Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
“She’s pregnant.” Paddy spoke the words slowly, looking directly at his wife.
Joscelyn was shocked; terribly shocked but not surprised. She had sensed something from the arrival of that letter. The news seemed to confirm something that she already knew. This didn’t ease the pain, the intense terrible pain. This is, she thought, the worst thing that could ever happen to me. It is the worst thing that could happen and now it has happened. How foolish I was, she thought, never to have anticipated this moment. She had accepted that Paddy sometimes had sex with other women, but she had never, ever thought that any other than herself would bear his child. Paddy had always assured her that it would not happen. Besides it just wasn’t right. She was his wife. It was she who should be the mother of his child.
The pain that flooded in, with the news, was just too awful to bear. She didn’t know how she was ever going to bear it. But she was going to have to. Strong, and desperate, she forced those feelings away. It was a greater challenge than she had ever faced, but years of training had taught her well. “Just don’t feel,” her unconscious mind reminded her in a whisper. Just don’t feel. Just don’t feel.”
At the same time she looked at her husband’s face. His eyes were searching for contact with hers; she immediately felt the pull of his need for her. He was lonely. He looked desperately unhappy. His feelings flooded in, where hers might have been. Oh, what a relief that was!
She felt sorry for him.
“Oh Paddy,” she whispered. “Are you all right?”
“I feel dreadful,” he said.
Paddy Gregory came home late on Friday evening, to find his wife Joscelyn already in bed, with her head buried under the duvet. He could tell, though, from the pattern of her breathing that she was not asleep.
“I had a good evening.” He sat on the bed next to her, and gently pulled the duvet off her face, wanting her to rouse herself and listen to his news.
“Good,” said Joss in an entirely neutral tone. Her eyes opened, but her gaze wasn’t quite directed at her husband.
“I took Hilary out for a drink. I had some news for her. I had the go-ahead on that short, the one on Celtic folk music. She’s going to direct it; she was delighted.”
“I expect she was.” Joscelyn was sounding noticeably grumpy. With a reluctant air, she sat up a little, resting her head on her pillows, and revealing a shock of hair, which grew down to her shoulders.
In his late thirties, Paddy showed little sign of impending middle age. Even sitting on the bed, and concentrating on his wife, he displayed a slight restlessness, which spoke of the impatience of youth rather than the complacency of achievement and experience.
“She’s such a nice girl; and so talented. I’m sure she’s got a great career ahead of her.”
“I thought she was a theatre director?” Joscelyn was finally looking intently at her husband’s face. She was a bit concerned. Paddy’s judgement was normally good, and his instinct to put himself first strong, but infatuation has a special way of magnifying a woman’s talents.
Joscelyn, eleven years Paddy’s junior, and very pretty, had a much more settled presence than her husband.
“Oh, a good director can do either,” Paddy said confidently, and he stroked his wife’s cheek. “Of course she’s got a bit of a thing about the theatre, but I’m not sure that her talents aren’t better suited to film.”
“So this is still a business relationship then?”
“Certainly, although I think that she’s getting quite fond of me. And you know that does matter to me. I don’t chase girls to score points, or to boost my ego, like some men do.”
Joscelyn looked at Paddy with steady eyes.
“I know you don’t do it to score points. But it does boost your ego.”
Paddy conceded that one. “Of course; but I do like them to care for me.”
He swung his legs up onto the bed, so that he was lying on top of the covers, but next to his wife. Even wearing casual clothes, corduroy trousers and a shirt without a tie, he had an affluent air, which contrasted with the shabby look of their rented flat, where the bed had a battered headboard, and the carpet was ancient, brown and bare.
“I know,” said Joscelyn. “You do.” Then after a pause, she said, “I care for you.”
“Absolutely, more than anyone. And I for you, Joss; you mustn’t ever doubt that.”
“I don’t.”
This was a conversation they had had many times. The exact phrases might vary, but the same words were re-used each time. It was the tone that would change, and it was from the tone that Joss could judge with almost exact precision what her husband was telling her. They might be celebrating their mutual strength against an outside threat. Sometimes, like this evening, Joss would use the opportunity to convey a little concern. And today Paddy was also pointing out that the reservations his wife had weren’t going to alter his plans.
Paddy took one of Joscelyn’s hands in his two, and held it firmly. She softened towards him. He had just had considerable professional success and she knew that this only activated his underlying sense of insecurity. He was daily haunted by the realisation that it could all go as quickly as it had come. Perhaps he felt that women had the capacity to be more faithful than fame.
Joss might have to deal with the anxiety, even sometimes the pain that Paddy’s girlfriends caused her, but she could cope. She smiled at him.
“Will you come to bed?”
“Of course I will.”
