The Next Best Thing (27 page)

‘It’s no good,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I can go through with it. This wedding business.’

Jane said nothing.

‘Lydia’s got it all worked out, even the menu. It seems we’re going understated like Kate Winslet with champagne and bangers and mash, as I’m sure you were dying to know.
It all seems so final, and I just don’t see how I can. Not with the way I feel about you.’

She tore off a piece of bread and tried to be sensible. ‘Don’t say that,’ she said. ‘We hardly know each other, please don’t bring me into this . . . we
mustn’t get serious.’

‘I want to be serious . . .’

‘No, you don’t.’

‘Yes, I do.’

He caught her hand across the table and the touch of him made her catch her breath. She shook her hand free, and sat back, reasonable, trying to calm things down.

‘But it’s not real, is it, you and me?’ she said. ‘It’s just something we’ve dreamed up. I’m sure a shrink would say we are projecting our fantasies on
each other, or transferring our longings, or whatever.’

‘I don’t care what a shrink would say. Anyway, that’s what love is, isn’t it? What else is it if it’s not about projecting fantasies?’

‘Love doesn’t come into it. Love is what I have for my daughter. Unconditional love, of the throw-myself-under-a bus-for-her type.’

‘And for Will?’

‘Will is the father of my child.’

Though even as she spoke the words, she thought how unappealing they sounded. The sombre progenitor, the paterfamilias, the name filled in on a birth certificate. Why was she still with him?

‘If I didn’t know I was doing the right thing,’ she said, ‘I might feel sad.’ She took a sip of water. ‘Because I think that you and I could have been very
happy together, in other circumstances. In fact, I’m sure we would. Much happier than I am with Will.’

She had said it. For the first time, she had admitted that her life with Will was not the fairytale she pretended it was. For ten years she had counted herself lucky to have him. Until recently,
when she had come to see him in a different light.

‘But you can’t undo things,’ she continued, ‘and I can’t wish I’d never met Will. I’ve loved him very much. He is Liberty’s father, he’s
half of her, and I could never wish not to have loved him, that would be like wishing I hadn’t had her. You must know, don’t you, that I’ll always put Liberty first. And
especially, I would never break up my home. I couldn’t inflict that on her.’

She was back in her own childhood now, remembering the moment when her mother had told her that Daddy was leaving them because he had met someone he preferred to her. Then Jane saying it
wasn’t true, that he couldn’t possibly like anyone more than her. To Jane’s childish mind it was out of the question that anyone could be preferable to her perfect mother.

Rupert was leaning forward now. ‘People do split up, you know,’ he said, ‘even people with children. It happens all the time . . .’

No. She had to make it clear that this was out of the question.

‘I know it’s fashionable for couples to break up and tell the kids that whatever happens, they love them most of all. But that’s not true, is it? If they loved their kids most
of all, they’d stick together, even if they hated each other. They wouldn’t just swan off with anyone they fancied.’

‘I’m not talking of swanning off. You know that; please don’t cheapen this.’

‘But we need to be realistic. Whatever you decide to do about Lydia is up to you, but please don’t bring me into the equation. I’m not available.’

He sat back in his seat.

‘Except sometimes on weekday afternoons,’ she added. ‘Let’s just enjoy it, shall we? It’s not like anyone’s died. Can’t we just rewind to five minutes
ago? Back to the fat man in the desert, I liked that bit.’

He smiled reluctantly. ‘I still haven’t told you about the fat man on the glacier,’ he said. ‘Reclining before an open fire in a hotel constructed entirely of
ice.’

‘Oh look, here comes our cassoulet.’

They stopped talking while the waiter placed two steaming bowls in front of them.

‘I was imagining cooking a cassoulet for you, in my French house,’ he said. ‘It was when we’d just got back from holiday, I was thinking of having to go back to work, and
I kept thinking of you, sitting in my kitchen . . . and I realised that was all I wanted.’

‘It sounds so simple, doesn’t it?’ she said. ‘But it’s not. There’s all the other stuff. We should just be glad to make the most of our time
together.’

‘So that’s where we are, is it?’ said Rupert when the waiter had gone. ‘Two people in complicated mid-life situations who occasionally meet up to exchange laughter and
comfort.’

