Young Wives' Tales (35 page)

I move closer to Mick. ‘What do you think of kids?’I ask him.

He looks at me quizzically but accepts the nonsequential nature of the conversation.

‘I like them but I couldn’t eat a whole one,’he quips with a grin. A peal of laughter explodes from somewhere. It’s crazy and disproportionate. Oh God, it’s me laughing.

‘I don’t understand kids,’I confide. ‘Got one, don’t know what to do with her.’He’s a guy, so he doesn’t ask me what I mean. I don’t care, I take his silence as encouragement enough. ‘I mean all that endless zoo visiting and play-date arranging and the smells.’Mick
blanches so I don’t go into detail about the offensive odours that kids seem to emit on a more or less continuous basis from the moment they burst into your life. ‘I don’t know my own daughter. I don’t know the person I created.’

Suddenly, the truth and sadness of this sentence slams me to the floor. I think I’m in danger of crying. Bloody alcohol. I’ve seen this happen to other people a million times, how the hell have I let myself get into this position? I decide to change the subject.

I glance around the party room. It seems that everyone has now drunk enough to be freed from the restraints of recognized, civil small talk or even the affable chat owed to closer colleagues; the room oozes unreserved, barefaced disorderliness. I remember this exciting recklessness from years ago and I like it. I feel great.

I move closer to Mick’s ear, he must be able to feel my breath on his lobe. I can see the hairs on the back of his neck rise. I wonder if that’s the only part of his anatomy that’s starting to stand to attention. I drape one hand around his neck and let the other rest on his thigh.

‘Then again, I’ve got a husband and I don’t know what to do with him either,’I admit in a whisper. ‘I don’t think he knows what to do with me any more. He’s forgotten.’

I let the words sit between us. Mick does not look at me but stares straight ahead; his stillness proves I have his attention. The rest of the room, so noisy and powerful
a second ago, disappears. The world is silent while I wait for Mick’s response. I know what I’ve done – I’ve opened a can of worms. I want ideas to creep in and out of his head. Inappropriate, dangerous ideas. I want Mick to pick up on my discontent and I want him to act on it. More, I need him to. He looks sexy tonight and he’s here, right? Available. Right? And I really could do with being desired.

It seems that several light years pass while I allow Mick to fully comprehend the situation. I’m drunker than I’ve ever been and I’m expressing frustration with my family life, I’m sitting next to him on a large leather daybed – if there is ever going to be one, then this would be his moment to up the stakes.

‘You never said anything like that in New York,’he replies, carefully.

I’d actually been expecting him to suggest we move somewhere quieter, so I reply without thought or guile, ‘I was never this drunk in New York, Mick.’

He quickly turns to me. ‘It’s not my style to seduce drunken women, Princess. Thanks for the offer and all.’With that he stands up and calls to Joe, ‘Mate, I have to go. See to it that Lucy drinks lots of water and get her into a cab within the hour. She needs to get home too.’

‘I’m on it, captain,’says Joe, putting his fingers to his forehead in a salute.

Then Mick walks out of the room, without so much as a glance my way.

He’s gone. I feel stupid, angry, disgusted. Disgusted
at him and myself. I can’t believe that I’ve just served myself up on a platter and he said no.
No
. He wanted it well enough in New York. I’m sure he did. What’s gone wrong between then and now? Am I so repulsive? So decrepit? No doubt he’s gone to find a woman who still has puppy fat and has no idea who Spandau Ballet are.

Joe sits up.

‘Fuck water. Who does he think he is?’

It takes me a minute to understand Joe. I feel lost and displaced. Peter doesn’t want me. He can hardly bear to come home any more and when he does we do nothing but row. Auriol wants me too much and I am a failure as a mother. Connie doesn’t understand me – she loves the whole mother thing. Bloody, bloody Rose. I bet she’s at home right now making chocolate brownies and fruit pies from scratch. I drop my head into my hands and fight tears. My hands look gnarled and grey. It might just be the lighting of the club but I don’t think so. I’m old. Mick didn’t want me. I feel confused and self-conscious. Even fucking indiscriminate Ralph didn’t want me. I’m washed up. I’m over.

Joe sits back beside me. I hadn’t realized he’d gone but apparently he’s been to the bar. He slams down a silver bucket. I see a bottle of Crystal peeping out.

