These Days of Ours Read online

  After the blow of Charlie’s desertion, it was a revelation that somebody could love her. The somebody turned out to be quite a catch. Not because Julian was a property mogul in the thick of a housing boom, but because he was steadfast and loyal, employing none of the cat and mouse tactics he’d used with Becca. Kate would look up from a book and find his hooded blue eyes on her, studying her, as if revising to sit an exam in Kate Minelli.

  ‘What do you see in me?’ Kate asked, genuinely curious, when he took her to meet the folks and she was cowed by the manor house, his father’s drawled vowels, his mother’s assertive way with a pashmina.

  ‘I see my future wife,’ Julian answered.

  Not long after that, Becca had sought her out, blurted, ‘Charlie and me are getting married! Say you’re happy for me or I’ll call it off I swear, honest to God.’

  ‘Of course I’m happy for you.’

  Kate’s new life fitted seamlessly over the old and when she accepted Julian’s ring (an heirloom emerald the size of an egg) so soon after her cousin announced her engagement to Charlie, it was coincidence.

  ‘Sheer coincidence,’ Kate insisted to her worried father as they celebrated the good news. ‘He’ll look after me, Dad.’

  ‘I brought you up to look after yourself, young woman,’ said Dad. ‘But if you’re happy, I’m happy.’

  ‘And I’m happy!’ Kate told him.

  In the powder room it was the dregs of the wedding day. Kate fantasised about the moment she could unlace her corset. Becca was tweaking her headdress in the mirror, peering critically at her front teeth as if they might have changed since she got married. Charlie watched his new wife with a mixture of wariness and excitement, like a child let loose in a sweet shop.

  She’s shaken him up, thought Kate. He looks like all his birthdays have come at once. Charlie had never experienced the full glare of Becca’s headlights until they began dating. She’d paid him scant attention when he was just her cousin’s fella; now that he was her property Charlie was lavished with attention, the happy object of her saucy affections. He was breathless, like a child who keeps going back, time and again, for one more ride on the rollercoaster.

  It wasn’t jealousy that Kate felt. That wasn’t the right word for it. A year of double dating had seen her swim upstream through jealousy, resentment, disbelief and anger until she reached acceptance. Now all she felt, when she saw their heads together, one dark, one fair, was a twinge of irritation that Charlie hadn’t cast his net just that tiny bit wider.

  Knowing it was hypocritical didn’t diminish the feeling.

  ‘Could somebody explain,’ said Dad, hovering by the door with Uncle Hugh at his side, interlopers among the girlish trappings of the ladies’ loo, ‘why Hugh and I paid for a reception when everybody’s in the toilets?’

  ‘The ladies have minds of their own, John,’ said Julian.

  ‘That’s hardly news.’ Dad had an arm’s length accord with the newest recruit to the family. Kate’s heart went out to her sweet, doing-his-best father, whose Chinese trip had been postponed yet again to make Becca’s deranged matrimonial dreams come true. Kate would have preferred a registry office and a long lunch, but Julian had been keen to ‘do it properly’, so Becca got her way.

  ‘Any news?’ asked Aunty Marjorie.

  ‘No.’ Uncle Hugh was solemn; he tailored his demeanour to his wife’s needs at all times. ‘Not yet. I’m sure Di will pull through.’

  ‘And are you a doctor?’ barked Aunty Marjorie.

  ‘Well, no,’ admitted Uncle Hugh, who was a financial advisor. ‘I just have a feeling, dear.’ He smiled bravely, his stiff upper lip coming in handy as it so often did when dealing with the women in his life. Kate felt, as she often felt, that she wanted to put an arm around her uncle, who put up with so much yet always seemed happy. As if he was exactly where he wanted to be. That’s what a happy marriage – however odd – does for you!

  A tipsy guest bowled in, singing, and made for a cubicle. From the ballroom they heard a sing song break out to Danny Boy. Kate hoped against hope her new parents-in-law, who were snobbish enough to sneer at the Queen, had left.

  ‘How’s the new job going?’ Kate’s mum rarely addressed Charlie and he jumped.

  ‘Great, fine, good.’

  ‘He’s a natural,’ said Becca. ‘The radio station love him, don’t they, darling?’

  ‘Oh they do,’ repeated Charlie, sardonic.

