A Minor Indiscretion (30 page)

N
eil would have been very jealous. Up to a point. Ed sat back in his chair and folded his arms. He was on location in the garden of a sprawling manor house in the heart of the Home Counties, directing a promotional video for Sit-Down Showers—a device which no one who is fat, over fifty and terminally unfit should be without.

The idea was that if it was all too much of an effort to stand up for the three minutes required to shower, why not sit in a cozy, plastic armchair while you lather up your bits instead? If you were actually infirm rather than just lazy, this would be of great benefit, but the powers-that-be at Sit-Down Showers wanted to stress the glamour and labor-saving elements of their products rather than the fact that they'd come in a bit damn useful if your legs were buggered.

To illustrate this, they'd chosen a lithesome twenty-year-old brunette called Bonnie, with barrage balloon breasts and a 1970s curly perm, to “model” a Sit-Down Shower, involving her, of course, in getting her extremely scanty bikini and her curly perm very wet. Bonnie's legs were definitely not buggered, but it was becoming abundantly clear that her brain probably was. They were on take 472 or something—Ed had lost count and the will
to live—and she had yet to manage saying anything other than “Shit-Down Sowers” before dissolving into fits of giggles.

The first few times, the crew had roared, which was a big mistake, because she'd then played it for laughs for half an hour. Then, when they'd lost interest, she'd gone for the sympathy vote, and now didn't appear to be able, even if she was willing, to nudge her needle out of the groove it was stuck in. Ed felt tempted to go and slap her across the face to snap her out of it, like they do with hysterical women in films.

Neil would have found this all very amusing. And this is where they differed. As brothers, they had never shared the same taste in women. Neil liked airheads. He liked woman whose breasts were more evident than their brains. The subtle charms of wit, conversation and intelligence didn't score highly on his brother's eligibility chart. Neil would have enjoyed just looking at Bonnie, despite the fact she was having trouble stringing one sentence together. Perhaps that was why Neil could never hold down a relationship, because he always ended up with women who were the complete opposite of his ideal. All his serious relationships had been with hard, controlling women who had tried to change Neil and ultimately dumped him when his inability to morph into someone else became apparent.

It had taken them hours to rig up a working shower cubicle in the middle of a garden just so that viewers would immediately make the connection that it was much more natural and wholesome to take a shower rather than a filthy old bath. The main problem had been to protect the shower from the intermittent bouts of rain that had also brought proceedings to a halt.

Trevor sidled up to him. “Shall we break for lunch?” he suggested. “See if she can get her gob working after that?”

“Good idea.” Sandwiches, soup and tea had been set up in a tent at one side of the garden for the crew, and Trevor ambled off to tell the lads that they could take a break for half an hour, during which time they would, undoubtedly, all take turns chatting up Bonnie.

Orla had been watching from the sidelines, networking with the various luminaries of Sit-Down Showers who had turned up ostensibly to see how their advertising budget was being spent, rather than admitting that they were taking the opportunity to ogle Bonnie, who had on relatively few occasions graced page three. She, too, made her way toward him. “Lunch?” Orla said.

“Not yet.” Ed waved his mobile. “I've a few important calls to make.”

“Want me to bring you a sandwich?” This was possibly the nicest Orla had ever been to him, and he wondered if she sensed the coolness in their relationship since the “bedroom” conversation.

“I'll follow you in a minute,” he said, forcing a smile. “Won't be long.”

Ed fingered the envelope in his pocket and, when Orla was safely out of harm's way, pulled it out. Even the sight of it gave him a shiver of something. Trepidation? Pleasure? He wasn't sure. But he
was
sure he recognized the writing on the envelope, he just wasn't certain it was Ali's. Maybe she'd tried to disguise her handwriting. Maybe she'd even got Jemma to write it. He opened it and slipped the gold-edged invitation from inside, his fingers not entirely steady, shaking like a schoolboy's. There were only three things written on the card, in the same flowing hand:

 

The Ivy
Saturday 8.30
Please Be There

 

Ed stared at it, deep in concentration, eyebrows knitted together in a frown. It could only be Ali. This was exactly the sort of thing she would do. Or the sort of thing she used to do. She was always secretly arranging surprises for his birthday or special occasions—over the years he'd been treated to flying lessons, white-water rafting, rally driving, hot-air ballooning, weekends in Paris, Rome, Milan. You name it, he'd done it. He only had to mention, in passing, an interest in some new experience, and Ali had dutifully organized it. So much so that he would have been more surprised if there hadn't been a surprise. Birthdays had always been fun times with Ali, and had made him feel very loved, very special. A lump came to his throat. Perhaps he hadn't said so at the time.

