by Shari Low
Still, I wondered if I’d just fallen flat on my face over some kind of invisible adultery trip wire. How would I feel if it were Mark lying here with another woman next to him? Homicidal, was the first word that came into my head.
I couldn’t bear it. I’d hate it. I would be furious, hurt and devastated. Saint Carly of the Blessed Martyrdom would weep, wail and then do illegal things involving contact between hot wax and husband’s pubes.
I’d be gutted. This was wrong, I realised. So, so wrong. What was I thinking? Or forgetting to think? Shouldn’t I be keeping some kind of check on what was appropriate behaviour for a married woman? A married woman who loved her husband? I suddenly wanted to get up, get dressed, and go home.
I had a mental image of Mark standing in front of me, right there, right then. And his face was…
Totally impassive. He said hi to Sam, shook his hand and then had a twenty-minute chat with the masseurs about the transport links in Gothenburg.
My husband’s lack of any kind of jealousy gene was reassuring, admirable and bore great testament to his grounded sense of self. It also drove me fucking crazy. I understood his logic, though, having had it explained to me on numerous occasions when questioned as to why I could threaten to give blow jobs to the entire Chelsea football squad and he wouldn’t bat an eyelid.
‘Carly, I trust you. Would you ever do anything that would hurt me?’
‘No,’ I would answer. Well, you do, don’t you? Even Henry the Eighth wouldn’t have piped up with, ‘Er, actually, I’ll shag everything in sight then decapitate you, but don’t worry, it’ll be over in a flash and you won’t feel a thing.’
Anyway, I meant it. I couldn’t ever imagine wanting to do anything with another man that I couldn’t do with my husband. I know, I just have to read back over the last hundred pages, but in my defence these discussions took place before the whole LA/desertion/half-naked-on-a-massage-table saga began.
Which brought me back to the present. Why was I feeling uncomfortable about this when I knew that Mark wouldn’t mind?
Another factor of mitigation suddenly came to mind that removed my doubts. If this were Mark lying here with Kate or Carol, it wouldn’t ruffle my feathers in the least. They were friends, we were friends, and it would all be perfectly harmless and innocent. Just like this was. Sam and I were friends. Lifelong friends. My husband knew him well and would realise that there was nothing suspicious in the least about this situation. It was utterly innocuous. I had nothing to worry about. Nothing. I wasn’t pole-vaulting over any kind of marital boundary or jeopardising my husband’s feelings in any way. It was fine that I was lying here next to Sam. It didn’t matter that I could reach out and touch those arms. Or that my foot could easily wander across and rub up and down those perfect calves. Or that…
‘Could you turn over now please,’ said Sven of the gentle rub, raising the towel slightly from my body so that I could roll onto my back without losing my dignity.
I obliged. Although I think I blew the dignity bit when Sven let the towel float back down and it looked like Billy Smart had parked two of his circus tents side by side on my upper torso.
Now, that Mark might just object to.
‘Mummy, I never, ever want to go home,’ Mac declared sleepily in his bed later that night.
‘Why not?’ I asked.
‘Because I love it here, Mum. I can ski and swim and I’m never leaving Archie,’ he announced, pulling the covers up over Archie’s two front legs, but leaving his snout poking out from between the sheets. If burglars broke in during the night they’d be traumatised for life.
‘But what about all your friends at home? You’d really miss them.’
He eyed me like I was crazy. ‘But Mum, I’ve got loads of new friends here.’
There goes my son–flighty, superficial and shallower than a puddle in the Gobi.
‘They sleeping?’ asked Sam when I returned to the lounge, walking for the first time in days without the general posture of a rodeo star with a groin strain.
I nodded.
‘They’re great kids,’ he said as he handed me a glass of wine.
‘Thanks. I know I’m biased, but I agree. And I’ll still be proud of them when I’m smuggling in nail files concealed in sultana cakes in a bid to help them escape.’
Then, ‘They like you,’ I added with a grin. ‘Mac said something about “same mental age” or something like that.’
He raised one eyebrow. ‘How dare you! Do you know who I am?’
‘Jude Law?’
