Paris for One and Other Stories Read online

  "Shall we go mad, then?" Kevin said, comb raised.

  Miranda thought of her daughter, yawning audibly whenever Sherry went on about their teenage double dates. She thought of Geoff, failing to even look up from the television when she returned home from work. Hi, babe, he would say, holding up a hand in greeting. A hand. As if she were a dog.

  "I tell you what," said Miranda. "Whatever your two-o'clock appointment was going to have, I'll have."

  Kevin raised an eyebrow. "Ohh . . . good choice," he said, seemingly reappraising her. "This is going to be fun."

  She had not run the footpath that night. She had sat in the kitchen and reread the messages and then jumped guiltily and glanced toward the living room when the next text arrived. Her heart gave a little lurch when she saw the name. She hesitated, then opened it. Am worried about U. Too long now. Can bear it (just!) if you don't want to do this, but need to know U R OK. XXX.

  She stared at the message, hearing its loving concern, its attempt at humor. Then she gazed up at her reflection, at the new, shorter cut with the reddish tint that Kevin had pronounced his best work all week.

  Perhaps it was the fact that she didn't look like herself. Perhaps it was because she hated to see anyone suffer, and John C was clearly suffering. Perhaps it was because she had drunk several glasses of wine. But, her fingers trembling slightly, she typed a reply.

  Am OK, she typed. Just difficult to talk right now. Then she added: X. She pressed the SEND button, then sat, her heart thumping, barely breathing until the return message came.

  Thank God. Meet me soon, Scarlet Woman. Am blue without you. X. A little cheesy, but it made her laugh.

  After that first evening, it became easier to respond. John C would text her several times a day and she would reply. Sometimes at work, she would find herself thinking about what she would say and her colleagues would remark upon her sudden blush, or her distractedness and make knowing remarks. She would smile and not disabuse them. Why would she, when John C's next text would arrive not half an hour later, professing his passion, his desperation to see her?

  Once she had deliberately left one visible on her desk, knowing that Clare Trevelyan would not be able to stop herself from reading it--or passing on its contents in the smoking room. Good, she thought. Let them wonder. She liked the idea that she could surprise people occasionally. Let them think she was an object of passion, someone's Scarlet Woman. She developed a glint in her eye and a little bounce in her step, and she swore that the post boy hung around her desk far longer than he used to.

  If occasionally it occurred to her that what she was doing was wrong, she buried the thought. It was just a bit of make-believe. John C was happy. Geoff was happy. The other woman would probably reach him some other way, and then it would stop. She tried not to think about how much she would miss it, picturing herself doing the things he remembered them doing together.

  It was almost two weeks when she realized she could no longer put him off. She'd told him that there was a problem with her phone, that she was waiting for a new one, and suggested that until then they speak only by text. But his messages had become insistent:

  Why not Tues? May not have another chance till next week.

  The English Gentlemen. A drink at lunchtime. Please!

  What U trying to do to me?

  It wasn't just that. John C had begun to consume her life. Sherry eyed her suspiciously and remarked how good she looked, how Geoff must finally be doing something right, in a way that suggested she thought this unlikely. But John C's messages created an intimacy that Miranda had never felt with any other man. They shared the same sense of humor, could express even in abbreviated form the most complex and naked of emotions. Unable to tell him the truth, she told him her hopes and secret wishes, her dreams of travel to South America.

  I'll take U there. I miss yr voice, Scarlet Woman, he told her.

  I hear yrs in my dreams, she replied, and blushed at her own audacity.

  Finally she had sent him the crucial message. The English Gentlemen. Thursday. 8 p.m.

  She wasn't sure why she had done it. Part of her, the old Miranda, knew that this couldn't continue. That it was a temporary madness. And then there was new Miranda, who, while she might never be able to admit this to herself, had started to think of John C as her John. Miranda might not be the phone's original owner, but John C would have to admit that there had been a connection. That the woman he had spent the last thirteen days talking to was someone who stirred him, who made him laugh, who scrambled his thoughts. If nothing else, he had to acknowledge that. Because his messages had changed her; they had made her feel alive again.