It would have cost her a lot to have made a gesture like this. Not just financially—which wasn't a mean consideration with the prices at somewhere like The Ivy—but the emotional cost would have been huge. They had always promised themselves to go
there, but had never quite made it. Could it be that she was making the first tentative step toward reconciliation? There was a part of him that really hoped so. He'd felt terrible after their meeting yesterday, and this must already have been in the post. Ed ran his finger round the wavy gold edge. He'd been a bastard, and Ali had looked fantastic and as if she wasn't missing him at all, which had made him want to be even more of a bastard. She'd phoned this morning to give Christian's version of events of the dope-smoking discovery, and he'd done nothing more about it other than ground the children for the rest of their natural-born lives. Yet.

Besides, she was hardly likely to be all mysterious and stump up for The Ivy if all she wanted to do was discuss divorce, was she?

Orla returned bearing a plate of curled-up cheese sandwiches on tired white bread and a cup of tea. “Your tea's going cold,” she said.

“Thanks,” Ed said.

“I wanted to show you how much I love you.” She kissed him on the cheek, and Ed scanned the garden to check that no one was watching, resisting the urge to brush away the damp circle she had left behind.

Orla sat down beside him. Ed turned sideways and attempted to tuck the invitation into his pocket without her noticing. Her eyes flickered across the card, and he wondered if she had managed to read it.

“What's that?” Orla asked.

Ed shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Then why are you looking so guilty?” She laughed lightly and handed him his lunch.

“It's from Ali,” he admitted.

Orla frowned. “Bad news?”

“I don't think so,” Ed said with a smile, and lifted up a corner of his sandwich to see just how little cheese lurked beneath. He bit into the flaccid bread absently. It had to be Ali. Who else could it be?

I
t was a cold day in Covent Garden market. The sun had given up trying to come out and was hiding behind some big, black blowsy clouds. Business was slow despite the calendar creeping steadily toward the start of the tourist season proper. Weather was the main thing that kept them away, Christian decided. That and the ridiculous prices that now made London one of the most expensive capital cities in the world.

When you could easily pay more than a fiver for a glass of cheap plonk in an overrated wine bar, having a stunning, original portrait in charcoal by a talented but as yet undiscovered starving artist for not much more was a bloody bargain. Christian shifted on his triangular canvas seat and carried on sketching aimlessly. None of the street entertainers were busy today. Even the best of the magicians had only attracted meager audiences. Today, you would have to be prepared to sweat blood to make enough to cover the price of your pitch.

And he was pissed off to start with, anyway. Ali had slept with her back to him all night again. So he, in turn, had slept with his back to her. It was like going out with Rebecca again. And he'd sort of expected older women to behave differently. He didn't know in what way, but he didn't think they'd sulk.

It was fair to say that they'd been very cool with each other
since last week, when she'd found out about the dope business. And he could see Ali's point, it was just that he could see his own point rather more. Rebecca and Robbie thought it was hilarious, and he had to admit it made him smile to think about it. Ali had made out that it was all seedy and sordid, but it wasn't. He and the kids had enjoyed a bit of naughty, forbidden fun, nothing more. Where was the harm in that? He could see that it looked bad, of course—particularly when the little buggers had tried it out again for themselves. Kids these days!

He didn't know what to do to win her round. She'd been very gloomy—going to bed early, not saying much, sitting in the corner with one of her self-help books rather than join in the conversation. If he was the sort of bloke who bought flowers, he probably should have gone and bought her some flowers. This is what he hated about relationships, and was more than likely why he was crap at them. It was all very well when it was swimming along all lovely and floaty, but it was when the hard work of keeping it all together started that he found it all a bit much. Should it be an effort to love someone? Christian sighed inwardly. He looked over to the Covent Garden Café, the place where it had all started. Perhaps Robbie was right. Should he have let it drop then? Before they were too entangled. Before he had realized the solid blocks of responsibility that built her life. It wasn't the age difference between them that mattered as such, it was the commitments one seemed to acquire with the passing years, the developed sense of duty, the family ties which seem to tighten with age rather than slacken off, the upsetting of the apple cart of a well-defined place and status in society. If Ali had been thirty-eight, single and unencumbered, where would the problem be?

Ali seemed so special, so beautiful, he thought that all they needed to do was hold hands and they could fly to the moon together. And now all they were doing was getting bogged down by the daily grind of simply existing together. Did all relationships end up like this?

