Helena and Roni were a different breed altogether. Roni was standoffish and not in a shy way either, but in a rude, condescending way which also didn’t go unnoticed. But still there was something intriguing about her. She was a closed book, but one where the front cover made you want to read on, more so with its unusual page design and captivating external graphics. That was Roni through and through – eye-catching and intriguing, just like a book synopsis. Only with Roni you carried the risk of opening the book, digesting the core of its story and feeling it was one of repugnance and self-absorbed arrogance and yet, for some reason, you simply couldn’t put it down even if it were the most challenging read. Few would like her. Many would abhor her. Veronica Smyth was her own worst enemy.
Suprisingly enough, the women hit it off with their eclectic mix of characteristics and extremely diverse backgrounds.
As usual it was Sophie Kane who threw a spanner in the works, creating a chink in the seamless platonic mechanisms which had taken all day and the guts of half a dozen bottles of wine to build.
Jude followed Sophie as she led her around the derelict and needy premises. She stayed silent as Sophie talked away, but her mind was far from that. It raced with prospects for the place and she was already seeing the finished product in her mind’s eye. And still, she had absolutely no idea what Sophie was doing there. Nor what she was doing there with her.
“So what do you think?” Sophie beamed a luminous grin. If ever she had looked a vision of blonde bombshell beauty, it was that very moment.
Jude gazed adoringly at the petite goddess standing before her.
“It’s got a huge amount of potential, Sophie, particularly with the size of it . . . but why are you showing it to me?”
“It’s mine, Jude!” Sophie beamed. “My second Kane’n’Able salon. I’ve signed a five-year lease with the option to buy at the end of the term. I have been waiting bloody years for a place to come up here on Alderley Avenue and now it’s all mine!”
Sophie threw herself at an emotional Jude, whose eyes had already started to well with pride for this young and ambitious friend of hers.
“Oh, Sophie, I am so so proud of you!” Jude embraced her with all the vigour of a gloating parent. The girl was awe-inspiring.
Jude’s mind raced with thoughts of where her own career would be at that very juncture had she not given it up when the twins were born, with a little coercion from Clive and her mother. They had made a great team. But she had no idea what the answer was. She quickly erased her thoughts, scolding herself for wanting, and changed her focus away from her own selfishness.
“So what are you going to do with it, Sophie?”
This was the very moment Sophie had been waiting for. “Well . . . that’s up to you, Jude.”
Jude simply stared at Sophie. Her heart felt like it had stopped ticking.
“Sorry?”
“It’s yours, Jude. It’s all yours.”
It was Sophie’s turn to gush with rare emotion and she was loving every minute of it. “I’m giving you the contract as my new interior designer. Do what you will with the place but just keep it in budget or I’ll haul you over hot coals!” She laughed. “I know how expensive your taste is, madam.”
Sophie pulled out a contract from her bag and handed Jude two copies.
“I’ve had my lawyer draw this up. It doesn’t do you any more favours than if I had got someone else in – but I have to treat you the same as anyone else.” Sophie’s tone was apologetic. “It’s a business transaction through and through.”
The hairs on Jude’s arms stood on end and her spine tingled as though someone had walked over it. She felt a cold chill on the back of her neck and her legs froze, glued solid to the floor.
Sophie could not take her eyes off Jude. She had been waiting to offer her friend a lifeline for so many years.
True, they had the Curry Club, but what Jude needed was something more. Sophie had listened to Jude’s desires as she sat in the hairdressing chair talking nonstop of nothing but design, antiquities, restoration and so much more. Sophie had hung on to every word she had said because she adored her affluent friend though their relationship on paper would have been an absolute non-starter.
“Jude?”
Jude went to speak but her mouth was dry and her hands were shaking. Her heart thumped through her chest and for the first time in her life, she was unable to control herself. Something else was controlling her, an emotion so overwhelming had taken her over that she could do nothing but bite her bottom lip to prevent herself from crying.