Paddy pulled off his clothes, but folded them, as he always did, quickly and neatly on a chair. In bed, he put his arms round Joscelyn, who still had something to say:
“You will be sensible, won’t you? You won’t waste too much time on ten minute shorts and lunches with Hilary rather than lunches with directors, backers and other useful people?”
“Of course I won’t. I’m working all hours of the day. I only spend a tiny bit of time with Hilary, and that’s all work as well.”
“Paddy, I don’t mind if you’re not a great success. But I know you mind and that’s why I care about it.”
Paddy laughed. “Listen, you must stop thinking about Hilary. I’ve stopped thinking about her. I’m thinking about you, and how absolutely wonderful you are. I’m thinking that in a few weeks time we shall have a house of our very own, and won’t have to wake up looking at that awful purple wallpaper. I’m thinking that today was your very last day slaving away at Slater, June and Warbeck, and that tomorrow we are going to our favourite place in all the world for a perfect night away.”
He hugged Joscelyn even closer, and finally she put her arms around him, so that they were closely entwined, under the duvet.
* * *
“Number 53. That’s the room we had last time.”
Paddy held their key, with the number prominently displayed, for his wife to inspect, then leaned forward very slightly, and kissed her.
As they were in a cramped lift, and surrounded by rather more luggage than was necessary for two people spending one night away, they were squashed into the space between their suitcases, and clinging on to each other to avoid toppling over.
“Do you really remember the room number?” Joss was laughing, and she looked at her husband with mock admiration.
“Of course I do.” The lift doors opened, revealing the two of them, still wrapped in each other’s arms, wedged in by bags, to a small polite queue of people waiting on the second floor.
Joscelyn blushed, and Paddy smiled broadly.
“Good afternoon,” he said to their little audience. He waved Joscelyn forward out of the lift, shifted the luggage quickly and efficiently, and ushered a grey-haired lady from the front of the queue into the lift, before heading confidently into room number 53.
Paddy was right. It was the same room they had had on their last visit, earlier in the year. It was a smallish space, because you couldn’t expect large rooms in a fifteenth century coaching inn. Most of it was filled with a large dark wooden double bed, which had a billowing chintzy canopy.
Out of the window you could see the garden, a little bare in the winter months, but on a table in front of the window was a huge bunch of red roses.
“And you remembered the roses,” Joss said, reaching up to give her husband a kiss.
“Would I forget?” Paddy replied.
Dinner started at seven-thirty. The Gregories had booked an early meal, with the idea that this would give them longer to savour the excellent food in the hotel restaurant. In fact the four and a half hours between their arrival and dinnertime had slipped away very easily in the comforts of their hotel room. It was eight o’clock when quiet but determined-looking Joscelyn led a slightly grumpy Paddy into the dining room. He hadn’t been quite ready to dress and come downstairs, but she had insisted that they shouldn’t antagonise the hotel staff by being more than half an hour late.
“They have oysters!” Paddy looked up from the menu, and immediately caught the eye of a passing waiter. “Do you have oysters this evening?”
“Yes, sir, we do.”
Paddy’s temper changed instantly and he looked triumphantly at his wife.
“It’s a good job we weren’t down any later. They’ll only have a limited supply in the kitchen, and might well have run out.”
He managed to sound as if it was only his foresight that had brought them there before the oysters were all eaten by other people.
“Yes, it was.” Joscelyn’s equable tone had nothing in it that might dent her husband’s satisfaction.
Joscelyn looked down and studied the menu, while her husband watched her. She always took several minutes to choose her food. It was one of those idiosyncrasies that had seemed sweet when he first knew her, and now, after five years of marriage could sometimes be a little irritating. Tonight, however, he was all indulgence as he watched the serious expression on her face. She had a difficult choice between duck or salmon.
“Big decisions, ah?” Relaxed as he was, he didn’t like the silence going on too long. Those long moments, when her attention was focused so intently away from him.
“Yes.” Joscelyn nodded, calmly, but without looking up.
Paddy was going to have to be patient, and perhaps for thirty seconds more.
Paddy, large, and physically confident, ran his broad hands through a mop of dark curly hair. He was dressed with only just enough formality to conform to the rules of the Bear dining room, with an expensive but chunky green sweater, on top of a shirt and tie. In nineteen-eighties Britain, it still wasn’t exceptional for a smart restaurant to demand a tie. His wife, by contrast, was elegantly dressed, in a long blue silk gown.
Joscelyn had long fair hair, not Scandinavian blonde but a rich Teutonic dark yellow colour. It was her most striking feature, and tonight it was, apart from being regulated by an Alice band, allowed to fall loose over her shoulders.
In due course Paddy’s oysters arrived, as did some mushroom soup for his wife.
