The Other Half (23 page)

At that moment the front door slammed, and she heard the familiar rustle of Jamie slinging his jacket over the banister.

“Oh dear,” she said hurriedly. “That’s Jamie. I’d better go.”

“Already?”

“I’ll call you soon,” she promised, hung up, then called out, “I’m in here.” A couple of seconds later Jamie appeared at the living room door.

She decided to open with something that didn’t involve the both of them. “I saw Chloë today.”

Yet even that seemed to disconcert him. “Um…” He paused. “How did it go?” He went over to the drinks cabinet, got out one of the decanters they’d been given as a wedding present, and poured himself a whisky.

“Actually, it was a bit odd.”

“Odd?” Now he sounded concerned.

“Yes. Well, rather,
she
was a bit odd.”

“Really?” He turned away to replace the decanter. Why was it these days he barely ever looked her in the eye?

“You’ve met her, haven’t you?”

“Yes.” He took a gulp of his drink.

“Did you think she was odd?”

“No, not particularly.” Another gulp.

“Moody?”

“No.” He sat down, opting not for the sofa next to her but one of the armchairs. They were at right angles to each other, both with their feet propped on the coffee table, relaxed yet unrelaxed, poles apart.

“Maybe it was me, then.”

“Why? What did she say?”

“Nothing I could put my finger on.” Maggie frowned, wondering how to explain. “At first she was really friendly, charming even. Then, when she saw my portfolio, she turned cool.”

“Perhaps she didn’t think your work was right for
All Woman.
”

“Perhaps…”

Jamie took a third sip of whisky. He seemed to be drinking it awfully fast. “I did warn you that you might not be of a like mind.”

“I know.” But years of being the social observer meant Maggie was a good judge of people’s reactions, and she was pretty sure that Chloë had liked her work. “You can tell me I’m imagining things, but I don’t think that’s what it was.”

“So, what
do
you think it was?”

Yes, I’m right: he
is
perturbed, Maggie decided. Possibly he’s more bothered about what’s going on in my life than I’ve given him credit for.

“Something Jean said…” Maggie struggled for words.

“What did Jean say?” Jamie seemed angry now. God, he was so confusing these days! Then again, he’d always been a little threatened by the closeness of Maggie and Jean’s friendship.

“She said something along the lines of Chloë not liking to share things … so I wondered…”

“What?”

“Whether she was being possessive.”

“Possessive?”

“Mm, that she didn’t want to share working on the magazine project with me or something.”

“Really?”

“I can’t think of any other reason why she’d be so funny. Can you?”

“Er…”

“After all, my work’s okay, isn’t it?”

“Of course! It’s fine. In fact it’s more than fine, it’s great!”

Now he’s all enthusiasm, observed Maggie. She couldn’t think of anything to add. “Anyway … I didn’t want to talk about Chloë.”

“Ah?”

“It’s no big deal, I suppose. I’ll simply have to look to someone else for the kind of work I want to do.” Maggie took a sip of her gin for Dutch courage. “I wanted to talk about us.” To show she was serious, she tried to look at him directly. But Jamie glanced down at his feet, just like Nathan earlier. Or Nathan was like Jamie. It didn’t matter; what mattered was Nathan’s upset had opened Maggie’s eyes. As his room was directly above, she dropped her voice. “We can’t avoid this forever.”

“No,” said Jamie gruffly.

“Don’t tell me you hadn’t noticed.”

“No. I had.”

“Well?” Maggie felt herself shaking again.

Then he surprised her. “I’d kind of thought I should talk to you.”

Perhaps this is good, she hoped: if Jamie is prepared to acknowledge things are sticky and wants to talk, surely he’ll come to Relate. “What did you want to chat about?”

“To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to say.”

“Oh?”

“That’s why I didn’t say anything.”

“I see.” Though she didn’t. He seemed to have lost his nerve.

Silence.

Then Jamie ventured, “So what were
you
wanting to say?”

It occurred to Maggie that Nathan’s pictures might be a good place to start. “Hang on a minute.” She got up. “I’ve something to show you.” She went into the kitchen and collected the paper roll from the top of the fridge, then returned to the living room. She handed it to Jamie. He looked without saying a word.

“Notice anything?” asked Maggie, finally.

