Neurotica

by Sue Margolis

  As Ed continued to pour out his story, Anna noticed a “motorway ends” sign. They were almost in the New Forest. She reached into her bag and started to unfold a sheet of shiny fax paper. On it were the directions to the Starlight Club which Campbell's PA had faxed to her that morning.

  “We carry on the A31 from here almost all the way,” she said. “So what made you finally decide to divorce?”

  “It got to a stage where I felt she had no place in her life for me. First came trees, which were all that mattered to her, and then after a while it was the twins. I'm afraid I slipped back into my old ways and ended up having an affair with a woman who worked on the subs desk at the Globe. It only lasted a few weeks, but some evil bitch in the office wrote to Tilda and told her about it and that was it. She chucked me out and we were finished. I know having an affair just after she'd had the babies was a wicked and cruel thing to do, and I know she has every right to despise me, but I never thought she'd punish me like this.”

  Anna said that divorces were always messy, but what Tilda had done with the au pair was the most callous act of cruelty she'd ever come across. What was so wrong with having the odd affair if someone wasn't satisfied with their marriage? she said indignantly. “I know lots of people who do.” It was the furthest she dared go.

  Ed looked at her briefly and managed a weak smile. Anna wasn't sure; perhaps his look conveyed nothing more than gratitude at hearing somebody else confirm his thoughts about Tilda's treatment of him. It was hard for her to tell whether he was in the least bit interested in her.

  Anna turned away from him and looked down at the fax. She realized that for the second time today, somebody had cocked up. The club was, in fact, miles from Poole, out at Bere Regis. She stared at the small map at the bottom of the page.

  “Christ, I don't believe this. Campbell said this place was in Poole. It looks to me like it's twenty miles farther on.”

  Ed asked if he could take a look at the directions. Anna handed him the sheet of paper. Ed then proceeded to study the directions while at the same time negotiating a very large roundabout.

  “Well, funnily enough, I know exactly where it is. A mate of mine in New York owns a cottage not far from there. In fact, I often spend weekends there when he's away. I keep the key in the car. Funny spot for a club, though. It's right in the depths of the countryside. I'd say it's about half an hour from here . . . tops.”

  Anna looked at her watch. She'd asked the butter churner and her mates to get to the club by seven-thirty so that she could do a brief interview with them before the Lover Boys came on. If Ed stepped on it, they should just about make it.

  Relieved that she could leave it to Ed to navigate them through the center of Poole, she let the conversation drift back to his divorce and the child custody hearing.

  After fifteen minutes or so the divided highway turned into a narrow, winding road with hedges on either side. As they discussed Ed's plans to appeal against the judge's decision, Anna couldn't help thinking how glorious the Dorset countryside looked in the early-evening sunlight.

  They realized almost simultaneously that the car was beginning to lose power.

  “Ed, speak to me. What the fuck is going on?” Anna's tone was on the cusp of anger. “I always said this car was a junk heap, but I made the mistake of believing that, bearing in mind how much traveling your job involves, it was a reasonably well maintained junk heap.”

  “It is, it is,” he said, almost squealing his disbelief. “I haven't got the vaguest notion what is going on.”

  With that the Mini slowed to a crawl. Ed just managed to direct it into a farm gate entrance before the engine died completely.

  They spent the next five minutes with their heads under the Mini's hood. Knowing nothing about car mechanics, Anna had nothing useful to offer. She did, however, occupy herself by saying “I knew this would happen” over and over again. It was only when she realized that she sounded exactly like her mother when her father got lost trying to find a bar-mitzvah venue that she stopped.

  Ed, fraught, and still none the wiser, took his head out from under the bonnet and said there was nothing for it but to phone the AA. He got back into the car and rummaged through his camera bag for his mobile.

  “Shitting bollocking buggery . . . it's fully charged, but there's no fucking service.”

  Anna reached into the car and found her phone. It wasn't working either. Leaning against the car, she looked at her watch. It was nearly seven. In all her years as a newspaper reporter she had never been sent on a job and come back empty-handed. She wasn't about to start now; as Ed had so perceptively explained to her that time on the way back from Isleworth, she could make up her story if necessary. He would have to make his own photographic arrangements.

