by Shari Low
‘I said I’ve got something to tell you that’s really going to make you hate me, and I’m so, so sorry. So sorry. And I need to tell you because I don’t want you to hear it from anyone else, so please, just let me get all this out, okay?’
Had he always controlled their conversations like this?
He did the bench-press breathing thing again. A rising wave of fear was sweeping up from the pit of her stomach.
‘I let someone kiss me.’
Okay, that’s not so bad. Compared to, say, shagging your flatmate under water in a bath for two.
‘Okay, it’s actually worse than that–I, erm, I, erm, let them…go…erm…’ He was pointing vaguely at his nether regions, his mouth unable to formulate the words.
‘Darren, did someone give you a blow job?’
Four things happened at once:
1. Darren almost fainted at hearing his shy, sexually repressed ex-girlfriend talking out loud, during daylight hours, in a public place, about anything pertaining to sexual relations.
2. Ginny felt a twinge of pride and mentally congratulated herself for her mature, intelligent handling of this situation. Wait till she told Jude about this!
3. One wee boy called Gaston peeked his head out from his hidden position behind a cactus and shouted, ‘Mum, what’s a blow bob?’
4. Two nuns and a priest choked on their skinny latte mocha choccas.
Ginny gestured an apology to the irate yummy mummy who was now dragging one protesting child back to the non-X-rated side of the coffee house.
Darren, meanwhile, was still resting his chin on his combats in shock. Eventually, he tentatively nodded.
Okay, think mature, think mature, Ginny reminded herself. She was a cosmopolitan woman of the sexually emancipated world.
‘And was this after I’d come here and you’d told me it was over?’
Okay, he was still nodding. This was good. Definitely good.
‘Then forget about it, there’s nothing to apologise for. Darren, if I’d wanted to save our relationship then I should have been on the first train back after you’d called it off, and I wasn’t. What does that tell us? We both know it was over and in truth I’m really grateful that you were brave enough to end it. I wasn’t–at least not then. But anything that’s happened since is nothing to do with me. I don’t need to know. Actually, I’m happy that you’ve found someone new.’
And that, she realised, was the truth. They were both free agents, they were both starting new lives and they both deserved to find happiness. Oh, it was great being a sensible, mature adult!
The vein was throbbing in his jaw again.
‘Actually, that’s the thing, it wasn’t actually someone new.’
He stopped. He couldn’t say it. And if there was one small mercy in this situation it was that both of them were so engrossed they didn’t notice that six mothers, two businessmen, two Eastern European waitresses, four teenagers, two nuns and a priest had all gone deathly quiet and were straining to hear every word.
Ginny’s brow furrowed in confusion as he mumbled something.
‘What?’
He mumbled again.
‘Foxy who?’
Bench-press, bench-press. ‘Ginny, it was Roxy!’
The whole room gasped, even though they probably didn’t know Roxy from the Avon lady. Actually, the waitresses did–she was the stroppy one from across the road who never left a tip.
Ginny didn’t say a word as an explosion of conflicting thoughts ricocheted around her head. Roxy! And Darren! Bastards! How could he put his dick in her best friend’s mouth? And why had she had her gob open in the first place? They didn’t even bloody like each other! She’d spent years shouting, ‘Ding, ding, round six’ as they slugged it out at birthdays, Christmas, and other miscellaneous family occasions. She couldn’t have been more surprised than if he’d said her Auntie Vera had flashed him and offered a quickie. Okay, maybe she would have been a little more surprised then. But Roxy? Roxy! Why? And why was he telling her this?
‘Darren, are you telling me this to unburden your soul or to hurt me?’
His eyes locked onto hers and the answer was in what she saw there: sadness, regret, honesty. Eventually he spoke, slowly, almost mournfully.
‘To be honest, it’s partly the unburdening thing–you don’t deserve that, Ginny, you really don’t, and I was an utter cunt for doing it.’
