by Sue Watson
I was just beginning to relax into the massage when I felt a cold draft around my buttocks. I was lying awkwardly on my stomach, trying to pull my knees up but concerned it might look to Gabe like I was offering him my bottom... which I most certainly wasn’t. But Gabe was now busy hiking my Azzedine Alaïa up over my thighs. Yes, it was a stretch 100% wool dress, but I wasn’t sure it was meant to be quite so stretched. I was thinking about how much it had cost, when my silk Janet Reger lingerie was tested for durability and expertly whipped down to my ankles. I was excited and a little scared, but this was just what I’d wanted, what I needed – to be desired again. Rampant workman-like passion and rushed foreplay had never been on my sexual ‘to-do’ list... but, my god, I realised what I’d been missing as Gabe breathed in my ear and manipulated my thighs. He kept telling me over and over again how ‘hot’ I was, but trust me, I wasn’t ‘hot’ on any level. I was lying face down on winter white velvet with my Janet Regers round my ankles, my arse in the air and a mouthful of designer cushion. I was having trouble breathing, but despite my discomfort I suddenly realised how good being a little bit naughty could be. And how easy it was to lie back and think of Bohemia like my sister and Mimi did. I was just about to ask if we could adjust position because my panting wasn’t about sexual arousal but near suffocation – when Gabe did something very skilled with his fingertips. I couldn’t help myself. ‘Oh God! Oh God that’s so...’ I shouted, loudly, just as the front door opened and Mrs J waddled in.
‘Oh... oh God,’ I said again partly in reaction to Mrs J and partly what Gabe was still doing. In my embarrassment I suddenly found the strength to heave myself up on to all fours, which apparently surprised and excited Gabe who was now so consumed with lust he was unaware we had an audience and was now detailing his next moves, audibly. ‘Gabe!’ I groaned. ‘It doesn’t... matter how HARD we try – we’re never going to get this stain off... winter. White. Velvet... Oh God!’
He froze, suddenly getting the message, and there we were caught in flagrante like a Christmas sex tableau. For a few seconds we just stayed in this strange position - until I suddenly I pretended to notice Mrs J. ‘Oh hi. Mrs J...’ I feigned nonchalance, not easy from underneath a hardcore landscaper. ‘Gabe and I are dealing with a very stubborn wine stain.’ Still face down, I was rubbing at the non-existent stain on the sofa, but given her folded arms and lemon lips I doubt she was buying it. Looking us both up and down slowly, she continued to stand in shocked silence staring.
‘What?’ I said, looking up at her from the cushion, like she was the odd one and it was perfectly normal for the lady of the house to be wiping her sofa on all fours, bare bottom on view with the hardcore landscaper coming up the rear, so to speak.
‘Gabe is providing the muscle. It’s a tough stain’ I added, making it all so much worse. I was pulling down my dress and muttered something about lifting it out of the way so I wouldn’t get bleach on it.
‘I use a Stain Devil myself,’ she huffed and let it hang.
I heard her take the vacuum out of the cupboard and find a vantage point on the stairs where she could vacuum with aerial view of anything that may occur. I glanced at Gabe, now lounging on the other sofa with a big smile on his face.
‘It’s not funny,’ I hissed. ‘What we were doing... there... whatever it was will now be all over the bloody village.’
‘We were only cleaning a “very stubborn wine stain”,’ he said in a posh voice – and a bad impersonation of me. ‘Anyway, I thought you liked it, Tammy?’
‘It was okay.’ I said, feigning nonchalance and plumping up my Christian Lacroix cushions, which had taken quite a pounding.
‘Okay? Just okay? We should go again then,’ he was staring at me, teasing me, his hand reaching for me.
‘No way, not again, not like that, there...’ I said, batting him away and gesturing to the scene of the crime.
‘So... somewhere else then? Do you want to get it on sometime?’ he asked, rolling a cigarette.
‘No,’ I said a little too loudly, even though I did. A lot. ‘Before I even consider “getting it on” with anybody, I like to be asked out first.’
‘Okay, we can go out first if you want,’ he was smiling and zipping himself up in front of me as I tugged my bra into place, just as the front door opened and in walked Hugo, Hermione, Sam and Jacob carrying pizza.
