Stand by Your Man

by Gil McNeil

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you want one?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Alfie, why don’t you go and see if there are any films you want to watch upstairs. I think Ezra’s got some crisps, but you’d better be quick because he’ll have eaten them all in a minute.’

  Well done, Charles. Alfie rushes off.

  Molly and I exchange glances, and Charles offers everyone a drink while Lola goes into the kitchen to make her special salad dressing.

  ‘So, Campbell, what do you do then, apart from not liking children, that is?’

  Charles says this with such a charming smile that Campbell can’t really take offence.

  ‘Oh this and that – I’m in television.’

  ‘What, selling them, or repairs?’

  ‘Producing, actually, I produce documentaries.’

  ‘Anything we might have seen?’

  Campbell looks really furious now.

  ‘Probably not. I can’t bear all that dumbing-down crap.’

  ‘Campbell’s a genius, aren’t you, darling? He specialises in opera, but his series on the Royal Ballet won stacks of awards.’

  Marissa seems very proud of him.

  ‘Yes, the ballet thing did work rather well, if I say so myself.’

  Charles gives him an amused and half-horrified look, the kind of look eleven-year-old boys would give you if you said you were mad about ballet. Well, most eleven-year-old boys: not Billy Elliot, obviously.

  ‘Ballet. Right. How marvellous.’

  The food is wonderful. Mrs Bishop’s salmon is delicious and there’s posh apple tart for pudding, and ice cream for the children. Lola’s wearing a fabulous black-lace dress and flirting like mad with Harry, and I’m feeling rather under-dressed and lumpen in my jeans and shirt: I thought she really meant it when she said just come as you are. But at least Harry isn’t flirting back. In fact he winks at me at one point and I choke slightly, which makes him laugh.

  We all drink too much wine apart from Molly, who has two helpings of apple tart to make up. Lily’s very sweet and gives some imaginary ice cream to the baby, which Campbell seems to find particularly nauseating. Marissa’s only eaten about two mouthfuls of salmon and a small piece of cucumber, and goes visibly pale at the sight of pudding.

  We’re drinking coffee while the children run around yelling, when Charles suddenly has the genius idea of playing charades. I usually hate party games that involve making a complete fool of yourself in front of total strangers, but this time it turns out to be rather good fun. We’re in two teams, with Lola, Marissa and Harry on one, and me and Charles and Campbell on the other. Molly says pregnant women can’t play charades, it’s a well-known medical fact, so she’ll be the judge and choose the titles we have to act.

  I get Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, which is fairly easy, and The Magic Roundabout, which is not, and Harry does a brilliant job on The Big Easy, which is a bit cheeky of Molly because she knows I love that film, but it’s Charles who turns out to be the real genius, and hurls himself into Last Tango In Paris with great gusto and doesn’t seem to mind making a total fool of himself. Marissa gets Moby Dick, and goes for trying to be a whale, and I can’t say I blame her, but the best bit is Campbell trying to do 101 Dalmatians. He must have decided it was beneath his dignity to be a dog, so he tries some complicated sounds-like routine, which we can’t guess, so he sulks. We all end up in hysterics and even Marissa laughs at him, which is not something he’s terribly used to as far as I can see.

  It’s getting quite late, and I say I’d better be going before Alfie conks out completely. Harry carries a fast-asleep Lily out to Molly’s car, and says he’ll come back with us to collect his jeep. Molly drops us off, and winks at me when I get out of the car, which makes me laugh, and Harry offers to make some more coffee while I take Alfie up to bed. He’s so knackered he settles down without a peep. Yes, there is a God.

  Harry’s put some logs on the fire and the coffee’s almost ready when I get back downstairs.

  ‘Good evening that. Well, apart from that ghastly man. She’s quite a livewire, your friend Lola, isn’t she? And her husband seemed nice.’

  ‘Oh yes, Charles is lovely.’

  ‘I thought your Tiger was brilliant, though your Magic Roundabout could do with some work.’

  ‘Oh really. Do your Big Easy again then. It wasn’t that good, you know.’

  ‘I thought you’d never ask.’

