Diary of an Unsmug Married (52 page)

I’m hopping now, partly with rage, but mainly because, although I’ve got one leg in my tights, I can’t seem to get the other in. They’re all twisted out of shape, which could easily be a metaphor.

‘Well,’ I say, continuing to hop, ‘what sort of man – who has apparently never cheated on his wife before – and is only doing it now because his marriage is dead and he’s fallen in love with me, ha ha – needs an AIDS test –
every
year
?’

‘But—’ says Johnny, as I finally get my other leg into the tights.

‘But nothing,’ I say, pulling my dress over my head and zipping it up. ‘You must think I was born yesterday, though God knows it should be all too clear that I wasn’t, if the optician got your prescription right.’

Johnny says nothing as I shove my feet into my shoes, grab my coat and open the door. When I look back at him, just before I slam it, it’s
his
mouth that’s in an ‘O’.

Much like those of the people in the hotel lobby. I only realise why when I walk outside to get into the cab and find that my dress isn’t pulled down properly at the back.

My mobile rings all the way home, but I’m too busy crying to answer it.

SATURDAY, 30 OCTOBER (DAYTIME)

My bloody phone still will
not
stop ringing, but I don’t want to speak to either of the buggers who keep calling it – The Boss or Johnny ‘AIDS Test’ Hunter. I’m too busy bursting into tears every time anyone attempts to speak to me. I wish they’d all stop staring at me, too.

‘What on earth’s the matter with you, Mum?’ says Connie when she arrives. ‘Josh said you looked weirdly good when you went out last night, but now you look absolutely
terrible
.’

‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘It’s probably my hormones, or something like that.’

‘If you say so,’ says Connie, sounding as if she doesn’t believe a word of it.

She and Josh take Max out for a long, birthday lunch straight after that – to keep him away from the party preparations – so at least I won’t be under scrutiny for the next few hours. Dinah’s on her way here to help, but she won’t notice
anything
.

‘I’ve cheered up,’ she says, when she walks in, carrying the cake she’s made and holding Damian, I mean Jake, by the hand. ‘If Dad dies while he’s living in Thailand, or something else happens to him, I’ve got a plan to help me cope.’

‘What?’ I say. ‘How can you possibly find the prospect of Dad dying in Thailand something to be cheerful about?’

‘Well,’ says Dinah, pausing to slap Jake’s hand, to stop him poking the cat with a stick, ‘you know how you hate flying, so you said you didn’t want to have to go and get Dad if anything happened to him while he was there?’

‘Yes,’ I say, removing the stick from Jake’s hand, given that Dinah’s presumably illegal slap had no effect at all.

‘Well,
I
will do it, instead – so you don’t have to face your cowardly fears.’ Dinah takes the stick from me, and pokes Jake with it, to make him let go of the cat, before she carries on: ‘But only if you agree to one
very
important condition first,’ she says.

I go to fetch a plaster for Jake’s hand, which Charlie has now scratched, while Dinah drums her fingers on the table, waiting for me to accept the deal.

‘What condition?’ I say, on my return.

‘That we split the costs,’ says Dinah, ‘and I get to take two weeks’ exotic holiday, before I bring the body back. You can look after Jake while I’m away.’

That’s
three
conditions, isn’t it? Dinah doesn’t wait for me to agree to any of them, so hopefully none of them will ever arise. Especially not the last one she mentioned. I’m starting to wonder about Jake’s scalp myself.

I check it, by virtue of a supposedly affectionate mussing of his hair, but there’s still no sign of the number 666. Maybe it develops gradually over time, like a slow Satanic Polaroid.

‘Aw, your aunty Molly loves
you
, doesn’t she, Jake?’ says Dinah, when I reach the end of the covert hair-checking operation. ‘Give her one of your extra-special hugs.’

Jake looks even more horrified by this idea than I am, so I recall that I have to check my emails, urgently.

There are stacks of them from Johnny, all of which I delete without reading them first. I’m even more annoyed with him than I am with Dad.
He’s
sent me three messages, too – presumably from various internet cafes along his route across Thailand to Porn-Poon’s village in the North.

