Читать книгу Truly, Madly, Deeply - Romantic Association Novelist's - Страница 21

I was a trophy wife when Ethan married me, you know. Oh, yes. I could have had my pick of anyone. Men buzzed round me like bees round a honeypot: they were irresistibly drawn to me. I was showered with gifts morning, noon and night. I was wined and dined on private yachts from Antibes to Antigua. That was the life I had.

I was a model, a bloody good one too. I’d done Vogue, Harper’s, Vanity Fair: all the glossies. I didn’t do catwalk though. My breasts were too luscious, my hips too curved. It was all heroin chic in my day and they wanted six-stone skeletons for that. I’m a woman and have always been proud to look like one. I was never going to be just a walking coat hanger. Which meant that I wasn’t ever quite as big as someone like Elle or Naomi. But I never minded that. Not really. I did get out of bed for less than ten thousand dollars a day though not that often. And, let me tell you, I’d been offered far more than that to get into bed too. Not that I ever did. I was very choosy. There were no scandalous pictures of me falling drunk out of nightclubs, wrapped round a different man every night, or snorting cocaine with some unsavoury, unwashed rock star. I always kept myself nice. Held myself well.

I’d had more marriage proposals than you could shake a stick at and had batted them all away. But when Ethan asked me, I said yes straightaway. Ethan was different. He didn’t fawn over me like other men. He was secure in his confidence. We met at a polo match in Windsor. I was presenting the prize and he was the captain of the winning team. His smile lit up my life in a way that nothing had before and made me weak at the knees. I gave him my number and he didn’t call me for weeks. I liked that. Not too eager. It continued like that throughout the whole time we dated. My phone was never deluged with texts and calls from Ethan. I had to ring him. That was a new experience for me. Sometimes he’d leave me sitting alone waiting in restaurants for him –how the press loved that. When I called he’d simply say that he’d forgotten about our arrangement. I thought he was playing a game with me. I guess I learned the hard way.

Ethan was rich, even then. Not as ridiculously wealthy as some of my suitors, of course, but we were never going to be on the breadline. He was from good stock with a family pile in Hertfordshire, a solid, handsome house where we eventually lived. I had my own money too, at one time. But it was expensive being me –looking like that doesn’t come cheap, I’m sure you can imagine –and soon there was very little of it left. Plus, once we were married, Ethan didn’t like other men looking at me. Not in magazines, anyway. The shoots were getting raunchier, less and less clothing. I could have had a big contract with a line of very racy underwear but Ethan didn’t like the idea of that either. He didn’t think that it would be good for my image. On his advice, I turned down so many bookings that eventually, I slipped off the radar. As soon as I hit thirty-five, the agency stopped calling at all. The paparazzi didn’t wait outside our London apartment or chase after me when I came out of restaurants. Ethan said that he was relieved. And I was too. In a way. Plus there were always the hungry young things snapping at your heels: nineteen-year-olds with more confidence and attitude than experience. I was one of them once.

‘Are you ready, darling?’ Ethan asks as he swings into the dressing room. He glances impatiently at his watch and does that tapping thing with his foot. ‘We’re going to be late.’

He’s still handsome, my husband. There’s a smattering of grey in his hair, but it only makes him look more distinguished over the years. It’s so terribly unfair that men grow more beautiful with age whereas women, inevitably, do not. He looks so smart in his hand-tailored charcoal grey suit and crisp white shirt.

‘Is that a new tie?’ I usually bought all his clothes and I didn’t recognise it.

He looks down. It’s grey silk with a faint black line through it. Very stylish. ‘Yes.’

‘You bought it yourself?’

Ethan rolls his eyes. ‘I am perfectly capable of buying my own ties, Lydia. I don’t see why you should be so surprised.’

But I am surprised. That was my role: I looked after the house, I looked after Ethan, I shopped for him.

‘It’s nice,’ I offer.