Christian clapped his hands together. His fingers were cold. Perhaps he should go and have a coffee at the Covent Garden Café for old times' sake.

“Hello.” A voice broke into his thoughts, and he looked up, hopeful at long last of a customer. “It's me,” the girl said.

“Oh, hi.” It took him a minute, but it was the one with the black
Lycra from the nightclub. The one he'd taken home the night that Ali had turned up out of the blue.

“It's Sharon,” she said shyly, as if she was sure he would have forgotten. Which he had.

“I was just passing. Shopping,” she said by way of explanation. “New shoes.” Sharon studied her feet. “I'd forgotten you worked here.”

And he wondered absently if she had.

Grinning, she pulled her coat round her. “How are you?”

“Fine,” Christian said. She looked different from how he remembered her. There was little makeup in evidence and her face was naturally pretty now that it wasn't overpainted, with a small upturned nose. Her hair was mousy, parted in the middle, and she swept it back with her hand. Christian wondered if she had changed the color. The flared denims and sheepskin jacket she wore were more hippie chick than vamp and it suited her better. She seemed less certain of herself, more vulnerable. Not like a Sharon at all. She looked younger too. Nineteen at the most? Maybe eighteen?

“Are you still with that older woman?” she asked too brightly.

Christian paused for a moment, tidying his charcoal. “Yes.”

“Oh.” A shadow of disappointment crossed her face. “That's nice.”

“Yes.” Christian returned his gaze to his sketch. “That could have been a bit…awkward for me,” he said. “Thanks for being so…understanding.”

She shrugged. “That's okay.”

“I appreciate it,” Christian said.

“Anytime.” They both laughed at the absurdity of her offer.

“Maybe not,” Christian acknowledged ruefully.

“Well, it's been nice talking.” Sharon chewed her lip. “I usually go to The Gallery on Friday nights or The Ministry of Sound. If you're ever around.”

“I'll remember that,” he said, and she looked at him as if to say fat chance.

“See you then,” she said, and turned to walk away.

Christian let her take three or four steps. “Sharon,” he called after her. “I was just going for a quick cappuccino. Want to join me?”

She looked back, grinning. “Yes. I'd love to.”

Christian picked up his pad and, with his charcoals, tucked them in his rucksack. He balanced his Back In Five Minutes sign on his easel. “Come on, then,” he said, and he took her arm and steered her briskly toward the Covent Garden Café. “If you've got time,” he said, “I'd like to sketch you later. On the house.”

“I'm not busy.” She was trotting to keep up with him.

“It's good for business if people see me at work.” Christian's mouth spread into a slow, lazy smile. “You have a very beautiful profile,” he said.

T
here is an awful lot to worry about in this relationship. There's fifteen years' difference between us and, although that doesn't seem too huge in the scheme of things, it does alter some things intractably.

When I was twenty-three and already well into motherhood, Christian was an eight-year-old boy, which is not something I want to dwell on. When I'm sixty, Christian will only be forty-five, and that's a huge difference too. Most women of sixty look like they've had a lifetime of clearing up after kids, husbands and washing-machine floods—which they invariably have. Whereas forty-five-year-old men are in their first flush of maturity, a delicate graying of the hair, perhaps a little thinning on top, a softening of the waistband, but generally they look in pretty good nick because they've been cosseted by one of the aforesaid women who because of it will, later in life, look totally knackered.

Take Ed. He is looking fabulous. If we weren't teetering on the very verge of divorce, I'd probably still fancy the pants off him. And he was well cosseted in the years I devoted myself to him. I wonder, when I'm old and gray—will Christian be around to look after me? When I'm seventy, he'll be a mere fifty-five, and by that time I might be so riddled with Alzheimer's that I won't even remember who he is. My God, I might mistake him for one
of my own children. So you see, although the spacing of the years doesn't change, the age gap grows ever wider.

Should I care? It didn't prevent Anna Nicole Smith, aged twenty-five, from marrying billionaire oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall, a very unsprightly ninety, who looked to be in an advanced state of decay long before he was dead. But then, young woman and old man isn't uncommon—it does, however, very rarely happen the other way round. You don't often see wrinkly old women with smooth-cheeked young studs. And it very rarely happens to people who haven't got a few million tucked away in the back of their cupboards.

