The Ex-Wives Page 3

  Poor Buffy. She was really very fond of him. Like communism in Eastern Europe, her marriage was suddenly crumbling so fast that she couldn’t keep up with it. She was betraying her husband with chilling efficiency. She had been away on six trips now, packing her suitcase with suitable clothes for the South of France or the Norwegian fjords, ostentatiously – probably too ostentatiously – hunting for her passport, casually dropping the names of the imaginary hacks whose drunken exploits she would catalogue upon her return. Kissing Buffy goodbye, with Judas lips, and hailing a cab in the Edgware Road.

  She travelled straight here, of course, to her other life. If it was an early morning flight Colin would still be in bed. Dumping her luggage on the floor she would tear off the clothes she had just put on and joyfully join him on his futon. For the three or four days of her trip she didn’t dare leave the flat, in case somebody saw her. It was Colin who went out for supplies, and to buy the relevant guide books for her to crib. She had once written a piece about a man with two families, neither of which knew about the other’s existence. She had called it The Man who Ate Two Christmas Dinners. In fact, he had to eat so many meals twice that he put on three stone and both women finally fell out of love with him and ran away with other men. But she had learnt some valuable tips about the mechanics of the whole operation. The alibis. Well, lies. The construction, in her head, of a whole scenario she came to half-believe in herself, with its own cast of colourful characters. She felt like Trollope, or someone. There was Shirley from Family Circle, and Coral from Chat who always went down with migraine. Then there was Hamish Dimchurch – God knows how she had thought up the name but she felt she knew him quite well by now. Hamish Dimchurch was a sozzled old freeloader who worked for Catering Today and who cropped up in all her stories simply because Buffy always asked about him – maybe he recognized a kindred spirit. ‘Was that old rogue Hamish there?’ he would ask eagerly.

  Something wet was running down her face. It was tears. Surprised, she wiped her nose and sat up. She hardly ever cried. She looked at Colin’s prone, naked body, the new pattern of hairs she was only just getting used to – thick on his legs and a little trail down his lower back. He was still asleep. Her husband liked chatting but Colin hardly talked at all; that was one of the things that had attracted her to him in the first place. Buffy was like the dog; he followed her around the flat, telling her the plot of some old movie he had been watching that afternoon on the TV – Gene Tierney in The Razor’s Edge, stuff like that. He adored old films and knew the names of everybody; he had even worked with some of them. She should never have married an actor, everybody said they were impossible – egocentric, childish.

  She was crying properly now; loud, dry sobs. She got up and took her tea mug into the kitchen. Her legs were bendy from lovemaking; her hipbones felt sore from Colin’s incredibly hard futon. He was too young to mind about things like comfort. Buffy, on the other hand, was a martyr to his back. When he had tried to seduce her, that first time, he had said: ‘You’ve just got to try out my new orthopaedic mattress.’

  She pulled off a piece of kitchen roll and blew her nose. She mustn’t wonder what he was doing, and how he was managing without her. That way madness lay. After all, she had slipped from him and he hadn’t even noticed. What sort of marriage was that? It was the most peculiar sensation, falling in love with somebody else. She felt nauseous all the time. Her rib-cage ached. She felt as if her spirit had moved out of Blomfield Mansions and only a husk remained there, like a pupa whose butterfly had flown. She probably looked all right to Buffy, from the outside. But if he prodded her, she would collapse.

  In the next room, Colin got up. Hurriedly she wiped her eyes. He wandered in and levered open a bottle of lager. His body looked damp; his cock hung red and raw. He looked well-used.

  ‘Why are photographers so hairy?’ she asked. ‘I’ve often wondered.’

  ‘Hey, how many’ve you seen like this?’

  ‘None, I told you. But they all wear Paul Smith jackets with the sleeves rolled up, and you can tell by their wrists.’

  He crooked his arm around her neck. ‘Come and live with me, or I’ll do my karate chop.’

  ‘Oh, what’s going to happen to us?’

