Wish You Were Here (23 page)

‘In a mo. Or I might drive into town. Actually, James, have you got a sec?'

‘Sure.' He looked surprised, catching something in my voice.

He made to go back into the house with me, but, knowing the acoustics of our bedroom, I turned and walked the other way, off down the sloping lawn towards the olive grove, chewing my thumb. James caught up with me, and I was aware of Amelia's eyes following us. When we'd gone through the little gate at the bottom, into the longer grass of the orchard, I turned.

‘I've lost my job, darling. Maria's made me redundant.'

‘Shit.' He stopped. Looked aghast. We stared at one another under the dappled shade of an olive tree.

‘But I've got a year's money.'

His face cleared a bit. ‘Well, that's something, I suppose. You'll find another job within a year. But what a shaker, Flora. Right out of the blue. Are you OK?'

‘I'm fine, actually. And it wasn't so out of the blue. I half expected it.'

‘Oh?
You didn't say?' He frowned; looked searchingly at me.

‘Well, only half,' I said quickly. ‘And I didn't want to worry you.' If pressed, I could feel rather guilty about wilfully reducing the family fortunes, not going back to fight my corner. ‘And the thing is, James' – I felt my way carefully – ‘I may not get a job in the same field.'

‘We can't afford for you not to work, Flora.'

‘I know. It's just, I don't know if I want to do the same thing.'

He raked a hand nervously through what remained of his hair. ‘Well, I'm not sure
I
want to do the same thing, removing bloody bunions day after day, hoiking out ingrowing toenails. But there is something of an economic necessity. A bit of a bloody mortgage to pay, and –'

‘Not much.'

‘What?'

‘Not much of a mortgage left.'

‘No, but still. We can't afford for you to do frigging Pilates classes or wine-tasting courses. Flog cashmere gloves at Christmas fairs like some of your friends.'

The wives of rich bankers, he meant. I knew that. And I didn't want to either. Knew I'd tire of that sort of life in seconds.

‘No, but the thing is, James, there are other ways. Other … hang on.'

Tara and Amelia had made their way down the lawn and were even now picking their way through the field of sharp grass in their bare feet, towards us. We waited.

‘What's happened?' asked Tara, before they'd even reached
us. They looked alarmed. Clearly, they'd been watching us from the breakfast table.

I swallowed. ‘I've lost my job, darlings.'

‘Shit.'

Why did all my family say that?

‘Told you,' muttered Amelia.

Tara put her arms around me, hugging me tight. ‘Oh, Mum, you must be devastated!'

‘Not too devastated, if I'm honest. And don't worry, they've given me lots of money.'

‘Oh, well, that's a relief.' She let go. It obviously was.

‘How much?' asked Amelia.

‘Never you mind,' said James. ‘Your mother's being very brave about it, but it's clearly been a terrible shock.'

‘Did Lizzie keep hers?'

‘She did.'

‘But you'd been there longer?'

‘Not much. And, anyway, I'm pleased for Lizzie. She needs it more than me. She's on her own.'

‘And your mother will get another job in no time.'

‘Of course you will,' agreed Amelia. ‘Didn't that chap at
Gourmet
headhunt you only last year?'

‘Of course!' James struck his forehead with the palm of his hand. ‘Well remembered, Amelia. Give him a ring, darling.'

‘Well –'

‘Or Malcolm Harding? At the
Sunday Times
? He was always bothering you, always wanting you.'

‘I just might give it a bit, James.'

‘Oh yes, a couple of days.'

‘She's
in shock,' Amelia told him sternly. ‘You're rushing her, Dad. This is huge.'

I felt bad that it wasn't that huge. But then I'd always told my girls a career was so important. The cornerstone of their life. Marriage and babies slotted in. Why? When I'd never really believed it? Marriage and babies were far more important.

‘Come on.' My elder-statesman daughter took my arm. ‘I'm going to make you some tea. With lots of sugar in it.'

I allowed myself to be led away to be fussed over, feeling a bit of a fraud, if I'm honest. But it was a rare experience in my household, and one I was unwilling to pass up.

Word spread fast. One by one, people came up to commiserate and squeeze my shoulder as if I'd suffered a bereavement. I wondered if this was how people felt when someone they loathed had died and, inside, they were quietly rejoicing. Guilty. But, on the other hand, why should I dissemble?

