Wife After Wife, page 4
Harry parked himself in the corner of the bar with his copy of the Times and a pint of best. Katie was taking a taxi home after her interview, so as long as he was home by three, he should be fine.
Bennie somehow managed to serve the stream of Christmas revelers and stay cheerful, and popped across to chat during occasional lulls.
She intrigued him. She was streetwise, sassy; so different from most of the girls he knew.
“You remind me of Madonna,” he said. “In a good way.”
She hopped onto a stool and looked up at him through lashes thickly coated in mascara. “Madonna’s pretty cool. Have you seen Desperately Seeking Susan?”
“Can’t say that I have. Not really my cup of tea.”
“So what is your cup of Earl Grey, Harry? No . . . let me guess. James Bond? Indiana Jones? What do toffs watch?”
“Beware of pigeonholing. One is not a toff. I enjoyed Out of Africa. Have you seen that?”
“Bloody loved it! So romantic. I would have run off with Robert Redford like a shot. And that washing-the-hair scene was the biggest turn-on. Oh god, I want someone golden-haired and handsome to wash my hair like that.” She blinked her long eyelashes.
“Your hair looks perfectly clean to me.”
“It could be cleaner.”
Harry couldn’t tear his gaze from her intense blue eyes. Look away! screamed his conscience.
“Bennie,” said a guy behind her. “Dave’s here. You can go now.”
“Cheers, Luke. Just as well, I’m buggered.” She hopped off the stool and looked at Harry again. “Only one more shift before Christmas, thank god. Want to walk with me to the bus stop?”
He shouldn’t. He was still safe while she was on that side of the bar.
“Come on, Harry. Look at everyone having a good time, and here’s me on my lonesome.”
“Are you going home for Christmas?”
“Course! But not until tomorrow.”
She disappeared into a room behind the bar, and Harry slowly folded his newspaper and downed the rest of his pint.
He could leave now and never come back.
He folded his paper again, and then again, forming it into a manageable, neat shape he could slip under his arm, smoothing it out between each fold.
He lifted his pint, in case there was a last sip not to be wasted.
“This way, it’s quicker,” came Bennie’s voice next to him.
She led the way out of a back door that opened into a pedestrian alleyway. Suddenly they were out of the noise and smoke and into the quiet crispness of a bright winter’s afternoon.
Bennie stopped to put on her denim jacket, flicking the collar up, and took a pair of black silky gloves out of the pockets. She slipped them on, smoothing them over her hands.
She took some deep breaths. “Ah, fresh air. Jeez, it’s so smoky in there. Maybe one day they’ll ban smoking in pubs.” She grabbed a handful of her hair and sniffed it. “Disgusting. Gonna have to wash it. Maybe you should come and do that for me, Harry? With a bowl of water and a jug, like Robert did for Meryl. Actually, you look a bit like Robert Redford. Except you’re better looking.” She grinned. That direct gaze again. And now that she was out from behind the bar, he was able to fully appreciate the figure-hugging jeans tucked into boots with killer heels.
“I have to go, Bennie. We’re driving to Gloucestershire this afternoon. But it was fun. Maybe I’ll pop in again. I work on the South Bank, but my wife’s probably going to be working in Wardour Street.”
There, he’d said it. Wife. He’d drawn the line.
“Glor-ster-shaar. Should’ve guessed. Is that where mater and pater live?”
He chuckled. It wasn’t a bad Harry impression. Was she choosing to ignore the part about his wife?
“My parents died, I’m afraid. It’s where Katie’s parents live.”
“Oh my god. Your parents died? Harry, you poor bloke.” She reached out and touched his arm, came closer.
It was the sympathy in her eyes that demolished his resolve. As her hand slid from his arm to his waist, he pulled her toward him, and then he was kissing her, and it was heaven. At first tentative and sweet, exploring her soft lips, then she was on her toes and pulling his head down as the kiss became urgent, hungry.
