Jack
My laptop is upstairs in our bedroom and I can hear it calling to me.
It feels like ages since I’ve had a proper stretch of time to write.
I’ve been hearing people talking about the sacrifices that they make for their partners this weekend, a lot of which make me look like a spoiled brat by comparison.
And I think I could do with reframing this.
Yes, I’ve been unhappy with some of the changes to our lives since the account snowballed.
But we’ve built it to such a level, we’ve written a book together (ish) and we’re done now.
When we get home, I can reasonably tell Jessica, properly – not by sulking and seeming sad and hoping she’ll work it out – that I want the break that we agreed to.
Something substantial.
And if she’s not upset, and I don’t handle it horribly like I did last time, we could talk about me doing my book, signing with Edward Nestor and finally working on the thing I’ve been trying to write since I was twenty-two.
Or go back to the BBC, cap in hand.
But either way, I want to do something I’m proud of, something that is mine.
I make my way towards the stairs and I’m almost halfway up when I hear the doorbell go. Who the hell is that going to be? I pause, hoping someone else will go. But the house is eerily silent, everyone absorbed in their own personal time.
I open the door and to my complete horror, standing there, looking like he teleported from Soho, is Clay.
‘Hello,’ I say, trying to summon enthusiasm. ‘What are you doing here?’
He walks into the house without waiting to be invited, and while I know I don’t own the place, I still find it rather objectionable.
‘Where’s your lovely wife?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘You might want to go and find her. I’ve got news.’
Jessica
Jack appears in the library, just as I’m trying to find a book to read. Like a proper grandfather, Ken gave me some very sage advice then implied quite clearly that he’d like me to bugger off and leave him on his own.
‘What are you doing?’ Jack asks, apparently irritated about something.
‘Oh, just sort of working out what to do with myself.’ I shrug, hoping he’s not going to point out how weird it is that I don’t know what to do with free time.
‘Right. Clay’s here.’
‘Clay?’ I reply, something fizzing in my upper abdomen.
‘Yes. About yay high? Dresses like a Danish architect despite being from Surrey? Takes fifteen per cent of our money.’
‘What on earth is he doing here?’ This has got to be big, but is it good big or bad big?
‘No idea. He said he had something to tell us.’ Jack turns to walk back into the hallway as my stomach drops to the floor.
We find Clay sitting on a sofa with his feet up. He stands and kisses me on each cheek.
‘In the nicest possible way,’ I ask, ‘why are you here?’
‘I have news,’ Clay says, beaming. ‘And I thought it would be nice to deliver it in person.’
I feel light-headed. Relief and nerves, surely this means it’s good big? Back when Jack and I first got into this stuff, we learned that there’s a sort of hierarchy with managers. They email with bad news, phone with good news. And now we’re about to find out what it means if they come halfway across the country to see you in person.
‘I heard from the Americans,’ he tells us.
I grip my hands together. The Americans have been umming and ahhing about publishing our book for months. I’ve been hoping and praying and embarrassingly even manifesting that they would, because it’s the first step to cracking America and opening us up to a massive new audience. It’s the one I’ve wanted since we first signed the book deal. ‘And?’
‘Well, as you know, they wanted to see how the sales figures here were, and how your demographic was developing internationally. And they were impressed. Very impressed. So impressed that we had a call yesterday and they’ve officially made an offer.’ I try desperately to drink this in, so that I can remember what this feels like. ‘And that’s not all.’ He pauses dramatically. ‘They’ve got a first-look deal with a production company. So they want the film rights, as well as the book.’
I scream and throw my arms around Jack and then Clay. ‘I can’t believe it!’ I gasp. ‘Oh my GOD.’
‘I haven’t even told you the number yet,’ Clay says, almost purring.
‘Oh my God, how much?’ I ask, almost scared to hear the answer.
I feel like I’m going to simultaneously throw up and burst into tears. I look at Jack next to me who’s stood there in total shock, probably struggling to process the enormity of what Clay’s just told us.
‘What does this mean in terms of next steps?’ Jack asks after a minute.
