The Next Best Thing Page 11

  ‘Of course there are interesting parallels between Tsarist Russia and Blair’s Britain,’ Phil was saying, ‘but if you’re looking for brilliant absurdist fun with bio-dramas, I’d stick with Lenin and Joyce in Travesties.’

  They stopped talking as Jane caught them up and Will hailed a taxi. They were going to The Ivy, which wasn’t wildly convenient for the South Bank but that wasn’t the point. Ordinary people couldn’t get a table at The Ivy which was enough to ensure it was always fully hooked by those who could.

  The taxi cut through Covent Garden up to Soho and Jane stared out of the window at the young people laughing on the streets, in groups and couples, all enjoying a night out. They looked so carefree she felt like jumping out of the taxi right now and joining them.

  At the restaurant, Will led the way in, nodding at one or two people he knew. Jane clocked Graham Norton on one table and wasn’t that Joan Collins over there? There was also a table of dull-looking young men in suits, which brought into question the whole exclusive booking policy.

  Will’s easy manner with the maître d’ evaporated when they were shown to a small table at the back of the bar.

  ‘I’m surprised at you, Will,’ said Phil, once they had been moved into the main room, ‘making such a fuss about a table. I can’t remember ever seeing you so worked up about anything.’

  Jane was surprised to hear him say something sensible at last. It did seem an awful lot of bother to go to for a dish of pasta. Then again, worrying about the little things was a useful distraction from big, scary questions. Don’t sweat the small stuff, wasn’t that the message from one of those dreadful self-help books? Bad advice. Do sweat the small stuff, it will stop you worrying yourself sick about the big stuff. Jane glanced across the table at Will and quickly turned her attention to the menu. She didn’t like the way her thoughts were going.

  ‘I’ll take the gnocchi with gorgonzola,’ said Will. His eyes were all over the room, making sure he hadn’t missed any opportunities.

  ‘Will, how ya doin’?’ A man with droopy jeans stopped by their table and punched fists with Will as a sign of ‘respeck’, in that way white people did in imitation of their cooler black counterparts. Jane believed they were known as wiggers.

  ‘I’m good,’ said Will, which was the required response to that American style of greeting, even when it was between two English ex-public schoolboys.

  ‘Hot new TV producer,’ Will bragged, as the man slouched off to the loo, but nobody was listening. Phil was busy ordering the faux working-class fish cakes, and Jane was choosing a salad. She was never hungry this late, she would rather be at home, reading in bed or watching repeats of Sex and the City.

  While they waited for their food, Will turned the conversation back to Stoppard. ‘I do think it’s a mistake to get too hung up on the Bakunin question,’ he began, but Jane cut across him quickly.

  ‘Can we talk about something else now? I rather feel we’ve done the play to death.’

  Will looked surprised. ‘Excuse-moi!’ he said. ‘Didn’t realise we were boring you, did we, Phil? Over to you then, Jane, maybe you can tell us what’s new in Heat magazine?’

  ‘What’s Heat magazine?’ asked Phil, who had no interest in celebrities.

  ‘It’s a trashy rag that Will thinks I enjoy reading,’ said Jane. ‘You may have noticed he doesn’t think I’m up to the heavy stuff.’

  ‘Unfair!’ said Will. ‘And anyway, as a cultural phenomenon those magazines are worthy of serious study.’

  And he was off on a discourse about media reflecting society, which led them into reminiscing about the Oz trial and the Velvet Underground and Jimi Hendrix.

  Jane remembered a friend once telling her how she could never go out with someone who didn’t know what was in the charts when you were at school. Jane suddenly knew exactly what she meant: she was isolated by the age gap.

  In the taxi home, she felt excluded again by their conversation. But as she stared out at the rainy streets, she rationalised that everyone gets bored sometimes, and that boredom at least replaced worry. She’d rather be bored than worried.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t belittle me like that in front of people,’ said Jane as they got ready for bed, ‘making out I’m a bimbo just because I tried to break up a monotonous conversation.’

