Lucy started crying. Alice fled upstairs, crying too.
In bed, still hoping to make amends, she reached out tentatively for Tom; he ignored her. She tried again. He turned over. It was a very clear message. Well, she’d given it out herself enough times, she supposed. Suddenly she was aware of how undesirable she must be, with her droopy breasts and flabby body. She started to cry. She couldn’t help it. Tom turned over sharply.
‘For heaven’s sake,’ he said. ‘You’ve done that to me often enough.’
‘I bet you never refused Laura,’ said Alice. It came out in a rush, stupidly vitriolic. She hadn’t meant to say it.
‘For Christ’s sake,’ said Tom. ‘Alice, you’ve got to get over this absurd obsession with Laura. It’s extremely tedious.’
Anger shot through her. ‘Well, I’m sorry about that. It’s a hard act to follow, you know, the perfect wife.’
‘You are being bloody ridiculous. I’ve listened to quite enough garbage for one day. I’m going out. I’ll come back when you’ve pulled yourself together.’
‘You can’t go out now. Where are you going?’
He didn’t reply.
Tom had no idea himself where he was going; he walked all the way to Shepherd’s Bush, where he found a lorry drivers’ café. He bought a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich and sat down in the window, staring gloomily out at the green. He felt very depressed.
Life seemed reduced to screaming babies, shouting toddlers, a house that seemed to permanently carry the whiff of dirty nappies, and a wife who did nothing but criticise him. And then go running to her parents, complaining about his brutish behaviour. Which was so unfair. He did what he could, an awful lot more than his father, or even his contemporaries; but she seldom said thank you, seemed to regard it as his duty. She turned him down in bed, and had this bitter jealousy both of the Labour Party and of his first wife. Who had frequently turned him down in bed, he remembered, telling him she was too tired – and almost smiled at the memory. The difference was that she had said it cheerfully, confidently. But it would do no good to tell Alice that. Her jealousy of Laura was impossible to deal with; there seemed no solution. Except to leave Alice, and that was unthinkable; he loved her far too much.
He felt something close to tears at the backs of his eyes, and put his hand in his pocket to pull out his handkerchief.
An envelope came with it, addressed to him by hand at Herbert & Herbert. It had come days ago and he’d stuffed it in his pocket, vowing to tear it to shreds and put it in a litter bin on the way home. Only he hadn’t. Of course. He read it now.
Diana Southcott has moved
to 17 Berkeley Court, Lower Sloane Square, SW3. Tel SLO 1274
He had rather liked the ‘Southcott’. It sent out a clear message that she was no longer a Gunning.
Underneath she had written by hand, If you ever need a friend . . .
Of course it was unthinkable. Of course he wouldn’t ring her. And certainly not now. It was half past ten.
Diana met him at the door of her flat, wearing cropped jeans, a huge yellow sweater, very little make-up and a cloud of Dior perfume. Half an hour earlier, when he had rung, saying, ‘I think I need a friend,’ she had been dressed in a black cocktail dress and very high-heeled shoes. She had given the metamorphosis a great deal of thought.
‘Come in, Friend Tom,’ she said. ‘Drink?’
‘No, thank you. Some coffee would be nice.’
She made a pot of it, and set it on the coffee table in front of them.
He looked round. The large drawing room was filled with furniture that exactly echoed the style in her parents’ house; the only difference being that all the pictures were stylised coloured prints of birds, their names written underneath in cursive writing, and the fireplace, clearly never to hold a fire, had a huge urn of flowers in it.
‘I’m looking for a house for me and Jamie. I think I’ve found one, in Kensington, but it all takes such an age. It’s lovely, bit more room than here, perfect for when I’ve got him. Which isn’t that much, even though I got custody as you said I would. I mean, he’s away at school and then he has half each school holiday with Johnathan.’
‘Doesn’t sound much, certainly.’
‘Well – he seems happy enough. He should be, we’re both spoiling him rotten. And it means I can concentrate on my career . . . So – why do you need a friend tonight, Tom?’
He realised he would have to tell her, having arrived so dramatically, but it sounded rather petty when he did.
She disagreed. ‘It does sound rather awful. What a ghastly chap. Ticking you off for claiming your conjugal rights, so to speak. God, I’d have been furious.’
Tom said he had been. ‘I don’t really think Alice went running to her parents, complaining. It would be very out of character. So I feel bad now for shouting at her about it. Leading to the worst row we’ve ever had. It was – bad of me.’
‘Not at all. Maybe she didn’t do that, but you’d had this awful pasting from her old man. You should stop trying to be perfect, Tom, none of us can be. I should know,’ she added, and smiled at him. He looked away; there was an invitation in that smile that he couldn’t quite ignore. ‘Tom, do have a drink. You’ll feel better. Just a tiny glass of red, maybe, or a very small whisky?’
‘Oh, all right,’ he said. ‘Very small whisky. Very small.’
It wasn’t small, of course; and once it had hit him, he found himself telling her more and more, the fact that family life was pretty much hell, and that Alice seemed completely indifferent to his political success.
‘I need someone to really support me, come to meetings and dinners, that sort of thing. And she – well, she can’t. Not at the moment.’
‘Because?’
‘Because she’s so exhausted. And tied to the children.’
‘You could get a nanny,’ said Diana.
‘Don’t be silly, Diana. Would-be Labour MPs, especially the disciples of people like Bevan, don’t have nannies.’
‘I bet they do. Well, can’t help, I’m afraid. I suppose I could come to the dinners and stuff with you.’ She grinned. ‘Only joking. Oh, Tom, I’m so sorry.’
‘Well, it’s not the end of the world.’
‘No, but I can see it hurts.’ She got up from the sofa. ‘Another whisky?’
‘No, thank you. I’ll have to be going soon.’
‘Why? No rush as far as I’m concerned.’
‘No, but I don’t suppose she’s asleep. Probably getting worried. I was angry when I left, and there were a lot of slammed doors. Not very husbandly behaviour.’
She sat down on the sofa again, rather closer to him than before.
‘It doesn’t sound to me as if she’s being very wifely. Don’t suppose there’s much sex either, in spite of what her dad says.’
‘Well – you know,’ said Tom, reaching for his empty glass.
‘Yes, I do know. Actually, I’m quite with her there, I have to say. After a baby everything hurts and you’re exhausted and –’