Can't Buy Me Love

by Francesca Clementis

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

Tess and Max have lost everything. They've had to move out of their large detached house in affluent 'Nappy Valley'. They've had to take their children out of private school. They've had to close the organic deli and café that they had borrowed a small fortune to open. And now, they're forced to sell their car and move to a rented flat in an adjoining area known to smug 'Nappy Valley' residents as 'Crappy Valley'.

'Money doesn't matter', their friends all say. But money changes everything - including friendships. And while their old neighbours are still busy having lifestyles, can Tess and Max rebuild theirs?

Release date: June 7, 2012

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 352

Sample

This is my life, Tess thought wryly. This dinner party defines it. Not me, of course, that’s something quite different, but my life. Here it all is, neatly summarising my choices and preferences, my achievements, my subplots. It says it all, sums up my past and lays down the foundations for my future.

The food isn’t just organic, it doesn’t just come from shops that don’t put barcodes on the packaging, it isn’t just unrecognisable and vaguely unpalatable, but it is actually constructed according to recipes handwritten by barely literate Tuscan mammas encountered on that holiday to that place which doesn’t appear in brochures.

The wine isn’t just ominously cloudy, it doesn’t just have a label that tells you everything about the vineyard and its owners apart from their astrological influences, it isn’t just vile, but it actually came from an eco-commune on a Greek island that doesn’t appear in atlases and to which access is only granted if you are willing to forego deodorant and depilatory cream.

The guests aren’t just conspicuously wealthy, they aren’t just successful in both their professional and personal lives, they aren’t just bewilderingly fertile with their four kids per couple, they aren’t just the teensiest bit smug, but they’re loyal, funny and they’ve all been firm friends for over ten years.

This is my life. Wow. Tess inhaled slowly, breathing in the richness of her world, filtering out her uncomfortable awareness of its glib superficiality. My life. My dinner party.

She wasn’t enjoying herself as much as she was supposed to, as much as she always had done in the past. Not that she was much of a party-lover. She hated them. But she loved her friends, small gatherings of her small number of friends. She could apply the part of herself that she was happy to let go; these people only knew as much about her as she’d been willing to show them. They wouldn’t push or pull her or shake her to see what else might be there.

So this would normally be an easy evening for her. But something felt not quite right.

For several months now, something intrusive had been tapping away at her sense of complacency, whispering words that she couldn’t quite hear. It unnerved her.

She’d decided to invite everyone round at the last minute, hoping to induce a much-needed sense of normality, an illusion of routine. It was a strategy that was failing.

‘Red or white, sweetheart?’

Tess blinked, realising that she’d drifted off. She looked up at Max, who was bent over her in an exaggerated Mine Host pose, trying to shave a few inches from his six-feet-five elevation, hunching inwards to narrow his hefty bulk.

Even in their wedding photos, he’d employed his full repertoire of ‘comic’ stances to avoid towering over Tess who was five feet two and tiny in build. He would slouch forward, his hands pressed hard into his trouser pockets, as he’d seen Frank Sinatra do in one of his films. Or he’d lean back, arms outstretched, knees bent, one leg kicked forward in classic schoolboy fashion. And there were dozens of photos with him down on one knee, gazing ironically into his new bride’s eyes.

Tess liked these pictures best because she knew that she was the only one who perceived the insecurity behind his outwardly confident displays of showmanship. When he ran his fingers through his hair, it was not to mask his stress but to try and tame his unruly hair that had no natural parting, no crown, no resting style into which it settled after washing. It also kinked erratically if not tamed with discreet applications of gel. Once he’d undergone a severe crop in an attempt to tidy himself up, make himself worthy of his beautiful wife. He’d even hoped it would have a knock-on effect on the rest of his life, adding order, permanently severing his emotional split ends.

All that had happened was that he was regularly stopped by the police who wanted to know how an escaped terrorist could come to be driving a BMW.

So he finally accepted that he was a permanently unruly-looking person, too big and messy, fated to stick out in every respect. It didn’t matter that Tess had spent 18 years trying to persuade him that she loved his size, found it comforting, reassuring, safe. He would always loathe his height and would seize any opportunity to diminish himself, become less visible.

He didn’t understand that Tess needed his size to hide behind, needed his bulk to deflect attention from herself.

