Trophy Life (3 page)

As usual, Gayle had had a disagreement with the mums at the school gate.

'I mean, what was she thinking turning up at the party without RSVP’ing? And then bringing her older boy as well. I was tempted to tell her where to go, but I couldn’t do that to the kids, could I.' She said this fondly. Gayle was a single mum of one, Kieran, a bubbly six year old who she brought along with her on school holidays to watch TV upstairs while she put Amy through her paces.

'What happened with Gary by the way?' Gary was a plumber Gayle had been seeing for a couple of months.

'I think he might be ready to meet Kieran,' she beamed. 'Oh he is just so lovely. You know I’ve never had anyone meet him before. Well, this time I think he’s the one. Listen to me going on about myself. What are you up to today? How’s the gorgeous Harry? I told some of the school gate mums that I teach you and they were all excited. He’s a bit of a celeb you know.'

Lying on her back with her legs bent in a table top position for sit ups, Amy only just managed to laugh as she caught her breath. 'Hardly! He’ll probably enjoy knowing that the school mums think so though,' she huffed. This was true, although Harry probably wouldn’t love her telling anyone as much. He liked to seem very matter-of-fact about any attention that came his way. No big deal. She could just hear him laughing uproariously then saying, 'Oh, don’t be silly,' but then sending out signed photos to the bestower of any such complement, like a king looking down fondly on his peasants.

Answering Gayle’s other question, she said, 'Yes, really well thanks. Busy.' Trying to add more to the conversation she said, 'Which is great, obviously.' In fact Harry had been in the office until at least 9pm several nights last week as well as some weekends recently. As the most senior associate in his department, he was very firmly aiming for a partnership in the near future. His firm, Braker and Ball (known in the trade as the Ball Breakers) was renowned for its celebrity and wealthy clients and, with Harry quickly becoming a star in his own right, he was on track to achieve this earlier than expected as long as he put the hours in.

'Oh yes well, he’s doing so well,' Gayle said eagerly. 'Now, shift your waist to the left.' She adjusted Amy’s body.  

After her lesson, Amy showered and washed her hair. She was actually off to get her hair blow dried as she did every Friday afternoon followed by a nails appointment, but even though they would wash it there, she would never dare turn up to see Jean-Paul, her stylist, with unwashed hair. It just wouldn’t do to look anything less than perfect at Kinetic Salon and Spa. Set in the heart of St John’s Wood, it was a place to be seen and therefore you had to get there looking good in order to leave looking even better. It was here that Amy, along with a couple of other law firm wives, Jill and Claire, met every Friday to have their nails done together. Jill was married to Andrew and Claire to Graham, both colleagues of Harry. They had all bonded one Christmas party over too much Pinot Noir and had been meeting regularly on a Friday ever since.

'I didn’t tell you this,' Claire said confidentially as she leaned towards Jill and Amy, restrained by her manicurist clasping her left hand, 'but Holly and Greg are splitting up.' Holly and Greg were in their forties and always seemed like a particularly stable couple. She was a warm, friendly motherly type with short blond hair, always wearing long flowing skirts. He was a perpetually dour corporate lawyer with a basset hound face who always made Amy feel like she was being told off by the headmaster. 

'How long have they been married?' Amy asked. She remembered something about an anniversary party.

'Ten years,' Jill said resignedly, 'If you can believe it. It’s disgusting. Bet he was sleeping with Jenna. I’d never let Andy have a secretary that hot. Bloody cliché.' 

'She’s not hot, she just twenty,' argued Claire. 'Who didn’t look hot when they were twenty?'

'You’re only 30,' laughed Jill. 'Anyway, she’d better get a good lawyer and fast. She’s gonna go up against Harry,' she added this last bit in a cautionary sing-song. They both looked at Amy just as she understood what that meant. Holly was going to find herself on the wrong side of the Ball Breakers. Their adversary. After having been to cocktail parties and Christmas dos and the annual picnic, she would find herself cast adrift. Amy wasn’t sure why but the thought was chilling. But clearly there had been something wrong with Greg and Holly’s marriage. Maybe it wasn’t him who had cheated, maybe she had. Or maybe they just weren’t right for each other.