“This is really nice,” said Joscelyn.
“Certainly is.” Paddy was looking at his food with wholehearted appreciation.
“Just the two of us.”
“Absolutely.”
There was a pause, and they both ate. Then Joscelyn said, “I’m very glad that Barbara has gone to Hong Kong.”
“Well, you’ve no need to be.” Paddy smiled at his wife, but there was a hint of irritation in his face. Why did she have to bring that up all of a sudden? They were just about to have a really good meal. That was one of the annoying things about women, they harboured all sorts of resentments which just came out, without warning, and often at the most inappropriate times.
He held her hand briefly. “I’m very glad to be here with you. Especially as they have oysters.”
As Paddy ate his oysters, Joscelyn thought about Barbara, the woman who had gone to Hong Kong, a couple of weeks before, and Paddy’s thoughts turned to Hilary.
She was young and serious-minded. Straight from university, she’d directed a play in one of London’s better-known pub-theatre venues. Then Paddy had helped find money to stage another one, which was currently in rehearsal.
“You should come with me to Cannes,” Paddy had told her last week.
As director and producer, the occasional lunch had been almost a professional obligation. They had taken to going to a small vegetarian restaurant, where Hilary ate heartily and Paddy normally insisted on paying the bill.
“I’ll be there for the showing of Terrible Beauty, and of course I’ve got a number of other projects to discuss with people. Everybody goes to Cannes. You have to go.”
Paddy’s recent big success, Terrible Beauty, had started off as a stage play, and was now a film. He had told Hilary, over one of their lunches, how he had left his job as a commercial lawyer to work at getting it onto the big screen. How it he had done it, by sending the Hollywood actor Patrick Doyle a crate of Guinness on St. Patrick’s Day, and Doyle had agreed to play the leading role. The film was already doing well in America, and it was about to open in London. It was a good story, and Paddy had become well practised at telling it. Hilary had been impressed, despite working hard not to show it.
Hilary looked worried. “Surely not?” she had said.
But Paddy noticed that she wasn’t absolutely appalled by the idea. He’d been winning her round. It was his help on her play that had done this, slowly. He had, gently and unobtrusively, supported her, and now she was responding to him.
“Why surely not? We’d go as two colleagues. It would be a business thing. We’d enjoy ourselves and get lots of work done.”
Hilary put her head on one side, as she had a habit of doing, her dark eyes solemn and unblinking. Then she had said,
“I am grateful to you for your help on this production. You’re so good with everybody. The way you always seem to turn up just as we’re getting tired and cross, and creating a bit of a party atmosphere to help things along.”
“I admire the way you cope,” Paddy replied. “There are some difficult people, even by theatrical standards, and you manage them magnificently.”
This was not just flattery. Hilary had a way of accepting and negotiating the various large and fragile egos on set with a quiet authority that was unusual in someone who couldn’t be more than twenty-two.
She’d smiled a brief smile.
“We make a good team then.”
Hilary hadn’t responded to this one, but Paddy had sensed his chance.
“You see, you should come with me to Cannes.”
Hilary frowned. “Well perhaps,” she’d said. “I’ll think about it.”
Paddy looked up from his thoughts and across the table at his wife, and just caught the end of a frown on her face.
“Penny for your thoughts.”
“I was thinking about Barbara, and how she took me out to lunch that day to try and frighten me away from you.”
Paddy grinned. He was soothed by the meal and a good bottle of wine, and prepared to indulge this little bit of upset from his wife. “She didn’t succeed, though, did she? I’m not even in touch with her these days.”
“No, she didn’t succeed.” Joss looked at him archly.
“You are made of sterner stuff than that, Joss, and that’s one of the many reasons why I love you. And when we are back in our room, I’ll tell you a few more of them.”
* * *
On Monday morning, refreshed from the weekend with his wife, Paddy was in work early. Hilary was still in bed in her rented room when the phone started ringing about a quarter to nine.
“I don’t want to put any pressure on you,” he said, “but I’ve just been asked to confirm my dates for Cannes. I’ll probably be fixing everything up in the next few days. I’ll need to know for definite whether you’re coming with me.”
Hilary hadn’t expected this. Paddy had talked about her going to Cannes with him, but she hadn’t expected him to ring up first thing in the morning and talk about dates as if it was virtually settled.
“Well, if I do come along, I can make my own arrangements. You sort yourself out, for the time being. I haven’t had the chance to think about it yet.”
“Yes, but I’ve got a chance to get two rooms in the best hotel in town, both with views of the sea. I’m getting such a good deal, they’re practically free, so you wouldn’t need to pay anything. I’d put it down as a business expense.”
“I’d prefer to pay for myself.” In fact, Hilary was thinking that the whole trip was probably beyond her budget.
