Vintage Babes (33 page)

Yet when we did make love, it was just as good – passionate and satisfying – as ever. The pressures of our careers meant we didn’t have much spare time to spend together and maybe our marriage was going through a humdrum stage, as marriages do, but we were still in tune. We kissed, teased, discussed, argued and made up. He told me regularly that he adored me. And vice versa.

I had decided I was adding up two and two and making a ridiculous five – it’s amazing how you can refuse to connect the dots when you don’t wish to see the full picture – when, one evening, Tom had poured me the usual glass of white wine and himself the usual whisky and water, then announced he needed to talk.

‘I’ve been foolish,’ he had said. ‘I’m very sorry, but I’ve become involved with the receptionist at work, Kathryn.’

All of a sudden, I had found it hard to breathe. Working in London’s newspaper fraternity, I was aware of the flirting which went on, the illicit fumbles, the secret liaisons. But I had never participated nor imagined that he would, either. And now he was ‘very sorry’ – well, thanks, mister.

‘Kathryn must – must be twenty years plus your – your junior,’ I had stammered.

Tom had bristled. ‘So?’

‘You bought her an asparagus kettle? I found a receipt.’

‘Yes.’

‘How romantic.’ Should I request a description of the kettle? No, this was not an apt juncture.

‘Actually, her asparagus is superb. Melts in the mouth.’

‘You don’t say. How long has this ‘involvement’ been going on?’

‘Six or seven months.’

A layer of ice seemed to settle over me. I had always believed that a wife must know, or at least suspect, if her husband was straying – even if she didn’t admit it – yet until I’d heard the husky message a day or two earlier the idea had not crossed my mind.

‘Good God, Tom!’

‘Thing is –’ he had shifted awkwardly in his seat ‘– it’s become… tricky. Serious.’

I had looked at him in horror. When a fellow reporter’s husband had had an affair and she had taken him back, I had privately condemned her as spineless. Where was her self-esteem, her pride? If Tom should ever do the dirty on me, I would, I had told myself, be straight out of the door. That simple. But it wasn’t simple.

I had wanted to burst into floods of tears. I had wanted to thump him for inflicting such a grievous hurt. I had wanted to yell, ‘but I love you!’ That he should be having a fling, a six month fling, had been disaster enough, yet I would have forgiven him. Not necessarily with good grace – on the contrary, I would’ve made his life hell – but I would have got over it. Eventually. More or less. Maybe. Put it down to a mid-life crisis and the stupidity of men. How we can all make mistakes. But his ‘serious’ meant this wasn’t just a fling.

And this wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. In a few years’ time we would be celebrating our Silver Wedding and already we’d talked of indulging ourselves and jetting off to a five-star hotel in Rome or Mustique or Bangkok. But now…

‘Then you must do what you want to do,’ I had said, briskly and painfully. ‘If you want a divorce, I won’t stand in your way.’

My heart might be breaking and my life collapsing in ruins around me, but I had been determined to be civilised. To act with dignity. Other women I knew had retreated gracefully from failed marriages – at least, they had appeared to on the surface – and I would, too. Decorum was all.

What an idiot. I should have swallowed my pride and begged, pleaded, battled. Peppered his suits with cigarette acupuncture, boiled rabbits on the stove. I should have pointed out that he was reneging on a lifetime contract, but there are such things as loyalty and responsibility and considering others. Namely me and our beloved daughter, Lynn. I should’ve suggested that panacea of the age, counselling, or told him to check into a sex addiction clinic. I should have reminded him of all the good times we’d shared, and the bad times, and insisted we could work things out. And never mind that – a double whammy – he had already impregnated Kathryn, who subsequently became his trophy wife.

But I didn’t.

I stubbed out my cigarette. It was too late to throw big scenes and make Tom suffer. Eight years too late. And now three-thirty p.m. had come and gone, and my visitor had yet to appear.

Filling a jug I wandered around, watering the plants which sit on windowsills throughout the house. Purple chrysanths, a poinsettia still gamely surviving from Christmas, various coleus which I have grown from seed. I had told myself I had no wish to meet Tom again and yet, while I felt a little uptight, there was also a buzz of anticipation. It would be interesting to see him, to talk to him. I moistened the soil of a cactus. Could I have fixed a get-together here with Lynn because I had wanted to see him? Did some unconscious need lurk inside me? After all, I could have asked him to arrange to meet our daughter in London, without me becoming personally involved.

When the doorbell rang, I jumped. I abandoned the watering, took a deep breath and went to greet my visitor. To my annoyance, I felt my heartbeat quicken. ‘Chill, Gran,’ I instructed.

‘Hello. How are you? I hope you had a smooth drive down,’ I said, ushering Tom indoors. I was all smiles and graciousness, like an airline hostess welcoming a first-class passenger on board. ‘Thank you for coming.’

He grinned. ‘My pleasure.’

The intelligent blue eyes beneath thick black brows and the angular face were as I remembered, but his dark hair had become totally grey. Silver grey. Once it had flopped over his brow, but now it was cut short and lay close to his head. He wore a mid-blue linen suit with the jacket open, a pale blue shirt and a brightly coloured modern-art tie. He looked the archetypal media guy, a look which says ‘I’m with it.’ It was a look which may be appreciated by the metropolitan newspaper crowd, but seemed out of place in Dursleigh.

