Once in a Lifetime

Looking around the table, Ingrid decided that the dinner party was entirely made up of successful men and their wives. There were no business women; Ingrid could spot them from fifty paces, for no matter how successful they were, they were never quite as polished as the wives of alpha men. Years interviewing the great and the good on Politics Tonight had taught her that it was rare for an alpha man to form a lasting relationship with a woman who had as much power as he did. People were probably amazed that she and David had stuck together; most men would have been uncomfortable sharing the limelight with a woman who made her living grilling politicians on live TV. But then, David wasn’t most men. He was, Ingrid thought, smiling across the table at him, special.

He caught her eye and smiled back, and she thought how well he looked in his grey suit and pale pink shirt. She knew he was tired because of the lines around his eyes, but nobody else would pick up on that. They’d see the usual handsome, charming David Kenny, the man who’d inherited the family firm and taken it on to a whole new level. In the same way, nobody looking at Ingrid would see a woman with a mild headache who didn’t want to be here. They’d see what she wanted them to see: a woman who’d pulled out all the stops with hair and make-up, yet remained modest in the diamond department. Ingrid felt that knuckle-duster rings were like push-up bras: you either liked them or you didn’t.

The only interesting thing about nights out schmoozing David’s business acquaintances was that Ingrid ceased to be Ingrid Fitzgerald, the television personality who’d kept her maiden name from her days as a radio producer; she was Ingrid Kenny, David’s wife. And sometimes, just sometimes, that made her deliciously invisible. Like now.

The man seated on her left turned to talk to her.

‘You’re Mrs Kenny, aren’t you?’ he said. He was sixty something, balding, with a weathered complexion that spoke of many hours spent outdoors, probably on the sea, Ingrid decided. His outfit, a blue blazer with gold buttons, had a hint of ‘Commodore of the Yacht Club’ about it.

‘Yes,’ said Ingrid gently, sensing that he had no idea who she was professionally. ‘I’m Ingrid, David’s wife.’

‘Marvellous business,’ the Commodore said, grabbing his glass of red wine. ‘Kenny’s–what a store. I don’t suppose you have time to be involved yourself, do you? I know what you ladies are like; so many other things to do, charities, committees…’ He smiled at her benignly. ‘My wife, Elizabeth–that’s her over there in the red–she’s on four committees. I don’t know where she finds the time.’

Elizabeth was a steely-eyed brunette, who was expertly made-up and wore an exotic beaded creation. She was watching Ingrid and her husband with interest. Ingrid reckoned that Elizabeth recognised her from the television and was just as sure that Elizabeth knew the poor old Commodore wouldn’t.

‘Well, I am involved in some charities,’ Ingrid said to her neighbour. She was a patron of an AIDS charity, on the board of a domestic abuse, and regularly hosted charity balls. ‘But I don’t have that much time, because I work too.’

‘Oh, really,’ said her neighbour airily, as if the notion of a woman working was highly eccentric and would never catch on. ‘And what is it you do?’

It was moments like these that Ingrid stored up to tell her friend, Marcella, whenever Marcella claimed that everyone and their lawyer knew who Ingrid was.

‘You’ve such a recognisable face,’ Marcella insisted.

‘It doesn’t work that way,’ Ingrid replied. ‘Famous is for film stars and singers, not people like me. People recognise me, they just don’t know where from. They think they must have seen me in the supermarket or something.’

The downside of her being on television a lot was going into Marks & Spencer’s and nipping up to the underwear department to find several people watching her with fascination as she searched among the briefs, trying to find a five-pack of knickers that suited her.

Anyway, here was this sweet man who clearly had no idea who she was and it was quite nice, although difficult to explain what she did without making it sound as if she was big-headed about it. She knew that some people in her position might have fixed him with a grim glare and told him she was one of the highest paid broadcasters in the State and could make politicians whimper for their mummies. But Ingrid preferred a low-key approach.

‘I work in television,’ she said simply.

‘Oh really! Interesting. My daughter worked in television for a while, researching stuff. It was a terrible job, awful pay and, goodness, there was no hope of really climbing the ladder. Only a few seem to make it,’ he went on.

‘Yes,’ echoed Ingrid, ‘only a few do seem to make it.’

Ingrid thought of her years climbing the television ladder. It had been challenging at times, but she hadn’t had to stiletto anyone in the groin to make it to the top–a fact that many people, interviewing her these days for newspaper profiles, found incredible.

‘It must be so much tougher for a woman,’ they said, eager to hear about glass ceilings, male-dominated power structures and male broadcasters bitching about her as they got subtly patted with Mac Face & Body in make-up.

