Don't You Want Me? (11 page)

‘Does she have an afternoon nap?’ Louisa asks.

‘Normally, yes, at about this time, but she fell asleep in the buggy, so I don’t know. She’s rubbing her eyes, though.’

‘Alexander usually has a nap about now too. Won’t go to bed, though. I normally put a video on and we snuggle down on the sofa until he falls asleep. Which doesn’t take long. Shall we try it?’

‘Absolutely.’ I nod. ‘I’m going to the loo. After which, I don’t suppose you fancy that second bottle?’

‘My thoughts exactly,’ she giggles. ‘So pleased you’re a responsible parent too.’

‘Well, they’re sleepy and it’s raining, so I can’t think of anything I’d rather do. But if you’re busy …’

‘I have no life, Stella,’ Louisa says sadly. ‘This is the most fun I’ve had in months. I’ll get the corkscrew.’

The video is already playing by the time I get back from my pee. Alexander is sucking his thumb and Honey is twirling her hair: they’ll both be asleep in minutes.

‘I don’t know if I’ve seen this one before,’ I whisper.

‘Lucky you,’ Louisa whispers back.

‘They’re an odd-looking bunch, aren’t they?’

‘You can say that again. Oh, look, Honey’s gone.’ My daughter’s eyes are closed and she is already snoring softly. Louisa puts a fleece blanket on her. Within ten minutes (half a bottle of wine: we’re making good headway) Alexander has nodded off too.

‘Stella?’ Louisa asks.

‘Mmm? I love Orvieto, don’t you?’

‘Delish. Anyway. Stella?’

‘Yes,’ I reply, except it comes out as ‘yus’, which makes
us both giggle. ‘That wasn’t a very substantial lunch,’ I chide. ‘And now we’re drunk, and it’s your fault.’

‘Oh, but I’m having such fun,’ Louisa smiles, stretching. ‘Top-up?’

‘Please. What were you about to ask?’

‘Oh, yes. Now, which one gives you the horn?’

‘Sorry?’

Lou gestures at the video.

‘This lot. Which one would you snog?’

‘None of them, for God’s sake.’

‘No, really.’ Louisa has another sip of her wine. ‘If you absolutely had to. If you were desperate.’

‘It’s an unappetizing selection we have on offer here, Lou. Honestly – none of them really do it for me.’

‘Oh, come on,’ Louisa says, her contagious giggle starting up again. ‘There must be
one
you slightly fancy.’

I lean forward, feeling more sober now, and take a good look at the faces flickering on the television screen.

‘With tongues?’ I ask.

‘The works. I quite fancy Toby,’ Louisa says thoughtfully. ‘Have done for some time, actually. That’s him now. What about you? Come on now. Apply yourself.’

‘I don’t like his nose,’ I say, squinting at the screen and gesturing. ‘It’s got that Lloyd Webber piggy thing going on. That Fred West thing.’

‘How could you compare sweet Toby to Fred West?’ says Louisa, aghast.

‘Well, I don’t know much about his character – he does seem very sweet,’ I concede. I stare at the screen again. ‘And anyway, why does he talk like that? I suspect he has learning difficulties.’

‘Bless,’ says Lou, making a concerned and loving face.

‘Ah, but now you’re talking,’ I say, pointing at the screen again. ‘Who’s he? I quite like
him
. There’s something quite forceful about him, I think. What’s his name?’

‘James.’

‘That’s right. I’ve seen this before somewhere, but I can’t remember where.’

‘You’d do it with him?’

‘No!’ I scream in mock horror. ‘I said he looked quite forceful. Doesn’t mean I’d want to have rumpo with him, though. I’d do it with Tony Soprano, though, wouldn’t you?’

‘They’re the same type,’ Lou points out, ‘James and Tony. James definitely has a naughty streak, which is quite appealing. But I know his type,’ she adds darkly. ‘Couple of dates, fantastic shag, no phone calls.’

‘Yes, but at least you’d have a good time. Your Toby’s a ridiculous shape, as well as piggy-nosed. Sort of boxy – look.’

‘Size isn’t everything, Stella. And I don’t think it’s an indicator of pant-content, either. Toby’s hung, if you ask me.’ Our second bottle of wine is finished. Louisa cranes her head and examines Toby from all angles.

‘What are you doing, Lou? Checking out his bulge?’

‘Yes,’ she answers solemnly. ‘But I can’t see anything.’

