I take careful aim at the pins, compose myself, and bowl the most carefully placed shot I can manage. The ball immediately veers off to the left and drops into the gutter. I hear Jamie snigger behind me. Fuck it.
The next bowl is a bit better and I hit three pins. This is likely to be a long afternoon.
“Never mind,” Jamie says as I return. “Maybe your boss can buy you some bowling lessons.”
I’m tempted to smash my bright pink eight-pound ball into his face but resist the urge as somebody has to bring Poppy up until she’s eighteen. Speaking of whom, my daughter wheels over the children’s bowling aid from where it sits just off to the side and lines the metal frame up with meticulous precision.
“You want us to put the gutter bumpers up honey?” Jamie asks.
Poppy turns with a look of deep insult on her face. “No thank you Daddy,” she says with her hands on her hips, before turning back to the job at hand.
She picks up her purple bowling ball, pushes it down the ramp with all her might and hits a strike on her first go. Poppy’s reaction is absolutely priceless. She gives a delighted whoop and starts to wiggle her bum around in a victory dance. Both Jamie and I burst out laughing.
“Next time she does that, make sure you’ve got your camera phone out,” I tell Jamie. The camera on my Nokia gave up the ghost ages ago, so we both now rely on Jamie’s iPhone for moments such as these.
“Yeah okay,” he replies and fishes the phone from his pocket, placing it on the side ready for his daughter’s next performance.
I’m pleased to say I do not snigger when Jamie scores a paltry five on his next go. Nor do I become smug after I hit a spare. Poppy is inconsolable at only knocking down eight pins on her next go.
“Have to line it up better,” she tells me as she sits down with her arms folded and a pout on her face.
Jamie once again hits a spare on his third attempt and I do the same. We are now bowling to a similar standard, which pleases me and probably disgusts him. Poppy takes about three hours to line up her third go.
“Come on honey,” Jamie says. “You’ll want to go to university at some point, so you need to get a move on.”
“Leave her alone. She likes to take her time over things.”
“Bit like her mother,” he replies with a bucketful of snide.
With her tongue stuck out in concentration, Poppy pushes the ball as hard as possible. It rockets down the metal frame, bounces onto the lane, flies straight and true down the centre, and hits the ten pins dead on, toppling every single one of them.
“Camera Jamie,” I order.
He doesn’t need telling twice. As Poppy proceeds to wiggle her bum again in celebration, Jamie starts snapping away with the iPhone, trying his hardest not to ruin the shot from laughing so hard.
The next five rounds of bowling go a similar way to the first three, so by the time we reach the tenth and final frame, Jamie is beating me by eight points and Poppy has murdered the pair of us with a total of six strikes.
It’d be highly embarrassing were it not for the pleasure derived from Poppy’s victory dance. As the game has progressed, it’s become more and more outlandish, culminating with her spinning around and around with her arms out wide, until she had to stop or be sick all over her bowling shoes.
Jamie has managed to capture all of this on video as well as in photos. As he goes up to take his final bowl, I pick up the iPhone and begin to cycle through the images he’s caught.
A huge smile spreads across my face as I look through the multiple shots of my happy, celebrating daughter.
Here’s Poppy jumping in the air.
Here’s Poppy waving her hands above her head.
Here’s Poppy spinning round on her bum.
Here’s Poppy holding a bowling ball above her head in triumph.
Here’s Mindy the letting agent with her tits out.
My jaw goes slack. My eyes widen in shock.
The pictures of my gorgeous daughter have ended, to be replaced with three shots of a blonde Australian woman wearing red bikini briefs, a suggestive smile, and nothing else.
Obviously taken by Mindy into a mirror, they each demonstrate a different sexually alluring pose. In the first image she’s standing face on, head cocked, and breasts thrust out. The second is taken from over the shoulder, her back arched and her bottom stuck out. The third is the worst. This one has been taken lying on a bed, her legs open with the camera held off to one side. Her other hand is between her legs.
My heart starts to race. My vision starts to blur. I find it hard to catch my breath.
“Mummy?” I hear Poppy say. “Are you okay?”
“Laura? What’s the matter?” Jamie asks and sits down next to me. He puts one arm around my shoulder.
“Get your hands off me,” I hiss.
“What’s the matter?” he repeats.
“I said get your hands off me!” I shrug my shoulders, shaking him off.
Jamie sits back startled. “What’s got into you?” he says.
I hand him the iPhone. “Would you like to explain this?” I say in a level voice. All I really want to do is scream and start hitting him as hard as I can, but I have a daughter to think about, so keep a lid on my rage.
Jamie takes the phone and looks at it. His face goes ashen.
“Are you okay, Daddy?” Poppy asks him. Now she’s worried about both of us.
I force a smile. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. “Why don’t you go take your turn, sweetheart? Daddy and I are just talking. We’re fine though, I promise.”
Poppy turns away and goes to warm up for her seventh and final strike of the day. I clench my fist and warm up for a strike of a different kind.
