In the strange half-light on the plane home to London, I sat and wondered whether I had done the right thing telling Ursula about Miles. But I couldn’t have lied to her I concluded, not to her. And especially not after she had sneaked up on me like that.
I was actually quite surprised what a relief it had been to tell someone about it and Ursula was definitely the person to choose. She didn’t make any judgements, in fact she seemed quite pleased about the whole thing.
Her eyes had twinkled with vicarious delight as I’d told her how it had all happened. I left out the more pornographic details of course – I might have been her un-daughter, but Ursula was enough of a parent figure for that to seem embarrassing – and she seemed truly thrilled to hear about my adventure. She didn’t mention therapy once all evening and best of all, she didn’t say anything to make me feel guilty about what I’d done. She didn’t even mention Ollie, which seemed a little odd in the context, but suited me.
‘How delicious, darling,’ she’d said, as we scraped the last two spoonfuls of cheesecake out of the box. ‘Nice name, Miles. And I like the idea of a surfer. Very primal. You just enjoy it. A much better distraction for you than all that silly shopping and brainless socializing you do.’
Then she paused and seemed to consider what she was about to say, as she licked her spoon.
‘I’m sure I don’t need to tell you this, Emily,’ she said finally. ‘But I’m going to anyway. It sounds to me like you have exactly the right sense of proportion about this little “entente ”, shall we call it? So enjoy it, savour it, grow from it, feel alive – but don’t get silly about it, OK? Keep it in context and don’t confuse it with real life.’
I had the distinct feeling that she was advising me to treat my affair as she treated hers – like a box of chocolates rather than a proper meal, as she had once explained it to me. Still, I was glad she’d said all that, as it was exactly the attitude I had been taking to it, apart from that one day of obsessing as I walked through New York, but telling all to Ursula had enabled me to move on from that. Miles was safely back in his box. A beautiful pink Charbonnel & Walker chocolate box, tied up with a big satin bow, but a box nevertheless.
Once I got back to London, back to Ollie and back to the office, I hardly gave Miles a thought. Certain sexy songs could make me think of him. And stills from certain fashion shows – especially Dior, of course. Seeing a cute guy on the street in worn-out jeans and a leather jacket. Anything on the telly about Australia. Or surfing. And sometimes he would just pop into my head unprompted. But mainly, I managed to keep him filed. And I always managed to around Ollie.
Not that I seemed to see my husband very much. Slap for Chaps had gone ballistic. It was everywhere, one of those things that seemed to enter the national consciousness in a unique way in Britain. Comedians made jokes about it, it came up on quiz shows, people wore it to fancy-dress parties and children played it, until it became quite normal to see a little boy walking along in full make-up as his face paint of choice, when he might have once been a lion, or Spiderman. David Beckham had worn it to a party.
Even really butch blokes wore make-up to work to raise money for charity, culminating in a whole fire crew being sponsored to wear Slap for Chaps for a week, in aid of Children in Need, with Ollie providing the make-up and the make-up artists to apply it. That was all over the telly. Especially when one of the make-up artists got engaged to a fireman. Talk about a feel-good story.
There was even a dedicated blokes’ makeover TV show under discussion, to be sponsored by Slap, with full naming rights. So on top of his already crowded work schedule, it kept Ollie very busy.
I was busy too. It was always my nuttiest time of year at work, as I had to fit in at least half my shoots before Christmas, as well as it being prime time for boutique launches and the Christmas party season itself, which was always full-on for both of us.
As well as two Slap parties – a big client number and a smaller office piss-up – I had all the designer and PR drinks to go to, Ollie had all the other magazines’ dos and I had to go with him to a lot of corporate booze-ups of varying gruesomeness.
The Chic party, however, was the major event. All London’s hot young fashion designers, photographers, models, make-up artists, hairdressers, agents, writers, PRs and general faces around town came, and we always had it in a suitably cool venue. We usually racked up the odd visiting celeb as well, which was always thrilling.
