Sitting here, Belinda was caught in a common dilemma of women who compare themselves with others. With whom should she compare herself tonight? Beside Maggie, she looked rather accomplished. Whereas beside Viv, she looked like a road accident. Viv did dinner parties for eight without breaking stride. She had three sons with long limbs and clean hair who said, ‘Hello, Auntie Belinda, do you want to see my prize for geography?’ and ‘Guess what, I’ve got another part in a radio play.’ Viv dressed beautifully in navy. She attended a gym and went swimming. She canvassed for the Labour Party. And, just to give her life a bit of interest, she was the youngest ever female consultant anaesthetist of a major London private hospital.
Belinda took another reckless swig of wine. She used to say she had only two modes when it came to drinking: abstinence and abandonment. Looking at her fifth glass, she realized this system had recently simplified.
‘Jago got made executive features editor at the Effort.’
Belinda put down her glass with a clunk. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Last week. Bunter Paxton was kicked upstairs.’
‘Fuck.’
‘Dermot says it’s all part of his plan. I’m warming to Dermot. Are you?’
Belinda struggled to find the right thing to say. She was impressed, upset, mortified. Comparisons might be odious, but Viv and Jago were her own age. Identically her own age. She and Viv had started adult life with almost identical opportunities, from exactly the same spot, in fact: queuing for DramSoc at University College London, where they were subsequently cast as Helena and Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream alongside Jago as Bottom. Viv was in medicine; she and Jago were in English. She had rather fancied Jago in those days. Hard to imagine now. Stefan was so good, so dear, the way he just fitted in. What a shame his first wife, the loony one in Malmö, had got custody of all their Swedish friends.
Viv nudged her to look at Maggie and Leon again. They had their heads together. ‘Anal?’ Leon was querying, his body language expressive of severe discomfort. He ran his hand through his long, greasy hair. ‘Are you sure?’
Belinda wrestled briefly with self-pity, and lost. Just look at what Viv had made of her life. I could have had that. She was beginning to remember why she didn’t enjoy going out.
‘And yet you go to all this trouble,’ she marvelled, waving a hand.
Viv sighed. Not this again. Not that Superwoman crap.
‘I’m not getting into this again, Belinda, I warn you. As I’ve told you a million times, my cleaning lady does everything in this house, and I don’t lift a finger. In fact, I’m sorry to say this,’ Viv’s voice rose, ‘but I wish you’d just shut up about it.’
Even in her drunken state, Belinda was startled by Viv’s high-handed, imperious tone. Just because you abjectly deferred to someone year after year, paying them superlative compliments, that surely didn’t give them the right to assume some sort of superiority, did it?
‘All right, keep your hair on,’ slurred Belinda, ‘I only said –’
‘Listen, I’m just going to say this to you, Belinda. Just this. Sack Jorkin. Lose Patsy. Boot Mrs Holdsworth.’
‘Is that all?’
‘That about covers it, yes.’
‘Should I move to Botswana as well?’
‘I’m just telling you how it looks from where I’m standing. And where lots of other people are standing too.’
‘Mrs H washes her hair with Daz, Viv. She lives on water boiled up from old sprout peelings. She hasn’t had a new scarf for ten years.’
Other chatter stopped abruptly as Belinda’s voice rose. Only Leon could be heard, saying, ‘Penile? In what way?’
Stefan intervened. ‘I agree with Viv you should award Mrs Holdsworth the Order of the Boot,’ he offered, with a smile. ‘Viv is right, as always. Mrs Holdsworth takes the piss and cooks her own goose long enough. Tell her to up stumps. A good wine needs no bush.’
Belinda was confused, and a bit resentful. She didn’t understand how sacking the cleaning lady would in any way improve her ability to give dinner parties. And she disliked it, naturally enough, when pleasant evenings with chums and husband turned Stalinist all of a sudden. She couldn’t remember the last time she saw it on a menu. Dessert followed by show trials; then coffee and mints.
‘You need people with a bit of initiative around you,’ said Viv. ‘There’s nothing supernatural about what I do. I just hive off bits of my life I don’t want. You could do that. I give mine to Linda. The cleaning lady. She does everything. She’s doing the washing-up right now. She did all the shopping and most of the cooking.’
