We. I ignored the small word that carried such weight. I leant over and kissed Felix, then Nathan. The gesture pleased him. ‘OΚ,’ he conceded. ‘New bathroom it is.’
If he was truthful, Nathan loved it – the marble, the honey travertine tiles, the glint of mirror and stainless steel, his separate basin. ‘See?’ I teased him.
‘I take pleasure in small things.’ He was smiling.
‘In that case, I’ll give you plenty of small things in which to take pleasure. Carpets, curtains…’
But I had gone too far, too fast, and the smile was quenched. ‘We must be careful, Minty. Things are a bit tight.’
I kissed his mouth lingeringly. A Judas kiss. ‘I promise.’
It had taken me four years, inch by inch, stealthy infiltration by sly addition, to redecorate the house – a bedroom painted in pretty yellow here, a chair recovered there – to achieve the transformation of Nathan and Rose’s house into Nathan and Minty’s house.
In the days when Rose and I had been friends, when she was my boss – editor of the books section of the Weekend Digest - and I was her deputy, she beguiled me with her domestic tales. I can see her now: head bent over a book, or a piece of copy, hugging a mug of coffee to her chest, dropping those details into an atmosphere that snapped and crackled with other considerations. Parsley caught a mouse. Nathan bought me a white penstemon and I planted it by the lavender. The washing-machine flooded. I pictured the grey scum running over the kitchen floor, the scrabble to mop it up, the penstemons nodding in the breeze. I eavesdropped on the family exchanges, with all their coded allusions and easy shorthand. Poppy’s challenge to her brother: ‘When were you born, then?’ And clever Sam’s riposte: ‘Before you, you dag.’
Rose’s family portrait was chocolate box, framed by comfortable, warm words. Then it had been foreign to me, that pretty picture. I don’t have a family and it doesn’t bother me, I’d told Rose. Nor did I want children. Why hang a millstone round your neck?
Looking back, I should have insisted that she told me what she had left out. But when I asked, Rose laughed, all apology and sweetness. ‘There’s nothing to leave out.’
How would she couch her reply today?
I’ll never know. Never again will I hustle her into a coffee shop, or accompany her on the walks she liked so much. Or pick up the phone and demand, ‘What do you think?’ Never again will I observe her huddled over a pile of books, sifting through them with the greed of a child let loose in the pick’n’ mix.
Between us lies the deepest and darkest of silences, sinister in its composition of pain and betrayal. And absolutely appropriate.
2
Dinner was going well. (The timetable was stuck to the fridge: ‘8.15 – guests arrive, 9.00 – serve…’A schedule was crucial to my peace of mind.)
We were ten in all, a number that ensured separate conversations could be conducted and, thus, mask any awkward little silences. The final guest list was mostly Vistemax but, in view of my keep going philosophy, not wasted.
The Hurleys arrived at eleven minutes past eight precisely. When I opened the front door, Martin pushed Paige, nearly seven months pregnant and large, into the hall. ‘Thought you could do with some early back-up,’ he murmured, as Nathan unwrapped Paige from her coat. ‘And Paige wanted to check out what you were wearing.’
I flushed. ‘Will I do?’
Martin studied my green, wraparound dress approvingly. ‘Sure. You look great.’ He touched my arm in a gesture of support and I felt as if I’d been given a million dollars.
But a little later, with the Shakers and Barry and Lucy still to arrive, Paige lumbered over and hissed, ‘The dress is too tight.’
I pushed a plate of miniature blinis and caviar in the direction of her bump. ‘Yours is just as bad. Besides, your husband approves.’
‘My husband wouldn’t recognize taste if it sat in his lap.’ She flicked a glance in his direction, and it was not an affectionate one. ‘Look, you fool, this evening depends on the wives, not the husbands. You’re thinking like a singleton. The wives will have taken stock of that dress. It outlines your nipples and shows you’re wearing stockings.’ She lifted a finger and waggled it at her temple. ‘They’ll be thinking, This woman’s planning to sleep with my husband. In the car on the way home, the assaults will begin. Remember, husbands listen to their wives, even if they hate them.’
‘I wouldn’t touch any of the men with a bargepole.’
‘Try telling the wives that.’
Every so often I glanced at Nathan from my end of the table. These days, candlelight suited him. It lent his eyes a sparkle and disguised his frequent pallor. I liked that. And myself in the candlelight? A woman in a green dress (hastily loosened over the bust), a trifle anxious but concealing it competently. Granted there was a string of fatigue behind my eyes and, every so often, an unseen hand tugged at it. I raised my wine glass and willed Nathan to look at me across the silver and crystal. I wanted him to register pleasure in the scene, and to know that he was pleased with my creation.
Gisela Gard sat on his right. Married to Roger, chairman of Vistemax, her little black dress, Chanel corsage and hefty sprinkling of Grade Ε diamonds advertised his status. Roger was sixty-five to Gisela’s forty-three and gossip reported that his money had lured her into his den. ‘Of course, it was his money,’ Gisela was also reported to have said. ‘What else? But, in return, I look after him beautifully’
Carolyne Shaker on Nathan’s left, married to his colleague Peter. She had chosen a royal blue dress – a mistake however you looked at it – and bright gold earrings, and was listening to Gisela and Nathan. Generally, Carolyne left conversation to others, and wore her silence with an expression that suggested she knew her limitations. Not by so much as a flicker did she suggest she minded that she didn’t shine on these occasions. Carolyne knew where her strengths lay – in the home – and I had learnt from her too: it helps to know thyself.
Nathan said something to Gisela and turned, courteously, to Carolyne, who seemed a bit sleepy. He whispered in her ear, which made her laugh.
On Gisela’s right, Peter Shaker was talking to Barry’s wife, Lucy. When she arrived Lucy, who was in a complicated Boho outfit, had seemed nervous and I’d whisked her over to reliable, kind Carolyne. The latter had obviously done the trick because Lucy was responding animatedly.
‘The cherries are good.’ Beside me, Roger dipped his spoon into the bittersweet juice. ‘I like tough skins.’
On the other side of me, Barry nodded. He had been pleased, as I had calculated, to dine with a man as powerful as Roger, and Barry’s pleasure took the form of agreeing with everything Roger said. A dedicated foodie (‘Yοu should hear the fuss if I don’t buy Hunza dried apricots for his cereal,’ Gisela had told me), Roger had kept up the food bulletins throughout the meal. Did I know that the best cherries came from a valley in Burgundy? Or, now that they were eating more meat, the Japanese were growing taller? So practised was his conversation that it could almost have been dubbed automatic, but Roger was too clever to let that happen. His party trick was to gaze directly at whomever he was speaking to, and the listener enjoyed the illusion that they were the only person in the world. The magic was working beautifully until he let fall, ‘I remember the best salmon was at Zeffano’s. It was when Nathan was still married to Rose…’
There followed a tiny pause. My smile did not waver. ‘Yes, Roger?’
Barry’s radar locked on to the tell-tale flicker of tension. ‘And?’ he encouraged Roger.
‘It was years ago, but I remember that salmon so well.’ Roger steered past the minefield. ‘Nathan was less enthusiastic… but we won him round.’