Young Wives' Tales

by Adele Parks

  Annoyingly Mick won’t lie back down on the enormous daybed, although Joe has no qualms about flinging himself flat. He’s flapping his arms and legs up and down, the way one does in the snow to make snow angels. I notice that everyone clears off our daybed, driven away by his BO.

  ‘I lurve the feel of leather on my skin,’he shouts with a leer.

  Idiot.

  Mick insists I stay upright so I can drink the water he’s brought me. I take sulky sips. I’m not sure I want to be sober. I’m having quite a lot of fun being drunk and I’m short on fun these days. Admittedly, I haven’t actually spoken to anyone at the party. I haven’t had the chance to network or impress and clearly I’m not in a fit state to try to do so now. I haven’t had a dance or even investigated the terrace, which, apparently, is heated and has great views of London. Perhaps I’m not using my night of freedom to the optimum but I am having fun and I don’t want to be sober. Whenever Mick looks away I sneak a quick slurp of whatever glass is to hand. As the bill for the evening is being footed by GWH there are a large number of unfinished, discarded drinks littering the tables. This way I mix vodka, gin, champagne, beer and wine. A Russian roulette cocktail game: with each sip I wonder if this is the one that will make me keel over.

  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.

  35

  Thursday 9 November

  John

  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 legitimi
zing 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.

  ‘Hi, it’s me.’

  Me being Andrea.

  36

  Friday 10 November

  Lucy

  I slept in the spare room again last night. I didn’t arrive home until 4 a.m. and didn’t want to wake Peter or disturb Auriol. This morning I ignored all calls for
me to get up and kept my head safely under my pillow until I heard Peter leave for work and Eva and Auriol walk down the street to school. Only when their footsteps pitter-pattered into the distance did I risk moving.

  Waves of nausea threatened to overwhelm me. I made it as far as the bathroom before I vomited, but sadly not as far as the loo. My tranquil Philippe Stark minimalist bathroom with ambient lighting and Venetian glass mosaic tiles was instantly transformed into something nasty enough to appear in a Tarantino movie. Carefully, I mopped up the party excess that had spilt on to my bathroom floor and into my life and I shook and wept.

  I showered, but the odour of last night’s foulness clung. I tried to face a glass of wheatgrass but it looked suspiciously like the stuff I’d just regurgitated over the bathroom floor so I couldn’t bring myself to swallow more than a mouthful. Instead, I hurriedly ate three rounds of toast and gulped back three large mugs of strong, black coffee. I calculated that Eva would probably be at the supermarket for at least an hour and a half, but what if she veered off plan and came home to pop on a load of whites? I couldn’t risk bumping into her. I didn’t want to see anyone ever again. I sent a text to Julia and said I was taking a day’s holiday; I knew that asking for a sick-day from Ralph would raise questions and eyebrows – both intrusions would be unwelcome. I grabbed my coat, bag and sunglasses and left the house.

  It’s a grey, drab day and the sunglasses are unnecessary but I need to hide behind them. How could I have done something so stupid? It seems to me that I’ve spent my entire life being in total control of myself and my surroundings, acting with nothing other than rationale and intelligence. I’ve never made so much as a single, silly spur-of-the-moment decision and I do not nurse a secret self-destructive impulse but now, all at once, I’ve fucked it up.

  Everything.