by Sandie Jones
Ali looks at her open-mouthed. ‘For real?’ she gawps.
‘No, of course not,’ says Rachel, unable to believe this girl’s ditsyness at times. ‘It’s just a fantasy game.’
‘Ooh,’ Ali exclaims theatrically. ‘I didn’t have you down for the role-playing type.’
Rachel is taken aback, offended by the slight and wondering what it is about her that makes her look like she doesn’t enjoy a satisfying love life.
There’s only thirteen years between her and Ali, but it may as well be thirty for the way she makes her feel. Whilst Ali’s so full of zest and energy, seemingly ready to take on whatever life happens to throw at her head-on, Rachel feels dull and worn-out in comparison.
She self-consciously runs her hands through her hair, questioning whether she looks even older than she feels. She’d always kept her hair long, believing it made her look young and attractive, but perhaps that was only from behind nowadays. The thought of someone seeing her turn around and saying, ‘God, I thought she was going to be younger than that,’ makes her squirm with embarrassment. Of course, she chooses not to acknowledge that she still has the figure for someone to make such a mistake.
When Ali looks at her, laughing at something she can’t hear because the roar of self-doubt circumnavigating her brain is so much louder, Rachel wonders what she sees. Has all trace of the ambitious career woman, who loved to live spontaneously, all but vanished? Has it been replaced by a wholesome motherly figure who looks like she spends her days knitting and listening to classical music?
But I’m still in here, her twenty-one-year-old self silently shouts, as she fingers the buttons on her white shirt, wondering whether, in her efforts not to look like mutton dressed as lamb, she’s now dressing like an old lady instead. Her eyes settle on her legs, encased in dark skinny denim, though she doesn’t see how slim they are or how long they go on for. Why would she, when she’s solely focused on pulling herself apart?
On good days, she can appreciate herself for what she is; a forty-two-year-old mother of one who goes to the gym whenever she can force herself to, eats healthily and whose only vice is a chocolate digestive with her cup of tea every morning. But on bad days, like the one she’s only just realized she’s having today, she wonders whether it’s all worth it, when everyone else will only ever see her as a woman who’s past her best.
She’d lamented her fears when she’d met up with Paige a couple of weeks ago, after her own attempt at holding back the years.
‘I just think I should try it on my forehead,’ Rachel had said, as she looked in awe at Paige’s wrinkle-free brow. ‘Just to see what difference it makes.’
‘You don’t need Botox,’ Paige had said, through a mouthful of garlic bread.
Rachel would probably agree, but she was feeling under increasing pressure to join the thousands of women who were erasing ten years of life and laughter from their faces.
‘Nor do you, but you still have it done every three months,’ she said.
‘This is my mask,’ Paige had said. ‘My poker face for when I’m at work.’
‘So, it’s got nothing to do with wanting to recapture your youth?’ Rachel had teased.
‘If you’re doing it for that reason, then I think that’s where it starts to go wrong, because you just keep wanting more and more. Anyway, I don’t know why you’d want to turn the clock back – Jack loves you just the way you are.’
She was right about that. Jack loved her, warts and all. In fact, he was dead against her doing anything to ‘enhance’ herself, but it still didn’t make her feel any more secure when she was around women like Ali.
As she looks at her now, with her boosted bosom and inflated pillow lips, Rachel wonders whether even women like her are happy in their own skin. Whilst an onlooker might see a beautiful, overly confident woman, might Ali still see the person who’s hiding inside, when she looks in the mirror? If she does, Rachel feels a rare moment of empathy with her. It’s exhausting trying to be the person you think you want to be, when all you really want is to be happy being the person you are.
‘Be careful what you presume,’ says Rachel, looking at Ali. ‘You never know what goes on behind closed doors.’
‘Steady on,’ says Jack, laughing nervously. ‘I don’t think anybody needs the run-down.’
‘Oh, I think we do,’ says Ali, leaning forward, all ears.
‘So, Jack . . .’ starts Rachel, to a chorus of ‘woah’s’. It’s hard to tell who they’re coming from amongst the calls of, ‘TMI’, ‘go on’ and ‘urgh, he’s my brother’.