‘Good question. It’ll be another edit; they’ll want a version of the book that works for the US market. And then it’ll be a publicity tour over there, at least a month. They’re talking about doing ten cities – and I don’t want you to get your hopes up, but apparently they’re shooting for the talk shows.’ I make another very uncool squeal at this. Clay looks at me, indulgently amused. ‘In terms of the film,’ he goes on, ‘I know less at the moment, and I imagine it’ll be more of a ceremonial position than a writing one, but they’ll want you to be producers on it. And then assuming the film comes out, there’ll be a whole second wave of publicity around that, though who’s to say when that would be,’ Clay explains.
‘So what about our break?’
Clay and I both turn to look at Jack. Neither of us saying anything.
‘We’d said we were going to take a break?’ he repeats.
‘I mean, I don’t think anyone knew just how much demand you two were going to be in.’ Clay chuckles. ‘When things like this come knocking, you don’t say no. But listen, I can get you a couple of days to recover from this thing. Maybe head out to the US early? Actually, with all the edits and the next PR tour, you might find it’s easier just to be based out there for a few months.’
‘We could stay in New York for a couple of months?’ I whisper and look over at Jack. Surely the Sex and the City dream has got to be better than a break? I get that he wanted to catch his breath, but we could stay in a brownstone in Brooklyn, wander across the cobblestones for brunch, spend the weekends at the Met. He’d be living where people like Herman Melville and Edith Wharton lived – his literary heroes.
‘Can’t you see us walking along the Hudson? Long lunches at Balthazar? Martinis at the Carlyle?’ I ask, desperate for him to see the vision. It’s surely the best place we could be without children. ‘We could do weekends upstate, you can look at every picture in the Met while I’m at Bergdorf?’
‘Yes,’ he says, still a little shell-shocked. ‘Yeah, that’s definitely a plan.’
‘Right?’ I smile, wrapping my arms around him.
‘Wow. So does this make a second book more likely?’ Jack asks Clay.
Clay gives Jack a look. He never really understands Jack’s self-deprecation. ‘Jack, there was always going to be a book two. The pre-orders and early sales surpassed the publisher’s wildest dreams; you’re a debut that landed at the top of the Sunday Times bestseller list. Of course they’ll want to take up their option for the second book. They’ve already made that clear.’ He laughs and I almost jump up and down. The entire time we were doing the book, it always felt so flimsy, like one wrong step and it could all disappear. When we bought the house, it felt so dangerous, like we were letting ourselves slip into a world we couldn’t afford to stay in. But this is different. This is the rubber stamp I’ve been waiting for. And with the kind of money Clay’s talking about, that terror that it’s all going to disappear, that I’ll be back hoping my card doesn’t decline when I get on the bus, that’s gone. They say money can’t buy happiness, but what I’m feeling right now, this kind of bullet-proof optimism about our future, that’s a feeling that only money can give you and I’m so unbelievably grateful for it.
‘Jesus, Jack,’ I say, hugging him again. ‘We did it. We really, properly did it.’
He smiles down at me. ‘You did it,’ he says.
I shake my head. ‘I couldn’t do any of it without you. And I know it’s a lot, to have to keep going, not take a break. But it’s not like we’d be doing anything important with that time.’ I glance down at my stomach, empty and hollow. I can’t bring myself to say it, that I couldn’t get my head around the break if we weren’t having a baby. But I think he knows.
‘Right, lovebirds,’ Clay says, picking up his bag. ‘Shall we go over some quotes for press about the retreat?’
‘Absolutely,’ I say, getting to my feet. ‘Let’s go and find a bigger table so we can stretch out.’
‘It’s supposed to be selfish time?’ says Jack.
I stop halfway to the door. ‘Sorry. You’re quite right. Clay, can you wait for a bit? Jack and I are halfway through one of the sessions for the weekend.’
Clay looks perturbed. ‘I said I’d have this back with the team in a couple of hours.’
I look at Jack, and then at Clay, and wonder for a moment why I seem to get stuck between them so often. ‘Would you mind? If I did a couple of hours with Clay on this?’ There’s a loud silence.
‘Sure,’ Jack says eventually. ‘I guess this is what makes you happy, so it’s kind of appropriate.’
‘Exactly.’ I smile as he leaves the room.
‘How’s it been?’ Clay asks as he unpacks his laptop, an iPad and a sheaf of papers on to the dining table.