Belinda nodded. ‘Linda,’ she repeated, dumbly. So deeply did Belinda believe in Viv’s domestic powers, she had always suspected Linda was an invention.
‘I’ve got no sympathy for you, Belinda. None whatever.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You know what I mean.’
Belinda sniffed loudly, and started to fish under her chair for her handbag. ‘Stefan, shall we go home soon?’
‘Oh for God’s sake, don’t take offence,’ snapped Viv. ‘I’m only thinking of you, as usual.’
Belinda noticed that the others had stopped talking, in order to listen better. She was not unaware that tiffs with Viv were becoming a regular feature of fun nights out. She tried a last-ditch compliment, to deflect attention. It didn’t work. ‘You’ve redecorated this room,’ said Belinda. ‘It’s lovely. All this white is very attractive.’
‘Well, we got sick to death of sea green. No one has that any more.’
Belinda experienced a familiar sensation, remembering her own sea-green bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, hall and array of fitted carpets. ‘All right,’ she said, seeing that flattery was getting her nowhere. ‘Assuming I can get someone brilliant like your Linda, how do I choose which bits of my life to give her? I wouldn’t know where to stop, I mean start.’ Belinda thought about it, and felt a bit sick. ‘No, I was right the first time. I wouldn’t know where to stop.’
Viv arranged some wine bottles in a line. She was resisting the urge to hit Belinda. ‘Belinda, just imagine you had the choice. Would you rather sit in your study reading about – what is it you want to read about all the time?’
‘Doubles. Like Dr Jekyll and Mr—’
‘OK. Would you rather sit in your study reading that ridiculous old nonsense, or – I don’t know – keep the loo seat free from nasty curly pubes?’
Belinda masticated a truffle. It tasted wonderful, like violets. It took her mind off the hurtful implication that her curly pubes were nasty. ‘All right,’ she said warily, ‘I’ll replace Mrs Holdsworth. But I’m keeping Jorkin and Patsy.’
‘It’s your funeral,’ said Viv, and getting up, she started to clear dessert plates.
Stefan leaned across. ‘How about we ask this Linda if she can work for us too? She doesn’t work for you every God’s hour, I think?’
It was the most innocent of questions. But had they heard a suicidal gunshot from the downstairs cloakroom the effect could not have been more Ibsenesque. Viv stood up and knocked over her chair; Jago shot her a meaningful glance; Viv’s eyes widened in anger as she turned to face Belinda.
‘If you do that,’ she said, ‘I warn you, I’ll never speak to you again.’
Belinda laughed. They all did. Maggie even clapped. But Viv was serious. ‘Take my cleaning lady, you ungrateful bitch—’
‘Viv, we’re only talking about a cleaning lady! This is ridiculous.’
Jago chipped in. ‘I know it sounds crazy. Linda’s more than a cleaning lady, that’s all. She has a way of making herself indispensable. And let’s just say—’
‘That’s enough, Jago.’
Belinda fell back in her chair, exhausted. ‘I don’t get it,’ she confessed. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t get it.’
‘Coffee?’ said Viv.
‘I’ll help,’ offered Dermot.
Belinda and Stefan pulled faces at one another.
At the other sid
e of the table, Leon presented Maggie with a perfect, tiny origami racing car, folded out of a napkin. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Tell me what’s anal about that.’
Belinda woke up suddenly. How long she’d been nodding at the table she didn’t know. Noticing Viv was missing from her side, however, she stood up to find her but lurched unexpectedly and almost sat down again. She must be drunk. Jago was now telling Leon a familiar joke about a Jewish widow addressing her husband’s ashes in her hand. ‘“Remember the blow-job you always wanted, Solly?”’
Trying for a second time, she got up successfully and propelled herself towards the door – at which point, she heard Viv on a darkened landing, whispering angrily to Dermot.
‘I wouldn’t mind but she owes everything to me,’ Viv was saying.
‘Belinda’s a real nobody,’ Dermot agreed. ‘A nothing of a nobody.’
Belinda leaned against a wall and listened.
‘I introduced her to Stefan. It was all me. But she’s never content.’