He ignored me. ‘I’m a really important movie-star person who must be shamelessly pandered to for every moment of the day.’
‘Yeah, well I’ll pander you right after I’ve increased my chances of dying a premature death with a face that looks like it’s made of cowhide. I’m nipping out for a quick ciggie.’
He frowned in mock disapproval. ‘Those things will kill you.’
I spun round, sloshing a few drops of wine on the angora carpet. ‘Can I just point out the irony of that statement coming from a man who’s been dragging me up bloody mountains all week and forcing me to hurtle down them at break-neck speed? I think I’d rather take my chances with Mr Marlboro,’ I said, laughing at his cheek.
I grabbed a rich red chenille throw from the sofa and headed out onto the balcony. I sat on one of the two chairs out there, careful to wrap the blanket around my posterior area, lest I spend the remainder of my trip of a lifetime with piles. I pulled my knees up to my chest and lit a cigarette, awestruck again by the sheer magnificence of the view. Straight ahead I spotted a couple climbing off the gondola, arms around each other, laughing at some shared joke. They looked like they were in love. Or was I just romanticising everything because this was undoubtedly the most romantic place on earth?
The most romantic place on earth.
The most physically gorgeous man on earth.
Who loves children, animals and alligators. And me.
Or at least he did once and still does when he’s had too many Budweisers.
How did I ever find myself in this insane situation? The strangest thing about it was that it felt so…normal.
I was actually sad that we were leaving the next day. The only consolation was that it was another day closer to my meetings with the movie companies. A shiver of excitement made my stomach flip. Another day closer to potentially the most exciting career-break imaginable. ‘Carly Cooper, who’s she?’ the crowds would ask. ‘Oh, you know–Jackie Collins’s daughter. That writing lark must be in the blood.’
I smiled as I stubbed the cigarette out in a metal ashtray on the floor. I’d lost the feeling in my feet and several fingers so it was probably time to go back inside. It struck me that this was the first night that Sam and I had actually spent alone together since we got there. My injuries and strains had caused me to crash out with the boys every night in a paracetamol-induced coma. I checked my watch. Eight o’clock. So what would we do for the next few hours? Music? Nope, too romantic. That would be like eating a starter and abstaining from main course and pudding. TV? Possibly, but surely we could think of something a little more intellectual than staring at a box all night. Games? We could have jolly japes and play games. Although I couldn’t guarantee that I could stop my libido demanding sixteen rounds of strip poker.
Perhaps we should stick to the TV after all. Perhaps we could choose a DVD–anything with no sex, no romance and no scenes starring Sam Morton naked would do.
I opened the door to go back inside. Three things happened instantaneously:
I noticed that music was playing. Luther Vandross. Fuck. I’d forgotten how much Sam loved Luther. We used to play that all the time when we were together. Together as in a ‘couple’ way, not ‘platonic friends with two children and an inflatable reptile’.
Sam was lying on the couch, with one leg slung over the back, reading what looked like a script. He was now wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, his hair almost gold in the light of the do
zens of candles that were lit all around the roaring fire. Why do we say that fires roar? It was actually completely silent. The only thing that was roaring was…
My libido–and the yell went along the lines of ‘Where are those playing cards? Strip poker NOW!’
Sam took his eyes off the script and transferred them to me, an act that was decidedly uncomfortable as I’d been struck by that intermittent paralysis thing again and I was rooted to the spot, incapable of doing anything except staring back.
He put the script down, still staring, his expression soft, almost tentative.
Thank Christ I was paralysed or it would have been like a magnetic beam drawing me towards the light. I really needed to stop watching Star Wars with the kids.
The kids! This was the point where, if this were a movie, one of the kids would wander in all sleepy-eyed and ask for a drink of water or announce that they’d just vomited over the duvet.
Nope. No kids. Even Mary the Blessed Virgin seemed to have deserted me. My motor functions had shut down and my heart sounded like the Paddington Express, yet there wasn’t even the slightest sign of a divine intervention.
He got up from the sofa and walked towards me. In seconds I was eye-to-eye with his pecs. He raised my chin and leaned down and kissed me, so lightly I almost didn’t feel our lips meeting for what must only have been a split second. Och, that was fine. I’d kissed him much harder than that every time he walked through the door on a visit to Mark and me. This wasn’t wrong. It was just a wee peck. A friendly smacker. A…a full-blown case of denial.
