It's Not You, It's Them

by Portia MacIntosh

  ‘Don’t forget your walking boots, Shorty,’ Mark teases. ‘We’ve got those big hills to trek up and down.’

  ‘Oh, goodie,’ I reply sarcastically. ‘Can’t wait.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Learning from our last family trip to the pub, today we’ve opted not to sit all at one table. Instead, we’ve broken off into groups based on who we get on with, so obviously I’m just propping up the bar with Kerry, me on the customer side, her behind it, serving, so she can keep us in drinks.

  ‘I just can’t get over how funny you are,’ she persists. ‘That article was amazing. Do you have more stuff like that I can read?’

  ‘God, loads,’ I tell her honestly. ‘I’ll send you a few that I think you might like.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she replies, placing another vodka and orange down in front of me. ‘Maybe I can learn a trick or two to improve my sex life. Absolutely horrendous dry spell at the moment.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ I reply under my breath, but not so quiet it can’t be heard.

  ‘Ooh, what’s up?’ Kerry asks nosily. ‘The machine not getting oiled like it usually is?’

  ‘I think it’s just being here, around his family; he’s either not in the mood, or we try and it goes wrong… I don’t know what to do, but I know I desperately need some alone time with him, and we’re not going to get any until we’re back in London.’

  A little depressed at the situation, I down my drink in one.

  A mischievous smile spreads across Kerry’s face. I don’t know what she’s thinking, but I can tell she’s stirring up trouble in that head of hers.

  ‘I think I can help,’ she tells me, riffling around under the bar.

  ‘Oh, God, please don’t drug him for me – or anyone else for that matter.’

  Kerry laughs.

  Before she has chance to say anything else, Millie rushes past me, bumping into me on her way.

  ‘Sorry,’ she calls back, waving her phone at me, ‘but I’ve got to take this outside.’

  ‘Do you have signal, too?’ I ask, frustrated. Everyone has signal but me.

  ‘Yeah. And I’m not going to drug anyone, you stupid cow,’ she says, punching me playfully (although a little roughly) on the arm as she drops a book down on the bar in front of me. ‘This place is a B&B and according to the book it’s empty right now. How about I pass you a set of keys and you and Mark sneak off upstairs for a bit of alone time?’

  Just in case I wasn’t sure what ‘alone time’ was, Kerry wiggles her eyebrows widely.

  I’m about to politely decline her crazy offer when my own words echo around in my head: don’t ever let anyone make you feel like you’re wrong for thinking that sex is important, because it is so important.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say quietly, picking up the keys she’s left on top of the bar.

  ‘Room eight,’ she tells me. ‘And you’re welcome. You can just give me some decent pulling tips later and we’ll call it quits.’

  ‘Deal,’ I reply, pulling myself to my feet. I go to take a step, just as Mel rushes past me, not saying a word as she dashes for the loos.

  ‘She’s a weird one,’ Kerry informs me. ‘Bulimic, for sure.’

  ‘Is she?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s obvious,’ Kerry replies, sipping her pint thoughtfully. ‘She says she’s on this diet, she’s throwing up after she eats – she’s so skinny.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ I reply.

  ‘It is,’ she agrees. ‘Now, go fuck my cousin.’

  I laugh awkwardly as I walk off, spying Mark watching football on the big screen. As I’m walking over there, Ste makes a beeline for me.

  ‘Hey, Roxie,’ he chirps.

  ‘Hi,’ I reply. ‘Just on my way to talk to Mark about something important.’

  ‘He’s watching football,’ Ste tells me, as though my woman brain is too tiny to come to that conclusion on my own. ‘We could go out to the smoking area, chat, get to know each other better. They’ve got heaters and blankets out there, it’s really nice.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I reply. ‘But I really need to talk to Mark.’

  ‘Roxie, come on,’ Ste insists. ‘We’re both bored, we’re both lonely…’

  ‘Yeah, come on, Roxie,’ Kerry interrupts. I don’t know how long she’s been listening, but she’s down our end of the bar now. ‘Go outside, Ste. I’ll send her out in a minute with drinks for you both.’

  Ste, wide-eyed with delight, rushes out through the side door, into the outdoor smoking area. I look at Kerry for an explanation.

