Other People's Husbands (27 page)

Jasper shivered and put his hands in his pockets, as if to keep his own fingers safe.

‘Just fancied a quick look-see, if that's all right,' Conrad said. ‘Only if you've got time though. We were just passing. Dog walk.'

‘Sure – it's quiet today. No competitions on, just the odd bod around practising in their own time. Come on through.'

Apart from the indoor ranges, there were several outdoor target areas, protected by high walls. Fencing round the edges was new and secure. ‘We do what we can about the soundproofing,' Dave explained, ‘but shooting's a noisy business and the river being there doesn't help. Sound carries on water. We're very big on safety, though. You have to be.'

‘So . . . no one's died here?' Conrad said. ‘No one's accidentally shot a mate and said, “Oops!”? No one's shot themselves; in the terminal sense, I mean, not just a toe?'

‘Don't even joke about it! Certainly not! Do you think this place would still be open if that happened? Can you imagine the outcry? Responsible handling of weapons is the first priority!'

‘Responsible and weapons?' Jasper looked puzzled. ‘Don't want to be rude, but isn't that a, wossname, an ox-thing?'

‘Oxymoron. Probably. Good on you, Jas, we'll make a pacifist of you yet. Excellent. And thanks Dave, it's been most enlightening. I've always wondered what this place was like. We'd better make a move – I've left the dog tied up by the door and I don't want her getting overheated.'

‘Why did you ask him all that stuff about accidents?' Jasper asked as soon as they were out on the main path again. ‘You sounded like you were planning a murder!'

‘Not a murder as such,' Conrad told him as they walked down to the riverside to catch the ferry. ‘No, not a murder.'

‘You didn't have to come, you know. It's way beyond the call of duty, but I'm very glad you did,' Ben said to Sara later as they parked the car outside the Wembley Ikea.

‘Well, it wasn't that far from Notting Hill and I haven't got anything else I desperately need to do today,' she told him. ‘And besides, no one should have to face Ikea in the middle of the day unprotected. You could end up trying to cram half a kitchen and a sofa called Blord into the back of your car. And your car . . . well it doesn't have room for more than a bag of essential tea lights and a pack of meat-balls, does it?'

‘No worries, I'm going for the delivery option. The gallery can pay for that. Long tables, that's what's on Mindy's list. So come on, let's see if we can resist the kids' ballpark and get shopping.' Ben took her hand and they went inside, up the escalator. It wasn't too busy, which was a relief. Sara had sometimes felt close to total panic in the store, once having to sit on a display chair in the lighting department till her heart rate settled and she'd regained her sense of proportion. It had all started because she couldn't remember the measurements for the wooden Venetian blinds that she'd wanted for the pool shower. Conrad said it was more likely to be because she felt she hadn't bought enough, and she agreed. There was always a desperate last-minute need to make the trip worthwhile by cramming as much as possible into the trolley before the checkout-queue marathon.

‘OK – we need one of the tape measures and a pencil and the little pad thing,' Ben decided as they passed a peculiarly attractive display of scarlet bedlinen. No way, Sara thought, would she want anything but white on her bed, and yet . . .

‘We don't really need to go all round the upstairs bit because we know what we want but I'm going to have to, to have a look at what Mindy's chosen. If there's something that looks better, I'll call her. She's chosen these trestle things, plus some matching wood tabletops. Simple enough, really.'

‘It always surprises me how people seem to come in here as a sort of family outing,' Sara said, watching a family that included two toddlers and a baby trying out the sofas. The oldest of the infants was bouncing on a red leather chair, squealing. The parents ignored her, as if the place was a playground.

‘Come on, let's whizz through the short cut.' Ben said, leading her through a gap in the shelving section. They emerged in the middle of the bed section. A big sign invited customers to test the beds.

‘I wonder what they mean by that? Shall we give it a go?' Ben said, pulling Sara down on to an iron-framed bed. He twisted sideways, lying full length on the mattress. ‘Come and join me, Sara, see what you think.'

Feeling slightly silly, she lay beside him and said, ‘What I think of this bed? Are you assuming I'm needing to buy a new one?'

