The Rival

by Charlotte Duckworth

  Jack nods again, types a reply and then puts his phone back in his pocket.

  ‘It’ll be us next,’ he says, and I notice the vein on his neck is pulsating slightly. I watch it as it moves back and forth, like a tide coming in and drawing back, the same tension.

  I laugh, loudly and heartily, to let him know that I appreciate his joke.

  ‘You barely sleep as it is,’ I say. ‘Listen, what are you up to? It’s a bit early for me to leave but Ashley won’t be back today and I’ve nearly done these forms, anyway. Why don’t we go and get some sushi and go home? I feel like it’s been ages since we did anything together . . . anything that’s not, well, rushed.’ I wink at him, and immediately regret it. It feels seedy, condescending, entirely wrong. Yes, our sex life isn’t what it used to be, but at least we still have one, unlike so many people who’ve been together as long as we have.

  He stands up and walks towards me. In his shirt and suit jacket, the light from the window casting a glow around him, I suddenly see him as all the women he works with must see him. Sexy. My husband is sexy.

  He takes my hands and hauls me to my feet, pulling me against him and finding my mouth with his. Gently at first, and then with more insistence. It takes me back to years ago, to how we once were, before we got old and familiar and saw each other more often in our slippers and pyjamas. Before sex was just a mechanical procedure done under a thick duvet, something to be crossed off the to-do list, an exercise in good health: three times a week, like the gym.

  ‘Jack!’ I say, squirming a little, but then an image flickers through my mind. Me, in a taxi, an unfamiliar aftershave hanging in the air. I squeeze my eyes shut, blink it away. Thank God he’s in the US this week and there’s no chance of him popping down to my office. I kiss my husband back, pushing him on to the desk, clearing the day’s clutter with one swipe of my arm, as though I’m in a film.

  *

  We take the Tube home after five minutes failing to hail a taxi. I suggested getting an Uber, but Jack had read something about the way they were treating their drivers and gave me a very well-intentioned lecture as to why we should no longer use them. His social conscience, one of the reasons I fell in love with him, is both endearing and alien to his type.

  The carriage is relatively empty and we sit next to each other, hand in hand, as the train rattles through the stations. I rest my head on his shoulder, fighting the urge to get my phone out and check my emails. In the restaurant, I sneaked off to the toilets and managed to reply to three from Ash, making sure to delete the automatic Sent from my iPhone message at the bottom of them. I don’t want her to think I’m slacking off already, not when I’m her manager. Even though I’m itching to find out if she’s replied to my suggestion that we try to lure Joel back as our developer, it can wait till tomorrow. Enough work today, my relationship deserves some time, too.

  ‘It’s a bit fiddly from Kings Cross isn’t it?’ Jack says, as we get off at Finchley Road to change trains. It’s cold on the platform. The early spring sunshine has disappeared, leaving a chill in its wake.

  ‘I told you we should have got an Uber!’ I say, stamping my feet up and down. ‘Goodness me, it’s cold. I should have put a scarf on this morning.’

  Jack takes his off and puts it around my neck. It smells of him and I lean up and kiss him as a thank you.

  ‘Barney and Alicia are moving out of town you know,’ he says, staring over my head at the departure board.

  I turn round. Seven minutes till the next train.

  ‘Hmmm,’ I say, already aware of where this conversation is leading. ‘Are they going to get chickens?’

  ‘Maybe,’ he replies, smiling. ‘Their place was valued at one point two million. Crazy. Never could understand the appeal of Putney myself, all that aeroplane noise. But they’re looking at Buckinghamshire, apparently. Can practically buy an estate for that in some of the smaller villages.’

  ‘Right,’ I say, scrabbling around for a new subject. A train trundles past on the opposite platform and unveils a huge billboard for a new film, much lauded, nominated for seven Oscars. ‘Fancy seeing that sometime?’ I nod at the billboard.

  ‘Uh, yeah, maybe,’ he says, refusing to take the bait. ‘I think it’d be nice to have a bit more space. Not to have to do . . . this . . .’

  ‘Getting the Tube home was your idea! And anyway, how do you think people who live in the suburbs get to work? Helicopter?’

