The Art of Unpacking Your Life (7 page)

Jules was back with her. ‘Where are your manners, Lizzie Gibson?' He laughed heartily.

‘I can't help it. I'm starving and it is delicious,' she smiled. ‘But tiny!'

‘Shall we ask for two portions next time? You and I love proper food, proper portions.'

They were partners in crime. Both fun-loving and spirited. She thought ruefully that she used to be as skinny as Connie. If only she was, she would be living this lifestyle.

The wine was also gorgeous, clearly expensive. ‘Don't you love this wine, Jules?' Lizzie could imagine that it was just the two of them here. She could hold his attention, hold on to him.

Jules leaned closer. ‘You know, this is real discovery for me. I'm a French wine snob, but I am really savouring this Iona Sauvignon Blanc. It's complex for a Sauvignon.' He produced his phone. ‘Lizzie, excuse me, I'm going to see what they say about it.'

He had such a spontaneous curiosity.

‘Look at that. Iona,' he showed her an aerial shot of vivid green vineyards in front of blue lake, close to the sea. He was absorbed by the tasting notes. ‘I could certainly taste the ripe gooseberry and kiwifruit. I missed the lime marmalade, though. Did you?'

‘Yes. I missed it all, I'm afraid, Jules.' She leaned back, happy in her drunkenness, watching him reading through all the notes on their website.

Suddenly he put down his phone, got to his feet, moved to the end of the table and tapped his glass with his fork to get the group's attention. He was great with a large audience.

‘Never fear: what goes on safari, stays on safari.'

They were loud, raucous. The group together again. She was proud that they were her friends.

Alan slipped into Jules's empty seat. He smiled and squeezed her hand, before whispering. ‘You are dressed to party.'

She grinned at him appreciatively as Jules continued, ‘A few slurry words from me. Then I promise to shut up.'

‘Unless we heckle from across the House,' Matt roared.

Laughter. Chairs rubbed back. Katherine smiled and moved round the table to sit on Matt's lap.

Lizzie always sensed she was one of those women who used to weep into her Chardonnay or, knowing cool Katherine, Grey Goose vodka. Until she met Matt. She relied heavily on him. You could see it in the way she leaned into him.

‘No, you are far too easy an opposition,' Jules whipped in.

‘You wait, Julian Emmerson.'

‘Matt's interruptions aside, I wanted to say a few words about you lot, Connie's oldest friends – so put your Zimmer frames aside for a moment.'

There was a slight hush. Lizzie knew Jules was bound to say something playful.

‘We've lost one, but we are about to gain one.'

Lizzie's eyes were on Katherine as Jules was going to say the unsayable and get away with it.

‘Luke has parted with the delicious Emma – no accounting for taste – pared down his life and his waist size.'

Luke gave his self-conscious smile. Lizzie had always found it hard to understand his attractiveness. He was too handsome to be sexy. And he could never stand up and give this speech. He wasn't a man like Julian.

‘So to Luke's compactness.'

‘Hear hear,' Matt shouted. ‘Luke, give us a few tips please.'

‘Please, Luke,' Jules leaned down mock-solicitously. ‘We beg you, don't wither away.'

Lizzie laughed loudly; Sara clapped. Luke glanced at Connie.

‘To our eight-week-away new addition: Matt and Katherine's baby girl. Congratulations. I've never seen a mother to be with such a gorgeous bod. Surrogacy is the way forward.'

Only Jules would get away with saying that to Katherine.

‘Our dearest Dan keeps his considerable lights under an elegant box hedge.'

Lizzie smiled at Alan. He didn't smile back, nor did he look at Dan.

‘Might I add, he is always the first person of your gang to shine light on everyone else's achievements.'

Lizzie was deflated, unappreciated. Dan was always seen as the most loyal person in the group, which wasn't fair. She was the one who remembered everyone's birthdays, she always called as she walked to work from St James's Park Tube station.

As the others laughed, Lizzie frowned. Their lives had moved on without her.

Alan leaned into her. ‘Are you all right?'

Lizzie nodded.

‘A white hydrangea tells me that you have won an award for your latest garden outside Florence.'