“Why waste the money? As long as I confirm the booking today, I can get them for almost nothing and then charge them against tax. You can buy me a meal while we’re there.”
Hilary wasn’t quite sure what she felt about Paddy Gregory. He had a reputation for being a dreadful philanderer, but (and Hilary wasn’t sure whether or not she should be offended about this) he hadn’t tried anything on with her. She thought about her father, who now lived on his own in Provence. She could combine a trip to the festival with a visit to her Dad. And Cannes would be fun.
“Thanks for the offer. I’ll think about it and call you back.”
* * *
Joscelyn felt that next year was going to be her year. Paddy had definitely had his, with his film not only being produced but doing so well. Her achievements would be more modest, but being at last able to give up a job she disliked, and study. It would be enough to make her very happy, and very proud. At least, until they had children.
Her contented mood was shattered by Paddy, who came home a little early. He was in transit, having another meeting that evening. Joss didn’t mind him going out, but she was shocked when her husband, over a cup of tea and in the course of relating the day’s events, told her calmly that he had arranged to go to the Cannes Film Festival with Hilary.
Joscelyn looked at him for a moment. This was completely out of the blue. Last time she had heard, it was just the odd working lunch.
She was outraged, and turned on Paddy.
“Didn’t you know that I wanted to go to Cannes more than anything else in the world?”
Paddy was taken aback by his wife’s reaction, but he didn’t hesitate more than a second before responding.
“No,” he shouted back. “Because you didn’t bloody tell me! I’m not psychic.”
Surely he would have known she would want to go to the Film Festival?
“Tell her you made a mistake. That I want to go, and you didn’t realise.” Joscelyn stood up in the small kitchen of their rented flat, and glared at her husband, who sat with his mug of tea.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Joss. This is work. That’s why Hilary is coming with me, because it will be work for both of us. She’s made it clear to me that this is strictly professional. She’ll have her own room and will be paying for herself. There’s no need for you to react in this way. It’s completely over the top.”
“But I wanted to go. I really did. I deserve it. I was the one who put up with our flat being sold to finance a project that might have been a total flop – that might not have happened at all. I kept on working for the awful Mungo Muggins when you gave up the law to try your luck in films. And now it’s paid off – which of course I’m delighted about – I want to share in the rewards. And you take a young thing who’s taken your fancy and is directing a short on Celtic folk music!”
“May I remind you,” Paddy used his stern, stern, lawyer voice, “that ‘our flat’ that was sold was my flat paid for before we got married by my very hard-earned bonuses when I was a partner in Slater, June and Warbeck.”
“It was our home,” Joss interrupted, but Paddy carried on,
“And as for rewards you will get plenty of them. A new house in Fulham; time off to study, paid for by me. You’re already going to the premiere in London, and you’re coming to the one in Dublin.”
Paddy looked at his wife, standing by the oven, still looking angry. He changed his tone:
“I’m going to need you at the Dublin one, as you know. Only you can keep me sane when I have to spend more than a day at a time with my family. I shall be absolutely relying on you then.”
Joss said nothing. Paddy finished his tea and went out to his meeting. By the time he came home, it was very late, and his still angry wife had finally gone to sleep.
Realising the sheer impossibility of venting her feelings on Paddy, Joscelyn turned to her friend Philippa who, despite two of her three children having chickenpox, was happy to see her if she came round in the evening.
Philippa was a tall, athletic-looking woman, who normally dressed in practical clothes in tasteful, muted colours. Her main concession to vanity was her hair; naturally mousy but highlighted to an almost completely convincing blonde, and cut sharply and expensively. Joscelyn was a few inches shorter, softer-faced and a little rounder.
Philippa listened patiently to a long history of the details, and her friend’s fury and disappointment.
“I really did want to go to Cannes. I don’t care if I don’t see much of Paddy, because of all his business meetings. I wanted to see what it was like; feel the atmosphere. We’ve been married for five years; he should know what I like by now.”
“He should have asked you. He should never have arranged something like that without your consent.”
“And if he’d asked,” Joss wavered a bit, “I’d probably have said yes.”
“And missed out on the trip?”
“Possibly. After all, I’m going to the London premiere and the Dublin one.”
Philippa looked at her.
“But as it is, you’re very upset and Paddy isn’t really taking account of your feelings.”
“No.”
There was a moment’s silence, and then Philippa said, rather abruptly, “Have you thought about taking a stand?”
“What kind of stand?”
“Something that makes it quite clear that you’re not happy. He may be telling himself that you don’t really mind, that you’re just suffering from hormones or some such and will come round.”
“He is taking exactly that attitude. That’s why I feel I have to keep telling him. If I keep telling him, he’ll have to listen.”