  He didn’t reply. She looked at her watch; the adulterer’s reflex gesture.

  It was convenient, Colin living in Soho. Despite the ravages of redevelopment there were still some of the old speciality shops left. On the last day of her trip she would go out and buy stuff to bring home – kephtédés and hummus if she had been to Greece; salt cod, from a place near Brewer Street, if she had been to Portugal. It was risky, of course, because she might be spotted by somebody coming out of the Groucho Club, but she couldn’t bear to let Colin do it – not this. Making love to him was bad enough, but sending him out to buy food for Buffy seemed in even poorer taste.

  On Thursday she went out to Camisas and bought some Neopolitan specialities – buffalo mozzarella, prosciutto and tiny, ethnic-looking olives. She packed them in her suitcase. Then she rubbed some Sudden Tan cream onto her face, and typed up her copy on her portable ‘Tosh. She didn’t feel guilty about this – who cared if she actually went to Italy or not? Most of her fellow hacks spent their entire time in the hotel bar anyway, and cribbed it up on the flight home. Besides, her copy would probably be subbed down to 300 words, or maybe cut altogether if there was a last-minute ad. No, this part of the operation just gave her the pleasant, prickly sensation of petty lawlessness, like feeding foreign coins into a parking meter. Nothing more than that.

  She closed her laptop with a click. She was dressed in her travelling outfit, ready to leave. In the other room, Colin was watching TV. There was an advertising jingle, then Buffy’s voice boomed out, loud and clear: ‘Baileys Babywipes. Big absorbency, for little bottoms.’

  ‘Turn it off!’ she yelled.

  She dragged her luggage down the stairs. Colin kissed her goodbye, in the hallway. She nuzzled the gold hoop in his ear.

  ‘Come on, Pen,’ he said, ‘make up your mind.’

  ‘How’ll he manage without me? He’d be lost.’

  ‘Don’t listen to that helpless crap. He’s a ruthless old bugger. He’ll survive.’

  She held him, tightly. It still surprised her, to embrace such a slim man. She was forty-six. Was it fashionable, at her age, to have a toy boy? She had written pieces about it. On the other hand she had written just as many pieces on the advantages of an older man. He ran his lips over her face.

  ‘Don’t!’ she said. ‘My tan’ll come off.’

  She sat in the cab as it crawled up Regent Street. When did having an affair become leaving your husband? They were two such different things. She hadn’t realized this until now. It was like sexual intercourse and childbirth; one might lead to the other but need they? The prospect of moving from the first experience to the second felt utterly terrifying, like stepping out of an open window into thin air. Could she really make it happen? Did she dare?

  In fact, it happened without any decision on her part at all. And sooner than she thought.

  Five

  BLOMFIELD MANSIONS WASN’T full of ex-husbands. Years earlier Buffy had told Penny that it was full of lonely men crippled by alimony but that was just a sob story. In fact, the residents of the grimy old Edwardian building consisted of the usual mix found in this part of London: Arabs – though not really wealthy ones or they wouldn’t be living there – whose wives hid their faces from Buffy when they found themselves squashed next to him in the lift but whose children stared up at him with the usual candid interest. Old couples who had lived in the place all their lives. A pallid doctor called Lever who Buffy was convinced was an abortionist. Some bland and pleasant Americans who never stayed long. And a large proportion of what Penny called Anita Brookner women – spinsterly or widowed, of an indeterminate age and usually engaged in some dowdy job, probably of a clerical nature. Buffy had lived in the building for ten years and knew a lot of the inmates; he was
also a loud and active member of the Residents’ Committee – a sure sign of his own lack of outside employment, but still, he enjoyed the cut and thrust of the meetings.