‘I hated it,' I told Max defiantly, when he came to find me. ‘I was longing to go. This is a blessed relief.'

Mum was with him. She understood immediately. ‘You'd done it too bloody long,' she told me, lighting a cigarette and handing it to me. I dragged hard. ‘Everything has a shelf life.'

‘Exactly,' I said gratefully. My mother had skipped from one passion to the next all her life and was the happiest person I knew.

‘And work is so overrated,' she told me firmly, rather undoing the wisdom.

Camille, after all of half an hour with her own family,
was back amongst us on the terrace. She approached my chair as if I were in A&E, took my hand and pressed it between her two, bird-like ones. ‘Your heart is breaking quietly, I know,' she said softly, crouching down. ‘It is your life. Your career. You've given your best years. And for women, because we battle so hard, because we smash through the glass ceiling, it is so much harder to bear. Rejection. It cuts us, here.' She pressed my hand to her heart, which was beyond embarrassing. Her breasts were enormous.

I cleared my throat. Extricated my hand with an awkward wiggle. ‘No, actually, Camille, you're wrong. It was time for a change.'

‘Quite right. The show must go on.' She gave a brave smile and leaned forward to kiss my cheek. ‘Such courage,' she whispered, before fluttering away, all male eyes upon her.

That evening, however, I'll admit, I hit the bottle. Despite my relief that the decision had been taken out of my hands and that I'd been generously compensated, there was a need to drink and reflect on how I'd spent most of my adult life: in restaurants, getting to know lovely patrons like Fellino, forging relationships that spanned years. With friends like Lizzie and Colin, meeting deadlines – just – scribbling copy, in editorial meetings. It was goodbye to all that and hello to a different way of life.

Unbeknownst to the rest of my family, I knew this for sure. Felt something click firmly into position within me. I knew I had to be strong, though, to follow through. To really mean it, and deliver. I'd talk to Jean-Claude later. Not tonight. Tonight I just wanted to reminisce and tell
my stories. About the time I'd found a wedding ring in my soup, or the waiter who'd flambéed not only the crêpe Suzette but his wig, too. We'd had to stamp it out. The time Lizzie and I had got so disastrously pissed she'd thrown a bread roll at the disapproving couple on the next table and we'd been evicted. Less amusing stories, too, like the time the IRA had planted a bomb in Hyde Park when I'd been at the Berkeley. The horrific scene that had met my eyes as I ran out at the blast. Those enormous brave horses on their sides, the terrible carnage, the young soldiers. Or the time a man had sighed deeply at the table beside me, clutched his heart, fallen from his chair and promptly died. Or when a young man had run into Boulestin, interrupted a couple at the next table and presented a ring to the girl. She'd got to her feet and run off with him. My job, played out as it was in public places, had a certain theatrical element to it; a certain – curtain up – which made it unpredictable. It was live. It was a performance. As was the food. And sometimes it was unbelievably amazing, and sometimes – rarely, thankfully – memorably bad, to the point where I'd have to spit it out. Always, though, I was the revered guest, the star attraction. The red carpet would be rolled out as I was ushered to my table by the maître d', his poker face giving nothing away. Time for someone else to have that thrill, I thought, raising my glass of Sancerre to my lips. Time for some younger – cheaper – reviewer, to be giggly and incredulous, as James and I had been in the beginning at this free lunch for life. Time to move on.

In the moonlight, sitting as I was at the head of the table, I watched as an owl soared up into the dark velvet sky, hooting softly, circling the trees. As it landed on the
branch of an oak, it seemed to be in pursuit of something. A mouse? A mate? I was more than a little pissed, but as the owl took off again it suddenly seemed imperative to see if he'd achieved his quarry. Toby and Rory were talking across me now, not rudely, just animatedly, about cycling in London, which Rory did and Toby didn't; a conversation in which I'd previously been participating, adding my two pennyworth. They could manage without me. I stood up – slightly unsteadily, it has to be said. Without disturbing them, I moved quietly down the garden towards the olive grove for a ciggie with the wise old owl: a lean against an ancient, gnarled tree, which had seen a few of life's sea changes. For some time alone, to think.

