The Other Woman's Shoes (3 page)

But it had been worth it. Mathew was now fully potty-trained.

Martha’s blessings included her family. She adored her mum and dad who quietly rumbled through their retirement without making much demand on her time, but were always visibly grateful if she did descend on them for an afternoon with the two children and two dozen bags. Her parents had moved down to a London suburb when they retired as both their daughters and their grandchildren were settled in the capital. They’d hoped to help Martha with the childcare. Secretly they were a little disappointed by her fierce independence and insistence on doing everything on her own. They felt redundant as parents and grandparents, and it didn’t take Einstein to work out that Martha could do with some help now and again. Mr and Mrs Evergreen feared it would be quite some time before Eliza ever wanted children.

Blessings, blessings. Other than needing spectacles and one of them having a gammy toe, her parents (touch wood) were the picture of health. And they were so
normal
. Martha always felt so sorry for her friends who had alcoholic, neurotic or clingy parents. Hers were so pleasant, so non-intrusive; they were no bother at all. Martha beamed to herself.

And Eliza, her sister, was also a joy. Admittedly, she was unreliable as a conversationalist at dinner parties (she was often deliberately shocking), she was not great at
timekeeping, or saving, or choosing men, and she had never done anything quietly in her life; still the very thought of Eliza made Martha smile. What were kid sisters for if not to show you glimpses of the wrong side of the tracks? Martha had always believed that Eliza was predestined to be more glamorous than Martha (therefore more trouble). After all, Martha was called Martha (think mumsy, think nineteenth-century respectable, think good hostess in the Bible), and Eliza was called Eliza, which was a more spirited, passionate, interesting name to live up to. It was Mr and Mrs Evergreen’s fault that the girls had turned out as they had. Martha often wondered how different her life would have been if she’d been named Eliza.

Then there was Michael, of course. Michael was so much a part of Martha that it was almost easy to overlook the fact that he was a huge blessing. The most fundamental blessing, in fact. Without Michael there would be no Mathew or Maisie. And without Michael’s enormous salary there would have been no chance of Martha giving up her work in the Civil Service to bring up the children. They had both agreed that the very best thing for the babies was her undivided attention, that she was the very best person to bring them up. And she barely missed the Civil Service at all.

Barely.

Perhaps she missed the chat with the girls in the morning about the previous night’s TV, and the last Friday of the month when they used to have lunches at Pizza Express, which had always been a giggle. She sometimes missed buying suits from Jigsaw and shoes from L. K.
Bennett and being able to say she ‘needed them for the office’. She hardly missed the harmless flirting with the blokes from accounts. She certainly did not miss the 45-minute commute twice a day, the tedious meetings, the endless power struggles, or putting money in collections for new babies/twenty-first birthdays/wedding pressies of people she’d never even talked to.

Martha had met Michael ten years ago, not long after she’d graduated and moved down to London to start her first job. They’d met in a pub through a friend of a friend of a friend, the way you do when you’re young and up for meeting people. Martha noticed Michael the moment she walked into the pub because he was wearing dark green jeans and a charcoal-grey, tight polo-neck jumper. All the other men in the pub were wearing chinos and pale blue shirts. Michael wasn’t particularly tall and Martha liked that; he seemed less intimidating. And he had a good body; broad shoulders, the cutest, neatest bum. His best features were his very dark hair (which was almost blue it was so black) and his shiny, smiley, deep-brown eyes. Michael did not have the gift of the gab, he was not the type of man to talk women into bed; his individual charm was that he listened them into the same place.

Michael was the first man ever to listen to Martha properly. Genuinely listen. He didn’t ask questions about her that would inevitably bounce back to a funny story of his own. He didn’t spin endless tales about his sexual exploits, in an attempt to make her jealous. Nor did he recount daredevil Action Man exploits, in an attempt to impress her. He didn’t interrupt her when she was speaking, nor did his eyes glaze over. If pushed, he would
modestly relate a funny anecdote, shyly admit to his ambition to travel the world, and, more honestly, admit to his ambition to be chairman of Esso. Michael told Martha that she had the most beautiful smile in the world, which encouraged her to use it with a new and greater frequency.

