The Never Have I Ever Club

by Mary Jayne Baker

  Ash smiled. ‘I’m glad.’

  ‘Those flyers you did have been a big help as well. I sent a load out to schools and youth groups.’

  ‘Well, let me know if you want any more. I can include details of the new exhibition in the next batch.’

  ‘That’d be great, thanks.’ She glanced at Will. ‘So, I reckon I owe you both a pint after all that heavy lifting, don’t I? What do you say to the pub?’

  ‘You guys go,’ Will said. ‘I’ve got plans with a mate.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Ash said. ‘Which mate?’

  ‘No one you know. An old uni friend who’s in the area on her hols. I arranged to meet up with her for a drink.’

  ‘Well, looks like it’s just us then,’ Robyn said to Ash. ‘Come on, you.’

  ‘Hang on. Our Will’s got something he wants to ask you.’

  Will frowned. ‘Have I?’

  ‘Yes you have.’ Ash nudged him. ‘Eurovision,’ he mouthed.

  ‘Oh. Yes.’

  ‘Rob, I’ll go line a couple of drinks up at the pub,’ Ash said. ‘Will can fill you in on his idea, then you can meet me there.’

  ‘What’s up, Will?’ she asked when his brother had gone.

  ‘It was just this idea we – er, I had. I thought it might be nice to do something for Felicity, to show her how much she’s appreciated around the village.’

  Robyn blinked. ‘What, like a party?’

  ‘Yes, a fundraiser. You know, for a cancer charity. I thought we could hold a Eurovision night down the pub, sort of in her honour type of thing.’

  ‘That’s a great idea!’ She beamed at him. ‘It’s totally Fliss. What made you think of it?’

  Will flushed. ‘Well, I know Eurovision’s always been your special thing.’

  ‘Will, that’s… thank you. I’m very touched you’d do that for her.’ She gave him a hug. ‘I’ll check with Felicity, but I just know she’s going to love it.’

  ‘No problem.’ He freed himself from the hug as soon as he felt it was polite to do so and nodded goodbye, not bothering with his customary kiss. ‘Have fun with Ash. I’ll see you next meeting if I don’t before.’

  ‘No you won’t. It’s girls only for the next one, remember?’

  ‘Right, so it is. Well, at the wedding then, I guess.’

  ‘Will, wait,’ she said as he was about to disappear. He turned around, and saw that her brow had knit into a frown. ‘Is there anything wrong? Lately it feels like every time we’re together, you can’t get away from me fast enough.’

  ‘What? That’s not true.’

  ‘You know it is. I barely see you any more.’

  He broke eye contact, looking down at the bare boards of the floor. ‘I told you I needed some time, Robyn.’

  ‘Well yeah, but I thought that was because…’ She shook her head. ‘I mean, I know I cocked up that night when I… you know. But I assumed now me and Ash were on good terms again, the three of us could go back to how we were before.’

  Will looked up to meet her eyes. ‘You think that’s it? I felt disloyal to Ash?’

  ‘Well, didn’t you?’

  He snorted. ‘You have no idea.’

  She frowned. ‘I don’t get it, Will.’

  ‘Robyn, I-I need to go. My friend’s waiting.’ He strode to the door, trying to control his twitching features.

  As soon as he was out of sight of the museum, he sagged against a drystone wall and let himself breathe again.

  It was getting harder. Harder to conceal what he was really feeling, from Robyn and from his brother. Harder to be in her company without giving himself away. Harder to… harder to face being without her. He’d done his best to stay out of her way, but he missed her so much it was painful. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a full night’s sleep.

  It was worse now Robyn and Ash were mates again. Partly because it made it more difficult for him to avoid the pair of them, today being a classic example. She’d asked them to help her set up the new exhibition at the museum, and he hadn’t been able to think of a single excuse to get out of it. It had been easy, before, to claim Ash was the reason he needed to stay out of her way, but that one wouldn’t wash now she was no longer shunning his brother’s company. He was sure she must be starting to get suspicious.

  And it was worse because… because now he had to think of her, there with Ash. Laughing with him, touching him, while Will fought back tears alone at home. He wanted them to be happy, of course he did; that’s all he’d ever wanted. But Christ, it was torture. Images of the two of them together haunted him, asleep and awake. Would the pain ever stop?

