The Right Man (13 page)

In
fact, the more I heard, the more I developed a sort of sneaking admiration for
Susan Planter’s inventiveness. She was certainly not taking this like a humble
politician’s wifey, and, I must admit, I laughed inside at all these
revelations while expressing only deepest concern. Maybe I should have been an
actor after all.

A
waiter arrived and Arabella signed for our drinks, making steely eye contact
with him. She smiled and he smiled back gratefully. I cannot put my finger on
the quality she had, possibly a sort of queenliness, which brought out the
chivalrous in men. She was not a flirt and I can imagine that guys would be
more likely to offer to do her favours, carry her bags, take her across the
road, make her something useful, than to get leery. I could sense that any attempt
at a pick—up line would be met with dignified incomprehension, against which
most men would shrivel. Her attention was flattery enough and in the hour or so
while we waited for Jeremy, her confiding in me and her frankness made me feel
special. She had the opposite of an actor’s charisma, which is all surface and
is why great actors are so often disappointing when you meet them in real life.
She was the genuine article, she didn’t have to perform to pull focus, the
focus seemed naturally to be on her. I tried to imagine what it would be like
having sex with her but somehow drew a blank. She seemed too self-contained to
come across, or maybe she just wasn’t my type. I wouldn’t have thought she was
Jeremy’s either, but then.

When he
eventually arrived, it was 10.30 and Jeremy was bushed. The dining room had
stopped meals, so we stayed in the lobby, where we sat in the giant sofas,
upholstered in those overly traditional materials typical of hotels which were
converted in the mid-eighties, too many patterns, too many fabrics, too much
matt silk finish on the walls.

Arabella
managed, with some determination, to secure a salad and soup for Jeremy which
weren’t from the room-service menu. I had a bar-snack sandwich, she had nothing
but more herbal tea. From the first minutes, it was obvious that Jeremy was
different; he didn’t order a drink for a start. He seemed to be happy to let
her dictate his eating habits, organize his weekly timetable and remind him of
his early call, telling him when he should go to bed.

However,
none of this infantilized him. He seemed to accept her suggestions with trust
and enthusiasm. In the past, when drunk, if reminded by his wife Susan that he
had had enough, he would have ordered another bottle, made a joke at her
expense, talked too loudly and made sure that his role as one of the boys was
re-established. His showy loudness ensuring that punters in bars and
restaurants would be in no doubt that they had been in the presence of a celeb.

But
this new subdued Jeremy was a surprise. In the two minutes when Arabella went
to the phone, he looked at me with the grateful eyes of a labrador and said, ‘Isn’t
she … w … wonderful?’

I
agreed outwardly, because that’s my job, but I couldn’t think of a reason not
to agree for real as well.

‘She’s
certainly not what I was expecting,’ I said.

‘You
mean you thought old Jeremy’s been thinking with his … d … dick again and
got it caught in the m … mangle this time.’ His face puckered up comically at
certain consonants.

‘Well
…’

He didn’t
touch the bread roll and left his soup half finished, pushing aside the tray.
He sat back, his whole body visibly sinking into a contented relaxation,
difficult on these designer sofas. It was as if his Tinkerbell had waved her
wand from the other side of the lobby and he had instantly gone floppy.

‘I j
… just want to see the children, Guy. I know it was s…stupid of me to p…
p… put it about like that, but Susan and I h … h … haven’t had s … sex
for four y… years. She went off me after P… Polly was born. What was I s
… supposed to do?’ All of this sentiment was very unusual coming from Mr
Happy Telly. I didn’t know what to say.

‘Will
you talk to … S … Susan, Guy? I mean, she’s upset at the moment I know, but
soon it will be time for us all to move on, you know. Draw a line in the sand
and walk over it.’

A most
un-Jeremy-like phrase, which I assumed he had picked up from Arabella. It was
all a bit fairy-tale like. When she returned, they touched lovingly but not
sickeningly so, not for show. I had never seen Jeremy actually warm and relaxed
in the company of a woman before; come to think of it, I had never seen him
warm and relaxed before at all, only energetic and attention-seeking. I
wondered how it would affect his work, but as if by telepathy, Arabella
pre-empted my concerns.

