Chapter 2 Freya
FREYA
“So how long have you been married?” asks Isabella, once the scallop starters have been eagerly devoured.
I look at Charlie, our hands finding their way toward one another on the table. “It’s coming up on a year and a half,” I say, smiling at the memory of our impromptu civil wedding five months after we first met.
“What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?” my mother had wailed when I told her he’d dropped to one knee in my flat, declaring he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. “You barely know him.”
“I know all I need to know,” I said, refusing to let her embittered resentment of me, him, and the rest of the world sully my judgment. “He’s the one.”
“You said that about Pete,” she sniped, fixing me with a steely glare.
A boulder had pressed down on my chest at the mere mention of his name.
The visceral pain of discovering that the man I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with was seeing another woman was still so close to the surface that it threatened to choke me.
“That was different,” I’d managed as our fight started playing out in my mind’s eye.
Me, screaming, as I shoved him in the chest. Him, telling me it wasn’t what it looked like, as he tried to hold me off.
“How?” my mother questioned, her perverse need to have me hold myself accountable never far off topic. “You’d been with him for over a year—and you still didn’t know him well enough to know he wouldn’t saunter back to Australia with his tail between his legs at the first sign of trouble.”
“He had visa issues,” I lied, hating her for using my good news to dredge up my worst memories.
“So where’s this one going to run off to when it all goes wrong?” she mused, her tone dripping in sarcasm.
Two years on, I know it kills her to see that not only are Charlie and I still together, but we’re so ridiculously happy that it feels like we’re stuck in a constant honeymoon state.
She’d rather she’d been proved right. As wallowing in my unhappiness seems to give her what she needs to live and breathe.
I often find myself asking what kind of mother seeks out her only child’s wretched misery in order to validate her own life.
But I’ve never come up with a remotely justifiable explanation. It’s just how she is.
“Ah, I remember those blissful early years,” says Isabella, laughing as her husband throws her a withering look.
He seems to me a man who doesn’t have time to be here, let alone endure the painful small talk that is preceding the reason he was asked to come.
“Richard and I couldn’t keep our hands off each other back then,” she goes on.
“Now, we can barely be in the same room as one another.” She laughs again, but the echo around the room rings hollow.
“No disrespect, but that’s not going to happen to us,” chips in Charlie, pulling me in and kissing me on the cheek. “I’ll make sure of it.”
Reveling in my overinflated pride, I catch the eye of Coco, who visibly recoils at his affectionate gesture. As she leans back in her chair, her lips pull thin—if that were possible—as she surveys the pair of us through narrowed eyes steeped in discontent.
“So shall we get to the real reason we’re here?” asks Richard, as if unable to withstand the sentimentality any longer.
“Yes!” enthuses Frank, nodding to Coco to top up our drinks.
I’ve already had two large glasses of red, so I half-heartedly hover a hand over the top of my glass. But it’s of little relevance to Coco, who merely swishes it away and pours me another.
“So, Charlie…,” says Frank, pausing for effect.
I give Charlie’s hand a squeeze.
“You know how much I rely on you, not just in the kitchen, but in life. You’re like a brother to me.…”
Charlie’s jaw spasms, as it always does when he receives praise, seemingly still taken by surprise, even though he should be used to it by now.
I tell him that he shouldn’t be so self-effacing—that he should feel worthy to stand in line with the great new culinary cohort that is emerging on the London restaurant scene right now.
But his talent comes so naturally to him that doubt creeps into his psyche, convincing him that his God-given skill doesn’t deserve its place at the table—quite literally.
“… and Indigo wouldn’t be the instant success it is without you by my side—even though you so graciously let me take all the credit.” Frank looks around the room, swirling the deep burgundy liquid around in his glass. “What is that expression? The light beneath my wings?”
Coco rolls her eyes. “The wind beneath your wings?”
“No, no,” says Frank impatiently, clicking his fingers as if that will conjure up the words he’s looking for. “Hiding your light…”
“Hiding his light under a bushel,” I say, feeling Charlie flinch and cringe beside me. “He’s very good at doing that.” I turn to smile at him.