‘Really good, actually,’ I reply. ‘I was nervous about it, joining in and being part of the activities. But it’s been great. I think it’s helped us a lot.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought Jack would be able to get off his high horse long enough to join in,’ Clay laughs.
I bristle at this. Occasionally I’ve let myself confide in him, because it was easier than talking to Grace, who seemingly had things perfect, or any of my other friends who I worried might think I sort of deserved it as karma for bragging about my amazing marriage. But I realise, as Clay cheerfully makes a snide comment about my husband, the person I’m allegedly the world’s biggest cheerleader for, that I’ve got something wrong. If he feels like he can languidly snipe at Jack, that’s because I’ve made it seem like that’s okay.
‘He’s been brilliant, actually,’ I say.
Clay seems to understand that I’m telling him to shut up, without telling him to shut up. He acknowledges me with a little nod, and then opens the laptop so we can pick between ten almost identical quotes and ten almost identical headshots of us.
Jack
I head towards the kitchen because I want to drown my sorrows in biscuits, and because obviously there’s now no point in using ‘selfish time’ to write. I woke up this morning with a purpose. Get through the last part of the retreat, get back to London and get back to the BBC, to some version of myself that I recognise. Finish the book. Convince Edward Nestor that I’m worth representing and put some distance between me and the Seven Rules era, without hurting Jessica or seeming ungrateful for all that nice money they threw at us. Easy. Perfect.
Too perfect, it turns out. In retrospect, it was painfully na?ve of me to think that we’d be allowed to stop making money for Clay and the publishers. We’re golden geese, so obviously we’re not going to be allowed to run around free range. And now the next year of my life is going to be spent doing this whole thing over again, but in America this time. Months and months more of Seven Rules. Then, inevitably now, the whole circus will start again with another book.
I know I should be happy. I want to be happy. This is the seal of approval Jess has dreamed of since she started making money this way. She spent years sitting at a desk being patronised and ignored, she applied for job after job and got rejected for all of them because she didn’t have the right experience or know the right people, and then finally, when she’d made her peace with never having a career she was in love with, this all happened. I want it for her. I just really, really don’t want it for me. And I don’t want it for our relationship either. The unavoidable truth is that we were better together before all this started.
For a while I latched on to the idea that all this was worth it to buy a house instead of moving every time a landlord sold up. I even bought into the logic that it was a way to put something into savings, catch up with our friends who have wealthy parents. But I can see now that if it went well, it was never going to be an in-and-out thing. I’m done with pretending that I can extricate myself from this. Of course it’s not going to work like that. It’s going to be like we’re at a casino, chasing a win by throwing the dice over and over again, not caring about the cost. Jessica’s never going to want to stop doing this because it’s making her feel alive, and I’m never going to be allowed to bow out because despite having fuck all to do with the content, I’m part of the package. I am stuck. Not important or necessary, not central to the work, not creatively fulfilled – not even really creatively consulted. But locked in.
I let the kitchen door bang as I walk in, and then head straight to the cupboard.
‘What’s wrong?’ Surprised to hear a voice behind me, I turn around to see Verity standing in front of a stand mixer, weighing out ingredients.
‘Sorry,’ I say, stopping on my quest. ‘Sorry, I was just being clumsy. What are you doing?’
‘Baking.’
‘Stupid question,’ I say, looking at the very obvious evidence around her.
‘Want to help?’ she offers.
Not really. But I can’t write now, and at least if it looks like I’m in conversation with one of the guests I can’t be dragged back to Clay and Jessica’s production line. ‘Sure. What can I do?’
‘Preheat the oven. To 180, please.’
I put the oven on, and she looks impressed. ‘Well done.’
‘It’s really not complicated.’
‘Wouldn’t have stopped most men from asking how to do it.’
I laugh. ‘Who does the cooking in your house?’
She gives me a look.
‘Another stupid question.’ I hold my hands up.
She passes me a bowl, some icing sugar, cream cheese and a wooden spoon. ‘You can start on the icing. Beat half of that into that.’
I do as I’m told, surprised to find myself really thinking about it, trying to get the measurement right, not make a mess. There’s something rather meditative about it, watching the icing thicken. Ironically, given my feelings towards the book right now, I find myself remembering why so-called ‘selfish time’ is a very good rule. I feel my rage dulling to a simmer.
