Best Supporting Role (8 page)

“Thanks, Fi. That’s good to know.”

She rubbed the top of my arm and went in search of a chair. After she’d gone, Tara turned to me. “I can’t stand that woman. She hates it if she hasn’t got some lame dog to cluck over. It’s a power trip. Patronizing the rest of us makes her feel superior.”

Before I had a chance to say I was sure that deep down Fiona probably meant well, Tara spied one of her cronies. “Emma—long time no CC. How
are
you?” Double kisses.

“Not good. Freddie is stressing me out like you wouldn’t believe. He’s reacting really badly to the two-story glass conservatory we’re building on the back of the house. He says he doesn’t want the house to look different. I’ve told his therapist that I think change is a huge issue for him. Plus I’ve been keeping a log of how many playdates he’s had this term. I’m convinced he’s not as popular as he was last year.”

“Oh, stop it,” Tara soothed. “Freddie’s a great kid. I’m sure you’re overreacting. What about the twins? How are they doing?”

“They’re fine, but I still haven’t got over what happened to the poor little mites at Christmas. The girls are identical. What sort of a teacher gives the part of Mary to one and asks the other to be a sheep?”

Just then I saw Louise Warburton started waving at me. I returned the gesture. “Hey Lou . . . haven’t seen you lately.”

“Dom and I have been at the house in France. Left the boys with my mother.” Louise and her husband had just bought a wreck of a farmhouse in the Auvergne. It came with a dairy and Louise had decided to try her hand at making cheese. Her Fourme d’Ambert had gone down really well with the locals, but now she was working on that difficult second cheese. “All a bit of a struggle, but I’m sure I’ll get there in the end.”

“Come on, everybody,” Imogen’s voice boomed above the chatter. “Do let’s settle down.
Tempus fugit
and all that.”

“Better do as Imo says,” Louise said, grinning. “We don’t want to risk getting detention.”

Once Louise had disappeared, Tara turned back to me. “What does Louise look like in that daisy smock? She used to be so chic—now she’s turned into Padstow Woman. I have to say I’ve never understood the whole Padstow thing. It’s so unspeakably dull and middle England. Last summer when we were in Cornwall, you practically had to wade through all the Breton tees and preppy polo shirts.”

I suggested that one of the reasons people bought the tops and T-shirts was that they were practical.

Tara shuddered. “The day I buy clothes because they’re practical is the day I die.” She crossed her legs and then, as if to emphasize her point, waved a foot clad in an impossibly high platform ankle boot.

“I know, darling,” Charlotte said. “You’d go trekking in the Himalayas in a Hervé Léger bandage dress.”

The two of them fell about laughing.

I wasn’t about to tell Tara and Charlotte that these days part of me longed to be a Padstow woman. It wasn’t so much the splashy
prints and chirpy chinos that I coveted as the lifestyle they represented. Padstow women were married to chaps called James or Alistair, solid reliable types who worked in the City or at the BBC. They raised their children without resorting to TV or sugar and fretted about when was the right time to have the big conversations about death and war. On the weekends, Padstow mummies and daddies hit the farmers’ markets with their big goofy dogs and children in their cozy gilets. The daddies filled their burlap bags with organic radish pods, artisan breads and pâté. Afterwards they all went home to their houses on the right side of the tracks to toast halloumi over an open fire.

Padstow men didn’t gamble, or if they did, it was only once a year on one of the big races like the Grand National. If they happened to die prematurely—a rare event since they cycled to work and watched their carbs and cholesterol—they didn’t leave their wives on the verge of bankruptcy. This was on account of the substantial life insurance policies they took out the moment their wives got pregnant with their first child. If Padstow was dull, I didn’t care. I yearned for dull. I craved dull.

I was so lost in my reverie that I was only vaguely aware that the meeting had started.

“Right—first item on the agenda . . . ,” Imogen was saying. “I’m looking for people to run stalls. A few of you have already volunteered. . . . So far the tombola, face painting and hoopla are covered, but more bodies are needed. If you’re prepared to help—even for a couple of hours—then please sign up at the end of the meeting. OK . . . moving swiftly on. The auction. The plan is to hold it after the principal announces the results of the cake-making
competition. I’m looking for items to go under the hammer. Any thoughts?”

Cheryl—nickname Cheryl Tan—who owned a chain of spas with her husband, a part-time male model, said she would donate three “spa day, pamper yourself” experiences.