Finally they pulled apart, breathless, and Harry gently took her chin in his hand. “Happy Christmas, Bennie. And now I really have to go.”
“Yes, I suppose you do, Harry. But you really have to come back.”
And he did. Again and again.
* * *
• • •
At first, Katie enjoyed working at the gallery. Life was good. The staff and clients were lovely, the work was interesting, and she was thrilled to discover she was pregnant again. But after miscarrying at three months, she became increasingly down. In spite of Harry’s encouragement, she abandoned all thought of teacher training. Eventually she was only going through the motions with her job—she just didn’t have the energy.
Sex was loaded with unspoken emotion. They no longer seemed able to talk things through. The connection between Harry and Katie frayed, and neither knew how to weave it back together.
To Harry’s dismay, Katie turned for comfort to her Catholic faith (Harry had lost any belief in God when his mother died). She shifted from lukewarm to ardent as she searched for meaning in what she’d come to regard as her pointless, childless life. After another miscarriage, nothing could shift the hopelessness.
“Why is God doing this to us?” she’d ask. “Why do I keep losing babies? Are we meant never to have a child?”
After Harry’s initial attempts to help her through (and he did try, in spite of his other . . . commitment), he began spending less time at home and more at work, where his enthusiasm for the job and network of useful contacts saw him achieving success alongside Uncle Richard at the helm of Rose Corp. Work problems were easier to overcome than home ones.
And then there was Bennie, whose laughing eyes were the perfect antidote to Katie’s, which were full of sadness. Katie’s depression was too much for Harry. The ties that bound them were hanging by a thread.
Then, Katie got pregnant again, and this time, everything went perfectly.
Harry was a father.
CHAPTER 6
Katie
March 1988
“The King of Spain’s daughter
Came to visit me,
And all for the sake
Of my little nut tree.”
As Katie ended the nursery rhyme, Maria’s eyes closed. Katie gazed down at her daughter and offered up a silent prayer of thanks. God had blessed them after all, and she was filled with such joy she felt reborn, as new as her four-week-old baby.
The prayer of thanks was also because said child was, at last, asleep. The silence of the darkened bedroom after a day of grizzling was exquisite.
Harry had wanted to name her Elizabeth, after his mother, but when Katie had discovered Maria meant “wished-for child,” as well as being a solid Catholic name, he’d let her have her way. Katie had proposed Elizabeth as a middle name, but Harry suggested they kept it “in reserve” in case they had a second daughter. Katie smiled as she remembered his words, no longer loaded with the angst of childlessness.
Maria was lying on her back, her rosebud lips slightly parted, her head turned to one side. Katie leaned over and gently stroked her cheek. The skin was so soft it was barely there, and touching it filled her with a deep peace. She gazed at the tiny hands with their micro-nails, resting to either side of her head.
Finally moving away from the bassinet, Katie sank down onto her bed. It was seven o’clock, and she was wrung out. This new kind of exhaustion was so overwhelming it gave the older kinds a glow of nostalgia. After-work tired? Yes, please—fifteen minutes rustling up something to eat, then your time was your own. Your own. After-exercise tired? Delicious. A hot shower and then your feet up, for as long as you needed.
It seemed so long since she’d been able to watch TV or read a book without the menace of a baby monitor, ready to crackle to life and launch her into the next round of feeding, changing, and putting back to sleep. Then there was the emotion of it all, veering between joy and despair. In spite of her euphoria at having a healthy child, Katie was aware of her old enemy, depression, lurking in the wings. Her father had died in January, enabling it to take a few more stealthy steps toward her.
Its cousin, worry, was a constant presence too. Was Maria getting enough milk? How were you meant to know the difference between an “I’m too hot” cry, an “I’m hungry” one, and “I just want a cuddle”?
“Relax!” Harry would say as she fretted over how many layers to wrap Maria in. “Babies have been surviving too-thick cardigans for centuries.”
