by India Knight
‘Are these sheets clean?’ I ask conversationally, standing by the bed fully clothed.
‘No.’
‘I’m just going to brush my teeth,’ I say. ‘And take my clothes off.’
Frank holds his bedroom door open for me. He isn’t smiling.
‘Missing you already,’ he drawls, which makes me laugh on the inside.
I brush, strip, put on an only vaguely sexy old kimono, and go back to Frank’s bedroom. He is lying on the bed, stark naked. Very nice body, but I knew that already. Ginger hair: no problem. Hasn’t been for some time, actually. He has a massive erection.
I stand by the edge of the bed, looking at him. He looks back.
‘I feel this situation lacks romance,’ I say.
‘Come here,’ says Frank, pulling me down.
Frank is very good at sex. Well, obviously: practice is supposed to make perfect. And his has. It is perfect, in a very hard, dirty, sweaty, explosive kind of way: we have the kind of sex that people usually describe as ‘animal’ but which I always think of to myself as more mammalian. We are mammals. He whispers a torrent of absolute filth in my ear: of what he would like to do to me, how he’s going to do it, how long he’s wanted to do it for, and so on. Unusually, this is incredibly horny-making. And all the while, he’s doing it. Bang, bang, bang. This way, that way. I don’t know about me, but he is certainly the dirtiest ride I’ve ever encountered.
I come twice; I see white dots of light; I shout, I think, at one point. He calls out my name – clever of him to remember – and presses his face into my hair as he comes.
And then we’re lying there, panting, with all the lights on, at about nine o’clock on a Saturday night, in silence.
‘Marry me,’ says Frank. He sits up and reaches for a cigarette.
‘Can you imagine? But we’d have a very happy sex life.’
‘Yeah, we would.’
‘You’re very talented.’
‘Cheers. You’re not bad yourself.’
I brace myself. I roll on to my stomach and put my head on his stomach.
‘Was I,’ I ask, ‘a dirty ride?’
Frank laughs. ‘Not this again.’
‘Come on, Frank. Was I? I was, wasn’t I? I thought I might be. A filthy ride, probably. That’s right, isn’t it?’
‘Here, do you want a drag?’
‘Yes.’
‘No, Stella, you weren’t a dirty ride.’
I sit upright. I am outraged. Outraged.
‘What are you, some kind of sicko? What more could I possibly have done to make myself dirtier? Bloody hell, Frank, you cunt. Give me that fag.’
Frank strokes my hair and laughs.
‘I obviously didn’t explain it properly that time. A dirty ride’s a one-off. You know, a girl that’s gagging for it and loves doing it. But you don’t want to see her again. You don’t want to dwell on her, really. She’s just a dirty ride.’
‘What am I, then? What does that make me?’
‘You,’ says Frank, taking the cigarette from my mouth, ‘are a ride.’
‘Is that a compliment?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Oh, good.’ That’s that settled. ‘What shall we do now?’
‘Don’t tell me: I can guess. You’re starving,’ he laughs.
‘How did you know? I am, actually. Famished. And don’t say, “Do you like chicken? Suck this, it’s fowl.” ’
Frank rolls his eyes. ‘Let’s go downstairs. I’ll feed you.’
And he leans over and kisses me, very sweetly, on the forehead.
18
We ate cheese omelettes and drank more wine and then went to bed again. And then I fell asleep and woke up in Frank’s arms, much to Honey’s astonished delight the next morning. And then we got up on Sunday, wheeled the pushchair up to Primrose Hill, and had a brisk, red-nosed walk, the three of us, giggling at everything and nothing. I roasted a leg of lamb, and after lunch we lay on the sofa watching a video of South Pacific. And after Honey’d gone to bed on Sunday night, we did it again.
So that’s all really romantic and charming, isn’t it? Ad-o-rable. Like teddies and clouds and robins. We are those round-faced, round-bodied teddies you get on greeting cards. Boing boing, we go, bumping tummies, rosy-cheeked. I am wearing a little pink ribbon, and he a pale blue one. The robins are our friends. Come, robins, we cry. Perch on our teddy arms.
Except that things look dramatically different on a cold, rainy Monday morning when you wake up in your own bed (by mutual agreement: we were both really tired). There are problems, frankly. There are issues.