  “Look, why don't we cross this stile and see where the path leads. Perhaps there's a farmhouse at the end of it and we can call the AA from there.”

  Ed agreed that it seemed the most sensible thing to do. He took his camera bag from the car, locked both doors and turned towards Anna, who was standing in front of the stile.

  “After you.” He took her hand as she climbed up onto the narrow wooden platform and maneuvered herself onto the other side.

  Neither of them was able to explain the reason for what happened next. It could have been that an earlier shower had left the stile greasy and slippery. It could have been that Anna wasn't concentrating and lost her step. Whatever the cause, two seconds later, she found herself lying facedown in a wet, muddy ditch.

  Ed was over the stile and crouching by her side in an instant. He put down his camera bag and helped her to her feet. Anna was coughing and spluttering. She tried to wipe the mud off her jacket, but succeeded only in rearranging it. Her beige Sweet FA suit and matching silk blouse were ruined. She could feel pieces of straw in her hair.

  Ed took out a clean white handkerchief. As he wiped her face and pulled a long piece of straw out of her hair, he looked into her eyes and smiled.

  “Anna, has anyone ever told you, the yokel look is very you.”

  Managing to hold back a smile, she raised her arm to thump him, but he grabbed her wrist before she could do him any harm. He kept his grip on her arm, forcing it to remain in midair. They looked at each other, neither of them saying a word. The silence seemed to go on forever. Finally, he let go of her arm and drew her towards him. “I remember wanting to do this two years ago,” he said, cupping her face in his hands, “when you got furious and accused me of being an anti-Semitic Pole.”

  “Ed, I never said anything remotely like that,” Anna protested. “All I said was—”

  She didn't have a chance to finish because Ed was kissing her, very slowly, on the mouth.

  “Come on,” he said when they'd finished. “Let's carry on walking for a bit and see what's round the next bend.”

  C H A P T E R E I G H T E E N

  WHEN THEY DISCOVERED THERE was nothing round the bend except another bend, Anna and Ed decided to return to the car. They tramped back, dodging the muddy puddles, in embarrassed silence. Anna couldn't help thinking that, although she had enjoyed it immensely, the likelihood was that the kiss meant nothing to Ed. The man was exhausted. His emotions were all over the place. He'd probably wanted nothing more than to be close to another human being for a few seconds. He was bound to regret it now. The reason he wasn't speaking was that he didn't know how to tell her. Anna decided that the easiest and most diplomatic way of dealing with the incident would be to say nothing, pretend it hadn't happened—and hope it did again.

  Ed unlocked the car, opened the glove compartment and took out a packet of prawn-cocktail-flavored crisps. He offered some to Anna. She shook her head. She thought the flavor of synthetic prawn combined with the shock she was still feeling from falling in the mud, not to mention Ed's kiss and her anxiety about them missing the Lover Boys' show, might make her throw up.

  “I think the best thing we can do,” Ed said, putting a handful of crisps in his mouth, “is
flag down the next car that comes along and see if we can cadge a lift. I'll sort the car out tomorrow.”

  Afew minutes later they were accepting a lift from a jolly middle-aged couple in cricket hats, who were towing a tiny two-berth trailer with their Morris Marina. They were heading for a trailer site near Dorchester, and reckoned the village where the club was would only be a couple of miles out of their way.

  The chap got out of the Marina and insisted on helping them move their luggage. He also suggested Anna might like to use the trailer to change her clothes.

  “By the way,” he said, extending a hand, “we're the Meatyards. We hail from Orpington.” His voice had the kind of irritating nasal quality which Anna always associated with bought ledger clerks. “I'm Terry and this,” he said, waving a hand towards the woman in the passenger seat, who was working her way through a pile of dainty sandwiches which she was taking from a Tupperware container, “is my wife, Elaine. I call her the hand brake.” He slapped Ed matily on the back. “You know, doesn't let you go anywhere.” With that he burst into a laugh which sounded like a donkey having very fast and exceedingly energetic sex.