  ‘That pervert bothering you?’ she asks me. ‘You can tell me if he is, he’s a dirty little bastard. Last time I saw him, he got drunk and tried to touch my tits.’

  ‘He was touching my leg under the table last time we were here,’ I admit, shaking my head at how disgusting he is.

  ‘Well, never mind,’ she says, locking the door he just walked out of. ‘Off you pop – go find Mark.’

  ‘Let him back in once I’m gone,’ I laugh.

  ‘Nah, he can die out there for all I care,’ she says flippantly. ‘Might even turn the heaters off.’

  Certain this is just Kerry’s weird sense of humour, I continue on my quest to get Mark’s attention and drag him upstairs for a quickie.

  He’s in full-on football mode, eyes glued to the screen, gesturing wildly at the referee’s decisions he doesn’t agree with, gesturing even more wildly when something does go in his team’s favour.

  I place my hands on his shoulder and whisper into his ear.

  ‘Can I borrow you for a moment, please?’ I ask, my unmistakable sexy voice engaged.

  ‘Sure,’ he replies cautiously.

  I lead him over to the bottom of the stairs, checking no one is watching us before dragging him up.

  ‘Rox, where are we going?’ he asks me, confused by my strange behaviour.

  I continue to lead him down the corridor as I simultaneously explain to him and hunt for room eight.

  ‘Your wonderful cousin Kerry has given us some keys to an empty room,’ I tell him as I clap eyes on room eight. ‘That means we can have a bit of fun.’

  ‘Roxie, I don’t think this is a good idea,’ Mark insists, but I won’t be put off, because this is important.

  ‘Come on, it’ll be romantic,’ I insist as I unlock the door. ‘In this beautiful room… full of ducks.’

  I finish my sentence as I clap eyes on the décor. I thought downstairs had a lot of duck-themed items, but room eight… room eight is something else. This room isn’t only full of ducks, but they’re all real. Not alive, obviously, although that might be preferable to the array of taxidermy birds surrounding us, dotted around at all angles, staring at us with their dead, beady eyes.

  ‘OK, if I wasn’t completely against the idea before, I am dead against it now,’ he tells me. ‘I can’t do it with these watching me.’

  ‘Only this week you told me you’d be able to have sex with me if you were on fire, or I were covered in mud… You’re telling me a few stuffed birds are going to put you off?’

  Mark thinks for a moment.

  ‘How do you always manage to get your own way?’ he asks me.

  ‘You must really like me,’ I tease him. ‘Now take your clothes off, and get on that bed.’

  Mark, always eager to make me happy, does as he is told, and I gladly slip off my own disgusting, borrowed outfit before joining him.

  I know this was supposed to be a quickie, but I’ve missed this so much and I want to take my time as much as possible so I climb on top of him, pinning his wrists to the bed as I kiss him slowly on the lips.

  ‘You make me crazy,’ he says breathlessly. ‘You finally have me, and you’re going to tease me?’

  ‘Only for a few seconds,’ I whisper, grazing his lips with mine. ‘Then I’m going to run my tongue all over your body, until you say…’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ cries a little old lady, standing in the bathroom doorway, wrapped in a towel. Mark and I jump to our fee
t. Unable to put our clothes on quickly enough, I grab the duvet to wrap around my body while Mark protects his modesty with this poor seventy-something lady’s floral dressing gown, hastily wrapping it around his body.

  ‘I’m so sorry, so so sorry,’ I babble.

  ‘Get out, get out,’ the old lady screams.

  As we snatch up our clothes, I don’t think things could possibly get any worse. Until Mark’s Auntie Gail comes rushing in.

  ‘Mrs Wilson, are you OK?’ she asks, before clapping eyes on the two of us, standing naked over by the bed. ‘What… what is going on?’

  ‘I thought this room was supposed to be empty. There wasn’t anything in the book,’ I reply, not really explaining what we’re doing here.

  ‘All of the rooms are occupied, but nothing is in the book,’ she informs me. ‘People are staying here who got stuck when the snow set in. I can’t very well charge them for that, can I?’

  ‘Auntie, I’m so sorry,’ Mark says sincerely. ‘And, madam, I am so sorry you had to see what you saw.’

  As Mrs Wilson calms down a little, I can see she’s coming round a little to the fit, nearly naked young man in her room. That doesn’t make it OK, though.