Mark. Mark. Oh, God, what on earth was I doing? Mark. Sam. If I picked either of them out of a lucky bag at that exact moment I’d have been equally as happy. How wrong was that? When did I start to put Sam on the same footing as my husband?
‘Carly, we need to…talk.’
I groaned, still rooted to the spot and looking at that beautiful face.
‘I know.’
He put his hand up and ran a finger down my face, then rested his hand on my neck. He was fighting dirty now. He knew that ever since I’d seen Richard Gere do that in An Officer and a Gentleman when I was fourteen it had become the single most sexy thing a man could do to me, guaranteed to make me melt, make my heart race and make my bra unhook itself and catapult a distance of up to ten feet.
Silence.
‘I can’t believe I’m stuck for words,’ he eventually whispered. ‘It’s just that…Carly, you’ve no idea what I want to do to you right now.’
Oh, I think I could hazard a guess.
‘Does it involve playing cards?’
‘What?’ he asked, his bewilderment obvious.
I giggled. I’ve no idea why, because there was absolutely nothing funny about this. It was the nervous giggle, the one that forced my Auntie Maud to ask me to leave Uncle Joseph’s funeral on that black day in 1985.
I reached up and gently removed his hand from my neck. I couldn’t concentrate when it was causing a small part of my brain to sing ‘Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong’ at a volume so high it could wake the kids.
‘You’re right, we need to talk,’ I told him softly, ‘but I can’t do it when I’m so close I can see your heart beating.’
I took his hand and led him over to the dining table, motioning him to sit down. Stalling for time, I grabbed a mug and poured myself a coffee from the pot that was sitting on the machine, then I sat directly opposite him. Good point: There was now three feet of oak between us. Bad point: When had our fingers interlocked?
He spoke first.
‘I think I’m falling in love with you again.’
Great. I was glad he’d decided to gradually work up to the serious stuff.
‘You are?’
He nodded. I groaned. And my head fell onto the table. Eventually, I lifted it again and almost gasped when I saw the raw emotion on his face. I’d seen Sam look at me that way before: when he asked me to marry him; when he begged me not to leave Hong Kong; and then years later when he wanted us to give our relationship another try.
‘Sam, we can’t do this.’
‘Tell me you don’t want to, and I promise I won’t say anything else.’
Mouth open, nothing coming out. My voice had buggered off with my self-discipline, my morals and my senses.
‘Carly?’
He squeezed my hand. My emergency voice mechanism eventually kicked in.
‘Sam, I don’t know. I just don’t know. I was a mess when I came here. Mark and I are crap just now. Actually, we’ve been pretty crap for a while now. And life just didn’t turn out the way I thought it would. Suburban mother, that’s me. No decadence, no excitement, no drama, just the same stuff day in and day out. And then you pop up again and suddenly I’m here and Ike Tusker is my new best friend and I’m having breakfast in the Peninsula and living a life that’s, well, the life that I always wanted to have. And I’m living it with you.’ There was a pause while my brain caught up with what was coming out of my mouth. Then, ‘And it’s perfect,’ I whispered, as a huge tear dropped down my cheek. Oh no. As previous incidents have shown, my crying isn’t pretty, or poignant, or cute. I only cry with full-scale snot and racking sobs. I bit my tongue.
He leaned over and wiped away the tear, then took my hand again. ‘And are you…are you…how do you feel about me now?’
I shrugged my shoulders. ‘I don’t know. I can’t separate this life, this experience, the chronic state of my marriage, the excitement of the film stuff, the hope…I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t. And I don’t trust myself to figure it out. I love you, Sam. But I can’t tell if it’s the same love I’ve always felt for you or if it’s grown into something new. But I do know that…’
I stopped. I couldn’t say it. If Mary, Mother of God was whooping it up on that bloody ski slope outside instead of being in here where she was needed then I hoped an altercation with a crash barrier was looming.
‘What?’ he probed gently.
‘I want to make love to you.’
