Spring had to be Lou’s favourite season for flowers. It was so pretty when the sun shone and woke up the buds. Her stocky hyacinths on the windowsill were releasing their pungent scent into the kitchen. Outside, the cherry blossom was thick on the tree branches, banks of daffs nodded to each other in the breeze and there was a blur of violet in the woods as early bluebells unlocked. But according to the weather forecast, Sunday was going to be the last day of good weather for a week at least, and so Lou was up early to make the most of it. She had decided that the garden was next in line for an overhaul.
She had rung for one of the larger skips midweek, dictating her order to an answering machine, and it hadn’t been Tom who had delivered it either. By nine o’clock today, it was already half-full of the bonfire pile that had been waiting for a match for a year and a half. It was far too sodden to burn now and would have ended up smoking out the estate if she had tried. It was only since she had started this clutter-clearing that the sight of it had begun to annoy her. Every time she looked out of the kitchen window, she saw it staring at her, like the mountain from
Close Encounters
. She had the distinct
feeling that if she didn’t shift it before long, she would start recreating it everywhere in mashed potato.
She set to, sawing all the huge wooden tree branches into smaller pieces, then she wheelbarrowed them over to the skip. Phil hadn’t ever shared the male obsession with arson, so goodness knows what he was thinking of in the first place, making the pile so big. It was as if he had been moving the problem rubbish from one place to another but never actually getting rid of it. Not surprisingly, the clutter-clearing article highlighted such action as a total waste of energy.
Lou wrestled with a garden chair possessed by a clingy weed behind a row of conifers with a force that suggested she was battling something else, but triumphing over a bulky bit of plastic could not quite take away the frustration and disappointment she was trying not to put a name to. Well, she might not be able to control who delivered her skips, but at least Lou could have the upper hand over the chair. A cameo of Nicola’s face with its scary chrome canines popped into her head for no reason at all, which made the next tug a mightily aggressive one.
Phil teased back the curtain to see Lou pulling at something white from behind the line of firs. He knocked on the window, but she was too involved with the silly bloody nonsense to hear him. His stomach growled like a caged bear and, in his pyjama bottoms, his penis bobbed like a charmed snake. He could have done with some attention this morning and where was his wife? Out wrestling rubbish like a small Big Daddy–again. Slipping on his dressing-gown and moccasins, he went downstairs, padded across the slate-
tiled kitchen floor, opened the back door and called out to Lou.
His shout coincided with her last heave and Lou, feeling as victorious as Boudicca, dropped the chair on the grass as if it were a dead Roman, before strolling back across the lawn to the house. Her hair was tied back in a girly ponytail but strands of it had fallen across her face, and she pushed back at them with the clean heel of her hand. Her arms and clothes were filthy. She was panting like an animal.
It must have been his imagination, but she looked leaner. Actually, he thought, she looked quite sexy. For Lou, these days, anyway.
‘I’m awake,’ he announced.
‘Yes, I see you,’ Lou replied breathlessly. It was back-breaking work but exhilarating. Letting her body work whilst her head was free to butterfly had an effect similar to sticking herself in a battery charger. The harder she worked, the more energized she felt, and it had the unexpected side-effect of revving up a libido she thought had been waiting for its last rites.
‘Break for breakfast?’ queried Phil, who really meant: Leave the sodding trees alone and get the Big George grill out.
‘Yes, OK,’ said Lou, stripping off her gloves.
Her lips are blood red, thought Phil. He steered Lou into the house with his hand on her bottom, not for a moment expecting what would happen next–for no sooner had they made it through the door when Lou turned around, they collided and then he couldn’t believe what sparked between them, but he wasn’t going to turn it down. He struggled her bra off and started
rolling her nipples around in his hands, a quick grope before he moved in for the main event…but Lou, it seemed, had other ideas. He undid the belt on his robe and just as he was about to take her hand to guide it down to the bulge making a bid for freedom out of his pyjamas, Lou grabbed his hand first and made it do a bit of bidding of her own. He barely had to do anything before she was gasping out her orgasm, and judging from the noise she was making, it had a few seismic waves attached to it. Then, before Phil had a chance to protest, Lou pushed him onto a kitchen chair, sank between his legs and pleasured him in his absolute favourite way. It was over in seconds, his orgasmic scream borne out on a blasphemy of the highest order.
