Busy Woman Seeks Wife Read online

  “Just look at it, darling!” she groaned, gesticulating at the piles of carefully arranged objets trouvés through which they had to wind. “Thrown together! It looks like like Brick Lane on a bad day. It would take a greater talent than this Gottfried character to make sense of a space like this. Mind you, it would be fantastic to stage something like Beckett here, don’t you think? Or to do a production of The Dream like that fabulous Peter Brooke one. No one’s ever bettered that, in my opinion. You should do some Shakespeare, sweetie, before it’s too late. You’re still young enough for Hamlet, but you’re no Romeo anymore.”

  Frankie felt suddenly dispirited. How miserable to have missed the boat on a great role before he’d really started. The Bean made it sound as if it were all up to him to simply decide. As if he could choose between productions and make a considered decision among a cascade of offers to steer his brilliant career in the direction he wanted it to go. She just didn’t get it. His brilliant career was currently so far up shit creek that it had now entered previously unexplored territory. It had been over six weeks now since he’d last heard from his agent, and only then because she wanted the mobile number for a girl he knew from drama school. And it didn’t really help that his mates were ribbing him constantly about being a housewife. He sighed deeply. The Bean was on to him straightaway.

  “What is it?” she coaxed, reaching out—with both arms, he noticed—to smooth imaginary fluff off his shirt. “Are you bored? Would you like to move on to the Globe?”

  He shook his head vehemently. “No, no! I’m fine here as long as you are. It’s just… well, I haven’t been up for any decent parts for ages and I feel as if things are passing me by a bit…” Frankie trailed off and looked over the Bean’s shoulder into the distant corners of the huge hall. He couldn’t meet her eyes. There he was, a loser in a world where she had been one of the greatest winners of her time.

  “But look at you!” she said indignantly, stepping backward. “You’re young, talented, fabulously good-looking… yes, you are, darling. London should be at your feet. I believe in you, Frankie, I do. And I’m never wrong.”

  Frankie shook his head, almost irritated at the gulf of misunderstanding. She had no idea about his life, or his talent, come to that. “Bean, it’s very sweet of you,” he sighed. “And I do appreciate the fact that you want to make me feel better, but you don’t really know the first thing about my life. You really don’t know how spectacularly uneventful my career has been to date. You say I’m talented, but really, what have you seen me do? Make tea? Drive you to the shops and back? Do the sodding washing and change sheets?” He stopped and frowned. Bloody Todd.

  The Bean looked at him steadily for a moment. Not one of her flirtatious glances, nor the teasing look she would sometimes throw when she’d said something outrageous and was waiting for a reaction. She caught his eyes and stared at him, weighing him up carefully. It was an unnerving experience and Frankie was struck for the first time by the similarity between the Bean and Alex, who had searched his face in exactly the same way at that disastrous interview. He hoped he was doing better this time. At last she spoke.

  “My darling boy.” She reached up to grasp his shoulders, and her voice was low and steady. “This is exactly the moment your training has prepared you for. The moment when you feel nothing is going right but when you must act as if you are on top of the world. This is the moment to show what you’re made of! You’re going to call that agent of yours and demand she pull her finger out. Tell you what. Sod the Globe! It’ll be there tomorrow. Let’s go home. I’m going to make some calls. If I can’t double the number of auditions you’ve had in the last month, I’ll treat you to lunch at the Ivy. Then we’re going to get you ready to do battle—and you’re going to win!” Without even waiting for a response, she marched off up the long slope towards the main entrance, where the sunny South Bank was waiting for them. Trying to quell his unease, Frankie followed in her wake. Double his auditions? What was two times zero?

  Back at the flat, the Bean disappeared into her room with her battered address book. She’d been too preoccupied to talk much in the car and Frankie hadn’t wanted to ask what she had in mind. Whatever it was, it certainly couldn’t make things worse. He just didn’t want to look like a prat. And, he had to admit, she hadn’t looked this enthusiastic about anything since he’d met her. She hadn’t even asked if it was time for Countdown or paused to flick through one of the awful gossip magazines she was always buying when they were out. He went to prepare her a snack. If it kept the Bean happy, he’d go along with it.

