All That Mullarkey

by Sue Moorcroft

  It took three passwords – the company’s, his section’s and his own – before he could access his emails. Last week’s figures waited at the top of his inbox and he scrolled through them. They were OK. Next section meeting he’d tell his team that OK was not OK. Outstanding was OK. And the first person to make excuses about the credit crunch would be put on a warning.

  Lillian swayed up to his desk, tight little arse in her tight little skirt close to his arm, perfume cooking nicely on her pulse spot. ‘How’s your father?’

  He thought about saying, ‘Nice offer, but do you think howsyerfather is appropriate to the office?’ But he was always a model of office courtesy. ‘On the mend, but he’s got to be careful for a while. Thanks.’

  She nodded and began to wiggle away.

  And then it just came out without warning, bleh, his voice working independently. ‘I need to speak to you.’

  Her finely marked eyebrows lifted slightly over cool grey eyes. A fall of hair slid slowly, silkily from behind her ear, a curtain across her cheekbone.

  ‘Later,’ he added.

  She nodded and swayed back to her seat. Gav made himself not watch. Wished he could take back his words. The less he had to do with Lillian, the better.

  Definitely. Less, the better. He checked his BlackBerry for the time of his meeting with his line manager, Bob Chester, then set an alert to phone his mother later to see if his dad was home safely.

  Hopefully, by the time Gav and Cleo paid a follow-up visit Dad would’ve got his stuffing back after the brutal conflict with his own body, and begun to care again whether his hair stood on end or his face was unwashed and unshaven. For now, Gav could forget the desperate prospect of his father’s death.

  During the whole panic, Cleo had been great. Unflappable, helpful, thoughtful, seeing what had to be done and doing it. A better wife than he currently deserved.

  Cleo. He conjured up an image of his wife. Things weren’t warm between them. Not since … He tried to push the memory away but it came sneaking back. Maybe on Saturday they could go shopping for new wallpaper and, without the stripped patch above the bed reminding them both of the stupid words he’d scrawled there, they could forget the amazing rage that had frightened even him.

  He tried to recall Cleo’s schedule. He thought she was taking a training day somewhere. He’d text her and she could read the message at her next break.

  He began a new text message. Inviting others 4 meal 2nite will cook spag bol love G.

  Then there was just time to visit the Gents before presenting himself in Bob’s office.

  An hour later, when he emerged, Lillian was loitering in the corridor reading a noticeboard. He jumped.

  She smiled slightly. ‘Well? What?’

  He screwed up his face and rubbed his forehead. ‘What was it, now?’ A short, embarrassed laugh. ‘It’s gone. Completely slipped my mind. Sorry.’

  He didn’t want to talk to her after all.

  Gav’s text message made Cleo sigh. ‘Now, do I really feel like an evening passing the wine, listening to everyone complain about their kids and about each other? No, I don’t, actually.’ Gav was a pain, not bothering to consult her before he invited guests. What if she’d wanted a quiet night in or a loud night out? Maybe she should go out with Liza and send Gav a little message about that? Sorry. Made other arrangements.

  But when she texted her sister, Liza returned: Soz. On a date 2nite.

  So Cleo made herself available to Nathan for a planning meeting and encouraged him into discussing strategies for getting established staff with entrenched ideas to accept current trends, thus ensuring that she’d arrive in Middledip later than her guests.

  ‘Sorry,’ she breezed in, ‘heavy, heavy day.’ Dropping her jacket on the sofa, she flopped onto the only vacant dining chair, helped herself to white wine and beamed around at Dora looking cheerful, Keith’s dark brow knitting into his habitual slight frown, Ian’s hooded gaze and Rhianne’s full-face make-up. ‘Hello, everyone!

  Gav glanced at the clock. ‘We thought you’d got lost.’

  She took four swallows from her glass. The wine was a little fruity for her taste and yellower than white wine had a right to be. She turned the bottle to read the label. ‘I had a planning meeting.’

  ‘You never said.’

  ‘No. When are we eating?’

  ‘There’s just the pasta to drain.’ Gav stayed in his seat, twirling his wine glass on the pearl-grey tablecloth – the best linen one that was hell to launder.

