Authors: Judy Astley
‘Happy?’ Dennis asked, leaning across to top up her glass.
‘Oh, very much so,’ Shirley told him.
‘You haven’t stopped smiling since …’
‘Since they brought the cakes?’ she teased.
‘No … since the moment we got into bed,’ he said, stealing her eclair and taking a sly bite.
‘That’s more than happiness,’ she assured him. ‘It’s relief. That I can still do it, that you wanted to, that
you
can still do it … that it was so good, all sorts of things. And there’s another secret delight too.’ She giggled, feeling ridiculously bad-girlish.
‘And that is?’ he asked.
‘That when I go back to my daughter’s house later, she’ll assume I’ve simply had a good widow-woman type of day, taking in an exhibition, having a light and sensible lunch, possibly browsing in Harvey Nicks or Hatchards, that kind of thing. I’ll tell her yes, thank you, I had a lovely day. But inside here,’ she tapped her head, ‘I’ll have my secret knowledge of
this
.’ She looked around Dennis’s chintzy room with its heavily over-swagged curtains, yet palely delicate furniture. Understated opulence, she would say. You didn’t get a lot of that in Walton on Thames. You didn’t get many men who habitually stayed in hotels like this, either.
‘Or you could just tell her,’ he suggested wryly.
‘
Tell
her? Heavens no! She’d be terribly shocked. Young people, they have no idea.’
‘Poor things!’ Dennis laughed, gently biting her naked shoulder.
‘Exactly. Poor things!’
Three precisely two-second rings on the doorbell made Bella feel instantly irritated. Absolutely classic James. Always three rings. What made him think one wasn’t nearly enough?
‘I thought you might like to give some of these a bit of perusal,’ James announced, thrusting a pile of documents into Bella’s hand and striding past her into the house the moment she opened the door. A blast of too much aftershave filled the air, as if he had learned over the years that women like something ‘tangy’, but he was still experimenting with how much was likely to make them swoon at his feet. Bella wondered if it would be a kindness to let him know that appealing as the scent was, he’d gone way past the optimum amount. Newly attuned to current style, by way of more than usually close scrutiny of all the weekend papers’ fashion
features along with a sinfully expensive selection of the glossies (tax-deductible, thank goodness, in the interests of research), Bella also privately thought he was mistaken to be wearing a yellow and pink Pringle-diamond cardigan. On a skinny twenty-something, floppy-haired catwalk boy it looked edgily louche and cutely ironic. On portly James it gave the impression of a huge Battenberg cake. He couldn’t even claim golf-playing as an excuse.
‘“Hello Bella and how are you?” might be a good way to start a visit if there’s something you want me to do for you, James,’ Bella told him, giving the top one of the bundle of papers a quick shufti to make sure it wasn’t an eviction order. Estate-agent bumf. Well, he didn’t waste any time, did he? She didn’t close the door but waited to see if he’d notice that she was holding her handbag and keys and was clearly about to go out. He didn’t and was now halfway across the hallway, so reluctantly she pushed the door shut and followed him into the kitchen, where he was already switching on the kettle and searching through the tea-bag selection in the cupboard. She dumped the pile of papers on the table.
‘James, look I’m sorry but I’ve got to be somewhere. This
really
isn’t a good time.’ She was going to be late. She was off for lunch with Charlotte to talk about exactly how much of her freelance work was likely to be acceptable to the
Sunday Review
in future. After more
than three years at this, and with such short notice of the cut in her column, Bella felt entitled to some degree of clarification as to where she stood. If she were to be phased out completely, she’d have to make serious new career plans, and fast.
‘But I’ve brought you a heap of house details! I’ve been checking out a few local estate agents for you,’ James declared cheerfully, spooning sugar into a mug, utterly oblivious to Bella’s impatience. ‘Because, you see, I completely understand that you’re rather reluctant to initiate proceedings, so I’ve been doing some pre-searching into downsizing the peripherals for you, like we talked about!’ He looked so pleased with himself, so sure she wouldn’t be anything less than delighted.
