Part 3 (1/2)

I realised I was very hungry. I hadn't eaten since the morning and now it was past seven. 'Okay, if you insist.'

'I do, and by the way, Professor, you should do some work on your neuroses. If ever any guy was an obsessive and compulsive grader man, that guy is you.'

ROSIE.

I'd heard all about Ben's book, of course. I'd even bought a copy of it when it was on special offer in my local bookshop back in the UK. But I hadn't read it.

Since Charlie's death I'd not read anything except my emails and of course the fas.h.i.+on and the other women's magazines. I had to stay on top of bags and boots and frocks and shoes because it was my job to keep my fingers firmly on the pulse of fas.h.i.+on and to be aware of what was trending.

But now I'd met the author I decided I ought to read his work. I should try to get a handle on this guy who'd married Tess, a girl who probably hadn't read a novel since she was sixteen and still at school, and had been forced to do so then.

There was a bookcase in the living room containing half a dozen copies of Ben's first collection of short stories which had won some prizes and made him a slight literary sensation on both sides of the Atlantic, but had bombed commercially. There were also three whole shelves of various editions of his ber-super-duper-worldwide-knockout bestseller Missouri Crossing in two dozen languages or more. So, if I had wanted, I could have had a go at learning Portuguese, Swahili or Malay.

I'd read it first in English, I decided. I'd find out if it was as wonderful as everybody publishers, reviewers and ordinary readers seemed to think. A man might be a fas.h.i.+on tragedy, but this didn't have to mean he couldn't write a novel.

'You didn't waste a lot of time,' I said, as I made I had to learn to say I fixed some coffee for us both in Tess's huge and gorgeous kitchen which was lit by three big chandeliers and even had a wine room leading off it temperature-controlled, naturally.

The sink was big enough to bath a toddler and a Labrador together. As well as ordinary mixer taps, there were special ones from which you got your water iced. Or conversely boiling. It took me quite a while to realise I didn't need a kettle. This was just as well because there wasn't one.

'How did you know you'd be compatible?' I added as I fiddled with the coffee-maker. This was the most complicated model I had ever seen. Ben had bought it. He was into gadgets, obviously. The place was full of them.

'We ran some tests, of course.' Tess was busy making dinner with the basic stuff we'd bought from Target and some speciality stores in downtown Minneapolis earlier that day. She said she had to make some effort because there could be company tonight. Ben had said he might invite a friend. So I didn't count as company? I let it pa.s.s.

'Compatibility,' I prompted.

'We did the inkblot stuff.'

'What do you mean the inkblot stuff?'

'It's sort of like the Tarot but it's more scientific.' Tess looked at me and frowned. 'I thought you went to university?'

'I read Modern Languages, not inkblotology.'

'Okay, you have these cards with different patterns on them, like those b.u.t.terfly designs we made when we were little, blobbing paint on paper and folding it in half, you know?'

'I know.'

'So then you look at them and tell the other person what you see. They reveal all sorts of stuff about your personality, your hopes, your fears, your dreams. I don't remember much of what Ben said because he was distracting me. When I have some time I'll go online and find out more. It's probably on Wikipedia.'

She rinsed the collard greens in the enormous granite sink. 'I'll do it when we come back from the mall. After we get up tomorrow morning we're going to the mall.'

'I've been to malls before.'

'You haven't been to this one. It's the Hollywood of the Midwest and it's a total blast. You'll never look at Oxford Street in the same way again. You're going to think you've died and gone to heaven in a golden BMW. Or I did, anyway.'

'I see.'

'You don't, at least not yet.' Tess put down her saucepan and then she grinned at me. 'Actually, I'd like a golden BMW. My Toyota's it was very nice of Ben to buy me the Toyota my Toyota's sweet. But if I did that dirty thing he's always going on at me to do in bed but I don't fancy doing, I wonder if I'd get a BMW as well?'

'There's only one way to find out.' I poured the coffee. 'You and Ben, you're not the likeliest of couples, are you despite the inkblot stuff?'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'Well, he's a famous novelist, but you're-'

'I'm stupid and he's smart?'

'No, don't be so daft, you're far from stupid, and you know it. All the same, you're not an academic, and I would have thought perhaps ...'

'But it's not like you think,' said Tess. 'We have a lot in common. He grew up in a trailer park where almost everybody was on drugs or in and out of prison all the time. I grew up in a concrete rat-hole of a council flat in Bethnal Green. Ben's brothers are all misfits. My brothers were all born to thieve. Ben's father was disabled in an accident at work and so was Dad when a big lorry wrecked his market stall. The family lived on welfare, just like mine.'

'Oh, right.'

'He's had it hard, you know.' Tess started peeling sweet potatoes. 'Poor white trash, that's what he says they called him when he went to Yale on a scholars.h.i.+p, and he still thinks meatloaf is the height of gracious living, even though he could afford to buy the weight of that one we've been making in Beluga caviar. As for me and him and our relations.h.i.+p he's experimenting, isn't he? He's trying something new and so am I.'

'So you're not in love with him?'

'Do me a favour, mate? I like him lots. I really do. He's clever and he's generous and he's fun. You'd have to walk a million miles to find a man who's half as good at concentrating on a girl, who makes her feel like she's the only woman in the world well, at that moment, anyway. When we were in Las Vegas, it was beyond fantastic. But all the time he was with me, he was eyeing up the local babes. I know he has some playmates here in Minneapolis-Saint Paul. I've often heard him on his mobile, whispering and laughing.'

'What if he was talking to a student or his agent?'

'I doubt if he would tell a student or his agent she's got the cutest a.s.s in the Twin Cities.' Tess put down her peeler. 'Or perhaps he might? You can't be sure with Ben. He's s.h.i.+t with boundaries. He couldn't do political correctness if he tried.'

'Well, there you are, then.'

'Yes, but all the same, I know the score.' Tess looked at me and shrugged. 'I'm Mrs Fairfax Three yeah, that's what he calls me and I bet he'll get to Mrs Fairfax Six or maybe even Mrs Fairfax Seven before he calls time out. I've already stashed my diamonds in the bank against a rainy day.'

'He's given you some diamonds?'

'Just a few.'

'But they're nice big fat ones, are they genuine girl's-best-friends?'

'Yeah, I suppose.'

'Why don't you wear them?'

'I couldn't wear a great big diamond, Rosie. It wouldn't be my style. They're staying in the bank.'

'How long are you thinking this will last?'

'Maybe five, six years?'

'What if you caught him cheating on you now?'

'What, like in bed with someone else? I might have to take some form of action scissor-wise, make my displeasure felt, know what I mean? I don't mind him flirting. But he's not allowed to play away until I give him my permission, until I don't want him any more.'

'What about the babies?'

'Did we mention any babies?'