Sophie giggled at Jude’s silence and at her strange inability to communicate.
“Is that a yes?”
The night sky was dotted with glittery stars and the moon was in full decorative costume – subtle and translucent. It lit up the fourteen-acre garden of The Firs as though it was on hire for the evening and solely for their use.
As it shone down on the five women it illuminated the white slips of paper on which they wrote – all bar one. Roni simply stared out at the dark lake, glassy and frighteningly still. She stole a glance around the table at the other four women giggling away as they wrote with giddy hands and blurred vision. She was finding it more difficult than they but that didn’t surprise her. Communication had always been difficult for Veronica Smyth but she did see Sophie’s point that this was a way to communicate under some sort of cover – and this she liked. She liked anything covert.
The charity event had been a huge success and Dale Winton had kindly provided his services as auctioneer. In a way which only he could get away with, he had coaxed the ‘Cheshire set’ out of much of their surplus funds – “All going to a good cause,” he had repeated with consistency throughout the day.
Jude reached up, flicking the switch on the tall, freestanding patio-heater, inching it closer to the table with a little help from Kath. The air was chilly with a slight wind, and a little warmth would mean they could stay out for longer. The sleepy breeze teased inside the marquee, puffing at its voile lining and blowing carelessly the unused napkins, leaving them dotted around and alleviating the emptiness of the place with messy attitude.
The guests had left hours ago bar the five women whose night it appeared had only just begun – as had something new in their lives – they just didn’t know it yet.
“Are we done?” Sophie scanned the table and held out her hand eagerly.
“Almost.” Roni applied herself to the task, scribbling down practically indecipherable words before folding the slip of paper with all the precision that Sophie had instructed earlier on.
She had written in block capitals and was pleased that the writing looked unlike her own careful script. Not that the women would recognise her writing.
Roni placed the paper slip into an empty wineglass offered to her by the hand of Sophie. She watched as it slid on top of the other slips of paper and then Sophie placed her hand over the mouth of the glass, shaking it vigorously before plunging in with a finger and thumb and removing a tightly folded slip. Her face was filled with a mixture of apprehension and excitement.
For a split second, Roni too felt a moment of exhilaration as she wondered if it were her question Sophie had pulled out. She had watched to see if her slip remained on top of the glass but as they were all folded in perfect symmetry, it was impossible to see any longer which was hers amongst the others.
Sophie unwrapped the tight folds and ironed the paper between her bronzed hands and French-polished acrylic nails.
“Here goes,” Sophie said with a hint of a slur. “The question is . . . ‘When does adultery actually become adultery?’.”
“The moment you even think about it,” Roni jumped in with both feet. She was a woman of strong and determined morals and when you made your vows you meant them.
Sophie threw her head back and laughed. For the first question it was quite meaty and she was glad they had something to sink their teeth into – in her case all eleven grands’ worth which had b
een her cosmetic bill.
“Roni, thinking about something isn’t criminal as long as it stays in your head. It’s the doing that is the dangerous bit.”
“Actually, I think it’s good to think about other people and to fantasise about them when you’re having sex. James and I do it all the time.” Kath never minded being outspoken. To her, sex was as natural as taking in a breath of oxygen which you needed to survive – you needed sex in equal measure to feel alive. They went hand in hand. “You can’t be all things to all people so pretending or even carrying out role-plays is a brilliant way to keep your sex life alive. I recommend that everyone in my fitness classes should try a little invention.”
Kath’s matter-of-fact words silenced Roni with a punch. She had never encountered anybody like her before. On the one hand she found Kath repugnant and crude, but on the other she longed for her openness and her ability to be so unashamed of matters which Roni considered private and sacred.
“But isn’t that kind of cheating, Kath, you know, if you’re sleeping with your husband but thinking about someone else?” Jude asked with interest.