Perhaps it's because I'm sitting in a doctor's waiting room that I'm worrying about bits falling off me. It was a terrible shock when I found out I needed glasses—apart from the obvious horror of discovering that you do look exactly like your mother when you put them on. I know there are exceptions to aging without all your body parts sagging or falling off. Take Joan Collins, I hear you cry. She could be the role model for
How To Be a Sex Kitten at Any Age.
At sixty-seven she's still a size eight and prancing around in stockings and suspenders. And her boyfriend is absolutely decades younger than she is. I don't suppose it worries her one jot.

Goldie Hawn isn't looking too shabby, and she must be knocking on a bit. But then I was never as glamorous or as gorgeous as those two, not even in my prime, which is supposed to be sort of now. And Jane Fonda put us all to shame, didn't she? Leaping around like a mad thing, going for the burn when she was well past being a spring chicken. Aerobics has never been my thing, either. Oh God. I don't want to grow old, it's too depressing.

“Alicia Kingston!” Dr. James comes out of his cubbyhole and shouts my name. I fold my twenty-five-year-old copy of
Country Life,
showing ten-bedroomed houses in Surrey for one and sixpence—not that I was reading it anyway, I was just looking at the pictures—and follow him.

Shutting his consulting-room door behind me, Dr. James glides across the terra-cotta carpet, installs himself behind his big black Ikea desk and smiles his professional concerned smile. “How are you?”

“Fine, thanks.” What a stupid thing to say in a doctor's consulting room, but we all do it, don't we?

“Elliott?”

I nod. “Still in one piece.”

“Good. Good.” I am on chatting terms with my doctor mainly because I've spent so much time in here with Elliott and his various injuries. I'm amazed we escaped the “At Risk” register. “So,” Dr. James says, “what can I do for you?” He leans forward on his desk, expectantly.

“I'm not sure, really,” I say weakly. “I just don't feel great. I'm not sleeping very well. I've lost my appetite. My periods are shot to pieces. And I've got a permanent headache.”

“There's nothing specific wrong?”

Isn't that little list enough? “Well…” How can I explain that I have about as much energy as an off-duty sloth, despite just having returned from two wonderful weeks on holiday where I did fuck-all but bake myself on a sunbed.

Dr. James stands up and, looking purposeful, snaps on his stethoscope. “Let's give you an MOT, shall we?”

He checks my heart, and I'm glad to find out that I've still got one. “On the scales,” he orders.

I hate this bit. “Lost weight?” Dr. James asks.

“Have I?” I have. Loads. Yippee. Even after two weeks of gorging myself on holiday. So there are some benefits to feeling like shit.

He takes my blood pressure. “It's a bit on the high side,” he mutters, “but nothing too much to worry about. We'll keep an eye on it. When did you last have a smear test?”

I hazard a guess. “Two years ago?”

Dr. James taps expertly at his computer keyboard. “Seven, to be exact,” he says with a frown. “We'll do one now, then.”

Oh, good. I'm on my back, knees bent up and apart before you can say “lack of dignity.” The fact that I can't stand anyone rooting around that particular part of my body with a tube of KY Jelly and a cold metal prod is probably one of the reasons I've put off having a smear test done lately. Plus today it seems even more painful than ever. I don't mention it because Dr. James will probably just tell me I'm tense. Who wouldn't be?

“Don't leave it so long next time,” Dr. James says as I'm getting dressed. He is scribbling out a prescription.

“It could be stress, Alicia.”

“Really?” Tell me something I don't know!

He stops and looks up at me over the top of his glasses. “I heard about you and Ed,” he says sympathetically.

“Well, yes,” I mumble. I wonder if he has heard that Ed is threatening to prevent me seeing the children at all because I'm an unfit mother, that my young lover is one step down from a crack-cocaine dealer and that I've lost my cushy job because I was too unreliable to turn up for work when required.

“On a stress scale of one to a hundred,” he continues kindly, “divorce is right up there at the top.”

Divorce!

“It's only a few points behind bereavement and marriage,” he says without irony.

Divorce! I want to tell him that I'm not getting divorced, but I have a horrible feeling that I might be. I want to tell him that I no longer have the strength to deal with all this turmoil and that I want to go back to my safe little life and my safe little house and my safe little job typing invoices for safe little Kath Brown. I want my children back and my husband back and I have no idea how to do it, and if I'm not to sink slowly below the shifting sand beneath me, I really, really need some advice.

Dr. James looks at his watch. It's time for his next patient. He hands me the prescription. “Here, these might help,” he says.

“Thanks.”

“Nice to see you, Alicia.” He is keying the name of his next patient into his computer.

“Yes.” I smile automatically, stand up and walk to the door. And I know that it will take an awful lot more than a soppy tablet with a great long name and a million side effects to sort this mess out.