A MARRIED MAN.

CATHERINE ALLIOTT.

Chapter One.

'She'll have you for breakfast,' observed Jess tartly, rubbing a bit of grime off a Spode jug and setting it down on the trestle table in front of us.

'Who will?' I broke from my contemplation of the a.s.sorted bric-a-brac and antiques before us to glance up defensively.

'Your mother-in-law, of course. Talk about strolling back into the lion's den. You didn't actually say you'd go, did you?'

'Of course I did,' I said hotly. 'Christ, Jess, if someone offered you two sets of school fees and a converted barn over your head in a picturesque, rural idyll, don't tell me you'd pa.s.s it up! Don't tell me you wouldn't leap at it too, and anyway, she's my ex-mother-in-law - that makes all the difference.'

'Rubbish,' she scoffed as she arranged a fistful of silver spoons on our faded velvet tablecloth. 'Not in her eyes. As far as she's concerned you'll always be the mother of her grandchildren and that, my dear Lucy, is entirely the point. That is precisely why you've been offered such a mouthwatering package down in Netherby-sur-la-ancestral-pile with all its crumbling turrets and sod-off acres. It has absolutely nothing to do with your wellbeing or your welfare, and certainly nothing to do with your undoubted charms.' She beamed past me as a customer loomed.

'Yes, madam, it is Royal Worcester and you're quite right, there's just a teeny bit of damage to the spout, but otherwise it's in wonderful condition for such a rare piece, don't you think?'

She bestowed a radiant smile on Madam who, swaddled in ethnic knits on this flaming cold June day and with all the hallmarks of a seasoned Portobello Road aficionado, was peering doubtfully over her spectacles. She ran a practised eye over the rest of the collectibles on our stall, sniffed, and put the teapot down. She looked far from convinced.

'No,' she snapped. 'I think it's in rather ropy condition actually. And I also think that all these tags you've put on everything are very misleading. Who are you to tell me that's a very decorative piece of early Meissen? Surely I should be the judge of whether it's decorative or not, and I fail to see why that bit of old lace is so "absurdly pretty" or why that rusty old oil lamp so "quintessentially important in the moulding of eighteenth-century France".'

'It's to help some of our less discerning customers,' purred Jess obsequiously. 'To point them in the right direction, lead them, antiquarily speaking, to the right century, right country even, so they don't feel foolish asking. Clearly you don't need any pointers, but golly,' she rolled her eyes expressively, 'you should see some of the types we get round here.'

I smiled down into my plastic mug of hot chocolate, lacing my cold fingers around it and reflecting that Jess's labels had indeed got more and more outrageous as the weeks had gone by. We'd temporarily taken over the antique stall from mymother, Maisie, who'd had a stall in the Portobello Road since the beginning of time, and certainly since I was a little girl. In the last couple of weeks, though, her chronic arthritis had almost forced her to give it up, so I'd stepped into the breach to keep it going until she was better, roping my oldest friend Jess in with me. For Jess it made a welcome diversion from changing her small son's nappy at the weekend, and for me well, antiques were my pa.s.sion, so I was happy. Happy just soaking up the atmosphere of this famous street, gazing at the stalls crammed haphazardly along it; silver next to clocks and watches, old farm implements next to yellowing books, starched Victorian christening gowns billowing in the breeze beside pop memorabilia, and of course, my mother's own eclectic offerings which included anything from French cafe ashtrays, to exquisite porcelain, to faded sepia postcards. I'd even added a few choice pieces of my own which I'd priced ridiculously high and watched like a hawk, hoping secretly that they wouldn't sell, but knowing I needed the money.

I needn't have worried. As we'd sat there, three Sat.u.r.days in a row now, surrounded by what we thought were the most delicious and interesting bits of other people's domestic history, we'd sold very little. Even more galling was having to look on incredulously whilst Fat Ronnie at the next-door stall pedlar of c.r.a.p, both verbal and antique, and with a special interest in flatulence his own or other people's sold shedfuls.

'Orright, gels?' he'd yelled over last week as he popped yet another sensationally ugly Toby Jug into a plastic bag, and handed it to its proud new owner. 'Need any help over there? Blimey, you won't sell much wiv that heap of rubbish!'

He chuckled and fanned theatrically behind his backside to let us know that he'd broken wind for the millionth time that day. 'Surprised you've got any customers at all!'

'Surprised you've got any trousers,' Jess had muttered, but then with characteristic zeal, had whirled into action.

'It's his labels,' she hissed, swinging round to me, 'that's all. His stuff's rubbish, we know that, but it's the way he sells it. That's where we're going wrong, Lucy. You can't just bung it all down on a trestle table and hope for the best. It's all in the marketing!'

