Junction X

an impromptu fondue night for bosses or colleagues with a mere hour or so’s notice.
I fitted that mould he talked of exactly—exactly—and I had the image so pin-stripe perfect that most people looking at it would only have seen Ed Johnson, the man with the pretty good—if not perfect—life, and been convinced by it. All most people would have seen was the stockbroker with shiny shoes. They would never have guessed the secrets behind the suit and the earnest expression. It’s so easy to fool people.
As I crawled out of bed that morning and yawned my way to the bathroom, there should have been portents. There should have been a dead raven on the lawn or a comet livid and bloody searing the sky. But, of course, there was nothing more epic than sparrows and starlings squabbling over the last crumbs.
In the shaving mirror I saw Valerie float past the open bathroom door, and I realised that it was going to be another one of those mornings. She had that glittering hardness to her face, and she was wearing the red-and-orange housecoat that always spelled trouble. It seemed my penance of sleeping in the spare room had not papered over the cracks of the night before and battle dress was the choice of the day. Camouflage, for Valerie, came in clashing colours.
From the end of the hall, I could hear the twins preparing for what sounded like a campaign to take over the world rather than getting ready for the first day back at school. Mary seemed to have the upper hand, judging by John’s screams, so I left them to it. Mrs. Tudor would sort them out after I’d left. If Valerie wasn’t going to get involved, neither was I.
As I thought back on the night before, I realised that the battle might have been won, but the war was still raging, a cold war which was worse than any frontal assault my wife could rage. Pursed lips, the slightest frown between those delicate brows and a hard stiff cheek to be kissed at the front door as she did her wifely duty and saw me out of the house. Unless I gave in, there would be days of this.
I sighed. Wiping the last of the soap from my face, I grabbed my tie from the hook and trotted downstairs, pondering my campaign choices.
I stopped on the landing, using the reflection of the window to arrange my tie. The front garden was looking a bit crushed by the last few weeks of sun. As I made a mental note to speak to the gardener at the weekend, a movement caught my eye. Crawling along the wrong side of the street was a large removal van. One of the men hung his head out of the side window as if he was checking the house numbers. It stopped, as I had half-expected it to, next door. Finally, I thought, as I made my way down to the dining room, all thoughts of Valerie’s skirmish pushed aside. It looked like we’d be getting new neighbours at last.
“Good morning, darling,” I said, firing an opening salvo as I slid onto my chair. Valerie’s face was a mask of ice, but she handed me The Times and a cup as Mrs. Tudor appeared from the kitchen with the coffee pot and my breakfast. Then she buried herself in the Telegraph, for which I was grateful. I didn’t want a re-engagement in front of the help.
Mrs. Tudor poured out some coffee and placed a plate of eggs and bacon in front of me. I gave her a secret grin, unseen by Valerie, and Mrs. Tudor’s bushy grey eyebrows rose in mock despair. I wondered if hostilities were going to be extended all day, whether Valerie would take her vitriol to the tennis club and expend it or whether I would come home to the same cold shoulder I was experiencing now. My stomach winced in complaint. I had planned on playing squash that evening. Perhaps it might be better to ditch the idea and come straight home.
After filling my wife’s coffee cup, Mrs. Tudor retreated into the warmth of the kitchen with an audible, irritated sigh. Mrs. Tudor and Valerie were not the best of friends. In fact, if it had been up to Valerie, Mrs. Tudor would have been replaced with someone called Inga or Helga, an au pair, like her friends had. She considered Mrs. Tudor to be old-fashioned and Not Quite The Thing.
But to me, Mrs. Tudor’s old-fashioned ways were part of her charm. I wanted the children to have someone in their lives the way I’d had. Mrs. Tudor reminded me of my nanny; she had smelled of flour and polish and she was big enough to wrap her arms around the world. Mrs. Tudor had been John and Mary’s nanny and, now that they didn’t need her full-time, she came in for a couple of hours in the morning and again in the evening. It wasn’t perfect—she was exposed to Valerie too much, for one thing—but the alternatives were worse. Strangers who might steal? No, thank you.
Mrs. Tudor’s ways were the way of the Victorian nursery: high tea, the children changing clothes when they got in from school, and the “seen, not heard” ethos. Old-fashioned, yes, but it was how I liked things.
That morning, however, the children were certainly being heard, even from the dining room. I wondered if Valerie even knew how good she had it; the mythical Helga would be more interested in finding English boys than making sure that the children were brushing their teeth or not ripping each other’s ears off. The escalation of noise caused Battleship Tudor to sail past in the direction of the stairs and I relaxed a little. In a few seconds there would be blissful silence again.
I watched Valerie over the rim of my coffee cup, pondering the best way to breach the barricades. I decided on daily news; that