Other People's Husbands (28 page)

‘You like my wife, don't you?' Conrad asked him bluntly. Stuart stepped back, out of fist reach, just in case.

‘Well of course I do! She's a very nice woman. And we work together, obviously. I mean, I don't . . . well . . .'

Conrad laughed. ‘Sorry, it's just that you'd consider her attractive, wouldn't you? People would, in general?' Lordy, what was he saying? This would get back to Sara, no question. She'd be furious.

Stuart rubbed the back of his neck and stared at the ground. He'd gone, Conrad thought, a shade of heart-attack pink. It would be worth thinking about that in terms of paint. It would be an interesting one to mix. Except that of course he didn't paint any more.

‘Er . . . I am married, you know,' Stuart told him, coughing slightly. Maybe it
was
heart attack, the colour. ‘And so is Sara. To you, in fact. Well of course you know that. Obviously.' He seemed to run out of steam here, waffling, stating the obvious. ‘Um, I'd better get home. Enjoy the veg. And . . . er, tell Sara I'll see her at the college next week.' And he was out of the front gate pretty much as fast as good manners and a rather shuffling gait allowed.

Conrad felt ridiculous. He'd made a complete tit of himself, rambling on like that to Stuart, a man he'd barely spoken to before, beyond a basic hello and goodbye. What on earth had he been asking him anyway? ‘Is my wife a foxy bloke-magnet?' What kind of answer was he expecting, a ‘Phwoar, yes, I'd give her one!', or a ‘No mate, she's well past it.'? Perhaps Sara was right: what remaining marbles he had left were about to roll down the gaps in the studio floorboards. God.

Conrad left Sara's phone on the kitchen table and went up to the office at the top of the house. He stopped at the top of the second flight of stairs to decide whether he was more puffed by the climb than usual. He decided he felt much the same: mildly exerted but nothing new. Maybe he wasn't falling to bits – at least physically – quite as much as he'd assumed. He switched on the Mac and googled Ben's name. It didn't take long to track him down, career-wise – by nature freelance journalists were hardly the most private of individuals. Born show-offs, in fact, was Conrad's view. He read a few online articles (not bad, nothing spectacular. Fairly lightweight features rather than politics, nothing earth-shatteringly profound), then went further, delving, looking for the electoral roll. It seemed quite a complicated process, though. Sara had mentioned he lived not far away, so on a whim, Conrad picked up the house phone and called directory enquiries and in seconds was in possession of Ben Stretton's landline number and, more importantly, and by devious blagging, his address, which was far too close for comfort, in his opinion. This was a man who needed checking out. If Sara was intending to replace him with a younger model, he wasn't going to let her settle for some tosser. He grabbed his jacket, whistled for Floss and left the house.

‘Come in. Marie's in the garden on a lounger with her foot up.' Mike led Sara through the hallway (replaced banisters now finished) and the kitchen (new tiles behind the worktop, meticulous grouting in progress) out on to the terrace which, the year before, he'd paved with highly convincing near-York stone. Marie's chair was in the dappled shade of a cherry tree on the lawn (perfectly mown, stripes worthy of Lord's). She was surrounded by more cushions than anyone could need, as if she was in danger that the slightest contact with a hard surface would bruise her fatally. The damaged foot was in a Tubigrip and rested on a black velvet cushion fringed with gold tassels, and the poodle dozed beneath the chair, keeping a sleepy guard. The scene reminded Sara of a royal ceremony, the presenting of an orb, possibly. Not that an orb would have toenails varnished in glittery orange.

‘The doctor says she's not to put weight on it for a few days,' Mike whispered loudly. ‘I'm glad you came; between you and me, she's bored rigid. You can only read so many trash gossip magazines.'

‘I can hear you, you know, Mike. It's my foot that's damaged, not my ears. And I'm reading a book, not a mag.'

‘Yes I know, my love, of course you are. Can I get you some tea and HobNobs, Sara?' He looked at her eagerly, desperate to be useful.

‘Thanks, that would be lovely.'

Mike, having sorted another chair for Sara and padded it up with yet more cushions, returned to the kitchen.

‘So, what happened to you?' Sara asked. ‘Or would I rather not know?'