'I'm not sure you really market bric-a-brac, do you?' I said doubtfully. 'I mean, surely-'

'Of course you b.l.o.o.d.y market it, and don't call it bric-a-brac for heaven's sake. Some of this stuff is priceless!'

I stared doubtfully at the array before us, but she was off, frenziedly slapping beautifully restored onto a horribly cracked chamber pot and breathtakingly pretty onto one of our major mistakes, a hideous piece of Coalport bought from another stallholder after a liquid Sat.u.r.day lunch. I have to say, the bits of tartan ribbon she tied them on with did improve the look of our offerings and we didn't do too badly that week, but not so today.

Today, tartan ribbon notwithstanding, business was disastrous, and as Fat Ronnie leered across, hands deep in pockets, jingling his change around his privates, we gave in: 'Come on,' muttered Jess, 'let's pack it in.'

'Business a bit slow is it, gels?' he called. 'Can I offer you a loan?' He jingled some more.

'No thanks,' said Jess, eyeing his crotch with distaste. 'Not when we know where it's been.'

He chuckled. 'Ah well, all the more for me then.' Suddenly he frowned, sniffed the air. 'Dear G.o.d, who's dropped one? That you, Lucy?'

'Shut up, Ronnie,' I said wearily, getting up to wrap some bra.s.s candlesticks in newspaper.

'Well, someone let one go.' He sighed, shook his head. 'I don't know, you girls with your educated accents and your silk shirts and your violin lessons, and you can still belt them out like that. Frightening.' He shuddered.

'How did we do?' I asked, ignoring him as Jess shook the little velvet bag of money onto the table.

'Twenty-two pounds and ... six pence.'

'That's our worst yet.'

'I know.' She sighed, pouring it all back in again. 'Oh well,' she said grudgingly, 'I suppose at least you'll be taken away from all this. But I still think you're selling your soul.'

'Oh, don't be so melodramatic!' I snapped. 'What option have I got? I can't afford to send Ben to a good school and he hates the one he's at and I can't stay in that tiny little flat any longer, either. Even if I could afford it, which I can't, the three of us are bursting at the seams, and I certainly can't move back in with Maisie and Lucas and cramp their style for ever. And anyway, Jess, what could be nicer than living in the country?' I demanded. 'The children walking across the fields to school, ponies to ride,' I said wistfully, 'streams to dam, daises to, um, you know ..

'Chain,' she said drily, 'prior to rattling them. Come on, Lucy, you're a city girl through and through and you know it. You'll miss all of this, for heaven's sake!' She swung her arm around at the bustling street full of traders and tourists, alive with cheerful banter and laughter and haggling and eating on the hoof. 'You'll miss the buzz. I mean, I'm willing to accept that fresh air is wonderful for the cheeks but it doesn't do much for the brain you'll stagnate down there. Christ, you don't know one end of a cow from another. And you said yourself when you married Ned that the one thing you'd never do was go and live near his ghastly parents and now look at you. He's not even here any more, and down you go.'

'Jess, I have to cut my cloth,' I warned tersely.

'Yes, to go and live on your parents-in-law's estate, totally at their mercy, completely beholden to them, and absolutely at their beck and call. There you'll be with Lady Horse-face lording it over you, Lord t.i.t-face pinching your b.u.m at every conceivable opportunity, the tragic Lavinia drinking herself to a standstill, Pinkie-pie or whatever she's called, gleefully honking stable boys in haylofts, drippy Hector dithering ineffectually around trying to convince his father he's got what it takes to take over All This one day, and all the time, surrounded by the memory of your dead husband who'll stalk in and out of the plot like Banquo's ghost!' Her normally pale face was pink and her eyes shone. I blinked at her in silence.

'Sorry,' she said abruptly, averting her eyes. 'I mean that last bit. But you know what they're like, Lucy,' she urged. 'G.o.d, at least you've faced up to it, coped with it, and brilliantly too, but four years have gone by and they haven't even started. Haven't even begun to accept he's dead. That house is like a shrine to Ned everywhere you go there are photos of him, his childhood fossil collection still sits in the hall, cricket bats he once owned are stuck up on the walls, even paintings he did as a child, for heaven's sake, are pinnedup in the kitchen. His room is untouched up in that G.o.dforsaken turret, and the way they talk about him! Constantly, as if he's still there, sitting at the table with them, and not in a nice, relaxed way like dropping his name into the conversation, but long and hard, for hours, like they've been taught to do in therapy or something. There's just no getting away from him. I'm surprised they haven't got him embalmed in the cellar.' She stopped when she saw my face.