'It’s the kids I feel sorry for,' lamented Claire as, as if on cue, they all switched hands from left to right, placing them in the capable hands of their respective manicurists. They all nodded sadly.

Amy couldn’t stop thinking about Holly and Greg as she drove home. She remembered the last time she saw them. They had seemed fine. Happy. Normal. She shook her head as if to shake away the thoughts. She started to tick things off in her mind again.

Food shop, done. Giselle’s present, done. Pilates, done. Hair and nails, done. Now she’d just have to make dinner. Harry had said he was coming home earlier tonight so, in readiness and feeling proud of herself as a devoted wife, she had carefully and meticulously followed a Nigella Lawson recipe for Italian roast chicken with peppers and olives. Perhaps, she hoped, looking over at the book cover showing a sultry Nigella laughing confidently over a plate of pasta, she could channel some of the famous chef’s seemingly effortless domestic prowess. Peering however at the mess she had made on the countertop and the oily splatters on her top, she couldn’t quite imagine Nigella in the same situation.

At eight o’clock, expecting he would be home any minute, Amy poured wine for them and sat in the living room watching TV and flicking through her Facebook app on her phone. She loved and hated the social networking site in equal measure. The items on her newsfeed today ranged from her sister’s latest photos of her children at the zoo, which Amy dutifully (and truthfully) liked, to the rather less U-rated shots of her university friend Georgina, still free both in sprit and in a matrimonial sense, diving into a crowd at a bar with a gleeful look on her face and the caption
'headless and head first'
. Amy noticed that Harry had tagged her in a photo locating them at Sushi Samba earlier that week, with the line
'sushi with my sweetheart'
underneath. As he was in real life, Harry was the king of social media schmoozing. The photo showed Harry looking cool and relaxed with his arm around a smiling Amy, a stunning plate of raw fish in front of them. They looked hip and happy. A young couple with the world at their feet. She in her Stella McCartney Sabrina top and him looking cool and understated in Nicole Farhi. Would it make other people jealous? Maybe. The comments below read '
Looking good Sir Harry!'
and '
Save some for me!'
Weren’t they so metropolitan and popular?

Yet here she was on a Friday night alone at home with a mangled chicken.

Ten minutes into her perusal, her phone vibrated and a small bar appeared at the top with a message from Harry reading, '
Sorry, will be late, eat without me xxx'
.

Sighing into her almost empty glass of Malbec, Amy drained the last dregs and went to tackle the poultry on her own.

When Harry did finally arrive home the clock by their bed read 11pm.

'Nightmare,' he boomed as he entered their room, an actor entering stage left. 'On the phone to Poochy Paul for an hour and a half. There’s been another breakdown of communications over the custody arrangements.' He was already undoing the cufflinks on his shirt as he spoke.

Amy smiled. Harry wasn’t allowed to discuss the names of his clients, even with her, so they always spoke in code, giving the clients nicknames based on something to do with their situation. In the early days of their marriage Harry had indulged Amy a bit, laughing as she made them up and occasionally chipping in. Nowadays, Amy tended to come up with the names entirely on her own. In any event, Poochy Paul and his wife Canine Carla were currently involved in a dogged dispute involving the living arrangements of their Pomeranians. The matter had been rumbling on for so long that Amy felt like she knew them both.

'Still arguing over Christmas?' she asked, unable to hide a smile at the ridiculousness of it all.

'Yes, Christmas and Chanukah and what happens when they fall on the same days and when they don’t. We’re very keen to get those eight days and nights.' His tone was completely serious. He sounded like an earnest newsreader talking about house prices. As he spoke, she watched from their bed as he smoothly unbuttoned his shirt and trousers and got ready for sleep. Every step of his routine – and it was a daily routine completed meticulously without fail – was carefully choreographed for maximum efficiency. The suit, which would be dry cleaned tomorrow, was hung carefully to avoid wrinkling. The shirts folded before being placed in the hamper for Una to wash.

'My mum saw that
Mail
article today. Read the whole thing to me. She seemed very proud,' Amy told him.

