Part 8 (1/2)

Kelly smiled at the receptionist. 'Thank you, Dahlia. I'll see you in three months then.'

'Lovely, Mrs Lyons. Take care.'

'You too.' She turned again to Luke. 'Not a word. All right?'

'Never,' Luke said, as earnestly as if they were two members of the French Resistance agreeing on a plan to smuggle British soldiers to the coast.

As she departed, Dahlia turned to him smiling apologetically. 'Sorry about that, Mr Norton. It's very unusual for our clients to recognize each other. As you know, this is Dr Mazza's late night for his very favourite clients he only fitted Mrs Lyons in because she's got her sister's third wedding next week and she's such such a regular. But don't worry, I'm going to put you in the celebrity waiting room now, so no one else will spot you.' a regular. But don't worry, I'm going to put you in the celebrity waiting room now, so no one else will spot you.'

'Excellent,' Luke said, chuffed his status had been acknowledged.

'Gianluca's running a bit late,' she said as she ushered him to a small room decorated with prints of Scottish lochs. 'Would you like a gla.s.s of champagne while you're waiting?'

'Why not?' Luke said, picking up an Economist Economist from the pile of magazines in front of him. But he couldn't concentrate. He couldn't believe it had come to this, that he, Luke, the brave war correspondent, was reduced to secret appointments with a Botox doctor. His thoughts turned to Kelly Lyons. Christ. He'd always fancied her, and they'd once had a slightly too-long kiss under the mistletoe at another Christmas party, but now Luke was glad he hadn't f.u.c.ked her. The knowledge she was having Botox diminished her in his eyes, though he didn't pause to wonder what she might think of him. from the pile of magazines in front of him. But he couldn't concentrate. He couldn't believe it had come to this, that he, Luke, the brave war correspondent, was reduced to secret appointments with a Botox doctor. His thoughts turned to Kelly Lyons. Christ. He'd always fancied her, and they'd once had a slightly too-long kiss under the mistletoe at another Christmas party, but now Luke was glad he hadn't f.u.c.ked her. The knowledge she was having Botox diminished her in his eyes, though he didn't pause to wonder what she might think of him.

Luke's att.i.tude towards women was schizophrenic, to put it mildly. An only child, his mother had been a rather cold and distant figure who made it plain to him from a very early age that he ranked far, far below her husband in her affections. Luke couldn't help suspecting she would have loved him more if he hadn't been three stone overweight. Unsurprisingly, as a fatty, he found it hard to get a girlfriend. His teenage years were filled with girls laughing at him when he asked them to dance and lonely Sat.u.r.day nights masturbating in his bedroom.

But while backpacking round India after his A levels, Luke got a terrible case of food poisoning and the weight melted off. By the time he got to university, the ugly duckling was most definitely a swan. At first he'd been amazed when girls started to pay attention to him; quickly he became blase about it.

Luke entered a phase of serial monogamy. He always had a steady girlfriend and another waiting in the wings to replace her. He liked the security that came from being in a couple, but he also loved the buzz of the chase, so as soon as one challenge had been conquered he would look round for the next. Between the ages of eighteen and twenty-eight, Luke got through women faster than some of his friends changed their bedsheets.

He adored this new Casanova version of himself. Knowing he was such a hit with the ladies infused the rest of his life with confidence. He'd always wanted to be a journalist and, on graduating, he won a prized news trainees.h.i.+p with the BBC. Thanks partly to his handsome face, but mostly to talent, within a few years he was a foreign correspondent, working all over the world. He quickly discovered that even more than the kick he got from s.e.xual conquests he loved the adrenalin jolt of working in a danger zone. He first made his name reporting from Chern.o.byl, then did some fine work in Israel and the Occupied Territories. It was during this stint that he first set eyes on Hannah Creighton, dancing on a table in the bar of a Jerusalem hotel where the world's press had been despatched to cover a new peace treaty.

Luke was instantly attracted to the lively redhead from the Daily Post Daily Post, not least because she didn't seem in the least bit interested in him. In the hotel bar, she flirted with the j.a.panese, German, French and Italian reporters but paid not the blindest bit of notice to her compatriot. When he bought her a drink, she said 'Thanks', downed it in one, then turned her back on him and carried on talking to Ulrich from Swedish TV.

Naturally, Luke's blood was up. Omitting to call Annie, his girlfriend at home, he spent the next few days love-bombing Hannah, buying her more drinks, taking her on trips to obscure corners of Jerusalem that only insiders knew about, telling her she was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen, until finally, after five days, they went to bed.

But in the morning she slipped out of his room before he was awake and avoided him next day then returned to London without telling him. Back home, he'd bombarded her with calls, but she stonewalled, saying she was busy. When he finally b.u.mped into her at a party she ignored him all evening. It took another six months to get her back into bed and then during the following six months she only occasionally returned his phone calls and often cancelled dates at the last minute. Intrigued, in l.u.s.t, Luke asked her to marry him. She said no, then three months later said yes. The wedding was planned to take place a year from that day, and Hannah moved in to Luke's flat in Willesden.