‘Wow,’ said Phil breathlessly, popping his spent equipment back under cover as Lou stood up and started dressing. If the truth be told, he had been getting a bit annoyed with all this skip and cleaning business, and had decided not to let her carry on with it any more, but if this morning was anything to go by, maybe he should, because advantages were starting to manifest themselves. The sight of the constant skips outside the front window was beginning to piss him off, but in saying that, he had really noticed changes in the house. It sounded daft, but every time a skip left, he could have sworn the house felt lighter.
‘I think we could definitely do with some breakfast now,’ Phil grinned. ‘I’m starving.’
He gave her breast a squeeze, not noticing how Lou suddenly shrank from his touch. With her body now satiated, her brain was busy trying to analyze what had just happened. It wasn’t love-making by any stretch; they
hadn’t kissed once during their activity. No, Lou Winter had just shamelessly used her husband to satisfy a basic need, and the worst of it was that anyone would have done. It didn’t make Lou feel very good about herself to admit that, for a few seconds back there, she had been imagining someone else’s hands all over her; big rough hands that knew exactly where to touch her, instead of Phil’s clumsy pinging and tweaking. It was thinking about
him
that had both brought her to that wild point of no return and then caused her to feel so guilty afterwards.
She was thirty-six and this was her one and only experience of sex that had everything to do with selfless gratification and nothing with affection. Was this what men felt all the time? Was it this detachment that allowed them to pull up their trousers and disappear into the night without a backward glance, that let them cheat on their wives and then jump back into bed with them before the top note of the other woman’s scent had faded on their shirts?
Her sex-life had never been all that adventurous, even in the college days. There had been two lovers before Phil, who had both been to the ‘Climben ze on, Climben ze off’ Swiss Finishing School of Copulation. She’d always imagined when she got married that she and her husband would start to build up a sexual repertoire, but that hadn’t happened. She and Phil hadn’t even made a dent in the index of the
Kama Sutra
. Adventurous sex had never been a priority in her marriage. Phil seemed to get more pleasure closing a car deal than he did in bed. In fact, sometimes it was as if the deal was the sex and the sex was the celebratory cigarette
afterwards. ‘Mr Missionary’ got bored doing foreplay but then again, he had rather been led to believe that he did the business superbly well because of his wife’s kind but misguided attempts to fake her pleasure. Lou found herself trapped in a web of her own making and, as such, had to put up with it because it was far too late to come clean. Actually, Lou could take or leave sex but Phil took a pleasure from her, usually on Sunday mornings, which she was happy to give. Her own sex-drive was low, and now that she was fast approaching middle-age, her libido was barely breathing. At least, she had thought that was a fair assessment of the case, until the injection of freak hormones that morning, of course. It seemed that what she had thought of as dead was merely dormant–her libido was less ‘Corpse Bride’ and more ‘Sleeping Beauty’. There was nothing said about that in the clutter-clearing article!
While Phil was happily reading his usual spread of Sunday newspapers, Lou’s phone announced the arrival of a text message.
CAN U TALK
? It was from Michelle. Now was as good a time as any for a chat. She couldn’t put anything more in the skip now, it was filled to the max. Maybe she should have gone for the even bigger size!
‘Hiya.’ Michelle answered the phone sounding breathless but bright. ‘Oh Lou, I’ve got loads to tell you.’
‘I’ve rung you a few times in the week,’ said Lou. ‘Did you get the messages I left on your answering machine?’
‘Yeah, sorry, Lou, but I’ve been out at aerobics–got to get rid of these flabby bits now I’ve got a fella. I did mean to call you back, honest. I don’t know where the time goes.’
‘Well, I’m listening now anyway,’ said Lou, settling down in the lumpy armchair in the corner of the conservatory. She’d never liked it. It would have to go, she decided.
‘It’s official, I’ve got a boyfriend,’ Michelle squeaked excitedly, in much the same way that she would have said ‘I’ve won the lottery.’ They were more or less the same thing to Michelle.
‘Come on then, tell me the details.’
‘His name’s Craig, he’s thirty-three…’
‘Ooh, toyboy…’
‘Only two years, so I’m not exactly cradle-snatching! Anyway, he’s a mechanic, comes from Leeds, six foot, blond hair, although he’s got it shaved in a number one, blue eyes, really really nice smile, unattached, no kids…’
Well, so far he sounded promising–suspiciously so.