Germaine, who seemed remarkably unmoved by the loss of her husband (but then she’d rarely seen him—Ferdie loved to travel), had come to stay after Katie’s return from the hospital and had tried to persuade Katie to employ a nanny, having always had a houseful of staff herself. She’d refused. She wasn’t sharing Maria with another woman.
Unfortunately, Cassandra agreed with Germaine, and she suspected Harry did too. It was the norm in their circles, after all. Cass now had two children under the age of two, looked after by a highly competent nanny installed immediately after the birth of Thing One, as Cassandra called her eldest (real name Milly). She’d advised Katie to do the same “if you ever want a life again.”
But Katie had dug her heels in. This was life. She’d handed in her notice at the gallery; she was going to be a full-time mum.
In spite of the tiredness and the emotional roller coaster, the baby had mended things between Katie and Harry. Their apprehension that something would go wrong again, then their overwhelming joy when their perfect daughter was born—it had brought them back together.
Katie sighed in tired contentment, picturing a future of trips to the zoo and walks in the park, Maria sitting on Harry’s broad shoulders, Katie perhaps pushing another baby in a buggy. Weekends in the country, summers in Tuscany with Cassandra, Charles, Thing One, and Thing Two (real name Arabella).
She ought to start preparing dinner—Harry had said he’d be home “early,” by which he meant before eight—but she was inclined to sit here just a little while longer, staring at her gift from God, breathing in that delicious baby smell.
Her daydreaming was interrupted by the phone ringing downstairs.
It was Harry. “Sorry, Katie, something’s come up. The viscountess isn’t happy with the piece in this month’s Hooray! The editor thinks I should be able to talk her round, one-on-one, but it’s going to cost me dinner, which will no doubt consist of humble pie.”
“What’s her problem with it?”
“Just a lack of fawning obsequiousness. Bloody aristocrats. Sorry, have to dash—taxi’s here. Give Maria a kiss for me.”
“I will. She’s been crying all—”
But Harry was gone. As Katie put the phone down, the silence of the house no longer felt exquisite. A long evening alone stretched ahead.
She should have welcomed it. She didn’t have to worry about cooking something special, could snack in front of the TV instead. But the solitude hung heavy. Harry was out there, buttering up Viscountess Doo-dah, who was probably gorgeous and would undoubtedly think Harry the same, while the most she had to look forward to was EastEnders or a video she’d already seen. Was this how things would be, now that she was a mum?
Piling a tray with dips and nibbles, she settled down on the sofa, shifting uncomfortably—her breasts were sore.
She stared past the TV at a watercolor on the wall, of an English village. As she appreciated how the artist had captured the evening sunlight, a thought came to her. Perhaps they should move to the country. Harry had the Surrey estate he’d inherited, but it was far too big for just the three of them and was currently leased to a sheik. Perhaps they could sell it and buy a pretty cottage within easy commuting distance, in a lovely village where Maria—and future brothers and sisters—could go to the local primary before heading off to a suitable boarding school.
She smiled to herself. Surely Harry would see; this could be the perfect way forward to a happy family life.
Harry
August 1989
Harry cut through St. Paul’s churchyard en route to Covent Garden, where he was meeting a Sunday Times journalist for lunch. The ten-minute walk from the Strand was part of his more-exercise initiative, launched in response to Charles’s recent ribbing about a small but definitely there paunch. He glanced down and saw the little bugger, peeping over his waistband.
He passed a group of female office workers sitting on the grass, their skirts hoisted up, making the most of the sunny lunchtime. Kylie Minogue blared from a transistor, and a curvy brunette with big hair sang along, giving him the eye.
Harry grinned back and winked. He loved London in the summer.
The article was going to be in next week’s Sunday supplement. Harry the newsman was, apparently, news himself. Nigel Dempster had recently described him in the Daily Express as “Britain’s answer to Rupert Murdoch, but far easier on the eye.”
“More of a Richard Branson, but with better hair,” Charles had said.
