4TH
Mrs Rebecca Brandon
37 Maida Vale Mansions
Maida Vale
London NW6 0YF
14 August 2003
Dear Mrs. Brandon,
Thank you for your letter, and the enclosed flight itineraries, doctor’s note, and scan pictures.
I agree that your unborn child has taken many flights with Regal Airlines. Unfortunately it does not qualify for air miles, since it did not buy a ticket for any of these flights.
I am sorry to disappoint and hope you choose Regal Airlines again soon.
Yours sincerely,
Margaret McNair
Customer Service Manager
I HAVEN’T MENTIONED ANYTHING more about Venetia Carter to Luke.
For a start, it’s not definite yet. And for another start, if marriage has taught me one thing, it’s to not bring up tricky subjects when your husband is stressed out launching offices simultaneously in Amsterdam and Munich. He’s been away all week, and only arrived back last night, exhausted.
Besides which, changing doctors isn’t the only tricky subject I need to broach. There’s also the very slight scratch on the Mercedes (which was
not
my fault—it was that stupid bollard) and the two pairs of shoes I want him to get from Miu Miu when he goes to Milan.
It’s Saturday morning, and I’m sitting in the office, checking my bank statement on my laptop. I only discovered online banking a couple of months ago—and it has
so
many advantages. You can do it any time of day! Plus, they don’t send bank statements out by post, so no one (e.g., your husband) can see them lying around the house.
“Becky, I’ve had a letter from my mother.” Luke comes in, holding the post and a mug of coffee. “She sends her regards.”
“Your mother?” I try to hide my horror. “You mean
Elinor
? What does she want?”
Luke has two mothers. His lovely, warm stepmother, Annabel, who lives in Devon with his dad and who we visited last month. And his ice-queen of a real mother, Elinor, who lives in America and abandoned him when he was little and in my opinion should be excommunicated.
“She’s touring Europe with her art collection.”
“Why?” I ask blankly. I have a vision of Elinor in a coach, a bundle of paintings under her arm. It doesn’t seem very
her
, somehow.
“The collection is currently on loan to the Uffizi, then a gallery in Paris—” Luke breaks off. “Becky, you didn’t think I meant she was taking her pictures on holiday.”
“Of course not,” I say with dignity. “I knew
exactly
what you meant.”
“Anyway, she’ll be in London later on in the year and wants to meet up.”
“Luke…I thought you hated your mother. I thought you never wanted to see her again, remember?”
“Come on, Becky.” Luke frowns slightly. “She’s going to be the grandmother of our child. We can’t shut her out completely.”
Yes we can
! I want to retort. But instead, I give an unwilling kind of half shrug. I suppose he’s right. The baby will be her only grandchild. It’ll have her blood in it.
Oh God, what if it
takes after
Elinor? I’m stricken by a terrible vision of a baby lying in a pram in a cream Chanel suit, glaring up at me and saying, “Your outfit is shoddy, Mother.”
“So, what are you up to?” Luke breaks into my thoughts, and too late I realize he’s heading across the room toward me. Right toward my laptop.
“Nothing!” I say quickly. “It’s just my bank statement….” I try to close the window I’m on, but it’s frozen. Damn.
“Something wrong?” says Luke.
“No!” I say, panicking slightly. “I mean…I’ll just shut the whole thing down!” I casually rip the power cord out of the back—but the screen is still powered up. The statement is there, in black and white.
And Luke’s getting nearer. I’m really not sure I want him seeing this.
“Let me have a go.” Luke reaches my chair. “Are you on the bank’s Web site?”
“Er…kind of! Honestly, I wouldn’t bother….” I position my bump in front of the screen, but Luke is peering round me. He stares at the statement for a few disbelieving moments.
“Becky,” he says at last. “Does that say ‘First Cooperative Bank of Namibia’?”
“Er…yes.” I try to sound matter-of-fact. “I have a small online account there.”
“In
Namibia
?”
“They sent me an e-mail offering me very competitive rates,” I say a little defiantly. “It was a great opportunity.”
“Do you respond to
every
e-mail you get, Becky?” Luke turns, incredulous. “Do you have a fine selection of Viagra substitutes too?”
I knew he wouldn’t understand my brilliant new banking strategy.
