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The Model Wife: Chapter One

By Carla Bevan on Wednesday 27 August 2008

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Poppy Price had always dreamed of marrying a handsome prince. Of catching his eye across the crowded ballroom floor, of him approaching and asking "Shall we dance?" They would swirl around the floor all night to the strains of the Blue Danube and the next morning, on bended knee, he would ask for her hand in marriage.

Things didn't quite turn out that way with Luke Norton. The first time she saw him was on a damp Friday morning in June when she served him a double espresso. Poppy was twenty and working as a waitress in Sal's, a grimy cafe in King's Cross wedged between one shop selling Japanese comics and another selling organic beauty products. Poppy had recently taken the job as modelling jobs had been few and far between, and the rent needed to be paid on the tiny flat she shared in Kilburn with her old schoolfriend, Meena.

Luke was sitting alone at a corner table, talking agitatedly into a mobile phone. When Poppy saw him, her stomach lurched as if she had leaned too far over a cliff. Tall, dark with a broad jaw, he looked like the rugged hero of the black-and-white movies Poppy loved to watch : the kind of man who'd rescue you from a burning building or bundle you on his camel and carry you across the desert.

He was old, admittedly, nearer fifty than forty, but that didn't bother her. Poppy came across a lot of young men, handsome young men, modelling but they were such lightweights: panicking if they thought they'd put on half a pound and sucking in their cheekbones when they looked in the mirror. Poppy wanted someone more solid than that, someone who could protect her from a world which seemed to be full of hard elbows and backbiting. Protect her in a way her father might have done, if she'd ever got the chance to know him.

"Christ, Hannah, I don't know if I can ..." Luke was saying, when a sour-faced woman three tables away bawled. "Waitress!"

"Yes?" said Poppy, smiling through gritted teeth.

"I've been waiting ten minutes for my coffee. Where the hell is it?"

"I'll just check," Poppy said as serenely as she could. She stuck her head round the kitchen door. "Hey, Sal, hurry up with that coffee for table ten."

"You never ask me for a coffee for table ten," protested Sal, her very patient Portuguese boss, looking up from his copy of Metro.

"I did. Ages ago."

"You didn't. Poppy you are a terrible waitress." But he was smiling, because it was hard not to smile at Poppy with her cropped blonde hair and saucer eyes the colour of the translucent minty cough sweets Sal was so partial to.

"Oh sorry. Well, she'd like a latte."

"Coming up," Sal said. Poppy went back into the so-called dining room with its red and black laminate floor, formica tables and framed photographs of the gardens of Madeira.

"It's coming," she said to the woman. To her disappointment, she saw the perfect man had been joined by an equally perfect woman. Perfect from behind, anyway. Poppy couldn't see her face. She had black hair in a French plait and was wearing a very elegant pinstripe trouser suit. She was about to go and take their order, when a woman with a buggy stopped her.

"Excuse me. Do you have high chairs?"

"Hannah's giving me so much grief again," she heard the perfect man say. "She doesn't want me to go to Germany for the elections, because it's Tilly's sports day."

The woman sounded exasperated. "Poor you. Doesn't she realise this is your career? I mean it's not like you were a house husband when she met you."

"Exactly. How does she think we can afford Tilly's bloody ridiculous school? I .... ?"

"I said do you have high chairs?"

"I .. Oh! Yes. Of course. I'll go and get you one." Ears straining to pick up more of the conversation, Poppy returned to the kitchen. Their one high chair was covered in smeary mush from the last baby who had sat in it. Poppy had meant to clean it, but she'd forgotten. Hastily she wiped it down. As she hurried back into the dining room, she saw the perfect woman disappearing through the door. The perfect man was still sitting at the table, looking gloomy.

"At last," said the woman with the buggy. "I thought you'd died." She lifted the baby out of the buggy. "Come on, darling. Now you can have some breakfast." Just then Mrs Angry yelled. "Waitress! This is getting ridiculous. Next time I'm going to Starbucks."

"Sorry," Poppy gasped. She hurried back into the kitchen and emerged with the latte.

"About time," Mrs Angry snapped. "And if you're expecting a tip, you've got another think coming."

"Sorry." Poppy repeated, her face flamingo.

"And I'd like to order too," chirruped the woman with the buggy. "Two croissants please and a latte."

She heard Luke clear his throat.

"And if it's not too much trouble, I'd love a double espresso."

"Oh, OK. Sorry. Sorry." She rushed into the kitchen, shouted the orders to Sal and rushed out again.

"I'm so sorry. I thought I'd taken your order already," she said to the woman with the baby. She rolled her eyes and said nothing. Poppy turned to Luke. "I do apologise."

He smiled so the corners of his eyes crinkled. "It's fine. You're cheering me up. Think you're having an even worse day than me."

The line she'd been daring herself to say rolled off her tongue.

"Want to talk about it?"

"You know I really wouldn't mind."

