The Yorkshire Pudding Club

by Milly Johnson

  ‘In the end I had to knee him in the spuds to get him off and, well, you can imagine the names he called me. Not exactly the gent I thought he was.’ She sighed and it was a deep, tired sound. ‘I don’t know, Janey. Maybe it is my fault. Maybe I’m just one of those people who give out signals…’ She gulped a few times and Janey wanted to hug her, but felt she didn’t have the right to.

  ‘You don’t do anything wrong,’ she said softly. ‘It’s them that see what they want to see.’

  ‘You were quick enough to believe it.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I feel terrible, if it’s any consolation.’

  ‘It’s okay, forget it now.’

  Elizabeth being gracious about it made Janey feel even more of a cow. A big, fat, bovine hypocrite going on about infidelity as if she was the Virgin Mary. Her, of all people! Now that was a joke and a half.

  ‘So what did you ring me about last night then?’ asked the cow, sheepishly.

  ‘About dying in childbirth,’ Elizabeth said in a very wobbly voice. ‘I got myself in a loop about it after what Simon said. All I could think about was me dying and my baby having nobody, or the baby dying and having a white coffin…’ Her voice dissolved on the word and her head tipped forward into her hands and she couldn’t get it together again.

  ‘Oh, Elizabeth,’ said Janey, and opened up her Big Momma arms and pulled her friend up from her seat and into them. Elizabeth only came up to her shoulder. She used to be taller than me once: did I grow or did she shrink? thought Janey with an overwhelming fondness for her little friend. However could I have thought all those things about her–Elizabeth Collier? It had been like having their own personal minder at school. Her mind rewound to that bitch Carmen Varley who made Helen’s life hell, and boz-eyed Miriam Sutton who used to call Janey ‘Fatty Arbuckle’. That was, until Elizabeth waded in like a Tasmanian Devil with her fists flying and without a care for the resulting detention or the bruises she sustained, because Carmen and Miriam were tough, meaty girls and got a few hits in before Elizabeth obliterated them. Funny how Elizabeth always thought she was twisted, but where friends were concerned she was as straight as a die, thought Janey. Whereas she…

  ‘Anyway, never mind about me, what about Hels? I’ve driven myself nuts trying to work out what to do, and I can’t think of anything. I’m damned if I tell her and damned if I don’t,’ Elizabeth said, with a loaded sigh.

  ‘I don’t see there’s anything we can do, Elizabeth,’ said Janey, and that was the sad truth of it. As far as either of them could see, all they could do was sit back and wait for the crash.

  And sit back and wait they did, but nothing happened and certainly, for the next week and a half anyway, life outwardly carried on as normal for the Golden Cadberrys. Helen had her friends over for tea on an evening when Simon was doing an overnight in London to show them the beautiful completed nursery, which made Elizabeth doubly wish she had done hers earlier because she had really left it too late to do now. Janey told her to ask John to help–he and George together would have it done in a couple of days, but Elizabeth didn’t ask favours and Janey knew better than to push her on it. Then Helen made her feel a little better by saying that the baby would probably be in with her in the ‘womb room’ for a few months so there really was no rush.

  Helen was looking so pretty and lovely at thirty-one weeks, still maintaining her air of delicacy despite her fast-growing girth, although she would have traded anything for a bigger chest, like the others had. She had not put on nearly as much weight as either of them. Elizabeth was turning into a small football and her already generously proportioned bust had ballooned, much to Helen’s envy. Janey was starting to resemble some formidable horned-hat warrior queen from a Wagner opera. Her breasts were growing so much that each one would have a different post-code soon. Her face looked like a full moon and she had splashed out and gone to Antony Fawkes, the posh hairdresser in town, for a complete restyle as her straight, shoulder-length hair only accentuated the roundness. Their top stylist had cut her hair in a fringe, given her a swishy little bob and put some choppy dark streaks in it to add interest to the red; it was the best hundred quid she had spent in a long time.

