The Next Best Thing (8 page)

‘Interesting question. And one to which there are many answers.’

‘One will do.’

‘Just one, now let me see.’ He drummed his fingers on the window and gazed out thoughtfully at the deserted London streets.

‘Your wild-mushroom risotto, perhaps. Or the way your hair springs up at the front. Your smile. Maybe it’s because you don’t cramp my style, you know how to give me space . .
.’

‘Not very convincing so far . . .’

‘Or because you’ve offered mc the chance to be a father again without ramming it down my throat . . .’

‘Useful breeding stock . . .’

He frowned and tried again. ‘I suppose I live with you because I am happier with you than I would be without you. Yes, that’s it, it’s like Cyril Connolly said, if we want to
be happy “we must select the illusion which appeals to our temperament and embrace it with passion.” And you are my illusion.’ He smiled across at her in triumph, and added in an
American accent, ‘You are my illusion of choice.’

They drove on in silence for a bit.

‘And what about you, Jane,’ he asked. ‘Are you happy with your life?’

She drove in silence for a while, thinking about everything she had to be grateful for. Her precious daughter, her job, her house. The fragile construction of their family life. You had to be so
careful the whole thing didn’t come crashing down around your ears.

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I make it my business to be happy.’ She took her hand off the wheel to squeeze his leg.

Jane drove the babysitter home to avoid paying for a cab. Will was already asleep when she got back, wearing his British Airways blindfold to keep out the morning light. His
ears were blocked with special wax ear-plugs that he’d bought in France. The normal ones were hopeless, they fell out in the bed like rabbit pellets, whereas Boules Quies could be lovingly
kneaded to size. He lay there, his chest rising and falling, all orifices defended from attack by the outside world.

Not wanting to wake him, Jane slipped into bed without turning on the light. She stared up at the blackness and thought about their conversation on the way home. It should be obvious,
shouldn’t it? Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so: that’s what John Stuart Mill thought.

She was happy enough for sure, with her lovely daughter and a man to share her life, and her work to keep her occupied and drive away the demons. Those were the most important things. Then there
was the accumulation of small pleasures that made up the rest of happiness. Cooking and gardening and the occasional treat to look forward to, like her trip to the cinema tomorrow lunchtime.

It was a habit she had acquired when Liberty started school, and she finally found she had some time to herself. Often on a Friday afternoon, she switched off her computer, turned her back on
her domestic duties and took the tube to South Kensington to see a film at the French Institute. She always went alone, that was part of the pleasure. With no-one to defer to, she was anonymous,
silent, and free to please herself. In three years she had revisited the
oeuvre
of Bunuel, Godard, Truffaut, and kept up with the new releases. She sat near the back, surrounded by empty
seats, sipping on a min I bottle of Evian and letting the Frenchness of it all wash over her. Dark gallic eyes, suffused with unspoken meaning, the banal stirring of a cup of coffee somehow
conveying the looming shadows of tragedy.

Tomorrow she was going to sec an old favourite, A
Bout de Souffle.
It had all the ingredients. A heroine with a Joan of Arc hairdo and authentic striped tee shirt; fantastic black and
white shots of Paris in the days when you could just draw up and park your 2CV on the Champs Elysées; the suggestion that happiness was contained in a simple room with a bare mattress, two
glasses and a bottle of wine. Young people with their lives ahead of them. She couldn’t wait.

She snuggled into Will’s back, her non-seeing, non-hearing partner, who was now snoring loudly. Thanks to his ear plugs he was sealed in a soundless world, but it didn’t mean he
couldn’t be heard. Jane reached out a hand to pinch his nose and cover his mouth. There was a silence, then the familiar pig-like snort as he wrenched his face away to take a desperate
breath. Then he settled back down to regular, quiet breathing. If there was one thing Jane had learned in ten years of non-marriage to Will, it was how to stop him keeping her awake at night.

That night she dreamed she was on a safari with Panda and half of Liberty’s classmates. They were wearing their purple uniforms, packed into one giant Jeep under Jane’s supervision,
while Will followed in a separate vehicle, scowling at them from under his weathered Drizabone hat.

