The Best of Times (47 page)

“Jo … Jo, I don’t know what to do. Could you come with me, please?”

“What to do about what, Sue?”

“It’s Patrick Connell. He … well, I was just changing his catheter and he said it was uncomfortable. The catheter. When I tried to insert it. Was it a piece of barbed wire, he said.”

Jo stared at her; her heart thumped uncomfortably.

“Oh, my God,” she said. “God, Sue, that is exactly, exactly what we’ve all been waiting for. Let me come in to him straightaway. But … nothing must be said to him yet. All right?”

“Of course not,” said Sue Brown, half indignantly. “That’s exactly why I’m here, not saying anything to him; I wanted your opinion.”

And thus it was that five minutes later, Jo Wales smiled radiantly at Sue Brown across Patrick’s bed, having received the same rather plaintive response as she too tried to insert the catheter, and then at Patrick himself, and said, very gently, “Patrick, I think we might have some rather good news here. I’m going to call Dr. Osborne straightaway.”

Never, as Patrick said to her, after Dr. Osborne had come up to see him personally and first peered at and then prodded it, had his modestly sized willy caused so much excitement.

• • •

“So … Barney, what would you like? Cocktail? Beer? Or should we push the boat out, have a glass of champagne? Drink to both our forthcoming nuptials?”

“I’ll have a beer, please,” said Barney.

“OK. And I think I’ll have something nonalcoholic, actually. I want to keep a clear head.”

“Fine.”

“Right … so …” She paused while she gave the order, settled back in her chair. She smiled at him, crossed her long legs rather deliberately. She was wearing a red dress and black, very high-heeled shoes; she looked … what? Slightly dangerous.

“So … what do you want to talk about?” he said.

“Well … I don’t know if Toby’s told you, but we’ve got a new date. Next May.”

“He hasn’t, no. I haven’t seen him for a bit. Now that he’s home …”

“Ah, yes. So you’re not hotfooting it down to the hospital every few days. What a good friend you were, Barney. How very … unselfish of you that was.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t mind. He’s my best friend. He … needed me.”

“Of course. Well, I hope you’re not implying I didn’t do my bit?”

“No, of course not, Tamara. Anyway, May sounds fine. Bit of a way ahead, but …”

“I know. But apart from anything else, it’s a summer wedding dress. Well, you have to think of these things. What about you, Barney; when are you and Amanda going to do it?”

“Oh, next year maybe. We haven’t really finalised it yet …”

“Just as well, perhaps.” She smiled at him oversweetly The drinks arrived. “Oh, thanks,” she said to the waiter. “Got any olives? Great.”

“Tamara,” said Barney, “what did you mean by ‘just as well’?”

“Ah. Yes. Well, you know …”

“No, I don’t know. You’ll have to explain. I’m a simple sort of chap.”

“Oh, Barney, I’ve decided you’re rather complex. Actually.”

“Because …?”

“Well, because you seem to be able to conduct two relationships at once. Not the act of a simple chap, surely.”

The noise around them seemed to intensify; and yet they seemed oddly isolated, set apart from the rest, just the two of them, staring at each other over this dangerous, deadly conversation.

“I saw you, Barney; that’s the thing. Leaving the Stafford the other night. With the pretty little doctor person. It does rather explain your devoted presence at the hospital, day after day …”

“This is a disgusting conversation,” said Barney.

“I don’t think so. If anything’s disgusting, it’s you. Playing around, cheating on just about the sweetest girl you could find anywhere.”

“Have you discussed this with Toby?”

“No, I haven’t discussed it with anyone. Yet. I wanted to get your version of it.”

“You’re not going to get any version of anything out of me, Tamara. I have no intention of discussing my personal life with you.”

“Well, I think you might have to. Unless we start with discussing something else.”

“And what’s that?”

“Starting with the reason you and Toby left so late for the wedding that day. I still haven’t had a satisfactory explanation out of either of you. I really want to know that, Barney. And if you don’t tell me, I’m going straight to Amanda. Before you have a chance to work up any kind of an explanation.”

“I’ve told you. Toby was ill. He kept being sick.”

“And why was he being sick?”

“I suppose he had some bug. I don’t know.”

“His parents didn’t mention it.”

“They didn’t know. We—specially Toby—didn’t want to worry them.”

She crossed and uncrossed her legs, began to fiddle with her necklace. It was a complex affair, a mass of small charms on a long silver chain.

“This just so doesn’t ring true, you know, Barney.”

“Look, why don’t you ask Toby?”

“I have. He says much the same. That he must have eaten something.
But you and his parents were fine. Now, I know you were stopped by the police, and that must have held you up a good twenty or thirty minutes. But then you went to a service station. What the fuck for? Making you even later.”

“Toby needed the toilet. Again.”

“No, Barney, he could have thrown up out of the car window if you were that late. I’m sorry. None of this works. I’m going to have to talk to Amanda. This evening, I should think.”

She was looking very complacent now, half smiling at him; she was clearly enjoying the conversation.

“No!” he said, knowing she must recognise his panic, trying to disguise it. “No, Tamara, not this evening. Look, I don’t want anyone—anyone—talking to Amanda except me. Which is not to say there’s anything to talk about. But please … if you don’t believe me about the wedding day, ask Toby yourself. Ask him to confirm the story.”

She looked at him, her eyes gimlet-hard, her mouth set. Then she said, “All right. I’ll give you twenty-four hours.”

“And will you talk to Toby?”

“Yes, I most certainly will. Right. Well, it’s been a fun evening, hasn’t it? Bye, Barney.”