  His long-term enemy was an elderly Hungarian called Mrs Zamiski. She lived in the next flat and for many years had waged a war against his dog – one of those rumbling campaigns that have gone on for so long that everyone has forgotten about them, like events in Namibia. Her windows faced the front. They overlooked the main road and the so-called gardens. These consisted of a strip of balding lawn and a dense, dusty shrubbery. Several times a day Buffy took George out, and it was amongst these bushes that he (the dog) relieved himself – or, as one American child shrilly pointed out, went to the bathroom. Mrs Zamiski, who seemed to keep a perpetual vigil behind her net curtains, always timed it perfectly. She waited until George was in a squatting position, then she flung open her window and yelled, ‘Feelthy animal – I call the porter!’ So Buffy had devised an ingenious plan, whereby he and George crept along the edge of the lawn, close to the building and out of her line of vision. From there it was a brisk trot straight into the middle of the shrubbery, where nobody could see them at all.

  It was a shame, really, that he couldn’t just let George off the lead and disclaim responsibility, sauntering past the bushes and letting the dog get on with it. But George had become unpredictable in his old age. Most of the time he was as lazy as Buffy – even lazier, if that was possible – and needed to be dragged along on his walks, sometimes in a sitting position. Lately, however, he had been seized with sudden and unprovoked rages. Off he would dash, barking wildly, and fling himself at the person who had unknowingly offended him. This was usually a cyclist. Seeing some pleasant, Friends of the Earth type pedalling along sent him into paroxysms of fury. But then sometimes so did a perfectly normal person walking along the pavement. This mostly happened, embarrassingly, when the person was black. ‘He’s turning into the most awful old fascist,’ said Penny. ‘It’ll be homosexuals next.’ She had always loathed the dog.

  This particular afternoon Buffy left the flat to buy his Evening Standard. It was one of his rituals. He didn’t like the paper much, but on the other hand he couldn’t bear not to read it in case he missed something. He felt like this about a lot of things. He was looking forward to seeing Penny; she was due back at any time now, and she always took a cab straight home from the airport. She had promised to bring back something nice for supper; he adored Italian food.

  He shared the lift with an unknown businessman, possibly Lebanese. George growled at him. Powerful aftershave filled the air as they descended wordlessly together. Not for the first time, Buffy speculated whether one of the Anita Brookner women was in fact a high-class call girl. He often encountered strange men in the lift, who never said hello, and Miss Bevins two floors up wore surprisingly high heels. It was a fun thought, anyway.

  Buffy walked out into the sunshine. It was one of those blazing July days that made even the Edgware Road look picturesque. Shiny red buses trundled by. A nanny pushed a pram; above it floated a silver balloon. Passers-by had a shiny, hometown innocence, like extras in a Frank Capra film. His spirits lifted. It reminded him of the old days when he had emerged from the Colony Room, blinking, into the middle of a staggeringly normal weekday afternoon.

  He edged along the side of the building and pulled George into the shrubbery. It was just then that a taxi arrived, though he didn’t hear it, the traffic was too loud. Penny stepped out of the cab and unloaded her luggage.

  At the same moment a courier, wearing arousingly shiny cycling shorts, came out of the front door. Chattering into his walkie-talkie, he mounted his bike and sped away.

  George’s lead jerked from Buffy’s hand. The dog shot out of the bushes, barking hoarsely, and raced after the departing cyclist. Penny saw him. ‘George!’ she yelled, and ran after him.

  Buffy emerged from the bushes and stared at Penny’s departing figure, running down the pavement. She always caught the dog, in the end; she ran much faster than he did.

  He walked to the taxi. Its engine was throbbing; the driver was obviously waiting. Later, Buffy remembered what he was thinking, just at that moment. That in the old, Colony Room days the driver would have unloaded her bloody suitcases himself and probably chased the dog too. Buffy also tried to remember if he had done the washing up for the past few days and collected Penny’s clothes from the cleaners, as per instructions. He remembered thinking all this, the moment before he spoke.

  ‘She paid you?’ he asked the driver.

  The man shook his head. Buffy looked down the road. Penny had disappeared. He took out his wallet; after all, she could pay him back from her expenses. He drew out a couple of twenty pound notes.

  ‘So what’s the damage?’ he asked.