  ‘I’m sorry, too,’ I tell them both. ‘Kerry told me the room would be empty; she gave us the keys so we could have some time alone. We’ve been struggling, you see,’ I tell the old lady.

  ‘No harm,’ she replies. ‘Just a shock, that’s all.’

  ‘Please don’t tell my mum,’ Mark begs his auntie. Before she has chance to say yes, Valerie appears in the doorway.

  ‘Tell me wh… oh, my God,’ Val says, changing sentence mid-course. She turns to me angrily: ‘You’ve made my son a deviant.’

  ‘Mum, it’s not her fault,’ he tells her, sounding like a naughty child who has just been caught doing something he shouldn’t.

  ‘He’s a grown man, Val. I don’t make him do anything.’

  ‘He feels pressured,’ she tells me. ‘He feels like he has to for your silly job writing about strange sexual practices.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Mark laughs, but his mum isn’t having any of it. She storms off, Gail following close behind her, but not before apologising to Mrs Wilson again. Now it’s just the three of us.

  ‘I really am sorry,’ I tell her again. I can’t apologise enough.

  ‘That’s OK, my love,’ Mrs Wilson replies. ‘I was young once. Do you want me to shut myself in the bathroom for fifteen minutes?’

  ‘No,’ Mark replies quickly. ‘We appreciate the offer, but no.’

  ‘Well, maybe I’ll pop in for five minutes so you can put your clothes on,’ she kindly offers. Once Mrs Wilson is out of the way, we hurriedly get dressed.

  ‘I am mortified,’ Mark tells me as we head back downstairs. ‘This trip has just been embarrassing situation after embarrassing situation.’

  ‘I know,’ I reply. ‘I don’t know how this has happened.’

  ‘Just… please stop trying so hard,’ he tells me, stopping halfway down the stairs. ‘I appreciate what you’re doing. We just need to be more careful.’

  ‘OK,’ I reply.

  ‘I’ll smooth things over with my mum, don’t worry.’

  ‘OK,’ I say again, but I’m not so sure. His mum has this image of an evil, child-hating, sexual predator of a militant feminist who is leading her son astray and throwing his life dangerously off course. I’m not sure what he can do to smooth things over, and I’m not sure what I can do to change her opinion of me. This just feels like such a messy, hopeless situation, and I’m not sure what we’re going to do.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘Truth or dare, Millie?’

  ‘I’m not sure I want to play this,’ Millie tells Kerry, instead of answering.

  ‘Come on,’ Kerry whines. ‘You love to play games. And it’s not fair if you always get to pick them, is it?’

  After everything that went on at the pub, it wasn’t long before we returned to the Wright house. Although there was an undeniable new awkwardness between Valerie and me, I’m grateful she didn’t tell anyone else what had happened.

  Now we’re back at the house, Val and Oscar have gone to bed, the twins are tucked up and sound asleep, and Mel has just left us to go and lie down because she doesn’t feel well.

  Millie wanted us to play Who Am I? – the game where you write the name of a famous person on a piece of paper and stick it on the forehead of the person next to you. That person has to ask questions with yes or no answers to try and work out who they are, and it’s usually so much fun, but when Millie told us the ‘really funny’ story about the last time she played, when she wrote Dora the Explorer on Alex, I realised that the game is only fun when played with other like-minded adults. That’s why, when Kerry suggested Truth or Dare, I was delighted. We might finally be able to have some fun – it would just be more fun without Bea, obviously.

  ‘Fine. Truth,’ Millie gives in.

  We’re all sitting in the family room, cuddled up on the sofas, drinking wine, being warmed by the roaring fire. It’s nice. Sitting here with Mark’s arm around me, it reminds me just how much I love him, and makes me all the more determined to resolve our issues so that we can get back to being the perfect couple we were a few days ago.

  ‘OK,’ Kerry starts, thinking for a few seconds. ‘What’s the naughtiest thing you’ve ever done?’

  Millie considers this carefully for a few seconds.

  ‘Oh, I know,’ she says, before leaning in and lowering her voice a little. ‘I forgot to pay for my carrier bags when I went shopping a few weeks ago. I had six bags!’

  Millie drops her jaw for dramatic effect. Six bags! That’s, like, thirty pence worth of plastic bags she stole that day – naughty indeed.