'OK,' she muttered hastily, hoisting a sackful of china onto her back and picking up one end of the table we'd speedily collapsed, 'that was tasteless, I agree. But you must admit, Luce, it's going to set you back about three years, and you were doing so well. You've got those four mornings a week in your beloved porcelain department at Christie's, you've got this stand on a Sat.u.r.day-'

'This stand,' I said witheringly, swinging another sack onto my shoulder and picking up the other end of the table. She swept on regardless.

'The kids are doing well, and you're so much better. G.o.d, Luce, you're finally out of the loop.' Like a couple of paperhangers we picked up our table and plunged into the heaving, drizzling depths of the Portobello Road, dodging through the crowds, loaded down with goodies.

'I mean, OK, the money's tight,' she yelled back at me through the noise, 'but give it a couple more years and you'll be fine, you'll be through it. But to give up on London, on your flat, and go down there, to be swamped by that wretched family again . .

'The money's not tight, Jess.' I stopped suddenly in the street, jolting her to a standstill, 'It's b.l.o.o.d.y non-existent! I get paid a pittance by Christie's for busting a gut-'

'But you love it!'

'Yes, and I can keep on doing it.'

She gaped. 'From Oxfordshire?'

"Course I can! G.o.d, people do commute from there, you know, it's not entirely the back of beyond. And I'm going to change it to two full days which will suit me much better,' I said confidently. 'And anyway,' I sighed, picking up the table and moving on again, 'I told you, even if I wanted to stay in that flat, I can't. I can't afford it, even the council tax is crippling.'

'So why don't Lord and Lady Po-face offer to pay it for you?' she demanded. 'Or or why don't they offer to set you up somewhere else, in London? Why does it have to be down there with them?'

'Because Ben starts prep school soon and they've offered to pay the fees,' I began patiently. 'And because he needs somewhere that can cope with dyslexia.'

'And because they want him to go to the Right One. The school of their choice, not Highfield Road where he is now-' 'Where he's bullied and they sniff glue-'

'But somewhere much more traditional, somewhere where they can make a man of him, mould him into a nice little Grenadier Guard like his grandfather. They want control, Luce, control of you for a start G.o.d, word might even have got back that you've had a few hot dates, well they'll want to knock that right on the head for starters but more importantly, control of the children. They want to monitor them, choose their friends, organise their social lives of course they want you down there in their tastefully converted barn in their back garden!'

'Oh, don't be absurd,' I said hotly. 'You're so cynical, Jess. It's the whole cla.s.s thing with you, isn't it? The shooting and the striding round in breeches, that's what you hate, and that's just small-minded, prejudicial and sn.o.bbish. That's like taking against ethnic minorities because they smell of curry.'

She snorted with derision at this, but didn't instantly come back at me.

'And OK,' I went on, encouraged by her silence, 'Ned's mother can be,' I hesitated, 'a bit tricky at times .

'Tricky!' she scoffed. 'Needs smothering with a pillow, you once said.'

'But you know recently,' I hurried on, 'well, Rose and I have sort of,' I licked my lips, 'bonded.'

'What!'

'And even if we hadn't,' I went on defiantly, 'there's simply no way I'd look this gift horse in the mouth, complete with financial security for me and total security for my children: You don't know what it's like, Jess, eking out a flipping widow's pension. I've been beside myself with worry. G.o.d, this is like manna from heaven! When I got Rose's letter I cried, if you must know, wept, I was so b.l.o.o.d.y relieved. So just back off and stop taking the wind out of my sails, OK?'

She made a face but looked slightly contrite. We walked on in silence.

' And you'll have the mad aunts next door to contend with,' she reminded me, at length.

I smiled. 'I love the mad aunts.'

She sighed as wc threaded our way precariously down another heaving back street. 'Yes, well, I suppose they will be something of a diversion, and at least they've got the measure of Rose. Hmmm ...' she said thoughtfully, 'perhaps they could smother her.'

I stopped and made her face me again. 'Thanks, Jess, this is really, really helping.'

She opened her mouth and pretended to look astonished, but then her eyes slid away. 'Sony,' she mumbled, scuffing her toe. 'It's only 'cos I care. And I'll miss you. Selfish really. But I can't help feeling . .' she puckered her brow and wrestled with herself for honesty, 'well, that there's nothing down there for you.'

'No man, you mean,' I said darkly as we picked up our load and dodged through the crowds again.

'Well, you must admit, it's a social wasteland where they live. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't they even own the b.l.o.o.d.y village and everyone in it?'

'Used to,' I muttered.

'What?'