  Thursday evening found her fussing over her makeup like a teenager on her first date. "Where are you off to?" said Geoff, looking up from the television. He seemed a little taken aback, even though she was wearing a long coat. "You look nice." He scrambled up from the sofa. "I meant to tell you. I like your hair."

  "Oh, that," she said, blushing slightly. "Drink with Sherry."

  Wear your blue dress, John C had said. She had bought one specially, low in front with a kick-pleat.

  "Have fun," Geoff said. He turned back to the television, shifting slightly on the sofa as he lifted the remote.

  Miranda's confidence briefly evaporated at the pub. She had nearly turned back twice on the way there and still could not work out what to say if she saw anyone she knew. Plus, the pub was not the kind of place where they dressed up, she'd seen too late, so she kept her coat on. But then, half a glass in, she changed her mind and shrugged it off. John C's lover would not feel self-conscious drinking alone in a blue dress.

  At one point a man came up and offered her a drink. She had startled, and then, realizing that it was not him, had declined. "I'm waiting for someone," she said, and enjoyed his regretful look as he walked away.

  He was almost fifteen minutes late when she picked up her phone. She would text him. She was just starting her message when she looked up to find a woman standing at her table.

  "Hello, Scarlet," she said.

  Miranda blinked at her. A youngish blond woman, wearing a wool coat. She looked tired, but her eyes were feverish, intense.

  "I'm sorry?" she said.

  "It's you, isn't it? Scarlet Woman? Gosh, I thought you'd be younger." There was a sneer in her voice. Miranda put down her phone.

  "Oh, I'm sorry. I should have introduced myself. I'm Wendy. Wendy Christian. John's wife?" Miranda's heart stalled.

  "You did know he had one, right?" The woman held up a matching mobile phone. "He mentioned me enough times, I see. Oh, no." Her voice lifted theatrically. "Of course, you didn't realize it wasn't him you've been talking to these last two days. I took his phone. It's me. It was all me."

  "Oh, God," Miranda said quietly. "Look, there's been--"

  "--a mistake? You bet there has. This woman has been sleeping with my husband," she announced to the pub in a ringing, slightly tremulous voice. "Now she has decided that this might have been a mistake." She leaned forward over the table. "Actually, Scarlet, or whatever you call yourself, it's been my mistake, marrying a man who thinks that having a wife and two small children doesn't mean he can't keep screwing around."

  Miranda felt the sudden silence of the pub, the collective eyes burning into her. Wendy Christian took in her stricken expression. "You poor fool. Did you think you were the first? Well, Scarlet, you're actually number four. And that's just the ones I know about."

  Miranda's vision had become strangely blurry. She kept waiting for the normal sounds of the pub to resume around her, but the silence, oppressive now, continued. Finally she grabbed her coat and bag and ran past the woman to the door, her cheeks burning, her head down against the accusing stares.

  The last thing she heard as the door swung behind her was the sound of a phone ringing.

  "That you, babe?" Geoff raised a hand as he heard her pass by the doorway of the living room. Miranda was suddenly grateful for the irresistible draw of the
television. Her ears echoed with the accusations of that embittered wife. Her hands were still trembling.

  "You're home early."

  She took a deep breath, staring at the back of his head over the sofa.

  "I decided," she said slowly, "that I didn't really want to go out."

  He glanced behind him. "Richard will be pleased. He doesn't like Sherry going out, does he? Thinks someone's going to steal her away from him."

  Miranda stood very still. "Do you?"

  "Do I what?"

  "Worry that someone will steal me away?" She felt electrified, as if whatever he said would have far greater implications than he knew.

  He turned to face her and smiled. "'Course. You were a fox, remember?"

  "Were?"

  "Come here," he said. "Come and give me a cuddle. It's the last five minutes of Uruguay versus Cameroon." He held out a hand, and, after a moment, she took it.

  "Two minutes," she said. "There's something I have to do first."

  In the kitchen she reached for the mobile phone. Her fingers, this time, were assured.

  Dear John C, she wrote. A ring on the finger is worth two on the phone. You'd do well to learn this. She paused, then added: Foxy.

