Other People's Husbands (23 page)

‘It's the tree house!' Pandora yelled. ‘He's cut it down

and
burned
it! WHY?'

‘Where
is
he, is more to the point!' Sara felt frantic, looking around but barely focusing; there was no sign of Conrad – had all that hinting about death been leading up to this? Personal immolation sparked off by a stupid sulk? Then he appeared from the far side of the crackling, sparkling fire, covered in sooty grime, his teeth startlingly white as he grinned at them all.

‘It was cold!' he explained, waving a red plastic fuel can at them. Sara carefully stepped forward, like a brave cop approaching a nervous gunman in a movie involving bank heists.

‘Give me the can, Conrad,' she murmured calmly, putting one hand on his arm and cautiously removing the can from his fingers. She got the impression he was trembling. What the hell was he up to? What kind of logic said that being a bit chilly meant you climbed a tree, pulled down a rotting tree house and risked an agonizing death by starting a blaze with a gallon of lawnmower fuel? Behind her, she heard Cassandra switching on the garden hose, aiming it at the flames. In the firelight, she could see Pandora was crying. The tree house wasn't all he'd burned, either. Lying among the flames she could see a heap of Conrad's paintbrushes, precious, years-old brushes that he'd loved and cherished. He'd burned, she realized, his career.

‘Come on, Conrad, let's go back to the house. For a moment there, I really thought you'd set yourself on fire.'

‘God no, Sara, are you crazy? That's a terrible way to go. I won't be choosing that one.'

‘So when's this exhibition then?' Conrad really chose his moments. Sara was about to leave for work and was rummaging through the fridge looking for vegetables. Some of the older class members had questioned the free-choice nature of portraying elements, and for this week's Earth had asked if they could have a nice simple still life to draw. ‘You know where you stand with a good still life,' Pedantic Pete had said. ‘All this arty-farty stuff isn't really for us oldies.' He was probably about five years younger than Conrad, she'd guess. To stave off a possible revolution, she was going to give him what he wanted. Earth, which she'd thought had endless potential for imaginative expression, was going to have an unchallenging option of a plateful of carrots, cauliflowers, onions and tomatoes. In case the students then argued among themselves about how these should be arranged, she was going to make the decision for them and just tell them to get on with it, no choices. Those with more imagination could choose their own interpretations of the topic and if Melissa and Pamela slid out to the cemetery across the road to get a more in-depth view of Earth, then that was fine too.

‘I don't know yet,' Sara replied. ‘I might not even be in it. It's early days and I'm sure it isn't just Ben who has to like my work.' Some of Stuart's carrots were very odd shapes. She lined them up on the worktop and took out the split one that looked like splayed legs, and all the bum-shaped potatoes. Then she put them back again. Who was she to censor the vegetables? How prim and uptight would that be? Cherry might twitter and tut but the rest of them weren't above a smutty giggle.

‘Well let me know, won't you,' Conrad said. ‘I'll look in my diary and see if I'm free for the opening. Can't wait to meet your new best friend.'

‘Look – why are you so negative? Why aren't you happy for me? You've never been like this before when I used to show my work. Just because you've decided to give up on painting doesn't mean that I have to, does it?'

‘No, no. You go ahead. Really. I'm pleased for you.' He didn't sound it. He picked up a pen and the sports section of the newspaper from the table and went into the sitting room without another word. She heard him switch the TV on and could hear the final overexcited moments of a horse race.

Sara packed the vegetables into a basket, shouted a breezy goodbye to Conrad and left the house. He could bloody whistle for a goodbye kiss if he was going to be like that. Was this how it was going to be from now on? Conrad behaving like a spoilt toddler? Guiltily, she'd lain awake and wondered if he'd seen the same new light in her that Lizzie had spotted. What was it the girls called it? A pash. Grown-ups didn't have pashes, she'd told herself as she turned the pillow to the cool side and tried to sleep. Happily married women, proper good wives, definitely didn't.