Marie laughed. ‘If you think I sprained my ankle falling off a hotel chandelier with my lover, you're about as far off the mark as you can get. Sadly. No – it was bloody Mike and that habit he's got of leaving his shoes in awkward places. I tripped over them, going out through the French doors a couple of days ago. Went flying and twisted my foot under me. Bloody agony. They do say a sprain hurts more than a break. I hope I never find out.'

‘Ouch, must have been horrid.' Sara winced in sympathy. ‘He's taking care of you though, isn't he? He looks as if he's enjoying it, actually. You look like one of those people with gout in old movies, all propped up and pampered.'

‘He's being amazing. And so he should be amazing, seeing as it was his fault. It just . . . well it curtails one's activities, being confined to the premises, doesn't it?' Marie looked back at the house, making sure they were still alone.

‘It depends what activities you had in mind. I wouldn't mind being banned from doing the supermarket run or not able to go to the dentist for a filling,' Sara teased her.

‘You know what I mean.
Outside interests
. Not that anything's on offer.' She sighed and looked rather downcast. ‘I haven't heard from . . .
someone
in a while now.' She pulled her mobile phone out from under one of the cushions and looked at it despondently. ‘I've got to face a horrible conclusion.' She put the phone back and fiddled with the fringe on the nearest cushion, unravelling it a bit and tying a knot in the silver thread. ‘I think for him, I might have been a one-off.' Her eyes were glittery with ready tears. ‘He seemed so keen for a return match, too . . . All talk! I've been had, in every possible sense!'

‘Oh Marie! I'm sure you haven't! That would be too . . .'

‘Cruel? Yes it would. There's many a woman would say it was no more than I deserve. You don't mess about with other women's men. Not without being punished.'

‘I was going to say “teenage”, rather than cruel, actually. Surely grown-ups don't behave like that? Maybe he just can't get time to contact you at the moment.'

Mike reappeared, carrying a tray all neatly laid out with teapot, cups, a plate of biscuits. He left it on the small teak table between them and went away again, silent as a good butler. Sara took one of the HobNobs and broke it in half. She thought of Ben's Jaffa cakes, unceremoniously fished out of the packet as they'd sat in the sun on Alma's old bench. The two of them had eaten the lot, that first time she'd been to the cottage. How had they gone from a simple, casual drink by the river, to full-on snogging on a bed in the middle of Ikea? The thought of it brought a completely uncontrollable smile that just wouldn't go. That happened at home sometimes, too. More than once she'd had to remove her stupid smirk from the room and go and hide in the loo or discover she needed to get something from upstairs, just so Conrad wouldn't twig she had a delicious secret.

‘What are you grinning at?' Marie looked suspicious. ‘What's so funny about my broken heart?'

‘Sorry, Marie! I was just thinking about something, that's all.'

‘Hmm . . . it's giving you the kind of look I see in the mirror if I think, or
thought
, about Angus. But I'm that kind of woman – you're not. Or are you?'

‘I thought I wasn't, as well; but you know what? It seems I am. And don't look at me like that. No one's more surprised than I am.' It was such a relief, she thought, to admit it. And maybe that would mark the beginning of the end of it. She didn't need this. Didn't want it, not really. It would all end in tears and disaster. All the tears were going to be hers.

‘Oh-my-God! You haven't got a
lover
? Sara! But you've got
Conrad
!'

Sara didn't point out that Marie also had Mike. Why state the obvious? She felt bad. ‘I shouldn't have said anything. It's nothing. Nothing's happened. Just forget I said anything. Weak moment.'

Marie reached across and took hold of her hand. Sara wanted to cry. Admitting what she'd been feeling suddenly seemed a bigger betrayal of Conrad than the little (was it little?) that she'd actually done. It was out in the open now. Deeds, thoughts, set free to cause trouble.

‘Of course you had to say something.' Marie was being the voice of dubious experience. ‘You just do. When you've got someone in your head all the time that you're ridiculously passionate about, you can't resist sneaking them out and talking about them. It's almost impossible not to. I read about it somewhere, the writer called it “mentionitis”, where you somehow slip their name or a reference to them into the conversation. I bet you've even talked about him to Conrad.'

Sara looked at her. ‘Well, not . . .'

‘Oh God you have, haven't you? You are an idiot; Conrad's so much more intuitive than Mike. He'll suss. So who is he and what does he do?'

