The Next Best Thing (6 page)

In contrast to the darkness of the Paramount, the Pierre was all gold and magnolia, fatly upholstered chairs, ten sheets on your bed. Rupert had been looking very at ease; he was big enough for
this place, whereas Will, had she brought him here all those years ago, would have looked small and displaced, like a street busker who had somehow made it through the wall of bouncers.

Rupert and Lydia had been set up on a double date, which they undertook in the ironic spirit of the British abroad, the idea of ‘dating’ being beyond hilarious in their home country.
With their trademark haplessness, the British expected to just fall into the right relationship, whereas the Americans worked earnestly to establish the best possible base from which to proceed.
Luckily, the date had paid off, and she had hit the jackpot.

Sod the work, thought Lydia, I’ve got a wedding to plan. She put her coat back on and decided to check out Kelly Hoppen on the Fulham Road where she was thinking of having her list. They
had nothing in the window except three white vases at astronomical prices, which all looked very promising.

The rain was sheeting down as Lydia walked up the road to Sloane Square where the Peter Jones courtesy bus arrived just in time to rescue her from those damned nuisance charity workers
patrolling the Kings Road with their clipboards. As if she didn’t have enough to spend her money on right now. She sank gratefully into the luxuriously upholstered seat. At the age of
thirty-seven, she was a short engagement away from being a rich Chelsea wife, with an interesting and successful career to boot. When she could so easily have slipped into the life of a sad
freelance hack with a bedsit in Balham. It had been a gamble, moving to New York, but one that had paid off. You won’t make the scene if you don’t hit the green, to quote one of those
mottos of self-improvement so beloved of Americans, the masters of reinvention. Don’t ask, don’t get. Go for broke. Marry a millionaire.

The bus drew up outside PJ2 in Draycott Avenue and the passengers got off, politely thanking the driver as though he were the family chauffeur. Lydia cut back to Sloane Avenue, past Bibendum and
left into the Fulham Road, when she heard the sound of low-flying aircraft so loud she feared an attack by the axis of evil. But it was just a red Virgin helicopter coming down to land in the
private gardens of Onslow Square. Richard Branson coming home for his tea, perhaps. How fabulous.

And wasn’t that Nigella and Charles going into Theo Fennell’s posh jewellery shop, the tall facade prettily illuminated by a mesh of white fairy lights? It was here that the Duchess
of York’s poor ex-dresser had been working before she clubbed her boyfriend to death with his own cricket bat for failing to marry her and referring to her as a pair of old slippers. Lydia
would not have gone that far, but Rupert’s proposal had certainly brought things to a very satisfactory conclusion. She pushed open the door to Kelly Hoppen and greeted the lofty assistant
with a smile. ‘I’d like to open a wedding list, please,’ she said. Was it her imagination or did she see a flicker of envy cross the girl’s face?

Jane wished she had gone to the memorial service now. She always did that — said she was too busy to do things, then wasted time dithering around. Lydia’s call had
knocked her off her stride, and she might as well have gone for all the work she’d achieved this morning.

Maybe she really should go to that school reunion next week. Last time she’d checked on Friends Reunited, she’d been cheered by the all-round lack of achievement. The cleverest girl
in the class was now working part-time as a receptionist at the local opticians which fitted in nicely round school hours. Former prefect Janet Bowles volunteered the information (with three
exclamation marks) that she could usually be found browsing the aisles of her second home, aka Waitrose. It must be lovely to feel so little pressure to succeed.

She switched off the computer and thought about lunch. She could make herself a macrobiotic salad using the salad leaves and seeds she so conscientiously hunted out at farmers’ markets.
Will swore by them, hoping their virtuous influence would stamp out the after-effects of his decadent youth. He was always telling Jane what she should and shouldn’t be eating.

She decided that what she really needed was a Chicken McNugget Meal with large fries and large non-diet Coke. It offered the double satisfaction of being nutritionally void and creating an
unseemly amount of non-recyclable waste. That polystyrene box alone, she thought, as she slipped her coat on and pulled the door behind her, could push Will over the edge.