“In my experience, the more you tell men something the less they listen.” Philippa spoke quite matter-of-factly. “I think you would have to make it clear some other way.”
“If I threatened to leave, he probably would take me to Cannes instead of Hilary. But I don’t want to make that threat. It isn’t that serious. I need to save that one for when I really do mean it.”
“Do you think you ever will mean it?”
Joss thought about this one. “I hope not,” she said.
They had finished eating their take-away meal. Philippa stacked the plates, and the little tin foil cartons which had contained their food, but she didn’t clear away. Instead she said,
“When Tara was a baby I insisted that Alistair came with us on a family holiday. He’d been a partner for six months and of course he didn’t want to go. I insisted. It took all my energy. Actually I did threaten to leave, and I meant it.
“Paddy was very good about it, I remember. I shall always be grateful for the support he gave us both at the time. He explained to Alistair that assistant solicitors are supposed to belong to the firm body and soul, but partners need to pace themselves a bit, and learn to delegate. So I won the day, or rather a week, because it was a week in Devon we were fighting over. Alistair came, and by the end of the week he was quite cheerful.”
Paddy had been a colleague and partner of Alistair’s at the time. The two men, although very different, had got on well. That was how Joscelyn came to know Philippa.
Philippa frowned, slightly, as she recollected, “I found it a bit odd, to be honest. All that togetherness, I wasn’t used to it, at least not with him. In some ways, I think once he made that big concession he found it easier than I did. But that was four years ago, and he’s not come with us since.”
Philippa got up, and put the dishes on the side, and put on the kettle for coffee.
“If I wanted to get him away every year I’d need to be prepared to fight and keep fighting, although if I did, I think eventually he would come round. Maybe I just don’t want it enough,” she looked at Joss, and her face was sad. “Maybe I’ve decided to bring the children up on my own and be by myself.”
Joscelyn felt sorry for her friend. They both had difficulties, and that bonded them. But they were of very different kinds. Paddy, affectionate and exuberant, just unable to contain himself, was a very different kettle of fish from Alistair Hardwick.
Philippa interrupted these thoughts,
“If you want to be truly assertive with Paddy, you’d need to really show that you just weren’t going to accept certain things. Make it clear to Paddy that he’s just going to have to do better if he wants to keep you. Or you could do what I do; let Paddy go his own way, and look for your own happiness elsewhere.”
Joss sensed her friend’s loneliness, and felt compassion for her. “I can handle Paddy,” she said. “I don’t think I need to take a stand, at least not now. And I admire you, being so strong and brave.”
Philippa smiled, and said, “Talking of holidays, will you come with the children and me to the cottage sometime? At half- term maybe?”
Alistair and Philippa had recently bought a very pretty cottage in Hampshire, which Alistair had been very much happier to finance than to visit. Joss was glad to accept. It would be something to look forward to.
* * *
Hilary Mackay came home in the late afternoon of a warm spring day to find that the daffodils in her window box had finally flowered. She found a message on her answer machine from Paddy.
“Terribly sorry,” Paddy’s voice said. “I can’t make drinks this evening. Something’s come up, which might be very useful to me on the Popeye project. Speak to you soon. Bye!”
Hilary wasn’t sure whether she was disappointed or not. She and Paddy had been going to have a drink with two of the actors from the play. Now it would be just her, and the actors. That was OK, although it would have been easier if Paddy had been there.
But perhaps it was better this way. She had agreed to go to Cannes at the same time as him (of course strictly as a professional colleague) and she had an idea that word had gone round, and people were beginning to link them in a way that wasn’t appropriate. If they were too much together, that would just fuel the gossip.
Altogether, Paddy was hard to place, hard to explain. He wasn’t exactly a friend. He was married, which none of her friends were. Although Hilary had not met his wife, Paddy talked quite freely about her. Hilary remembered when she had first had lunch with him, and he’d told her the story of doing the deal on Terrible Beauty. She’d asked,
“Were you married, then?” And Paddy had laughed, and said,
“Yes, I was, and to the same wife as I have now.”
“And so what did she think of you selling your flat and your car, and going off to America to try and sell a film?”
“Joss was tremendous. She’s a great support to me. I couldn’t have done it without her.”
Paddy had brought Hilary a lot of work. He admired her talent, and often told her so. And he had brought into her life not just work, but excitement. He was intelligent, and enthusiastic, and had knowledge of the arts, which was really very commendable in someone who had been a lawyer for ten years. Hilary still felt that he was basically a businessman. She had once tackled him about this, and he had happily agreed, and refused to accept that this was a waste.