She had left the house early because she'd factored in time for a quick drink and a chat with Stuart first. She owed him a drink as thanks for the latest vegetable selection. Stuart was waiting for her at a table outside the pub, facing the Green. Other tables were occupied by pallid office workers who, as they talked to each other, couldn't help turning their faces to the sun like flowers. How lucky I am, Sara thought as she went into the bar to collect the drinks, being able to choose to work at what I enjoy rather than having to be a corporate cog; how fabulous never to be losing the best part of the sunlit seasons stuck in an office and trying to care about marketing targets or how a project team should work as an autonomous cooperative. She'd never get her head round that kind of vocabulary, for one thing. She preferred lush, evocative colour words like Burnt Sienna, Vandyke Brown, Rose Madder, Lamp Black.

‘Here you are, Stuart, one pint of IPA and a bag of Quavers. And please can I ask you a question that you might think is a bit odd?'

‘Ask away, Sara. I have no secrets, as you know.' His eyes sparkled naughtily at her. ‘I wouldn't mind knowing yours, though.'

‘Another time!' she said. ‘No really . . . this might sound odd but I really want to know. What are you like at home? How do the domestic dynamics work with you and Angie? Do you talk to each other a lot?'

‘Domestic dynamics?' Stuart spluttered. ‘What kind of a dictionary have you swallowed?'

‘Oh you know what I mean – are you two still really good mates?'

‘Ah! Mating! Lovely word! I remember that . . .' Stuart looked into the distance, dreamily. ‘It was in the days of our youth. BC. You know that term? It means Before Children and also in my case before teaching restoration car freaks where exactly to stick the Duckhams 20/50 Classic. These things take over your life. Especially your sex life.'

‘But Stuart, I'm not talking about sex or your spanking fantasies. Though I'd say a good start in the direction of getting those fulfilled would involve smelling of something slightly more fragrant than Swarfega.'

‘Hey! That's workers' perfume, that, toil and sweat and downtown dirty. Don't you remember that Bruce Springsteen video? Don't ask me which one . . . the one where he's all blue-collar-mechanic lust . . . oh no, silly me, that was all of them. Didn't that get the
laydeez
of the day going?'

‘Sadly not, Stuart. Sorry. I'm more of an Aerosmith woman. Steve Tyler acting filthy with a mike stand, that's what got me warmed up. But no, I'm talking about how you and Angie tick over in the nest, you know, day to day. Do you still surprise each other, stimulate each other . . . and no, not in that sense! I mean, conversationally?'

Stuart picked at some oil trapped under his thumbnail. ‘Conversation . . . hmm – I think I remember that.' He paused for a moment, his eyes following the tightly denimed bum of a blonde woman in killer heels. Sara smiled and waited, knowing exactly what his thought process was here. As the woman disappeared from sight his attention drifted back and he said, after some thought, ‘I suppose if you include saying things like “We're running out of milk,” and “The cat's been digging up the sweet peas again,” then yes, we do have conversations. But surprising ones, humdingers about politics and stuff? In-depth argument over favourite films? No, not really. Does anyone, after so many years? We know what each other thinks: what's left by now to get your teeth into, except each other? We get along.' He laughed suddenly. ‘But then I mostly get along to the allotments and she mostly gets along to her book group. Doesn't everyone just muddle through? Oh and I get to use the leather paddle on her every third Saturday, if I've been good. She lets me know when she's had enough, so if that passes for conversation, then yes – we do talk. Anyway,' he challenged. ‘Why do you ask? Are you going to tell me that you and your beloved don't even have a telly because it would get in the way of all those stimulating intellectual discussions you have night after night? Does your family sit around being intense, banging on about the demise of the known universe and the mysteries of Chinese foreign policy, while the rest of us slob out in front of
Coronation Street
?'

‘Oh yes – that's us!' Sara told him. ‘Chez Blythe-Hamilton is a hotbed of verbal gymnastics. Melvyn Bragg meets Jeremy Paxman, that's what our gaff is like. No . . . I was just wondering how a normal household worked. I don't think I've ever had one, or at least I sort of assumed I did, but now . . .'

She sighed, thinking about Conrad's scorched eye-brows, of the pile of cinders that was once the tree house and his precious brushes, and how Jasper had been discovered, after the fire was out and they all trailed back up the garden in the cool night air, floating in the pool with his eyes closed and quietly singing REM's ‘Nightswimming' to himself.

