Men I've Loved Before

by Adele Parks

  Tonight Ali had put extra effort into her preparations; she wanted her friends to remember tonight. She had bought a new damask tablecloth in a deep purple (with matching napkins, of course), she’d pulled out all her best glassware and china, the stuff that she had been given as wedding gifts but had used only five times since. This was because she didn’t like putting the best things in the dishwasher (in case it got chipped) and yet she hated washing up by hand, so the best things tended to stay in the cupboard. Ali realised this wasn’t too sensible but just couldn’t think her way round it. Her mother had been chairwoman of the local WI branch for as long as Ali could remember, and was the sort of housewife who absolutely abhorred chipped china (or indeed mismatched table linen); she thought either of these was evidence that the woman of the home was one step away from moral bankruptcy. Her mother’s standards of cleanliness and neatness now appeared as natural to Ali as the blood that ran through her body; there were just some things from your childhood you simply couldn’t shake off, no matter how much you wanted to or knew you should. Anyway, if there was ever a night for the best glass and chinaware, tonight was it. Alison wanted everything to look amazing. Beyond amazing! She’d spent a huge amount on fresh cut flowers. She’d bought long-stemmed white roses and arranged them with bits of twig, in three purple glass vases, which were dramatically lined up along the centre of the table, and she had put tea lights and candles on every available surface. She gazed round her home, assessing the effect. She smiled contentedly. Yes, everything looked wonderful. Everything was as it should be.

  Natalie and Neil arrived first. They were prompt because Neil had rung Nat three times during the day to remind her about the commitment. She obliged by leaving work on time but she couldn’t bring herself to be cheerful, especially when she saw the state of his face.

  ‘What happened to you?’ she asked, concerned and ready to pour on the sympathy.

  ‘Oh, Karl and I were messing about with these prototype guns and targets that might be marketed in one of our games. They’re sort of modelled on paintball guns but with small plastic balls. They’re in early development. You’re not meant to use them at close range,’ Neil blathered.

  ‘So what happened?’ demanded Nat. Her concern was already draining away and quickly being replaced by exasperation.

  ‘Well, Karl pointed it in my face.’

  Nat glared and huffed and puffed her irritation as though she was the big bad wolf trying to blow down the third piglet’s brick home. ‘What an idiot.’

  ‘Obviously it was an accident,’ reassured Neil.

  ‘Well, I didn’t imagine he was deliberately trying to shoot you at point-blank range but, for goodness’ sake, Neil, when will you two grow up? Plastic balls, you say?’ Nat examined the cut and bruise on Neil’s face more closely. It looked really nasty.

  ‘He was closer than the manufacturer recommended,’ said Neil nervously. ‘I think I have one or two bruises on my ribs as well.’ It had taken him and Karl most of the afternoon to come up with this excuse, he hoped Nat was going to accept it.

  ‘Well, I hope to God you see that you can’t market this game. It’s potentially lethal. Can you imagine it in the hands of teenagers?’

  ‘Yes, you’re right, we won’t be going ahead with that game, I don’t imagine,’ said Neil. Of course he wouldn’t; it didn’t exist. He touched his jaw tentatively. Bugger, it still stung like hell. Although he considered himself lucky. He was pretty sure Cindy’s husband had been set to kick seven shades of excretion out of him, and would have if those policemen hadn’t come along. He was really very lucky. It went to show, there were sometimes policemen on the beat when you needed one. Not that Cindy’s husband Dave was likely to agree. No doubt he felt very hard done by. To Neil’s relief the policemen didn’t accept Dave’s story that he was just defending his wife’s honour. One of the coppers recognised Cindy and knew what she did for a profession and apparently Dave had a reputation for getting arsey with her clients, plus Neil was holding a cuddly toy rabbit in one hand and he was laid out across a kid’s buggy; he looked innocent. Well, actually, he looked like a sap. He was middle-class and living in the twenty-first century, he had no idea how to defend himself in a fist fight. It was an enormous relief to Neil when the cops pulled Dave away. It had taken two of them, though, because even though Dave was a slight man he had been fired up with furious indignation and therefore lethal. Neil had made as hasty an exit as humanly possible. He’d scurried back to his office without so much as glancing behind him. He didn’t want a further clobbering and he didn’t want to hang around long enough for the policemen to discover that their assumptions about Dave were off course.