I swear I heard a loud bang and a female’s scream.
I’d said it. I wanted him. I wanted to do slow, frantic, beautiful, dirty, amazing things to him.
‘I want to make love to you,’ I repeated, just to make sure he’d heard me since he hadn’t responded by leaping over the table, throwing me on the floor and ripping my kit off.
After about three and a half months, by which time my heart had stopped beating, I’d decomposed into a pile of bones and it had turned to spring outside, he finally spoke.
‘I want to make love to you too.’
He reached over and did the Richard Gere face thing again.
‘But we can’t,’ he whispered, looking sadder than I’d ever seen him.
‘OH, FOR FUCK’S SAKE!’ That wasn’t me screaming, that was my clitoris, in total despair, disbelief and not just a little disappointment.
Fortunately, my mouth stayed silent. He was right. I knew he was. If I made love to him then things would be changed that could never be unchanged. Our beautiful, amazing friendship would either grow into something more or be destroyed. Sleeping with Sam would be a fatal blow to my marriage. Mark was the most stable, easy-going, non-jealous guy I’d ever met but I knew that would change if I ever broke his trust, and I was sure he’d take his stable, easy-going, non-jealous self as far away from me as possible. But most of all…
‘I know we can’t. My boys.’ I didn’t have to explain. Sam knew me. He knew how I felt about my family. And it all boiled down to this: if I was going to change my boys’ futures by breaking up their family then I had to be sure, absolutely positive that it was absolutely right. It had to be the very best thing for them as well as me. More so.
And I couldn’t risk making the wrong decision just because a small part of my genital anatomy was now marching up and down the table in front of me wearing a sandwich board that said, ‘Victim of Neglect–Demand Adoption to a New Home.’
‘You’ve no idea how hard this is, Sam,’ I
told him, unable to keep the sadness from my voice.
He smiled ruefully. ‘You think?’
‘So what do we do next?’
He thought for a few moments. ‘We just carry on. Don’t worry, I’m not going to get all lovesick and pine at the window every time you leave the room.’
I made my best disappointed face. ‘Well, that’s shite–there was I hoping for rose petals, poetry and stalking to a level that’s punishable by a custodial sentence.’
We both laughed, not so much breaking the ice as melting the top layer.
‘I’m not going to give you ultimatums or deadlines or demands, Carly You know how I feel. I couldn’t go on any longer without telling you. And you have to know, I feel pretty crap about this too. I like Mark. And I don’t want to cause anybody any hurt. But I had to tell you.’
‘Is that what all those disappearing acts were about last week?’
He shrugged his shoulders in the manner of a fourteen-year-old who’d just been caught with the entire Hustler back-catalogue stashed under his bed.
‘I just needed some time to think, so I dragged my meetings out a bit. But honestly, I’ve got a really heavy schedule for the next week or so, so don’t get all paranoid if I’m not around.’
Huh. As if I’d ever get all paranoid and neurotic. At least not during sleeping hours.
‘Listen, in case I forget to say it at any time, thank you.’
‘What for?’ he asked.
‘For bringing us here, for loving my boys, for loving me–in a fully clothed way. For just being amazing. And for understanding why I’m not butt-naked and swinging from that light-shade right now. I do love you, Sam. Can I ask one last thing?’
‘Anything.’
‘Can you switch off Luther? I can resist you, but Luther? I have my doubts.’
We lay on the couch cuddled up for the rest of the night watching back-to-back episodes of CSI Miami. There was nothing like autopsies, body parts and random killings to quell the libido. Thank God.
Later that night, as I lay in bed with Mac’s feet in my face and Benny snoring at a volume that could cause an avalanche, it occurred to me that the stakes of my life had just got higher. Everything hung on the meetings with the movie companies. If one of them went my way and we got a film deal, then that could mean moving to LA permanently. Would I be able to make Mark come over here? Without deploying tranquillising drugs, shackles and a large trunk? Or would it be the final death knell on our marriage? If he did come over here, would he hate it? Let’s face it, Mark didn’t do superficiality. He was more likely to stick needles in his eyes than pick up a celebrity magazine or take an interest in movie-star gossip.