Hugo just stood there with his lip curled, the look on his face made me feel twelve years old. I shrugged apologetically, what could I say? The real tragedy was we now couldn’t afford the cost of therapy to get my son over this one.
‘We brought pizza, thought you guys would be hungry and we could have a moving party together,’ Sam said, looking from me to Gabe before heading to the kitchen.
‘Oh pizza, lovely,’ I jumped up and began hugging everyone.
‘What the fuck, Mum...’ Hermione said as I went to put my arms around her.
‘I’ve told you, stop bloody swearing Hermione, I’m only giving you a hug!’
She was looking down at my shoes, and when I followed her gaze I saw, to my abject horror, my silk pants were slung around my left ankle. For a moment we both looked down at my pants – and before she could say anything I quickly plucked them from my leg and brazened it out, putting on my best mummy smile and sweeping into the kitchen. ‘Is everyone okay?’ I asked, addressing Sam and the children, and trying not to blush while stuffing my pants in a drawer and watching Gabe under my eyelashes. There was definitely something about him, I thought, while trying to avoid Sam’s stare.
‘Are you okay, Tam?’ she asked, a smile playing on her lips.
My sister was looking from me to Gabe, and I knew she’d put two and two together. A good-looking man, a vulnerable woman and a wayward pair of pants – it didn’t take a detective to work out what she’d just walked in on. Sam caught my eye and my face flushed scarlet as I helped myself to a slice of Tuscan Temptation... while feeling like a Tuscan trollop.
11
All is Calm, All is Bright
Sam
I worried how Tamsin would feel after visiting The Rectory and as I’d had to stop at the supermarket, she and the kids were already back at the bakery when I arrived. I opened the kitchen door, expecting to find her in floods of tears. But Hermione and Hugo were seated at the table studying their iPads and Tamsin was standing by her Italian espresso machine looking every inch the Stepford Wife in full make-up, fluffy white jumper and matching trousers. All was apparently calm, she was smiling and I couldn’t decide whether it was genuine or she had actually lost it. Was she really making coffee or merely holding on to her Gaggia for support?
‘You okay?’ I asked uncertainly.
‘I am fine and dandy,’ she said, a phrase she often used when on the brink of a complete meltdown.
‘Okay... so why don’t you sit down and I’ll make the coffee?’ I said, wanting to move her away from the block of sharp knives tantalisingly close to her fingers.
‘Nonsense,’ she snapped. ‘I’m making supper – an omelette.’
I sat down tentatively at the table and watched as my sister stirred eggs vigorously in a pan. I wasn’t buying this bright and bubbly persona and as she handed me a plate of abused eggs I saw the wild eyes and knew I was right. Tamsin had gone from manic lover of life and people and things, to egg-destroying crazy lady. I smiled, taking the plate from her as she turned to make the coffee. I put a forkful to my mouth but it was truly inedible. ‘Tam – it’s kind of you... but I’m just not hungry, thanks anyway.’
‘It’s okay, I know I’m rubbish - eggs just don’t work in the pan for me,’ she smiled over her shoulder, pouring thick dark coffee from the machine. ‘I’m not gifted with food like you are, Sam,’ she glanced at the congealed egg and rolled her eyes, plonking two mugs of coffee onto the table she sat down.
The kids shuffled off as soon as she joined us. They hardly spent any time at the flat, there just wasn’t the room but they all kept in touch and we just had to hop
e Tamsin could find somewhere for them all after Christmas.
‘How do you feel?’ I asked, dreading her response.
‘I don’t know... well, I do. I want to throttle Simon. I want to put a light over his head, ask him impossible questions and pull out each of his fingernails one by one. And then the other part of me wants to just book into a fabulous boutique hotel and spend a fortune on room service.’
‘Yeah... but that’s where you went wrong before. You both just threw money at everything,’ I said, again gently so as not to rub salt in the wound. ‘Talking of money... I know it’s early days and you can stay here as long as you need to, but you might need to... earn some?’