Walking back home with her McDonald’s, Jane disposed of the evil packaging in an anonymous bin, and wondered what thoughtful present she should buy to take tonight. They were invited to
supper with an art-dealer friend of Will’s. Jane knew better than to say they were going to a dinner party. Will had told her early on in their relationship that he didn’t do dinner
parties. All that fuss about the seating plan, boy, girl, boy, girl, it was so damned couply. Instead, he did supper with friends, which was far more bohemian. Ossian was quite nice, but the wife
was a worry, a glamorous actress who knew everybody. You couldn’t very well hand over a box of Celebrations. I know, Jane thought, I’ll go to that pretentious shop on Westbourne Grove
and get them a glass boot of cassis balsamic vinegar. Wildly original.

Hunched over her computer with her Chocolate Chip Flurry, she pulled out her Christmas list to see what else she should look for while she was out. Not many shopping days left now, and she had
Will’s family to think of as well as her own. His mother was the most difficult, since she only approved of useful gifts, and had a withering contempt for anything that suggested unnecessary
expense. The problem being that by the time you got to eighty you didn’t need anything except for medical accoutrements, which hardly made for a festive feeling.

Three hours later she arrived at school, the car piled high with booty. Liberty was standing alone in the playground, her face thunderous. She made a throat-slitting gesture as Jane rushed up to
collect her.

‘Sorry darling, terrible traffic, I was doing some Christmas shopping.’

She opened the car door and Liberty climbed in, turning round to peer into the boot. ‘Did you get me a pet?’ she asked, as though hoping to see a puppy or a kitten snuggled up among
the carrier bags. It was all she wanted this year, an animal to call her own.

‘You know we’ve discussed that,’ said Jane, ‘and you agreed a goldfish would he very nice.’

‘Oh, aren’t I a lucky ducky?’ said Liberty sarcastically. She often came out of school with a new piece of posh slang. ‘Can’t I at least have something you can
hold?’

Jane did sympathise. You might as well drop a slice of carrot in a howl of water for all the reward a fish could give you. ‘Maybe next year,’ she said.

Liberty slumped back in her seat. Next year didn’t count when you were seven. ‘Are we going anywhere for Christmas?’ she asked.

‘No, we’re staying here and everyone’s coming to us.’

‘Oh. Lutetia’s going skiing, Apple’s going to Thailand. And Panda’s going on a safari.’

‘Bully for Panda. Maybe she’ll be captured and forced to live in a tree.’

Back at the house, Jane ferried in the Christmas presents and hid them in the cellar, away from Liberty’s curious gaze. The boxes of shelves she had bought at Ikea were
still sitting in the hall.

‘I’d better take those up,’ said Jane, ‘you know how Daddy can’t bear things cluttering up the house.’

‘I’ll help,’ Liberty offered. She had changed out of her school uniform and wanted to be useful.

Too heavy for you,’ Jane said, heaving the first pack onto her back, ‘but you can help me put them together.’

‘Why don’t you get Daddy to do it?’

‘He’s got a bad back, you know that.’

Jane was stronger than she looked, which was just as well, since Will was reluctant to lift things. Not that he was lazy. When he had been married to Carol, he’d done all the decorating
himself, with disastrous consequences for his back. Second time round he felt he deserved an architect. It was a measure of his success. My architect, my agent, my lawyer, my sleep therapist; it
suggested that all these people belonged to you, that you sat on the apex of an important pyramid as chairman and managing director of the large business that was your life. The architect had been
ruinously expensive. Personally, Jane would have preferred to spend the money on a cleaner, or holidays, or else put it away for school fees — his monstrous bill sat oddly alongside the
careful economies she made to stretch the household budget.

‘That’s the last one.’ Liberty handed over the final screw to Jane as she finished constructing the shelves and they admired the results.

‘Excellent work,’ said Jane, ‘you’ll have somewhere to put your fish tank now. Why don’t you come and talk to me while I get ready for this boring
dinner.’

Liberty followed her into the master bedroom and helped her lay out suitable outfits on the bed. She then produced her box of Barbies and lined them up on the floor, their dresses piled up in a
chaotic heap.

Jane frowned at the thought of the evening ahead. Dressing for supper with Will’s friends was always tricky. To be avoided at all costs was looking as though you had tried too hard; on the
other hand, she was no longer in quite good-enough shape to slouch up in an old pair of jeans. She pulled on a rather short skirt and a white shirt under the critical eye of her daughter.

