Seven Week Itch

by Victoria Corby

  So, all in all, I’d had a lot too much time to hang around and worry; about whether Luke was ever going to ring me, about Rose and her incredible revelations and whether she meant it when she claimed she no longer held a giant-sized candle for Luke.

  Halfway through a Monday morning that was promising to be as much a lift for the spirits as the weekend had been I decided there was nothing I could do about Rose - or Luke, for that matter - so I might as well stop worrying. Easier said than done, of course, but what really did the trick was Stephen bowling in a few minutes later in one of the foulest moods that I have ever seen on man or beast. After that, I had no time to think about anything except what was going on within the four walls of Bailey-Stewart. It was as if my mild-mannered boss had taken a quick trip to Dr Jekyll’s lab for a gulp of that nice potion. Within half an hour I’d been hauled over the coals for using the telephone for personal calls (a call to the garage to book my car in for a service) and informed that if the agency went to the wall it would be entirely my fault for misspelling a village name in some property details, thus leaving us liable to be prosecuted under the trades descriptions act, with all the consequent penalties. Five minutes later I was threatened with the sack for misfiling a letter, something which Annette never did, apparently. When I protested I was still learning the job and wasn’t a trained secretary either, I was given my second warning.

  A shell-shocked Amanda and I slipped out at lunchtime to the wine bar for a much-needed restorative glass of wine, escaping before we could be informed by the ogre in the big office that drinking within working hours was now a capital offence. A few minutes later we were joined by Jenny, who normally ate at her desk but announced meaningfully she too had decided to escape the flak. Stephen had been muttering about her playing computer games on company equipment.

  ‘Does he get like this often?’ I asked.

  Jenny sipped at her spritzer. ‘Sometimes, but I’ve not seen him as bad as this before.’

  ‘I have,’ said Amanda. ‘Don’t you remember last summer, when Martin was ill and Stephen had to take on all his work and that tiresome woman was threatening to sue us for misrepresentation because we’d described a house as Victorian when in fact it was Edwardian? And Liddy kept nagging him to go to that seminar in Worcester with her.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Jenny with round eyes. ‘I nearly gave in my notice.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ said Amanda wryly. ‘He might have accepted it. It was me who thought Victoria died in nineteen hundred and three.’ She cupped her chin in her hand thoughtfully. ‘I expect Liddy’s been giving him a hard time about something again.’

  ‘Surely she couldn’t be solely responsible for putting him a mood like this,’ I said.

  ‘She could. You haven’t heard her when she gets the bit between her teeth. I have,’ said Amanda.

  Stephen’s girlfriend, Lydia, was a byword, and not a particularly favourable one, in the office. She was a dark, intense brunette who believed she should be enjoying a stellar career and that it was only her loyalty to Stephen, which kept her here in the sticks and away from the big career opportunities, that was holding her back. And said so each time she got annoyed with him. Which was often. When he suggested she move to a bigger city and see him at the weekends she accused him wanting to get rid of her. And then rang up all their friends to say how beastly he was being to her.

  ‘Since Stephen’s too nice to work off his temper by throttling Liddy, he comes into the office and takes it out on his staff,’ said Amanda ‘This one must have been a real humdinger. He’ll be in a filthy temper all week,’ she added in a depressed tone. ‘I can’t think why he doesn’t just get rid of the cow.’

  ‘He loves her,’ Jenny said mildly, finishing her spritzer. ‘I must say, I’m glad I’m not in the front line.’

  ‘Me too,’ agreed Amanda.

  They both turned around to look at me in an ominous fashion.

  ‘Perhaps you should go on sick leave for a week, Susie,’ said Jenny. She pursed her lips. ‘Nah. He’d be round there with his own doctor to give you a full medical to check if you’re skiving. All I can say is, if he sacks you don’t take any notice. Not the first time anyway.’

  ‘And practise ducking,’ said Amanda.

  I glared at both of them. ‘Thanks a bunch, girls.’

