What Holly's Husband Did

by Debbie Viggiano

  Once again the bedroom door nearly came off its hinges as I wrenched it open and almost flew down the stairs, heading off to the drinks cabinet, extracting the best crystal, slopping amber liquid into both glasses, doubling and then tripling the dose to help Alex’s extremities. I cackled to myself as I nearly filled the balloons to the brim. Get that into you Alex, and then you can get into me, I sniggered. And then a lightbulb went off in my head. Oh yes, perfect, Holly. Brilliant idea, just brilliant. I hastened into the kitchen, found what I was looking for, then on to the lounge, prowling around in the dark like a burglar as I gathered up my booty, then stole back upstairs with the swag wedged under my armpits, brandy balloons held aloft.

  ‘Here we are,’ I said, placing one drink on the dressing table, and passing the other to Alex. I turned away and headed off to the bathroom, pausing briefly to swig some brandy. I felt it scorch down my throat and warm me all over. I was momentarily transported back to being in Jack’s arms at the party, feeling the heat from his body against mine and the familiar sensation of zings zipping up and down my spine, and downright lust in my loins. I shoved the feelings away. Now was not the time to be thinking about Jack.

  ‘Where are you going, darling?’

  ‘Just going to freshen up,’ I trilled.

  ‘What have you got under your armpits?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said, smartly shutting the bathroom door. I hadn’t had much time to put any thought into my burlesque outfit. No matter. These props would suffice. One just needed a little imagination.

  I foraged in the bathroom cabinet and removed some eyelash glue for fake lashes I’d never worn. The box had promised to stick them to your eyelids for a week if required. With a bit of luck, it would do the trick for what I had in mind. I stripped down to my pants and, leaving on my stilettoes, quickly got to work squeezing out a sticky circle around both my nipples.

  ‘Will you be long?’ Alex called.

  ‘Coming!’ I replied, squeaking with excitement. And hopefully, we would be in the next few minutes! Such smutty thoughts, Holly, so naughty! Sliding open the bathroom door, I let one leg appear, slowly waving it up and down, before the rest of me emerged. ‘Ta-daaaaa!’ I chirruped, flinging my arms wide.

  ‘Good God,’ said Alex, as he surveyed his wife, a vision in elbow-length washing-up gloves and strategically placed curtain tassels. It was a shame my pants were Size Generous from M&S rather than Size Miniscule from Victoria’s Secret, but at least they were black and not my purple-and-white spotty pair. And… damn… I didn’t have any music. No matter. If Jeanie could sing at a party, I could belt out a song in my bedroom.

  As I launched into Shirley Bassey’s Big Spender, I pulled out the stool from under the dressing table and put one leg on it, sticking my bum out, whooshing my yellow rubber gloves up into the air, then stroking them slowly down my body as I warned my startled husband in a muddle of lyrics that I didn’t pop my cork for the postman every day of the week. I kicked the stool out from under me and planted my legs wide, slapping my Marigolds against my thighs, and then proceeded to bend low, all the way down to the floor, backside out again as I asked my gob-smacked husband if he’d like to have some fun, fun, fun. My curtain tassels swayed gamely as I regarded the bedroom door upside-down through my parted legs and yodelled to my husband that he was going to have a good time, such a good time, and—

  ‘For God’s sake, Mum,’ said Sophie, barging in unannounced, ‘it sounds like a cat’s being strangled in here, and… oh!’ She froze, mouth open, expression one of horror as we regarded each other through my legs. Beyond her, I caught sight of Lizzie and Joe, wide-eyed, hands flying to their mouths as they sniggered like Mutley. Through a haze of alcohol, my brain struggled to find an excuse.

  ‘I was just… just—’

  ‘Yes, I can see that you were just-just,’ she snarled, before reversing backwards and slamming the door shut.

  ‘Oh my God,’ I said to the door panels.

  ‘Holly, please can you straighten up and come to bed.’

  I could tell from the impatient tone of my husband’s voice, that he wasn’t requesting my presence by his side for anything other than putting the light out and going to sleep.

  ‘I can’t,’ I whimpered.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I think I’ve put my back out. Help. I can’t move.’