Rupert Beauval-Tench slipped on his jacket and glanced down at Lydia still asleep in bed. She wouldn’t wake up for at least two hours, which was perhaps why she looked so
serene. Though come to think of it, she always looked serene. She was blessed with the peace of mind that came from knowing what she wanted, and being in no doubt that it would all come her way in
the end. It was what had attracted him to her, this presumption that life was a party to which she had been invited as chief guest of honour. He only wished he felt the same.

He quietly closed the door to the apartment and went downstairs, letting himself out of the front entrance where the taxi was waiting, engine purring, black and shiny against the redbrick
terrace. Considering this was such a chic address, the architecture was pedestrian, like a series of Victorian school-buildings.

Climbing into the back of the cab, Rupert stretched out his long legs and reminded himself that London taxis were one of the few reasons he was glad to be back in Britain. In New York the sullen
drivers refused to get out, and left you to pull your own suitcase out of the trunk. In London, you felt they were on your side; they were engaged and chatty, with firm opinions, and often
alarmingly well-read.

‘Mayfair please,’ he said. ‘St James Street.’

The driver nodded, and Rupert disappeared behind his copy of the
Financial Times.
He might as well face the worst and check out this morning’s figures, though doing so always left
him with a creeping sense of gloom. At the age of forty, he knew he should feel much happier than he did. Not only did he have a lovely new fiancee, he had his very own new business to run.

‘Looks like you’re in finance.’ The driver had raised his face to speak, obliging Rupert to meet his gaze in the rear-view mirror.

‘Sorry?’

The driver pointed at his
FT.
‘You want to take a look at that book by Roland Edgeworth I’ve left out in the back,’ he went on. ‘He’s got a good section on
you lot. “In sawcy State the griping Broker sits.” John Cay. Wrote
The Beggar’s Opera,’
he added, seeing Rupert’s blank response.

Rupert politely put down his paper to take a flick through the densely worded tome bulging out of the back pocket of the front seat.

‘I’m not a broker, actually,’ he said. ‘Good God, have you read the whole thing? How on earth do you find the time?’

‘Lunch break. I get a sandwich and sit in the rank. What d’you do then?’

‘Me? Oh, I used to work for a bank, but I left to set up a hedge fund.’

‘A what?’

‘It’s . . . a bit tricky to explain really. Not sure that I quite know myself.’ He acquitted himself with a self-deprecating smile in the mirror. ‘Speaking of which,
I’d better get back to the markets, if you don’t mind.’ He replaced the book and retreated behind his newspaper. On reflection, there were times when a silent driver would be
preferable to a chirpy London cabbie.

He glanced down the figures printed in small tight columns on the pale orange paper, then sighed and closed his eyes. It must be his age. There had been a time when he was genuinely interested
in all this, but since his return from New York he just felt he was going through the motions, marking time until he found a way out. This was unfortunate, since he had just gone into partnership
with a colleague whose enthusiasm made Rupert feel like a sodden old rag in comparison. After eighteen years in the corporate fold they had decided with
Boys’ Own
bravado that it was
time to go it alone, but Rupert was no longer so sure it was such a good idea.

Turning forty, that’s what had done it for him, though he had played the occasion down with a low-key dinner for two with Lydia, rather than one of those bells-and-whistles parties that
people gave to show how well they’d done. His business partner Richard had also hit forty this year, and had chartered a large ship to convey three hundred close friends in a Disco
Inferno-themed evening to the Thames barrier and back. He always did things properly. He already had a wife and four kids flourishing on a country estate in Kent where he reared organic venison and
hosted quiz, nights in his spare time. Rupert had a country pile too, but his was unfairly inherited rather than earned through his own talent and energy. It was unavailable anyway, having been
leased to a Saudi prince for eight years. And even if he and Lydia started a family right away, he knew he’d never catch up with Richard.

The cab dropped him outside his office in Mayfair. They had chosen St James Street because London’s most successful hedge fund was based here, and it was hoped that this success might rub
off on them like gold dust. To Rupert, it felt increasingly that they were rats on a sinking ship. He climbed the stairs, trying to work himself up into a positive frame of mind. It was easier in
New York where the money-making ethic ran through the streets and was contagious, like a happy plague. Plus he had been there during the late Nineties boom, when everything you touched turned to
gold. Not like now in this age of uncertainty, beneath grey British skies and a bear market and the rebellious British public rising up against fat-cat salaries. Rupert sympathised, he always
considered himself grossly overpaid compared to real people who did real jobs. It’s just that he couldn’t really think what else to do.

