me off: ‘I don’t think you get the point. Change is happening faster than ever and we must harness all our energies to keep up. No,’ he held up a finger, ‘not to keep up but to be ahead.’
It was the rhetoric spouted all over the industrialized world and I was used to responding to it. ‘Fine.’
Timon was not listening. ‘The pages need to be sharper, sexier. More celebrities. We need radical change.’
‘I can do that. Tell me the budgets.’
‘Of course you can do it. But the fact is I want someone else to take an absolutely fresh approach, which means that we’re letting you go, Rose. Ten years… it’s a long time in one job. Jenny in Human Resources is cobbling together a package. We’ll treat you properly. No need to call on our learned friends, Rose.’ He drew a third and final circle. ‘You must clear your desk, of course, but I would like you out by lunchtime.’
‘I don’t think you can do that.’
His expression did not alter. ‘Have you checked your contract lately?’
I held my voice steady. ‘I’m not going to abandon the pages while we’re getting everything ready for press, Timon.’
‘Sure, sure, admirable, but Minty will deal with them.’
‘I don’t wish her to do so.’
Timon rose heavily to his feet. ‘Believe me, this is not an easy decision, but the change in your circumstances decided me. I called Nathan in this morning to tell him what was going to happen. I’m afraid I’ve asked Minty to take over your job.’
I cornered Nathan in his office. ‘Give me five minutes,’ I muttered to Jean, his secretary, as I went past. ‘Private.’
Ashen-faced, Nathan got to his feet as I wrenched open his door and walked in. ‘Did you know?’ I asked.
He went over and shut the door. ‘No, I didn’t. You can’t imagine that I wouldn’t have told you if I knew anything. I wouldn’t do that to you, Rose.’
No, he wouldn’t, but rage streamed through me and I grasped at it with relief. Rage was better than anguish. ‘Oh, you wouldn’t sack me at work, but you’ve sacked me at home.’
He flinched and said, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.’
There was a silence as my rage cooled and I struggled to put things right, to untangle the snarled strands of this situation. I said tiredly, ‘Why didn’t you tell me that you were so unhappy? We could have done something about it. Talked. Gone to see someone. Something. Even, even -’ I beat my fist on his desk ‘- you could have had your affair, if you had to, Nathan, if you absolutely had to, and come back.’
‘It doesn’t work like that.’
‘It does. It can. If you make up your mind. A good marriage is flexible. Why didn’t you come to me and say, “Rose, I don’t think I’m getting what I need from you.” Or “Rose, you’ve taken me too much for granted, can we change this?” Or…’
‘Or “I’ve been measured against another man for a long, long time…”’
This was a Nathan who had folded himself up and travelled a long, long way away. ‘
Nathan shook his head and did not reply.
Surprise winded me – that clever, thoughtful Nathan could make such decision on so little evidence. And so deceive himself. ‘All that was such a long time ago, Nathan. I thought we were over it. Do I ever go on about your love affairs in this way? No, of course not. I thought I’d persuaded you. Don’t our years together mean anything in the way of proof?’ I placed my hands on the desk and leant towards him. ‘Is the real reason that you… don’t find me attractive any more and you’re trying to spare me by dressing it up?’
Had we shared the bathroom once too often, eaten in silence once too often, heard the other repeat a favourite gripe once too often?
There was no response and I tried again: ‘Is it because as we grow older we grow less confident? More nervous that we’re horrible to look at, too set in our ways? And we need to re-establish ourselves all over again? Is that it, Nathan? Because if I know one thing, it cannot be your vague anxiety over a long-ago affair that has brought this about. It’s something, perhaps, that you can’t describe or understand, but at least be honest and say so.’
Either this was too near the bone for Nathan, or he did not understand what I had said, but it was clear that I would get nothing more out of him. ‘I’m tired, Rose. I want a fresh start. I’ve fallen in love with Minty. The children are old enough to take it.’
I walked over to the window and looked out. Traffic clotted the street, and the shop windows were bright with neon light and spring fashions. I followed the progress of a police vehicle weaving in and out of the queues. Suddenly I realized what had happened. How a shadow had become substance. And an excuse. A convenient mental lay-by. ‘Hal means more to you than he does to me,’ I said slowly. ‘He’s become a fantasy’
Behind me, Nathan shuffled papers. My anger stirred, ignited, flamed. I swivelled round to face him. ‘Do you know what made Timon decide to sack me? Apparently, it was you and Minty deciding to set up house that gave him the out.’
‘Don’t,’ he said, and looked quite grey.
‘I’m sure you didn’t mean it to happen but it has.’
‘Rose… if you want help on the details, the package…’
I looked at him helplessly ‘The only details I want to go over with you, Nathan, are
For a second he stared at me with the old tenderness, and there was a hint that we were making progress, that we were going to talk. Properly. Painfully. Honestly.
‘Nathan, please, let
Jean opened the door and cut us off. ‘Nathan, red alert in the board room. Now.’
Nathan’s eyes did not leave my face. ‘Five minutes, Jean.’
She shook her highlighted blonde head. ‘Now. The minister’s wife has killed herself.’
Chapter Nine
The journey, which we knew like the backs of our hands, had been hard-fought down the conveyor belt of traffic stretching from London to Cornwall, but now the packed car nosed round the headland. Since Launceston, Nathan had been humming off and on under his breath and persisted in saying, ‘Yip, sirree,’ when I asked a question. Sam, twenty, and Poppy, eighteen, who had both been at all-night parties and had not been to bed, woke up. Poppy put on her glasses and punched Sam lightly on the arm. ‘You owe me a beer.’
The car bore its hungry, thirsty pilgrims down the unmade road.
By now, we were experts in the light and weather that swept over the coastline: grey storms, pink and gold sundrenched evenings, meditative blue on calm clear days. Sometimes a mist layered the coast and hid the beach. Quite often clouds were pasted over the horizon, which had the curious effect of bringing it closer. Sometimes I imagined myself walking across the water and climbing on to it. If it was blue, we went fishing. If it rained we went in search of fish and chips or hiked over the headline to the village where we ate Mrs Tresco’s cream and treacle, ‘thunder and lightning’ teas and drank beer in the pub.
‘Yip, sirree. Nice and blue.’ Nathan stopped the car. ‘I’m going straight out.’
I folded my hands in my lap and asked sweetly, ‘What about the unpacking?’
He came round to my side of the car and opened the door. ‘Sod the unpacking. The children can do it. You’re coming too.’
‘Sod the unpacking.’ I abandoned the car and its mess of suitcases, papers, empty drink cartons and boxes of
