James followed her into the house and up the stairs to the twins’ room.
“Blow-up mattresses?” He stood in the doorway, frowning at the floor-level beds and wicker baskets stuffed with clothes.
“Well, it seems ridiculous to duplicate all the furniture.” Lizzie whispered defensively. “They have perfectly good beds in Gloucestershire.” She watched as he knelt down and laid Ellie on the bed, tucking a blanket over her small body. He ran one hand tenderly along the child’s cheek, then turned to hiss at Lizzie, “If we’re going to rent the place as a holiday house again, we’ll need beds there. All the furniture will have to stay.”
“ But — but those are
children’s
beds. They’re shaped like sleighs!” Lizzie’s voice rose and Alex stirred and moaned. She clapped her hand to her mouth in alarm. James stood up carefully and crept out of the room, Lizzie following on tiptoe.
Out of earshot in the passageway, James told her, “We’re going to target
families
this time. Rich American families with little kids. So we don’t need to change the nursery — I don’t have time to be doing that sort of thing right now. If you really wanted to, we
could
get the beds moved from Laingtree, then buy more for Mill House — but it would be silly, don’t you think? Why not just buy some decent beds here?”
“Well, I will, then. I’ll buy myself one, too.”
“Don’t tell me you’re also sleeping on the floor? Wouldn’t it have been easier to get a furnished place?”
Lizzie took a huffy breath. “Yes, I could have gotten a furnished place,” she said between clenched teeth. “There were all kinds of little hovels with tatty couches and smelly mattresses. But I liked
this
place.”
He glanced down the crooked passageway. “Fair enough. Since I’m here, do you mind if I take a quick look around?”
See what I’m paying for
, she could imagine him adding in his head. “Be my guest,” she said.
Quick was the operative word. He sped through the house, giving each room a cursory but professional once-over. Lizzie puffed along behind, trying to see things through his eyes, wondering what he would make of it. Thank goodness she’d cleaned up and added a few softening touches.
When they entered the bathroom, Lizzie recoiled — she’d temporarily forgotten about the state of the wall. James went over to the pockmarked plaster and ran his finger over one of the holes. “You need to talk to the landlord about this bathroom. It’s a shocker. This wall is in terrible shape.”
Lizzie began to take a keen interest in the state of her cuticles. “It’s not
that
bad,” she said. “A bit of filler and some paint would soon put it right. I could probably do it myself.”
James shook his head. “I wouldn’t mess with it. Landlords can be funny about that sort of thing. Besides, it’s not your responsibility.” He looked at his watch again. “Oh God, I really have to go now. Look, I won’t take the twins next weekend. I’ll be in Scotland. Let’s talk when I get back. We’ve got to sort this out.”
And he was gone.
“I’ve just come in from the butcher’s and they’ve got this really good sale on mutton,” Lizzie’s mother’s voice rang out cheerily down the phone line the next morning. “A forty percent discount if you buy half a carcass. Would you want to split one with me, I wondered?”
Lizzie was trying to get the children ready for nursery school. Ellie didn’t want to get out of her pajamas and wet pull-up. Alex, on the other hand, had changed all by himself and was very proud of his feat. Lizzie didn’t suppose it really mattered if he went to “school” in inside-out shorts and a purple T-shirt belonging to his sister. Perhaps Ellie could even go in her nightie.
“Lizzie? Are you listening?”
“Oh, right. Something about mutton?”
“Yes, half a carcass. Shall we split it?”
“Mum, the children won’t eat mutton. And I don’t think I can eat a quarter of a sheep all by myself.”
“Well, not all at once, of course! You’d freeze it, silly.”
“Mum, my freezer’s about the size of the glove compartment in my car. No, smaller. Why don’t you just freeze the whole thing yourself?”
“I suppose I’ll have to. If only Janie hadn’t gone off like that to Australia.”
“Yes. Well. Was there anything else, Mum? I’m in a bit of a hurry. Early mornings are sort of a bad time for me.”
“Obviously, and I wouldn’t call you in the mornings, only I can’t seem to get you at all at night.” Lizzie gave a guilty cringe. She was still unplugging her phone in the evenings, not sure that her composure would hold through a friendly conversation at that time of day. “Have you got another minute? The thing is, I thought I’d better let you know . . .”
“Mum?”
