Having It All (20 page)

For a moment she looked at the chic woman staring back at her and thought of David making love to her in that suit. She should have known that their values were drifting apart. He believed
success was a God to be worshipped and striven for no matter what the cost, and she didn’t. Maybe it was as simple as that.

Stepping out into the street she saw a cab immediately and hailed it.

When the taxi-driver dropped her off at the restaurant, Liz couldn’t help noticing that he watched her departing legs appreciatively. On the pavement outside she stopped
for a moment and looked up, smiling bitterly. Of all the restaurants in London Mel had chosen one called Ménage à Trois.

Mel was already waiting at their table. She always made a point of arriving five minutes early at any restaurant to get the inside seat so she could survey the scene and be first to find out who
was screwing whom without missing out on a word of gossip. Mel reckoned the best position for this activity was midway between the Ladies, the Gents and the Exit.

‘Hey, you look great! Unemployment obviously suits you!’ Liz smiled at Mel’s tone of undisguised admiration. She knew Mel thought she didn’t bother enough with her
appearance most of the time. Well, today she had.

‘So, how
are
you? The media’s buzzing with stories of how you gave Conrad what for.’ Mel was eager to get the blow-by-blow resignation story.

‘Oh that.’

‘What do you mean “Oh that”? That’s all people are talking about in The Groucho.’

But Liz had never shared Mel’s obsession with media gossip, and anyway after last night it seemed trivial by comparison. What she really wanted to talk about was David.

Britt tapped her fingers on the steering wheel in irritation and drove round the block for the third time looking for a parking space. She knew she shouldn’t have brought
the car, that you have to put yourself down at birth to get a meter in Knightsbridge, but she needed it afterwards or she’d have no chance of getting to her meeting.

When David had called an hour ago, she’d known instantly something was wrong. His guilt at betraying Liz was an irritant she’d learned to live with, but this morning it had got out
of hand. He wasn’t a natural deceiver. To a lot of men she’d met adultery was a way of life. But not David. He’d sounded close to tears when he’d demanded to see her, and
her intuition told her that when he did he was going to dump her.

For a moment she considered just driving away and heading off the pain by avoiding it altogether. Maybe she’d just phone up and leave a message saying she couldn’t make it. And then
just as she was about to put her foot down, a Golf drove out of a parking space immediately in front of her and, with the instincts of a London driver who knows the odds against such a piece of
good fortune to be several million to one, she drove deftly in and parked.

The meter was three feet away from the entrance to Ménage à Trois and it had almost two hours on the clock. That kind of good luck made her suspicious. It was too good to be true.
Telling herself she was getting to be a superstitious old hag like her mother, she swung her long legs out of the car and strode towards the restaurant, just as David’s chauffeur slowed down
outside it.

Inside the restaurant Mel listened to Liz’s tale of woe and tried to catch the waiter’s eye. This was definitely going to be a two-bottle lunch.

‘So, what should I do?’ Liz leaned closer to Mel and tried to keep her voice down. ‘Force a confrontation? Make him admit he’s having an affair? Or just accept that
we’ve got different values now and that maybe it’s time we split up?’

‘Bullshit!’ Mel banged her empty glass down with such force that the people at the next table glanced at her nervously. ‘This has nothing to do with different values. The
guy’s bonking his brains out, that’s all! It’s just bad timing. Look. He’s feeling guilty as hell – quite right too, the bastard! – and you hit him with the news
you’re sacrificing your all to be with him just when he’s hoping you’ll go off on a tour of TV stations in Hong Kong!’

Miraculously a second bottle appeared, without Liz even noticing Mel ordering it. But then Mel spoke that secret sign language known by waiters everywhere. She poured them another glass.