  As Terry slapped Ed on the back for a second time, Elaine stuck her head out of the window, and, by way of greeting, waved a half-eaten crustless sandwich.

  Anna and Ed exchanged a surreptitious glance which, although fleeting, successfully communicated their mutual distaste for Terry Meatyard. Ed explained that they were Anna and Ed and hailed from the Globe on Sunday, but Terry wasn't a listening type, and was off again.

  “So,” he said, “what brings you and your lady wife to this glorious neck of the woods? I know, don't tell me . . . you've got rid of the ankle biters and you've come away for some long-overdue you-know-what—”

  “No, no . . . we're not married.” Anna almost shrieked her interruption. “Well, what I mean is . . . I am, but not to Ed.”

  “Say no more, little lady. Say no more. My lips are sealed.” Terry turned away from Anna and dug Ed conspiratorially in the ribs. “You're a long time pushing up the daisies, mate. Get it while you can, that's my motto. If I had my time again . . .” He looked back at Elaine, who had put the Tupperware on the dashboard and was now cleaning the wax from her ears with a cotton swab.

  “I'm afraid it's not what you think,” Ed said. “Anna and I are colleagues. Anna is a reporter and I am a photographer. We work for the Globe on Sunday.” He then went on to explain about the hen-night story.

  “D'you hear that, Elaine?” Terry shouted. “These people are from the Globe on Sunday.” But she didn't hear him because she was too busy inspecting the lumpy orange tip of her cotton swab.

  “Elaine was in the papers once. She won a bravery award about ten years ago. Our next-door neighbor's house was on fire and Elaine went in and rescued the goldfish. When she came out with the bowl, the poor blighter looked like it was a goner. Totally unfazed by its seemingly terminal state, Elaine, who, I should add, had just finished her St. John's ambulance training, insisted on giving it the kiss of life. Needless to say she brought it back from the dead. I kid you not, there were reporters on our doorstep within the hour. The story made a huge splash in our local free sheet. Maybe you saw it?”

  Ed and Anna apologized profusely for having missed it.

  “Do you have a trailer?” Terry asked.

  “Not really, no,” Ed said. “I don't know about Anna, but I do camp quite a lot.”

  “Don't worry about us, old boy. You won't find any prejudice chez Meatyard against our tented friends. Live and let live, that's what I say. You can always work your way up to a trailer.”

  “Yes,” said Ed, warming to his theme. “I spent six months under canvas when I was in Chechnya covering the siege of Grozny for Time magazine.”

  “Oh, right,” Terry replied. “Nice site, was it?”

  “Yes, quite pleasant other than when we were under intensive artillery bombardment by the Red Army.”

  “Oh, noisy then.”

  “A little.”

  Fifteen minutes later Anna emerged from the Meatyards' trailer wearing jeans, a black jacket and fresh makeup. She put her dirty things in the trunk of the Marina, with the rest of their bags. Terry shut the lid.

  “Elaine's moved into the back. Why don't you sit next to her and then you girls can have a good old chinwag about your ovaries and whatnot, and I'll sit with Ed in the front and point out some of the points of interest. Although I says it myself and shouldn't, we've been motoring in these parts for more than thirty years and I am somewhat conversant with the locale.”

  It was only when Anna got into the car that she realized that Elaine was wearing the identical royal blue polo shirt and baggy red shorts as her husband. With the white cricket hats, they looked like a pair of French flags.

  As Terry started the engine, Elaine began offering round violet creams. Realizing she was hungry and beginning to feel a bit light-headed, Anna took two.

  Elaine turned out to be just as voluble as her husband. In the twenty minutes it took to get to the Starlight Club, Anna heard about Terry's run-in with Homebase over some dodgy window putty, her recurring eczema which she was prone to develop “in all those moist places” and the tarnish—“Well, it's more of a speckled effect, really”—on their new bath taps. Every so often she would break off to demolish another violet cream. During one of these pit stops, Anna caught a snatch of Terry's tour commentary.

