Cathy Kelly - What She Wants

It wasn’t too much of an effort to be nice to Matt’s colleagues and their spouses. It was the least she could do. She only had to put up with Peter once or twice a year.

Long fingers twirling the stem of his wine glass, Matt watched Hope doing her best to be charming to boring Peter Scott. She was great at that sort of thing, he thought fondly. You could always rely on Hope to do the polite, decent thing no matter what. Nobody else in their right mind would let Peter start off on his ‘my thesis’ saga but Hope was too kind to stop him. That was her problem: she was too kind. She let people walk all over her.

He didn’t know why she’d worn that clingy dress. Tight stuff didn’t suit her. His wife had an other-worldly air that made her look nice in flowy stuff, long dresses, that type of thing. Not like Jasmine. You had to hand it to Adam, he knew how to pick them. There wasn’t a man here who hadn’t thought for one brief, erotic moment of what the new Mrs Judd would look like without that sparkly dress. Probably cost more than all the dresses in Hope’s wardrobe put together. Anyway, Hope would never wear such a thing. That dress was a statement: Look at me, it said. That wasn’t Hope’s scene at all. She was much more of a background person, happy to be out of the spotlight.

It was a pity she didn’t realize how gorgeous she was. He was always telling her but she just didn’t get it. He’d seen scores of men eyeing her up over the years and Hope never, ever noticed them. When people looked at her, she checked to see if she had her skirt tucked up into her knickers or had gone out in her slippers.

‘Great night, isn’t it?’ Dan said, leaning over and touching Matt on the shoulder.

‘Yeah, fantastic night,’ Matt said automatically.

It was a great night. He had his colleagues here, cheering him for his birthday, and his boss who’d just brought him into the boardroom that day to say he was giving Matt a raise. Two lovely kids, a nice wife…everything a man could want. Only he wanted more.

Matt stared into the middle distance and thought about how his perfect, wonderful life was choking him. He’d had a crazy and impulsive idea about how to fix it, well, how to fix some of it, but how did he break it to Hope? He didn’t know where to start. Confiding in Jasmine had helped a bit.

She’d promised to put a good word in for him with Adam if he ever actually made the break. Telling Adam would be a doddle compared to telling Hope.

By the time people were staring happily into their liqueurs, Hope had finally managed to move seats and was now between Jasmine and Dan.

Jasmine was very nice, Hope decided, convinced now that there was nothing between her and Matt. She could see how other women would feel threatened by her: that amazing figure, tiny waist and gravity-defying boobs, not to mention a sweet face with huge blue eyes. But she was funny, unaffected and not at all the predatory bimbo that Betsey had initially dubbed her. Well, she wasn’t predatory, anyway.

‘Your husband’s wonderful,’ Jasmine said in between sips of sambuca. ‘I was telling him how I wanted to write a book and he said “snap!” The last person I said it to told me not to bother my head with books when I could be on the cover of one.’ Jasmine looked vexed at this.

‘Matt said what ?’ Hope asked, curious and hurt at the same time. How had Matt discussed this with Jasmine and not with her?

‘I daresay it’s a pipe dream,’ suggested Jasmine. ‘It is for me too. But Matt writes for his job, he’s got a better chance than most. I’m thinking of doing a creative writing course, myself. I know it’s tough. Like selling records. I went out with a musician once and he was obsessed with record sales.’ She laughed ruefully. ‘Oh, speaking of music, Matt was telling me about your older sister and this great job she’s just got in the record company. I love the sound of that. What’s she like? Very clever and high powered, I suppose?’

‘The opposite of me, you mean,’ said Hope automatically. And it was true…Sam was a human dynamo, all fire and energy. Now she was running a label at Titus Records. Hope still wasn’t exactly sure what the new job entailed because Sam had only been there a week and their e-mails had been short, but it was demanding, that was for sure. Sam couldn’t bear to be free of pressure. She’d worked herself into the ground for five years as marketing director of another huge record label and now, when Hope thought her sister should be slowing down a bit and perhaps thinking about settling down, Sam had moved companies to another, bigger job.

Jasmine was back on the subject of writing: ‘Matt told me about his plan to take a year out and live in the country. I know it’s only an idea and you’ve nothing settled yet but I think you should go for it. It’ll be easier for him to write with no distractions. Harder to see your sister, mind you, if you were to move abroad. Matt was telling me your parents died when you were kids and that you’ve only got one sister.’

Hope’s heart missed a beat. ‘What are you on about?’ she asked, feeling a queasy sensation in the pit of her stomach, a sensation that had nothing to do with drinking too much.

‘It’s fine, really,’ Jasmine assured her in a stage whisper. ‘You don’t have to pretend you don’t know. I won’t say a word to Adam about it, I promised Matt I wouldn’t. I’m sure that Adam will go ballistic when he discovers Matt wants to take a year’s sabbatical but you have to pursue your dreams, don’t you.’ She got misty-eyed. ‘I’d love to move somewhere remote to write but I’d hate to be away from twenty-four hour shops. Won’t you mind?’

Hope recovered her composure. This was not the moment to say the notion of Matt taking a year out was news to her. She tried to look resigned instead of astonished. ‘Who knows what’ll happen,’ she shrugged. ‘The whole idea is very much aspirational right now. We love Bath and…’

‘Jasmine, time to go,’ announced Adam suddenly, looming behind his wife and putting proprietorial hands on her slim, golden shoulders.

With Jasmine and Adam gone, the party deflated. Betsey insisted to Dan she was tired and had to go home.

‘We should go too,’ said Elizabeth, reaching under the table for her handbag.

With the wisdom born of being slightly drunk, Hope realized that her husband’s colleagues weren’t so close to him as he thought. Their eagerness to party only lasted as long as the boss’s presence. When Adam was gone, so was the party spirit. But Matt didn’t seem to mind and waved everyone off with great bonhomie.

In the taxi, Hope sat quietly as they drove out on the Bristol road. Matt lay back against the seat with his eyes closed, his face expressionless now they were alone. As houses sped by, Hope worked out what she was going to say when they got home. It went against the grain to start an argument in the back of a taxi with the driver listening to every word.

The pieces of the puzzle had fallen painfully into place thanks to the artless Jasmine. Matt was dreaming up an enormous career change and Hope and the kids didn’t figure in his plans. Would she stay on in the house in Bath or move to London to be near Sam, Hope wondered in shock. She’d move, definitely, she couldn’t stay in the house where they’d been so happy. Correction; where she’d been so happy. Matt obviously hadn’t been happy or he wouldn’t want to leave it and her.

The children had been little lambs and the chocolate biscuits had been great, Elaine, the babysitter, said when they got home.

‘Good,’ said Hope absently, getting out her purse. Her hands were shaking, like an alcoholic’s before the first drink of the day. ‘Matt will walk you home.’