  ‘I’m just saying. All the people. Don’t you wish for a change of scenery sometimes? A bit of space?’

  ‘That’s what holidays are for,’ I reply, bluntly.

  ‘We couldn’t stay here if we had a kid,’ Jack says. ‘For a start the flat’s too small, and for another, I wouldn’t want them growing up with all this pollution.’

  ‘Best not have a kid, then,’ I say, relieved to see our train slowly pulling up to the platform. Subject changed. Confrontation avoided.

  Or so I think.

  He presses on, in the carriage, his eyes suddenly a little bloodshot, as though he’s exhausted or had too much to drink.

  ‘But darling, you said we’d try this year . . .’

  ‘Yes, but that was before.’ Bubbles of irritation start to pop in my mind. I thought we were having a nice evening. Not doing this. Again.

  ‘Before what?’

  ‘Before I got promoted,’ I say, my voice strained. ‘I’m working on a new launch. It’s not exactly a great time to be disappearing off to have a baby, is it?’

  Jack slumps back in his seat, dropping my hand, like a sulky teenager.

  ‘What?’ I say, twisting in my seat to frown at him.

  ‘I just . . . I told you before, I don’t want to be an old dad.’

  ‘You’re thirty-seven! That’s not old. That’s young, these days.’

  ‘Yes, but we should get a move on . . . you’re thirty-five this year . . .’

  ‘Oh great, thanks very much. Now I’m too old! Brilliant.’

  ‘I’m just saying. I don’t want to be like my father. Dead before my kids turn twenty. I want to be around for them while I still have the energy to do things with them. I want to see them grow up. I want to see them have kids of their own.’

  ‘You’re getting a little ahead of yourself,’ I say.

  The woman sitting opposite us is blatantly eavesdropping on our conversation, her eyebrows moving up and down with interest.

  ‘Anyway, can we talk about this another time? Another place? Like home . . .’

  ‘It just feels like you’ve gone off the idea entirely,’ Jack says.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous! It’s just not the right time at the moment. It’ll happen when it’s meant to.’ My fingers shoot to my upper arm, digging about under the skin for the little tube, making sure it’s still there.

  The woman opposite me notices my fiddling, and I really want to tell her to mind her own business, but she’s having far too much fun listening in. I wonder if she has kids. She’s about my age, but her clothes are crumpled, her hair scraped back into a ponytail, highlights long outgrown, her eye make-up smudged with tiredness. Perhaps she’s silently willing me not to back down, trying to tell me that I’m right. I meet her eyes for a second and she smiles at me. Yes, that’s it, female solidarity. It’s your life that will change, not his, her eyes seem to be saying. Don’t do it unless you really want to.

  Jack slumps down even further, pulling his phone out from his pocket. I watch as he opens his emails, flicking through them quickly, as though they are ants that need to be disposed of. He pauses on one. I let my eyes travel further and read the subject line, a split second before he closes the app. Termination of Contract. He sucks air through his teeth, then puts his phone away, staring through the opposite window at the blurry tunnel walls as the Tube hurtles along.

  So that’s what he’s been dealing with today. I sink back into my seat, put my hand on his knee and squeeze it. I remember how hard he finds having to sack people; he’s far too compassionate fo
r his own good. Sometimes I forget how stressful his job is – the more money you earn, the more responsibility you have – and I know that, deep down, he wants to be like his dad, putting up shelves for a living, working with his hands and with the grateful rather than the greedy. But it was all mapped out for him, by his teachers, his parents, whether he wanted it or not, and Jack is nothing if not eager to please.

  There’s nothing new I can say to him. I’ve told him before that he can give up work if he likes, that I can support us both, but his pride won’t have it. And so I let him brood as I pull out my phone and go through Ash’s emails. All eighteen of them.

  THEN

  Ash

  Google Maps reliably informs me that Helena’s dad’s house is a twenty-five-minute walk from the station. I should have remembered from Gran’s cleaning jobs; people who live in houses like this don’t need to live near a station. Or a bus stop. They drive everywhere. Or are driven.