“If that woman’s makeup fell off,” Tara hissed, “I swear it would be heavy enough to kill the cat.”

Cheryl’s friend, whose name I didn’t know, but who was wearing the biggest diamond crucifix you ever saw, said that her husband was part of the Stones’ management and that she had six tickets for the band’s August gig at the O2.

A Padstow woman whose husband was a City lawyer volunteered him for twelve hours’ legal advice. Somebody who ran her own catering business said she would auction her services and prepare a dinner party for six.

Charlotte, who was PA to the director of a swanky interior design company that had done work for the likes of Madonna and the Paltrow-Martins, announced that her boss was prepared to offer a one-hour Skype consultation. Not to be outdone, Tara, who worked for the company that handled Marc Jacobs’ PR, said that a couple of his evening dresses—unworn and with the tags on—had recently come her way and that she was more than happy to auction them. Charlotte asked her why on earth she didn’t want them.

“Darling—a size six simply swims on me.”

By now my thoughts were drifting back to Aunty Shirley’s proposal. If making ends meet weren’t an issue, if I didn’t have Dan and Ella to think about, maybe I could have risen to the challenge and had a go at getting Aunty Shirley’s business back on its feet. But these
days I was done with gambling. I wanted to keep life uncomplicated, worry free and predictable. Like I said, I craved dull.

“Right, I think that’s pretty much it,” Imogen was saying. “Apart from one thing. We don’t have anybody to open the fair. We were so lucky to have Ewan McGregor last year—thanks to his cousin Morag, who sits on the board of governors. I’m thinking perhaps another star of stage and screen.”

Cheryl Tan raised her hand. “Kim and Kourtney both come to the spa when they’re in town. I have their e-mail.”

Imogen frowned. “Kim and Kourtney?”

“Kardashian.”

“I’m not with you, I’m afraid. It sounds like something Armenians would serve as a starter.”

There were a few titters.

“The American reality show?” Cheryl persisted. “The Kardashians?”

“Nope. Sorry, means nothing to me.”

“Plus they’re totally naff,” one of the Padstow women sniffed. There was a chorus of hear-hears.

“Surely somebody must have some ideas. Sarah, you’ve been quiet. Anybody spring to mind?” Imogen was getting hot and bothered and had begun fanning herself again with the Tommy Padstow catalog.

All eyes were on me.

“Er . . . I’m not sure. . . .”

“Come on—Mike worked in advertising and what with so many celebs doing voice-overs, you must have rubbed shoulders with a few of them.”

“Not really.”

“I suppose I could give Marc a call,” Tara said. “But he lives in Paris and his schedule is always totally manic. I’m not sure. . . .”

Charlotte offered to call Gwyneth. “But I know she’s really up against it trying to finish her new cookbook. Or maybe I could try Catherine. I heard she’s going to be over again in the summer, but it’s such a huge ask, dragging her all the way from Wales.”

“My hairdresser does P. Diddy when he’s in town.” It was the crucifix woman.

“P. Diddy,” Imogen said, frowning. “Isn’t he that rapper chappie? Rather tacky, don’t you think?” She lowered the catalog to her cleavage.

“There is one person who springs to mind,” said Louise in the daisy smock.

“Who?”

“What about Tommy Padstow?”

There were actual squeals of delight. These drowned out the groans from Tara and Charlotte.

“Oh, I a-dore Tommy Padstow,” Imogen said. “The man leaves me quite weak at the knees.”

There were cries of “me, too.” Everybody agreed it was because he bore more than a passing resemblance to Damian Lewis.

“I’ve never understood the whole Damian Lewis thing,” Tara said. “If you ask me, the man looks like a duck.”

There was loud indignation. Damian Lewis looked nothing like a duck. How could she possibly say such a thing? Imogen was forced to shush everybody.

“Anyway, I know for a fact that Tommy Padstow wouldn’t be able to do it,” Charlotte announced.

“Why not?”

“Our neighbors are friends with the Padstows and they’re all off to a villa in the Algarve for the summer.”

“Pooh,” said Imogen.

“I know,” Tara piped up. “What about Greg Myers?”

“Now you’re talking,” Charlotte said. “He’s
really
hot.”

People were oohing in agreement.

“Remind me who he is again,” Imogen said.

Tara rolled her eyes. “
The Sleeper
? It’s the biggest thing since
Homeland
?”

