A Most Desirable Marriage Page 10

  He didn’t smile back. ‘I just can’t afford it all, Jo. I really can’t. I’ve found a flat, but it’s an arm and a leg . . . what with that and the money I give you, I won’t have anything left.’

  ‘Where’s the flat?’

  Lawrence hesitated. ‘Off Tottenham Court Road . . . it’s only tiny.’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘Hardly the cheapest end of town.’

  ‘I knew you’d say that. But it’s near Arkadius. OK, I could have got somewhere cheaper in the sticks, but then I’d spend my whole life travelling back and forth.’

  Diddums, as Donna would say. ‘It’s your business where you get a flat,’ she said, ‘in fact all of this is your business, your choice, Lawrence. I don’t see why I should be penalized . . . made to feel guilty for not facilitating your life.’

  He sighed dramatically. ‘So what do you expect me to do?’

  She didn’t know what to tell him, but his attitude rankled. A man in a leather jacket walked out of the café and stood on the pavement just feet from their table, his back to them, talking in what Jo took to be Russian on his mobile phone, loudly and angrily. Lawrence glared at him.

  ‘Look, the agent said the downstairs needs tarting up. So I’ll get that done, make the place look as good as it can. When that’s finished, I’ll see how I feel.’

  ‘Right. Great.’ The anger was back. ‘Well if I can’t bank on the house money, I’m going to have to reduce the amount I pay you every month.’

  ‘So that you can afford your exorbitant rent?’

  ‘I can’t do both, Jo. And if you’re going to be stubborn about the house, I don’t see what alternative I have.’

  ‘You won’t blackmail me into doing what you want, Lawrence. If you have to reduce my money, then go ahead.’

  He looked surprised. ‘And what will you do?’

  ‘Like you care.’

  ‘Of course I care.’ He dropped his head in his hands. ‘Oh God, this is such a mess. I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean to sound as if I was pressuring you, but I can’t help it. I am worried about money. The pension’ll only go so far.’

  ‘So you keep saying. Listen, why don’t I do my thing, you do yours. You are anyway. I’ll let you know about the house.’

  She got up.

  ‘Jo . . .’

  ‘Bye.’

  She was shaking as she walked back. She’d intended to go to the supermarket, but she couldn’t do anything but stagger home. As soon as she got through the door she burst into tears, only to be confronted by Travis, clearly on his way out for his daily run, dressed in his grey tracksuit bottoms, his headphones slung around his neck. He didn’t say a word, didn’t ask any questions as he noted her tear-stained face and opened his arms. She didn’t resist, just took the brief moment of respite his hug was offering before embarrassment overcame her.

  ‘Sorry, sorry. This isn’t part of the contract, mopping up your pathetic old landlady. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘God, you Brits love to apologize. No need, I assure you. Crap day at the office, was it?’

  She gave him a wan smile. ‘I just told my husband, well, ex-husband I suppose he is now, that I’m not going to sell the house yet.’

  ‘Right . . . and I’m guessing he didn’t take it too well?’

  ‘Something like that. Sorry, you’d better get off. Thanks for listening.’

  ‘Will you be OK?’

  ‘I’ll be fine. I just . . . he made it so hard. Or I did. Whatever, it wasn’t fun. I hate seeing him.’

  *

  That night it was Cassie’s turn to cry – tempestuous sobs that made it difficult for her mother to understand a word she said – caused by another row with her husband, this time about the vegetable garden.

  ‘Calm down a bit, darling, I can’t hear what you’re saying. Say it again? He did what?’

  ‘He fucking accused me of sabotaging our whole lifestyle because the lettuces bolted,’ Cassie repeated.

  Jo had a sudden vision of a bunch of lettuces dragging themselves free of the soil and making a run for it over the chicken wire. ‘Hurry up chaps, before those eco-nutters get us!’

  ‘How can that be your fault?’

  ‘It wasn’t. But I wasn’t upset enough apparently. And I’m the Veg Monitor. I’m the one who’s supposed to make sure we eat the ripe stuff and don’t waste any. But we planted too many of the damn things. If we’d eaten them all we’d have died of gut-rot or bloody boredom.’

  Jo found she couldn’t suppress a chuckle.