  * * *

  What happened next was possibly even more shameful than my daughter seeing her mother in such a ridiculous state of undress. When Alex realised I literally couldn’t straighten up, he rang Jack who, fortunately, was still awake and having a party post-mortem with Aunty Shirley and my parents.

  ‘Sorry to trouble you at this hour, Jack, but Holly’s put her back out and can’t move.’

  ‘I’ll be right over,’ said Jack.

  Minutes later, he was ringing the doorbell.

  ‘For heaven’s sake,’ I screeched to Alex, as he made to answer the door to our late-night caller, ‘give me my dressing gown.’

  Alex bundled it up and chucked it at me, then disappeared along the landing. I had pulled off the rubber gloves, which now lay discarded on the floor. However, the curtain tassels were still attached to my boobs. Attempts to remove them had had me squeaking with pain. What the heck had been in that tube? Super glue? I had managed to shuffle forward and was now leaning on my elbows over the bed, backside still out as if demanding a good spanking. I felt myself go hot and cold with mortification as I heard Alex greet Jack.

  ‘Go on up,’ Alex said. ‘I was just having a nightcap. I might as well have it in the lounge and watch a bit of late-night telly.

  ‘Sure, no worries,’ Jack replied.

  There was the sound of footsteps on the stairs and, seconds later, the man himself walked into the bedroom.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I whimpered, ‘this is beyond embarrassing.’

  He gave me a smile. ‘I’ve seen all sorts in my time, Holly. Black pants are nothing.’

  I clutched my bundled-up dressing gown to my chest, hoping to God he didn’t catch sight of my lounge’s curtain tassels grafted to my breasts. No way was I going to ask him to surgically remove those. I’d soak them off in the shower later. Just as soon as I could stand upright again.

  ‘Right, let’s see what’s going on here,’ said Jack, placing his hands on my back.

  Zinnnngggggggggggg.

  I let out a low moan and collapsed on the bed as Jack’s touch left me shuddering and gasping aloud, so much so that I was worried my nipple tassels would soon be standing to attention.

  ‘This just needs some massage,’ said Jack, ‘I apologise in advance, but this requires some firmness.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ I panted, as his fingers got to work, kneading and unkinking my spine and other parts that I had no idea were so knotted up. As I alternated between sounding like a woman in labour and a studio full of porn stars, I could only thank God in his heaven that Jack thought I was shouting out in pain, and not because every one of my nerve-endings were wide-awake with arousal.

  ‘There,’ he said eventually, as I finally stopped writhing like a serpent, ‘I think you’re done.’

  He was wrong. I was nowhere near done. I could have kept going all night and felt heady from so much pleasure.

  ‘I know it’s really late, Holly, but if you’re not too tired, I’d advise you to have a hot shower, then take a couple of paracetamol. You should be good as new in the morning.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I murmured, avoiding direct eye contact. I had a feeling my pupils had dilated to the size of my bedside lampshades.

  ‘I’ll see myself out. You get into that shower.’

  As he shut the bedroom door after him, I tottered off to the bathroom feeling like I’d undergone ten rounds with Cupid and come out of the boxing ring covered in sprinkles, stardust and glitter-tipped arrows. Taking a deep breath, I exhaled shakily and slid back the shower door. As I stepped inside the cubicle, I let out a cry of pain, but it was nothing to do with my back
. I’d stood on something sharp. Carefully bending down, I plucked the tiny object from the shower base. Straightening up, I examined it under one of the overhead spotlights, and then gasped as shockwaves ricocheted through me. For there, glinting away in the palm of my hand, was a pretty diamond stud earring.

  53

  As I stood in the shower cubicle, I began to shake. I didn’t own diamond earrings. And despite Sophie mithering me to let her have her ears pierced for her impending fourteenth birthday, as yet she had no jewellery collection save for a silver baby christening bracelet. Carefully, I placed the stud on the edge of the basin, then stepped back into the shower. Shivering violently now, from both cold and shock, I let scalding hot water jet over my body, attempting to blast away both the wretched curtain tassels and the horror of what I’d discovered. There was no safe explanation for this. None at all. Alex couldn’t possibly tell me this was all in my head. Not unless I had suddenly made a supernatural connection and my paranoia was so deep I was manifesting things. Finally, I had evidence. He’d brought his floozy back to the house while I’d been at the party.