“No way!” Sophie interruped. “You should see some of the guys who get their hair done. I’ll never bag them because they’re my clients but if I’m with someone else who isn’t really doing it for me, I just take my pick of their gorgeous faces and fit bods and wonder away! It takes me no time at all once I’m in the zone!”
Jude chuckled at Sophie’s honesty and Roni’s tongue lifted as she tutted aloud.
Helena sat quietly, deep in thought. She and Nathan didn’t have too much of a sex life. They lived more like friends than lovers and Helena was desperate to be touched. She wanted to feel wanted. She longed to feel a hot, passionate tongue in her mouth moving down south and staying there until she climaxed. His apparent neglect suddely angered her. So much about her relationship with Nathan angered her.
“You know what,” she said boldly, sitting upright, “I think that people give adulterers a hard time. If you’re not getting it at home and you feel like you’ve done everything to try keeping your sex life alive . . . then . . . then why the bloody hell should you not look outside for it?”
The women were shocked at Helena’s contribution. She had been quiet and generic in her opinions throughout the day, so this outburst forced them to listen.
“If he’s not giving it to you, then someone else will,” Helena continued, “and I for one wouldn’t feel guilty for a moment. There is only so long a person can be expected to go without sex and, personally, I blame the person that doesn’t bother their arse trying . . . not the person who has gone out to find the very thing which they are being deprived of behind closed doors.”
Sophie had never heard such an admission from Helena. She understood from that moment that Helena Wright was hurting but there was not a thing she could do about it until her friend either packed her bags and dumped the loser, or threw him and his crazy harebrained ideas out for good.
What Sophie did understand was that this game – the Curry Club – was a healer. It was a way of allowing people to open up and to share ideas and opinions. And Sophie Kane had decided on that glittery-starred, moonlit night they had met, that in order to find any degree of commonality between the five of them and to fully trust each other, this game they had all played and enjoyed during their first encounter would need to be formalised. A hot curry followed by a spicy confession, that was her game plan.
She knew immediately that Roni would never open up of her own accord. In fact, she knew through Jude that Roni didn’t have a social life much to the dismay of Peter, he himself being a social butterly. Similarly, she recognised that Jude took her privacy and personal matters with her to bed each night and that unless provoked she would continue to fail to open up to people and Jude deserved better than that. She deserved reciprocity of the listening ears that she provided for everybody else and their problems. Kath was well up for it, Sophie thought, as she observed the thrashing colours of her bohemian-style top and listened to the many bangles on her pale arms jingle tunefully. Kath was the harmony in their group, she was the accord they needed amidst the clash of egos. Kath was up for anything and Sophie loved this about her. And Helena, well, she simply needed escapism and a new man in her life, Sophie surmised. Sophie also knew at this moment in time that she could only provide one of those, the other had to be procured by Helena herself.
And so it was that Sophie Kane with her strong and persuasive business abilities sold the concept of ‘The Curry Club’ to her new friends – a strange eclectic group of both ordinary and extraordinary people who barely knew each other – and surprisingly enough, they had all bought into it – the facticity of it.
Once again Sophie Kane had orchestrated something that she herself wanted to happen. Her fiery curiosity had presented her with an opportunity to be privy to the comings and goings of four people’s lives and with this information, combined with the widsom and input from the rest of the women, came the opportunity to advance in maturity. To cultivate all she learned from her collective educators and to embrace and use their insight for her own judiciousness.
Kath jumped off the bus, throwing up her hood as the rain came thrashing down.
“Thanks, Dave,” she yelled at the driver with whom she had struck a firm relationship over the years.
Kath and James had no car. Kath couldn’t drive and didn’t see the point in it when you could hop on public transport, plus it supported the labours of the country, and as James drove for a living he simply refused to get behind the wheel of anything unless it was a heavy-goods vehicle equipped with its own bed, microwave and with luncheon vouchers thrown in for good measure.