  We stay in the living room, but end up on the floor on the rug in front of the fire, which isn’t as nice as it sounds, until Harry has the brilliant idea of taking the sofa apart and chucking the cushions all over the floor. I make some tea at some point, feeling very pleased with myself. I’ve forgotten how chirpy a nice bit of lust can make you feel.

  ‘Well, that was nice. Makes a change from wondering what Basil is going to put in my slippers for the morning.’

  ‘Nice. Nice?’

  ‘Extremely nice then – that do you? Exceptionally nice.’

  I hit him with a cushion.

  ‘Look, don’t start that again, I’m knackered. I’ve been doing your bloody garden all day, you know. My back’s just not up to it.’

  ‘Oh dear. And I had such high hopes.’

  ‘Oh did you?’

  ‘Yes. Just my luck, I always pick the weaklings.’

  He laughs and I realise that I’ve just given him the perfect opener to say the magic line from The Big Easy, the one when Dennis Quaid and Ellen Barkin have finally made it into bed and are just getting going when his bleeper goes, and he’s called out on a case. She says she’s never had much luck with men, and he gets back into bed and says, ‘Well, your luck’s about to change.’ I really hope Harry doesn’t say it, or if he does, he gets it right. This would not be a good moment for him to reveal that he doesn’t get it.

  ‘Well, your luck’s about to change, sweetheart.’

  Bingo. And even though he doesn’t say it in Dennis Quaid’s fantastic Cajun accent, and in fact he goes a bit Humphrey Bogart, it doesn’t matter. It’s still magic. Works every time.

  6

  June

  Singing in the Rain

  Garden Diary

  Plant lettuce and other salad crops for late harvesting, divide water lilies, plant annuals, maintain rigorous weeding regime, attend to lawn.

  My birthday present from Mum and Dad turns out to be a willow gate for the front garden, which arrives in bits, takes ages to assemble but looks great: although I think what it really needs are some fairy lights as a sort of post-modern take on rural gateways. I spend hours threading white fairy lights through the wicker and then poke the cable into a hosepipe and bury it in the flowerbeds. I hope no small animals will be able to chew through it and shoot themselves across the garden in an unexpected flame-grilled fashion. I’ve put a circuit breaker on the socket in the garage, so at least Alfie won’t end up with a new hairstyle the next time he does a spot of digging. We have a mini switching-the-lights-on ceremony, and Alfie is delighted, but Mum says it looks like the entrance to a fairground and will I be selling candyfloss? I pretend to ignore her but secretly worry I am lowering the tone of the entire village.

  ‘How did it go with Harry then?’

  ‘Very well, thanks.’

  ‘What time did he leave?’

  ‘About four.’

  ‘Blimey, lucky you. Lily woke me up at five, I could have come round. Have you got an action replay booked?’

  ‘No. He did that thing where they suddenly get all keen to be off and say they’ll call you. Which was fine, because I didn’t really want him there when Alfie woke up.’

  ‘But you’ll see him again, when he calls?’

  ‘Oh yes. Definitely. Although I’d forgotten how knackered you get.’

  ‘Oh stop it. The only thing that’s making me knackered at the moment is trying to get up the stairs. And I’ve run out of clothes that fit again. Will you come shopping with me later? Come round all the pregnant-lady shops and he
lp me choose?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Molly hates maternity departments.

  ‘Thanks. And I’m really pleased for you, about Harry, I mean. It’s about time you had some fun.’

  I’m feeling rather pleased with myself too, if I’m honest, and it’s definitely been a nice way of sorting out some of the echoes left over from Patric. I mean it’s early days, obviously, but I really hope he’s not about to produce a hidden wife, or confess that he likes dressing up as a traffic warden or something, because it would be very annoying if he turned out to be another nutter.