  I deliberately stayed in the shower for a good half an hour. I couldn’t address this tonight. Not while Caro’s kids were here. Nor did I want Sophie hearing me let rip at her father. This needed dealing with when my head was clear. In the light of day. When no children were around. And preferably no knives to give my husband a castration without anaesthetic.

  By the time I emerged from the bathroom, with throbbing nipples and a pounding headache, Alex was fast asleep. I regarded my husband in the soft lamplight, sleeping so peacefully. How could he do this to me? And not just me, but our daughter? He’d wrecked everything. In the last few hours, three marriages had gone into crisis. First, Izzy and Sebastian’s. Then Jeanie and Ray’s. Now mine. As I swallowed down some painkillers and slid under the duvet, its crispness struck me. I inhaled deeply as the scent of fresh linen shot up my nostrils. The cheating bastard had even changed the bedding, and I’d been too befuddled earlier to notice. I recalled how, previously, Alex had got out of bed to hug me, and how I’d noticed the scent of lemon shower gel on his skin. After he and Annabelle had writhed around all over my marital bed, the pair of them had showered together. My headache threatened to go into overdrive, and I closed my eyes, trying to blot out the pain in my temples as well as the ache in my heart.

  I found myself replaying the events of the party, over and over. Annabelle on the stage. Laughing at Alex. Telling him he was her hero. Had she been wearing earrings? I didn’t recall seeing anything long and dangly glinting through the strands of her hair and re-ran the moment she’d gazed up at my husband, smiling adoringly, shaking back her glossy mane, slowing the memory down, frame by frame, to revealing one earlobe. For just the smallest moment, something tiny had sparkled under the lights.

  * * *

  I had no memory of falling asleep, but awoke exhausted. As I swam to the surface of consciousness, two things struck me. The first was that Alex wasn’t in the bed. The second was that I’d left the earring on the basin in the bathroom. Horrified, I threw back the covers and made to jump out of bed, only to feel my back creak alarmingly. I took a deep breath, and carefully slid my legs sideways, before gingerly standing up. My back protested briefly, but behaved. Padding swiftly across the bedroom on bare feet, I went into the en-suite and looked fearfully at the basin. An involuntary gasp escaped my lips. The earring had gone. Nooo. No, no, no. Without it, I couldn’t confront Alex. He’d tell me I’d been drunk. Imagining things. I could hear the condescending tone of his voice now.

  ‘An earring, you say? What, on the basin? Don’t be ridiculous. Holly, I know you don’t like Annabelle, but have you any idea how tiresome your accusations are?’

  Where was he? Where had he gone? To her?

  ‘Annabelle, darling, the shit has hit the metaphorical fan. Holly discovered your diamond stud. Here, take it. Hide them, and deny all knowledge, because she’s bound to roar round here and confront you.’

  Annabelle didn’t want to marry Alex. Jack had already pointed out that she wasn’t ‘wife material’. And Alex didn’t want to divorce me. He’d said on several occasions that we had a nice life and he didn’t want to take it apart. But he’d lied about me being the only woman for him. It seems I was nothing more than a housekeeper – the woman who kept his home clean and tidy, washed and ironed his shirts, put a nice nutritious meal on the table every night, and who he had the very occasional bit of duty sex with. Whereas Annabelle was his lover and got the best of him. No smelly socks to wash, no dog-breath first thing in the morning, no marks around the toilet bowl or whiffy dental scrubs. Well stuff that. The earring might have gone, but there was bound to be further evidence. Because there had to be something, somewhere. And I was going to find it.

  54

  Alex rang me as I was getting dressed.

  ‘Morning, darling!’ he trilled.

  ‘Hello,’ I said uncertainly, my gung-ho momentarily deserting me. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Out on the Common with Rupert. I thought I’d leave you to lie-in. David has already been round to collect Lizzie and Joe, and Sophie went back to bed looking like death warmed up. I swear our daughter has a hangover.’

  God, he sounded chirpy. And normal. For one crazy moment I actually wondered if I had imagined treading on an earring in the shower cubicle.

