Sarah Hall - The Beautiful Indifference - Stories

I liked them, and they in turn seemed to take me under their collective wing. Often we would meet on Saturday mornings, at one of the small pricey boutiques in the centre of town. Expensive shirts and gowns would be fitted, and occasionally bought. The women complimented each other, were honest about what was flattering and what was not. They were casual around each other when undressed.

Chesca, look at your perfect breasts. Can’t quite believe you’ve had three children!

Darling, go a size down, that’s hanging off you like a widow’s frock!

The lunches afterwards were always wine-accompanied and there were confidential exchanges; often I would return home sparkle-eyed and flushed, and John would make coffee and tease me about my alcoholic friends. There were annual parties hosted at Christmas, New Year, and Midsummer, or held for charming aesthetic reasons, like the flowering each May of Tamar’s red peonies; occasions strictly observed by the group, and around which other family holidays were planned.

At the first of the Saturday lunches I had been slightly shocked by the level of confession. John and I had become a self-contained unit; any upsets or difficulties were locked away, resolved internally, or not. As they skilfully deboned fish and forked their way through salads the women swapped not only old pieces of jewellery but medical histories and marital frustrations. Health scares. Stories of previously loved men. The desire for more rigorous forms of sex. Tamar spoke of an affair she’d tolerated, and her husband’s eventual recommitment.

The thing is, he was stupidly transparent, she said, laughing and shaking her head. Edward thought I wouldn’t know exactly what it meant when he was sitting there in his chair moping. She hadn’t rung him for a week. I ended up comforting him for whatever ridiculous reason he made up, missing the dead dog or something, but I knew full well why I was really comforting him!

Noticing my expression, she had smiled at me, waving away my sympathy and my concern.

Oh, don’t worry, Hannah. Your John worships you. He isn’t the type. And he certainly isn’t an idiot.

I wasn’t sure that she knew John, but her kindness and flattery touched me. Then her smile tightened a fraction.

Women can live far more comfortably with secrets, don’t you think?

It was Anthea who replied. Yes. And may we remain unreadable.

She held up her wine glass and the others toasted the sentiment.

Afterwards, as we tottered towards the taxi rank, Anthea told me that each of the women idealised another in the group, for their looks, their vivacity, or their maternal skill. I wondered whom she most admired — perhaps Lizzie, who was fifteen years younger, was a successful playwright, and had had a series of overlapping, adventurous relationships that Anthea delighted in, calling them ‘jolly friendships’. Then I wondered if she was referring to me, and the way I would often study her during our coffee mornings. There was a fascinating Englishness about her, redolent of previous generations, of grandmothers who had been in their day industrious and spirited. Her fund of cheer was immense and remarkable, even in the face of her own divorce, which she strode through dauntlessly, it seemed to me, six months after I had met her.

Bloody men and their bloody egos, was her summary of the situation. They’d rather make love to themselves than their wives. Is it any wonder we’re driven to acts of madness?

But there was something more to her than this gently decadent style. Early on I’d noticed an odd, recessive tilt to her personality, a watchfulness. When she was not joking or flamboyantly uncorking a bottle, she was extremely good at being dormant. She could sit at the end of the table, in almost predatory stillness, for an hour or more, while conversation went on around her. Everything seemed poised in her then, her handsome, mobile face set, and only her eyes moved as she surveyed the scene, marking, biding. She was usually the first to receive a phone call from anyone in the group having a crisis, perhaps because of her age and experience, but mostly because she never issued judgement, merely good advice. And she was discreet. Gossip about the others never really came my way through her; though once aired she was happy to speculate. I’d always felt I could talk to her about the most difficult, painful things.

She had not given me the business card immediately. It was not issued with the air of prescription, as soon as I’d confided in her, about the discontent, the affair with John’s brother I had almost entered into. The morning she handed it to me we had been discussing something else entirely, something irrelevant — the latest atrocities in the war, or sugar in our children’s cereal. At a natural pause in the conversation she reached into her purse and took out a neat white rectangle.

This is for you, darling, she said, passing the card to me. One shouldn’t have to go on feeling so embarrassed about oneself. I am a great believer in private acts.

Printed in black ink, the listing simply read The Agency . There was a number below with a mobile phone coding.

Do ring, she said. This is for reception. Ask for an initial consultation. They can set something marvellous up for you, and then you’ll have a direct line.

I must have appeared conflicted, because she reached out and laid her hand over mine. Her fingers were soft, but the grip was firm. She still wore her diamond engagement ring.

Darling. You must. It isn’t what you might think. Not at all. These things consume us until we do something about them. Trust me.

The first appointment was scheduled for eleven o’clock in the morning. I had arranged for another friend to collect Jamie from school, and keep him an extra hour, in case I was delayed. Katie had a swimming class and would be late home anyway. I wanted to give myself time to recover, if that was necessary. I could have asked Anthea to look after them, but for some reason I was hesitant to tell her where I was going, as if it would have furthered our conspiracy somehow, made her culpable.

I’d been planning what to wear all week. I’d settled on a burgundy suit that I almost never put on any more, bought from a boutique in London after I’d received a surprisingly high severance package from my last job. It still fitted, though the waist was snug. Several times I’d taken it out of the wardrobe and hung it on the back of the door to admire it, only to rehouse it under the plastic dry-cleaner’s sleeve. There was a black silk brooch pinned to the lapel of the jacket from a Remembrance supper that John and I had attended at his college the previous year. I’d bought some new black shoes, with a heel slightly higher than I usually wore. I’d also bought new stockings, which I left in their packet inside the shoebox at the back of the wardrobe. It all felt slightly ludicrous, this fancy preparation. Half of me recognised it as such and was internally withering. I felt unqualified. I was not like Anthea King, did not possess her tailoring, her vigour and courage in life. I had always been a stiff dresser, never quite able to wear my best clothes with the sort of confidence she and the others had. But part of me was thrilled to think of the suit draped from its hanger, the silk sheaths folded carefully around their cardboard tongues, and the unscratched shoes facing each other in the box, their heels spearing the tissue paper. It was exciting to imagine I could step into the outfit.

The morning of the appointment passed quickly. The children left for school, their books and lunch-boxes slung into their bags. I watched John wheeling his bike alongside the house, his rucksack on his back, his hair parted by the fresh breeze to reveal a seam of white scalp.