“Don’t get so stressy!” I say. “Why is it such a big deal where I bank? Commerce has gone global, you know, Luke. The old boundaries are gone. If you can get a good rate in Bangladesh, then—”
“Bangladesh?”
“Oh. Well…er…I’ve got a bank account there too. Just a tiny one,” I add quickly, looking at his expression.
“Becky…” Luke seems to be having trouble taking all this in. “How many of these online bank accounts have you opened?”
“Three,” I say after a pause. “About three.”
He gives me a hard look. The trouble with husbands is, they get to know you too well.
“OK then, fifteen,” I say in a rush.
“And how many overdrafts?”
“Fifteen.
What
?” I add defensively. “What’s the point of having a bank account if you don’t have an overdraft?”
“Fifteen overdrafts?” Luke clutches his head in disbelief. “Becky…you
are
third world debt.”
“I’m playing the global economy to my advantage!” I retort. “The Bank of Chad gave me a fifty-dollar bonus just for joining!”
Luke’s so blinkered. So what if I have fifteen bank accounts? Everyone knows you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket.
“You seem to forget, Luke,” I add in lofty tones, “I
am
a former financial journalist. I know all about money and investment. The bigger the risk, the bigger the profit, I think you’ll find.”
Luke doesn’t look too impressed. “I’m aware of the principles of investment, thank you, Becky,” he says politely.
“Well, then.” I suddenly have a thought. “We should invest the baby’s trust fund in Bangladesh too. We’d probably make a fortune!”
“Are you
crazy
?” He stares at me.
“Why not? It’s an emerging market!”
“I don’t think so.” Luke rolls his eyes. “In fact, I’ve already spoken to Kenneth about the baby’s fund, and we’ve agreed to invest it in a range of secure unit trusts—”
“Wait a minute!” I raise a hand. “What do you mean, you’ve spoken to Kenneth? What about
my
opinion?”
I can’t believe they haven’t even consulted me! Like I don’t count. Like I didn’t used to be a financial expert on television and get hundreds of letters a week asking for advice.
“Look, Becky.” Luke sighs. “Kenneth is very happy to recommend suitable investments. You don’t need to worry.”
“That’s not the point!” I say indignantly. “Luke, you don’t understand. We’re going to be
parents
. We need to make all important decisions
together
. Otherwise our child will run around hitting us and we’ll end up hiding in the bedroom and never have sex again!”
“What?”
“It’s true! It’s on
Supernanny
!”
Luke looks totally baffled. He really should watch more TV.
“All right, fine,” he says at last. “We can decide things together. But I’m not putting the baby’s trust fund in some high-risk emerging market.”
“Well, I’m not putting it in some stodgy old bank account where it doesn’t make any profit!” I retaliate.
“Stalemate.” Luke’s mouth twitches. “So…what does
Supernanny
recommend when parents have fundamentally differing approaches to trust fund investment?”
“I’m not sure she’s covered it,” I admit. Then a sudden brain wave hits me. “I know. We’ll split up the money. You invest half and I’ll invest half. And we’ll see who does best.” I can’t resist adding, “I bet it’s me.”
“Oh, I
see
.” Luke raises his eyebrows. “So…this is a challenge, is it, Mrs. Brandon?”
“He who dares wins,” I say nonchalantly, and Luke starts to laugh.
“OK. Let’s do this. Half each, to be invested in anything we choose.”
“You’re on,” I say, holding out my hand. We shake gravely, as the phone starts ringing.
“I’ll get it,” Luke says, and heads over to his desk. “Hello? Oh, hi there. How are you?”
I am so going to win this! I’ll pick loads of brilliant investments and make the baby an absolute
mint
. Maybe I’ll invest in futures. Or gold. Or…art! I just need to find the next Damien Hirst and buy a pickled cow or whatever, and then auction it for a huge profit at Sotheby’s, and everyone will say how farsighted and genius I was….
“Really?” Luke is saying. “No, she never mentioned it. Well, thanks.” He puts down the phone and turns to face me with a quizzical expression. “Becky, that was Giles from the real estate agents. Apparently you had a long talk earlier this week. What exactly did you say to him?”
Shit. I knew there was another tricky subject I had to broach. I should really start a list.