  They all sat in Helen’s surgery-like kitchen, taking alternate swigs from their cups of raspberry-leaf tea, which apparently aided a smooth delivery, and bottles of Gaviscon, totally ignoring the ‘one teaspoon every three months’ instruction. It was a standing joke at the doctor’s surgery how much of it Elizabeth was going through. Dr Gilhooley said she was practically an addict.

  ‘Should I be drinking stout for the iron?’ she had asked him. Being Irish, he was bound to extol its dark and creamy benefits.

  ‘What the hell do you want to drink that foul stuff for?’ he had said, and told her to eat lots of sprouts instead.

  Helen took a long guzzle of Gaviscon and shuddered as it went down.

  ‘Hubby back tomorrow?’ asked Janey politely, without any of her drooling. Simon had well and truly fallen from grace now in her eyes.

  ‘Yep–and guess what? I’m going away for a couple of days on Friday myself,’ Helen announced.

  ‘Anywhere nice?’ asked Janey, swinging her hair as it was still a novelty.

  ‘Mum’s taking me to a health spa to rejuvenate me.’

  ‘Oh, that’ll be lovely for you,’ Elizabeth said, knowing that it would be, too–only the best was good enough for Mrs Luxmore. It hurt her to see how much Helen smiled then, how much she thought everything in her garden was lovely. Still, a nice weekend relaxing away from that toxic dickhead she was married to could only do her the world of good.

  And so off Helen went to her fancy health spa, little realizing just how rejuvenated she would actually be when the end of that weekend came.

  Chapter 36

  The Luxmore ladies arrived at ‘The Retreat’ just in time for lunch. After a harvest festival of a salad, Helen had a long swim, a yoga class, a light supper and an hour’s massage just before bed, and still she tossed and turned in between the cool, white sheets, ring-roading the city of sleep. How could she think of enjoying herself there whilst her marriage lay in little more than tatters at home? Simon was going to be alone in their house all weekend–surely she should be there instead, spending the time with him. So, early in the morning, she left a note for her mother at Reception to say she was getting the train back; she would explain later and told her not to worry. Penelope Luxmore would be disappointed, but she would still enjoy her time at the spa. She had been there many times before and was no stranger to the facilities. Helen, however, knew her priority was to go home and work on her relationship, before it was too late. She and Simon might have recently reached a turning-point, but there was still a long way to go. She had to fight for her marriage for the sake of their baby.

  As the taxi pulled up on the main road, Helen noticed that Simon’s car was out in the driveway, which was unusual, and even odder, it was blocking in a snazzy red Mini. She trod over the gravel as slowly and as quietly as she could without fully understanding why she needed to act like that–call it instinct, call it panic.

  She unlocked the back door and crept in, discovering just how stealthily a heavily pregnant woman could move. Gliding like a cat through the kitchen and into the lounge, she was immediately alerted to the trail of clothes across the carpet there–a G-string, a bra that she could have carried a hundredweight of melons in, shoes, a pair of black stockings. She scooped them up and stuffed them in a cupboard out of sight, along with the alien handbag on the sofa. Her heart felt dry, each beat a loud and painful throb; her throat was so parched she felt sure it was on the verge of cracking.

  She stole like a whisper down the hallway, picking through the silence for evidence of what was going on, and then stopped outside her own bedroom door when she heard her husband’s voice from within it say, ‘Look, I’ll ring her in a minute to see what time she’s coming back tomorrow if you’re that worried.’

  Then a female voice answered, ‘I
wish you would. I’ve just got this funny feeling, that’s all. I don’t want to bump into her in the hallway.’

  They both laughed at that.

  ‘I love your tits.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘They’re huge.’

  ‘Are they as good as your wife’s?’

  ‘You’re joking, aren’t you? They’re like mosquito bites!’

  They laughed again. At Helen.

  ‘Come here, you,’ he said smokily. Just as he used to say at the beginning, when Helen thought she was the luckiest woman alive. Just as he said to Helen before rolling her beneath him and kissing her that sex-charged night when together they made the beautiful daughter who was growing inside her; the child who was being as betrayed as she was.