‘Mick can be such a bossy wanker. You can handle your drink, can’t you, Lucy?’

‘Usually,’I slur.

‘That cheeky bastard has no right to tell you when to stop drinking.’

‘No right,’I agree. I shake my head and as I do so I feel my brain rattle around painfully. I think I might vomit. ‘Feel sick,’I mumble.

‘Best thing for that, Lucy, is to drink more,’advises Joe.

‘Really?’

‘Always.’

The champagne kicks the back of my throat, a frosty addictive liquid. A thousand startling bubbles dance frantically on my tongue and for a moment I do feel better. I hold out my glass for a refill and smile at Jack-ass Joe.

There are two days left until Tom takes the jump. I’ve been drinking pretty solidly since the (highly successful) stag weekend at the end of October, but I think my liver might now look closer to minced offal so I decide to have tonight off the sauce. At 5.30 p.m. this evening it seemed a good idea to have a night in, watch a DVD, have a bath, cut my toenails and then turn in before midnight. But it’s seven now and I’m bored witless.

Sometimes I have to wonder about my line of work. I get paid shedloads, enough to buy a beauty of a house, but I work all the hours God sends and mostly in places that demand an inconvenient commute from my beauty of a house – so I end up staying somewhere else. As I said, this gaff is quite something, but it’s not home. And occasionally I hanker after my creature comforts, like my big fridge, my stereo, cable TV and Andrea. Not necessarily Andrea per se, but you know, company.

My mobile rings into my empty flat and I’m grateful so I pick it up without checking to see who is calling.

‘Why did you and Andrea split up?’

‘Hello, Connie. How are you?’

She does not return the greeting but waits for an answer to her question. I’d seen it coming. She’s been getting pissed off with my avoidance techniques. She wants to talk about the big things. Maybe she’s curious. Or vain. Or confused. Or maybe talking is her way of legitimizing shagging and she won’t do one without the other. I don’t know, but this is the first time she’s called me in over five years and I can’t see any reason for holding out on her.

‘Andrea had an affair.’

‘No!’

I hear her gasp and I can imagine her face, a study of amazement. Sweet really. I guess she might have chosen to be smug or ecstatic. But I can tell that she’s genuinely shocked. It is possible that Connie is one of the few people in the world who really thinks that being unfaithful to me is an inconceivable idea. Would she have been faithful to me? If we’d got together back then, would we have made it through, I wonder?

‘I’d assumed…’Connie stutters to a stop.

‘You assumed that I’d done a bunk,’I fill in helpfully.

I wander over to the window and look out on to Kensington High Street. Late-night shoppers are already frantically filling the streets as though it was Christmas Eve rather than early November. I’m not much looking forward to Christmas.

‘Well, yes. Why did she have an affair?’

The question allows me to believe that Connie
would
have been faithful to me, if we’d lived the other life,
the one where not only did I get the girl but I wanted her at the correct time and so I held on to her. Tightly.

‘She thought I was being unfaithful.’

‘Were you?’

‘No, but she said I’d spent a lifetime acting in a way that makes it difficult for anyone to believe in me.’

Connie doesn’t refute this, not even to be polite.

‘Andrea knew about you and…’I trail off.

‘And all the others,’she snaps. I find it encouraging that she’s still miffed about the others.

‘Not all of them, but some of them,’I admit. Even Connie doesn’t know about all of them. ‘Even though I promised her I’d be faithful once we got married she didn’t really believe that I was capable of it. She couldn’t see why I’d change my ways.’

‘I can see her point.’

‘So can I, but I did mean it. I
was
faithful to her. People can change. You have.’

Connie is silent for a moment. To date we’ve both been making a big effort to pretend to believe that our relationship is totally innocent. She’s pretending we are just friends. We’re not. I’m pretending that I believe she’ll resist me. She won’t.

‘It was a nightmare. If I so much as spoke to another woman Andrea would have a fit. She was always questioning me. Where was I going? Who with? When would I be back? She started to turn up places just to check if I really was playing football as I’d said I was or if I was playing away. It was miserable for us both.’

‘But if Andrea was checking up on you and you weren’t doing anything wrong, what made her think you were?’

‘She thought the sex had gone off the boil.’

‘Really?’

