Other People's Husbands (21 page)

Like with the baring-teeth thing, she imagined how she would look from across the table. Not good. She didn't feel real dislike; it was nothing personal, nothing at all to do with Paul himself, just her thinking with a painter's eye: she was picturing a hugely flabby, naked man, lying on a sofa with a remote control in one hand and a Greggs steak pie in the other. A bit Lucian Freud, she thought, suddenly itching to have a paintbrush in her hand and to be smelling oil paint rather than the surrounding hundred designer perfumes. Except L. Freud probably wouldn't have included the pie. That thought at least brought a genuine smile to her face.

‘Do you really want her back?' Pandora was almost surprised at her own question. ‘I mean, come on Paul, how much do you
really
like suddenly being a grown-up with a family? Because I think that to Cass, you've seemed like you're already opting out on the deal, not joining in like you promised you would. And now she's left, be honest, doesn't a little bit of you think, oh great I'm free again? I can go back to being a lad?'

Paul visibly flinched. ‘You don't pull your punches do you, Panda?'

It was Pandora's turn to flinch. No one outside her immediate family called her Panda. It was a pet name among them, intimate, childlike. Even Ollie hadn't called her by that name (irritatingly, he'd considered Doreen to be an amusing nickname.
Not
funny). But then Paul was now, by way of Charlie, a sort of relation. He
was
family. Which was a relief, really, because that meant it was all right to be sitting here in a bar with him. Apart from the secrecy bit, obviously.

‘No, I don't hold back,' she agreed. ‘But didn't you want
honest
? Or did you come all this way just so I'd say, “Oh poor Paul, how awful for you, I must get my vile, selfish sister to come running back to you.” Is that what you expected?'

He grinned, suddenly, his blue eyes sparkly, laughing at her. ‘Well no – I knew you might be pretty fierce! You're really scary, did anyone ever tell you?'

Pandora treated him to her foxiest smile, the one no one ever expected. ‘
Everybody
tells me that, Paul! But no, really, tell me what you want me to do. I can't promise anything, though. Cass and I – well, we don't always agree on stuff.'

‘Yeah, but deep down . . . there's loyalty, isn't there?'

Pandora laughed, loudly enough for a group of the lunch-break women to turn and look at her. She got a swift impression of shiny, smeary make-up, of over-straightened, overstreaked hair gleaming with serum. Women as slicks of sticky product, surface oils. The longing for paint swished back again, stronger now.

‘Loyalty! God, Paul, you sound so public school! The way you just said that, like you're talking about Queen-and-country stuff ! I bet you were in the CCF at school, running round the woods at fourteen with your bayonet fixed and camo paint on your face.'

Paul said nothing. He looked a bit hurt. ‘Sorry,' Pandora said. ‘Have I touched a nerve?'

‘Actually I opted out of anything military on principle, if you really want to know. Which I doubt you do. But all the same, what's so hilarious about loyalty?' He said it very quietly. ‘Cass thinks I fancy other girls and that I'm forever off with them. I don't and I'm not and I wouldn't. I work on my course stuff. I do sport . . . OK, maybe too much of it, but she's always known that's a top priority. And maybe I hang out in the Union bar a bit too much – I can either fix that or she can come too. There's no good reason why not, especially while Charlie's still so small. That was what we agreed – that we'd be the same as normal for as long as we could. I just want the chance to have another go at getting it right. I want you to make sure she knows it – that's all I'm asking. That's if you can summon up enough
loyalty
to .. .'

‘Paul, I'm so sorry . . .' Pandora could feel her eyes filling with unexpected, very unwelcome tears. Where did they come from? There were girl things that Pandora just didn't do. Cutesy dresses, hair maintenance, heels, mascara and . . . tears. ‘It's just that I haven't had much experience of men who do fidelity long-term.' She could have added ‘not with me, anyway', but managed to keep that much to herself.

