Mark and I were in Maze in Mayfair having a romantic supper. He was telling me about his next assignment, weaving his fingers into mine. I was giving him my wholehearted attention – he was going to Yosemite to photograph a free-climber, Rachel Ashton, who was scaling El Capitan in the hope of breaking the speed climbing record.
‘When are you going?’
‘The fifteenth of November. Had to make it after Bonfire Night when the folks have their hog roast. They’d never forgive us if we missed it.’
I was dismayed. ‘I can’t believe you’re going away again so soon.’
He tightened his grip on my fingers. ‘Come with me, Lana,’ he said.
I felt my heart sink. I can’t.
What’s wrong with me, I wondered. Why not? Well, the writing class didn’t break up until November the twenty-sixth and I had to do the reports because London Lit was still paying me. And what about Nancy?
This is what real life is like. People have responsibilities. In a love story, the heroine would never let the practicalities of life get in the way of romance. Here they were, the words I’d been waiting for, and I was saying I can’t? Again?
I rubbed my temples, trying to be sensible and get my thoughts straight. But after all, it was Nancy herself who told me that it’s not what you’ll do for love, but what you’ll give up. This was my test and I wasn’t going to make the same mistake this time.
‘Okay, yes,’ I said, looking into his deep brown eyes. ‘I’ll come with you.’
I would find a solution. As far as the group was concerned, we could Skype each other from anywhere in the world. Somewhere along the way I had lost my role as tutor and become something else, part of the group, making life make sense through our stories. And there was still time for Jack to find someone from the Caring Share for Nancy. Or even for me to find someone suitable that she could get used to having around before I left. She was a lot happier now and hardly disruptive at all. She probably wouldn’t even mind.
I knew it was the right answer when Mark smiled that dazzling smile of his.
‘Good. I hoped you’d say that,’ he said.
A couple of days later, Jack called in on his way out somewhere.
‘It’s Nancy’s birthday on Saturday,’ he said. ‘I’m taking her to see Sister Act in Leicester Square.’
‘Really? That sounds great! I’ll write it on the calendar,’ I said. The thought of them going out and having fun made me feel pale and listless. ‘She’s in the parlour.’
Nancy was pleased to see him and delighted to hear she was having a birthday at last, because she hadn’t had one for ages.
‘Almost a year ago,’ Jack said with a smile.
‘Gosh! Is it that long ago?’
As I listened to them talking about Sister Act, I realised I would have the whole evening to myself. The fact that Jack was about to leave us and have fun somewhere else revived the spirit of competition in me.
‘Would it be all right if I invited Mark and his parents here for supper that night?’ I asked politely.
There were two reasons for this.
It was a way of thanking them for their hospitality in the past. It was also a way of consolidating the fact that I was Mark’s girlfriend before the party on November the fifth.
‘Do what you like,’ Jack said. ‘It’s fine. It will make no difference to us.’
As he didn’t make any derogatory remarks about Mark we seemed to be back on an even keel and it would have been a good time to tell him about my future plans, except that I didn’t really want to talk about them in front of Nancy. She might get upset at the thought of change but she wouldn’t remember it, and I would have to go through the whole painful process again. And as I hadn’t heard back yet from the Caring Share, I decided to put it off until another day.
For her birthday I gave Nancy a pair of pink gloves and a card with a cheerful verse on, which she read out loud to me several times, with meaning.
I planned that evening’s dinner party carefully because I desperately wanted the night to go well. I bought a piece of fillet to roast. The menu was horseradish mash, leeks, carrot puree and Yorkshire puddings, followed by cheese, pickled grapes and quince paste.
‘Look at you’ – Mark grinned, watching me in the kitchen with a glass of wine in his hand – ‘it’s like going back in time. You’re the fantasy wife.’
I liked the sound of that. ‘Fantasy wife?’
He looked at me with his dark brown eyes and his grin softened into a smile. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘the smell of roast potatoes … you with your hair up and a big smile …’
Fantasy wife, I thought proudly, despite being hot and bothered.
I put the baking tray down on a trivet and he came to take a look at the Yorkshire puddings and kissed me on my forehead. ‘Don’t want to mess up your make-up,’ he said.
Judy and Stephen turned up on time, marvelling at the oil painting of Old Mother Hubbard; Stephen all in black and Judy in a ruby dress with draping sleeves. Judy was disappointed that Nancy Ellis Hall wasn’t joining us for supper as she would have loved to have discussed feminism with her.
‘Feminists,’ Stephen said, ‘all that bra burning – well, women have got what they want now and are they any happier?’
‘Oh, Stephen,’ Judy said, flicking her napkin at him, ‘you old dinosaur.’
On second thoughts, it was a good thing that Nancy wasn’t there.
Stephen was undeterred by our collective disapproval. He went on: ‘I like my women like my coffee.’
‘You mean you make them strong and bitter?’ I asked, laughing merrily. I was on fire that night.