Buttoning her green mac, Mrs Angry approached them. Poppy braced herself for a bollocking, but she was smiling.

"Excuse me, I'm so sorry to interrupt. But I've just realised. You're Luke Norton. I had to let you know I love the programme. Only intelligent thing on television these days."

"Thank you," Luke said.

"Er. So." The gorgon had transformed into a simpering southern belle. "Good luck. Sorry to bother you. I'm just such a fan."

She bustled out. Luke ran a hand through his hair.

"God, I hate it when that happens. So embarrassing."

"Are you on TV?" Poppy asked.

"I am," he smiled. There was a beat, then he patted the chair vacated by the perfect woman.

"Do you want to sit down?"

"In a minute," Poppy said flustered. "I'll just serve this lady."

So she served up the croissants and - with no other customers in sight - sat down and talked to Luke for nearly an hour. He told her how he'd once been a war correspondent, reporting on conflicts from all over the world. How now he was the anchorman for the SevenThirty news, which sounded extremely glamorous, though Poppy couldn't say she'd ever watched it, and how he was writing a book about the history of the Balkans, which he hoped would be seen as "definitive".

"I'm sure it will," Poppy nodded, not quite understanding what he was on about.

The woman with the buggy left, leaving no tip, Luke continued talking about his family, his three children, the way he was growing apart from his wife.

Poppy's heart sank temporarily when she heard the word "wife" but like a cork in water it immediately popped up again because their marriage was so clearly on the rocks.

"It's so difficult," he said. "I want to be a good father, but we married too young and we're just not making each other happy any more."

"That's so sad," said Poppy, thanking the lord that Sal's was such a terrible cafe they'd probably get no more customers until the lunchtime trickle meaning she could carry on talking to him all morning.

He smiled at her. "You're very sweet. What are you doing working in a dump like this?"

"Well, actually," Poppy confided. "I'm a model. I just do this between jobs."

She hated telling people what her job was, because they immediately looked her up and down, clearly thinking "too fat, too small, nose too squodgy" - all the things bookers muttered when she stood in front of them. Women made a sneery, scornful face; men eyed like an expert on the Antiques Road Show evaluating a Victorian dining table: both sexes were clearly thinking "thick as a plank".

But Luke simply smiled again. "I thought as much. It can't be long before someone as beautiful as you hits the big time." He looked at his watch. He had big, competent-looking hands. "Damn. I've got to go. Conference in five minutes. But it was lovely talking to you ...?"

"Poppy."

"Poppy. See you again, I hope. If you're not strutting down a catwalk in Milan."

"I hope so," Poppy said. "I mean I hope I'm not strutting down a catwalk in Milan, I hope I'm here."

He laughed and she smiled all morning and not just because he'd left a five-pound tip.

After that, Luke came in regularly and regularly they talked. In the meantime, Poppy started watching the SevenThirty news on Channel 6. She was stunned and impressed to discover her new friend presented it maybe four nights out of six. Poppy couldn't believe she knew such an important man. She made notes on the news stories of the day and plied Luke with questions. Did he think there would ever be a solution to the Israel problem? What was the answer to teenage crime? How could the government sort out the NHS?

"You're very sweet," Luke laughed every time. Poppy knew he was being patronising, but she didn't much care, though it would have been nice if he'd bothered to answer her properly.

After a couple of weeks Luke asked her if she was free for dinner. She met him at half past eight in a slightly scuzzy Korean place near Channel 6's headquarters in Pentonville Road.

"I'd love to take you to the Ritz," he said. "But someone might recognise me."

She didn't care about the Ritz, but she was a a bit upset afterwards, when, walking up the road she tried to slip her arm through his and he shook her off.

"Sorry. But someone might see us."

But before she could dwell on that, he asked her if she'd like to have dinner again. That happened twice more and after the third meal, they went to bed back at her place, which was happily empty because Meena was visiting family in Bangalore. And from then began the most wonderful six months of Poppy's life: six months of tangled limbs and sweaty bodies and garbled shouts of "I want you!" Of giggly meals in out-of-the-way candlelit restaurants, meals which had been far more about alcohol than food. Of expensive lingerie and picnics in hotel bedrooms.

Of course Poppy had had boyfriends before but very few. She'd attended a smart girls boarding school in Oxfordshire called Brettenden House and only met boys twice a term when they were bussed in for what the teachers called a "bop". It was at one of these that Poppy, aged fifteen, had met Mark from Radley College. They slow-danced all night, kissed in an alley outside the kitchens where the bins were kept and after that met on alternate weekends in Henley, spending most of the time smooching on a bench by the river. But after three months Mark dumped her because she wouldn't go all the way. Propelled by a mixture of confusion and spite, the following week she lost her virginity to Mark's best friend, Niall, under an elm tree in the far corner of of the playing fields. The next day he dumped her, telling everyone she was a "lousy lay".

