Women of a Dangerous Age (18 page)

‘I was in a terrible state. You must be able to understand. If not …' He shook his head as if baffled by her lack of support. ‘Do you want me to go on?'

A lump had risen in her throat and she was having difficulty keeping her tears at bay but he was not going to see how upset she was. All that time, she had still been under the illusion that she was in an, if not idyllic, at least a good working marriage. Then, she'd still held the faith that they would weather whatever storms lay ahead. She nodded.

‘Like Nic, she didn't want to have an abortion …'

Lou gasped at his bracketing Nic with this woman, presumably to enlist her understanding. Well, he could forget that.

‘So I agreed to pay towards Rory's maintenance and to have a small role in his life. I mean, surely you agree that every child should know their father?'

‘Know him?' He might as well have punched her in the stomach. ‘You mean you still see him?'

He kept his eyes fixed on the patterned Indian rug as he spoke again. ‘Not often. But three or four times a year.'

‘Three or four times a year?' She fought to control the rising pitch of her voice.

This time Hooker looked up at her, his face conveying his guilt. ‘I know I haven't been the most perfect of husbands …'

‘Tell me about it.' She spoke under her breath but could see that he'd heard.

‘But I've at least tried to be a good father. To
all
my children.'

She felt a sudden overwhelming desire to puncture his self-righteousness. ‘As far as most of the world is concerned, being a good father and being a good husband go hand in hand. Us not knowing what you were up to doesn't make what you did all right.'

His surprise at her answering back renewed her confidence. For years, he had accused her of being ‘ridiculous' when he wanted to end an argument. By asserting his claim to the superior intellect or the moral high ground, he unfailingly made her wither. Almost without exception, she would cede whatever point she was trying to make. But this time was different. She wasn't that person any more and would stop talking when she wanted to, not when he bullied her into silence.

‘Don't be ridiculous, Lou.' He resorted to the usual belittlement to dismiss what she had just said. ‘I probably haven't done anything my father didn't do and my mother stuck
it out for the long haul. She loved him and was happy for him to live the way he wanted to.'

‘What? Like father, like son and that makes it all right? They were another generation with a different moral code and different expectations. Don't you understand that? And I certainly don't remember any illegitimate half-brother popping out of your family woodwork.' Lou realised she was in danger of shouting and took a second to compose herself. ‘Welcome to the twenty-first century, Hooker. Women expect to be treated like equals.'

‘That's just feminist tosh.'

Hooker's sneer made Lou want to hit him. But she didn't. ‘I'm going to ignore that. I know you're not stupid enough to believe it.'

At that moment a sound came from upstairs. Lou looked up. Hooker ignored both the noise and the fact that she'd noticed it. She remembered the red bra and the body lotion. However, if that was how he was going to play it, she would follow suit. To his evident surprise, she continued: ‘Well, you're not getting away with anything any more. I meant what I said about inviting Rory here. I want to meet him too.'

‘That's a terrible plan. How would you cope?'

Was that a suspicion of consideration for her that she heard? She made herself remain firm. ‘I'd prefer it if you didn't patronise me. I'm the best judge of what I can cope with. Don't think I haven't thought about this.'

‘Darling! Have you nearly finished?' The voice shrilled from upstairs. ‘We'll be late.'

Lou remembered the young woman from the Regis.
‘Nothing changes with you, does it?' She stood up and made her way to the front door. ‘I won't keep you.'

‘That's not fair. The only reason she's here is because you're not.'

Thinking she must have misheard him, she turned towards him. ‘I'm sorry?'

‘You heard me and you know that it's true. I didn't ask you to leave. I didn't want you to go.' His gaze was still fixed on the carpet.

‘Oh, Hooker! What did you expect? We've been here before. You took me for granted for too long. Your mother mightn't have had the means to start afresh, but I do. And I do still care about the children – more than anything. So make a date to see them this week and explain. Or I will.'

They both turned at a sound on the stairs where, sure enough, the girl from the Regis stood. This close, Lou could see that she must be in her thirties at most, still able to carry off the leggings and jacket look. Not much older than Jamie.