“Yes!” exclaims Frank. “Well, no more. You need to step out into that light.…”
He sounds like a preacher in an American megachurch, and I resist the urge to snigger.
“So Richard and I have decided to bring you into the business … properly. Give you a stake so that you feel it’s as much yours as it is ours.…”
There’s a sharp intake of breath, but I can’t work out if it has come from me or Charlie.
This isn’t what either of us expected and my emotions fight against themselves as I try to separate the excitement from the realization of what it will cost us, in terms of time—which we’re already short of—and money—which we’re saving in the hope of upgrading from Charlie’s terraced town house.
“I—I don’t know what to say…,” says Charlie, and I can tell from his tone that he means it.
He’s no doubt feeling as conflicted as I am.
Stepping up to take an active role behind the scenes of the business is slightly different to being given the accolade of head chef.
It’s a real commitment that will dictate our lives for the foreseeable future.
“We’re giving you a ten-percent stake,” says Frank. I can’t help but furrow my brow as I wait for the rest of the sentence. “And all we ask for in return is your continued hard work and loyalty.”
Richard’s eyes narrow as he looks at Charlie questioningly, silently asking if they’re right to trust him. I imagine this is what it feels like to be initiated into the inner sanctum of the Mafia.
“That’s amazing,” blusters Charlie, pulling his hand away from mine and going to stand up. “I would be beyond honored to accept your generous offer.” He walks around the table to shake Frank’s hand but is pulled into an alpha-male bear hug instead.
And while the backslapping ensues, I sit there, wondering whether I’m right to feel ever so slightly put out that there’s to be no conversation about whether it’s the right thing for us as a couple.
Are we not going to go home and spend our Sunday discussing the pros and the cons of such a commitment?
If I’d been in Charlie’s position, would I not have said, “Thank you, but it’s something we need to think about,” before looking for him to give his opinion, and blessing?
Perhaps I’m being overly sensitive. This had been his career trajectory well before I came along—why should he have to consider me in his decision-making? Because you’re his wife, says the devil on my shoulder.
“Excuse me,” I say, getting up from the table unnoticed. I need a moment to myself to collect my thoughts.
“The bathroom is up the stairs and to the left,” says a young girl, finding me floundering in the hallway.
I smile. “You must be Luciana?”
I can’t remember exactly how old Charlie said Frank and Coco’s daughter is, only that she is one of the Royal College of Music’s youngest prodigies.
She has the looks of a ten-year-old but the grace of a young woman—an odd dichotomy that child geniuses so often possess.
But no amount of practiced poise can disguise the abject sadness that emanates from every pore of her being.
I can all too easily imagine the life she’s leading: forced to spend hours honing her talent until her fingers bleed, all so that she can be wheeled out on occasions like this by her cash-rich, time-poor parents to parade in front of their impressionable friends.
“I hear you like to play the piano?”
She shrugs her shoulders. “I don’t mind it.”
I bet she doesn’t say that in front of her parents. “But you prefer Minecraft, right?”
Her eyes widen, as if I’ve said a dirty word. “How about dolls?” I say, wanting to find some common ground—something that might put a smile on her beautiful face.
“I have a dolls’ house,” she says, without a shred of irony.
Of course she does. No doubt a five-story Georgian stucco mansion, just like the very one we’re standing in.
With nothing to actually play with inside, apart from a miniature Aga oven that’s too small for even her delicate fingers.
“Would you like to see it?” she asks, with the faintest of hopes that I might say yes.
I hate to disappoint her, especially given that it’s exactly what she’s expecting.
But more because given the choice, it’s what I would have genuinely preferred to do.
I have a tendency to join the children under the table at grown-up occasions such as this, enjoying their easy company and nonsensical chatter, rather than indulge in the unrelenting cock-offs that invariably go on above the table.
“I wish I could.” I hope she can hear the sincerity in my voice. “But perhaps another time?”
“Luciana!”
The shrill call comes from high above us, and just the way it’s said has the little girl rushing up the stairs in a blind panic. “Sai che non devi parlare con gli amici dei tuoi genitori,” comes the scolding.
“But she asked,” cries Luciana.