In the first one, he says that he
tried
to tell me that he was moving to Thailand before he went, but that I was always ‘too busy looking for some silly file’ to talk to him. In the second, he instructs me to tell Dinah that he didn’t inform
her
that he was going because, if he had, ‘she’d only have made more sarky comments about glittery worktops’. He describes these as ‘completely uncalled-for’, which is pretty much what I’d say about the subject line of his third and final message.

It just says, ‘Hot and wet.’

God knows what I’m going to say to the guests, when they start arriving. Seeing as now I’m wholly lost for words.

SATURDAY, 30 OCTOBER (EVENING)

Well, God knows how I did it, what with Dinah and Jake’s so-called
help
, but the house is ready, so now it’s my turn to be tidied up.

It only takes ten minutes, seeing as I’m not worrying what I look like any more. When you’re job-less, lover-less and probably soon to be husband-less, fretting about appearances seems a bit of a waste of time.

I put on my little black dress, the one that makes my body appear decades younger than my face, according to Max, and give Dinah a free hand in applying my make-up. The result is better than I expected, and clearly much,
much
better than Dinah did.

‘You look
quite
good,’ she says, standing back and appraising me. ‘Considering the state of you before I started.’

Max seems even more impressed than Di when he arrives home to find most of the guests already assembled.

‘You look gorgeous,’ he says, as I hand him a glass of champagne, supplied by Sam. I think he’s about to kiss me when the doorbell rings.

I open it to find Ellen slumped against the doorframe, obviously already drunk. She doesn’t look anywhere near as shiny as usual.

‘Molly,’ she says, swaying slightly as she moves in to give me a hug. ‘Jush the person I need to talk to. Important thingsh to tell you. Ver,
ver
important thingsh.’

She gives me a meaningful stare as she tries to focus on my face, and then she makes a grab for my hand when I try to lead her along the hallway to join the others at the back of the house.

‘No,’ she says, pulling me towards the stairs instead. ‘Ish private schtuff we need talk about. Men, relationship schtuff.
You
know.’

Oh, my God. This is
it
, isn’t it? The moment when Ellen tells me all the things I don’t want to know. I look around frantically, willing someone –
anyone
– to appear and offer a chance of escape, but there’s no one in sight, and all I can hear are excited voices and loud laughter emanating from the kitchen, which might as well be miles away.

‘Sshit down, and less talk,’ says Ellen, yanking at my hand, which she’s still clinging onto as if her life depended on it.

Bang
. The letter-box opens and shuts, nearly making me jump out of my skin, and now there’s a big piece of dog poo on the carpet. Ellen and I both stare at it, but neither one of us says a word.

Then the letter-box opens again, really slowly this time, and a voice booms out,
‘Sur-prise!’

I yank open the door, and Greg immediately falls into the hallway, landing squarely on top of the piece of poo. I laugh at that, but then so does he.

‘It’s a fake,’ he says, picking up the poo and pocketing it. ‘I wouldn’t post a real piece through
your
door, Mol, even if you have been ignoring me. Now take me to where the alcohol is –
and
the birthday boy. I’ve got
tons
to tell you about The Boss.’

This sounds a lot better than whatever it was that Ellen was about to tell me, so I usher Greg down the hallway and get him a drink.

‘Why the
hell
haven’t you answered any of my messages?’ he says. ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you for the last twenty-four hours. Andrew has been, too.’

‘Huh,’ I say. ‘Why would I want to talk to
him
?’

‘Because he’s sacked Vicky,’ says Greg, clinking his glass against mine.

My legs feel funny, so I sit down, while Greg explains. ‘Andrew took a phone call yesterday, while Vicky and I were out at lunch,’ he says. ‘From Vicky’s nail technician.
She’d
just got back from her mini-break.’

I don’t say anything to that. I’m too busy watching Ellen weaving her way unsteadily through the room in search of another bottle of wine.

She keeps looking at Max, then at me, with a very peculiar expression on her face. Maybe she wants to rip all Max’s clothes off, and is only waiting until she’s drunk enough to do it. He
does
look very handsome tonight. As well as very tall.

‘Earth to Molly,’ says Greg, waving his hand in front of my face. ‘Are you listening to a word I’m saying?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Vicky’s nail woman phoned up. What’s that got to do with me?’

Maybe I could get Connie and Josh to guard Max, until Greg finishes whatever he’s going on about.