‘Don’t
look so worried, Guy, it’s time he moved into a different market area anyway.
The
Revenge
show won’t last forever. He’s got to stay one step ahead of
the audience expectation. Did he tell you Harry’s leaving? He’s been offered
Head of Comedy at Granada.’

A
goodly piece of goss, which of itself made my trip to Birmingham worthwhile.
Thank you, Bella.

I
talked with her of Jeremy’s career plans as if he weren’t there, and he seemed
happy for us to do so. Evidently he was tired of having plumber’s-mate plungers
stuck to his forehead. He was tired of his famous suits. He was tired of game
shows altogether. He wanted to develop his range; his talent. He wanted to grow
artistically and he and Arabella were aware that this might mean a drop in
income for a year or two. They had worked this one out. In order to see Susan
and the kids alright, he would do a couple of large-venue farewell tours to
large audiences for large money. Simultaneously, the agency was to seek out
classier work for him, some acting, some Chekhov, a detective series, maybe,
with the long-term intention of writing and directing himself in his own
movies.

So, she
was a businesswoman as well, this double-barrelled dancer woman. She seemed to
have achieved what many women dream of, I am told: first get your man, then
change him, and Jeremy was certainly changed.

‘It’s
time you went for your zizz, Planter,’ she said, and he got up, apologized to
me for having to get an early night, said his goodbyes and followed her to the
lift. Beauty with her captive Beast on a thin silvery lead.

On the
train home in the morning, I went for the full cardiac breakfast, along with
all the other fat cats in suits.

If you
eat slowly enough, you can sit in the first-class dining car for the whole
journey on a second—class ticket. As the shadows from passing trees flickered
across the tablecloth, I ruminated on the night before. It’ll never last and
love is blind and he’s hooked and other cynical envious snippets percolated through
my otherwise positive mood as I half read the
Independent.
The two of
them seemed genuinely, nauseatingly happy. They had been seeing each other for
at least two years. Apart from awful feelings about Susan and the kids, where
was the catch? Maybe there wasn’t one. Maybe I could afford to relax a bit.

I
confess I was excited at the prospect of testing out the reactions to Jeremy in
the world of serious drama. It’s much easier to sell a personality, or even a
newscaster — providing he or she is famous enough — as anything than it is to
get a proper actor work. The money-making tour shouldn’t be too difficult to
set up. Naomi knew two or three promoters who would jump at it. Yes, I was
excited. I ordered more coffee. My little expenses trip had definitely borne
fruit.

‘How to
have a happy balanced relationship that lasts. The five magic ingredients that
you should look for in a man that turn a passionate quickie into the real
thing: 1. Sense of humour; 2. Sensitivity; 3. A caring side; 4. Self-confidence
without arrogance;
5.
A wizard in bed.’

I had
put the
Independent
down on the seat opposite so that I could get my
feet up without taking off my shoes and was flicking through the pages of
Metropolitan
magazine looking for the small piece by one of my clients. I got it at
Birmingham station, happy for an excuse to actually buy a copy. I am fascinated
by women’s magazines and could read them for ever, but unfortunately have to
restrict my perusals to doctors’ waiting rooms or lobbies of production
companies.

‘You’re
a modern woman with a schedule from hell and it’s easy to put yourself last. It’s
time to invest in yourself. Do it now!’ This was the copy-line underneath some
glossy pictures of a new range of blushers.

‘Look
at your life — if something is wrong, make it right. Work out an ideal future —
then live it!’ A picture of a beautifully turned-out young woman in a suit
dictating a letter to a male-model secretary, also no doubt wearing blusher but
his more subtly applied. And over the page, an advertisement for a rather small
new hop-about car. ‘For too long women have been relegated to the back seat
when it comes to buying cars. We’re here to tell those car manufacturers that
we want much more than just somewhere to put the shopping.’ A beautiful model
with unbelievable hair and even more unbelievable glasses swinging her £900
handbag near the open door of a pristine mauve automobile with a natty name on
the number plate. Through all of these wonderful ironic and aspirational pages,
I managed to find my Jenny Thompson’s piece. It was actually a location diary
of her time filming in Prague last year, but they’d bunged ‘Start getting your
own back. Every woman deserves an adventure’ across the top of it in heavy
print. Referring, no doubt, to the adulterous subject matter of the film Jenny
had been working on and not, I hoped, to her personal life. Also, this month’s
edition of
Metropolitan
was supposed to be themed. The overall concept
being infidelity, or ‘Why having a fling is a good thing’ month. So I suppose
they needed to tie it all in.