Even after all this time, I still love him. We’ recently celebrated our fifteenth wedding anniversary. Well, when I say ‘celebrated’ I mean that Ethan was away on business somewhere –Denmark, I think –and I opened a bottle of fizz on my own and watched re-runs of Wallander. When he was less busy we were hoping to hop off for a week somewhere warm.

It’s a party tonight. Another one. This one at The Dorchester. A thank you for five hundred of Ethan’s staff for hitting their targets in these terrible times of recession. Some of them will be made redundant next week, but they don’t know that yet. Tonight, they’ll still be blissfully unaware of their fate and on a high.

I take one last look in the mirror. The last time I appeared in the Daily Mail it was a shot from our beach holiday in Barbados pointing out the cellulite on the back of my thighs. I was mortified. That was the day that my unswerving attachment to the sarong started. Of course, that was years ago. I’ll be forty-five next birthday. Not a milestone birthday, as such, but one that takes me another step further away from my prime. None of the newspapers care what I look like now. But I do. My skin used to be like porcelain, white and flawless. There are wrinkles now –fine ones, thanks to Crème de la Mer and some well-aimed Botox. But they’re undeniably there. Perhaps I’ll have some of the lights taken away from around this mirror. It’s too bright, unforgiving. I might like myself better if I were perpetually in soft focus. I ease back my cheeks with my fingertips and watch my jawline tighten. That’s how I used to look. Once when I was young and desirable.

‘How much longer, Lydia?’ Ethan presses. ‘The car is waiting.’

‘I just want to make sure that I look my best.’ I clip on my diamond studs, then stand up and check myself in the full-length mirror. This dress is cut on the bias and flatters my figure, which is fuller than it used to be despite the hours I spend in the gym and the hours that I spend looking at food rather than eating it. It’s sapphire blue and emphasises the colour of my eyes.

‘No one will be looking at you,’ my husband says. ‘I’ll see you downstairs.’

It’s not just the newspapers who don’t care what I look like anymore, it seems.

It wasn’t always like that. Obviously. Ethan used to love having me on his arm at his corporate functions. Mouths used to gape when he introduced me. I knew what they were thinking. That Ethan had punched above his weight. That he had married well. My husband might not have wanted me to carry on with my career, but he liked men to look at me. He liked their mouths to water when they saw me with him. He encouraged me to dress in the skimpiest of clothes. And I was happy to oblige. He couldn’t keep his hands off me then. At the most inappropriate moments, I’d feel his thumb graze my nipples, his fingers inching up my thighs. I’ve lost count of the corporate dinners where his hand would be between my legs under the table before we’d even reached dessert.

There was a photograph of me in the tabloids. We’re on a yacht in the Med –I can’t remember whose now –and I’m standing at the bow alone in impossibly high heels, the tiniest of gold bikinis that barely contains my breasts, a gold chain accentuating my slender waist, the scant thong exposing my tanned buttocks. My long blonde hair streamed behind me. It was my natural colour then. I look like the cat who’s got the cream. It made page four of the Sun. I remember exactly the day it was. We were with a party of businessmen who we were entertaining for lunch. I was the only woman on board and yet Ethan insisted that I wore the bikini and nothing else. He even picked it out for me. Even after we’d spotted the paparazzi on another boat, he’d come behind me and slipped a finger under the thin fabric of my swimsuit and inside me. The other men were all lounging on the deck with champagne just behind us, but he didn’t care. Then Ethan took me down below, lifted me straight onto the counter in the galley, pulled down my bikini bottoms and made love to me right there. At any moment, any one of the men, or all of them, could have walked in. I thought he’d done it because he was overwhelmed by passion, because he loved me so much.

I’m older and wiser now.

I slick on my lipstick, smooth down my dress and plump my cleavage. It’s all still my own but it needs help now from well-cut and ferociously expensive underwear. Picking up my diamanté purse, I make my way down the stairs.

