by Carmen Reid
Annie didn't mean to catch Dinah's eye, she just happened to turn her head as Dinah turned hers, and somehow their glances caught in the middle.
Then there was no return, as both sisters began to rock and shake with their suppressed hysterics.
'That looks like a giant, Barbie willy,' Owen declared.
Chapter Thirty-five
The wedding guest:
Tight white skirt (Debenhams)
Black and white bustier (same)
White feathered fascinator hat (same)
White shoes (Next)
Total est. cost: £160
Dinah had tried to persuade them. Fern had joined in. Even Owen had agreed, but it was Lana who had finally convinced Annie and Ed to pack up their bags and leave.
'If you don't go on your special weekend away just because of me, I'm going to feel so bad,' Lana had insisted. 'Go! I'm fine. I'm absolutely fine and I'll do every single thing Dinah says – and just go or I'll never forgive myself!'
'But it's nearly 9 p.m.!' Annie had argued.
'You'll miss dinner but you'll wake up to breakfast in bed,' Dinah had wheedled.
So finally Annie and Ed had agreed and were now crawling along an M25 still clogged with Friday night traffic. In the back of the Jeep was their luggage plus Dave, chewing on a dog chew, for a change.
Annie was behind the wheel, driving with charm but restless determination to forge a precious few feet ahead at all times. Ed was in the passenger seat, selecting songs from the choice of thousands on his iPod.
Now that they were on the road, they were properly excited about this trip. In the two and a half years they'd been together, this was the first time they'd managed to get away just the two of them. And it so nearly hadn't happened.
As Annie put her hand down to change gear, Ed brushed his against it. 'I love you,' he told her casually, 'even though your driving terrifies me.'
'I love you too,' she said, glancing momentarily from the road, 'even though your taste in music is weird.'
'No it is not!' he defended himself, 'I'm just trying to educate a disco queen!'
This was his favourite insult when it came to Annie's musical preferences. She was the first to admit that her tastes in music were similar to a very camp male diva's.
'Blame Connor,' she said, 'I spent too much time with him in Heaven. You know, the gay nightclub,' she added in explanation.
'What did you get out of it?' Ed had to wonder.
'Oh, I was just looking,' she told him, raising an eyebrow. 'I was in recovery, I didn't need to touch, or be touched.'
'But that's all changed now,' he said, and moved his fingers against the inside of her wrist.
'Yeah,' she said, as if he needed to be told.
The Jeep was finally free of the M25, Annie moved it down the slip road towards the M40. The motorway ahead was much freer, the wide lanes inviting her to move up the gears and put her foot down.
She pulled into the fast lane and heard the throaty rumble of the engine as they began to gather speed.
Ed changed the music accordingly, so as the speedometer began to rise towards 70 m.p.h., very earthy boy rock 'n' roll thumped out from the speakers.
'This is great!' she shouted over the music.
She looked over and saw a flash of surprise cross Ed's face.
'What is it?' she called out, eyes back on the road ahead of her. What had he seen that she hadn't? Instinctively, she touched the brakes.
'Annie, slow down! Change lanes!' he said urgently, pointing ahead of him.
She braked and swerved for the middle lane, feeling worried: 'What?' she repeated.
Then she saw it.
Spreading like a huge spider web from Ed's corner of the Jeep windscreen was a network of silvery cracks. They were moving furiously fast, threatening to engulf the whole window. In just a second or two she wouldn't be able to see out and after that, the whole windscreen might cave in on them.
'SHIT!' she exclaimed with real fear in her voice.
'Get to the hard shoulder! The inside lane's clear,' Ed instructed, craning his head towards the rear window to make sure she didn't swerve into another car.
Annie pressed on her hazard lights, hit the brake and changed down then moved into the slow lane. She made it onto the hard shoulder, jamming on the brakes, just as the spider web appeared before her eyes, throwing silver sparkles and slivers into her vision and totally obscuring the road.
By the time she'd brought the car to a standstill, the windscreen was a mosaic of tiny opaque pieces of glass and nothing could be seen beyond it apart from the glare of passing lights.
For a moment, they sat in stunned silence, feeling their hearts beat hard.
'Blimey,' Annie exclaimed finally, 'that was close.'
They looked at each other, relief loosening the tight pressure on their chests.
Annie wasn't quite sure whether to laugh or cry.
'Well done,' Ed told her quietly, 'you were great.'
She leaned over and they hugged each other across the handbrake.