‘No,
you
talked about it, James. It came as a huge surprise to me, remember? Look, think about it; how can I inflict a house move on Molly while she’s in the middle of her A levels? Be reasonable, for heaven’s sake! And, please, don’t get settled,’ she added as he opened the fridge and took out a new bottle of milk. ‘I really do have to leave,
right now
.’
Feeling angry that James was treating her kitchen as familiarly as if he actually still lived in the house, she swiped the mug from beside him and poured the unbrewed tea down the sink. He stared at her and then at the empty mug, as if he didn’t quite understand what she’d done.
‘Sorry, I don’t mean to be hostile but you have to go –
now
. OK?’ she insisted. ‘I’m meeting someone and I
really
can’t be late. I’m having lunch with the
Sunday Review
features editor in Soho.’
He looked puzzled. ‘But you can go, I don’t mind. I can just stay here and have my tea. I mean, it is …’
‘Yes I know,
half your house
.’ How infuriating he was. ‘But only on paper, not in reality for years and years. And besides, I’ll be double-locking the door, which would mean you couldn’t get out. I want to set the burglar alarm too.’
‘I think you’ll find that
on paper
still counts for something in law, Bella my darling. I can lock up for you if you give me the alarm code. Why don’t you just tell me where the spare keys are? Better still, why don’t you let me have one, now I’m back?’
Bella could feel her blood pressure soaring. If she wasn’t in such a hurry she’d pick a full-sized argument about this. ‘Because you might be “back” in the area but you’re not “back” in my life or my house. You don’t live here, James. You haven’t since the day you packed your belongings, left me and the children and took off with Miss Dental Hygiene all those years ago. You can’t just invade my space like this. What would you call it in your corporate-speak? Try to think of this as
negative territory
.’ James seemed confused; she must have used the term wrongly, not that it really meant a lot whichever way you used it.
‘I tell you what: if you really want to talk to me about this,’ she conceded, ‘you can give me a lift down to the station and then maybe, just
maybe
, I’ll think about looking at your house-detail selection.’ Well, it was true – she would. But only because it was always fun to see who was selling what and to look at pictures of other people’s domestic interiors.
Like a small boy promised an ice cream, James looked visibly cheered, and Bella managed to whoosh him out of the house, lock up swiftly and get him into his shiny new company Lexus.
‘You’d find it much easier to manage, being in a smaller place,’ James began as soon as the car pulled out of the driveway. ‘Lower bills, less space to heat, minimal upkeep.’ He turned to face her at the traffic lights and actually wagged an admonishing finger, telling her with deep seriousness as if discussing imminent death, ‘Because we’re not getting any younger, are we? Forward planning is the thing. You need to be considering a downstairs shower, a staircase broad enough for a stairlift, that kind of arrangement. It all needs some 360-degree thinking. Get the right choice and you might never have to move again.’
Bella couldn’t help laughing. ‘James, stop it! I haven’t even got to my mid-forties yet. Give me a break, will you? Next thing you’ll be herding me off to a south-coast retirement bungalow.’ James looked so serious, so
pleased with himself for having all the answers to questions she hadn’t even thought of asking. ‘And don’t you think all this
forward planning
– which incidentally is a mad term, because what other sort is there? – all this
planning
is like wishing time away? I don’t intend to think about stairlifts and walk-in baths for years and years yet, please God. When I leave this house I might want to live in a loft apartment in Soho till I hit my dotage – or even during it – or over a funky shop on the Portobello Road.’
James carefully made a right turn into the station forecourt, tucking the car in neatly behind a convertible Golf in which a young and pretty couple were kissing frantically. Bella looked away; what she had seen of the boy looked a bit like Alex, whose love life was so closely guarded a mystery that she only assumed he had one from the swift goodbyes as he left the house at night muttering something like ‘seeing Manda/Ellie/Caro’. A recent spate of Henri/Charlie/George had had her wondering if he’d gone gay till Molly had put her right about their full – female – names.
‘You’d find both those options would be terribly noisy, you know.’
Bella didn’t respond to that but counted to ten, out loud. He seemed to get the message.
‘OK.’ James gave in, switching off the engine. ‘I’m not asking for instant decisions. But we need to take an
ideas shower about who owns what. No need to involve solicitors, I’d have thought; don’t you agree?’
