Something to Hide Read online

  ‘How’s the internet lark going?’ he asks. ‘Met anybody you fancy?’

  I tell him about my latest disaster and we agree that men called Barry are not to be trusted.

  ‘Look at you,’ he says, ‘a scrumptious woman in her prime—’

  ‘You mean I’m old.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Half the men in London have been in love with you.’

  ‘Have! There, you see!’

  ‘Stop being so touchy.’ He settles himself comfortably. ‘Now, tell me about the others. I want to hear stories from the wilder shores of love.’

  ‘It’s a jungle out there.’

  ‘Literally, in my case.’

  ‘Plenty of grouse, though.’

  He laughs, and lights a cigarette. He’s the only man I know who still smokes. Living abroad does that; it fixes people in a former era. The same with their perceptions of home. To Jeremy, London is still a city with bobbies on the beat.

  So he pours out more Champagne and I entertain him with my romantic disasters. From the safety of the marital bed, couples like to hear about the hurly-burly of the chaise longue. Not that there’s been much hurly-burly but I beef it up to get that booming laugh. I tell him about spotting Alan on the TV news, about the internet man who took out his false teeth before he ate; about the sensitive, tactile pensioner who asked if I liked to play – presumably some sort of sport, until he told me. I tell Jeremy about the Cadbury’s area manager who showed me photos of his dead wife and the man who talked me through the wiring on his Vauxhall Astra.

  I omit, of course, the reality of my life – the great voids of echoing loneliness, the bitter envy of couples I see walking hand-in-hand on Hampstead Heath, greeting their grandchildren at Victoria station, consulting cinema listings in Patisserie Valerie, strolling through the Saatchi Gallery sneering at the artwork, getting their prescriptions for glucosomin and statins together, catching each other’s eye at parties, going on weekend breaks to Lisbon, putting me in the back seat of their cars, doing every fucking thing together, we we we; or, if not, knowing the other one is at home, the lamps lit, the drinks poured and upstairs their double bed waiting in which they can snuggle together under the duvet, safe from the horrors of the dark, and cheating, for one more night together, their inevitable death.

  I omit all this.

  We’ve finished the Champagne by now and I’ve uncorked a bottle of Rioja. Both Jeremy and I have a good head for drink and match each other glass for glass; he says it’s one of the things he admires most about me. Bev gets giggly after one gin and tonic and then falls asleep. I wonder if he’d change his mind if he saw me alone at the end of the evening, gripping the banister as I stumble up to the bathroom where I gulp down tumblers of water and gaze in the mirror at the sweating, wrinkled tomato that is allegedly my face.

  Jeremy is wandering around the kitchen, picking things up and putting them down, familiarizing himself with the place again. It’s a beautiful evening; the sun shines through the window, burnishing the saucepans hanging above the oven. It’s nice to have him here, idly popping grapes into his mouth. He’s gazing at the photos jammed around a picture frame.

  ‘Good Lord, has Jack had a baby?’

  I nod. ‘I’m a grandmother. Well, a granny-by-Skype.’

  ‘Lucky you.’ He and Bev don’t have children. According to Bev their peripatetic lifestyle has been unsuitable for a family. ‘To be perfectly frank, neither of us wants one,’ she told me once. ‘It might sound selfish, but we’re just so happy in each other’s company we’ve never needed little sprogs to make us feel complete.’

  We’re just so happy. The woman has the hide of a rhinoceros. Always did. Bev and I went to school together. I remember her in the toilets when we were thirteen. I had a livid eruption of acne over my forehead and chin. Frowning at herself in the mirror she inspected, with a shudder, a minute pimple on her cheek. ‘Ugh, look at this. Isn’t it disgusting? What on earth am I going to do? Ugh.’

  Jeremy is an old-fashioned, meat-and-potatoes kind of chap so I’ve roasted us a leg of lamb, purchased from Waitrose, which has cunningly disguised itself as a local street market whilst simultaneously wiping out the real one whose cheery stallholders were the last people on earth to call me darling. Swaying slightly, I split open a packet of frozen peas and empty them into a saucepan.

  ‘Know how long they take to cook?’ says Jeremy. ‘Same time it takes to sing “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction”. That’s our method, anyway.’