  Stephen’s mood was no better that afternoon, though I was glad to discover that contrary to what Amanda had said his temper was restrained to words and didn’t extend to actual throwing. He was still perfectly impossible, but by dint of double-checking everything I did and holding my tongue I managed to avoid being given my third warning in a few hours. By the end of the day I felt like a rag that has been through the wringer. When Luke rang saying he’d tried to get hold of me over the weekend and would I like to come out for something to eat at a well-known local restaurant I almost fell on his neck with gratitude, if such a thing were possible down telephone lines. ‘Do you want me to meet you there?’ I asked.

  ‘Certainly not! I’ll pick you up,’ he said, with a flattering promptness that made my heart sing. I’d already looked up exactly where he lived in Wickham in my AA Road Atlas and it was a good thirty-mile round trip. The restaurant was much closer to him than me. It was going to make him awfully late getting back home tonight. Or maybe he wasn’t intending to go home.

  I was going to have to do some serious thinking about Arnaud. I was sure that he never considered the merits of fidelity in relation to me when he had a blonde with long legs and green eyes in his sights, and I know that what’s sauce for the gander should be sauce for the goose etc., but I find it difficult to think that way. It had come as a bit of a shock to realise that, despite my protestations to Rose about keeping all my options open, the only fling I’d had since Montpellier was with a seriously fey graphic design artist - and that was during a six-month break-up from Arnaud. I might have declared that I was looking around, but in truth I’d put my sex drive into cold storage, sublimating it to the desire to make it big in the money markets, and only taken it out when Arnaud made one of his flying visits. It was an unnerving glimpse into my morality. I’d secretly always been a bit smug about being so choosy and so rigorously faithful, but that’s not so difficult when you don’t actually fancy anyone else.

  I had my chin resting on my hand and was gazing rather blankly at the tumbling houses that someone had chosen as the screen-saver, they must have been so pleased with themselves, when I heard a throat clear ominously from behind me. I turned around and looked up into the cross face of my boss. ‘Private calls again, Susie?’ he asked with heavy sarcasm.

  Behind his shoulder I could see Martin’s rat-like face give a distinct smirk. I bet I knew whom I had to thank for Stephen being ‘accidentally’ informed that his PA was chatting in office time yet again.

  ‘Just the one,’ I said blithely, pushing my chair back and standing up. I smiled at him sweetly, ‘Considering all the unpaid overtime I put in you can’t really complain about that, can you?’

  Stephen looked as if he jolly well could and was about to. I slipped out while he was still formulating the words and raced off for another extended session of deciding what to wear.

  The thrum of a powerful car being parked on the other side of the green that made me look out of my bedroom window and realise I had precisely a minute and a half to clothe myself or I’d be opening the door in my underwear. It was a bit early, both in the evening and in our relationship, for that. I also had to brush my hair, put on my earrings and lipstick and stuff all my discarded clothes back into the wardrobe just in case other eyes were to see my room tonight. Blind panic is a wonderful aid to concentration. In a flash I’d put on a green jacket that unbuttoned nicely to just the right place, a black skirt with a discreet slit up one side, and had got as far as finding my other shoe by the time I heard the front gate being opened. I tore down the stairs, flipped open a book and laid it face-down on the arm of the sofa, so it looked as if I’d been indulging in some mental
activity rather than rushing around in a flat tizz discovering I had nothing to wear. As the bell went I had to rush back to check said book wasn’t one of the how-to-get-a-man variety. Dorothy L. Sayers, nothing wrong in that. Some people even call her a classic. I headed for the door a second time, wondering nervously if I was going to be overdressed.

  Luke was uncharacteristically smart in a dark jacket and yellow shirt with a button-down collar, so it seemed I had got it right on the apparel front for once. He was just as eye-catching as he was when he was less formal. He hugged me and kissed me on the lips. This was more like it. My heart flipped. It was like being kissed by a matinee idol, I thought dreamily, or by James Dean, which had been an early adolescent fantasy of mine. I conveniently ignored the fact he had been dead for many years by now and the kiss might not have been quite so pleasant as I fondly imagined.

  To my regret, Luke didn’t come back for a second go, but said we’d better get a move on. The Flying Duck had a nasty habit of giving away tables if the punters were more than ten minutes late. There was always later, I thought philosophically as I locked the door.

