Beneath the Skin(89)
Though she knows she shouldn’t, Antonia laughs. ‘Medical expert now? You are rotten. And there’s me thinking you’ve changed.’
Sophie doesn’t reply, but after a moment she smiles, her face lightly flushing. ‘Perhaps I am and I have. I’m on the bloody happy pills, Toni. Can you believe it? Oh yeah, and Norma gave me a good talking to, so I’m being an angel.’ Then she tosses back her head and laughs, her auburn locks shining as they bounce. ‘But there’s no need to panic, I’m sure it won’t last.’
Sami’s still listening to the flush of the loo when Jemima emerges into the kitchen. He turns his head and he looks. He should have known, he should have fucking known. The relief felt too sweet, he’d let it come too soon. She’s naked, of course, save for the stockings. Her nipples are erect and strangely shiny. Her fanny has been completely shaved since their last encounter. Worst of all there’s that look of entitlement on her pouty face.
He feels nothing but rage. ‘I actually like fanny hair,’ he wants to shout. ‘My wife, who I adore, has lots of it. And she’s witty and bright. She knows that she’s not perfect and I love her for it. Don’t you dare to come into her home and presume …’
But instead he leans back, his legs apart, his hands behind his head and smiles. You can smile and smile and still be a villain, he thinks determinedly. It’s a line he remembers from school. It sums up the boy who bullied him the most.
‘Hey, Jemima!’ he says. ‘You look great and I’d really like to, but I simply don’t have the time.’ He waits a beat. ‘Or the money.’
He reaches for his suit jacket and removes the designer wallet Sophie bought him for their wedding anniversary. ‘I realise that I’ve been a bad boy not paying before now. But it’s always a little delicate discussing money, isn’t it? What did the lads at work say, a hundred? So, I must owe you …’
He briefly glimpses her mouth gape as he thumbs through the notes in his wallet, counting the twenties out loud. ‘Sorry. I’m a bit short. How about you get dressed and I nip to the bank?’
But by then the house is reverberating from the slam of the toilet door.
‘Don’t I have any say?’ Helen says, clearly exasperated. ‘I am his mother. I am entitled to an opinion.’
His mum is talking as though he isn’t there, as usual, Rupert notes, but he’s inordinately proud of his father. ‘Go, Dad, go!’ he wants to shout.
‘In this case no, Helen, you don’t have a say. You agreed to take up a post at New York University without consulting us and so you won’t even be here next term. Rupert isn’t going back to Staffordshire and that’s final. He isn’t happy there and we’ve been too pig-headed to notice. Cheadle Hulme school has a place, so it’s a done deal, as they say.’
Helen puts down her huge quilted bag stuffed with books. Charlie has caught her unawares, on her way to the university, with little time to spare.
Dad knew she wouldn’t want to be late for her student seminar, Rupert thinks. Sly old fox.
‘I didn’t think that happiness was the point, Charles. What happened to good education and family tradition? Your words, not mine.’
‘What’s good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander.’
Charlie pauses for a minute, his face rather red. Rupert wills him on. ‘Gosling, maybe, Dad?’ he wants to say.
‘Besides, I’m not sending him to a state gangland, Helen. Cheadle Hulme is a perfectly good school. Gibson sends his children there, despite spouting his left-wing rubbish whenever he gets the opportunity. I shall be here to see that Rupert is watered and fed, so that’s that.’
Rupert looks at his father’s truculent face. ‘So there!’ it says. He glances at his mother. He can tell from her blank expression that her mind is already elsewhere, with her students probably, but that’s the way it is.
Helen shakes herself, examines the watch she keeps on a chain around her neck and picks up her bag. ‘Goodness. Look at the time.’
‘Another thing before you go, dear. We feel that Barbara is getting a bit long in the tooth. That perhaps she needs a young assistant she can train up. An attractive au pair, we thought, didn’t we, Rupert?’
‘French would be good,’ Rupert nods. ‘For educational needs, of course.’
Charlie and Rupert laugh. Nice one, Dad, Rupert thinks as his mother nods absently. Whoever says his dad doesn’t have an ace sense of humour is way off.
Jemima doesn’t bother slamming the front door, she simply walks out with a stony face, clutching her overnight bag to her chest.
Sami sits at the kitchen table, the cold breeze from the open front door finding its way to his cheeks. He drops his head, a feeling of shame deep in his chest. He was brutal, horribly brutal, something he can’t recall doing before. He doesn’t like how it feels.
He scratches his chin. He hasn’t shaved for a few days. It makes him look older and less chiselled. He’s aware there are specks of grey in his fledgling beard but he woke up late and couldn’t be bothered shaving. Sophie likes him clean shaved. Perhaps he’s accepting the inevitable, that she isn’t coming home.
He rests his forehead on his folded arms. His dad called him last night, his dad who never calls. ‘Samuel, now you know I don’t listen to women’s talk,’ he started and Sami knew what was coming. It was an echo of his own thoughts. Sophie was the one for him. He was a fool if he was letting her go. She was bright and charming, if a little rough around the edges. He needed to sort it out before it was too late. Even Martha was missing her. She had no one to complain about. She’d start on him next.