Correct. But then she’d been no angel with the whole her/Jude/exchange-of-body-fluids thing either. But hey, she wasn’t going to put him out of his misery by telling them they were equally as lewd–she was Ginny, not Mother Teresa.
‘But the main reason is that I know Roxy will tell you. You know what she’s like. And I’d always have been waiting for the moment that she put the boot in–so I thought it would be better if I told you first.’
Silence. For the longest thirty seconds in history. Then Ginny did something that Mother Teresa (not to mention the two sisters at the next table) would have been proud of–she wrapped her arms around him. And not in an attempt to choke him until his eyes popped and he met his end on a coffee-shop floor smeared in chocolate fudge cake. Although it didn’t make her a bad person that she hung on to that image for just a moment.
But back to the hugging thing–it was strange that it should seem so familiar and yet somehow awkward, almost uncomfortable. Most of all, it just felt like the last time.
He pulled back, then, with a sad smile, he ruffled her hair. ‘I loved you, you know.’
‘And I loved you too.’
He pulled out a twenty-pound note and put it on the table, then leaned over and kissed her cheek.
‘Thanks, Ginny. For everything. I’d better get back.’
As he walked away, Ginny felt a bittersweet combination of sadness and relief. However, both of those were having the crap kicked out of them by the stampede of sheer bloody rage that was heading in one direction.
If recent events had taught her anything it was that she had to stand up for herself and fight her own battles. She knew she had to act. It had to be direct, it had to be sudden, and it had to really hurt when it hit the target.
She picked up her mobile phone and dialled a number, her fury bubbling over as she barked into the mouthpiece, ‘That’s it, you lying, nasty, evil tart, you’ve gone too far this time. I’m coming back there and I’m going to fucking kill you.’
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Hey ma buddy…
Yep, you’re right–she’s not such a mad old minge after all. So I’m totally up for the sleepover. Her ma–that big blonde one from the doctor’s surgery–said she’d phone round all our parents and let them know that we could all stay. Empty house–waaaaaaaaaaaaaay! Roxy said she’ll make the drinks and rent the videos. (By the way, what’s Top Gun when it’s at home? Think it’s something to do with Tom Cruise–eeeeeeeew, he’s, like, so over.) We’ve got to bring the food–I’m thinking popcorn, chocolate and a few portions of special fried rice out from the takeaway–a tenner each but I can loan you it if you’re skint.
BTW–no Ben, no moping about missing him and no weed–Roxy says she’s searching us and if she finds some she’s smoking it.
Lol, Sxx
FIFTEEN
Stop, in the Name of Love
Roxy. Day 19, Thursday, 4 p.m.
‘Yes, yes, that’s right–a Stannah stairlift. I’d like it delivered and installed to Apartment 25a, The Thames View, London, W1.’
She gave her credit-card details and then hung up, happy in the knowledge that she, the new, benevolent Roxy, was doing something for someone else. Sadly for him, that someone else was Felix, and the stairlift would prove rather unnecessary in a flat with no stairs. No matter, he could store it with the two crates of kippers, three boxes of incontinence pads and ‘Areola, the Blow-up Doll Who Never Says No’, all of which she’d also had sent to him that morning. Courtesy of his credit card, of course.<
br />
Yes, it was petty, it was immature and it was probably cause for an injunction, but if he was going to be so stupid as to forget to cancel her American Express card then he deserved all he got. She wondered if he’d given an expense account to Ginny yet. Argh, the very thought made her blood boil.
She pushed aside the careers directory. This morning she’d realised that she was eminently qualified to spend the rest of her life in the fields of Waste Management, Water Testing or Window Cleaning.
Woo-hoo.
She put her head on the desk. What the fuck was she going to do with her life? After she got out of jail for credit-card fraud and harassment, that was.
Two and a half weeks in the Slow Death capital of the world and she was still no further forward. Actually, if anything, she was veering backwards, back to London, back to the Seismic. She missed the variety of it, the fact that every day was different and you never knew what was going to happen next. She missed the gossip, the fun, the unpredictability of dealing with a group of people who put pleasure and adventure above all else. She missed Destiny. She missed Sam. Hell, in the last few barren weeks she’d even considered giving Mimi a call, and not just for a chat.