  So they should, thought Kate. A would-be novelist with Charlie’s flair was wasted churning out jingles and adverts. Their new roles didn’t allow for intimacy – like two shy vicars, it had taken months for Kate and Charlie to get beyond innocuous small talk – so they’d never discussed his new career. Unless Charlie had changed completely, he would hate such work.

  Then again, Charlie had changed completely: he was married to a woman he’d disliked, after all. The biddable man-child welded to Becca’s side was nothing like the sweet and bolshy boy Kate had loved. Maybe alien bodysnatchers had come in the night, swapping Charlie for an advertising copywriter.

  Like a formally dressed kidnapper, Julian edged nearer, eager to whisk her away. He trailed his fingers down her lace sleeve and Kate’s arm shivered with excitement.

  Whispering in her ear, his breath tickling, Julian said, ‘Are you happy, darling?’

  ‘Very,’ she whispered back, seeing only him in the midst of the crowd.

  The pivot of the past few years – more significant than Kate and Charlie’s schism or Julian’s appearance at Kate’s front door – was Becca’s pregnancy.

  By the time the blue line firmed up, Charlie had dropped out of university and the wedding date was nailed down, a year ahead of the original timing.

  A wedding planner was enlisted. White frocks were tried and found wanting: ‘Just because I’m pregnant doesn’t mean I have to look pregnant!’ Caterers were tormented, florists publicly flogged. All for this one day, a day which had worn Kate out.

  ‘We did it, cuz.’ Becca extracted Kate from Julian’s grasp, taking her firmly by the shoulders. ‘We really did it.’ Her gaze, even under false eyelashes, whisked Kate back to childhood, or rather to some formless ageless state where it was just the two of them, sharing perfect understanding.

  Which was not the same as perfect happiness, but was profound all the same.

  ‘We did it,’ agreed Kate, suddenly tearful. She hesitated, then folded Becca down to her level, finding her ear to whisper, ‘You can try again.’

  Becca squeezed Kate brutally tight. ‘Oh Kate,’ she whispered.

  Kate had been holding Becca’s hand when the sonographer couldn’t find a heartbeat.

  ‘Come, wife!’ Julian asserted himself with a kingly shout.

  Becca pulled away, apparently recovered. ‘Time to drag my Charlie to the bridal suite.’

  Even after the hymns and the speeches and enough quiche to sink a battleship, that ‘my’ sounded all wrong.

  In the taxi, her ears ringing, Kate turned to Julian. ‘As weddings go,’ she said, ‘it was a brilliant wedding. But,’ she leaned in, found his lips, ‘I’m so glad we don’t have to do it ever again.’

  ‘I don’t believe in the millennium bug,’ shouted Kate to Julian, as he moved about the living area, setting out glasses, tipping ice noisily into a chrome bucket.

  ‘That’s because you’re a wise woman, darling.’ Julian dimmed the lights. ‘It’s crazy to think planes will fall out of the sky and all our emails will go haywire just because computers can’t recognise the date 2000.’

  ‘I read somewhere that all hospitals will have power cuts on the stroke of midnight.’ Kate confronted the slab of tuna with a feeling of doom completely unrelated to the millennium bug. ‘And radio alarm clocks will rise up and take over the world.’

  ‘I like this part of entertaining best.’ Julian moved into the kitchen area of their open plan apartment and handed her a perfect martini. ‘When it’s just us before the guests arrive. In fact, let’s call
and cancel, so I can ravish you among the raw fish.’

  ‘That’s a tempting offer.’ Kate shimmied out of the scope of his arms. ‘But I have loads to do, Julian. What made me say I’d make sushi?’

  ‘We should have bought in.’

  Sometimes Kate forgot they were well off. She waited for buses in the rain as taxis raced by. She bought economy mince for Julian’s beloved shepherd’s pie. When he airily booked first class air fares or ordered the most venerable claret on the wine list her tummy contracted. ‘Home-made’s nicer.’

  ‘Not sure that applies to sushi.’ Julian eyed the lumpen California rolls lying like casualties of war on the marble worktop. He was a veteran of Kate’s cooking fads, manfully trying her goulash and her sea bass and her stir fries. ‘Can we cancel? I want you to myself tonight. It feels historic.’

  ‘That’s why we’ve invited Becca and Charlie. That’s why I’m going to smell of fish tomorrow.’

