Trophy Life (11 page)

Chapter 9

Amy felt utterly useless as she stood at the top of her stairs, looking down as the team of uniformed men and women organised her home. It was the night of the dinner party for Harry’s colleagues and wives, including newly divorced Greg and the addition of Lucy.

Throughout the afternoon, she had tried to help, to instruct or to interject, but honestly she found that there was no need. So proficient was the service Freddie had arranged that they seemed to know her kitchen better than she did. Working silently and efficiently they had spent the past couple of hours transforming it into a professional working space and the rest of her home into its most dazzling, sparkling self. She was unnecessary. Surplus to requirements.

At that moment, Harry walked through the front door and, ostensibly completely unflustered by the armada of trays, materials and people milling around, put down his briefcase and removed his shoes before walking straight upstairs. It was like a carefully choreographed dance, with the uniforms faultlessly sashaying around him. Like they knew every move he would make before he did it.  Behind him, Amy saw his things being removed seamlessly and silently and placed in the downstairs cupboard. As its door closed she glimpsed that it had been tidied to within an inch of its life.

Harry kissed her perfunctorily on the cheek as he reached the landing before pausing and looking at her more carefully.

'Maybe the Dior dress?' he suggested, hand on her cheek. 'And the Cartier earrings.'

Amy looked down for just a second at the outfit she had selected so carefully before following him into their bedroom and finding the items he had mentioned. Repressing the feeling that he was treating her like a doll to be styled according to his whims, she reminded herself that he always had a better eye for these things and it was more his night than hers.

'I’m so glad you’re here,' she said quietly, slipping into the new dress. 'I was feeling a bit outnumbered.' She giggled.

'Why? What, the staff?' Harry asked nonchalantly, removing a cufflink. 'I think you should be supervising them. Have you given them any instructions at all or are they just running wild?' The way Harry made it sound she had let a herd of wilder beast rampage through the house. She imagined gorillas making a mess of the living room while giraffes lazily ate the house plants.

'They’re not animals Harry,' Amy laughed, but quickly regained her composure when she saw he was serious. 'Look, they seem to know what they’re doing. There’s a plan and Freddie has briefed them really well.'

'Who?' Harry asked, but didn’t wait for her to elaborate. 'Look all I know is that mummy would never leave the staff unattended for this long. They need
guidance
.' He delivered this last sentence in the tone one might employ to house train a particularly slow chimp.

'Ok, I’ll see what I can do,' she sighed. Yet all she succeeded in doing when she went downstairs was to trip over the vacuum cleaner and almost knock over a large vase of lilies. She decided to sit quietly in a corner.

Relief flooded her when the doorbell finally rang. Running past a uniformed man who was clearly on his way to answer it and pipping him to the post by an inch, she threw open the door bearing her widest smile.

Jill and Andrew stood on the doorstep, Jill’s smile looking more than a bit strained while Andrew had his face in his phone, apparently reading an email or maybe just checking the footy scores.

'Amy, darling,' Jill declared, throwing her arms around her and kissing her on both cheeks. 'Everything looks amazing.'

Andrew managed to tear his face away from the screen long enough for a quick air kiss and a 'How you doing?' Andrew had never been particularly loquacious; something which never seemed to matter given that Jill spoke enough for both of them. Sadly though, when he did speak, his views often tended to be shallow and fairly extreme. Andrew was the kind of guy who believed capital punishment was due to make a comeback.

'Andrew, Jill, so good to see you,' Harry’s voice intoned expansively behind her. Amy turned to see that he was coming down the stairs like a gameshow host at the beginning of the night, all smiles and elaborate gestures. This was Harry at his best. With an audience.

Claire and Graham soon followed and everyone was in the living room sipping wine when the doorbell rang again.

'That could either be Lucy or Greg,' Amy said quietly to Harry. As discussed, she had invited Lucy and had left it to him to invite his final colleague. This time she allowed one of the waiters to answer so she could stay with the guests.