‘Oh shit, I've made you cry!' Looking horribly alarmed and embarrassed, Paul grabbed her hand across the table. ‘Sorry!' he said, overloudly. The cosmetic women on the next table turned and had a good stare, silent and unapologetically curious. Magnified by Pandora's tears, the eyelashes on the nearest of them looked to her like a row of sharp black spines, as if someone had stolen them from a porcupine's underbelly and marketed them as a hot fashion item. Agonizing, she thought; so ugly, these rigid-looking splinters. And right now, she felt lucky she hardly ever wore make-up, as she mopped her unshadowed eyelids with a tissue. She might look a bit pink and blotchy, but she wouldn't have slimy, shiny slug trails of goo all over her face, no ugly smudgings of under-eye charcoal.

‘It's not you,' Pandora reassured Paul, extracting her hand from his. The warmth of it had surprised and slightly shocked her. From somewhere inside had come a longing to keep clinging to his hand, absorb that comforting heat. But it wasn't really Paul's hand she'd wanted, just . . . well, someone who loved her. She was over Ollie (just about) but not over being loved. Did that
ever
go? The thought that maybe it didn't, but that maybe she'd be stuck with the wanting and not the reality for evermore, almost sent the tears into full flow again.

The girls on the next table turned away, no longer interested now it apparently wasn't a lovers' spat. Glass would not break, drink would not be thrown. Pandora sniffled into a torn tissue and said to Paul, ‘I'm OK really. It's just, oh life and stuff. I'm broke, boyfriendless, got nowhere to live, nowhere to paint and the only job I've got is two nights in the local pub where Goths gather. But hey!' She attempted half a smile. ‘It's not all good news!'

‘You'll find someone,' Paul said, finishing his drink. ‘Sure to.'

‘You know what?' she said. ‘You must be quite a romantic, deep down. Of all the things I said were wrong with my life, the lack of love is the only one you picked up on. Like the others didn't matter. Actually, I suppose in the big forever life plan of things, none of them matter.' She laughed, but it sounded unconvincing and squawky.

‘
Especially
not the lack of a man thing. But hey, I'll talk to Cass for you. No worries. Just stay cool, don't hassle her and I'll help you sort her out. At the very least, you've got to be able to see Charlie. I might be a fairly crap sister at times, but I'll always be a top aunt for him. I promise.'

The house was still a complete pit. Sara opened the fridge and picked out salami and tomatoes and a chunk of cheese, then wandered around eating them while making a moody start on clearing the kitchen surfaces.

‘Where the hell is everybody?' she asked Conrad when he came in and took a beer from the fridge. ‘How can they disappear and leave it like this? Why do I get left with it all while they wander off? They'll be back later, expecting there to be food. There bloody won't be, that's for sure.'

‘Just leave it then.' Conrad shrugged. ‘Go out, leave them a note, tell them to get it done or bloody else. Jasper's around – I can hear what he calls music. Panda said she'd be back later. The two of them can have a go at it together.'

‘They can but they'll mind, even though it's mostly their stuff. I feel really
put on
and I hate that feeling. I'm not here for domestic slavery. You know, Conrad, what I'd really like to do is paint again. It's a feeling that's been creeping up on me. I think it's rubbed off from one of my students, Melissa – she's completely new to it and her enthusiasm is so brilliant. She's reminded me how it feels to get excited about the colours and the feel of the brushes and so on.'

‘The opposite to me, then.' Conrad looked a bit moody. Was it, she wondered, because she would be invading his space? In the past they'd shared the studio quite easily.

‘I'd really love it if you moved your Dinky Car collection off that grotty table at the end of the studio so I can reclaim my old work area. Would that be OK? Would you mind sharing the space with me again?' She poured a glass of iced water from the fridge and followed him outside to the pool.

‘You
really
want to paint again?' he said. ‘But you haven't for ages. Apart from the keen student, what's really brought this on?'

She felt a bit shifty and shaded her eyes with her hands, cutting out the bright sunlight but really avoiding Conrad's look. She could feel her phone in her skirt pocket. Why had she even mentioned this? Too late now. ‘Well . . . OK, I met someone. At the college. He's called Ben, lives along the river here and he's got a sister – at least I think he said it's his sister – who's opening a gallery and she's looking for someone for the first exhibition, though I'm sure they'll have tons of possibles to choose from. Anyway, I gave him a CD of my work. If he likes it . . . well . . .'

‘Oh he'll like it, all right,' Conrad said quietly. ‘What wouldn't he like?' Sara said nothing. She knew from his tone he didn't mean the painting. She wished she hadn't said anything. But how could she not? If anything came of this – in exhibition terms, that is – Conrad would wonder why she hadn't mentioned it sooner.