  Helen’s trembling hand sought out the door handle; she braced herself, then charged into her bedroom to see a scrawny shape with enormous bobbling breasts riding her husband, whose hands were handcuffed to the wrought-iron bedhead with something covered in pink feathers. They all froze in a tableau of Pregnant Wife Discovers Cheating Husband With Tart; even the clock seemed to hold its breath. The naked couple were in the bed in which Simon had taken his wife’s virginity, and where they had made their child. Their bed, their child.

  Helen felt the agony of tears make their barbed way up to her ducts, and just as she was about to collapse into them, she heard that voice again: ‘Come on, girl, where’s that Luxmore backbone!’ and the tears stopped their passage and were driven back. It was as if her father was inside her, propping her up, straightening her spine, and in the few moments that followed his words in her head, all hell broke loose.

  ‘Helen, look…’ said Simon, rattling uselessly against the pink fluff and metal.

  ‘I’m looking,’ she said, sounding remarkably calm considering her heart was booming as loud in her ears as a Status Quo concert.

  ‘It’s not what you think.’

  Yes, he actually said that. Miss Handcuff-administrator was attempting to cover her bulbous-like growths with two tiny doll-like hands, whilst trying to work out how to get round the tall, blonde woman to escape to her clothes.

  ‘I just needed some sex and I didn’t want to hurt the baby,’ Simon went on.

  As if it wasn’t bad enough, he’s actually using the baby as an excuse for his behaviour, thought Helen with disgust.

  Big Boobs did not look very happy at that and started raining expletives on him whilst slapping him. Her hands were so occupied that she did not notice Helen coming up behind her–a Helen who was no longer a gentle, fluffy thing, especially with the advantage of the extra weight behind her. This was a Helen who was boiling with adrenaline and rage for herself, but most of all for her unborn child. Growling like a savage, she lifted the naked woman up by the back of her hair and propelled her down the hallway with hardly an effort. She left him wriggling away on the bed trying to get free and looking remarkably as if he was having an epileptic fit. Helen picked off his keys from the hook as she passed: she did not want this thing in her own car. She stormed out of the front door and down the path towards Simon’s BMW, not loosening her grip for one nano-second.

  ‘Ow, ow, ow!’ the woman cried as the stones cut into her bare feet. Helen zapped the car doors open and threw her onto the back seat.

  ‘Time to drive you home, I think,’ she said.

  ‘My h…h…handbag, p…please,’ the woman stuttered.

  ‘I’ll have it sent on,’ said Helen.

  ‘It’s got my door keys in it!’

  ‘Tough.’

  The woman tried to get out as Helen fired up the ignition, but the childproof locks made that an impossibility.

  ‘Could I at least have my clothes?’ she said, rather snottily, whilst trying to cover herself with an ancient torn A to Z that disintegrated upon unfolding.

  ‘No, you can’t. You shouldn’t have taken them off, should you?’ hissed Helen, spraying gravel as she squealed out of the drive, accelerating away like Ralph Schumacher from a pitstop.

  The woman, whoever she was, then started sobbing her apologies, not that Helen was in the slightest bit softened by them. She was thinking about all those times that Simon told her he was too tired to make love, how disinterested he had been in her and her baby, and in the back of her car was the reason why–because he was spending his executive energies on her. The woman had squeezed herself into a small pink ball on the car floor, trying to cover herself up with her hands as Helen roared through the prestigious little village of six-figure salaries, double garages and remote-controlled gates.

  ‘Where do you live?’ said Helen, realizing she had not a clue where she was supposed to be driving to and was presently on automatic pilot for the centre of town.

  ‘Er…Horsforth,’ came the meek answer.

  Helen had not a clue how to get there–M1 and follow the signs when she got near Leeds, she supposed. She had better do a double-back through town then and head for the motorway in that case.

