by Adele Parks
‘Leave the washing up, it’ll keep,’ said Martha, who really was making a huge effort to try to relax more. She’d been surprised to discover that this wasn’t as much of a contradiction as it might sound.
Eliza didn’t need to be asked twice. She happily abandoned the sink and reached for a bottle of wine.
‘Fancy a glass?’
‘I do.’ Martha nodded enthusiastically. ‘I think it was a success, don’t you?’
‘Yeah. Jelly and ice cream up the walls, crisps underfoot, not an organic morsel in sight – my idea of a good party,’ joked Eliza. ‘Was there a single child who didn’t have a crying fit?’
‘Unlikely.’
‘Thought not.’
The women wandered through to the sitting room. Martha picked out a CD and put it on. Billie Holiday crooned her way into the room.
‘You need some new tunes,’ commented Eliza.
‘Do I? Don’t you like this?’
‘I’m not saying that. It’s a classic, but you’ve been playing it for ever.’
‘Actually, that’s not true. I played it at university, but I can’t remember playing it in the last ten years.’
‘Really?’ Eliza recognized the ten-years indicator to mean ‘pre-Michael’. She was relieved to note that Martha had resisted saying his name.
‘You always had such lovely rooms at university,’ said Eliza.
‘I did, didn’t I?’ Martha’s rooms had been a heady mix of romance, expectation and possibility. Innumerable Pre-Raphaelite posters and postcards blotted out the ugly woodchip wallpaper. The images weren’t Eliza’s cup of cha – far too many fair maidens drowning or crying or simply waiting for a knight in shining armour – but they were very Martha, the eternal romantic. The grubby, threadbare carpet was covered with a shaggy rug bought in a junk shop. Martha had studied English and art history, so her room was always packed with books. She had enormous respect for them, and the black spines of the Penguin Classics stood to attention like soldiers on her shelves, in strict alphabetical order. Eliza had always found it easier to drop her books on the floor; after all, the only inconvenience was when you tripped over the unwieldy piles, after having one or two glasses too many.
‘Martha, do you remember how much you loved those ugly green and gold mugs?’
‘Thank you very much. There was nothing ugly about them,’ laughed Martha.
‘And you had that horrible purple Paisley bedspread!’
‘It was the height of fashion,’ defended Martha, giggling.
‘To be fair, you were very fashionable in your time.’
Why didn’t that sound like a compliment? Eliza had intended it to be one. Martha would have liked it to be one.
‘You wore short skirts in those days, and DMs.’
‘Corduroy jackets,’ added Martha.
‘With leather-patched elbows.’
‘Ripped second-hand jeans.’
The sisters screeched their surprise at the recollection.
‘Whatever happened to–’
‘Me?’
‘I was going to say, your leather beret.’
They fell silent. The pertinent question was: what had happened to Martha? When had the romantic individualist drowned in rubber gloves and suffocated in furniture polish?
‘I’ve been thinking about my college days a lot recently,’mused Martha. ‘It was the last time I was entirely selfish. It was the last time I had to think only about me. Realistically, I’m never going to be in that position again.’
‘Well, at least not until you’re in your fifties.’
Martha laughed. To both women ‘your fifties’ seemed far enough away to be ‘never again’.
‘Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret any of it. I don’t regret marrying Michael and I certainly don’t regret having the children. I’m just saying that I’d like the opportunity to put myself first.’
As she put a lot of work into every aspect of making the children’s lives as happy as possible, Martha had put a lot of work into making the party a success. The paper plates, balloons and streamers had been colour coordinated, which was more than could be said for Martha’s wardrobe. She’d spent an age dressing the children for the party, but only seconds putting on her own lipstick. She’d agonized over choosing Maisie’s presents. She’d striven for a mix of unusual, thoughtful, educational and good-value toys. She’d been particularly pleased with the multicoloured, heart-shaped fairy lights and the wooden tricycle. Yet Martha hadn’t had a long soak in a bath in months; she always said there was no time.
As if reading her mind, Eliza said, ‘You could put yourself first now and again. Not all the time, admittedly. But you don’t have to be a martyr to be a good mum.’
True.
‘Martha, you should go out more. Accept some of these invitations you’re getting.’
‘I do accept invitations.’
‘No, you don’t. I heard you today, you accepted all the invitations that relate to the children. You’re going to the ball park at Syon House and the Monkey Music class, but I heard you turn down the invite to Claire’s thirtieth birthday.’
‘I couldn’t possibly go to that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Everyone will be in a couple.’
‘Not true, I checked with her. Martha, you have to claw your way out of your comfort zone.’
‘She’s holding it at a Salsa bar and restaurant. I don’t know how to Salsa.’
‘Don’t be pathetic, you just have to shake your hips.’
‘It isn’t just shaking your hips, though, is it? It’s all very raunchy. There’s a whole lot of gyrating.’
Eliza tried not to laugh. ‘Live dangerously for once. What’s the worst that can happen? You can’t live your life thinking that risqué is not following a Delia recipe to the letter, substituting some flat-leafed parsley for basil.’
‘Don’t be silly. I do risqué things.’
‘Name one.’
‘One?’