He handed me a large bunch of yellow roses. ‘For the siren from
The Siren,’
he recited.

‘Thanks.’

If only he knew how many times I had been called that and always by men who, like him, imagined they were being wittily original.

‘Had to rush lunch with a government bod who was eager for a chinwag, eager for some advice. Needed to swill down the Chateau Latour, more’s the pity,’ he said, and grimaced. There was no apology for keeping me waiting, rather his visit was being blamed for making him hurry his meal. He fingered the modern-art tie. ‘You’re looking well.’

‘And you.’

I was being polite, rather than strictly truthful. In the four years since I had last seen him, he had put on weight. Tall and rangy, Tom had previously kept in shape, but now there were the beginnings of a paunch and his complexion was florid. He looked like a man who wined and dined a little too often. The Cordon Bleu cuisine he was fed at home wouldn’t help, either.

‘Coffee?’ I asked, leading the way into the kitchen.

‘Please. Didn’t have time for it at lunch. Politicians are always asking for my advice, off the record, of course,’ he said, and as I switched on the kettle, then found and filled a crystal vase with water, he told me tales about the queue of government ministers who were, he claimed, desperate for his input.

The tales were interesting and amusing – my father would’ve loved them – yet they also reeked of Tom’s good opinion of himself. He had always liked to think he was first fiddle in the orchestra. Always name-dropped. Or could he be trying to impress me? Was he apprehensive, too? Had the prospect of meeting up with his ex-wife made him feel stressed?

‘Lynn and Beth have gone with Justin to a farm park,’ I explained, when he paused for breath. ‘They’ll be back around four-thirty, but Lynn doesn’t know you’re coming.’

‘Fine. Smoke,’ he said.

‘Sorry?’

‘I can smell cigarette smoke. I used to smell it when I walked in the door of our place in Kensington and smell it on you.’

‘You complained bitterly,’ I said, arranging the flowers. By ‘arranging’ I mean I removed the cellophane wrapping, snipped off the rubber bands and stuck the roses in the vase. The artistic arrangement of blooms is something else, like cookery, that has never grabbed me. ‘You used to go on about it
ad nauseam.’

He looked disgruntled. ‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Come on, Tom, I can remember you giving me long lectures about how repulsive the smell was to people who weren’t ‘nicotine junkies’ and how I ought to give up. How you’d set the death penalty for anyone who took cigarettes into restaurants. How I smoked like a chimney and stank like one. Your nagging made me want to scream.’

That he should walk in and refer to me smoking had irritated me now. I had only had one cigarette all day, so any smell must be faint. Very faint. Certainly faint enough to be disregarded.

‘You’re right, I did go on a bit,’ he conceded, and grinned. ‘We had a blazing row once where I took off your sweater and made you smell it, and next thing we were rolling around naked on the carpet.’ He slid an arm around my waist. ‘We were so great together, Carol.’

I stepped away. Him holding me close felt so familiar, far too familiar. It opened up a multitude of memories. But I was no longer his wife. No longer to be taken for granted. Neither did I appreciate his reminder of our sex life, which had been good. Bloody good.

‘Black, two sugars?’ I said.

‘You remember. Now the smell of smoke is your smell. It’s a sexy smell.’

‘Pull the other one.’

‘I mean it.’ Taking the mug of coffee I handed him, Tom looked me up and down. ‘You’re sexy. Still drinking from the fountain of youth and slim as a reed – whooarh!’

I laughed. He had always gone over the top with compliments, but, like most women, I’m a sucker for compliments. Though as for drinking from the fountain of youth – I wish.

‘Thanks. But Kathryn’s slim, too,’ I added.

I was deliberately stirring things, yet why not? I reckon I’m entitled to some small revenge.

‘Not any more. She’s a fat cow. When she rolls down her roll-on and her belly flops out, God, it’s disgusting!’

‘That’s a bit harsh,’ I protested. I never thought I would hear myself defending the slick chick, but the woman had given birth to two children. His children. ‘And you’re not exactly a sylph-like figure yourself these days.’

Tom scowled. ‘Bless you for your honesty.’

‘You should exercise. I do. I attend a fitness class twice a week.’

Should I tell him how I had worked out on television? No, I didn’t want to get into all the whys and wherefores.

‘Don’t have the time to exercise, though Kathryn could and should. The sex isn’t much cop these days, either,’ he continued. ‘Kathryn lives in perpetual fear Benedict will walk into our bedroom while we’re at it, so she’s scared of making any noise and as for us indulging in –’

‘How old is Benedict now?’ I asked.

I didn’t want to hear about their love-life and as for being regaled with a description of their sexual practices – no thanks. The Tom I remembered would never have been so indiscreet, so brash, and I decided it must be the wine which was talking.

‘Six. He’s son number two. Cameron is coming up to eight.’

‘Do you have a photograph of them?’

‘Not on me.’

It would have been interesting to see what his sons looked like. Lynn has described them as having dark hair, brown eyes and cheeky grins – which is how I visualise Michael. My son. I’ve imagined him at every age and now he would have been twenty-five, almost twenty-six. A handsome young man who would entrance the girls. Another journalist maybe, but brilliant at whatever he did. And his mother’s darling.

‘Benedict gets up in the night?’ I said.