  ‘IT’S NOT FUNNY, Mum.’

  ‘No, I know, I’m sorry . . . it was just the thought of the lettuces.’

  ‘I mean what the fuck’s his problem?’ her daughter went on as if Jo hadn’t spoken. ‘Does it really matter if a few lettuces go over and can’t be eaten? The seeds cost nothing virtually and we didn’t have to do anything except plant them. But it’s the waste. Matt just can’t abide waste.’ She harrumphed. ‘They can be composted, for God’s sake, or fed to the pigs. We’ll end up consuming the little buggers eventually.’

  ‘Darling, is he all right? It’s all becoming a bit weird, don’t you think?’

  ‘What’s becoming “a bit weird”? What are you suggesting?’

  ‘Well, it’s fine to want to live a sustainable lifestyle. He just seems a bit extreme about it all.’

  ‘Are you saying he’s nuts?’

  ‘No, not nuts exactly, but I mean, getting hysterical about a few lettuces . . .’

  She heard her daughter sigh. ‘It’s not really the lettuces. He thinks I’m not committed, that’s what all our rows are about. He claims I was as keen as him when we first met – I suppose I’m to blame for giving him that impression – but he’s got more keen and I’ve got more pissed off. And when I tell him I didn’t sign up for this level of planet-saving, he gets nasty and accuses me of being a spoiled brat and not supporting him.’

  ‘And how do you feel when he says that? Is there any truth in it?’

  There was another silence.

  ‘I don’t know, Mum. I love him so much. But he’s changed. And I don’t know what to do.’

  She heard Cassie begin to cry again.

  ‘Oh, sweetheart, you’ve got to talk to him. Find a time when you can have a proper discussion, and lay it out really calmly. Tell him exactly how you feel, point out how you think he’s changed. Matt’s a good man, and he loves you too.’

  Cassie sighed heavily. ‘Yeah, I know he does, and of course you’re right.’

  ‘Have the talk sooner rather than later. Otherwise it’ll fester, you’ll get resentful.’

  ‘OK, OK, I’ll find a time, I promise.’

  Jo heard Cassie blowing her nose.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Mum. I didn’t want to burden you, especially when you’re going through such a hard time. But he drives me mad when he’s like this. He’s so clever, and he turns everything round on me so that I don’t know what I’m trying to say and I always end up being the bad guy.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘God knows. Weeping over the dead bodies of the lettuces for all I care. By the way, why are you whispering? Is someone there?’ Her daughter’s voice was suddenly sharp with suspicion.

  ‘My new lodger . . . the American friend of Nicky’s? He probably can’t hear anything from your brother’s room, but it is late.’

  ‘Oh, yes, you said. How’s that working out?’

  ‘Good. I like having someone around.’

  ‘Nicks said it was Travis someone, but I can’t place him from that bonkers lot he hung out with back then.’ She gave a long sigh. ‘Anyway, Mum. Thanks for listening. I’d better go.’

  ‘Will you be all right?’

  ‘Probably,’ Cassie replied, her tone indicating the exact opposite.

  Chapter 8

  7 September 2013

  ‘Tuck your toes under, hands flat on the mat and gradually straighten your legs, keeping your knees soft. Shake out your hands, let your head hang loose, then s
lowly begin to bring yourself upright. Pelvic floor up, tummy in, un-curling your spine bone by bone until you’re standing straight.’ The Pilates teacher – an astonishing woman in her seventies who had the body of a lucky forty-year-old – beamed approvingly at the class. ‘Good work everyone,’ she said, giving them a brief clap.

  Jo rolled her eyes at Donna as they picked up their mats and returned them to the pile in the corner. She was exhausted; it was weeks since she’d attended a class. It had only been Donna’s nagging that had dragged her out this Saturday morning. ‘You can’t let yourself go just because that dimwit’s legged it. Come on, it’ll make you feel better, you know it will,’ Donna had insisted, not leaving the kitchen until Jo had agreed to accompany her.

  They walked – or wobbled in Jo’s case – downstairs to the changing room.

  ‘You and actor boy seemed very cosy on the terrace the last few nights.’

  ‘Cosy? What do you mean?’

