Every Good Girl (3 page)

‘This is such a pretty place,' she said, resorting to commonplace observation, looking around and admiring the strong Mediterranean colours, solid bold blues, acid-free yellow. ‘It's got the kind of freshness that makes you feel you can hardly wait for summer to come.'

‘It was always your favourite time, wasn't it?' Joe said, leaning back in his chair and grinning at her over the top of the menu.

‘It still is,' she replied rather crisply. ‘I haven't suddenly taken to wallowing in gloomy winter just because you're not around, you know.'

Joe held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘OK, OK! Sorry, I didn't mean anything sinister. Anyway I'm glad you like it here, I thought you would. What do you fancy to eat?'

Nina studied the menu and chose quickly, allowing herself time to think about the
when
and
who with
aspects of Joe having visited the restaurant before. Horrendously, the part of her that was still somehow disconnected heard her say, and tried uselessly to stop her saying, ‘Have you been here with Catherine?' Joe was concentrating hard on the menu.

‘Huh? Oh yeah. And some people from Channel 4. It was Catherine's idea actually, bringing you here. She just mentioned on the way home that you'd probably like it.' He sounded casual enough but she noticed he didn't actually risk looking up and meeting her gaze.

Nina felt her skin chilling. How wonderfully
clever
of Catherine, who'd only met her briefly and twice to know just what she, Nina, would like. She also felt the envy elves gather inside her and present a little scene to her unwilling brain. It was of Joe, arm round pin-thin Catherine (colt-legs, plainly elegant clothes but peculiarly prissy jewellery), a wet night, yelling goodbye to friends under the blue and white awning, bundling each other into a taxi and dashing home eagerly to . . . to fuck.

‘I think I'll start with the salmon crêpe,' she said brightly. ‘What about you?' There was a tomato tart on the list; she crossed her fingers under the table and silently bet herself that he'd choose that. He
always
chose something with tomatoes, if only so he could complain about the indigestible qualities of the skin. She'd accused him of ‘enjoying' the delicate health of a swooning Victorian, the day he'd sat shivering by a
radiator in his ski jacket, claiming his fifth bout of flu that winter and berating her for lack of sympathy.

‘Well if they've peeled them . . .' he muttered, patting his stomach. Nina giggled delightedly and he looked up. ‘Oh I know, ever predictable,' he agreed. ‘The tomato and olive tart. Then the lamb. Now, tell me about the girls. What are they up to?'

‘Well, seeing as you only had them last weekend, you can probably tell me more about them than I can tell you,' Nina said. ‘Not much has happened, really. Lucy modelled a dreadful polyester selection in a fashion show in the Morley Centre on Monday afternoon. Apart from that, not a lot. Emily's working quite hard. At least she's in her room a lot, which I'm supposed to assume is the same thing.'

Joe frowned. ‘Did Luce take time out of school? You know I think she shouldn't. She's coming up for eleven, changing schools soon, it's not an easy time for her.'

Nina sighed. They'd been having this one out for the last couple of years. Their differing opinions over Lucy's highly successful career as a child-model had been one of the first serious fissures in their marriage.
He
said she was just a pushy stage mother, forcing her daughter to fulfil her own lost ambitions, whereas
she
claimed it gave Lucy confidence and a useful nest-egg for later. ‘She only missed the last hour or so, and it was only games.' Nina bit her lip, which made him grin knowingly, identifying her guilt. ‘I told them she'd got a tap exam,' she confessed.

‘Good God, and they thought that was OK, where mincing down a catwalk with a bunch of underage crumpet wouldn't be?' He shook his head.

‘Well yes they did, actually,' Nina admitted. ‘It's that trigger-word “exam”, isn't it? Even with dancing the
school likes to think the kids are notching up points for the old CV. They'd probably give her an afternoon off even if she was going off to do a test in shoe-lacing, so long as there was a certificate to show.' She wanted to tell him that the afternoon had actually been a disaster, that Lucy had fallen off the catwalk and put her foot through a silk lace wedding veil. She
could
tell it in a way that would have had him choking with laughter – but only if it was someone else's daughter, and only then if they were safely well over the legal marrying age. But she knew he'd only be furious that his daughter had been parading about in public dressed as a child bride. She'd felt horribly uneasy about it herself; it was somehow far sleazier than swimwear and underwear, which she'd agreed with Joe Lucy was not allowed to model. ‘Just a cute novelty finale for the kiddies' fashion show,' the organizer had gushed. She'd check the schedule more carefully next time, if there was one – child modelling was a fickle business. However beautiful and confident Lucy was, there was always the choice of another who could be relied on
not
to fall off the stage.