  On the face of it, the Flying Duck was nothing much. It was in a small house just off the main road, with some rather naff fairy lights twinkling over the porch - or maybe the manager had been too busy to take down the Christmas decorations - and a lot of pretty dated eighties-style country-house pastels and chintz decoration inside. It was also remarkably crowded for a Monday evening with a varied clientele, some local worthies, a few younger couples like ourselves, and businessmen all attending to their plates with a greedy pleasure. With regret I passed on a portion of the delicious-looking mussel risotto that was being served at the next table. It would have been just the ticket for keeping vampires at bay and though I was sure Luke wasn’t the type to object to just a faint whiff, there are limits. Making the inside of his car smell like a garlic growers’ convention was probably one of them.

  I needn’t have mourned the risotto, in true novelistic style I was far too busy talking and listening to really taste what I ate, other than register dimly that it was considerably better than what my mother might produce - admittedly not a difficult task for the chef. I almost had to pinch myself several times so I could be really sure such a bloody awful day was ending in such a delightful way, with good food and an even more delicious object on the other side of the green-covered table. Luke was as lively and amusing as he’d been the other night, telling me a couple of stories of when he’d known Rose while she was going out with Nigel. I scanned his face closely, watching for signs that he might have returned her hopeless passion, but unless he was considerably cleverer at concealment than I thought he was he only thought of her as a friend’s ex-bird. Poor Rose. How dreadful to have wasted all that passion.

  We got on to talking about the cinema, and I was a little disappointed, but not entirely surprised, to discover he had a penchant for the sort of crime caper that has me cowering under my seat, hiding my eyes so I don’t have to watch body parts flying around all over the screen. ‘You certainly won’t find me coming to the cinema with you then,’ I said firmly, realising too late that the subject hadn’t in fact come up. To cover up my faux pas, I added quickly, ‘Rose and I are going to go and see the new Meg Ryan comedy next week. Jeremy won’t come, he thinks it sounds “soppy” and only for the girls. The next-door cinema in the multiplex is playing Blown Away 23 or something, maybe you should go with him.’

  ‘I’d rather go and see Meg Ryan,’ Luke said promptly. ‘Better company and I fancy Meg Ryan rotten.’ His eyes glinted at me wickedly. ‘Perhaps you two could count me in as an honorary girl and let me tag along when you go and see it.’

  I almost spluttered into my wine glass. Making Luke an honorary girl would be about as credible as appointing Cruella De Vil as head of the Dalmatian Rescue Association. Despite the curling eyelashes and guinea-gold hair, he was indisputably male. ‘Of course you can come with us,’ I said finally, ‘but maybe it’d be better if you came in your own masculine guise.’

  ‘Good,’ he said with relief. ‘I hate drag. I can’t get the hang of pulling up tights without laddering them.’

  It was getting late, all the other tables had been vacated and the waiters were beginning to stand around in that hopeful way that indicates they’d like you to push off so they can go home, thank you very much. Since the Flying Duck was a classy establishment, they didn’t resort to putting the chairs on the tables or noisily clattering cutlery as they prepared the tables for the lunchtime crowd, just hovered meaningfully. Luke looked at me ruefully and said, ‘I think it’s time for us to go. What a shame.’

  I agreed with him entirely. I would have been happy to stay for another hour or two just talking and sipping wine, though I realised there was a certain degree of funk in this feeling. My frankly lascivious thoughts of earlier in the evening about the man whose knee was just brushing mine under the table were beginning to be tinged with an element of panic now that the hour when erotic thoughts might be put into action was approaching rapidly. Wasn’t all this moving a bit quickly? And I still hadn’t come to any sort of proper, or improper decision.

  It began to rain as we stepped outside. As we ran for the car Luke nobly held his jacket above my head to stop my hair getting wet and going into infuriatingly wild curls. ‘Your shoulders are soaked,’ I said in a remorseful voice once we were safely inside.

