The Peacock Emporium(59)
Vivi sighed. “Yes. Yes, I suppose she does.”
“It would make me angry. And Granny’s never been exactly a . . . benign character.”
“No.”
“D’you want me to have a word?”
“With whom?”
“I don’t know. Granny? Dad? It sometimes comes easier when there’s a gap between generations.”
“You could try, dear, but I don’t know what good it will do. Your father’s a bit . . . well, I think he’s had enough of dealing with family problems at the moment.”
“What do you mean?”
Vivi paused, feeling disloyal again. “Oh. You know. This silly thing with Suzanna.”
“You’re joking. They’re not still harping on about that?”
“She’s really rather hurt. And I’m afraid they’ve got to that awful stage where they can’t say anything without making it worse.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, I can’t believe they haven’t sorted things out. Hold on a minute.” Vivi heard the sound of muffled conversation, and a rapid agreement. Then her daughter’s voice was back on the line. “Come on, Mum. You’ve got to put an end to this. They’re behaving like a pair of idiots. They’re as stubborn as each other.”
“But what can I do?”
“I don’t know. Bang their heads together. You can’t let this drag on. You’re going to have to make the first move. Look, Mum, I’ve got to go. I’m due in a meeting. Ring me tonight, okay? Let me know what you decide about Granny.”
She was gone before Vivi had a chance to whisper her love. She sat, staring at the distantly humming receiver, and felt the familiar swell of inadequacy. So, why is this my responsibility? Vivi thought crossly. Why do I have to sort everybody out, or suffer the consequences? What is it exactly that I ever did?
* * *
—
Nadine and Alistair Palmer were splitting up. As the evenings grew lighter, Suzanna’s quiet hours between closing the shop and before Neil came home—the time when she habitually pored over receipts at the kitchen table, sipping a glass of wine—had been increasingly interrupted by Nadine’s telephone calls: “If he thinks I’m letting the children go for a whole weekend he’s gone quite mad . . . You know, the lawyer thinks I should go for the holiday home too . . . I did decorate it, even if it is shared with his brother . . .”
At first she had been flattered to hear from her—for some time she had thought that Nadine, who still lived in London, had forgotten her. Several weeks later, she was exhausted by the calls, by the never-ending tales of postmarital injustice, and the myriad examples of pettiness to which once-loving couples could sink in their desire to punish each other.
“I can’t tell you how lonely it is at night . . . I hear all sorts of noises . . . My mother thinks I should get a dog, but who’s going to walk it now that I have to go to work?”
Nadine and Alistair had been the first among their circle to marry, only six weeks before Suzanna and Neil. They had honeymooned in the same part of France. Recently Nadine had asked three times whether she and Neil were okay, as if desperate for reassurance that she wasn’t alone in her misery. Suzanna never said much more than “Fine.” At first she had been rather shaken, but Nadine and Alistair were now the fourth couple among their old friends to have divorced, and she was less disturbed—perhaps less surprised—each time.
“He says he doesn’t fancy me anymore. Not since the children. I told him, frankly, I haven’t fancied him for years, but that’s not what marriage is all about, is it?”
Of course, on her better days Suzanna knew this wasn’t the case for everybody, that there were marriages where children cemented things and were a source of joy. In fact, she was never sure whether her friends had emphasized to her all the bad things about motherhood—the sleepless nights, the ruined bodies, the plastic toys and puke—out of a kind of misplaced sympathy that she hadn’t yet embarked upon it. But, perversely, listening to Nadine weep about the prospect of her two young children spending time with Daddy’s girlfriend, at the silence of a house on waking up without them, made her keenly aware that among the domestic trivia, mundanity, and pettiness, there was a deep and jealous passion. And something about that passion—even in the depths of Nadine’s grief—set against her own carefully constructed lukewarm life, had begun to appeal.
* * *
—
The first time Neil met Suzanna, she had served him sushi. She had been working in a restaurant in Soho, and, having discovered that the mixture of raw fish and rice was almost fat free, was subsisting on it and Marlboro Lights in an attempt to drop down a dress size. (These days, she wondered why she hadn’t spent her twenties wandering around in a bikini instead of fretting about nonexistent cellulite.) Neil had come in with clients. Having grown up in Cheam, with the uncomplicated rugby-club diet of the public-school boy, he had gamely tried everything she suggested, and only confessed to Suzanna afterward that if anyone else had tried to make him eat raw sea urchin he would have put them in a headlock.
He was tall, broad, and handsome, just a few years older than her, and bore the kind of sheen on his skin that spoke of a City salary and frequent trips abroad. He had tipped her almost thirty percent, and she had acknowledged that this gesture was not for the benefit of his companions. She had observed him across the table, listened to his whispered confession, conscious that a willingness to experiment in matters of appetite might suggest an openmindedness in other areas.