pooling at the corner of her eyes. You know that Christmas advert with the puppy in a cardboard box, abandoned on the street, silently pleading for love? That. Despite all my better instincts. I can’t just walk away.
‘It’s fine,’ I say gently. ‘Come round on Monday and we’ll talk about it then, once Betsy’s gone back to David’s.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Now you need to get back to your adoring audience and start showing off about your holiday again. We need to act as if everything is normal.’
‘Very funny,’ she says lightly.
‘And, Stella …’ I say as she gets up. ‘Stop giving Ferne filthy looks. You’ll give yourself away.’
She nods. I get up and follow her back, but I veer off and go over to where the kids are playing. I’ve had enough of the adults for this evening. They do indeed seem to be playing vets. Betsy is wearing one of the nannies’ jackets as a lab coat and appears to be in charge. She’s in her element. Taylor is the nurse. The others – Amber and the two boys and one girl from round the corner – are the injured animals. It resembles a First World War battlefield with Old MacDonald as the soundtrack. I lie down on the ground next to them and start to moo mournfully, ignoring the confused looks from my grown-up neighbours. It’s the most fun I’ve had in ages.
39
Sunday night comes round way too quickly. Once again, I couldn’t look at David when I dropped Betsy off. Gave him monosyllabic answers to his questions. I’m sure he must realize something has changed. The world’s most smooth-running divorce has hit a speed bump. I wonder if he knows Betsy must have let something slip. Whether he’s ever asked her not to tell me. Whether Michaela has.
I check the rotas for the week, swapping a couple of people around to accommodate two late requests and then, unable to get 18-rated videos of David and Michaela together out of my head, I go on to Tinder and end up striking up a conversation with Danny (forty-eight, divorced, one son, neat beard and kind eyes in his picture). After a few exchanges we’re both just ranting about our exes, but at least it’s cathartic. Eventually, I ask him if he thinks David was seeing Michaela before we separated, because why wouldn’t a man who doesn’t even know me, let alone either of them, have an opinion? ‘Probably,’ he replies. And then he adds a smiley face and a ‘Sorry’, as if that might help.
On Monday morning I watch as Al leaves and then Stella takes the girls to school. I hang the blue tea towel, just in case she’s not sure what time to come round, and when she gets back she comes straight over without even going home first, armed with two oversized Starbucks coffees and a bag containing pastries.
‘Are you drunk?’ I say as she plonks the bag on the kitchen counter. ‘You’ve brought something that contains calories.’
She ignores me. Gets out one of the pastries and takes a substantial bite. ‘I wish I knew when he was going to do it. How long I have.’
I’ve noticed the eBay sales have dried up. Either she’s lost heart or she’s running out of things of Al’s to sell. ‘How much have you got saved up?’ She tells me and I actually gasp. I couldn’t cobble that much cash together if I spent the rest of my life trying to do it. ‘How did you get it up to that much?’
She shrugs. ‘I told him I needed to pay the balance on the bachelorette party.’ By ‘bachelorette party’, it turns out she means the week in a villa near Rome she had booked for herself and her closest girlfriends – Eva, Jan, Anya and Katya. Gail had claimed busyness at work – in a few weeks’ time. ‘He saw all the details when I first reserved it, so he had no reason to question the amount, although he did ask if I really had to pay so soon. I told him they’d had an enquiry from the Beckhams and I couldn’t risk losing it now all the girls had booked their flights.’
‘Dare I ask how much?’
‘A hundred and fifty,’ she says casually. ‘I lost the deposit, but … you know …’
I should be immune to it by now, but it still renders me speechless for a moment. That she could find it so easy to get her hands on such vast sums of money. That she was going to blow it all on a holiday in the first place. ‘You were paying for the whole thing?’ I say, once I’ve taken it in.
‘Of course. Except the flights.’
‘Will the rest of them get their money back for those?’
She looks at me as if she has never even considered this. ‘I don’t know. They can’t have been very expensive.’
‘I’ll take your word for it.’
‘This is why I wish I knew what he was planning. How can I tell them the bachelorette is cancelled without giving away that something’s wrong?’
‘It’s all going to have to come out soon. You know that, don’t you?’
She nods wearily. ‘I know.’
I put down my half-eaten pastry. ‘If they’re your friends, they’ll support you.’
‘Maybe.’ She doesn’t sound convinced.
‘You need to start looking for somewhere to live. You have enough money now.’
She drains the last of her coffee. ‘Not for round here.’
‘Well, no. You definitely can’t afford to live round here. You need to start looking at areas you can afford.’
Stella looks out of the window. Lets out a big sigh. ‘Where I grew up,’ she says quietly, ‘it was so … dull. My parents were – are – kind, but they’re ordinary. Very ordinary. Does that sound harsh?’
