Upgrading (33 page)

After my experiences with Jonathan I wonder whether to ask him to draw up something between me and Marion for the little matter of the £15,000 but that sounds just too tacky. Besides she’d never go for it. I’ll have to trust her.

When I tell her how helpful Jerry was and remind her of the payment we discussed, she says, “I should hope he was helpful—the amount he’s making out of me.”

Following my conversation with Jerry I’ve made a careful note of what we have to do and then I go into the kitchen to explain it all to Anna Maria. I realize that we haven’t spoken about this before and perhaps she doesn’t even know that I’ve agreed to do the deed. As soon as I walk into the kitchen and say her name she senses something is afoot. I suddenly feel rather nervous and realize that I am, in fact, proposing to her. It almost makes me laugh for a moment and then I realize that this is how it’s going to be: a grotesque parody of what should be one of the most serious and moving events of my life.

We are going to do it “by licence” since this means we only have to give three days’ notice. We’ll do it Chelsea Registry because technically I now live in the Royal Borough. We just need two witnesses. Marion will ask two discreet friends to do that, probably Charles and Victoria. Then, after a few months we will send our papers to the Home Office in Croydon and they will lift the residency restrictions on Anna Maria’s passport and she can stay in Britain as long as she likes without any difficulty. Later she can apply for citizenship if she wants.

I think she takes it all in. Later that afternoon the driver takes us to the Town Hall to register. The clerk in charge with his overused suit and brown striped shirt seems to radiate disapproval even though he doesn’t say anything beyond what he is legally bound to tell us. He looks at me and then at her and then back at me again. I give our names, spelling them in an attempt to be extra helpful and curry favour. He types them into a computer and asks for our addresses. There is something about the formality, the smell of disinfectant, the polished lino floor, the faint echo of our voices and the forms on the desk that reminds me of school exams and I begin to feel slightly sick. Suddenly Anna Maria is tugging at my sleeve. I look round and realize how ridiculous we must appear—she’s got to be less than five feet tall.

“What?” I say, trying to look lovingly at her.

“My name.”

“Yes, dear.” I say. It sounds ridiculous, like I’m taking the piss out of this whole thing even more. “He’s got to put them both into the computer.”

“No, my name no like that.”

“What?” I was hoping that this little tiff made the whole thing look quite convincing. What comes next doesn’t.

“You no write it like that.”

“How do you mean?”

“Like this.” She reaches forward to the screen and covers up half her name with her finger.

“Sorry?” Irritably, she snatches a pen from off the desk and writes her name on one of the leaflets we’ve been given. “Ana Maria” One “n.”

“Of course, darling, I forgot.” Yeah, forgot how to spell my fiancée’s name—as you do. “Sorry, can you just delete that extra ‘n,’” I say. The clerk looks at me for a moment and then very slowly and meticulously moves the cursor over one “n” in Anna and presses the backspace button. He swivels round in his chair prissily and picks up a huge diary.

“When would you like to book the ceremony itself? You can do so any time from the day after tomorrow,” he asks, skimming over pages and avoiding looking at us. My stomach twists further at the thought.

“Let’s do it this week, shall we, darling?” I say, looking down at the book, as if we just can’t wait. Impassively, the clerk turns the page and Ana Maria and I both stare at the week spread out before us in little lines and boxes—ready for me to make the worst mistake of my life. I wait a while for the clerk to suggest something but he just shrugs his shoulders dismissively and looks up at me.

“Erm.” My heart is racing and I know I’ve got to get out of here. “Friday. Shall we?” I don’t wait for Ana Maria to reply. “Yep, Friday, what’s that? 10:30? OK, let’s do it then.”

“Ah, my husband,” laughs
Ana
Maria hysterically as we leave. I want to tell her never to call me that but instead I smile at her.

“Where are you going?” says Marion.

“Just out for a drink with a friend.”