  She pressed SEND, then turned off the phone, stuffing it deep into the kitchen bin. She sighed, kicked off her shoes, and then she made two cups of tea and walked them through to the living room, where Uruguay was just about to take a penalty that would propel Geoff to the carpet, pounding the wool with delight. Miranda sat and stared at the television screen, smiling distantly at her husband and trying to ignore the distant but persistent sound, somewhere deep in her mind, of a phone ringing.

  The Christmas List

  Pink Fritillary. Only David's mother would insist on a perfume nobody has ever heard of. Chrissie has walked the length of the West End, and each department store has told her, "Oh, no. We don't stock that. Try . . ."

  As she pushes her way through the crowds, she begins to wonder if Diana has done it deliberately. Just so she can say with a sigh, on Christmas Day, Oh! David said you were getting me perfume. Still . . . this is . . . nice. Chrissie will not give her the satisfaction. She trudges down Oxford Street, dodging the harassed shoppers laden with shiny bags, ducking into shops until her shoes rub, her ears filled with the tinny sound of "Jingle Bells" on an electronic loop. One day, she thinks, she will remember that the twenty-third is no time for last-minute shopping.

  In Selfridges another assistant shrugs and looks blank. Chrissie thinks she might cry. Outside, it has begun to rain. She feels the weight of the carrier bags pulling at her shoulders and does something she has never done. She heads into one of the glossy bars and orders a large glass of wine. She drinks it swiftly, feeling mutinous, and overtips as she leaves, as if she is the kind of woman who does this all the time.

  "Right," she says as she heads for the doors. "One last push." And then she sees it, a rare sight on a wet London street: a taxi with its light on. She dives off the pavement, and it swerves to meet her.

  "Uh . . . Liberty, I think." She hurls her bags onto the backseat and sinks into it gratefully. She has never been in the back of a London taxi without feeling vaguely as if she has been rescued from something.

  "You 'think'?"

  "I need a particular perfume. For my mother-in-law. Liberty is my last hope."

  She can only see his amused eyes in the mirror, the close-cut hair of the back of his head.

  "Your husband can't help?"

  "He doesn't really do shopping."

  The driver raises an eyebrow. There is a whole world in that raised eyebrow. And then her phone pings:

  Did you pick up dollars for my NY trip?

  She'd had to go all the way home to fetch her passport, because the bank wouldn't let her exchange the money without it. It's why she is late now. Yes, she types. She waits a moment, but he does not respond.

  "Do you buy presents, then?" she asks the driver.

  "Yeah. I love all that. Mind you, this year my daughter's come home to live with us because she's had a baby, so . . . we're being a bit careful with what we spend."

  "Is she on her own?" The wine has made her garrulous. It's one of the reasons David doesn't like her drinking.

  "Yeah. She had a bloke, bit older, but he said he didn't want kids. She fell pregnant, and it turns out he meant it. It's a bit of a squash, and money's tight, but . . ." She can hear the smile in his voice. "It's lovely."

  I don't want children, David had told her, right at the beginning. I never have. She had heard the words as if through a muffler. Some part of her had always assumed he would simply change his mind.

  "Lucky her. Having you."

  "You have any?"

  "No," she says. "None."

  The taxi queues patiently in the heaving, wet street. Beside it a shop front blares "Jingle Bells" at deafening volume. The driver glances up.

  "Looking forward to Christmas?"

  "Not really. My mother-in-law doesn't like me very much. And she's staying a full ten days. Along with her other son, who speaks in grunts and keeps the remote control in his trouser pocket. I'll probably just hide out in the kitchen most of the time."

  "Doesn't sound like much fun."

  "Sorry. I'm a grinch. Actually, I've had a large white wine. Which means I'm saying what I think."

  "Don't you usually, then? Say what you think?"

  "Never. Safer that way." She tries to mask the words with a cheery smile, but there is a short, painful silence. Get a grip, she scolds herself.

  "Tell you what," he says. "My wife has a friend who works for Liberty. I'll call home. What's this perfume called?"

  She can't help eavesdropping. His voice, on the telephone, is low, intimate. Before he rings off, he laughs at some shared joke. She and David have no shared jokes. Somehow the realization of this makes her feel sadder than anything.