“It’s of you.”

How selfish that his first concern was for his own standing in Nathan’s eyes! Yet perhaps that was significant too: absent-father syndrome.

“Anything else?”

He stopped, and examined it again. “You look miserable?”

“Yes.”

More silence. At last Jamie said, “Is that true?”

Maggie was bottling up so much resentment that she didn’t know where to start, or how. As she sat there, on the huge Chesterfield, she could feel her heart thudding in her chest, her cheeks burning, the gin glass cold and clammy in her hand. All at once she felt a surge of fury, stirred up by protectiveness of Nathan. Eventually she spat—“You could say I’m pretty fucked off, yes.” Then out it poured. “I’m fucked off with you working late. I’m fucked off with you not helping more around the house. I’m fucked off with you not supporting me in public. I’m fucked off with you not calling me from America. I’m fucked off with you for not talking—you’ve hardly spoken to me since you got back from New York, for God’s sake! I’m fucked off with you for making me—yes,
making
me compromise and slave away writing articles I hate, just to alleviate your neurosis about money. And, above all, I’m fucked off with you for not being willing even to discuss having another child.”

He could be in no doubt as to the level of her wrath and pain. Yet he merely stared down at his shoes, which made her angrier still.

“You’re pathetic,” she said.

Jamie was shocked: now at least he looked at her. “Oh?”

“Or, rather,” she corrected herself, “your recent behavior is pathetic.”

This made him flush, whether with anger or guilt she couldn’t be sure. “I just…” he stammered “… I don’t know how I … feel about things right now.”

“You surprise me,” she said venomously. “About what, precisely, don’t you
‘know how you feel’
?”

He went even redder: “It’s not you; it’s me.”

“Thank you for that insight.” She was relieved that he had acknowledged it wasn’t her fault, but it was such a hackneyed excuse, and it didn’t help her understand things any better—she didn’t know what “it” was. The half-formulated belief that he was being unfaithful had remained with her since the day of the exhibition, but she was afraid to articulate it. Instead she asked, “What is it with you? Some midlife crisis or something?”

“Perhaps, I’ve been feeling a bit claustrophobic lately. I guess I’m not sure quite where I’m at.”

“How original.” Again she couldn’t resist heavy irony. He sounded so juvenile, like a teenager, and she resented being made to feel that she was hemming him in. So she added, knowing it would really annoy him, “Jean was right, then.”

“Fuck Jean.”

“How dare you talk like that about my friend!”

“How dare you talk to your friend about me!”

“If you won’t talk to me, who the hell else am I supposed to talk to?”

“No one.”

“No one? Oh, get real, Jamie! I may keep things to myself a lot of the time, but I’m not a bloody robot! We’ve hardly made love for three months, and when we do I can tell your heart’s not in it—probably because you’re petrified of getting me pregnant. We’ve not spoken, you’re hardly here, you don’t help me, you nag me about money, you go away, you don’t call—what on earth am I meant to do? Not breathe a word? Jesus, I had to go to the GP I was so miserable. The doctor, for heaven’s sake! And let me tell you, I found him a whole lot easier to talk to than you!”

“You went to our GP?”

“Yes.”

“You talked to the doctor about us?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, great. So now everyone in the village will know about our marital problems.”

Maggie had a flash of guilt about how she’d confided in Georgie earlier, which enhanced her indignation. I wouldn’t
need
to confide in these people if he talked to me! she protested inwardly. And, anyway, I didn’t say
that
much to Georgie, did I?

“In case it had escaped your notice, Jamie, doctors are sworn to secrecy, so you needn’t bloody worry that he’ll go around spilling the beans in the goddamn supermarket.”

Maggie realized the conversation was not going the way she’d intended at all. I was supposed to be persuading Jamie to come to counseling, not driving a wedge between us, she thought. She was once more conscious there was only the ceiling separating them from Nathan, so she halted to calm down. “Anyway, I think that’s the point, isn’t it?”

Jamie appeared bewildered.

“I’ve had to offload to somebody.”

“More than somebody. Somebod
ies
.”

“Somebody, somebodies, whatever.” She moved on, more calmly. “My point is that I’d much rather be discussing things with you.” She took a deep breath. “So I wondered, would you come with me for counseling?”