One, poor old Louisa has left three messages for Frank and one for me, and none of these have been returned.
Two, it’s all very well to sit here musing about teddyhood and love’s young dream, but one needs to be realistic: I had a fabulous time in bed with Frank, but that’s just what Frank does – when he’s not painting cows, he’s giving people fabulous times in bed. And then he buggers off. Louisa’s unanswered phone messages are merely the most recent in a long, tiresome line of plaintive voices wailing out of the answering machine. And so am I, the latest in a long line, though I am not wailing yet. That’s because I am not deluded, or rather, because I am trying my hardest not to be deluded. I am the latest willing notch on the bedpost, I keep telling myself. I am a notch. A girl can dream, though …
No, she can’t. And besides, I’m not a girl. I am a thirty-eight-year-old woman and I need to be realistic. I am a notch. All women are notches to Frankie. I need to think of him as a notch too – a notch on my bedpost. A lovely, wonderful, funny, clever, best-sex-ever notch who made cheese omelettes as though he were French and licked the toast crumbs off my lips, laughing, and then stopped laughing and …
But imagine, I tell myself, ignoring the stomach-ache of longing that the toast memory introduces. Imagine the gradual reintroduction of strange girls at breakfast. The awkwardnesses. The pretending not to mind.
I am a notch. I shall remain a notch. I need to make contingency notch plans, sharpish. And I wonder whether it would be really bad to do it one more time with Frank before, as they say, closure.
Frank’s at the studio when the phone rings. I know it’s Louisa. I pick it up, feeling a sort of terror.
‘Stella! Where have you been?’
‘Sorry I didn’t ring you back. We, I, we, er, I had a busy kind of weekend.’
‘Are you fully recovered?’
‘From Friday night? Oh, yes.’
‘Well, what are you up to?’
‘Oh, this and that, you know.’
‘I’m on my way to a client, but we could have a coffee, if you liked? Do you know the cottagey place in England’s Lane?’
‘The place that looks like it should be called Mrs Tiggy-winkle’s?’
‘Yes. See you there noon-ish?’
‘OK. Bye, then.’
‘Stella?’ says Lou. ‘How’s Frank?’
This is a nightmare. What am I going to tell her?
‘Fine, I think.’
‘It’s just, he hasn’t phoned me.’
‘No. Um. I haven’t seen him today.’
‘Oh, shit – I’m about to go into a tunnel. I have to go. We can talk about it later. See you at twelve.’
She hangs up, and I hang my head.
Louisa bounds into the coffee shop like a Labrador, shakes her blonde mane, boings herself down, beams, and asks me how it’s going. Oh, you know, fine, but (wince) bit sore when I sit down. Because I’ve spent the weekend in bed with the man you’ve set your sights on.
‘Fine.’ I smile. I’m aware of the smile being strange, as though someone had betted me that I could show all my teeth. ‘How about you?’
‘A shop in South Molton Street is taking my hats, so I couldn’t be better.’
‘Where’s Alex?’
‘With his dad all week. Which means,’ she beams, ‘that the mouse is away. And that the cat will play.’
‘Oh, right,’ I say, taki
ng a sip of my latte. ‘What did you have in mind?’
‘You know,’ she giggles. ‘Your resident dish. I haven’t stopped thinking about him. Fwoaar,’ she says, poking me with her arm. ‘I can’t tell you what it was like …’
I know what I’m going to do now. I’ve worked out my plan.
‘Spare me the details, Lou.’ I try and laugh. It comes out like a strange, yelpy little bark. ‘You said he hadn’t called. I did warn you.’
‘No, but with men like that you need to do a bit of chivvying,’ she says, not looking too troubled by the idea. ‘It’s not like he was exactly begging to take me out to lunch, either. I just sort of … bent his arm.’
‘What, and you’ll bend it again?’
‘You’d better believe it,’ she grins. ‘All the way up the aisle.’
‘Lou, there’s something I have to tell you.’
‘I didn’t literally mean all the way up the aisle,’ she says. ‘Not that I don’t think it’d be a good idea. The sex, Stella. The sex was amazing.’