Copies of Rose’s new magazine Hooray! (or “Tatler for plebs,” as Charles called it) were flying off the newsstands, sharing with the British public the weddings, gracious homes, and bundles of joy of movie stars, footballers’ wives, and aristocrats. Celebrity culture had begun, and it seemed Harry was part of it. A full-page photo under the heading PROUD PARENTS HARRY AND KATIE INTRODUCE BABY MARIA TO THE WORLD had featured in the launch issue, and as a result his office had been inundated with requests for interviews. His PR manager, Zadie, had advised him to go exclusive with the Sunday Times Magazine, negotiating the cover story spot.
At Maxwell’s, a waitress indicated a table where a woman with sleek black hair, large-framed red glasses, and matching lipstick was sitting. She rose and held out her hand. The pointy nails were red too.
“Harry, great to meet you. Terri Robbins-More.” Her accent was broad Yorkshire.
She was attractive, but he drew the line at journalists. There were enough of those back at Totty Tower, as cabdrivers called Rose Corp.’s offices. Nevertheless, he’d turn on the charm during the interview. Relationships with reporters were important.
Terri
What an up-himself upper-class twat, thought Terri, as she hailed a taxi back to Wapping. And how aggravating that the magazine editor wanted a puff piece about the new young gun in town, rather than anything insightful. Probably went to the same bloody school or university.
The taxi pulled over, and she barked her destination at the driver.
If only she could dig up some dirt. But in her background research, people had nothing but good to say about the media’s current golden boy.
Harry Rose had got where he was through family money, the old-boy network, good looks, and charm. He’d married an equally posh girl from an equally rich family. He wasn’t stupid, but he was no Stephen Hawking. Though, when she’d asked, “What book is on your bedside table?” he’d answered, “A Brief History of Time.” It was the year’s must-read.
“What do you make of it?” Terri had asked.
“Haven’t had time to read it,” Harry had said, laughing heartily at his own joke.
Arse. But she’d chuckled along because, in spite of his charm and boyish good looks, there was something unsettling about Harry Rose, and she was intrigued, wanting to probe deeper.
Was there a darker side to him? A ruthless streak? He’d probably need one to survive at the top. Perhaps bluff Harry, good bloke Harry, was a smoke screen.
He may be heir to a media empire, but he’d had little to say about current affairs. He’d talked a lot about trends, brands, target markets, rather than about anything that was actually important, like the profound changes taking place in the Soviet Union, or the fact that Margaret bloody Thatcher had been in power for ten long years now, and look at the state of the north after so many pit closures.
Harry had probably never been to the north.
Terri, from a working-class Sheffield family, had clawed her way to the top, and she wasn’t going along with this upper-class bollocks, one media company rubbing another’s back. When she got back to the office, she’d do a little digging, whether they liked it or not.
Harry
Harry, Katie, and Maria were en route to London Zoo. The interview a few days ago had gone well. It always helped when the journalist was female.
Katie was staring stonily out of the window of the car sent to fetch them, while Maria sat buckled between them, gabbling nonsense to her favorite fluffy rabbit toy, Tog. It was unlike Katie not to be joining in.
Harry had to admit, he hadn’t handled telling Katie about the photo shoot at all well. Thanks to his burgeoning commitments, he’d spent next to no “quality time,” as people were now calling it, with his little family these past few months. Katie had initially been enthusiastic about the trip to the zoo, assuming Harry was trying to make up for recent neglect. But when he’d mentioned that the Sunday Times wanted to follow them around, she’d accused him of needing his family “only when it was useful for PR purposes.” That had hurt.
The taxi dropped them at the zoo offices, and a girl from the press office came to meet them. The photographer and his assistant were already there. They introduced themselves as Alex and Ken.
“Hi, I’m Sue,” said the press officer. She wore stripy trousers and a ruffled white blouse, and her dark hair was clipped up with two pearly combs. “I thought we might go to the Children’s Zoo?”