That year we were having it jointly with Chic Interiors and they had found the most brilliant venue, in the half-finished spaces of the Wigwam hotel, which Ollie’s decorator pal Donovan Pertwee was designing. The work-in-progress feel was really rather great.
Ollie was in his element catching up with all his new interiors buddies, as well as the Chic crowd he already knew really well. Handsome, well dressed and always in a good mood, Ollie was a popular party guest and I didn’t mind a bit when he asked Bee to dance and stuff like that. It was all rather familial and nice, as I danced with her husband George as well.
I also got on down with Frannie’s Andrew, who was a surprisingly good dancer, and with all the girls together, dancing round our handbags as a joke. It was that kind of a night.
I was not so thrilled, however, when I looked over mid-chat with Rosie Stanton, who had been writing for Chic since she’d been to our Sunday salon – major Bee points to me, tee hee – to see Ollie dancing with Natalie, of all people. Just as I noticed, Gemma stumbled past – she’d had quite a bit to drink and was having trouble with her shoes.
‘Look at that little slapper dancing with your husband, Em,’ she said, leaning down and wrestling with her ankle straps. ‘Fucking shoes, that’s it, I’m taking them off. That’s better.’
She stood up again, several inches smaller, but looking much happier and looked over at Natalie and Ollie again. Natalie was positively shaking her copious suntanned cleavage – she’d just come back from a shoot in Bali with Alice and she always baked it like a roast chicken – in my husband’s face.
‘She asked him, Em,’ said Gemma. ‘I saw her do it.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘I’m putting a stop to this.’
But as I tried to get over to where they were, I kept bumping into make-up artists and hairdressers and model agents and other people I knew and I couldn’t just ignore them, so I had to keep stopping to air kiss and chat and graciously accept compliments about how great I looked, in my emerald green Dolce & Gabbana mini toga. I did look hot, if I say so myself. I had a genius hairpiece on too, in a high pony.
By the time I got over to the side of the dance floor where they’d been, Natalie had disappeared and Ollie was gyrating enthusiastically with Spitty Felicity, so I left them to it. He’d do anything for editorial mentions, I reckoned, my husband.
Christmas itself was the usual trip to Ollie’s parents and I was more than happy about that, because Caroline and Max really knew how to do the whole yuletide thing. Log fires, a huge tree in the hall, loads to drink, a whole Stilton on the sideboard, swathes of holly – Bing Crosby could have turned up at any moment to shoot a Christmas special.
It was exactly the same every year and that’s just why I liked it. Caroline even had a service of special Christmas china which was used only then, which I thought showed real commitment. It didn’t have the glamour of the Christmases I’d spent on the Upper East Side, or up at Martha’s Vineyard, with Ursula, but I still loved it. I loved anything to do with normal family life.
Over the four days we were there, all of Ollie’s brothers came and went with their families and it was lovely to have children running around, mulled wine on tap and endless games of charades, Boggle, Scrabble and snap on the go.
Caroline even let me help with the food, which was a great honour – none of her other daughters-in-law were allowed near the Aga – but she’d sussed me out early on as a keen cook and was eager to encourage me. She made a couple of comments about me needing to eat a bit more too, but I just ignored them.
As another indication of my true acceptance into the Fairbrother clan, Caroline had even asked me if I wanted to invite my brother there for Christmas. They’d met him at our wedding and a couple of times since, and clearly thought he was the right kind of a chap. I was a bit thrown at first – he did ring me quite regularly, but I tended to keep Toby slightly at arm’s length, for fear of what he might stir up in me. But then I’d thought it over and decided it might be really nice to have an actual family member beside me as we sat down for the turkey. He was my brother, after all.
I turned to look at Toby’s face as Max said grace. His head was down with his eyes closed and I realized he was starting to look more and more like my father as he got older, with one marked difference: Dad had always been ghostly pale from spending all his time in his studio and Toby’s face had the ruddy tinge of skin constantly exposed to harsh weather. Pushing himself to physical extremes seemed to be Toby’s way of coping with all the things he didn’t want to think about.
