He liked Gloria, but he never entertained her on his own. She was Lou’s aunt, Lou’s relative. He was hopeless with old ladies. Completely hopeless with his own mother, who was, it had to be admitted, a nightmare even in the elderly lady stakes. Gloria was not a nightmare normally, but Ned felt this wasn’t one of her convivial visits.
‘Have you been speaking to Lou?’ Gloria interrupted his thoughts.
‘Yes, and no. I mean, she hung up on me and since then, I’ve left her messages, but she hasn’t got back to me,’ said Ned helplessly. And even as he said it, he knew it sounded like a dreadful excuse.
‘She was very angry when she left.’
Hethoughtshe was angry when she left because, frankly, a lot of the night was a haze. It was the Heart Starters. If only Tommy hadn’t been so insistent on them. Ned didn’t think he’d ever had a hangover like it.
When he woke up on Saturday morning to discover that he was fully dressed on the couch, with a murderous headache, a sick stomach and a wife who had gone AWOL, he resolved never to touch another Heart Starter.
‘Just messages?’ said Gloria.
‘Yes,’ said Ned, realising too late that Gloria, for all her easy-going appearance, was another of those women who could pin you to the wall with a sentence. ‘I can’t reach her. She’s not taking my phone calls.’
‘Oh Ned,’ said Gloria, with a hint of weariness. ‘You’re going to have to do better than that, you know.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘It’s just I’m hopeless at presents and—’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Gloria said, enunciating every word crisply. ‘This is not about presents. This is about paying attention. This is about someone you love very much. Someone you’ve neglected.’
‘I do know,’ Ned said, irritated.
‘There’s no point telling me you know if you’re not doing anything about it,’ Gloria pointed out. ‘You need to have a proper conversation with Lou. I know you love her, and I know she adores you, but marriages drift apart when one person lets the other one get on with doing all the work. And she does all the work, doesn’t she? She does the taking care of, the fixing things, the buying gifts for your mother—’
‘You know she buys things for my mother?’
‘Of course she does.’ Gloria was brusque.
‘You mean she told you?’
‘She didn’t have to tell me, it’s perfectly obvious. If you are not able to buy a single gift for your own wife on her fiftieth birthday, it’s pretty obvious you can’t buy your mother things, so of course, Lou buys everything.’
‘Am I that transparent?’ asked Ned, slightly horrified.
It was one thing to rely on one’s wife to do everything. Another entirely for everyone to see this clearly. He felt like a big child playing at being a grown-up.
‘Not transparent dear, just a little predictable. And perhaps a little lazy? The thing is, Lou doesn’t complain. It doesn’t matter if you’re predictable if everything else in her life is working and people are looking out for her. However, everything else in Lou’s life hasn’t been working. And that’s the problem. It would be fine if Oszkar and Bettina weren’t treating her abominably. And it would be fine if she didn’t have Lillian as a mother. But they’re two big obstacles to overcome. Add all of that to your not being precisely present, and perhaps taking her for granted, and of course there’s a problem. I don’t like to interfere—’
Ned snorted. That was the sort of thing his mother said all the time right before she interfered.
‘Honestly, I don’t,’ said Gloria, ‘but I feel you need to do something or you will lose Lou. And think of what an example you’re setting for Emily. You’re showing her that this is how husbands treat wives.’
‘Now listen,’ said Ned angrily, ‘I love Emily—’
‘I know you do. But you’re showing her that husbands don’t have to bother, that only wives bother.’
Ned’s lips tightened as he listened.
‘You need to be a part of this marriage, Ned, to contribute to it. I don’t mean money. I mean time, energy, commitment. Stop sitting back and thinking that, because you’re married, you can stop trying. I know,’ she added, ‘I’m old and never married and you think, what does she know about all of this? When you’re as old as I am, you’ve seen scores of marriages come and go. I’d hate to see you and Lou split up because you treat her like an old armchair you can fall into. She’s such a precious person.’
‘What am I supposed to do?’ demanded Ned. ‘She’s not answering her phone to me.’
‘Take some action. Talk to Toni. Toni will have an idea what to do. They’re in Sicily – no reason you can’t fly out there.’
‘But I’ve stuff on,’ protested Ned.
Gloria got rather stiffly to her feet. ‘Of course you do, dear,’ she said, with only the faintest hint of condescension. ‘Stuff on. Good luck with that, Ned.’
