Free The Art of Unpacking Your Life by Shireen Jilla Page B

away from Luke.
    Connie could hear Luke nervously swing from foot to foot, banging his trainers together with each move ‘I’m having a massage. I’ve been working out too much. My muscles are stiff. It’s all there is to it.’
    â€˜Not the only thing that’s going to be stiff,’ Julian said.
    Connie turned away from them. Her mind was empty.
    â€˜Julian, for God’s sake,’ Matt grimaced. ‘There are ladies present.’
    Sara snapped in. ‘What? Matt, give us a break. We’re not in corsets. I represent men who nail their victims to floorboards for fun.’
    Julian flashed his eyes. He was loving every minute. Intrigue, political or sexual, brought his world alive. ‘Isn’t there an unspoken gentleman’s agreement not to fuck the staff?’
    Connie was more upset by Luke than she was by Julian. Why did he never speak up? There was a pause in the conversation that held like a long inhale in her yoga class.
    â€˜Luke, take some advice from your uncle Julian, Kimbo looks a little tame to me.’
    Connie dreaded what was to follow. She had to stop herself from reaching for Luke’s hand.
    â€˜The perfect night is more Pippa Middleton and Keira Knightley. With Tracy Emin in there, to spice it up.’
    Connie closed her eyes. She would have laid her head on her forearms, but she didn’t want to draw attention to herself. There was a heavy inevitability to her marriage. She could feel Luke moving instinctively closer to her.
    Connie was drawn reluctantly back to last week.
    Nothing extraordinary. An intimate evening for about fifty in Winfield House, the Georgian red-brick American ambassador’s residence inside Regent’s Park. A cursory stop at the security gate, invitation and passport shown, down the short drive to the front door straight to the guiding arm of an elegant fixer. She led them into an eighteenth-century French panelled drawing room towards the jovial midwestern ambassador and his skinny, vivacious wife. Introductions. Julian got straight into politics with the ambassador, no small talk required. Connie’s role was to instantly find common ground, which could be hard despite what Sara might think. She commented on the ambassador’s wife’s beautiful grey sequin dress. She always searched for a genuine compliment, it was her shortcut to getting on with anyone. She was in: the ambassador’s wife had a new grandchild. She loved London. Did she know that Barbara Hutton had built Winfield House and had given it to the American state for the price of a dollar? How fascinating. When another member of the Cabinet arrived, the ambassador moved on. They did too – moving systematically round. It was what they did.
    After forty minutes, Julian suggested they leave. A curvaceous columnist from the
Daily Mail
, as recklessly ambitious as the smirk under her neon red lipstick, tottered over, squeezing her plunging V-neck stretch dress between Julian and Connie. No ceremony: flattering chat, a few raucous jokes and straight to intimacy without paying even two hundred pounds to pass Go. She pressed her heavy left breast on toJulian’s right arm. He pressed it back. His eyes danced. He knocked into a passing waiter; he forgot he had said they should leave. He forgot Connie.
    She played her own game many times. How long could she stick it out before she left? At Winfield House, it was thirty-two minutes. A personal best.
    Of course she knew that she was being publicly humiliated.
    It had never mattered as much as it did right now.
    Gus re-emerged with wraparound glasses for Lizzie. As they collected their shawls and scarves, an arm squeezed her, gathering her up. ‘Good morning, sweetheart.’ Dan’s face was awash with warmth and concern. It was too much. Connie wanted to push him away. ‘You know, I woke up feeling awful. I never asked about the children. How is my god-daughter?’
    Connie’s upper