Sometimes, he’d watch Tess getting dressed for a big night out. He never got bored of seeing the transformation from the lovely fresh-faced girl (she would always be a girl to him, it was that size thing again) to a girl who’d been messing about with her mother’s make-up.

‘Why do you insist on wearing all that stuff when you don’t even like it yourself?’ he asked her occasionally, still waiting for an excuse that made sense.

Tess looked without interest at her reflection, fully aware that she looked better without it. Her face was unlined, the gift of good genes rather than any commitment to skincare. Her hair, being thick and straight, always fell into shape for months after a good cut. Dark hair and blue eyes, pretty and petite, both combinations that resisted age most efficiently. She always dressed neatly, everything closely fitting, and she coordinated her colours with instinctive good taste.

‘You have to,’ she replied. ‘It’s what grown-ups do.’

She never expanded on these oblique references to adulthood, because she hadn’t worked out the significance for herself yet. But she knew that the great unsolved mystery of her life was the exact point at which she grew up. She needed to identify the moment it happened so she could scroll forwards from then and make sense of the rest of her life.

Because she couldn’t shake off the scary feeling that she’d missed something between the ages of 13 and 39.

‘Red or white?’ Max repeated, an irritable edge making itself heard as Tess yanked herself back to Battersea again.

‘Sorry! White, please.’

Max filled her glass. Tess smiled at him. Or rather, she tried but he seemed to be avoiding eye contact.

I must be imagining it, she thought. But even while she deluded herself, she knew that something was up. And she knew that it was bad because Max didn’t have that twitchy eye thing he did which hinted at a good surprise that he was having difficulty keeping secret. And she knew that it was very, very bad because she didn’t have a clue what it could be and that meant that he’d buried the clues very, very deeply.

‘Why are you frowning, Tess?’

Tess quickly reassembled her face into a sociable smile. Damn. The downside of having such close friends was that they tended to be too sensitively attuned to each other’s moods, spotting the slightest downturn in tones of voice, the barest hint of resignation in a marital exchange, the merest droop of the mouth.

‘Sorry Fi!’ Tess said, overcompensating for her unforgivable lapse of jollity by laughing pointlessly.

Fiona was her best friend inasmuch as they were the founder members of this circle. They’d met at their local Clapham Active Birth classes when they found they were the only two to collapse in hysterics when the teacher pulled a knitted cervix from a Marks and Spencer carrier bag. After being tutted and glared at by their female comrades, who saw nothing remotely humorous in woollen gynaecological parts, they crept to the back row from where they proceeded to bitch cheerfully about their unevolved sisters.

After just one session, Tess and Fiona both reached the same conclusion that this was not for them.

‘I could be wrong,’ Fiona suggested, ‘but it seems to me that these bizarre women actually want as much pain as possible from the moment of conception right up to breastfeeding their children for at least five years per child.’

Tess giggled into her coffee (‘Double espresso,’ Fiona had ordered for her stubbornly, ‘with extra caffeine, if that’s available,’ she added, wanting to offend the other pregnant women, from whom she now chose to disassociate herself). ‘Did you watch them all signing up for antenatal yoga?’ she asked, dunking a chocolate biscotti aggressively.

Fiona nodded. ‘Well, they’re the type, aren’t they? Probably gave up wheat and dairy years ago.’

Tess entered the swing of this enjoyable generalisation. ‘And their partners will all have beards and alpaca jumpers …’

‘… who will support “Mummy” through childbirth with no pain relief apart from an eagle feather gyrated above their abdomens …’

‘… while they chant …’

They’d continued in this way for two hours, pausing only to check that they were both of the same mind that the epidural was the only reasonable birth choice for the sane woman.

Tess was thrilled to meet someone who not only thought like her but was brave enough to give voice to her thoughts. Fiona did not appear to be governed by the conventional rules of social interaction. She spoke first, considered the consequences later, if at all.

Tess, on the other hand, considered consequences every second of her waking day (and often during uncomfortable dreams at night), always having feared becoming either the victim or the instigator of any dramatic ones during her life.

The two women eased into a comfortable fit as Tess moderated some of Fiona’s wilder excesses of tactlessness while Fiona encouraged Tess to prise open some of her jammed emotional doors.