  Later that afternoon, all his other tasks completed, Frankie finally went into Alex’s room. She’d given up all pretense of being efficient now and obviously felt quite comfortable with the fact that he would put away her clean laundry. She was like a ghost, everywhere but never there, apart from her little notes and a basket of dirty laundry. How would Alex feel if she knew a man she didn’t even know had bought her tampons last week? What would she say if she knew he had ironed her T-shirts and folded her sensible cotton knickers and bras into neat piles?

  Frankie shrugged and stripped the bed. No use wasting time thinking about that now. He had work to do. There was no reason on earth why Alex should ever find out how intimately he knew her now. The Bean was almost well enough to go home and soon the whole charade could end. Frankie shook out the pajamas under the pillow and caught the now familiar scent of Alex’s skin—clean, warm and a little bit soapy. He folded them carefully and laid them on the chair while he stripped the bed of its white cotton sheets.

  Chapter 18

  Saff glanced at the clock as she slammed the pan drawer. Max was late. Usually he’d ring her if he was going to be this late.

  “Come on,” she chivvied Oscar, who was lying out on the sofa watching The Simpsons. “Clarinet practice then bed.”

  The boy groaned. “Why? Clarinet is lame.”

  “Because you need to practice.” She pulled him gently by the legs and puffed up the cushion behind him. He seemed so long now, taking up almost all of the sofa. How had that happened without her noticing? Perhaps he grew in the night like Jack’s beanstalk. Where was Max?

  “But, Mum, it’s sooo boring, and Mr. Tredington is an idiot, and anyway I know my scales.”

  “But your pieces are not so great, Oscar,” she bit with an aggression that surprised her. “And you are going to look like the idiot in the exam if you don’t get them right.”

  “Who cares?” He unfolded himself and stood up, his body slouched sulkily. “I wish I played something cool like the drums. Ricky plays the drums and everyone says he’s cool.”

  “Well you don’t and you should care. It shouldn’t always be me who has to get you to do things.”

  “Why not? You don’t do anything else all day.”

  Saff felt as though she had been slapped, and stood there, tea towel hanging limply in her hand, as Oscar pushed past her, deliberately banging against her arm. She knew she should have pulled him up and explained very clearly how she spent her time caring for his dad and him and Millie, and how she cleaned and cooked for them, and made their rooms nice, and organized their busy lives. But somehow she couldn’t get a word out.

  Back in the kitchen she cast about for something to busy herself with, half an ear listening out for Oscar’s very halfhearted attempts at his second-grade pieces. She’d show him. She folded the tea towel and hung it neatly next to the other matching ones on the bar by the oven, and picked up a windup snail Millie had left on the table. Then she rearranged the fruit in the fruit bowl. But that was it really. There was nothing else to do. The dishwasher hummed in the corner, cleaning the plates from supper, the little ironing there had been to do was airing upstairs. The schoolbags for tomorrow were ready, reading diaries signed and snacks prepared, and Millie’s school summer skirt was drying on the rack. Saff drummed her fingers on the table, spun around, turned off the light and headed upstairs to talk to Millie in the bath.

  Th
e bath, though full of water, was empty now except for some lingering bubbles, a washcloth and a bath toy floating about disconsolately. Millie’s towel was folded neatly on the towel bar and the little girl herself was laid out on her bedroom floor, pajamaed, and plugged into a Jacqueline Wilson story on tape as she colored in a picture. Saff picked up a cardigan that had been left on the floor and hung it over her chair, then wandered into her own bedroom. The warmth of the day had cooled now and she shut the window and ran her hands over the bedspread to smooth out nonexistent creases. The room smelled of a mixture of her perfume and polish from when she’d cleaned it earlier.