“Oh yes, of course. He is rather dashing. He was in
Jane Eyre
a few years back. I adored his Mr. Rochester. . . . But doesn’t he live in LA these days?”

Tara said she’d read that he was about to start a West End run in
Death of a
Salesman
. “I’d say it’s definitely worth asking him. Apparently he was born round here, so he could well be up for opening the fair.”

“And it just so happens,” I heard myself say, “that I have a way of getting to Mr. Myers.”

What? No I didn’t. What the hell was I doing? Bigging myself up, that’s what. I’d had enough of Tara and Charlotte making me feel like a worm. First they’d informed me that my neighborhood was too ghetto for their brats. Then I’d had to listen to them bragging about their fashion and showbiz contacts.

“Goodness,” Imogen said. “This just gets better.”

Tara was looking distinctly sniffy. “You can get to Greg Myers? How?”

“My cousin Rupert was at Eton with him.”

“S
o after the meeting, Tara collars me and she’s like, ‘Sarah, I had no idea your family was posh. I thought you told me your family were in the rag trade, and didn’t your father used to drive a cab?’”

Steve reached for the wine bottle and topped up my glass. “This woman sounds like a real piece of work.”

“You can say that again.”

“So what did you say?”

“I told her that Rupert’s dad was an international lawyer. I’m not sure if she bought it, though.”

“What does he actually do?”

“Uncle Bernie? He’s in buttons and trimmings.”

Steve laughed. “And I take it he doesn’t have a son called Rupert.”

“You take it correctly. I cannot tell you the extent to which no Jewish man is called Rupert. It was the first posh name I could think of. His real name’s Bradley.”

Steve had dropped by for a drink on his way to the Chartered Institute of Accountants’ Annual Professional Development Dinner. (The children had gone to Mum and Dad’s for Friday night dinner
and were staying the weekend.) I’d offered to be his plus one, but he said it wasn’t a plus-one kind of do. He explained that Chartered Institute of Accountants’ Annual Professional Development Dinners involved five hundred accountants sitting down to eat rubber chicken and dessert topped in aerosol cream while they listened to long, dreary speeches on professional development.

“OK,” Steve was saying now. “I understand that these women made you feel like a worm and that’s why you made up the Rupert story, but you have to come clean. Carrying on with this charade is only going to end in tears.”

“So you’re saying that I have to admit that I lied? No way. Why would I humiliate myself like that?”

“You don’t need to go as far as admitting you lied. You just say that you e-mailed Greg Myers and discovered he’s going to be out of the country on the day of the fair.”

“I’d still look like a pathetic loser. Then Tara would call Marc Jacobs and save the day and people would be all over her.” I paused. “I know you think I’m making too much of this, but I can’t help it. Tara and Charlotte and the rest of their cronies are just so vile.”

“So what’s your plan?”

“I don’t have one.”

“Great.”

I sat raking my fingers through my hair. “OK . . . what about starting with the obvious? I’ll e-mail Greg Myers’ agent and ask if by any chance he’s available.”

“Fine, but you won’t get anywhere.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Actually, I do,” he said.

“Has anybody ever told you that you can be really self-righteous and pompous?”

“Frequently,” he said, grinning.

“And if I don’t get anywhere with his agent, I’ll ambush him one night as he leaves the theater. Then I’ll cry and beg.”

“And end up with a restraining order. Good thinking.” He paused. “Sarah, please just do the sensible thing.”

“I’ve told you, that isn’t happening.”

“Your funeral,” he said.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“I’m just being realistic. You need to approach this problem rationally and sensibly.”

“I do wish you’d stop underestimating me. I can’t wait to see your face when I pull this thing off.”

The corners of his lips were twitching. “You really are the most obstinate woman.”

“Only when it comes to Tara and Charlotte.”

“So,” he said. “What’s happening with the shop? Have you told the landlord you’re shutting it down?”

“No, but I will. It’s just that it feels so final.”

“Are you sure that isn’t guilt talking?”

“Probably . . . But surely my decision to close it down should be based on hard financial facts?”

“What are you talking about? Your decision
is
based on hard financial facts. The shop is practically bankrupt.”

“But I don’t know that for certain. I haven’t had anybody go over the books.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Sarah, I know how upset you are about
having to let the shop go, but if there was even the remotest hint that the business was anything other than on the skids, don’t you think your aunty Shirley would have told you?”

“I guess.”