  He shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter. The heater’s pretty powerful, I’ll dry off in no time.’ He grinned at me. ‘But I think when I’m seeing you across the green I might let you have the umbrella in the boot rather than my jacket.’

  So he was intending to come in, I thought, as I stretched my damp feet out and wriggled my toes under a welcome blast of warm air. Maybe I should just let things run their course and not worry about them until they happened. The charm of that philosophy was it sort of implied that I wasn’t really responsible for whatever was going to occur. As a victim of circumstances, I couldn’t really be held to blame if I ended up in bed with Luke, could I? And my moral principles would still be intact. Maybe a bit dented though, even I couldn’t rationalise that away entirely.

  Happy and content I’d come to this sort of vague decision, I surrendered to the fuggy warmth in the car - as Luke had promised, the heater was very effective - and leant back, closing my eyes and listening to Dusty Springfield belting out from the CD player. It was easier on my nerves not to see how fast the darkened countryside was flashing by.

  I heard Luke curse as he realised he’d taken a wrong turning and the car abruptly did a U-turn. I opened my eyes but all I could see were some still-bare trees, hedges and ditches and a light shining outside the front door of a house in the distance. We roared up to a T-junction and he hesitated, reading an old-fashioned wooden signpost, before he put his foot on the accelerator and swung the car to the right, heading towards Barkby 4 and Great Harton 7. He looked around at me with a tight smile as I sat up. ‘Sorry, I always find this way difficult in the dark. But the main road is crawling with cops and the chances are you’ll get breathalysed.’

  He seemed to think that I was exuding disapproval or something for, keeping his head turned towards me, he said apologetically, ‘With a car like this you’re always getting stopped and frankly I’m bored with the hassle, whether or not I actually think that I might fail the bloody thing-’

  ‘Luke!’ I shrieked as I saw a large shape planted right in the middle of the road in front of us. ‘Look out!’

  He whipped his eyes back to the road, went, ‘Shit!’ and swung the wheel to the right as he braked violently. The car began to slide on the wet road and he wrenched the wheel back to the left, overcorrected, and the car mounted the verge, seemed to wobble for a moment and started to slip sideways. We were still only yards from the junction and Luke’s acceleration surge hadn’t reached full blast, so instead of hurtling into the drainage ditch we more sort of inexorably slid down it. He was still saying in an incredulous voice, ‘
Who’s the bloody idiot who let that fucking sheep out on the road?’ when we hit the bottom with a thump. Or rather I hit the bottom, as the car was sliding down on my side and despite what were presumably state-of-the-art seat belts I was thrown against the passenger door with a bone-shuddering impact. Half a second later, Luke thumped into me as well, slamming my head against the door pillar. Swearing dreadfully, he reached up and grabbed the strap above the window and levered himself off me, his seat belt bearing most of the weight of his body.

  The engine was making an odd coughing sound. I recalled unpleasant scenes from films where the smallest roll down a hill seemed to make the toughest car burst into spectacular flames. ‘Hadn’t you better switch it off?’ I asked nervously, half fearing it was already too late.

  Luke nodded and did so. For a few seconds we sat, too stunned to speak, even to think, the only sounds rapid breathing and Dusty, still belting it out into the night air. He stretched out a shaky hand and turned the CD player off. ‘Are you all right, Susie?’ he asked, his voice strained.

  ‘I think so,’ I said though I was still too dazed from the knock on my head to know if anything hurt. I moved my legs cautiously. Apart from listing distinctly to the left because of the angle of the car, they seemed to be OK. Ahead of us, the car’s headlights cut into the darkness, illuminating the ditch with blinding clarity and half the road. An extremely stupid face with a long muzzle and a magnificent pair of curly horns thrust itself into the light.

  ‘I wasn’t imagining it! I was beginning to think that you’d put something in my drink. It is a sheep. But what kind? It looks like some kind of rare breed to me.’ I squinted at it, as it ambled towards us curiously, horns shaking from side to side menacingly as it made up its mind whether we were dangerous or not. From what I could see of Luke’s face, the sheep was going to find he was very dangerous indeed unless it got the hell out of there before he managed to scramble out of the car.