  I wish I could drive. Last week I read an interview with someone who said that adults who couldn’t drive or cook were immature, that they needed to grow up. It pissed me off – but then again, I kind of see their point. Now I can afford to, it’s time I learned – something else for the to-do list.

  Thankfully, I allowed myself plenty of time and I have half an hour to spare before I am due at the Cawstons’ house. I leave the station and turn right, heading for the high street. There’s an Asian man sitting in a car outside the station; he winds the window down when I approach and it’s only then that I realize he is a taxi and expects me to want a ride. I shake my head at him, although part of me is slightly tempted to turn up in a taxi. I suppose that’s what they would expect.

  Using my phone as a guide, I head towards the centre of the town. It’s cold, but my feet are bearing up despite the four-inch heels, and I am listening to Arianna Huffington’s book Thrive through my headphones. I am especially enjoying her thoughts on the need to disconnect from technology in order to reconnect with ourselves. I just wonder when I’ll have time to do so. In my bag, I have a bottle of red wine – a Châteauneuf-du-Pape, classy but not too expensive. I’ve learned enough to know what good manners are.

  Helena said her husband will be there for lunch, and I’m looking forward to meeting him, finally. He’s always been too busy before and I’ve, perhaps unfairly, taken against him for it. I don’t need to meet his eligible friends any longer, not now I have Joel, but I’m still interested to see what Jack is like. I smile as I think of Joel, watching me get ready earlier. I’ve decided that I’ll let him move in with me in a month or two, if things are still going well. It’ll be great to have some help with the rent, and he seemed to take the hint when I cleared a space for his stuff in my wardrobe and told him to consider my place his home.

  The high street is a pretty affair, all carefully planted hanging baskets and hand-painted shop signs. So this is what the women of Hertfordshire do on their Saturdays: push their brood of perfectly dressed children down the high street to the baker’s, trailing their Labradors behind them. Most of them seem to have a husband in tow, too. I wonder if any of these cashmere women have jobs, or if they’re just employed full-time by their offspring.

  My left foot starts to chafe slightly and I stop for a second to stick a plaster over the back of my heel, fiddling with it to make sure it’s not visible. When I finally arrive at St Andrew’s Hill, I am stunned to find a little man sitting in a small hut, in front of a long, white, firmly closed gate.

  ‘Hello,’ he says, not unfriendly.

  ‘Hi,’ I say, kicking myself for not taking the cab, after all. ‘I’m here to visit Sandbanks. The Cawstons’ house?’

  He nods at me.

  ‘Right you are,’ he says. ‘Come on through. Although it’s a walk, I’m afraid. You need to continue up South Road, then when the road forks, take a left. It’s on Golf Club Road, about halfway down. Or up.’ He chuckles. ‘Bit of a hill, unfortunately. Lovely road, though. One of the nicest.’

  I nod at him, steeling myself for the walk. My foot is hurting now. Properly hurting. I’m also freaking out that my underarm area is beginning to feel a little damp. I decide to walk far enough that I am out of the sentry man’s sight, and then refresh myself with the deodorant I have in my bag.

  I arrive at the house exactly five minutes early. It reminds me of a doll’s house from the outside: perfectly symmetrical, with an overbearing black front door, flanked by two enormous stone pillars. The brick is a kind of sand colour, and the windows are Georgian in style, with timber framing. Gran would be so impressed.

  But this isn’t Helena’s house. It’s her dad’s. I am yet to be invited to Helena’s flat. All I know is that it’s a stone’s throw from West Hampstead Tube. I wonder if she has any idea just how lucky she is.

  I make my way up the long driveway, taking in the perfectly symmetrical olive trees forming a V shape each side of the front door. It’s all a bit paint-by-numbers. But I still feel a thrill of anticipation as I approach the front door. Mr Cawston grew up in the roughest part of Essex – his parents were publicans, he didn’t go to university, and he made every penny himself through hard graft. Proving there’s hope even for me. He’s one of the reasons I applied for that job with Helena in the first place and now, finally, finally, I’m going to get to meet him. She invited me when we were out jogging together last week – it was pretty thoughtful of her, really. I can’t quite believe I’m here.

