The Perfect Happiness(21)

“It would be so good for my career. Olivier doesn’t consider it a career.”

“The money you make certainly classes it as a career.”

“You talk to my husband.”

“Look, I’m not going to try to persuade you to go to Australia. I promise. Let’s have a nice lunch and put together a battle plan for the next book. When can you do it?”

“Can we put something in at the end of November? I know it’s a long way off, but I’m reluctant to leave my desk while I’m on a roll.” Gives me more time to get something written.

“That’s fantastic. I don’t want to interrupt your creative flow.”

As Claudia was looking through her diary, Angelica heard the ping of a new message. There, highlighted in bold, was the name: Jack Meyer. “What about Thursday the twentieth?” Claudia suggested. “We can go to Sotheby’s Café. I know you like it . . .” There was silence. “Angelica? Are you still there?”

She tore her eyes away from the screen. “Yes, yes, I’m here. Sorry, just got distracted by an e-mail.” She flicked through her diary, eager to finish the call so she could read what he had written. “The twentieth of November. It’s in.”

“Great. I’ll leave you to your writing and that e-mail!”

Angelica put down the telephone and turned back to her computer screen.

Dear beautiful Sage, In my case the desire to have what I can’t have poses a tremendous challenge, which generates a great deal of happiness in the form of anticipation. Perhaps acceptance in its purest form is the key to lasting happiness. The trouble is that there is nothing pure in my form of acceptance, only frustration and rebellion as I fight against it. Surely if I accept my lot, I will never raise myself up to my true potential? What do you say to that? From Dog on Porch



With an increasing sense of guilt, she read it again. “Dear beautiful Sage . . .” He obviously wasn’t worried that his wife was going to read his e-mails. She knew the rest of what he wrote referred to her and the challenge she posed. She was the object of his desire and quite unobtainable. Yet she didn’t feel she was in danger. E-mail gave their letters a comfortable detachment. It wasn’t like speaking on the telephone, or talking across the table at lunch. It enabled her to flirt in a way she would never have dared flirt in person.

She was aware that she was encouraging Jack for her own amusement, which wasn’t really fair. She should stop it before it went too far. But she managed to convince herself that it was as much a game for him as it was for her. He probably had e-mail “friends” across the globe—what was one more?

So how should she respond to his thoughts on acceptance? She sat back and considered, chewing on a pen. The happiness of which he spoke was temporary, more of a high than a state of inner peace and harmony. She posed a challenge, and the desire to win her gave him the anticipation of happiness, but, having won her, the challenge would be gone and happiness would elude him once again.

Her fingers hovered over the keys. She knew she should wait a few days before replying. She didn’t want to look keen. But the temptation was too great to resist, and besides, didn’t she deserve a little innocent fun?

Dear Dog on Porch, The happiness you speak of is a temporary happiness. Imagine a dog on his porch. If he’s straining at the lead and yearning for what is in the garden, he will only feel frustrated and unhappy. If he strays into the garden in chase of a rabbit, he might experience the pleasure of the chase, but then his happiness evaporates until the next rabbit. If he accepts that he must stay on the porch and lies there feeling the wind through his fur and the sun on his skin and doesn’t yearn for that rabbit, surely then he will feel the deep inner contentment of just being. From a rather confused Sage



She was wrenched from her ponderings by Joe shouting up the stairs that he wanted to watch Ben10 but that Isabel had stolen the control to watch High School Musical. “No television until you’ve done your homework,” Angelica replied, skipping down the stairs. “Joe, you’re first. Look, the sooner you do it, the sooner it’s over, then you can watch Ben10.”

While Sunny made spaghetti bolognese for tea, Angelica sat with Joe at the dining room table. Happiness is loving my children, she thought as Joe read out loud. She watched her son’s earnest face as he concentrated on the words and tried to imagine what he was going to be like as a man: handsome like his father, certainly, with her light eyes and fair skin. Out-spoken like his grandfather. Unique in the way that every human being is a one-off.

Her mind drifted to Olivier, and she felt a twinge of guilt, though there was no fear of his reading her e-mails; he never set foot in her office. He wouldn’t imagine her having a cyber friend like Jack. No one would. Olivier had a reputation for loving women. After all, he was French. In fact, if Olivier didn’t chat up girls at every turn, people assumed he was ill or in a bad mood, and they were probably right. It didn’t mean that Olivier didn’t love her above all others, just that he needed the adrenaline rush of a flirtation and the confirmation that at forty-eight he was still attractive. But she, being English and less flamboyant, was reputedly a paragon of virtue.