'Oh, didn’t I mention?' Harry said. 'Greg couldn’t make it.'

Surprised, Amy couldn’t really say anything further in front of all the guests, but found this revelation astonishing. Why hadn’t he mentioned it earlier? There would be an uneven number at the table. A place name left unattended. She didn’t care in the least, but it was the kind of thing that would usually give Harry palpitations. She also felt a bit awkward for Lucy as the only singleton there.

'He had too much work,' Harry whispered as if hearing her thoughts.

Before she could say anything further, Lucy entered the room and the air was filled with greetings and air kisses. It still took Amy a second or two to adjust her view of Lucy every time she saw her, especially when, as tonight, she looked like she’d mugged a runway model.

In a knee-length white shift dress cinched at the waste with a thin black belt, her hair prettily tousled down past her shoulders, she looked effortless. Even Andrew seemed to notice, giving her body an approving assessment starting at her feet. As his eyes moved up, he paused for a minute upon reaching her face, his own bearing an undeniably disappointed expression which revealed that it didn’t meet the promise of what he had seen lower down. Amy bristled. It was true that Lucy would never win a beauty contest, but Amy felt protective over her friend.

Dinner was an absolute triumph. Their dining room had been transformed into a picture of Japanese simplicity, while everything from the dinnerware to the floral arrangements had a Far-Eastern feel to it. Each course elicited an audible gasp from the guests and their hosts as it arrived.

Harry took it all in his stride, overseeing the night with the pride and nobility of a feudal lord at a banquet.

'Oh yes well, I like Sushi Samba, but when it comes to raw fish there’s nowhere like Nobu,' he said at one point. 'I simply don’t understand why people would go anywhere else for their sushi.'

When the conversation turned to work, the subject of divorce was quickly on the table. Harry started to tell the story of a particularly wealthy client who had recently fought tooth and nail with his manicurist wife over his cosmetics fortune.

'Well I said to him,' Harry laughed in preparation of the witticism he was about to deliver. 'I know she’s a nightmare that’s after all your money,' quick pause for the punchline, 'but
you
married her.' Harry was gratified when this incited a big roar of laughter from his colleagues. The women were generally more circumspect.

'But what about the children?' Claire asked indignantly after elbowing Graham. 'She raised his four children, obviously with the nanny, but I’m sure she did plenty let me tell you.' Claire’s three children were themselves being raised by a large Bulgarian girl called Marika.

'The real question is, what’s fair,' Harry said in a measured tone which was met with nods from Andrew and Graham. 'He’s worked all his life, night and day to earn his fortune-'

'He inherited it!' Claire and Amy interjected at the same time.

'But he had to keep it, that’s not easy,' Andrew slurred, waving his third glass of wine around.

'That’s right,' said Harry. 'She meanwhile didn’t earn a cent once they were married – barely earned anything beforehand either - and yet expected to get half his money. That doesn’t seem very fair to me. I mean, yes, the children by law have to be kept in the same lifestyle as the father, but she didn’t need half.'

'I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have got half if she tried,' Claire said into her wine glass. 'Didn’t he hide most of it in Switzerland or something?'

'I heard Lichtenstein,' said Jill dryly.

'What are you saying?' Amy asked, trying not to connect what Harry had just said to their own situation. 'Raising children isn’t important?'

'Of course, raising the children is a valuable and important job,' Harry continued, his voice sugary, humouring her. 'But you don’t do it for money. We shouldn’t be paying wives to raise children. That’s not what family is.'

'Well Amy dear I would hold out on providing that heir and a spare until Harry raises the rate of childcare,' Jill nudged her and the two women high fived.

Amy could see Harry looking miffed as they did so and felt a pinch of guilt, but at that moment she didn’t care enough to stop herself. If he was able to talk about marriage and parenthood with such blithe disregard, why should she show him any respect?