‘So what’s actually going on?’
‘What makes you think there’s something going on?’
‘Oh please. That whole thing at the massage session?’ She’s looking at her work, not at me, but somehow it still feels like she’s gauging my reaction.
‘Oh. That. Nothing really, just that whole pressure point thing, Jessica felt like she’d had a big emotional release. Processed a lot of hard stuff.’
‘What does she have to process?’ Verity says. She stares me down, her eyes straight into mine. I expect her to backtrack when she realises what she’s said, to apologise, even. But she doesn’t. She keeps looking me straight in the eye. ‘Aren’t you two supposed to be the perfect couple?’
I laugh, and she reads this as a response. ‘No?’
‘I don’t think she’d appreciate me talking about it.’
‘Course not,’ Verity says, sifting flour into the bowl. She’s madly neat, not getting a speck on the counter. ‘Though, I would say—’ She stops.
‘Would say what?’ I want to know.
She looks like she’s searching for the words. ‘For ages I wasn’t saying anything about my life or my stuff. Because I wanted to protect Noah, I didn’t want to say anything that made him sound bad. But that meant I wasn’t talking about my stuff either.’
I nod. ‘Yeah. I get that. I think it’s pretty normal to want the world to think well of the person you love.’
‘I know it’s different for you two,’ she says. She puts her finger in the icing I’ve made and licks it. ‘Sorry!’ she laughs. ‘Just cost you your five-star food hygiene rating. That’s good!’
‘I promise I won’t tell anyone.’ I smile, pathetically buoyed by the feedback.
‘Thanks.’ She grins back.
‘Is this really what you wanted to do? With your free time? Baking?’
‘Sure. Why not?’
‘Just seems a lot like the kind of thing you’d be doing at home. Something which benefits other people.’
‘True.’ She stirs for a moment. ‘I think it would have taken more time than we were given to work out what I actually want to do. For myself.’
‘That makes sense. I can understand wishing you could put yourself first a bit more.’
‘Really?’ She seems surprised.
‘I shouldn’t really go into it,’ I say, knocking the toe of my trainers against the kickboards of the kitchen island like a moody teenager.
‘You do talk to someone, though, right?’ She opens drawers, whispering the word ‘scissors’ as she looks for them.
‘Uh,’ I reply. ‘No. No, not really. I’ve tried therapy a few times but it’s not really for me.’
‘I don’t mean a therapist, I mean like a friend or something.’
‘Still no, honestly. Most of my mates have kids so they’re nigh on impossible to get hold of, and then when we do go out, they’re always talking about how great my life must be because I’m child-free and assuming I don’t have any problems, even though the child-free thing is actually kind of part of the problem, so I don’t want to bring them down, and Jessica doesn’t want them to know that we’re trying to get pregnant. It’s always supposed to be a secret, so she’s privately obsessed and publicly we have to just act like the question of kids has never occurred to us. I used to have some work mates I talked to, but then of course I got canned from my job because I was doing this book and it was bringing “the wrong kind of attention”, and Jessica thought that was some brilliant triumph, like she wanted everyone to know our book was doing well enough that we didn’t need to have other jobs, but fuck me, I miss it. I miss it so much. I wake up in the morning and I’m just totally lost, I don’t know what to do with myself. Every time I tried to help with writing the book, it was like anything I suggested was stupid, and then the publishers had all these plans and they just spoke to Jessica like I wasn’t there. It all sounds so stupidly futile, complaining about not being allowed to work, having all this free time and freedom – you must hear this and think I’m such a prick, and I probably am; God knows I am to Jessica most of the time, you know? I’m really shit to her, I’m pretty much always in a bad mood and she doesn’t understand why. I just miss us when we were younger. I know she hated us being broke, but we were happier, we really were.’
I once tried to drink the top shelf of the bar at a pub in Oxford, after I’d eaten some sushi from the discount bit of the petrol station. It’s never been clear which of them caused the great hurling incident of 2009, but whatever the cause, that was very much like this, only then it was actual vomit and right now it’s word vomit. Streams and streams of it, everything I haven’t said to anyone for the last couple of months, just spewed over the pristine walls and floor of this designer kitchen.