'Used to,' I yelled wearily above the noise. 'Only half of it now.'

'You see? Half a flaming village! Stuffed full of aged old retainers who still get beri-beri and cholera and who Rose no doubt visits graciously with rabbits and poultices in her basket. Probably dispenses Maundy money too, as she mops those wrinkled, fevered old brows. G.o.d, you'll be lucky if you run into anyone under eighty. You can bet your life anyone younger fled to Milton Keynes long ago.'

I gritted my teeth and trudged on, ignoring her.

'I suppose you might meet the odd blacksmith or two,' she conceded grudgingly. 'All red-hot irons and rippling biceps, but you'll never meet anyone cerebral, whereas here hey!'

She broke off suddenly. 'Whatever happened to that nice solicitor chappie you were seeing?'

'Oh G.o.d no, not him. Too full of Chablis and self-belief.' 'Well OK, that guy you mentioned last week, Charles or something. Fantasy man in the office?'

'Charlie' I coloured instantly, glad she couldn't see. Crikey, had I said in the office? Perhaps I had.

'Ah, you see! Charlie. Well, you won't see him, will you?' 'I might. Apparently he's got a place near Oxford,' I said, unable to resist it.

She halted suddenly, yanking the table and obliging me to stop behind her.

'Right,' she said slowly, watching me carefully. 'And did you know that when Rose asked you?'

'Asked me what?' I said, pathetically playing for time. 'Asked you to go and live down there, for heaven's sake!' 'Well, I . . I hesitated. Oh G.o.d, I knew I shouldn't have mentioned Charlie. Why had I mentioned him?

'Forget Charlie,' I said quickly, aware that I was still flushing. 'The truth is, Jess, I don't even know him, and even if I did, he'd be out of the frame, out of thc equation.'

'Why?'

'Because ... he's out of my league'

'b.o.l.l.o.c.ks,' she scoffed. 'No one's out of your league, Lucy, you're flaming gorgeous! It's just you got married so young no one else ever got the chance to tell you, to stare at you, flirt with you. You were snapped up by Ned at university in about ten seconds.'

'Nonsense' I gazed past, beyond her.

'Oh yes, quite right, nonsense. Waist-length blonde hair, blue eyes and a voluptuous figure to die for, very unattractive. Very wince-making. I'm surprised you can look at yourself in the mirror in the morning. Do me a favour out of your league? You're just so unused to men looking at you, you don't know they're doing it.' She peered at me from under her dark fringe. 'G.o.d, you're still red. Purple! Who is this guy, anyway?'

'I told you, Jess,' I snapped, 'he's no one. Just leave me alone and live your own life, can't you? Why have I got such bossy friends?' I made to move on, but she stuck firmly to the pavement. Stared.

'So what's wrong with him then?'

'There's nothing wrong with him.'

'Oh yes there is. You're being really cagey, and I know you, Luce.' She narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. 'He's married, isn't he?'

'Of course he's not married!' I bl.u.s.tered. 'Would I mess around with a married man?'

'You bet your sweet life you would, and you know why?' I stared down, bit the inside of my cheek.

'Bit older, no doubt, bit wiser, so security in that, but also, also, security in the fact that he's not quite available, so no real emotional output. At the end of the day, you don't have to commit yourself, don't really have to take the plunge. Ooh, yes, ideal.' She rubbed her hands together gleefully. 'Perfect!'

'Just get off my case, Jess,' I said angrily. 'I told you, there's nothing in it. I have a minor crush on him, OK? A harmless, pathetic, long-distance crush, like sitting in the hairdressers and gazing wantonly at Hugh Grant's picture in h.e.l.lo!. He's just someone who makes my heart beat faster when I walkpast him in the stree- office,' I said quickly. 'That's all'

'Well, it b.l.o.o.d.y better be,' she said darkly. 'You know how I feel about married men. It's a sacred inst.i.tution, Luce, and don't you forget it.'

'I'm hardly likely to with you ramming your perfect marriage permanently down my throat, am I'

Suddenly we stared at each other, aghast.

I swallowed. 'Why are we fighting?'

'I don't know.' Jess scratched her head sheepishly. 'My fault, I think. Anyway,' she shrugged, 'you know as well as I do my marriage isn't perfect. Half the problem is that Jamie would love to be your man in the office, love to have women gaze open-mouthed at his chiselled features as they stand beside him at the photocopier, but because they don't, he just stares at their t.i.ts instead'

'All men look, Jess,' I said generously, knowing she was magnanimously knocking her own life now in the hand of friendship. 'You've just got to accept that. And you know jolly well he doesn't touch,' I added staunchly.