Richard was already at his desk, which was festooned with photographs of himself surrounded by his large family. Having ten photos of yourself on display might be considered vain, but for some
reason this was not the case if your kids were in the frame with you. Richard’s wife was there, too, beaming out confidently, candy-striped pink trousers cropped beneath the knee, white shirt
with upturned collar, headband and gold earrings. She was one of those girls from a comfortable background who seemed entirely fulfilled by her role as homemaker. Rupert couldn’t quite see
Lydia in that vein, nor would he necessarily want her to be hovering with a C and T the moment he stepped in the door.

Richard greeted him with a hand upstretched, like a policeman stopping traffic. ‘Rupert, sound fellow!’

The hand was square and strong, confident of a lifetime’s success and happiness, emerging from a thickly folded double cuff from one of those swanky Jermyn Street tailors that were so
square they were hip. Richard’s smile was unfairly dazzling for someone who got up each morning to catch the 6.59 train, and his skin was the colour of caramel.

Rupert’s skin was fair and freckly and he hated it. When he caught the sun, or drank more than a few pints, it turned bright red, which he hated even more. Among the photos on
Richard’s desk was a picture of the two of them celebrating the launch of their business, in a pub in Shepherd Market. Richard looked like Mel Gibson, small and dark and sexy, while Rupert
loomed behind him like an ungainly beacon, his ginger-blond hair clashing violently with his beetroot complexion. He wanted to ask Richard to take the picture down, but everyone knew that Rupert
didn’t care two hoots about his appearance and he didn’t want to rock the boat.

He waved a hearty greeting to Richard, who then returned to his phone call. Rupert took off his heavy coat and settled at the opposite desk, fixing his face in an expression of purposeful zeal
as he focused in on the screen.

It was awful being in partnership with a friend. When he’d worked for the bank, he used to complain about it: the hierarchy, the red tape, always being accountable to someone else. Now he
was only accountable to himself, and to Richard. And to the investors who had entrusted them with millions of pounds. It made his blood run cold just thinking about it. His younger self might have
relished the challenge, but his new couldn’t-care-less self wished the whole thing would just vanish in a puff of smoke.

Richard finished his phone call.

‘Brian Timmons. Looks like he’s going to come through with a few hundred thou.’

‘Great.’ Rupert’s voice sounded phoney even to himself. ‘I’ve got lunch with a prospect myself today. Ex-banker, husband works at the French embassy, she sounded
pretty interested.’

‘Good.’

‘Yup.’

‘Big Hairy Audacious Goals, let’s go for it.’

It was such a strain, all this encouraging mutual back-slapping and talking positive. When all he wanted to do was go up to Richard and say ‘fooled you!’ and they’d have a
laugh about the whole thing then go off to the pub.

Rupert knew he was not the first to feel disaffected by his work. Other people called it burnout, and fell into dramatic crises of depression, harming themselves with penknives and receiving
therapy on BUPA. But Rupert was too humble for all that. He wasn’t theatrical enough to cast himself as the flawed hero of his own private tragedy. And besides, he wouldn’t say he was
depressed exactly. It was just that he didn’t really want anything any more. He suspected it might simply be the onset of middle age. Which was a bit of a joke, as he was about to become a
blushing bridegroom.

Richard came over and dropped a brochure on his desk. “lake a look at this, Rupert, old boy. Let me know what you think.’

Richard called him old boy in jokey deference to his breeding. Whereas Richard was an Essex boy made good, Rupert had an entry in
Burke’s Landed Gentry
and family money of such
noble distinction it had gone yellow with age, like those treasure-island maps that kids dip in cold tea to give them an authentic look. Richard liked to imagine Rupert still had a soft spot for
old Nanny, pensioned off in some cottage on the family estate while the big house with forty-seven rooms and its own chapel crumbled into elegant decay. All rubbish, of course. But the name of
Beauval-Tench brought a touch of class to their outfit. And Rupert was a good bloke, solid and dependable, which was more than you could say for some of the toffs who ended up in the city.