‘Yes. One. One risqué thing you’ve done in the last ten years.’
Martha was cross. Partly with her sister, but mostly with herself because Eliza had a point.
‘What will I wear?’ There was something in Martha’s tone that suggested her resistance was lowering. She wanted to be persuaded.
‘Good question, we’ll have to do something with your look’.
‘My look?’
Eliza jumped up from the sofa and dashed for a pile of fashion magazines that she’d stashed earlier. It was clear she’d been waiting for this opportunity. She quickly started to flick through the mags and point out pictures of leggy models looking sensational in jeans and skimpy tops.
‘I couldn’t wear that,’ cried Martha, aghast. ‘Anyway, I did buy some new clothes.’
‘A couple of things, and it was weeks ago. You’ve really got a great figure, you ought to make more of it.’
‘Great figure’. The compliment barely had time to compute before the scary implications of ‘you ought to make more of it’ hit home.
‘A make-over?’ Martha asked, wide-eyed with fear.
‘An image change,’ Eliza stated confidently. ‘We need to shop!’
December
24
They don’t like me. I can tell they hate me, thought Martha, as she eyed the other guests at the birthday dinner. I have ‘scarlet woman’ written all over me. In bright red. Every woman is thinking, I’m not letting my husband anywhere near her. Every man is thinking that there must be some intrinsic flaw; it may not be obvious what, but it’s a certainty. Why else would my husband have left me? They’ll be surmising that I’m lousy in bed, or that I have a foul temper, or that I’m jealous and nagging. Because they’ll know there must be something fundamentally wrong with me.
They just don’t know what.
Nor did Martha. The agony of not being wanted by someone who had said they would want you for ever was bloody. The disappointment, the disbelief, the disgust. Martha was unable
to believe that anyone would want to spend five minutes with her, without the distraction of cable TV.
‘What you drinking, Martha?’ asked one of the gang, kindly. (Kindly, because her friends were kind. Kind, because they didn’t hate her. They liked her. And she was right, they didn’t understand why she was on her own, but they couldn’t imagine it would be for long.)
She considered ordering an orange juice, but decided that she’d need more than vitamin C to help her through this evening. She hated this question. She never knew what to answer. Whilst recently she’d indulged in some blow-outs with Eliza, she’d always reached oblivion with a decent Chardonnay. She detested beer and spirits, and only really enjoyed the occasional glass of good wine, and then only with a meal; the wines sold in pubs and bars such as this were generally lousy.
‘A white-wine spritzer,’ she offered finally, although she knew her choice was viewed as a wimpy drink. Her friend brought back a large white wine with a splash of soda.
Martha gulped it back and then offered to buy a round. She couldn’t stand the sort of women who thought they didn’t have to buy any drinks just because they were single. She definitely didn’t want to be that type of woman, so she bought a round and then organized a kitty. A very generous kitty. It was quite nice in here, thought Martha. Fun, relaxed. Not that she had an awful lot of venues to compare it with; she couldn’t remember the last time she and Michael had gone to a club. Eight years ago? Could it be that long?
She had of course been to a club more recently than that – she used to go with the guys and girls from the office fairly regularly. Michael was invited along as well, but he always seemed to have a previous engagement or simply too hefty a workload to join her. But then she’d left her job three years ago. Could it be possible that she hadn’t danced for three years? Of course, there had been weddings. She liked a bop, but recently her dancing partners had often been under two foot (Mathew and his chums). The hokey-cokey simply didn’t count. When did she stop dancing with Michael? When did she stop dancing? Martha suddenly realized that she couldn’t see her glass clearly, it was swimming. She blinked away the hot, angry, sentimental tears, brought her glass into focus again and poured another drink. No good came from thinking of Michael, she knew that. She couldn’t spend any more time thinking about why he didn’t want her. Icy fact was, he didn’t.
His loss.
The food was taking an age to arrive but, despite Martha’s fears, the conversation was flowing. A number of the women had children and so Martha felt on safe ground as she discussed with them the pros and cons of the MMR vaccination. Although, she couldn’t understand why she twice slipped up and referred to it as the MRR. It was a hot room and Martha was very thirsty.
And flirty.
God, she couldn’t believe she’d just thought that. But she was feeling excitable; there was no denying it. Who’d bought the champagne? She did enjoy a glass of champagne; there was never a reason to say no. Lord, were they still talking about the MRR, didn’t they have anything else to discuss? Martha instantly felt guilty. What a mean thought. It wasn’t so long ago that she’d happily have discussed her children all night. Indeed, she’d thought about nothing else for three years but suddenly tonight she wanted to think about something else. Tonight she wanted a night off. Maybe it was her new suede skirt and black gypsy-style top.
Although she couldn’t explain why her suede skirt and black gypsy-style top would make her notice those guys sat at that other table over there. Notice how handsome a group they were, and one of them in particular.
Martha blushed and was grateful no one could read minds. Goodness, what was she thinking? She was spending far too much time with Eliza. She reached for the one bottle that still had some wine in it and poured it all into her glass. She put the bottle down next to the other numerous empties that her table had accumulated.
‘Shall we order some more?’ she suggested.
