The Ex-Wives (18 page)

He topped up his glass. Penny had once said: ‘You're just an old soak. You're not even brave enough to be an alcoholic!' A remark he had felt was both glib and deeply meaningless; typical of a journalist.

Lorna wasn't like that. What had happened to Lorna the country-lover, the bird-spotter? He had loved her once. He could get quite maudlin, thinking about those missed opportunities. The right woman at the wrong time, and – my God – vice versa. No point in it, really. He was alone now. There was nobody just to be around, somewhere in the flat, when he opened his income tax demands. At certain moments even an unsupportive woman was better than nothing. He'd better go and see the blasted porter about the blasted pilot light.

Buffy tried to raise himself from his armchair. George, who had been sitting beside him, thumped his tail and climbed to his feet. Buffy sat down again; the whole operation seemed too complicated, just now. George sank back to the floor.

Celeste . . . oh, Celeste . . .

CELESTE SAT IN
the candlelight, drinking a glass of wine. She had got the idea of the candles from Jacquetta's house; she had bought them at the late-night shop and stuck them in saucers around the room. How magical! She could no longer see the damp patches on the wall, or the marks where the previous tenants had hung their pictures. Though she had put away her little crucifix, though the tentative faith she had once possessed had been rocked to its shallow foundations, the candles made her room feel sacred and somehow stiller than usual, even though the shadows danced elastically and the rabbits hopped around the carpet. Wine-drinking was a habit she had picked up from Penny. A glass or two in the evening, that was all. Sancerre, because that was
what Penny had been drinking and Celeste didn't know any other kind. She tipped back her glass and drained it. If Buffy's exes could do all this, why couldn't she?

Since she had visited Penny, the week before, two more large boxes had been delivered. She had unpacked everything and laid out the objects on every available surface. She didn't know where these objects were going to be photographed, or when – nobody had mentioned this or indeed how much money she herself was going to be paid – but she needed to display them so that she could write down their descriptions and divide them into groups.

Growing Things
was one. Flowerpots had been constructed from just about anything that was vaguely cylindrical, lampshades included. Seedling trays had been made out of the paper cups from boxes of chocolates and the cut-off fingers of rubber gloves. By pricking holes in the bottom of a sports holdall someone had created a capacious Gro-Bag –
with handy travel handles
said the accompanying note, though it didn't explain why one should want to take tomatoes anywhere.
Safety Aids
was another group. This included a pair of child's waterwings constructed from the styrofoam shapes used to pack a hi-fi. Broken rubber bands, knotted together, provided the straps.
Handy Hints
was a general sort of title, used
for things like coffee-cup cosies made out of discarded sweaters and a stamp-moistener made from an empty roll-on deodorant bottle.

Just looking at them made her feel obscurely weary. She was starting to realize that no classification was really possible, even by a mind as logical as hers. Some of the objects seemed to have three or four uses and some seemed to have no use at all. Even if they had a use, she could never imagine anyone actually using them. And she still hadn't worked out the thing with the colander. Ranged around the room in the candlelight, they resembled religious offerings donated by a deeply confused congregation. One of the rabbits was already nibbling at a bundle of cut-up tights, which had been accompanied by a long explanatory letter she seemed to have lost.

She had a suspicion that the whole business was getting out of hand. Besides, there was something else that disturbed her, some symbolic meaning to it all that she didn't want to examine. It seemed to be to do with Buffy, and her place in his life. What had Penny said about 100 uses for a discarded husband? Maybe he saw her as a new shoot growing from the rubbish tip of his past – a rubbish tip which daily grew in size as she discovered more about it. Old tights and all.