  Kerry laughs wildly.

  ‘You are a rebel,’ she tells her sarcastically. ‘But I meant naughty as in sexual.’

  ‘Oh,’ Millie replies, her jaw dropping for real this time. ‘Erm…’

  I’d say having phone sex, outside in the snow, with someone who is not your husband is pretty naughty, but what do I know?

  ‘One time, we did it on the bedroom floor while the kids were asleep in our bed,’ she whispers, a look plastered across her face that suggests she can’t quite believe she’s telling us this.

  Alex blushes.

  ‘Wow,’ Kerry replies. ‘OK, that answer I accept. Your turn to ask someone something.’

  ‘OK,’ Millie says excitedly, clearly into it now despite her original reservations. ‘Mark. Truth or Dare?’

  ‘Truth,’ he replies, giving me a squeeze with the arm he has wrapped around me.

  ‘Of all the moxie sex scenes you replicated with Roxie, which was your favourite?’

  ‘It was one that didn’t make the article, actually,’ Mark starts. ‘It was the scene from Romeo + Juliet, where they’re under the big, white sheets, and you can just tell that they’re so in love. They just don’t give a shit about their problems, all they’re thinking about is each other. I loved recreating that, because it felt right.’

  ‘You never told me that,’ I reply.

  ‘Well, you said it was boring,’ he replies with a smile.

  I did say that, and now I feel terrible, but I mean that it seemed boring to include as part of the article. I enjoyed it just as much as he did.

  I notice that Millie is welling up a little.

  ‘That’s just beautiful,’ she says.

  Millie is a strange girl. She’s shy, with a voice so quiet and squeaky you could mistake her for a mouse. Were it not for her little stunt in the garden, I’d think she was a dull prude. She’s obviously got a trick or two up her sleeve.

  ‘I’m going to go check on Mel,’ Alex announces, heading for the door.

  I bet he is.

  ‘You chicken,’ Mark calls after him. ‘OK... Ste. Truth or dare?’

  ‘Truth,’ he replies, cockily.

  ‘It’s no fun if everyone picks truth,’ Kerry whines, topping up
her wine.

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ Mark insists. ‘What’s the most dishonest thing you’ve ever done?’

  Mark asks his question eagerly, and I’m not sure whether he’s just really getting into the game, or trying to get an insight into his little sister’s boyfriend.

  A smug grin spreads across Ste’s face.

  ‘I cheated on my girlfriend once,’ he starts.

  ‘That it?’ Kerry scoffs, unimpressed.

  ‘No,’ Ste tells her with a waggle of his finger. ‘So I cheat on her with some girl I met in a nightclub and…’

  ‘This had better not be my sister you’re talking about,’ Mark interrupts, angrily.

  ‘It’s not Mel, swear down,’ Ste assures him, his grin snapping straight back into place as he continues telling his tale. ‘So, I think I’ve got away with it but then I realise, holy shit, I’ve got chlamydia.’

  ‘I don’t want to play any more,’ Millie announces, jumping up and marching off before anyone has chance to change her mind. No one even tries; we’re all just completely captivated by this story.

  ‘But I’ve been sleeping with my girlfriend since I cheated, so I know she’s going to have it, too. So now I have this problem: if I tell her, she will leave me, and if I don’t tell her, when she realises she’s got chlamydia, she will leave me. So I’ve got to be smart, right? So the doctor has given me tablets to clear mine up, but only enough for one. So I go on the internet, find more of these tablets – same name, I checked, and buy some. Boom, my girlfriend takes them and she’s cured.’

  ‘That is so dangerous,’ Bea snaps, doctor mode: activated. ‘So, so dangerous.’

  ‘I couldn’t just leave her with chlamydia,’ he replies in his defence, like he’s a regular House M.D. ‘So, this is when my genius kicks in. I start texting myself, two different conversations. One from work, telling me I might have picked up a bug from a pond I had to clear out when I was doing a gardening job, telling me I need to see a doctor. Then I have another conversation with myself, pretending to be my doctor, telling me that I need to take these antibiotics, and that anyone who has been in close contact with me has to take them, too. I show these to my girlfriend, she doesn’t question it, takes the tablets and we’re both cured: hurrah. Genius, right?’