  *

  The next club event was a one-off special, taking place not at the hall but in the snug surroundings of Robyn’s front room.

  It had been Freya’s idea. Their April meeting had been due to fall on the Thursday before Felicity and the Brig’s wedding the following Saturday. With pretty much all those in the club also invited to the wedding reception, and the bride, groom and close family (i.e. Robyn) expected to be running around like headless poultry by that stage, Freya had suggested bringing the meeting forward to the Friday of the week before and making it a special ladies-only event, a sort of hen party. Will, Ash and Eliot had arranged a similarly carpe diemy stag do on behalf of the groom and were taking the Brigadier on a fishing trip the following day.

  And as usual, the boys had got off lightly, Robyn reflected as she shielded her eyes from the glare of the costume laid out on her bed. Nice, civilised fishing, scoffing ham sandwiches and Thermos-flavoured tea on a beautiful riverbank, the lucky bastards. And what did she get?

  Bloody burlesque dancing, that’s what.

  She’d long learnt to stop assuming Kettlewick’s more mature female residents were the sedate, dignified old ladies she’d been accustomed to believing they were in her naive youth. Oh, no. They painted their boobs blue and rode shrieking up and down escalators. They injured their poor husbands with hardcore DVLA. They were… they were her Aunty Fliss.

  And tonight they were going to be strutting around her living room in ostrich feathers and naughty knickers, knocking back gin cocktails like Pompeiians on volcano day. She just hoped she could keep them contained. The last thing she wanted curtain-twitching Mrs Carlton across the road to start putting about was that young Ms Bloom was now the Madam in some sort of Wild-West-themed geriatric knocking shop.

  Anyway, she had a little time before Renata, the bloke running the dance session, was due to arrive. She pushed aside her sequinned red corset and fishnet stockings, grabbed her book and lay down to squeeze another chapter in.

  Robyn hadn’t known what to expect when she’d started reading Arty’s memoirs. Yes, the Brig had said they were pretty salacious, but he was a stuffy, old-fashioned chap of eighty and she was a young – well, comparatively young – liberated – well, comparatively liberated – woman of thirty-five. But bloody hell, Arthur Johnson had lived. And he really had bared all, not only about himself but about everyone he knew.

  Robyn couldn’t put the book down. In fact, nobody could put it down. Kettlewick was in the grip of Arty Johnson fever. The man was a natural storyteller – an X-rated James Herriot, only with fewer sick animals and more fenced goods.

  There were things in the book she’d never have suspected, about people she’d known all her life. People like Mrs Clara Soames, the village’s retired postmistress. Robyn didn’t think she’d ever look at the octogenarian the same way again. Not after reading about how she was once found in flagrante delicto under a table in the WI tea tent with Kenny Sykes – more commonly known in Robyn’s lifetime as Old Dr Sykes – in full costume as the May King and Queen, doing something that couldn’t possibly be medically approved with a Victoria sponge.

  The Brigadier had warned her to look out for fireworks once the book was published. Robyn hadn’t seen any yet, but with seemingly everyone in Kettlewick immersed in their copy, it could only be a matter of time.

  Fifteen minutes late
r, there was a knock at the front door. Robyn slipped her bookmark between the pages and went to get it.

  ‘You’re very early,’ she said to Freya when she found her on the step. ‘I’m not dressed.’

  ‘Yeah, I wanted to get here before the rest,’ Freya said, following her in. ‘Something to ask you.’

  ‘I like your hat, Frey.’ Her friend was in a black top hat with lace veil, plus black lipstick and a long mac.

  ‘Ta. I’ll show you the rest of my getup in a minute.’ She frowned. ‘What’re you smirking for? Do I look daft?’

  ‘No, nothing to do with you. I’ve just been reading Arty’s book. Did you make it as far as chapter eighteen?’

  ‘Not yet. Who’s in it, anyone we know?’

  ‘Just Arty and his missus. Made me giggle, that’s all. He tells this story about when they were on their honeymoon in Blackpool. Arty had booked them a B&B, only he hadn’t appreciated how thin the walls were. So the morning after the wedding night, him and his new bride came down to breakfast and found themselves greeted with a standing ovation from the other guests.’

  Freya laughed. ‘Bloody hell. What did Nettie Johnson die of again?’

