Out of the Blue

‘Well, Katie, I felt fine about it,’ she said. ‘Because when two people are unhappy together, then it’s sometimes better for them to part.’

‘What were the chief factors, would you say, in the breakdown of your relationship with Grandpa?’

‘Well, darling,’ she said as she lowered her menu, ‘I think we just married too young.’

People sometimes say that about Peter and me. We married at twenty, you see; and so people do sometimes ask me – and to be honest I wish they wouldn’t – if I ever have any regrets about that. But I don’t. I never, ever wonder, ‘What if … ?’ because I’ve been happy really, in every way. Peter’s a decent and honest man. He’s very hard-working, he’s great with the kids, and he’s kind and considerate to his mum. He’s quite handsome, too, though he needs to lose a little weight. But then, funnily enough, this evening I noticed that he is looking a bit more trim. I expect he’s shed a few pounds recently because of all his stress. He’s well turned out at the moment, too – I’ve noticed he’s got a couple of lovely new ties. He says he has to be ready to slip out to interviews at the drop of a hat, so he’s been dressing very smartly for work. So despite his present anxieties, he’s looking pretty good. And after such a long time with Peter I could never fancy anyone else. People sometimes ask me if I do fantasy – sorry, fancy, anyone else – after fifteen years with the same man, and the answer is absolutely, categorically, definitively hardly ever. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m made of flesh and blood. I can see when a man’s attractive. For example, that chap who came round last week to mend the washing machine. He got my delicates cycle going again. And yes, objectively, I could see that he was a handsome sort of chap. Yes, I admit it – he was a bit of a hunk. And to be honest, I have been having some rather strange dreams about him recently. Quite vivid ones, featuring all sorts of peculiar items like a mobile phone for example, a TV remote control, and – this is really odd – a tub of blackcurrant sorbet! God knows what it means. I asked Katie actually, and she gave me this rather peculiar look and said it’s just my id, running wild. As I say, I always humour her. No doubt my dreams are just the product of my rather fertile imagination. So no, I don’t look at anyone else, although I do meet lots of attractive men at work. But I never fancy them, because I’m a very happily married woman, and sex isn’t everything, you know. And of course Peter’s very preoccupied right now. But yes, to answer your question, my marriage is in great shape, which is why I wanted to celebrate our fifteen happy years. So I booked a table at Snows, just down the road at Brook Green. We don’t eat out very often. Peter has to go out to dinner with authors and agents sometimes, he’s been doing quite a bit of that of late, but we don’t do much ourselves. We can’t afford it; what with the school fees – though luckily Matt got a scholarship – and of course publishing doesn’t pay well. And my job’s only part-time because I’m home by eleven every day. But I thought Peter needed a bit of a treat, so I decided on a party at Snows. It’s actually called Snows on the Green, which was rather appropriate because today the snow was on the green. More than an inch of it. It started to fall this morning, and by late afternoon it had built into gentle drifts. And I love it when it snows because there’s this eerie hush, and the world falls silent as though everyone’s dropped off to sleep. And I just want to rush outside, clap my hands and shout, ‘Come on! Wake up! Wake up!’ And snow always reminds me of our wedding, because it snowed on that day too.

So I was sitting there in the restaurant, looking out of the window for a minute, watching the flakes batting gently against the panes and idly wondering what the next fifteen years of my life would bring. And I was feeling the slightly dizzying effects of the champagne. Not real champagne, obviously – just the Italian sparkling, but it’s very good, and only half the price. I glanced round the table, listening to the low babble of conversation.

‘Are your parents coming, Faith?’ Sarah asked me as she nibbled on an olive.

‘Oh no, they’re on holiday again. I think they’re scuba diving in St Lucia,’ I said vaguely. ‘Or maybe they’re heli-skiing in Alaska. Or are they bungee-jumping in Botswana … ’ Mum and Dad are pensioners, or rather what you might call Silver Foxes or Glamorous Greys. They seem to stagger from cruise to safari to adventure holiday in a variety of increasingly exotic locations. Well, why not? After all, they’ve worked hard all their lives and so now’s the time to have some fun.

‘No, Sarah,’ I said, ‘I really can’t remember where they are, they go away so much.’

‘That’s because they have classic avoidant personalities,’ announced Katie with mild contempt. ‘The incessant holidays are the means by which they avoid spending any time with us. I mean, the second Grandpa retired from Abbey National, that was it – they were off!’

‘Oh, I know darling, but they send us lots of lovely postcards,’ I said. ‘And they phone up from time to time. And Granny loves chatting to you, doesn’t she, Matt?’