‘Tea, love?’ asked her aunt, placing down a mug with Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall’s grinning face on it. Ah, of course. It had been a whole half an hour since she’d had a cup of tea.
‘And here’s a ginger slice, love–great for nausea and you’re looking a bit peaky these days. Oh, and Ginny just called on the office phone. Said she’s left a message on your mobile…’
‘Battery is dead and I don’t have my charger.’
‘And she tried calling on this line…’ She gestured to the phone in front of Roxy.
‘Had to order some…supplies.’
‘Great, love, glad you’re keeping on top of the stock –you’ve taken to this job like a duck to water. Anyway, Ginny wants you to call her back as soon as possible. Sounded a bit strange, to be honest. Probably homesickness. Or the pollution. Or…’
‘Tea deprivation?’
Violet chuckled.
‘Still coming to transcendental meditation with us tonight, then?’
Roxy surreptitiously lifted a ballpoint pen, jagged it into her palm and twisted.
‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’
Violet rewarded her with a huge grin. ‘Lovely. You know, it’s great having you here, love.’
Twist. Twist.
‘Even if you can’t make a decent cuppa,’ Violet chuckled as she waddled off back into the office, with just a cursory glance to check that Reverend Stewart wasn’t within ten feet of the computers.
‘Pollution, my arse,’ muttered Roxy. More likely she’s calling to find out why her afternoon sex session with Felix had been disrupted by the delivery of twenty-five maternity bras (various colours), three candidates for the post of overnight nanny, and a phone call from the production team behind Wife Swap to discuss their application to be on the show. She’d thought that was a particularly inventive one. Although it would cause a conflict with Felix’s recent application to join the Airtours Summer Sun Team as a tour rep.
And as for calling her back, she could forget it. She had no interest whatsoever in letting that traitorous slut: a) apologise, b) gloat, c) arrange to transfer her name off the joint membership for the spa at the Dorchester.
In her peripheral vision she caught a movement in the corner of the room.
‘Stop! Get back to your seat and don’t make me have to come over there and act like I give a toss about your educational development. It’s called “Study Period” for a reason and the clue is in the title!’
Juliet and Ben released the toilet door, watched dolefully as it swung shut and then skulked back to their seats. Damn, she was good–they hadn’t got past her once this week.
She winked at Juliet as the teenager slumped back in her seat and was rewarded with a one-fingered gesture. Roxy dissolved into giggles and reciprocated. Wow, mutual hand-profanity and matching grins–they were practically very best friends. Which would come in handy since she appeared to be minus one of those right now.
Roxy cast a glance around the rest of the misfits in the room. The reverend was deep in contemplation with a Mills & Boon-style book called For Whom the Loins Throbbed. She had real fears for his flock. The fifth-year study group was twittering at their usual table. She still couldn’t believe that she’d let them talk her into the sleepover at her place–or that they’d made it through the night without sneaking off to meet their boyfriends, calling her old or vomiting up her fruit punch.
Her eyes continued scanning, falling on the collection of strays that’d shown up for the Young Catholic Mothers’ Yoga Class, unaware that it was cancelled today because Action Man Darren was away at some exhibition in London. Ouch, the very thought of him made her eyes roll involuntarily in their sockets. He hadn’t said one word, not one word to her since their blow-by-blow session in the kitchen. When they did bump into each other he just looked right through her like she didn’t exist. Score one for the ego–not. Where were the flowers? Where were the declarations of undying love? Or, at the very least, where was the errant dick that should be begging for a rematch? She must be losing her touch.
Cancel that, she was definitely losing her touch–why else would she have…nope, she still couldn’t think about it without cringing. She now understood the intricacies of the concept of denial–if she blocked out her conversation with Mitch then it was just like it had never happened. But no matter how much she tried to forget it, that one question, that one little sentence, kept reverberating in her head.