‘Your arse looks good in that,’ said Liberty, nodding her approval.

‘Don’t say arse,’ said Jane absent-mindedly, turning in front of the mirror and wondering if Will would agree. She rifled through her jewellery box for what she hoped was a
bohemian pair of hoop earrings while Liberty turned back to talk to her dolls. Jane wished she’d been able to give her a little brother or sister but Will had been adamant, his nerves
couldn’t take it. The fact remained that he had three children and she had just the one. It seemed a bit unfair but she wouldn’t dream of springing another surprise baby on him. You
didn’t do that sort of thing in a reasonable modern relationship.

‘Come on, darling,’ she said, ‘let’s get you to bed.’

Her mind roamed freely as she read chapter five of The
Enchanted Wood
at breakneck speed. Three hundred and sixty-five stories a year, no wonder it got a bit dull. I have measured out my
life in bedtime stories, she thought. But that was child-rearing for you, an accumulation of mind-deadening routines. If you don’t like repetition, don’t have kids. It was a choice you
made and you shouldn’t expect any sympathy. What else was life for anyway? The one thing she could never regret was her beautiful, demanding daughter.

She slapped on some lipstick and rushed downstairs to tidy up for the babysitter. Ianthe’s nanny from Estonia was arriving at eight. ‘I’m making the most of her while
she’s fresh,’ Ianthe’s mother had said. ‘Once they’ve been over here for a couple of years, they quite lose that Eastern Bloc work ethic ‘ Hardly surprising
living in that house, Ianthe’s mother wasn’t exactly a model of industry, swanning around having lunch and discussing her winnings in the Hearts pyramid scheme.

Listening to the wailing police sirens, Jane worried, as usual, if she was doing enough for Liberty. Ice-skating, French lessons, violin, tennis, pottery classes. It sounded a lot, but what
about tai chi and chess and drama classes? And Japanese was supposed to be very good for stimulating the left side of the brain. What if Liberty grew up stunted because an unexplored area of her
consciousness had not been properly stimulated at a young age? She might be like a wilted plant potted in the wrong soil, her leaves yellow with neglect, and all because her mother had failed to
identify an obvious childhood need.

Will told her she worried too much, but it was different for men. They didn’t feel viscerally responsible for the well-being of their children the way that mothers did. While she was
putting Liberty to bed, he had been out for drinks with some writer friends, being big and clever and exchanging ideas that transcended the small domestic arena. She fought back her resentment. The
last thing she wanted to become was a dreary nag. Naomi Wolf said men believed the sanctuary of the Edwardian home had become a domestic hell, filled with vituperative harridans. There was no way
that Jane would become like Will’s ex, moaning and needy and unsympathetic to his creative requirements. Will Thacker, the acclaimed writer — she couldn’t say she hadn’t hit
the jackpot.

She heard a key in the lock.

‘Hallo, sexy,’ Will said, slurring slightly as he looked her up and down, ‘you look hot, in a waitressy sort of way. Shall we go?’

Ossian and Bella lived in Notting Hill and had an outside shower on one of their roof terraces. It was Bella who opened the door, wearing plastic flowers in her hair and what
looked like a floor-length nylon housecoat with a brown and orange floral theme. Jane would have looked like an escapee from a mental hospital in such an outfit.

They followed her into a kitchen/dining room of gargantuan proportions. The doorways had been widened to bring them into proportion with the high ceilings, and extra-deep work surfaces had been
installed to give an Olympian feel to the room. It was not a house for little people.

Although a bit on the small side, Will fitted in perfectly with his Jasper Conran jacket that had been deliberately frayed at the edges to look as though it was twenty years old. By comparison,
Jane felt like the suburban school girl she was, dressed up in her trendy weekend wear for a day up in town. In her short black skirt, she felt she should be passing round the canapes.

‘Hey, you look gorgeous,’ said Bella’s husband Ossian, sidling up for a better look. He’d always had a soft spot for Jane, and there had once been an embarrassing
incident when he had pressed himself up against her at a gallery opening. She hadn’t told Will about it: he might have thought her a prude, or else that she had been flirting. In any case, it
was all water under the bridge, and she was grateful for his attention tonight.