Hilary felt that ultimately art and business were not compatible, which was difficult as Paddy had found the finance for her play. But he was more than just a money man. He would call by, at rehearsals, and have an almost magical capacity to raise morale, by having a laugh with people, and buying them drinks. Actually he always seemed to be buying things: drinks, the rights to film and theatre scripts, flowers, and the other week a shiny new sports car. Hilary felt that people with money should either share it with the less fortunate or spend it, thoughtfully, on things that were really worth having. She feared that there was a thoughtlessness about Paddy which would prevent him from ever being truly successful as a creative person.
There was an unpredictability about him, too. The day after he cancelled their drink, he’d phoned her, and asked her, at the very last minute, to join him, with Oscar Peterson, the famous writer, and several other people at a Chinese restaurant near his office.
* * *
Joscelyn was also phoned and invited, impromptu, to dinner in Chinatown. Unlike Hilary, she wasn’t already in central London.
“I’m in the bath,” she said, “and it will take me at least three quarters of an hour by tube.”
“Get a taxi. Order it straight away as soon as you’re clean and then get changed. You must come. We’ll have a drink first, and if you’re very late I’ll order for you.”
Joscelyn arrived at the restaurant just as the first course was being put on the table. Everyone else was sitting down, and there was a space left for her. Paddy got up. Large, and smiling, he spread out his arms as if he was going to embrace everyone.
“Wonderful timing, darling.” He introduced her. On one side of him was an elegant woman, aged about thirty-five, and on his other side was Hilary.
Hilary got up, the only one besides Paddy to do so, and came and shook Joscelyn’s hand.
“I’m so pleased to meet you,” she said. “I have heard such a lot about you.”
“And I have heard a lot about you,” Joscelyn replied.
Hilary blushed, slightly. She was dressed all in black, with chunky flat shoes. She wore a large silver necklace, and Joscelyn guessed that the addition of this rather striking piece of jewellery to her normal outfit had been Hilary’s gesture towards dressing for the evening out.
Well, Joscelyn thought to herself. At least she’s no Barbara.
Politely, Joss started taking to a man called Steven, who was sat next to her. It was difficult. He was not very chatty, and she had long ago learned not, at such meals, to say to people “And what do you do?” Once she had failed to recognise the hero of a very popular soap opera, and had asked that very question. He had not found it amusing.
So it was with some relief that she caught Paddy’s eye, and on cue, he said,
“Joss loved your performance as Seamus in Terrible Beauty. She agrees with me, it was the best bit of acting in the film.”
Paddy had seen her predicament, and was helping her, but still for a brief moment, Joscelyn felt adrift. This man Steven did not look remotely like any character in the film that she could remember.
Steven smiled, briefly, and at last she recognised him.
“Oh, yes, I loved it. You did it so well. In just those two short scenes, I completely knew that you were the right man for Irene, and it was so sad that it could never be.”
Steven frowned and began talking very quickly.
“I was the only real Irishman in the film. You would have thought that this might give me a bit of status, as they say, a bit of dignity, but not a bit of it.”
At first, she wondered if he was joking; but pretty soon it was clear that Steven was a very serious man.
Out of the corner of her eye, Joscelyn was watching Hilary. Despite sitting next to Paddy, Hilary gave no hint of any proprietorial feelings towards him. She didn’t touch his arm, or over-use his first name. That was a good sign. Women easily started feeling that they owned him.
“But you did it splendidly,” she told Steven.
“They made me wear those dreadful green trousers. Quite dreadful. I did try, you know, I made it quite clear that they were quite wrong for the scene. Quite wrong. How I ever managed even to speak with those awful trousers on I really don’t know. I thought it was going to be impossible. It was virtually impossible.”
“I really think that you transcended the trousers,” Joss said soothingly. “I didn’t even notice them. I was only looking at your face, and listening to what you were saying.”
Joscelyn looked at Paddy flanked by two very different women. The elegant woman on the other side from Hilary was called Eugenie, and was an American. She had striking green eyes, and her clothes, hair, make-up and jewellery were all perfect. She smiled a good deal. Joss couldn’t help thinking that she looked like the kind of person who would have no scruples about an affair with a married man, but fortunately Paddy showed no sign of being attracted to her.
Steven was mollified, but only by a millimetre.
“Transcended the trousers; that’s exactly what I had to do. It took a tremendous effort of will. Of course I am a professional and I did my best, as always but at what cost to myself! I’m not recovered, even now.”
“No,” said Joscelyn, suppressing a smile. “I can see that.”
It was a long evening, talking to Steven, and she liked him less when he began ordering more bottles of wine, without so much as acknowledging that it was her husband who would be paying for them. Paddy was a generous man; too generous sometimes. He had no need to invite Steven that evening. Steven would never be of any professional use to Paddy. It would have been done out of simple desire to offer friendship to a fellow-countryman. This was fine, but she would have liked the recipient to be a little more appreciative.