“I…I…” Jamie stammers. “I don’t know how these got on here.”
“Really? You don’t know how pictures of a naked girl got on your phone?”
“No.”
“Have you been fucking her, Jamie?”
“What?”
“When I’ve been out at work and you’ve been swanning around doing bugger all, I mean. Has little Mindy been keeping you company?”
“No! I told you I have no idea how—” Jamie stops talking, looks into the middle distance for a moment and then groans. “Oh shit, I do know how these got on here.”
“Do you? Was it before or after you had sex with her?”
“I never had sex with her!”
While Poppy occupies herself with two more strikes to finish her game, Jamie spins me a story about how he was by the swimming pool back at our apartment complex with Mindy one day back in September. He then goes on to explain how he left his phone by the pool in his rush to get away from Little Miss Hand Job, who returned it to him shortly after.
“That must’ve been when she took the pictures!” he tries to convince me. “She must have done them at her place before bringing the phone back to me.”
“And you expect me to believe that?”
“It’s the truth!”
“Oh, like the way you called yourself Glen Artichoke at the speed dating? Was that the truth? Or how about the time you said you were sure you knew the way back to the campsite in Wookey Hole? Was that the truth?”
“Why the fuck are you bringing those things up, you maniac?!”
“Don’t call me a maniac.” I waggle my finger dangerously close to his eye socket. “You spend the whole of last night having a go at me for keeping what happened with Alan a secret, when you’ve been keeping this shit secret from me?”
“Oh, it’s completely different Laura!”
“Different? DIFFERENT?” I spring to my feet in barely controlled fury. As I hear my daughter whoop with delight thanks to her final strike of the day, I ball up one fist and stare at my husband’s stupid face. “You know what you are, Jamie?”
“
What?”
“You’re a cunt.”
His face goes slack. Mine does too. I never say that word. Not ever. But here I am using it to describe the closest person in the world to me. It feels like the universe has shifted on its axis. We stare at each other for a moment, digesting the magnitude of what’s just happened. I lick my lips, which have suddenly gone very dry.
“I’m going back to the car,” I say in a dull voice. “You finish here with Poppy, and then we are going home.”
I don’t wait for a response. I can’t stand to be in his presence for another second. I don’t cry either. That will come later tonight when he’s snoring his head off out on the couch in the living room, and I’m sitting in bed with a pillow clasped to my chest.
The flight back to the Gold Coast was conducted in uncomfortable silence all the way. Jamie and I haven’t spoken to each other at all since Sunday, other than when Poppy is around and we’re putting a brave face on the situation for her sake. She’s a clever little girl, though. She knows that something is very definitely up with Mummy and Daddy. The look of worry on her face makes me sick with guilt.
The atmosphere between Jamie and me has been palpable since we got home to our apartment, and I find myself on the verge of tears whenever we’re in the same room together. From the glassy look in his eyes, I think he’s in much the same state.
I tried to talk to him about it all last night, but he refused to engage with me and left to go out for a walk. I didn’t see him again for nearly two hours. A dark, scared part of me thought he might have gone to see Mindy the letting agent.
Oh Mum, what am I going to do?
For the first time I feel like my marriage is actually going to end. Jamie doesn’t trust me. I don’t trust him. We’ve kept secrets from one another and there may be no way back from that.
God, I can’t stop crying. And I can’t shift the cold, dead feeling I have in my heart. I wish we’d never come to Australia.
I love you and miss you so, so much, Mum.
Your daughter, Laura.
xx
JAMIE’S BLOG
Wednesday 22 November
The worst week of my life was also Poppy’s first when she caught pneumonia. Coming in at number two is the past seven days I’ve had to endure since we got back from Cairns.
Laura and I only speak to argue, and I’m sleeping on the couch. My wife and I have had our disagreements in the past, but it was always between just her and me—there were never outside influences like love-struck Australians in the mix.
I had no idea Mindy had taken those bloody pictures. I barely use the camera on that stupid iPhone so had no reason to go through my photo album at any point. I would have surely deleted them the second I saw them…after having jerked off.
Laura’s reaction when she got a look at them was entirely understandable. I’m amazed she didn’t ram one of those bowling balls up my arse. Finding pictures of a woman prostrate on a bed, about to send her fingers into the promised land is just about the worst thing you could find on your husband’s phone. Unless it was a man prostrate on the bed, I suppose.
Mindy could have at least made her divorce-worthy shots a bit more artistic and run them through Instagram.
I tried over and over again to convince Laura of my innocence. But how is she supposed to believe me about this, when I’m struggling so hard to believe her about what’s been going on with her boss? I know I should trust her, but I just can’t get the fact that she’s been showered with all these gifts for months without telling me about it once! Why do that unless you’ve got something to hide?
Alan Brookes is a rich, successful, handsome older man who could give Laura the kind of lifestyle she can only dream about married to yours truly. Is it totally unreasonable for me to suspect something might be going on? I’d certainly be tempted by his rugged charm and enormous bank account if I were her, especially given how pathetic my contribution to our relationship has been over the past year. I bet Alan’s never thrown a tantrum in a supermarket over a bag of frozen burgers or forced his family to spend the night under the roof of a couple of sexual deviants in their sixties.