Whilst she was smiling at him, drinking her third vodka-orange (because in those days Martha didn’t have children and so she could drink three vodka-oranges if she felt like it) Martha noted that Michael had a large chin and nose, which she thought made him look distinguished and masterful. By the end of the evening Martha had decided that Michael was exactly the type of man she ought to marry. Moreover, he was
the
man she wanted to marry. Even their names matched. She decided then and there that their children ought to have names beginning with ‘M’ too. Michael wasn’t the type of man that women fell in love or lust with at first meeting, so it surprised them both when Martha fastened on to him so rapidly and tightly. Martha had had two boyfriends before Michael (one throughout the sixth form and one throughout the second and third years at university. She’d had a bash at being wild during the first year but it hadn’t been a particularly fruitful experience, she wasn’t a natural). Since graduation she’d slept with two other men. Again, she found it didn’t suit her: she was a serial monogamist at heart, a heart she wore on her sleeve.

Martha and Michael were married within eighteen months.

And Martha had been right; Michael was
such
a good husband.

He was kind and gentle and trustworthy and very, very hard-working. He was stable, neither a womanizer nor a football fanatic. And she still fancied him, even after ten years. Maybe not in that knickers-dropping, heart-stopping, can’t-get-enough-of-you way that she had in her early twenties but, still, he knew which buttons to press.

Every Friday night.

Martha and Michael had plenty of money and plenty of friends and they had the children’s names down at some very good schools. And all of these things were undoubtedly blessings.

Martha decided that she didn’t want to finish the chapter after all, and went upstairs to the bathroom. She opened the right-hand drawer under the basin and pulled out a cotton-wool ball. Carefully she poured on lotion and then with long, deliberate strokes she cleansed her nose, chin, forehead and then cheeks. She gently removed her make-up – mascara and blusher. This, plus clear lipgloss, was the only make-up Martha ever wore, except at the occasional evening function. If Michael asked her especially, then she could sometimes be spotted sporting eyeshadow as well. She preferred it if everything on her face stayed its original colour. She dropped the used ball into the bin, and repeated the process with toner. Next, she carefully applied her moisturizer in firm, upward, gravity-defying sweeps. Then she checked that the bathroom door was bolted and began to undress. Martha always liked to take a shower before she went to bed and she didn’t like Michael walking in on her. She could never understand couples who apparently felt comfortable enough to go to the loo in front of each other. Why would anyone want
to do such a thing? Martha tried to imagine who they were – popstars, probably, or method actors.

Martha carefully towelled herself dry and then slipped into a pair of Egyptian-cotton pyjamas and matching slippers. She checked her reflection. Not bad for thirty-two. Should she undo the top button? How many? One? Two?

Finally Martha walked into the bedroom.

‘Hey Mickey,’ she mumbled with only the faintest hint of self-consciousness in her voice. But even before Martha slipped between the sheets she identified the slow, familiar movement of Michael’s chest rising and falling, clearly indicating that he was well and truly ensconced in the Land of Nod.

4

Eliza sipped her double espresso. It tasted bitter, black. Or maybe that was just her mood on this particular Wednesday morning.

‘What’s up? You usually love the coffee here.’ Greg’s honeyed tones oozed concern. Eliza dismissed the concern as over-the-top and felt irritated with him for the hundredth time that day. She’d prefer it if he were the type of man who failed to notice that she hadn’t touched her coffee but paid his bills by direct debit, and there were loads of that sort of man around. All her friends had married one. Michael, her brother-in-law, was a perfect example. How come she’d missed her chance of one?

I don’t like espresso, she thought. It reminds me too much of being a student. I should be drinking Earl Grey and eating passion-fruit gateau in a proper tea shop. That’s what women of my age do. That’s what Martha would do. I should not be sitting in a smoky café that doesn’t even have the decency to be part of a chain but is run and owned by real Italians.

True, its individuality used to appeal to her; in fact, she used to be proud of her amazing find and only introduced her very best friends to Caffè Bianchi. She used to delight in the fact that none of the wooden chairs matched (and most had one leg shorter than the others), and that Signora Bianchi served espresso and cappuccino, and nothing else.
No caffè latte, no caffè macchiato, no caffè Americano, no espresso ristretto, no flavours and certainly no decaf. They didn’t sell fancy packets of tea or bottles of olive oil for twenty quid. They were true Italians and believed that introducing chairs to the café had already been a huge concession to the oddness of the British people. They did offer a glass of water with each cup of strong pitch-black coffee, ‘no charja’.