‘Some people suck the blood out of you. They’re vampires. I see it every day, people taking the credit when everything they do is my idea. You have to tell them how great they are all the time. Belinda just takes and takes.’
‘You’re right. People only ever want to talk about themselves. We’re just mirrors they see themselves in. Mirrors in which they flatter themselves.’
Dermot’s voice became tender. ‘You shouldn’t be bothering with vampires, Viv. You should think only of your lovely, lovely self. I know I shouldn’t say it, but Viv, I mean this, you’re such a good person.’
Belinda held her breath and grimaced. Dermot clearly didn’t understand that flattering Viv made her vicious – sometimes to the point of violence. But something else happened. Because Viv evidently caught a sight of herself in Dermot’s flattering mirror.
‘Am I?’ said Viv.
‘You’re so good, so fine. In fact, I admire you very much.’
‘You do?’
‘I’ve got no reason to say this, incidentally.’
‘I know.’
There was a pause while the loathsome Dermot thought of some more sugary things to say. Belinda was astonished.
‘You’re fantastic,’ he continued.
‘Thank you.’
‘And, you know, I love just talking about you freely like this, without you feeling you have to say anything reciprocal about me.’
‘Wow.’
Belinda backed away to the kitchen, fearful of overhearing the inevitable culminating squelch of a kiss in the dark. Her emotions were mixed, and her demeanour unsteady, but her intention was perfectly clear. As she made her way to the kitchen, she had one single thought. She would hire Linda. Ungrateful vampire bitch that she was, she was determined to take, take, take. Petulance was an emotion that held no fears for Belinda. If Viv thought so badly of her already, then stealing her cleaning lady was obviously the very least she owed her reputation.
None of Viv’s friends had come face to face with Linda, so it was quite a surprise that she looked like Kylie Minogue. Belinda had imagined a composite of stereotypes. Lumpen librarian in a thick skirt and frilly blouse. Rubber gloves in primrose yellow. Intimidating. Carrying a bucket. A Cordon Bleu, perhaps, pinned to her sensible apron.
But the woman reading the magazine in the kitchen was in her early thirties and pretty. She wore fitted jeans and a spotless white T-shirt, with strappy shoes. Her auburn hair was thick and long, and when Belinda noticed her hands – small and clean, with nails beautifully polished, like mother-of-pearl – she felt an unaccustomed jolt of envy.
Hearing Belinda in the doorway, this youthful vision of unlikely cleaning lady assumed it was Viv. ‘I wish you’d let me do the rest of it, Viv,’ she said, indicating rather a lot of washing-up on the kitchen surfaces, ‘but I have to say I’m enjoying this Lancet. Oh, hello.’
Something about this greeting puzzled Belinda but, on the other hand, she was so fuddled by drink she could barely remember her mission.
‘Psst. Are you Linda?’ she hissed.
Linda was evidently amused. ‘Yes,’ she hissed back, exaggeratedly.
‘Shh,’ said Belinda. ‘I’m Mrs Johansson, but you can call me Belinda.’
‘All right, Mrs Johansson.’
‘Listen, Linda. I’ve got something to ask you.’ Belinda staggered slightly. ‘I want to ask you to work for me.’
‘That’s nice,’ said Linda. ‘I wondered when you would. That’s a lovely top.’
Belinda looked down at it, but couldn’t focus. ‘Are you sure? It’s not black, you know. It’s brown.’
Linda smiled.
‘Shall I come tomorrow?’
‘Wow, yes. If you’re sure. Blimey, that was easy.’
Belinda turned, and steadied herself in the doorway. ‘Dr Ripley may not be happy about this,’ she added, over her shoulder. She felt she ought to mention it.
‘That’s OK,’ said Linda.
‘Really?’
‘Leave it to me. Are you all right?’
‘I’m OK,’ said Belinda. ‘Thanks.’
Stefan tried never to argue with his second wife. Things had gone badly enough with the first one. But that night, as he drove home late through South London, he was impatient. Because for some mad reason Belinda had gone behind Viv’s back and attempted to steal her cleaning lady. Moreover, she’d informed him as if he would be pleased.
