Other People's Husbands

by Judy Astley

‘No worries, I’m going for the delivery option. The gallery can pay for that. Long tables, that’s what’s on Mindy’s list. So come on, let’s see if we can resist the kids’ ballpark and get shopping.’ Ben took her hand and they went inside, up the escalator. It wasn’t too busy, which was a relief. Sara had sometimes felt close to total panic in the store, once having to sit on a display chair in the lighting department till her heart rate settled and she’d regained her sense of proportion. It had all started because she couldn’t remember the measurements for the wooden Venetian blinds that she’d wanted for the pool shower. Conrad said it was more likely to be because she felt she hadn’t bought enough, and she agreed. There was always a desperate last-minute need to make the trip worthwhile by cramming as much as possible into the trolley before the checkout-queue marathon.

  ‘OK – we need one of the tape measures and a pencil and the little pad thing,’ Ben decided as they passed a peculiarly attractive display of scarlet bedlinen. No way, Sara thought, would she want anything but white on her bed, and yet . . .

  ‘We don’t really need to go all round the upstairs bit because we know what we want but I’m going to have to, to have a look at what Mindy’s chosen. If there’s something that looks better, I’ll call her. She’s chosen these trestle things, plus some matching wood tabletops. Simple enough, really.’

  ‘It always surprises me how people seem to come in here as a sort of family outing,’ Sara said, watching a family that included two toddlers and a baby trying out the sofas. The oldest of the infants was bouncing on a red leather chair, squealing. The parents ignored her, as if the place was a playground.

  ‘Come on, let’s whizz through the short cut.’ Ben said, leading her through a gap in the shelving section. They emerged in the middle of the bed section. A big sign invited customers to test the beds.

  ‘I wonder what they mean by that? Shall we give it a go?’ Ben said, pulling Sara down on to an iron-framed bed. He twisted sideways, lying full length on the mattress. ‘Come and join me, Sara, see what you think.’

  Feeling slightly silly, she lay beside him and said, ‘What I think of this bed? Are you assuming I’m needing to buy a new one?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t really have the bed in mind,’ he said. He moved closer, turned and looked into her eyes. I’m lying on a bed, very close to someone who isn’t Conrad. She could picture the words, as if she’d written them on her kitchen blackboard. Ben put an arm across her, pulled her towards him and started kissing her. When she closed her eyes, it was as if they were somewhere entirely alone and she could feel all the usual responses starting up.

  ‘Er . . . excuse me!’ Such an unwanted interruption. Lazily, Sara looked up and felt ludicrously surprised that two staff in Ikea’s black and yellow uniform were looking down at them, smirking. ‘Um, that’s not really allowed,’ the girl said. ‘This is, like, a family store?’ Her boy companion giggled.

  ‘We’re invited to try the beds,’ Ben pointed out.

  ‘Yeah but, not like . . . er that. I think, they’re, like, meant to be for just lying on?’

  The family with the lively toddlers hurried past, the mother giving Sara a smile that looked suspiciously envious. Sara felt horribly embarrassed, suddenly. She sat up, grabbed her bag and pulled Ben upright. ‘Come on Ben, let’s go!’

  ‘Thanks, people!’ The salesgirl looked relieved and started to move away. Had she, Sara thought, expected them to tell her to go away and then continue into full-scale sex in the middle of the store?

  ‘OK,’ Ben agreed. ‘All good things, etc. Let’s get these tables ordered and then I’ll get you home to your husband.’

  The salesgirl looked back, shocked. She wasn’t the only one. The sharp reminder had quite shocked Sara, too. What am I turning into, she wondered, I am so very much not the sort who lies on a bed in public, thoroughly kissing a man who I hardly know.

  Art is the most beautiful of all lies.

  (Claude Debussy)

  ‘Mum? Are you busy?’ Cassandra carried Charlie into the studio, where Sara was half inside the big cupboard that ran along the whole back wall of the building. As well as her own work it contained a lot of Conrad’s huge spare half-worked canvases, her old tubes of paints which must be thoroughly dried out by now, and all her favourite sable brushes carefully rolled into mothproof cloths. Now, as she pulled out the dusty, bubble-wrapped paintings that had never made it to their last exhibition, she wondered what on earth she was letting herself in for. Two outcomes were possible. That they didn’t sell at all and she ended up collecting them in deep humiliation from Mindy’s gallery, or that they did very well, a sign that she should take up serious painting again. At this stage, she wasn’t sure which would be worse. Or better. She’d been good in her time . . . why not give it another go? Having thought that, of course she’d set herself up for disappointment if she didn’t do well.

