Satisfaction

by Gillian Greenwood

Genres: Literary Fiction; Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

Who hasn’t occasionally looked at a friend and wished to swap lives—to leave behind the normal routine of their own for the excitement and intrigue of all they don’t have? Is anyone ever really satisfied with his or her life?

Is Amy, who married James and built a life and a family with him, satisfied by the house and the children? Or does she lie awake at night wishing she was young and glamorous like her sister Grace, or free and unfettered like her twin, Thea? And James? Is he happy? He loves Amy—of course he does—but what if he had a chance with someone else, someone sexy and fresh? Would he be able to pass it up in favor of the comfort and stability of his life? Or would he trade it all for the freedom Archie has?

Archie has always been satisfied with his life—why not? With success, money, good looks, and a series of girlfriends, one prettier than the next, how could he be otherwise? But now a doctor has taken away his confidence with one terrible word, leaving him more vulnerable and alone than he ever has been before. He can’t help looking at James, his best friend, and envying his life with Amy.

After an affair with Archie, Amy’s twin, Thea, moved to L.A. to find herself. She wanted to stake out her own territory as far away from her sister and all the complications of being a twin as possible. Back in London now, she finds herself once again longing for and terrified by all that Amy has. Even Grace, who is standing on the cusp of the success she has worked so hard for, seems to be looking for something else. Her role on a popular nighttime soap opera is limiting; she wants to move on to something bigger. And although she likes the handsome movie star she’s dating, she can’t quite get over an ongoing girlhood crush.

Then one week each of them comes closer to reaching true satisfaction than they ever thought possible. But as all the pieces fall into place, a terrible tragedy alters the bedrock of their friendships forever, making them take stock of what they have, what they thought they wanted, and all that they have lost. A perfect mix of love, betrayal, tragedy, and redemption, Satisfaction leads us through the lives and loves, painful failures, and uncommon successes of this close-knit group of friends.

Release date: June 19, 2007

Publisher: Crown

Print pages: 320

Sample

2004

22 November
Harley Street

HE STOOD AT the window and thought how beautiful the city could be in November, and how no one ever noticed or said so. It was ten to four and the light was going, but the thin wash of blue and mauve between the small dark clouds still held its colors, and he felt satisfied, as he often did these days, at the way his life had gone.

He saw the woman approaching, walking down Harley Street, and he knew it was her, the one whose voice had caught his attention on the phone in a way that surprised him, holding as it did a curiosity that was absent from most of those who consulted him. She was pressing the bell now, on its fine brass plate: Patrick McIlhenny, MSc, Clinical Psychologist. And Analytical Psychotherapist, he added to himself, but that had seemed too overwhelming a title to post on his gate. As he waited to be notified of her arrival, he straightened a grimacing Honduran mask that rested against the bookshelves and picked up one of the smooth round stones that sat on his desk. He felt the tightening of apprehension and expectation that each new client delivered.

She entered the room and he saw her look beyond him, taking in the sweep of it all, as if she were making an inventory. She was a tall woman with dark hair parted to one side and pushed behind her ears. Her complexion had a natural flush, and her lips were highly colored. To his eye there was no sign of makeup, and its absence lent her an air of youth, though he estimated (with professional detachment) that she must be in her forties.

"Mrs. Marsham," he said, as he put down the stone and held out his hand to her.

"Yes--it's Amy," she said. "Hello."

"Patrick McIlhenny. We spoke, on the phone."

"You're Irish?"

"Northern Ireland. Belfast," he said.

She sat down in one of the two leather chairs that half faced each other across a small mosaic table.

"This is a beautiful room," she said.

He smiled at her.

"In what way do you find it beautiful?"

She looked directly at him, an uncommon gambit, and he was excited by the thought that here was something new, something other than the usual catalogue of depression and fear that wept before him by the hour. For a moment he thought she knew him, that they'd met before, but she indicated nothing.

"It feels safe," she said. "Insulated by beautiful things." She waved at the pictures and objects that crowded the walls and shelves. "And all the books."

"The books make you feel safe?"

"No," she laughed. "My mother writes books. Sort of."

She leaned back in her chair as if resting, her eyes closed.

"I'll never feel safe," she said. "But that's not why I'm here."

He waited. After a moment she sat forward, her hands clasped together in the soft folds of her skirt, her feet together.

"I assume," she went on, "that most people come to see you because they are unhappy, unhappy with their lives in some way."

He gave the slightest shrug of his shoulders, aware that she didn't require an answer, that she was laying out the ground before him, that her speech, her questions, though unrehearsed, were familiar to her.