‘She said Vicky’d left something behind in the salon during her last appointment,’ he says. ‘And guess what
that
turned out to be?’

I forget to answer, as I’m still watching Ellen and wondering where she’s off to now. Probably upstairs to the master bedroom, to check how much closer she could get the bed to the window once she moves in here and takes my place.

‘The
file
, Molly,’ Greg says, or rather, shouts. ‘This is important, so listen to me! Vicky left Mr Sampson’s file at the nail bar, for f*ck’s sake – and Andrew went
mad
when he heard about it. He fired her as soon as she got back from lunch.’

It’s odd how being vindicated makes you want to rush to the loo – only to find that someone’s already using it. I jiggle about on the landing, cross-legged, until the door opens and Ellen comes out.

‘Molly,’ she says. ‘I schtill wan’ talk to you. I wan’ you tell me wha’ your secret is.’

I stop jiggling, and freeze instead.
My
secret? Oh, my God. She knows about me and Johnny, and she’s going to tell Max.

‘I’m just going to the loo, Ellen,’ I say. ‘I feel a bit sick. Stay there – I’ll be back in a minute.’

Max will think he can justify leaving me for Ellen now, won’t he? It won’t even matter that I haven’t had any sex with Johnny – and
won’t
be having any in future, either. And
why
can’t I actually be sick? I’m sure it’d make me feel a whole lot better.

I run the tap and gulp down several mouthfuls of water before I open the bathroom door. Ellen’s sitting on the top step, waiting for me as instructed.

‘What secret?’ I say. Might as well get this over and done with.

‘To a happy marriage,’ says Ellen. Then she snorts, and I want to punch her for finding this funny.

‘Don’t take the piss, Ellen,’ I say. ‘Isn’t what you’ve already done to my marriage bad enough?’

‘Wh-a-a?’ she says, before starting to snort again. Playing the innocent, like every mad constituent I’ve ever met.

She carries on snorting while I glare at her, until I realise that she isn’t laughing. She’s crying, very messily – so I hand her some toilet roll, then wait for her to calm down and blow her nose.

‘He was going to propose, back in June, when we were in Germany,’ she says. ‘I
know
he was.’

‘Propose?’ I say, fighting another wave of nausea. ‘How the hell can he propose? He’s still married – at the moment.’

‘No, he isn’t,’ says Ellen. ‘He’s
never
been married. He’s far too young for that. Or that’s what he says now, anyway. That’s why he dumped me earlier on today. He wants children, and I’ve already got more than enough.’

Max has, too, given that one of them is Josh, so I’m shaking my head in confusion, when Greg appears at the bottom of the stairs.

‘I’m still waiting for you to come back, Mol,’ he says. ‘I haven’t finished telling you about what happened with Vicky.’

‘Oh, sorry,’ I say, stepping over Ellen, who’s still emitting the occasional sob. ‘I’m coming now. It’s time we all sang “Happy Birthday” to Max anyway, I suppose.’

Max – who definitely
isn’t
too young to be married. And
is
, anyway – to me. God, I’m slow.

I turn back towards Ellen, and bend down so that I can whisper in her ear. ‘By the way,’ I say, ‘
who
was it who was going to propose?’

‘Alex,’ she says, ‘of course. The one I met at salsa class. Who did you think it was?’

‘Oh, him,’ I say. ‘Alex, I mean. The salsa man – yes, obviously
that’s
who I thought you meant. I’m just no good with names, or sports. I thought you two met at kick-boxing.’

I pat Ellen on the shoulder, as I like her a whole lot better all of a sudden – as well as the salsa-dancing Alex.

‘You joining us?’ I say to her.

She nods, stands up and starts to follow me down the stairs, wobbling unnervingly. Greg raises his eyebrows as she finally reaches the bottom and walks straight into him.

‘Ah, Greg,’ I say, ‘have you met Ellen, by the way?’

‘No,’ says Greg, turning to face her. ‘But I feel as if I already know you
very
well.’

Ellen stops crying, brushes away her tears and licks her lips, before giving him a beaming, perfectly veneered smile, which doesn’t move her eyebrows one iota.

‘You look like that guy in
American Psycho
,’ she says. ‘The one with the interesting sex-life, I mean.’