his charm and good looks bringing him more and more success. He swapped his Triumph TR7 for an E-type Jaguar and swept Audrey up to the West End for glamorous Saturday nights out.
He knew enough people to gain access to all the best places. They rubbed shoulders with everyone from Marianne Faithfull to Prince Philip, from Twiggy to Vidal Sassoon, drinking champagne at Hélène Cordet’s Saddle Room or Tramp, playing roulette at Les A.
She met his friends after these dazzling nights out, for eggs and bacon at the Golden Egg in Oxford Street, wondering if they’d spy one of the Kray brothers, feeling impossibly glamorous, eating breakfast in the early hours of the morning, at the center of the entire world.
London came alive in the sixties, and Audrey came alive on those Saturday nights, guided by Richard, stepping carefully down the iron staircase into Annabel’s, where Louis greeted Richard with a handshake, Audrey with a kiss.
Of course she fell in love with Richard. She had never met anyone like him in New York, where the men could have done with a little of his debonair grace. She had never felt so fully alive as with Richard. Her au pair job stretched to two years, after which she told Richard she had to go home.
He proposed. She said yes. Because their life was in England, because her parents died long ago, her Aunt Judith flew over for their tiny wedding at the town hall. Audrey wore a floaty Biba dress, hot-ironed curls into her long straight hair, and she was happy.
* * *
A few months later, Richard came home one evening, to their small terraced cottage near the railway station, giddy with secrets. He handed her a key, led her to the car, and drove her up the road to a large, beautiful Edwardian house on Mill Lane. It was May and the flowers were blooming, Richard refusing to tell her why they were there, walking her up the garden path, hand in hand, then gesturing for her to use the key to open the door.
“Who lives here?” Audrey had whispered, gazing around in awe.
“We do. Happy anniversary, darling. Welcome to our new home.”
Audrey had been breathless as she walked through the house; huge square rooms, flooded with light from the leaded-glass windows, old paneling on the walls. It was a house that begged to be filled with children, with dogs, with memories.
“Do you like it?” Richard asked finally.
“It’s the most beautiful house I’ve ever been in,” she said, thinking of the small Upper West Side apartment she had grown up in, with its herringbone parquet floors and layer upon layer of old, yellowing chipped paint.
“We’re going to fill it with children.” He pulled her close to him. “This is the house our family is going to grow up in. This is the beginning of the rest of our lives.”
Audrey allowed herself to be held, and raised her chin up to be kissed as she knew she was supposed to. The truth was, it was the most beautiful house she had ever seen, but it didn’t feel like a house she was supposed to live in; it didn’t feel like home.
She loved the railway cottage, loved how snug and cosy it was. This house felt like a mansion; she had no idea how to decorate it, what she was supposed to do.
“We’ll get someone to help you,” said Richard, who found a woman who lived in Denham, who swiftly filled the house with furnishings and accessories that Audrey thought were exquisite, even though they still never felt like hers.
“It will be a wonderful house for our family,” Richard told everyone and anyone who would listen.
“Are you pregnant?” Someone would invariably turn to Audrey, congratulations on the tip of their tongue, slight embarrassment as she shook her head. “Not to worry,” they’d say. “You’ve got plenty of time.”
Three years of marriage, and no sign of a baby. Three years of marriage, and Richard didn’t seem quite so glamorous anymore. The nights in the West End had dwindled, at least for the two of them as a couple. Richard still seemed to have meetings that went on for much of the evening, but when the two of them went out it was usually to the picturehouse to see a film, or a weekend picnic at the pond.
Their friends were having babies all around them, and each month, when it was clear no baby was on the way, Audrey told herself that next month