On the way home, in a taxi, Paddy squeezed his wife’s hand.
“You have to say one thing for me, don’t you darling, I give people a good night out. We could hardly have had an odder lot together, could we? But they all enjoyed themselves.”
Joscelyn hoped this was true. She hadn’t particularly enjoyed herself, although for the purposes of that evening, she did not count.
“What did you think of Hilary?”
Joscelyn paused. “She seems very nice. Rather serious, and very young, although she can’t be very much younger than me.”
“You’re just more mature. Which you had to be, to take me on.”
Joscelyn looked at her husband.
“Why don’t you take me to Cannes? If it’s just a business thing between you and Hilary I can go as your wife and she’ll be there in her capacity as a director.”
“Joss,” Paddy spoke with studied patience. “It is just a business thing between Hilary and me. I need to be there on my own. I’ll be working, and shall need to concentrate. That’s why I shan’t mind Hilary being around, she won’t distract me. If anything, she’ll be helping me.”
Back in the dismal rented flat, Joss looked at her husband, and wondered if what he had been telling her in the taxi was actually true. Paddy didn’t lie, directly. At the moment, his relationship with Hilary was business, and maybe a friendship. But with Paddy, and women, the boundaries between business, friendship, and intimacy could easily be crossed.
She knew that, and he knew that. He knew that she knew. But at the moment he wasn’t going to acknowledge it.
Paddy put his arms round her. “We’re both tired, now. Time for bed.”
For a while, Joss still felt unhappy. She lay on the edge of the bed, clinging on to the side. Then, she relented, rolled into the dent in the middle of the ancient mattress, and bumped into Paddy. They made love, and afterwards Paddy was very tender. He held his arms tightly round his wife’s waist, and told her, as he often did in those last dozy moments before sleep, that there was no one quite like her.
In the early hours of the morning Joss was dreaming. She and Hilary had been having lunch, just the two of them, when Hilary turned into Barbara, and she found herself awake and thinking. Thinking about Barbara and a lunch they’d actually had, before she and Paddy were married.
Barbara had never been Paddy’s mistress. She’d been a junior colleague of Paddy’s, before he had changed career, from lawyer to film producer. Then he had been a partner in large London firm of solicitors. Joscelyn had worked in the same firm as a secretary. Paddy still believed that (whatever she might say to the contrary) Joscelyn’s dislike of his former colleague stemmed from the difference in status between her and Barbara at the office. Back in the 1980’s, there weren’t many women solicitors, especially not in City firms. Women like Barbara had needed to fight to succeed, and they liked to keep the distinction between them and the secretaries very clear indeed. It was understandable, Paddy thought.
Barbara had definitely been in the running for Paddy before his engagement to Joscelyn. But she had been very discreet about it. She was not the kind of woman who would ever risk public failure. Paddy had responded to her overt charm, and had rather enjoyed playing the game of courtship by Barbara’s rules. These had involved very strict and formal behaviour in the office, and rendezvous, which had to be well away from any convenient haunts where the two of them might be spotted. This had been the form even before Paddy showed any interest in Joscelyn.
Once Paddy’s engagement was announced, Barbara had behaved with great dignity and her usual smooth manner, which, when it was directed towards Joscelyn, masked a complete fury.
But after a few weeks, Barbara had called to see Joscelyn, bearing a cup of coffee.
“I was just making myself one,” she said, “and I know that you’ve been busy this morning so I expect you could do with some refreshment.”
“Thank you.” Joscelyn was surprised.
“Milk and sugar, that’s how you take it, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Joscelyn wondered how Barbara knew.
“I thought we should have lunch. I know Paddy quite well already, and it seems a shame that I don’t know you too. Of course I could do the dinner party bit and invite you both, but as I never get away in the evenings before seven, so you can imagine that my domestic life is pretty basic.”
“You’re certainly very busy.” Barbara was so immaculate, so in control, it was difficult to imagine any part of her life being basic.
“And this way we’ll be able to have more of a chat.”
Perhaps Barbara is human after all, Joscelyn had thought. She just isn’t very good at expressing it.
They had gone to a moderately smart restaurant where the firm’s lawyers (but not the secretaries) quite often went to lunch, especially if there were office-related matters to discuss away from the constant interruption of the telephone. The waiters knew Barbara.
Joscelyn chose pasta, which proved difficult to eat with any pretence of elegance. Barbara ordered steak, and tucked in heartily.
“I never eat breakfast,” she announced, as if this were a virtue, “and by this time of day I’m quite ravenous.” It was amazing. She was so slight and delicate-looking.
Barbara was always very neatly, although never ostentatiously dressed. Joscelyn noticed that she always wore very expensive jewellery. Today she had on a pair of huge diamond ear studs, set in platinum that sparkled when she turned her head.