Their friendship sped up, swept along by pregnancy and childbirth, second and third children following quickly for Fiona – not for Tess – dragging their husbands into each other’s company, teaming up with Millie, another like-minded mum from playgroups, working their way through every child-friendly open and closed space in London, sending their children to the same schools until they became … the people who have dinner parties like this.

This was a new era for them all. Their last children were now at primary school, their families complete, the last baby paraphernalia finally dispatched to the charity shop, mornings reclaimed, a degree of freedom clawed back. There were fewer evenings cancelled with last-minute illnesses; children could even occasionally be trusted to join the grown-ups without fear of throwing up over the table (or the guests). Dinner parties became more regular. The group of friends talked and worried about different things but, generally, life was becoming easier. Or maybe they were just sleeping better.

Except for Tess and Max who were not sleeping well at all.

‘The wine’s not that bad,’ Fiona whispered conspiratorially as Tess’s smile faded for the fifteenth time since the retsina had been opened.

Tess grimaced. ‘Yes it is. I don’t know what possessed Max to buy so much of it. It was foul enough when we drank it in Greece but somehow the sun and the sea made it—’

‘I know,’ Fiona interrupted. And she did. The great reward of real friendship is the shorthand that pares conversation down to affectionate exchanges of shared assumptions and references. This allowed more time for the big conversations. Like the one that Fiona was now trying to start but Tess was determined to avoid.

She was saved from any awkward questions by gasps of admiration (at least she hoped they were admiring) as her guests took their first tastes of the sort of risotto made from quinoa instead of rice. Immediately, everyone began speaking at the same time.

Tess watched Max sit down finally. And for the first time in weeks, she caught him before he’d had the chance to organise his face into the sociably inscrutable mask that he’d been wearing for too long.

He’s worried, she realised. And not just the usual worried about Lara’s grommets and reading and braces and the pointing on the roof and the foxes chewing up the electrical cables in the garden. He’s wearing that fear-of-nuclear-holocaust expression that he first developed after their precious only child was born.

Max had always been a worrier. Tess had found this endearing rather than annoying. As someone born to nurture, she appreciated a manageable weakness in a partner, something to distract from her own endless list of unmanageable weaknesses. She made it her job in this marriage to reassure him. His job was to let her think she was succeeding. But recently she’d failed. And for the good reason that she didn’t know what she was supposed to be reassuring him about.

Max summoned up an amiable half-smile and began eating mechanically. Tess could almost hear him counting the number of times he chewed each mouthful before he swallowed.

What she really wanted to do was take Max upstairs, sit him in his favourite comfy chair, the only possession he had brought from his bachelor flat, and refuse to let him go until he told her what was wrong.

But she couldn’t. There were two more courses, coffee and more coffee before everyone left and, by then, she and Max would both be too tired to talk about anything more meaningful than who was doing Lara’s packed lunch and who was taking the school run the next day.

‘We’ve got an announcement!’ Fiona suddenly exclaimed.

Everyone became quiet. For the first five years of their friendship, on what seemed like a monthly basis, this had generally meant that another baby was on the way.

‘Er no, not that type of announcement,’ Fiona added quickly. (Too quickly, Tess thought. What was that about?)

Fiona went on. ‘Well, I am announcing a new arrival, but it’s not exactly a baby.’

Her husband, Graham, muttered something that Tess guessed was probably not supportive. Fiona glared at him and he compliantly shut up.

‘My mother’s coming to live with us.’

The imminent arrival of quadruplets would have been greeted with less surprise. And horror.

This was a generational first. While, between them, they had nine children and, between them, had probably encountered every common parenting problem identified in the Western world, the problems of the elderly parent had so far politely waited offstage.

‘That’s nice,’ Tess said feebly.

Fiona grimaced. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous, Tess! It’s not remotely nice. You know what she’s like.’

Tess did know. She struggled to find something positive to say about the woman. Nope. Couldn’t think of a single thing. Until now, the best thing that could be said about Fiona’s mother was that she lived 100 miles away.

‘Well, that put a dampener on the evening!’ Graham said to Fiona.

Fiona stuck her tongue out.