‘He's called Ben . . . oh and you've met him!' Sara remembered suddenly. ‘At the college that time?'

‘Wow! That tasty journalist? Married, obviously.'

‘Seems not any more. But Marie, it's weird. I haven't gone off Conrad. I love him just the same. I still fancy him, we have sex, more now even since he seems to have rediscovered it, and it's completely blazing. How does that work?'

‘Ah – well it's like when you have a second baby. You don't love the first one any less, do you? See? And it also works because we're not silly young things looking to make life-partner decisions. We've done that. I mean, can you imagine living with someone new? Nightmare.'

‘No. I don't want to live with anyone but Conrad. I don't even want to sleep with anyone else.'

‘Yes you do,' Marie said. ‘You've had, what, a couple of useless boyfriends before Conrad? I'd only ever slept with Mike. These days, that kind of pathetic total is the equivalent of dying an old maid. I
had
to do it. I had to see what it was like.'

‘But . . . what about the . . . the L word?'

‘The Love word is strictly for home territory.' Marie looked fondly in the direction of the house. The sound of sawing came from the kitchen. Mike must have found something essential to mend or alter. It was funny, Sara thought; everyone has their own way of showing love for someone. Mike's was in nest-making. Marie was so lucky – and she knew it really. Whatever off-the-premises game she'd been playing, she knew that when it was time to add up the scores and go home, Mike would be there, waiting.

*

Conrad was hardly inconspicuous. Almost any art-aware person in the land would recognize his trademark long white hair, very reminiscent of David Ginola's in his gorgeous-footballer heyday. His look was almost as recognizable as David Hockney's boyish blond hair and glasses or Peter Blake's gnome-ish beard. He'd put on sunglasses and his old straw hat for this covert mission, but he was pretty sure that at any moment someone was going to emerge from behind a hedge and ask what the hell he was doing lurking and watching.

Now that he was actually outside Ben's house he wasn't sure what he'd intended to do or to achieve. Setting out from his own place in a mood of fury and jealousy, he'd had no formed plan. In his head, there was a vague something along the lines of thrashing this media twat to within an inch of his life, but the twat would be years younger than him, many degrees fitter, stronger and quicker than him. And besides, you didn't go round taking on people in such an uncivilized way – that was prehistoric behaviour. He could just see it in the papers: ‘Art Attack: pacifist painter lamps love rival'.

He didn't even know if the guy was home, though if the flash (
too
flash?) black Audi parked outside next to a purple Mini was his, then he probably was there. But he wasn't likely to come outside and pose around the garden among the flowers just so Conrad could give him the once-over through the hedge. All he really wanted to do was look at this bloke, see what he was up against. The best outcome, he now thought as he watched Floss scuffing up some interesting leaves, would be that he was a really boot-faced ponce who Sara wouldn't fancy in a million years. Then maybe, and only maybe, Conrad could believe that all the stuff about the gallery would be kosher. That Ben was only in pursuit of her artwork. But he'd seen that look on her face, heard the twat on the phone calling her ‘Darling' . . . or did they all do that, media folk? But this moment of self-doubt was only fleeting. If this Ben was in the acting business it would be one thing, but a journalist? He didn't think so. Even Sara's gay friend Will, who did something design-ish in wallpaper, didn't call anyone darling, except possibly his partner Bruno.

Conrad, realizing that unless he actually knocked on Ben's door there was no way he was likely to get a look at him, was about to turn for home when the cottage's pink front door opened. He crossed the lane and hung about behind the same chestnut tree that had hidden Jasper not so long ago. Thank goodness for dogs, Conrad thought; they must have saved many a curious lurker from being accused of loitering with intent. A woman was coming out of the house, followed by a man too good-looking for comfort. Conrad recognized immediately that this Ben – and it had to be him – was Sara's type. Arty-looking sort, a lot like Conrad himself in his younger days.

The woman (tall, dark, slim, very pretty) turned on the garden path and kissed Ben. It was a very thorough kiss, nothing friendly-peck about it. Well that was something, Conrad thought; at least Sara wasn't the only lust object in this guy's life. Ben was talking to the woman now, stroking her back as if she was a much-loved cat. She kissed him again and walked down the path, smiling. She climbed into the purple Mini and drove away while Ben waved to her from the doorstep.