Ruth Rendell - Adam And Eve And Pinch Me

“What’s the matter?”

“Read it for yourself.”

He screwed up the newspaper, tossed the magazine at her, and got up, turning right down the aisle and making for where Leonardo was sitting in the back row.

The article about her filled nearly three pages, the text liberally interspersed with photographs. At first Zillah concentrated on the pictures; they were so beautiful. The Telegraph had done her proud. What was Jims making a fuss about? The big glamour shot really did make her look like Catherine Zeta-Jones. Zillah had been contemplating breast implants now she could afford it; she’d always felt herself lacking in this area, but this photograph showed her with a deep cleavage overflowing out of the bustier.

The big headline didn’t present her in a light she much liked: GYPSY SCATTERBRAIN, it read, and underneath that, A New Breed of Tory Bride . Then she began to read the text, her heart gradually sinking and sweat breaking out all over her face and neck.

Gypsy, scatterbrain, and firebrand, Carmen to the life, Zillah Melcombe-Smith belongs to the new kind of trophy wife politicians are increasingly acquiring. At 28, she looks like a model, talks like a teenager, and suffers, it seems, from various neuroses. Her dark good looks and fiery eyes support her assertion of having Romany blood, as so maybe do her wild statements. We had been in her Westminster flat (suitably close to the Houses of Parliament) for no more than ten minutes when she was threatening to sue us for libel. And why? Because we had dared question her astonishing left-wing beliefs, not to say double standards. Zillah bitterly opposes Tory opinion on homosexuality, that it isn’t equal to heterosexuality and is a matter of choice, yet calling someone gay is an insult she looks capable of dueling about.

Odd when you remember that Zillah’s husband “Jims” Melcombe-Smith had attracted recent speculation as to his possible sexual orientation. All that, of course, has been proved wide of the mark by his marriage to the gorgeous Zillah. But if his past is no longer a mystery, hers may be. The new Mrs. Melcombe-Smith had apparently lived the first 27 years of her life in total seclusion and isolation in a Dorset village, an existence she made sound like being walled up in a convent. No job? No training? No former boyfriends? Apparently not. Strangely, Zillah forgot to mention a few small interruptions to this cloistered existence, her ex-husband, Jeffrey, and their two children, Eugenie, 7, and Jordan, 3. True, there were no children about when we visited on a sunny spring day. Where has Mrs. Melcombe-Smith hidden them? Or has their father custody? If so, this would be a highly exceptional decision on the part of the divorce court. Custody is only given to a father if the mother proves unfit to care for them, which high-spirited, handsome Zillah very obviously is not.

Zillah read to the end, by now feeling sick. Natalie Reckman devoted two long paragraphs to describing her clothes and jewelry, suggesting that Jims ought to be able to afford real stones if she had to adorn herself in the daytime, not the kind of thing you could pick up from the souk in downtown Aqaba. Everyone wore high heels with trousers these days but not stilt heels with leggings. Reckman had a successful technique of insulting her subject by leveling at her hurtful abuse and immediately following it up with a sweetly gentle compliment. So she described Zillah’s outfit as more suitable for hanging about King’s Cross station, but added that even soliciting gear couldn’t spoil her lovely face, enviably slim figure, and mane of raven hair.

By this time Zillah was crying. She threw the magazine on the floor and sobbed in the manner of her son, Jordan. The stewardess came up to her and asked if there was anything she could do. A glass of water? An aspirin? Zillah said she’d like a brandy.

While she was waiting for it, Jims came back, his expression stormy. “A fine mess you’ve made of things.”

“I didn’t mean to. I was doing my best.”

“If that’s your best,” said Jims, “I wouldn’t care to see your worst.”

The brandy made her feel a little better. Jims sat there, austerely drinking sparkling water. “It makes you look all kinds of a fool,” he continued, “and by extension, since you’re my wife, me as well. What on earth did you mean by threatening to sue for libel? Who do you think you are? Mohamed Fayed? Jeffrey Archer? How did she know your-er, Jerry’s name?”

“I don’t know, Jims. I didn’t tell her.”

“You must have. How did she know the children’s names?”

“I really didn’t tell her. I swear I didn’t.”

“What the devil am I going to say to the chief whip?”

Jeff Leigh, alias Jock Lewis, once Jeffrey Leach, read the Telegraph Magazine by chance. Someone had left it on the bus he was taking back from reconnaissance in Westminster. He only looked at it because a line in white letters on the cover told him that one of his ex-fiancées was writing inside, Natalie Reckman Meets a Modern Carmen . He still had a soft spot for Natalie. She’d kept him without complaint or resentment for nearly a year, got engaged without expecting a ring, and parted from him with no hard feelings.

She’d been tough on Zillah and serve her right. Why was she keeping the children’s existence dark? During the past week he’d twice been back to Abbey Gardens Mansions, but there had been no one there. The second rime the porter told him Mr. and Mrs. Melcombe-Smith were away but he had no idea where the children were. Jeff tried to press him but he must have become suspicious because he wouldn’t even say if there were any children living in apartment seven. Could Natalie be right when she implied Zillah had somehow disposed of them? Yet that hysterical letter she’d written him-he’d picked it up off the doormat in the nick of time before Fiona got there-said he could have access, see them when he wanted. The way, of course, to settle all this would be for him to write to Jims and simply tell him that Zillah’s husband was alive and well, and still married to her. Or even write to that old bat Nora Watling. But Jeff was reluctant to do this. He was aware of how much Jims disliked him, a feeling that was mutual, and this antipathy was shared by Zillah’s mother. They might simply disregard his letters. And if they didn’t and everything came out into the open, Fiona would very probably find out.

For all his wedding plans, organizing the ceremony and reception, talking happily about the forthcoming event, Jeff hoped not to have to marry Fiona while still married to Zillah. He vaguely planned putting off the wedding, finding a reason for postponing it till next year. And although he wanted to know that his children were safe and, come to that, happy, he shied away from having them to live with him. That would be too extreme a step. If he exposed Zillah as a bigamist and Jims abandoned her, as he surely would, the powers-that-be-police? Social Services? the court?-might well take the children from her. The obvious place for them to go would be their father’s home. Especially with a broody future stepmother pining to look after them.

Jeff remembered the ridiculous promise he’d made to Fiona, while light-headed on chardonnay, that he’d be a house husband, stay at home and look after their baby. That could mean looking after Eugenie and Jordan too. Closing his eyes for a moment, he pictured his life, shopping in West End Lane with a baby in a buggy, holding Jordan’s hand, hastening to be in time to fetch Eugenie from school. Jordan’s constant tears. Eugenie’s didactic speeches and general disapproval of everything. Getting their tea. Never going out in the evenings. Changing nappies. No, having the children wasn’t feasible. He would have to think of a reason for continuing to live with Fiona without marrying her. Was it too late to say he was Catholic and couldn’t be divorced? But Fiona thought he was divorced already…