Seven Week Itch

by Victoria Corby

  ‘No thank you,’ I said firmly.

  ‘Chicken!’

  ‘I’m trying to eat my lunch.’ I knew from experience how gory Rose’s imagination can be.

  ‘Can’t think why you’re bothering, those tomatoes are truly sun-dried. I now understand all about the damage too much sunbathing is supposed to do to your skin. World of Leather, here we come.’ She pushed the plate away, signalling to the waiter to bring her an ashtray. She watched him thoughtfully as he reached up to fetch one from the clean stack on a shelf above the bar. He was well worth looking at, lean and lithe in white shirt and black trousers with the oval face, olive skin and dark curls more usually associated with some figure out of an Italian Renaissance painting rather than a farm labourer’s son from Peterborough who was filling in time waitering while he hung around to see if he’d been accepted for police training college. ‘Mm, nice figure. Very nice indeed,’ murmured Rose, as he shimmied back around the bar and placed the ashtray on our table.

  ‘Which is why, despite the quality of the food, the place is packed. And why the clientele is almost entirely female,’ I said. ‘Except for Jack over there -’ the owner of the second-hand bookshop looked up and waved at me - ‘and he comes for the scenery just like the rest of us.’

  ‘It looks like life in the sticks does have its compensations,’ Rose said, eyes still on the waiter as he bent over another table. ‘Still, he’s not as good-looking as Luke, is he?’

  I looked at her warily, wondering what was coming next. She started tracing idle circles on the tabletop with one long fingernail, sighed shudderingly and said abruptly, ‘I’m sure you need another glass of wine, Susie. I know I do,’ and signalled for another two glasses of red.

  I waited with impatience while they came without haste, the waiter favoured a measured tread, and she then slowly lit a cigarette, watching the end glow red as if she was a Girl Guide trying to get her firestarter’s badge. ‘I think I’ve been a bit stupid,’ she said finally, to my utter amazement. This was completely unlike Rose. ‘There isn’t any reason why you shouldn’t go out with Luke, it’s just that…’

  ‘Just what?’ I asked eventually, after it became apparent she was more interested in watching her cigarette burn down than in saying anything. I’d crown her out of sheer frustration if she didn’t get on with it soon. ‘That you’ve got the hots for him yourself?’

  Her head shot up. ‘Of course not,’ she said indignantly, too indignantly. Then she smiled faintly. ‘I used to, of course, but I expect you’ve already guessed that.’

  ‘I did have some glimmering,’ I admitted.

  She sighed wistfully, idly playing with a lock of hair that had escaped from its ponytail. ‘Only it was a bit more than the hots. I was bonkers about him,’ she said flatly. And then added in a rush, ‘In fact, he was the love of my life.’

  I gaped at her. I couldn’t have heard right. The love of her life? Me, her best friend, whom she told everything to, knew absolutely nothing about this? Had never even heard her mention Luke’s name? Impossible. It had to be some sort of joke. But she didn’t look like she was joking, her face was deadly serious.

  ‘It’s true,’ she said sadly. ‘I was so infatuated I used to walk up and down outside his flat just to look at the windows and imagine what he was doing. I stole one of his shirts and used to cuddle it at night, pretending it was him. I stopped wearing Diorissimo and switched to CKhomme because that was what he used. I let the second and third holes in my ears close up because he didn’t like them. I was even prepared to give away Phuket if he turned out to be allergic to cats . . .’ She smiled wanly at me. ‘Do I need to go on?’

  I shook my head, too awed by this list to say anything. I’d thought I was well lost for love when I first met Arnaud, but it was nothing compared to this. OK, I used to go into chemists’ and spray myself with Egoiste so I could smell like him, but I never resorted to nicking his clothing. How typical of Rose to fall in love with such superb excess, I thought ruefully, not quite sure if I was envious of such passion or relieved I’d never had my life disrupted to quite that extent. And she’d kept it all from me. Miss Motormouth herself had never, ever breathed a single word. If she hadn’t been so obviously, desperately sincere, I wouldn’t have believed it was possible. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I asked at last.