‘Sounds OK to me,’ said Jane.
‘Attached female, mid-thirties, loves gardening, food, French cinema — seeks male for occasional midweek sorties. No need to rock the
boat.’

‘Have you ever placed a lonely-heart ad?’

‘No. You?’

‘No. That reminds me, I heard a great story about a bloke on a plane who was sifting through a pile of replies he’d had when he had advertised for a girlfriend. The guy sitting in
the next seat bought the reject pile off him for fifty quid.’

She laughed. ‘It might have worked out well, who knows? At least he would know they were all single girls looking for lurve.’

‘I wish you were one of those.’

‘Don’t start that again.’

‘I do, though. I wish I’d met you through a dating agency; that way you’d be available.’

‘You wouldn’t have joined a dating agency, you already had someone.’

‘So did you.’

‘Look, we’re here, aren’t we, so why not just enjoy it, leave all the other stuff at home. There’s something to be said for the occasional treat – we don’t
have to put up with each other’s nastier habits.’

‘You sound like a bloke.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s usually men who compartmentalise their lives. Women are supposed to be all or nothing.’

‘One compartment’s better than nothing.’

‘That’s true,’ he said, picking up his knife and fork, ‘and anyway, it sounds like I don’t have much choice.’

Part-time love is like social smoking: each occasion just makes you crave the next. When Rupert accepted there was no hope of them walking off into the sunset, it did nothing
to diminish his feelings for Jane. He lived from one meeting to the next, feeding off the memory until they could see each other again. As he joked with her in Kew Gardens one rainy afternoon, this
was courtly love, and he was the knight laying down the cloak of his devotion over the puddle of their daily lives. The impossibility of fruition lent an edgy sweetness to all their meetings.

Rupert felt bad about Lydia. Adultery would have been less of a betrayal than going to sleep every night with the image of Jane in his mind, less treacherous than confining his happiness to a
small compartment of his life that had nothing to do with the woman he was going to marry.

He should call the wedding off, he knew that. But he felt paralysed, unable to act. Lydia had it all organised, and it made no difference to him. He couldn’t have any more of Jane than he
had now, so why not go along with it? At least Lydia was happy with the arrangement. He hoped his feelings might change, kept waiting to go off Jane; surely it must only be a matter of time before
they tired of each other. He had considered putting an end to it, but the thought of not seeing her again made him feel entirely bleak, as though there really was nothing to live for. You had to
take what you could from life, not kick aside opportunities for happiness.

These were Rupert’s thoughts as he watched Lydia holding forth to their dinner guests about her design plans for the apartment. She was hosting a business dinner party for him, getting
into practice as the perfect networking wife. The wife of a banker, that was, not the wife of a gardener. He was well aware of the motivation behind tonight’s little dinner. Clive the butler
had been hired to answer the door and take people’s coats, though Rupert thought this unnecessary for eight people who were all in full possession of their faculties.

So far, they were just six in the drawing room, which had been decorated with lilies and a Chilean throw that did a reasonable job of disguising the beige sofa. Lydia had invited Marie-Helene de
Montfort, the banker turned housewife who had invested in Rupert’s fund after rearranging the cancelled lunch which had thrown him together with Jane. Rupert’s partner Richard was there
with his wife Caroline, and then there was Mark, a morose but wealthy dotcom entrepreneur.

‘I’ve commissioned an artist to come up with a humorous interpretation of Rupert’s coat of arms,’ Lydia was saying. ‘We’re looking for a mixed-media mural to
run the length of the sitting room. He was quite taken with the demi lion rampant holding a fusil with a cock motif, he might introduce some sexual ambiguity there.’ She fiddled with her
engagement ring. Not quite a rock, but pretty damn near. Just this side of tastelessness. ‘The important thing these days is to wear your ancestry lightly, send it up while at the same time
celebrating its rich history.’

Watching her perform, Rupert remembered what a good show she had put on that weekend they had driven down to East Hampton for dinner at his boss’s beach house. Lydia had made them all
laugh with her stories about shopping for shoes in Barneys, and Rupert’s boss had told him afterwards how lucky he was to have a girl like that. Everyone enjoyed it so much they had stayed
until 11.30, wildly late by American standards.