The Dorchester is one of my favourite venues and this is from someone who has been to the Burj al Arab on a regular basis. But that is tacky in its opulence whereas The Dorchester is all about understated elegance. Mind you, every five star hotel thinks that they’re far better than they are. We like the Terrace Suite here, which has the most marvellous view over London, and we were booked in overnight. I’m hoping to do some shopping in town tomorrow and perhaps have some lunch at Harvey Nics. Ethan, of course, is going into the office even though it’s Sunday.

The Ballroom Suite is already thronging with Ethan’s colleagues. They’re all bright young things, university educated with degrees in such things as philosophy and politics. They have conversations where they all shout over each other about the FTSE and the Dow Jones and I have no idea what they’re talking about and have no desire to. I stand and sip my champagne and try to look interested.

The room is beautiful, stylish, all cream and gold. We stand at the top of the sweeping staircase so that Ethan can greet his staff. We shake hands endlessly with the damp, the sweaty, the cool, the dry, the over eager, the bone-crushingly aggressive and the limp-wristed. No wonder the Queen always wears gloves. How could she bear to have all those strangers touch her?

‘Hello, Lydia.’ I look up to see one of Ethan’s managers, Colette, standing in front of me, smiling widely. I think she’s one of his favourites as she always seems to accompany him to his business meetings. ‘Beautiful dress. You look lovely.’

‘Thank you.’ She’s visited the house several times too, so we are familiar enough with each other to air kiss cheeks. ‘You look simply divine too.’

She’s slender, Colette. Sickeningly so. Self-consciously, I pull in my tummy. Tonight she’s dressed in a black, clinging number with a perilously plunging neckline that leaves little to the imagination. It must be held on with tit-tape and I’d bet a pound to a penny that she’s not wearing any underwear. It makes the brightness of my blue look garish in comparison. Like I’m trying too hard. She’s young. Twenty-six at most and has a boyish figure with a washboard stomach and no hips. For work she power dresses in crisp white shirts and pencil skirts with vertiginous black patent heels. She looks like a woman who wears stockings to the office. Her skin is soft and coffee-coloured. Her corkscrew curls –the height of fashion –bounce onto her bare shoulders.

I feel I should ask her a question but I don’t know what to say, so she moves on and turns her attention to my husband. ‘Ethan.’ Her eyes brighten.

‘Good evening, Colette.’ His hand slips onto her hip and his thumb traces the arched curve of her bone. Very few people would notice, but I do. She wets her lips and leans into him slightly as her kiss lingers too long on his cheek. ‘Great tie.’ Her fingertips stroke it lightly and a glimmer of a smile plays at her mouth.

And I know instantly who bought it. Of course, I do. Does Ethan think that I’m gullible enough to believe that he would ever trouble himself with his own shopping? Colette moves on and I watch Ethan’s eyes as they follow her. I feel sick to my stomach. If she thinks she is the only one, the first, then she is sadly mistaken.

It’s hot in here, stuffy and I wonder if they’ve forgotten to turn on the air-conditioning. The rest of the line snakes past us and soon we make our way down the staircase into the ballroom below. I always used to like this dramatic entrance, felt as if I was in a movie, Folies Bergère or something starring Fred and Ginger. I liked the heads that turned to look at me. Now I can’t wait to rush down to my seat and my legs shake as I take the steps.

‘Are you all right?’ Ethan snaps. ‘Do pull yourself together, Lydia.’

I trail in his wake until we reach the top table. ‘I need to talk to Colette and Brad Walker,’ he says over his shoulder, pulling out his own chair. ‘I’ve sat them either side of me. Hope you don’t mind entertaining Canning. He’s a bit of an old bore, but he’ll love you.’

What he means is that he’s old enough to remember the photograph of that wretched gold bikini and will leer at me all night. I take my place next to Stuart Canning halfway down the ballroom. He pulls out my chair for me and kisses my hand. There’s spittle at the corner of his mouth.

I have no idea what’s served for dinner, my stomach is too knotted to be able to consider eating. At the top table, there’s much banter and laughter and I have to drag my attention back from Ethan and listen to the man droning on at my side.

