Catherine Alliott - A Rural Affair

And then Ben had come round complaining he’d had a shitty day, kicking his shoes off like we were married, slumping down in front of the television, while I made us spag bol in the kitchen and while Jennie sat in Tante Claire, toying with artichokes and blushing prettily. And when I brought supper in to eat on our laps in front of Friends , Ben had his feet up on the sofa, was yawning widely and scratching his balls, and for some reason I flipped; I snapped at him about not being a bloody waitress. Then a few weeks later, I split up with him.

A guy in my office, in my PR agency, had been flirting with me for months. An attractive guy called Andy: slightly rough around the edges, not strictly my type, but rather thrilling, very good-looking. Hot. Andy and I had a fling. A very exciting one in his flat in Docklands. He was only the second man I’d ever been to bed with, and he whisked me off to nightclubs – admittedly more Brixton Sound than Annabel’s – and we had a laugh. We drank a great deal, smoked in Ronnie Scott’s and I thought I was living. I think I knew his family were a bit shady but I never met them. And then one night, over dinner, he admired the jewellery I was wearing; it was quite good because it had been Mum’s. A heavy gold chain and a bangle she’d always worn. And he asked me why I didn’t accidentally lose them and claim on the insurance? Because it had never occurred to me. But after that – and it took some time for the penny to drop – one or two other things did. Like the way Andy gambled a lot and spent nearly every Sunday night playing poker. And a few weeks later we argued about something, and he pushed me. Not hard, but I fell against the wall. It was enough: we were history.

When I turned around, Ben had gone. To America, it transpired. New York, where his investment bank had transferred him; promotion. So I contacted him. Asked when he was coming back, if we could meet, have lunch. I wasn’t unduly worried. In fact I was so casual I think I was even painting my toenails on the stairs in Clapham at the time, phone tucked under my chin. And he’d said not for a bit, not for a good six months, and anyway, he’d met someone in New York. Caroline. An American girl, who worked with him. Same age, twenty-four. A banker. They were going to get married.

Hard to describe the body blow felt at the time. The breathlessness. The pain. Ben, who’d always been there. Funny, clever, beautiful, blond Ben, who of course would be snapped up in New York – would be snapped up in London, but with the accent, the whole Brit bit, would go down a storm over there – but who loved me. Had always been there for me. Whilst I’d been totally complacent about him. My Ben.

Jennie had endured much grief and wailing. Much smoking of too many cigarettes, much talk of shelf life, and, eventually, the months having ticked by, much furtive hiding of wedding plans from me after she admitted she was engaged.

She’d meet me after work, samples of shot-silk organza hidden in her handbag, CDs of suitable music for bridal entrances secreted about her person. She’d counsel and sympathize and suggest suitable replacements for Ben, but all were unacceptable. All were second-bests. Will Thompson was nice enough, I supposed, when she told me he fancied me, but he didn’t have Ben’s charm, his easy manner, and Harry Eastgate was fun too, but, oh I don’t know, Jennie, he worked so hard, was very driven.

‘What about anyone at work?’

‘What, like Andy?’ I said gloomily, sinking into my cider without bothering to pick it up.

When Jennie got married it was fine, because I knew she would, to Dan, who turned out to be everything she described and was madly in love with her, but then Tess, a sweet girl on the fringe of our group, got engaged, and the following year Daisy, a really good mate, and then Will Thompson and then Harry Eastgate. Which pretty much just left me. And I can’t tell you how panicky I felt. I told myself to relax, but I hyperventilated. I went to spas with girls I knew quite well, but not like Jennie and Daisy, and lay around wrapped in seaweed. I went to the Canaries to get an early tan for the summer. I even went to see Madame Sheriza – not a fortune-teller, you understand, but a proper medium, at a reputable institute of psycho-something in South Ken, and she told me I’d meet someone through my sister, except I didn’t have a sister. Sorry, I meant your brother. Don’t have one of those either. And all the while my eyes roved around in a crazy fashion at parties, and one day I panic-bought. Those crazy eyes lit on Phil. Phil. On the periphery of society, tall, pleasant-looking, fair-haired, slim – nice Phil, surely?

‘Oh, lovely Phil,’ Tess assured me eagerly. A good friend of her brother’s. Really lovely Phil.

‘ Quite nice Phil,’ Jennie said, more hesitantly. A bit sort of … bland, maybe? And don’t forget, Tess’s brother read sociology.

But I wasn’t listening. Off I went on dates with him and he was delightful. He hadn’t had a girlfriend for years and feeling, I think, he was punching above his weight, was pulling out all the stops: taking me to country-house retreats, weekends in the Cotswolds, even mini-breaks in Paris.

‘Phil’s great!’ I’d squeak, flying round to Jennie and Dan’s in Twickenham, where she’d be reading to her stepdaughter, Frankie, or getting the supper amid packing cases, poised to move to the country. ‘And he’s mad about me, and yesterday I got roses at work!’

‘Good. And you’re mad about him?’ She poured me a drink and we perched on a box.

‘Of course.’

‘And does he make you laugh?’

‘Oh – laugh . Last night we went to see Airport and we couldn’t stop laughing!’

‘I think you’ll find that was Gene Wilder making you laugh, but good, Poppy. I’m pleased. Shit. Hang on.’

She’d moved like lightning, legging it up the stairs to meet Frankie, aged four, who’d appeared damp and tearful at the top, still wetting her bed at night.

I finished my drink and left her to it; went home hugging my happiness. My settled-ness. My all-organized-ness. And if, for a moment, I had any doubts, they were only really tiny ones, like the way he spoke to waiters. The way he’d said to that young girl in the bistro: ‘I’d like my salad dressing without vinegar. What would I like my salad dressing without?’

She’d glanced at him, surprised. ‘Vinegar.’

‘That’s it.’ He’d smiled thinly. And she’d smiled too, relieved.

‘I have to do that,’ he’d confided quietly to me when she’d gone. ‘Otherwise they forget, and I can’t abide salad with vinegar.’

Of course not.

A few months later Phil proposed, and things got even better. We went around Peter Jones with our wedding list and discovered, to our delight, that we had exactly the same taste. We inclined towards the red Le Creuset rather than the blue, the retro fifties toaster, the antique weighing scales, eschewed a dinner service in favour of hand-painted Portuguese plates, more conducive to cosy kitchen suppers which we infinitely preferred to dinner parties, decisively ticking our lists attached to clipboards. Another box ticked. A big one, we felt as we gazed at one another under the bright lights of China and Glass.

We also both agreed we wanted to get out of London.

‘Too frenetic,’ Phil said, frowning thoughtfully, ‘and too …’

‘Superficial,’ I continued and he smiled. Heavens, we were finishing each other’s sentences now.

He favoured Kent, where his mother lived, but I wanted to be near Dad, so we looked at villages in that direction, within an hour’s commute of town. Eventually we decided, somewhat sheepishly, that Jennie and Dan really had done their homework. That it was hard to better theirs. Sleepy, idyllic, with two pubs and a duck pond, but a functioning village too, with a shop and a school.