‘Er … yes,’ he said slightly nervously as he looked up from his menu. ‘Yes, I suppose she does.’ Lately I’ve noticed that my mother often asks to speak to Matt on the phone. She loves chewing the fat with him, even ringing him at school, and I think it’s great that they’re developing such a nice bond.

‘I do envy your parents,’ said Sarah ruefully. ‘I’d love to go away, but it’s impossible because I’m tied to the shop.’ Sarah owns a second-hand book shop in Dulwich. She bought it twenty years ago with her alimony after her husband, John, left her for an American woman and moved to the States. ‘Oh, I’ve a small anniversary gift,’ Sarah added as she handed me a beribboned parcel, inside which – Peter helped me open it – were two beautiful crystal glasses.

‘What lovely tumblers, Sarah – thank you!’

‘Yes, thanks Mum,’ Peter said.

‘Well, you see the fifteenth anniversary is the crystal one,’ she explained as I noticed the red sticker on the box marked ‘Fragile’. ‘Anyway, are we all present and correct, now?’ she added pleasantly.

‘All except for Lily,’ I replied. ‘She says she’s going to be a bit late.’ At this I noticed Peter roll his eyes.

‘Lily Jago?’ said Mimi. ‘Wow! I remember her at your wedding, she was your bridesmaid – she’s famous now.’

‘Yes,’ I said proudly, ‘she is. But she deserves every bit of it,’ I added, ‘because she’s worked so incredibly hard.’

‘What’s she like?’ asked Mimi.

‘Like Lady Macbeth,’ said Peter with a hollow laugh. ‘But not as nice.’

‘Darling!’ I said reprovingly. ‘Please don’t say that – she’s my best and oldest friend.’

‘She treats staff like disposable knickers,’ he added, ‘and treads on heads as though they’re stepping stones.’

‘Peter, that’s not fair,’ I said. ‘And you know it. She’s very dedicated and she’s brilliant, she deserves her tremendous success.’ It used to grieve me that Peter didn’t like Lily, but I got used to it years ago. He can’t understand why I keep up with her and I’ve given up trying to explain. The fact is, Lily matters to me. I’ve known her for twenty-five years – since our convent days – so we have an unbreakable bond. But I mean, I’m not blind – I know that Lily’s no angel. For example, she’s a little bit touchy, and she’s got a wicked tongue. She’s also a ‘bit of a one’ with the boys – but then why shouldn’t she be? She’s single, and she’s beautiful. Why shouldn’t she play the field? Why shouldn’t a gorgeous thirty-five-year-old woman, in her prime, have lots of lovers and lots of fun? Why shouldn’t a gorgeous thirty-five-year-old woman be made to feel desirable and loved? Why shouldn’t a thirty-five-year-old woman have romantic weekends in country house hotels with jacuzzis and fluffy towels? Why shouldn’t any thirty-five-year-old woman have flowers and champagne and little presents? I mean, once you’re married, that’s that; romance flies out the window, and you’re with the same old body every night. So I don’t blame Lily at all, though I don’t think her choice of boyfriends is great. Every week, it seems, we see her staring at us out of the pages of Hello! or OK! with this footballer, or that rock star, or some actor from that new soap on Channel 4. And I think, mmm. Mmmm. Lily could do better, I think. So, no, she hasn’t got brilliant taste in men, although at least these days – praise the Lord! – she’s stopped going for the married ones. Yes, I’m afraid to say she used to be a little bit naughty like that. And I did once remind her that adultery is forbidden by the seventh commandment.

‘I didn’t commit adultery,’ she said indignantly. ‘I’m single, so it was only fornication.’ Lily’s not interested in marriage herself, by the way; she’s totally dedicated to her career. ‘I’m footloose and fiancé free!’ she always likes to exclaim. I must say, she’d be a bit of a challenge to any man. For a start, she’s very opinionated, and she bears interminable grudges. Peter thinks she’s dangerous, but she’s not. She’s simply tribal; by which I mean she’s loyal to her friends but ruthless to her foes, and I know exactly which category I’m in.

‘Lily had twelve other invitations tonight,’ I said. ‘She knows so many people!’

‘Yes, Mum,’ said Katie matter-of-factly. ‘But you’re her only friend.’

‘Well, maybe that’s true, darling,’ I said with a tiny stab of pride, ‘but I still think it’s sweet of her to come.’

‘Very gracious,’ said Peter wryly. He’d had a couple of drinks by then. ‘I can’t wait for the dramatic entrance,’ he added sarcastically.

