The Ex-Wives Read Free Page A

the four or five men who made even Buffy feel sprightly. He drained his glass and walked out, blinking, into the sunshine. Penny was due back from Positano the next day, flying into Heathrow at some time or other. Eight years ago, that was how they met. They had both been what was coyly called ‘between relationships’ at the time – i.e., in his case, bloody lonely. He had been in L.A., the loneliest place on earth, working on a pilot for a TV series that in fact never got made.
    He noticed her on the plane: shiny chestnut hair, cut in a bob; it swung when she moved. Silk blouse. Her head bent over one of those portable computer things hardly anybody had then. A look ofhigh-powered, total absorption in what she was doing that posed a challenge to a chap. Very attractive.
    After the meal he had made his way to the loo, and got pinioned against her seat by the duty-free trolley; even in those days he was by no means slim enough to squeeze past. He had bent down to her and whispered: ‘Why is it, when the duty-free trolley comes round, is it pushed by a steward you’ve
never seen before
. And
never see again?
During the entire flight?’ She had laughed and whispered ‘They keep them in a special storage compartment.’
    The plane landed and they bumped into each other in the terminal. He was trying to smuggle in some particularly fine bottles of Napa Valley claret and, approaching the
Nothing to Declare
part of customs with his clanking carrier bags, he had tapped her on the shoulder. ‘Be a sport, and bring these through.’ She was a sport, she did. For all she knew the bags could have been full of IRA guns. Full marks to her; she carried them through with that upper-class confidence, that stop-me-if-you-dare, little man look which he had always found impressive in a woman, especially when directed at someone else.
    Once safely through he had introduced himself. ‘Russell Buffery,’ he said, shaking her hand.
    Her face lit up. ‘I thought I recognized the voice! Golly, you don’t look like I expected.’
    People were always saying that. What did they mean? What on earth were they expecting? He had never liked to ask.
    â€˜You were such a marvellous Mr Pickwick,’ she said. ‘I was in bed with glandular fever, I heard all the episodes. Glandular fever takes that long.’
    So they shared a cab into London. She said she was a journalist and she wanted to do him for one of those
My Room
things in one of the colour supplements. He gave her his address: a mansion block in Little Venice. Well, Maida Vale.
    On the appointed day she turned up, with a photographer. She wore a white linen suit; she looked as brisk and businesslike as a staff nurse. He adored nurses. On the threshold of the living room she stopped and stared. ‘My God, what a pigsty!’ She wandered around the room, stepping over the various items strewn on the carpet. Her eyes were wide with wonder – admiration, almost. ‘People usually clean up for days before we arrive.’
    It looked perfectly all right to him – in fact, he
had
tidied it up a bit – but he sensed he was onto something here. Something powerful.
Pity.
It was here to be tapped.
    â€˜My ex-wife threw me out, you see. I ended up in this place. Blomfield Mansions is full of redundant husbands, a human scrap heap.’ His voice rose, hisrich brown voice. Molasses, tawny port, liqueur chocolate dripped through honeycomb – all these comparisons had been made. His voice-box had brought pleasure to thousands, seen and unseen – millions, maybe. It was without a doubt his most reliable organ, where women were concerned. ‘They fester here, crippled by alimony,’ he throbbed. ‘They sit alone in the pub, gazing at polaroid photographs of their childrens’ birthday parties they’ve been banished from attending. They sit in the launderama watching, through the cyclops eye of the washing