‘You’re right, of course you are,’ she began tapping her nails on the table, looking around for an escape. ‘Me having to earn money,’ she said, incredulously. ‘I can’t believe I’m in this situation, Sam. I checked our credit card bills this morning and we’ve been living totally off credit for over two years. I knew things were tight but Simon never objected to anything I bought, never said stop. Sam, Christmas is in two weeks and I haven’t bought a single gift.’
In previous years Tamsin always spent a week each September ordering Christmas flowers and seasonal room perfume directly from Paris. These things were oxygen to her, if there was no ‘shopping/holiday/luxury therapy’ available she would have some form of superficial breakdown.
I gently pushed the omelette away, it was making me quite nauseous.
‘No one’s expecting you to buy gifts and make everything perfect again. This is life – you can’t always find the thread, you can’t always plan... sometimes shit just happens and you have to go with it,’ I said, feeling like a crap Dr Phil.
‘Yes, you just have to go with it,’ she repeated. ‘And on that note – I think I might be about to have a sexual adventure, Sam.’
Then she went on to tell me some confused story about Gabe the hard landscaper and how he’d been ‘touching her’ on the sofa.
‘So. You and Gabe?’ I said, I’d guessed something was going on earlier, when she’d greeted us with a red face and her pants round her ankles after ‘packing’ with Gabe.
‘Well, if Mrs J hadn’t appeared like the avenging angel from behind the balustrade who knows what might have happened on my winter white sofa,’ and she actually blushed. I was intrigued I didn’t think I’d ever seen Tamsin like this over a man before – even Simon.
I demanded more details but Tamsin was deliberately vague, trying to make what sounded like a sexual encounter into a refined affair involving a few giggles and a little footsie. Mind you, when a grown woman refers to her own vagina as ‘my fairy’, her vagueness around a sexual encounter on the sofa didn’t surprise me.
Anyway, among the euphemisms, she mentioned Lady Chatterley and as Gabe was a sort of gardener, I got the message.
‘Oh get over yourself, Tamsin. A good shag with a handsome guy isn’t the worst thing you could do,’ I said.
‘I didn’t.’
‘I know... but what I’m saying is, you should.’
‘Mmm, well, thank God Mrs J saved me from myself,’ she sighed. ‘I could have ended up going all the way. Things might have climaxed into a bodice-ripping session on my winter white sofa,’ she said, her face flaming even more.
I laughed, she was definitely coming round to the idea and I was convinced a couple of hot nights with Gabe was just what she needed. I threw away the omelette, and rather than tackle the Gaggia, I made more tea and put a few mince pies on a plate... after all it was Christmas.
‘I remember drinking tea and eating mince pies at Nan’s,’ I said, putting the plate in front of her. ‘She’d start making them at the beginning of December and by Christmas Eve we must have eaten hundreds.’
Tamsin smiled. ‘Yeah... Nan’s mince pies were almost as good as yours.’
‘You’re very kind, but nothing tastes as good as when you’re a kid, does it? Do you remember Nan’s Christmas pudding, it was delicious... it was fudgy and sticky and sweet, it stuck to the roof of your mouth. And the rum sauce – you always pretended to be drunk,’ I laughed.
‘I had plenty of material to work with – especially round Christmas, Dad was permanently pickled,’ she said, a touch of bitterness edging her voice.
‘I can remember you loved pulling crackers at Christmas and you’d always scream the loudest when they cracked, and then you had to be the one to read all the jokes out,’ I smiled.
‘I’d almost forgotten that. We only have expensive crackers now. They are – were – exquisite and always matched the table. But they don’t snap any more... not like they did then.’
‘It’s probably as well, your bloodcurdling screams wouldn’t have been good at one of your posh Christmas dinner parties,’ I said, trying to cheer her up and failing.
‘What am I going to do, Sam?’ she suddenly said, like the panic of her situation had been bubbling under but had just overwhelmed her like a huge wave.
‘You’ll be fine,’ I sighed.
She reached out and held my hand. ‘Just being here is enough.’
