A Perfect Life by Raffaella Barker Page A

Nick’s fury redoubled and the heat of it took him across the Atlantic and on to west coast America. Three years in San Francisco were enough to cool him right down to the chilled-out dope smoker he became, and enough time for Naomi to become fully involved in piety. Nick found it too irritating to deal with. Or that was how he presented it. In fact, he was too smashed to deal with anything at that time, and the months, then the years rolled by and in no time at all he was twenty-one, Silas had been dead five years, and, no surprise here, Nick had a big problem with drink just like his dad. But not whisky. Anything but whisky.

Angel
    A week has passed since the Gildoffs’ barbecue, and the thunderstorms and humidity have intensified, creating lassitude. Worn out by infantile bickering and lack of domestic routine as the holidays spool on and on, Angel is glad to be in London, even though it is mainly to sign some papers at the bank. Not even the dullness of her appointment can diminish her gratitude for a day and a night off. A romantic treat was how Coral saw it.
    â€˜You and Nick can go out to dinner and have some fun,’ she said, wandering into Angel’s bedroom as she packed.
    â€˜Oh yes,’ said Angel, and guiltily put in some nice underwear. Coral sat on the bed, flipping through the clothes spread next to her.
    â€˜If I get married I am keeping my own bedroom,’ she said dreamily, then focused again on her mother. ‘You know, I was thinking we should all go on holiday again like we did when we were younger. I found these. I wanted to show you them.’
    They were photographs of a family holiday in Spain, taken with a child’s blurry camera. Most of the pictures showed Nick and Angel laughing, holding hands, leaning together smiling to pose. Angel glanced at Coral, now lying flat on the bed looking at the ceiling.
    â€˜This seems like a long time ago,’ she said lightly.
    Coral glared at her. ‘Yes, but it should be every year,’ she said and marched out of the room.
    The night is restless and suffocating, so walking in the streets is an effort for the body, and thinking or speaking an effort for the mind. It is frustrating. Angel’s hair flops hot like a scarf against her neck and she takes off her jacket and swings it on her finger. Coming to London to be with Nick is a stolen moment, a touching affirmation of the importance of their marriage. Well, that is how the children see it, and Angel’s friend Jenny, when she mentioned the trip on the telephone yesterday.
    â€˜Good,’ said Jenny. ‘You need to do that from time to time to remember why you like one another.’
    Angel is uncomfortably aware of finding it an ordeal already. Nick has a room he uses in his friend James’s house, and although James is never there, the smell of the house, musty, not quite masculine but like unclean hair, is alienating.
    Angel is unrelaxed when she is there; she feels out of place and unsure, and she wishes she had wanted to suggest a hotel. But when the idea flashed into her head, she dismissed it urgently; unable to face the expectation of sex, and feeling a hotel would throw alot of unwanted pressure on to what was actually just a quick business trip to London.
    Nick takes her out to dinner along the road from the house. It might have been nice to go somewhere special, but impetus drains away while Angel has a bath, scrubbing neurotically with a scourer at the stilton-crackled enamel surface, and Nick is on the phone calling Los Angeles. The success of the New York trade fair has galvanised the whole of Fourply towards the American market, and Nick is the figurehead. Listening to him setting up meetings with buyers from Tuscon, Huston and San Diego, Angel feels very homespun as she takes her mobile phone into the bath and calls home. Trying to luxuriate in the oily and lukewarm depths she gets through to Gosha whom she always avoids talking to as far as