“OK, tell you what. Why don’t I take a look at the accounts? Would that make you feel better?”

“Yes, but you’ve done enough pro bono work for me. I can’t let you do more.”

“Sarah, I’m seriously not counting. The most important thing is that you get it into your head once and for all that the shop has no future and move on.”

I told him that I was planning to go to the shop the following afternoon. I wanted to look around, just for old times’ sake. “Aunty Shirley kept all her files and documents there, in the safe—you fancy coming with me?”

“Absolutely. The sooner we get this done, the better.”

“You know, even if the shop is a no go, I’ve realized I’m in dire need of a new challenge. I can’t stay at the nonemergency helpline any longer. I’m bored out of my brain.”

“What would you do?”

“Well, it has to be something arty and creative. You know, it wasn’t until I gave up the dressmaking business that I realized how happy I’d been.”

“Well, trying to start your own business in a recession would be madness. And what would you do for capital? I could lend you a bit, but . . .”

“Steve, that’s really kind, but there’s no way I’d take money from you. Or Mum and Dad. There are all these government grants
available for people trying to start new businesses. I’ve been reading about them.”

“Yes, but if you’re not gay, disabled or an ethnic minority, you don’t stand a hope of getting one. Take it from me, you need to abandon these daft notions of running a business and get a job that will stand you in good stead until retirement—something with a good pension. What about the civil service or local government? I know for a fact that your local health department has a couple of junior vacancies—I saw the ad in the
Standard
. Apparently they train you on the job.”

“Steve, have you met me? I have a degree in fashion design. I ran my own business selling rockabilly dresses.”

“Fine. Do it as a hobby. Tell you what, I’ll see if I can dig out the health department ad and send you the link.”

“Steve . . . look at me. There is no way I am ever going to work in local government. I would rather be pecked to death by a flock of starlings.”

“Suit yourself.”

“I will.”

“You know your problem, Sarah—you’re absurdly unrealistic. You need to get yourself grounded, make contact with planet earth before it’s too late. I’d have thought that after everything you’d been through, that would have been obvious.”

“So because I’m a struggling widow, I have to give up on all my hopes and dreams?”

“Hopes and dreams are for romantics. In the end they get you nowhere. It’s why so many creative types go bust. No grip on reality. I see it time and again. If life has taught me one thing, it’s that in
order to survive, you have to make safe, sensible choices. Only the wealthy can afford to take risks.”

“So the rest of us have to live our lives bored to death.”

“I’d rather be bored than bankrupt.”

He looked at his watch. “Jeez . . . I need to get going. . . . You sure I look OK and not too much like a dork?” He got up from the sofa and presented himself for inspection.

I gave his black bow tie a tiny tweak. “You don’t look remotely like a dork. You look great.”

I kissed him on the lips and he kissed me back. Afterwards we stood there, eyes fixed on each other. My cue to suggest that after the professional development do, he come back here for the night.

“See you tomorrow, then,” I heard myself say.

I could see the hurt and disappointment on his face. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll pick you up around half three.”

He gave me a quick peck on the cheek and was gone.

I should have invited him back. It was time. I felt bad about being so mean, but Mike and the mess of feelings I had for him were still getting in the way. In my head I knew that he was gone, that he wasn’t coming back and that I needed to get on and live my life. But my heart wouldn’t let go.

I shoved a frozen lasagna in the oven and went back to the sofa. I lay there mulling. Steve was good for me. He was grounded, trustworthy, dependable. OK, he could be a bit pompous and he was cautious to the point of irritation. On the other hand, I’d seen where Mike’s contempt for caution had got him. Steve was what I needed. Plus he looked seriously sexy in a tux. He was doing his best to pull back and not pressure me into sleeping with him, but he wasn’t
going to wait forever. If I carried on pushing him away, I would lose him. I needed to lay Mike to rest, learn to live alongside my feelings for him—the loving ones and the not so loving—instead of letting them dominate my life.

The oven pinged.

The supermarket lasagna was runny and tasteless. I washed it down with another glass of wine. When I’d finished, I filled the sink with soapy water and washed up my plate along with the glasses and cereal bowls left over from breakfast. I could have put them in the dishwasher, but that would have meant unloading it first and putting everything away. I couldn’t be bothered. As I placed the last bowl on the drying rack, I made a decision. Tomorrow, after Steve and I had been to the shop, I would invite him back for dinner. Then, while we were on the sofa watching a movie and making out, I would suggest he stay over.