After dinner, the music starts. The dance floor starts to fill. Ethan kicks back his chair, unbuttons his collar, loosens that tie. The laughter doesn’t stop. Soon, I hope he will remember me and ask me to come to his table. But the minutes stretch on, the songs continue and, still, he doesn’t make a move. Eventually, I make my excuses to the extremely dull Mr Canning and weave my way through the tables to Ethan’s side. I wait until he finishes his conversation and then I kiss his cheek. He looks at me in surprise. Perhaps he had forgotten that I was here at all.

‘Dance with me, darling,’ I say brightly.

‘Have to keep the wife happy,’ he jokes and stands up. I take his hand and lead him to the dance floor. I risk a backwards glance and see that the laughter has gone from Colette’s lips.

Ethan takes me in his arms and we sway to whatever’s pounding out. His face is flushed with drink and he’s a bit unsteady on his feet. Trying to keep to the beat is pointless. I want to speak to him, be witty and bright, but my brain is frozen and nothing will come to my mouth. I hold onto him tightly for three songs but, already, he’s looking bored and his gaze starts to wander.

‘Is this a ladies’ excuse-me?’ Colette asks over my shoulder. Before I can answer or register a protest, she manoeuvres her way in between me and my husband with such breath-taking impudence that I have to give her credit for her audacity. ‘You don’t mind if I do, Lydia?’

I do mind, but how can I make a scene? These are Ethan’s staff, his colleagues. He would be embarrassed if I made a stand against her. And what if I lost? What if, publicly, he brushed me aside for her?

She sweeps Ethan away from me and he brightens instantly. Now I stand on the dance floor, alone, abandoned and I don’t quite know what to do. In days gone by, there would be a dozen men clamouring to take his place. But not now.

Gathering my senses, I hold my head high and walk from the dance floor. I may not have graced the catwalk, but I can still strut my stuff like a model. I’m not sure where I’m going, but my feet take me to the grand staircase again and I climb them on auto-pilot. When I reach the mezzanine floor, I lean on the balcony and watch the revellers below me. I’m breathing heavily, sounding as if I’ve exerted myself when I haven’t. It’s just that my body is having difficulty processing this. My heart is beating erratically and there’s a thrumming in my ears, the rush of blood. My cheeks blaze. I know that there have been others in the past. No one travels so regularly on business without finding some female company. I’ve been on the receiving end of enough male attention to be well aware of that.

I watch Ethan and Colette twirl round the floor, moving in unison. Ethan is a good dancer, something else that I used to love about him. I dig my nails into my palms and push the tears away with pain. A woman comes and stands next to me, leaning on the rail.

She nods at my husband below us. ‘He’s a slimy bastard,’ she says, casually. ‘He’s shagged his way through half of the office.’

My mouth goes dry.

‘He might be the President, but that doesn’t stop him from trying it on with just about every woman in the place.’

I turn to her. She is also young and pretty. ‘You too?’

‘Groped me in the lift after a long night in the bar at a conference. I should have slapped him with a sexual harassment complaint. But you don’t, do you?’

‘No,’ I agree. ‘You don’t.’

‘I got off lightly really.’ She swigs at the drink in her hand. ‘He’s married too.’

‘So I understand.’

‘I’ve heard she was a model. A real beauty once.’

‘Yes. I’d heard that too.’

‘She must be a bloody idiot. Or a saint.’

‘I think idiot.’

The girl laughs. ‘Yeah. You’re probably right. Poor bitch.’

Poor bitch, indeed.

My husband twirls Colette again and she tuts her disapproval at them. ‘She’s a bloody idiot too. She’s thinks she’s special. Her sort always do.’

And she’s right because I once was that sort too.

‘He’ll tire of her and move on.’ She points an accusing finger in Ethan’s direction. ‘He always does.’