As I tiptoed down the slope, not wanting to disturb the table, I stopped, abruptly. Snagged on a sound. Muffled voices were coming from my right. I turned, and in the faint half-light of the moon saw two figures, locked in an embrace, in the little gazebo where the barbecue was. At first I thought it was Thérèse and Michel. Then I realized, with a sickening thud of my heart, that it wasn't them at all. It was James and Camille. My husband was kissing Camille with all his might. His eyes were shut, his arms wrapped tightly around her as he towered over her, clasping her to him, giving the embrace every ounce, every fibre of his being.

Perhaps
if I hadn't been so inebriated I might not have charged in quite so precipitously. Might have given it some calm and measured thought; taken a moment to consider and reflect. Instead, I resorted to immediate intervention and robust rhetoric.

‘
What the fuck are you doing!
' I roared. Very loudly.

The whole world stopped. My world, my daughters' world – if I'd thought about it – my mother's, James's. I couldn't have been more destructive if I'd tried.

James and Camille sprang apart like repelling magnets. Camille disappeared out and around the side of the gazebo, melting into the darkness – with a degree of practice, I felt – like a spirit of the night. James stood there, rooted, dumb and horrified, caught in the headlamps that were my eyes and in the elaborate wooden structure – more Gothic temple than garden shed – like a fly in a web. I marched towards him, incensed. He backed away, into the barbecue: tripped over a gigantic set of tongs lying on the floor and fell over backwards with a terrific clatter. As I stood over him, fists clenched, speechless, both daughters rushed up.

‘What's happened!' cried Amelia breathlessly. ‘Why were you yelling? Oh God – Daddy! Are you OK?' She and Tara lunged to help him. With great presence of mind, I swam to the surface.

‘Your
father's drunk,' I managed. ‘I found him flailing around in here.'

‘Well, help him!' retorted Amelia, gently helping her shaken father to his feet. Tara found his glasses. ‘Bloody hell, we've all been in that state, including you! You're not such a model of sobriety yourself tonight, Mum. I thought something terrible had happened!'

It had.

‘You frightened us,' Tara told me angrily, rounding on me. ‘Dad blundering around plastered hardly warrants you yelling like that.'

‘Poor Daddy, did you hit your head?' asked Amelia gently.

‘Yes,' he bleated.

‘Bastard!' I couldn't resist roaring.

Amelia swung around. ‘Mum, you have seriously got to stop thinking that the world revolves around you. If Dad decides to get drunk on his holiday, so bloody what. Get a grip, live your own life and
leave him alone
! Come on, Daddy, let's go and find you a chair. Black coffee for you.'

James, blinking in terror in the moonlight and sheltering cravenly behind his daughters' misapprehension, willingly allowed himself to be led away up the garden path to the top of the sloping lawn. As they reached the table under the trees, Amelia turned and cast me a last black look. A space was made for her father to sit down, the boyfriends muttering incredulously at my over-the-top reaction. Sensible James. Safety in numbers, of course. Even at this remove, though, I could feel Max's eyes upon me from the opposite side of the table. I wondered if he knew what had happened. But how could he? From that angle, it would be
impossible to see around the corner into the dark gazebo. I just felt that Max had extrasensory perception, somehow: that he was extraordinarily tuned into me and knew I wouldn't scream if my husband were merely drunk. Mum, too, gave me a searching look as I approached. Bidding everyone a shaky goodnight, I went up to my room, trembling, I noticed, to wait for James.

The length of time he took to reach our room was important, I knew. If he was ages, hoping to sneak in when I was asleep, or had calmed down, it was bad news. If he practically followed me up, it was better. Almost as I'd shut the bedroom door and went to sit on the bed, clenching my hands tight, the door flew open. James appeared, white-faced.

‘Oh God, Flora, I'm so sorry,' he breathed, shutting the door and crossing the room quickly. ‘I don't know what came over me.'

‘You fucking bastard!' I spat between clenched teeth. Real spittle, I noticed, shot out.

‘Yes.' He looked shattered. Really devastated. ‘Yes, I am. I know that. And you have every right to say it. I am so, so sorry, Flora. I regret it with all my heart. I wish to God it hadn't happened.' Bravely, he crept to sit beside me on the bed.

‘And what else has happened, eh? What else, James? How many stolen kisses in the moonlight? Or worse!'