‘Well, that would be because …’

‘I’m really glad – so glad – that we met,’ Louisa says. ‘I’m really happy you’re my friend. But I think you’re sizeist. I mean, Tom’s – that’s him now – may not be the biggest of them, but I’d give him one any time. I suppose it’s because I know him best.’ She sighs thoughtfully. ‘Well, not in real life, obviously – but I feel that I do. That’s the
thing with this programme – it really gets into your head, like
EastEnders
.’

‘Louisa! He’s Thomas, not “Tom”. He’s the most appalling square.
And
he’s wet. And I hate his big round eyes – I’ll bet he has some kind of overactive thyroid disorder. He looks like he’ll run to fat, too, within a couple of years. At least James would show you a good time. James is quite rakish, quite 007. And lean with it. He’s a lean machine.’

‘We’d do it from behind,’ Louisa says matter-of-factly, ‘me and Thomas – so his round eyes wouldn’t come into it. I suppose,’ she adds, draining the last of her glass, ‘I suppose you’d pick Gordon, wouldn’t you, because of his size?’

‘Who’s Gordon?’

‘There, in green.’

‘No way! I would not!’

‘Would.’

‘Would NOT.’

‘Well, at least he’s big. Not to mention hard. Not to mention throbbing.’

‘Stop making me laugh, you’ll wake the kids.’

‘I can’t believe you’d do it with Gordon,’ Louisa persists. ‘That’s just dirty.’

‘I would not do it with Gordon. I can’t believe you’d do it with Thomas, frankly, with his great big round thyroidy eyes staring down at you creepily. You disappoint me, Louisa.’

We sit in companionable silence, sipping the last dregs of our wine.

After a while, Louisa says, ‘We are in our thirties. We are in our prime. And we are sitting here discussing possible
sexual intercourse with Thomas the Tank Engine and his mates. Do you think, Stella, that possibly, possibly, we ought to get out more?’

From having no social life at all, I suddenly notice, with delighted amazement, that my diary now has a little string of dates scribbled across its once pristine, virgin pages. Nothing wildly thrilling, mind you, but, as the Americans say, hey – it’s a start. I could even have dinner with William Cooper if I wanted – he’s left a couple of messages with Frank – but I think I’ll pass on old glow-peeny (funny, that. Well, I
say
funny, but actually, not so very funny at all because I still get armpit-shame – you know, that really sharp prickling – whenever I think of my PARTS rubbing along in conjunction with Cooper’s). Besides, Frank says he found it hard to speak to the glowster without the kind of intense smirkage that is audible even down a phone line (‘I’m sorry, Stell – I just couldn’t help it’), so with any luck old sex-tiger will have been put off, and that will be the end of the good doctor. Rah. Yeurch – it hurts my
underpants
to think about him.

So I rush to the phone with a song in my heart and a skip in my step when it rings at about eleven that morning. This singing and skipping are based a) on the thrilling and aforementioned semblance of a social life and b) on the news that Louisa passed on to me yesterday – namely that Yungsta, a. k. a. Adrian, had asked her for my phone number after we met. Oh good, I’d said, to which she replied ‘
Quite
good’ and asked me, matter-of-factly, whether I wanted to know his age or his surname. I
declined, on the basis that any woman who lies in bed at night dreaming about doing it doggy-style with Thomas the Tank Engine is frankly in no position (boom boom) to offer dating advice.

And anyway, I don’t care how old he is, or what he’s called: he’s quite nice-looking, or would be if he got rid of his facial hair, and he sounds like he’d be a laugh, or at least interesting, what with his deep understanding of youth culture. It’s important to keep up with these things, I’m always telling Frankie (whose reply, inevitably, is a rather disparaging ‘You wish’, usually after I’ve tried to get him to explain why a crusted pair of pants lying on a floor, say, is as culturally and aesthetically important – to say nothing of accomplished – as a Vermeer. I used to have this argument with Dominic, too).

Still, I may not understand about Young (is forty young?) British Artists, but I’m willing to give Yungsta’s kind of music a go – although I must confess that I didn’t understand much when I listened to his radio show yesterday: he seems to talk in patois, like people in St Bart’s (a favourite holiday destination of my father’s), though it’s entirely possible that I misheard, as I was playing with Honey at the time and not wholly concentrating. Also, I’m at a distinct disadvantage musically, in that I was brought up listening to Johnny Halliday, Claude François and Sylvie Vartan (my beloved Claude, or CloClo, as he was known, electrocuted himself to death in the bath with a plug-in dildo. I think they gave him a state funeral. The other two, now grandparents, are still going strong.
Vive le rock!
). But he – Yungsta, I mean, not the poor frazzled out-with-a-bang ghost of Claude – could always explain the complexities of contemporary music over lunch at Le Caprice, for
instance: there
are
advantages to being called Adrian. Brring brring, goes the phone: that must be him now.