‘Darling,’ I said patiently, ‘Lily can’t help making an entrance. I mean, it’s not her fault she’s so stunning.’ She is. In fact she’s jaw-dropping. Everybody stares. She’s terribly tall for a start, and whippety thin, and she’s always exquisitely dressed. Unlike me. I get a small allowance from work for the things I wear on TV and I tend to spend it in Principles – I’ve always liked their stuff. Just recently I’ve started to get quite interested in Next, and Episode. But Lily gets a huge clothing allowance, and the designers send her things too, so she always looks amazing – in fact, she’s amazing full stop. And even Peter will admit that she has huge talent, and guts and drive. You see, she had a very tough start in life. I remember the day she arrived at St Bede’s. I have this vivid picture in my mind of Reverend Mother standing on stage in the main hall one morning after Mass; and next to her was this new girl – we were all agog to know who she was.

‘Girls,’ said Reverend Mother as a hush descended. ‘This is Lily. Lily Jago. Now, we must all be kind to Lily,’ she went on benignly, ‘because Lily is very poor.’ I will never forget, to my dying day, the look of fury on Lily’s face. And of course the girls weren’t kind to her at all. Far from it. They teased her about her accent and they laughed at her lack of finesse; they disparaged her evident poverty and they made terrible fun of her folks. They called her ‘Lily White’, which she loathed. Then, when they realised how clever she was, they hated her for that as well. But I didn’t hate her. I liked her and I felt drawn to her, perhaps because I was an outsider too. I got laughed at a lot at school. My nickname was ‘Faith Value’, because they all said I was very naive. I was impossible to tease, apparently, because I could never get the joke. I thought it was obvious that the chicken’s reason for crossing the road was to reach the other side. I couldn’t see why that was funny, really. I mean, why else would the chicken cross the road? And of course a bell is necessary on a bicycle – otherwise you could have a very nasty accident. It’s obvious. So why’s that funny? Do you see what I mean? The other girls all said I was a credulous sap. Ridiculous! I’m not. But I am trusting. Oh yes. I want to have faith in people and I do. I give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and I tend to believe what they say. Because that’s how I want to be. I decided, a long time ago, that I didn’t want to be cynical like Lily. She’s the suspicious sort, and though I’m desperately fond of her, I could never be like that myself. That’s probably why my purse is full of foreign coins, for example, because I never, ever check my change. Shopkeepers are constantly palming off on me their dimes and their pfennigs and their francs. But I don’t care, because I don’t want to be the kind of woman who’s always on her guard. I guess I’m a natural optimist – I always trust that things will work out. I’m trusting in my marriage, too. I simply don’t think that Peter would ever stray. And he hasn’t – so I was right. And I believe you can make your own destiny, by the strength of your mental attitude. Anyway, I rather liked the fact that Lily was naughty, because I knew it was something I could never be. I remember, once, when we were thirteen, making a dash for the town. We’d lied to Sister St Wilfred, and said we were going for a walk. But we got the bus to Reading instead – using my pocket money, of course – and we bought sweets and Lily bought cigarettes, and she got talking to some boys. Then, on the way back, she did something awful – she went into a newsagent and nicked a copy of Harpersand Queen. I wanted her to return it but she refused, though she promised to mention it in confession. But I remember her poring over it in the dormitory later, utterly entranced; she was fingering it reverentially, as though it were a holy text. Then she swore out loud that one day she’d be the editor of a magazine like that; and the girls all fell about laughing. But now she is.

‘Lily’s been in New York for a long time, hasn’t she?’ said Mimi as she broke into her bread roll. ‘I’ve seen lots of stuff about her in the press.’

‘Six years,’ I said. ‘She was working on Mirabella and Vanity Fair.’ And as we ate our anti pasti I told them about her career, and about how single-minded she’d been. Because I’m very proud of my friendship with her. And I told them about the way she’d even left Cambridge early because she was offered some lowly job at Marie Claire. But it was the start of her long climb up the greasy pole, or rather shiny cover. She was determined to reach the top – and now she has. Three months ago she became the first black woman to edit Moi!

That’s Moi-Même! magazine, of course, commonly known as Moi! Or perhaps ‘Mwaaah, mwaaah!’ as Peter always likes to say. He’s a bit of a snob about magazines, he thinks they’re utterly trite. He calls Lily the ‘High Priestess of Gloss’. But chacun à son goût, I say, and Lily’s brilliant at what she does. Mind you, some of the stories are pretty silly. Not my kind of thing at all. It’s all this, ‘What’s Hot What’s Not!’ kind of stuff, and ‘Grey – the new black! Fat – the new thin! Old – the new young!’ But the magazine always looks beautiful because the photography’s out of this world. And the writing’s good too, because Lily says she can sort out ‘the wit from the chaff’. Oh yes, Lily’s seriously successful. And yes, she’s got a wicked tongue. But she would never do anything to hurt me. I know that for a fact.