‘The media–this part of it, anyway–is one of the few areas where women can do well easily,’ Ingrid would explain. But nobody appeared to believe that her own calm self-confidence and native intelligence had made it work.

‘What about you,’ she said politely to the Commodore, ‘what do you do?’

It was all the encouragement the Commodore needed. He was soon explaining the difference between a yacht and a boat, and Ingrid let her attention wander. Across the table, her husband seemed to be enjoying himself talking to a lovely woman who’d been introduced to her earlier as Laura.

She liked watching David. He was charming to everyone, not in a false way but in a way that said he was interested in other people. His father had been the same: always ready to talk to everyone in the store, from the cleaners to the general manager.

OK? David mouthed at her across the table.

Ingrid nodded imperceptibly. She was fine.

‘Sorry, you got stuck with Erskine,’ he said three hours later in the back of the taxi on their way home. He put his hand in hers and held it tightly, as they both sat back after what had turned out to be an incredibly heavy meal. Double cream with everything. Ingrid’s insides yearned for Pepto-Bismol.

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ Ingrid said. ‘He was quite nice really, but I’m now an expert on boats and if I ever need to interview anyone on the subject, Erskine is the man I will ask.’

David laughed. He had a great laugh, rich and deep, the sort that made everyone else want to join in. Out of the corner of her eye, Ingrid could see the taxi driver grin as well. They were undoubtedly the sort of customers the driver liked: polite, sedate, middle-aged people being picked up from one beautiful suburban house and whisked off to another, with no chance of anyone throwing up in the back of the cab or not having the money to pay him.

‘Erskine probably didn’t have a clue who you were, did he?’ David asked perceptively.

‘Not the foggiest,’ Ingrid said. ‘I may have left him with the impression that I made the tea in the television studios.’

‘Oh, you shouldn’t have done that!’ David laughed. ‘That’s cruel. I bet his wife knew, all right. She’s probably telling him the truth right now.’

‘No, it’s not cruel,’ Ingrid said. ‘He was terribly sweet and everything, but you know, he does live on this planet, he should be interested in politics.’

‘I’m quite sure he is interested in politics, darling,’ David replied mildly, ‘but not everyone watches television.’

It was an idea that Ingrid had heard many times before, but one that she could never quite grasp. She was of the opinion that people should know what was going on in the world, and television news and debate was an inherent part of that.

‘I’d say old Erskine sits at home reading copies of Yachting Man and books about naval battles from three hundred years ago,’ said David. ‘Happy in his own world. And why not?’

Ingrid shrugged. She and David would never agree on this one. He was able to forgive people for not wanting to read four newspapers a day, she wasn’t.

‘You were lucky,’ she said now, ‘sitting beside that gorgeous Laura person.’

‘She was a sweetheart,’ David said. ‘Although she did spend a fair proportion of the evening telling me about her daughter, who’d love to get some experience in the store and has lots of marvellous ideas for fashion design.’

‘God no,’ groaned Ingrid, ‘not another one of those.’

When she went to media parties, she was forever being cornered by people desperately pitching their CVs or their sons’ or daughters’ CVs in the hope of breaking into television via a personal introduction from the powerful and famous Ingrid Fitzgerald. When David went to parties, people told him about sons and daughters who were clothes designers or who had created a range of pottery that Kenny’s couldn’t afford to be without.

‘Did she sound OK?’ Ingrid asked.

‘She sounded very promising,’ David said. ‘I told her to send the CV to Stacey.’

Stacey O’Shaughnessy was his executive assistant. A wonderfully kind person who ran his office life as expertly as Ingrid ran his home life.

‘You’re a terrible old softie, do you know that, David Kenny?’ Ingrid said.

‘Right back at you,’ he said. ‘You could have flattened poor old Erskine by telling him exactly who you were, but you didn’t, did you?’

‘No,’ Ingrid said. ‘I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I was mean to the Erskines of this world, even though I disapprove of their ignorance.’

‘I’ll tell that to the Minister for Defence,’ murmured David.

‘Erskine is an old duffer who obviously inherited money and never had to do more than put on an old school tie to get on in the world. The Minister for Defence is a highly paid public representative who should know better than to write character references for a man on trial for rape, just because the accused’s parents happen to live in his constituency. There’s a difference,’ Ingrid said. She could feel herself getting heated again, the way she had before the programme in question. Ingrid never lost it on the show: then, she was coolness personified. She used her passion for her preparation, when she worked out how to phrase her questions in such a way her subject couldn’t avoid answering.

‘True. You were right to nail him,’ David said. ‘He deserved it.’