  The driver flicked his cigarette out of the window and pointed to the fare, illuminated in its little box.

  ‘Three pounds fifty’ he said.

  Six

  AUTUMN, IN LONDON. The wind whipped the leaves off the trees and slewed them into the gutters. Black plastic sacks fattened in the public parks; it looked as if somebody had dropped them there from a great height. City brokers – even city brokers – were caught off-guard by a brooding melancholy they didn’t have time to name. Restaurateurs dragged in their pavement tables; assistants in Selfridges discussed their Christmas plans, though they had been discussing them since the spring. Swallows departed; the first frost arrived, by stealth, one night. People sat in their cars, warming up their engines. Women searched for their one lost glove.

  Celeste, who had lost her mother, moved to London in October. She rented a flat just off the Kilburn High Road. It was two rooms above a mental health charity shop. She tried to keep herself safe but oh, the noise, the fumes, the jostling crowds! The drilling in the streets, the skips full of rubble! Buses roared past her windows; beneath her, tubes rumbled along the Jubilee Line, making her house plants shiver. In the streets people bumped into her; they threw back their heads, draining Pepsi from cans. They stuffed their faces with handfuls of crisps. London assaulted her; she had been tenderly nurtured in the sleepy provinces, she wasn’t used to this. Her London was picture postcards and Monopoly. Where was Vine Street, with its big red hotel? She was lost; she had lost everything. When she stepped out, in the mornings, she had to look down quickly to make sure she was dressed.

  She had always been a slip of a thing but now she looked transparent. Shock had done that. The shock of the death was disorientating enough, but then she had been companioned in her grief. Not entirely, because grief removes the grief-stricken, nobody can reach them in their separate exiles where they have to suffer it out alone. But at least other people have been there too; they can describe the location and some of its features are familiar. This was different; she was totally alone in this. Nobody knew about the contents of the envelope, she had kept it a secret. And starting a new life, in a new city, sent her spinning into the bright October air, lost in space.

  She knew where to go, and she often walked there. The streets were deafening, how did people bear it? On either side, houses were being gutted and refurbished. In Melton Mowbray everything stayed the same but here lives were being dismantled, nothing was certain. Rooms collapsed while workmen whistled; empty windows, like dragons’ nostrils, breathed out smoke. From upper storeys long, jointed tubes of buckets dangled into skips; they looked like elephants’ trunks. As she walked past they vomited noisily, disgorging dust. Nobody else seemed to notice. She passed a bakery; its buns were split open, like mouths, frothing cream at her. She flinched at everything, she felt so raw. The high street was jammed with traffic. How could there be so much, and where was it going? It was never-ending, like scarves pulled from a conjuror’s pocket. Even the bicyclists were alarming, bumping on and off the pavement, glaring at people over their gas masks.

  She went there and she stayed for a while, just looking, just telling herself she had come to the right place. She hid in a bus shelter o
n the opposite side of the road. She looked up at the windows of the building. Her heart thumped. Which windows were the right ones? Soon, somehow, she would find out. She would find a way.

  She walked back in the dusk, down Kilburn High Road, the street of shoes. So many shoe shops, Saxone, Dolcis, their racks on the pavement, their wire baskets filled with ladies shoes, the sort her mother used to wear, Final Clearance Sale! Rows of single shoes, unbunioned as yet. She stood there, trying to cry, but she was beyond tears now. To the best Mum in the world! she used to write. She made her Mum birthday cards, they used to take hours. She remembered the weight of her mother’s hand in hers. Grown-ups were baffling, but you thought you could rely on them. They worried about stupid things but that was what they were supposed to do. It made you feel superior. Adults never realize how superior children feel, how much of the time.

  Celeste went back to her flat. She felt both very old, wearily so, and at the same time infantile and bereft. Somewhere in the middle should be herself, bringing home a Birds Eye Fisherman’s Pie for supper, just arrived in London and looking for a job. She must learn to be this woman, a step at a time. And she must learn how to lie.