  ‘I think Caro is anxious to catch up with you,’ Alex continued. ‘Apparently Jeanie went home to Ray this morning. Their kids are going to Jeanie’s mother for a week and they’re hoping to quietly thrash things out.’

  ‘That’s good.’ Actually, I wasn’t interested in Jeanie’s marriage. I was only interested in mine. ‘When will you be home?’

  ‘About an hour. Poor old Rupert hasn’t had a decent walk for ages, and he’s having a great time. I wondered if you fancied me stopping at that little coffee shop around the corner from ours, and picking you up a warm pain au chocolat? We can have one together, if you like, when I’m back.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. If he wanted to play games, so would I.

  ‘Okay, darling. See you in a bit.’

  ‘Lovely,’ I said, putting a smile in my voice. Hanging up, I realised I didn’t have much time to find further evidence of Annabelle having been in my house last night or, indeed, at any time before that. Raking a brush quickly through my hair, I got to work.

  I started off systematically going through Alex’s wardrobe. No trouser pocket was left unchecked, no jacket untouched, as my fingers burrowed and invaded every garment. Next, every drawer was opened and searched, even the insides of each individual sock. Boxer shorts were unfolded and swiftly re-folded, shoes tipped upside down, and his wash-bag emptied out in a tumble of products and then quickly replaced. Thirty minutes later, I was none the wiser. Think, Holly, think. Where would you hide something – anything – that might be significant in some way, and that you wouldn’t want Alex to see?

  I marched over to the bed and upended the mattress onto the floor. A piece of A4 paper gently floated down onto the carpet, coming to rest under the radiator. For a moment, I just stared at it. Hurrying, I hauled the heavy mattress back into place, and quickly straightened the duvet. Scooping up the paper, I hastened into the en-suite and shut the door, locking it for good measure. Whatever this was, I wanted to examine it without interruption.

  My hands fluttered around the paper’s edges as I placed it on the floor. Squatting down, I immediately realised it was a love letter, written in Alex’s hand, but for some reason never given to the addressee. It came as no surprise to see that the intended recipient was called Queenie, and the letter’s contents was an outpouring of a deep love that could never be.

  My darling

  Oh yes, you are indeed my darling. This is the letter that gets written, but never sent. The letter that is meant to ease the troubled heart, sooth the tormented mind and bring peace to the disturbed soul. My counsellor told me to write this for – ha! – therapy, can y
ou believe?

  I paused. Rocked back on my heels. Alex had been seeing a counsellor? What sort of counsellor? A marriage guidance one? For how long? And why? Well, presumably to discuss his terrible angst about this bloody woman, Holly, that’s why! I sucked on my teeth, eyes filling with tears as I stared in horror at the blurring words. I swiped the tears away with the heel of one hand, anxious that none splash onto the paper which was now flapping about as if caught in a breeze, so bad were my hands shaking. I couldn’t work out whether my emotions were one of devastating hurt, or incandescent rage.

  The moment I met you, I knew my life would never be the same again. Does that sound corny? Sorry. I’m a dentist, not a poet. However, I am a lover. And oh, how I’ve loved you… still love you.

  I let out an involuntary sob and stuffed a fist against my mouth, biting down hard on the knuckles. Oh my God. This was real. My husband had, without a shred of doubt, been with someone else.

  * * *

  Perversely I cursed you too. It takes all my willpower not to give in to such feelings. So instead, I remain outwardly calm, but inwardly, oh inwardly you have no idea what you have done to me. Still do to me. I can remember once, in a moment of intense misery, using every ounce of my being to wish that you would appear. I shouted out loud, to the sky. Can you believe that? Me of all people! Down to earth, sensible me! I don’t go in for all that cosmic ordering nonsense. But the universe answered. It delivered you to my front door. Like a genie.

  Tears were rolling down my face now. Oh my God. Alex had actually written ‘like a genie’. It was there in black and white. Don’t tell me this was nothing to do with Annabelle, but everything to do with Jeanie again? It couldn’t be… could it? Or was Alex juggling Annabelle and Jeanie, and Jeanie juggling Sebastian and Alex? How many lovers could one person have, for heaven’s sake?