  "Forget Liberty. Little perfume shop round the back of Covent Garden, she says. Want me to try it?"

  She leans forward. "Oh, yes, please!"

  "She knew the perfume. Says it's lovely. And pricey." He grins conspiratorially.

  "Yup. That sounds like Diana."

  "Well, now you'll be in her good books, won't you? Hold on--I'm going to do a U-ey."

  He lurches across the road, and she laughs as she is thrown to the other side of the seat. He grins. "I love doing that. One day I'm going to get caught."

  "Do you like your job?" She pushes herself upright.

  "Love it. My customers are generally okay. . . . I don't stop for everyone, you know. Only people who look all right."

  "I looked 'all right,' then?" She is still laughing.

  "You looked anxious. I hate to see an anxious-looking woman."

  She knows immediately what he means. This expression that seems to have taken root on her face these last few years: the furrowed brow, the compressed lips. When did I turn into this woman? she thinks. When my boss left and Ming the Merciless took over. When my husband began spending every night behind a laptop, chatting to people I don't know. When I stopped looking at myself in shop windows.

  "I've offended you."

  "No . . . I just wish I weren't. Anxious-looking. I didn't used to be."

  "Maybe you need a holiday."

  "Oh, no. We have to take his mother these days. Which isn't really a holiday. Mind you, he gets loads of business trips to lovely places."

  The driver raises his hand in greeting to another taxi driver. "Where would you go, then? If you could go anywhere?"

  She thinks. "My best friend, Moira, lives in Barcelona. She has her own restaurant, right in the center. She's the most amazing chef. I think I'd go there. I haven't seen her for years. We e-mail, but it's not the same. Oh. Excuse me. Phone." She scrabbles in her bag and gazes at the illuminated screen.

  Don't forget the Stilton Mum likes from that special cheese shop.

  Her heart sinks. She had completely forgotten.

  "Everything okay?" the d
river says after a pause.

  "I forgot the cheese. I was meant to go to a shop in Marylebone." She can't keep the despair from her voice.

  "All the way over there? For cheese?"

  "She only likes one particular kind of Stilton."

  "Blimey. She's a tough customer," he says. "You want me to turn round? Traffic's not great."

  She sighs. Gathers her bags around her. "No. I'd better get the tube. I've probably already blown my taxi budget. Can you pull over?"

  His eyes meet hers. "Nah. Tell you what, I'll turn the meter off." And he does.

  "You can't do that!"

  "Just did. I do it once a year. Every year. You're this year's lucky recipient. Tell you what--we'll do the perfume, then we'll go back via the cheese shop, and I'll drop you at your station afterward. A little Christmas present . . . ah, don't . . . I was trying to put a smile back on that face."

  Something odd has happened. Her eyes have filled with tears. "Sorry," she says, wiping at her face. "I don't know what's come over me."

  He smiles reassuringly. It makes her want to cry more.

  "We'll sort the perfume. That'll make you feel better."

  He is right about the traffic. They sit in queues, lurching into sporadic action along back routes. The whole of London feels gray and wet and ill-tempered. She feels lucky in the snug taxi, one step removed from the awfulness of outside. He talks about his wife, of how he likes to get up with the baby at dawn so his daughter can sleep, just him and the little mite in his arms, gazing up at him. When he stops talking, she has almost forgotten why they have come to a halt. "I'll wait here. Leave your bags," he says.

  The perfume shop is a gloriously scented haven. "Pink Fritillary," she says, observing, as she reads her husband's handwriting, what a delicate scent to put on such a sullen, lumpen woman.

  "I'm afraid we're out of the fifty-milliliter," the woman says, reaching behind her. "We only have the hundred-milliliter left. And it's the parfum, not the eau de toilette. Is that okay?"

  It is twice what she has budgeted. But the thought of Diana's face . . . Oh! she would exclaim, the corners of her mouth pulling down toward her jaw. You got the cheap version! Never mind. I'm sure it's just as good for every day. . . .

  "It's fine," Chrissie says. She'll worry about the expense in January. The shopgirl wraps it in six layers of pink tissue.