‘This underhandedness is a rum go, Belinda,’ he said. ‘Honest to goodness, I feel I may blow my top.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. Stefan drove too fast when he was angry. She’d only said Viv was a cow who regularly pierced her heart with a hundred poison quills, and now they were going to get killed jumping traffic-lights.
‘Listen. Viv is a lovely person. Your behaviour beggars description.’
‘No, Stefan. You’re wrong. There’s a subtext. Underneath all Viv’s loveliness towards me she actually hates me and she wants me dead. It’s a sibling-y kind of thing.’
‘You hate her, more likely. Because you make a meal of everything and to her it’s a doodle.’
‘Doddle.’
They stopped too late at some traffic-lights, and the car slewed with the braking force, jolting both of them forward. Belinda judged that this was not the right moment to mention how much she disliked Stefan’s driving.
‘Tell me you won’t hire this Linda.’
‘I can’t. Besides, Stefan, it was your idea. You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.’
He put the car in gear, revved high, and let out the clutch so that they shot forward at forty miles an hour.
‘Belinda, I tell you straight. It is not just the Linda thing. I am fed up to the back teeth, you are coming a cropper and I will not fiddle while Rome burns. Maggie says to me tonight, “Belinda is wedded to her work, not to you, Stefan.” You cry on the telephone to the man. I don’t want you going loco, Belinda. It happened to me before.’
Belinda frowned. What did he mean, it happened to him?
They cornered with a squeal of rubber.
‘Let’s leave Maggie out of it. She’s got her own agenda.’
Stefan slowed for some lights, and Belinda took a deep breath. ‘Look, I’m not going loco, as you put it. It’s just that nobody understands me except Neville.’
Stefan swung the car into Armadale Road, spotted a parking space and braked abruptly. It was an excellent spot, twenty yards from the house. He reversed the car into the space, turned off the engine, extinguished the lights. And putting his hand on Belinda’s arm, he pulled a solemn face.
‘Belinda, this isn’t like you. You are breaking up.’
‘For heaven’s sake, she’s only a cleaning lady.’
She kissed him hard, running a hand round his collar, smelling his hair. She’d never been addicted to a person before Stefan.
‘You’ll like her,’ she said. ‘Once you’ve met her, I promise you. You won’t be able to help it. And Viv will get ove
r it. The cow.’
Back at Jago’s, at three a.m., Viv crept downstairs to check the burglar alarm and found Linda sitting in the dining room in the dark, a book of Viv’s old photos in front of her on the table.
‘Linda?’ But Linda did not look up.
Viv switched on a table lamp and coughed.
‘Viv!’ Linda said pleasantly. ‘What a nice evening. Your friends are so interesting.’
‘Well, Leon was dreadful. Honestly, Jago is such a desperate judge of character. Do you know, after all that boring Brands Hatch nonsense, it turned out he doesn’t drive? Maggie had to give him a lift to Wandsworth Town. I don’t know why I try so hard for people, they never co-operate.’
Viv tidied a few things while Linda watched. The light-bulbs hummed. She smoothed a curtain. She had something important to ask. Talking to the cleaning lady, she had none of the commanding manner she adopted with Belinda. She seemed almost deferential.
‘Linda?’
‘Mm?’
‘You know how I depend on you?’ Viv laughed nervously. ‘I had a scare this evening. Did Belinda speak to you? You wouldn’t leave us, not after everything?’
But, as Linda turned a page and studied the pictures, Viv’s heart sank. She had hoped Linda would do the cleaning-lady equivalent of running into her arms. Instead, it was like asking, ‘You do love me, don’t you?’ and knowing after a few, short, vertiginous seconds that an affair was all over. The longer you have to wait for an answer to that sort of question, the more certain you can be that the answer is not the one you want.
‘How old is Stefan?’ asked Linda.
‘What? Oh, fifty-one.’
‘And you introduced him to Belinda.’
‘Yes. My sister met him at Imperial.’
Viv joined Linda to look at the album. It included fuzzy colour pictures from the old DramSoc days. Viv perused the page. Their faces were almost unrecognizable, but nothing had changed, really. At college, Maggie was disastrously involved with a succession of goaty lecturers. Belinda complained all the time about the timetable. And Viv organized an excellent summer outing, to which Jago brought along some useless dickhead they never saw again.