  Neil wondered whether he should call Cindy. The entire incident had been over in moments and so he hadn’t had a chance to take in her expression. He had no idea what she was thinking or feeling about any of it. Was she pissed off that he’d kissed her or just relieved that while making a hasty exit he’d shouted that he didn’t want to press charges? Was she glad Dave had come along at that moment or had she been enjoying the kiss? Did any of it matter anyway? The worst of it was he’d run away clutching Mrs Flippy. He’d agonised all day. Was it possible for him to go to Heidi’s nursery and return the toy or was it too risky? He might run into Dave, who probably had now been released without charge. But Heidi wouldn’t be able to get to sleep tonight, not without Mrs Flippy. The thought niggled Neil.

  When Alison opened the door, Nat thrust a box of Lindt chocolates into her hands, threw out a brief smile that she regretted wasn’t as warm as her host deserved and then marched straight through to the kitchen, where she knew she’d find a bottle opener and be safe from Neil’s constant questions about her recent nights out. She supposed he was trying to take an interest, make conversation and perhaps even reconnect. She understood that he was trying to be ingratiating but she was exhausted, frayed around the edges; she didn’t like keeping secrets but she no longer knew how to be honest. How could she start to tell him about her recent nights out? She wished she could respond more positively to Neil. She, too, longed to reconnect but she didn’t know whether it was even possible any more and that thought terrified her, brutalised her. Irritatingly and irrationally she found herself snapping at Neil as though she was emotionally backing away from him. She heard Ali gasp, ‘Goodness, Neil, what happened to you?’ and she heard Neil start to recount his idiocy with the toy gun. Another flame of frustration shot through her body.

  The kitchen was hot and steamy, a welcome contrast to the bitter night outside. Nat feared a long winter and she wished she could hibernate. Tim was bent over a recipe book, his forehead furrowed in concentration. Nat wasn’t sure whether he’d noticed her come into the kitchen, even though she was huffing and puffing quite theatrically. Despite her glum mood, a huge wave of affection swept through her body. She liked her husband’s best friend a great deal. There was something sweet and earnest about the way he carefully measured white wine vinegar on to a tablespoon and then dropped it into the dish he was making. Nat flung her hat, coat and scarf on to the back of a kitchen chair and started to open the bottle of wine she’d brought with her. Startled, Tim turned. His strong and long friendship with Neil meant that he thought of Natalie as something akin to a sister and he could read her moods almost as well as he could read his own wife’s. He saw at once that it wasn’t just his casserole that was simmering.

  ‘Fill me up too, will you?’ he said, throwing her a quick grin. ‘Would kiss you but I’m at a tricky bit. I have to sear these scallops and every second is crucial.’

  ‘It’s OK, I know you think kissing your mate in greeting is soft southern bollocks,’ said Nat, taking her first sip of the wine. She realised that she must have been scowling when Tim cut to the chase.

  ‘What’s up? Find out how much he’s spent on strippers in the last six weeks?’

  Tim asked the question flippantly, irreverently. Neil had confessed to Tim that he’d returned to Hush Hush, although he only
admitted to one return visit. Tim had thought that Neil was being a bit foolish. What was the point in spending a fortune to watch some stranger strip when you had someone as gorgeous as Nat at home?

  Nat turned to face Tim and he couldn’t help but notice that she was wearing a really flattering wrap-round dress that clung to her body, gratifyingly showcasing her small but perfect boobs and neat bum. She was wearing knee-high boots with a tall heel. All that and she understood and accepted Neil’s new hobby of watching naked women dance. What a find.

  Nat glared at Tim.

  Ah. Maybe she wasn’t so understanding of Neil’s new hobby, after all. There was something about Nat’s face that told Tim that she hadn’t known Neil had revisited Hush Hush. Damn. Tim was flustered. He’d put his foot in it. Why the hell didn’t she know? Nat and Neil never kept secrets from each other. Not usually. That was one of the many things that Tim loved about their relationship and something he had searched for when he was looking for his own life mate. He’d failed actually. He and Alison kept all sorts of secrets from one another and from other people. Details such as how often Ali went to the gym (her figure was not achieved effortlessly, although she publicly professed that was the case), how much Tim earned (not as much as people might assume), how huge their mortgage was (bigger than sensible). Ali said they were all little, inconsequential secrets and, besides, she maintained that these things were no one else’s business anyway. Tim couldn’t help but wonder, if these secrets were so inconsequential, why did they have to be secrets in the first place? Tim thought keeping secrets from his friends made conversations stilted. He never knew when he was inadvertently going to say something he wasn’t supposed to, like he had by mentioning the business with the strip joint. Bloody hell, Neil should have warned him. Whenever they had guests coming round Ali always gave him a list of subjects that were off limits, just to avoid this type of situation. Of course, Ali didn’t know about the strip joint, otherwise it probably would have been on the list.