‘None!' he yelped, leaping off the bed beside me. ‘None, ever! That was the first – and last – and absolutely nothing more than that. Nothing worse, I promise!'

I could read James like a book. Knew he was telling the truth. He was incapable of lying. If we didn't want to go to
a dinner party, I'd tie myself in knots, thinking of an elaborate excuse, as he'd say, ‘Can't we just tell them we don't want to come? That it's too far and we're out the night before, which we are?'

‘No, of
course
not,' I'd tell him. ‘We'll say you're on call.'

So I could lie and he couldn't. And looking at his frightened, wide eyes behind his glasses as he perched tentatively beside me, I knew the whole story. That his infatuation had led to one stolen kiss in the moonlight, on a balmy Provençal evening, with a very beautiful, very famous woman. But no more than that. Why, then, did I continue to vent my spleen?

‘Oh, so you say!' I roared. ‘But how can I tell? How do I know what you were really up to last night in Cannes?' I couldn't resist it. I held all the cards, you see. It was so rare. Such a novelty. Such a pity to waste them.

‘Nothing!' he whimpered, terrified. ‘Honestly, nothing happened – and, and Max was with us the whole time! Ask him!'

Max. That did give me pause for thought. Or slowed me down, at any rate. But not to a grinding halt. Still I swept on, with a valid point, this time.

‘And what if I hadn't spotted you, James? What if I hadn't pottered down to have a quiet ciggie in the olive grove? Would you have allowed yourself to be led off to her private quarters? You certainly seemed to be enjoying yourself!'

A mental image of her wrapped in his arms, his eyes shut, face suffused with rapture, came careering back to both of us. He took a moment.

‘I don't know,' he said honestly. See? Can't lie. I held my
breath as he thought earnestly. ‘I hope not. Believe not.' He looked beyond me as he considered it truthfully. His eyes came back to me. ‘No. I agree I was loving that terrible, stolen moment, but the instant it changed to something much more duplicitous, to being led by the hand, creeping round the house to the back stairs, for instance – something would have kicked in. I know it would. In fact, I'm sure of it. I honestly believe that, Flora.'

I did, too. No way would James sneak off to Camille's bedroom up in the tower on a family holiday; locking the door behind him, shedding clothes, hopping round the room trying to get out of his trousers, glasses off, blind without them as Camille waited patiently in bed – no. Banish that image. We both knew it wouldn't have happened. Any more than I would have succumbed to – well. You know. I swallowed, alive to the parallels. To the fearful symmetry. But that was different. Was it? Yes. Definitely. Max was an old boyfriend. I'd kissed him before. It hardly counted. Or did it count more? Surely there was more latent emotion, more feeling between the two of us than there could be between Camille and James? James was ridiculously flattered to be courted by her, and Camille … what
was
she up to, I wondered?

‘You've been an idiot,' I told him coldly. ‘You've been taken in and used. She's in love with Max, James. She's trying to make him jealous. You've been a pawn in her game.'

This hurt, I could tell, and I wished I hadn't said it. I'd never deliberately hurt James, but I was a bit out of control. And a bit out of my depth, situation-wise, too. What did one say or do when one's husband was caught with
his trousers down? Surely one got out the big guns? Surely the little ones wouldn't do? I had to make a
bit
of a scene, surely? Couldn't just climb into bed and read as usual? James gazed at the carpet, ashamed. But I wasn't finished.

‘I'm disgusted with you, James. Absolutely appalled. That you could betray me like this, and our children, on a family holiday.' Yes. This was the stuff. This was more like it.

‘I know, Flora. I'm so sorry.' He gulped. His hand crept along the bedcover and found mine, gripped it hard. He turned huge, pleading, pale-grey eyes upon me, blinking rapidly behind his spectacles. ‘Please don't say anything terrible, please. Something that can't be unsaid. It will never happen again. I'll do anything. I'll go home, if you like. We can say the hospital rang, that Peter Hurst's been taken ill and I need to go back. I'll do anything to save us, to recover this. I love you more than anything in the world – you know I do. It was just a silly infatuation, an idiotic mistake, but it will never, ever, happen again. I've been a vain, gullible fool, but please God don't say anything terrible. Words we've never said before.' He was near to tears, and I realized I was, too. I thought of his look of rapture as he kissed her. Something I hadn't seen for a long time – because marriage wasn't like that, was it? Particularly a nineteen-year-old one. You didn't go around in a state of unadulterated bliss, gazing into each other's eyes, holding hands.