‘Spill,’ urges Ali, talking to Rachel, but looking at Jack.
‘I’ll spare his blushes,’ says Rachel. ‘But we’re having a very nice time at the moment, aren’t we?’
Jack looks around awkwardly.
‘Come on,’ says Ali. ‘You’re amongst friends. If we can’t tell our friends about the fun we have, who can we tell?’
‘You might want to think about keeping it to yourself,’ says Paige, sagely.
Normally, Rachel would agree with her, but after Ali’s assumption that she and Jack are doing the missionary position, and only on Wednesdays, she feels compelled to put her straight.
She wants to say that since Josh had left home for university, all she and Jack ever seemed to do was have sex. They’d shared candlelit baths, being serenaded by Marvin Gaye; she’d unzipped him one Sunday afternoon whilst he was sitting in the lounge reading the paper, and he’d even interrupted the unloading of the dishwasher last week, apparently unable to wait until they were in bed.
‘Well, since Josh has been gone, we’ve not known quite what to do with ourselves, have we?’ She chastises herself for making it sound as if their sex life had been dead up until then. ‘Of course, once Josh was old enough to go out to parties, we’d have a bottle of champagne with dinner, and a naughty session of foreplay in the living room, just because we could.’
Ali shakes her head, as if she’s shocked. ‘I gotta give it to you Rach, you’re a dark horse.’ She laughs to herself. ‘It’s always the quiet ones.’
Relishing in her new-found role of surprising people, Rachel goes on. ‘Though, that came to a rather abrupt end the night Josh and his mates couldn’t get into the pub, so decided to come back to ours instead.’
She smiles at Jack, but his eyes stay focused awkwardly on the flickering flames of the fire.
His discomfort is enough to stop her from saying that they couldn’t get up the stairs quick enough, the pair of them breathless from the sudden interruption and the full-on exertion needed to get out of the lounge before the boys piled in. And that it was only when they had collapsed giggling behind the closed door of their bedroom that Rachel remembered she’d left her knickers on the sofa.
‘You forget how it used to be, before kids, is all I’m saying,’ she says.
‘So, normal service resumes once they leave home, does it?’ says Paige.
‘It’s better than normal.’ Rachel smiles.
‘Your Chloe will be off to uni before too long, won’t she?’ asks Ali, her eyes wide, both literally and metaphorically.
‘That’s the plan,’ says Noah, crossing his fingers.
‘Is that you wishing for your daughter’s success, or the promise of more blow jobs?’ says Ali, laughing hysterically.
Noah smiles and looks at Will. ‘I’m afraid to say that once you’re pronounced man and wife, you won’t know what a blow job is. Oral sex and marriage don’t make for good bedfellows.’
‘We’re never going to let that side of our relationship go,’ says Ali, rubbing her hand up and down Will’s thigh. ‘Not even when we have children.’
Paige snorts. ‘You won’t have a choice. As soon as you have kids, you’re in for eighteen years of worrying whether they’re going to walk in.’
Ali shakes her head vehemently.
‘You mark my words,’ says Paige, laughing at her naivety. ‘Your sex life will be confined to unspontaneous fumblings u
nder a duvet when you would both far rather go to sleep.’
‘We’ll always make time for each other,’ says Ali, kissing Will on the lips.
‘Then I suggest you don’t have kids,’ says Paige.
‘We want them as soon as possible,’ says Will, looking at Ali. ‘Don’t we?’
She nods frantically. ‘We’re going to start trying as soon as we’re married.’
‘On our wedding night?’ asks Will, laughing.
‘Deal,’ says Ali, putting her hand out for Will to shake.
‘I can’t wait to be a dad,’ says Will. ‘I’ve never been jealous of Jack for anything, apart from when he became a father. That’s the only part of my life that I regret; that I didn’t have children earlier.’
‘Oh, babe,’ says Ali, leaning into him. ‘There’s still time.’
‘What if I’ve left it too late? No one knows how easy or difficult it’s going to be until they start trying. What if it takes years?’
‘Well, good job we’ve got years on our side,’ says Ali.