'I take it you never got round to fixing the chip in the windscreen, then?' Ed said next.
'No, I didn't.'
Cuddled together, they laughed with relief.
'Did you renew the AA cover?' was Annie's next question.
'Oh shoot,' Ed hissed.
After a long wait and many phone calls, a man in a yellow van arrived. He explained that because it was so late and they had such a heavy car, all he could do was tow them to the nearest town with a windscreen repair service.
'They'll sort you out in the morning,' he'd told them.
'The morning?' Annie had gasped, 'we can't wait until the morning! We've got a hotel booked . . . in the Cotswolds.'
The driver had laughed. He'd actually laughed at her.
Annie had only just come to terms with the fact that they'd missed their five-course dinner at the Lullworth, but the idea of missing the whole night . . . She'd been on the hotel's website, she'd even seen the view from the balcony of their room! Whatever Dinah's husband, Bryan, had done for the hotel, he was being handsomely repaid. There was a white four-poster bed in their room, emperor size . . . and a white marble wet room with a steam shower!
In less than an hour's time it would be Ed's birthday and they were still on the hard shoulder miles and miles from the Lullworth Hotel about to be towed to Reading by the AA van.
It was nearly midnight when they pulled up in the car park of the King's Head. Annie had a feeling this was going to be a lot less luxurious than the Lullworth. It was a rowdy, charmless bar with rooms above. A crowd of women in tight dresses and feathery fascinators were huddled in the car park, smoking.
Ed put his bag over his shoulder, picked Annie's up in his left hand then took a tight hold of her hand and Dave's lead with his other.
'C'mon,' he shot her a grin as they began to walk towards reception, 'where's your sense of adventure? Pretend we've run away together,' he added in a whisper, 'we're having an affair and neither of our partners knows anything about it.'
'But you've had to bring your dog. Right,' Annie grumped.
The door swung open to reveal a lobby with embossed, glossy yellowed walls and a brown and yellow carpet of the most hideous variety.
Once they'd signed in and been given a key, they were directed up brown and yellow stairs towards their room.
Opening the door, Ed felt for the light switch and cracked it on to reveal the most ghastly hotel room Annie had ever seen. It had the same brown and yellow patterned carpet as the hallway, the walls had been papered years ago with a cream and brown floral pattern and the small, rickety-looking double bed was draped in an orange candlewick bedspread.
The room smelled smoky and sweaty.
'Oh no,' she groaned, just imagining the horrible clammy polyester sheets that would be under the bedspread, 'I can't! I can't sleep here, babes. I think I'd rather sleep in the Jeep.'
'Annie – ' Ed put an arm around her wais
t – 'it's going to be fine!'
He went over and turned on the bedside light: a small, fringed orange lamp. He came back and turned off the overhead light so at least the room wasn't so glaringly lit.
Although she was still standing at the door, completely unconvinced, Ed sprawled out across the bed – causing it to bounce and creak alarmingly – and told her, with a grin, 'I've got a bottle of cold champagne in my bag. I'm here with the woman I love.'
'And your dog.'
'This is very sexy,' he purred at her.
Finally, she moved across the room towards him, the white four-poster, the beautiful windows with the billowing white curtains, the marble steam shower all still at the front of her mind.
This was just so, so disappointing.
Ed held out his hand and reached for her, pulling her down onto the bed beside him. It dipped, creaked and wobbled so much, she thought it really would collapse.
She pulled back the bedspread and had to ask, 'Are the sheets clean?'
'Not for long,' he replied cheekily.
Ed wrapped his arms around her and moved his mouth over hers.
Minibreak, she told herself, tasting him, I'm on a mini-break and I'm going to enjoy it . . . going to enjoy him. Going to enjoy having him all to myself.
Her eyes flickered open and she saw Dave, paws up on the bedspread looking at them with his head cocked to one side.
'Ed!'
It took a long time for Annie to wake the next morning. She lay, eyes shut, as the very first moments of consciousness filtered through, and registered that she was naked in bed. She was on her side with Ed's heavy arm across her, his fuzzy chest close to her naked back and their legs tangled together.
She felt warm and sticky. When she opened her eyes, the lids were heavy and her eyeballs felt dry.
The brown and white flowers swimming before her eyes made her to feel a jolt of panic until she reorientated herself.
They were in that room. Oh, they were in that room. With a rush of arousal, she remembered last night.
Oh! Last night.
Oh. My. God. Last night!