I sighed.

If we'd been in London, I realized, if this had happened at home, we'd have slept in separate bedrooms. But we couldn't do that here. I could, I supposed, go to Lizzie's
room, which was empty, but that would involve making a scene, and I didn't want that. Instead, we both went separately to the bathroom – not together, as usual, one having a pee whilst the other brushed their teeth – then, nightclothes on, we stole into bed and turned away from each other. I tried not to think about what might have happened if I hadn't intervened. The next kiss. I was sure there would have been one of those. The panting and the mutterings before he resisted the bedroom in the tower. Tried not to imagine James's lovely heart beating rapidly, so smitten, his passions so aroused, but it was hard. His heart and mind and soul and sex drive – sex was very important to James, he took it seriously – had been mine for so long. I couldn't help but feel hurt, even though my head told me this episode was a nonsense. Couldn't help but feel wounded in the moment, not yet an hour after the event.

Eventually – and I knew James wasn't asleep, heard none of the rhythmic snoring I usually did the moment his head hit the pillow – I got up, took a sleeping pill in the bathroom, came back and fell into a dreamless coma.

When I awoke, a cup of tea was beside the bed. A few sprigs of lavender, too, in a tiny vase. The tea was a bit cold, but I drank it. He obviously hadn't wanted to wake me. When I went down, quite late, he and his father were at the breakfast table.

‘Hello, darling.' James's eyes were anxious.

‘Hello.'

‘Thérèse has made some pancakes. I kept a couple warm for you. Would you like them?'

‘No, thank you.'

I helped myself to coffee and a croissant.

‘Would
you like a little trip today, darling? Shall we go into Grasse, perhaps? It's the centre of the perfume industry, apparently. You could try a few out?'

‘It'll be terribly crowded, James.' I was trying to be nice, but it was hard.

‘Camille's ex owns one of the scent factories there, apparently,' Rachel said, joining us, sitting down.

Silence at the mention of her name.

‘Or Tourrettes, perhaps? There's a glorious view from the top of the hill?'

‘Yes, perhaps.'

Or perhaps some time alone, to think, I wanted to say. Not about anything drastic, just some time apart. Surely that would do us good. But James was a bit frantic. A bit scared. I could be a bit chilly, you see. A bit scary. But sometimes, when I was in a corner, I didn't know how to be anything else. And him being scared made me worse.

‘Or there's an art exhibition in Seillans, I keep seeing the posters advertising it. You'd like that, wouldn't you, darling?'

Rachel wasn't stupid. She looked from one to the other of us. Didn't say anything.

‘Lovely,' I said faintly. ‘Let's do that, then.'

‘Leave in about twenty minutes?'

‘Perfect.'

It was as if we had a date. Drummond glanced up from the iPad he'd been engrossed in. Getting the
Daily Telegraph
every day courtesy of Rory had made his holiday. ‘To a gallery, you say?' Drummond was fond of art.

‘Yes, but let's let James and Flora see if it's any good first,' said Rachel quickly. ‘You know what these Provençal
shows can be like. All vibrant colours and cubist disasters. Cézanne gone wrong.'

‘Oh. Yes. Ghastly.' Drummond shuddered. ‘Quite right. Can't be doing with all that.'

He went back to his newspaper, and Rachel and her brother communed silently, James thanking her with his eyes. They were very close, these two. Sometimes, over the years, it had surprised me how close, because neither was demonstrative about it. There was no big hug, or ‘Lovely to
see
you!' when we went to Scotland. But James would go out on the hill with her a lot. Long walks. She wasn't a night bird like Sally, who would stay up until three drinking and talking, but she liked walking and James liked her company. She hardly ever came to London – in fact, I could count on one hand the times in our married life she had – but if I lost my phone and borrowed his, or vice versa (oh yes, that happened regularly) Rachel's was possibly the most recent number I'd see. They talked. It occurred to me he might conceivably tell her about last night. Which would be fine. She'd be good. Was quietly good at most things in life, even though she didn't lead a busy one, or a married, complicated one. But perhaps that gave her special insight? No, I wouldn't mind if he talked to Rachel.