‘Well, I didn't really have the bed in mind,' he said. He moved closer, turned and looked into her eyes.
I'm lying on a bed, very close to someone who isn't Conrad
. She could picture the words, as if she'd written them on her kitchen blackboard. Ben put an arm across her, pulled her towards him and started kissing her. When she closed her eyes, it was as if they were somewhere entirely alone and she could feel all the usual responses starting up.

‘Er . . . excuse me!' Such an unwanted interruption. Lazily, Sara looked up and felt ludicrously surprised that two staff in Ikea's black and yellow uniform were looking down at them, smirking. ‘Um, that's not really allowed,' the girl said. ‘This is, like, a family store?' Her boy companion giggled.

‘We're invited to try the beds,' Ben pointed out.

‘Yeah but, not like . . . er that. I think, they're, like, meant to be for just lying on?'

The family with the lively toddlers hurried past, the mother giving Sara a smile that looked suspiciously envious. Sara felt horribly embarrassed, suddenly. She sat up, grabbed her bag and pulled Ben upright. ‘Come on Ben, let's go!'

‘Thanks, people!' The salesgirl looked relieved and started to move away. Had she, Sara thought, expected them to tell her to go away and then continue into full-scale sex in the middle of the store?

‘OK,' Ben agreed. ‘All good things, etc. Let's get these tables ordered and then I'll get you home to your husband.'

The salesgirl looked back, shocked. She wasn't the only one. The sharp reminder had quite shocked Sara, too. What am I turning into, she wondered, I am so very much
not
the sort who lies on a bed in public, thoroughly kissing a man who I hardly know.

‘Mum? Are you busy?' Cassandra carried Charlie into the studio, where Sara was half inside the big cupboard that ran along the whole back wall of the building. As well as her own work it contained a lot of Conrad's huge spare half-worked canvases, her old tubes of paints which must be thoroughly dried out by now, and all her favourite sable brushes carefully rolled into mothproof cloths. Now, as she pulled out the dusty, bubble-wrapped paintings that had never made it to their last exhibition, she wondered what on earth she was letting herself in for. Two outcomes were possible. That they didn't sell at all and she ended up collecting them in deep humiliation from Mindy's gallery, or that they did very well, a sign that she should take up serious painting again. At this stage, she wasn't sure which would be worse. Or better. She'd been good in her time . . . why not give it another go? Having thought that, of course she'd set herself up for disappointment if she
didn't
do well.

‘Cass – yes, come on in. I'm just going through this lot. They're heavy, some of them.' She was getting quite exhausted, lugging the things about, lining them up against the wall.

‘You can't see them properly with all that bubble stuff on them,' Cassandra commented. ‘You'll have to take it all off and choose and then rewrap them.'

Sara grinned. ‘Or maybe pretend that's what I've already done! I could always just go for the first twenty and say I thought they looked the best! Save a lot of hassle and Sellotape.'

‘Mum! That's so wrong! Don't you care what you send?'

Sara thought for a moment. ‘Well, considering this time a couple of weeks ago I wasn't even thinking of ever selling paintings again, the honest answer might have to be no. But then professional pride kicks in, doesn't it. So of course I care, really. Goodness, this cupboard is filthy! I've got spiderweb all over my skirt. Don't let Charlie breathe the dust in.'

‘I didn't use to like him coming in here at all, because of Dad's paint fumes. How come he doesn't paint any more? A few months ago, this room reeked of turps. Now it's fading. It's getting almost like a normal room. It smells like Panda's bedsit used to. Talking of which . . . Mum?'

Sara wiped her grimy hands down the front of her dress. It was a very old dress, purple spotted cotton with big scarlet buttons down the front, no longer a favourite. Conrad had once told her she looked like Dorothy from
The Wizard of Oz
in it, which he'd thought was a compliment – she disagreed (well, what adult woman wouldn't?) and hadn't felt the same about the dress after that, which was why it was relegated to days of grubby pursuits, such as this.

‘What's up, Cass? Everything all right? You look very happy, actually!' She did – Cass seemed to have regained her youthful glow overnight. Her hair shone, her eyes were lively and bright.

