The Art of Unpacking Your Life (3 page)

Lizzie couldn't afford this trip, Sara was certain of it. Sara imagined that Julian and Connie had paid for Lizzie's whole holiday. They were extremely generous, though their act was bound to make Lizzie envy them more.

‘You're lucky to have lots of clothes,' moaned Lizzie, surfing through hers to unzip Sara's Mulberry holdalls and coo over the contents.

Sara stared at Lizzie's mountain of crunched clothes. ‘Volume isn't your problem, Lizzie.'

Lizzie looked up. ‘Mine are old. You will recognise every single one.' She lifted up a once-white linen shirt, cropped short for her eighties midriff. ‘I loved it when we were living in Harley Place. You must remember?'

How could Lizzie possibly think that Sara recognised her clothes? She was artless sometimes. It was, perversely, what Sara most adored about her. These days, who did she ever meet who was like Lizzie?

Connie darted in. ‘Didn't you buy it in that charity shop in the centre of Clifton? The one run by that crazy punk with green spiky hair and the black poodle?'

Connie was brilliant at life's details, particularly other people's life details. Sara had missed her without realising it.

‘Yes! It was twenty pence. Do you remember? Can you believe that?'

‘Yes I can,' Sara murmured. ‘Really Lizzie, I need to get you to a personal shopper the moment we are back.'

Connie shot her a warning eyebrow. ‘Sara, come and see the shower.'

She led her through to a mercifully modern bathroom into a cylindrical brick
courtyard with a high curved wall. In the far corner was an outdoor shower with a hole in the brick through which Sara spotted another impala.

‘Look! They've created a window – you can look out at the Kalahari while you shower.'

Sara couldn't think of anything less appealing. She wanted to escape from the outdoorsyness of it all. She rarely went outside in London. The Jade Sutton case, from brief to the end of the trial, had taken six months. She had cabbed in and out of Chambers. It was one of her few extravagances, which she defended to her mother: in a cab she could work, take calls and sort out her admin.

Connie and Lizzie's incessant chatter moved back inside. Sara stood in the sliver of shade taking stock. This place made her feel intensely uncomfortable. She was drawn back to the last time she felt in limbo: after her bar exams she took a year off to study French law in Grenoble. It was a twelve-hour journey from Calais to Grenoble. The coach was zinging with sweat and stale food by the time it lurched nauseatingly round and round up into the mountains. She weakly stepped out into a town that assaulted her with its foreign voices, shops and architecture. She was insecure. Of course, things changed. Grenoble and its small town elegance became her home. She met Jean Philippe: wise, intelligent with an airy beamed apartment up a narrow cobbled street. He was her gynaecologist. He made a pass while he was examining her.

‘Outrageous. Do take care,' Connie shouted indignantly over Lou's colic-ridden screams. Sara spent a handful of her limited cash calling Connie for a debrief. It was profoundly irritating to be competing with a newborn for her attention.

Jean Philippe's parents were at right angles to Sara's mother. They were artists, whose wooden chalet-style house was wedged on the side of the mountain outside a picturesque hamlet, ten kilometres outside Grenoble. They lived as full and chaotic a life as her mother lived a quiet, industrious one. Every Sunday, Sara and Jean Philippe would join his three siblings, their children, neighbours and friends for a massive Sunday lunch. Before the end of her university year, Jean Philippe asked her to marry him.

Sara was in love. She didn't hesitate. She hadn't slogged at a shit school, watched her mother suffer extra night shifts at the airport, to give it up for the first bloke who turned up. She left on the next coach back home to Manchester.

She never looked back, precociously taking silk at thirty-seven, and then every barrister's dream: ‘the life-enhancing brief'. The Jade Sutton case: complicated, high-profile, impossible. Every silk worth their salt wanted it.

Sara was drawn inevitably back to Joanne Sutton's mercury stare. She had to pull herself together. There was nothing she could do about it now. She sighed again. She only thought about Jean Philippe when she was shattered and stressed.

She hadn't fallen in love since. So what? There was something fundamentally wrong with the men she dated. Too talkative, too vain, too stupid, too nasal, too egotistical. Christ, she didn't need to be with anyone. She didn't have time.