Connie is clearly made up and then quickly shifts her tone to something more appropriate, something akin to sympathy. She makes little surprised murmuring sounds down the line, but I’m not fooled. She can’t help delighting in that confession. She’s very competitive.

‘But I think it just does, doesn’t it? It would have with you and me, given time.’

She is silent for about a decade and then, finally, she says, ‘We’ll never know.’

‘Well, I think it does. Sex comes and goes in a long-term relationship. It’s constantly changing and evolving. Things can’t stay the same as they are in the first few weeks; we’d all die of exhaustion.’

Connie gasps. Once again she is shocked, possibly at my realism. I try to explain.

‘I loved her, I really did. But I couldn’t manage to keep it dirty and insistent, not once we were married, not all the time. Is it really possible?’Connie is freaking me out now. She’s staying silent, not a trivial feat for her. ‘Don’t you agree? What? What is it?’

‘My God, I think that is the most mature thing you have ever said to me.’

‘Don’t patronize me, Connie.’

‘Sorry, sorry.’I can almost hear the cogs of Connie’s mind whirling, or maybe that’s the traffic from outside
my window. ‘Sorry that I sound patronizing. And sorry about Andrea. I wish you’d made it.’She coughs.

‘Ah well. That’s the way the cookie crumbles. I guess we weren’t meant to be.’

‘I thought you were.’

I wonder what Connie looks like right now. Where is she sitting? What is she doing? Is she sucking her lip, looking vexed, disappointed or challenging? Is she searching? What more does she want or need to know before she comes to me? She probably wants me to tell her she’s the one. That she always was and that Andrea and I were doomed because I couldn’t get Connie out of my system. I could tell her this. It wouldn’t be true but it would probably do the trick. She is moving closer to me. Mentally, I mean. I can feel it. She’s drunk champagne with me, without telling her hubby. She chose to bunk off work to be with me. She chose to watch the fireworks with me, not Luke.

‘Andrea is better off with her new bloke. He’s good to her. She deserves that,’I say with a shrug.

Connie feeling sorry for me might clinch it. She’ll note the tinge of regret, the self-effacing tone, and she’ll want to remind me that I am a god. At least in her eyes.

‘Where are you?’I ask.

‘In Diesel, in High Street Ken,’she says.

This is no coincidence. She’s thinking about me, she’s just up the street, not far away. I’m creeping under her skin again. This could be my moment.

‘Have you eaten?’I ask.

‘No.’

‘We could eat together.’

‘Where?’

‘Out or in, I don’t mind. You choose.’

‘OK. Out. Meet me at Café Rouge, off Kensington Church Street. Do you know it? I like it there. The manager is a friend of mine. See you in ten.’Then she hangs up.

Fuck me. It’s worked.

I check my reflection. I’m good to go. I’m not thrilled to hear that the manager is a friend of hers. That might curtail things a little. Even with her taste for danger I can’t see her shagging me in full view of an old pal but, no doubt about it, the evening is looking up. Toenail cutting or fucking Connie up against a wall in a back alley like the old days? Hardly a brainteaser. I’ll have to play it carefully though. I’ve been wanting her too much and too openly of late. It’s worked to an extent, drawn her out this far, but Connie isn’t keen on open displays of affection. In my experience, she likes it best when men treat her like crap. Now that gets her panting. I might have to play it a bit tonight. I know the routine I’ll use.

I’ll talk to her about the big stuff.I’ll answer more of her questions. I’ll even do it honestly – what the hell, she’s unshockable and that has always been our way. I’ll tell her how she’s made me feel recently. How much I’ve been thinking of her. I might even risk comparing it with the old days when after the first shag or two I barely thought about her at all. I’ll move in closer and closer and then I’ll pull back from her. Her eyes will
flicker with confusion. That’s fine. She’ll think I’m withdrawing out of respect for her wish to be just friends. She’ll be disappointed and delighted at once. But she’ll feel safe and in control. If I’m lucky, and I’m judging it right, she’ll also be feeling a teensy-weensy bit regretful and questioning. She will come to me. It’s only a matter of time. A bit of confusion heightens tension and intensifies everything. I might tell her that she’s right and that I should leave her alone. I’ll hold her gaze throughout my little speech and –

The phone rings again.

Bugger. I hope Connie hasn’t had second thoughts and is calling to say she can’t meet after all. I pick up.