  Cleo finished her wine and poured another with a sigh of relish. ‘That’s better. Who needs a top-up? Rhianne, you’re looking healthy. Been soaking up the rays?’ She focused on Rhianne’s skin, as smooth and matte as a brown egg, as if genuinely unaware that Gav was waiting for her to execute a lightning clear-up in the kitchen, find the napkins, drain the pasta and serve the meal. ‘I’m starving.’

  Several beats passed before Gav got to his feet. ‘How hot does the oven need to be for garlic bread?’

  ‘Whatever it says on the packet. How’s business, Keith? How are the kids, Dora? That shirt really suits you.’

  Dora flushed. ‘I’m down to a size fourteen! I’ve been such a good girl!’

  Rhianne raised her glass. ‘Give Ian the diet sheet, quick!’

  Ian decided to take the joke. ‘My chest measurement’s already less than Dora’s.’

  Cleo lit some candles and chose a bottle of red from the wine rack. Through the doorway she could see Gav struggling in the kitchen, tutting when he couldn’t find the oven gloves, turning the bread into rips and crumbs through using the wrong knife. How agreeable to loll back and await her meal. She must do it more often.

  She let the conversation buzz round her. Dora really did look great. She seemed less clumsy and mumsy and what Gav had dubbed ‘A-Dora-ble’. Being a few pounds lighter suited her and the buttercup-coloured shirt brought brightness to her fair hair. Or maybe she’d had her hair highlighted.

  Keith seemed quiet. But then Keith specialised in being saturnine and silent. He liked to give the impression that he knew things that others didn’t.

  ‘Grub’s up.’ Awkwardly, Gav carried in two big bowls. The spaghetti was watery and overcooked but nobody complained as they splashed the bolognese sauce over it. Cleo tried not to look at the red freckles appearing on the tablecloth.

  Once the garlic bread and parmesan had made the rounds, Gav turned to Rhianne. ‘Got any more tips on tantric sex?’

  The corners of Rhianne’s lips quirked, her thick lipstick magically unsullied by the act of eating. ‘Think I’ve told you all I know. It’s all to do with intensity, quality rather than quantity. Building up slowly, taking time to attune to each other’s bodies.’

  Gav smiled down the table at Cleo. ‘Maybe we ought to try it?’ His hair looked amber in the candlelight and a little quiff curled up over his forehead.

  Cleo felt her eyebrows lift. Since the make-up sex when she came home fresh from the time with Justin, she and Gav hadn’t made love. She hadn’t wanted to. Guilt must be interfering with her libido. Or maybe it was that, until the memory of Justin’s hands and lips had faded, she didn’t trust herself.

  Not that Gav seemed to notice. George’s illness had upset normality, of course, with its rush, panic and fear. She rubbed her head above her ear where there was a small pain and wished her period would arrive to drain her tension headaches away. Maybe she’d stop feeling so perverse and in a constant state of mild aggravation, too.

  Gav was still smiling at her through the yellow candlelight. ‘How about coffee, now?’

  She stretched and yawned. ‘Lovely, bring lots or I’ll fall asleep.’

  A hesitation, then he climbed to his feet. ‘How much do I put in the machine?’

  ‘It’s on the packet.’

  ‘Let’s try it.’

  Cleo collapsed slowly into the welcoming bedclothes like a deflating balloon; avoiding all the chores that evening had been almost as wearing as
doing them and she was exhausted. She’d had to field a whole list of peevish questions: ‘Can this go in the dishwasher? God, look at the state of the tablecloth, will that wash out? This dish won’t come clean. Well, I didn’t know it ought to have been soaking all evening!’

  Cleo had let him do the lot. After all, he’d issued the invitations. She’d flopped down on the sofa and offered advice until the jobs were done and they could come to bed.

  Bed. Bliss. She closed her eyes, let her lungs gently empty, then took a deep, calming breath. ‘Try what?’

  ‘Tantric sex. Or something like it.’ He landed heavily on his side of the bed and her eyes reopened.

  Gav was wearing summer pyjamas, matching shorts and T-shirt. New. Unaccountably, he held a pair of her pyjamas, shell pink and shiny. His eyes were bright. He let the pyjamas unfold and ran them up Cleo’s arm. ‘But I have my own interpretation. How about covering up for a while to whet our appetites? Then, after a week or two, sex will be really intense.’

  Since when had Gav needed his appetite whetting? Cleo groaned and shut her eyes again. ‘I can’t be bothered with pyjamas. I’m tired.’