  ‘How much?’ Nat demanded.

  ‘Erm, not sure. Not much. Just joking,’ said Tim apologetically but he was a lousy liar and Nat smelt a rat.

  ‘It couldn’t have been that much. It was just the one night,’ asserted Nat.

  ‘Right,’ lied Tim.

  ‘And he never goes in for those private dancers. Those are what racks up the cost.’

  ‘Absolutely.’ There was something about the way Tim said ‘Right’ and ‘Absolutely’ that told Nat that Neil had definitely visited the strip joint more than once and had probably indulged in private dancers. Call it female intuition or plain old-fashioned suspicious mind but she mentally hung, drew and quartered Neil before Tim had managed to turn his scallops. She seethed, wondering why and when he’d visited strippers. Then it hit her, he was probably visiting strippers when she was checking out her old flames. Hell. What a mess.

  ‘Can you pass me the pepper?’ Tim said, vainly hoping that he might be able to change the subject. He could hear Karl and Jen arriving, there were happy shrieks being released in the hallway. He prayed that one or the other of them would wander through to the kitchen and rescue him.

  Karl entered and commented, ‘Jesus, I need a stiff one.’ He poured himself a large G&T. ‘So what’s going on in here? You can cut the atmosphere with a knife. What secret shenigans have I stumbled on? Lovers’ tiff?’ Amused at the thought, he jokingly asked, ‘Are you two secretly shagging?’

  ‘Oh, grow up, Karl,’ snapped Nat.

  Natalie was pretty sure that if Tim knew Neil was visiting strippers, Karl knew it too. She felt angry and excluded and was therefore unprepared to participate in his playful banter as she might usually do. It irritated her that Neil was constantly harping on about wanting to start a family but at the same time had initiated a new hobby of ogling naked women. It wasn’t responsible. Tim shot Karl a fractious and despairing look. Nat saw she could retrieve the answers she was looking for if she pushed home her advantage while Tim was too mortified to act.

  ‘Tim was just trying to remember how many times it is, exactly, that you guys have been to Hush Hush this last month or so.’ She spoke in a clear, confident voice. Tim, terrified, looked towards the doorway; Alison would kill him if she got wind of this. ‘Is it two or three?’ guessed Nat.

  ‘Not me, babe. Just the once. It’s your guy who’s always there. Four times, he was bragging to me. You must be loaded,’ said Karl calmly and with conviction. He too had a misplaced confidence in the transparency that existed between Nat and Neil; like Tim, he’d always admired that in his mate’s relationship with his wife. He thought they were an enviable couple, but he was out of date. He poured himself another G&T and greedily gulped it back. Engrossed in his own concerns, Karl failed to notice that he had added to the spiky atmosphere in the kitchen.

  ‘So what was all the shrieking about, in the hall just now?’ asked Tim, who was very aware of the time bomb he had inadvertently helped to trigger.

  ‘Oh yeah, you two need to congratulate me. Jen and I are getting married,’ said Karl casually.

  ‘What?’ asked Tim.

  ‘Wow,’ said Nat.

  ‘Yeah, what a wow.’ Karl shrugged.

  Nat was pleased no one asked, why? It was a reasonable question under the circumstances.

  ‘Time was right,’ added Karl, answering the unasked question.

  What had made Karl cave in? Nat didn’t want to view the engagement in those terms but she couldn’t help it. Was Jen pregnant? Oh God, if she was, that would mean Neil would have new ammo. She knew he’d start to fantasise about him and Karl pushing trendy strollers through Ravenscourt Park and then, later, playing football and video games with their kids.

  ‘You mean, she twisted your arm hard enough,’ offered Tim.