  She sat down on the bed, then lay back staring at the ceiling. She loved this room, with its Colefax prints of pink roses and her little boudoir chair in deep pink linen. She turned her head and she could see her beloved dressing table, a present from her grandmother, and on top pictures of the children as babies, Oscar smiling toothlessly, and next to it a picture of Max on their wedding day, his face wreathed in smiles looking right at the camera and right at her now. He had more hair then, and looked so young. Odd to have a picture of him on her dressing table when he slept here every night, but the expression on his face had so much hope in it that she’d kept it there. He’d been a producer at the BBC then, and he’d gone on about how he intended to make really important programs that would win awards, and she’d be beside him. There’d be no question.

  The scales had stopped now but she hadn’t the energy to go down and crack the whip again. She turned to look up at the ceiling. She had been there always, ready to listen to Max’s ideas, and watching with pride when he and his mate Neil set up Offcut, the strident production company that in six years had managed to achieve a clutch of awards and some considerable clout in the business. “You don’t do anything else all day.” The words stung, but why? Because she knew she didn’t. She knew she’d justified everything in terms of being everyone else’s support, there to provide the essential elements that kept life ticking over. And everyone else was having the fun.

  “All right for some.”

  Saff turned her head sharply at his voice and sat up. “Hello, you’re late.”

  Max rubbed a hand over his face wearily, then sat on the edge of the bed beside her. “I had lunch with Greta Dunant to go over her script, then she came back to the office. It’s a great script but a risk for us. I’ve got my reservations.”

  “Why?”

  He waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, it’s a bit complicated. Stuff that’s hard to explain.” Clearly “stuff” was something Saff wouldn’t understand. How worthless I am, she thought suddenly. Oscar had made it plain she was pointless, Millie didn’t even need her help in the bath and Max thought complications weren’t worth explaining. Greta, of course, would understand them.

  “Do you fancy her?”

  Max turned to look at her profile. “What?” He snorted with laughter.

  “Greta. Do you find her intelligence attractive, a turn-on? Do you?” Saff could feel her throat burn and her eyes fill with tears, and she looked at him beseechingly.

  “Saff love, what’s this all about?” He put a hand up to her face and rubbed away a tear with his thumb.

  Saff looked down at her hands in her lap. “I just feel a bit insecure, that’s all.” Max put his hand under her chin and turned her face towards him.

  “Saff, my love, no I don’t fancy her. She’s overweight and hairy, she wears revolting shoes that look like something Millie used to wear in nursery, and she has a live-in partner called Helen.”

  “Oh.” Saff smiled sheepishly. “I see.” Max kissed her on the nose.

  “You, my darling, are everything I want, and I’m not going to give you up for some dyke, even if she is an awesome writer. Now get me my dinner, woman!” And he patted her on the knee.

  Next morning Saff struggled to pull herself out of bed, despite the sunshine and the cacophony of birdsong outside the window. She’d been awake at 3:50, when the first one had started tuning up, and she’d lain awake listening to the others join in ever since. As Max had snored gently beside her, she’d plumbed the depths of herself. What am I all about? What am I for? Why am I hurtling towards forty with nothing much to show for it? Eyes staring up at the ceiling, she’d thought about Alex and how people needed her skills. As close as they’d been all through school, when it came to work and career Alex had always been driven. Saff had always wanted to lie in the sunshine and make daisy chains while she should have been studying for O-level biology, but Alex? She’d be in her room swotting.

  Saff felt tired even before she’d dropped off the children at school and turned the car around wearily to head back home to a day of—what? Turning out another cupboard that was already immaculate? Mowing the lawn in case the grass had grown half a millimeter in the night? No, today she couldn’t face it. What had shocked her most last night and what had kept her awake listening to the dawn chorus was the awful realization that she was only part of a whole. Of course, the idea of Max having an affair with Greta was ridiculous, but what if he ever did, with someone else, and he left? What would remain? Would there be any point in her? She wouldn’t even be someone’s wife. She reversed again into a driveway and headed off in the other direction towards Alex’s place and the secret duo. It had become a refuge in recent days. From… what? Boredom and that flat feeling she couldn’t shake off.