She sounds too bitter and I wonder if their encounter went further than she’s admitting or whether her prospects suffered because it didn’t. The girl raises her eyebrows at me and lifts her glass. ‘Bar calls again,’ she says. ‘Can I get you one?’

‘No, thank you. But it’s very nice of you to ask.’

She leaves and it’s all I can do to hold myself upright. Bile rises to my throat. I thought that they respected him. Above everything, I thought that Ethan was held in high esteem by his co-workers. It seems that I was wrong about that too.

Reeling, I make my way to the powder room. Thankfully, I’m alone in there and I run my wrists under the cold tap. I’d like to splash water on my face too, but I can’t risk ruining my make-up. People would know that there’s something wrong and for the last ten years or more, I’ve been pretending that there isn’t. I rinse the sour taste from my tongue and stare at myself in the mirror. If I could will myself to be twenty years younger, then I would. I would do things differently, make different choices. But no matter, how hard I wish, it’s still resolutely the older me who looks back.

When did he last make love to me, my husband? When did he last tear the buttons from my blouse in his haste, rip my underwear from my body, consume me with hunger in his eyes, take me on the marble floor of the hall or in the leather seats of the Aston. Not for a long time. It has even been months since he grunted above me in the darkness of our bedroom.

When I feel that I can hide in here no longer –surely Ethan will be missing me now –I go back out onto the balcony. My chatty companion hasn’t reappeared and I take up my position again. The dance floor is crowded now. The party in full swing. My eyes search the gyrating bodies, but there’s no sign of Ethan or Colette. I swivel my gaze to their table, but they aren’t there either. Perhaps I should make my way down to the bar, grab some champagne, drink and be merry.

I can’t make another entrance down the main stairs. I can’t face it. I want to slide anonymously back to the party, so I make my way down the quiet side corridor and the back stairs. When I open the door, I see them there and I stop in my tracks, the shock making me stagger with pain as surely as if I’ve been stabbed in the heart.

Colette is pressed against the wall, the weight of my husband pinning her there. Her dress is hitched up to her thighs and I would have won my bet regarding her lack of underwear. The top of her dress is pulled down, exposing her breasts. With one hand, Ethan toys with a nipple. The other is between her legs and she squirms against his hand, head thrown back, eyes closed, lips parted in ecstasy. I remember that feeling. But only just.

I back out of the stairwell before they see me and I lean on the wall too, but not in ecstasy. My heart is hammering in my chest and I only know that I need to get out of here fast. Blackness threatens the edge of my vision. Biting down my panic, I walk to the foyer, smiling as I go. When I was a model I learned how to smile even when my feet were cold, or my back hurt or my head pounded. I developed my very own technique and now I’ve found that it also works when your heart is broken.

Retrieving my wrap from the cloakroom, I head out into the night. It’s a summer’s evening and London is muggy, heavy with exhaust fumes. I glance at my watch and see that it’s nearly midnight. The trees on Park Lane sparkle with white lights. I always think that they look Christmassy, somewhat strange in August. I slip off my shoes and hold them in my hand. High heels hurt my feet now and I think I have the beginnings of a bunion.

I make my way down Park Lane. Even at this hour the traffic is still busy. I wonder where they’re all going, where they’ve been. I wonder do they think of me. A middle-aged woman wandering alone in the middle of the night. I wonder do they realise, do they care that I might be suffering or in need of help. But I forget that I’m only bleeding inside.

I could have done so much with my life. I went to grammar school, I could have gone to university. A good one. In the days when not everyone went. But I chose to use my body and not my brains. It was on a rare day out to London that the model scout handed me a card. My parents were against it, of course. No one in our family had ever earned a living in such a frivolous way. I wonder where they are now, my mother and father. I haven’t seen them in years. Ethan was always reluctant to go to the small terraced house that they lived in and so we drifted apart. I didn’t want them uncomfortable in their own home. I’ve a sister too, similarly estranged.

