The Other Woman's Shoes (2 page)

He quite enjoyed his day job. He sold hats in Covent Garden, in the Apple Market. The girl who made the hats paid him cash so he always had ‘spends’ for nights at the pub, and he made a bit to finance his gigs, which were also in the local pub.

‘Spends’. Eliza repeated the word that Greg used to describe his income, and despaired.

Eliza was too old to have a boyfriend whose vocabulary was on a par with her nephew’s. Mathew wasn’t even three yet.

Aging. Eliza hated it. Or rather, she felt unprepared for it. She had been good at being young, a natural. She had rebelled, yelled, sulked and clubbed. She’d drunk too much, eaten too little, done the drug scene, danced with drag queens. She’d dyed her hair, pierced her nose, tattooed her arms, displayed all her charms (just once, at a rugby match, and the policeman had seen the funny side of it; apparently streakers were more common than you’d imagine). She’d suffered from dysentery in India, eaten fresh fish on Thai beaches, lived on a barge in Camden, and she’d been a beach bum in California. She’d drunk sake with Japanese businessmen, and vodka with some dodgy blokes who claimed to be involved with the Russian Mafia. She’d drunk G&Ts in London town. Plenty of them. It was only in the past few months that she’d started to question whether the nights out were really worth the hangovers.

In the past Eliza had set the pace. Now she wasn’t sure if she even wanted to be in the race.

Eliza didn’t look her age. Like many Londoners she looked anywhere between eighteen and forty. Age in London was a mindset, although Eliza currently felt it was a minefield. Eliza was five foot eight and very thin. She’d been waiting for boobs to grow since she was ten. Now, twenty years later, she admitted that Jordan must have got the share God had intended for Eliza Evergreen. And
whilst she hated the fact men could be categorized by their preference for either leg or breast (as though women were chicken dinners) she was grateful to have long, strong brown legs that seemed to stretch up to her ears. She worked out to maintain her shapely calves and flat stomach and to wage war against the flab that was gathering on her upper arms.

Eliza’s hair was cut into a messy bob. Or, rather, whether it was cut that way or not, her hair had a will of its own and always fell that way. Eliza was naturally a brunette, although only her mother knew this. Eliza herself could hardly remember as she dyed her hair as frequently as other girls painted their nails. She had been titian, red, honey, golden, raven, chestnut, scarlet and silver. It was hard to say which colour was most flattering; she always looked good. She had huge brown eyes that dominated her elfin face. She dressed in Kookai, Roxy, Diesel and Miss Sixty. She was one of the few people in this world who manage to look as good as the adverts promise, in such skimpy, trendy kits.

Eliza was a babe.

On two occasions in the 1980s, when Eliza was squandering her youth kicking her heels and smoking Marlboro Lights outside the off-licence, she’d been approached and asked if she’d ever considered modelling. Which just goes to prove it does happen.

‘You’re having a laugh, aren’t you?’ she’d replied succinctly and picked up her school bag and dashed off to earn a sackful of GCSEs and A levels with respectable grades.

A bright babe.

Eliza gave the impression that she was an indigenous Londoner, born and bred. Her skinny, tapering limbs, her hip clothes, her high cheekbones and her in-depth knowledge of the music industry all conspired to lend authenticity to the illusion. But she wasn’t. She was from a small town in the Midlands, although she’d rather eat ground glass than volunteer that information. But London was in her soul. She was confident, independent, quirky and, when necessary, selfish. The only thing that set her apart from true Londoners was the fact that she could still feel overwhelmed when she saw the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, or Westminster Bridge. She never understood those people who dashed across the bridge, head down against the wind, holding their briefcases or laptops tightly to their chests, armour to protect them from the cold and bustle.

But, then, Eliza didn’t have a briefcase.

Eliza still remembered the thrill of arriving in the city, when she came to study at St Martin’s, aged eighteen. Then her favourite place in all of London had been Covent Garden. The smell of aromatherapy oils wafting up against the smell of coleslaw on jacket potatoes had thrilled her. The stalls selling second-hand Levis or people offering to tell your future for a fiver had struck her as chaotic, avant-garde and creative, everything her hometown was not. Now she hated helping Greg set up at the Apple Market. Covent Garden was changing. Or, rather, it wasn’t changing at all, and perhaps that was the problem. Far from being the epitome of cool, it now struck Eliza as a dismal mash of tat and trinkets. The stalls sold stuff that amazed and dismayed Eliza. Who bought it? Who’d want
it in their home? Where were the dinky little eateries serving delicious apple strudel and soft nougat? All Eliza could see were homogeneous pizza chains.