Joe laughed, ‘Pity there aren't A-levels in plane-spotting. Your brother would qualify for Cambridge. How is he, by the way? Still with your mum?'

Nina shrugged and smiled. ‘I don't know why you even ask. He'll be there for ever, you know as well as I do. So long as she's willing to do his cooking and cleaning and washing and ironing, neither of them sees any reason to change things.'

‘But suppose he met someone . . .'

‘He won't,' Nina interrupted, laughing. ‘He's comfortable. He and Mother are two of a kind. Just like small children they want every day to be the same, no surprises, no challenges. They haven't even got round
to semi-skimmed milk yet. They've still got a phone with a dial.'

‘Not a bit like you,' Joe said.

‘Oh I don't know,' she told him. ‘Now I'm on my own I'm beginning to feel there's a satisfying security in knowing what's coming. And what's not.' She glanced up at him, wishing as she said it that she
wasn't
going to say I think I've had as many surprises as I can cope with for a while.

‘How's old Henry? Still cadging our lawnmower?' Joe asked. ‘He always fancied you. I expect that's why he never liked me.'

‘
Our
lawnmower?'

‘OK, yours.'

‘Actually Joe, Henry didn't like you because you were a lousy cheating womanizer and you made me cry. He doesn't like to see his neighbours weeping over the weeding.'

‘Just like I said, he fancied you.' He grinned comfortably.

‘Not so much of the past tense.' Nina glowered at him.

Joe, thankfully, was distracted by the arrival of food. ‘Too much to hope that this puff pastry is made with butter,' he was murmuring as he inspected the tomatoes for lurking skin.

‘Well mine looks wonderful. I don't care what it's made of, I'm just glad I didn't have to do it,' Nina said, suddenly feeling frantically hungry. ‘How've you been anyway? Still love's young dream with Catherine?'

Joe frowned and put his fork down.

‘Tomato skin?' she queried.

‘Babies,' he said, looking thoughtful. ‘I promised myself I wouldn't mention this. I promised Catherine. She wants it just between us.'

Nina felt tense. ‘Better
not
mention it then,' she advised, her hunger evaporating and being replaced by reluctant but craven curiosity. There was still the main course to go, so they'd better stick to talking about their own children if she was to do justice to the menu. But she was only human: if he now refused to elaborate and changed the subject to holiday plans she'd never forgive him.

‘Sorry,' he said, picking up his fork again. ‘No it's nothing, really. It's just Catherine . . .'

‘Look, Joe, I'm sorry, but you really can't expect me to want to come out and discuss your new home life. There are people you can pay for that. Or there's blokes in the pub.'
Now
he'd tell her.

‘No. No you're right.' He sipped his wine, then finished the glass with one determined glug and gestured to the waiter. ‘She makes me nervous, that's all. She mentions babies sometimes. Quite often, actually. I mean, God, we've only been together a few months.'

That was something, Nina conceded privately; at least Catherine wasn't the cause of their marriage ending. If Other Women had been part of the reason, at least it hadn't been one particular Other Woman. In fact the saintly Catherine, super-accountant, super-body, super bloody everything, wouldn't slip from her pedestal of perfection to be an ordinary adulterous marriage-wrecker. Nothing would ever be
her
fault. There was nothing of the mistress about Catherine, from what Nina could gather, unless it was mistress of her own fate. And now possibly of Joe's.

‘So what's she been doing – dragging you into Mothercare when you'd rather go to Conran?' she gave in and asked. He was clearly going to tell her what was going on, she just wished he'd hurry up. He shrugged, as if it was enough to have dropped the hints
and he could now leave her wondering. Slowly and irritatingly he ate the last of his pastry.

