Any Way You Want Me (3 page)

‘I’ll just say goodnight.’ I raced upstairs, half-anxious, half-ecstatic at the prospect of us both leaving the kids. I stroked Nathan’s hair softly and watched as his eyelashes fluttered mid-dream. Then I went into Molly’s room and kissed her goodnight.

‘You got your beautiful top on, Mummy,’ she said approvingly.

I hugged my mum. ‘Thanks for this. Ring us about anything, won’t you? Anything. We’ll come back straight away if you need us. And . . .’

My mum put her hands on my shoulders. ‘Relax!’ she told me. ‘These two will be a doddle compared to my year tens.’

I smiled faintly. ‘Giving you grief, are they?’ I asked.

She cocked an eyebrow. ‘They try their best,’ she said. ‘They think all of us dinner ladies are fair game, but I tell them—’

‘SADIE! Taxi’s here!’ Alex bellowed from downstairs.

‘OK, coming. Bye, darling. Bye, Mum. See you later.’

‘Have a great time,’ my mum said, holding Molly up to wave.

A great time? I wasn’t too sure about that. Dinner with Alex’s new boss and some other people he worked with . . . It wasn’t exactly what I’d have chosen, but still. We were going out, just the two of us, for an evening of good food – that I hadn’t had to cook – and sparkling, intellectual, adult conversation. That was the main thing.

‘Come in,’ the man said, waving us inside. He was tall and square-shouldered, with neat, dark hair, and eyes so blue I wondered if they were colour contacts. ‘You must be Alex and Sadie.’

‘Hello,’ said Alex, putting out a hand to shake. ‘You must be Mark.’

‘Hi, Mark,’ I said. He looked as if he’d stepped out of a Paul Smith shop window with his white linen shirt and dark jeans. ‘Nice to meet you.’ He kissed me on the cheek and I breathed in his spicy scent. His skin was warm, soft as a child’s.

‘Come on in,’ he repeated. ‘Let me take your coats.’

Alex and I stepped inside onto the cream hall carpet. Thank God we weren’t there with the kids, was my automatic first thought. Pure wool, I reckoned, trying to work out how much it must have cost. I shuddered, imagining the same carpet in our house. It would have lasted ten minutes before a trashing from Molly’s muddy boots, or an explosion of carrot-coloured sick courtesy of Nathan. My children, arch-destroyers of anything remotely tasteful. I raised my eyebrows a fraction to Alex, and his grin told me he was thinking the same thing.

The immaculate carpet ran all the way along the hall and up the stairs. There was not a miniature-sized welly or snowsuit or woolly hat to be seen on the coat pegs – just several well-cut winter coats, in black, charcoal and camel colours, a couple with glistening raindrops still on the shoulders, plus – oh God! – what looked like a Lulu Guinness handbag. There were four or five lighted church candles on the windowsill at the bottom of the stairs, flames wobbling as Mark closed the front door. And the house smelled fantastic – of vanilla, beeswax polish and the drenching perfume from a vase of white lilies on a side table. Their elegant, wide trumpets splayed out rakishly, showing the golden filaments within.

‘What can I get you to drink?’ Mark asked. He hung up my coat – my shabby, two-seasons-old Gap coat – and it looked like the scruffy kid in class next to the fawn cashmere number swanking on the neighbouring peg. ‘We’ve got gin or vodka, red or white wine . . .’

‘A gin and tonic would be great,’ I interrupted eagerly. A bit too eagerly maybe, because Alex gave me a look, and Mark grinned at me.

‘One of those days?’ Mark asked.

‘It’s been one of those years,’ I replied, trying not to blush.

‘Gin, for me, too, cheers,’ Alex said, squeezing my hand.

Even though I’d lobbied hard all week for dinner
à deux
somewhere expensive and luxurious, I was starting to think Alex had been right to talk me into coming here. It was going to be like stepping into someone else’s life for an evening.

‘You know we’ll only bang on about the kids all night if it’s just the two of us,’ Alex had reasoned. ‘We do enough of that at home. At least when there are other people around, we’ll have to talk about other things.’

Other things?
I’d thought at the time.
What other things?
Alex had a whole raft of ‘other things’ aside from family life, yeah – he had football and stag dos and a social life for starters. His ‘other things’ hadn’t stopped, whereas my whole life was meshed together with Molly’s and Nathan’s. We had become a three-headed beast, a triptych. As a separate entity again, what did I have to talk about?