  ‘You were in Montpellier having the time of your life, and there was I hopelessly addicted to an unobtainable object. I didn’t want to admit to being absolutely miserable while you were canoodling with this supposedly gorgeous man -’ a trace of the normal Rose resurfaced as she lifted a sceptical eyebrow - ‘and then when you came back and we were both apparently in the same boat I’d locked it all away inside me and didn’t want to talk about it. It was too strong, too personal.’

  Now I came to think of it, she had been very quiet then, but I’d been too wrapped up in my own miseries to recognise that anyone else could be unhappy. But that she hadn’t said a word ... I shook my head disbelievingly. ‘So why didn’t anything happen? Why didn’t you ride off into the proverbial sunset with Luke for the affair of the century? He isn’t gay, is he?’ I asked with sudden suspicion.

  ‘What do you think I am, a fag hag?’ she asked indignantly, then added, ‘Though he’s not a rampant skirt-chaser, if you know what I mean.’ She looked at her cigarette in surprise to see it had burnt away without her noticing and lit another, taking a long draw. ‘To answer your question,’ she said, blowing out smoke, ‘firstly, I never had any indication that Luke fancied me.’

  I raised a sceptical eyebrow and she laughed a bit sheepishly. Rose knew and I knew, she had never ever failed to land an object of desire and heaven knows there had been enough different personalities, ages and nationalities to be able to say with confidence that her skills went right across the board. If she didn’t know whether Luke fancied her or not it could only mean she’d never put it to the test.

  ‘I couldn’t come on to him because of Nigel,’ she explained earnestly. ‘I met him through Nigel, but not until a couple of months after we’d started going out together. Luke had been away doing something for one of Nigel’s companies, Nigel uses him as a roving troubleshooter...’

  ‘Really,’ I said non-committally, reckoning it was more tactful not to mention I’d already heard this from the horse’s mouth.

  She nodded. ‘Nigel once said Luke mightn’t have the greatest business brain in the world, but that charm of his is worth ten MBAs - whatever they are. Apparently they’re a good thing for high flyers to have. Luke’s brilliant at smoothing ruffled feathers, getting people to see his point of view and believe it was actually theirs in the first place. Nigel said he was worth his weight in gold. Anyway, Luke had done even better than usual and Nigel arranged a celebration dinner at Le Gavroche.’ She stopped for a moment, her eyes fixed unseeingly on the distance. ‘He was late, as usual,’ she said in an indulgent voice. ‘Nigel and I were already halfway down our aperitifs when I looked up and there was this gorgeous man coming across the room. It was as if he had a spotlight centred on him; everyone was looking at him as if he were some kind of star. I’d never seen anything like it. I was in love before he even sat down and said a word to me.’ She shook her head wryly. ‘Sad or what? There was I, properly in love for the first time in my life and not able to do a bloody thing about it because I was already involved with his friend and employer.’

  I could see this would have presented a distinct problem. ‘But you could have broken it off with Nigel and then gone after Luke after a decent interval,’ I suggested, thinking this was what she would have done normally.

  Rose shivered and reached for her wine glass. ‘Not with Nigel,’ she said firmly and took a large swig. ‘He’s very possessive. He doesn’t allow people to muck around with his possessions, and as far as he’s concerned his women are his possessions. And you stay his possession even after you’ve broken up. There was no question of starting something with Luke. I didn’t need Nigel to say anything, he�
��s got a way of looking at you that sends shivers down your spine and promises if you step out of line he’ll have his revenge, no matter how long it takes him. And having an affair with Luke would have been stepping out of line with a capital S.’

  I felt a shiver of my own go down my spine as I remembered the effect Nigel had had on me, who hardly knew him, when he was cross-questioning me about Hamish. Poor Rose. Talk about being stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea. ‘So what did you do?’

  She looped her finger in the thin gold chain around her neck and began twisting it around her finger. ‘I got over it, as one does,’ she said flatly. ‘I don’t have it in me to nurture an undying, unrequited love for the rest of my life.’ There was an uncomfortably hard edge to her voice. ‘You’ve got to feed an infatuation. You have to see the loved one from time to time, so just as you think you’re getting over it you meet him again, and whoosh! You’re straight back to being a quivering heap of palpitating, mindless, uncritical love and desire.’ She looked up, meeting my eyes. ‘Bit like you and Arnaud, actually.

