walk
from here to the Planters’ house in Chiswick. Too long, probably. It was
already quarter past two, and I wanted to be out of there before Susan and the
children returned. I put the contracts back in my bag and took out the estate
agent’s details for my mother.
The
noise of a thousand engines turning over in their stationary vehicles on the
Broadway was throbbing inside my head. A traffic helicopter passed by overhead,
but the sound of its propelling blades stayed with me. I suppose Neil James was
right: thinking I could look after Liz was a kind of abuse. Being the right man
for her had turned me into some kind of Roman emperor. Mea culpa. And
now she was breaking free of her bondage with centurion Bob Henderson from over
the Alps and I wouldn’t have the time to suppress this insurrection because the
bleeding empire needed constant maintenance.
The
Planters had a nice and big house in Chiswick. Jeremy’s success was not yet
long-lived enough to have warranted a move to hugely grander surroundings such
as Shepperton or Henley, but they had had an extension built out the back and
an extra floor on the top with dormer windows and a sort of half-balcony.
I knew
the house well; I had been there on many occasions. Sunday barbecues,
late-night chats in the kitchen with whisky. But I had never been there alone
before. I knew the downstairs toilet with the framed posters, photos and
cartoons of Jeremy’s early work, but I didn’t know the upstairs en-suite
bathroom adjoining their bedroom, for instance.
Jeremy
wanted me to collect a couple of the natty suits for which he was renowned, two
of his awards, a golf club and three of the funny wigs from his very first TV
show. It was a peculiar set of requests and seemed more like the props list for
a Hello magazine photo-shoot than an inventory of requirements for life
in a ‘love nest’.
In the
living room, among the framed mantelpiece photos, there was even one of me —
well, one in which I featured — a hot day in their garden with a slide and a
swimming pool. I had my shirt tucked into tight jeans. Cripes, it must have
been some years ago, before Liz. Nowadays, in the summer, I wear linen or silk
shirts, untucked, to cover the weight gain, and those jeans have long been used
as oil rags.
I
caught myself in the Planters’ mirror. Women put on weight when pregnant but
then they get the chance to lose it if they breastfeed — fifteen hundred
calories a day, that — and, if they’re like Liz, they go to aerobics and yoga
to stay slim. Or maybe it was Bob Henderson who was doing that for her.
Silly
blokes like me spend nine months empathizing, eating all the Haagen-Dazs
ice-cream with their wives and then have to cancel all exercise as they buckle
under the strain of supporting three people. The blob in the mirror stared back
at me. I turned to the photos again. Some had been removed from their frames,
no doubt recently by Susan. On the table were a couple of photo albums and a
box of photos. In the bin were some photos torn in two. Susan had been going
through the memories then.
Susan
is good-looking but, in life as in all the photos, she lacked that vanity, that
desperate need to be looked at, that fear, even, of being judged on her looks —
which Liz has in buckets —which attracts men like a blood-magnet. Which makes a
woman beautiful to the mindless-dick part of a man. Most of him, that is, as
the girls in the office would have it.
There
were a few photos in the box of a Planter holiday, presumably before Polly was
born, sun and swimming pools. Jeremy of course larking about in every shot,
always aware of the camera, no matter what — true pro. But Susan, who didn’t
feature that often — presumably because she was the one who remembered to bring
the camera and use it — even when. wearing a bikini, with tanned skin and
tousled hair, looked —how can I put it — wholesome, nice, at one with herself,
drinking no doubt just enough to be merry and
from here to the Planters’ house in Chiswick. Too long, probably. It was
already quarter past two, and I wanted to be out of there before Susan and the
children returned. I put the contracts back in my bag and took out the estate
agent’s details for my mother.
The
noise of a thousand engines turning over in their stationary vehicles on the
Broadway was throbbing inside my head. A traffic helicopter passed by overhead,
but the sound of its propelling blades stayed with me. I suppose Neil James was
right: thinking I could look after Liz was a kind of abuse. Being the right man
for her had turned me into some kind of Roman emperor. Mea culpa. And
now she was breaking free of her bondage with centurion Bob Henderson from over
the Alps and I wouldn’t have the time to suppress this insurrection because the
bleeding empire needed constant maintenance.
The
Planters had a nice and big house in Chiswick. Jeremy’s success was not yet
long-lived enough to have warranted a move to hugely grander surroundings such
as Shepperton or Henley, but they had had an extension built out the back and
an extra floor on the top with dormer windows and a sort of half-balcony.
I knew
the house well; I had been there on many occasions. Sunday barbecues,
late-night chats in the kitchen with whisky. But I had never been there alone
before. I knew the downstairs toilet with the framed posters, photos and
cartoons of Jeremy’s early work, but I didn’t know the upstairs en-suite
bathroom adjoining their bedroom, for instance.
Jeremy
wanted me to collect a couple of the natty suits for which he was renowned, two
of his awards, a golf club and three of the funny wigs from his very first TV
show. It was a peculiar set of requests and seemed more like the props list for
a Hello magazine photo-shoot than an inventory of requirements for life
in a ‘love nest’.
In the
living room, among the framed mantelpiece photos, there was even one of me —
well, one in which I featured — a hot day in their garden with a slide and a
swimming pool. I had my shirt tucked into tight jeans. Cripes, it must have
been some years ago, before Liz. Nowadays, in the summer, I wear linen or silk
shirts, untucked, to cover the weight gain, and those jeans have long been used
as oil rags.
I
caught myself in the Planters’ mirror. Women put on weight when pregnant but
then they get the chance to lose it if they breastfeed — fifteen hundred
calories a day, that — and, if they’re like Liz, they go to aerobics and yoga
to stay slim. Or maybe it was Bob Henderson who was doing that for her.
Silly
blokes like me spend nine months empathizing, eating all the Haagen-Dazs
ice-cream with their wives and then have to cancel all exercise as they buckle
under the strain of supporting three people. The blob in the mirror stared back
at me. I turned to the photos again. Some had been removed from their frames,
no doubt recently by Susan. On the table were a couple of photo albums and a
box of photos. In the bin were some photos torn in two. Susan had been going
through the memories then.
Susan
is good-looking but, in life as in all the photos, she lacked that vanity, that
desperate need to be looked at, that fear, even, of being judged on her looks —
which Liz has in buckets —which attracts men like a blood-magnet. Which makes a
woman beautiful to the mindless-dick part of a man. Most of him, that is, as
the girls in the office would have it.
There
were a few photos in the box of a Planter holiday, presumably before Polly was
born, sun and swimming pools. Jeremy of course larking about in every shot,
always aware of the camera, no matter what — true pro. But Susan, who didn’t
feature that often — presumably because she was the one who remembered to bring
the camera and use it — even when. wearing a bikini, with tanned skin and
tousled hair, looked —how can I put it — wholesome, nice, at one with herself,
drinking no doubt just enough to be merry and
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