“You really could be something a bit better than a secretary, with your qualifications and abilities.”
Barbara spoke rather as if she were a career adviser at an interview.
“Well....” Joscelyn was just about to go on to say that she hoped to do a teacher training course one day, when her companion ploughed on, “But you must know that yourself. Do you lack a bit of confidence? Or maybe,” she smiled a charming smile, “you simply chose an uncomplicated life. And why not?” The smile returned.
Joscelyn felt her throat tighten. Barbara had got her on a bit of a raw spot here. This was not the moment for confidences. No way could she explain to this hostile audience about her father, a domineering man, who could have come out of a Victorian novel. He had declared that his daughter (despite her more than reasonable success at school) was not university material and that he would pay nothing for her if she went. Joss had decided to work for a couple of years to earn some money, and although she had intended to apply to Uni. when she had some money in the bank she had somehow never got round to it. Had she perhaps, never quite mustered the courage?
She opened her mouth, and got a few words out. “I wanted to be independent; to earn some money. I do have plans….”
Barbara showed no sign of wanting to listen. “Of course you aren’t a fool, so you’ll be aware that everybody in the office was gobsmacked to hear that you and Paddy were actually getting married.”
Joscelyn sat bolt upright, recognising a challenge. “I suppose they thought that Paddy wasn’t the marrying kind.”
“Well, the stupid ones might have thought that. But most men do marry eventually, even if not for very long.” Barbara was smiling again.
“That’s between Paddy and me. And if either of us thought it wasn’t going to last, we wouldn’t be doing it.” Joscelyn was conscious that her sulky, defensive tone made her seem childish. But Barbara was being horrible, and she couldn’t just let it go.
“Of course.” Barbara had stopped talking, and was waiting for Joscelyn to respond.
“Perhaps we should get the bill?”
“Actually, I haven’t finished my coffee, but you’re right that we shouldn’t be much longer. I have a very important client who is likely to phone just after two, and you mustn’t get the reputation of taking liberties now that you’re engaged to one of the partners.”
“I don’t think I have that reputation.”
“Of course you don’t. And I mustn’t lead you into bad ways. But I just wanted to let you know that I’m concerned for you. I know Paddy quite well; as I’m sure he’s told you. And I think that you might be taking on someone who will make you upset.”
Never was such a statement less convincing, thought Joscelyn.
“I think that Paddy does need a wife. He does need to settle down. He obviously thinks so. But as his friend - and as his friend I care about him as well - I wonder whether he isn’t making a bit of a cautious choice with you. I know I’m speaking out of turn, but I think that he might benefit from a bit of a firmer line than you might be planning to give him.”
“You are speaking out of turn.” Joscelyn looked straight at Barbara, who turned her head away, flashing the diamond studs.
“Can we have the bill please?” Barbara said to the waiter. She turned back. “Of course,” she spread out her hands with a dismissive gesture, “it’s always been a fault of mine to speak my mind. It’s got me into trouble loads of times. And even I have to admit that I haven’t always been right. There have been occasions when I have had to eat my words. So perhaps you shouldn’t take any notice of me.”
Joscelyn had said nothing to that. It was quite clear, from her tone, that the occasions when Barbara had had to “eat her words” had been very few and far between, and that she did not have any anticipation of being wrong this time.
Anyway, that had been five years ago. If Barbara had married Paddy, as she had so clearly wanted, they wouldn’t have lasted five months.
Joss turned over, restlessly. Paddy, still asleep rolled over and reached out for her. He put his arms around her, and held her tightly.
“It will definitely work,” he said to her, still in his sleep.
Joss snuggled into the comfort of her husband’s familiar body. He must have been dreaming, too. She would ask him in the morning, and see if he could remember.
Hilary had found herself in a rather unexpected state of emotional turmoil since agreeing to go to Cannes with Paddy. It was something she had not planned for, or thought about, and the decision (which had somehow seemed so decisive a decision) had been made so quickly. Hilary would have liked to have more time to consider. She had to accept, however, that the only person to blame for this was herself. She had felt (at least in retrospect) rushed, even pressurised into the decision, and this made her cross. But the option of saying no had been available to her.
She could still change her mind, and if she were going to, sooner would clearly be better. Several times she had considered telling Paddy that she had been offered some unrefusable subsequent engagement, or simply that she had accepted hastily and no longer wished to go. But time went on and she did none of these things. She still met Paddy regularly. Her play was running now, and Paddy had come not just to the first night but to several other performances. There was so much to talk about; they rarely mentioned Cannes. He had given her various details, and offered to book her a plane ticket. She’d refused, and said that she would come separately by train.