‘Weeeeelll,’ says a voice I don’t recognize. ‘Mrs Midhurst.’

‘Is that you, Dominic?’ I doubt it: my non-husband is in Tokyo, as far as I know, but no one else calls me that, except for what Mummy likes to call ‘the men’.

‘Nooo,’ says the voice – rich, oily, drawly. ‘Guess again.’

‘I don’t know who you are,’ I say genuinely. Must be one of ‘the men’, though unusually well spoken. ‘British Gas? The electricity? The phone people? Salesman, in which case, sorry but no thanks?’

‘Wrong,’ says the voice, sounding very slightly less confident.

‘Give me a clue,’ I sigh. I hate these phone games, and besides, for all I know, my interlocutor could perfectly well be an obscene caller.

‘Mmm,’ the man says, sounding hoarse. ‘Grrrr.’

Oh, no.
No
. It’s Cooper. I can’t stand it. Shall I just hang up? No. I can’t. The poor man gave me what I wanted, after all: he can’t help being slightly revolting or having a penis that is so palely loitering. How did he get my number? Isabella, I expect. Oh, God.

‘Oh,’ I say, forcing the rictus of horror off my face and a smile into my voice. ‘Well, hello there.’

‘You had me going there, with the who-are-you business,’ Cooper says, all confidence again, as if he might suffix the sentence with a fruity ‘you little tease’. He lowers his voice a little, and makes it croakier. ‘Come to think of it, you had me going the other night too. Hot filly.’

I expect Cooper must have thought he was actually on
the phone to a real live pig at this point, because I let out the most massive, hideous, unmistakable snort – an obscene-sounding noise that was exactly like the oral version of a really ripe fart. ‘Snorrrrt,’ I went, and then – just for added sex appeal – started choking on my own laughter.

Silence. Then: ‘I say, are you all right?’

‘Haaaaaah,’ I whimpered, not quite able to breathe.

‘Good Lord,’ said Cooper.

I really
was
choking, so I put the phone down on to the coffee table and my head between my legs. I stayed there for about half a minute, breathing heavily through my mouth in the manner of a badly handicapped person who’s just discovered they’re rubbish at swimming, or an emphysemic, until I was able to draw more or less regular breaths.

‘Sorry,’ I said, sounding very raw about the throat, when I picked up the phone again. ‘Don’t know what happened there.’

‘I do,’ said Cooper.

Oh dear, how extraordinarily embarrassing. I may have no intention of ever seeing Cooper again, but I don’t necessarily want him to think I spend my mornings being sow-like, either.

‘Don’t let’s talk about it,’ I tell him, clearing my throat, which still feels all funny. ‘What have you been up to?’

‘Thinking about the other night,’ he replies smoothly.

‘Hmm,’ I say noncommittally.

‘I know what happened just then,’ Cooper says, a knowing, randy note creeping back into his voice.

‘Hmm?’ I say again, because I can’t trust myself to actually speak.

‘That noise you made …’

‘I’m sorry about that,’ I quickly interrupt. ‘I’m ill. Very ill. Throat bug. Sometimes I can’t breathe.’

‘Nonsense,’ he laughs wetly. ‘I’ve heard that noise before. Can you guess where?’

‘No,’ I say, nearly whispering with dread: whatever he’s got to say is likely to set me off again.

‘When you came,’ Cooper growls.

I nearly drop the phone with shock.

‘
Excuse me?
’ I hiss, doing a passable impression of Miss Jean Brodie in her prime. ‘
What
did you say?’

Cooper laughs his comfortable, complacent laugh.

‘When you came the other night,’ he repeats. ‘When you had an orgasm.’

‘I bloody did not!’ I shout. My God, is the man mad?

‘You did, I assure you.’

‘I may have come, William, but I most certainly
did not
snort as I did so. Good grief! The
idea
! Like in
jabberwocky
! Burble burble! No! No! God!’

‘And you came again just now, didn’t you?’ he continues, completely ignoring my outburst.

‘NO!’ I yell, as exasperated as I am indignant. ‘No, no and NO again. Fucking bloody hell. I did not come. I just, er, snorted by mistake. And I can assure you that I have never, ever snorted at the point of orgasm. What a grotesque suggestion! How dare you, actually, hatefully ring me up and tell me I squeal like a sow when I come? How
dare
you, William? I mean,
Jesus
.’

‘Steady on,’ Cooper replies. T was simply pointing out the truth as I found it to be.’

I’ve been pacing up and down the room in an absolutely frenzied state of agitation. Now I sit down, dazed with horror.