‘He does that,' Lizzie had explained. ‘He sometimes prefers to avoid reality.'

‘
Reality?
' Cass and Pandora had said at the same time, going into immediate hysterical laughter. Whatever other effect Conrad's peculiarities were having, at least they seemed to be bringing the two of them closer together. They were right, too. ‘Reality' was a long way from how things were in the house.

How restful, Sara thought, some of normality must be. Had she ever had it? Much as she loved
not
being that corporate cog, married to another of the same, couldn't an ordinary regular life add up to deep, unchallenging peace? Or were other people's husbands all as weird and nutty as her own behind the closed doors? Or was she the wayward one? Why, while she was sitting opposite Stuart as she so often did on Wednesday lunchtimes, was she suddenly thinking, oh wouldn't it be good to be here with Ben? She looked at Stuart's grimy fingers wrapped plumply round a pint of bitter and tried to picture Ben's clean, tanned hand instead. Ridiculous, she thought; she was behaving like a daydreaming teenager. She hadn't been like this since pre-Conrad – and she'd been little more than a teenager then. Grown-ups don't do this.

‘ Normal,' Stuart chuckled. ‘After the bit in the marriage service where you've said “I do”, I really don't think there's any such thing.'

He couldn't have known . . . could he? That she hadn't taken her car to work? Ben was in a cute black convertible Audi, waiting outside the college for Sara when she finished work that afternoon. The Audi's roof was down, he had aviator sunglasses on and music blasting. Nice car, she thought, walking right past it, not recognizing him, simply mildly annoyed at the volume of sound coming from the vehicle. REM's ‘Imitation Of Life', which she loved, was blasting out. A casual radio hearing of the song gave her instant elation, but she would have had better manners than to inflict it on the population around her.

‘Hey, Sara!' She turned round and there was Ben, opening the door, climbing out. He took off his sunglasses and smiled at her. ‘Would you like a lift home? I was . . . er . . . passing.' He looked slightly embarrassed, as if he didn't quite expect her to believe him. And she didn't, really. Why would he be ‘passing' a place that was way off the town centre, in a cul-de-sac? Adrenalin was spiking her bloodstream and she had a wild moment of wanting to leap into the car and be driven for the rest of the day to as far as they could get. Scotland would be good; anywhere that took her a long, long way from the ever crazier Conrad to somewhere that promised peace and just one night of responsibility-free . . . what? Passion? That holy-grail zip-less fuck that Marie had so joyfully discovered? Possibly. The realization that she no longer counted this right out of the reckoning shocked her. How short a time ago was it that this would never, not once, have crossed her mind?

‘Thanks, Ben – I'd love a lift.' He opened the passenger door for her and she climbed in, feeling like someone from a 1950s film. All she needed was a cream silk head-scarf and Sophia Loren's big dark glasses. Conrad had had a few convertible cars over the years, but somehow this kind of quasi-romantic image hadn't ever figured.

‘Did you guess I'd left the car at home, or were you waiting for just any random woman to come out of the building looking like she could use a ride home?'

‘No – I was just in the town and thought, hey I'll see, on the off chance, if you're here. I left my phone at home so couldn't call you but I assumed it was every Wednesday afternoon you worked, so not such a bad guess. Now . . .' Ben started the engine, headed down the college driveway, then turned to her and smiled, looking dangerously mischievous. ‘Where shall we go for some secret fun?'

‘Secret fun? What sort of secret fun?' This felt as if he'd been too close to reading her flighty mind.

‘
Fun
fun! Skiving-what-we're-supposed-to-be-doing kind of fun!' She could see he was laughing at her, having caught her out assuming he meant sex.

‘Oh
that
kind of fun!' she said, thinking for a moment, then deciding quickly. ‘OK, I know where we can go . . . turn left! I love this, that feeling that nobody knows where I am, or who I'm with.'

‘That's highly dangerous,' Ben said. ‘Suppose I'm that strange man your mother warned you never to talk to? Anything could happen.'

‘Yes, but I'm not some silly teenager!' she argued. ‘Though actually, a silly teenager is exactly what I feel like if I'm honest.'