  “Now, Ed, that church up ahead is really ancient. I believe they started it around 1245 . . . and finished it at half past four.” He gave another burst of horny donkey.

  While Ed rubbed his shoulder, which, after several of Terry's slaps, was beginning to feel quite sore, Elaine started telling Anna about the wavy hem on the navy two-piece she'd just bought for her son's wedding. By now, Anna was barely listening. This was due partly to boredom and partly because she had noticed that the narrow country lane had turned into a divided highway and that coming up on the left was a low modern building, set back from the road. Huge pink neon letters announcing the Starlight Club rose up from the flat roof. There were at least half a dozen coaches in the parking lot. “Brilliant, we're here.” She leaned forward and spoke to the back of Terry's head. “I think that's the entrance coming up on the left.”

  Terry slowed down and pulled off the road. Elaine, totally unaware that she had lost Anna's attention, had moved on to the tale of her anorexic sister-in-law who had come round from her sterilization operation and demanded that her sugar drip be replaced with Sweetex.

  Now then,” Terry said to Ed and Anna as he heaved Anna's holdall out of the boot and placed it on the ground, “you know where we are. Don't be strangers. Elaine loves visitors. Gives her an excuse to bring out her commemorative thimble collection.”

  The three of them shook hands. Terry got back into the car, started the engine and began towing the trailer slowly towards the parking-lot exit. Elaine stuck her head out of the car window. “Anna, maybe we could have lunch one day at the Oxford Street Littlewoods. I still haven't told you about the flaky skin I get between my toes.”

  “Great,” Anna said, waving. “I'll look forward to it.”

  Inside the Starlight Club, the MC, who was wearing a maroon double-breasted jacket, finished tapping his mike.

  “OK, girls,” he shouted, accompanied by a piercing howl of electronic feedback, “I want to hear a big “oooh' from all the virgins in tonight.”

  The two hundred women who packed the dimly lit dance floor had been in a frenzied state of Lover Boy anticipation since stepping onto their respective coaches at six o'clock. They oohed as one.

  Anna and Ed sat at one of the tables on a raised carpeted area which formed a border round the dance floor. Despite Elaine's violet creams, they were both starving and were stuffing themselves with peanuts. Going down less easily was the on-the-house liebfraumilch, presented to them on their arrival by Tony, the Starlight Club manager.

  Seeing what a state Anna had got herself into about missing
the Lover Boys, Tony had shown them to a table, ordered the bottle of wine and kept reassuring her that all she and Ed had missed was the drag act. The Lover Boys weren't due onstage for over an hour. This gave Anna plenty of time to do her interview with Kelly the butter churner. The problem was, how was she going to find her among all these people? She had popped her head into the bar just to see if Kelly was still there, but it was empty.

  “Now I want you to put your hands together,” the MC continued, “for Kelly who's marrying her Dave tomorrow, Dawn who's just got divorced and Shirley who's having her tubes tied on Monday.”

  The crowd, divided by age into crop tops worn over flares and hooped gold earrings worn with black-cherry lip liner, whooped, cheered and clapped as the MC presented each of the women with a bottle of Asti Spumante. At the foot of the stage Kelly, Dawn and Shirley posed for the Sureshots.

  The next minute “Like a Virgin” was blaring out of four massive speakers and women from seventeen to seventy were bopping around in their white stilettos, cameras looped over their wrists.

  While Ed fiddled with his lenses, Anna watched the dancing. After a few minutes she realized that the music was relaxing her, and that she was beginning to enjoy herself. She poured herself another glass of wine and then picked up the white menu card which was propped up between the salt and pepper pots. She had had no idea the club was serving dinner. They had a choice of grapefruit segments or melon cocktail, followed by chicken croquettes with seasonal vegetables and Black Forest gateau. Anna read the menu to Ed.

  “I don't know about you, but I could murder a couple of chicken croquettes, even ones from a cheapo mass catering pack.”

  Ed looked up from his lenses and grimaced.

  “Forget it. . . . I'll cook us something later. Graham, my mate who owns the cottage, always leaves the deep freeze loaded up with M and S packets. He won't mind me nicking a couple.”