‘Well, I suppose it's really the sister who's got to like it. But hey, I'm sure it'll come to nothing,' she said eventually. ‘I was thinking it was just a chance to offload all those leftover paintings from the Bath exhibition that never happened.'

‘Does he know you're married to me?'

‘Er . . . no. I mean, he knows I'm married, but you know that at the college I'm McKinley. So he wouldn't know about you.'

‘He asked if you were married then, did he? The subject came up?'

‘Conrad – what is this? Why are you cross-examining me?'

‘I'm just curious. That's all.' She wished he'd smile. He looked moody and suspicious, which was very unlike him. Why didn't he tease her? Why didn't he say, ‘Oh I suppose he's yet another of the admiring husbands?' like he did about practically every other man she knew?

‘It could be that he'll really like my work, you know. Have you thought of that?'

‘Yes of course I have. I said so, didn't I? That he'd like it? So he's seen it then? When was this?'

‘No of course he hasn't! But soon he will, I hope. I sent him a CD of photos.'

Conrad picked a yellow snapdragon flower and played with it, opening and closing its bunny-rabbit mouth. He didn't look at her.

She moved closer and put her arm round him, hugged him. ‘Conrad, I wear a wedding ring. Which bit of that would say “this woman's available”?' At which point her phone rang. Sara felt her heart rate double. She didn't recognize the flashed-up number.

‘Hello?' she murmured, very much wanting to rush into the house, be somewhere private.

‘Sara – it's me! Lizzie! Can you come and get me?' Her sister's voice was both a relief and a disappointment.

‘Lizzie – where are you? Where've you been all night?'

‘Long story, darling! I'm in Chelsea. I bought some big vase things and I can't get them home.
Please
come and get me – I can't afford a cab all that way! I'm on the King's Road, near the Town Hall.'

Sara thought about the alternative – cleaning, clearing, mucking out the Augean stables, placating Conrad . . . ‘OK – I'll be along. But try and get to the Putney side of World's End will you, or you'll have to chip in for the congestion charge.'

*

Lizzie was sitting between her pair of tall vases on the grass at the edge of Parson's Green.

‘You look like some kind of weird table decoration!' Sara called to her as she stopped the car just off the King's Road. ‘Are you sure they're big enough? What will you do with them?'

‘I don't know yet,' Lizzie said as she clambered to her feet. She looked tired, weary, Sara thought. She opened the Golf ‘s boot, shoved the back seats down and moved a bag of garden-centre compost aside to make room.

‘How did you get them to here from wherever you bought them?' Sara asked. ‘You couldn't have carried them, surely. They've got to be nearly three feet high and not the easiest shape to lug around.'

‘Marvin dropped me off here,' Lizzie told her.

‘Marvin? And he is?' Sara wedged the compost bag

between the vases to stop them rolling around and closed the boot. Lizzie was already in the car, leaning back on the headrest, eyes closed. She smelled a bit . . . stale, in need of a shower. What had she been doing? What on earth did Jasper make of his old-hippy mother, staying out for random nights with possibly random men?

‘Marvin and I go way back,' Lizzie said, not opening her eyes. ‘But . . . I don't suppose I'll be seeing him again. There are some . . . well you just have to know when to call time, don't you?'

Sara pulled out on to the King's Road and joined the tail end of the school-run traffic. Lovely, she thought, a nice slow ride back home.

‘Though of course you
don't
know, do you, Sara? You've always been little Mrs Good-Wife. Never looked at anyone else since Conrad came along.'

‘I've got male friends. One or two of them I've even fancied a bit in a what-if kind of way. I'm a normal human, Lizzie,' Sara told her, slowing to look at the Victorian nightdresses hanging in the window of Lunn Antiques. ‘I just don't get the big deal in you sleeping with all your exes. What are you looking for with them that you didn't find when you were with them first time round?'

‘Oh I don't know.' Lizzie yawned. ‘It's just about . . . still being
desirable
, I think. Or at least I
did
think. What I think right now is I'm tired of it all. There isn't any better sex out there than even the worst you get with someone you really love.'