And suddenly everything started to change. Hannah began cooking for him. She began taking his suits to the dry cleaners. She started to get cross when he got home late from a night out with the boys. She no longer wanted to go out on Sat.u.r.day night and paint the town red, but to stay in snuggled together in front of the TV. She kept wanting to talk about marquees and invitation fonts. In short, the woman Luke walked down the aisle with was no longer the devil-may-care woman he'd proposed to.

Soon Tilly was born and the mews house was swamped with dirty nappies and drying babygros. Luke adored his baby daughter and was impressed by how brilliantly his wife adapted to motherhood, so brilliantly in fact that she decided not to go back to work. But coming home from work to find Hannah making purees and talking about what happened at playgroup was about as s.e.xy as a bottle of formula. Luke loved his wife but he was no longer in love with her.

It didn't really prove a problem. He was constantly away on a.s.signments where temptations were plentiful and indulging them was seen as par for the course for the war crowd. After twelve hours dodging bullets, a warm body in your bed at night was incredibly affirming, proof you had made it through another day. Usually the flings only lasted a couple of nights. Sometimes longer. When he'd been in Sarajevo he'd enjoyed a four-month affair with Anne-Marie Gleen from Irish TV. But the same rules applied: as soon as he returned to their Hampstead house Hannah had made so beautiful he slipped easily into the role of devoted family man, even if occasionally he'd meet Anne-Marie for a quick 'drink' when she was pa.s.sing through town.

Tilly was followed only a year later by Isabelle and then, when she went to primary school, Hannah confessed she was getting broody again and so they conceived Jonty. It was around this time that Channel 6 6, which was launching in the spring, contacted him to ask if he'd be interested in the job of chief foreign correspondent for its flags.h.i.+p evening news programme; he accepted and after seven years was promoted to anchorman.

Luke was in two minds about the change of job. He didn't know if he could let go of the endorphin rush when his phone rang with orders to get on the next plane to Bosnia or Somalia or East Timor. On the other hand, Hannah was getting increasingly s.h.i.+rty about his lengthy absences, especially now the children were old enough to question why their father was risking his life. Mainly, however, the idea of being the face of the programme was very appealing to his vanity.

On the whole, it had been the right decision. He missed those war-zone thrills, but he still got sent on just enough foreign trips to satisfy his wanderl.u.s.t. To compensate for the lack of excitement in his work life, the affair quotient increased. Nothing heavy, naturally. Luke always made the ground rules very clear: he wasn't going to leave his wife; he had no time for girlfriends who tried tricks like calling him at home.

No one serious. Especially not Poppy. Poppy's role in Luke's life was, quite simply, to make him feel better about the way he was slowly shedding hair and his belly burgeoning. It was embarra.s.sing to admit it, even to himself, but Luke liked the fact she was a model. It was an affirmation of his alpha maleness that he could attract the very cream of the crop. Still, she was nothing but a delightful diversion.

Until she became pregnant.

Even then, disaster could have been averted. The baby could have been got rid of (though in retrospect Luke found it very hard to imagine life without Clara). While he worked out how to deal with the problem, he went into slight meltdown. He got wasted after the BAFTAs and ended up in bed, with Thea, as he occasionally did. But, happily, Hannah swallowed his excuse about cras.h.i.+ng on Gerry's sofa. He was just congratulating himself on having got away with that when, two nights later, he arrived home to find four suitcases packed and sitting in the hall. And a very angry wife telling him to leave. For ever.

He'd done everything he could to try to change her mind. Begged. Pleaded. Promised. But Hannah was adamant. She'd known about the other women all along, it transpired, and this time she'd had enough.

Luke went to their friends Grahame and Fenella's for a night, but Hannah got on the phone demanding they kicked him out, so kick him out they had. In retrospect, he should have gone to a hotel but, wounded and needy, he'd decided to spite Hannah and headed to Poppy's horrible studenty flat. Luke was a proud man. He couldn't bring himself to admit he was there because he had no choice, so he told Poppy he had left Hannah, that he wanted to marry her. Of course, even after Poppy's overjoyed acceptance, he'd carried on frantically negotiating with his wife, but Hannah had been deaf to all pleas for forgiveness. After Luke received the decree absolute in a shockingly short s.p.a.ce of time (and this after he'd agreed to give Hannah pretty much everything, in the hope she'd be touched by his generosity and forgive him), he decided the best way to spite his ex was to marry Poppy as quickly as possible.

But even as he sat at that miserable wedding lunch at Orrery, slowly getting plastered and trying to laugh at silly Meena's jokes, Luke knew he'd made a terrible mistake. Poppy was divinely beautiful, he kept reminding himself, and sweet, and young. Other men would envy him, marvel at his virility to be with this peach while their wives were turning into prunes.