  ‘Cass – yes, come on in. I’m just going through this lot. They’re heavy, some of them.’ She was getting quite exhausted, lugging the things about, lining them up against the wall.

  ‘You can’t see them properly with all that bubble stuff on them,’ Cassandra commented. ‘You’ll have to take it all off and choose and then rewrap them.’

  Sara grinned. ‘Or maybe pretend that’s what I’ve already done! I could always just go for the first twenty and say I thought they looked the best! Save a lot of hassle and Sellotape.’

  ‘Mum! That’s so wrong! Don’t you care what you send?’

  Sara thought for a moment. ‘Well, considering this time a couple of weeks ago I wasn’t even thinking of ever selling paintings again, the honest answer might have to be no. But then professional pride kicks in, doesn’t it. So of course I care, really. Goodness, this cupboard is filthy! I’ve got spiderweb all over my skirt. Don’t let Charlie breathe the dust in.’

  ‘I didn’t use to like him coming in here at all, because of Dad’s paint fumes. How come he doesn’t paint any more? A few months ago, this room reeked of turps. Now it’s fading. It’s getting almost like a normal room. It smells like Panda’s bedsit used to. Talking of which . . . Mum?’

  Sara wiped her grimy hands down the front of her dress. It was a very old dress, purple spotted cotton with big scarlet buttons down the front, no longer a favourite. Conrad had once told her she looked like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz in it, which he’d thought was a compliment – she disagreed (well, what adult woman wouldn’t?) and hadn’t felt the same about the dress after that, which was why it was relegated to days of grubby pursuits, such as this.

  ‘What’s up, Cass? Everything all right? You look very happy, actually!’ She did – Cass seemed to have regained her youthful glow overnight. Her hair shone, her eyes were lively and bright.

  ‘I went to see Paul! And Mum, you should just see what he’s done to the flat. Completely amazing! I think we might give it another go. Do you think that’s mad?’

  ‘Mad? No! Of course not! Where does mad come in? Unless you’re going back to him only because the flat’s nice and clean? Now that would be mad!’

  ‘Well, thing is, he’s not perfect, is he? Wouldn’t the not-being-perfect thing count as mad?’

  ‘Oh Cass, you girls and the Ideal Man thing! I blame magazines where you all get told to dump any guy who dares to buy you the wrong Valentine card. Nobody’s perfect! They’re not, you’re not. I’m not. In fact, especially me.’ She bit her lip and thought of the episode in Ikea. Now she was on home ground, it felt as if it had happened to another woman. It was the same with the fairground; only the presence of the hideous toy tiger reminded her it had really happened.

  ‘Well you and Dad, you’d say that was perfect, wouldn’t you?’

  Sara looked at her, wondering if she’d gone wrong somewhere, raising such a romantic with such a black-and-white simple outlook. In some ways this was good. Everyone should aim for the best there was. But . . . how could anyone expect a life partner to have no failings?’

  ‘Cass. Tell me
honestly, do you love Paul? I mean, you’re very young. If the answer’s even . . .’

  ‘Yes! Yes I do! I don’t have to think about the answer.’

  ‘Then there’s your solution. Don’t rush to move back in with him, though, if you’d rather stay on here for a bit. We love having you and Charlie around, and I can carry on helping with taking care of him. I don’t want your college work to suffer.’

  ‘Hmm . . . well maybe for a bit, till the end of term. It’s not long now anyway. Can Paul come and stay here sometimes? Would that be OK?’

  ‘Of course it would be! After all, what’s one more?’

  He was easy enough to find. While Sara was down in the studio sorting out her paintings, Conrad flicked through the stored numbers in her phone that she’d left in the kitchen and there he was: Ben Stretton. So he had a surname. That was convenient enough for now. He tapped the button and dialled the number, feeling slightly sick. What was he going to say to this bloke? Ask him what his intentions were towards his wife? What kind of Victorian controlling husband would that make him sound? He had a flash of awful doubt. Maybe there was absolutely nothing at all to this and his suspicions about Sara were quite unforgivable.

  ‘Darling, hi!’ Whoever answered the phone seemed to know exactly who he was getting.