"That's not my problem. Quite the reverse. I'm suffering, if anything, and if that's even the correct word to use in the circumstances, from an excess of happiness."

The sudden smile that followed her assertion confirmed what she said. Its warmth and sense of joy seemed to jump-start the lamps, dispatching the shadows that were starting to creep around the room as the daylight diminished. He was taken aback, unused to such pleasure in his working world, and it was almost with relief that he watched her settle back again, back, he assumed, to a sort of contentment.

He felt hypnotized by her presence, their roles reversed, and as he watched her and heard her voice, he thought it could almost be his own. And he found that he'd lost to his daydream, in a most unprofessional manner, the start of her confession.

". . . all in their best clothes and hats," he heard her say. "We'd been months preparing. I was twenty-five then, when I married him"--her voice was drifting over his head--"so young it seems now, but I felt quite old. I'd felt quite old for a long time. And he told me later that the night before and that morning, he'd been sick with love, that he'd thrown up from sheer joy." She stopped and smiled again, but this time a small contortion shaded its glow. She leaned forward and spoke quietly, and for the first time since her arrival he wondered if she was more disturbed than she appeared.

"Did he tell you?" she asked him, as if he wasn't really there. "Did he tell you? That he was sick with joy the day he married me?"



1984

Saturday 23 June
Kensington, London

JAMES WAS STANDING outside the back door of St. Mary Abbotts Church, and as he watched, entranced, a ring of exhalation from a cigarette hovered above Archie's thick brown hair. It was visible even in the sunshine, like a blessing on the day, he thought. Today he would marry Amy Fielding, as he'd known he would from the second time he met her. His certainty had shocked him. His decisions in life were usually far more considered, and he had kept the knowledge to himself for some time. But James had known it, had never had a doubt, and now the day had arrived, and 200 people were coming to wish them well.

Archie ground his cigarette butt under his shiny black shoe and clapped James on the back. They looked around them, at the more or less empty square garden tucked away behind the noise of a major city through route. On the other side of the large parish building, the main entrance opened onto the High Street, where currently a series of taxis was pulling up, causing a jam as they emptied out their excited, overdressed passengers. James and Archie could hear the distant buzz from where they stood behind the church, all quiet and green and white; a tramp was snoozing on a bench, a neat pile of empty cans laid at his side next to a zipped-up bag, an effigy of illusory tranquillity.

"I might try that in a few years' time," said Archie, who had a hangover and thought that the picture had its attractions.

"I don't think so," said James, clutching his friend's shoulder. "You would never be so tidy."

There was still just the faintest hint of bile at the back of James's throat as he breathed in deeply. He reached in his trousers for the packet of mints he'd pocketed just before he'd left the flat. He wasn't hungover, that was the odd thing. He'd insisted on staying in the previous night, just a couple of beers and a pizza while he watched Archie drink a great deal more. But he'd still thrown up before he went to bed, then again this morning. It had happened before, once or twice, in anticipation of something he wanted badly and feared to lose, but he forced himself to forget it; it was just the smallest betrayal of whom he knew himself to be this morning: a very happy man.

As Archie took the packet of mints from him, James thought that his friend seemed more nervous than he was. Archie pulled down the waistcoat, which kept riding up at the back under his long-tailed coat, and looked at his watch. They had a few brief minutes. He flung himself on a memorial bench and looked up at James, who was smiling as he stretched, his hands folded behind his head. Archie was struck by how relaxed he seemed, how different from the tense-faced grooms he'd observed on similar occasions, and he had a fleeting sense of slipping, of being now a step behind. James had always had an easy order about him, a notion of things in their proper place and at their proper time. He had lived a tidy life, from delivering his schoolwork punctually to finishing one affair before embarking on another, and Archie admired him without really comprehending the rules he lived by. James was stepping into his future with assurance, destined, it seemed, for contentment and success.

There was a sound of footsteps on the gravel path and a short muscular figure in immaculate morning dress appeared around the corner of the building.

"Everything okay here?"

"Aren't you supposed to be out front?" said Archie. "What's going on?"

Sometimes, he thought, Richard's desire to hang out with him and James could go a step too far. He was four years younger than the two of them and, like a kid brother, was oblivious to those times when he wasn't required. But what the hell. Today was glorious.

"It's amazing back there," said Richard, indicating the church. He seemed excited. "Bloody amazing. Beautiful women, all preening and smiling at each other. It's another world." He adjusted his cravat and smoothed it down, stroking it almost with affection. James and Archie looked at each other. Archie shrugged. Richard was something of a dandy. Today he had added a colorful waistcoat to his formal suit, a peacock among the gray. But when he looked over at Archie, half lying on the bench, he felt a moment's envy for the carelessness of Archie's dress and demeanor. Archie seemed to hold a certain status. Richard had registered it from the day he had met him in the agency. It was as if Archie could see himself from the outside, but from a distance, tall and good-looking, at the top of his game at almost thirty.