  The brass doorbell is mock Victorian and looks entirely out of place. I can see through the panes of glass either side of the front door that the hallway is tiled in something shiny and deathly looking, and I know even before the door opens that I’ll be faced with a sweeping central staircase, curving out at the sides to greet me.

  The door is opened by a stocky woman in a smart suit.

  ‘Hello,’ she says, with a faint trace of an accent. ‘Please come in.’

  ‘It’s Ashley,’ I say, wondering whether I’m meant to shake her hand. Does one shake hands with the staff? Probably not.

  ‘May I take your coat?’ the woman replies, smiling. ‘Everyone is in the drawing room. It’s just through that door on your left.’

  I don’t know what I was expecting exactly, but it’s like going into a really posh hotel. A really posh, modern, soulless hotel. He could move out tomorrow: contents, artwork and furniture all included in the sale. He would take only his clothes and his watches and not miss a thing.

  I hear Helena before I see her. Pushing open the large double oak door that the housekeeper indicated, I step through into one of the biggest living rooms I have ever seen. You could fit my studio into it twice, and there’d still be room left over.

  Helena smiles at me, rushes over.

  ‘So glad you could come!’ she says. ‘Dad, Jack, meet Ashley.’

  It’s only then that I notice the other people in the room, clustered around the fireplace, champagne glasses in hand. Jess, our new copywriter. Toby, our account exec. My excitement and happiness dissipate. How could I have been so stupid? This isn’t a special lunch for me and Helena. This is a special lunch for the whole team. What an idiot.

  Get your game face on Ashley.

  I pull myself together. This will be my world. It’s only a matter of time. I will have it all; I will make it, just like Alan Cawston has done. I will have the great big house, the housekeeper to keep it tidy, the choice of cars in the driveway, the chef preparing meals in the kitchen I never set foot in. I will have a granny annex for Gran, and she’ll never have to see Jason again.

  I will have your life one day, I think, as I shake his hand. Just watch me. Just wait and see. I’ll have it all.

  Only I’ll have more taste.

  THEN

  Helena

  ‘Ashley’s quite . . . upfront, isn’t she?’ Jack corners me in the kitchen.

  ‘Yes, that’s what I like about her,’ I reply, glancing over at a plate of chicken Caesar salad which Marta has just set down on the kitchen island.
‘Is there anything else?’ I ask her, wincing slightly. ‘Any, er, salads without dressing?’

  ‘Why would you want it without dressing?’ she says, looking cross. I’ve never got on with the idea of having staff – the whole thing makes me feel awkward. But Dad always told me it’s a privilege to be able to provide employment for people, and that you should do it whenever possible. I look down at the salad, sighing.

  ‘My colleague is lactose intolerant.’

  Marta gives me a puzzled look.

  ‘She can’t have milk . . . nothing dairy . . .’ Jack is grinning behind Marta’s back. ‘Could we just get a salad like this, without the dressing? Or the cheese!’

  ‘Fine,’ she says, turning her back to me. In my mind’s eye I picture a scowl forming in response to me and my spoilt friends. I want to say that, actually, Ash didn’t grow up with money, but the truth is I don’t know much about her upbringing at all. I’ve tried to ask her several times, but she always deflects the question.

  ‘Are you intimidated by her?’ Jack grins, taking a fresh bottle of champagne out of the fridge.

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ I reply. ‘I just don’t want her to feel uncomfortable.’

  ‘She doesn’t seem very uncomfortable to me. I’ve just left her embroiled in a debate with your dad over the long-term consequences of a potential EU referendum. Did you know she was a capitalist?’

  ‘Of course she’s a capitalist. What, you didn’t think she could be, because she didn’t go to a public school?’ I roll my eyes and follow Jack back into the drawing room. Dad is leaning over the fire, prodding it with a long poker. Ashley is standing next to him, clutching a glass of champagne, which I notice is exactly as full as when I first filled it nearly an hour ago. The other two are staring at something on Toby’s iPhone, looking uncomfortable. Damn, I really hoped today would help us all bond.

  ‘Lunch is ready,’ I say, and they both turn to look at me.

  ‘About time,’ Dad replies, grinning. ‘Come along, then.’