‘Look, Lizzie, what David needs now isn’t warm slippers and steak-and-kidney pie. It would scare the hell out of him. What he needs is space. And if you’ve got any sense
you’ll see that it’s still you and the kids he loves.’ She patted Liz’s hand encouragingly. ‘All he wants from her is to have his prick dipped in whipped cream and be
told he’s the greatest fuck in the history of the world, ever.’ Mel sipped her wine. ‘I know it doesn’t sound like it, but believe me, it’ll pass. In a few weeks time
he’ll get over it. The wife always wins. Believe me, I know. I’ve lost to her often enough! Wait for the signs. He’ll start coming home while it’s still light and when the
phone goes in the middle of the night he’ll be as pissed off as you are. He’ll snuggle up to you in bed, and ask for Ovaltine.
That’s
when you whip out the home cooking.
A couple of gourmet dinners by the fireside with optional extras for dessert and he’ll love having you at home. And if he doesn’t then that’s the time to start wondering if you
have irreconcilable differences, not now. Trust Auntie Mel.’

Liz giggled for the first time in what seemed like days. ‘But I don’t know if I can just ignore it. What I can’t bear is not being sure. We’ve always been straight with
each other, always talked about everything that mattered. I want him to admit it if he’s having an affair and that’s why he’s being so shitty. It’d be so much easier if it
were out in the open.’

‘Who are you kidding? Of course it wouldn’t! It would ruin everything!
Never ask
, that’s the only bit of marital advice my Mum’s ever given me. Dad was the
Warren Beatty of Golders Green but not once did she ask if he was being unfaithful. Admittedly she thought of having him followed but that’s only human. And then she reckoned why did she want
to spoil a perfectly good marriage by knowing the truth. So she didn’t.’ Mel grinned outrageously. ‘They’re celebrating their fortieth anniversary next month.’

‘But, Mel, that’s terrible! That might have been OK for our mothers, but we believe in openness and honesty and talking things through and all those other mad, crazy sixties
concepts, don’t we?’

‘Of course we do. When it suits us.’

Liz sipped her wine and thought about what Mel had said. Outrageous though it was, it made a lot of sense. Surely there was enough good in their marriage to make it worth fighting for? If she
chucked in the towel now David would probably move in with whatever dumb twenty-year-old he was having the affair with. She started to feel better. ‘So you reckon in a few weeks everything
will be all right? Mel? Mel?’

But Mel didn’t answer. She was staring at a man and a woman who had just walked into the restaurant and were standing with their backs towards Liz waiting to be shown to their table. With
a blinding flash of horror Liz saw why Mel was transfixed by them.

The man was David.

The woman with him had just sat down and been handed an enormous menu. All Liz could see of her was short blonde hair and an expensive white suit.

Suddenly Liz turned cold. It could have been anyone, David had working lunches every day of the week, but she knew instinctively that this wasn’t a working lunch. This was
her
. A
knot of panic seized her stomach and turned it over violently. What should she do? No matter what Mel said about riding it out she couldn’t sit here calmly and pretend this wasn’t
happening.

Neither of them had seen Liz and Mel in the far corner of the restaurant and as the woman turned to ask the waiter a question Liz saw with amazement that it was Britt. A wave of warm, reassuring
relief flowed through her, making her almost laugh out loud. Smiling, she jumped to her feet and headed in their direction wondering why David hadn’t mentioned he was lunching with Britt. But
then it hadn’t been much of a morning for small talk.

A few feet from their table she smelt the strong musky tones of the perfume Britt always wore and she stood still for a second, trying to think why she recognized it.

Suddenly the truth exploded into her mind with such force that it almost sent her reeling. It had been on David’s clothes. And for the first time she knew with absolute certainty who it
was that David was having the affair with. It wasn’t a PR bimbo, or an adoring secretary or a starry-eyed reporter. It was Britt.

And now David had seen her. Like Mel, he sat immobile, his conversation dying on his lips as she walked towards him. And for a split second she saw an answering panic in his eyes too.

Never ask.
Mel’s mother’s recipe for marital happiness rang in her ears, mocking her.

‘Are you having an affair with Britt?’ she asked in a low clear voice.

All around them heads swung round, Britt’s included.

David said nothing. And she remembered what a bad liar he was. It was one of the things she’d always liked about him. She’d thought it meant you could trust him.

‘I suppose it was all her fault.’ Liz refused to look at Britt. Britt the Bitch. Britt the Betrayer.

Slowly David looked up at her, not letting himself off the hook. ‘No it wasn’t all her fault.’ His voice sounded tired. ‘I’m sorry, Liz. I really am.’