‘I went to see Paul! And Mum, you should just see what he's done to the flat. Completely amazing! I think we might give it another go. Do you think that's mad?'

‘Mad? No! Of course not! Where does mad come in? Unless you're going back to him only because the flat's nice and clean? Now that
would
be mad!'

‘Well, thing is, he's not perfect, is he? Wouldn't the not-being-perfect thing count as mad?'

‘Oh Cass, you girls and the Ideal Man thing! I blame magazines where you all get told to dump any guy who dares to buy you the wrong Valentine card.
Nobody's
perfect! They're not, you're not. I'm not. In fact, especially me.' She bit her lip and thought of the episode in Ikea. Now she was on home ground, it felt as if it had happened to another woman. It was the same with the fairground; only the presence of the hideous toy tiger reminded her it had really happened.

‘Well you and Dad, you'd say that was perfect, wouldn't you?'

Sara looked at her, wondering if she'd gone wrong somewhere, raising such a romantic with such a black-and-white simple outlook. In some ways this was good. Everyone should aim for the best there was. But . . . how could anyone expect a life partner to have no failings?'

‘Cass. Tell me honestly, do you love Paul? I mean, you're very young. If the answer's even . . .'

‘Yes! Yes I do! I don't have to
think
about the answer.'

‘Then there's your solution. Don't rush to move back in with him, though, if you'd rather stay on here for a bit. We love having you and Charlie around, and I can carry on helping with taking care of him. I don't want your college work to suffer.'

‘Hmm . . . well maybe for a bit, till the end of term. It's not long now anyway. Can Paul come and stay here sometimes? Would that be OK?'

‘Of course it would be! After all, what's one more?'

He was easy enough to find. While Sara was down in the studio sorting out her paintings, Conrad flicked through the stored numbers in her phone that she'd left in the kitchen and there he was: Ben Stretton. So he had a surname. That was convenient enough for now. He tapped the button and dialled the number, feeling slightly sick. What was he going to say to this bloke? Ask him what his intentions were towards his wife? What kind of Victorian controlling husband would that make him sound? He had a flash of awful doubt. Maybe there was absolutely nothing at all to this and his suspicions about Sara were quite unforgivable.

‘Darling,
hi
!' Whoever answered the phone seemed to know exactly who he was getting.

‘Darling'? Startled, Conrad instantly flicked the off switch and dropped the phone on to the table as if it had a fatal sting.
Darling?
How to interpret
that
? How to
misinterpret
that? Was there any way other than that something was going on between this Ben bastard and Sara? He'd always dreaded, in the deepest dark cavern of his soul, that this day would come. How could it not? One day she was sure to notice that she'd married an ageing fossil. No wonder Sara had been looking secretive lately, being in and out of the house at times less predictable than usual, and smiling rather crazily to herself when she thought no one was looking. The trouble with loving someone was that you always paid attention, even when the one you loved thought you weren't. It was all making sense now and should, considering

he'd made no secret of planning an exit from the mortal world, be no real surprise. What else was she supposed to do but move on? It would only be natural. The words ‘a decent interval' came to mind, though. Was she going to give all the weeping and the black and the Philip Treacy hats only the barest minimum of time?

There was a scuffling noise outside and Conrad went to open the front door, finding, to no great surprise, Stuart delivering another of his boxes of vegetables.

‘Stuart – good to see you! What have you brought this time?' Stuart looked nervous. Conrad was aware that he sometimes had that effect on people. They looked at him in a strange way, as if all well-known people were a bit of a breed apart. Plus he was not only well known but an artist too. Stuart was looking at him as if he half-expected Conrad to do something terrifying, such as invite him in to be cast in concrete or chopped in half and pickled, like a murderous version of a Damien Hirst. That, it crossed Conrad's mind, wouldn't be a bad idea. He'd run it past Damien next time they met, ask if he'd considered it, though he appreciated the problems.

‘Broccoli, three sorts of lettuce, radicchio, rhubarb, some very early tomatoes but they'll need ripening on. Put them in a bowl next to a ripe banana – that'll do the trick, and not in the fridge; never put tomatoes in the fridge.'