  ‘Exhaustion, I should think. Honestly, we’ve unleashed a seam of filth I never previously suspected in the pensioners round here with this club.’

  ‘Oh, people never change. The old folk pretend they were so pure and proper back in the day, but it’s sheer propaganda. They were just as badly behaved as us lot.’

  ‘Worse, by the sounds of it. I’d certainly never have thought of doing that with a sandwich cake.’

  ‘So, what do you think?’ Freya asked, opening the mac to reveal her costume.

  She was in a matching black lacy bra, knickers and suspender belt attached to seamed stockings. Long black gloves and a string of black pearls, plus the top hat, finished off her outfit.

  ‘You’re hot stuff, Frey. Very Dita von Teese.’

  ‘I was aiming for Bettie Page but that’ll do, cheers.’ Freya cast an approving glance at her lingerie before tying the coat round her again. ‘It was a good idea of mine, this burlesque night. I feel dead sexy.’

  ‘Do you want to declare this party open and crack out the gin then? I’ll need a stiff drink if I’m going to be watching Carolyn Jeffries grinding away in nothing but her pants.’

  ‘In a minute.’ She took a seat on the sofa and patted it for Robyn to join her. ‘I want to tell you about my new blog.’

  Robyn sat down too. ‘What’ve you got to blog about?’

  ‘Here, I’ll show you.’ Freya tapped a web address into her phone and passed it to Robyn.

  ‘“Dating Disasters of a Thirty-something Fittie”,’ she read. ‘And that’s you, is it, you raving egomaniac?’

  She shrugged. ‘Why should I do myself down? That’s what the patriarchy want, Rob, all that modesty and purity bollocks. The eternal feminine, Simone de Beauvoir called it. We need to shout about our sexuality without shame, otherwise we might as well all be handmaids.’

  ‘All right, so you’re a leading feminist sexpot,’ Robyn said, smiling. ‘Why’ve you started a blog?’

  ‘It didn’t work out with Ben,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I thought, if I’m destined to only attract losers, why not get some social capital out of it? It’s like Arty’s memoirs, except I don’t want to have to wait till I’m old to get my own back on these wankers.’

  Robyn frowned. ‘No more Ben? You were going to ask him to be your plus-one at the wedding reception, weren’t you?’

  ‘I was, but then I found out his terrible secret.’

  ‘Oh God, what?’

  ‘The reason he’s mates with Eddie. He’s another bloody petrolhead,’ she said, snorting disgustedly. ‘Tried to get me on a day out to Silverstone. I might as well have stuck with the lawnmower guy.’

  ‘But if he didn’t bore you to tears about it the first couple of times you went out, he can’t be too obsessed.’

  ‘I reckon he was just lulling me into a false sense of security. Anyway, we know where it goes from here, don’t we? Give it a month and it’ll be Top Gear and Clarkson and crap about horsepower while he scratches his balls in front of Men and Motors.’

  ‘I reckon you rushed him off a bit quick. Are you sure you won’t give him another chance? It sounds like he ticked quite a few boxes.’

  ‘I can’t now, I’ve blogged about him. Soon as this little mother goes viral, that’ll be it,’ she said, patting her phone.

  ‘So, what was this thing you wanted to ask?’

  ‘Oh yeah.’ She glanced towards the house next door. ‘How’s it going with Will? Everything back to normal between you two?’

  ‘Not exactly. I mean he offered to organise this Eurovision fundraiser for Fliss, which was sweet, and I did think that must be some kind of olive branch, you know? But I’m not seeing much of him. I thought once I’d made up with Ash, Will would just be everywhere his brother was, like before.’ She sighed. ‘I really miss him actually.’

  ‘You don’t think Ash is still trying to get you back? Maybe he’s asked Will to make himself scarce.’

  ‘He’d better not be. I’ve made it quite clear that anything beyond friendship isn’t on the cards.’

  Freya raised an eyebrow. ‘You sure? Even now you’ve forgiven him?’

  ‘There’s forgiving and there’s forgetting, Frey. One I can do, but never the other.’ She smiled. ‘Still, it’s nice to have his company again. I’d forgotten how much he could make me laugh. And to be fair, he’s been very well behaved. I’m hoping that eventually, everything’ll settle back into the way it was before he asked me out. You know, when the five of us were just a group of mates with no couples in our midst to screw things up.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Freya was silent a moment. ‘So there’s nothing between you and Will then? I mean, the fancying him thing was just a flash in the pan, right?’