She was surrounded by her life in boxes, each one boasting a designer name, or a French champagne and there was even more stuff after her last visit to The Rectory. There was even a huge Fortnum’s hamper which had once been filled with Christmas goodies and was now filled with Tamsin’s pants and jumpers. Christmas past, I thought wistfully. And there she sat, amongst the wreckage of her former life, dressed in Balenciaga, sipping from a Villeroy and Bosch mug. I had to hand it to her – you could take the girl away from the glamour, but you couldn’t take the glamour away from the girl.
‘Tamsin... all this stuff, we need to do something about it. You can’t stay like this, watching TV and sitting here with your boxes all day...’
‘Mmm, a week ago I would have agreed. But I’m becoming rather fond of Jeremy Kyle and his guests... yesterday a woman who’d had a foursome with her sister’s husband and his brother was pregnant... and hadn’t a clue whose baby it was,’ she laughed. ‘Imagine?’
‘Look Tam, you may need to change your mindset. I don’t want to sound mean, but you have been used to just clicking your fingers, signing a cheque, swiping a credit card and making everything right. You don’t have that any more – you are now just like the rest of us. You can’t sit here all day hoping someone else is going to sort your life out for you.’
‘That’s right, rub it in. Rub salt in my weeping wound...’ she started.
‘Oh give Bette Davis a bloody rest, Tamsin. I’m fed up of your drama and feeling sorry for yourself because you might not see the pissing lavender in France next spring – welcome to my world!’
She looked at me. ‘Why are you so angry with me?’
‘I’m not angry with you. I just hate to see you wasting yourself and your life! You should be up and about, you need to shake it off, get on with it.’
‘And you would know about that,’ she bit.
‘Ouch... my situation was quite different.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she sighed. ‘I didn’t mean that – but what else can I do? I have no friends... my home is gone...’
‘Yes, I know and you will never get to swim in your Miami pool again... and you can’t afford another Chanel handbag.’
‘Sarcasm?’ she asked.
I nodded.
‘Look Tam... I need some help downstairs. Tomorrow I have several huge orders to deliver and I don’t want to leave Mrs J alone in the shop. Last week I went out on deliveries and she set up an impromptu séance in the coffee area. Customers were queuing for cupcakes while she was summoning up the ghost of someone’s dead mother.’
She nodded. ‘Okay – so you’re saying you want me to do the séance this time?’
I looked at her.
‘Sarcasm. We can all do it you know,’ she half-smiled.
‘That’s quite funny for you.’
She smiled at me. ‘Okay so you want me to do the deliveries?’
�
�Please. That would be great.’
‘And how will this take place?’
I wasn’t quite sure what she meant and looked at her with a puzzled look. ‘Take place? It’s not an event...’
‘I know, but what time will the driver arrive and what sort of establishments will we be visiting on the delivery trip? I have to know these things so I can dress accordingly.’
I sighed, it was going to be quite a steep learning curve.
‘I’ll go through it with you tomorrow,’ I said, too exhausted to even go there.
‘Good. I’ll empty some bin bags tonight and find suitable outfits – if I have several to choose from I can decide once I know what’s involved.’
‘Yes – as long as you only wear designer stuff for deliveries. I’m thinking young European designer, slightly edgy but with a classy core,’ I continued, sarcasm oozing from every pore.
‘Exactly, we’re on the same page,’ she said, with no hint of irony. ‘This has come at just the right time,’ she added. ‘I was going to offer myself up to The Jeremy Kyle Show, but I’ll call and say I can’t be in tomorrow’s special; “homeless desperate woman in clinch with her gardener on the family sofa!” she roared, laughing at this. ‘As if I would...’ she looked at me. Did she want my approval?
‘Tamsin it’s only sex, it would do you good.’
‘It might be “only sex” to you, but I find it hard to open up to someone.’
‘I know.’
‘I feel so angry all the time, Sam. I try not to think about it, but looking back Simon could be unkind, cruel even.’
‘I kind of guessed it wasn’t always easy with him,’ I said.
‘The more successful he became, the less worthy I felt and if there was lipstick on his collar or he smelt of a different perfume when he came home late from the office, I let it go. I felt I deserved to be hurt by him because I wasn’t good enough. I never told anyone before, but I felt very vulnerable with Simon – and didn’t feel I could confront him – if I said anything I worried he’d say something nasty or leave me.’