  ‘Come on, let’s try it.’ And laughing, coaxing, he actually began to hook the pyjama trousers over her feet. Grumpily, she lifted her behind to allow him to pull them up. Silent and unco-operative as he awkwardly fought the top on, one arm, rolling her over the bunched material, two arms, fumbling with the buttons. By the time it was done, Gav was panting and Cleo felt like a badly wrapped parcel.

  ‘There,’ he said. ‘What do you think?’

  Cleo snapped, ‘That it’s a stupid idea!’ Then, noticing the bulge in the front of his smart new jammies, ‘We’re not going to take them all off again now are we? I’m so tired!’

  Yet when she could have slept, when Gav was breathing loudly beside her, she lay awake and brooded, feeling uncomfortably restricted. Pyjamas! Deliberately depriving themselves of sex? Gav and Cleo Callaway? Not the pre-That Weekend Gav and Cleo, anyway. Very strange. If it hadn’t been for the bulgy shorts she would have suspected Gav of trying to hide a problem.

  But, whatever his motives were for taking a sexual holiday, it was funny that she didn’t mind.

  She nudged her breast with her forearm. Uncomfortably tender. She wished her period would hurry up. Used to the regime of the pill, erratic periods were something she’d forgotten about.

  The doctor had said that she might be irregular when she came off the pill. That’s all it was, the feeling that she’d boil into a temper any moment, the tenderness and loss of libido. Coming off the pill could do funny things to a woman. Well-known fact.

  But she would be glad when her period arrived.

  Chapter Ten

  Four weeks later, Cleo’s hands, as she paid at the unfamiliar pharmacy counter on the outskirts of Leicester, felt clammy. Her period never had arrived and she was finding it harder and harder to believe it was because of post-pill ovulation eccentricity.

  Clamping the bag to her side she stole out, past the incontinence aids, past the perfumes and make-up, past the photo booth and into the tree-lined, paved street. She paused, fumbling as she tried to tuck the long, flat package into her handbag.

  But it seemed gigantic. She felt as if it might spring to life and leap from her bag, gleefully accosting passers-by: ‘Look at me, I’m a pregnancy testing kit! Cleo’s period’s really late. She’s afraid she’s pregnant and isn’t sure of the father. She picked a man up at a club! What use is the diaphragm at home in the box? There were condoms – yes, right there in the room – if only she’d thought about them in time. And then when she went home to Gav she did exactly the same thing. Absent-minded, or what? No morning-after pill either. Isn’t she useless? I say, did you know Cleo’s period’s late? What will Gav say? Who do you vote for? Let’s flip – heads for Gav and tails for Justin.’

  All through the afternoon’s Dealing with Difficult People workshop Cleo kept checking her bag was fastened so no one should catch a glimpse of the evidence of her guilt and laxity. Oh, to be home! Do the test. And know.

  She’d hoped for a miracle for long enough.

  The afternoon ended eventually and as her group clattered off she sighed with relief, bundling laptop and screen, flip chart and bag of pens into the back of her car. It seemed to take forever to negotiate Leicester’s one-way system, fight her way along the A47 and circle the Peterborough parkways until she could peel off for Middledip. She reached home taut and edgy.

  But, ‘Damn!’ There was Dora, waiting on the pavement, Eddie asleep in his buggy, Meggie hunting ladybirds on the shrubs leaning over the wall.

  Dora looked great in black trousers and a square-necked top. She beamed as Cleo climbed from her car. ‘We’re surprise visitors. I thought it would be nice to walk around your village rather than the city. Meggie would like a go on the swings behind the village hall.’

  Cleo blinked. Dora lived right on the edge of all the miles and miles of footpaths and playgrounds around Ferry Meadows’ lakes.

  ‘Lovely,’ she lied. ‘Come in and give Meggie a drink – hello Meggie – while I change.’ And, casually, ‘No Keith?’

  Dora busied herself manoeuvring Eddie and Meggie over the doorstep and through into the kitchen. ‘Keith’s doing his own thing.’

  ‘Doesn’t look like Gav’s home yet, either.’ Was that a slight feeling of relief? ‘Orange juice OK, Meggie?’

  The stolid little girl nodded, bunches jiggling. ‘’S please.’ Mousy strands of hair stuck to her forehead and cheeks. Her sandals made a sucking noise on the tiles as she hovered foot to foot.