As a result of his formative years with our Uncle Andrew and his subsequent superstraight education, Toby fitted perfectly into Fairbrother-land in his chunky cords and checked Viyella shirts. You’d never have guessed he was the son of a wayward artist and his unhinged poet wife, or even that we were related. I watched him pulling a cracker with one of Ollie’s sisters-in-law, a toothy blonde in a bright pink Boden cardie and pearls, who was squawking with excitement at the fun of it. Two hearty Sloanes in perfect harmony.
Toby and I were like some kind of sociological experiment, I thought. I was eleven when I went to live with Ursula, he was seven when he moved in with Uncle Andrew and his family, yet we both seemed completely defined by those years. He was leaving on Boxing Day to go to Andrew’s – he had a strong sense of duty to the people who had given him shelter – and before he left he asked me to go for a walk with him.
Even though I hadn’t seen much of him over the years, I was still very fond of Tobes. He may have gone off on a completely different tangent to me, but we did have those crucial seven years together. We’d hardly seen any of our parents’ relatives when we were little, so he and Ursula were just about the only people left I had any shared childhood memories with.
We met in the boot room and set out across the fields behind the house. They were still crisp with the hard frost glittering in the midday sun and the trees on the horizon were outlined starkly against the pure white sky.
I breathed in deeply, filling my lungs with the cool clean air which seemed uniquely English somehow. I could see the steeple of the village church in the distance and smoke rising from the chimneys of cottages nestling in the folds of the landscape. I’d missed those ageless English days when I’d lived in New York.
We walked along chatting lightly about how nice the Fairbrothers were and Toby’s plans for life after the army. Max had taken him off for a man-to-man chat about the City after breakfast that morning and he said he was giving it serious thought.
The conversation gradually petered out and as I saw Toby’s shoulders rise towards his ears inside his Barbour, I knew he had something to say to me; something he was having trouble getting out. I remembered him doing that thing with his shoulders when he was tiny and had been told off. I trudged along for a while admiring the effect of my pink boots against the white frost, but in the end I couldn’t stand it any longer. I stopped and turned towards him, putting my hand on his waxy sleeve.
‘What is it, Tobes?’ I said. ‘I can see you’ve got something on your mind. Tell me.’
He looked relieved, as he turned to look at me, but still constricted by whatever it was he needed to say. He sighed deeply and then took a breath, like someone about to jump off a high board.
‘It’s Mum,’ he finally got out in a strangled voice.
‘What about Mum?’ I said, trying not to let an edge come into my voice, but it did anyway. I couldn’t control my reaction to her any more than Toby could be at ease with his emotions.
‘She’s asking for you,’ he said.
I laughed. I don’t know why, it’s just what happened.
‘Em,’ said Toby pleadingly.
Now it was my turn to sigh deeply. I didn’t want to have this conversation any more than he did.
‘What do you mean she’s asking for me? And how do you know?’
‘I go to see her,’ said Toby in a tiny little voice.
I was stunned. I had no idea. I did a quick sum in my head. I hadn’t seen her for nearly ten years. The last time I’d gone she hadn’t seemed to know me and had kept telling me to get out, so I had. Gladly.
‘When do you go to see her?’ I said. I realized I was shaking. I wasn’t cold. It was some kind of shock. I never talked about my mother and I didn’t want to now. Not even to Toby.
‘I go every month,’ said Toby, looking down. ‘The, er, hospital is not far from where I’m based. I went once just to see how she was and she seemed much better. She recognized me. So I’ve carried on going.’
He looked up at me. His face was even redder than usual. He looked like he could cry.
‘The loony bin, you mean,’ I spat out. I had no intention of continuing that conversation and I strode off up the hill to get away from it. I heard Toby call after me, but I didn’t turn back.
I just kept walking until the white frost underfoot and the white sky overhead merged together through the tears in my eyes and wiped my brain clean like one of those Etch A Sketch pads.
And I didn’t go back to the house until after he’d left.