  Will looked aggrieved as he turned back the duvet. ‘I think if anyone should feel belittled, it’s me,’ he said, ‘having you cut me off mid-sentence and making out I’m a bore.’

  ‘But it was quite boring, hearing you going on like that, going over the same old ground.’

  ‘Phil didn’t think so.’

  ‘I rest my case. You’ve got to admit he’s heavy-going.’

  ‘The finest mind at Cambridge at one time.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean? Why do you keep going on about it? I never go swaggering around telling everyone I went to Oxford, but you and Phil act like you’re streets ahead of the pack. It gets on my nerves.’

  ‘Don’t be bitter, Jane, it doesn’t suit you,’ said Will, putting on his blindfold to let her know the conversation was over.

  ‘But I am bitter. I can’t help it, you always make me feel like I’m not quite there with you. I’m fed up with being treated like a dim relation. I’m beginning to think Toni Vincent was quite right about you.’

  The blindfold came straight off and he was bolt upright at the prospect of hearing about himself.

  ‘Toni Vincent the publisher? When did you meet her, what did she say about me?’

  ‘She was at the school reunion. I told you, but you weren’t listening as usual.’

  ‘You went to school with Toni Vincent? How amazing, I would have thought she’d been somewhere a little more . . . you know, a bit classier.’

  ‘It’s amazing what crawls out of the suburbs,’ said Jane. ‘Anyway, she was reasonably complimentary about you as a writer, but she thought you’d be very difficult to live with.’

  ‘And you agreed, I suppose.’

  ‘No, I defended you, as usual. But it’s true, you can be difficult.’

  Will sighed. ‘I’m an artist, Jane, you knew what you were taking on.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m disappointed in you. I thought you were different, interested in a better life, not just in plodding along like any old couple.’

  ‘But plodding along is what life is about, isn’t it? At least it is when you’ve got children . . .’

  ‘Oh, don’t start your martyr act again.’

  ‘And you’re never interested in what I’m up to. Like when I went to that reunion, you never asked me how it went or anything. Sometimes I think you’re not a proper person at all, you’re just a . . . collection of opinions, about bloody Bakunin or Hegel or fuck knows who . . .’

  She’d gone too far now.

  ‘Of course I have opinions, Jane, that’s what I’m paid for. Do you think I’d be given a column if I didn’t? If you want a little lapdog to follow you around, you’ve come to the wrong man. And if you’ve got something to tell me, fine, but don’t expect me to ask about every detail of your life. You know we agreed how important it was for us to keep our own space.’

  ‘Except that my space has been built entirely round yours. I bend over backwards to make our life the way you want it to be, and I am beginning to wonder what it’s all for!’

  ‘You tell me! You’re the one who pushed for us to move in together. Believe me, I would have been more than happy to stay as we were, but oh no, you wanted us to share our every waking moment.’

  ‘Oh, I see! You’d prefer me and Liberty to be shut away on our own somewhere, so you could just drift in and see us whenever it suited you. We’re a family, Will, doesn’t that mean anything to you?’

  ‘Of course it does, I’ve done it before, remember!’

  ‘How could I forget! I’m always trying so hard to do the right thing, trying not to piss you off so you don’t walk out on us the way you walked out on Carol and the boys!’

  Will was ha
ving no more. ‘That was low,’ he said, and coldly turned his back on her, switching out the light.

  Jane shut herself into the bathroom and sat down on the loo, trying to calm herself down. This wasn’t like her, she and Will never rowed, he had taught her that it served no purpose. By the time she came out he was asleep and she was able to slip into bed and lie there wondering what was happening to her.

  SIX

  The next morning, Jane was making Liberty’s breakfast and worrying about the row she’d had with Will. They’d never had an ugly slanging match like that before, it was quite out of character and Jane felt drained by the whole episode.

  She shook a helping of porridge oats into a bowl and topped it up with milk. Jane was pleased when Liberty asked for porridge, it seemed like a proper breakfast to her, the sort of thing that sensible mothers prepared for their children. The breakfast equivalent of Clarks’ flat lace-up school shoes, whereas those synthetic chocolate cereal rings were more like slut-bitch high-heeled platforms. The kind of cereal that would go off to meet strange men at afternoon screenings.