They started to cheer. Dan blushed. He had that kind of modesty that somehow attracted more attention, Lizzie thought. She veered between feeling upset he hadn't told her about the award, and resenting the fact he had won it.

‘And Sara Wilson QC. Counsel in the trial of the decade: the Jade Sutton case. Joanne Sutton acquitted.'

It was unfair. Their lives were fast-forwarding. Lizzie turned to look down the table at Sara.

‘This afternoon, I've been reading the pages of coverage of her spectacular success. A profile of our own very dear QC in
The Times
legal section. Brilliant barrister brings clarity to a highly charged, high-profile, complicated case. The Jade Sutton case will never be forgotten.'

They clapped, laughed. Connie went over to Sara and gave her a big hug, but Sara extricated herself clumsily. Her white silhouette swayed past the pool, heading for the bar. Only Sara would get away with walking off. The others didn't seem to notice.

‘It's been an exciting year for all of you.'

Did he have to rub it in?

‘Constance's madcap idea to drag you halfway round the world, I am the first to admit, now feels like the right plan, at the right time.' He held out his hand to Connie. She moved to his side. He held her close. ‘A celebration at a certain point in all our lives.'

Lizzie was jealous.

‘We are on the cusp of great things I feel.'

What about me? Lizzie wanted to scream.

‘To Constance, for making this happen. And for being my beautiful, bright, best friend and partner in all things. I couldn't live without you. I love you.'

‘Yeah, Connie,' Matt howled before clapping his hands. ‘We love you.'

‘We do,' added Dan warmly. ‘We really do, Connie.'

‘And,' Jules added. ‘To greatness.'

Alan put his arm around her shoulders. He was the only one who noticed her. Connie and Luke were first up dancing to the music, louder in the bar. They were wiggling away, as they always did in Harley Place, only without touching. Matt was galloping round with Katherine. She looked as crazy a dancer as he was.

Jules leaned over her shoulder. ‘Lizzie, cheer up. What's wrong? Come on, you know I can't dance with you – I have two left feet. I'm going to introduce you to this
sumptuous Thelema Cabernet Sauvignon instead.' He lifted up an amazing smart black bottle with a phoenix as the only decoration on the label.

Lizzie was reminded, yet again, how sexy she found him.

‘Imagine: you are on a date with a sophisticated, intelligent man with a bone-dry sense of humour but a rich hinterland underneath. How can you resist? Thelema Cabernet Sauvignon, 2009, Lizzie darling?'

Lizzie smiled.

Luke coughed a breath out. His chest hurt. He felt nauseous. His legs ached. His feet waded through the sand track as if it were deep, fresh snow. It was surprisingly cold out on the reserve. He was running in shorts: he should have worn his tracksuit bottoms. Some of the rangers ran this two-and-a-half-kilometre circuit out of the lodge, through their ‘village' of bungalow homes and back, Gus had told him. Luke loved the connotations. Africans were top athletes, the result of generations of bare-footing it through the bush. He imagined doing the run without trainers. But he was worried about snakes.

Luke and Sara were the last to go to bed, around three in the morning. He couldn't leave earlier. He had savoured his first full night with his friends, laughing and joking with Sara, a woman who was simply a close friend. Who didn't demand of him something he couldn't begin to understand, let alone give.

Still he set his alarm for five. They were riding out at six and he had to get in a run before it got too hot. When he ran, he focused intensely on his technique. His hands lightly curled, imagining he were holding a pair of baby sparrows with broken wings; his forearms at ninety degrees to his body; the soles of his feet ping ponging to his buttocks; his hips staying in line with his body, not over-striding as he had a tendency to do.

He was too cold and hungover to do more than distract himself from his growing discomfort by leafing through the debris of last night. He spluttered and slowed to a gentle jog as he replayed Sara's rant.

‘Emma was nothing but a PA, Luke. A fucking PA. You never should have married her.' Sara was vehemently protective of him, which Luke found reassuring. ‘I should have stopped you.'

