thought aren’t girls silly sometimes.
Apart from Thea, of course. Saul didn’t think her silly at all. Her fear of dogs was understandable, her propensity for weeping during ER or re-runs of Cold Feet he found quite endearing, her belief in drinking only juice until noon each day he thought eccentric. But he didn’t think her silly.
‘She’s not a calorie-counting, chardonnay-swilling, Mui-Mui obsessive,’ he quantified to Ian Ashford over a pile of poppadams and a mound of chutney, ‘but then neither is she a drink-your-own-pee, salute-the-sun and wear-hessian-to-Pilates type either.’
‘Does she do Pilates?’ Ian asked.
‘Yes, with her mates Sally and Alice,’ said Saul, ‘and she has a gorgeous figure because of it. But my point is she may drink only juice until lunchtime but she’s also partial to a Marlboro Light with her vodka-tonics after dark. She makes soup with organic produce – but her preferred lunch is Pret a Manger egg mayo sandwiches and a Coca-Cola.’
‘What’s with the juice-till-noon thing?’ Ian asked, wondering whether it might be a good regime for his acid and thinking that the madras he ordered probably wasn’t.
‘She simply doesn’t have an appetite until then,’ Saul explained. ‘I bought her a juicer for Christmas because she was spending a fortune on smoothies.’
‘What you’re talking about is balance,’ Ian said, spooning pilau rice onto his plate.
‘I am,’ said Saul, ‘a girl who balances M&S socks and a top she’s had for ever with an Anya Hindmarsh handbag. Do you know how much those bags cost? But balance, yes – she connects with the yin and yang and whole shebang of meridians and energy flow and shiatsu stuff – but her CD collection is more the White Stripes than whale music.’
‘She’s at ease with herself,’ Ian defined, passing the dhal to Saul.
‘It’s one of the most attractive things about her,’ Saul nodded, passing the Bombay aloo to Ian.
‘Does she keep Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus under her bed?’ Ian asked suspiciously.
‘No,’ Saul laughed, ‘Heat magazine.’
‘So what’s she like in the sack?’ Ian posed, working his fork dexterously through the curry and rice like a bricklayer trowelling cement.
‘She’s great,’ said Saul evenly, ‘for all the same reasons – sometimes it’s deep and meaningful lovemaking. Other times it’s fast and furious shagging. She doesn’t pester me to whisper sweet nothings but she writhes when I talk dirty. She doesn’t sulk to the other end of the bed if all I want to do post-coitally is roll over and snore, and I’m just as likely to wake up to a blow-job as to Radio 4.’
‘Sounds like you’ve hit the jackpot, mate,’ said Ian. ‘I’d suggest you snap her up and put your name on her, quick.’
‘You know how with some women you end up playing along with them just for peace and quiet,’ Saul mused, ‘and you find yourself apologizing for the bits that make us blokes?’ Ian nodded with the weight of someone most familiar with such a syndrome. ‘You know how some women fulfil one part of our criteria but are so sorely lacking in other aspects?’ Saul continued. ‘Beautiful but boring? Interesting but just not sexy? Horny as hell but dumb as fuck? Well, it seems incredibly simple, but I like all of her a lot.’
‘To Thea,’ said Ian, raising his bottle of Kingfisher beer and telling himself he really did not need that last rip of nan bread. He’d do juice until noon the next day, he decided.
‘I wasn’t looking,’ Saul mused wistfully, ‘I was just on Primrose Hill and she came into view.’
‘Good luck,’ said Ian, presuming the evening to be subliminal payback for the time he’d droned on about Karen.
‘It is,’ Saul agreed, ‘it is very good luck.’
‘So that’s it then?’ Ian said slyly. ‘Temptation can lead you by the balls and you’ll resist?’
‘Thea inspires fidelity.’ Saul paused. ‘In my heart and mind, at least!’
Ian and Saul looked at each other for a moment and then chuckled into the last of their curry.
‘Not on a full stomach – surely not!’ Ian said.
‘Your wife’s footing the tab,’ Saul laughed, taking Mark to a restaurant that still believed in starched linen at lunchtime. ‘How was Hong Kong?’
‘Knackering,’ Mark said quietly, ‘but essential. Hong Kong is crazy – but the business is a dream for us at the moment. Tokyo next week.’
‘I guess the bonus will be your bonus?’ Saul said.
Mark tipped his head and chinked glasses with Saul. ‘I need to keep my wife in Jimmy Shoes.’
Saul wasn’t sure whether to correct Mark. He let it go. ‘You get what you pay for!’ he said lightly instead.
‘Actually, Alice is brilliant at blagging,’ Mark confessed. ‘I always offer to buy stuff but she always declines and says she can call in favours at work. I think she gets more of a thrill from getting a bargain or freebie than from the item itself. Have you seen those monstrous rocks in her ears?’
‘The diamonds?’ Saul said. ‘You can’t really fail to notice them.’
‘Three carats?’ Mark suggested. Saul shrugged. He had never bought a diamond. ‘QVC,’ Mark said triumphantly.
‘Is that the sparkle factor or the colour clarity?’ Saul asked, trying to sound like someone who’d bought diamonds.
Mark roared with laughter. ‘QVC – the shopping channel! Alice is forever buying stuff from QVC. Those earrings were £29.95 – and she got a hideous suedette presentation box for being one of the first hundred callers.’
‘Are the Jimmy Choos fake too?’ Saul said subtly.
‘Unfortunately not,’ Mark groaned, ‘they’re bona-fide Jimmy Shoes shoes.’
‘I suppose it evens out,’ Saul said lightly. ‘Think how much you’d pay at Tiffany for gems that size.’
‘Hey, I’m not complaining,’ said Mark, ‘Christ no. I have the most beautiful wife – I was about to say “I could ever dream of” but in fact she is the beautiful wife I always dreamt of.’
‘You’ve known each other ages,’ Saul recalled.
‘Since school days,’ Mark said, ‘friends for years. Confidants. And then one day, Alice says to me, “If you ask me, I’ll say yes.” I hadn’t a clue what she was on about. I mean, I hadn’t even kissed the girl, let alone taken her to bed. I just stared at her gormlessly. She proposed. It wasn’t a leap year. I hadn’t bought diamonds from Tiffany or QVC. I was washing up and, calm as you like, she turns to me and asks me to marry her.’
‘And
