“Yes, I think so,” says Paulo, smiling. “We have had a drink already.”
“That’s definitely my mum,” says Ali.
It’s not until she’s in the restaurant that Rachel shivers, as her body registers the change in temperature from outside. Jack notices, putting an arm around her and rubbing her bare arm. It takes all her willpower not to recoil from his touch that suddenly feels sullied.
As if sensing there’s more than just the chill in the air, Jack takes her hand and gives it a squeeze. “You okay?” he asks.
Rachel can’t manage anything more than a nod as her brain goes into freefall, wondering what he must think of her. Does he see her as the faithful, docile wife who just sits at home waiting for him to come in from work? Is he bored by the banal conversation in which she has nothing more to offer than telling him who she bumped into in Blackheath Village when she picked up the lamb chops from the butcher’s?
She’s become complacent, believing that putting a good dinner in front of Jack every night would be enough to keep him by her side. But she can see now that he needs more; he wants a woman with a bit more get up and go. An ambitious streak. A desire to carve a niche out for herself, rather than relying on him for her emotional, practical and financial needs.
She swallows hard. “I was thinking, when I get home, I’d like to start my teacher training.” She looks at him, expecting to see a renewed sense of respect in his eyes, but they’re devoid of anything. How long have they been like that?
“What would you want to do that for?” he asks, looking around, preoccupied by trying to find the quickest way of getting a drink.
“I just think now would be a good time to pick it up again, seeing as Josh is off doing his own thing.”
“But that’s why I work as hard as I do,” says Jack. “So that you don’t have to.”
“I know, and I’m grateful, but I just think it’s time to do something of my own. I want to do something of my own.”
He takes two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray and hands one to her. “Is this because of today?” he asks.
She clenches her insides, unable to believe he’s going to go there again.
“Life’s too short and all that…” he says, laughing, as if what happened to Noah was some kind of joke.
“Darling!” calls out a woman, emerging from behind a pillar in a wheelchair.
“Mum!” shrieks Ali, rushing toward her, almost falling onto her lap to hug her.
“Oh, darling, you look absolutely gorgeous.”
Ali straightens herself back up and pulls at the various pieces of Lycra that are just about stopping her from being arrested for indecent exposure. “Do you really think so?” Ali asks, forever looking for a compliment, even from her own mother, it seems.
Rachel hears an exaggerated sigh behind her and knows that it’s Paige without even needing to look around.
“You always look beautiful,” says Ali’s mother, looking intently at her daughter, as if really trying to drill the words home. Rachel can’t help but notice her reaching for Ali’s hand and giving it a comforting squeeze. The genuine warmth between the pair of them is unmistakable.
“Mum,” says Ali, “this is Will’s brother.”
“Ah, Jack,” she says, not needing a formal introduction, it seems.
Ali smiles tightly as she looks at Jack. “This is my mum, Maria.”
Jack takes Maria’s hand. “Pleased to meet you,” he says, in that false voice he puts on whenever he meets someone new.
It had amused Rachel the first time she’d noticed that slight change in intonation when she introduced him to some friends a few months after they’d started dating.
“Where on earth did the posh voice come from?” she’d asked afterward.
“What do you mean?” he’d said, seemingly unaware that he’d come across as anything other than how he normally did.
“There was a complete key change,” she’d commented, through fits of laughter. “And since when have you dotted your i’s and crossed your t’s?”
“I always speak nicely,” he’d said, having already discarded the plumminess that had cushioned his vowels and consonants just a few moments before.
“Not like that!” Rachel scoffed. “You sounded like you’d come straight from Eton.”
“I can’t help it if I was privately educated,” he said, smiling. “But class and etiquette are instilled from birth—you can’t buy it.”