There had been champagne. Poured into tumblers. Then poured over naked bodies. Over breasts and into navels to be licked and sucked off. Cool mouthfuls of bubbles which had tingled, fizzed and popped against all the most tender and most swollen of places. They had noisily used and abused this bed, banging the headboard recklessly against the wall in a frantic hurry to enjoy themselves to the full.
Annie ran her hand slowly over her breast and wriggled backwards until she was pressed tightly against Ed. She'd wake him up, she thought, moving her fingers down between her legs and strumming there until she was tingling to be touched by him again.
Her diaphragm was in place, she could just roll over, roll against him and they could start up all over again.
Her diaphragm? The white disc of rubber which kept her from where Ed wanted her to be?
She sat bolt upright now and opened her eyes wide.
Now she saw the hideous room properly. Her clothes were tumbled into a heap on the floor and over there was her overnight bag. Inside was her wash-bag, inside her wash-bag was her diaphragm case, and inside her diaphragm case was . . . the diaphragm.
He'd persuaded her. Maybe she'd persuaded herself. Anyway . . . here in the cold light of day, she could see it was madness. And they certainly weren't going to do it again.
The dog! Where was the bloody dog?
Her eyes scanned the carpet and she spotted Dave curled up in the cashmere sweater she'd given Ed for Christmas. Before she could order him out of it, she saw an unmistakable little pile, close to the door. It was a heap of Dave's small, chipolata-shaped turds.
This was just too much. She could not cope with this stupid little furry fuck-wit. There was no other word for this stupid dog. It was ugly, deaf and incontinent! And she didn't want to be dealing with any more shit. There was quite enough metaphorical shit going on in her life. She refused to get her hands dirty dealing with the real stuff!
'Ed!' she urged, shaking him awake, 'Dave has crapped on the carpet. Ed!!' she hissed, 'Wake up! I'm not dealing with this!' With that she pulled the covers off both of them and got up to go to the bathroom.
As she peed, she considered the contraception situation. It was two days since her last period, so totally safe. So safe that in the back of her mind last night had been the thought: I can still revise this decision.
But now she had decided, thanks to Dave's early morning dump, that no way was she going back to nappies and fingernails full of poo and getting up at all hours. Now, she wondered whether she shouldn't just pop a morning-after pill, just to be on the ultra safe side.
But then what if Ed found out? It was one thing to not get pregnant; it was another thing entirely to say that you were trying while actually popping preventatives.
She stood in front of the mirror and brushed her teeth. She was safe. Good grief, she was in her late thirties. She tried to crinkle up her eyes. The Botox was wearing off so quickly, she'd soon be just as crumpled as she had been when she walked into Dr Yaz's. And what was up with her hair? No matter how many conditioning lotions and potions she smeared over it, it seemed to get bushier and wirier by the day.
No. Approaching-40-year-olds were totally safe from getting pregnant on one attempt two days after their period. With a wave of sympathy, she thought of Dinah . . . maybe she should have a baby for poor Dinah.
Ed knocked on the bathroom door. Then came in holding a suspicious package wrapped in toilet paper.
'I'm just going to flush this away,' he said.
Annie spat her toothpaste into the sink as Ed plopped dog poo into the hideous grey toilet bowl.
'Happy birthday,' she said.
Chapter Thirty-six
Cath's fifth new outfit:
Charcoal knee-length skirt (Hobbs)
Jade green and black knitted jacket (MaxMara)
Long black patent boots (Russell & Bromley)
Black mini-fishnet tights (Pretty Polly)
Total est. cost: £380
'I've spent over £1,000!'
'Oh yes . . . we went to the Lullworth Hotel for Ed's birthday. It was absolutely gorgeous,' Annie chirped on the hands-free to one of her former shopping suite clients.
This was actually true. When they'd finally made it to the Lullworth, their night there had been wonderful and memorable. But then, Annie had to admit, the night in Reading had definitely been memorable too.
She was in the Jeep, which was all repaired now, on the road, trying to make her personal shopping and eBay businesses from home work again. Well, she couldn't go back to The Store. Not just yet anyway. And there were possibly going to be other opportunities to consider. She'd let assistants she knew at both Harvey Nichols and Selfridge's spread the word that she might be open to offers. If they were the right sort of offers.
Sometimes, when her phone rang and she didn't immediately recognize the number, the thought crossed her mind that maybe it would be Ralph, Connor's agent, phoning with some amazing new opportunity that had just come out of the blue.