‘He’s in between jobs at the moment. Shame, really, but the garage he was working in caught fire and the owner couldn’t afford to rebuild it. It’s killing him being on the dole because he hates not working. Anyway, he was married but he’s separated. They’re at that sorting out the financial stuff stage at the moment. He’s sleeping on the couch.’
Ah, here we go, thought Lou. She knew it was too good to be true.
‘Met him in the
White Hart
last weekend, then we went clubbing and I invited him back for a coffee, although by then I had no intention of putting the kettle on,’ Michelle beamed. Lou knew she was beaming because the sunshine was oozing out from between Michelle’s teeth, coursing down the telephone line and making Lou’s ear warm.
‘Anyway, we started snogging on the sofa like teenagers and then we just seemed to float up to bed, it was so weird. My clothes just seemed to fall off like they do on films. We spent the whole weekend at it, apart from him watching the match on Saturday afternoon and the sports highlights at night. I tell you he’s got some stamina, it was fantastic. He even got up to make my breakfast. Well, tea and toast, that’s all I had in the cupboard.’
‘I hope you used protection,’ said Lou, feeling like a bucket of cold water as soon as she had opened her mouth.
‘We did the first time but he’s allergic to rubber. Anyway, I’m on the pill. God, Lou, he is quite honestly the most gorgeous man I’ve ever met.’
‘Have you heard from him since?’ said Lou, trying hard to sound frothy and positive and not like the angel of doom.
‘Course I have. I said to him, “Ring me when you get home and let me know the taxi arrived safe”, and he did. Well, he phoned from his mate’s house–he hasn’t got a mobile.’
A bloke without a mobile?
‘Taxi to Leeds? Crikey, that will have taken care of his week’s dole money, won’t it? He must be keen,’ Lou said.
‘It was my fault he missed the taxi home with his mates, so I gave him the money for it. And I know what you’re going to say about that, but listen to this, he’s coming over next Friday night and he’s making me a meal here as a thank you, so really, it’s a good job you can’t do
evenings
, because I would have had to cancel anyway,’ Michelle added pointedly.
‘That’s nice,’ said Lou. It wasn’t her place to turn into her mother and start fire-extinguishing Michelle’s happiness. Who knows, he might be a genuine guy after all.
‘He’s gone down to London this week to see if he can get a job there with his mate. God, I hope he doesn’t get it. That would be awful, wouldn’t it? Just finding the most fantastic bloke ever and then he emigrates. I suppose if everything worked out, I could move down there, though…’
Clearly Michelle had already designed her wedding dress and picked their children’s names.
‘So, are you looking forward to him turning up on Friday then?’ asked Lou.
‘Of course,’ said Michelle tightly. ‘Why wouldn’t I be? Why did you say it like that?’
‘Like what?’ said Lou. Heck, how had she said it?
‘Sarcastic. That little phrase about him “turning up”,’ and she repeated Lou’s words but gave them a waspish, mocking tone. ‘You don’t think he’ll turn up, do you?’
‘I hope he does,’ said Lou.
‘Hope? You hope?’
Lou obviously wasn’t equipped for this conversation with Michelle. She wasn’t in full military anti-landmine gear.
‘Oh Mish, I really
really
want you to find someone nice, and what I’m trying to say is that I hope this guy turns out to be the one for you,’ said Lou, trying her best to sound jolly and encouraging. ‘I meant I hope he does turn up and you have a great time.’
‘He
will
turn up!’ Michelle was cross now. ‘You know, Lou, I was dying to tell you, my
friend
, all about him but I just knew you’d have to try spoil it
as usual
. Remind
me not to phone you again if I have any more good news, will you? Speak to you later. Maybe.’
With that, Michelle slammed the phone down, leaving Lou wondering once again why she always seemed to be on a different footing to the rest of the universe.
The skip was lifted the next day whilst Lou was having a horrible rough Monday at work with office morale sinking a few more notches towards the centre of the earth. Karen had been sent off on a course, leaving Lou alone with Jaws and her amazing performing steel gob. Still, it made the Tuesday that followed it all the sweeter, not only to be away from the place but to be up early waiting for the next skip to arrive.