I quite want to know what she means. Her sex can’t have been as amazing as mine. It just can’t. Her sex can have been good, or very good, or hot, but it can’t have been – what’s the word – revolutionary, like mine. Or perhaps it can.
Do I really want to know? No. I’m not brave enough.
‘Anyway,’ says Lou, ‘sorry to witter on. You were saying you had something to tell me?’
‘It can wait. Carry on.’
‘I really think we’re made for each other,’ sighs Louisa. ‘It wasn’t just one of those meaningless shags. It was fantastic.’
‘You should bear in mind,’ I remind her gently, ‘that pretty much any shag was going to be fantastic after two years.’
‘Yes, but not fantastic like that. I really felt – and this is going to sound so corny – that we were, you know, as one. Perfectly in tune. And then when we went to lunch the next day, he was looking at me in that dazed sort of way that men have when they’re beginning to fall for you despite themselves. Has he said anything about me?’
‘I haven’t really spoken to him about it. He’s a big boy now.’
‘He most certainly is,’ says Louisa, blushing slightly. ‘But it wasn’t just the sex. I like the way he doesn’t talk much – he’s more of an action man. He doesn’t really chat or do jokes – he’s more the strong, silent type, and sexy as hell with it.’
The waitress arrives. ‘Anything else?’
‘Two more coffees, please,’ says Lou. ‘Do you want anything to eat, Stella?’
‘No, just coffee. Shall I say my thing now?’
‘Do,’ says Lou. And then I can tell you my masterplan.’
‘What masterplan?’
‘My gentle, arm-bending masterplan.’
‘Resulting in?’
‘Matrimony,’ she laughs, in the way that people laugh when they actually mean the embarrassing thing they’ve just said. ‘Cohabitation, at the very least.’
‘He cohabits with me.’
‘You wouldn’t miss him. You’re not very nice about him.’
‘Look. What I was going to say was this. Frank is a sack artist. It’s what he does, in the same way as you and I do, I don’t know, eating, or coffee drinking, or tooth brushing. I don’t think you really understand about men like Frank, Lou. It’s just how they are. There’s no point in thinking they’re going to reform, because they’re not. They do it because they can and because it gives them pleasure.’
‘They’re not the only ones. To get pleasure, I mean.’
‘No,’ I sigh. ‘They’re not. Which is why men like Frank are a great idea if that’s all you’re after – pleasure. If you’re really on the same wavelength, and you really want absolutely the same thing: fabulous sex, no strings. But that’s not what you want, Lou. You’ve got it into your head that if you chivvy him enough, he’ll fall down on one knee and propose to you. It doesn’t work like that. It just doesn’t.’
‘Why are you being such a downer? You know nothing about it. OK, you live with him. But you weren’t there the other night. You don’t know how he looked at me.’
‘Louisa, try and listen to what I’m saying. God, I really fancy a cigarette. Do you have any?’ She pushes a packet across the table. ‘Thanks. I know quite enough about him, thank you. I know that there’s some strange woman … that there’s some strange woman in his bed two or three times a week – never the same one twice, as far as I can make out. I know that the answering machine is filled with messages like the ones you left this weekend. And I know that he doesn’t give a fuck. He wipes them off. Erases them, Lou, and never thinks about them again. He thinks that he’s honest, that he goes into these things honestly, that he never pretends to be more interested than he is, and never makes promises he can’t keep. And so he thinks that if some woman wants to misinterpret that “honesty”, as he’d see it, then that’s her problem.’
Louisa is looking at me, not very lovingly.
‘Are you saying that he’s never, ever fallen in love, or ever had a long-term relationship?’
‘No. I know that he has.’
‘Well, then!’ she says triumphantly. ‘If he’s capable of falling in love, why shouldn’t he fall in love with me?’
I’m just not getting across – and perhaps that’s because I don’t really want to. Everything I am telling Louisa, after all, could apply equally to me, which fact sickens me a little bit. My heart isn’t in this conversation, and I’m achingly aware that my motives are lacking somewhat on the nobility front. Perhaps I’d be better off just coming out with it, just telling her – but I don’t have the stomach for that, either. I make a superhuman effort to persevere with Plan A.
‘You know that look that people get when they’re in bed with you, that look in their eyes?’
‘Yes,’ says Louisa dreamily.