  And the really great thing about it is that so far I don’t feel totally obsessed by it all – in the past a new man on the horizon would sort of push everything else out of focus, and I’d spend hours fretting about when he’d call, if he’d call, what I’d be wearing if he called. I’d end up feeling totally out of my depth. But I don’t feel like that with Harry, and not because he’s boring or anything. I mean obviously things might change and I might end up going all Fatal Attraction, and start stalking him, but somehow I don’t think so. Maybe it’s down to Alfie; perhaps loving him so much has used up all my spare stalker-type energies. Maybe I’ve turned into a grown-up without realising it. God, how brilliant.

  Lola comes round for tea on Sunday with Mabel and Ezra. Mabel’s wearing her fairy wings, which are white and sparkly and wobble when she walks. She’s very proud of them.

  Lola loves the lights round the new gate, and says she wants fairy lights for the new garden, in fact she wants the whole garden filled with them. It takes me ages to persuade her that the elegant lighting we’ve already got is far more suitable; and anyway Mr Channing would probably have some sort of cardiac moment if he found the garden filled with fairy lights.

  Mabel suddenly starts shrieking and it turns out that Ezra’s bent one of her wings, and is just about to try and bend the other one, so Lola yells at him and then we have tea before any more damage can be done.

  Mabel glares at Ezra, and Ezra kicks her under the table, and then Alfie joins in, and Lola says they’ve been driving her crazy all day.

  ‘Charles is off buying paintings. God knows why he had to choose today, probably just to spite me. And Kimberley’s just resigned.’

  ‘Oh dear, why?’

  ‘God knows. She was always late – I think live-ins are better. At least you know where they are most of the time. So I told her if she was late again I’d have to deduct it from her salary and she came in the next day and handed in her notice. She was quite rude, actually.’

  I thought she was quite sweet: not exactly Brain of Britain, and she did sort of jump slightly whenever Lola came into the room, but she seemed really nice with the children.

  ‘Charles keeps saying we don’t need a nanny, and with both of us and Mrs Bishop we can cope, and then he disappears for the entire fucking day. It’s hopeless – I’ve got too much else going on. I’ll have to ring round those bloody agencies again.’

  ‘But Mabel will be starting nursery soon, won’t she?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And with Ezra at school he might have a point, you know. It would save you a fortune.’

  ‘Not if I’m going to get stuck with them all day, it won’t. I’ve got a terrible headache. Actually, what I really need is a little sleep, just for half an hour. You wouldn’t mind, would you, darling? Oh thanks, you’re an angel.’

  And before I can stop her she’s belted upstairs to my bedroom and I’m left downstairs with all the kids. She doesn’t emerge for nearly an hour, by which time I’m ready to choke Ezra who’s spilled his juice twice, on purpose, and launched countless assaults on his sister.

  ‘Thank you so much, darling, I feel almost human now. I’ll take them home – you’re probably dying to get rid of us, but I meant to say, I’m organising a party for Glyndebourne – we’ve got loads of tickets at work. I can’t remember which opera it is, but we can sort out the details later. I need as many people as possible, anything so I don’t have to talk to fucking clients all night. I thought you and Molly and Dan. What do you think?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Lola. It’s very kind, but I’m not really an opera fan.’

  ‘Oh, you’ll love Glyndebourne, it’s always fabulous. I might ask Harry too. What do you think?’

  Bugger.

  ‘That might be a bit complicated, actually. I meant to tell you, he sort of stayed last night.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘After we got home, he stayed here, and, well, if you ring him up and ask him to the opera it’ll look like I’ve asked you to call him, won’t it? Which I really don’t want.’

  Lola’s slightly chilly about my not ringing her up the minute Harry left and giving her all the details, but she recovers fairly quickly and says we must both come to dinner, which is exactly the kind of catapulting into coupledom that I wanted to avoid.

  ‘I think I’d rather take it slowly, for now.’

  ‘Oh you don’t want to do that. Ring him up and go for it. I think you’re allowed to ring them now – it’s post-feminist, I think. Or maybe that means you can’t ring. I’m not sure. High heels are definitely back in, but I’m not sure about the phone thing. Shall I ask one of the girls at work what the latest form is in Dating Wars?’

  ‘No thanks. I’m feeling pretty relaxed about it all. I think I’ll just see what happens.’

  ‘Well, if you crack by Wednesday let me know.’