  ‘And some biscuits?’

  ‘’S please.’

  ‘I’ll just pop up and change.’ She leapt up the stairs, tugging at the zip of her handbag and jamming it on the paper bag inside, before wrenching out the box and tucking it at the back of her knickers drawer. Later, have to be later. Or did the test only work in the mornings? Bugger Dora, why did she have to turn up tonight, just when she’d psyched herself up to learn the worst?

  They stepped outside into the lavender light of a heavy English August evening.

  Cleo tried gently to move Dora along. ‘Shall we call on Rhianne?’ Rhianne and Ian lived in the new part of the village, Bankside, where the houses were of pink or yellow brick.

  Dora wrinkled her nose. ‘I’d rather not, to be honest.’

  ‘We’ll go straight to the village hall then.’ The muggy air smelled of cut grass as they took the path to the hall to the swish of the chubby rubber wheels on Eddie’s buggy. Meggie scampered straight off to the swing.

  Dora got her going in smooth arcs then beckoned Cleo out of earshot.

  Cleo sighed. This was what the ‘walk in the country’ was about, obviously. Dora had something to tell her.

  Unusually flushed and bright-eyed, guarding her mouth with her fingertips as if afraid someone might lip-read, Dora cleared her throat. ‘Cleo, do you remember Keith and me going through that sticky patch? Before Eddie came along?’

  ‘Of course.’ Cleo had no trouble remembering that draggy period of Gav and Keith vanishing for long man-to-man talks. Dora had been silent and tense and merely shrugged whenever Cleo had asked if she could help.

  Dora looked suddenly desolate. ‘Keith had an affair.’

  Cleo bit her lip. Had Gav known? ‘That’s so …! I did wonder. Is it over?’

  ‘It was over before I found out. But when I did find out – bloody credit card receipts, would you believe, for hotels on weekends I thought he was at seminars; he was so careless it was insulting – I couldn’t get over it. I couldn’t forgive him for doing … that, with someone else.’

  ‘Yes. I mean no. Right.’ Guilt made Cleo suddenly hot. Dora’s eyes were shining with tears and Cleo didn’t want to think about Gav feeling like that. Please, the great god of mistakes, he wouldn’t have to. As long as she wasn’t pregnant.

  With a baby that could be his.

  Or could be Justin’s.

/>   ‘Mummy! Mummy! Push!’

  Dora nipped over to Meggie’s slowing swing, dragged it back and let it go, ‘Wheee! OK, darling?’ before scurrying back to Cleo. She was smiling, now. A smile touched with triumph. ‘But this time, the boot’s on the other foot!’

  Cleo’s brows shot up. ‘Dora! You? Who?’

  Dora’s face softened. ‘He’s Meggie’s swimming instructor. Sean. I’ve known him for months through taking Meggie for her lessons. But I met him in Bettsbrough by accident. The car had broken down. The kids were so tired and miserable that I felt like having a good cry – and he rang a garage and took us all into his house. We had coffee and he fed the children … oh, Cleo, I can just talk to him for hours! Hours and hours. And he listens. He doesn’t go behind his paper and answer, “Mmm?” He doesn’t watch other girls when he’s with me. He doesn’t “just mention” that I’ve gone up two dress sizes since having the children. He’s kind and generous and funny. And he likes me.’

  She nipped back to tend Meggie’s swing once more. ‘Aren’t you going high, sweetheart?’ Eddie’s wispy-haired little head tocked from side to side as he watched his sister from the buggy.

  Cleo realised that as well as Dora’s hair colour being lifted, she looked as if she was trying to grow her nails. And she was wearing perfume. Cleo felt an uncomfortable sense of impending change. ‘This is serious stuff, isn’t it? Have you …?’

  Dora’s eyes danced. ‘Have we ever!’ She gripped Cleo’s forearm, her words tumbling over one another. ‘On the mornings when Sean’s not teaching until the afternoon session, I take Meggie to preschool then rush to his flat and get into bed with him. I put Eddie on the floor in his car seat and give him a biscuit when he wakes up. I’m so wicked! But I’ve never felt like this about anyone. Cleo, I finally understand how you and Gav feel about each other. Nobody else matters.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Cleo, thinking that maybe things weren’t as bad as she imagined if people still thought that. ‘So, what do you think’s happening? Is it a fling?’