‘Frank had it, right? The look that says, “You are a goddess and I love you madly.” ’
‘Yes,’ says Louisa, looking me straight in the eyes. ‘He had that look.’
I swallow. ‘Well, Lou, here’s the thing, here’s some news. All men get that look. They could be in bed with a, a donkey, and for a few seconds they’d still give that look.’
‘You are very cynical,’ says Louisa. ‘That’s not true.’
‘No,’ I concede. ‘Sometimes the look is for real. But maybe a handful of times in a lifetime.’
‘I don’t understand what your problem is,’ says Louisa, but is it my imagination, or is she sounding a tiny bit less convinced? ‘I know that he and I are right for each other, even if he doesn’t. Yet. And really, Stella, you ought to be happy for me. What’s the matter with you? I thought you were my friend. What’s with the prophet of doom stuff?’
‘I’m just warning you, that’s all. You were a notch on his bedpost.’
‘Yes? Well, maybe the bedpost is full up and there was only space for one more notch, and I was it. The last notch. Why are you looking at me like that?’
‘Nothing,’ I shrug. ‘Maybe. Maybe you’re right.’
‘I’ve got to go,’ says Lou, looking at her watch. ‘Could you send him my love? My best love?’
‘Sure.’
‘And see you at playgroup, yes?’ She gets up. ‘Thanks for all your advice, Stella. We’ll see. You do probably have a point, you know.’
‘I know.’
‘Maybe I’m jumping the gun a bit.’
‘Maybe.’
Louisa laughs. ‘There’s just something about him … Still, I’m going to go home and have a think.’ She bends down to kiss me. ‘I’ll ring you. Bye, darling.’
I think that possibly, possibly the penny has dropped. It’ll be a long descent, but the penny has dropped. I really hope it has, because I don’t know what I’d do otherwise. If I thought about it for too long, I’d feel so sickened by myself, I’d have to take to my bed for six months. But I’m not going to think about it any more. Not today. Tomorrow, as Ms O’Hara so correctly said. Tom
orrow.
Honey and I are wrapped in a quilt, watching Maisy videos, when he comes home.
‘Hey,’ he says, touching my face. ‘Hot lady. Grrr.’
‘Oi girl,’ says Honey, whose vocabulary is slowly expanding. ‘Oi mouse,’ she adds, just to confuse me. ‘Loike Maisy.’
‘Hello, Maisy,’ says Frank, stroking her hair.
‘Nice day at the office, dear?’
‘Excellent day. Brilliant day. Spoke to Dom, and guess what? Guess what, Stell? He’s only bloody gone and got me a show in New York next April.’
‘Frank, that’s brilliant. I’m so pleased. So pleased for you. Will you, er … Nothing. Do you want a drink?’
‘Will I what? Yes, do you? I’ll get you one.’ He goes into the kitchen humming ‘Hey, Big Spender’ and reappears two seconds later with two glasses of red. We’re turning into alcoholics. ‘Top gallery,’ he says, naming one.
‘Cheers,’ I say. ‘Chin-chin. Bottoms up. Very many congratulations. That’s fabulous, it really is.’
‘It is, you know. It’s just the best thing.’
‘How is Dom?’
‘Asked after you, actually. Well, he always does.’
‘You didn’t tell him.…’
‘No. I had the feeling he might not like it.’
‘I’m sure he wouldn’t mind. It’s just that … well, too much information, really.’
‘Yeah.’
‘So, will you go to New York?’
‘Yeah, in the spring.’
‘What … to live?’
‘Just for a couple of months.’
‘Oh, right.’
Frank looks at me. I look at Frank. Nobody says anything.
I had a coffee with Louisa today.’
‘Yeah?’
‘I was going to tell her, and then I changed my mind. It made me feel sick, Frank. So I told her you were a sort of priapic monster, and that she shouldn’t bother with you.’
Frank laughs. ‘A priapic monster?’
‘Yes. Permanently, you know, ready. For it. With anyone.’
Frank smiles. I wish he wouldn’t smile at me like that. It would really help.
‘You sacrificed my reputation, you mean,’ he says, still smiling.
‘I sullied your pristine name. Yes. I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do. And besides, I wasn’t exactly lying.’