‘You shouldn't be too surprised, you know; she's probably thinking she's getting to that age, that body-clock age. Though, God knows, she isn't anywhere near it. She's probably just hearing a louder tick than she used to.' Nina smiled and added with the pleasing glow of callousness, ‘Get her a kitten.'

Joe fidgeted with the tablecloth. ‘I've done babies.' He leaned forward, looking at her intently and saying in barely more than a whisper, ‘I've done babies, that's the thing I did with
you
. Babies were
us
.'

‘He made it sound like a shop,' Nina was telling Sally. ‘“
Babies were us
.” As soon as he said it I pictured the “r” the wrong way round and lots of multicoloured jolly lettering.'

Sally giggled, her ample thighs wobbling dangerously on the delicate little gold-painted chair. She couldn't be comfortable, she overhung by a good fleshy bit. Her feet, in elegant black suede slippers which rivalled the chair for fragility, were planted solidly apart for balance. Nina wondered if she should tactfully suggest she sat somewhere else. The purple velvet chaise-lounge, still on sale or return after eight months, would be ideal. The pair of pretty chairs were part of their gallery's stock, and like many of the items were quite definitely more about ornament than function.

Sally commented, ‘It's the “
were
” that gets me. It sounds like a shop that's closing down. You can just imagine old greying Babygros, curled-up bibs and grotty potties and third-hand high chairs.'

‘With food stains. And worse,' Nina laughed, and then was struck by a sobering idea. ‘Perhaps that's how Joe sees me, since Catherine came along, someone with the final sale signs up: “Last few days, everything must go”, all moth-eaten carpet and dingy paintwork. Everything about her is so taut and shining, when he looks at me I must remind him of an unmade bed.'

Sally gave a disbelieving snort. ‘Huh, if anything, since he moved out, I'd say you'd gone in for pretty thorough refurbishment. I mean look at your hair – having it cut all short and feathery took five years off, at
least
– not to mention you lost a few pounds.'

‘I could pretend that was trauma and misery,' Nina confessed. ‘But it's just that there's only me running round the house doing the laundry, taking the rubbish out, striding round the Common with the dog. I should probably make the girls do more, but I quite like being able to fit into my snuggest Levis again.'

Sally and Nina's gallery, Art and Soul (Joe's idea), was quiet. It always was on Friday mornings. It wasn't a good time for browsing lazily around, choosing between paintings that consisted of more square inches of frame than of art, silver jewellery that resembled paperclips twisted in frustration and contorted steel cutlery with hand-whittled sustainable-teak handles. Everyone who was shopping in the area was across the road in the delicatessen or the organic butcher's or in Scissorhands next door having their hair perked up for the weekend. A few bored young nannies and au pairs sat on benches on the green near the pond huddled into their collective resentment that ‘SW London' could extend so very far from the vibrant centre of the capital. They smoked sullenly and watched their charges throwing bread to ducks that were growing plump on
focaccio
and sun-dried tomato ciabatta.

Through the gallery window, from between two post-modern interpretations of terrazzo statuary, Nina could see a queue at the florist opposite, and the wine bar on the corner was filling up early with those who would have to pretend not to be dozing at their desks after lunch. Until the afternoon, when there'd be the usual rush of people looking for just the right little
one-off, so cleverly original present to take for the weekend/dinner hosts, there was no need for the two of them to be sitting there waiting for customers and getting through endless coffee.

Friday morning was Sally's turn but Nina had been almost choking with the need to talk to someone about the lunch with Joe.

‘I mean why did he want to tell
me
about it? Why does he think
I
want to know if Catherine's getting broody?' she asked.

‘You've already said that twice,' Sally pointed out, getting up and rearranging a display of silver-painted octagonal cups. I'm not sure whether you want me to give you several possible interpretations or whether you'd rather keep it rhetorical and think about it on your own.'

Nina looked at her doubtfully. ‘I don't
want
to think about it at all. That was the point of the parting. When we lived together, Joe made me think about him all the bloody time, what he was up to, where he
really
was, who with, all that. He was worse than a naughty toddler for needing attention. I keep telling myself I've got my own life to get on with now. I'd been doing fine till yesterday. Joe
was
, not
is
.'