“Which friend?” she says from the bath. “And don’t get shaving foam and stubble all over the sink, will you, it’s not very nice for Ana Maria to have to clean up. Your poor wife.”

I exchange a glance with myself in the mirror, which Marion might or might not see. Then I carefully sluice the sink and taps down with water. “Which friend?”

“Just an old college friend.”

“This is new—what’s his name?”

“Jack.”

“Jack who?” she says, soaping a shoulder.

“What does it matter? You don’t know him.”

“So what am I going to do tonight on my own?”

“I thought you were going out tonight?” I lied. “You’ve usually got something planned.”

“Only to entertain you.” Eh? Never mind. Marion’s World. A bit like Wayne’s World only slightly less anchored in reality. Marion soaks and I shave in silence for a moment. Then I rinse my face and sit on the side of the bath.

“Look, I won’t be late.”

“It’s not that, Andrew, it’s just that I really hoped you would take up with a slightly more prestigious set now that you’re dating me. You should raise your game a little, that’s all.”

“Well, I could cancel.” She sighs painfully.

“No, don’t worry. Luckily I’ve arranged to have dinner with my Personal Shopper. She’s going to do a Wardrobe Audit for me so that we can plan for the Fall.”

“Oh, good,” I say. “I mean, that’s a good idea.”

Marion still manages to make me late by asking me to zip up her dress, tell her which brooch goes best with it, which chain goes best with the brooch and whether she should go darker for the winter. Her new organic colourist says that everyone is doing it. Finally, just as I’m tearing out of the front door she tells me that I must get some new shirts because mine are so last year but I don’t bother responding to that one.

Jane is looking slightly annoyed as I stride up to her. For one awful moment I’m reminded of our first meeting outside Paper-chase in Tottenham Court Road.

“Christ, sorry I’m late,” I say, kissing her on the cheek. “You look lovely.” And she does—navy blue and white summer dress, red cardigan. Her hair is up and I can see her ears properly, the smallest, whitest, most perfect ears I’ve ever seen.

“Thank you,” she says. “I was a bit early.” Good on two counts: a) she is taking the blame herself and b) she is keen.

“Where shall we go?”

“I don’t know. This is your manor, isn’t it?”

“Right. Well, there’s an Italian place right down the other end where you can sit outside.”

“Sounds lovely. It’s not too expensive, though, is it?”

“This is on me.”

“Andrew, you’re the one who’s out of a job.”

“Yeah, but …” Hang on, we don’t want to go down this avenue, do we? She is looking at me expectantly. “Yeah, but I’ve still got my credit cards. Come on, we can get that number 22.”

We run and just catch it.

“Upstairs,” says Jane.

“At the front.”

We go to a little Italian restaurant at the end of the King’s Road and the manager, a huge man with suspiciously black hair and radiant body odour, makes a great play of finding us the last table in the garden. As we wait I realize how good it feels to be like a normal couple—girlfriend and boyfriend, husband and wife, rather than being surreptitiously scrutinized by other people as they try and decide whether we’re mother and son, aunt and nephew, boss and young exec, or something more exotic.

Finally seated amidst great ceremony with napkins and jolly laminated menus, we have oily, garlicky bruschetta and then pasta with tomato salad.

“It’s like being on holiday,” says Jane, looking round. Then she adds, “Christ, that’s just the sort of thing my mother would say.”

“Oh, oh. That’s the first sign. You’ll be dressing like her next.”

“I am. This is her dress.”

“Really? Shows how much I know about women’s clothes.” Actually I’ve learnt quite a lot recently, following Marion from shop to shop but I don’t want to think about that now.

“She’s got great taste,” says Jane, stabbing a piece of penne. “Except in boyfriends.”

“Yeah?”

“Nothing outrageous like drug dealers or toy boys,” I catch my breath but she continues unaware. I hope.

“But they never seem to work out and it’s so obvious why to everyone except her.”

“I think that’s quite fun. My mum and dad are depressingly happily married.”