He looks at her, panicked. ‘But we are going to start trying straight away aren’t we?’
‘Yes, of course, honey,’ says Ali, as if he were a small child.
Will pulls himself up and takes a deep breath. ‘Honestly, if I was never able to experience what you guys have with Josh and Chloe, I don’t know what I’d do.’
‘Do they get along?’ asks Ali, seemingly wanting to change the subject. ‘Your two, I mean. There can’t be that big a gap between them.’
Noah nods. ‘It’s just under two years,’ he says, looking to Rachel for confirmation. ‘They used to be really tight, but have gradually grown apart as the teenage years wreaked havoc on them.’
‘They used to be like brother and sister,’ remembers Paige.
Rachel coughs, as her wine goes down the wrong way. ‘They still get along, but there’s just a bit of awkwardness there now.’
‘That’ll change again, no doubt,’ says Will. ‘In the next few years, once they come out the other side of university.’
Ali’s eyes widen. ‘Oh my God!’ she squeals excitedly. ‘What if they end up together?’
‘Er, I don’t think so,’ muses Rachel, almost to herself.
‘Excuse me,’ says Paige. ‘Are you saying my daughter’s not good enough for your son?’
‘No,’ says Rachel, forcing a laugh. ‘I’m just saying that I don’t think that will happen.’
‘Why would it be such a bad idea?’ asks Paige.
‘It would just be weird. They’ve grown up with one another. It’d be like getting together with your best friend.’
‘Yeah, I suppose,’ says Paige, thoughtfully. ‘It’d be the modern-day equivalent of you and Noah getting together.’
‘Exactly,’ says Rachel, throwing her hands up in the air and shuddering for effect.
She’s grateful when the Dirty Dancing theme song starts playing through the patio speakers, and takes the opportunity to divert the increasingly uncomfortable conversation.
‘Ah, this is our song,’ she squeals, standing up and beckoning Jack, just like she did the first time they met on a crowded dance floor at an eighties night twenty years ago.
‘I’m going to marry that man,’ she’d said to her friend Cass, as she watched him dance the ‘Love Man’ as well as she’d ever seen anyone do. With the exception of Patrick Swayze, of course.
‘Yeah, you and every other girl in this place,’ Cass had replied, laughing.
He’d made his way across the floor towards her as soon as she’d gestured to him. Incredibly, it never occurred to her at the time that he wouldn’t; such is the confidence of youth.
‘You seem to know what you’re doing,’ she’d said as he’d pulled her in close and they’d gyrated against each other.
He’d smiled, revealing two dimples. ‘What can I say? I know every song and every dance move.’
Rachel had had to restrain herself from taking him by the hand and dragging him to the DJ booth to request ‘(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life’.
‘My husband and I are going to perform the finale as the first dance at our wedding,’ she’d said.
Jack had looked at her, clearly bemused. ‘Does he know?’
‘No,’ she’d said. ‘Because I haven’t met him yet.’
A year and a baby later, she’d run to him at their wedding reception and he’d lifted her up to the strains of Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes.
Rachel smiles at the memory now. ‘Come on, Johnny,’ she says in an American accent.
Jack laughs as he gets up. ‘Whatever you want, Baby,’ he says, taking her in his arms and whisking her around the terrace.
She doesn’t want to spoil the moment, but they’ve never been ones to keep secrets from each other – at least she didn’t think they were – and she doesn’t want to start now.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about Ali’s cheating?’ she asks.
He looks at her, before going to speak and seemingly thinking better of it.
‘You know you can tell me anything,’ she goes on, hoping to coax a reason from him as to why he’s kept her out in the cold on this.
‘I didn’t want you to worry about it,’ he says, kissing her on the forehead. ‘Because I know how much you love Will.’
‘But don’t you think we should tell him?’ she asks, breathing him in as he holds her tight. ‘So that he has the choice of whether he marries her or not?’
‘He may already know,’ he says, spinning her out and pulling her back in again. She can’t help but giggle that he still knows the routine. ‘Either way, he’s happy, and I’m not about to be the one to destroy that, because he might never forgive me.’