Sara gave herself a slight shake. Look at Connie's life. Practically a teen bride and four demanding kids. No one had four children any more. Connie had a people-carrier-load of children to compensate for Julian's antics, Sara was sure of it. Not that
she ever discussed it with Connie. It was an unspoken agreement: Julian's affairs were out of bounds.

Sara escaped back into the bedroom, where Lizzie's debris was the only sign of her. She reminded herself she had come on this trip for Connie. She would feel better after a sleep. She slipped under the delicate pear-shaped mosquito net, lay on top of the sheet, reached beside the bed for the British Airways eye mask and ear plugs in her handbag, and lay down fully clothed flat on her back. The bed was comfortable, if a little narrow. These days, she only slept in a single bed when she went home to Manchester.

Sara gave way to sleep.

Connie was first back at the bar. She hadn't been able to lie down. Every detail was heightened as if she were wearing 3-D glasses. It was so exciting. Recently, Connie's life felt empty. Of course, it was busy and absorbing until her baby Hector started secondary school last September. Every morning at seven thirty, Hector disappeared with the older three. Connie was left behind, marooned in his early childhood, only knowing the answers to primary school questions that were no longer relevant. After school, Lou's long-standing boyfriend Rolo took sulky ownership of their open-plan kitchen. Connie lurked upstairs, lost and lonely.

She had their housekeeper, Sally, who had lived with them for a decade since Leo was seven. Connie spent more time with Sally than anyone else, even the children and Julian. Only Sally was party to the intimate details of Connie's life. She had been her best friend. Sometimes, when Connie was feeling low, she felt that Sally was the only close friend she had left.

Initially Connie imagined Sally, a trained nanny, would move on, but she stayed. They shared domesticity, trivia about the house, the children's timetables, endless meals, shopping, organising and sorting.

Over the years, Connie and Julian talked about Sally's desperate desire for her own child and the notable absence of any boyfriend. When Sally announced she was pregnant without revealing the name of the father, Connie was hurt. By Sally's
standards of passivity, it was a shock. What's more, she hadn't confided in Connie. Who was the man? A one-night stand? A sperm donor? A friend?

Sally made it clear the subject was off limits. It seemed that there was a boundary between Sally's ‘work' and her personal life that Connie didn't previously know existed. Sally was the only person she confided in about Julian's affairs. Her pregnancy made Connie realise that Sally didn't share any intimate details with her. The intimacy that Connie felt they had shared was an illusion; it turned out that they never had been really close.

Connie glanced self-consciously in the large mirror behind the bar. She allowed herself a couple of date balls from the bowl. As she popped the third into her mouth, Luke appeared. His lime-green T-shirt and running shorts were soaked with sweat.

‘We are leaving shortly, Luke,' she was anxious the group would never be ready in time.

‘I'll have a quick shower and be ready in fifteen,' Luke swiftly drained two glasses of water without looking at her.

‘When did you start exercising?' It was a stupid question, which she instantly regretted. It wasn't what she wanted to ask him.

He dabbed his neck with the towel coiled around it and smiled optimistically. ‘It's a great way to get some control of my life, Connie.'

Luke hadn't explained to her what had happened to his marriage. With their history, Connie had no right to ask.

Luke continued, brightening to his subject: ‘I'm working towards an Iron Man in September,' he added confidentially. ‘All I'm aiming to do is complete this one.'

How like Luke. Big confidences about work and sport, but not about the important things.

‘It's all change, all change, Connie,' he added, as if trying to convince himself.

Connie couldn't think of an appropriate reply that wouldn't be too personal. Luke left the bar to get changed. She glanced at his retreating back and wondered if he ever thought of their past.

Connie lived with Luke in Harley Place for two years. Every morning, he made her breakfast in bed, climbing three flights of stairs to bring her coffee, eggs and toast on the metal tray he had bought for the purpose from IKEA. They shared the largest bedroom in the house. They were both immaculate and minimal. Luke was practical. He built ceiling-to-floor wardrobes and bookshelves along one whole wall, painting them and the walls dove grey. They each had half of the vast wardrobe. Luke merged their books and ordered them alphabetically. They had an old desk each in front of the two long sash windows. They were both reading history and always worked together. If one of them finished first, the other would read on Connie's grandmother's purple velvet chaise longue. It wasn't only their degree they shared. They were physically alike – long and lean – and sexually at one. When she made love to Luke, Connie used to feel as if she was in a movie. Sara loved to describe them as: ‘Siamese twins, joined at the groin.'