‘How far back does your family actually go, Rupert?’ asked Richard. He couldn’t get enough of nobility, loved the idea of toffs dating back to a handful of dynasties, as
opposed to tikes like himself who were spawned out of nothingness. His wife’s distinguished family tree hung proudly in their own baronial entrance hall, but he had never bothered to trace
his own. No point in finding out you were sprung from a parlourmaid and an illiterate coalman.

Rupert was reluctant to encourage this conversation. He didn’t know what all the fuss was about.

‘I daresay my family goes right back to the monkeys, same as everyone else’s,’ he said.

‘There’s a monkey on his coat of arms, actually,’ said Lydia, ‘standing between two chevron gules — that’s red goats to you and me — and a bare-breasted
woman with an ostrich plume. She’s wearing a kirtle azure, which means blue skirt in Heraldic.’

‘I, too, am from a noble family,’ boasted Marie-Helene.

‘Noblesse de robe
or
noblesse d’épée?’
asked Richard. ‘That’s what you have, isn’t it, for new and old nobility. Unlike me,
I’m just new-money nobility.
Noblesse de filthy lucrel’
He grinned winningly, but the Frenchwoman didn’t seem to think he deserved an answer.

Richard changed tack, he didn’t want to offend her. ‘How long have you been living here, Marie-Helene?’ he asked.

‘Six months,’ she replied, ‘in a tiny dolls’ house in Chelsea. My husband can no longer bear to set foot in the salon, it is so small.’

‘You should move out to the country,’ said Caroline, ‘plenty of space out our way.’

Marie-Helene looked at her as though she were from another planet. Parisians understood that the country was for weekends and holidays, certainly no place for a smart woman to bury herself away.
‘No, I am not a provincial person,’ she said, ‘although I must say London is like a third-world city. How can you live in a place where they only collect the garbage twice a week?
I walk down my street and all I smell is old meat rotting in the dustbins. What are we supposed to do with our chicken carcasses between Friday and Tuesday? Tell me that.’

‘Boil them up and make glue?’ suggested Richard.

Marie-Helene scowled at him. ‘I am surprised you do not have the plague here,’ she said, ‘and finding fresh vegetables, it is impossible, I have to drive all the way to Borough
Market just to get some decent salad . . .’

‘She’s right there,’ whispered Mark, ‘it’s a bloody disgrace, this country.’

Clive the butler moved in to top up the glasses. It got on Rupert’s nerves, having him hovering in the background, dressed up to the nines in his dicky bow and tails when all the guests
were wearing what his years in the States had taught him to refer to as smart-casual. All except Caroline, who never came out without a stiff bit of taffeta to hold her together.

‘And then the maid was away so I went to the supermarket myself,’ Marie-Helene went on. ‘I filled my chariot and when I got to the checkout I said it was for delivery and they
said they didn’t do deliveries and offered to call me a taxi! Of course, I walked out.’

‘Why don’t you go back to Paris, then?’ said Mark. ‘It’s got to be better than here.’

Marie-Helene puffed in disapproval. ‘Even in Paris, things have become terrible. It’s the same everywhere now, nobody understands good service.’

It was a miracle how she managed to get out of bed of a morning, Rupert thought.

‘I know what you mean,’ said Mark, ‘you can’t even get a decent hotel these days. Whenever I come back from the Cipriani or Parrot Cay and ask myself, yeah, but was it
really,
really
special, I have to be honest and say, no, it wasn’t.’ He nibbled at an olive then removed it from his mouth to stare at it critically.

‘I don’t know what you’re on about,’ boomed Caroline. ‘We’ve had some marvellous hotel holidays, and there’s nothing I like better than loading up at
Sainsbury’s and bringing it all home to the kitchen.’

The final guest was Dr Firth, the handsome psychologist, who was shown in with more than servantly interest by Clive. Lydia had invited him along as light relief; she couldn’t tolerate a
whole room of money people, and the good thing about a posh shrink was that he could move up and down the social spectrum. More importantly, he could be relied on to keep her entertained. His
pièce de résistance
was demonstrating a panic attack, taking a series of deep, short breaths and slowly rising from his seat as they crescendoed faster and faster to a gasping
finale.

‘Good God, Andrew, you sound like you’re having sex,’ said Lydia. Clive looked up from serving the individual lemon tarts, which were garnished with raspberries. He must have
been distracted by Dr Firth’s performance, because when Rupert came to eat his dessert he noticed that a couple of stray baby new potatoes had found their way in among the fruit.