  ‘Mum, can birds have heart attacks?’

  Liberty’s bright eyes followed her mother round the kitchen as she put the bowl in the microwave and tried to apply her mind to the question. She had barely slept last night, and had more or less decided to skip the cinema. The last thing she needed now was a extra dimension to her life, it was all far too complicated as it was.

  Did birds have hearts? She supposed they must do, they weren’t cold like fish, though barely more interesting.

  ‘I guess they can,’ she said, stirring the porridge and adding a generous helping of brown sugar. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘We found a dead one in the garden yesterday just after you’d gone out. Anna helped me to bury him. Can I have more sugar please?’

  Jane passed her the bowl. ‘Make sure you do your teeth after,’ she said. The goody-goody breakfast was fast degenerating into the usual processed sugarfest.

  ‘And I wasn’t a bit upset.’ She looked up, challenging.

  Jane knew what was coming next.

  ‘You always say it’s not a good idea to have a pet, because I’d be upset if it died. But you see, I wouldn’t be.’

  ‘Do you want milk or apple juice?’

  But Liberty wasn’t falling for that diversionary tactic. She pushed on to play her trump card.

  ‘And Cosima is getting a pony for Christmas!’

  ‘Goodness me, is that the time?’ said Jane. ‘Run up quickly and do your teeth, hurry, hurry . . .’

  On the way back from school, Jane wondered how Will would be when she got home. He had still been asleep when she’d got up this morning, so she had no idea how he was feeling about last night. People said that everybody had arguments, that it was good to clear the air, but that had never been Jane’s experience. She was brought up in a house where you avoided confrontation, where you didn’t want to risk your father’s displeasure. Then after he left, she avoided taking on her mother’s unhappiness, preferring to tiptoe round the edge, hoping everything would be all right.

  Until last night she had always adopted the same approach with Will, making sure they didn’t squabble, going along with his view of things. She didn’t want it to go wrong between them, her life with him was the version of happiness that she had chosen. That was what you did in a relationship. After the first heady phase, you took a cool look at what you had and decided whether or not it was worth going on. She’d had a few affairs that had gone no further, but with Will she knew it was for life. She knew this after just three weeks, when they went to see a play and he took her backstage to have drinks with the cast. They were hanging on his words, laughing at his jokes, and she felt so proud to be with him. He was what she’d been waiting for.

  When she got in, Will and Phil were sitting round the kitchen table drinking tea in their pyjamas. Or rather, Will was in Calvin Klein pyjamas and Phil was wearing a baggy pair of Y-fronts and a tie-dye tee shirt. They both wore their grey hair loose, like ladies in a costume drama waiting for their maid to come in and pin up their chignons.

  ‘Ah, here she comes,’ said Will. ‘Jane, how the hell do you stop that bloody whirring noise over the cooker? It’s been driving us mad.’

  He didn’t seem to be harbouring a grudge, but with Phil there it was difficult to tell.

  ‘The extractor fan?’ she said. ‘You just need to turn it off.’

  She had deliberately left it on all night. You needed all the ventilation you could get with a house guest like Phil.

  ‘That’s better,’ said Will. Thank you. You know how challenged I am by domestic machinery.’

  She need not have worried: clearly he was reminding her how much he depended on her, that they were mutually complementary. He had the big ideas, and she was queen of the household appliances. Each to his own.

  ‘Do you have any toast?’ Phil asked, looking vaguely round the kitchen as though hoping to catch sight of a couple of slices. ‘Will wasn’t sure where you might have put the bread.’

  ‘Try the bread bin,’ she said, opening it and putting two slices in the toaster.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind a bit of egg and bacon if it’s not too much trouble. I know Will doesn’t do breakfast, but I’m afraid I can’t get going without it.’