‘Are you in love with me?’
She groaned aloud, causing her VBFs to look over then crease into a fit of giggles.
She held up the biro. ‘Stabbed myself with a pen. And if you lot don’t cut out the snide gestures you’re next.’ A very intimidating threat that was, apparently, the cue for even more giggles.
Nope, she wasn’t even going to think about it again. Who could have seen that coming? She would NOT think about it. She wouldn’t. That scene never happened–it had been erased from the hard drive of her life.
‘No.’
Okay, so she hadn’t quite managed to delete it.
One word. One final, devastating, deadly word.
Thankfully, unlike her boyfriend, best friend and emotional antennae, her wits hadn’t deserted her and she’d immediately slipped into a whole, ‘Phew, thank goodness, thought for a minute there it was me. I mean, actually, I didn’t think that at all, it was the girls, you know, Juliet and the gang, they said that you had a thing for me and I thought I’d better check because I don’t, absolutely not, I don’t have a thing for you, but I thought I should check because if you did think of me that way then we’d have to nip it in the bud because I don’t, don’t have a thing for you, not at all, and I just wanted you to know that, that I don’t…’
Apparently her punctuation had deserted her, though.
While she’d ranted like her mother on two litres of Blue Nun and a vial of crack, Mitch’s expression gradually slid down the astonished scale via horror, shock, surprise, intrigue, interest, and landed at humour.
‘I know, I know, I get it…You don’t feel that way about me.’
‘That’s right, I don’t,’ she agreed, her tone one of unequivocal, absolute, complete certainty.
Where was that bloody delete button?
They’d then carried on making the burgers in silence, the grill rendered unnecessary as the meat was now cooking nicely from the heat emanating from Roxy’s face. At the end of the night he’d walked her home, their journey shrouded in uncharacteristic silence. On the last three mornings he’d popped in for his usual morning coffee and read of the papers, but there had definitely been a tension, a discernible shift that had manifested itself in uneasy conversation and awkward silences. Evening activities? None. Witty repartee? Gone. Curling toes? Many.
Just another mind-numbing day i
n Guantánamo Hills.
The double doors swooshed and Saffron strutted in. She was far too cocky, that girl, too sure of herself, too confident, too pronounced in her sexuality. Ah, a girl after Roxy’s own heart. If she could travel back in time ten years it would be like looking in a mirror.
Fuck that, if she could travel back in time she’d be on a plane, headed for the US, determined to track down a struggling actor called Ben Affleck and dupe him into marriage before he hit the A-list.
Ben Affleck…He always made her think about Sam. She wondered if Sam was still pissed off with her for quitting. Or had he too fallen under Ginny’s spell and forgotten Roxy even existed? If he’d given Ginny a pay rise she’d have to kill him.
The ringing of the phone interrupted her thoughts.
‘Farnham Hills Library, can I help you?’ she droned lethargically.
‘Roxy?’
The hairs on the back of her neck jumped to attention. How dare she call again? Couldn’t she take a hint? If she thought she could apologise and just forget about it, well, she was wrong. Another image of Ginny and Felix, this time shopping in the–oh, God, the pain –the Dolce & Gabbana aisles in Harvey Nicks flashed into her head.
Her tone was solid ice.
‘Sorry, I think you have the wrong number. There used to be a Roxy here but she was brutally murdered when her former best friend stabbed her in the back.’
She slammed the receiver down so hard that it bounced back off the cradle, then banged into her cup of tea, knocking it over and causing it to flood into the box of Ginny’s meticulously kept record cards that were lying at Roxy’s feet waiting for the latest updates.
The screams were simultaneous. Because over at the Study Group table Juliet had jumped to her feet and hit Ben with a right hook that sent him careering into the Arts, Crafts and Hobbies shelf. And Violet had wandered out of the office and spotted that the Reverend Stewart had sneaked onto the computer, causing her to shriek, ‘Reverend Stewart, you filthy man!’