Three years ago, I used to say things like this:

No, I agreed with the judges. He definitely deserved to win the Booker. He has such an original voice.

And six years ago, I might have said:

I’ve been to every single shoe shop in the King’s Road today and I still can’t find the right shoes for Saturday night. My life is in ruins!

These days I say things like:

I tried Nathan with sweet potato today – he loved it!

Or:

Molly had a full-on, lie-on-the-floor-screaming tantrum in Sainsbury’s this morning. It was so embarrassing!

Still, I was sure I could get back in the swing of adult conversation – especially after I’d downed a couple more of Mark’s kick-arse G&Ts. Hmmm . . . Quick, Sadie, think.

Topics of conversation that had gripped me over dinner in the past . . .

Who was shagging who ( friends).

Who was shagging who (celebrities).

What happened on
EastEnders
last night.

Office gossip.

Other people’s office gossip.

Shoes.

‘Hello, Alex, so glad you could make it,’ a woman said, appearing in the hallway. Alex’s new boss, Julia, presumably.

I eyed her over my glass, and mentally rejected the whole list. She looked far too scary to swap gossip with and not exactly the kind of person who would willingly discuss
EastEnders
’ plotlines unless forced to do so at gunpoint.

As she walked closer, I found myself wishing I had bothered doing more post-natal sit-ups. All right then,
any
sit-ups at all in the last five years. She was tall and slim-hipped, with long, thick, chestnut hair that lay obediently waved on her shoulders. She had cheekbones you could cut your finger on, and clear green eyes. I wondered uneasily why Alex hadn’t mentioned how good-looking she was.

‘And Sadie, hello!’ she smiled, looking me up and down. I could see her teeth, neat as a string of pearls, apart from a couple of wolfish-looking incisors. ‘Nice to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you.’

‘You too,’ I lied, returning the smile in all its fakeness. I’d heard she was a bitch in the boardroom, yeah, but I hadn’t heard that she had long hair and great boobs and dressed in what looked like Dolce & Gabbana. ‘Pleased to hear that someone’s kicking Alex and the team into shape.’

‘I do my best,’ she said. Her tone was light-hearted but I noticed her squaring her shoulders as if preparing for another business meeting. She practically radiated power. My heart sank.

I was
definitely
going to need a few drinks to see me through this one.

We followed the trail of Julia’s musky perfume down the hall. Entering the living room was like stepping into a photograph straight out of
Elle Decoration
magazine – everything in tasteful neutrals. A sleek brown-leather sofa stretched along one wall with cream-coloured mohair cushions artfully arranged at the ends. My fingers itched to stroke them; my mind fought against mentally pricing them up. Heavy linen curtains hung in swags at the window and there was a fluffy pale carpet underfoot.

‘What a gorgeous room,’ I said to Julia, trying to keep the envy out of my voice. I was already feeling a creeping dread at the thought of having to throw a return dinner party and invite her round to our own bearpit. Julia, would you prefer a Bob the Builder yoghurt, or a Petit Filou? I could imagine myself saying. Oh, and our starter tonight is lukewarm Tweenies spaghetti, served on toast – don’t worry, the crusts
have
been cut off. Now, would you like a pink fork, or would you prefer to shovel it in with your fingers?

Julia put a hand lightly on my arm, and I looked at her
rouge noir
nails, long and polished. No chips. ‘Alex, you know Matthew, of course. This is Alex’s wife Sadie and Matthew’s wife Chloe.’

‘Partner,’ I said, correcting her. ‘We’re not married. Hello,’ I added to Matthew and Chloe.

There was just a tiny flicker in Julia’s eyes at my words, but the rest of us had launched into the round of hellos and how-are-yous, and she didn’t comment. Was it that she didn’t like being put right or that it made Alex even more interesting? I wondered.

I vaguely recalled meeting Matthew at one of the newspaper’s infamous office parties. He was the sports editor, whereas Alex worked on the literary section, subbing and writing occasional book reviews. Julia had been brought in as managing editor, and had promptly deleted half the senior members of staff with a single lash of her red pen. Half-admired, half-feared, she was the kind of boss who made grown men cry, according to Alex.

