Si rang earlier and I told him about Lucy’s evening, and he said it was a good sign. Not time to start breathing sighs of relief, he added hurriedly, but certainly promising that they seemed to be making time for one another again, although it doesn’t mean it’s over with Portia. Not by a long shot.
But I don’t know any more. I think that maybe it was just a passing fling. That perhaps, like that one night all those years ago at university, it’s over. But there’s no doubt that something has happened, regardless of whether it may or may not be happening now.
And then Si asked me if I thought Portia knows that we know. I would imagine she’d have to be stupid not to, although the extraordinary thing is that she may have stopped phoning Si and I, having finally got the message, but she hasn’t stopped phoning Lucy.
And that’s what really pisses me off. She seems to have some sort of compulsion, but you would have thought she’d show a bit more subtlety. I mean, I’ve heard of mistresses secretly stalking the wives for a bit, just to find out what they’re like, what they look like, what they do with their days. But not when they already know the wives. That’s just sick. Or asking for trouble, but then maybe that’s part of Portia’s plan, part of her happy ending. To ensure that Lucy finds out, Portia will either have to tell Lucy or drop a hint, set up a situation in which there can be no doubt, and then Lucy will have to let Josh go.
Because right now I wouldn’t like to place money on which way Josh would run if push came to shove, and if you ask me, which Si frequently does, he seems pretty damn happy having the best of both worlds: Lucy cooking for him and mothering him and keeping a wonderful home in which he barely has to lift a finger, and Portia taking care of sex, a few evenings a week.
But would he really leave Lucy? If push did finally come to shove, would he give all that up for Portia’s life? Because I know it looks glamorous, and I know there have been times when I have been deeply envious of Portia, but would Josh really want to live that modern, trendy lifestyle?
Would he really be happy going out every single night, hanging out with media junkies at Soho House, nibbling Thai spiced fish cakes in restaurants, only ever going home to sleep, and even that is done between immaculate linen sheets that somehow don’t seem to do creases.
Remember I have sat on Portia’s sofa, and trust me, it is not a sofa that inspires you to kick off your shoes and curl up with the remote control while shovelling down a curry, which is Josh’s favoured way of spending an evening.
And while I know there are some women who are prepared to compromise their entire beings for their man, Portia isn’t one of them. Maybe once upon a time she would have willingly made a few sacrifices, but now, in her thirties, I realize that Portia has grown hard.
She is almost too independent, too self-sufficient, and if a man chose to enter her life – and I have to say I think most would be, after the initial glamour and excitement, scared off – but if a man did choose to enter it on a permanent basis, it would have to be on her terms or not at all.
And Josh might enjoy it for a while. For a while it might feel as if he had stepped into a film, but I can’t see him enjoying it for ever, and I hope, I hope and I pray, that this is a passing fling and that Josh somehow has to exorcize Portia completely before moving on with his life. With Lucy.
A week later and I could almost have believed that it really was over with Portia, because ever since that night at Julie’s, Josh and Lucy have been, well, they’ve been Josh and Lucy again. Even to the point where Lucy phoned this morning to say how about Sunday lunch, usual table, usual time? And without even thinking about it, without even checking to see if Si was coming too, I said yes.
As soon as I walk in the discomfort, the unsettled feeling I’ve been carrying with me, disappears, because there, in the corner, are the usual gang, and the scene is so familiar it is as comforting as travelling back to the womb.
A cafetière fights for space among the piles of papers, and I know exactly what papers will be there, and who brought what because the routine is the same every week, and even though we haven’t done our Sunday lunch for a few weeks, I know the routine will never change. I know that Josh will have brought the Sunday Times that they have delivered every week, and the Observer that he will have picked up on the way, and that Si will have brought the gossipy tabloids to gasp over with Lucy and I as Josh pretends to be reading the serious papers, although he will be unable to resist the gossip and feign exasperation with us, but he will, eventually, join in.
A basket of croissants sits in the centre of the table, and Josh is buried in the Money section of the Sunday Times; Si is stuffing his face with croissant while simultaneously pointing out pictures in the News of the World magazine, and Lucy is sipping her coffee, laughing with Si at his outrageous comments.
I pull off my jacket and scarf, rubbing my hands together to warm them up as they’re almost blue from the cold November air, and I drape everything over the back of the chair and sit down, helping myself to Si’s fresh orange juice as Lucy calls the waitress over and orders more coffee and an extra cup, then telling her we’re ready to order, although why they waited is beyond me because we always order the same thing.
Si has fruit salad because it makes him feel virtuous, and I think he thinks it counterbalances the fried eggs and toast he has afterwards. Josh has a full English breakfast, Lucy has scrambled eggs with bacon, and I have scrambled eggs, runny if that’s okay, with bacon, sausages and copious amounts of toast.
It’s not unusual to sit at this table, washing down all the food with gallons of fresh orange juice and coffee, for around three hours. Si’s perfected the art of shooting filthy looks at the people queuing patiently by the door, waiting for someone to leave, and it’s usually my guilt that eventually forces us up, magnanimously giving our table to the weary but grateful.
‘So,’ Si says when I’ve had some coffee. ‘Heard the latest gossip.’
‘Let me guess. Prime Minister run off with Meg Ryan? Queen pregnant again?’
Si raises an eyebrow. ‘Real gossip, sweets. Ingrid, it seems, has a’ – and he pauses to roll his r’s significantly – ‘lurverrrr.’
‘Oh, Si!’ Lucy slaps him playfully. ‘You are so beastly about poor Ingrid. I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘So what else is new?’ I shrug my shoulders. ‘She did say she had a hot date the night of the red catsuit, and she said she probably wouldn’t be coming home, so what’s the big deal?’
‘Okay, no big deal,’ Si says nonchalantly, ‘it’s just that it’s been confirmed now. She’s going away with him next weekend.’
‘Have you met him?’ I ask Lucy. ‘What’s he like?’
‘You know how private she is,’ Lucy says. ‘She hasn’t said a word, other than to say her new lover is taking her to the George V in Paris for the weekend, and would we mind if she were gone for four days.’
‘What did you say?’
‘What could I say? Of course I said yes.’
‘But weren’t you positively dying to know?’ Si’s rubbing his hands together with glee. ‘The George V is the best hotel in Paris, for God’s sake! I bet it’s some incredibly wealthy businessman with a fetish for rubber. He’ll probably produce a bag of whips and chains once she gets there.’
‘So does this new lurrve,’ I pick up Si’s inflection, ‘mean that the dreaded Ingrid has become a nicer person?’