'Oh yes, well,' he smiled dismissively. 'It’s good for the firm. They had that silly photo as well.' As he said this, she watched as he surveyed himself in the mirror, as if recalling the photo. He seemed pleased with the result. 'What’s the plan this weekend? I might have to work,' he non sequitured, still not looking at her, focused now on spreading moisturiser evenly on his jawline.

'We’re going to Julia’s tomorrow, then we have dinner with Giselle and James for her birthday and I’m seeing your mother on Sunday. You said you were golfing, right?' She decided that she would do something as well while he busied himself, so she began rubbing in hand cream, squishing it between her fingers and extending up her arms. For some reason it felt very grown up, perhaps as she remembered seeing her mother do the same when she was a child.

'Yes, just with some of the uni lot,' he said, finally, carefully, lowering himself onto their bed. He kissed her on the forehead as he always did. 'Anyway, I am pooped. Let’s go to sleep.'

***

The next morning, Amy found herself in Julia’s chaotic but cosy kitchen in Finchley, sitting next to Isabelle’s pasta sauce covered high chair, her chubby one year-old hand waving the spoon around like an overzealous conductor. She narrowly avoided being hit by some flying courgette.

Amy’s older sister, Julia was filling a kettle while her two elder children, son Flynn, three and daughter, Jenny, five, ran around the living room, overseen by her husband Mark. Everything about Julia screamed practical mum. Her long, once glossy hair was safely tied into a top not, away from infant hands. She wore a sensible outfit of shapeless jeans and baggy jumper.

'Can you believe her,' Julia laughed. 'I’m telling you, she’s just started handing my CV around to random people and asking them if I can help in any way. Next step, a sandwich board on Liverpool Street.'

'Or maybe a paid ad on LinkedIn,' Amy joked, accepting a cup of milky tea. 'Will anyone hire this daughter? Comes from a good family.' 

'Don’t tell her that. You’ll give her ideas. She just doesn’t seem to want to accept that this,' she said, gesturing around the kitchen, 'is my job.' Without a pause she went on to clean Isabelle’s hands with a wet wipe. 'And I love it. Maybe when the kids are all in school. I’m thinking I might teach so I can be off during the holidays.' Julia would be perfect for teaching. Patient, kind and with a way of making everything seem simple, she would be able to inspire some very lucky kids.

Amy sighed, 'Tell me about it. Every time mum calls it’s to ask me what I’m doing. She thinks she’s so subtle, but she really isn’t. She wants to know why I haven’t had kids and why I haven’t gone back to work, ideally all at the same time.'

Julia looked at her tentatively.

'Are you and Harry talking kids yet?' 

'Now who sounds like mum?' Amy asked, slightly more sharply than she had intended.

'Only asking,' Julia laughed, putting her hands up in a gesture of surrender. 'Biological clock ticking and all that. Jenny, give that back to Flynn,' her focus shifting in a second towards the far end of the room. 'Mark, don’t let her take that from him.'

Amy watched as Julia’s husband followed his wife’s instructions. He carefully kneeled down to look at his children at their level and, like a hostage negotiator on a mission, managed to agree terms which saw Jenny relinquish the Frozen doll she had taken from her brother. Mark was an incredible dad. Just like Julia, he was filled with patience, but he also had an intrinsic sense of fun and adventure. He was always throwing the kids over his shoulders, their small bodies shaking with giggles and looking even tinier compared to his bulky six foot four frame.  What would Harry be like as a dad? She looked over to where he was standing next to Mark, gesticulating elaborately as he held forth his views on one of the latest restaurants he had been to.

As Mark kissed Jenny on the head, a reward for good behaviour, Harry didn’t pause for a moment.

'And I don’t think there’s any excuse for serving sashimi at more than the standard thickness, do you?' Mark, clearly a man for whom the thickness of raw fish held little if any importance, just nodded his head in agreement.

Excited by his victory over his sister, Flynn shook the doll at Harry.

'Olaf is the best snowman because he is magic.' Stopped mid-flow of monologue, Harry looked momentarily confused before smiling and patting his nephew on the head.