His face relaxes. ‘Thank you. Let’s find somewhere to sit and I’ll tell you.’
Matthew orders a couple of glasses of our old favourite white. Is that intentional? Either way, I don’t need any persuasion. There are times when one needs some Dutch courage, as my father would say. That reminds me. I quickly check my mobile but there’s no message from him. Is that good or bad? I should have rung him earlier but it’s a bit late now. He’ll be in bed.
‘It’s Sandra,’ he says, as soon as we sit down.
They’re getting divorced, I tell myself. Of course, it’s irrelevant to my own life. I’m married with two lovely daughters. This man means nothing to me. But I can’t help feeling a wicked frisson of karma shooting through me.
‘The thing is,’ he says slowly, watching my face as if he’s not sure whether to tell me that …
‘The two of you are splitting up?’ I suggest.
‘No!’ His face is horrified. Instantly I realize I’ve made one big mistake. ‘God, no.’
I don’t know where to look.
‘Maybe I shouldn’t mention it,’ he says quietly.
I’m still mortified by my gaffe. ‘No,’ I say. ‘Please do.’
He seems unsure. ‘It would help to tell an old friend. I’ve lost touch with all the others but …’
‘I’m a good listener,’ I say.
He nods. ‘I remember.’
There it is again. The reminder that this man knew me long before my husband and girls.
‘The thing is that Sandra has got MS. Multiple sclerosis. We’ve both tried to keep it quiet because she doesn’t want anyone else to know. But it’s got worse and now … well, now she’s in a wheelchair.’
I might not have liked Sandra. But I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say.
He puts his head in his hands, rubs his eyes and then looks up at me. ‘Life can be so cruel sometimes. It’s why I haven’t been working much, to be honest. I’ve been her main carer. Of course, I don’t mind. How could I? I’d do anything for my wife. I promised to love her in sickness and health, after all.’
I brush away that pang in my chest. ‘It’s what marriage is all about,’ I say firmly. ‘But it can’t be easy for either of you.’
He nods. ‘I knew you’d understand.’
Then his eyes go soft.
‘What about you?’ he asks. When he’d been younger, Matthew had been the kind of man who talked at you rather than to you. But now he seems genuinely interested. ‘You’re doing really well.’
I’m upset now. Not just with him but with myself. With the past that he’s brought back to me. But I can’t tell him that. ‘The agency is doing great, thanks.’
‘It’s funny, Pops. I thought you’d make it one day as an actress.’
Me too. But I’m not telling him that. ‘Well, you know,’ I say lightly, ‘one has to be realistic. We can’t all be as successful as you.’
‘I only hit the big time once. Fame doesn’t always last.’ His voice cracks. ‘Besides, you have a family. I’d have given anything for that.’
That small ball of pain in my chest that had formed when I first saw him this evening is growing bigger by the moment.
‘You know,’ he says, his eyes suddenly glistening, ‘Sandra and I tried really hard to have children. But she couldn’t.’
I’m so lucky to have Melissa and Daisy. I know that. Sometimes I wonder if I deserve them.
‘Anyway, tell me more about your husband,’ he says, waving a hand as if to shrug off the last topic. ‘Is he in the profession too?’
I detect a note of curiosity on his part, just as there had been earlier on mine. It gives me a sense of worth. That’s right, Matthew, I think. You might not have wanted me at the end but someone else did.
Again, my mind wanders back to those wilderness years after Matthew had dumped me, when Stuart and I met at a restaurant. I’d finished drama school by then and been working as a waitress. Stuart had been there on a stag do with one of his mates. The drunken groom-to-be had tried to grope my bottom (‘I like a woman with a decent arse’) and Stuart told his friend not to be so rude and apologized on his behalf. He’d then waited for me after I had finished work and asked if he could walk me home.
‘No thanks,’ I’d said, thinking that he might be trying it on too. Since Matthew, I hadn’t been interested in dating again.
‘Please,’ he said. ‘There are a lot of boozy louts out there. I don’t like to think of a young woman going back on her own.’
‘How do you know I’m on my own?’ I’d said.
He’d made a ‘you’re right’ gesture. ‘I’m sorry. It was a huge assumption on my part.’
Then another vodka-up-to-the-eyeballs stag party had lumbered past us. The week before, one of the waitresses had been attacked after work. The thought of walking through the dark streets to my lonely bedsit had seemed even less appealing. ‘It’s kind of you. Thanks. I would like the company.’
‘Stuart is a dentist,’ I say now, in answer to Matthew’s question.
‘Pretty different from acting, then.’
‘Yes,’ I say, trying to keep the exasperation out of my voice. At the time, Stuart’s job had been part of the attraction. Dentistry was a solid profession. Even though it has its own stresses, they are totally different from the insecurities of the acting world. Besides, I had also fallen in love with Betty and Jock, his parents. They seemed the embodiment of the stability I had never had. My mother was now in Australia with her second husband. Dad had remained resolutely single in Worthing.
When we’d started dating, I’d known at once that Stuart was a very different man from Matthew. But he was kind. What the older generation might have called ‘a real gentleman’. He brought me an armful of daffodils on St David’s Day, partly because I’m half-Welsh through my mother and also because I’d let slip that they were my favourite flowers. He always rang when he said he would. He was never late for dates. If I expressed interest in a certain play or film, he bought tickets as a surprise. And although he was different in bed from Matthew, I grew to love his more thoughtful and slightly hesitant technique. This was the man to have children with, I told myself.
And I was right. Stuart was, at least initially, a dedicated father. But his work, with its long hours, inevitably got in the way, as did mine when I started the agency. Like many young couples, we found that children and the pressures of everyday family life changed us. Almost without noticing, we began to snap at each other and then, as our businesses grew, to lead almost separate lives under one roof. Just when exactly did Stuart start to sleep on the far side of the bed? Or stop kissing me properly? I can’t put a date on it. All I know is that I am only just managing to keep on top of work and be a more-or-less good-enough mum. If it wasn’t for Betty, who had moved in with us after Jock had died, I don’t know how we’d manage.
On top of that, my father is getting older and more forgetful. I go down to Worthing to see him as often as I can, but I’m aware it’s not enough. I’m not alone. Lots of my friends are in the same position. The media call us the ‘sandwich generation’: middle-aged men and women who are feeling the squeeze of children on one side and elderly parents on the other.