Lou got all her old garb on then twisted off her wedding ring, leaving it in its usual ‘waiting place’ in the spoon rest. She and Phil had chosen their rings together in a lovely old-fashioned shop down a back street in Leeds. His was a huge, heavy rose gold hoop, and he had chosen a similar one for her over her choice of a delicate plain band. It was far too wide for her little hand and totally impractical to wear and, since she had put on extra weight over the last year or so, it felt tight and uncomfortable when her fingers were warm. Not that she would admit that to Phil–for between the way he and her mother harped on about her bum, she sometimes felt she should pack in her job in Accounts and go and enroll on a Sumo Masters course. Plus it was her
wedding ring, the precious piece of gold that Phil put on her finger when he pledged to love her for ever. It would be OK again when she lost a bit more weight, she knew, but for now she would content herself by sneaking it off when Phil wasn’t around to let her finger sigh with relief.
The air was considerably nippy and damp, but that didn’t stop her from slipping on her gardening gloves to tackle the five-foot nettles, the last leg of the garden clearance. Then what–the cellar or the loft? The cellar, she decided. She was in no way ready to clear out what lay in wait for her
up there
.
Phil pulled off his wedding ring and rubbed at his finger to try and reduce the slight indentation it made. Women customers always flashed a glance to that third finger, left hand. Its presence, or absence, helped to put a man in some context. To some that ring was a symbol of a solid, trustworthy soul but he could also instinctively spot the others who preferred to see that finger naked because it gave them a guilt-free opportunity to flirt down the final figure. Obviously, he made sure they were successful at doing that, but then again, he always left enough margins in his prices to be able to do that anyway. Everyone, without exception, loved a bargain.
Reading people was all part of the game and Phil was an expert at it. He could spot the blokes who would know what he was talking about by a ‘fixed-head coupé’ and the bullshitters who didn’t know a V8 from an After Eight. He knew when a woman enjoyed being flattered that her legs were too long
surely
to fit in that teensy weensy little sports car, and when to dumb it down to being quietly, but charmingly civil.
That sunkissed little blonde number at the other side of the windowed wall in the scarlet suit, for instance, eyeing up the quality end of his car market, was definitely the rings off, full-throttle flirtation type. Popping his wedding band into his pocket, Phil prepared his smile before moving out of the office to show Bradley a real master at work.
Lou barely registered the arrival of the skip lorry; her head was so full of its own debris as she heaved on the devil foliage. She had been thinking about work and what an increasing nightmare it was for everyone who worked alongside her in the department. Zoe was a living ghost these days and Stan looked as if he had left his mind at home and just sent his body out to go through the motions. It wasn’t only work that was clogging up Lou’s head, though, for that Sunday sex episode with Phil was still circling her head like a deranged vulture; also she didn’t know whether to ring up Michelle and apologize for coming across as Saint Elouise of Doom. Then again, could she deny Michelle the opportunity of ringing her after the weekend with a much savoured ‘I told you so’?
It made her revisit those easy friendship days with Deb for the zillionth time recently. They’d only ever argued about one thing–the ratio of flour to egg in a Yorkshire Pudding. It hadn’t exactly been pistols at dawn stuff, plus they’d been totally ratted on Zombies at the time.
‘Hello.’
Lou snapped her head up and immediately swallowed.
It was
him
, complete with dog, which he was holding at the collar as Clooney whined and pawed to get to the nice lady who gave him biscuits.
‘Oh hello,’ she said, trying to do casual and failing dismally as her voice squeaked like a mouse which had woken up to find its head in a Persian cat’s mouth. He really did have a lovely, lovely grin–slightly lopsided but his lips looked soft and generous and—
STOP
! She reined in her observations as she felt herself starting to colour. She quickly bent down to beckon Clooney, who broke free from Tom and bounced towards Lou with such enthusiasm that he knocked her completely backwards into the wet grass. Her embarrassment was only lessened by the fact that she had jeans on and not a skirt that would have given him a point blank-view of her big Marks & Spencer’s stomach-holding-in knickers.
‘Clooney, down!’ boomed Tom with such command that the dog dropped immediately to the ground, his ears flat back against his head.
‘Are you all right? He’s bloody barmy that dog, sometimes,’ Tom said, striding over to her.
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ said Lou, shrugging bravely. Fine apart from feeling a total twerp, that was.
Suddenly he was standing over her, bending, and his hands were under her armpits.
Oh no. Oh no no no no no!