  Suddenly my good mood vanishes. I’m filled with such a black, bitter envy that it stops my breath. Jeremy and Bev, swaying together in their tropical kitchen, belting out the Stones song. I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it.

  ‘That’s too long,’ I snap. ‘They’d be soggy by then.’

  I don’t want Jeremy, of course I don’t. I just long, with all my heart, for such silliness. For thirty-five years of larkiness and laughter with the man I love. What has Bev done to deserve it? She’s not particularly beautiful; she’s not particularly clever. She’s not even particularly nice.

  It’s all luck, isn’t it? Luck and timing. When you’re young you’re a plum, ripening on the branch. The man who shook me down was Paul, a chap who never sang while he cooked. Who never noticed my hair or, indeed, made any comment about me at all. Over the years I felt myself fading, like the typing on fax paper. In moments of desperation I used to prod him for compliments. Once, in despair, I asked him, Aren’t you lucky to be married to a woman with such long, slim thighs? Humiliating, isn’t it? No wonder he looked startled. By the end of the marriage I was marginally deranged.

  Communication. That’s what I longed for. Paul was a good lover; that’s how he expressed his emotions. A handsome man whose handsome body spoke to mine. But all those unsaid words I had swilling around my head – they had nowhere to go and they died a million deaths. After a while, with no ears to hear them, they stopped existing at all.

  Paul spent years up a ladder, restoring the cornices. With a chisel, and a stiff little brush, and some sort of steam machine that kept breaking down, he silently toiled away, scraping off the layers of paint. Nobody could speak to him up there, he mustn’t be disturbed. When my marriage was over I used to look up at the plasterwork, acanthus leaves and tiny scrolls, and think how every inch was an unsaid conversation and who gave a shit about cornices anyway? Sometimes I wondered if he talked to his lovers more than he talked to me. This made me more jealous than the sex.

  Jeremy and I sit down to eat. ‘So what are you up to this week?’ I ask him.

  ‘Few meetings. Bit of shopping, see my old mum in Marlborough. I really ought to catch up on some culture, bloody starved for it out there, if I watch the DVD of Ocean’s Eleven one more time I’ll slit my throat. You’re arty. What should I see?’

  It turns out that he’s never been to Tate Modern. I haven’t much work at the moment so we agree to meet there tomorrow afternoon.

  I’m calling it Ngotoland, the West African country where Jeremy lives. I’ve changed the name of his town, too. It’s just a precaution; I hope I won’t need it. Likewise with the name of the pharmaceutical company for whom he used to work.

  Used to, because he doesn’t any more.

  As I’ve said, Jeremy is slightly dodgy. It’s part of his charm. He likes to sail close to the wind, he gets his kicks that way. Bev calls him a handful but that’s putting it mildly. He’s reckless and impulsive and drinks too much. I remember some incident in Kuala Lumpur, when he was working out there – some road accident that was later hushed up. He’s always been a manic driver. When we were young he had a Triumph Stag and I remember us careering from party to party, me and Bev screaming as he shot all the lights down the Fulham Road. Long ago he would have been an adventurer, seeking his fortune in the Gold Rush or on the North West Frontier, dressed as a Pashtun and speaking the language like a native. Some people are born in the wrong century and he’s one of them. Of course there’s plenty of reckless men around,
they brought our economy to its knees, but I could hardly see Jeremy on the trading floor at Lehman Brothers. He’s a maverick, a loner.

  That’s why it’s surprised me, that he’s been employed by a corporate giant like Zonac all these years. But it turns out he’s always been freelance – a troubleshooter, working in the morally dubious area of litigation.

  Which is what took him to West Africa.

  We’re sitting in a café outside Tate Modern, the sun on our faces, sharing a slice of carrot cake. Hoards of tourists shuffle through the entrance; a bunch of schoolchildren jostle each other as they’re swallowed up inside. It’s such a beautiful day, however, that we simply can’t bear to go in. We agreed about this, what the hell, let’s just not, and feel pleasurably like truants. It’s so warm that Jeremy’s in his shirtsleeves (striped this time, he’s been in a meeting) and I’m wearing a T-shirt. I surrender myself up to the sun, voluptuously, as he tells me what’s been happening in Ngotoland.