‘I’m sure it will all be fine,’ Tess said firmly. And since Graham wasn’t married to her, he didn’t argue with her. That was the rule. He speared a piece of chicken ferociously. Probably pretending it’s his mother-in-law, Tess thought, fully sympathetic to his misery.

‘Is there a reason?’ she asked Fiona.

‘Of course there’s a reason,’ Graham answered. ‘It’s to torture us. The old witch is not content with buying me an acrylic cardigan every Christmas and insisting I wear it when we go out. Now she’s going to spend the rest of her life with us, punishing me for marrying her daughter when I wasn’t a doctor, dentist or solicitor.’

‘What’s she got against accountants?’ Max asked.

‘She’s convinced I’ll know a thousand cunning schemes to defraud her of her life savings.’

‘Reasonable assumption,’ Fiona agreed. ‘To answer your question, Tess, she’s sold her house. She says the stairs are too much for her.’

‘Can’t you get her one of those stairlifts?’ Tess suggested.

‘That’s what I said!’ Graham shouted. ‘But she refused, said it was undignified! I explained to her, if I’d suggested hiring a school leaver or illegal immigrant to schlep her up and down stairs in a fireman’s lift, that would be undignified. But a stairlift? It was good enough for Thora Hird and she was a national institution! And speaking of institutions—’

‘Thank you, Graham!’ Fiona interrupted firmly. She turned to the others. ‘He’s so tactful. When we went to visit last time, he took a whole load of brochures for old people’s homes.’

‘They’re not called old people’s homes any more,’ Graham pointed out. ‘Old people’s homes smelled of cabbage and the poor devils who lived there wore pyjamas with the trousers pulled up to their chins and were herded into yellow-painted rooms to play compulsory bingo and have their hair forcibly dyed magenta. Now they’re called things like Bella Vista and The Grosvenor and the inmates are called guests and they play bridge and eat fettuccine and wear tracksuits.’

Millie’s husband, Tim, wisely refilled Graham’s glass which upset the timing of his rant and stemmed the flow. They were all taken aback but not wholly surprised by his outburst. Being married to Fiona, a talker of world-class volume and volubility, Graham had never had the opportunity to be particularly vocal.

He was essentially a reserved person in every way; even his hair was repressed and had started to recede from view when he was only 19. Fortunately he lacked physical vanity so he accepted the premature signs of middle age with equilibrium. When his waist expanded, he bought new trousers rather than join a gym. When faced with reactionary viewpoints, he hid behind his copy of the Independent. He left all the extremes to Fiona.

But the one subject guaranteed to coax him from his cocoon of silent passivity was his mother-in-law. The slightest mention of this demon in his life caused every opinion he’d stifled during his quiet periods to come spewing out, red-hot, deadly and utterly focused.

Since the people round the table had met the formidable Daphne, they were all extremely sympathetic.

‘What Graham is so eloquently trying to say is that my mother refuses to go into sheltered accommodation. She thinks it’s a waste of money when we have such a big house.’

Graham downed most of the glass of wine in one frustrated swig, muttering as he swallowed. Tess tried to imagine her own mother moving in with them. The scary thought distracted her and, frankly, even the scariest of distractions was welcome with a very real problem rapping urgently at her subconscious.

The evening seemed to move in slow motion for Tess as she counted the minutes until she could finally get the truth from Max. She spent most of the time drifting away from her guests, preparing hypothetical dialogues to meet every possible situation.

‘Tess, Millie is talking to you,’ Max said irritably.

Tess jumped back from imaginary situation no. 32 where she was reassuring Max that the lump he’d found on his knee was a boil and not cancer.

‘I’m so sorry! I was miles away. I don’t know what’s the matter with me today. Just tired, I think.’

Everyone nodded understandingly. They all loved these evenings. Only other parents of young families could truly understand the general fatigue that fell at the end of every day. Even with au pairs and schools, the pervading worry of having responsibility for other people’s lives was exhausting. In the company of such friends, they could all relax. There was no pressure to be entertaining or clever. They knew each other too well for that. They went on holiday together once a year, a chaotic bonding experience that they just about survived, all feeling they knew the others a little better – maybe too much so.

Sorry, what were you saying?’ Tess guiltily gave her full attention to Millie who, she now realised, had been particularly quiet this evening. This wasn’t like her.