  ‘Just one phone call and it’ll be you, me, a movie.’ Julian held up a California roll. ‘And a takeaway.’

  Kate poked out her tongue. ‘It’s too late to cancel. Especially on such a special night. Behave, man.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Julian. ‘And besides, Becca would hunt us down and kill us.’

  ‘We haven’t had much . . . us time this Christmas,’ said Kate. ‘Maybe we should do a mini-break somewhere?’ She envisaged chintz, open fires, brocade sofas; the antithesis of her own home. ‘I could arrange cover for the shops and—’

  ‘Darling, I can barely draw breath at the moment. Take Becca and go somewhere hot and ludicrously indulgent. My treat.’

  ‘I’m not married to Becca,’ muttered Kate, as she rinsed an orange lozenge of salmon.

  ‘Darling, don’t mutter, please.’ Julian played with a remote, and stiff white drapes slithered tither and yon until he was satisfied.

  If the apocalypse really was due in five hours’ time, somebody had forgotten to tell the good people of the Chelsea Harbour development. The view from the kitchen was the same as ever: the white modern blocks flanking a marina were glamorous enough for a five star holiday vista yet she saw it every day through the wrap-around glass walls. Kate shivered and reached for the angora bolero Julian had bought her for Christmas.

  As lights came on in windows the complex glittered against the dark winter sky like an outpost on some distant, wealthy planet. Chelsea, enduringly chic and moneyed since its famous King’s Road kick-started the swinging sixties, was self-assured, never deigning to notice unemployment figures or natural disasters.

  Much like Julian, who surfed the housing market, never getting wet, always ahead of the wave.

  ‘Wish I’d done a roast.’ Kate flung a ruined batch of rice in the bin. When she’d scribbled the invitation sushi had felt celebratory, and ‘right’ for their lifestyle.

  Kate had caught that word from Julian: she teased him people don’t have lifestyles, matey, they have lives! but nobody could deny their apartment was stylish. Lifestylish.

  Initially, she’d baulked at the openness, the glossy pale surfaces, the hard edges, disappointing Julian, who had expected his wife to jump with joy at the mammoth her hunter gatherer hubby had laid at her feet.

  They’d compromised. Julian got his Bang & Olufsen sound system and Kate got her colourful rugs. Julian was fond of pointing out how she softened his minimalism with her books and vintage china. We’re the perfect team, he’d say.

  One day she’d win her battle to have actual handles on the kitchen cupboard doors. One day he’d manage to stop her leaving make-up smears on the glass shelves in the arctic white bathroom.

  This was marriage. Love in action. Julian didn’t know about Kate’s rainy day account, where she stashed a hundred quid here, fifty there. One day, if Julian ever fell off his surfboard, they might be glad of it.

  At the sound of the doorbell, Julian threw open the enormous veneered front door. Kate hastily civilised the chaos on the worktop as Becca’s effusive hellos argued with the Gypsy Kings CD Julian had chosen.

  ‘God I LOVE this place!’ Becca stalked across the apartment in her sky high shoes, her beaded black dress an excellent match for the surrounding monochrome. She looked around, noticing everything. ‘New Buddha statue!’ She pointed at a silvered ornament then threw her arms around Kate. ‘Happy New Year! Love the blouse. You’re brave doing sushi.’

  Kate looked down at her white satin shirt. A Rorschach blot of soy had blossomed on a lapel, like a dirty rose.

  A cork popped. Becca threw open the door to the terrace and stepped out among the dejected ficus trees in their handmade pots.

  ‘Hi.’ Charlie held out flowers and wine, the customary offering to the god of dinner parties.

  ‘Ta.’ Kate took the gifts. ‘I love . . . um, actually, what are they?’ She frowned at the blooms.

  ‘No idea,’ said Charlie.

  As Kate sought out a vase, she felt him looking at her hair. The boyish cut, an impulsive decision, was meant to be chic but she worried it gave her the look of a prison warder.

  ‘What happened to your hair?’ said Charlie.

  ‘It fell off,’ said Kate.

  A beat, then he laughed. She laughed too. They laughed more than the feeble joke merited.

  ‘Julian likes it,’ said Kate. ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Julian’s got taste.’ Charlie gestured around the flat. ‘He must be right.’

  Kicking off her shoes, Becca dragged Julian in from the terrace and shouted, ‘Turn up the music, Kate!’