  ‘For six months or so after I broke up with Nigel I couldn’t stop torturing myself with the odd glimpse of Luke, having a word at a party, even going out to the cinema with him in a group . . . Then I finally got the sense to get right away so I never saw him, didn’t even hear his name. I dropped everyone in that crowd, got that job in Dublin for a few months, made sure for the first time in my life I was so busy I couldn’t think. Eventually, all that hot passion just withered away and died from lack of nurture.’ The chain had been twisted around so many times it was now almost garrotting her. She began to unwind in the opposite direction.

  Had it really all died? ‘What about Luke’s shirt?’ I demanded eventually, seizing on a minor point. ‘Did you have a ceremonial burning?’

  She lowered her lashes demurely. ‘I kept it for a while,’ she admitted sheepishly. ‘Then I met Richard. You remember, wild Irish Richard with the black hair who was so brilliant in bed?’

  ‘I took your word on the last bit.’

  She grinned. ‘Take it, he was fantastic. What that man did to you could make you forget any amount of heartbreak. You wouldn’t believe the size of his . . .’ She appeared to realise that two middle-aged women passing our table had stopped with pleasurably shocked expressions on their faces. ‘Hands,’ she said firmly, to their disappointment. ‘He had very big hands. Someone like that is an excellent cure for yearning after the wrong bloke. In fact -’ she regarded me thoughtfully - ‘maybe I should have passed him on to you. He’d have made you forget the Frog in no time.’

  I decided to let that one go without comment. ‘I still can’t conceive how you found the strength to cut Luke off like that,’ I said, sure I wouldn’t have been able to do it myself.

  She made a face. ‘It’s lot easier when you’ve got Nigel breathing down your neck.’ ‘Did he know you’d fallen in love with Luke?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she said slowly. ‘He’s such a strong, confident man I don’t think it would occur to him that his woman might have the temerity to look elsewhere, certainly not if she knew what was good for her anyway. And we didn’t split up over Luke, I found out Nigel was married, though he didn’t think a mere wife tucked away in a house in the country was a good enough excuse for me to chuck him. He was livid, he likes to be the one to do the dumping when he’s good and ready.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Actually, he might have suspected something, for he said quite clearly I’d better not be leaving him for anyone else.’

  She smiled slightly. ‘It was enough to make me contemplate going into a nunnery. Even Nigel would balk at going after God. And believe it or not, I wasn’t just thinking of myself. If by some chance Luke and I had got together Nigel would have gone after Luke first, not me. He’s such a deep-dyed in the wool misogynist that he believes women should be treated like children and not held responsible for their actions - it doesn’t stop him using them when it’s necessary though. And since Luke’s his right-hand man and mascot he’d have been even angrier, because the betrayal, as he saw it, would have been that much greater.’

  ‘Gone after him how?’ I asked open-mouthed.

  ‘Nothing like quick-drying cement and motorway bridges, if that’s what you’re imagining. Nigel doesn’t do violence, says it’s counter­productive. But there are plenty of other ways to bring someone down. For instance, Luke does some recreational coke. How easy to tip the cops off as he’s making a purchase. Can you imagine Luke in prison?’ she demanded.

  I shook my head.

  ‘Exactly, and even if he’d got off for a first offence, someone would have made sure his grandmother knew and he’d probably have been disinherited and so one could go on. Nigel used to say everyone has skeletons in their cupboards, it’s just a question of finding out what they are and using them.’

  ‘So that’s why you were so worried about seeing him when he turned up at the wedding.’

  Rose started. ‘No, not at all. It wasn’t that. Well, maybe I did wonder if he was going to be unpleasant. But -’ the chain had come back out to its full length, and she began to twist again - ‘I hadn’t seen Luke for nearly four years and just for a bit, I thought...’ She sighed and said in a rush, ‘I was feeling a bit claustrophobic about the whole wedding thing, if you must know. Call it post-wedding nerves. It had suddenly occurred to me what I’d done, that I’d committed myself to one person, and -’ she smiled ruefully - ‘I’ve not been terribly good at fidelity in the past, have I? I like variety. I was quite prepared to give all that up for Jeremy, really I was, but when I saw Luke again it struck me that even Nigel might have allowed me to have a crack at him after all this time and it was too late. That’s why I got so shirty when you said you fancied him yourself. You were free to go after him and I wasn’t. And I couldn’t take that. Not then. Oh, blast it!’ The chain had finally given up under all the twisting and broken in two.