Greg loved Covent Garden. He liked having a laugh, meeting people, chatting about the spirituality of amethyst crystals and the like, whilst he earned enough money for his beer, fags and tie-dye throws. He had no desire to have a company expense account, private healthcare or even a Mont Blanc pen. Eliza couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to mix with the type of people who bemoaned the lack of a good cleaner.

Eliza sighed and tried to budge her feeling of dissatisfaction, stale air that she harboured deep in her lungs. The dissatisfaction that had slowly crept up on her, taken hold and now threatened to explode. Blowing everything apart. Blowing them apart.

She tried to remember exactly when she had started looking at Greg and seeing failure, when she started to think his come-to-bed, Autumn-sky-blue eyes were more lazy than licentious. She used to like his devil-may-care attitude. She had adored the fact that he’d scribble lyrics on the bathroom wall – now she wanted him to pay attention to Dulux colour charts. She actually ached with the hope he’d mention golf clubs, pension plans and, more specifically, a wedding. She was bored of being an adolescent.

He
was
sexy, though.

Breathtakingly sexy. He had loose hips and firm lips. And whilst she objected to the fact that he ate with his fingers, that he still wore Doc Martens and long overcoats from charity shops – as he had done when he was a
nineteen-year-old – and that he earned pretty much the same as he did then, she was extremely grateful that his sex drive had remained adolescent.

Extremely grateful, but no longer eternally grateful.

3

‘Are you coming to bed, darling?’ Michael’s smile was designed to try to disguise the fact that he was absolutely shattered and it was only the lines at the corners of his mouth that betrayed him; when he was tired they sort of smudged together like tributaries of a river. Martha was at once sympathetic and irritated. A state only possible to achieve if you have been in a solid, positive, long-term relationship for a number of years. One that was just a teensy bit… the word ‘dull’ flashed into Martha’s mind and then disappeared in an instant. She replaced it with ‘safe’. She did sympathize with the fact that Michael was tired, he worked really hard, as all Captains of Industry had to, doing all sorts of important things for Esso, the exact nature of which she was unsure of. But then it
was
Friday. And Friday night meant sex. Even after ten years, Friday equalled sex. Surely Michael understood that.

Wanted that.

As if reading her mind, Michael paused at the door and added, ‘We would both benefit from an early night.’ He smiled again and this one was genuine, saucy, inviting. Martha’s body responded: the twinge in her stomach was in answer to the part of her that sympathized with his constant fatigue, and understood his overwhelming ambition. The warmth that she felt between her legs was
because another part of her not only respected his drive; she’d married him for it.

The part of her that was irritated that his ever-present fatigue had robbed him of speech for the entire evening – after all, she was tired too, the children had been particularly demanding and uncooperative, yet she had still chattered to him throughout dinner (practically non-stop) – drove her to mutter, ‘I’ll just finish this chapter and then follow you up.’

As soon as Michael left the room Martha regretted being sullen. It wasn’t very grateful and she ought to be more grateful.

On a more or less daily basis Martha was in the habit of ‘counting her blessings’. It was a hangover from her lower-middle-class upbringing. As a child she’d been grateful that she wasn’t an African (no food), a dog (no souls), a geriatric (no bladder control) or one of the Johnsons from down the street (no Raleigh bikes). Nowadays Martha tried to dwell on what she did have (a lot) rather than what she lacked (nothing worth mentioning).

Today, for example, had been a lovely day. It had been very kind of her mother to look after the children. Martha tried not to think of the sweet wrappers she had seen in the bin; instead she concentrated on the fact that her hair was trimmed evenly. And whilst it was irritating that the garage had called to say that the service of the Range Rover had taken longer than they expected and therefore the car wouldn’t be ready until after the weekend, she felt very lucky that they had a Range Rover. A very expensive vehicle that, Martha couldn’t help thinking, ought more properly to belong to someone else. Martha was always
conscious that she’d ended up far richer, aged thirty-two, than her parents had been when they retired. She tried very hard to be grateful for her prosperity, although in truth she found it mildly embarrassing; it was just something else to feel guilty about.