All her life she’d had trouble losing her temper, but now she felt anger, blessed and cleansing, bubble up inside her. And though she’d never done anything like this ever before she
raised her long-stemmed glass quite slowly and deliberately and threw the wine in his face, noting with pleasure that it soaked Britt’s white suit as well.

And she heard her own voice say, with surprising control, ‘I think you’d better move out.’ For a moment David said nothing. If only he’d say,
Don’t Liz,
let’s talk about this!
maybe they could still save their marriage.

But he didn’t.

‘Yes.’ She could hear the deadness in his voice and she knew that it was too late, that whatever feeling he’d had for her was over. ‘Yes,’ he repeated,
‘perhaps I had.’

As Liz glanced round the restaurant the other diners quickly looked back at their plates, but she knew they’d heard every word. Mustering her dignity she turned round. At least I look my
best, she thought irrelevantly, not the downtrodden wife.

The moment felt so unreal that she half expected a round of applause.
Don’t be ridiculous
, she told herself, as she walked blindly out of the restaurant.
This isn’t the
adverts. This is Real Life.
And as she hailed a cab the tears she’d been desperately fighting off, praying she’d at least be left with her dignity, finally began to fall till they
streaked her careful make-up and stained the bright yellow of her favourite suit.

The house was mercifully empty when she got back. She couldn’t cope with facing Jamie and Daisy at the moment, she needed to be by herself. Mel had come running after her
and had tried to insist on coming back with her but she’d refused. There are moments in life when no one can help you and this was one of them. There are times when you want to cry and wallow
and lose yourself in your misery. Only then, when the crying is over, do you want to talk about it. And then you can’t talk enough. You crave endless reruns of every scene, desperate to
analyse each word, each nuance of every conversation you ever had that led inexorably towards this disaster.

For now she just wanted to cry. She had been brave in the restaurant when it had mattered, and now she didn’t want to be brave any more. But now that she wanted them, the tears
wouldn’t come and she lay on her bed,
their
bed, numb and empty, looking around at the trophies of their dead marriage. Wedding photographs. Mementoes of happy holidays. An old
Mother’s Day card. And then, on the bedroom floor, she saw the toy that David had tripped over this morning, a century before, and she began finally to cry. Huge, racking sobs that shook her
body, until her head was aching and her throat was sore, and she wished desperately for her own mother and knew that she was an adult, alone and beyond her mother’s help, that her mother
wasn’t strong enough to be burdened with her grief, had had enough of her own, until finally she curled into the foetal position and fell asleep.

An hour later she drifted back into consciousness like a diver who fights to get up for air yet knows there is terrible danger waiting for him on the surface.

OhGodOhGodOhGod. Let it not be true! Don’t let my life have fallen apart just when I thought it was coming together!

And as she climbed out of bed the awful realization hit her that the worst was still to come: she had to tell the children. And what on earth
would
she tell them? The truth, or some
gentle lie to soften the blow? What would be easier for them in the long run?

For a moment a wave of bitterness washed over her. Why was it always she who picked up the pieces?
Because you wanted to be at the centre of your family, the lynchpin of their lives. And
this is the price you pay. The pain as well as the pleasure.

Slowly she sat up and stared at the bedside clock. Four o’clock. Susie had obviously taken the children out to tea. That should give her at least an hour to pack David’s things and
call a taxi before they got back.

Carefully she locked the bedroom door in case they came back early and wanted to see what she was doing. She took his suitcases from the wardrobe and began to pack, a joyless parody of the
countless times she’d packed for weekends away, or holidays abroad. Happy times. Now there would be no more weekends or holidays.

Methodically she searched the room for every item of clothing, every possession or knicknack of David’s, wanting to exorcize his presence from her life as well as from their bedroom. But
even after every shirt and jacket, every pair of trousers, the last bottle of aftershave, even after his tennis racket was neatly packed away, his presence still seemed all around her. The Lego
truck he had helped Jamie build only yesterday, the small piles of change he took from his trouser pockets to stop them bulging, even the empty wardrobe reminded her agonizingly of David, his
energy and immediacy, the way he made life fun. And for the second time she sat down and began to cry.