Chapter 6
Kate was being silly. Romantic. Conformist. Carried away by social pressure and appearance. That was too easy as a movie star, even with her feet kept on the ground by the kids and Olivia.
They didn’t need to get married. She and Olivia had committed to each other with more maturity, truth and conviction than any of Kate’s previous partners, without even talking about marriage.
Kate had to swallow at the recollection, past relationships scarring her there. Olivia had restored her faith in people, so much she seemed to have a halo to Kate.
They’d promised to be together, all in, balancing Kate’s complex life as an actor, and mum to two kids, and co-parenting with Harry.
And that worked so well, with Olivia home so often, they decided they should live together.
Then Olivia wanted a baby, and it seemed a natural step, already blending into a family.
They’d managed every wonderful step in gentle conversations, Olivia approaching property arrangements with her practical lawyer head.
Olivia kept her house to rent out as something of her own.
She always considered Kate’s kids and now their baby.
And Kate would gaze at her with adoration for being so fair and sensible.
And when necessary, Olivia always did that, taking a careful moment to consider everyone, no matter how delicate the topic.
For everything but this.
They never mentioned marriage.
Not when Olivia’s mother married Charlotte’s mother. Not when best-friend, Charlotte laughed with her partner, Millie, at their fantasy wedding plans they couldn’t afford. Not when they attended the ceremony of Kate’s co-star from her last film.
It had never been awkward. There wasn’t any knowing avoidance. Just acceptance, given the catastrophe of Kate’s divorce.
Except...was it something to consider now? After a little time?
And was it only Kate who’d been ignoring it?
It bothered her as she stepped into Quod on the High Street late Monday afternoon. She pulled off her woolly hat and puffy coat and warm, humid restaurant air steamed her cheeks, cold from the icy day outside.
She immediately spotted an old friend at a table and waved to the fellow actor, now turned executive producer on a joint project. He stood up as she joined him, leaning down to kiss her cheek, and fondly squeezed her hands.
“Sorry I’m running late,” she said. “It’s Olivia’s day at the office and I had to drop Zoe at the nursery. She wouldn’t settle for ages and I’ve been playing catch-up since.”
“How are they?” Tom asked with an indulgent smile, knowing she was besotted with both.
He pulled out a chair for her, just as she noticed a guy standing by the central bar taking a photo.
Her heart sank. She usually passed through the streets of Oxford unrecognised, her makeup-free face, standard mum gear and stompy walk nothing like what people expected from a glossy actress who graced red carpets around the world.
She could imagine exactly the photo he’d taken.
A kiss from a tall, handsome guy. Him pulling out the chair, as Tom would for a man as well, including his boyfriend.
She could imagine the headlines just as clearly.
Kate’s new man? Is it lover number whatever for Laurence.
It was all so predictable, like they had a headline generator for her name.
“What’s up?” Tom asked.
“Oh, just a pap,” she waved away the concern.
Tom rolled his eyes before glancing over his shoulder.
“It’s all right. He’s going.”
“You can guess the shot though?” she said.
“Course.” He grinned. “Are we engaged?”
She sat down and ordered a coffee.
“So how are the fam and Olivia?”
“OK.” She nodded, distracted with her earlier thoughts. She picked up on his silence and caught a serious expression on Tom’s face.
“I mean, yes,” she said more enthusiastically. “Like really good.”
Because a weekend of sex and loving Olivia cast a glow over everything.
He smiled, pouring milk into his coffee and stirring it with great deliberation. “You’re not thinking of getting married again, are you?”
“What? How did you–”
“You are so predictably heteronormative, darling,” he grinned, camping up the line.
To be fair, she’d wondered at the pressure too.
She sighed. “Don’t you ever want to throw ‘my husband’ at them though?” She gestured to where the photographer had been. “When they’re hurling insinuating comments at you about every woman co-star and taking pictures like that.”
He shrugged.
“Doesn’t it bother you?”
“I can live with it.”
She shook her head.
It was worse on premiere nights, people shouting out how friendly she and her leading man were. Every time.
“Sometimes,” she breathed out, “I want to turn around and say no, I’m not with that guy. Because I’m going home to my kids and my wife.”
She stressed the word ‘wife’ – short and sweet with a whole social weight and significance. And for Kate, saying wife as a woman had a rebellious power, gay marriage still contentious for some and a right that she didn’t take for granted.
“I gave up caring what people say,” Tom replied. “Seriously, the more they fabricate the better, then I can dismiss the truth as rubbish too when I want.”
Kate felt differently though, wanting to protect her family and keep them out of the media.
Mentions of her too if possible, so that gossip wasn’t thrown at her kids in the playground.
It had been quiet lately, after filming and a premiere, then moving into the background work of an exec while Zoe was tiny.
But it would escalate as soon as she took roles again.
They moved on.
She pushed away the thoughts over coffee, but it still bothered her as she parted from Tom outside in the dusk and he left for the town centre.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
The same guy stood along the pavement, clearly swiping through some photos, and she imagined the hug goodbye was one of them.
“Got a new man, Kate?” he yelled.
She rolled her eyes. The body language between her and Tom wasn’t the least bit romantic. And most people would know that he had zero interest in women.
The guy lifted his chin, aggrieved she’d not taken the bait.
“Nah. Forgot you were into women as well, with your wife.”
She stared at him, an iciness filling her chest. The freezing cold realisation crept into her jaw and arms.
Natalie. He meant her ex-wife, Natalie.
He grinned, clearly satisfied with how the word landed, and took a photo of her standing there stricken. Bastard.
She sniffed and covered her face and slipped down narrow Magpie Lane. She took out her phone to record if the guy followed, and lunged through the darkness, breathing hard. She broke out into Merton Street, alone in the dusk, and bent over to catch her breath and swipe at tears.
That desperate, short marriage was going to follow her the rest of her life. One big mistake that would overshadow the woman who had her whole heart and the love of her family. It was grotesque.
There wasn’t the language to describe Olivia and everything she meant in a single term, and that felt inadequate.
Sometimes there were no terms for the people who meant the most – dismissed as friends, acquaintances, colleagues, when they were integral to your life and happiness, and whose support you couldn’t survive without.
“Please no,” she gasped into the quiet of the ancient street.
Natalie would forever be her wife. And that made her feel sick. Then her stomach turned over again at another realisation.
What if Olivia had avoided saying this? What if clever Olivia, often two steps ahead of clients and friends and Kate, had already realised that ‘Kate’s wife’ would forever mean Natalie?
And tears flooded her eyes and chilled in the cold evening air.