We never had children either. Ethan isn’t much for families and I was always terrified of losing my figure. Can you imagine it? How could I waddle onto parties on yachts heavy with child in voluminous pregnancy dresses? Ethan would never have allowed it. That wasn’t what we were about as a couple. And I was frightened that he would want me to stay at home, out of sight, go off alone and leave me. Ironic really. I used to long for a daughter. Someone who I could bring up to be strong and independent. Someone who would find a man to love her for who she was, not how she looked.

I thought I would always be beautiful, always be wanted. Now my husband looks at younger women, the way he looked at me. His eyes and his hands tear the clothes from them too. The cars whoosh past me, billowing my dress. I pull my wrap tighter round me even though it isn’t cold. I walk the entire length of Park Lane, past the glitzy car showrooms, the lavish estate agents’ windows, the glittering hotel entrances. A few people pass me, but this is London, and they don’t look twice at the barefooted woman in their way. Eventually, I find my way back. There are tables outside The Dorchester, closed up for the night, patio heaters cold. I sit there watching the lights, letting my mind roam free. What will I do? Where will I go? Who will look after me? How will I live? What do you do when you are forty-five and have nothing to show for your life beyond a marvellous wardrobe and a hoard of designer shoes? I can’t hold a conversation. I can’t bake a cake. I can’t arrange flowers. For my entire marriage, I’ve been nothing but a shadow. A pretty, empty shadow.

When I next look at my watch its gone two o’clock. The night is cooler now, the traffic has slowed to a constant trickle and I’m shivering. I should reach inside myself and find anger, but all that’s there is fear. I’m afraid to confront Ethan. Afraid to confront my future. Afraid that if I cry or scream I will never stop. My feet are numb and my head throbs, but still I stay in my chair. I don’t know how long I wait, but eventually I notice that’s there’s a refreshing breeze. I can taste autumn in it, a subtle change, a freshening. I like autumn –a time when the old dies away heralding in the way for the new. I feel something in my heart gently settle. When I can put it off no longer, I pick up my shoes and head back into the hotel. The party is over. Streamers from party poppers litter the floor and weary, heavy-eyed staff tidy up and rearrange the tables. Soon there will be no sign of the party at all.

I make my way back up to our suite and let myself in, tossing my designer shoes to the floor. I can’t face the discomfort of them any longer. Ethan is sprawled out on the bed, naked, face down. He’s snoring heavily. His charcoal suit, his white shirt, his traitorous grey tie are scattered on the floor. The tie catches the moonlight and shines up at me. One by one, I pick them all up and put them on the clothes horse at the foot of the bed, folding the trousers carefully, smoothing down the lapels of the jacket as I have done for many years.

My suitcase is on the stand, still unpacked. Could I leave? Just walk out on my life? I pour myself a brandy from the decanter and go to the terrace. Looking out over London, the lights of the city beckon. It’s a place of infinite possibilities. I could lose myself here. I could start again. Learn things. Do things. Believe things. Look at my face in the mirror and like myself again. I had dreams. Once. I could have them again.

I take the last sip of the brandy and it burns down my throat and sizzles in my stomach like acid. The cut glass makes a clink when I put it back on the sideboard and I’m worried that it will rouse him. But he snores on, oblivious. He grunts and twitches, but doesn’t wake. Standing at the bottom of the bed, unmoving, I watch Ethan breathe, deeply, evenly. Nothing can disturb his sleep. Is this what I have to look forward to?

Quietly, I undo the zip of my overnight case-one from a matching set of Louis Vuitton. Inside my cosmetics bag, there’s a pair of nail scissors. I cross to the clothes horse. Carefully, meticulously I cut the bottom half from the grey silk tie and let it fall. It lies on the plush carpet, torn. There is hope in that severed tie, I think. Just a glimmer. But hope nevertheless.

I put the scissors away and zip up my case. It’s quite heavy but I don’t want to ring the concierge. I can manage by myself. I can manage everything by myself. I know I can. With one last lingering look at Ethan, I pull my wrap around me. When I leave, still barefoot, I softly close the door behind me.