“Oh mine only got divorced … what was it? Five years ago? Up to then everything was blissful. I remember thinking how boring it was when everybody else’s parents were splitting up and going off with other people. I used to make up stories about them having rows and throwing pots and pans around the kitchen. I told my friends they had a very tempestuous relationship—they hated each other but were yoked together by some deep-seated passion like the couple in
Private Lives
or something.”

“Bloody hell, that’s a good one.”

“Mm, I might write it up as a film script.”

“In the last scene they make love and then she dies.”

“Why not? Horribly.”

“Eaten alive by their pet piranhas.”

“Accidentally shot by one of his collection of eighteenth-century muskets.”

“Strangled by her scarf as she sets off in her sports car.”

“Anyway, then what happened? To your parents, I mean,” I ask, gesturing subtly but successfully (thank God!) to the waiter for another bottle.

“I came back from my first term at university and they said they were getting a divorce. They’d only stayed together for me and my brother and now we’d both left home they were going to go their separate ways.”

“That’s awful.”

“I was more surprised than upset. Anyway they seemed quite happy about it. We went out for a Chinese that night. Weird, like a celebration. They don’t live far away from each other now so it doesn’t make that much difference.” The waiter brings another bottle over and she watches him open it, smiling up at him when he refills her glass. I realize how nice it is to be sitting opposite someone who doesn’t feel the need to treat the waiter like shit. “My mum said she wanted to spread her wings so she moved three streets away.” We laugh and Jane shakes her head. “She’s hardly ever been away from Birkenhead in her life. She’s went to Malta three years ago and didn’t like the food. She’s only been to London twice and once was to stay with me last Christmas. She just walked around open-mouthed and kept talking about the price of everything and how many foreigners there were.”

“Just like my mum and dad,” I say. “It’s so embarrassing.”

“I thought you
were
from London,” says Jane, eyeing me suspiciously. Why do I always feel I’m on trial with her?

“No, who told you that? Vinny again?”

“Oh, I thought you said.”

“Vinny said, didn’t he?”

“No,” says Jane, opening her eyes wide. “Anyway, he said you’d been asking questions about
me.”

“God, he’s a gossip, that boy.”

“He’s had a bit to gossip
about.”
I’m not sure what she means by this so I plough on. “No, I’m from Reading. But if you come from Liverpool, anywhere in the south counts as London, I suppose.”

“Patronizing bastard,” says Jane gently.

“It’s true. Reading’s about as cool and metropolitan as—”

“Liverpool?”

“Well …”

Jane has mock hysterics and then leans back in her chair and sighs contentedly. She looks around the restaurant while I look at her. Her smooth pale cheeks are slightly flushed with wine. She turns back to me.

“What you looking at?” she says, smiling slightly.

“Not much,” I say, smiling too.

“London’s mad, isn’t it?” she says.

“Mad?”

“Yeah, just like so different from where I grew up. It’s not just those twenty million pound houses you read about in the
Standard
and seeing famous people in the street—the kind of thing my mum loves to hear about, it’s, well …” Her voice drops to a whisper. “Look at those girls over there.” I take a casual glance around the garden and pause to see two pretty average Sloanes sitting behind us, talking about a wedding they’ve both been to. I look back at Jane and shrug my shoulders. She leans over to me and I catch another whiff of her perfume again.

“If those two went into the pub at the end of our road in Liverpool people would think they’d come from Mars,” she hisses. “Those accents, the pearls, the Alice bands,” she looks over my shoulder again to get a proper look, frowning with curiosity, “the stripy shirts with up-turned collars and I bet …” She drops her napkin on the floor and then leans down to pick it up very slowly. “I knew it—Gucci loafers on one and navy blue pumps on the other. If you’ve grown up in Liverpool and you suddenly see them they’re like creatures from another planet. If they tried to order a drink I don’t think the landlord would even understand them.”