  It concerns a tribe called the Kikanda. Apparently they’re hunter-gatherers who live deep in the bush. Until recently, their habits hadn’t changed since the Stone Age. They have a nomadic existence, the men disappearing for weeks, hunting animals with poisoned arrows, while the women gather nuts and fruits; they speak in a language of clicks and whistles.

  It’s been known, however, that the men chew on a plant called kar to suppress their appetite on these hunting trips. It’s a succulent, only found in their area, and rich in vitamins and minerals. Apparently it mimics the effect that glucose has on the brain cells, telling people their stomachs are full. ‘It has a compound in it called P57,’ Jeremy says. ‘It acts on the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that influences appetite.’

  There’s a grove of silver birches between us and the river. Through the trees we can hear faint music from the buskers. Jeremy says: ‘So somebody at Zonac hears about this plant and five years ago they slapped a licence on it and got a patent to flog it in America.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘As an appetite suppressant. Get the irony! All those fat people, all those waddling barrage balloons – they’re addicted to eating. Junk food’s got stuff in it that makes them want more and more. And suddenly, along comes a solution, a hunger-busting quick fix. A couple of capsules a day … the miracle cure. Just imagine how it sold! Zonac’s share price went through the roof.’ With his fork, he offers me the last mouthful of cake. I shake my head and he pops it in his mouth. ‘It was only then that the Kikanda got wind of what was happening. They challenged Zonac, who said sorry, we thought you were extinct. The Kikanda replied that they weren’t extinct, they were very much alive. They said that kar grows on their ancestral land, it belongs to them, and they were going to hire a shit-hot lawyer from Johannesburg to sue Zonac to kingdom come for bio-piracy. And that’s where I came in.’

  ‘You acted for Zonac.’

  Jeremy nods.

  ‘Against vulnerable, poverty-stricken, unique, endangered people who had absolutely nothing.’

  ‘Yep.’

  He dabs at the crumbs on the plate. I glare at him as he sucks his finger.

  ‘You’re such a shit.’ My face heats up. I feel strangely, exhilaratingly intimate with him. ‘Talk about David and bloody Goliath. I always suspected you did something like that but hoped I was wrong. Go on, tell me you were just doing your job.’

  ‘Progress always has casualties,’ Jeremy says blandly, leaning back in his chair. ‘From lab rats upwards. Saving lives means losing lives.’

  ‘That’s bollocks. You’re not saving lives, you’re peddling stuff to stupid people who eat too much.’

  ‘Thing is, Petra my love, the Kikanda are doomed anyway. Their way of life’s doomed.’ He lights a cigarette. ‘If it’s not one thing it’s another. The Chinese are swarming over the place plundering the minerals, the poachers are slaughtering the wildlife, the Arab sheikhs are setting fire to the migration routes and nicking the land for hunting, everyone’s bribing everyone, the government’s riddled with corruption, the whole bloody area’s up for grabs.’

  Somewhere, through the trees, drummers start tum-tum-tumming with a jungle beat. I feel profoundly depressed. ‘That doesn’t excuse you.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t. That’s why I left my job.’

  ‘What?’

  So he tells me.

  It wasn’t a Road to Damascus moment. ‘It happened when I was shaving,’ Jeremy says. ‘Just a normal morning, couldn’t be more normal.’ He raises his eyebrows. ‘But don’t you find that huge things can happen in the most humdrum moment?’

  I nod. The wind stirs my paper napkin.

  ‘By the time I’d finished shaving the lawyer in me had vanished, just like that,’ he says.

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘Didn’t go into work. Told them to go to hell.’

  I stare at him.

  ‘I had some money saved up – quite a lot, over the years, we’d never bought a house or anything sensible like that, and I’d been paid pretty well – so I started a small NGO, to help the Kikanda. Roped in some other people, did some fundraising. We’re building a small settlement with a clinic and a school. We’ve got a grant to buy a couple of tractors, so they can clear the land and sow their own crops.’ His voice rises in excitement. ‘It’s the end of a way of life, I know that, but they have to adapt, it’s the only way they can survive. And they’re working with us, telling us what they want and learning new skills.’ He laughs. ‘Talk about poacher turned gamekeeper, eh?’

  He’s changing before my eyes. A moment ago I was snapping at him and now I’m speechless with admiration. After this emotional buffeting I want to hug him. It’s like on a plane, being tossed about by a patch of turbulence; afterwards one feels closer to the stranger in the next seat.