'So, you're saying,' Amy went on, emboldened by Malbec. 'That these husbands are happy to let their children suffer all so they can teach their wives a lesson?'

'Ex-wives,' Graham said grumpily.

'Exactly!' Harry said triumphantly. '
Ex
-wives. They are no longer together. What right have they to take away what wasn’t theirs in the first place?'

At this point, it was as if the floodgates hadn’t so much as opened as been overrun by a torrent of raucous speech. Everybody vied to talk over everybody else, the women outraged at the prospect of their roles as mothers being demeaned, the men at first boisterous in their alcohol fuelled tirades and then later, still breathless from laughter, each soothing their wives in an attempt to forestall any post party consequences.

As dinner slowly drew to a close, Amy and Lucy went into the kitchen to check on the coffees and after dinner supplies while the rest of the crowd chatted in the living room. In truth, they didn’t have to check on anything. The staff was so incredibly well prepared, Amy found it intimidating, but it was a good excuse for a gossip.

'I thought you were going to try to set me up with some awful lawyer from the firm. Thank goodness you didn’t,' Lucy whispered sotto voce as they leaned against Amy’s vast kitchen island.

'Ah, well,' Amy said sheepishly. 'That might have happened, but he wasn’t able to make it apparently.'

'You know I hate blind dates and worse even set ups.' Lucy rolled her eyes.

'But you never seem to go on proper dates,' Amy insisted. 'You deserve someone and I just want to see it happen.'

'We can’t all be like you and Harry.' Was there a note of bitterness in Lucy’s voice? If there was, it was gone in the next second. 'I can’t believe this dinner. It’s been incredible. Where did you find that chef?'

For some reason, Amy felt she had to look around to check nobody was listening before answering. 'Wasn’t he amazing?' The chef had combined an incredible ability to cook with some real showmanship. 'Freddie,' she whispered. 'He helped with the whole thing.'

Lucy looked surprised, 'Freddie? As in
university
Freddie?'

Amy nodded animatedly. 'We’ve been working together on the Society dinner and I was desperate for help on this. He was so good. Put the whole thing together.' She was enjoying talking about him.

'You’re not-'

'No!' Amy yell-whispered, stopping Lucy before she could even voice her thoughts.

With a mix of excitement and paranoia, Amy looked over her shoulder towards the buzzing living room to check nobody had heard.  'Of course not. I would never do anything like that. He’s just helping me because I was stuck.' Yet, deep down, she felt thrilled by the fact that Lucy had even thought she and Freddie might be having some kind of illicit relationship. As if just the fact that someone else linked them romantically was a sign that it was supposed to happen. 

Not that she would ever do something like that. She imagined the shame and disappointment her parents would feel if she ever disrespected the sanctity of marriage; something that they held so dear. The thought was heart breaking as well as sobering.

'So do you have to see him loads now?' Lucy asked, a glint in her eye.

'Not loads. We’re going to this wedding tomorrow and then there are just some meetings here and there.' Amy tried to ignore her feeling of excitement at the thought of seeing Freddie again.

Just then, Jill and Claire came in, each holding a glass of dessert wine.

'Amazing evening,' Claire gushed. 'You have to give me the name of your caterer.'

Lucy and Amy exchanged glances.

'The ‘men’ are talking work again,' Jill rolled her eyes and put quote marks around the word ‘men’.

'The only divorce that’s not been discussed is Greg and Linda’s,' Claire said, her eyes wide. 'It’s like she disappeared.'

'What do you mean?' Amy was bewildered.

'It’s always the way,' Claire said. 'Once you’re gone, you’re gone. Out.' Her eyes were still wide like saucers. She reminded Amy of a conspiracy theorist. Clearly Jill wasn’t impressed either.

'A bit dramatic, Claire,' she laughed. 'Who’s representing Linda anyway?'

'Who do you think?' Claire asked and they all said in unison, 'Marshall Shawe'.