And she stalked out of the bar on her impossibly perfect legs, pulling her cloud of hair up into a tight ponytail as she went. It was an oddly pugilistic gesture.

CHAPTER 38

“Linda? Alex.”

“Oh … Alex. Hello.” She did have a great voice: husky and sexy and expressive. “Saturday was great, Alex.”

“I thought so too.”

He was in the car, about to drive home; he smiled into the darkness, feeling a rush of pleasure, partly from hearing her voice, partly from remembering Saturday himself.

They’d gone to the theatre to see
Chicago;
it had been at his suggestion. She’d said she couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it, which he’d found mildly irritating—not everyone could spend every other evening in the theatre—but then she said she’d be more than happy to sit through it for the third time. They then went out to dinner, and talked so much and for so long that he really had missed his last train home.

“Damn,” he said, “I’ll have to get a cab. If I can. Or stay in a hotel. If I can find one.”

“Or … stay with me,” she said, and then added, a gleam in her dark brown eyes, “if you dare.”

And when he’d got flustered she’d laughed and said, “Alex, I’m not compromising you. I have a very nice spare room, and you’re very welcome to it. Don’t start talking about taxis and hotels; it’s ridiculous.”

And so he’d gone back to her incredibly smart flat, the sort of place he hated, full of aggressively stylish, uncomfortable-looking modern furniture—although she did have two wonderfully large and lush white sofas—and a lot of ridiculous and incomprehensible paintings and rather absurd ornaments.

“What would you like to drink?”

“Brandy?”

“Sounds good to me.”

She returned with a tray, poured him a very large brandy.

“Thanks.” He suddenly felt awkward; a silence formed. He looked round the room, the perfect room, looking for something to say. “It’s all extremely … tidy,” he said.

“I
am
extremely tidy. Too tidy, people tell me. It means I’m anally retentive, a control freak, all that sort of stuff. What about you?”

“I’m very untidy. So does that make me not a control freak?”

“Possibly. What do you think?”

“I don’t know, Linda. I don’t feel I know what I am anymore.”

“That’s a very sad remark,” she said, and her eyes were thoughtful as she looked at him.

“I’m afraid I’ve become a bit of a sad person. In the modern sense as well. My daughter constantly upbraids me for being sad.”

“What … as in the get-a-life sense?”

“That’s the one.”

“I don’t think that matters. Much more important if you’re actually not … not happy.”

“I’m not,” he said abruptly. “I would say I’m quite unhappy. Have been for years.”

“Alex, that’s dreadful.”

“Oh, I love my work. I love my kids. But … it isn’t very nice, living with someone who finds you totally wanting. Knowing they wish you weren’t there.”

“This is your wife, I presume.”

“It is. My about-to-be-ex-wife. We’re trying to sort out accommodation. It’s very difficult. I think I told you … we’ve sold the house, only a matter of time.”

“Do you think you’ll feel better then?”

“I hope so. I’ll miss the kids horribly.”

“But you’ll still see them, I imagine.”

“Obviously. But that’s not quite the same thing as living with them. And I worry about them, how they’ll cope.”

“Well … I don’t know them or anything about them. But living in a miserable household can’t be doing them any good either.”

Her tone was brisk, almost abrasive; it annoyed him.

“I didn’t say the household was miserable; I said I was.”

“But, Alex, if they have an ounce of sensitivity, they must know that. And it should worry them. I just think if they care about you and their mother they’ll see it’s for the best. And deal with it.”

“I don’t think you can know many teenagers,” he said. “And I don’t think you really know what you’re talking about. That’s a very simplistic view.”

She stared at him, and flushed suddenly; it was endearing, the first sign he had seen of any crack in her self-confidence.

“Sorry,” she said.

He was silent; he felt depressed and defensive, a shadow over the evening. The silence grew.

Then, “I’m sorry, Alex,” she said suddenly, surprising him, “if I upset you. And of course I don’t know what I’m talking about.” She smiled at him rather awkwardly. “I’m just terribly bossy. I can’t help it. Well, I suppose I could, if I really tried, but by the time I realise I’m doing it, it’s too late. I’ll stop now. I just … well, I just didn’t like the idea of you being unhappy all the time.”

“That’s very kind of you,” he said, “but I think I know how to look after myself.”

He could hear himself, pompous, a bit stiff.

“Right,” she said, clearly edgy herself, “how about some coffee? And brandy?”

“That’d be very nice,” he said. He didn’t really want it, but to have turned that away as well as her apology would have seemed very aggressive.

She disappeared, and he leafed rather nervously through a coffee table book on art deco in the cinema. This might have been a mistake. The whole thing might have been a mistake.

“Well,” she said on her return, “let’s start again. What shall we talk about; what would be safe? You choose a subject.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Why?”

“Well to be honest,” he said, “I’m still a bit nervous of boring you.”

“Boring me! Why? I find you not remotely boring; I promise you that.”

“I’ll try to believe you. I mean … you do lead this rather glamorous life. In theatres and so on. And I spend mine …”

“Yes. How do you spend yours; what do you do? Day by day, I mean? Tell me.”

“Oh, staring into people’s orifices. Patching them up. Not the orifices, the people. Dealing with overdoses, cardiac arrests, stab wounds, even the occasional death on site, so to speak. I mean, I love it and it’s fascinating, but it can hardly compete with first nights and talent spotting, can it?”

“Alex, I spend about ten per cent of my time at first nights. The rest is hard graft, talking to a load of rather pretentious people, trying to persuade them mediocre actors are wonderful and wonderful ones are worth hiring. And nannying actors, nursing their egos, making sure they get to auditions, listening to them whining, sorting out their money.”