She mustn't think about this; not now. She missed him desperately; she longed to pick up the phone. But she mustn't; not yet. Instead she looked at his sons' rabbits. One of them was eating a digestive biscuit which she had laid out on a plate, along with some lettuce leaves and a bit of cucumber. Under the table stood their cardboard box. Its bottom was damp from their long voyage and littered with droppings like spilled raisins. The sticker saying
Guilt: A User's Guide
was peeling off. Not surprisingly, the rabbits showed no inclination to go back into it. If only somebody had sent something really useful, something that could be turned into a hutch! She would have to buy one tomorrow, in her lunch hour, if she could find a pet shop. The rabbits were all black, and larger than she had thought at first; they weren't really babies at all. But it was nice to have some company; she had always liked animals and had been devoted, as a child, to her guinea-pig Jonathan. His death had been her first acquaintanceship with grief. When she had needed to stop giggling – during school prayers, say – she only needed to picture his stiff little body to come to a shuddering halt.

She poured herself another glass of wine. She needed to talk to Buffy, soon. His voice was inside her head. He was so familiar that she felt she had known him all her life, that his voice had been there
since she had sat in the armchair sucking her thumb. All the questions swimming around her brain, he could answer them or at least have a go. She loved him for that; she had never known a chatty man. Why do people's Walkmen always seem to be playing the same tune? Last summer she had wondered this, briefly; nobody she had met, then, would have been equipped with any sort of reply. Why do all French people's handwriting look the same? (Her whole class, at one time, had had French pen-pals).

But there were questions much more urgent than these, questions so painful that her stomach clenched. The trouble was, she couldn't ask them. He would just think her insane – insane with jealousy. He wouldn't even be flattered.
Why are you so obsessed with my ex-wives?
She couldn't tell him the reason – not yet.

There was only one person she could ask: Jacquetta. Jacquetta would know.

She could phone. She knew the number. A rabbit, sitting on its haunches, was nibbling one of her spider plants. Celeste sat beside the phone, not moving. Nine o'clock came and went. Footsteps thumped up and down the stairs. India had come and gone but she didn't know that. Time passed.
The ceiling creaked; music played. Her building was a-whisper with transactions.

Celeste didn't phone; she didn't dare. She blew out the candles and went to bed. In the house of secrets she lay, her eyes closed, vibrating gently to the underground trains. In the other room the rabbits were busy. At some point she heard the muffled thud of a plant pot, one of her spider plants no doubt, as it fell to the carpet.

The next day, energised by the bright shop, by being at work, she felt emboldened. There was a buzz in the air. Mr Singh's oldest daughter was sitting the exam for a private school, and he kept rushing to the phone to see if she was home yet. On their display stands the women's faces filled Celeste with courage. Such beauty, such miracles. Be a Vamp! Be a Blonde! Get into private school! Shake a bottle and anything could happen. Each package was filled with possibilities. She could change her life, change her accent . . .

Mr Singh put down the phone. She asked if she could use it.

She paused, her hand on the receiver. Her courage drained away. What excuse could she use this time? At some point, surely, even Jacquetta might get suspicious.

It was then, as she stood there, that the door pinged and a long black figure entered the shop. Its matted hair stood up, like a surprised person in a cartoon.

It was Tobias. Or was it Bruno? One of Buffy's sons. Just for a moment, as he stood there in the harsh strip lighting, she saw the resemblance – the nose, the posture.

‘Oh,' he mumbled, surprised. ‘Hello.'

Tobias had been going to visit his Dad. He did this secretly, creeping out of the house like a married man committing adultery. It was not that his Mum and Leon disapproved. Far from it. Leon in fact encouraged him to maintain a relationship with his father – the main reason, of course, for him to never let on that he did. Leon! What a wanker.

His half-sister India visited Blomfield Mansions quite a lot, he knew that. But it was only recently that he had begun to see why. His Dad's life was such a mess, that was partly why. It made even
him
feel sorted-out. There was something about his Dad's glaring inadequacies that made him, Tobias, feel miraculously mature. Besides, now Penny was gone he felt sorry for the old tosser. There was something sort of simple about his Dad's ramshackle life. At home everything was so muddy – his Mum so tricky
and abstracted, his stepdad so fucking understanding. What do you do when a bloke gives you condoms? Where do you go from there? Didn't Leon realize that the point about being sixteen was to be
misunderstood?

