The Philanderer’s Wife (eBook)

Chapter 2

Realising the sheer impossibility of venting her feelings on Paddy, Joscelyn turned to her friend Philippa who, despite two of her three children having chickenpox, was happy to see her if she came round in the evening.

Philippa was a tall, athletic-looking woman, who normally dressed in practical clothes in tasteful, muted colours. Her main concession to vanity was her hair; naturally mousy but highlighted to an almost completely convincing blonde, and cut sharply and expensively. Joscelyn was a few inches shorter, softer-faced and a little rounder.

Philippa listened patiently to a long history of the details, and her friend’s fury and disappointment.

“I really did want to go to Cannes. I don’t care if I don’t see much of Paddy, because of all his business meetings. I wanted to see what it was like; feel the atmosphere. We’ve been married for five years; he should know what I like by now.”

“He should have asked you. He should never have arranged something like that without your consent.”

“And if he’d asked,” Joss wavered a bit, “I’d probably have said yes.”

“And missed out on the trip?”

“Possibly. After all, I’m going to the London premiere and the Dublin one.”

Philippa looked at her.

“But as it is, you’re very upset and Paddy isn’t really taking account of your feelings.”

“No.”

There was a moment’s silence, and then Philippa said, rather abruptly, “Have you thought about taking a stand?”

“What kind of stand?”

“Something that makes it quite clear that you’re not happy. He may be telling himself that you don’t really mind, that you’re just suffering from hormones or some such and will come round.”

“He is taking exactly that attitude. That’s why I feel I have to keep telling him. If I keep telling him, he’ll have to listen.”

“In my experience, the more you tell men something the less they listen.” Philippa spoke quite matter-of-factly. “I think you would have to make it clear some other way.”

“If I threatened to leave, he probably would take me to Cannes instead of Hilary. But I don’t want to make that threat. It isn’t that serious. I need to save that one for when I really do mean it.”

“Do you think you ever will mean it?”

Joss thought about this one. “I hope not,” she said.

They had finished eating their take-away meal. Philippa stacked the plates, and the little tin foil cartons which had contained their food, but she didn’t clear away. Instead she said,

“When Tara was a baby I insisted that Alistair came with us on a family holiday. He’d been a partner for six months and of course he didn’t want to go. I insisted. It took all my energy. Actually I did threaten to leave, and I meant it.

“Paddy was very good about it, I remember. I shall always be grateful for the support he gave us both at the time. He explained to Alistair that assistant solicitors are supposed to belong to the firm body and soul, but partners need to pace themselves a bit, and learn to delegate. So I won the day, or rather a week, because it was a week in Devon we were fighting over. Alistair came, and by the end of the week he was quite cheerful.”

Paddy had been a colleague and partner of Alistair’s at the time. The two men, although very different, had got on well. That was how Joscelyn came to know Philippa.

Philippa frowned, slightly, as she recollected, “I found it a bit odd, to be honest. All that togetherness, I wasn’t used to it, at least not with him. In some ways, I think once he made that big concession he found it easier than I did. But that was four years ago, and he’s not come with us since.”

Philippa got up, and put the dishes on the side, and put on the kettle for coffee.

“If I wanted to get him away every year I’d need to be prepared to fight and keep fighting, although if I did, I think eventually he would come round. Maybe I just don’t want it enough,” she looked at Joss, and her face was sad. “Maybe I’ve decided to bring the children up on my own and be by myself.”

Joscelyn felt sorry for her friend. They both had difficulties, and that bonded them. But they were of very different kinds. Paddy, affectionate and exuberant, just unable to contain himself, was a very different kettle of fish from Alistair Hardwick.

Philippa interrupted these thoughts,

“If you want to be truly assertive with Paddy, you’d need to really show that you just weren’t going to accept certain things. Make it clear to Paddy that he’s just going to have to do better if he wants to keep you. Or you could do what I do; let Paddy go his own way, and look for your own happiness elsewhere.”

Joss sensed her friend’s loneliness, and felt compassion for her. “I can handle Paddy,” she said. “I don’t think I need to take a stand, at least not now. And I admire you, being so strong and brave.”

Philippa smiled, and said, “Talking of holidays, will you come with the children and me to the cottage sometime? At half- term maybe?”

Alistair and Philippa had recently bought a very pretty cottage in Hampshire, which Alistair had been very much happier to finance than to visit. Joss was glad to accept. It would be something to look forward to.

* * *

Hilary Mackay came home in the late afternoon of a warm spring day to find that the daffodils in her window box had finally flowered. She found a message on her answer machine from Paddy.

“Terribly sorry,” Paddy’s voice said. “I can’t make drinks this evening. Something’s come up, which might be very useful to me on the Popeye project. Speak to you soon. Bye!”

Hilary wasn’t sure whether she was disappointed or not. She and Paddy had been going to have a drink with two of the actors from the play. Now it would be just her, and the actors. That was OK, although it would have been easier if Paddy had been there.

But perhaps it was better this way. She had agreed to go to Cannes at the same time as him (of course strictly as a professional colleague) and she had an idea that word had gone round, and people were beginning to link them in a way that wasn’t appropriate. If they were too much together, that would just fuel the gossip.

Altogether, Paddy was hard to place, hard to explain. He wasn’t exactly a friend. He was married, which none of her friends were. Although Hilary had not met his wife, Paddy talked quite freely about her. Hilary remembered when she had first had lunch with him, and he’d told her the story of doing the deal on Terrible Beauty. She’d asked,

“Were you married, then?” And Paddy had laughed, and said,

“Yes, I was, and to the same wife as I have now.”

“And so what did she think of you selling your flat and your car, and going off to America to try and sell a film?”

“Joss was tremendous. She’s a great support to me. I couldn’t have done it without her.”

Paddy had brought Hilary a lot of work. He admired her talent, and often told her so. And he had brought into her life not just work, but excitement. He was intelligent, and enthusiastic, and had knowledge of the arts, which was really very commendable in someone who had been a lawyer for ten years. Hilary still felt that he was basically a businessman. She had once tackled him about this, and he had happily agreed, and refused to accept that this was a waste.

Hilary felt that ultimately art and business were not compatible, which was difficult as Paddy had found the finance for her play. But he was more than just a money man. He would call by, at rehearsals, and have an almost magical capacity to raise morale, by having a laugh with people, and buying them drinks. Actually he always seemed to be buying things: drinks, the rights to film and theatre scripts, flowers, and the other week a shiny new sports car. Hilary felt that people with money should either share it with the less fortunate or spend it, thoughtfully, on things that were really worth having. She feared that there was a thoughtlessness about Paddy which would prevent him from ever being truly successful as a creative person.

There was an unpredictability about him, too. The day after he cancelled their drink, he’d phoned her, and asked her, at the very last minute, to join him, with Oscar Peterson, the famous writer, and several other people at a Chinese restaurant near his office.

* * *

Joscelyn was also phoned and invited, impromptu, to dinner in Chinatown. Unlike Hilary, she wasn’t already in central London.

“I’m in the bath,” she said, “and it will take me at least three quarters of an hour by tube.”

“Get a taxi. Order it straight away as soon as you’re clean and then get changed. You must come. We’ll have a drink first, and if you’re very late I’ll order for you.”

Joscelyn arrived at the restaurant just as the first course was being put on the table. Everyone else was sitting down, and there was a space left for her. Paddy got up. Large, and smiling, he spread out his arms as if he was going to embrace...