"Amy and her mother are about to arrive." Richard hesitated. "The sisters are here already." He shuffled for a moment, then acknowledged the privacy of James's last single moments. "I just came to tell you, that's all." He turned, one hand raised. "Good luck. It's all to play for," he shouted, and he crunched back from where he had come as Archie hauled himself up off the bench.



GRACE admired her reflection in the cheval glass in her mother's bedroom. It was her favorite mirror in the flat, and if she angled it just so, she could see her narrow back in the wardrobe door. She had insisted on wearing her hair loose, refusing to have it pinned in some unflattering chignon. She was learning fast what suited her. She was learning to enjoy herself and the startling effect she knew she could create. She was especially going to enjoy today. The day would belong to Amy, of course, her sister, the bride. But she would still be noticed, and the thought gave her an intense pleasure.

Lucy watched her for a moment through the doorway but then stepped back quickly so as not to be seen. She smiled to herself at her daughter's teenage vanity. Picking up Amy's bouquet from the table in the hall, she lifted the white roses to her face and breathed in deeply. She touched them gently with what looked to Amy, who was now standing silently beside her, like nostalgia.

"They don't really smell, Ma." Amy stood in a pose of expectancy, her elegant dress sheathing her body, her dark hair crowned with flowers. "I'm glad they don't. It might be too much."

Lucy smiled. "Yes, darling. It might be. But they're beautiful." She handed the display to her daughter, who took it in one hand.

There was a sound of footsteps from the corridor, and Lucy's sister, Jane, appeared, looking self-conscious in a pale blue dress and coat and a small feathered hat. "Will I do?" she asked, a trace of New Zealand in her voice. "The bride won't be ashamed of her provincial aunt?" Jane turned to Lucy. "Doesn't she look just fantastic?"

"She does," Lucy said, beaming at her daughter.

"You must both have said that at least four times," Amy said, "and under normal circumstances I would be wild with irritation. But today you can repeat yourselves as much as you like."

She smiled at them both. She couldn't stop smiling this morning, which felt strange to her. She had been deeply touched by Jane making the journey from New Zealand for her wedding. But as she'd spent some time with her mother and aunt this week, she had understood that her marriage was a kind of confirmation for them. It was an assurance that they'd managed to pave a way for happiness in a family that had once lost its footing.

"Where's Grace?" said Jane.

"I'm here," Grace said from behind them, picking up her flowers. She stood next to Amy waiting for her compliments.

"You look lovely, sweetheart," said her mother. "But you always do."

"Sweet fifteen," Jane offered.

"Yes," said Amy. "You look wonderful, Grace. Just try not to upstage me."

"No one could do that today, darling," said Lucy. "Could they, Jane?"

"They certainly couldn't."

Grace smiled. She was almost as tall as her sister now, and would overtake her. She loved her family. She loved Amy and their sister, Thea, who had gone on ahead to the church. She wouldn't upstage Amy, but today felt like her debut and she knew she would shine.

"Are you ready, Grace?" asked Amy. "Surely you and Jane should be going?"

Left alone with her daughter, Lucy took her hand.

"I want to ask you something, darling," she said.

"You're not going to cry, Ma, are you?"

"No," said Lucy. "Tears aren't for happiness, whatever people say. I just wanted to ask you one last time. Are you sure about me giving you away today? We could still ask Uncle John."

"I was the one that asked you, Ma. And anyway, isn't unconventional expected of us?" Amy tried to joke. She wasn't sure what had brought on Lucy's questions. Her mother was rarely given to doubt. She paused before continuing. "And I'm sure that's what Dad would have wanted."

"Yes," said Lucy, "I think he would." She looked suddenly more cheerful. "Time to go, then. We mustn't keep a good man waiting."



As the two men entered the church through the small garden door, James paused for a moment, and Archie knew that his friend had at last grasped the sense of occasion. The church was almost full, the range of colors of both guests and flowers almost shocking in intensity. There was a low hum of chatter and goodwill, of anticipation and recognition as friends spotted one another across pews and families acknowledged their rarely seen cousins and newly-grown-up nephews and nieces.

"There's still time to change your mind," Archie joked. He'd said the same thing early that morning when he'd found his friend throwing up in the bathroom, but James had claimed excitement rather than alcohol or doubt.