After that humiliation, Poppy avoided all men for a couple of years. The one to recapture her trust was Alex, who worked in the food department at Harvey Nichols, where she had her first job. Alex cuddled and kissed her a bit but to Poppy's great relief he didn't pressure her into sex. Then she discovered he was gay and they went their amicable, but separate ways.

And that was it. Meaning at the grand age of twenty two, Poppy was practically a virgin. She had certainly never been in love before. So when it hit her, it hit hard.

A lot of it was the sex. Luke was very gentle with her the first time and very encouraging. He kept moaning "Oh God, you're so beautiful" which was a bit of an improvement on Mark's "can I put it in now?" or Niall's "I ... uh ... awaaargh!" He showed her what he liked and he asked what she liked and the result was so unexpectedly fabulous that every time Poppy thought about him she felt goose pimples explode across her arms like thousands of tiny fireworks and she forgot even more of Sal's customers' orders than usual.

But it was more than the physical stuff. Luke was a real man. He picked up the tab. He asked her what wine she'd like and when she admitted she hadn't a clue he said he'd like to teach her all about varieties of grapes and vineyard soils. He took her to the opera which she pretended to love, even though she spent most of it in a fantasy borrowed from a coffee advert involving her and Luke waking up in some sunny loft apartment and feeding each other croissants. Best of all, after one session on her narrow, single bed, he lay back on the pillow and said.

"How long has that pipe been leaking in the bathroom?"

He was talking about a pipe under the basin that dripped into a bucket like an unsophisticated form of torture. Meena and Poppy had to regularly empty it into the bath. Once they had both gone away for the weekend and the bathroom carpet was drenched so it smelled like a mangy dog in the monsoon.

"Months," Poppy replied. "Meena and I keep asking Mrs Papadopolous to fix it, but he just says 'Yeah, yeah'. I suppose we should call a plumber but he'd just rip us off. Again." The last plumber had charged two-hundred-and-eighty-nine pounds plus VAT to fix a dripping kitchen tap and - with some justification - Mrs Papadopolous had refused to reimburse them.

"I can't stand it any more," Luke said. "I'll bloody do it now. Have you got a tool kit?"

He might as well have asked if Poppy had a guide to quantum physics hidden under the bed. But when she said no, he just smiled.

"Hang on there. I'll go and get one."

He returned twenty minutes later and then lay under the grubby bathroom sink grunting and groaning. By midnight the pipe was fixed. Poppy gazed at him with adoration.

"Thank you Luke," she breathed.

It was such a relief. Poppy had always had to fend for herself. Mum had never been the sort to do her cooking or cleaning or laundry. At an early age, Poppy had learned if she wanted to eat she had to find something to put in the microwave and if her clothes were all dirty then she had to switch the washing machine on, though she never was quite sure how to add powder and what temperature you were meant to set it at, meaning her underwear was perpetually limp and grey until Meena explained about whites and colours. When something broke down, Poppy either called a repair man who usually made a pass at her, then ripped her off, or she just threw it out.

It wasn't like that for Meena. When she wanted some TLC she just went home to Wembley where her Mum did her laundry - even ironing her knickers - and stuffed her with curries and her Dad mended her car's dodgy gearbox on her car. Poppy had found it so tiring being all alone. But with Luke by her side, she wasn't. Not any more.

"Thank you," she said again.

Luke smiled, only a little smugly. "Nice to get my hands dirty," he said. "It makes a change." He paused. "And nice to be appreciated. For once. With everyone else it's just take, take, take. 'Why can't you make it to the school play? What do you mean you can't take two weeks off at Christmas to join me in Barbados? I want a pony. Can I go skiing?' You're the only one who just lets me be."

The domestic references set faint alarm bells ringing. But the overall message was what she'd been waiting to hear. Poppy stroked his face. "I love you," she breathed.

He smiled at her. "I love you too, my Poppy. "

In Poppy's short life it was the first moment of true perfection. Perfection only slightly marred when five seconds later Luke's mobile rang and he looked at it, frowning, switched it off and said "Oh shit, I'd better be off." He began pulling off his clothes for the shower he always took before heading home. Sometimes Poppy felt insulted that he had to wash off all trace of her, but tonight she didn't mind. She sat on the edge of the bath and watched him, liquid joy coursing through her veins. He loved her. He loved her! They were going to live happily ever after.

Only after he left in a minicab did Poppy focus again on that pesky matter of the wife. And the three children. Poppy knew they lived in north London, that there were two teenage girls and a younger boy, that the wife was called Hannah and had been a journalist but was now a full-time mother. She wondered if Hannah wondered where her husband was these late nights and for just a millisecond she felt a shiver of guilt.

But then she shrugged it off. Luke never talked about his family, so he couldn't care for them that much. It wasn't Poppy's fault if he preferred being with her. It didn't occur to her that Hannah could seriously stand in the way of her long-term happiness. After all men left wives and children all the time. Look at what had happened to Mum

Poppy had met her handsome prince. And somehow or another, she would get him to the altar because that was how all good fairy tales ended.