LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

said, unfairly as Mark had never treated her as such. Mark, bewildered that a dinner invite and concert tickets could have such an adverse effect on Alice, started cleaning the coffee machine.

      With her back towards Mark, she lowered her voice. ‘I’m thirty-two, Mark. I don’t want to do boring dinner parties and stuffy concerts all the time.’

      ‘Come on,’ Mark said, ‘it’s hardly all the time.’

      Alice turned to face him, her hands on her hips. ‘That’s true,’ she said, ‘because the rest of the time you’re invariably away.’

      ‘Alice, that’s not fair,’ Mark objected, ‘I work hard because I work for us.’ He waved his hand around vaguely to signify their home.

      ‘And I’m just the little wifey keeping your home fire burning?’ Alice asked spikily.

      Mark ran his hands through his hair, though they were full of coffee grains. He was hurt. But very clear. ‘You know what, Alice,’ Mark said, ‘for me that is precisely one of the joys of marriage – knowing you are my home. Wherever I am in the world, whatever time it is, no matter how stressful my day or how hectic my schedule, there’s this underlying warmth and security which makes sense of everything – the knowledge of my wife, my home.’

      Alice flounced off to bed early, in the spare room, in her old bed. She dreamt of New York and David Bowie; that she and Thea brought roses to the shoot, which liquefied into green gloop. In the small hours, she awoke with her heart racing, acutely aware of the hurt and confusion she’d caused the man who loved her most. She felt ashamed. Mark’s love was unconditional and she told herself that she should aim to love him likewise. She waited a while and then tiptoed to their bedroom, to their vast bed and said sorry.

      Mark was finding it difficult to sleep. His back hurt, the Gerber–Klein deal was a lingering headache and it pained him that he’d upset Alice. He welcomed her with open arms and a tender kiss to her forehead.

      Alice had seemed distracted at Pilates, cutting her session short to sit quietly in the reception area, browsing back issues of Hello magazine. Even suggesting the bistro on a balmy May evening had taken Thea some doing. Assessing the menu, she remarked that Alice seemed tired.

      ‘I’m not tired,’ Alice said.

      ‘Hungry?’ Thea asked, beckoning the waitress.

      ‘Not particularly,’ Alice said, glancing at the specials board.

      ‘Oh, my God, are you pregnant?’ Thea gasped because Sally had recently announced that she was and she looked tired and had gone off Pilates and chips.

      ‘I am most certainly not pregnant,’ Alice declared flatly.

      ‘Is it work?’ Thea presumed.

      ‘No, Thea,’ Alice said, ‘it’s Mark.’

      ‘Mark?’ Thea balked, ignoring the chips, which had just arrived. She stared at Alice who was gazing into the middle distance of the restaurant. ‘Alice?’

      ‘Yes,’ said Alice, prodding the pasta without looking, ‘Mark.’

      ‘What’s he done?’ Thea demanded, heaping Greek salad onto her fork.

      ‘Nothing,’ Alice said despondently, twirling the pasta to such a degree that it unwound from the fork completely.

      ‘Nothing?’ Thea repeated, with her mouth full.

      ‘Yes, nothing,’ Alice sighed, lifting her empty fork and putting it in her mouth, ‘and that’s the point. It’s just nothingy.’ She shrugged. ‘All work and no play make Mark a dull, dull boy.’ Though she felt instantly disloyal, she was just a little relieved too. ‘I’m scared that I’m bored,’ Alice confided, looking genuinely alarmed. ‘I’m worried, Thea. Actually, perhaps it’s not Mark. Perhaps it’s me.’

      Thea didn’t want to hear this and didn’t know what to make of it, let alone how to comment. ‘Mark is all that you’ve wanted and he is all that you need, he’s what you never had and you married him precisely for his commitment and his soberness,’ she told Alice sternly.

      ‘But his commitment is to work and he’s so sober it’s a bore,’ Alice muttered. ‘Corporate dinners and bloody opera, Thea, that’s the sum of it.’

      ‘What are his workmates like?’ Thea asked, trying to be positive.

      ‘Mark doesn’t have “mates”, Thea,’ Alice said, ‘he has colleagues and clients. They’re fine – I mean, a similar age – but dull.’

      ‘Well, I love Mark,’ Thea said warmly. ‘Let’s organize some evenings together, the four of us. How about salsa? Or that hysterical pub quiz you and I used to go to? I don’t know, ice-skating at Ally Pally?’

      Alice shrugged. ‘Can you honestly see Mark salsa dancing? Do you really think he’d leave work on time for a pub quiz?’

      ‘Come on,’ Thea said gently, ‘perhaps you’re a little stressed yourself – work?’

      Alice laughed harshly. ‘I have David Bowie as my cover boy – how can I be stressed?’

      ‘Maybe Mark’s stress is rubbing off on you?’ Thea tried, knowing she didn’t sound convincing.

      ‘Mark is ticking along just fine, Thea – it’s me,’ Alice whispered. ‘Suddenly he seems so much older than me.’ She couldn’t say it so she mouthed it, staring at the table. Boring.

      Thea didn’t want to hear this. Mark Sinclair was Alice’s salvation, the yin to her yang. Alice, it seemed to Thea, had done the grown-up thing when she married Mark; she’d set the standard and embraced the rules. Alice being unhappy made Thea feel discomfited. That Alice was bored caused Thea to worry. As her best friend, she didn’t think twice about reprimanding Alice.

      ‘You need to remember all your reasons for marrying Mark,’ Thea told her, ‘and you need to remember that your playboy exes actually made you miserable. You need to think logically about marriage, Alice, because by definition, you’re in it for the long haul. Of course there are going to be fluctuations in temperature – cold currents, heatwaves, warm periods. Maybe you should look on it as just being a little unsettled at the moment,’ Thea concluded, hoping to sound reassuring, ‘and know that it’ll abate and be fine.’

      ‘I’m starting to feel stifled, Thea,’ Alice said quietly, wondering when her best friend had become a meteorologist and marriage counsellor. ‘There seems to be no frisson between me and Mark. No fizz. It’s all gone a bit flat.’

      ‘Alice, I’m the diehard romantic here but even I can acknowledge that there’s more to marriage than raunchy sex or just being in love,’ Thea said. ‘Anyway, I thought you said frissons and fizz were just phenyl-something.’

      ‘Phenylethylamine,’ Alice muttered. She felt irritated. It wasn’t as if Thea was even living with Saul, so on what authority could she lecture? ‘I mean, of course I want to grow old with Mark – I just don’t want to be old while I’m still youngish.’

      ‘It’ll be fine,’ Thea said, because she really couldn’t start thinking it could possibly be anything other. She believed in the mystical sanctity of being in love; she didn’t like the way Alice dissected it into chemical components, albeit light-heartedly. But just then, Thea prayed for surges of adrenalin and dopamine and that phenyl-something for her best friend, so that Alice could feel love flushed and happy to be Mrs Sinclair once more.

      Later that night, after sending a text message to Alice assuring her that everything would be OK and that she was there for her, Thea rang Saul to say goodnight. He wasn’t in and his mobile was switched off. She tried again ten minutes later. And then ten minutes after that, when his mobile was back on.

      ‘Hullo,’ said Thea, hearing traffic in the background, ‘where are you?’

      ‘I’ve just

Скачать книгу