The obvious next move after Bristol was for them to get a flat together, before getting married. However, they were both reserved. Neither of them ever said they loved the other. It was not a deliberate or manipulative move, rather a reticence they
both shared. Yet their unexpressed emotion created a big question about what was going to happen next. They drifted through the summer term. Connie, who loved stability, became nervous because their domestic bubble was about to pop – the others were going their separate ways – Luke and Connie couldn't stay on at Harley Place. Luke was determined to set up an Internet business, which would mean he would need go home to save money. It was a mad idea, which Connie couldn't understand. The Internet was only in its infancy at the time, who knew what impact it was going to have on society. Connie worried that was an excuse for not getting a proper job. Well, her father said as much. Connie was inclined to believe him, though she didn't say anything to Luke. Their relationship had been straightforward. Suddenly, it was complicated in a practical sense, and neither of them were experienced enough to untangle or, crucially, prepared to take the initiative. They both waited for the other to move them forward.

One night, Lizzie went out on a date and Connie couldn't sleep. Instead of gliding to their bedroom chaise longue, she decamped to the sitting room downstairs. A week later, she would see it as fate. She was asleep on Matt's old russet-red sofa bed, when the doorbell woke her. She was hardly conscious. She opened the door without looking at Lizzie or her date, and curled back into the foetal position on the sofa. She remembered looking up to see a man looming over her. What she saw in his dark eyes was decisiveness and purpose.

‘You must be Constance.'

She nodded without speaking or sitting up.

‘Why are you sleeping on the sofa?'

‘I couldn't sleep and I didn't want to wake Luke,' she hesitated. ‘My boyfriend.'

‘Oh, what's he done?' There was no missing the playfulness in his eyes.

‘Nothing, nothing at all.' She sat up quickly, keen to get away from him. ‘I couldn't sleep.'

Lizzie reappeared. ‘Much better. I was desperate for a pee.'

They stood awkwardly, the three of them.

‘Connie, you really shouldn't wear that nightie downstairs,' Lizzie said sharply. ‘Luke loves to see you semi-naked, but not the rest of us.'

Connie instinctively wrapped her arms across her breasts. ‘Sorry, I'd forgotten you were out. I'm off to bed.'

‘Have you two introduced yourselves?' Lizzie relented.

‘No. Rudely, I haven't. Julian Emmerson.' He held out his large hand, which Connie reluctantly shook, keeping her other hand across her nightie. He held on to it. ‘Wonderful to meet you, Constance.'

Gus was taking them in search of the Southern Pride, which had been spotted by another ranger near a northern watering hole. It would mean they didn't have time to stop for every animal they spotted along the way. They were keen. Lions gave purpose and excitement to their first drive.

This time, they climbed swiftly into the vehicle. Matt, Katherine and Luke in the first row, while Connie sat between Julian and Dan in the middle, and Sara, Lizzie and Alan in the back. She gratefully noticed that there was an ease to their movements
as they placed their cameras, suncream and water bottles in the leather pouches behind the seats in front.

Luke shuffled a large rucksack from between his legs. ‘I've got something for you all.'

He brought out a pile of dark grey tissue wrapped items. Each one had a handwritten name tag dangling from a purple ribbon.

‘Matt.' Luke tossed a package to him.

Matt tore it open and stretched out an elegant taupe-coloured shirt in exquisite cotton. ‘Luke, you're great, mate.'

‘I don't believe it.' Lizzie exclaimed as she opened hers. ‘It looks expensive. Wow, thank you, Luke.'

On the left-hand breast of Connie's shirt in olive embroidery as if hand scribbled were the words:
The Group
. On the back was an olive-sketched map with cartoon-style buildings showing Harley Place, Connie's house in west London, and Adderbury and Gae in the Kalahari.