  It was Saturday afternoon and the town’s main market-day. Crowds were everywhere, but luckily for the woman crouching in the back, every traffic-light seemed to turn to green on approach. Helen could not see her at all in the rearview mirror; she was successfully managing to avoid public humiliation by being so skinny that she could sink into the footwell, although the sight of her naked astride her husband was branded on Helen’s brain. Their laughter rang in her ears like a severe attack of tinnitus and their scoffing words were playing on a continuous loop. I don’t want to bump into her in the hallway…ha, ha, ha…mosquito bites…I don’t want to bump into her in the hallway…ha, ha, ha…

  Lava started to spill out of Helen’s veins just as she braked for the red traffic-light in the epicentre of the town, and in an impetuous moment of devilment, she pressed down the electric window switches, ignoring the yelp from the back, then twisted the key in the ignition until it gave a satisfying snap. It took almost superhuman strength to do it, but at that moment, Helen was superhuman–a good Angel of Justice fused with a dark Angel of Vengeance. She sprang off her seat-belt and got out of the car.

  ‘What are you doing?’ cried Boob Woman with a desperate sob.

  ‘I’m going home,’ said Helen, leaving the car door wide open and walking off triumphantly towards the taxi rank. Behind her, drivers started to honk at the abandoned vehicle, and an interested crowd started to gather around what appeared to be a well-stacked naked woman in the middle of Barnsley on a Saturday afternoon.

  Simon was still struggling against the handcuffs when she got home.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ he screamed. ‘Just get me out of these things. The key must have fallen on the floor here, this side,’ and he butted his head towards her bedside cabinet. ‘Now, Helen!’

  Helen noted that there was no courteous enquiry about where his companion was, even though he must have known that a return trip to her house could not have been possible in twenty minutes. She picked up the keys from the carpet and saw the relief wash over his face.

  ‘Now unlock…what are you doing?’

  She put the handcuff keys in her pocket. He then watched her take out a digital camera from her drawer and start to photograph him. She had always meant to renew her old pastime. What better occasion than this to pick it up?

  ‘You crazy mad bitch! Stop that! I mean it, Helen!’

  ‘Smile,’ said Helen, actually enjoying herself, feeding from his frenzied attempts to escape the tight metal cuffs. This temporary sadistic possession was holding off the other feelings that she knew were only round the corner–ones of hurt and betrayal and sadness that her marriage was over because there could be no recovery from this. He had not wounded their relationship, he had killed it with one clean blow. Their marriage was history, and their future family life with their child was history, and for the latter she hated him most of all and kept on snapping because of it. He sneezed. The air seemed full of bits of escapee feathers.

  ‘By the time I come back in four h
ours, you will have left,’ she said eventually. ‘Or you have no idea what I’ll do with these pictures.’

  ‘Has it crossed your stupid, tiny brain that if I’m to leave, you will have to get me out of these things?’

  He was furious now, red-faced like a restrained demon that needed exorcizing, not releasing. He called her the worst names he could think of, names that her unborn child was hearing, and she was not going to let them go by unpunished.

  ‘You really shouldn’t swear at me like that, Simon,’ she said with a tired sigh. Then she picked up the bedroom phone and dialled in a number after finding it in the Thomson Local.

  ‘Hello, is that Phoenix Locksmiths?…Yes, sorry, my husband’s managed to get himself in a bit of a pickle with his mistress. Could you send someone round to release a lock?…Yes, I’ll give you the address…I’ve got to go out but I’ll leave the door open. Just go straight through to the bedroom–you’ll find him in there naked and handcuffed to the bedpost…No, you can’t miss him, he’s covered in pink feathers…Thirty minutes? Good, thank you.’

  She turned to the snarling, spitting creature writhing on the bed and screaming out commands and terrible expletives. She was calm as a millpond, detached, indifferent to the terrible embarrassment he was about to undergo, even though less than an hour ago she loved him so much that she could not wait to get back to him to repair their damaged marriage. Now she felt nothing.

  ‘Four hours,’ she repeated, and with that, Helen took the last-ever look at her husband on their marital bed and went out to the garage, past the tarty red Mini to drive to the Old Rectory, where she would sit on the swing in her mother and father’s garden and plan the first stage of her newly single life.