Speaking of whom, I spoke to Bob for the first time since the adventure we had in the winter. We’d been successfully dodging both him and his vibrator-loving wife for the past few months, but I was caught with nowhere to run the other day. I can blame Mindy for this, along with the imminent breakup of my marriage.
After another one of my long, miserable walks (which are becoming customary as the days go by), I was returning to our apartment, trudging along the path, when I see Mindy trotting down a set of stairs on the opposite side of the courtyard. I do the mature and sensible thing by jumping into the nearest bush and hiding like a little girl until she’s moved away.
“You alright down there?” Bob says from beside me, where he’s been cutting the bushes back.
I look up into his weathered face and sigh. “Afternoon Bob. I could spend the next five minutes stuttering at you, trying to come up with a reasonable explanation as to why I’m hiding in this bush, but we both know it’d be a lie, wouldn’t we?”
“I guess so.”
“Right. Therefore, I’m going to do something totally out of character and just be bluntly honest. How would that suit?”
“Sounds good to me, fella.”
“Excellent. I’m in this bush to hide from Mindy, because she wants to have sex with me. Does that make sense?”
Bob rubs his chin. “If you were single, no. But as you’re married? Perfect sense, mate.”
“Thank you.”
Bob looks over the bush. “Looks like she’s gone. The coast is clear.”
“Good.” I stand up and brush myself off. “How are you Bob?”
“Fine thanks.” He regards me carefully for a moment. “I’ve got a question for you mate, if that’s alrigh—”
I hold up a hand. “I’ll stop you there, Bob. I know what you’re going to say. We didn’t mean to leave it on the counter like that. It wouldn’t flush and it was supposed to go in the bin, but we got distracted, locked out of the house, and had to leave it there.”
“Aaah, right. Sandra thought you were a pair of bloody fools.”
I provide Bob with a heartfelt look of dismay. “We are Bob, just not that kind of fool. Have a nice rest of the day, won’t you?”
“Yeah, you too mate.”
I step back onto the path and make my way home in a reflective mood. If only sorting my problems out with the wife was as easy as that had been.
Sadly, there was no way of avoiding Mindy today. Not when she turned up at the door dressed for business and holding a clipboard, asking to carry out an inspection of the apartment.
“Is it due again already?” I ask.
“Yeah. Been three months since the last one, Jamie.”
“And you couldn’t have given us any more notice? I mean, the place isn’t that clean or anything right now.”
“Well, I could do it next week, but I saw you were in today, so thought I’d try. Do you want me to come back in a few days then?”
“No, no. Let’s get it over with,” I sigh and let Mindy in. Given the circumstances, I’m sure this isn’t a good idea, but with Laura at work it’s probably best to get the inspection out of the way here and now. I can only begin to imagine how awkward it would be if my wife were here while Mindy poked around the bedroom looking for areas of wear and tear.
“So how have you been, Jamie?” Mindy asks as she makes a few notes about the state of the kitchen on her clipboard.
“Fine thanks,” I lie.
“You haven’t spoken to me recently.” A small smile plays across her lips. “Did I do something bad?”
Oh good grief.
“I think you know what you did Mindy.”
“The photos?” she says coyly and
nibbles on the end of her pen.
“Yeah. My wife saw them.”
“Oh! I’m so sorry!” She has the decency to look horrified. “They were just meant for you.”
“Yes, I assumed that.”
“I thought you’d look at them straightaway.”
“Well, I didn’t. Laura found them, so now I sleep on the couch.”
“I didn’t mean for that to happen, Jamie.” The coy look has returned. “I just wanted to make you horny for me.”
“Did you really? I hadn’t realised…”
Mindy throws the clipboard onto the kitchen counter and slowly runs her hands down her body. “Yeah. I’ve wanted you ever since I first saw you. You’re not like all the other guys I know.”
“You’re into men with crow’s feet and a slight paunch, are you?”
“No, I’m into sexy older men, just like you.”
Now she’s lifting her skirt to let me catch a glimpse at the black lingerie she’s wearing underneath. The stockings have tiny red bows on them.
“Stop that, Mindy.”
“Why? Don’t you like it?”
One part of my anatomy does, but I’m resolutely ignoring the little sod.
I move over to Mindy and grab her hands. “Stop doing that Mindy. I don’t want you to carry on.”
She pouts and raises her chin. “Not even if I do this?” One hand goes to my crotch. “Fuck me,” she whispers breathily into my ear.
I back away like I’ve just been hit with a cattle prod. My heart beats a mile a minute.
“I think you need to leave Mindy,” I say in a shaky voice. “This inspection’s over.”
Her hands go to her hips. “You’re really going to turn me down?”
“Yes.”
“You could have me in every room, you know.” She bites her finger. “You can have me any way and anywhere you like.”
Love...Under Different Skies Page 23