“Oh yes, that.” I clear my throat. “I just told Giles we were willing to be more flexible in our requirements.” I straighten some papers on my desk, not looking up. “Like you said. Expand our search area a bit.”
“A bit?” echoes Luke incredulously. “To the
Caribbean
? He’s sending us the details of eight bloody beach villas and wants to know if we’d like to arrange flights!”
“You’re the one who said we had to look further afield, Luke!” I say defensively. “It was your idea!”
“I meant Kensington! Not Barbados!”
“Have you seen what we can
get
in Barbados?” I counter eagerly. “Look at this!” I push my office chair across the floor to his computer, click on a browser, and find my way onto a Caribbean realty page.
Property Web sites are the best thing
ever
. Especially the ones with virtual tours.
“See this one?” I point at the screen. “Five bedroom villa with infinity pool, sunken garden, and guest cottage!”
“Becky…” Luke pauses, as though thinking how to explain the situation to me. “It’s in Barbados.”
He is so hung up on that one detail.
“So what?” I say. “It’d be fab! The baby would learn to swim, and you could send all your e-mails from the guest cottage…and I could go running on the beach every day….”
I have an alluring image of myself in a string bikini, pushing one of those jogger prams along a glistening white Caribbean beach. And Luke would be all tanned in a polo shirt, drinking a rum punch. He could get into surfing, and put beads in his hair again—
“I’m not putting beads in my hair again.” Luke interrupts my thoughts.
That’s so spooky! How on earth did he…
Oh, OK. I possibly may have shared my Caribbean fantasy with him before.
“Look, sweetheart,” he says, sitting down. “Maybe in five, ten years’ time we can think about something like this. If things go to plan, we’ll have a lot of options by then. But for now it has to be central London.”
“Well, what are we going to do, then?” I close the Barbados Web page crossly. “There’s
nothing
on the market. It’ll be Christmas and we’ll be out on the streets, and we’ll have to go to a homeless shelter with the baby, and eat soup….”
“Becky.” Luke lifts a hand to stop me. “We won’t have to eat soup.” He clicks one of his e-mails, opens an attachment, and presses Print. A moment later the printer springs into action.
“What?” I say. “What are you doing?”
“Here.” He collects the pages and hands them to me. “This is why Giles rang. In case we were ‘still considering London,’ as he put it. It’s just come on the market, round the corner from here. Delamain Road. But we need to be quick.”
I scan the first page, taking in the words as fast as I can.
Elegant family house…ideal for entertaining…grand entrance hall…magnificent luxury kitchen…
Wow. I have to admit, this looks amazing.
Garden with architect-designed play area…six bedrooms…dressing room with walk-in shoe cupboard…
I catch my breath. A walk-in shoe cupboard! But surely that’s just another way of saying—
“It’s even got a Shoe Room.” Luke is watching me with a grin. “Giles was pretty pleased about that. Shall we go and see it?”
I am so excited about this house! And not just because of the Shoe Room. I’ve read the details over and over, and I can just
see
Luke and me living there. Taking a shower in the frameless limestone RainJet cubicle…making coffee in the Bulthaup kitchen with its state-of-the-art appliances…and then maybe strolling out into the secluded west-facing garden with its range of mature specimen shrubs. Whatever
they
are.
It’s later that day and we’re walking along the leafy Maida Vale road on the way to our appointment to view it. I’m clutching the printout of the details in my hand, but I barely need to; I practically know them by heart.
“Twenty-four…twenty-six…” Luke is squinting at the numbers as we pass. “It’ll be on the other side of the road….”
“There it is!” I stop dead and point across the street. “Look, there’s the impressive pillared entrance and double doors with attractive fanlight! It looks fab! Let’s go!”
Luke’s hand holds me back as I’m about to hurry across the road. “Becky, before we go in, just a word.”
“What?” I’m tugging at his hand like a dog trying to get off the leash. “What is it?”
“Try to play it cool, OK? We don’t want to look too keen. First rule of business dealing, you should always look as though you could walk away.”
“Oh.” I stop yanking his hand. “All right.”
Cool. I can play it cool.
But as we head across the road and up to the front door, my heart’s hammering. This is our house, I just know it is!