  ‘Darling’? Startled, Conrad instantly flicked the off switch and dropped the phone on to the table as if it had a fatal sting. Darling? How to interpret that? How to misinterpret that? Was there any way other than that something was going on between this Ben bastard and Sara? He’d always dreaded, in the deepest dark cavern of his soul, that this day would come. How could it not? One day she was sure to notice that she’d married an ageing fossil. No wonder Sara had been looking secretive lately, being in and out of the house at times less predictable than usual, and smiling rather crazily to herself when she thought no one was looking. The trouble with loving someone was that you always paid attention, even when the one you loved thought you weren’t. It was all making sense now and should, considering

  he’d made no secret of planning an exit from the mortal world, be no real surprise. What else was she supposed to do but move on? It would only be natural. The words ‘a decent interval’ came to mind, though. Was she going to give all the weeping and the black and the Philip Treacy hats only the barest minimum of time?

  There was a scuffling noise outside and Conrad went to open the front door, finding, to no great surprise, Stuart delivering another of his boxes of vegetables.

  ‘Stuart – good to see you! What have you brought this time?’ Stuart looked nervous. Conrad was aware that he sometimes had that effect on people. They looked at him in a strange way, as if all well-known people were a bit of a breed apart. Plus he was not only well known but an artist too. Stuart was looking at him as if he half-expected Conrad to do something terrifying, such as invite him in to be cast in concrete or chopped in half and pickled, like a murderous version of a Damien Hirst. That, it crossed Conrad’s mind, wouldn’t be a bad idea. He’d run it past Damien next time they met, ask if he’d considered it, though he appreciated the problems.

  ‘Broccoli, three sorts of lettuce, radicchio, rhubarb, some very early tomatoes but they’ll need ripening on. Put them in a bowl next to a ripe banana – that’ll do the trick, and not in the fridge; never put tomatoes in the fridge.’

  ‘You like my wife, don’t you?’ Conrad asked him bluntly. Stuart stepped back, out of fist reach, just in case.

  ‘Well of course I do! She’s a very nice woman. And we work together, obviously. I mean, I don’t . . . well . . .’

  Conrad laughed. ‘Sorry, it’s just that you’d consider her attractive, wouldn’t you? People would, in general?’ Lordy, what was he saying? This would get back to Sara, no question. She’d be furious.

  Stuart rubbed the back of his neck and stared at the ground. He’d gone, Conrad thought, a shade of heart-attack pink. It would be worth thinking about that in terms of paint. It would be an interesting one to mix. Except that of course he didn’t paint any more.

  ‘Er . . . I am married, you know,’ Stuart told him, coughing slightly. Maybe it was heart attack, the colour. ‘And so is Sara. To you, in fact. Well of course you know that. Obviously.’ He seemed to run out of steam here, waffling, stating the obvious. ‘Um, I’d better get home. Enjoy the veg. And . . . er, tell Sara I’ll see her at the college next week.’ And he was out of the front gate pretty much as fast as good manners and a rather shuffling gait allowed.

  Conrad felt ridiculous. He’d made a complete tit of himself, rambling on like that to Stuart, a man he’d barely spoken to before, beyond a basic hello and goodbye. What on earth had he been asking him anyway? ‘Is my wife a foxy bloke-magnet?’ What kind of answer was he expecting, a ‘Phwoar, yes, I’d give her one!’, or a ‘No mate, she’s well past it.’? Perhaps Sara was right: what remaining marbles he had left were about to roll down the gaps in the studio floorboards. God.

  Conrad left Sara’s phone on the kitchen table and went up to the office at the top of the house. He stopped at the top of the second flight of stairs to decide whether he was more puffed by the climb than usual. He decided he felt much the same: mildly exerted but nothing new. Maybe he wasn’t falling to bits – at least physically – quite as much as he’d assumed. He switched on the Mac and googled Ben’s name. It didn’t take long to track him down, career-wise – by nature freelance journalists were hardly the most private of individuals. Born show-offs, in fact, was Conrad’s view. He read a few online articles (not bad, nothing spectacular. Fairly lightweight features rather than politics, nothing earth-shatteringly profound), then went further, delving, looking for the electoral roll. It seemed quite a complicated process, though. Sara had mentioned he lived not far away, so on a whim, Conrad picked up the house phone and called directory enquiries and in seconds was in possession of Ben Stretton’s landline number and, more importantly, and by devious blagging, his address, which was far too close for comfort, in his opinion. This was a man who needed checking out. If Sara was intending to replace him with a younger model, he wasn’t going to let her settle for some tosser. He grabbed his jacket, whistled for Floss and left the house.