Rachel can see where he’s coming from. ‘So, we’re assuming whatever was going on with this Rick guy is over, as otherwise why would she marry Will if she wants to be with someone else?’
‘Exactly,’ said Jack. ‘And I’d rather Will be in blissful ignorance, because what he doesn’t know, can’t hurt him.’
‘May I steal your man from you?’ interrupts Ali as she sidles up beside the pair of them.
Rachel looks at Jack wide-eyed as Ali tries to wedge herself between them. Putting one arm around his waist and taking his hand in hers, Ali manhandles him across to the other side of the pool. Reluctance is written all over his face and it looks as if she is dragging a sack of potatoes around the patio.
‘Do you know what?’ he says, stopping stock-still, as if his feet are encased in concrete. ‘It’s been a long day and I’m whacked.’
‘Oh, don’t be so boring,’ whines Ali. ‘Dance with me, at least until the end of the song.’
Rachel wonders if everyone can see the restraint he’s having to exercise, the tension in his stance, the involuntary tic in his jaw. Or do they have to know him as well as she does to know that the pressure cooker is about to explode?
4
‘Wow!’ says Rachel, as she steps out onto the terrace the next morning, to where Paige, Noah, Will and Ali are already nursing their hangovers.
The ocean stretches out as far as the eye can see and waves bigger than she’s ever seen before crash into the cliffs below the villa, with a thunderous roar.
‘It’s awesome, isn’t it?’ says Will. ‘Nature at its very best.’
‘I can’t believe I slept through this,’ says Rachel, over the rumbling of another swell; the white crest of which is just about to fold in on itself.
She takes herself to the edge of the patio and turns to look back in from the peninsula onto the beach inland. ‘Is that where we’re going?’ she says, pointing to the pristine golden sands where surfers are running in and out of the breakers.
‘Yep,’ says Will, walking towards her with a freshly brewed coffee. ‘We’ll jump on the funicular.’
Rachel smiles, remembering the cable car she and Noah got stuck in for an hour as it swung precariously over snow-peaked mountains in Chamonix. He’d spent most of it with his eyes clos
ed, begging her to stop rocking it.
‘I can’t wait to get out there,’ says Will, looking at the ocean in awe.
‘But these waves are huge,’ says Rachel.
‘That’s what this area is famous for. Surfers from all over the world come to Nazaré at this time of year, hoping to be lucky enough to ride the big one.’
‘So, how big is the big one?’ Rachel asks, shuddering involuntarily.
‘It could be anything up to thirty metres,’ says Will, his eyes alight.
‘I don’t think Jack and Noah are able to tackle anything like that,’ she says, her eyes wide with panic.
Will smiles. ‘I’ve checked the forecast and it’s due to die right down later this morning, so the conditions should be perfect.’
‘They’ll be okay, won’t they?’ says Rachel, as a sense of unease wraps itself around her.
‘They’ll have to be.’ Will laughs. ‘Otherwise I’m going to be a guest and a best man short.’
‘Right, who’s up for going to the supermarket?’ calls out Paige from behind them.
‘Yep, give me a minute to get myself sorted and I’ll show you where it is,’ says Will, walking back across the terrace. ‘Rach, you want to come?’
‘Yeah, I wouldn’t mind getting some shampoo,’ she says, taking a sip of her coffee. ‘The soft water out here is playing havoc with my hair.’ She lifts up her brown tresses, which are already beginning to dry and frizz from the shower she’s just had.
‘Okay. Noah and I will go and wait by the van,’ says Paige. ‘What about Jack?’
‘Well, he was fast asleep when I came down,’ says Rachel. ‘So, probably best to leave him.’
‘Sleeping off a hangover, is he?’ asks Ali, laughing wryly.
‘Something like that,’ says Rachel through a forced smile.
‘Ali?’ Will calls. ‘Can you grab my wallet from downstairs?’
‘Actually, I’m going to stay here if that’s okay,’ she calls back. ‘I just need to make a couple of phone calls – make sure the yoga’s booked and my manicure is sorted for this afternoon.’
‘Okay, cool,’ says Will. ‘Is there anything you need?’