Two years from that day, Luke was still telling himself the same thing. But it sounded increasingly hollow. Having a woman only slightly older than his daughter on his arm didn't make him feel like a stud but like a dirty old man.

He cringed, thinking about the dinner at Dean's. Hannah would have lit up the whole room with her raucous laugh and spirited gossip. Poppy, on the other hand, had contributed about as much to the evening as one of the silly scented candles on the mantelpiece, spending half the evening hiding in the kitchen. All right, she was the most beautiful woman there by a mile. But just as with Hannah Luke found it increasingly difficult to be s.e.xually attracted to his child's mother. He didn't know why, it just didn't seem right.

So, even though he'd sworn he'd turn over a new leaf, since Clara was born there'd been a steady stream of women. Nothing serious: a waitress he met in a coffee shop in Denmark where he was covering race riots; a quick fling with an American political researcher he'd met when he was covering the US primaries. No one on home turf, apart from that insane dalliance with Foxy, which had only hammered home the fact that you should never p.i.s.s on your own doorstep.

He had to admit, Thea was looking especially hot right now. She'd always been a good lay, but Luke had never been that bothered about her: she was too dark, her t.i.ts were too small and, although her professionalism made her a joy to work with, it was also distinctly unfeminine. He knew she was besotted with him, that if he said 'limbo dance', she would immediately reply 'how low?', and he found that devotion rather a turn-off. But then again, she had always known how to make Luke laugh, and laughs were in rather short supply at the moment. He wondered if she was seeing anyone. They should have a drink soon. Catch up.

Dahlia stuck her head round the door.

'Mr Norton, Dr Mazza is ready to see you now.'

Dr Mazza was a perma-tanned Italian, who pulled off the challenging trick of looking both baby-faced as proof his needle worked and swarthy so as not to put off the macho men like Luke. He came over to London from Milan twice a week working a fourteen-hour day to satisfy demand. He examined Luke's face like a forger might the work of a great master.

'Mmm. Not bad. I 'ave seen worse. But terrible terrible sun damage. I think you don't use the SPFs, Mr Norton. And you smoke!' He said this last in the same tone reserved for accusing someone of having s.e.x with their pet hamster. sun damage. I think you don't use the SPFs, Mr Norton. And you smoke!' He said this last in the same tone reserved for accusing someone of having s.e.x with their pet hamster.

'Not any more. I gave up twenty years ago.'

'Still, the damage is done now.' Dr Mazza sighed. 'Yes. What a shame you didn't come to me twenty years ago. Then I could 'ave really helped you. Now, it is not so easy. Of course you are already a long way behind most of your rivals. They all have regular work.'

'Who? Jon Snow? Huw Edwards?'

'Naughty! Naughty!' Dr Mazza wagged a finger. 'You know I can't breach patient confidentiality. All I'm saying is you won't be the first newsman to come to me. Or the last.'

He pulled a black marker pen from a drawer and started dabbing it all over Luke's forehead. He looked as though he was about to undergo a weird tribal initiation rite in Papua New Guinea.

'This won't hurt. I promise.'

He was right, it didn't hurt too much. At the end, Dr Mazza stood Luke in front of the same mirror. His face was covered in dozens of tiny red blotches as if he'd been stung by a wasp.

'Don't worry,' Dr Mazza rea.s.sured him. 'They will fade in a few hours. Couple of days at the most. You're not planning to go anywhere this weekend are you?'

'No, I'm having a family weekend.' He sighed as he thought how he was going out for lunch with the children tomorrow. In the old days his birthdays had been riotous affairs, involving one of Hannah's most delicious cakes and a drinks party for all their friends, including the Lyonses. But now they meant forking out a fortune in Royal China in St John's Wood while the kids texted their friends from boarding school and made snide jokes about 'Snotty' as they called their stepmother, before he drove them back to their boarding schools just outside the M25. Then he'd return home, depressed, to what would no doubt be another badly-cooked dinner by Poppy. She tried so hard to feed him well, but the cooking gene just wasn't there.

He shouldn't be so hard on her, he told himself as he settled up with Dahlia. It wasn't Poppy's fault he'd married her out of a twisted mixture of guilt and revenge. He should stop brooding on her lack of cordon bleu skills and focus instead on her loving heart and how she laughed at his jokes, the way she devotedly watched the programme and plied him with questions about it that he was usually too tired or preoccupied to answer. She was trying; he had to cut her some slack.

The roads were empty and he was home in just fifteen minutes. The light was on in the living room. As he inserted his key in his front door, he could hear the television blaring in the living room. Face tingling, he opened the door to be greeted by the sight of his wife, fast asleep on the sofa with Clara beside her. He looked down at her, his exasperation melting at the sight of their two angelic faces. Luke could never admit it publicly, but Clara was the most gorgeous of all his children, a wonderful blend of his and Poppy's beauty, and for her presence he could be nothing but grateful.

Sensing him there, Poppy stirred.

'What time is it?'

'Eleven. Sorry I'm so late.'