“Counseling?”

Her heart sank; this was going to be hard work. “Yes. Marriage-guidance counseling.”

“I don’t need bloody counseling.”

“
You
might not.
We
do.”

“No, we don’t.” She knew Jamie in this mood. Stubbornness personified. For the time being she was sure he wouldn’t budge, but she forced herself to give it one last try. “It’s not a bad thing, Jamie. Hundreds of couples do it.”

“And we’re not one of those couples.”

“If we’re not one of ‘
those couples
’ who are we?”

“Now you’re being ridiculous. I don’t want to talk to some stranger about my marriage. All right?”

She inhaled deeply. “Will you at least think about it?”

“No.”

Sometimes Maggie wanted to kill him. If I had a gun I’d put a bullet in his brain here and now, she thought. Sitting so smug and self-righteous and self-obsessed on the sodding seat nearby.

“I’d rather sort things out my own way,” he said.

He clearly meant in a way that suited him. This convinced her. “Fine. I’ll go on my own.”

“You can’t go on your own!”

“Oh, can’t I?” she said. “Just watch me.”

31

Summer gave way to autumn and just as a patch of mild weather kept leaves hanging on branches in semi-browned suspension, so reluctance permeated Chloë’s mental state regarding her affair. She sensed James was equally unwilling to face the sobering consequences of their actions, thus instead of making demands or precipitating a confrontation, she let their relationship drift on as it had before they’d been away.

“He’s having his cake and eating it,” Rob cautioned her. “Allow things to slide now, and it’s all too easy to do it indefinitely.” Heedless of his warning, Chloë continued to see James once a week—twice if she was lucky—but at least this allowed her to focus on work, which might otherwise have suffered.

As well as asking Craig to write a piece on children and divorce as promised, she commissioned one writer with a reputation for investigative ruthlessness to produce a particularly provocative feature, and another known for her soul-searching interviews to go one step further than usual with a star profile. She invited a favorite freelancer to come up with the sharpest, wittiest column he could conceive of, a second to vent spleen with a biting series of reviews, and a third to compose an up-to-the-minute social exposé. “I want you to stretch yourself,” she said to each. “Don’t hold back. Write as if there was no editor or advertising director limiting what you are allowed to do.”

But she couldn’t assign all the work out to others and, anyway, she wanted to draft some of the features herself, so one morning she decided she could do with a hand from Patsy. Given that Patsy wasn’t employed on
All Woman
and Chloë had no wish to antagonize Jean by stealing her during working hours, she phoned her and suggested they go for lunch.

They met in the foyer. “It’s a bit embarrassing explaining this in an open-plan office,” Chloë said, ushering Patsy out of the building.

“Blimey! It must be hush-hush—I didn’t think you ever got embarrassed!”

“You’ll discover what I mean soon enough,” said Chloë.

“Tell me, tell me!”

“Patience.”

“Oooh!” She could see Patsy was both infuriated and thrilled.

They made their way down Long Acre, crossed onto Endell Street, and headed to Shaftesbury Avenue.

“Where are we going?” panted Patsy; dysfunctional footwear and legs even shorter than Chloë’s meant it was hard for her to keep up.

Chloë tapped her nose knowingly. “Aha.”

Along Denmark Street, with its music shops that had been there forever, over the pelican crossing on Charing Cross Road, and they were there.

“
Ann Summers!
” Patsy giggled. “Are you sure this isn’t something you should be doing with your man, not me?”

But Patsy doesn’t know I
have
a man, thought Chloë, momentarily flummoxed. Still, this wasn’t the moment to ask what she meant, so she moved on, saying firmly, “No. This is a project, Patsy. Work. Not play. Research.”

“You’re having a laugh!”

Chloë grabbed a basket and strode purposefully past the underwear, nurses’ uniforms, and maids’ outfits, and up the steps into the back. Here the lighting was less harsh. She noted there were no lone women shoppers, only couples, and men, presumably buying for their girlfriends or wives. She scanned the shelves—hmm, not the videos or magazines, or the handcuffs, and certainly not the rather tacky “play” whips or masks. (Far more creative to improvise, Chloë believed.)

She halted in front of the biggest display. “This is what we’re after.”