They’d met Millie at a twee little playgroup run by a woman in dungarees who insisted on being addressed as Miss Smileybun. Tess and Fiona had looked at each other in mock horror. It was the knitted cervix all over again. As they expertly swallowed their laughter, another mum walked past them. ‘Resistance is futile,’ she whispered, extending her hand. ‘I’m Millie. Welcome to hell.’

And while Fiona and Tess had enjoyed the exclusivity of their friendship, Millie somehow completed them. She punctuated their streams of consciousness, joined the dots between their occasionally diverging paths, filled their silences and she always had home-made cake in her kitchen – the perfect friend. She had that chameleon-like quality of being exactly the sort of person required on every occasion.

If you had a problem, she’d empathise; if you were bored, she’d entertain; if you hated your kids, she’d take them off your hands; if life suddenly terrified you, she’d laugh with you or cry with you, whatever you needed to help you through; she could get a party going or sit in silence and eat chocolate and listen to old Neil Diamond albums with you on those days when that was the only thing to do. She seemed to be able to reinvent herself daily. If she had an identity that existed independently from other people’s expectations, nobody had found it yet.

One day, we’ll get the measure of Millie, Fiona and Tess used to say.

But whoever Millie truly was, tonight she wasn’t herself. She blushed as everyone waited for her to say something important or interesting.

‘It’s nothing, really.’

Tess looked awkward. Everyone else looked embarrassed. Millie had clearly wanted to say something in confidence to Tess and had missed the chance. Tess resolved to encourage Millie to help her bring dessert through. They could talk privately then.

But Tess forgot.

The conversational rhythm began. To a silent accompanying beat, they sang the litany of middle-class stay-at-home mothers and work-obsessed fathers. Reassured by the familiar backdrop of old comfortable sofas, modern art and cosmopolitan accessories, they could all talk as freely as if they were in their own homes. In fact, they might just as well have been in their own homes, the similarities in decor were so noticeable. Tess found herself listening selectively, editing out the padding, concentrating only on the facts needed to be able to respond if challenged.

‘So I said to Walburga, I don’t mind you having men round (although I think your mother might be a little alarmed at some of your choices) but when you leave beer cans out and the children find them …’

‘So I said to Richie, our share has been a static 14.6 per cent for three years, all I’m asking is that we shift three per cent of the total marketing spend …’

‘… and then he refused to eat any of it, so I told him, then there’ll be no computer for a week …’

‘… and then he refused to listen, I mean, nobody liked the man but then nobody expected him to up and leave a week before the budget proposals …’

‘… first Carly was sick, then Nathan, and that woke Lucy up …’

‘… I felt physically sick, I mean I worked for three months on that research and then to be told that I wouldn’t be giving the presentation …’

Max was also indulging in some carefully edited listening. He had an advantage over Tess. He knew exactly what was wrong and exactly how serious it was. It was from this superior position that he processed the fragments of conversation that drifted his way.

‘… well, you know what a pain an au pair can be …’ (£120 a week, Max thought)

‘… so we ordered a case of the Sancerre and a case of the Chablis …’(about £250)

‘… and we thought we’d go back to Venice for our wedding anniversary …’ (£2,000) ‘… and, of course, we’ll leave the kids with Mum and Dad, maybe treat them to a few days at that great camp in France …’ (£500)

‘… Millie said she’d divorce me if she didn’t get a new kitchen …’(£5,000)

‘… now, don’t exaggerate, what I said was that if you’re getting a new car …’

‘… not you as well! Graham insists we need a new car too!’

‘… well, if we’re all going to drive over to Provence next summer, we’ll need …’

Max had stopped calculating, stopped listening altogether, at this point. The sums of money were too big, unmanageable, almost incomprehensible. He had been depressed enough when he found the grocery receipts on the kitchen table earlier.

‘Twenty-three pounds for a chicken?’ he’d whispered, unable to speak the numbers any louder. ‘That’s forty-six pounds for two chickens.’

Tess had carried on unpacking the shopping, not registering the accusing tone. ‘Not just any old chickens, two corn-fed, free-range chickens. That’s what they cost.’