  “Oh, you gave me a fright.” The Bean held her hand dramatically to her chest as she opened the door. “It’s quite doing my nerves in, all this deception, but it’s rather exciting, don’t you think, dear?” She gave Saff a “mwah” kiss on each cheek and shut the door behind her. “Of course, Alex has no idea. She’s too wrapped up in her launch. Come and have a cup of Frankie’s delicious coffee. He’s quite a find.” She led the way into the sitting room. “Such a shame you are already married, darling, because I think you two would be perfect for each other. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just go and apply my war paint.”

  Frankie stuck his head around the kitchen door as Saff walked in. Mmm, wasn’t it a shame indeed that she was married, because he was really very attractive, and even more so now that he had a bit of an early summer tan and had lost the woebegone-actor look.

  “Saff, how you doing?” He leaned forward and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  “You smell of baking.” Saff dumped her bag down. “Let me put the kettle on.”

  “Do I? I’m just doing some brownies. The mistress has demanded them.”

  Saff put the kettle under the tap. “The Bean? I thought she ate like a sparrow. Anything I’ve ever baked for her she’s left to go moldy in the tin.”

  Frankie laughed as he stirred the gooey mixture in the bowl with a wooden spoon. “No, not that mistress. The Absent One. She Who Must Be Obeyed.”

  “Oh, I see—yes, she’s very partial to a bit of home baking.” Saff leaned back against the worktop, folded her arms and watched him work. This was a novelty. The most Max ever did was make toast.

  Frankie scooped the mixture out into a baking tray. “Well, it must be someone else’s baking because judging by the equipment in this place she never does more than make tea. I even had to buy this spoon.”

  Saff laughed. “Sounds like Alex, far too busy to eat.”

  “What’s she like, this friend of yours? I feel like I’m looking after a ghost sometimes.”

  “Alex? She’s clever, funny, very loyal. And fiercely independent. Having you help her goes right against the grain. I remember once at school she got the blame for something—I can’t remember what it was now. Something stupid anyway. But she emphatically would not let me tell the teacher it wasn’t her fault. She just sort of took it on the chin.”

  Frankie stopped what he was doing and looked up. “She seems chalk to her mother’s cheese. Good thing too really. If she was like the Bean there would be even worse fireworks. You can’t have two egos that size in one family!”

  “Yes and no.” Saff thought for a moment. “The Bea
n loves the attention—now that’s something Alex hates—but neither likes to be treated like a fool.”

  “And what about Alex’s dad? You must have known him.”

  “Oh I did. Bit of a dandy. Funny, life and soul of the party, but terribly unreliable. I think Alex must be a genetic throwback to an earlier generation. The Bean’s parents come from hard-grafting, middle-class stock—she’s not the aristo’ she pretends to be—and I think Alex must have something of that in her.” Saff paused. “I love her to bits and sometimes I wish I was like her.”

  Frankie looked at her sidelong and continued scraping out the mixture. “Oh, this damned spoon isn’t any good. How do you get the stuff out from around the edges?”

  “You need a plastic spatula. I’ll get you one—they’re brilliant!” Saff enthused. “One of my kitchen essentials. I noticed you put in a pinch of salt. I’ve never done that.”

  Frankie laughed and slipped the tray into the oven. “Brings out the flavor. Eat your heart out, Jamie Oliver. You see, I’m not merely decorative!”

  He was certainly that. Saff filled the French press and the coffee fragrance pervaded her nose. With Alex it was a mug of instant with milk if you were lucky. It was fun being around these two.

  “You obviously love cooking, Frankie. Alex waxes lyrical about the suppers you leave—well, Ella’s cooking actually! I love cooking too. It’s so relaxing. I think it’s about the only thing I can do.” She suddenly had the urge to cry and looked down at her feet.

  “Hey, Saff? What’s up?”

  “Right!” The door burst open. “Time for your lesson, Frankie, my boy.”

  Saff rubbed her eyes quickly, glad of the interruption, and watched the Bean sweep out again. “Lesson? She’s not teaching you poker now, is she?”

  Frankie smiled mischievously. “She is actually! I’m getting quite good at it—if I could remember what each hand was worth. She keeps telling me about strip poker games they had when she was young and wearing eight pairs of knickers so she never had to take all her clothes off! You probably knew her then or at least soon after.”