Signora Bianchi was extremely fat. Her numerous chins rested on her mammoth bosoms, which often rested on the counter, but if not, rested on her huge stomach. Eliza had never seen her legs because in the seven years that Eliza had visited Caffè Bianchi she had never witnessed Signora Bianchi emerging from behind the counter; yet the Signora dominated the entire bar with her mass and personality. She was a true matriarch: she bossed, fussed and loved all her customers with the passion of a mother. For example, if anyone had the foolish audacity to order a double espresso, she would bang her fist on her ample breast, click her tongue and roll her eyes; thus conveying eloquently that in her opinion two espressos were sure to bring on an instant heart attack.

Signor Bianchi, naturally, had to be a very slight man. There simply wouldn’t have been room for him to be anything other. Eliza estimated that he weighed less than nine stone, and that a good part of that weight was made up of his moustache, which was long and waxed. However fragile he looked, he was not a weak man. Although slight and often silent, Signor Bianchi’s presence was quintessential to the café and, most particularly, to Signora Bianchi. She still looked at him in such a way that it was
clear to Eliza that the Signora could not see the wizened old man, with his grey hair, ever-increasing bald patch and rasping cough. The Signora saw the nineteen-year-old boy, with a head of ink-black, slicked-back hair, riding a Vespa around the piazza. He’d have had flowers in his hand (for her) and a twinkle in his eye (also for her). A truly handsome boy.

The café was very narrow, not much wider than a corridor, and the bar that ran the entire length was lifted directly from a Hopper picture: a shiny swathe of zinc scratched and scarred by years of use by customers who had become friends. The till consisted of nothing more than three wineglasses: one for small change; one for tender above 50p, and a third for notes. The homogeneous chains had frequently approached Signor and Signora Bianchi in the hope of striking a buy-out deal; the response was always the same. No.

‘I should stop drinking coffee,’ muttered Eliza.

‘Why?’ asked Greg. He had tipped two packets of sugar on to the table and was drawing a smiley face with his finger.

‘Because it decreases iron absorption.’

‘Are you anaemic?’ He looked up, obviously concerned.

‘No, but if I were to try for a baby, iron absorption is important.’

Greg spluttered into his coffee and then immediately tried to recover his usual composure. ‘Are you – er – we, presumably we, trying for a baby?’ Contraception, like any other form of responsibility in their relationship, fell to Eliza.

‘No,’ she admitted reluctantly.

If Greg was relieved, he had the good sense not to advertise the fact – his facial expression didn’t alter a jot. He could be mentally punching the air, as euphoric as Beckham scoring a goal from a free kick against Germany to win the World Cup, and Eliza wouldn’t know it. Equally, he could be disappointed. His secrets were mostly safe. The reason for Greg’s calculated restraint was that whilst talking to Eliza with whatever part of his brain it was that chit-chatted about iron absorption, he was using another part of his brain to calculate when Eliza’s period was due. Because like it or not (and she didn’t like it, she didn’t even like admitting to it), the truth was Eliza was more than prone to PMT. She didn’t fling plates exactly, just insults, jibes and irrational comments.

She wasn’t due for another two weeks.

Perhaps she did want a baby. Being a bull-by-the-horns straightforward type of guy, Greg ventured, ‘Do you want a baby?’

‘Eventually, yes.’ Eliza put down her espresso cup with such force that the black liquid slopped into the doll’s-size saucer. She paused, and then added with more accuracy, ‘Maybe. I’d just like there to be the option.’

But there was the option, wasn’t there? thought Greg. Her ovaries or womb, or whatever, were all OK, as far as they knew. (Female plumbing beyond the G-spot wasn’t his area of expertise – was it any man’s?) Of course having a baby was an option if that’s what she wanted. She’d just never mentioned it before. He’d never thought about it. But now she had mentioned it, well, why not? Instantly, visions of splashing in the sea with a small grubby person flashed into Greg’s mind (and he didn’t mean his best
mate, Bob, even though Bob was only five foot six, he meant a child. His child). He could see himself and
his child
playing on swings, kicking leaves in a park, hunting for conkers.