  Donna’s wry smile made her uncomfortable. ‘Hmm . . . I mean what I say: you looked very cosy together.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Am I wrong?’

  The blush rose quickly and unexpectedly to Jo’s cheeks. ‘He gets in late from rehearsals and is all wired up, so we just sit with a glass of wine for a while and chat, that’s all.’

  Her friend continued to give her the eye. ‘So you don’t fancy him just a teensy weensy little bit? Nothing like that going on?’

  ‘Shhh!’ Jo looked around the changing room. There was one girl drying her hair, head upside down, over by the mirrors, totally oblivious to them or their conversation.

  ‘Ooh, bit sensitive, aren’t we?’

  Jo gave her an irritated look. ‘OK,’ she dropped her voice as she pulled on her jeans. ‘If you must know, I do find Travis attractive. But obviously I—’

  ‘STOP IT!’ Donna interrupted, a wicked grin lighting up her face. ‘I knew it. I bloody knew it.’ Her voice had risen again, and Jo glanced anxiously at the girl in the corner again.

  ‘For God’s sake, darling,’ Donna hissed. ‘She doesn’t even know you’re here. What the hell are you so worried about?’ She paused. ‘Unless—’

  ‘There’s no “unless” about it. Nothing’s happened and nothing will, obviously. We just get on really well.’

  Neither of them spoke again as they pulled on their clothes, packed away their exercise kit and combed their hair. Piped music, far too loud, was emanating from a speaker in the corner of the ceiling, a torch song that Jo had heard a million times – something about angels – but never properly identified.

  ‘It’s thrilling,’ Donna commented, linking arms with her friend and giving her a squeeze when they were outside on the street again.

  ‘Nothing thrilling about it,’ Jo muttered. ‘It’s stupid and I wish I hadn’t told you now.’

  ‘Don’t be like that. I think it’s just what you need. A bit of flirting, a reminder that you’re not dead yet.’

  Jo laughed. ‘I don’t flirt. And he has no interest in me whatsoever. How could he? Anyway, as I’ve said before, he’s a close friend of Nicky’s.’

  ‘Not sure how that’s relevant.’

  As they waited to cross the road, Jo turned to her. ‘Travis is fifteen or more years younger than me, Donna. Or have you forgotten?’

  Her friend sighed. ‘How could I have forgotten? You tell me every time his name’s mentioned. God, you’re so obsessed with age, darling. From the way you bang on, anyone’d think you were a bent old bag in a cardie. Look at Helen and Alex: twenty-five plus years between them and they’ve been married for yonks. Joan and Percy, Sam Taylor-Wood and Aaron. Why should it be different for you?’

  ‘It just is.’

  ‘Right, well that’s a very intelligent response.’

  Jo was silent, remembering the frisson between her and Travis the previous night. They had been out on the terrace again, as Donna had noted, and it was late. She was a bit drunk because she hadn’t eaten since a crispbread and cream cheese around five – cooking seemed pointless for just herself. In fact she’d been about to go to bed when Travis came home.

  ‘Fancy our nightly glass?’ he’d asked, waving a bottle he’d brought with him. ‘I’ll never sleep, the stuff’s just buzzing round my head.’ He’d paused. ‘And it’s a wonderful night.’

  ‘OK, why not?’ It was Friday and she’d got nothing ahead of her over the weekend except the dreary task of deciding what she was going to do with the stuff in the kitchen so that she could begin to paint. And secretly she’d been hoping he would ask.

  Travis had lit the candles on the table, and they’d sat as they had twice before that week, side by side in the wooden chairs, both with a glass of red, the night air balmy for September, as it had been for days now. For a while he’d regaled her with stories about the odd habits of the play’s director. Apparently she would stare at him or one of the other actors really hard, then repeat a request over and over, like a mantra, almost to herself without apparently being aware of what she was doing, which caused both concern and a certain amount of concealed hilarity.

  ‘Just makes you wonder if she’s having a breakdown or something,’ Travis had commented. ‘Like, she’s got this totally cool reputation, but maybe she’s losing it.’

  ‘Surely the producers see what’s happening?’

  ‘You’d have thought.’ He’d shrugged. ‘Listen, I think it’s an awesome play – even if the writer and director are a bit nuts. So powerful, the thing about how much any of us can know each other.’