Other blessings? Mathew’s face when Martha returned home from the hairdresser’s. Martha had been delighted when he’d rushed into the hall and flung his little body at her legs. He’d clung on to her skirt and kissed the nylon of her tights; his urgent, inexpert kisses had touched her heart. And it was even a good thing that he’d shouted, ‘Yuk, Mummy, your legs are tickerly’, reminding her that she needed a leg wax. She must make an appointment, it wasn’t like her to let herself go.

‘Mathew doesn’t normally greet me with such enthusiasm,’ Martha had commented to her mother. She hoped it didn’t sound as though she were accusing her mother of treating Mathew badly – that certainly wasn’t what she intended.

‘Darling, he doesn’t normally have the opportunity to miss you, you never leave him for long enough,’ Mrs Evergreen had replied matter-of-factly.

Martha didn’t understand how it could be the case but she’d felt mildly chastised. Surely her mother appreciated Martha’s devotion to her children and surely she was proud of it. After all, it was exactly as Mrs Evergreen had acted with Martha and Eliza.

Why was it that all her blessings seemed to be tinged with… oh, nagging feelings of… Martha left the thought unformed in her mind. She stood up and poured herself half a glass more of white wine. Martha didn’t drink much.
She never touched spirits (too potent) or red wine (stained her teeth). One and a half glasses of white wine, every third day, was usually Martha’s limit; anything more would be totally irresponsible with children in the house. Today she was allowing herself an extra half glass. It was Friday, after all.

Another blessing, both children were in bed and asleep. Generally speaking – and this was
yet
another blessing – the children were becoming easier day by day. Today had been nothing more than a small aberration, she was sure of it. Martha was prepared to admit after her glass and a half of Chardonnay (to herself, and if they’d been there, to her mother and to a couple of her NCT friends) that the theory of having children close together, so as to get the nappy bit over with all at once, was in practice harder than she’d anticipated. Still, Maisie’s colic had finally cleared up and she had slept through from 8 p.m. until 6 a.m. four nights in a row; after ten months of waking every three hours this was undoubtedly a godsend.

Sometimes Martha’s head, neck, back, eyeballs and even teeth ached with exhaustion. Yet it wasn’t so much the lack of sleep that Martha found hard to take – after all, that was a given if you had a baby – it was the screaming. Martha felt ill knowing Maisie was in pain and that she couldn’t do anything about it. Martha had spent night after night watching her daughter’s tiny body go into spasms, her knees jerk up to her chest. The wailing tore at Martha and left her feeling miserable and inadequate. There was nothing more torturous than a crying child. Martha never understood how Michael was able to sleep through the pitiful wailing. Martha often sent generous
cheques to appeals on behalf of children who needed urgent operations, false limbs or simply water and shelter. Martha wanted to hold each and every one of them and shush their crying. How did their mothers face each morning?

And that was why it was silly to get into such a state about something as insignificant as potty-training. And, like she’d told Michael he would, Mathew had finally grasped the concept of pooing in the loo (as opposed to in his bed, the kitchen cupboards, the reception room or – most memorably – Michael’s shoe). It had been a long haul. Mathew had been well on the way to being potty-trained at twenty months when Maisie was born, but then suddenly seemed to lose the knack. Martha had tried but failed to ignore the comments from her numerous child-behaviour-expert friends and relatives who felt compelled to constantly comment that the step back in bathroom etiquette was a deliberate act of defiance/anger/terrorism, brought on by sibling jealousy/insecurity/feelings of loneliness.

No kidding.

Remarks like this sent a frisson of tension running up and down Martha’s spine. She wanted to point out that she’d had a Caesarean (two, actually), not a lobotomy. She said nothing. She sometimes wondered where she stored her suppressed irritation.

Because it must be adding up.

Martha had read the books and dutifully carved out exclusive ‘special time’ for her and Mathew, with the hope of eradicating the excrement terrorism. They went to the zoo, they made paper boats and floated them on the pond,
they fed the ducks and they played in the park. They did this even though it cost a fortune in childcare for Maisie, they did this even when Martha could barely walk with tiredness because she’d been up four times in the night.