Mark opened the wine and I pulled off the oven gloves. We sat round the table and Mark carved the meat, so bloody it was nestled in a pool of gore, but just right, just perfect. We took it in turns to talk and laughed at each other’s stories and said how nice it was to be all together again. It really was.
We were on the cheese when the doorbell rang and for a moment we all froze – Mark holding the wine bottle at an angle, Judy plucking a stem from a grape, Stephen buttering a water biscuit – and we looked at each other inquiringly in the way that you do when the doorbell rings unexpectedly at night – who’s that?
‘I’ll get it,’ I said; two reasons: one, I was at the end of the table, and two, I was the one living there so technically I was the host. Normally, Nancy would be racing me to the door on the grounds it was her house. I dropped my napkin on the table and went to answer it.
The security light was on, and the man who had rung the doorbell was standing lit up on the path in a dark overcoat, his hands in his trouser pockets. He was frowning until he saw me, and then his face cleared.
It was Jack.
‘I thought I’d better warn you that we’re back,’ he said.
I pulled the door closed behind me – I wasn’t sure if Mark could see it from where he was sitting.
‘What are you doing here? You’re too early.’
He grinned. ‘Nancy yelled at the nuns for singing too loudly so we stayed in the bar after the interval.’
‘Where is she now?’
‘She’s in the taxi, haranguing the driver. How long are you going to be?’
I stared at him and turned to look back at the door because, any minute now, Mark was going to come out to see who it was, and why I’d shut the door.
‘We’re still on the cheese.’
Jack shifted his gaze from mine and he glanced towards the window with a half-smile. ‘Oh.’
The heat drained out of me and I hugged my arms, shivering with nerves.
‘Can you give us another sort of, ten minutes or so?’ I could guess what Nancy would think, finding strangers in her house, and right this moment I didn’t want to ruin the night which had, so far, been perfect.
‘Sure. Don’t rush,’ Jack said and he turned to leave.
I was so grateful that I pulled him back to give him a hug. I shouldn’t have, I know. I don’t usually do that sort of thing. It was out of friendship, and he was so understanding and I was happy he was talking normally to me again. I slid my arms under his jacket, feeling the warmth of him through his cotton shirt, and as he squeezed me back I could feel his heart thudding against mine. The security light switched off and for a brief moment we were safe in the privacy of the night when I heard the door latch turn.
The security light came on again.
Jack released me as Mark stood in the doorway, but we were still standing too close.
‘I wondered where you’d got to,’ he said. ‘Ah. Jack, isn’t it?’
Public school had equipped Mark for most situations and I watched his hand rise automatically with the introduction, until he had second thoughts and dropped it again.
‘What can we do for you?’ The words were more polite than the tone.
‘I’m talking to Lana,’ Jack said.
Again the heat rushed through me.
Mark was icily polite. ‘You’ll have to do it another time, I’m afraid. We’re finishing supper.’
‘I know,’ Jack said, as if it was amusing.
It killed me to see them side by side. I felt as if my mind had broken free of my body – I could see myself in my sleeveless black dress, goosebumps on my bare arms, a step away from a warm room and wine while Jack stood alone with his hands in his pockets, his breath clouding in the cold air. I knew what it felt like to be the outsider, two against one, and I couldn’t bear it, so I turned and went back inside, to Mark’s parents who were talking softly to each other over empty glasses and who looked up expectantly at me.
‘Everything all right?’ Stephen asked.
I told them that it was Nancy Ellis Hall’s stepson, letting us know she would be home any minute. I knew that Judy wanted to meet Nancy, but if Nancy was grumpy, she might be annoyed at having people in her house.
Just then the front door closed, gusting a puff of cold air all the way from the hall that flapped the Mother Hubbard painting and blew out the candles, and Mark came back in, rubbing his hands to warm them.
Stephen sat down again. ‘Seen the opposition off?’ he said jovially through the candle smoke.
Mark gave a brief laugh and looked at me curiously. ‘Persistent, isn’t he?’
I focused on filling my glass, keeping my hand steady, trying not to spill a drop. Then I focused on drinking it slowly. It tasted different, sweeter, as if I had been eating liquorice.
Judy was curious, wanting to know more about Nancy.
I knew she would be impressed.
She changed her opinion slightly when Mark added that Nancy was totally barking mad and she’d slammed his head in the door.
You hear a lot of bad things about boyfriends’ mothers. Because they’ve been there, in the relationship game, I suppose, and they know from personal experience what women are capable of. They can be soft, gentle, manipulative and scheming, but Judy bucked the trend. I liked her immensely. She touched Stephen’s wrist and he messaged his driver and shortly afterwards a car came to collect them, and I texted Jack to tell him that the coast was clear.
Nancy was very grumpy as she came in the house. Her hat looked peculiar – it was perched very high on her head.
‘We’ve been in a huge hall crammed with a lot of noise and singing and we’ve been driving for miles,’ she said. ‘And I’ve lost my gloves.’
‘They’re in your hat,’ Jack said.
She took the yellow hat off her head to look with great astonishment and delight. ‘How did they get there?’