Most women have a fantasy about being lifted effortlessly up into a man’s arms as if they were light as a size zero feather, and Lou Winter was no exception. However, she was all too aware that, were that scene to be played out in real life with her as female lead, Prince Charming would probably buckle over with the surprise weight of her, mutter a very unroyal expletive, completely knacker his back and then be in traction for six weeks. Tom Broom, however, was a strong bloke and
Lou found herself lifted easily to her feet without any snapping of spines, blasphemies or exclamations of pain on his behalf.
‘Thank you,’ said Lou, not really knowing where to look, and simultaneously displaying every nervous gesture that was possible–blinking, neck rubbing, hair fiddling, moving from one foot to the other, clearing her throat, turning into a living, breathing beetroot. At one point, she was almost Guinness Book of Records material.
‘I’ll leave him in the van in future,’ said Tom, mildly mirroring a couple of Lou’s gestures.
‘No, no, it’s not his fault. Please don’t, I love to see him,’ she pleaded. Her heart was racing like Zola Budd running to the chip shop.
They both looked at Clooney who was lying, nose down on the ground, great dark eyes flicking from one to the other in desperate appeal for forgiveness, although for what he hadn’t a clue. He was only being friendly to the biscuit woman.
Lou’s head was a blender full of mixed-up ingredients. She was feeling sorry for the dog, feeling embarrassed for herself, feeling God-knows-what at being air-lifted up from the ground by this man with hands the size of spades, a face that said
Made in Italy
and an unbreakable back.
‘Have the other lads been looking after you then?’
‘Sorry?’
‘The other skip lads. Whilst I’ve not been here.’
‘Oh y…yes,’ stuttered Lou. ‘They delivered and picked up on time and had nice manners. I can’t ask for any more than that.’
‘I suppose not. And did you palm them off with some more of your counterfeit money?’
‘Absolutely. Fifteen-pound notes this time.’
‘Ha! I shall make sure I check the tills when I get back.’
Good–they were suddenly back on a normal footing. Well, so long as she stayed on her clumsy feet they were anyway. Lou took a deep breath and prepared to put a mental Sherlock Holmes deerstalker on.
‘They…er…said someone was ill in your family. I hope he…or she…is better now.’
‘Well, she’s not exactly ill. It’s my sister–she’s pregnant with her fourth kid.’ Tom tutted fondly. ‘She’s been having a bit of a rough time, though. My brother-in-law is working away at the moment so he’s not at home as much as either of them would like. I sometimes take the kids off her hands to give her a break–you know, whiz them off to the park for a game of footie and a push on the swings.’
‘No children of your own then?’ Wow, big brave Lou! She impressed herself.
‘No.’ Tom shook his head. ‘Not that I know of, anyway. Me and the wife were never really that bothered.’
‘Ah, I see,’ So he was married then.
‘…Then we split up just as I was starting to get interested. Being close to my sister’s kids made me see just how great it would be to have my own. Ah well.
C’est la vie
–or
Così va il mondo
, as the Italians say.’
Lou tried to rope in the smile that threatened to spread right across her face and meet full circle at the back of her head. How ridiculous and childish was she? Her emotions were glued onto a runaway rollercoaster.
‘You got any kids?’ Tom asked.
‘No,’ said Lou. ‘I can’t, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh bloody hell, I’m sorry,’ said Tom. His hand twitched instinctively as if he might have wanted to give her a comforting touch, although it was overridden by the stronger forces of etiquette. ‘Sorry for saying “bloody hell” then, by the way. Shouldn’t swear in front of ladies.’
He needed rescuing himself now, Lou realized. He was the one in a knot this time. People never really knew what to say when an inability to conceive was admitted to.
‘It’s OK, I’m fine with it,’ Lou said, switching on her totally-at-ease-with-the-subject face, which would have fooled all but the most discerning eye. Deb’s, for instance.
Clooney gave a low woof to remind them of his presence.
‘Can I give h-i-m a biscuit?’ Lou whispered, in all innocence.
Clooney barked joyfully. He was forgiven. Otherwise, why would she have said ‘biscuit’?
Tom Broom threw his head back and laughed. ‘Y-e-s, you can give him a biscuit.’
The joke passed two feet over Lou’s head as she took a lolloping Clooney off towards the biscuit cupboard. There was still a ghost of laughter playing around Tom’s mouth when she returned the dog to him. She paid him for the skip, he held the notes up to the light to ‘check for Tippex’, then he gave her a cheery wave and a, ‘See you soon, no doubt,’ and drove off. Lou tried not to notice that her insides felt as if they were full of warm olive oil.