Matthew was tall and broad-shouldered with a broken nose and sandy-coloured hair. He had a face like a boiled ham, and piggy eyes with a devilish, roaming glint. Alex had once told me that he was a legendary womanizer. I’d have to watch what I said, I vowed hastily. I had a bad habit of blurting out bits of office gossip that Alex had told me. We’d had previous evenings of don’t mention the bottom photocopying, don’t mention the lesbian kiss, don’t mention the whisky in the filing cabinet. With Matthew, I had a feeling it was a case of don’t mention the nineteen-year-old secretary from Features.

‘Sexy Sadie!’ he boomed. ‘We meet again!’

I smiled politely, accepted his wet kiss on my cheek and tried not to choke at the blast of sickly aftershave that accompanied the lunge of his head. ‘We do indeed,’ I replied, taking a small step backwards. ‘You smell . . . nice. Brut, is it?’

God, the gin was going straight to my head. Luckily, he roared with laughter. ‘Brut! You cheeky little minx! What was it he used to say in those ads?’

‘Splash it all over!’ Henry Cooper – or rather Alex pretending to be Henry Cooper – had materialized at my side and was giving me an odd look. A shut-up kind of look. ‘Matthew, did you hear about Hannah’s promotion?’ he began, steering him away towards the window.

I had another swig of gin. It was going down very well. I turned to Chloe, whose pale fragility was the absolute negative image of her husband’s ruddy porkiness. She was a skinny little thing, shivering under her beaded top and spaghetti straps, clutching her wrap around her shoulders like a comfort blanket. She had fine, straw-coloured hair that lay flat against her head in a neat bob.

She took my hand in her bony fingers and gave me a kiss on each cheek, dab, dab. I was reminded of a toy of Molly’s where you pull a string and a miniature wooden chicken dips its head down to peck miniature wooden grain.

‘Hello, Sadie, what do you do?’ she said.

That question again. After a split second’s hesitation, I plumped for the mild bullshit option this time. ‘I suppose you could call it crisis management,’ I replied thoughtfully. ‘I’m a . . . Well, I’m basically a diplomat for two . . . clients. It’s pretty tough. They’re incredibly demanding.’

She leaned in closer to me and I could smell her perfume, light and sweet, and see the flakes of powder on her cheeks. ‘Sounds interesting,’ she said. ‘What do your clients do, exactly?’ She had an earnest, librarian-type face, and I suddenly felt mean for teasing her.

‘I . . . I’m just making it sound interesting,’ I confessed. ‘My clients are actually a two-year-old drama queen and a small baby, so . . .’

She blinked. Shit. I had offended her. I’d been rude, taken the piss. Then she laughed. ‘
That
sort of crisis management,’ she said. ‘A full-time job with endless overtime, or so I hear.’

‘Yes.’ I smiled. ‘That’s the one. How about you?’

God, I was really out of practice at small-talk. I was bloody rubbish! What was it I’d been hoping for? Sparkling, intellectual debate? Fat chance. I’d spent far too long gossiping with women who would tell you all about their stitches five minutes after you’d met them for the first time, and about how they hadn’t had sex with their husbands for six months, and about how they hated their children sometimes. What did normal people talk about? I couldn’t remember any more.

What do you do?
I hated that question. Why should what you do – or indeed, what you didn’t do – have any bearing on anyone? Why did it have to matter so bloody much? You never heard mums asking the ‘What do you do?’ question. You didn’t need to.

Oh, me? I’m the Nappy Control Area Manager, with a bit of Anger Management counselling thrown in. In my spare time, I’m halfway through a diploma in Sleep Training Without Losing Your Marbles.

I listened glumly as Chloe went on about what
she
did – some sort of financial analytical thing that meant absolutely nothing to me. She might as well have been speaking in a foreign language.
Stock market
. . .
data
. . .
FTSE 100
. . . I understood some of the individual words, but put all together, in sentences . . . Hmmm. She had me.

When she finishes banging on about the Dow Jones, I thought to myself, I’ll twist the conversation into a more interesting direction. I’ll ask her . . . I’ll ask her . . .
What
will I ask her?

I’ll ask her if she prefers Robbie Williams to Jeremy Paxman, I decided. No, I’ll ask what she thinks of Richard Madeley’s new haircut. I bit back a giggle and nodded knowledgeably as she told me about the inside info she had on the forthcoming budget. I’ll ask her what her favourite book is, I decided in the end, and then wondered what I would reply to the same question. Did
Heat
magazine count?