  She shrugged apologetically. ‘In other words, I was as jealous as hell. That’s why I told you to lay off him. But don’t worry, Susie, I’ve seen sense now. Just after the wedding all that commitment seemed terrifying, it is a big step you know, especially after you’ve just made it, but now it’s wonderful, exactly what I want. I’ve got the most super husband, whom I love dearly, even if he does hog the remote control,’ she added darkly, ‘and I’m not going to risk all of that by mooning around after someone who honestly doesn’t mean anything to me any longer. Luke Dillon’s nothing more than a fond memory to me, so you’re quite free to go ahead and do what you want with him. And do it with my blessing.’

  It was nice to know she wouldn’t be kicking up a fuss about me and Luke, but I still eyed her cautiously, deeply uneasy inside. I didn’t want to believe this was a case of the lady doth protest too much, but I couldn’t help a few niggling suspicions. For someone who’d felt so strongly, she was giving him up a damn sight too easily. Still I was going to take what she said at face value. It was going to make life easier all round if I saw Luke again, as I hoped I would. Oh yes! I thought, as pleasurable quivers began to vibrate through the pit of my stomach. I sternly commanded my imagination to behave itself. I was due back in the office in a few minutes and this type of thought was not conducive to concentrating on in-agency conveyancing, which was on the agenda this afternoon.

  ‘Thanks for the benediction,’ I murmured.

  ‘Any time!’ Rose said irrepressibly, impervious to sarcasm.

  CHAPTER 9

  The weekend had started well. On Friday evening Claire, my ex-flatmate, had broken her journey to her cousin’s twenty-first to stay with me, though I would have thought even someone who hadn’t done Geography at school should know there are more direct routes to Norwich from London than going via Leicester. She was flatteringly impressed with the cottage and my new life, though when I started to describe Luke I saw a distinctly sceptical eyebrow go up until I fished out a photo of him taken at Rose’s wedding which had arrived that morning with a scribbled note
saying, ‘Look and enjoy!’

  She gaped in the most satisfactory fashion, more so after I nonchalantly said it wasn’t even very flattering. I saw her off before lunch on Saturday, looking somewhat fragile and short of sleep, and wondered what time she would arrive in Norwich. She appeared to be heading towards Nottingham, so it might be quite late.

  After that, it all went downhill. I was restless and looking for something to do so I wouldn’t have to admit that I’d reverted back to someone who hangs around eyeing the telephone and waiting for it to ring. I cleaned the cottage from top to bottom, even going so far as waxing the brick floors in the kitchen and sitting room, which gives a good idea of my desperation. Serious domestic effort is not my favourite way of spending the weekend. But the cottage was so small it only took a couple of hours, so I settled down to watch a Marilyn Monroe season on the box, sound turned down so I wouldn’t miss the ‘breep’ of the telephone.

  Later that evening I discovered Mr Bell from the end cottage had decided in an excess of spring fever to clear up his garden and cut back some of the overhanging branches on the ash tree by his back fence. It must have been shortly after I’d resolved to stop picking up the phone every five minutes to check if it was working that he neatly lopped a branch on to the telephone line that serves our four cottages. He was a nice old boy so even without the jar of his wife’s best homemade plum jam by way of an apology I wouldn’t have been able to give vent to my roar of frustration about being incommunicado until Monday at the earliest.

  In the meantime, I watched Marilyn, trying to tell myself in a thoroughly Pollyanna-ish way I appreciated the chance to see Some Like It Hot and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes again and The Seven Year Itch for the first time, without the telephone interrupting the good bits, but it didn’t work. Traditional wisdom has it that being unavailable heightens a man’s interest. Except nothing could make me believe Luke being unable to contact me was A Good Thing. In my experience, if a woman is unavailable to a man like Luke he doesn’t hang around pining, but moves on to the next one on his list.