I took the plug out of the sink and pulled off my rubber gloves. The greasy water refused to drain. It was thick with this morning’s Coco Pops, which had risen to the surface. Fabulous. The sink was blocked again. It was my fault. Whenever I washed up by hand, my plate scraping was never more than cursory. Sometimes I didn’t bother at all. This meant that I always ended up massaging bits of food down the plughole. When the waste pipe could take no more, it went on strike. It had been the same at the old house. It used to drive Mike mad.

I opened the cupboard under the sink and went in search of a bottle of Drano—I bought them six at a time. I used to own a plunger, but I’d managed to lose it in the move.

I looked at the kitchen clock. It was a quarter to nine. If I was going to start knocking on neighbors’ doors asking to borrow sink
plungers, I needed to get on with it. Nine was definitely the cutoff for unsolicited house calls. Then again, the only neighbors I’d met so far were Betty from across the street, who had to be in her seventies and probably didn’t answer the door after dark, and the students from several doors down. They seemed a jolly enough bunch and, since they probably hadn’t got up until midafternoon, weren’t going to have a problem with me calling on them. On the other hand, being students, they probably lived in a pit. It was unlikely they owned a broom, let alone a plunger.

I had no next-door neighbors. The house on one side was empty and for sale. The place on the other side was also unoccupied, but since the mailman was delivering letters, I assumed the owner’s absence was temporary. Betty, who despite her advanced years appeared to have no trouble keeping track of all the comings and goings in the street, confirmed this. She told me that the woman who lived there had recently had a baby and gone to stay with her sister. “No husband from what I can make out,” she’d said, lowering her voice. “Her at number forty—she’s the worst. Men coming and going in the middle of the night. Not that I’m spying, you understand. I’m not one of those curtain twitchers. I just happen to see them sometimes when I get up in the early hours to make myself a cup of hot milk. She’s got three kiddies, that one—all by different men. Of course these days there’s no shame in being a single mother. In my day you kept both legs in one stocking. You young women—you’re so brazen.” I assumed this was a dig at me.

“Actually, Betty, my husband died.”

“Oh, I know! Terrible thing. Your mum and I had a lovely chat the other day and she told me all about your poor, tragic husband.
Believe me, I know what you’re going through. My poor Donald dropped dead of a stroke at forty-three. My life ended that day. Take it from me, you never recover from something like that. It might have been easier if we’d had children. It wasn’t for the want of trying, mind you, but it wasn’t to be. Sad . . . I was always good with kiddies. They seemed to take to me. Heaven alone knows why.”

I picked up my keys and went outside to see if by any chance there was a light on in Betty’s house. There wasn’t. It was then that I noticed that my absentee next-door neighbor appeared to be back. The venetian blinds were open. I could see tea lights flickering on the coffee table. I climbed over the low hedge that separated our garden paths and rang the bell. Nothing. I waited a few seconds and rang again. Finally—the sound of footsteps. “Hang on. . . . Coming.”

The woman who answered the door had her cell wedged between her chin and her shoulder. Her T-shirt was rolled up on one side, exposing a plentiful breast to which a newborn baby was clamped. “With you in a tick,” she mouthed, holding up an index finger. “Of course I’m still here, big boy,” she purred into the phone.

Big boy? She clearly wasn’t on the phone to the gas company.

She smiled and beckoned me inside, which I thought was odd since it was after dark and she had no idea who I was.

She led me down the hallway. “Oh . . . I am so hot and wet for you, big boy. . . . Are you hard for me?” The baby carried on sucking. “I want to hear you say you’re hard. Go on . . . say it.”

OK, this was beyond awkward.

“You know what?” I said, following her into the living room. “I think I should go. I can see this isn’t a good time. It isn’t urgent. I’ll come back. . . .”

But she was shaking her head. “Literally one minute,” she whispered. “Ooh, that’s it. Now I can feel how hard you are. Come on, fuck me. That’s it. Let me feel you inside me.”

Oh, God.

“No, really. I shouldn’t stay. Another time, maybe.”

“Oh, oh! That’s it. Harder. Faster. That feels so good.” I watched as she eased the now sleeping baby off her nipple.

I turned to go.

“No, please stay,” she whispered, pulling down her T-shirt. “I’m almost done.”

“But it really isn’t important. I was just wondering if you had a sink plunger I could borrow.”