The weather was relentlessly wet and Kath was soaked through in no time. The fleece which usually kept her warm was no defence against the unforecast climate of the North West.
She upped her pace and accelerated past the row of 1950s semi-detached homes in the street where she lived, head down to avoid the torrent.
As she stormed past Number 11, Kath heard her name being called out. She turned back to see her neighbour beckoning her, the front door open and inviting.
Kath hurried down the path and into the porch where she kicked off her wet trainers and removed her saturated fleece. She had no waterproofs on because she hadn’t been expecting the downpour.
Kath and Norma had been friends for years. Their kids had gone to both primary and secondary school together and Norma was the closest thing that Kath had to family. True to his mother’s word, her threat, James’ family had continued to live in isolation from them. The entire family had bowed down to Elizabeth’s wishes subserviently and James was no more in their eyes. Still, it was their loss, Kath thought regularly and she had got over it. Her family had got over it as much as they could, but the one thing she could never get over, ever, was the fact that a mother could disown her own son.
This had always remained a bitter pill to swallow.
Norma pulled Kath from the chilly porch into the narrow hallway which was made darker by the mahogany doors and deep navy carpet. She was fuelled with emotion and Kath could see she was itching to gossip to somebody.
“What is it, Norma?”
“Did you hear about poor old Gerry? What do you think about that?” she blurted. “If I ever get my hands on the bastards that did this – I’ll – I’ll bloody well strangle them. The po –”
“Stop. Stop a minute, Norma. What are you on about?”
Kath was clueless and Norma’s eyes opened like flying saucers. Her jaw dropped down like a heavy weight was attached to it. “Kath, where have you been? Gerry’s house got ransacked yesterday. They took everything they could get their scummy hands on . . . and get this . . .” Norma placed her hands on her hips in true fishwife style. “They even took his wee grandson’s DSi. I mean, how nasty is that?”
Kath went an immediate shade of pale. “I hadn’t heard,” she muttered quietly. “When did that happen, Norma?”
“Yesterday afternoon, anytime between two and four they reckon.”
Kath’s mouth dried up and she felt a repetitive twitch in one of her eyelids. She hoped it was a twitch she could feel but not one which Norma could see.
“Are you okay, Kath? You don’t look well.”
With her pale face, sopping hair stuck to her head and smudges of mascara streaked down her cheeks, Kate looked anything but healthy.
“I’m fine, Norm, don’t go worrying about me.”
As she turned to leave, Kath gripped the bannister rail as the hallway closed in on her. Her knuckles held on tightly as she was spun around on an out-of-control carousel. At least it felt that way.
“I’m fine,” she lied. “I’ve been working so much overtime lately I’m just a little under the weather – exhausted probably.”
Norma lifted a clump of wet hair. “Literally under the weather,” she laughed, patting her friend affectionately on the shoulder. She offered her a dry coat and Kath allowed herself to be dressed by her and ushered out of the door.
Despite the incessant rain and the urgent need to stay dry, it took her forever to make the journey to Number 15. She struggled to put one foot in front of the other as she tried to convince herself that she was perhaps coming down with something. Only her raw, maternal instincts told her that was not the case. This was not an ailment which could be fixed. Something else was wrong.
Roni sat in the security room of The Tudors watching the miniature television monitors which captured the happenings and comings and goings both inside and outside the family home. They told the simple and understated story of life at The Tudors and it reminded her of the film Sliver – only when Roni looked at the multiple screens nothing looked back. Nothing with any life to it anyway. Just permanent fixtures and loose fittings – they were lifeless images, just like her own lifeless life.
She picked up the smallest of the remote controls and wound back the tape. With shaking hands she pressed the ‘play’ button, standing to watch. Her breathing was erratic and she tapped her foot with nervous impatience until the screen flickered to life. Roni clutched at her chest as she fast became engrossed in the home movie . . . with Darren Ford as the protaganist.
Some Like it Hot Page 5