Anyway, by nine Lily still hadn’t arrived, and we’d all finished our starters and were waiting for the main course which in my case was chump of lamb. And the conversation had turned back to marriage, and to Peter and me.

‘Fifteen years!’ Mimi exclaimed with a laugh. ‘I just can’t believe it! I remember your wedding day so well. In the university chapel. We all froze to death, it was snowing, just like today.’

‘That’s because it was a white wedding!’ I quipped. Peter laughed.

‘But how amazing that this is your fifteenth anniversary,’ Mimi added. ‘Good God! I haven’t even had my first!’ We all smiled at that, and she gave her husband, Mike, a gooey look and said, ‘I’ve only just had my happy ending!’

‘New beginning, you mean,’ he replied. And I felt very strange when he said that; very strange indeed. But at the same time I thought, yes, he’s right. It is a new beginning. That’s exactly what it is. They only got married last May. They both peeped at their six-week-old baby, Alice, who was asleep in her car seat on the floor. I looked across the table at my two ‘babies’, who are fourteen and twelve. And it struck me again, as it has done recently, that Peter and I are completely out of step with our peers. Most of them are like Mimi, they’re marrying and having kids now. But we did that fifteen years ago, and it won’t be long before our children leave home.

‘You two got married when you were still at college, didn’t you?’ Mike asked.

‘In our second year,’ I said. ‘We just couldn’t wait,’ I explained. ‘Isn’t that right, darling?’ And Peter looked at me, through the flickering candles, and gave me a little smile. ‘We were madly in love,’ I went on, emboldened by the sparkling wine. ‘And good Catholics don’t live in sin!’ Actually I’m not a very good Catholic, though I was, then. I’m a sort of Christmas Catholic now. I go to church no more than three or four times a year.

‘I remember when you two met,’ said Mimi. ‘It was in our first term at Durham, at the freshers’ ball. You looked at Peter, Faith, and you whispered to me, “That’s the man I’m going to marry,” – and you did!’

‘We were like Superglue,’ I giggled. ‘We bonded in seconds!’ At that Peter’s mother, Sarah, smiled. I like Sarah. We’ve always got on well. And yes, she did have misgivings at the time because she thought we’d end up divorced, like her. But we didn’t do that, and I’m sure we won’t. As I say, I have faith in the future. Anyway, Sarah was chatting away to the children – she hadn’t seen them for a while – and Peter was beginning to unwind a bit as we talked to Mimi and Mike. We’d had a bit to drink by now, and were all feeling mellow and warm, when suddenly there was an icy blast – the door had opened: Lily had finally arrived.

It’s always fun watching Lily entering a room. You can almost hear the clunk of jawbones hitting the floor. That’s what it was like tonight. She’s so used to it, she claims never to notice, but it always makes me smile.

‘Darlings, I’m so sorry!’ she called out as she swept in on a cloud of Obsession, oblivious to the collective male stares. ‘So sorry,’ she reiterated as her floor-length arctic fox slid from her shoulders and was quickly gathered up by the maitre d’. ‘You see Gore’s in town – Vidal not Al – so we had a quick drink at the Ritz, then I had to go down Cork Street where there was this tedious private view … ’ She removed her fur hat and I could see snowflakes on her shoulder-length, raven-black hair. ‘And Chanel were launching their new scent,’ she went on, ‘so of course I had to show my face there … ’ She handed the waiter an assortment of exquisite little bags. ‘But I only stayed ten minutes at Lord Linley’s Twelfth Night party because I just wanted to be here with you.’ I glanced at Mimi – she was speechless.

‘Happy anniversary, Faith, darling!’ Lily exclaimed, handing me a Tiffany bag. Inside, in a silk-lined presentation box, was a small cylinder made of sterling silver.

‘It’s a telescope,’ I said wonderingly, holding it up to my left eye. ‘Oh! No it isn’t, it’s a … ooh how lovely.’ As I rotated the end with my right hand, a thousand sequins – red and purple and green – arranged themselves into dazzling patterns, like the fractals of a technicolour snowflake.

‘How wonderful,’ I murmured. ‘A kaleidoscope. I haven’t seen one of these for years.’

‘I couldn’t decide what to get you,’ said Lily, ‘but I thought this might be fun. It’s for Peter as well,’ she added, giving him a feline smile.

‘Thank you, Lily,’ he replied.

‘What a fantastic present,’ I said, hugging her. ‘Hey, great outfit, too!’ Today she was wearing a viridian green cashmere twin-set, a knee-length gaberdine skirt, and a pair of what I think were probably Jimmy Choo snakeskin boots.