Jenny’s
article was OK. A bit dull but they paid her quite well and she seemed to be
getting more and more of these kinds of offer. I discussed it with her and she
thought the idea of getting a regular column somewhere would be, in her words, ‘amazingly
brave’. So this was just a station on the way, as it were.

On the
other side of the spread from Jenny’s piece was another picture of two anodyne
models. This time the chisel-jawed man was looking into the middle distance while
the pouting female gazed sadly at his left ear. This to illustrate an article
by an evidently eminent psychologist which had the shoutline ‘Staying faithful
to an emotionally unavailable man. How to handle it so
you
win.’

I
speed-read the first few paragraphs and found myself being hoovered into the
world of victimology, where relationships are the altar we must worship at,
where marriage is about winning and losing self-respect, where words like
empowerment and independence and emotional maturity and cherishment are the
sacrament and lack of emotional openness is the deadly sin. There was a
tick-box quiz at the end, to find out on a score chart whether ‘Your man is
worth staying faithful to’. This kind of stuff affects me like a cinema-sized
pack of Opal Fruits. You want a couple of them for a small sugar hit and end up
chewing your way through all forty and thinking the movie was crap because you
came out with a headache and a confused bowel. I read through the tick-box
quiz, wondering what mine and Liz’s score would be.

‘You’ve
got a new boss who’s making your life hell. Does your man: a) Give you advice
and then threaten to ring your boss on your behalf? b) Get angry and go down to
the pub? or c) Listen to your problem and produce tickets for a weekend in
Paris?’

My mood
began to deflate. The scenery became more urban again. The sun went behind the
batch of clouds. The train slammed into a short tunnel.

‘Ladies
and gentlemen, we shall shortly be approaching London Euston.’ The
microphone-happy steward made his last announcement. The men in suits began
packing away their computers, mobile phones and ball-park budget brochures. I
dawdled with the magazine. The train stood for some minutes, awaiting a free
platform to enter. A couple of outbound trains whacked past the nearside window
but we didn’t shift. I started to go through my diary of events and calls for
the day. I toyed with merchandising possibilities on the Planter tour and wondered
which of Naomi’s promoters would be the best to approach. I fiddled with my
Psion but it was no good. Underneath it all was the jumpy feeling. The feeling
that must be avoided. The one that has no name but a hell of a presence. The
one to do with Liz and me. I do not have the language for this. There is no
dictionary of terms other than that supplied, in buckets by magazines like this
one, over whose cover I had now spilt coffee in what I supposed must be some
kind of Freudian slip of the elbow. The black liquid ran towards my lap as the
train noisily lurched back into action. I mopped at it with a serviette. The
coffee had first splashed on to the summary of this month’s leader articles — ‘The
best sex I
ever
had. Women confess’ — and had now dribbled down over ‘Free
with this issue! Four available men!’

Walking
up the platform, my mind had become a quagmire of 1990s mag-speak. There is no
doubt that Liz feels disempowered being with me, I thought. It is humiliating
for her that the money in our bank account comes only from me. That we get
round it tax wise by saying she is employed by the agency. She hates to be
thought of only as Guy’s wife or Grace’s mum, and not as a person in her own
right. It must be awful for her, I thought. Talk about emotionally unavailable.
I’m almost entirely unavailable. I have to work so hard to support us all and
when I do get back home, there’s Grace. It must be degrading for Liz, knowing
that the car she drives is officially a Mullin and Ketts company car. She must
feel that she doesn’t exist. No wonder she used to hide the child seat in the boot.
No wonder she needs to get out of the house so often. She must feel like a
prisoner. I have disempowered her, that’s what I’ve done with all my
privileges. I must be part of the backlash conspiracy against women. No wonder
she’s ended up sleeping with Bob Henderson. Poor thing.