  Em calls in the evening and says she’s coming over from Italy for a few days, and will come and stay for the weekend, which is brilliant because I haven’t seen her since Christmas and I really miss her. We shared a flat when we first lived in London, and she was great when Patric left. She came straight down and helped me get through the first few days when I felt like I’d been run over.

  Jim’s coming down this weekend too, because Stella’s away on some course and I don’t think he wants to stay in town without her, which is quite sweet. Although he’ll have to sleep on the sofa, and Em can have Alfie’s room. She’s going to leave Luca in charge of the hotel for a few days, and I tell her about Harry and she’s very impressed at how calm I’m being and says that she thinks it’s a very good sign, and means I’m totally over Patric, which she thinks is brilliant because she always hated him.

  Harry rings on Tuesday night and we end up arranging to meet on Friday, and he stays until four in the morning, which is lovely. It’s just starting to get light as he’s leaving. I’ve asked him to supper with Em and Jim, assuming he’d say no but he’s said he’d love to come, although he’ll have to leave early because he’s taking his mother up to London for lunch with his brother on Sunday, which he’s dreading.

  ‘So, I’ll see you later then?’

  He’s doing that twinkly smiling thing again. I love it when he does that.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Around eight?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘I think I’ll go home for a quick kip before I start on the orders. I’m completely knackered.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  ‘Or I could stay for another cup of tea?’

  ‘Even better.’

  He finally leaves just before five. God, I’m not sure if I can cope with all this action. I’m completely knackered, but in a very nice, smiley sort of way, and Alfie’s pretty pleased with himself too, because I let him watch cartoons all morning. Patric’s cancelled swimming, again, so at least I won’t have to cope with him turning up. Although actually that might not be so bad, if next time he turns up Harry’s here again. He’s never mentioned meeting him, but I know he was narked about it. He was even more clipped on the phone than usual when he rang to cancel this weekend.

  Em arrives on Saturday morning to a rapturous reception from Alfie, mainly because she’s brought him an enormous tube of Smarties and a children’s book in Italian, with lots of pictures of a dog doing all sorts of naughty things like stealing salami and running round the town being chased by irate shopkeepers.


  She thinks my newfound passion for gardening is very amusing, but when we walk up the lane and I show her round the new garden I can tell she’s really impressed.

  ‘You should do this, you know. Full-time. It’s brilliant.’

  ‘Thanks. I’m really enjoying it. I mean I hated it at first, but now I’m really getting into it.’

  ‘So tell me more about Harry then. Is he a grown-up?’

  Em has this theory that most men are stuck at about eight years of age, which is why they go in for so many annoying stunts. She reckons there are a few grown-up ones, but you have to look very carefully.

  ‘Oh yes. I think so. I mean it’s early days, but so far, so good.’

  ‘Good in bed?’

  ‘Very good on cushions on the floor.’

  ‘Ooh Alice, what would your mum say?’

  ‘God knows. But I bet she’d get the mop out.’

  ‘And is he nice with Alfie?’

  ‘Yes. Well, he hasn’t actually spent that much time with him so far – I mean up to now he’s left before Alfie wakes up, which I think I prefer at the moment really, when it’s all so new. But when he first came round he brought his dog, so Alfie thinks he’s great. And he was quite sweet with him. He borrowed his digger.’

  We watch Alfie, who is hopping around the path, bashing things with his stick.

  ‘Stop that, Alfie, you’ll hurt the plants.’

  He pretends he hasn’t heard me, but stops and starts bashing the path instead.

  ‘He’s getting so big. Every time I see him he’s grown so much – it’s going too quickly.’

  ‘I know. He needs new shoes again, and he’ll be four next month, you know; he’s got to start school in September. It doesn’t seem possible, does it?’

  ‘No. God, I remember the night he was born.’

  ‘So do I, funnily enough.’

  ‘He seemed so tiny.’

  ‘I know. Molly’s having another one – did I tell you?’

  ‘Yes, I’d love to see her.’

  ‘Oh good. I said we’d go round for tea tomorrow, if that’s OK with you.’