  ‘Yup.’ Karl grinned. Nat noted that he didn’t look unhappy with the development. It surprised her slightly that he was accepting his new affianced status with such serenity. Nat knew that Jen was a catch but Karl had always appeared relatively impervious to Jen’s charms and generally unimpressed with the idea of commitment. What had changed?

  ‘Hey, love, did you hear Jen and Karl’s news?’ asked Neil, bursting into the kitchen.

  ‘What happened to your face?’ Tim asked.

  ‘Karl did it,’ Neil answered bluntly.

  ‘Yes, I want to have a word with you about that,’ said Nat to Karl.

  Neil hurried to change the subject. ‘Not now. Have you heard their news? This calls for champagne. Should I go and get some?’

  ‘We brought some with us,’ said Jen with a giggle. She launched herself into the room and directly at Nat, left hand first. A beaming Alison trailed behind. It was amazing to Nat that Jen could wave her arm quite so energetically as the rock she was sporting was enormous.

  ‘What a gorgeous ring! Congratulations,’ said Nat, pulling Jen into a warm hug. Nat quickly calculated, if Jen was about to drink champagne, she couldn’t be pregnant. Hurrah. And now with a wedding to plan, no one would talk about babies. Great news. For the first time that evening she thought she had a chance of enjoying herself with her friends, something that should be so natural and yet something that had been so difficult to secure of late.

  Karl released the cork, creating a satisfying pop. He poured, everyone clinked glasses, giggled and took sips. The champagne kicked Nat’s tonsils, she gulped, enjoying the chilly, addictive dryness; the effervescent bubbles tip-tapped on her tongue. Then she noticed Alison wasn’t drinking.

  ‘Not for me,’ giggled Alison. ‘I wasn’t sure whether I was going to say anything tonight or not but since we’re all here and celebrating, well . . . I’m pregnant!’

  Wow. What a night.

  30

  Nat and Neil decided to walk home. They knew it would be tricky to persuade a cabby to drive them from one end of Chiswick to the other and, besides, they’d both drunk a stack and felt the chilly air might go some way towards sobering them up. Nat was aware that she was drinking too much la
tely. She felt relentlessly tired and drab. Even lifting her hand up to her neck to pull her scarf a fraction closer was an effort. Although, while regretting the certain onslaught of a vicious hangover, Nat in part felt grateful that she was drunk. She didn’t want to be sober with Neil right now.

  Nat recalled the last time the entire gang had been all together. It was a while back. Since Tim and Ali had been trying for a baby and Jen had been trying for a fiancé, they’d stopped spending so much time en masse. In fact, the last time they had met up as a complete crew was when they went to the Bluebird restaurant, when they’d been celebrating Neil’s birthday on 26 August. She remembered the cab journey home that evening. She and Neil had been so cocky and self-assured about the strength, resilience and depth of their love. They were smug marrieds. Confident in their own relationship and choices, even somewhat condescending about their friends’ relationships which appeared rather lacking by comparison; their friends had not seemed quite so sorted. It was painful to think about how much they’d taken for granted. They’d discussed Karl and Jen’s relationship at length. Nat had wondered whether Karl was playing away, they’d commented on the unlikelihood of Karl ever proposing. They’d briefly talked about Ali and Tim trying for a baby. Nat had dismissed the subject quite sharply, preferring not to tumble into that particular conversational cavern. Now look at the pair of them. They walked along the street, silent and not touching; there was no sign of their previously vigorous and vocal love.

  Neil had placed his arm round Nat, for a few fleeting seconds, but as they were both swaying from the effects of the alcohol, it hadn’t been practical. That night at the Bluebird had been the night when Neil had asked for a baby and everything had started to unravel.

  Natalie had received two texts during dinner. One from Alan Jones inquiring whether her hangover had faded yet and, if not, he recommended that she drink a hair of the dog, as he was. She thought it was pleasant of him to pretend they were now going to have some sort of buddy type relationship but she knew the idea was impossible. She couldn’t imagine how he’d integrate into her life. Of all her exes, Alan was the least likely candidate for that. He knew too much about her. He knew more than Neil. She pressed delete. The second text was from Lee Mahony saying he was very sorry that she’d had to cancel this evening but he could meet up next Tuesday if she was free. She’d made this arrangement three weeks ago. Was it sensible to pursue it?