Verity has stopped doing anything to do with baking. The cake mix, yellow and wet, sits in the bottom of the pan, half full, and drips on the marble counter. She looks at me like she’s genuinely very sad for what she’s just heard. ‘Have you said any of this to Jessica?’ she asks.
‘No,’ I reply. ‘Not really. Bits of it, sometimes, maybe. But not properly. I think I keep waiting for her to realise, like it’ll mean more if she decides to rescue me when she notices it herself. But she never does. Sometimes I worry that maybe she has, and she thinks that it isn’t important.’
I feel like a teacher who’s invited a student into their office and then started crying about their divorce. I’m supposed to be helping Verity, not putting all my misery on her plate. But saying all of this to her, despite being wildly inappropriate, has helped clarify that I need to pull myself together and talk to Jessica. I want her to be happy, but she’s not going to be happy if our marriage falls apart, and if we keep on like we’ve been for the last few months, it’s going to. Her happiness is important, but – and this is very hard to admit as a British man who wants to repress every feeling before he’s even felt it – mine is too.
‘She should have noticed,’ Verity says, putting her hand on mine. ‘That’s her job. She’s your wife.’
‘I think maybe that’s part of the problem,’ I say sadly. Probably self-pityingly. ‘It’s literally her job, being my wife.’ I feel tears pricking behind my eyes, and I try to blink quickly enough that they’re gone before they escape, but I’m not fast enough and they run down my face. I brush them away with the sleeve of my jumper. Why am I doing this? Why am I talking to a semi-stranger about this intensely private stuff? But then, Verity’s the first person who’s asked me. I think maybe I would have told anyone who asked. And there’s something reassuring about the fact that this will leave with Verity. I’ll never see her again. It’s like the Catholic kind of confession, speaking into a void and taking the catharsis from saying it all. ‘Jesus. What are we going to do with ourselves?’
‘Well, I’m going to get divorced,’ Verity says calmly.
‘What?’
‘Yes. I did some sums, and I know how much money I need. It’ll take me a while because basically none of my work pays. But once I’ve got it, I’m going to take the boys and we’re going to leave Noah.’
‘Are you sure? That’s a big decision to come to.’ Jesus. Is this our fault? Have we accidentally inspired her to make some huge life-changing decision? And is there anything in place to make sure we can help her if we have? I briefly think about quiet, stoic Noah finding out that he’s not going to live in the same house as her anymore, and about their kids being shuttled between them, and the thought comes with a surprisingly sharp pain.
‘Yes.’
‘He doesn’t seem ...’
‘Horrible?’
‘I, uh. Well. No.’ I cringe.
‘He isn’t. He’s not much of anything, really.’
There’s a long, heavy pause and yet again I feel completely unequipped to deal with the situation I find myself in.
The person who would know what to do with all of this is Jessica.
Because it’s always Jessica.
Which must, I realise, be a bit draining for her.
When something in the house breaks, she knows where the manual and the warranty are, or finds the right number to call and get it fixed.
When we’re double-booked, she massages the diary.
She organises our holidays, arranges our social life, makes sure that the fridge is full and the house is clean.
Even if she doesn’t really go in for cooking anymore, she makes sure that there are snacks and meals and plans and routines and everything around us is safe and functional.
I used to do things for her, for us.
Back in the day I’d go to the supermarket on the way home on Tuesday, when fresh flowers went on yellow-sticker discount.
I’d come home with a battered bunch of tulips and she’d perk them up in some water, do something clever with taking off the leaves, and they’d look great.
And then, after the account took off, some flower company offered her a free weekly subscription.
She was elated that the flat was suddenly filled with all these expensive, beautiful flowers all the time.
It seemed a bit stupid to buy her the supermarket flowers after that.
So one of the little things that I did to make her happy got retired, and I didn’t replace it with anything else because pathetically, I felt hurt.
And I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want a row.
All the same lazy excuses I’ve been making, and that I need to stop making.
I glance up at the clock on the kitchen wall and realise, with relief, that selfish time is almost over. It’s almost time to go home. ‘I should get going,’ I say to Verity. ‘Thanks for this. It really helped.’