  ‘Give me a mo.’ Kate hovered over the control panel. She turned a random dial and the lighting went from ‘candlelight’ to ‘extra bright’.

  ‘Argh!’ Becca cowered like a vampire struck by the sun until Julian reached over Kate and conjured up a flattering twilight.

  By the time they took their seats for dinner, Julian was a little fuzzy around the edges. He swiped a handful of edamame, dropping some so they lay like jade beads on the black grain of the table. Kate fancied him tipsy, when he pawed her like a lion, but it was early for him to be this squiffy.

  ‘Lay into the starters, everybody.’ Kate wondered if she’d sweated her foundation off. ‘Try the yakitori chicken thing.’

  ‘Why aren’t they on paper plates from your shops?’ asked Charlie. ‘Those nice fish patterned ones.’

  Too frazzled to put a diplomatic spin on Julian’s plea that she not bring her own products home, Kate shrugged. Paper plates are not really us, he’d say.

  ‘You’ve gone to so much trouble,’ said Becca. ‘I’m crap around the house, aren’t I, babe?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Charlie. His hair was super short above the collar of his dark blue velvet jacket. Kate wondered how he’d smuggled such an obviously second-hand garment past his wife, who was violently anti-charity shop. ‘I expected your mum and dad to be here tonight, Kate,’ he said.

  ‘God no,’ said Julian, a touch too fast. ‘I mean, we saw plenty of them over Christmas,’ he added.

  ‘By plenty,’ said Kate, ‘he means too much.’ She sympathised; she too had longed to escape from the small, hot kitchen where her mother had incinerated a turkey on Christmas Day. A need to impress the son-in-law had culminated in a panic attack over the lumpy gravy. ‘Dad’s a bit down at the moment.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Why’d you think?’ Becca was wry. ‘He’s put off his trip to that stupid orphanage again.’

  ‘But he lives for Yulan House,’ protested Charlie. ‘The Christmas card he sent us had a picture of all the kids on the front.’

  Julian nodded. ‘John’s fascinating on the subject.’ He didn’t listen when Kate’s dad spoke about Yulan House but made sure to look interested.

  ‘Mum says they can’t afford for Dad to travel all that way. She says it’s enough for him to sponsor an orphan. Charity begins at home, apparently.’ Kate stirred her miso with a chopstick. ‘They’re buying a caravan instead.’

  The glance Becca
threw at Kate was empathetic: she knew how Julian must have scoffed at such a plebeian purchase.

  ‘I love caravans,’ said Charlie, wistfully.

  ‘We’re looking at a time share in Ibiza,’ said Becca.

  ‘That we can’t afford,’ said Charlie.

  ‘That you pretend we can’t afford,’ said Becca, adding a ‘babe’, as if the endearment would make up for annoyance in her voice. ‘We can’t keep borrowing Kate and Julian’s villa, can we?’

  ‘We don’t mind,’ said Kate, knowing that Julian did mind a little. When Becca took up residence in the Tuscan square stone house she was harder to evict than bedbugs.

  Relieved that the starters were well received, Kate returned to her showroom kitchen. Truly on show, feeling that the eyes of the residents opposite were trained on her, Kate rolled, and sliced, and cursed her culinary ambition. Julian had drunk too many of his own cocktails to understand the subtle marital distress signals whizzing his way. She heard him, over at the mile long sofa, ask Charlie about work.

  ‘He’s been poached!’ Becca answered for her other half in her excitement. ‘He’s starting at a new ad agency in February. BBH or something.’

  ‘Bartle Bogle Hegarty?’ Julian knew a little about every area of business. ‘Very prestigious. Congrats, Charlie. A fully blown media dickhead at last.’

  Charlie raised his glass in a toast. ‘To me! And all the media dickheads in the land.’

  ‘It’s a good job,’ said Becca. ‘Good money.’

  ‘Can’t argue with that,’ said Julian. ‘Well done, mate.’

  ‘Yeah, well done,’ called Kate as she hacked at spring onions.

  She couldn’t claim to know Charlie any more. The space he took up had become emotionally blank, the past pixilated. The old Charlie would have cut off his leg before writing adverts for a living; he’d changed as much as she had.

  ‘May I,’ asked Becca, ‘see your new bidet?’

  There was no aspect of the flat’s interior design she didn’t covet.