‘Enjoy yourselves,' she said. ‘I'll look forward to hearing that you've spoken to them.' She exited with all the grace she could muster.

Ten o'clock in the morning and Don and Ali were still in bed. After a long, leisurely and extremely pleasurable period of coming to, during which they'd confirmed and then reconfirmed the utter rightness of their being together, he swung his legs out of the bed, grabbed his dressing gown and left her up to her neck in duvet, cocooned in the warmth, with no plans to relinquish this state of affairs until she absolutely had to. Ali was revelling in the sensation of being in a new bed in a room that didn't belong to her. Despite the passing thought that she'd have changed the bed linen days ago had it been hers, she felt quite happy where she was, secure even. Then she felt panic. Should she have put on the brakes a bit? Normally, she would have held herself in reserve until she was sure of what she was letting herself in for. But this time had been different. She had held nothing back with the result that they'd spent almost the whole weekend in bed, first hers and now his. What would he be thinking of her? After all, despite everything, she hardly knew him at all.

Before Don left the room, he dropped a kiss on her cheek, producing another of those pinch-me moments when she had to double-take on what had happened to her, to them. And happened with such speed.

After her supper with Lou, she had eventually persuaded herself to phone him. She spent the whole of the following day taking out her mobile, beginning to dial, then thinking better of it. Finally, she overcame her nerves. She could hear the pleasure in his voice when he realised who was calling. Immediately, he'd suggested dinner on the following Friday evening. She accepted.

They met in an unpretentious yet fashionable Italian restaurant on Ali's side of town. Ali arrived first wearing a blue jersey dress: understated but elegant. After five minutes, her anxiety translated into certainty that he wasn't coming. By the time he rushed towards her, blurting apologies about public transport, she was looking at her watch wondering whether she should leave. He gave his coat and scarf to the waiter and sat opposite her, looking amused by the bread sticks that she had crumbled over the tabletop. She tried to brush the crumbs into her hand, but the ones that didn't stick to the cloth, flew onto her dress. After an awkward few minutes during which the conversation stopped and started, both of them being careful not to say the wrong thing, they began to relax. Within an hour of being together again, it was as if they had never been apart. Ali stopped noticing the silent couple on the next table, barely tasted the five-star food, was oblivious to the time passing as they filled in the details of what had happened in their lives since they last wrote
to each another. Don talked readily about his first wife but passed over his second marriage swiftly before concentrating on his work, the NGO he'd worked for that helped the indigenous population in Australia, before moving into the field of international human rights.

Eventually, he stopped.

‘Nothing's changed, has it?' He had eventually voiced what she was feeling, as they waited for the bill.

‘I don't think so.' She didn't want to agree too enthusiastically in case she jinxed what she felt was happening. If nothing else, her experience with Hooker had confirmed her tendency not to rush at things. How odd it was that she rarely thought of him as ‘Ian' any more. Using his family nickname had definitely helped distance her from their involvement.

‘To think we've let all these years go by.' He sounded so wistful. ‘We might have got married, had children.'

She struggled to shake off a sudden unbearable feeling of sadness. ‘Don, don't. Please. What happened, happened. There's no point.'

‘True.' He lay his hands on hers, fixing her with his gaze. ‘But perhaps it's not too late?'

‘Let's take it a step at a time.' Her natural caution took over.

‘If that's what you want.'

‘I think I do.' But that's not what she thought at all. Far from thinking anything, she was suddenly feeling giddy with desire.

Afterwards, they had shared a cab despite not living in the same direction. Neither of them mentioned the fact
although they both knew exactly what was happening. Don accepted her offer of a coffee without comment. As they continued to talk, Ali could only think of one thing: which of them would make the first move? As he told her about the joys of life in Australia, his enthusiasm and success at surfing, not to mention the swimming, the sailing, the kite surfing, they were both aware of holding back, nervous of rejection, commitment, misunderstanding. Then, he had got up to leave and they had kissed goodnight. And kissed again. And sent the cab away. After that, there had been no going back. The next day she went briefly to the studio before meeting him for lunch, and now here she was the morning after that, waking up in his flat.