Oh, it was more than that. It was lots of things. He didn't want to analyse it, they had enough of that psychological crap at home. Basically, he was skiving off school and he needed some dosh. His Dad always lent him money – if he had any – because he was a soft touch and anyway he always felt guilty about being such a rotten father. There was a quid pro quo here.

So when Tobias rang the doorbell and just got the barking dog he felt disappointed, for several reasons, that his father wasn't at home. (In fact Buffy, who had a splitting hangover, was down at the BBC narrating a documentary about pygmies but nobody else knew that.)

Tobias took the lift to the ground floor, went out, and walked round the corner to the local chemists. He needed to buy some Phisomed for his pimples. He opened the door and came face to face with the person who had taken his rabbits.

‘Oh, hello,' he grunted. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and shuffled his feet. How fucking embarrassing. The point of buying zit stuff
at this shop was that nobody knew him. Now, if he were buying some spray, say, to curb the powerful sexual scent he gave off, something like that . . .

He edged towards the other assistant, the big plain one. She was sitting on a stool reading a women's magazine. He looked over her shoulder at the article:
The Pros and Cons of Stomach Stapling
. But it was no good; the other one came up to him.

‘Hello.' She smiled at him. ‘Your rabbits are doing really well. Bigger every day. Is there anything I can get you?'

Tobias felt his face heating up. You try to be cool and then what happens? You frigging
blush
. What a divhead! He liked her. She was older than the girls he knew, of course; she must be, like, early twenties. But it was the girls his age who seemed the old ones, with their boots and their loud dismissive voices and the way they looked bored all the time even when they were laughing about something he didn't understand. The way they wore badges saying
I Practise Safe Sex
and totally ignored him. He had grown up with some of them, he had been to primary school with them, but by now they looked as if they'd never been young at all.

He couldn't ask for the pimple lotion, not now. So he mumbled something he had heard the last time he had been listening to anybody at home.

‘My Mum was talking about you,' he muttered. ‘She said she wanted you to sit for her.'

‘Sit for her? Where?'

‘Like . . .' He rolled his eyes. He always did this when he talked about his Mum's work. ‘Like, she wants to paint you.'

She stared at him.
She
blushed now – a pink glow that spread up her face and matched her overall. ‘She does? Really?'

AT THE HAPPY
Eater it was lunchtime all day, breakfast time too, anytime. Meals looped and repeated themselves like the Muzak, ravelling and unravelling. Lorna walked from the kitchen to the tables, the tables to the kitchen. Her head was swimming with the names of plants. Birds she knew about, but plants . . . plants she was just learning. Her legs ached. She was getting too old for this.

Way across England, somewhere near Swindon, Miles sat in a Little Chef. He was mopping up ketchup with a piece of bread. Outside, traffic droned. He swallowed the last mouthful and lit up a cigarette. He had started smoking again. He knew it was unfair, to blame this on his wife, but that's what he
did. After all, there was nobody to stop him. His marriage was like a cot-death. Barely begun, it had turned over on its face and stopped breathing. Nobody noticed, least of all his wife. Around him people carried on shovelling in mouthfuls of peas.

Meanwhile, in London, Penny sat in the Groucho Club nibbling a goat's cheese pizza. She was interviewing a blockbuster writer. As he droned on she watched the looping ribbon of her cassette recorder. Round and round it went, filling itself with his words. He was telling her about his Cotswolds mansion. As he talked about his tennis court she suddenly thought:
Rich people never have to write their initials on their tennis balls
. This struck her as so true, so witty, that she thought:
Must tell Buffy tonight
. Then she realized that she couldn't. This sensation still hit her. Months, it had been, and it still hit her.

Outside, a wintry sun shone. A mile away, shoppers in Knightsbridge were heading for sandwich bars. One of them was a middle-aged woman Buffy had slept with a quarter of a century earlier, an incident forgotten by both of them. She was emerging from Harrods, where she had just bought a party dress for her grand-daughter. Her reflection flashed against the window; behind the glass stood the
mannequins Quentin had arranged. Her reflection flashed, and was gone.