‘Good idea, keep us going until the food comes,’ someone else agreed, and then suddenly there were two more white and two more red, apparently out of nowhere. Odd, but the house wine tasted fine once you got used to it.
The food finally arrived and by all accounts it was very good. Although Martha never found out. She tried to shovel it into her mouth, but all the little bits kept falling off her fork. It was rather undignified. In the end she gave up, it was so much easier just to keep topping up her wineglass. Again and again. The music from the dance floor downstairs was pounding through her body, she was finding it increasingly difficult to sit still.
‘Let’s go downstairs for a boogie’. Martha looked around to see who had made that suggestion and was surprised to realize it was her. It must be the Salsa music. Suddenly she felt that dancing to Salsa music was going to be OK. No one would be any good at it, and what was it Eliza had said? Just keep shaking your hips. She could do that.
No one was dancing. There were a large number of dodgy-looking Latino types standing around the edges of the floor. Normally Martha would have clutched her handbag and stood at a distance from the floor until it was packed full. Then she might have been prepared discreetly to bob around her bag. But tonight, stoked with South Californian courage, she wanted to strut her funky stuff and she wanted to do it now.
‘Come on,’ she ordered.
The guys in her party turned down the invitation but one or two of the braver, and equally drunk, women joined her. It was all the encouragement the dodgy Latinos needed. Like leopards they pounced, like leeches they stuck. Suddenly about eight, inanely grinning men surrounded Martha. She was torn between total embarrassment (their shirts were louder than the music and there was an above-average score on facial hair) and being fairly impressed (they could dance; but was it really necessary to get so close?). Martha remembered her mother instructing her to accept a dance if ever it was offered, as it took a lot of courage for men to ask women to dance, and – after all – men were only human.
Which showed what her mother knew.
However, Martha was far too used to following rules than to suddenly decide to rebel, so she politely danced one dance with each man who asked her. It amazed her that her stony, sullen silence was seen as positive encouragement, and dance followed dance followed dance.
Martha was spun from short man to short man until she was sure her head and the room were orbiting her body.
There he was again.
The handsome one.
Eliza would call him hot.
Damn hot.
Even if he was wearing a ’lace around his neck.
‘Would you like to dance with me, rescue me from these awful shirts?’ Martha stood in front of the hot, damn hot, man and his two friends and wondered how the hell she’d spun there and how would she deal with the humiliation if he turned her down. Why had she just done that? Probably because her sister had said the most adventurous thing she’d ever done was adapt a Delia Smith recipe. Well, watch this space Eliza dear. She hoped to God that the mother of the hot, damn hot, man had taught him the same rule her mother had taught her. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d asked a man to dance like that, a complete stranger. Before she met Michael, certainly. But thinking about it, before Michael, she’d always been first up on the dance floor and she’d never minded asking people to dance. It was only dancing, after all.
‘All right.’ He passed his glass to his mate and followed her back on to the floor. ‘So are you prepared to dance with the devil, although I suppose it’s hardly pale moonlight?’
‘What?’
‘You know, Jack Nicolson, the Joker in Batman. He asks his victims if…’ The hot, damn hot, man trailed off. He could see Martha wasn’t getting it.
‘Right,’ said Martha. She wasn’t sure what else to say.
It was always a risk. What if he danced like an uncle? Martha took a braver, longer look at him and tried to focus. He was gorgeous. She decided it wouldn’t matter if he danced like her great-uncle. He wasn’t tall but as Martha was barely f
ive foot four she didn’t like men over six foot. She didn’t want to look like Lucy Ewing. He was probably brushing five eleven, lean, with wide shoulders, short-cropped hair, good clothes, and, err, that was about all she could make out. The features were fuzzy, more to do with her alcoholic intake than his genes.
He could dance; in fact he was seriously good. And funny. He kept doing silly little wiggle things, which made him look at once ridiculous and, well, sexy. Sending yourself up demands a certain amount of self-confidence, and a certain amount of self-confidence is sexy. She watched him and felt a strange churn, a definite pang of longing, somewhere between her thighs and stomach. She wasn’t entirely naive, despite what Eliza thought; she recognized the churn as a delicious swell of lust.
The Salsa music suddenly seemed seductive, not stupid, and the idea of having a daft dance of no import suddenly receded – and Martha knew she fancied the life out of him. It was so long since she’d felt this way that it seemed illicit. But right. Illicit and right. Fascinating. The track changed and Martha realized there was a risk that he would now smile politely then merge back into the crowd for ever, to join his friends.
He didn’t.
He stayed and they danced five or six or more dances. Martha noted the admiring glances from the other women at the club, who were staring at her with ill-concealed jealousy, and Martha felt top.
‘Fancy a drink?’ he asked. She nodded. ‘What would you like?’
‘White wine.’ Without hesitation. She didn’t even consider trying to be more hip than she was by requesting a trendy beer or spirits.
‘What’s your name?’ she yelled above the crowd and music.
‘Muad’Dib, a name can be a weapon.’ Martha looked blank. What an unusual name. ‘Muad’Dib, he’s in the film Dune.’
‘I don’t think I’ve seen it,’ said Martha, feeling like the dull housewife she was.