  ‘Come in. Marie’s in the garden on a lounger with her foot up.’ Mike led Sara through the hallway (replaced banisters now finished) and the kitchen (new tiles behind the worktop, meticulous grouting in progress) out on to the terrace which, the year before, he’d paved with highly convincing near-York stone. Marie’s chair was in the dappled shade of a cherry tree on the lawn (perfectly mown, stripes worthy of Lord’s). She was surrounded by more cushions than anyone could need, as if she was in danger that the slightest contact with a hard surface would bruise her fatally. The damaged foot was in a Tubigrip and rested on a black velvet cushion fringed with gold tassels, and the poodle dozed beneath the chair, keeping a sleepy guard. The scene reminded Sara of a royal ceremony, the presenting of an orb, possibly. Not that an orb would have toenails varnished in glittery orange.

  ‘The doctor says she’s not to put weight on it for a few days,’ Mike whispered loudly. ‘I’m glad you came; between you and me, she’s bored rigid. You can only read so many trash gossip magazines.’

  ‘I can hear you, you know, Mike. It’s my foot that’s damaged, not my ears. And I’m reading a book, not a mag.’

  ‘Yes I know, my love, of course you are. Can I get you some tea and HobNobs, Sara?’ He looked at her eagerly, desperate to be useful.

  ‘Thanks, that would be lovely.’

  Mike, having sorted another chair for Sara and padded it up with yet more cushions, returned to the kitchen.

  ‘So, what happened to you?’ Sara asked. ‘Or would I rather not know?’

  Marie laughed. ‘If you think I sprained my ankle falling off a hotel chandelier with my lover, you’re about as far off the mark as you can get. Sadly. No – it was bloody Mike and that habit he’s got of leaving his shoes in awkward places. I tripped over them, going out thro
ugh the French doors a couple of days ago. Went flying and twisted my foot under me. Bloody agony. They do say a sprain hurts more than a break. I hope I never find out.’

  ‘Ouch, must have been horrid.’ Sara winced in sympathy. ‘He’s taking care of you though, isn’t he? He looks as if he’s enjoying it, actually. You look like one of those people with gout in old movies, all propped up and pampered.’

  ‘He’s being amazing. And so he should be amazing, seeing as it was his fault. It just . . . well it curtails one’s activities, being confined to the premises, doesn’t it?’ Marie looked back at the house, making sure they were still alone.

  ‘It depends what activities you had in mind. I wouldn’t mind being banned from doing the supermarket run or not able to go to the dentist for a filling,’ Sara teased her.

  ‘You know what I mean. Outside interests. Not that anything’s on offer.’ She sighed and looked rather downcast. ‘I haven’t heard from . . . someone in a while now.’ She pulled her mobile phone out from under one of the cushions and looked at it despondently. ‘I’ve got to face a horrible conclusion.’ She put the phone back and fiddled with the fringe on the nearest cushion, unravelling it a bit and tying a knot in the silver thread. ‘I think for him, I might have been a one-off.’ Her eyes were glittery with ready tears. ‘He seemed so keen for a return match, too . . . All talk! I’ve been had, in every possible sense!’

  ‘Oh Marie! I’m sure you haven’t! That would be too . . .’

  ‘Cruel? Yes it would. There’s many a woman would say it was no more than I deserve. You don’t mess about with other women’s men. Not without being punished.’

  ‘I was going to say “teenage”, rather than cruel, actually. Surely grown-ups don’t behave like that? Maybe he just can’t get time to contact you at the moment.’

  Mike reappeared, carrying a tray all neatly laid out with teapot, cups, a plate of biscuits. He left it on the small teak table between them and went away again, silent as a good butler. Sara took one of the HobNobs and broke it in half. She thought of Ben’s Jaffa cakes, unceremoniously fished out of the packet as they’d sat in the sun on Alma’s old bench. The two of them had eaten the lot, that first time she’d been to the cottage. How had they gone from a simple, casual drink by the river, to full-on snogging on a bed in the middle of Ikea? The thought of it brought a completely uncontrollable smile that just wouldn’t go. That happened at home sometimes, too. More than once she’d had to remove her stupid smirk from the room and go and hide in the loo or discover she needed to get something from upstairs, just so Conrad wouldn’t twig she had a delicious secret.