  There was a short silence.

  ‘Did you sense anything . . . about Lawrence? I mean before he told you.’

  Till then, their conversations had not touched on the personal, despite ranging widely round many subjects. And mellow from the wine, Jo did not shut him down as she might have done sober.

  ‘That he was in love?’

  ‘Yeah . . . and that he liked men?’

  Travis’s questions had been matter-of-fact, and she’d found herself answering him in the same vein.

  ‘No, neither. Stupid, isn’t it? He was pretty tense in the run-up to retiring. But I thought it was about that, about leaving the college he’d spent twenty-plus years at. It never entered my head for a single second that he was having it off with his friend . . . our friend . . .’

  ‘Christ, I can’t imagine how you’d deal with that.’

  She’d smiled at him. ‘I still can’t believe it’s happened, to be honest.’

  ‘What if his thing with the Russian fell apart. Could you take him back? After what he’s done.’

  The thought of Lawrence coming back was overwhelming. But she knew she was thinking of them being together as they had been before the betrayal, reinventing a time which was gone for ever now. And there was the sex thing. Could she erase the image of him naked, wrapped around Arkadius’s lithe body? Could Lawrence? No, it was never going to happen.

  ‘Don’t know if I could,’ she’d muttered, almost to herself.

  Travis hadn’t replied; just gazed at her appraisingly.

  And as his dark brown eyes met hers, the moment seemed to stretch out, lasting way longer than it was supposed to. It was as if they were both held in the unmoving eye of a storm, Jo’s pulse thumping like a drum.

  ‘He’s a fool,’ Travis had said softly as she’d suddenly been overcome with embarrassment and started shifting in her chair, clearing her throat, unnecessarily brushing her hair back from her face. Anything to distract herself from the unnerving surge of desire his look had evoked.

  Travis still seemed relaxed, however, and she’d immediately begun to wonder if she’d imagined it.

  ‘I’d probably better get to bed,’ she’d tried to sound casual.

  ‘I might stay out for a bit,’ he’d replied, and they’d bid each other a friendly good night.

  ‘I’m being ridiculous,’ she told Donna as they reached the end of their road and turned in. ‘I’m sure it’s completely in my head.’

  ‘What is?�
� Donna was peering up at her.

  ‘Oh, nothing really.’

  ‘What sort of “nothing really”?’

  Jo hesitated. ‘Just a look, that’s all. And I’m sure I misinterpreted it. I’m such an old saddo. A man gives me a pitying glance and I get hot under the collar.’

  ‘Sounds like more than pity if you had that sort of reaction.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t. So drop it, will you? I feel stupid enough without reliving it over again.’

  *

  ‘What are you doing, Mum?’ Nicky was frowning as he saw the pile of things Jo had placed on the kitchen table: a dusty jelly mould that used to hang on the wall; the kitchen clock; the ancient rack that she and Lawrence had been given by a friend for their wedding, from which used to hang metal spoons, a spatula, a potato masher, a ladle and had never been taken down; the cork board with all the family snapshots.

  ‘I’m going to paint in here.’

  ‘OK, seems a bit radical.’

  Jo still hadn’t had the conversation with her children about selling the house. She took a deep breath and put down the Phillips screwdriver she was using to undo the frosted-glass up-lighter beside the stove that hadn’t worked for decades and was covered in a thick layer of grease.

  ‘Coffee?’ she asked her son.

  ‘Thanks.’

  They stood leaning against the work surface with their mugs.

  ‘As you’ve probably realized . . . now that Dad’s left . . . this house . . . umm, we’ve talked, and it looks like I’m going to have to sell up.’

  Nicky’s face was shocked. ‘Sell the house? Why? You can’t, that’s not fair.’ He put his mug down sharply on the side. ‘This is our home, Mum. You can’t sell it.’

  ‘I don’t have much choice, darling. Dad can’t afford to rent somewhere on his pension, and as you know, I don’t earn that much . . . he’s always had to subsidize me since I left the BBC.’

  ‘But that’s his problem. No one asked him to behave like an arse.’ The muscles in his cheek stood out as he clenched his teeth. ‘You know I saw him the other day?’