“Still here. Just taking a sip of tea. Thought I’d let you know I — erm — I bumped into that woman, Sofia or whatever her name is. James’s secretary.”
“Sofia? Oh, Sonja. And she’s a PA, not a secretary.” Lizzie waved Ellie’s panties at her as she zipped through the kitchen on her tricycle.
“A what?”
“Personal assistant.”
“PA, secretary, same thing. Anyway, I bumped into her over the weekend in Cheltenham. Shopping.”
“Oh. Well. Good for you.”
“The thing is, Lizzie, I just thought I’d give you a heads-up.”
“ Heads-up?” Lizzie’s head did indeed jerk up.
“A bit of a warning, I mean. That Sonja, she’s changed.”
“Changed — how?”
“Well, didn’t she used to have brownish hair and wear brownish clothes and peer at one through thickish glasses? And wasn’t she a bit skinny and round-shouldered? The type to hang back and not make her presence felt?”
Lizzie dutifully thought about Sonja. It was difficult to think for long about Sonja because there was so little to think
of
. Sonja was like a piece of office furniture. Necessary, useful, rather cheaply put together, extremely neutral in appearance. She’d begun work at James’s office in Chipping Norton just before the twins were born and had never given anybody a moment’s trouble ever since. Lizzie had been very glad indeed when her predecessor, a sharp little thing in black polyester and dyed blonde hair, had taken herself off to Newcastle to be with her boyfriend. Sonja was not the sort of PA to give the boss’s wife any cause for concern.
“Yes, ‘brownish’ just about describes her,” Lizzie said after a moment.
“Well, not anymore.”
Lizzie felt a flicker of unease. “Really?”
“Really,” Lizzie’s mother said grimly. “She’s gone sort of — golden. Gold highlights in her hair. Frosting, I think they call it. And lots of gold jewelry, although it’s probably just costume stuff. And glittery eyeshadow. Not gaudy or anything. Very subtle. I swear she even had some sort of glitter on her arms.”
“Good grief.” Lizzie tried to picture a golden Sonja but simply couldn’t.
“The glasses are gone, too. Did you know she has very green eyes?”
“No. I didn’t. I would have thought her eyes were . . .”
“Brownish? Exactly. But they’re green. And her clothes are all different too. Expensive looking. Nicely cut. She doesn’t look skinny and round-shouldered anymore. What’s more, she seems to have a bosom.”
“Are you sure this person was even Sonja in the first place?” Lizzie asked. “I mean, you’ve only met her once or twice. How on earth did you recognize her if she’s changed so much?”
“I didn’t,” Lizzie’s mother admitted. “She recognized
me
. Came right up to me, cool as a cucumber, and introduced herself. She’s probably having to introduce herself to her own
family
these days. Anyway, she asked how you were doing, and said wasn’t it a shame you and James had split up.”
“Bit of a cheek.”
“That’s what I thought. She never used to be that way, did she? Quite shy and retiring, I thought when I saw her at the Christmas party.”
Lizzie winced as she always did when people mentioned the Christmas party. She was aware of having drunk a shade too much and made a bit of a fool of herself on that occasion. She brought her mind back to Sonja. “That’s how she’s always been — a total nonentity, really.”
“Well, she’s definitely an entity now. And you know what it all means?”
Lizzie said nothing. Her heart was hammering unpleasantly. She knew what her mother was getting at.
“It means she’s after James. Got to be. She’s single, she’s thirty if she’s a day, her biological clock is probably ticking so hard it keeps her awake at night. And there’s James, suddenly single too. James is really quite attractive, you know. And she works with him
every day
.”
Lizzie’s palms were sweating. She couldn’t think of a thing to say.
“Liz? Darling? I didn’t mean to upset you. I just thought someone ought to tell you. Don’t — don’t throw it all away, Lizzie-bean. I mean, James always doted on you. Are you
sure
you can’t work things out?”
Lizzie sat down on the kitchen floor and squeezed the bridge of her nose with her left hand. She was remembering James’s flat voice on the cell phone: “I want to ask you a favor. Don’t keep phoning me every hour.”
She was remembering his face when he came upon Bruno grappling with the tap, the scathing look he’d given her when he asked her to go and put some clothes on.
She was remembering the words “divorce lawyer.”
She shook her head savagely. James was calling her bluff, that was all. It was all a farce, this split of theirs, and she wouldn’t let her mother scare her.