She wondered lazily what the weather was like, whether it would affect what they would do that day. Ali was not religious but she was fervent about Sunday being a day of rest. Without a break, her head wouldn't find the space for new creative ideas that only came when they were given room to ferment and surface. This was the day when the germs of some of her best ideas had arrived. She would never have been inspired to make her pavé-diamond daisy pendant if she hadn't spent a lazy summer Sunday afternoon picnicking on Hampstead Heath.

Lying on her side, facing the space Don had just vacated, she reluctantly opened her eyes. Outside, the sky was cloudy above the Thames-side apartment buildings that lined the other side of the river. Looking back to the room,
Don's laundry basket, which he seemed to treat like a basketball hoop, was the first thing to catch her eye. Clothes had been tossed in its direction but the socks and pair of Calvin Kleins that had missed lay abandoned on the floor beside it while a shirt was draped over its edge, half in, half out. The mirrored door of the pine wardrobe facing the end of the bed was slightly ajar, a couple of ties hanging from its handle. On the chest of drawers were a hairbrush and comb, cufflinks and a mess of his pocket emptyings – loose change, receipts, Oyster card, a couple of pens. She realised that she didn't mind untidiness so much as long as it was not in her domain. On the wall beyond his side of the bed, the Ron Arad bookshelf curled like a large snail to hold a few broken-spined paperbacks. She lifted her head to make out the lower titles: Dawkins'
The God Delusion
; Jonathan Franzen's
Freedom
; a biography of Morrissey; a guidebook to Paris; a fading copy of
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
and
The Dice Man
. She smiled. That really dated him. On the walls was one forlorn indistinct watercolour that was crying out for company.

She lay back again, feeling utterly content. Then a thought struck her – this was the first of her lovers' bedrooms that she had ever seen, let alone slept the night in. Inevitably, those men, now almost ghosts in her imagination, had usually stayed at her place. Otherwise, in the years since Don had left, she had been entertained in countless anodyne hotel bedrooms where every creature comfort was provided but any personality excised. She had never visited one of
her lovers' homes, had never seen the side of their personality that they kept there.

As she revelled in the pleasure of being here, of being able to share this place with Don, of being on the brink of a relationship where there were no ‘other halves' – the euphemism amused her – to complicate things, the door opened and he edged round it, carrying two mugs of tea. He placed one of them on the empty bedside table beside her before returning to his side. There, he balanced his own mug on a couple of books and climbed back into bed.

‘Brr.' He shivered, then settled on his side and placed his hand on her stomach, tucking his feet between her legs.

She lurched into a sitting position, clinging to the duvet, half laughing. ‘Christ! Get off! You're freezing.'

‘I thought you could warm me up.' He adopted that Australian inflection that turned the end of every sentence into a question.

‘You're insatiable!' She hopped out of bed and took the second dressing gown on the back of the door. ‘I've got to have a pee and then I want to drink that tea. And then … well, we'll see.'

Don returned to his own side of the bed with mock reluctance. ‘Spoilsport,' he grumbled, but with a smile. ‘But I guess I can wait.'

Three-quarters of an hour later, the tea was drunk and they had begun to compare the possibilities that the day held in store with the merits of just staying put. However tempting the latter, Don had work to do. They agreed to meet later to see a movie.

They showered together in the large black-and-white tiled wet room dominated by a massive power showerhead in the centre of the ceiling. Ali closed her eyes to the few grey hairs she spotted in the plughole and the mildewed grouting in one of the corners. After they'd dressed, Don went to book their cinema tickets online so she made a start on breakfast. Pottering happily in the kitchen, she found the cereal and the sliced bread. She removed the slice with the corner of greenish mould and binned it. In the fridge, she discovered an inch of skimmed milk in a plastic bottle beside a couple of Bud Lights. An elderly lettuce that looked more liquid than leaf was contained in a plastic bag that lay by a couple of wizened carrots in the grubby salad drawer.