‘Yes James, I do agree. For several reasons: first, I’d have thought you’d know that the months before Christmas aren’t a good time to sell. For another thing, I’ve got a TV show being filmed in the house over the next few weeks, and for another, I’m not planning to go
anywhere
just yet. Apart from lunch with Charlotte, right now.’ She leaned over and gave him a brief kiss on his overscented cheek. ‘But, hey, thanks for the lift.’
‘Bella darling!
Lovely
to see you!’ Charlotte hugged Bella and airkissed a loud ‘mwah’ alongside her left ear. Bella inhaled a delicious scent of Chanel 19 mixed with expensive hair products.
‘Charlotte – you’re looking fantastic, as ever.’ And it couldn’t be denied, however much Bella would have loved it if this woman who was responsible for scything her income had turned up looking like a dowdy crone. Charlotte always looked wonderful, and her shoes became ever more eccentric as she got older. Today’s were lavender faux snakeskin with pink and purple straps twining halfway up her calves. Bella also guessed she was carrying the kind of handbag that was more expensive than a pedigree show dog and probably involved a two-year waiting list. Bella thought she’d
keep her own Top Shop bag (stylish in its way) well out of Charlotte’s line of vision.
Both women had a swift look round the restaurant as they were shown to their seats. The clientele at the Quo Vadis looked very media: women had haircuts that were either expensively mussed up or sleekly angled. Far more men than the national average for their pre-fifties age group were bald. Style-wise, Bella’s newly sharpened radar for clothes noted a typically London-safe preponderance of black, even though the September day was scorching, but that set off the abstract art selection on the walls rather well. Thorough observation was a bit thwarted here, as diners were obviously sitting down and you couldn’t get much clue about
a look
when it was only from the waist up. Beneath the heavy white tablecloths, the otherwise black-clad could be almost to a woman (and possibly to a man) wearing tartan, or floor-length citrus brights, or glistening satin in sugared-almond shades.
Dotted about were faces that Bella thought she almost recognized but couldn’t quite name. They were probably
not
famous, but as with any place that you’d read about in the chic magazines, you couldn’t help feeling that they
should
be. Bella could see that all the women sitting nearest to her had perfect make-up and very sleek and well-tamed eyebrows that were clearly accustomed to professional attention. On the pretext of
moving her fringe out of her eyes, Bella ran a finger over her left one. When had she last plucked hers? When did she last really look at them for spikes and stragglers? She couldn’t remember. And did it really matter that much, or would anyone with any style take one look at her and recognize a woman whose personal grooming could – at the most generous – be described as slightly chaotic?
They ordered food and relaxed with a glass of champagne each (Bella crossing her fingers that Charlotte was going to pick up the bill on behalf of the
Sunday Review
), and after a few minutes asking after each other’s families and with Charlotte rather pointedly
not
asking about Rick, the serious business of the meeting had to be faced.
‘I’m so sorry, Bella,’ Charlotte began when she was comfortably a third of the way down her champagne glass. ‘It absolutely wasn’t my idea to change the “Week Moment” page. Not
at all
. There are editorial changes all round, honestly. You should see what they’re doing to the garden section: in line with straitened times, there’s a movement against the purely decorative and it’s to be all guest vegetable experts from now on. The only flowers are going to be something called “companion planting”.’ She giggled. ‘It makes me think of organizing a shallow grave after a big row with your partner! But,’ and she turned serious as their food arrived, ‘there have been other changes too … at management level, I
mean.’ She hesitated and then said, ‘You know Rick has gone as well, I assume? I mean, of course I knew you and he were … um … friends.’
Bella wished Charlotte hadn’t mentioned him; the remembered vision of his sneering wife Carole looking her up and down in that hotel doorway was in danger of putting her off her crab tagliatelle.
‘I didn’t know that, actually,’ Bella told her. ‘So has he quit? That was sudden.’ She wondered if it had involved a degree of foot-stamping from Carole’s dainty size 4s.
‘Ooh, well he’s gone over to the US side of things, apparently. For good,’ Charlotte went on. ‘No further contact with the UK sector as from this week. Didn’t he say anything to you?’
Charlotte was looking at her expectantly, a forkful of sea bass halfway to her mouth.