  Get going to what exactly? As Phil did nothing, Jane failed to see why he needed to start the day on a full stomach, but she’d happily cook him breakfast if it meant getting rid of him. Will would be off to the library soon, and she would go to the cinema as usual. Except it was not as usual. She felt a rush of butterflies in her stomach as she took a bag of organic bacon out of the fridge. Shame to waste it on Phil, but she didn’t have the stuff that leaks white liquid into the frying pan.

  ‘Do you want some, Will?’

  He turned to her with an expression of mock surprise. ‘Have you ever seen me eat a cholesterol-charged full English nightmare?’

  ‘It’s made a comeback now, with the Atkins diet, but I’ll take that as a no.’

  ‘I have to warn you, Jane,’ said Phil, a ripple of concern crossing his middle-aged face, ‘I’m a little bit picky when it comes to eggs. I can’t bear it when they have that overcooked lacy edge.’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ said Jane. ‘But then I’m afraid I’ll have to turf you out. I need to get on with my work.’

  ‘You see how clever I am, Phil?’ said Will. ‘I’ve got myself a woman to cook breakfast for my friends before sitting down to earn money all day at her computer. As well as bringing up my daughter. Modern women, I love them. Jane and I have a post-feminist relationship, we’ve put the sex war behind us. Haven’t we, Jane?’

  If he was calling a truce, that was fine with her. She squeezed his outstretched hand. Maybe it had been a good thing, to have a go at him last night.

  ‘Well, it’s good news for you, I can see that,’ said Phil. ‘But I think if I was a woman I’d prefer to do what I liked all day and let some man go off and earn the money.’

  Will laughed and ran his hand through his long hair. ‘That’s because you’re a lazy bastard, Phil. Whereas Jane has a strong work ethic, luckily for us all.’

  He put his arm out and patted her on the flank as she walked past.

  Three hours later Jane sat on the 49 bus as it crawled its way through the roadworks. New pipes were being laid, or cables, or sewers, in the never-ending upkeep of the crumbling city. Jane wouldn’t be surprised if the whole lot came tumbling down one day. All those Victorian houses and drainage systems and underground passageways might suddenly reach their expiry date and collapse simultaneously in a heap of dust.

  She hoped she wouldn’t he late. He might not bother with the film if he thought she wasn’t coming. He might ask himself what he was playing at and just walk away. Like she should if she had any sense. She looked at her watch and frowned. It was a nuisance that the car had refused to start, but at least she’d left home so absurdly early that she had plenty of margin fo
r error.

  The bus picked up speed and Jane relaxed. She was going to make it. Going anywhere in London was an adventure: you never knew how long it would take, or if indeed you would arrive. Buses inexplicably stopped mid-route so the driver could get off, taking his cash box with him. Tube trains stock-piled in tunnels or were cancelled due to staff shortage or leaves on the line. In any other country, it would not be tolerated, but the British treated it all as a huge joke and a rich source of stories.

  With three minutes to spare, Jane stepped off the bus into a crowd of students from the French lycée who were loafing around on the pavement, smoking cigarettes and fiddling with their hair. They wore very flared jeans that hung low on their hips then ballooned too wide and too long over their shoes to form flaps that were wet and muddy from the winter puddles. Almost adults, but clumsy and unfinished, they seemed both exotic and intimidating to Jane, who skirted past them, up Queensberry Place and into the Institute.

  Even without looking round too obviously, she could tell he wasn’t there. He must have had second thoughts. She bought herself a ticket and went up the stairs, past the place where she had dropped her lens a week ago. She was careful not to look back over her shoulder; she didn’t want to appear too desperate.

  He was there, watching her coming up from his vantage point at the top of the stairs. She blushed when she saw him, then pleasure gave way to a very faint sense of disappointment that she remembered from her single days. When you spent all week looking forward to a date, your eager imagination couldn’t help transforming a normal-looking person into a sex god. Inevitably, the reality fell a little short.

  If her disappointment registered with him, he didn’t show it. He smiled at her but made no attempt to come too close. She was glad, it annoyed her the way English people had got so continental, air-kissing at every opportunity as though they’d been at it for centuries instead of barely a few years.

  ‘Perfect timing,’ he said. ‘Shall we go straight through?’