  Not that Jeremy’s a stranger, of course. Far from it. But I’ve hardly ever been alone with him till now. It’s Bev who’s my oldest friend; I know her through and through, but I’ve only known Jeremy in the peripheral role of her husband.

  ‘Why didn’t Bev mention this in her emails?’ I ask.

  ‘Things’ve been a bit iffy with Zonac – breach of contract and so on, writs flying around. And there are some powerful interests out there who’d like to see the Kikanda driven out for good – real Heart of Darkness stuff. If the world knew what was happening in Africa …’ He shrugs. ‘The last thing those guys want is to see some local tribe get educated and learn their rights. So we’re keeping a low profile for the time being.’

  In the distance St Paul’s glows in the sinking sun. We seem to have been sitting here for hours. At the other tables people have come and gone; beyond the birch trees the drumming has stopped.

  ‘You are a one,’ I say, and we both burst out laughing at the inanity of this remark.

  Neither of us has plans for the evening so Jeremy suggests we get something to eat. When I ask what sort of restaurant he replies: ‘Moribund. I don’t want any of this gastro bollocks. I want somewhere with tired old waiters with stains on their jackets, and tinned grapefruit for starters—’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, nobody has tinned grapefruit anymore—’

  ‘—and melba toast.’

  ‘The last place to serve melba toast was Beotys, in St Martin’s Lane, and that closed about eight hundred years ago.’

  ‘We’re going to find one, I know we are.’ We’re walking across Waterloo Bridge. ‘Let’s make a bet.’

  ‘Two pounds.’

  ‘Done.’

  We stop and shake on it. He says he’s homesick for his youth, that’s why he wants somewhere dated. Living abroad disconnects you from the normal process of maturing, that’s his view of himself and indeed my view too. You’re caught in a time warp. He’s all adrift when he comes back to England, and clings to the solidity of the past. In his case, the very far past. Our childhood.

  ‘It’s pathetic,’ I say.

  ‘I know, but you’ve got to humour me because I’m a visitor.’


  We’re in Covent Garden now. It’s a magic, balmy evening, so rare this early in the year.

  ‘Aah,’ sighs Jeremy. ‘As Homer put it, the limb-loosening desire of the ambrosial night.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘No, but he might have.’

  Jeremy, of course, is used to the heat. In Africa, however, it’s a humid, stifling heat that soaks a chap with sweat day and night. That’s what he tells me. Here in good old London, despite the traffic fumes, the air is fresh and invigorating for a refugee from the tropics. He breathes in great lungfuls of it, as if storing up the oxygen for his future disappearance.

  The whole world seems out on the streets. I glimpse ageing couples arm-in-arm, the sort of couples who used to make me ache with loneliness. Just tonight, we’re one of them. We saunter past restaurants, pausing to inspect the menus. Orso’s: walnut gnocchi, caponata with grilled radicchio. ‘Wankers,’ Jeremy groans. We walk further and stop at a place called La Cocotte. Seared tuna with sorrel veloute and heritage morels.

  ‘It’s hopeless,’ I say. ‘They’re all like this. Better give me that two pounds now.’

  Jeremy shakes his head and stubbornly walks on. We turn up a side street and suddenly we find it – a restaurant called Frederico’s. Flickering neon sign, grimy gingham curtains and a menu unchanged for decades: spaghetti bolognese, spaghetti carbonara, spaghetti vongole. We peer through the window. A dishevelled waiter stands in the shadows like a waxwork. Unsurprisingly, the place is empty.

  Jeremy takes my arm. ‘On with the nosebags.’ He triumphantly ushers me in.

  The waiter jerks to attention. He flourishes napkins into our laps and gives us the menus. They have cracked, plastic covers. When he has hobbled off I rummage in my purse and give Jeremy two pounds. He looks around with satisfaction. ‘Scores pretty high on the moribundometer, wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘Off the scale.’

  So we sit in this time warp, eating spaghetti lightly dandruffed with Parmesan, that dry stuff from a tub. No melba toast, but the prehistoric bread sticks will have to do. We’re seized with high spirits; something about this awful place gives us the giggles. We compare youthful dates in restaurants like this one, served perhaps by the very same waiter.