Emma wasn't clever, which made her easier initially. Luke concentrated on his Internet business. His luxury goods website was the first of its kind and had set him up for life. He came home late every night and had a delicious meal. Emma was a great cook and she created a stylish, modern home. She loved shopping and decorating. He loved that, having grown up in a disorganised house. And he wanted to force himself to move on from Connie. Even now, Connie unnerved and unbalanced him. He couldn't help visualising pulling off those tight white jeans. Those narrow hips flaunting her long slender legs.

He was profoundly in love with Connie though he never told her, a fact that haunted him long into his marriage to Emma. Yet after three years together, Connie unceremoniously left him for Julian, marrying him soon after. She hurt him more than he thought it was possible. Since then, he avoided educated women, convinced unintelligent women were less likely to cause him pain and demand emotional commitment that he didn't have it in him to give any more.

Luke knew he was awkward with most women – Connie was the exception. He might have blamed his parents. They didn't share confidences. The silence between them wasn't obvious to Luke until he was married to a woman who never stopped
talking and interpreting sinister motive into his every move. He had yearned for the simplicity of his own family life on Dartmoor when, during the relentless farm day, which steamrollered over every summer holiday, he had been able to retreat to his attic room.

It was there he had taught himself how to use a computer, eventually how to programme it. When he went back home now, it was a relief: his bedroom had remained the same: his LEGO stuck with Blu-Tack; his athletics shields old-fashioned and dusty; his posters of Debbie Harry wallpapering the sloping dormer ceilings of the loft conversion his father had built. Whether his parents had left it out of laziness or as a shrine to their only son, he would never know. Emma would have re-decorated to erase his early life, before she was in it.

The sky was starting to blush. Through the dawn grey light, an outline of hills was gently forming. Luke was drawn back to Sara's other slurred comment. ‘You do know that I always thought you and Connie would get married?' Sara's hand slapped the mahogany bar. ‘You don't mind me saying that, do you, Luke?'

He wondered why Sara had the need to spell out the painful fact. Sara had been more aggressive than usual. It must be coming down from this Jade Sutton case. It was a big deal. Luke couldn't imagine sparring in court. After his divorce, he did everything to avoid confrontation.

Last night he was upset. He had stuttered that Connie was part of a past life he barely remembered. He wished he had the temperament to bang the bar, but he wasn't that kind of man.

Luke struggled to breathe evenly and lift his sledging feet. He gave in to wondering whether Sara was right. Would Connie have married him, if she hadn't met Julian? He never understood why Julian, whose stomach shaped his shirts, got away with his affairs. It made him hate Julian with an even greater passion.

The last time he skulked out – another fictitious meeting – to meet up with Sara, she blurted that she had seen Connie with a very good-looking civil barrister in the bar at the Athenaeum. At an hour when Connie was normally with her army of kids. Connie was having an affair, she pronounced.

Luke felt a crazy tug of jealousy. Not that he wished he was Julian. Definitely not. He was financially dependent on Connie's inheritance. Luke's only comfort was that he could divorce Emma and afford custody of his children, making sure that they were properly cared for while he was at work, though in the holidays, he largely worked from home. It was his own business and he wasn't going to miss out on his children's childhood.

The sun was stretching up and Luke started sweating. He had been mistaken about Emma. She had been a far greater challenge than Connie ever was. Initially unbothered by his reserve, Emma and her effervescence had helped him to navigate the emotional minefield of other relationships, more than Connie, who had been almost as private as Luke. He had believed that he had found a woman who truly loved him.

After Finn was born, Emma ballooned. Her thirty extra pounds made her aggressive and critical. He hadn't been able to do anything right. All he wanted was a night out with friends occasionally. Not much to ask. But she waged war against him going out with anyone, male or female. She hated Connie, Lizzie and Sara. She
insisted that they looked down on her. Perhaps they did. She slagged off their clothes, their taste, their homes, their behaviour. Luke took to seeing Matt and Sara covertly. Then he stopped seeing all his other friends. It was easier to stay at home.

Still Emma wasn't happy. She fought over everything: maddened by his silent shrugs, she resorted to throwing things, often heavy, breakable things. He was too ashamed to tell anyone that Emma hit him. He went to casualty many times. At the hospital they asked, of course. What could he say? My wife hits me. Sara would have been outraged. You let the bloody PA hit you? Hit her back. Luke never did. He hadn't got it in him to hit anyone.