‘All done,' he said, returning to the kitchen area. ‘Oh, no, don't go there. I didn't think … I haven't really got myself organised yet.'

‘I could give it a quick clean.' Ali was almost ashamed by the frisson of pleasure she got from the idea of restoring the fridge to pristine condition.

‘Absolutely not. In fact, let's go out for breakfast. I could murder a decent cappuccino.'

She shut the fridge door. ‘If you're sure …'

‘Completely. Let's go.' He held out his hand. She took it.

Twenty minutes later, they were sitting in Manda's Bakery, mugs of cappuccino and half-eaten croissants in front of them. Don was already deep in
The Sunday Times
' sports pages, while Ali was leafing through the news, her mind only half on what she was reading.

‘Have you
got
to work?' she asked, hoping he'd have a change of heart and they could go back to the flat to pick up where they'd left off.

‘What? Today?'

As he looked up, Ali studied his eyes, dark and steady, his smile bracketed by deep laughter lines, the Sunday morning stubble shading his jaw, and felt a blaze of happiness. She nodded. ‘Mmm.'

He groaned. ‘You know I don't want to but I've got so much paperwork to get through before I start in earnest next week.'

‘Must you?' she almost pleaded, stretching across the table for his hand. She gazed down as she traced her finger up and down between the bones, over the raised blue veins.

‘I'll be done by six. Promise. Don't tell me you haven't got anything to do.'

‘Well, maybe I'll call in on Lou and see how the shop's doing. She's open till five.' Instead of her usual reticence, she was bursting to tell Lou about what had just happened, never mind catching up on what had happened between Hooker and the children. Everything was changing. That was the second-best way she could think of spending her free afternoon.

 

‘You don't think I've dived in too quickly, do you?' Ali wanted to be reassured. ‘You don't think he'll be put off?'

‘Good God, woman. He's probably delighted. I thought
you said he felt the same.' Lou took one of the sleeves she had cut from a damaged charity-shop find and began to pin it onto the contrasting bodice of a similarly patterned dress.

‘But he might not have meant it … Weird, really,' Ali said, thoughtful as she rearranged the jewellery in the cabinet for something to do, putting the bees and butterflies and beetles at eye level and the more popular keys below, mixing the rings among them. ‘For the first time, for almost as long as I can remember, I don't feel in charge of this relationship. For the first time, I know what it's like to want someone so totally it hurts.'

Lou raised her eyebrows. ‘Haven't you ever had that feeling before? Not once?'

‘Never allowed myself to.' Not even with Hooker, she thought. Ali saw Lou's resigned expression. ‘It's true,' she insisted. ‘Whatever they said, there was always a wife in the background preventing me. If you know what I mean.' She could have kicked herself for her tactlessness.

‘I can imagine.' Lou's attention was focused on the fabrics she held as she fitted one exactly to the other, pinning them in place. She held up the bodice. ‘What do you think?'

Ali was relieved by the change of subject. ‘I like it. Clever idea to mix the fabrics like that.'

‘Recycling gone mad. Thought I'd do a few of these off-the-peg mix-and-matches and put them on the website. Don't suppose
Chic to Chic
or
Stylish
will like them but I don't care, since …' Lou paused to concentrate on her sewing, squinting as she stabbed the thread in the
direction of the needle's eye, then giving up and casting about for her specs. ‘…
Stylish
called in two of my sundresses for a possible summer shoot and we've been promised a mention in
Chic to Chic'
s diary section.' Her face was triumphant.

‘No way! You never said. But that's brilliant.'

‘I only heard late on Friday. I did try to call you but couldn't get through and to be honest, most of the time my head's been taken up with this whole business of Rory. And as for this afternoon, you've only just let me get a word in. One more thing …' She silenced Ali's protest, then paused for effect. ‘That glossy freebie,
City Life
, wants a solo interview with you.'

‘No!' Until now Ali had shunned overt publicity, preferring her reputation to be built by word of mouth. This could mean a completely new direction for her.