“Calm down, Mum. I haven’t given up on him yet. But can I ask one thing? Please don’t start inventing trouble for me. I’ve got enough on my plate as it is. For all I care, Sonja bloody Jenkins could dye her hair purple and start wearing a thong to work. It’s none of my business.”
“You know best, my dear.” Her mother sounded a bit huffy, as well she might. “Just don’t leave things too long, will you? Men have their needs, after all.”
O
n the first of June, Lizzie stood outside Chipstead village hall at noon in dark glasses, waiting for the door to open so she could grab the twins and bolt. She was glad now that the other women more or less ignored her. She didn’t want to meet anybody’s eye. Her own eyes were too red and swollen.
That morning, James had phoned her for a “talk.”
She’d been chewing a pencil and trying to think of a rhyme for “silk worms” when the ring half scared her to death.
She’d known exactly who it was, even without caller ID, and felt an immediate, intoxicating surge of hope. It was ages since he’d phoned her personally. Maybe he’d had time to think and was finally calling to make peace. But her excitement was almost immediately doused by his tone of voice — dead, flat, businesslike.
He wasn’t phoning to try to work things out; what a groundless hope, in hindsight.
He was phoning to tell her that she needed to find herself a lawyer. His own lawyer advised that the best course of action, if they wanted a quick resolution, was for Lizzie herself to initiate the divorce petition.
“The — what?” Lizzie croaked.
“Divorce petition. The bit of paper that gets the ball rolling.”
“Oh. And
I’ve
got to send it to
you
, you say?”
“That’s right, and you’ll need a lawyer to draft it. We have to establish irretrievable breakdown of the marriage.” His voice held no inflection. “Since there wasn’t any adultery, one of us has to charge the other with either desertion or unreasonable behavior. We don’t want this thing to drag on and on.”
Lizzie was clutching her chest in pain. Could she be having a heart attack? She cleared her throat.
“James? Do we need to be in such a hurry? Can’t we just — wait and see? I’ve been sort of hoping we could, you know, patch things up. That e-mail —”
“Lizzie, do you want to know the truth?” James interrupted, his voice louder than usual. “I’m not interested in patching things up. I want this divorce at least as much as you do. The way things were between us — do you think it was a one-way street? Let’s have the guts to be honest. Staying in a marriage for the sake of the children — it just doesn’t bloody work. Take it from me, no kid wants to spend his childhood watching his parents ignore each other. Look, let’s just end it in a civilized way and move on.”
“For the sake of the . . . ? I didn’t realize . . . I thought . . . All right, then. Crikey. Okay. So. Can’t we — can’t we just say we had — what do you call it, again? — irreconcilable differences and leave it at that?” She was surprised at how normal her voice sounded. She was surprised she could speak at all.
“Apparently not. It’s adultery, desertion, or unreasonable behavior. Or else we have to live separately for two years by mutual consent.”
“Oh.”
“So if we want this done quickly, we have to come up with a plan.”
“I see. Well, desertion seems the obvious thing — doesn’t it?” She couldn’t keep the edge out of her voice.
“You’d have thought so.” His voice was dry. “But since I’ve been paying the rent on your Sevenoaks house, apparently we can’t use that. So we’re down to unreasonable behavior.”
“Right. But — surely you’re the one who should be doing the petition thingy then. I mean, it all started with me being unreasonably exhausted in bed, didn’t it?”
He didn’t contradict her. “I can’t put that on a legal document, Lizzie. No, it’s much better if you just come up with something about me. Apparently, it doesn’t have to be that bad. I mean, you don’t have to say I was beating you senseless or getting blind drunk every night. My chap says the courts aren’t very demanding — just a couple of paragraphs will do.”
Lizzie’s fingers were turning white around the receiver. “All right,” she said. “I’ll — I’ll have a quick look in the yellow pages then, and find a lawyer.”
“Don’t procrastinate on this one, Lizzie. There’s some sort of time limit on the unreasonable behavior charge. We can’t leave it too long or we’ll end up having to wait for years. Just remember, whatever you put in the petition, I won’t be defending.”
“Okay. I’ll — I’ll come up with something.”
“Good. There must be a million things you could say. I’m sure I was a bugger to live with.”
“Yeah, well . . .” She cleared her throat. “James? This isn’t some sort of — joke, is it?”