She looks at me. It does a bit, if I’m being honest, but I shake my head. I want her to keep talking. It’s not often she opens up.
‘Mow the lawn on Saturday, wash the car on Sunday, TV with a nice cup of tea every night. Just the three of us, sitting there in silence. Even our house was boring. A little square box in a cul de sac of other identical little square boxes, with tiny identical back gardens and tiny identical weeping willows on the front lawn. It was stifling …’
I don’t know where to start. How many people wish they’d had a safe, stable upbringing like that? Boring is the best a lot of people could hope for.
‘I couldn’t wait to get away, but I couldn’t afford to get away either. And I wasn’t clever enough to go to college. That’s why I got married so young. If I hadn’t met Andrew, I’d probably still be there. Living in one of those houses with some tedious man, going to the WI …’
‘I doubt it,’ I say.
‘I won’t go back to being that person.’
‘You’re not going to. Just because you won’t be super-rich. Just because you won’t be living here …’
She puts her head in her hands. ‘It’s all too much.’
’I know,’ I say. ‘But the more you start to plan, the easier it’ll be.’ I need to stop her wallowing. Get her back to laying the foundations for her future. Every time I mention looking for somewhere to live, she goes into a decline, so I need to give her a break from that for a while. Steer her into more positive waters. ‘What do you want to do today?’
She looks at me, confused. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know … what have you never done?’
‘Um … should we have the Oud Renewal massage at the Mandarin Oriental?’ she says. ‘I’ve always wanted to try it …’
‘I meant more like filled up your car with petrol or baked a cake. Life skills. Things you’ve always paid other people to do for you.’
‘I can put petrol in my own car, thank you,’ she says huffily. ‘I’m not completely useless.’
‘Change a plug? Sew on a button? I don’t know.’
‘Are you thinking I could get a job as a lady’s maid?’ She doffs an imaginary cap and curtseys. ‘Will that be all, m’lady?’
‘Well, it would be better than nothing,’ I say, relieved that she’s at least finding it funny. ‘You could live in. The girls could be scullery maids. Tell you what, we’ll make ourselves lunch. You can help me make a quiche. How does that sound?’
‘Riveting,’ she says. ‘I can hardly contain my excitement.’
In the late afternoon I head down to St John’s Wood. I drive past my new flat, trying to ignore the shabby surroundings. It’s two minutes’ walk to the shops, I tell myself, ten to the school, fifteen to her dad’s. I repeat it like a mantra. Half an hour ago I got an email fr
om the conveyancer saying we were almost ready to exchange contacts, assuming there were no last-minute complications. The point of no return. Or no return without a financial penalty at least. She’s asked me to decide on a completion date. The date when it will finally be mine. It makes me feel sick to think about it.
The drive from there to Al’s office takes me past David’s block and then the flats where Michaela lives. Betsy will be there having her tea, post ballet. I could drop in and surprise her. I won’t, of course, because that would mean seeing Michaela and I don’t think I’m ready to pull that off without giving away how hurt I am yet. I picture Michaela’s place. The warm, earthy colours, the muddle of kids’ toys, the slight smell of the Body Shop grapefruit shower gel the whole family uses. Does it feel like a second home to David now? Does he have a favourite spot on her soft, baggy sofa? A shelf in her bathroom cabinet? His preferred side of the bed?
‘Here, look …’
For a change, I am keeping watch and Angie is rifling through Al’s drawers. Like many a woman before her, apparently. I look over. She’s waving a white A4 envelope at me. I take it from her, slide the papers out.
‘He’s accepted that offer on the house. Well, I assume it’s the same one. Nine point five million.’ I read on. ‘We note your request to complete the sale by 16 August. That’s two weeks after the wedding is supposed to be.’
‘Well,’ Angie says, ‘you’ve got to admire his organizational skills.’
‘So Stella’s got until then to move out. Maybe. That’s, what? Ten, eleven weeks?’
Angie nods. ‘About that. To find somewhere to live and a job. I know I said she was a cow, but I don’t envy her.’
‘She needs to get on with it,’ I say.
‘She needs more than that,’ Angie says, pushing a tanned hand through her short hair. ‘She needs a miracle.’
40
June
I’m forcing Stella to look at flats. At least to look at details of flats on PrimeLocation. We’ve dismissed Hampstead, Highgate, St John’s Wood and Primrose Hill as being too expensive. At least, I have. She’s resisting. She keeps bringing up things like proximity to the girls’ school, and I have to remind her that it’s unlikely the girls are going to be staying at their five-thousand-plus-a-term-each establishment. (No way can we assume Al will pay now he knows they’re not his.) I’m trying to talk up other, less glamorous areas and make her consider them. We’re in her garden, under a giant parasol, drinking mojitos in the early afternoon.