Bread and Chocolate Read online

  ‘No,’ she said softly. She took up her hairbrush and gently brushed her bobbed hair. ‘Not in a million years,’ she said firmly.

  She rose from the table and glanced around the room. In the evening sunlight the room glowed in rose and gold. The wallpaper matched the curtains, which echoed the colours of the carpet. The whole room, indeed the whole house, had that attractive English country look which appears so delightfully easy and yet is so hard to achieve, and time-consuming to maintain.

  Stephanie went downstairs again. Jeff had poured himself a large brandy as if in celebration, and was still seated at the table.

  ‘You must do whatever you wish,’ she said.

  ‘I thought I’d stay with Elizabeth until you move out.’

  She nodded. ‘You’ll want me to pack for you, then.’

  ‘I’ll pack,’ Jeff said awkwardly. It would be the first time in sixteen years that he had packed his own bag.

  Stephanie nodded and let him go upstairs into their bedroom. She heard him opening and closing cupboard doors, looking for the suitcases. She wiped down the kitchen worktops and then laid the table for breakfast, with a white tablecloth and white napkins. She laid two places, she thought it looked more poignant. Then she went up the stairs and found Jeff thrusting ironed shirts into his suitcase.

  ‘I’ll do that,’ she offered.

  Automatically, he stepped back, but then he hesitated. ‘You shouldn’t,’ he said, embarrassed.

  ‘Why ever not? You’ll only get them crumpled, and Elizabeth will have to iron them again.’

  He forgot his tragic face and laughed. ‘I don’t think she’ll do that!’

  ‘How inconvenient for you. You’ll have to use the laundry service and I hear they’re dreadfully careless.’

  He flung himself on to the little stool before her dressing table, and glanced at his handsome face in the mirror. ‘I can’t bear this,’ he said dramatically.

  ‘Poor Jeff,’ she said sympathetically, folding his shirts carefully and neatly. ‘I do hope you’re doing the right thing.’

  There was a brief silence.

  ‘I thought you would be distraught,’ he said.

  Only Stephanie could have heard the faint note of disappointment in his voice.

  ‘Of course I am,’ she said. ‘But it doesn’t seem real. What shall we do about dinner with the Mitchells on Friday night?’

  He hesitated, and then found the right tone. ‘I have lost it all,’ he said. ‘All! I know it. Our marriage, our friends, everything!’

  She nodded. ‘If that’s what you want, darling.’ She was distracted by the sock drawer. ‘D’you want enough socks for a week, or do you want to take them all?’

  ‘Just enough … all of them …’ His outflung gesture implied his despair. ‘I can’t think about socks at a time like this!’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Everything does seem terribly wrong, doesn’t it? It doesn’t feel like a good idea at all.’

  ‘Oh, but it is,’ Jeff said hastily. ‘I love her, I can’t help myself. I’ve never …’

  ‘And all your winter suits?’ she interrupted. ‘They’ve all been dry cleaned, of course.’

  ‘You’ll miss the house,’ he said, trying to invoke her distress.

  ‘Oh, of course. But it’s such hard work. The garden alone is two days every week. Does Elizabeth garden?’

  ‘No,’ he said moodily.

  ‘You’ll have to get a gardener then,’ she said. ‘I’ll find a good one and leave Elizabeth a note. They’re dreadfully expensive. It’ll be about £80 a week. And a housekeeper on top of that.’

  ‘A housekeeper? What will we want a housekeeper for?’

  She turned her guileless face to him. ‘Elizabeth isn’t going to want to do dusting and cleaning at the end of a day’s work, is she? All that exhausting sacking of people that she must do? And shopping and cooking dinner, and your breakfast, surely?’

  ‘Well, no … but …’

  ‘I’ll leave you the number of an agency. They’re about ten pounds an hour, you’ll need someone to come in for at least three hours a day …’ She started folding his jackets and laying them carefully on top of the suitcase. ‘Say six days a week … gracious! That’s £180 a week. And the gardener as well. That’s £260 a week, um, more than £1000 a month. Darling, this is going to be fearfully expensive. Are you sure you can afford it?’

  Jeff looked anxious. He hated spending money.

  ‘But Elizabeth will help, I’m sure.’ She took a gamble. ‘Is she very well paid?’

  ‘Not yet,’ he admitted reluctantly. ‘She’s a freelance.’

  Stephanie looked despondent. ‘She won’t do the secretarial work and the book-keeping then?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Can she type at least?’ Stephanie inquired brightly.

  Again he shook his head. ‘Another £100,’ Stephanie said sadly. She thought for a moment. ‘That’s £360 a week, that’s £18,000 a year that it’s going to cost you when you don’t have me to work for free. And then you’ll have to buy a house for me, plus an allowance.’ She looked concerned. ‘Surely the business can’t stand these extra costs?’ She closed the suitcase and clicked the locks shut. ‘I think that’s all. Do you want me to cancel the Mitchells? What shall I tell them?’

  He was reeling at her arithmetic. He had not thought her work was so valuable. ‘I’ll come,’ he said. ‘Let’s not rush into anything. Don’t tell anyone yet.’

  She did not show any relief. ‘Whatever you like,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you at seven o’clock on Friday. Remind Elizabeth to top up the windscreen washer on your car.’

  He looked uneasy. ‘I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘It’ll be good for me to do my own chores!’

  She looked at him blankly. ‘Why should you? When you work so hard all day you need a comfortable supportive home. I’m sure Elizabeth feels that. After all she loves you, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Oh yes!’ he said quickly. ‘But she’s not the domestic type … she’s … she’s a modern girl. Liberated.’

  Stephanie looked shocked. ‘Oh! You poor darling!’

  She had to keep her nerve. She stood at the handsome front door and waved until the car was out of sight as she had always done. Her theory was that he would be bored of domestic chaos and hard work within the month.

  On Friday Jeff came home to take her to the Mitchells’ dinner party. He looked tired, as a man will look who is deeply sexually gratified for the first time in his life. But he also looked shabby.

  ‘Your shoes!’ Stephanie exclaimed as he stepped into the hall.

  If he had said then, ‘Oh, who cares about shoes?’, Stephanie would have known that she had lost him forever. But a quick look of irritation crossed his face. ‘She said she’d done them,’ he said. ‘She said she’d do them, if I changed the sheets.’

  ‘Slip them off,’ Stephanie said in a tone like honey. ‘She’s not even touched them. There’s a pitcher of chilled martini waiting for you in the sitting room. I’ll have to clean these before you can go anywhere.’

  He looked at her black cocktail dress. ‘You can’t polish shoes in that,’ he said.

  She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Black doesn’t show the dirt, darling,’ she said easily. ‘You have a nice drink and relax.’

  She saw his face as he turned towards the sitting room, the log fire, and the pitcher of iced martini with condensation clouding the wet sides of the jug, and the crystal goblets filled with ice and carefully serrated slices of lime. There were home-made cheese straws on a plate on the coffee table and a bowl of home-roasted almonds. He had the sneaky gleeful look of a man escaping from one house, to another where he secretly prefers to be.

  It was the first time Stephanie had seen that expression on her husband’s face. She thought Elizabeth would have known it once, but Elizabeth would see it no more.

  And she knew that her theories about men had been right.

  Lady Emily’s Swim

  Lady Emily swa