  ‘I didn’t fancy him. It was just… I dunno, hormones or something. Or even just proximity. Will was there when I needed someone, and my subconscious latched on to that. I’m over it now.’

  ‘So it wouldn’t upset you to see him with someone else?’

  ‘Course it wouldn’t. I hope he does meet someone.’

  ‘Good,’ Freya said, with the hint of a smile.

  Robyn frowned. ‘Why, you’re not thinking about asking him out, are you?’

  ‘I wasn’t not thinking about it. I mean, I wouldn’t if it’d upset you. But he’s single, I’m single, we’ve been friends a long time…’

  ‘I know. So why now?’

  Freya was silent, smirking while she picked at a thread on her coat.

  Robyn groaned. ‘Hussy! You’re still thinking about him naked, aren’t you?’

  ‘Well. He looked really good naked.’

  ‘You’ve never seen him naked, Frey. You’ve only seen Ash naked.’

  She shrugged. ‘Ash, Will, what’s the difference?’

  ‘The difference is one’s Ash and the other’s Will.’

  ‘Exactly. Which means that one is my best mate’s ex and totally off-limits. But the other one’s single, fit and up for grabs.’ She looked up. ‘You wouldn’t mind, would you?’

  ‘No, course not. It’s just a bit… I don’t know, sudden. When will you ask him?’

  ‘Soon as I can get hold of him,’ Freya said. ‘I was going to ask if he wanted to be my date for the wedding reception.’

  ‘Right,’ Robyn said, blinking. ‘Well, I hope it works out.’

  ‘Thanks, honey. I knew you’d be lovely about it,’ Freya said, giving her a hug. ‘And hey, we’ll have slept with identical blokes, that’ll be cool. We can swap notes.’

  Robyn wasn’t sure why that comment made her spine crawl, but it did.

  ‘I’ll mix you a granita,’ she said, standing up. ‘Then I’d better get changed. They’ll be here soon.’

  30

  An hour later the party was in full swing, with Robyn’s house now looking more like a seedy sa
loon than a quiet semi in the Yorkshire Dales. The living room was a mess of feathers, glitter and false eyelashes, ‘Lady Marmalade’ blaring from the stereo.

  Ten women packed the room. The more conservative were in cocktail dresses and feather boas, while others had opted for the full showgirl corset and stockings ensemble. Felicity, as the bride-to-be, had outdone herself in a homemade corset and bustle she’d cut from an old wedding dress.

  The instructor, Renata, was quite a character too: a six-foot drag queen with a staggering fake rack, huge hair and great legs.

  ‘Now then, ladies,’ he said to them. ‘As any good burlesque performer knows, the art of striptease is just as much about what you don’t see as what you do.’

  ‘Shame no one told Mrs Jeffries,’ Robyn muttered to Felicity, nodding to the retired nursery teacher dressed in just a pair of heart-shaped nipple tassels and her knickers. Felicity snorted.

  ‘Tonight, we’re going to focus less on the strip and more on the really hard part, the tease,’ Renata said. ‘Any fool can take their clothes off, but to make that into a show, well, girls, now that’s an art form. But before we begin, we need our audience. Ms Bloom, would you do the honours?’

  Robyn went into the kitchen and came back carrying a life-size cardboard cut-out of Idris Elba.

  ‘Oh, Eliot’s going to be gutted he missed that,’ Freya whispered as Robyn took her place again.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Robyn said. ‘What do you think he’s getting for Christmas?’

  ‘Because we can’t be sexy without a suitably discerning chap, can we, ladies?’ Renata said, winking. ‘And striptease is very much about sex. With burlesque, as with intercourse, the pleasure is as much in the anticipation as the climax. Now, lesson one: delayed gratification and why less is always more.’

  Even with a couple of gin cocktails inside her and Idris quirking an appreciative eyebrow, Robyn couldn’t help feeling daft as she practised gyrating her hips in time to the music. But the women all seemed to be enjoying themselves, giggling while they rehearsed their moves. If tonight was anything to go by, the husbands of Kettlewick were likely to be bedridden before they made it out on their fishing trip the next day.