Chapter 66 Georgie
Highgate is halfway between Muswell Hill and Hampstead in terms of both geography and prestige.
The fact that Georgie lives there is annoying.
She went to Downe House, was brought up in the Cotswolds, had several horses and can ski.
Unusually for a woman, she inherited the title of baronetess when her father died, as the title had a special provision that enabled succession through the female line.
She is also the anchor to the past that Madeleine and perhaps Stephen seem to yearn for.
I email her, pretending to be a client for her PR firm, and ask to meet at the media-friendly Dean Street Townhouse in Soho, just across from the walk-in STD clinic.
I stand under the gaudy awning of a gentleman’s strip club and watch her arrive.
I leave it a few minutes, then enter. Georgie sees me approaching, and I spot the bristling of her shoulders as I take my seat.
‘What a coincidence,’ I say, and hold out my hand.
‘Sorry, I can’t speak now, I’m waiting for a client,’ she says, and I can see she’s made an effort with her outfit to look a little bit hip, which she isn’t.
‘I’m the client,’ I say. ‘I need some PR advice about how to destroy a rival without ruining my reputation. Do you have any experience in that field?’
‘I don’t want to speak to you,’ she says, shrinking from me.
‘Then at least listen.’ I sit, remove my coat and notice some of Nathan’s breakfast on my blouse and sigh to myself. I did want to make a powerful impression, and soggy Weetabix slightly undermines it.
I turn to the waitress, who has the insouciance of a model.
‘How may I help?’ she manages to squeeze reluctantly from her lips.
I hold her gaze for a second to reset the relationship, then smile. ‘I’ll have a decaf skinny latte, and my dear friend here will have the same, is that right, Georgie?’
Georgie smiles politely. I know she’d hate a scene in front of her kind of people. Me, I have no kind of people, which renders me quite dangerous.
‘What do you want?’ Georgie says, as the waitress departs.
‘That’s rather unwelcoming,’ I say. ‘And bold, considering you get your groceries and grope in the same weekly shopping trip. Saves on petrol, I suppose.’
Her face crumples. ‘Does Stephen know you’re here?’ she says as if in control, but there’s a layer of sweat on her upper lip already.
‘I think it’s better to keep men out of business deals, don’t you? They tend to get emotional,’ I say, and hold her gaze.
She stares. Her blue eyes are less beautiful than they once were. They have a watery quality now, no doubt from too much pleading.
‘I don’t think there’s anything to discuss, actually. Love is love. It finds a way, doesn’t it?’ she says, falling back on her PR training, but I sense it’s only skin deep. A prod with a fork would puncture her.
‘You’re fucking my husband. Don’t you think that merits a conversation?’
‘I love your husband. He loves me. It’s sad that he doesn’t love you any more, but false love withers, while true love doesn’t die, it just hibernates.’ Georgie’s face brightens as she says this, which is sweet.
‘I bet he says that to all his mistresses,’ I reply, and watch her closely for any doubts, but there are none. Aristocratic confidence. I might need to increase the pressure.
‘He’s never stopped loving me. I’m sorry about that but, as you’ll remember, I was here first.’ She gives me what is, I presume, a fake sympathetic smile.
‘What he feels isn’t of any importance, Georgie. I don’t rely on emotion when dealing with important matters like love. We have a contract. You’re trying to break that contract.’
‘Just let us be together, Lalla. He would’ve left you some time ago but he didn’t want to hurt the children.’
‘How kind of him to consider his children. By my reckoning, you’ve been together on a regular basis for about twelve months.’
‘Four years,’ she says with a small smile she can’t hide.
‘Since Nathan was born?’ I say, feeling my heart sink again.
‘Just before, actually,’ she says, her smile broadening. ‘While you were heavily pregnant.’
‘Well, that shows a ruthless streak I didn’t know you had,’ I say, smiling back. The hit, though, is very real. I’ve been truly duped. It’s not jealousy or sadness I feel, it’s shame. I slip my hands beneath the table, so I can pinch myself hard while my face remains impassive and calm.
‘It’s not how I would’ve wanted it to happen. We met by chance. We had a few nights together, and then he felt it was wrong, and we stopped for a month, but the feelings we had were too strong. You can’t swim against the tide for ever.’
‘If he’s failed to leave me for four years, what makes you think he will now?’
‘The children are old enough to understand now.’
‘It’s all about the children, is it? Well, they’d be so thrilled to know Daddy is fucking some woman on the side but not leaving Mummy because he doesn’t want to be seen as a bastard.’
‘It’s not like that,’ she says.
‘He likes having his cake and eating it, that’s all. I don’t mind as long as there’s a good salary coming in and he doesn’t bring any diseases home with him, but he’s not leaving me. I absolutely forbid it.’
‘I don’t think he’s eating cake with you any more,’ she says, rather snidely.
‘Is that what he tells you? Well, believe me, he’s still got a sweet tooth.’
‘I don’t believe you. He’s told you he wants a divorce,’ says Georgie, glancing nervously at the other tables.
‘That’s what these men say for years and years, but do they actually leave?’ I stand up. I’m talking so loud now that the waiters start to confer on the best course of action.
‘Let’s be civilized,’ she says.
‘You’re being misled. So I’m going to set out your options. Option 1, you leave him, and I don’t harm you. Option 2, you carry on, and I do harm you.’
‘You can’t threaten me, Lalla. We’re not animals,’ says Georgie. She picks up her coat and places it across her lap. ‘I love him. You split us up once. I’m not losing him again. Everything’s planned already. The house. The wedding.’
‘The wedding?’ I say, another feeling of being punched in the gut.
‘We’ve chosen the Cotswolds, in late summer as soon as the divorce is through.’
‘Madeleine knows, does she?’
Georgie shrugs neatly. The waitress arrives and places our drinks on the table. She retreats quickly. Neither of us takes our eyes from the other.
‘Well, I presume he’s told you that I’m pregnant again,’ I lie, feeling it’s the only way I can return the blow. ‘So your wedding might have to wait.’