Max had continued to stare at the receipt. ‘I’d expect them to cook themselves in a good Burgundy for that price, then serve themselves up while singing ‘Lady in Red’. Did you know that you can get a chicken for three ninety-nine in Tesco? Is there really nineteen pounds difference in flavour? I mean, would anyone really notice the difference? You’re going to smother the thing with herbs anyway so why not just start with a nice, plain, simple chicken?’

Tess stopped and looked at Max curiously. ‘What’s this about, Max? Since when have you been checking on chicken prices in supermarkets?’

Max spotted the concern growing on his wife’s face and backtracked quickly. He screwed the receipt into a tiny ball and flipped it expertly into the bin. ‘Ignore me. I suppose it just makes me laugh when I know these people. They’re just like us, after all. They all finish up their kids’ fish fingers and chicken nuggets, and steal their sweets after bedtime and they were all students like we were once. They used to be happy with spaghetti bolognese and a litre of Bulgarian wine. People don’t really change. I can’t help thinking that they’d be equally happy with beans on toast!’

Tess relaxed slightly. ‘Fine, then next holiday, you can make everyone beans on toast when it’s your turn to make lunch. Speaking of which, Fiona’s getting details of this amazing gîte! It has a huge swimming pool. We’re going to take a look at all the bumf tomorrow. Apparently we’ll have to commit this week if we want it next summer.’

Max turned away so that Tess wouldn’t see how pale he’d become.

‘Sounds terrific,’ he said flatly.

Tess patted him absent-mindedly as she squeezed past him on her way to the fridge. ‘Anyway, you can start fine-tuning your beans on toast recipes another day. But for tonight …’

Max had forced himself to smile indulgently and he’d worked hard at maintaining this calm, cheerful, tolerant facade all evening. But now he was struggling.

Across the table, he watched Tess’s eyes glazing over. This used to amuse him in the past. He would tease her about it in bed afterwards and she would always deny it tetchily, insisting that she thoroughly enjoyed every moment of the evening and heard every word that was spoken.

But they both knew that a part of Tess always resisted being pulled completely into anybody else’s world. In fact, Max even felt that she’d held something of herself back from their marriage, from him. He usually respected this, even loved it, but occasionally he resented it.

Right now, he hoped that this quality was going to save them.

Almost over. It was 10.45, late enough for a Wednesday. Besides, they all had babysitters to consider. At least we didn’t have to pay for babysitters, Max thought grumpily. Although for the price of two corn-fed free-range chickens and assorted vegetables which were no doubt flown in by private jet from the rainforest, I could have probably hired a Blue Peter presenter to entertain Lara for the night.

It was time for the kissing and effusive thank-yous and promises to return the pleasure and swappings of recipes and outgrown childrens’ clothes. It was only as she kissed Millie that she noticed that she wasn’t looking very well. Damn, she thought, I forgot I’d meant to talk to her. She made a mental note to call her the next day. And when Millie’s husband, Tim, kissed her goodbye, she realised that he had hardly spoken through the meal. Of course, he had never been very adept at talking to women, even his own wife, and he always seemed overwhelmed when Tess, Fiona and Millie were together monopolising the conversation, but normally he would talk to Graham and Max. Tonight, he’d appeared distracted, absent.

Tess dismissed the thought, more concerned about Millie. Unless Tim’s reticence was linked to Millie’s? Oh well, it was too late to explore this tonight. She had other, more pressing questions that needed answers.

Finally they all left.

On autopilot, Tess and Max piled up the plates and carried them through to the kitchen, Tess scraping the plates into the waste disposal unit while Max loaded the dishwasher.

He tried not to watch the leftover food being tossed out, mentally stopped himself from working out how much money was being so casually and literally flushed away.

Without asking, Tess put a jug of milk in the microwave and made mugs of hot chocolate for them both. She placed them on the kitchen table, sat down, grabbed Max’s hand and gently guided him into the other chair.

‘OK, Max. No more. What’s wrong?’

They’d been together for 18 years, married for 15, and Tess didn’t need to indulge in any dramatic outbursts to convince her husband of her determination to hear the truth tonight. Max knew from her expression that she would not be put off.

Besides, if he didn’t tell her now, he would have to in the next few days. It had reached that point.

‘We’re broke, Tess,’ he said quietly.

Tess raised her eyebrows. ‘I think I’d already worked out that we had money problems. All that fuss about the chickens! You don’t have to worry. We’ll c